School Committee Meeting - 2/1/2023

001all right well welcome to the uh February 1st regular meeting of the class and school committee we have a very special meeting today because we are at the metco headquarters and we've got a agenda where we will learn a lot about what's going on with metco and how metco enhances the the quality of learning in our district so we're really excited to be here uh and first I will do the customary um roll call uh since we're in a slightly different uh I'm just going to go down the line uh Mr Carr present Mr Kiernan president and Mr dial the present I'm here uh that means we have a unanimous forum and now we don't have an American flag or our Pledge of Allegiance um here we go pledge allegiance to the flag of the

002United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right all right so again we're here at the special meeting I'm not going to have used up a lot of air time introducing things because I think the agenda will speak for itself um but I will open the floor up for public comment again this is the area of the agenda where we invite public comments for things that are not on the agenda if you do have comments on things that are on the agenda feel free to let us know but please reserve that comment for the agenda item and so with that I will pause and see if we have any public comments in just a couple moments hearing none we'll move on

003to our next agenda items uh which is our esteemed invited guests and so I will turn it over to uh and I'm going to mispronounce your last name Thomas the Metro president CEO and she's going to take us through a presentation giving some metco history and talking about the Metro initiative so um afternoon okay thank you and welcome to Roxbury welcome to Boston it's always a pleasure when school committees and school leaders choose this location to actually have a place to meet we think it's very special for not only us to be your communities be an educated but for you to take the opportunity to come and see where our students are coming from learn about the history of the program and to learn more intimately that things that we are working on so thank

004you Lance thank you Pat for actually the postal committee for coming here today um I'm gonna have I have a presentation that I normally do that is for a longer period of time so I'm going to just pick a couple of slides of the most important parts because I want to be talk to the people here in the audience today that are watching us Facebook live we have a variation very high-end and classes so that you guys can hear a little bit about this beautiful space that you see here today which is our notice they've been following the history of the medical program we built this um at the uh last year when we we had a grand opening up our new location that we moved after being endemic for over 40 years and basically

005came here in the community in Roxbury where the program really started and I've always said that if we could find a space that had an available additional room where we could actually showcase the history of the program that I wanted to be able to do that and luckily this was the landlord's room and then lastly we moved in and finished everything upstairs the landlord came and said you know what I'm going to go to another location do you want the first floor so it was the dream come true to be able to do this and we are a historical program so basically all of our history exists in Northeastern University that is where our archives are actually um stored so we spend the summer with our teenagers of the medical program calling what we call

006hacking the archives and they actually went and read through all of the literature extracted the best photos and came up with our communications director at that time came up with this timeline timeline of our program program so I want to have the opportunity to say it to show you a little bit about that and Pat you are apparently the expert on the film these days you share your screen you'll see on if you go to zoom and share [Music] um real-time problem solving everyone [Music] had it all set up but we went to do a nice tour upstairs and then I closed my computer and then the tour was excellent It's A Beautiful facility to have here lots of historic resources and there's no habits hit and those of you in the community whoever are

007competing on the Hybrid models of uh of virtual meetings well no this is this is this is Child's Play now it's easy for you to say compared to where we where we were then recording in progress um [Music] host and I have to start my video if you need to show that presentation right um You should do you um do not yeah you do uh start your video actually you don't even need to do that you can start video just do the presentation share screen um you see it so you're not seeing the right things all right thank you Facebook live here we go I just took up a few minutes of your time it could be that much worse thank you thank you all right so again I'm going to just skip a handful

008of slides just for the sake of time happy to share this app the worst we can put a look at it to also offer that Cohasset Community a full presentation of this virtual that we can have people join um later on as well but for those of you that don't know the details of the mecca program it was started in 1966 and it was a program that was started by the parents both here and in the suburbs which is what I love about the Metro program that it was something that was Grassroots it was not something that was mandated it wasn't anything that someone forced upon us it wasn't some legislative that made us do this it was literally Paris and I'm going to say a little bit about that later and the purpose of

009the program is to address racial imbalance and racial segregation so the segregation of talk to me here in the city of Boston which were more so we need another we were back in the days when the program started and then racial isolation in the Suburban communities right now we have 3 100 students about in the medical program and we actually are at 33 communities and as you can see there you can see where all of our communities are actually located um we do have some interest right now near you capacity we have actually the whole Community who has reached out both the superintendent the school committee chair and these your State Rep Jones yes I switched out but they actually might want to join another Community but that is not the only community that has

010reached out after George Floyd would actually received at least 10 different Community a new communities who want to join the medical program so we are exploring how can we actually expand the program um this is just a little um snapshot of like just the racial um demographics of these um Community with both these students here in Boston and then the majority of the Metro communities racial imbalance of anything you're talking about at least 50 percent is one group um but this is all of the medical sub words this is all of the suburbs it just kind of like summarize but this one is for you here so um oops sorry so this is cohesive so as you can see really racially imbalanced and isolated there so you guys a hundred percent qualified for being part

011of the medical program okay so definitely that's one of the things that we try to um address through that through the program a little bit about how the program is run for those of you that may not know so basically there was a lot that was created in Massachusetts that is right here in this world behind you in 1965 right right behind Leslie and it basically talked about a the State Rep from Roxbury Royal bowling who basically um wanted to do something about the brown work versus Board of Education rule them that came out years before at least 10 years before this date and noticed that Massachusetts wasn't doing anything to actually address racially imbalanced schools so he created and proposed a racial and balance act he was direct from this community from Roxbury right

012this area where we're located now and that basically is the law that actually supports the medical program this is why the legislature has to do something to support the medical product financially because it is a law and this is currently the only program in the state of Massachusetts that addresses the racial imbalance of our schools the only one and basically what it said is that if you don't try to um integrate schools in choices that you're a public school you can risk losing your state funding which some of you might understand that's Reader chapter 70 dollars so right now um so that is the law that protects the medical program and the medical program is funded in three different ways um really in one big one but we always throw in there that every single

013Public School in Massachusetts has Chapter 70 money so whatever chapter 17 money you get for your students in cocasted you also get that same exact amount for your medical student enrollment in some cases that equals to be a lot of money when you're talking about the larger communities that you know in the world to 400 students we are talking very chunk of money that comes in through that and then also um if you ask if you identified a P11 special ed and Leslie you know more than I do about all of these different you know um um categories and you know there's probably different title monies that are available according to what you know other needs people have but the real chunk of our money um comes I mean the real program the medical program

014is funded by our Medical line item which is right now we're 29.4 million dollars actually I'm just five years ago the medical program was 20 million dollars um and right now we have 29 million dollars um in our that we get every single year to fund at 3 100 students and right now there's a hurricane for reimbursement of 8 000 without 400 um 314 dollars per student the reason why the medical program is called a marginal seat program that is how the state refers to us as the type of program that we're categorized as is that sometimes people say well how come we're not getting the full amount of people I don't know how much your people is 20 I don't know 20 something at 20 000. so the mental program reimburses The District so

015we basically you know paid for this grant for our students to be there and that helps to pay for the director in programming and obviously the most important cause which is transportation but it is not a dollar for Dollar on Match on purpose because it is a marginal C program meaning that the states already there was empty seats in your school district that would otherwise go unfilled there was already buildings that already reconstructed there was a really teachers that were hired so when no medical community do we actually tell people we're building a new school because of us or open up another classroom or hire more teachers so that is what is called according to the Department of Education marginal State marginal costs so that is why it's never going to be you know um

016a dollar for a dollar but you know those things were otherwise go unused and now you're filling it with diversity and you're getting a grant for it too and as you know some most programs actually pay for diversity to come in like in colleges and job and workforces well in this case we're also providing some financial support for the program to assist I always look to explain that there's always some talk around finances and medical that's a win-win for everybody right are students getting a great education you're getting some diversity you're getting a diverse wonderful stuff over here that has lived through your program for many years supporting it and everybody wins and there's some money that comes that comes with it so a lot of times people refer to the medical program as a

017bus program I hate it when people say that every time I spent a year five I'm the job five years ago actually this this week and basically every time I was getting an interview it was at the Boston program the Boston program of Boston and I hate that reference blessing is just how we get to the school we're really a different type of movement we're not moving buses we're moving people exactly and how are we doing that I mean by the type of the medical program is actually there we are actively looking at ways to address appreciate and diversity we're celebrating different cultures we're celebrating different holidays we are breaking down racial barriers throughout trains for teachers we're looking at our Audits and looking at curriculums and how can we make them more inclusive we're

018all learning together from each other through friendships and through being in a class next to somebody else that looks different from us we're no longer learning from the news or from what other people have tapped them down to what they're really from those authentic friendships so that's so important because of all of the stereotypes and racism that's been happening you know forever but also more recently because you look at us a group of people and you make your own bias based on weapon who's sustain but now you say okay well that's important I don't mean anything even just a students of color I may even us as people of color how we view our white counterparts and allies and our friends so it's very important then lastly that we're preparing for a global economy a

019Workforce that's going to be diverse that we don't know which jobs any of us are going to be holding and what doors and opportunities we can open up for people because we have a mental program there so I always say that the medical program is special the membership in the medical program is special that people really should want to do this and actively be looking with a different set of eyes and how they do business as usual I don't expect any other School in Massachusetts to be doing what we're doing because they're not MediCal we're Microsoft Microsoft that means we are better we're better than all the other school citizens around and what are we doing today so I want to tell you a little bit about our office here at HQ the headquarters office

020of the medical program we focus on four areas in this office and we are the main um entity that actually does all of the Recruitment and referral for all of the new families coming in that is our major role we also do student and Family Support Services and I'll explain a little bit about what we're doing we also are the conveners of all of our actual Community um all of our um districts just last week we had a beautiful retreated Gillette Stadium with over 90 School leaders and we're basically convened everybody to talk about how to make medical better and our communities better and also we always talking about integration and really being part of that conversation around our space around the nation for example at some of you know Jonathan Pozo the writer from

021Savage inequalities he's writing on both coming out this year and just yet that I was interviewing with him and his staff regarding a chapter that's dedicated to the medical program you know we're also talking happened to the um to the Across the Nation with the National Coalition of school diversity and we meet with them every single month and talk about how do we do federal policies on a federal level in federal funding we're working on that to try to do more integration funding so there's you know also meet with our other two system programs which are in New York and in Connecticut that are just like us and basically we meet every single month to share best practices so really trying to be a leader in school integration so I'll just quickly just say through

022this here and basically this is part of our a little bit about our student services that we provide um I do is it still in the group here that I look acronyms so if you can see the acronyms over here we have the beach program which is Boston Equity action teams where our teenagers are actually doing part of that upstairs that you guys thought which means teams talking about Equity work and how they can actually move you know move the needle in different areas and share their experiences we have the planned programming to the girls that are here today presenting we're part of the plan program that is our paid jobs program where we actually prepare kids um teenagers to become Achievers and to be ready for the workforce and we paid them to actually

023have different jobs and this year for the first time we have some jobs at the district level so instead of having them come to here we leave them there the school district and so they can work and then we also um do Career Development with a staff member that we have here we have Mercury University we have um a summer school that we're running as well um obviously I just said that we do our all the recruitment we have this new hashtag this is actually what you saw when you first came in this is our mural and these are actual pictures of our students at different communities so we had to get creative with that pandemic and with that racial climate director and recruitment in the last few years there was a little bit of

024you know putting your baby into a bus to go far away not knowing what the racial climate was going to be and we started coming up with this hashtag called hashtag worth the ride like yes it might be some obstacles and challenges being part of the medical program but it's also very rewarding and there's so many so many beautiful things that can come out of there and again I always had to stress I'm talking about both sides okay yes we're getting an amazing excellent education but also the Suburban students are also getting exposure in the school communities being challenged to do better at the school system so it is worth the right for everybody involved in terms of convening our communities I mean at least actually she actually just got one of these grants yesterday

025we actually um do a couple of things we have medical presents if you haven't had an opportunity to keep a lookout for those things we go to the theater downtown at the Paramount Theater the Huntington theater and we basically choose um shows of cultural relevance and we basically go and have super discounted tickets from like 90 to 100 down to 10. and basically we just come and we do a macro night we invite everybody who wants to purchase a ticket and we go and we have a reception we meet the cast we have food and we talk about what we just experienced with our Performing Arts in addition to that in the same Grand funding that we have by the way Metro HQ is a non-profit so as a result of that we actually can

026apply for Grants and funding which is why I was asking what that's so fast they need because we're able to support in another way be sensor State funding as well and we do cultural mini grants and these are things happening at our school districts where we paid for the performers and the spoken word and poetry and the artists to come in and do something and at least it's going to have something going on and she can tell you more about it later and then the newest thing that we've added when we moved to this new spaces called Boston is called the um the the actual report that we do in this community and basically we come and do a tour of this exhibit fall which people come to literally and leave with tears like I've

027seen today there was a person that was in charge of the Timothy Smith network and he was pointing at this picture right here with the bus that looked at my grandmother it was really deep it was really deep so you know these are all of the so basically people are I just I just had the head the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club here um last week too and he was gonna remember when I was being when my when my boss was being um you know I'm still wondering where my house was fire bombs so there's a lot of history here and we wanted to make sure that people remember why this program started so that we can remember what her potential still is to make it even better we have not fulfilled the

028whole vision and mission of the program of transforming School communities and I know kind of running out of time all right so this is our philosophy that didn't come to the toy this is a little bit about what they saw this would be upstairs so we have a new facility a very Nubian square of the people can come and use the space for meetings for training for Education we've done it for a school committee meetings and this is actually our tours at least our teenagers we train our teenagers to be the tour guide so they actually got paid that train on everything here um not only stay but in the history of their program by just historical site writer running our community and they make them feel really good because they also said that they

029spent so much time commuting that they actually didn't know the history of their own community so this was a really special program so I inviteco has it to take a day and come over who actually are contemplating a new Grant right now with another partner that we can instead of people just coming on their own and setting up for our tours we have resources they do the verification so you guys are more than welcome to come but also to try to do it downstairs specifically we can rent a bus people actually board the bus there and come over here so let's explore in that Grant right now integration advocacy here we see is the state house and basically if I'm going to talk to you guys that I need you all on Facebook live on

030on Zoom with everybody here we need to show up at the state house we have all of our funding is State funding so every year we go to the state house we haven't done it for three years because of that pandemic and we meet with our legislators and we're having a big Lobby advocacy day with speakers and students and sometimes people coming buses from their communities and we fill up the state house to let them know like you need a fundamental we've been really fortunate to get nine million dollars or eight million dollars more um in the last five years since I got here but I I think I feel like we're going to run out of luck to the shopping big numbers because that's a lot of money and a little bit of time

031um so that's us advocating Dr George Floyd all the communities came here in Boston to pay a statement of solidarity after that literally a lot of school committees adopted anti-racist policy the anti-racist communities Dei George decided to get hired within medical all after this event and then this um Global stages telling you that we have become bigger than just integrating our school communities people have reached out to us to offer us scholarships to identify a diverse student for these programs so you know the island school is the school where you go to the Bahamas and you spend the summer study marine biology we're on our third year of sending students there for free at no cost um the Rex program is at MIT real estate real estate development Emerson colleges gave us a free four-year

032scholarship with room board being booked in meal plan for four years for a medical student and Boston University School of Journalism every year let's just send somebody to be there in the don'ts living and studying journalism and the YMCA here stay away at their their sleep away camps in New Hampshire wouldn't stop you in the lake and they usually didn't have any diversity and so we got a big round of six hundred thousand dollars from the Lynch family foundation and now the program literally has doubled in diversity because we fill up almost all the diversity in processing the summer program and we've covered the cost from two thousand thousand three hundred dollars so so our integration is bigger than just macro now we're really becoming to be a presence for people that are looking for

033diversity into other educational and enrichment programs so this past year we just got this grant I'm from the state in addition to our line item they gave us five hundred thousand dollars to do racial Equity work and that is what we met with by Judah State and last week to decide how to use this money and business will be able to actually tap into this money once we've decided the committee problem we're going to use it and the goal is to do a few things for all of medical together like people are asking me for restorative justice training and making sure that every school district has certified um trained restorative justice um staff that could work on disciplining and then after that we can maybe do individual grants for any additional work so that is

034actually being done right now and then for you to State the date that on March 21st of this year this is one of our last advocacy days is when we're going to go to the state house so I'll be working with our Lisa and all of these different medical directors to make sure that every Community is representative there and I think I'm going to end just with um with showing you this video here because for those of you that are not here to speak um and feel um what's in these walls this also is going to show you a little bit of our history and how the medical program was a program that started because parents wanted more for their students black families here in Boston wanted better education Suburban parents wanted to be have

035diversity and how people came together through all of these injustices and lack of access and people saying no to us here in Boston and how the suburban community said yes and open up the doors to start a network program so for that 57 years ago I think you all thank you all right here we go let's hope that everything sounds okay maybe somebody can let us know if it's working or not oh there's no music please myself [Music] because is um about my zone it's something it's the speakers are going to be coming through the speakers I just unmuted myself if not we'll send it to you guys they please play music things that's all wrong [Music] so I think how slow don't see all of my other work yeah sharing so I will stop

036there to set up timing on and level to take any other thoughts or questions from either you guys for the rest of the audience um you know open it up to the uh the committee for any questions or comments um Mrs Carlos how we do so um thank you for having us for July Peter the um I grew up in the city of Boston born in 1968. and um and my uh my the grade school that I was going to I think it's still here if it sits at the end of the morning the cast pull-up bar it was being built at the time and I went to a different school because of what happened at the end of year so he was so important I went to a community-based school in Brooklyn and my

037best friend I might want was African-American it was a challenging time so it's amazing how much you've done here I'm so happy to be here and we're so happy to have the young people as part of our community classes thanks for having us just get educated on how it started and to know that it started from parents you know we're all parents and uh I think we've made some really good things together as well and uh to know that it started from that to see the advocacy of like a State Rep and one of the things about Massachusetts is we're economy so whatever's good for you is good for us and um we really got to figure out and educate how a citizen can write a bill a citizen can write a bill in Massachusetts

038it's where a car there's only three commonwealths Virginia and Washington DC and what that does is it just shows how you can take an idea and put it into action and to see this evolve into such a wonderful program so because I'm proud to be fun to defeated yeah so um thank you so much for having us in here today I loved being able to finally get angry at those we've been talking about this for a long time and um ever since unless they had come in for the opening it's really feels really special to be here so thank you for welcoming us um I'm curious with the lobby day is it you know how how do you kind of gather to grow on that days an all-day event like communities yeah very good question

039so um we have actually we have a um a lobbyist or HQ pays for a lobbying firm so we have a lobbying firm called childhood consultant and they're in charge of helping us to put together that day they will book appointments for every single Medical District so there will be a schedule for the day it starts at night I think that starts like at 9 30 in the morning that we actually arrive and they said okay we'll have a program for about an hour for legislators that are champions of our program will say a few words and then there'll be a couple of speakers perhaps a mental performance um right now one of the school districts that actually has a step group asked me if they can bring the step team over there to actually

040like really liven up today about that day because without the presence in the past we've had um like the Whalen band play classical music where all of this stuff was happening so we rented a great call already on at the State House for medical for the day we'll have about an hour to an hour and a half programming and then after that we all split up and there will be a schedule and everybody will go visit their State Rep and their state senators so there will be Stables done we have a lobbying firm that will do that and basically districts either um most of the time district and at least have taken longer than me but sometimes they actually rent a bus for the day like that Michael class will come back and you'll like

041get community leaders or residents and students to come in it's not just the medical remember we just we can't have just medical students be the ones to show up because we're visiting your legislators so you guys are the ones that vote for them and they're the ones that have to decide that they wanted in their town so basically most people come in a bus um or drive up and then basically spend a day that's about one in the afternoon or we'll have like two appointments for every single Community whether it's State Rep in the state senator and then for the Boston side there will also be additional appointments to meet the Boston legislators as well something that's a very good um yeah and basically that legislative way for us that day was time to save

042the date and they basically will meet with us and whatever comes up in the conversation we will have a one page it'll let you know what our ask is so you wouldn't go along with this and you know right now our last ask was 29. 5 million dollars and we still haven't decided to go a new amount but I'm leaning stores like like 21 million like 21 25 million dollars based on Thursday you should go up I'm sorry thank you okay 29. yeah wow thank you 31 million kind of crazy because that's something they're going to say you've got nine million dollars in four years and your program is the same size and why have we changed that's what I'm afraid that's gonna happen everything's gonna work yeah yeah legislator and um and we will

043also have a bus leaving from this location to Boston parents to be able to just not have to worry about parking so thank you for that question that's trying to show up in big numbers as well.net mm-hmm yeah this helps to have a lobbyists thank you uh Vice chairman um well Mr Ryan Thomas thank you so much for having us um it's been a privilege and um it's very privilege to work with uh you know my four years in my committee so far A little one four years I worked with our Metro director uh who is a special person and um I I the reason the Medco program uh to me is is so valuable is that it is if embraced properly it is um it is a bilateral mutually beneficial program right so a

044lot of people I think uh mistakenly think of it as a program that provides an advantage to the students who live in Boston to you know have the privilege of attending a school website of Boston that's not what the program strives to achieve in my eyes and incohasset we have as of late under the leadership of Dr Sullivan placed uh an enormous I mean I think emphasis on what's been referred to as cultural competency and to me that term is just um something that tries to um underscore the importance of understanding everyone's perspectives um in any sort of uh topic of education and and if you're able to understand what perspective you're able to form more inform on yourself and the Medco program assists us um as we as we strive to achieve that objective

045because what it does is incorporates um a lot of different perspectives we can see that pie chart that we threw out there on cohassen I mean it's very homogeneous Community right and um you know cultural and I think background is is one um you know major factor when you're considering what drives the formation or formulation of different perspectives but it's a major one and um for a community that can pass it to benefit from you know the perspectives of individuals who you know come from different backgrounds and grow up in different communities it's hugely valuable to us so in that way Cohasset benefits greatly as well it's not just individuals are able to you know benefit from wonderful education in our school and all also the residents and students of Cohasset and the teachers of

046Cohasset Ministry School has they can benefit from the different perspectives that are brought to it from through medical program and thus enabling us to truly really Embrace that objective of trying to form a culturally competent District so that's why I find it so important and you know I I I I hope that we we seek to constantly improve and expand the program we have wonderful leadership and go Hazard program um I wonder my question to you is um there's there's 32 33.33 okay um the answer this question may be obvious and I'm just not seeing so I when I was looking at the at the the timeline I noticed it basically I think like 30 or so districts were established as of 1977. so that means only three additional districts have been added in in

047all that time and I wonder does that primarily due to Geographic constraints or what what do you think um and again the answer might be obvious so I'm sorry if I'm just not seeing him I'm just asking because it's something that's enormously valuable so I'm wondering why what what the obstacle is to expansions your summary of the purpose of the program and why Cohasset is part of it is exactly what I typically people are around preaching to people like this is why this is so important so thank you for summarizing it's so elegantly about dual benefits you know and when this I love this picture right here this picture right there is Babson she is her founding mother of the medical program and this is care of the school committee that's why I love school

048committees and I learned the actual history of the medical program I fell in love with school committee because you guys have so much power you guys have like the power to say yes or no to like whatever you want seriously and then this guy Leon trillion heard what was happening in Boston you see that meeting right here in 1963. that's what I loved some of this planet because this is the chair of the school committee in Boston Louise picks some of you guys might have heard that names they didn't really like here too much you know um and this was really bad said it was 1963 when she realized that her kids were getting a substandard education in Boston because her school was up the street from another school that was like a really white

049neighborhood in Boston we're talking the same mayor same school committee people and she said how come I don't have a science project for my daughter but my friend up the street does that's why I love to learn this story right and she went to Louise Hicks and she basically told her like I you know why can't we do some integration so we can benefit from the communities like these schools in our hometown up the street that had a better school systems and every single time on that um Batson went to me with her she asked but we could maybe school committee maintenance that year and every time she mentioned the word segregation Louise stopped the meeting and she said if you mentioned that word again I'm gonna have to stop it he came and they

050invited her again because she assisted she mentioned the word again she stopped the meeting and basically Boston didn't listen Boston didn't listen look at from 63 to 70 forward Force busting happened we are a volunteer School family segregation program in volunteer which is what I love about it people are doing this because they want to and then Lee um we don't drilling her what was happening in Boston and he said why don't you come over so the Dual benefits credit is basically the right way they even called Louise over because she wanted he wanted to give the boss students a better education everybody has a different a different desire to be part of Michael and I always spend less okay our Boston parents are looking for great education the Suburban families are looking to support

051into diversity that's fine to have different motivations we're still working it together you know and that's what he said he said I don't want my kids to grow up without any diversity I have some seats come and take them so to answer your question um in 1968 was the last time that we had the influence of the medical program in 1968 the program developed in size and what happened in that year was that MLK was assassinated so you know just like with any Civil Rights Movement all of this bus was happening here Boston was trying to do something and they shouldn't battle in fact broken set of the movement everybody wanted to join then um Martin Luther King got assassinated and then all of these other communities say well we want to have something specifically

052that we do back in our communities how can we join the micro program I say this because in that level visited directly across from it in 2020 when George Floyd was killed I got similarly about 11 calls from people that wanted to join the medical program I don't know historically why the medical program has not expanded before my time I've only been here for 19 years but what I do know is that I developed any process for that to happen because after studying the lobbying and the money and how everything works I believe that the way to expand the medical program is you have to have three entities you have to have the school committee say yes I wouldn't even entertain a conversation without the school committee that's superintendent and basically a state legislator you

053know this is fully following fully state funded and we fulfill a state law so if I had that combination which is why we've been sitting in the conversation with y'all right now that's the reason I am talking to them is because it's all three of them instead I want to talk about macro in other cases when I got those 11 cross up to George Floyd it was either community members Human Rights Commission you know one person in the district I just said I want to know how to join the medical program so what would it require would be that we have to get more funding but that's what we're having because I made a promise to the district and at least I know that they said I'm not going to bring somebody in with the

054same pot of money because that means everybody's people goes down so it's a financial pick right now and also because instead of doing their anti-racist work that we got that money to do racial Equity work we will do two things for a year one you have to do preparation and do some racial Equity work and Equity Audits and do some training with your staff to really get prepared to receive our students a year later but the legislator would have to work with me and the lobbyists and the school Community to try to get us an increase in our medical budget so there's a plan actually that's what I would like to leave behind for the medical program before I retire in a couple of years so this is one of my goals is to Really

055Leave It increase I mean we have the interest you know so I think it's good to hear that's a good goal and so that's the extent that uh that that I and I won't speak for my college but I'm sure that they would join in my uh in my willingness to serve as a reference to any industries that might be interested or School committees that are considering it you know we're I'm more than happy to I'm sure my colleagues are as well but I want to speak for them I'll speak more about myself we're also spending internally right now so we just actually expanded by our emergency last year in three communities in this year we have 116 speech requests from about seven communities right now so basically that's why I came up with that

0562 million because 1 million would be for expansion we have a million would be to spread across for inflation but I think that the reason also what hasn't happened is because this is a graphic movement there is no place where you go to the department I talked to the Department of Education I work with them every week we have a committee that we need to talk about everything with Michael but there's not a system there's not an application that doesn't exist this is called grass reflex somebody waiting for a van some legislators got involved some parents said we need this and then the program happens so there's not even an application process for more communities but we're developing that right now because I'm working closely with the state on that but it doesn't exist but

057it's all Grassroots so that's why when enough people have say it and then somebody comes up with some extra money and then we can do it um I think that you know based on her platform and what she's said to date I think that you do have a friend in New York governor's office yeah so she's I think Governor Healy is an absolutely enormous proponent of both diversity and education and recognize the Civil Rights he was actually you know had a commission that was supporting him back in a mentals when it had some kind of legislative um pickups some years ago she was actually ready to defend David there so I seemed to have a friend now in the uh in the Executive Suite there in the state house as well which she can't hurt

058in terms of funding right so uh well thank you very much for having me bring the rest of everyone um I will just uh add as my colleagues have the uh the thanks for the benefits that we receive to the district from the medical program it is often and you know we we talk about it as a committee um but I'm relatively new to the committee as my first and a half year um I've learned a lot and you know learning a lot about the mecco program and the benefit it brings you know part of the reason we do this meeting or the reasons we did the other meeting where we had uh then and now is to help educate our community about the benefits of the Medco program to to our students and uh

059it's it's really powerful and uh you know these are hard issues that we face as a society and so this is a this is a great solution to uh to to help you know deal with some of those and address some of the things one of the questions I had uh you mentioned in your presentation about uh about recruiting we saw your recruiting record I guess what is the recruiting process and do you have you have more people interested in the program than you have seats and how do you find seats with districts I guess what can you tell us a little bit about that tomorrow great question um wow foreign typically it automatically fails whoever graduates or whoever drops out of the program for whatever reason people move out or something's a little more

060so that's automatically your alarm so every day that's an allotment already according to the Department of Education that's been historically kind of said that every year roughly so basically she will let us know when when she identifies some receipt availability initial burner requests we take applications starting in the fall and we work our first lotteries in December so we just called our Lottery with 700 applications and um that's only our first model we took four we do a recorder so basically the state um the enrollment in medical uses about 400 seats in all of the entire medical program and we average about 1200 applications in the recent couple of years so basically a weekdays we've done a lot of changes in the last couple of years so basically we um we now go online we

061now you don't have to come in with your baby only when your school day is ready to leave a decision um you no longer have to um be the first one in line so maybe disability of favor on the last day you have that equal open so that you get selected and then this year we're doing something for the first time that's you know two things one is we reduce the application being paper for people to apply because we started hearing issues of equity around people that were on fire external charges for different people my name on the list but for medical we have we need like three years of school records references I could um um discipline records attendance records and it was a big issue and we can be talking about doing interracism

062work but yeah we're asking our medical applicants to show all of this when our Suburban students don't have to do that so you know we've been going back and forth with this a lot because you know you know I had a little bit of like um pushback of this for variety of reasons you know because some people wanted to make sure there was a good fit and there are people going to be able to sell academically and I get that but we can be um you know trying to talk about the internet services program and then have inequity inequitable ways to get into the program so we removed the actual grades this year and let us know recommendation all those other extra things as part of your regular application process the district may require other

063things once they get to your queue but at least to apply we remove those barriers and then in addition we actually have school choice and that's the first things first time as well where the parents can pick up the three School communities so that they can apply toward the general medical program I think that's really helpful in a couple of weeks because one give you an alarm of your community before people used to stay in a company I want to go to class and I graduated from there but before you would just go anywhere and I actually choose your medical community because you have ties to it extend their family alumni communities people that know are Lisa and she's doing something that her church recruitment because I know the director and I know what's going

064to happen there I know someone that's going to take care of my baby so yeah so there's you know so now that's also known so if you remember all these phones and I attended medical Spotlight the Showcase the Showcase showcase earlier in the fall about specifically into time it was very well I couldn't even say and I was trying to hit the microphone the story in the globe about it actually change our admissions policy come and find out more and underneath the district so now they get to both showcase conversations about the value of coaster education thank you well thank you that's a very fulsome answer um and uh really really instructive the other thing is striking I'll just say is you know the some of the changes that you've talked about just that you've

065been with over the past couple years thinking through application process for districts you know changing the application process for individual students these are big changes and it seems to be that you're implemented very smoothly so that's synthetic to the mathematical programs not to say it wasn't a lot of work but um it it seems to work so um anyway thank you very much yes that's what I keep telling and eventually people said okay let's do it but you know people like it's hard to change 57 years of history of how this is as usual so I'm like okay we can't we can't believe we just work and then being biased in our own entry points I wanted to express my appreciation on behalf of myself and the Canadian for allowing us this opportunity Indian privilege

066to come here and to uh to have you speak to us and and see the great facility here so uh thank you and thank you for allowing us to be part of the medical program if I could just add uh thank you to Millie uh and we've spoken about the importance of parents stepping up and making a difference I think there's some Synergy here because school committee that's exactly what you do and you should know that really was a Neco parent you are a medical term right so she's a representation of that action that really created Manco where it lives in Grassroots uh carpool system before it became what what it is known today so and we're enormously proud and cohesive to be a medical program in what drew me and I are about response

067to to Cohasset and we're really blessed to walk you to have a Lisa with us and I think is this year 19 19th year [Music] uh regarding the um the importance of um sort of a Grassroots uh issue it's just it's I think that um it's not just the 46 students we have from Boston who come in have a steal the um wonderful uh need of superintendents uh phrase is that we don't have 46 medical students we actually in class and have almost 1500 medical students because it's truly a program that balances um over the cultures and provides for everyone involved so I think responsible idea that reference because the people in the community will be our ad really understand that everybody that there's a medical teacher from medical school they were mental district and

068what does that mean that kind of variety you know and when you were saying about me being a mother in Brooklyn I was in Brooklyn um I mean there was some mother before I got this job and you know I'm just trying to see like well we're working with another acronym called the patch program parents advances change together so we're gonna try to organize our own parents to make sure that they also can be leaders in this work and for example when I was just a parent there before I got this job you know because Michael was there and I was a parent there they never celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month never and this just broke around like never in the school system so when I saw that I didn't see myself and my children represented

069in that I went to meet with a superintendent as a parent this is why the benefit of the medical program she had some diversity of thought you might have brought up a blind spot and you didn't know and then from Hispanic there was this month we changed the school menu every single Tuesday was the Latin American meal at every single school every single school in Brooklyn got a Brooklyn appreciate blood being on heritage month with all of them flats and we got a banner for every single school we did a scavenger hunt in every single school for this for their kids to kind of like learn and then get they got gift cards to Jake who lives through the PTO who um you know and then I spoke to them about the history curriculum how

070I didn't see myself represented there in the Spanish books it was just Mexico or Spain it wasn't Dominican Republic you know might take that um got an assignment two times I had two children in Mexico three grace apartment assignment after I complaint which is having a place but then slavery what are the benefits of slavery and my my kids were so torn with that assignment that they were almost in tears but my point is that now with the microgram exposure superintendent in Brooklyn okay remember that incident when you were a principal at my school because then she got elevated to assistant um superintendent why don't you use the medical money and do a source of studies curriculum audit which cost them a ton of money program just went with their biggest Equity audit and social

071studies so these are like examples of when we're there if somebody might have something to get into Facebook about it like oh wow yeah that's a blind s and then basically it was an easy fix and it was just the parents the parents are not it doesn't have to always be confrontational to speak it up how do we work with you to try to change something we're doing that question uh thank you everybody thank you very much every so many years but goodness yes move on um so we've got there we're going to continue our invited guests um and I think we'll turn it over to uh Miss Lisa Fitness Carl I don't know how you follow after all of that what more do I have to say right you live there that you live

072there every day so um before I actually get my little spill I'm gonna actually ask Anaya Peterson she's going to get a sicknesses February 1st the beginning of the Black History Month it's going to give a little bit of black history we're gonna talk about ronia castle Boulevard which is not too far from here um and so I'm gonna have her come with us a little lesson and then I'll come back up and talk a little bit which this is Boulevard is located in Roxbury Massachusetts and it serves the black and black communities of Roxbury in 1981 the city of Boston opened my accounts Boulevard and Nubian Square the city of Boston created this area because of mountaineer's hard work and dedication to the people in this community was born on June 16 1896 in

073Richmond Virginia as a young girl she moved to Boston but after her mother died she moved back to Virginia where her aunt had tested over it was only After High School that she moved back to Boston and this is where she started her activist majoring Romeo volunteered helping the community center she joined many organizations like the NAACP Brotherhood of sleeping cardboarders and the Massachusetts advisory committee for the housing Monica and her site has had a major impact on the black and brown community spent her life fabricating for the black community in fact her first time organizing an event when she was when she was helping black women to register and cast her vote in 1920. she became the end of lacp president of the Boston chapter as the NWC president she organized demonstrations against segregation

074and disadvantages that black and brown children faced in the Boston Public School System well meerkat has had an impact on Michael as well in 1963 Ruth baxton one of mecco's founders testified before the Boston school committee to express the inequalities between black and white students but the committee was not convinced since malnia was the end of ways he's nwacp president at the time she helped Ruth and others be able to express their concerns to the committee Romney attacks Boulevard adds to the richness of the community that is median Square it is surrounded by restaurants buildings schools and stores that connect people every day it connects intersects and unites people Monica's had and still has an impact on the Roxbury Community she spent her life advocating and helping mothers children and people of current this site

075represents an honors the Legacy among the accounts people should know the history behind this hidden figure and future Generations should learn about ammonia and be able to use it as built for aspirations and goals they may have before I end I want to leave you all with a model that monia lived by if we cannot do great things we can do small things in a great way thank you [Music] all righty I think it's so important for us to learn about our history and I think so often we don't hear about some of the history that Justin was very arrogant so Nia past is a major thoroughfare from that um the highway straight over to Tremont so it's really important for us to kind of get to know our history and I think it's important

076as well because um I was thinking about just being the fact that I've been in cohesive I know I don't look older but it's free but um I think it's important that we recognize we often say um diversity but we think of it in terms of black or white and so as I sat there I was like you know we have to get off of that thought because when we think of diversity it's so much bigger than just our skin color and so I thought why don't we have an event so I'm going to recruitment today um we are going to have a multicultural event in Cohasset on April 13th I am inviting the entire Cohasset community all families are participated in this event what we're doing is we're asking families to Simply tell us

077a little bit about yourself set up a table in the Middle High School tell us about yourself and share a little bit of who you are now you all know recently Cohasset has been kind of like under a cloud um there's been a lot of status that has happened um and not just so has it but you know recently all around the world there's a lot of satisfied it's happening and so I think this would be a great way for us to come together and kind of celebrate who we are as a community so yes I'm so proud of the Metro program I'm proud of being able to have students who come from Boston to share their experience with the students live in classic Who are all important students we're all perhapsody as Millie had

078said and so I think it's important for us to celebrate on this particular day so on April 13th I'm gonna ask you so give your family history what is that one thing that you want to share with us that you want everybody in the district to be able to you know see about you I don't know you I my family is from Bermuda so maybe I'll have a a table that has that represents that part of my life baby you'll have a table that represents I don't know where you're from but you'll have a table that represents that so if there's a little Italian in there or Irish or whatever it is that little piece of culture that represents who you are because if you really look at it there's a lot of seasoning in

079classes not just salt and it's not just pepper there's some paprika there's some turmeric there's some Jamaican Jerk spices a little bit of everything and we need to be able to bring it out so that we can celebrate because we need some we need some Joy um not too long ago I think it was last year maybe one of the principals came up with bring up bring up bring back the joy and so let's keep the Joy by sharing Who We Are and so I'm actually um we've been recruited so if you're interested um it's my stuff and Jenna given to it um the middle school English teacher so we are spearheading the committee but we actually have right now we have seven other parents from classic or from Boston who are going to participate

080on the committee so by all means if anybody wants to join we are not saying no um right now we've also um uh contracted with origination which is a Dance Company here in Boston they're going to come and be kind of like the culmination of the event um but we really want to be able to celebrate who we are and to share that and as we said before keep some of the joy so I am looking forward to seeing that day and seeing all of you there seeing all of you there with the table that celebrates who you are so yep pull out your phone look at your camera put it on your calendar right I mean not your camera hold on yeah April 13th it'll be from 6 to 7 30 probably from six

081to eight and we want to celebrate not just who we are both you know through dance and spoken word but also through you know cultural Traditions food just a little bit of everything so I think it's really important that um that we keep the joy I mean that we recognize that diversity is not just black and white um so I hope that you take me up online on my offer and I hope to see your names on my uh caller ID I'm going to be a part of the committee um and that whatever we need because this movie would be right behind that's made sure we are right there um to help promote this all right so please thank you thank you thank you the questions coming from the committee oh yeah should I have

082asked how much it can be whatever you want it to be so well uh oh we'll also have some T-shirts um last year I'm sorry last year the diversity committee the diversity Club in the high school um the students came together and put together a sticker we even took that sticker and put it on a T-shirt and so you all will get to see that as well um so by all means um you know hit me up if you want to purchase one um or a rare one because we were welcome there as well so we'll need money for the event right so where how are you is that envisioning doing that privately or are you going to make a request for the committee to do that so we've actually written a grant um uh

083so origination is going to be covered through the cultural brand that we got from Mexico okay um so and we have some of the other pieces that have already been covered through the grant okay so when we come together on Friday we have a meeting on Friday our first meeting is on Friday at seven o'clock it's highest goals so quickly if you're interested call me or um email me and I'll send you the link um so that we can discuss some of the other things that we need and then I can mention them um that's 10 a.m this Friday this Friday the event is uh April 13th yes um I just want to have one thing I I love the same especially in the town of Castle of the uh emphasis on the paprikas and

084the uh they're not just black and white because you know being in this this kind of my wife as you know is on the PSO and you've heard about the event and we were talking about the the paprikas of the world and I actually learned some cultural things about friends that I didn't know about just because we've been talking about this event so you know making sure it's a that it's a open environment for all cultures because sometimes people feel like oh this really isn't about my culture right and so you know I think this is a phenomenal event and allows capacity it's even though that Pine graph looks very small yes and actually there are gradients in there there's different things and so there's there's a lot of way to other for us to

085learn about each other this is a fantastic event and I very much appreciate your leadership thank you um and like I said I think so often because we think of it as black or white we forget that there's so many other pieces um and so it's time for us to kind of celebrate that you know as much as I I wish I could bring in you know a thousand more students of color into our asset that's not realistic um but what I can do is get to know what other culture is mixed up in all of what class it is um so that you know we can celebrate that and let people know we're not just what better way to get to know you know what I'm saying so um I welcome you and thank

086you thank you please be in touch with what you need from from us thank you very much I think that concludes our invited yes um and so we'll move on to school updates uh we have a combined Diner School news and um uh keep your learning I guess we do yeah it's a special combination so thank you very much we do and I just want to point out that the the cultural uh event happening and all everything that was spoken of is so essential to us strategic plan and today with leadership we reviewed where we were with us to speak as we do periodically and it was nice to see all of this work happening uh to to ensure that you know we really talk about culture and we Embrace culture and that we look

087at our practices uh throughout the district in terms of how we're including everyone everything and everything that works to enhance diversity Equity inclusion we do frequent learning walks throughout logistic Resolution Team to ensure that everyone in a classroom is accepted as part of the community and if you remember one of the things that we highlighted early on about cultural responsive teaching was the idea of having explicit instruction uh really looking at data from all students in the the room to see how they're reacting to the explicit instruction and then building classroom communities that is at the center of all cultural responsive teaching so we're continuing that but we thought that um today because it is February 1st which is the beginning of Black History Month that we would review a bit about what we're doing

088for Black History Month at each of the buildings I thought it was a very appropriate time to do so and I'll actually turn it over to Dr Collins to talk about some of these and we also have had some really neat events happening just over the last few days that we want to highlight um so go ahead Dark scones and I'll jump in this um as we need to so um first just some collaboration we'll read a lot of dates been around for a while um and so um the Middle School um eighth graders um and uh sixth and seventh graders too I think went down am I right down to oh that's good and then we go to the high school a bit as well and then the high school if you can see

089they also um they went down today to the National Honor Society as well as the Denver City Club um and then on top of that we have read Across America which is the month of March but they're going to also be doing it through this month of February related to Black History Month so that everyone's community for the with the students and so it's been kind of fun so today I'll show you some more pictures of Lavon um so actually I came to run that was sixth and seventh grades today I was eighth graders so at um world read aloud day today down at Osgood you can see the kids coming through the door with the teachers and um it was really really fun and um those middle schoolers were amazing they they were it

090was if they were back at Oxford um because so many of them of course were students there so teachers got to see their former students there wasn't one student that wasn't engaged they were laughing and smiling reading the young ones were just in awe you could just see their faces just working out and there you can see how embrose they were it was really really fun um there was tracks similar interests too beforehand the eighth grade was really looked at the literature they were reading so are very well prepared yeah the and the look in the kindergarten group is specifically kindergarten their eyes as they looked up at the big student and then it was such a nice experience because it was hard to tell who was getting more um and then the staff the

091staff was able to uh meet staff that they have seen very little of because of their different different jobs in action so it's just wonderful it's a great readout collaboration it was really nice up in the top Corner principal Farrell was reading a book to the whole cafeteria so um while those children were having lunch so that was really fun um and you can see one of the classes down here with the students and um they were getting pictures of all of them on the stairs but the kids were so they also engrossed and then here was um some of the National Honor Society um and the diversity Club so they actually came in and read so it was a little bit different you can see a whole class experience so they went around with

092some different books that hit they had chosen to read to the students and then make sure those kids and not only does this um really Point towards cultural responsive teaching and diversity Equity inclusion but it also increases student voice the uh this was led by our diversity which is a fabulous sign of student voice really was showing itself work and it's going to continue on it's not just today so they're going to continue to think about different ways and they already have some scheduling um and even some of the teachers I was speaking with one of the English teacher The Heist of the from the eighth grade and she was saying I think we could create something so that maybe we create some sort of like the system yeah creators and youngsters so it was

093really nice yeah there was a lot of enthusiasm today a lot of Joy yeah and so um here's some work done by Deer Hill students around Martin Luther King day and there's writing on the channel so you can see those spectacular ties yeah uh but there is right actually on those pages is one of their writings diamonds um some of the things that are happening at the high school or they'll be doing some daily history announcements and they'll have music at break and lunch um cultures um and then they're having an African-American education for decorating contest um and embracing our differences you'll be able to receive your old the school by assembly is going to happen yeah exactly um we did this before it's a it's a really collaborative effort we have our own class

094at uh police involved with it and we have um I I don't know who you have as Payless this time the last time was former mecco students so it's the same so we'll have um a former student graduated from um Cohasset he was a Boston police officer but he's now a Boston fireman um we have another parent who graduated and both of these individuals also have kids currently in the district um is uh uh police dispatch here in Boston so we'll have you know a nice little route and then a colleague of mine who is um a Dei person in another District so she's in a um as well and it really uh sponsors a powerful discussion uh and is very meaningful to the students so you know you're all you're all certainly invited to

095that um and it's a it's a welcomed part of our efforts so thank you for all the work at least with that too and then the middle school you can see I kind of just made it a little clearer on the left-hand side this is um from the Middle School their Black History Month events calendar so they have also a utility door decorating for the best decorating classroom to work for Black History Month and look at competitions um so they could demonstrate their knowledge of black history month during lunch that's something that they do um periodically at lunch time so they're just going to have a focus will be black history they're having a Black History Month writing contest um and then they are having a film festival and they'll have great specific films for

096the theme of black resistance and then read Across America they're going to have them on March 2nd drop everything and you need to be thinking about reading books and excuse me reading books with that theme of resistance I'm in the elementary they have a group coming in thanks to the PSO or hip-hop promotes positivity assembly there's been lots of writing looking at different black people who have um you know been super successful in arts Science and Math Games yeah our picture there um we will be going in the morning so then I will be going down on the base stairs to read aloud we have a beautiful book that we're going to feed um Mrs Farrell's been doing the same and then they're going to focused with some and then some of the things and

097it kind of dovetails all into some of this because you know response aging nurse and other things that are happening we're looking at our literature in our school libraries and our classroom libraries to make sure that we have literature that's culturally inclusive I don't know and here's just some of the things that are happening the elementary school middle school you can see different displays of books um areas a lot of research is happening this is one particular project by grade five and we are studying the neighborhood so actually we're making a trading cards which is what you see there all the research I'm running Middle School's had a couple of we've had one Arthur already and then they will be actually having another office so Tiffany Jewel has already met with the school on a

098machine or books are listed below me and my racist kids mother books and then Lisa springfellow is a former student who's a Cohasset and current Boston Public School teacher and she had written a poem of wishes and so she will be with the um today right yeah yeah it's really impressive um okay I was like he was so brave at eight years old her husband yearbook picture and then there's a lot of sharing experiences so um Miss Augustine is a ESP at Deer Hill so she was sharing what it was like for her to be a refugee from Vietnam and I mean here at the age of nine and shared that with with students and then the Sullivan family was at Osgood and Deer Hill and sharing about um so there are games and they

099just did a really lovely job sharing it all and then lots of just signs of belonging and such an important part of being culturally responsive and inclusive is making sure that people see or feel that they are and that they belong so those are some pictures and then these are just some things that we've been working on around the teaching and learning part of it the diversity and implicity floods at the middle in high school they are like I already said we're really trying to look at our libraries within our classrooms and our schools to make sure that there's a diverse a diverse selection for our students to look at we're using the New York University steinhardt School um culturally responsive curriculum scorecards while looking at new materials and then there was yes we already

100talked about taking a jewel kind of um the students at the elementary there is an Islamic tiles art project the school the music program is really focusing on a lot of different types of music in particular around songs from Africa with some of those traditional musics jazz use of non uh preferred pronouns in these of non-gender binding language such as you know people rather than girls and boys and then um really focusing on the addition of core and supplemental tax Texas real texts within the curricular that represent an honor and promote our contributors really constantly now looking at what are we bringing into the building what already exists and then what do we need to add to it and then some of the professional development that's happening before will happen soon I remember Dr Raymond

101Ford she's been with us a couple of times to really look at how do we use data after Sullivan already talked about that to support cultural responsibilities practices part of the nest study Excel study phase has really um a lens for them students really having the staff look at um you know what are we doing around cultural response and this inclusivity and we're looking at our as they kind of self-setting themselves um the middle school has really used the culturally responsive inclusive lens to Olympic curriculum that's been the focus of their building basic activities and professional development and all our days and are pulled in we have um our new literacy Approach at the elementary and really rude and culturally responsive and inclusive practices and materials that are emergency there um the high school English

102Department they did a book club and on cultural responsive teaching program they were doing better Learners fields of equity and so that was something that they decided that they wanted to research um and then AP Language and Composition diversity project that promotes and honors diverse identities and then we have a department chair who is on the department of Ed's curate which is a panel that looks at curricular resources and so having them on that is really helpful because they are really focused on making sure that the texts that the curate is recommending um really represent variety a variety of cultures and perspectives and um [Music] at all levels questions comments from the committee Mr security yes um that was a great presentation I also choose I I one of the things we've been struggling as

103a committee is trying to get more parent involvedness how do you get their voices you know um I just want to like let the community know that we're available not only in committees but we're available to talk anytime too and so I think it's important that they know that they have a voice in their education and so if it comes down to uh any of the facilities or any kind of things that you guys parents have concerns with I just want them to know that we listen we are a committee of parents I know we're in school cleaning but we're we're still as you spoke about this whole thing started with parents you got five parents so I would like you to reach out to the community and let them know that we're all in

104this together because uh we represent them as well as the students yeah and then just um just a quick check in on some of the other initiatives so I know we had talked about MCAS and some of the interaction plan one of the things that um we are working on at the at all levels but in particular The English Department the high school has really grabbed hold of creating um a way to have two things happen one that they have a format to be able to practice using the tools that they would use during the impasse right so that expandable loss how do you highlight all those kinds of things um there's a platform out there that actually our I.T um Lindsay K one of our instructional technology Educators has found out about so we're

105looking at that because it may need to get a little simpler than having to actually create the template ourselves something called Edge elastic so that seems to maybe help um because there was a real strong sense when I met with the English Department around making sure that one they kind of take that practice off the table in the sense of making sure that the kids have those skills to be able to manage the system but also then looking at how they're asking the question look how they're asking students to respond and then giving them back so that's been um they they were so amazing all the groups were really great to work with but I think they stuck out to me because it was the Thursday before vacation week um and their enthusiasm could not

106have been any greater around how do we do this because we really look at the data we looked at what was happening and um it was just a really nice farm for us to talk about and they jumped right on it so um so that's really nice um and that's happening um that's how it's gonna happen at all levels but it was really nice to see the high school really ground throughout the bit and making thinking about how they're doing it so they're how they're going to ask their questions so they're actually changing it and working together to um to refocus their questions on how they're asking them you have your curriculums more accounting yeah and then tomorrow we have yes tomorrow we have our uh math our second meeting for our curriculum Review Committee

107for map and we met a week and a half foreign not only is it collaborative like there are you know you can there are publicly available questions any quizzes and format um but I also like that when a child takes an assessment whether it's you know formative or summative when they get something wrong you can reassign only the things they got wrong so you can review it and the frustration of like you know going back and redoing I think a test kind of sucks but if you can just Target a few questions and say let's do this the rest of it stays there you don't have a chance of getting something wrong and running out right and just Target it and we can work on that I feel like it's just a much more productive

108way to re-look at work and get towards Mastery and so like let's log through the whole thing again I think it's a really nice tool um and to be practicing those online platforms as well right so that they feel more familiar going into town that's good to feel like like that yeah which is great um in that in that in that format right platform so I really like using Edge I don't use it a lot right now as a beauty specialist but when I was teaching um uh remotely yeah we used it for example in English and there's you know every subject is available right so important and then you can share it out and assign different versions to differentiate for different kids so I feel like it really does a lot of what we're

109looking for and you know that's right that's really good to hear about that because I really wasn't aware of it yeah I mean there's a learning curve but yeah it's a niche yeah yeah it's a great tour it's a great tool neither uh that's common questions committee great thank you that conclude the uh combined School updates teaching and learning yes excellent so we'll move into our agenda items and budget resources and governance and these are traditionally standing items um I think we do have some Transportation news so Dr Sullivan interview yeah just to make a uh just a note about translation for anyone who's watching a bear having me watch this I I just want to thank everyone for their patience this is a California with our driver shortage um we we knew we weren't

110delivering a product that we were proud of because of it and I do believe that with the abusive edition of our student buses that we're going to be able to imagine being very secure at the rest of the year that itself is the most important uh part of my message the other part would be that we're this week just tweaking things a bit just to make sure that we um can deal with bus overcrowding properly and set news that are proper and then the app that I know is popular the stop finder will need to adjust to get going um we realized that this this uh solve hasn't solved to all of the problems with the buses being crowded we do have a lot of folks on of us a lot of kids using our

111buses but it's a big step in the right direction and I think it's a step to now delivering a product that we've advertised in the first place so um thank you for your patience and uh you know thank you to our transportation supervisor and also to uh Simone finance and operations to do the new women's work with this two weeks maybe this happens student is only the first student of us um it seems to have um integrated well I think we had maybe some root delay on the first day as people are running routes which I expected um so uh so I'll I'll speak as a parent I was impressed that it um it went smoothly and I think they do want to keep working on the stopfinder app because yes they um that is

112a very good it became very clear this week just how valuable that is um and so so well we do want to take care of that and then you know as long as you're continuing to look at you know if there's other ways to utilize our extra resources to help spread out our transportation load um you know that's that's all we can ask I think you're weathering a difficult storm and thank you thank you and one of the great things about this is having these extra buses does free our director of Transportation supervisor transportation management to go on routes with folks to make sure that those groups are moving safe as safe as they can to troubleshoot any problems that might be out there and to really devote time and energy to doing things like

113making sure we're at that level is possible with us who knows and quite frankly he was so strong uh I would be driving and doing it that it was impossible for him to do that and now when you should see expected benefits of that that's right um and then food service any updates on the Food Service person okay well you wanna we do have a lunch coming up that that might be yeah the next section that you mentioned now oh it's good yeah 15th or 16th I can't remember I think it's the 16th yeah we're excited about that um we're still having conversations about the Irish chef at the school um and trying to uh bring some of those services to the schools where again the updated school lunch line has benefited yeah big hit

114and uh we'll continue to improve Food Services that will mean we've done the whole tour of lunches yeah yeah and every time I think we've got a good piece of joy in schools with our kids what they're going with their experiences with it to try to make it better and better right um and I don't think there's a report from the school facilities yeah we met last night the the smooth side yeah well um and this is his voice because um Craig um was a big advocate of trying to get this thing not only go to school facilities committed but it was basically in 1976. but it is a great way to go about it because it involves everybody right so we have some Modern Town moderator the select boy and us all we all

115um introduce people to that community so Craig and I have been there for the last couple years it's really made a lot of uh a lot of I've never seen a community work so due diligence to get us like in line for a new school because we felt like the middle of high school wasn't up to the Cohasset standards when we found that most of our schools were not being located so last night's meeting was pretty much uh for me it was it was we got to really figure out what really happens in Cohasset you know we renovated the schools 20 years ago however we didn't update them like we should and everybody was on the assumption that somebody was in charge so last night's meeting was who's in charge and what we've been doing

116in the past is we would ask the principals to go out and see what they need and then put it on a list and then send it over well principles aren't they don't know what the roof links are you know you know mechanical engineers of the boiler I mean this is kind of ridiculous so um last night's meeting was pretty much like who's in charge luck so I think it was a really good understanding that we need to like go ahead and hire somebody that's in charge of the buildings so we're going to work together with those committees to try to reel everybody in and say okay what do we need because we did it we did set out a study we spent 250 000 to find out what's wrong with our schools we have

117that number so now we have uh you know this is exactly what this needs and so we will we've been in some of the folks from the uh capital budget and it was very helpful so it was a really good Synergy in the room so I I got to tell you out of all the meat I'm in a lot of committees last night it was a big movie class and thank you Craig sure so uh just to add on to that uh briefly so we have a warrant article the annual town meeting that's going to be requesting 1.5 million dollars for a feasibility study for a to explore the possibility of a new deconstruction of Inter Milan High School was it too big or renovate is 1.5 of those twos yeah 1.5 million requests so

118uh that needs to go through accountable budget and then it needs to go through advisory then select board and they can all decide whether or not they support that or not and then regardless of what their position is we'll go to the voters on a annual account meeting and what Paul was referring to is that existing condition study that uh that that articulated all the issues with each building and the school facilities committee is now you know sort of sort of compartmentalizing these issues and you know there's a new school possibility and then there's also the existing maintenance and we're we're gonna work with capital budgeting addressing us and shipping those shipping away at those creating process to chip away at those systematically over the years to make sure everything's moves for the maintenance that

119they need in addition to exploring what a new facility on together versus the existing maintenance rules I know we have both you and the security of the members of the school facilities committee but I'd like to talk about at some point um whether or not we should also have a budget resources as well actually I saw the video of the school community so I think that they were going to work with at the center committee level okay facilities yeah um to work with school committee uh from I suggested doing it at 78 level yeah so the school facilities committee is going to do that so I'm sure there's an early to be in touch with uh we're citizen of finance and Facilities to celebrating at this point in time yeah there would be ten years

120yeah we had talked about um we'd like to we have a second meeting on the 15th 15 to 60 the next meeting um no no I'm talking about the school facilities we agreed to have a meeting I thought that we said it at the end of the month okay we had to do we had to meet with all these different entities okay there would be not much to do so we need to do it we need to do a subcommittee meeting prior to next month's meeting Finance facility yes it would like to bring in Jason as well and then try to update with my second security as well so prior to the right to the next student services okay so we want to do it probably before we uh every vacation yeah yeah before aft

121is fine well it depends on whether yeah yeah it is I think February education is the 22nd it is when we get back every where yeah the other thing we're going to discuss with that is a recommendation for this committee on strategy as it relates to our budget or experience oh fantastic yeah we'll come back great very excited um all right well that concludes the support for the school facilities committee let's bring up within there and the food service we're also reports from other um subcommittees but um I will uh open for if there's any other subcommittations we are going to have a very romantic meeting on Valentine's Day a lovely policy meeting yes um no one goes out to dinner between 4 30 and 5 30 . that'll be fine again um we'll be

122meeting and uh and are going to be working towards that overhaul and getting all of those Seas dated so that we have this year we had a wellness meeting though that was good we have three students on there yeah as you said you're on a lot of committees yeah that was a really fun committee day too it was yeah because we we're moving yeah we are moving and I'll tell you honestly yeah let's start and talk about that the three students they're unbelievable looking right now I tell you this is this sophomores yeah yeah and some of the some of the concerns I wish some of the concerns were um [Music] well they're wondering about that what did that look like and then there was a lot of talk on their part around PE and

123some of the tracing right they wanted some other things around like yoga and some of those different kinds of experience they really want more of project Adventure because we have that rock claw so yeah we want to be able to use it yeah getting more people certified yeah so we also talked to be after school programs that uh we're trying to keep the school open until six at night so that we can have a stipend for a teacher to run Sports you know we feel like um you know pick up basketball a dodgeball or something just to keep the kids motivated during the day and we're also talking about maybe uh giving somebody as far as tutoring at the school later so these are some things that we can kind of elevate to the next

124level however it was really it was really a good meeting you know it's nice because it's it's it's kids students teachers parents all in a group talking about wellness and it was it flew by it does it really it goes fast yeah let me looked at the website and looked at ways that you know that we thought maybe we could hand some areas and like the clubs we talked about um posting that up and yeah like yeah what does a kid do like join a club and we have like 20 something clubs that you don't even know about so it's kind of like we need to try to find a way to educate and motivate kids to get into these clubs so that was like to sign up for a club with a question box

125we kind of got all these great ideas from that yeah it was nice great oh they do a club they do they do in the beginning yeah they do they all speak to it well I don't know if they do Fair necessarily except that during orientation everybody comes up and talks about the clouds and there's always reminders about it they're expanding greatly yeah in the last three years no it was like the enrichment programs right but yeah yeah it was the clubs for the high school we do have um another thing that we do have coming up is uh Fair yeah um it's for seniors and we invite the community and and um Everybody kind of uh has a table and I think I signed up for the wellness table so there's spots available Brian

126Scott did a great job of putting in where you could volunteer so if it was if it was like nutrition which which I put my name on for but if there's anything else it would either close the committee or so there are spots I think real estate needs a few and uh February 10 minutes all right um so I think that moves on to our school Community governance uh there are no topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair we do have some sets of minutes thank you Mr Carr sorry YouTube Ruby the first of all their secret web and this wonderful yet it's been great and it's really me a long time these are very lengthy um there are they are by no means perfect but I think it captures everything that we're trying to

127threaded into the um so I think and maybe could you just double check A paperwork that means that I I'm still missing but yeah oh Jennifer yeah let's do that um it's the one where the sound was on with our student rep yes and then as we sort of left that length of anybody wants to put something there okay yeah but uh but in front of us we have four sets of minutes from uh November 16th December 7th January 4th to January 18th um these were provided in advance although not too far in advance so I will ask if the uh no that was Mike I think that was that was um more on more on my end um but um committee's had a chance to review them and if so if there are any

128comments and if there aren't any comments uh then I'll ask or a motion to approve but first any comments questions in terms of minutes on any of them very very funny Mr chairman I uh 30 pages on on um January 18 2023 the third in the last page uh it started preparing ourselves with Mr McClellan says um it reads currently Ms McClellan says that spoken command takes this fairly approach to this I think it should read it takes a fairly critical approach okay that is how you talk though edit it in a minute so um okay great um so any other any other edits from the um if not I will entertain a motion too we'll just have a motion to um approve them on mass so all four sets subject to the revision movement

129discussed have you have a motion for Mr guard do I have a second a second Chris second for Mr McCullen uh all in favor aye uh any opposed no uh the minutes are hereby approved as amended uh promise we're calling on the perspective of January 18 minutes so we have now approved minutes uh only two more additional items remain the next one is our customary discussion of any future agenda items that we want to bring for um any future agenda items okay a review of after school program yeah because that's that is one of our subcommittees at lord of the Romans I actually don't think we've had that at committee level so that might be an interesting thing to do sure yeah um curious about two things requirement is when we're discussing the calendar very

130last year um dial and I have not uh there will be 12 months calendar we'll be on there would you know this out of school obviously correct that's very well advertised yes everything would find them right playing around um the other is something that we talked about earlier in the year and I feel like now we're kind of halfway through-ish just having any sort of kind of sharing out by like students or teachers about um the the ELA and the reader's Workshop that was quite a big discussion at the beginning of the year I've seen what it looks like from the homework end of things with my like kids but I would love to have that shared dipsticks what are teachers feeling about it what are they learning if kids you know yeah we always

131love when students come in and share but whatever's going to be the most appropriate um way to do that makes a nice academic updates and really hearing some honest feedback about what what teachers are experiencing that's great and we did we didn't talk about that way back when so I think that's great to bring that back yeah it makes sense you know they've been able to do a few units and stuff I think it's fair yeah that's great yeah all right in terms of budget and resources could we have a few minutes not maybe the next meeting but the one towards the end of the month we come back with a potential strategy um in terms of how we might um uh engage with our community around helping to pass our budget is yes a

132little bit more than just a committee update that we could have five minutes uh November 15th and I believe we don't meet again until the first time but we have three meetings in March so let's get ready yeah my apologies I will be absent on them only one lady and then you'll be absence okay yeah yes could we also here can we do a presentation with custodial staff at some point I wanted your sister uh What uh they feel they are lacking in resources I want to hear what they feel or challenges them and I also want to explore you know what their current processes are and I'm sure that we're doing the most we plan to ensure that we have clean well-functioning facilities for our students right I think that could come in um

133owner's report and uh she could have that for sure be automated by pay grade Dr Sullivan again right and one other request as you develop the count our next calendar if our friends Rebecca would have us back and we could understand fight again I think this was a lot of fun yeah sorry once a year would this be the first time co-hosts here yes for dinner a little outside touring and learning about the little different figures from this community and then go into a meeting and buy damage to come to a maple with you guys yeah so uh any other future agenda items all right hearing none uh there is no reason to move to Executive session and with that I will understand uh motion for Mr McCullen second about a saint angel in favor

134aye aye no opposed uh the emotion carries in the meeting of the journey