School Committee 9 23 20201

001and sarah when you get a chance if you could set me up with required thank you all right we've got everyone um megan is not going to be joining us tonight sarah you can hear me right okay um megan is not going to be joining us tonight so uh sarah gold is here david harris is here emily baron is here and sarah fox is here um i will call the meeting to order at seven o'clock and i need to send emily the youtube link sorry about that everyone all right there you go emily we'll give emily a moment to get that going on youtube just having a little trouble getting youtube going tonight sorry everyone all right we are live on youtube hopefully it is also streaming on our our the school committee web page

002on the district webpage correct emily all right so hopefully those are all working but if not it is on the youtube for the marble head school committee all right our first order of business is commendations does anybody have any commendations all right go ahead i'd like to just recognize once again starting with dr bucky and the administrative staff and as well as all the principals administrators teachers pairs tutors everybody that have just allowed us to um try and get back to an to a normal school year it's been nothing but positive the feedback that i've heard and we certainly know there continues to be challenges but um if we think about where we were a year ago at this time we're just so far ahead of last year so thanks to everybody who continues to

003you know make those efforts to keep us moving forward to all of the teachers and coaches that are involved in extracurricular activities you know the football team is out back on their winning ways the field hockey team won a game uh nine to nothing yesterday or the day before and um it's it's just great to see so i i just wanted to recognize you know all of those efforts um because we're so far ahead from from last year so thank you for that thanks david anybody else all right then we'll move on to our student representative jason colon welcome jason thank you can everyone hear me yep awesome okay um mhs open house will be a week from today on september 30th from 6 to 8 30 pm uh these past couple weeks we also

004welcomed our exchange students and our new band teacher mr van remortel class of 2025 elections will be happening september 29th uh we also had alice training on september 15th during our new magic blocks and yesterday was also the club fair at mhs during our magic block we had a lot of great clubs a lot of people signed up it was great the first pco meeting was september 13th uh the north shore rovers an organization that pairs volunteers with kids who have mental and physical disabilities are visiting mhs this saturday to do girls excuse me to do drills with the girls soccer team and talk about what it's like to play high school soccer our first home football game is this friday since covid against north andover so good luck to the football team football is

0052-0 by the way girls soccer is 3-0 and field hockey is i believe they won one but since last i checked uh o2 and one uh we also received information about day zero on wednesday october 13th which is um it will be an unnumbered day for the high school basically grade nine will participate in the annual day of service which is a day of volunteer grades 10 and 11 will have the option of either taking the psat or participating in the day of service with the freshmen and grade 12 will have various college prep college visits an essay writing program and planning for the future in general um there is a holocaust symposium for teens that begins october 13th and will be every thursday from three to four college visits started last week for seniors

006and are still ongoing this week as well the school advisory committee works with administrators teachers and students to discuss topics concerning the setting of marblehead high school and that will meet on thursday at 3 beginning october 7th i've been informed that the senior class is working on a fall event and they have prom and a class trip in the works for the spring um they're trying to pack as much as they can in their last year because of covid so good for them for trying to get i'll pick up all the events they missed and i also picked up some concerns from some students about some students are upset about the removal of studies and the juniors especially because they will not get senior privilege which is basically if they had a study last block

007they would get to leave early um and students are also a little bit upset about the time change we had from 7 55 from 8 o'clock the 5 minutes they say makes a big difference both physically being there on time versus being tardy and also mentally in preparation for school and that's all i have great thank you jason i think you've given us a preview into a few of the things that uh mr bauer is going to present on a little bit later in the meeting um and it's always good to hear from you yeah thank you so much thank you everyone sarah did you have a question um yes and how many exchange students do we have this year i am not sure why don't i get back to you on that one okay

008i didn't mean to put you on the spot i just i it's been always been a great program and i'm just yeah i'm curious myself all right thank you thanks jason all right that will lead us on to public comment if you would like to make public comment this evening please use the raise hand function and i will call on you it's a reminder to only speak for three minutes and before you start speaking please remember to state your full name and address for the record all right i think we're a little bit of a quiet group tonight so there is no hands raised so i will proceed forward into the superintendent's report and speaking of principal bauer i think he's up first dr bucky yes i've asked mr bauer to give a preview of

009some of the stuff that's going on at the high school much of which jason mentioned in his uh student update and uh some information about some study groups that mr bauer will be leading in looking at the high school schedule and if we learned anything from the k-3 schedule it's best to be out in front of this work uh it's exciting work it's important work and i think it's uh be enlightening for the community or for the committee mr bauer great thank you thank you for having me on yasin does a wonderful job and uh sarah we have nine exchange students uh and we are looking to have two more come at the semester um and we we had a nice little reception and plan to do more work integrating into the community so that

010was wonderful so we do have some recognition to start with uh we've received information regarding the national merit semi-finalists as well as commended students we have nine total which is outstanding and certainly any one of these nine students would qualify for principal a day program but that's something we could talk about later uh we have three students who are national merit semi-finalists and we ask that they are able to tune in tonight or at a later time to see the recognition we also have a uh certificate for them we have timothy clay lawrence earhart and jeffrey letterman congratulations to our national merit semi-finalists that's outstanding we also have six commended students we have alexis erp julia greenway ella cramer grace miller ann sheridan and brook wagger so congratulations to all nine students they're outstanding not

011only academically but they're all involved in many different capacities within the high school so they really epitomize the um overall marblehead spirits so we're very proud of them we have certificates that we'll send along the way and it's great to add into their college applications too which is outstanding um the next piece of the updates really is more along the lines of college and career preparation and initiatives and as you may note we've actually done some work really under the guidance of christine tchaikovsky in terms of remodeling our what used to be the guidance suite it is now the college and career center um they've set it up so that there are tables and chairs where small groups can gather that's where the college visits are conducted now so it's more of a professional setting

012and then as we get into the pathway discussion we anticipate having industry and and other uh groups coming in to speak with and work with our students so one thing that um we've received from the state is an innovative pathway planning grant for the sum of twenty four thousand three hundred dollars and we're very excited about this grant this planning grant gives us a year to prepare to launch an innovative pathway and the innovative pathways of they're designed to create strong partnerships with employers but also provide opportunities to align curriculum that best prepares students for success after graduation and there's five pathways that the state offers information technology engineering healthcare life sciences and advanced manufacturing so we've selected for the planning purposes advanced manufacturing the reason we did that is through our research a number

013of our courses do align to a pathway that will make the work a little bit easier for example we have cad programming we have an engineering class that we've now converted the full year but there's also opportunities that will be provided in terms of our shop work they received recently a cnc machine which can be programmed to to make and provide all sorts of different items but the planning will take place the grant provides pd for a team of teachers that can map out what the curriculum will look like and we know that uh there will be some adjustments and we're also able to bring a consultant in and we have been i have to give credit to mr scott solberg i don't know if he's on the call tonight but he's provided a lot

014of guidance in this area and his expertise and we look forward to continue work with with scott as well a big part of this piece though is providing an application for the grant it's two parts part one is due october 29th we've received a letter of support from mass higher which is critical that's a piece that provides the employment connection one thing that um through the pathway program is having the capstone the opportunity to have an internship and we already have that built in so we've met with the marble chamber of commerce the president recently just to look for more opportunities and connections and lori ford their staff members assisting us with those community connections part two is due in february and by mid-march to late march the state will let us know if we

015actually will receive designation for a pathway we've started with one and we hope uh the implementation will go well to provide opportunities for students and look to add as time moves on and you can qualify for the planning grant each year but also an essential part of the pathways is to provide my cap planning and to actually develop the my cap plan which we are doing right now so it's running concurrently so the planning grant also provides professional development monies uh for that to be developed and the my cap uh is my career and academic plan which personalizes and creates an opportunity for our students to really really hone in on their interests skills and talents to provide more of a streamlined pathway as they enter high school and throughout their four years at the

016high school involving an understanding career and possibly development opportunities um and that aligns with the pathways that has to happen one in the same so christine tchaikovsky is leading that charge along with our school counseling department but that also we're bringing in other members of the staff because it really is a a mind shift to align opportunities uh that should be woven throughout the fabric of our school so we're very excited about the planning grant and really being able to offer opportunities for our students um so i'll i'll keep you updated as we progress along this way um next along the lines is the after dark program which um i don't know how much you may know about this but it's the partnership with essex tech we have four students enrolled and we offered this

017last spring so the students receive core academics at our school in the morning and they bus over to essex tech in the afternoon and they're different programs that they can take advantage of such as advanced manufacturing auto collision repair refinishing automotive technology construction design immediate communications electrical plumbing so they receive all that in the afternoon which is great so at the end of the day this is for juniors um and it's it's slated for junior so the last two years of high school they can take advantage of this but they'll receive over 900 hours of technical training and opportunities to learn about industries and receive credentials at the end of that so we're very pleased with that the four students have reported it's been very successful um and we're doing everything we can to support

018them uh so my hat is off to them and they're looking forward to promoting it for the next group next year so that's outstanding the next piece that jason mentioned is day zero which we're very excited to bring to the forefront and this is connected to college and career planning so we're offering three parts for our seniors we're offering them the opportunity to for college preparation so they can take that day for a college visit we'll have a google form that they'll fill out so they're accounted for where we we have that connection for them also for those that do not choose that option they can work at the high school on college essays uh coming at boot camp and more secondary preparation post secondary preparation so we're very excited about being able to offer

019that we've seen models of that before and that actually is timely for our seniors who i know it's been a real struggle for them coming out of covet and having opportunities to visit colleges and i know families are really strapped to get that done so that tying in with that longer weekend with indigenous people's day that weekend uh will work well so we're looking forward to that secondly for grades 10 11 we we have the psat test and we expect that our students take that test um it's really not as as much of an option uh in the sense there is an opt-out for that but we're really really very excited about this we've researched this for several years a number of schools offer this testing during the day and i think it's very important

020so the national merit finalists semi-finalists and the committed students all come out of the psat piece as juniors so being able to offer that during the school day we know for that group will provide lots of convenience because we know that the weekends are difficult spacing so having it done during that time will be advantageous for our students the price is a little bit lower because we have it built in with our staff that will be assisting the administration of the test and for sophomores we want them to take the test too because this is optimal for preparation for standardized testing as they start to get their mind around and having preparation practice for that piece although some schools may have gone away from standardized testing that's still a big piece of the process and

021as we're looking into our data and looking into our opportunity gap not necessarily achievement gap but the opportunity gap we want to make sure our students have opportunities to have when they make the move if they're taking the standardized tests that it's not the first time in their senior year so we want to make this easy and work well plus the resources that are available to students during the day from college board it really will help them i believe they'll be able to have the a lot of the information on the site and as well as follow up with our school counseling department so we're very excited about that uh we have that set up through my box my school box in terms of the payment we're making this easy for our students yes there

022is an opt-out option where they could then work on the day of service but we want our students to take advantage of this great opportunity so we're very pleased by that and then last our grade nine students will take um the day for the day of service which was a very successful program that we had to discontinue during covid and we're bringing back so that's a partnership that we have with the number of entities throughout the town um we have we'll send student groups to some of our schools the fire department is offering to take group the police department this year which is outstanding the coa uh we have beach cleanups we coordinate with andrew petty uh gold weight the bike trails uh it's really great opportunities magic hat we'll be working with spur um

023so that that's really a nice opportunity and a way to set the tone for our first year students in terms of giving back to the community we'll finish the day and the last with lunch in the last two blocks uh we're still determining which those blocks will be so we're very excited about that um and then last but not least is yes the piece that i know that um the news is coming out in terms of the elimination of study halls so that yes that will happen in year uh school year 2022-23 so working with dr bucky last spring through our discussions and understanding that the time on learning piece and study halls you know in the piece of directed studies you know really what we're offering are not directed studies and therefore in terms

024of the time on learning piece is not where it should be and there are a number of other factors too that are go that go into this as well in terms of being able to function as a school in the way that best serves all of our students and we're finding that as we go through this and do our research uh we have formed a committee that will be able to work through this so this isn't i wanted to do the announcement tonight publicly at school committee and we will follow up with communication with our students and with with our families but this is a process we've established a committee uh to review this and we actually started work last spring at the end of the school year putting together a timeline how this would

025work so we know coming up the end time for us will be right around the time we usually propose the program of studies and start the scheduling process because ultimately when you look at our schedule and by removing study halls you know that that in itself will have to be a review of where we are with our schedule can our schedule stand up to that shift and that change so as we know whenever you involve one piece of the schedule which study halls are there certainly could be some residual effects that impact the whole schedule and we need to make sure that that everything we do supports providing the best opportunities for our students so in terms of the review committee it's a number of prongs right now we're looking to basically do a needs

026analysis with the school we've already sent out and starting to work on the analysis of the survey with our staff we have a survey that will go out to our students next week and we'll be asking students if they're interested in forming focus groups and working with us and as you send out surveys it's not a one and done they're always the analysis of the information then taking that as you drill down to go further because at this point our task with the committee is the elimination of study halls but we also know that it's not just going to be that we know that there will be other pieces that we need to put together where that will be we want the data and the needs of our school to lead that charge and that's

027really really important so once we go through the piece where we do the needs analysis and we will involve parents it'll be information and shared with parents as well and families and guardians um the analysis piece and then once we start to take in like what's best for our school we'll start to piece this together and formulate recommendations then therefore we'll do research on that receive feedback from that so what might that look like if there indeed is any change with any scheduling or credits uh credits required and electives and all that will have to come into play that'll be vetted through and ultimately bringing to a recommendation our timeline is february for that so there's a lot of work to do i'm very proud of our committee we have members from each department represented

028we met today again to start our analysis of the staff survey and follow-up and planning the launch of the student survey next week um so we're excited we we've also you know we wanted to make sure going into this too that we've been able to communicate and talk with others that have gone through this process so that way we understand the timeline but also the unique needs of marblehead high school and obviously one of the pieces that is coming into play is the magic block that has been launched as our pilot this year we've done a lot of research on that and lindsey donaldson and alicia dolan get received lots of credit for their group a couple of years ago that researched the various high schools to provide an opportunity for students to work together

029through advisory programming and as that is being launched as we're going through that piece that's running concurrently with our review committee as well so as we move along in this piece obviously i understand and we understand that if something is is taken away there has to be an understanding of what the school needs to make sure that again the needs are met and understanding the social emotional learning needs of all of our students it's loud and clear within our you know coming out of covet but but even before that and being able to provide opportunities for our students during the day that they can make adult connections which is very important to their school but also have opportunities that can move throughout the school at the same time can prove advantageous uh as well so

030we have lots of work to do but we've started that work and i did want to announce that you know tonight and and certainly appreciate having the time to do so but look forward to more work coming our way thanks dan um you know we always appreciate when you come and all this information is great information and and absolutely appreciate that you're that you're kind of letting us know what work is going on in terms of the study hall removal because that's a big one so open it to the committee uh sarah i know you had your hand up yes a lot of good information was presented dan thank you um as far as the innovation our innovative pathways grant grant and the my cat plan is that something that you foresee needing um to

031work in somehow to future budgets and just so we can have that on our radar and make sure that we're setting you up for um setting that plan up for six that that grant program up for success that we can um make sure we're carrying on and doing the the good work that we need to do in the future for that well this time as we plan it through sarah i think there are a couple of components as well so there's also an another piece of grant monies that are available so if there's any equipment uh that is needed there's a large amount of grant money that is available for that um and we may qualify for some of that um so with that being said a lot of this work takes place with looking

032at our current curriculum through the the the entry level classes match what is needed for the pathway as well as advanced coursework too that's a big piece of this too because we're pushing along the college and crew readiness but but that advanced coursework and then ultimately the internship so at this time it's too soon to know where we'll need if there's any financial needs within the budget piece but this grant money does allow us to do this work and and be able to provide this as well so but we'll keep you we'll keep you abreast of that this work could potentially show us some areas where we may want to expand our course catalog and or um staffing staff any particular courses that that may benefit us is that is that fair or no well

033it's it's too soon to determine that sarah because ultimately there could be a consolidation of a couple of course areas that may come into play um you know and and obviously we and this will actually help us with our steam program we have a number of different courses we're looking to unify and at this point um i think it's premature to see if that would add courses it may actually streamline and some schools have expressed that when we've talked to them that that might be the case but that's that's a fair question and then as far as the study halls go um my assumption is when we have a study hall we can probably have some higher ratios because it's who whatever staff we can plug in there doesn't need to be teaching whatever all

034those various kids are working on if to not to oversimplify it but do you foresee possibly the reduction of study halls creating you're still you're gonna have to do something with those students during those new periods um possibly creating the the addition of some staffing hours or no again not necessarily i think okay um and again it's too premature to get in front of the the research piece and the needs analysis because at the end of the day this may allow us to do some stream streamlining in terms of what we offer but it's really too soon to tell because we want to make sure that whatever we have supports uh moving forward but yeah and is that that program that's or the group that's looking at the study halls potential is there any potential

035to kind of explore additional opportunities for dual enrollment that's not the charge of this particular committee but i know that we've talked about that piece and certainly the the my cap and the innovative pathways do provide uh certainly some dual enrollment opportunities because when particularly with the pathways when you get to the upper level courses oftentimes there may be a partnership north shore as a common partner for that as well as salem state could be a potential partner although we don't have a true dual enrollment where the tuition is waived uh but working into this is certainly it's it's advantageous to have the pathways it gives us leverage to to work in that direction is there any potential to negotiate um the tuition waiving and you don't need to answer me now because i kind

036of went off on a tangent but is that something like i hope maybe moving forward we can kind of look at that a little bit if if there are some partnerships to be made where i know we take fellows from certain programs and things like that could we potentially lean some dual enrollment tuition waivers from that again sarah on that piece too as as we know as they move forward and they basically went to prioritize where their moneys would go to districts they felt again this was a decision that was well out of our hands in terms of where they felt the need would be um and i remember having some discussions with salem state uh about that piece um but ideally we we have communicated with north shore because we know coming into this

037there could be some opportunities but they're you know we're always looking for anything we can so our eyes are definitely open for any potential partnerships and opportunities for sure thank you i know i threw a bunch of different things there thank you dan you're welcome emily and david do either of you have any questions no um tan i've got i've got one um in just thinking about how often times students utilize the study hall and why they might be missing it and as he often suggested um or upset that it's going to go away because of homework and then after school extracurriculars and sports and and all of that um has any work been done on on how that's going to be addressed because they're you know there's definitely social emotional components to that students

038feeling overwhelmed um and and how that's going to sort of be handled well that's the start of the work sarah is that and part of the student survey is really digging down into deep in terms of their needs what do they need and what do they want as well as working with our staff in terms of that piece too and certainly you know and having again the magic block could be the answer it may or may not be we don't know so as we're working through this as you know students that do not sign up for a magic block opportunity they are able to work with the teacher which is outstanding and i think having the opportunity at the same time because oftentimes we're just trying to find out like what do students actually use

039the studies for because that data itself will help us gear our you know drive our work so that way we could figure out and work with how this best will fit so schools that have implemented a wind block or we call it magic because of a lot of different reasons right we're obviously the magicians um the you block what have you uh students schools that we've spoken with they utilize that so the school at the same time you know students have resources that they may not have to study because at a study if you want to work with the teacher they may be teaching a class right or if you need to make up a test you may can only do that after school but if you are you know if you have a math

040team meet that day or if you have a drama rehearsal or a practice you know obviously your academics is first and foremost but certainly that's stressful as i understand um and so that that piece as we've talked with schools they've been able to work that piece the needs of their students through and i think that's where it's really important so the survey that's going to come out on wednesday and again that's the first of of more research but we're going to ask you know you know how they use that time and what would they how they see that working is so important because we want to be able to support our students but remember we're a comprehensive high school too so we do know that in terms of and you you all know that the

041electives have been up and down right we've gone back and forth and we've seen in some areas where we've had to do some reductions because just the way things move and so we're looking at that as well as we're working on this too because studies do impact that at different times right and the amount of credits that we actually can we schedule we say we schedule for the year we know there's room in the schedule where students can be in classes where they should be but also being able to offer something so again i go back to saying we know if something is being taken back we know that we need to be mindful in terms of how we construct to serve the needs and i think that's a very valid question and valid point

042because i don't want the students to get lost in this or our staff as we do this work i think that's really important and and that magic block i just want to highlight because we we we voted to fund that a couple of years ago the work that the teachers did to to really take that adva that old advisory block and make it something worthwhile and useful and advantageous to students in their day so it's great to hear how that work has come together i know being on the sac for the high school and that it was paused last year um and that was you know disappointing to a lot who had worked so hard the year before but i'm glad to hear how that's kind of come to life and and been moved forward

043yeah i'm very excited and certainly the addition of the my flex which allows the integration into aspen for attendance purposes we're still working out some of the rough edges but that in itself so we had the magic block in conjunction with the activity fair so that wasn't very smart on my part because dr bucky came over and saw we had 33 different tables and kids all over the place but it worked pretty well off the first go there are glitches in it for sure um and lindsey and alicia are really adjusting and they really have taken the lead on that so i'm grateful for the support provided to continue that work with that group because ultimately that's going to pay uh dividends down the road great i know my son enjoyed the activity fair the

044other day um and just to kind of highlight where this work is stemming from like this as i talked to dr bucky about this and just i'm understanding correctly this is work that that we're kind of behind on like this should have been done a long time ago with ed reform and and everything that came of that so this is work that that needs to be done and and is really important um as as we look to make our district as successful as possible yes uh indeed and certainly you know and and that's the piece that comes into it is we have a very successful high school highly successful high school and we're proud of the work that has been done by our staff and our students and our community support but you know obviously

045the evaluation of moving forward is is the answer is yes we need to to move in this direction but again i'm grateful that we have the year to really do this in a thoughtful um way that will provide again the best supports and you're right if you look around other districts have done this work uh many years ago as well but again um so you know when we say that yes the purpose is that we need to get moving again and i think we can take our school to another level yeah i mean highlight the fact that last year in boston magazine we were 29th this year 19th with the high school and i think the collective comment was all right next year let's be ninth um so this is the type of work that'll

046get us there thank you thanks stan dr bucky thanks dan that was a great presentation and you covered a lot of important topics so i'm going to move into the memo that i sent to school committee uh that outlined some of the things that you have been asking about starts with the dashboard uh we're using the dashboard this year on the website thank you to stephen quiatek who built that in a day based on a another local district's model i think it gives families more real-time information about uh covet 19 cases than the letters were able to do last year people that have questions or concerns and it's understandable because we had over 200 families that were fully remote last year and so they're very sensitive to covered numbers in the district and so people

047have reached out uh to joseph griffin and i think really come away from those conversations feeling a lot better about uh covet mitigation protocols and where we are so that's update on the dashboard in line with that some of you have asked me about staff vaccination rates i want to thank the principals for putting out a quick one question survey we worked with mea and they said keep it simple so it was a one question survey are you vaccinated are you not i'm really impressed by the response rate that we got across the schools and that's in the memo for you and then the percent uh vaccinated rate among our staff is also also equally as impressive uh student vaccination rate certainly the mass.gov site will give you that information by community but we know

048that not all of our students in marblehead go to marblehead veterans middle school or marblehead high school some go to essex tech some go to the charter some go to independent schools so what we are doing deanna put out an email to the middle school in the high school today to start collecting the vaccination cards just like we would for other immunizations and physicals each year so that we have a specific information number for the middle school and the high school my guess is based on the mass.gov information we're going to see high vaccination rates among our students there was some question about arpa funds there had been one meeting prior to the budget subcommittee meeting that was held this past tuesday there have been no projects identified no projects funded we did have another

049meeting after the budget subcommittee meeting this week so the town manager is going to be putting out information to department heads and doing some community outreach but we are certainly at the table and advocating for arpa funds as they might pertain to the public school system um and then we have coffee in conversation with the superintendent tomorrow in what i think is going to be a tsunami we're supposed to be under the tent at the high school but i think it is calling for inclement weather but i will be there with mr kelleher's coffee cart and anybody that would like to come out and hear about the work of the district or to engage in conversation about our schools i welcome that opportunity and then uh last but not least which was not on the

050memo but i just think it's worthy of bringing this school committee building principles are addressing this and you've probably seen it on the news a tick tock challenge that is encouraging students to vandalize their school's bathrooms and unfortunately that has hit marblehead it has happened at village it has happened at vets and it has happened at the high school and so because it's across three schools i just wanted to bring it to school committee's attention and to also bring it to the community and parents attention so that they can have conversations with students because um you know bathroom fixtures tearing off paper towel dispensers clogging up the plumbing stealing bathroom signs is vandalism and certainly if you are identified as engaging in that behavior there will be the restitution piece but it's also inappropriate activity

051so unfortunately it's a social media trend uh right now and so i wanted to bring that to your attention i will pause here for questions on that piece before jumping into project or planning for success and my goals any questions for john sarah i have a few questions about the covid but just really quickly because i'll be perfectly honest um i'm don't i'm not even familiar with the tic tac world i can tell by your reaction luckily my kids aren't aren't there yet but is there a way through this app to identify who the kids are that are doing this i mean i would assume that it's like like facebook that kind of makes me old but um and says their name of who's doing sarah's laughing at me i really have no idea but

052is there a way to identify who's doing this that's a great question sarah and um it's part of the education piece is letting students know that there is nothing online that is anonymous and so while it might not initially be able to identify there are ways to prove the identity of someone in doing this and certainly students are savvy and how posts and how social media i'll be honest with you i'm not a tick tock person so i'm not entirely sure how tick tock operates but yes that's part of the education piece that schools are putting out is the identity and the potential damage it can do for students and their futures yeah because the bottom line is every penny we have to pay to fix these things is a penny less we pay to

053educate kids so precisely it's just yeah this this could be a big problem um circling back to the kova testing and things like that i want to um make sure because there has you know people have contacted contacted me and i think there's some questions in the community um we're not starting a fish the plan is to officially start the pool testing correct on october 4th however your memo today made it look like we're going to do our best to start some version of that prior um until we get the full program up and running and hopefully that program the initial piece will maybe start at the beginning of next week john yes we are going to do the same version that we did last year for the random covid safety checks in the small

054scale version that we had we are doing test and stay currently and symptomatic testing but certainly this is another sad example of where the state over-promised and under-delivered the cic health is completely underwater and overwhelmed and so the support that we were offered is not there but i did uh meet with joseph this afternoon and asked that we start doing what we had available to us last year part of the issue is that we didn't do large-scale testing last year so we didn't get some of the supplies and equipment that other districts had in-house that are able to be more functional with it at this time i don't think we can over emphasize enough that these programs are one group it's not a menu um test and stay is probably the most the one that

055appeals to the most people so use that as our selling feature if you want to be part of test and stay you need to be part of it all um and so we need to really get our enrollment up in that because the more people enrolled the more successful the program is which essentially keeps kids safely in school and uninterrupted with their in-person learning that's that's the best way to do it is this test and say all these programs yes so um that was just like a little marketing pitch for that and then um can i jump in and market a little bit harder um because tower has 97 participation rate so i want to see us get there um i don't know if that's possible but i want to try um and it this

056so they do theirs on tuesday mornings it all of the vials of the um of the tests were handed in within 11 minutes after the the first bell so this is a really fast thing it's happening there in classrooms super easily i was a part of it the last weekend this week and it's just smooth and you know it it isn't um you know kids who aren't participating aren't made to feel like they're being left out it's just a sort of the teacher calls the kid up and they they do their little swab and and that's the end of it um so it really it's it's not invasive um it's super easy and and like you said sarah it would be really really helpful in just you know understanding how covid is impacting our schools

057and and how we can best serve our students within all of this thanks for letting me interrupt no it's just it really is the best way to protect um the sanctity of in-person learning really um so that was one piece and then just for some clarification on the symptomatic testing you know i know that there's all these charts of what is the like the top tier if you will symptoms and there's lower tier um are if a child is ill enough to go be sent home are we testing them i guess is like my most basic question if you're sick enough to go home can we just test them so then we're getting ahead of any positives and not waiting for the parents to come back when they send the kid back a day or

058two or three days later i don't want to misspeak so i'm going to ask you to ask deanna or joseph for that question because it's nuanced at each school and i wouldn't want to say that we are doing this and for a parent listening to say but my child got sent home and tested okay no i'll reach out to them um and then we're we talked to john and i uh earlier in the week i think we're going to have every classroom teacher or at least at the lower levels where you get classroom teacher emails push the whole sign up for the test thing right yes okay and that's really where it's incredibly important because though that's our unvaccinated population and that's our population that is is going to have to test and stay and

059and or go into quarantine and and be out of school so that's really that's where that push needs to happen in my opinion is there any talk at the at the state level either in the superintendent's group or even from jesse about um about you know not just a survey um but the requirement of having people give us information of whether they're vaccinated or not just like we would with measles or anything else uh not for students right now but it is in some districts a condition of employment for staff so i think john answered this question that we are starting to um to at the very beginning stages of starting to collect the data on students because one of the pieces and that's what i was going to ask him to do um within

060this meeting is because the way that it's broken down is we've got the 12 to 15 year olds and then the 16 to 19 year olds well we don't have a whole lot of 19 year olds especially at this point in the year in our in our high school um and then that 14 15 year old bridges in between the the middle school into the high school so um i don't know what the current numbers are i think a few weeks ago we had 83 for that 12 to 15 year olds which then greater than 90 for the 16 and 19. so it it makes me actually a little bit antsy for the vets um because if we if we think that as kids get younger which i think this is how it's tending to

061be as kids get younger they're vaccinated less that that for me the 83 if we pull out those 14 and 15 year olds we actually could drop below um and maybe we're greater than 83 again those it's gone up okay that's great um so i think just understanding for us as the committee as we move towards october 1st and who knows what deci is going to do but understanding where our buildings are at and what that means in reality for marblehead is really important so i'm glad that we're getting on top of that and starting to move that along and then where we can we're all anticipating the vaccine to be ready for the next age group that 5 to 12 within a few weeks hopefully sorry there's like something flying with the windows um

062are we in talks or are we ready to roll with a vaccination clinic the way we previously did because i think that there will be hopefully a large population of people that want to get this in play absolutely yes any other questions for john on this all right moving right along to our planning for success i am super proud of what we accomplished the 26 members of the planning team the scores of community members that had the opportunity to participate in this and particularly proud of the pfs liaison that worked with our district ruth gilbert she has done this across the commonwealth with many schools and she really was impressed by the level of commitment in marblehead by the stakeholder input and by the final product that we were able to accomplish and so i

063want to thank all 26 members of the planning team the mission the vision the core values remained relatively the same um there are some nuance uh language changes uh the theory of action is just taking all of the work that we did and putting it into that if then so if we're able to do what we want to do through this plan then the marblehead public schools will look like this in 2026. and so we identified four focus areas for district improvement those will be teaching and learning professional culture diversity equity and inclusion technology and facilities and operations under each of those and this document will be available on the website tomorrow and will go out in the superintendent's update are the strategic objectives that we want to accomplish in each of these focus areas

064and then the initiatives we want to undertake and in bold are the initiatives that we have identified for the coming year that we think that we can accomplish by june of 2021 at the end or 2022 at the end of this year and so the next step i have asked district leaders to take a focus area so nan will be leading teaching and learning i'm going to lead professional culture because that is a residual focus area from the last strategic plan diversity equity and inclusion will be led by our mecco director deandra steven quiatec will lead technology and michelle will head up facilities and operations my goal is to have these regularly reported out to school committee so maybe one meeting a month having a focus area that you can ask questions about hear about

065the progress people will be taking these initiatives that we believe we can accomplish this year and creating uh action plans around them so they'll be putting smaller subcommittees and work groups together to work on these and all of them will have budget implications and so as we prepare the fy 23 budget this will be a guiding document so these initiatives that we're undertaking not just this year but in the next five years and the implications they will have for the budget i do want to clarify that as people read it and look at strategic initiatives and say why aren't you working on that now why are you picking that all of this is fluid these are the things that we believe that we can accomplish in this year but not at the sake of other

066initiatives that are listed sometimes there's crossover and so even though it's not bolded doesn't mean that we won't be attending to it or working uh to achieve that but the ones that are in bold we think are can be accomplished this year and so in terms of benchmarks for the school committee those regular reporting out and then through the budget process how those align as well so it's it's an impressive document it's an ambitious document and i think ruth has said that to me a dozen times that it is very ambitious but i think marblehead public schools is an ambitious system and i look forward to the outcomes that are listed on the final page of the document and for in 2026 all of us to be celebrating these milestones together so i'm open for

067questions on planning for success all right and um this is up on our meeting materials correct yep uh currently so if anybody wants to access it tonight before it comes out in other venues tomorrow uh sarah i saw your hand up so there's a couple um things and 1.6 and i know for people who might not have the reference point it is up online um can we just put that really important clarifying word up implement free i want the word free in there full day kindergarten program because we have a full-day program we just pay for it absolutely okay so that was a big one and then i know like we the commun communities like really interchange the words from planning for success to strategic plan i just want to be really clear this is

068not a strategic plan this is a high level um high level plan of of where we want to take our district but it's not like when you think of a strategic plan like the line items of check we've checked this box we've checked this box this one will be done by this date with this much money so it there there are two different things so where people kind of are interchanging them um do you feel this has what you need for you know the the big word we all talk about every year is the an override if if we get to the point where we need an override now we all have varying feelings on where we think we are in that i don't want to go down that debate right now but do you

069feel you have what you need to to do that if that is what is the will of the committee depending on you know what we decided as a district i think that this document represents the will of the community that these are the priorities that the community of marblehead would like to see the public schools accomplish and many of these things have budgetary implications and so as we build the budget and we are looking at what these initiatives will cost next year and over time i think that we have what we need to make the case for achieving them okay and thank you sarah for participating in this process theater emily any questions on this and this is something we'll have like the week to digest it and then we'll come back and and i

070believe we vote this correct you do thank you for that clarification i meant to say that at the beginning that this is being presented to you this evening for you to digest and at our next meeting if there are questions before it's voted you'll have an opportunity to um i really appreciate that you said that each category or each sorry initiative will come and present to us periodically i think that'll be extremely helpful because you look at this and it's like whoa yes but when getting updates i think that'll be great so thanks i just keep coming back to to um when glenn kutcher spoke with us at our retreat over the summer about how the school committee really sets the tone for the district and how you know it's as we look this over

071it's hard to think like oh we're gonna have to wait you know for some of these until 2026. you know these are all really really important things and things that have been identified and quite frankly many of them have been identified for years at this point so we're all kind of chomping at the bit but i think it's important that that we just all remember that you know we're in a process and that if we could accomplish all of these in one year we would but we can't and so these things are going to build on one another and and you know move the district forward kind of as we were talking about with dan earlier um in really positive ways but you know rome wasn't built in the day and so we've gotta sometimes

072you know sit back and and just do the work um you know put our heads down and do the work so it's exciting david yeah i want to make sure i'm unmuted so yeah once again i'd like to thank everybody who who participated once again as dr bucky mentioned the 26 members and i remember when we first talked about this i think it was back in may maybe april and we were thinking wow this is really ambitious uh vaccinations were just coming out we were trying to wrap up on school weren't really sure where we were going and it really was ambitious dr bucky so thank you for undertaking it thank you for for everybody who committed themselves to this and participated in pulling this together i know you met underneath tents outdoors to pull

073this all together and at the same time while all the planning was going on in the summer to reopen just reopen the schools and try and get us back to um some sort of sense of normalcy but this whole program was going on uh all the planning that takes place in the summer to to reopen schools hiring and staffing so i really look forward to digging deeper into this but but thank you for for all your efforts and for our liaison who supported this so much appreciated that's a nice setup um david for um i was reading another uh planning for success plan and they said the ex-public school system has engaged this process over the last two years marblehead did it in six months so that's another reason that i'm proud of what we

074were able to accomplish in such a compact period of time and i do think that it will be a good road map for the future for the district would you like me to move into my goals i think so yes i think you can okay so i have established four goals for the year uh two district improvement goals a professional practice goal and student learning i will say that i used my evaluation that the committee provided me last spring as um kind of a framework and then the educator evaluation tool uh the superintendent's evaluation tool and some of the areas that you identified uh in in my evaluation to form these goals and so i tried to for ease of when we get to the evaluation next year align those initiatives or those objectives in

075the rubric so that you can compare the rubric against the work that i set out to do so the first one is visibility uh in communication and i have listed action items that i'm going to undertake this year some estimated timelines for doing them and then anticipated outcomes and evidence and certainly i'll do a mid-year update on this the second goal for me is the equity goal and again i've done some action items estimated timeline and the anticipated outcomes for that um these are all posted for members of the public um that are wondering what i'm talking about and again i tried to align the standards and indicators from the rubric for the ease of the committee and looking at the goal against the rubric the third goal that i've set is the curriculum alignment

076mtss and educator evaluation and i also use planning for success when doing uh the establishments of my goals because uh that is an important thing and it should guide the work that i'm doing in the district and so the final goal that i have is the student learning goal and attending to the social emotional and behavioral health needs through the mtss work and again a lot of these things are contained within planning for success and i'm not going to read through each of the goals and the initiatives i'm setting them out tonight for you to hear the goals and my thinking behind them and then at our next meeting if we want to have a question or if you want to give feedback on the goals before voting them um we can do that so

077i'll highlight too that um that so i took a continuing ad from masc and duffy last friday on superintendent evaluations it was a webinar and that was one of the one of the pieces that they highlighted in there was the idea that as a superintendent sets their goals that they that they that we pick out you know which one which standard it applies to um and then how you know the the other pieces that we're looking at that when we go to evaluate that we had kind of set up last spring when we went to evaluate john that we would have that at this point and i had sat down to do that the other night to be able to present that to the committee but john had already beat me to that and had

078had all of that on there so um this will also then help guide our agendas for the year too because when we have something to to talk about that that pertains to these goals that um then we'll be able to put on the agenda so that when we get back to the evaluation that we can then kind of use our agendas to help reference as well so i know that that's been done in the past and that was definitely something that would be helpful um as we as we look at things in the spring or at the same time maybe we could use this document to track what school committee meetings we we have these items on the agenda yep i have to go back to the agenda items to you know see which items

079we tracked you know maybe as well yeah yep what i liked um during one of the one of the pieces we looked at during it wasn't a webinar but it was a training video on super attendant evaluation was how some superintendent said that for every meeting and every presentation they made at some point like whether it was their last eye slide or somewhere they talked about this aligns with goal 1.2 or however we're labeling them i think it would be really helpful as we go through the year to do that so we have those data points and it's not it's not as hard at the end to do that evaluation um that was that was one thing and then are you open to discussion on any of these or or you know a request to

080to i mean i don't want to add another one because four goals is is a lot of goal is i think sufficient i think five would be too much i would like to see a budget goal just where at the end of last year you were really honest about the fact that because of covet and the influx of money that came in with all the different esser and different acronym grants that you weren't able to really dig into a typical what's coming in what's going out and although we do still have the sr 3 grant i think it's more of a typical going to be more of a typical finance year this year um if we could possibly add that piece in um because you know budget is such a an important piece in every

081district but i think particularly where we are in marblehead right now where we're trying to kind of figure out where we are with a zero based budget it's actually under um goal number two it talks about the budget i saw that but it wasn't like it's it as a piece of the professional practice piece whereas last year like the budget what it was it was a main goal in and of itself um so i would i was hoping just to see it as another main goal if possible um just thought we could you know i'd put it out there john could give it some thought and then maybe we can discuss at the next meeting or take it from there certainly i i did know that budget would be an important piece based on the

082evaluation from last year and i tried to weave that in along with planning for success but if there are other initiative areas or if uh the committee's will is for me to establish a sub-separate goal i'm certainly open to that conversation thanks john um emily did you have a question for a comment um so at some point i i don't remember exactly when i heard this but they had talked about the evaluation process and if instead of just coming to us at the midpoint of the year to talk to us about the goals maybe do it like quarterly if that gets us or however like just a little bit more often so that it's fresh in our head kind of going throughout the year if that works yeah i think it will in if we

083can align on the agendas what goal it pertains yeah i mean that'll help a lot too so yeah um yeah yeah yeah that was one of the things that was said on this webinar as well and it's sort of as it sort of seemed to flow in is that if you sort of do it front load this work and have everything set up so that we know what we're looking for that it becomes a lot easier to do much more regular check-ins throughout the year so that it doesn't feel like oh my gosh we're looking back at the entire year and and you know it's overwhelming and then sarah can you just um in the back your head keep in mind maybe reach making an agenda item i don't know maybe february to not just

084talk about you know john where john is with his goals but reconvene as a group of how we foresee maybe improving the evaluation process on our end um and how that might go more smoothly in one of the pieces i know i'd like to see is i know john did a 360 review last year where he has um some really important professional uh district improvement grow goals here that really had to do with leadership um and all that i'd like to see the results of a 360 like um an anonymous 360 review and like up from the admin team or even the whole staff um i think that would be really helpful for identifying you know some success points and in any possible areas um that we might want to make goals moving forward yeah

085i noted that and lisa and i kind of keep a running list of uh agenda items and when and when we should be looking at them and i'll uh ask out ask dorothy to for some ideas on how other districts are doing that type of thing all right um any other questions on that great so as we mentioned i mean i think one of the things about it is you're right when we get to the year end and we're charged with doing the evaluation but i think we all recognize and especially when you see dr bucky's goals there's just no possible way to report out on everything that goes on in the district at school committee meetings that happen twice a month and then we at certain periods of the time getting absorbed in the

086budget schedule and there'll be additional meetings that will take place in february march and april to work through what one of the charges of the school committee is to to develop the budget so i think um we as a committee it's important that we have our own relationships with the superintendent and dr bucky has always been open to um coming in and meeting with dr bucky talking about whatever might be on our mind talking about whatever initiatives are going on in the district and i i don't i don't know if you need to reinforce that dr bucky but um i think that's sort of been your approach when when you came to the district last year covid changed that i know we you know we weren't really get into the face-to-face things it was a

087lot more phone calls and things like that but um i certainly appreciate that and i look forward to being able to do that maybe a little bit more so that we can you know stay up to date with things but i know you've always been open to to the phone calls and and meetings when committee members want that outside of our regular scheduled school school committee meetings because there's just so much going on well and i think rather than having a report on where he is with his goals like for instance the report tonight on that dan made even the presentation dan made on the high school at the like at the end of that um dr bucky might just briefly say and this books works into my goal xyz of a lining curriculum like

088boom done it doesn't need to be that we represent his goals it's just each of these important presentations that we get from our various um staff really all do work into these goals they're not just pulled out of a hat from nowhere so that would be helpful absolutely all right thanks everyone thanks dr bucky thanks john all right so that leads us on to our schedule of bills um they were in our i'm just going to continue to call it dropbox because i can't not but they were in our dropbox for today uh so can i get a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling two million nine hundred and eighty eight thousand six hundred and seventy nine dollars and eighty cents sarah moved second emily second any questions on any of those

089all right sarah gold yes david harris yes emily baron yes sarah fox yes thank you that tesla's four to zero all right so that takes us on to school committee communications and discussion items uh first up is the policy ebc of a face coverings discussion um i wanted this on here this evening as we approach october 1st and you know that that's a big milestone for dessie um dr bucky gave us a a memo i'm going to turn it over to him to talk a little bit in a moment but i you know i i just want to highlight that we have no idea where dusty is what does he is going to do um and so maybe dr bucky you can fill us in a little bit on on some of the background conversations

090that are going on at the state level and and some of the meetings if you know if that's appropriate so i will let you um give us your recommendation sure um i think superintendents are again finding themselves in the same position that we found ourselves in in august waiting to see uh what desi is going to do the rumor is that desi is going to extend for an additional 30 days and so that is my recommendation this evening is that we extend our mask mandate um until november 1st and i understand that that's not the decision that everyone wants but as i look at our rates in town we are are in our schools we are mask and have distance and our numbers are increasing we had a very disjointed month of september with two

091and a half day school week two day school week four day school week the more that we're in school the increase we're seeing in the numbers i worked with andrew petty at the board of health to run this by him i worked with the superintendent's advisory and leadership team i reached out to our covid coordinator our lead nurse former commissioner for public health in the commonwealth and they all think that it's a prudent decision to wait the additional 30 days i know that i've had lots of conversations with sarah about where is the road where is the off ramp for this are we going to then on november 1st say another 30 days what are the metrics had a great conversation with david uh this afternoon about um you know where other communities are and

092you can't get on a bus you can't get in an uber you can't get on an airplane you can't go to trader joe's in some communities without the mask i think if we have four five-day school weeks or close to that in october and our numbers are staying similar to where they are now then that could be the logical off ramp that sarah speaks of and so my recommendation is that we extend for the additional 30 days now technically we don't need we need no action because the last line is this policy will remain in place until rescinded by the school committee so this is more a lack of like a lack of action right we don't we don't need to do anything that's john's recommendation so again and again as john mentioned we've had

093many conversations about this um you know this is a tough one i think at some point we will be tasked with kind of ripping the band-aid off um and we know very well that in marblehead our numbers with vaccination rates are really good and so assuming the state stays with that 80 percent um you know we'll have some decisions to make whenever they that whenever they bring their step back on their guidance or kind of follow through with fewer mandates um and and one of the things that i've thought a lot about is the idea that um and some some of the reading that i've been doing is that we're never getting to zero on this you know i think that that was a big push in the beginning and has led to some confusion

094and and certainly you know in the way that that i've kind of processed it through in my own head um that that we aren't getting to zero and so this idea of an of kind of moving into an endemic with that is more like you know the flu season or um you know other like when we were kids like chickenpox and and that type of thing um so and and you know even when we get our littler kids to have vaccines available we know that that's going to be a slower push like i mentioned earlier our older kids are highly vaccinated as we get younger and younger you know we we get a little bit fewer and so i think we can anticipate that although hopefully we have a really great response for the younger

095kids that you know will have even fewer than maybe what we would see at the at the veteran school um and so how you know we can't remain masked forever so how do we how do we come out out of this um and i think it's i think that's still a question mark and that you know certainly isn't being discussed at the highest levels of like well isn't being announced at the highest levels of the cdc hopefully it's being discussed but you know that's sort of what plays into my head um is you know when do these come off at what what are the markers um and and you know when does when do the when does the balance shift um so you know i can i can certainly i can certainly understand a november

096one uh recommendation you know that's been one of the things that plays in my head as we've even from when duffy put their original mandate out to october first you know my kids said oh well that's not bad because we have about two days of school in september so you know that place through my head you know that we that we that we had do have a very especially this september we have a very disjointed school month um so it and that does cause me a little bit of concern because i think our number one objective this year is to maintain in-person schooling and that's you know for as far as student achievement goes that's our that's our biggest piece and obviously there's a lot of other things that go on especially the social emotional

097piece which is you know just you know just a hair behind that but we know that keeping kids in school in person in school is a huge piece of the social emotional um part of that too so um you know none of these decisions are easy um but i can i can understand i can understand where this recommendation is coming from and um and i can i can be behind it david you're unmuted did you want to say something well i just wanted to say i think um there's also we continue to see the reported cases that the board of health puts out so that won't be available i think until tomorrow or later today it's that it's posted for tomorrow and it's it's it's gone up and it's gone down and we haven't really

098reached any consistency with those numbers but it is i think as you said it's it's it's good to know that the high level of uh vaccination in the town um not only with the students but as a population and if we really talk about some of those metrics even though the active cases went up last week to 32 that it's still you know 13.5 per 100 000 and the positivity rate is you know 1.49 so some of those i agree the old metrics or the metrics that were looked at last year where it was if you're at 50 per 100 000 or your positivity is above 5 then you start to get into the red zone and we were not playing athletic events with towns that were above five percent in some of these metrics

099but they do seem to be pretty stable and then if you also look i think this was news it hasn't been widely reported but desi also asked districts to start reporting back the total numbers of cases so you can see school-wide and you can go on and see um you know across massachusetts where districts are and and it's you know it's good to see that marblehead is um last week it was reported that there were eight cases but and only two staff so if you think that we have um i know the uh total number of staff is close to 600 uh people working in and around the district so you know that's that's really uh good to know that we have this high vaccination rate and we've also been able to you know through

100the use of masks hopefully and all of the procedures that exist in the schools um to keep people safe that we're keeping those keeping those numbers low so i think that's just is leading to what hope what i hope will be a more positive trend as as we go forward so um there's a there's a lot of data out there and this this deci report is is another one i i wonder about some of the districts maybe that are reporting zero if they just failed to get their numbers in um but um i know we're we're making an active effort to get those numbers in too so just another resource emily um sorry so i almost feel like we can't really um make a decision anyway because if the state keeps mandating it it's just

101going to be like before and it's almost it's two weeks till our next meeting so we can't wouldn't be able to do anything until oh no but you can right i forgot but still there's it's still another week until this current mandate is on and you just everything is almost week by week i'm looking at data and what's happening so i feel like we almost have to take it that way week by week and what the state's going to do and they're obviously going to do it at the last second and then we'll know and then we can make our decision so i think we have to go at it from that direction because we don't really know enough yet um so yeah yeah and i think that that was some of the conversation around

102if we were to to take masks off because the the if duffy sticks and does nothing it isn't as though masks just go away it's for the schools that have an more vaccination rate and only for vaccinated individuals so this you know they're gonna have to provide whenever they end up you know following through with that with that piece of that guidance they're going to have to provide hopefully guidance on how we're policing that as well because that's a major thing um and i know that was a big concern and and hopefully they'll give some some leeway you know and not make that decision at the very last minute um which we're kind of there but one of my thoughts in having it on tonight is that that we have the discussion so that so

103that the information is out there we know you know kind of where the committee's collective thoughts are and where the districts through dr bucky's collective thoughts are so that you know if duffy does one thing or the other we aren't reactive on it that we're you know that we've sort of had these conversations and and we know sort of for people on either side of it people know where where we're headed and what the thoughts are um yeah no i it's great that we're talking about it but again it's like i feel like we're always waiting for something to come up from higher up to like you said give us guidance and me personally i'm just like if you ask me right now today i would say let's keep wearing them but i just don't

104know in a week or two is it gonna feel the same way i don't know and so that's just what i'm yeah how i'm feeling right now well and depending on what uh dusty says you know we can revisit this at any point too and that's an important point to make um that you know if we get we've got this week it's a full week next week is a full week and then we're into october so if we get a week or two into october and dr bucky is rethinking the fact that like oh we're actually really stable you know we can bring this back um and and we can call a meeting to bring this back um and i think david you know you mentioned the stuff that the the metrics that we were

105looking at last year to guide our decisions and i think you know one of the pieces i had a conversation with a health care provider from boston who works in boston earlier this week and they were saying that the beds at the children's hospitals are very full um that there there's not a lot of room left until it reaches capacity and so and we know that the regular cold and blue season is is lurking so to take masks off to them was very concerning at this point because when we take mask off not only do we kind of open up the coveted piece in a way that we haven't experienced before but we also open up all of it to cold and flus and straps and all and all of that um so you know

106it's it's all it's all food for thought so briefly jump in on that and reinforce it about the beds i can tell you firsthand it's impossible to get a bed at a children's a children's bed at a hospital 24 hour waiting in er it's it's in it's impossible um and it's not that these hospitals are loaded with poverty i'm not saying they are there's been a lot of deferred maintenance if you will on a lot of things and and you know the wheels come off the bus at some point there's a lot of different reasons but the bottom line is like sarah said when there's when we're at critical capacity at children's hospital at mgh at at all these places and you know you're in an er and they're calling hospital to hospital looking for

107a bed for you with your child um i can tell you first hand this is not this is a scary time to say you know we're gonna we're gonna take the training wheels off if you will so i think that is really important an important factor to to realize in all of this i think to sara i saw a report yesterday or earlier in the week um in worcester where it's uh umass has a hospital in worcester and they're understaffed by almost 400 people they're closing st vincents and umass is going to be and so they are urging people you know not to come to the you know emergency room but to go to some you know clinics and things like that but just the overall staffing too is is creating challenges as well across

108the board so yeah it is it is scary so you know let's take it day by day we haven't been in school for a full week until tomorrow um yeah and which is crazy is it really that next week is the first this is the first full week it's the first full week david yeah um so that that's a big deal um and so let's just i think this was a good recommendation in john's part and as sarah said at any given point we're 48 hours of posting away from making any changes that are needed thank you john all right so that takes us to subcommittee and liaison updates um who wants to and we can kind of combine these two because we've got subcommittee meeting date discussions uh last time we had talked about

109everybody bringing to the table what they were going to plan to do for their regular meetings for subcommittees um so i will open it up i know budget that this week so maybe david you want to kick it off with with that and what day you're gonna meet moving forward sure i'd be happy to and i think i know um so we so we met we met on tuesday and um i know you're on that too sarah it's we're gonna stick with uh thursdays i think it was the second thursday of every month that we're going to uh you know be scheduling those meetings um there was some public comment and feedback about the start time we had originally proposed 8 15. uh this week last week's meeting went approximately 8 15 to 9 15

110about an hour and so i haven't had a chance to follow up with megan or uh michelle or dr bucky to talk about that but we'll we'll work through if we want to flex that uh start time for people that might like to at least zoom in and and work on that you know maybe we move to 8 15 8 30 or or 8 45 but yeah every tuesday and michelle is also going to be um reporting out at our next regular meeting so i won't spend the time today but you know it was she talked about the close-out for um fiscal 21 and we were in a very good place there's still some final things to be um done it's not it's not complete the books aren't totally closed but um once again i

111think it's consistent with the approach that we've seen since michelle came to this district it's it's thorough it's detailed and it's conservative and it's setting us up for success and so um that's very positive secondly she provided uh a review of where we stand with the grant money and um once again we're in a good place there and i think we can talk we can talk more about that but the idea was um the discussion was we should probably start putting together some sort of group or dr bucky through his administrative staff to identify you know what what the needs might be with with the available esser funds and then as dr bucky mentioned the cares act uh group is is meeting in town so it was a very good uh subcommittee meeting great thank

112you um facilities you guys had said you were going to meet did you guys meet no so i've reached out to our last meeting we um had gotten to a point where two of this uh one of the staff um todd was going to like look it over and kind of prioritize some stuff so i've reached i reached out to him um via email just to touch base and and make sure he has had an ample time to kind of do that and where he is i think the beginning of the year in fairness to todd getting our buildings open he's under not underwater but you know under a lot of pressure um so i reached out to him and asked him for you know do you think you can be ready when do you

113think you can be ready what are you where are you at type of thing um that being said i had put in that email to him and michelle that i think once we have that feedback it's gonna be maybe one or two meetings and then we should have a presentation ready for the school committee so i'll keep in touch with you sarah because i'd like to find a time where we don't have a super heavy agenda for me and emily kind of to make a short presentation and and kind of give everyone where we're at and what came out of it um i think if it's not broke don't fix it um as far as you know when we are meeting that exact time we'll have to do it a little bit earlier in the

114day because of um school pickups mainly that's my issue but um but i think that we are doing the first monday of the month and that didn't conflict with um other subcommittee meetings which was good because you know key players like dr bucky and michelle i think are at many of these subcommittee meetings so i think we change up the schedule too much we're gonna really be fighting for their time so um i think that's where we're at which would put us having our first meeting uh this school year i can't think of when october first falls but i know it's in the next week or so next friday is the first time but the first monday of the month should be the monday after um and then we should be we should be good

115to go with the exception of any monday holidays that might tweak that great um and then for policy um we we i've messed things up we were going to meet next tuesday sort of in anticipation of the october 1st duffy deadline um but i end up not being able to meet next tuesday um so we're going to push that to the tuesday after which then would be the first tuesday um so it you know it doesn't it doesn't matter to me if we go back to the final tuesday or if we um you know we can talk about it at that meeting whether we just want to keep it at that first meeting knowing that facility system monday that i'm not sure with you probably um what works best and we'll meet we usually meet

116in person um at 8 15-ish uh 8 15. one thing i did want to clarify is and i forgot i meant to do this sooner at one of our meetings i had you know when we were starting it i said you know can we michelle make sure you hit record and there was some concern about um you know wishes by the committee on whether we should should be recording or not recording um i i think the public loves being able to kind of like click on the calendar and see the the meetings i think that's really worked wonderfully as far as keeping them informed and and keeping people up to date um so i would like to be able to record the subcommittee meetings and and have emily and lisa work their magic to connect

117those those links um we we're just don't have the tech capability or at least i don't to to live streaming on youtube the way we do the other things and nor do i think we really need to if someone wants to zoom in they can but i'd like to make the recorded link um available on the calendar to kind of look back at least for facilities i think facilities and budget people um you know are interested in i think both of those have had the public at all of them i don't know how much public you've had um policy but you know people might be open to that as well uh policy depends on the policy that we're talking about there's been a little bit of uh public and certain policy meetings um but you

118know what i can work with steven steven and i are working on because right now the youtube account is under my email address for the district and so obviously at some point in the future when i'm not on the committee it needs to be under a more broad email address so steven and i are working on that right now so i wonder if posting that like not live streaming about posting those taped meetings to youtube um might be just sort of the easiest way to move that forward i you're speaking greek to me so i don't whatever if i can understand it anybody can understand it whatever shakes out and before i forget because i do feel like i'm a little scattered um if we can get on the books i don't think it's going

119to be a regular meeting but if we can get on the books a safety meeting um just we've never had one i would i think that would be great especially where we're about to go into a new school i think there's probably some some safety pieces to that because there's you know all those various plans that that get worked out you know we need to be worked out for a new school and we can work offline on the wellness committee too um it's been a while since that one has met um you know the work that megan did a couple years back before covid with putting the um the compostable trays in we've we've met that so you know i think particularly given that some of those i believe it's the ussr funds that have

120designation for mental health um provisions um maybe you know that could be something that we check out with the wellness committee this year kind of you know do some work with that would be great um david building update wait can i just before we get to um his because we usually end on that because that's like our brightest spot i did want to touch base the schedule the k-3 schedule committee or or planning group um nan and i have talked about that and nan had invited me to join that but i just wanted to i didn't want to just say yes without putting that out to the the committee if everyone's comfortable with that um i'll be at k-3 for like the next decade or so i feel like so i'd love to be part

121of that planning um but i want to make sure everyone's okay with with me taking that invitation i had i had suggested sudan that you would be the committee member i think it makes a lot of sense um since you are the only one right now that that is is involved in that schedule sometimes it works best when we're not involved in our own things and sometimes it's best when we are so i think this is a case where it's it's good that um that you'll that you have that that piece thank you um i will i will wrap back to um under correspondence i will wrap back to the um some of the facilities and and moa stuff so i'll put a pin in that and then we can discuss that at that point

122david so um i think those of you who've uh attended our meetings over the last five years to um [Music] hear david sandon who was our project executive with left field he uses the analogy to land the plane so um to put it this way um the traffic controls calling for a final landing of the project as we uh head into the next couple of weeks so plumbing fire electrical and health have all signed off in the last five to seven days and tomorrow is the big day when the building commissioner will be at the school at nine o'clock to meet the trip from gilbane and john roach for the walk through and looking forward to getting our certificate of occupancy uh sometime sometime tomorrow and i'll be sure to share that with everyone um

123october 4th will be the substantial completion date so the architect gene raymond will be doing a walk around and as part of the contractual obligations to um turn the school over to the town if you will there'll be a summary document that identifies substantial completion and then lists you know you could call it a punch list but it will be also detailed to provide the the items that still need to be completed uh post october 4th so we'll be looking for that to come from rda as part of the contract agreements um we've talked about two moves that were worked out with dr bucky and sean and the staff and left field coordinated to make this uh a smooth landing as well for for teachers and and staff so um the first move is going

124to be on october 2nd with the idea that um they've provided boxes and labels and teachers can pack as many things as they don't need for the last week of school i guess right dr bucky and then those items will be picked up and moved over to the schools on that saturday and then the following saturday the 9th will be when they come in and do the final sweep to get the the teachers items that are left and move those over to the school on the ninth students as we know will occupy the building on october 13th teachers and administrators will be allowed into the building starting on october 4th to um start their their setting up and and acclimating um i will say this uh with our ffa contractor lord um it's been pretty

125impressive that not only do have we been working with rda's um coordinator for all of our ffme there was an ffa meeting uh yesterday with dr bucky and staff going over everything right down to pencils ladles for the kitchen you name it they they've gone through everything there's nothing of substantial uh items that are missing and those items will even be reduced further by by next wednesday when the substantial completion document is submitted so but kudos to everybody but it's really neat to see that there's this level of detail that comes with with this vendor that every classroom has a document outside the room that identifies you know what ffa items go in the room um left field has has stepped up and added some additional staff to help facilitate the delivery of items that

126come into the school every single day checking the boxes and coordinating all of those items so um the rooms are are being set up right dr bucky but i mean short of with all the new items and new furniture and things like that technology of course and then the items that the teachers need to move um october 4th the custodial crew starts starts full time in the building but the custodial crew and todd thanks to todd they've been in the building for weeks now they were in the building last week we might think it's simple but if you look in this building uh widget road literally has a light switch um well welcome to what's called in lighting at the new school it's the latest greatest led lighting and you don't just flip the switch

127anymore and in some cases if it's uh designed properly the lights will go on when you walk into the room and the lights will go off if you're not in the room and then if you want some variation in between uh the teachers will have options so i know i was at the school a week ago friday when the custodians were there getting some training on the lighting and the staff were already getting uh updated with with some of those uh technology things so that's exciting and then um last but not least we are dr bucky led the um ribbon-cutting meeting today with a representative from the building committee cindy schieffer a gilbane representative a left field representative abby lewis abby lewis exactly and sean sanderfield's going to be part of that and we've selected

128um sunday october 17th as the tentative date for the uh ribbon cutting um that will be at approximately two o'clock in the afternoon various events planned um you know we know glover's regiment's going to be there certainly um involving um the students of the brown school will be a big part of this event and engaging them in everything from cutting the ribbon to a musical presentation everything that you could possibly want so um that pretty much is a wrap and the last building committee before the opening will be uh next thursday evening so david i went by today and um i saw there's you know teachers were out there with sean and they were starting to to plan you know various aspects of drop off and stuff and actually reached out to david sandon um

129to see if if if i could just drive into the parking lot and get a closer look not get out and so i got to do that and it really it looks great um everything has come together nice you know it's having brought kids up through lower belts playground and and everything that we you know tore down and then driving in and seeing what the what my younger kids are going to have um to be able to use it's just night and day it's really come together and to see the excitement in my younger ones to see what they were going to get to use was really exciting too no doubt and it will get in fact brian johnson with left field last week there was a mother with two two children that were that

130were on the playground during the day using it and brian had to go tell them excuse me excuse me you know and she's like oh it's such a beautiful playground can't we just can we go to the smaller playground down front and brian's like no not quite yet you have to wait another couple weeks so um uh you're right it's it's all um it's all coming together pretty pretty nicely and um it's gonna be exciting so so mark your calendars uh october 13th is just around the corner and what are we looking at here on the screen oh so on the screen i shared i just shared one photo for everybody that this is the just a panoramic of the media center uh which also known as the library um yeah it is stunning right

131dr bucky um the the motive the motif there of the waves and the ceiling uh once again going along with the nautical theme they help deaden the sound when you're in there it's amazing how quiet it is well there's no children in there but it will help when there's lots of kids in there making noise it will help uh deaden the sound you know the portholes in the background that look down towards you can see the stage through one of the windows and down into the cafetorium the benches that they can sit in the windows looking out into the back um playground area it's it's i think it's one of the most stunning rooms in the school in addition to all the classrooms so pretty pretty exciting i know i want to grab a book

132and sit at one of those little bench seats and read for a while yeah very cool that's great thanks david all right um any new business um um i just had a question and i guess to put it on a agenda later about the self-evaluations for the school committee because i had offered to tally them but i just never heard anything so i don't know if megan has said anything or just megan and you were the only ones that got theirs in oh david and sarah and i failed uh so we will have that on i got mine and it was late oh okay all right i haven't heard that you guys so david and i are still delinquent um so we'll have that in asap and we'll have it on the next agenda okay

133it's keeping our agenda um manageable tonight so thank you very thankful for the manageable size of the agenda um this is definitely not new school committee business but i thought it was a good thing maybe we could get it out to the community somehow um i saw wbur was having um an essay contest for any school age student and it's called in their own words it's through october 1st um it's all about you know it's a very broad theme of covet cover 19. how it's whether it's how it's affected them or or any piece of that and i've gotten a chance to read some of the submittals and it's all over the country they're coming in from um they're some really powerful pieces and it's a very varied format like you can do poems you

134can do last days you can do whatever um but it made me think of it because we've had some really moving statements over the last year and a half from from our students and it's really pointed out how you know proud we all should be of our students that they advocate for themselves they're very articulate um and i just i didn't know if there was some way to just kind of get it out there that there is this essay contest um it's always a great resume builder to get to place in one of these things but um again it's wbur and it's called in their own words thanks sarah maybe we can get that up on the website somewhere um all right so that moves us to correspondence um i have one piece of correspondence

135in the in the dropbox um and i did get uh another one late today from a community member asking to have this put into the correspondence and they talk about the face covering discussion on the agenda tonight and that the topic you know obviously generates much passion and debate within our community um and that they wanted them to they want everybody to be aware of the situation that has occurred over the past week in one of their children's elementary school classes when another student was diagnosed with covid and then making other students in class considered close contacts and that the test and stay program through the school is working um and well it's been a bit of a disruption um that um you know kids can't participate in after school activities still and weekend plans

136but that the impact would have been much much greater had the students in the class not been wearing face masks at school um and so it you know it would have created a situation where the kids would have been out in quarantine um and possibly in other classes as well and so they you know in this email are advocating for uh not to not to relinquish the masks at this person at this point and um to prioritize the in-person learning piece um so that's that and then the piece that was in the dropbox was from the library and um i wanted everybody to have that i think um i think multiple of us were on the original email but it was from kimberly grad and it is regarding the cost the use of the coffin

137school and the possibility that as the library project that was voted through both a town meeting and then on a ballot override um this this past june that the library is going to be uh under renovation and that they would be that they are looking at the coffin school the possibility of the coffin school for moving into the uh space ideally early fall um you know even earlier if possible with a setup and movement to take place approximately march 2022 to august 2022. um so kimberly and i after i dropped this in kimberly and i um answer a few questions um i think it would be beneficial if we have them come to a meeting at some point in the future there's a few little scheduling pieces that they're involved with right now on thursday

138evenings but i think you know with enough planning maybe late october early november we can work it out and then i think that like i said earlier i was putting a pin in the moa stuff and the and the look at the facilities and and our properties generally um that it'll give us a chance to kind of start some of that work um and and so that we can really you know sort of know where our docs are lining up so that so that the other you know areas of town that are interested in our properties and in using them um or you know even taking them can you know so that we can actually have like an educated discussion on that um so the the coffin if the library used it there would be

139some renovations that they would need to do um and some and some work to be done so that's a piece to consider but you know if everyone's in agreement we'll put that on a later agenda um and have them come in and talk um i know so to jump back to the moa piece because i think that's kind of going to kick things off megan and i are on that subcommittee i don't remember exactly what we termed it but we're going to work with jackie jackie and i had talked a little bit about whether or not we had the moa for the financial pieces the budget pieces a few years ago whether we were going to kind of do a larger scrap that and do a larger moa or do with just another one i

140think at this point we're going to push forward with another one so we'll we'll meet soon the with megan as well to to really push that forward and then bring it to the committee as we did uh when it was the the budget one and we'll leave the budget one intact um and then and then create an additional one so that it looks at facilities buildings um and grounds um within the town and sort of so that we can much in the way of the budget that you know one piece changes and it moves other things around for everybody that the same with facilities and kind of looking at our buildings as town buildings um sarah where it it made a lot of sense for um megan to be on that as because the last

141one was more protein to budget where this one pertains a lot more to facilities and ground would it make more sense for emily or i to be your partner in that so i think we can leave it as a creation because it'll come to the full committee anyways um and and then it'll kind of but i think what jackie and i were talking about is as the we sort of the budget committee kind of was in the moa the original budget moa that would be the facilities committee that would sort of handle this moa that would be the point people on that okay and we're the i'm excited to have the library come and present to us i think it'd probably benefit all of us to do that a little bit sooner than later as

142we want to kind of look ahead of what warren articles may we be thinking of presenting not presenting things like that but i do you know i i do like the idea of being a good community partner especially with the library where so many of our students and quite frankly staff benefit from that it's such a great community resource um and it also kind of keeps that that coffin building while we're well we're figuring out what we want to do because i don't think that's going to be a quick answer for us it keeps that um north end of town that piece still alive and it's not just an empty building sitting there for that end of town that's kind of lost a great community resource when we when we move out of that building

143so i do you know it's a larger discussion but i do like the idea of being a community partner in this yeah absolutely absolutely i think that's you know there's a lot as we saw with the electric company when they came and presented at our retreat that there's a lot to that with our with all of our grounds so all right great um i will get them i will work with kimberly and we will get them on an agenda in the future and and hopefully they'll have a little bit more information you know they they have um they're picking their um their people who are gonna handle their architects and everything and um and so you know a lot of the same things as what was going on with the the building committee in its

144early stages so um they'll have more information by the time we get them on the agenda as well and that'll be great all right that leads us to a german so i will adjourn us at 8 56 pm thank you everyone thank you