School Committee - July 8th, 2020

001you to the Milton school committee meeting via remote access for July 8th uh 2020. I again just want to state that we are operating under the uh revised provisions of the open meeting law um dated March 12 2020 under Governor Baker Baker um executive order I'm going to call formally call the meeting to order and I'm going to ask if there's any changes to the agenda Dr Johnny you do you have anything under policy you want to change so we're going to um under policy we're going to discuss some of those agenda items but they're not going to be first readings Okay so okay all right next we're going to move on to Citizen speak um I anticipate that we we may have um a large group for Citizens speak tonight and it might be

002the first time some people have attended a school committee meeting so I am just going to um read over um the Milton school committee public comment at school committee um policy just so everyone's familiar with how School how the citizenship runs so the Milton school committee invites Milton residents to attend its meetings so that they may become better acquainted with the operations and the programs of the Milton Public Schools all regular and special meetings of the committee are open to the public uh in addition the committee wants to hear the ideas and suggestions of Milton residents and keeping with this goal the committee reserves after the first 15 minutes of each of its regular meetings for citizen speak in order to hear from as many Milton residents as possible and also to enable the committee

003to conduct the business of the Milton public schools in an orderly manner the following rules or procedures are adopted the length of Citizen speak shall not exceed 15 minutes unless it is extended by the chairman chairperson I'm going to say it shall not exceed 30 minutes except by a vote of the majority of the committee speakers will be allowed up to three minutes to present their material at the beginning of each regular scheduled meeting Milton residents shall be invited to address the committee the chairman of the committee shall instruct those Milton residents who wish to speak to sign in to the citizen speak sign up sheet he or she shall call to attention of the um the prospective speaker uh copies of which will be available at the next sign up sheet citizens signing up

004to speak shall provide both their names and their Milton addresses speakers may offer such opinions of school operations and programs as concern them but in public session the committee will not hear personal complaints of school Personnel nor against any members of the school community under most circumstances administrative channels are the proper means for disposition of legitimate complaints involving staff members and proper conduct and remarks will not be allowed defamatory or abusive remarks are always out of order and shall be ruled so by the chairman if a speaker persists in proper contact and remarks the chairman May terminate that individual's privilege of address all remarks from the citizens will be addressed to the committee written comments that would require more than three minutes to read should be presented to the committee either before or after the

005meeting for review and consideration for appropriate time so the first thing I'm going to do is I am going to make a motion to extend citizen speak this evening to 40 minutes so if there's a lot of people here tonight that should give everyone a chance to speak um under the 40-minute time mark so I'd like to make a motion to extend citizen speak um to no longer than 40 minutes tonight can I have a second second that okay um I can see everybody so all those in favor of extending citizen speak to 40 minutes please raise your hand and I okay it's unanimous also because we are virtual and we're using Zoom tonight um you obviously can't sign in on our regular sign up sheet in a non-covered world so what I'd like to

006do and how we're going to run it is if you want to speak at citizen speak then you should raise your hand I'm going to turn it over to Dr Pavel check because he's running the technological part of it so for it might be some people's first some people everyone's using Zoom but there may be some people on this call that it's the first time they're using Zoom so Dr Pavel check can you just go over the raising of the hand and um and how you'll um unmute them Etc so if you um go to the list of participants and go to your name you'll have the ability to do what's called a raise hand we will see the raised hands and the shot I have here unfortunately it doesn't come in in the order

007that um if you raise your hand I will try to do that as best as I can if you're on a phone you should hit star nine and that's a raised hand so um that's how we'll proceed um to unmute you what what Dr Pavel check will then do is um say I'm muting I'm just going to use an example um I'm unmuting um Alicia Peterson and if he unmutes you then Alicia I would then ask you to say I'm Alicia Peterson I live at 250 Pleasant Street and then you can start your statement so that's that's how it will run and I'll give a moment we'll give a moment for pause because I know we're you know in this technical world and there might be a couple of glitches so if everyone can just

008have some patience and we're going to work through it as best we can um so at this time you Ross Danny who was the first person okay this must be Beverly so Beverly I'm sure it's you so but formerly Beverly um if you can unmute and I'd ask you to turn on um your video if you can so that we can see you better to engage and see I see you because Beverly hi Beverly um and um and then when you're done um Dr Pavel check and then you can turn off your video if you want and move back all right so please start all right so for those of you who don't know me I'm Beverly Ross Denny I've been a Milton Public Schools parent now for eight years um and for those of

009you who may not be familiar with my background I've worked in Edward forum for the past 15 years um working in teaching and learning for the Boston Public Schools student support at Boston College and then with an organization called research for better teaching where the book The skillful teachings published um I've had the great Fortune to work with very high functioning districts as well as those who needed growth and I learned a lot along the way um I personally try to make an effort to share what I've learned with the Milton public schools and on several occasions I've met with or written to a variety of District leaders to share research-based practices whether it's related to implementing the ELA curriculum talking about school climate surveys um competency-based report cards but in general if I'm going

010to share something it's because I think it's the benefit of all kids not just my own and in some cases my recommendations were taken and in some cases they weren't but neither of that I respected the decision District and moved on for the for this reason what happened with Jarrett was very troubling to me um I recognize that there's a lot of opinions as it relates to what students should not happen in public schools when you're working of like but I've always shared my financials with people so they knew that I was coming from a correct place and that typically you can tell that my intentions were sincere there was nothing that I had personally motivating my concerns um and that's what made this incident so troubling because I don't know how many families may

011have expressed concern with what Miss Jairus said but in all fairness I think we all know it was in violation of the district conduct code and there were repercussions for this person and um just to reiterate the point when you have people who are credibly trying to help the district their sometimes their advice isn't taken but there were a few people for with whatever political influence they had that were able to to have on people who would otherwise make a different decisions in general is very proud of the response of our residents whether it was adding their signature to a letter or whether we're protesting with the milk Education Association but what I am not so proud of and was very disappointed by was the the other attention that we've received in this town when

012I moved here Milton was on the list of one of the best places to live and now we have the honor of receiving the WGBH 2020 New England award you've been written in the globe we've had op-ed pieces written and Miss Jarrett was interviewed on WBUR and this is more attention than than I anticipated and I'm sure many families in Milton were probably equally embarrassed by um when I reached out to a colleague who was in The Press and asked you know what do you think about this and her response was this isn't new news everyone knows that these little towns are racist and I was both horrified and disappointed by her reaction um I believe we're better than that I have lived in this town since my sons were three and five maybe even

013younger than that and I know people here to be kind and generous and well and you know some people did not but those were few and far between um but since this happened many of my friends watched out to State kind things but there are also people on those makers and I mentioned to um both very as well committee that there are students that are now using social media to hear our conversations that adults normally or it should be part of or could mediate and in either event I don't think this is what is showing best friend and as a town and as a school committee there's a sense of obligation that you know signing on to the mark platform the right first step but there has to be something that's um that reconciled like

014we can't just go with it being this unspoken evil that's in this town that's dividing people that normally would be kind and respectful to their neighbors at least we hope they would be um I'm proud to live in this town and I'm excited about the energy and the dedication of the families and the school committee and the administrators who really want to make this better but there has to be some sort of accountability for what has happened and I don't know what the answer is but I would love to hear something from the school committee or the administrators about what do they believe is the right thing to do or who could help them come up with a good solution thank you for the time thank you Beverly Glenn next person Airman Varela yes I've

015already failed at my job um because I was supposed to give you the 30-second warning and the three minute but so I apologize sorry I just couldn't do it no worries all right I will try to do better yeah no worries yep so I'm recognizing someone calling in on a phone whose last four digits of their phone number are 0838 you can unmute yourself and your record okay my name is Phil Dro Henning I live at 23 Parkwood Drive in Milton um I I wanted to talk about the muscle Awards as those have already been uh mentioned I'll move on uh to the Greater Boston episode where Zakia Jarrett uh appeared and Jim Browdy asked her would you do this again and she said no I wouldn't and she said colleagues of mine also would

016not do it and what it what are they talking about what they're talking about is the discussion of race and and I really believe that it's it's wrong that um our teachers including Miss Miss Jarrett would feel inhibited from discussing race since it's such a vital Topic at this moment uh I feel that it's it was definitely wrong for school administration to put any kind of impediment on a a mature discussion of race and and I think we have to trust our teachers that we trust every day to to use good judgment in deciding how they will handle such a topic um additionally uh as I look at um chapter 272 section 99 of Mass general laws I believe the school committee needs to do an investigation of this situation um the select board has

017said that they that any employee of the town would be investigated as um Cindy Christensen was uh was investigated um uh I I don't know who's familiar with that situation but it means that they hired a law firm and they had uh an investigator from that law firm um it's the town Law Firm Murphy has uh look into the situation and and what is the situation we would look into number one we have the person who violated the two-party consent uh idea in the law and and so what that means is that if Miss Jarrett didn't give her permission to be recorded she cannot be recorded and to do so would be a felony and that felony would be punishable by time in prison or a fine or both and then there is also the

018question of the people who used the the uh tape I'll call it a tape to um uh to uh you know bring this up with Miss Jarrett in fact whoever is that person whether it be the Principal whether it be the school administer the school Sprints ended so sorry 30 second morning the idea is that they have committed a misdemeanor we need to protect the legal rights of Miss Jarrett we need to look into this and make sure that the people are appropriately punished under Mass General law thank you thank you Phil um Glenn next speaker please hi I'm Jenny mole Queen and I am a Milton Public School parent for 10 years thanks for hearing me tonight um I just wanted to speak on what I want most for my kids in the public

019schools and their experience what I want most for my two mixed race kids one with a disability is to feel safe and included and valued in their learning communities this has happened in many respects and I am grateful but like many who are here tonight was recently Chagrin to learn that a Milton public school teacher would be effectively muzzled and reprimanded for being authentic this has to stop good teaching can create a safe environment and good teaching is when our educators are not scared to be authentic and share their real experiences with our kids kids know when they are getting the real deal moves to something hand and prescribed educators are being called in this moment to be part of a ship of Shifting and unjust narrative they must be empowered Innovative anti-oppressive curricula will

020require integrating the Arts and Sciences to weave and teach complex truthful stories that matter to our kids and Inspire and Empower them to continue to do good in the world rather than pushing them to excel in a broken exclusive system this means teachers and administrators and parents and families must be called to do our own work on systemic racism and then be open to working collaboratively across disciplines to begin turning towards Justice I hope that this can happen and thank you for hearing me tonight thank you Jennifer so much Glenn next speaker promoting regime Jean Charles good evening this is uh ohene asari I'm here with my wife Regine John Charles we live on 70 Sumner Street and thank you for the light uh it helps um and so there are a few things that

021come to my mind in particular at this time much of which I've shared with you I'm not sharing anything new that we haven't shared already with the school committee and with superintendent Gormley and with principal fish you know I I want to express to you all and I realize that in talking to folks many folks say well I don't understand this is not my experience I need to learn we are we have been in tears for the past several weeks I I I'm not a crier but I have cried on almost daily basis on a regular basis uh with my my company and someone said something to me and it just brought up so much of this emotion and and and I I found myself weeping in front of a company that I own and

022run um and the question was why and so I want you to understand I want to portray in the essence of sharing the experience here as a community I'm from West Africa we believe in a shared Community when one hurts we all hurt that's how we were raised that's how we believed Milton should work why is it that the pain of this is felt only by some in this town why do I say the pain is felt only by some because I know that when you make a mistake my mother taught me to apologize and I appreciate the apologies that have gone forth but no letters have gone to all the parents about this we said no letters have gone to all the various various committees in school there there has been a general um

023approach and I understand that time is needed but an apology is easy to write such that everyone knows where we stand because if we don't speak truth then it feels like those of us for whom this is a personal issue are affected and have to carry this burden and and others do not there are many in Milton we know who are comfortable with not telling their kids anything about this we have many friends who've said we have not yet served our kids the race stuff that's happening in the world we don't know how to approach it that is a fine perspective if that is your choice and that is an option that is not an option for us so what I'm asking for is for solidarity from the school committee you know we are we

024are people of faith and and one of the things that it says is that when you know when we when we show up in heaven it's not about what you did and all the words you want and all the the companies you started and all the money you made none of that matters but in my faith tradition what gets asked of you is is is when I was sick when I was down when I was in prison did you help me did you see me when I was on destitute did you feed me when I was hungry did you come to my age when I was on the side of the road and so when we reach out with there is a stereotype and we know about weaponized black flash and I know it feels

025maybe threatening to have all these people at the school committee suddenly it feels like we may have invaded your your your meeting a little bit but I want you to know that there is one of our concerns is that we're looking at an all-white body here we're looking at oh you should see what it looks like to to me and I know you guys and I know your hearts but what it looks like by coupled with what the what we've seen happen does not represent our community and so the question that we're asked when I'm asking you would you stand with us what does that look like to stand with us it means that looking at the pain that some of us are in and coming alongside of the thing we hear you and we

026care and we'll walk with you what it does not mean is just keeping quiet just just and I I know many people say they care many people are there where are your voices where is the action where is anything to say that what happened was wrong and should not happen again and I appreciate the the apology that we've received and speaking personally with folks to me but there are many parents who are not on school committee my parents are not diversity committees my parents who are not on on site councils but not near who may not be able to speak English as my wife just say who is going to reach out to them who all they know is that this happened and some of them hear from their kids some of them hear it

027from their from the community what is going to happen I I was in Milton I would close with this I was in Milton Food Mart a place where you all know and love because of their slushies and I saw a a a a a young black man standing there and waiting to to to buy a mask and and another white man saying all the white man came in and an altercation started the fact that a black man didn't have a mask but he was in line to buy one and but technically you shouldn't be served without a mask and the white man didn't want him succeeded and literally a bra was about to break out the police the white man threatened to call the police and I said is this Milton is this Milton and

028you know what it took it took someone buying a mask someone reached a stranger stepping and buying a mask and saying here I'll buy a mask with a young black man and then suddenly everyone said Thank you and the altercation was stopped I'm asking your school committee to be that stranger who buys the mask come in and make the difference you have the ability you have the power you have everything you need we cannot do this for you you must Step Up you must speak up you must represent the needs of the people if not now when thank you I appreciate your listening and your time thank you very much Glenn uh could you promote the next speaker next speaker is Deborah Bigham great thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak

029I'm very moved by oops Deborah I think we lost you Glenn can you get her back thank you I see you Deborah and I mean okay there we go great hopefully I don't get kicked out again if I do I'll I'll dial in and that's great that's great so I'm a I live at 27 Hudson Street I'm a grandmother of my um granddaughter attends um Miss Jared's class and I have been very upset about what happened and first off I must say that I am a national leader who teaches about anti-racism for the United States and um and I and I am very acutely aware of the high rates of disparities and inequities in maternal outcomes um and have been working to eliminate those inequities we cannot eliminate inequities in maternal deaths in our communities

030none of us can rise to our full potential without all of us we cannot leave anyone behind and we cannot stop we have to talk about racism we have to be anti-racist we have to make it okay to talk about racism I have been aware of structural racism in the school system for a while I have seen and heard of different activities that have been unacceptable to me we have spoken up and we have my daughter-in-law was told to cease and desist having those conversations she felt scared to go back to school and interact with the principles and with his teachers she would speak tonight but she's had major surgery unexpected emergence surgery and I have her permission to have brought that up I must say that I am absolutely horrified that a teacher talking

031about racism is suspended for even a moment rather than congratulated and supported these are very uncomfortable conversations and all of us are going to be very uncomfortable because structural racism is all around us and it will not go away without us healing and talking about it and making it the norm to discuss and to change and to eliminate and it will not be eliminated without action heart from the heart we are all humans and regardless of the color of our skin not one person in our community should be treated disrespectfully regardless of who they are and everyone has the right to live with dignity and with respect and I I want the school board to act with with urgency and with dedication and I want the superintendent I am so disappointed in what you did

032and I'm so disappointed in um so in this that now to hear that people are afraid to speak teachers afraid to talk about racism we will never eliminate racism if we can't talk about it and I thank you very much for time to speak tonight and for those who have also spoken so thank you thank you so much Deborah Glenn our next speaker next speaker is Meredith Thayer um Airman Varela yes I think uh so I'm really really bad at this job it this is hard um I might just hold my phone up when it's 30 seconds as a visual cue would that be okay I think that might work for sure that better just because we definitely want to get everyone in to speak so that might be better yeah because it's too hard

033to interject so so for those of you on the line yeah Dr Spaulding will just kind of give a warning that you know just so we everyone gets a chance to speak that sounds great thanks so much I appreciate that thank you all right I'm sorry Glenn um is the next speaker ready Affairs I see you yeah hello my name is Matt Thayer um this is my wife Meredith we have a daughter Nayeli who's in finishing sixth grade and we have another daughter going to Tucker next year in kindergarten um can you just State your street address no problem we're at 31 Gulliver street thank you so much um we moved to this town because we love it here and the school system was a huge part of that and I have never been more

034disappointed in my life to be a part of something than I am with the school system right now um we uh believe fully that um racism should be talked about race and racism should be acknowledged and for those of us it's a privilege to to to to not have to do so with our children but not everybody has that privilege and I think that Zakia getting silenced um I'm sorry uh it's it's very very disappointing um and um I want to be proud of where my kids go to school I want to be proud of the leadership that that um I'm looking at and I can't be and um I'm emotional right now listening to ohene my friend talk about how he feels um and I want to stand with you ohene I want to

035stand with people who feel that I want to pick you up on the side of the road and I want to be a part of a town that feels the same way and how anybody could feel that way right now is beyond me and that starts at the leadership that starts with you all you've created a culture where people don't feel safe to talk about it you've created a culture uh that's exclusive you've created a culture that is a tale of two halves uh and uh I'm really disappointed in in the Milton school system and I think the beauty here is that there's an opportunity and Milton can be a town that is leading in this and you have people like Reginae who are willing to lead the way you have you have uh the

036Milton Community is stepping up and I think uh we get to to to change the way we behave and that starts with the leadership um but man it's freaking frustrating man it is disappointing looking at at you all sitting up there and what you've created uh and I'm sick to my stomach about it we have been for for a long time now um and you all have heard from me and and we um I'm just I'm terribly upset and disappointed with the Milton School System right now and um uh I I look forward to seeing what comes next but I have to admit that I'm dubious I I'm I really am and I don't trust the leadership right now to do what's right based on the actions that you you have uh the way you've

037behaved in the in the past month um thank you for your time thank you uh Dr pavlichek next speaker next is Emily Speck wow hello thank you for allowing me to speak tonight can you hear me yes okay um so I'm Emily Speck I live at 84 Beacon Street Circle I have a rising third grader at the Tucker School who's sitting next to me doing her summer reading right now and a um a rising sixth grader who I'm very trepidatiously planning to send off to the pier school next year um and I think the um the transition to middle school is always a little bit scary the first time a parent has to go through it uh but the events over the last month have really um have really doubled my fear about whether that

038is a safe and caring and loving place for my son to learn to um be part of a community and care for all members of that community and I um I think that's unfair to us as parents that we should have that fear about sending our children to the school in our town um the first time I uh I addressed this board the school board was around nine years ago when we were considering the cap on the French immersion program and that was a very different time and a very different place and we were all in the High School auditorium and um a lot of people were coming to talk about how it was going to split up their families who had someone in French and maybe their other kids wouldn't be in French and

039a lot of really um kind of personal individual concerns were being brought up but I went to that meeting because we had set up a system that was feeding into structural racism at that time because by creating a program where some schools had half of their seats the French immersion opportunities for students and other schools only a third of their seats as opportunities for French immersion program and the school with the highest number of students who were Mis are underrepresented in the French program were one of the schools that only got a third of the seats for the program I felt like was an inequitable solution and a structurally racist solution to that problem even though I knew a solution was needed at that time and I supported the idea of a cap to be

040almost a decade later and to still have so much sexual racism in our school is um is maddening to me to know that the young men and women of color at the pier School are getting disciplined at rates that far outstrips the percentage of them in that building that's maddening to me I do not want my son going into a school where she gets a message that kids of color are not as good or not as well behaved because they get disciplined more for the same kinds of things that him and his white peers do not get disciplined for it is so important that we change that culture now we should have changed it when we were first having these discussions 10 years ago and we didn't and now we have a problem that's on

041national news and I am so frustrated and so angry but I'm also so glad that at this moment at this intersection of national news and our small town news that we have the power to make these changes because before we swept it under the rug we ignored it I was told when I brought up those French immersion concerns oh don't worry you'll get into the program that that class is Never full that was not the solution that was not the answer I was looking for what I was looking for was you're right that program is inequitable we do not have a fair distribution of all of the people in our town represented in it and we need to change how we set that program up so everybody gets a fair chance now we need to

042change how we set up programs so everybody gets a fair chance in our town and that my children learn that they are part of a community of wonderful and diverse people that they respect and that it does not matter if they look different from them because they know all of the ways that they contribute to their community and I'm so glad my kids started out at Tucker and got to learn that message before they had to go off to pierce and I hope Pierce becomes a place that I can also be glad to send my kids to thank you thank you so much Glenn next speaker Tech speaker is Yahweh Debo I can't hear you you know I think you have to unmute are you born to hear me yeah we can hear you perfect

043thank you very much for your time today so my name is I live at 208 Brussel Road in Milton and uh Amazon um I'm talking today to uh to ask samuelton public school and just call me school committee to create condition where black and brown children are not struggling but striving like their white peers promote learning has been a different difficult experience for everyone including my uh my first grader as well who is eligible for her evg individual education plan uh even though the learning environment has been transformed in response of covid-19 uh this change gave me an unprecedented insight into what's going on uh in the school and specifically into my child School experience amid some of USA version that I would like to share with you today and that really allowed me about

044the iniquity in the Milton public school so tonight I'm not going to share any data nothing at all about structural racism or anything it's just gonna be my story so in 2019 my family worked with Milton educator like they qualify and devoted people to develop IIT plan that will meet my children's need as the initial round of conversation where uh overwhelming and really traumatic experience um I realized how poorly we parents my husband and I were equipped to understand the result of the test but also um I came to the conclusion that this process was designed for educational experts and relegate parents to spectacular spectator unless zacharya deep understanding of testing methodology educational term learning vocabulary texting scale internal school schedule great expectation educator qualification and more left me in tears when I realized how

045Abyssal my ignorance of the school system was I wasn't able to effectively advocate for my kids despite my will therefore a family hire a net advocate so here I am to say that access to resources whether it's people knowledge or money should not prevent any parents no parent from advocating from the for the kid or be a lot of participants in in the academic success the second point that I want to raise is in the fall of 2019 um I felt that the choice my family made for the education number of my first grader were challenged so when my kid was still in kindergarten we decided to enroll her in the French immersion program and we were lucky enough to have this switch granted through the lottery system and so my child started in the

046French immersion school in the fall 2019. so early on uh the Milton indicator mentioned that the IEP will conflict with the French curriculum I do understand that I do understand the reason the underlying reason Beyond this but why the volume of French Learning will gradually increase in the fall to become a full immersion program by January by uh by January 2020. so simple provided within the framework of the IEP will be provided in English only so our family was encouraged without being told clearly let's be clear was encouraged without being told clearly to consider dropping out of the French immersion program to this day there is no individual education support provided in French except for reaching to God to help meet the need of uh of style like mine that are in it but whose

047parents elected to put them in the French immersion program this program has been run in Milton for 25 years the program started in Milton 25 years ago but to this day there is no this is the military investment provided according to support to uh student eligible for the IEP which is the French immersion program so I can't help but wonder how many family in the similar situation than mine elected out of the French immersion program because of that it's a reduction of IEP should not prevent no side from accessing the second line Second Language at any um at early age and benefit from the full width of the program of a within the Milton Public School so we said without saying that we stayed within the French immersion program because we stick to our initial

048plan so the third point I want to raise is in the spring of 2020. chairman um that we've gone past the three minutes and I'm just worried I'm so sorry to interrupt just worried about folks and everybody being able to um sure I'm just gonna wrap up here so I will say that this story is is unique to my family of course there's evening challenges but the consequences are not feeling to my family and the observations that I made were shared with by which like menus are Milton parents and what I'm asking here is for excellence in equity equity in Newton public school for all students regardless of rest and bias and iniquity some last things that I want to brought up here is I think um the school went remote is we did notice

049within the composition of the class in using the composition composition of the IEP classes an overall representation of black and brown kid uh in uh in in those classes and I do wonder why and icon helps to uh to wonder what such a situation what Milton can do to uh to uh to change that thank you foreign David and Caroline Cullum uh thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak um and for having this opportunity for you all to hear our feelings and our concerns I wanted to share that my husband and I are residents on Pagoda Street in Milton and we want to recognize that yes we do acknowledge that our daughter who was first grader had the opportunity to have Mr Leon or Mr late um she's had the opportunity to have

050Miss Barker as a kindergarten teacher she's had the opportunity to have Dr McNeil Jeremiah as a principal and we recognize that as steps that Milton public schools have made for progression but what happened with zakaya Jarrett at the middle school basically is a roadblock is a roadblock to any work that has been done in Milton public schools and being a Massachusetts educator a Massachusetts teacher in Middle Schools I have no desire or encouragement or motivation to ever want to apply to work as a teacher in Milton public schools and being a teacher a black teacher in Massachusetts public school and having had the opportunity to work in various districts I recognize how hard and difficult it can be at times for Suburban areas Suburbans public schools to locate to find educators of color and recognizing

051that all of this is is in State News national news is is so tragic and as the the superintendents committee as the superintendent's office you need to understand that that decision to suspend Zakia Jarrett has has really had and will have ramifications for your recruitment of teachers of color I have friends who are teachers of color in in Massachusetts and Beyond and hearing this story is not helpful and so I just bring that to your attention because I think you need to understand that that decision that was made in the spring involving Mrs Jarrett has been detrimental to any work that you have put forward so far it it and it needs to be understood by you all to understand the gravity of that situation it's it's unfortunate and it's sad but you need to

052think about when you have these interviews with upcoming educators of color what will you say to them how are you going to address what happened because they all will be aware it's not like they're going to die no how are you going to understand and make plans to help educators of color feel as though they can be included that they can be heard and that they are going to have a platform to work and to make progress with Milton Public Schools thank you thank you so much uh Dr palacek next speaker bringing up Farah asaraj good evening make sure that my video on audio Works um thank you for having me I'm fair asaraj I am the daughter of Latifah Hakeem I am the grand daughter of Omi Aziza in my lineages from northwest Africa

053my daughter Camila Blackman is a great granddaughter at the Macintosh family of enslaved peoples of the Carolinas that is all important because the context of who we are as people and how we engage in terms of communities and how we are very often living in oppressive and systemic realities um my address is 41 Churchill Street in Milton and my daughter has been in Hamilton school since the first grade so in the first grade there are a couple of points in terms of low expectations so when she entered I'd left a Fulbright Grant when my daughter was in a bilingual program where she received French instruction and I wanted to ensure that you continue to learn French because that was also a language of access to our community and our people and when we entered the

054Milton School Systems very clearly and very uh soon thereafter I was told many comments about her progress that were very negative it then led into my daughter coming home because she was called lazy it then led into well you know she may need to be in a special education program and she may not actually qualify to even be in a French program because she is lower in math um all this to say that this is first grade and in the first grade she was also uh punched and beaten by a group of three girls and uh most of the context of that is about her hair and it was all around her hair looked different pulling on her hair in the first grade so we overcame that and met with Mary Gormley at the time

055we talked about some of the issues and uh the cultural and the religious aspect that we are Muslim that my daughter even though the teacher knew that we were Muslim were giving Papa Noel books for Christmas then thereafter uh we were given some sort of pro-islamic books that she had found in some basement that same teacher after I've gone to Mary Gormley and addressed these issues and concerns and was told that this would be addressed at some point and there needs to be more cultural competency trainings and at the time it's through a lot of cultural training in the state I'm a state trainer for cultural competency retail and so forth um that this you know would be a more of a systemic and that you know I joined City M I joined uh diapers

056Milton's committee I joined all the other committees with working as a single mother and not just working but I was working as a director in Boston Public Schools so in that time frame nothing changed then next year that teacher became teacher of the year in the school I was not the only parent who complained about that teacher and brought up those concerns and issues fast forward on the point of using the n-word in hate crime in incidents my daughter had repeatedly heard the n-word being used I went to Dr Spaulding and repeatedly said that this was happening and that it continued to be an issue and that it should be addressed I was told again that there was a letter put out to the teachers that there was going to be an you know a

057systemic response to this that it was going to be addressed I still have not heard of a protocol of a systemic response to Children especially white boys who confronted my daughter again and again in her face and you have to understand that that two minutes is not going to apply here for me today because I waited too long and I waited for you to do something and my daughter continued to suffer and you sat back and said we will do something and you have not and you sat back and said well you know we've had a training on the n-word but what has happened since then it only exacerbated we have now shut down our black and brown children their voices their teachers it is in the killing of their Spirit there is systemic killing

058which we do with low expectations with accessibility to programs with lack of accessibility to AP with over representation and special education there is over representation when you look at your data in your numbers for discipline and when my daughter who for two years would go to a doctor or Mr Fitzgerald and Dr Spalding to actually report on bullying had never in a day been in trouble was disrespected berated by Mr Fitzgerald and was then told that she was going to serve three days attention and when I sat and spoke with Dr spauldin and Mr Fitzgerald I was told that he needed training that all of you needed training on restorative justice the way in which you responded was inappropriate inadequate and it was killing of our children it is called the silent killing of black

059children when you have a boy and a black boy who is suspended for being targeted by a camera in your school at the Pierce Middle School and you have groups of black kids who are followed by cameras and I've said this to you and I've said that there is a problem here our children are being targeted it is called policing and profiling and you are following them and they get inactions and they get repercussions the consequences that lead into suspensions on their records that leads them into what for their High School what does it lead them to when you look at the comparisons of their white peers who are freely doing the exact same Acts but yet no one is paying attention and no one is saying a word to the point that black children

060start stratifying and start to then divide within each other because they don't want to be with a group of kids who may get suspended do you understand how big of a problem that is that within our own kids that there's only so much that we can say but when my daughter continues to come to you and Dr Spalding she went to you with a friend to report a staff member who called a group of the monkeys monkeys and there was no response there was nothing that was done I still have not gotten responses to this day on these issues that persisted and it's not just about my daughter and her identity and her killing of her spirit it is about all of our children and what are we teaching them if we continue to choose

061and to be selective and to be able to sit here and say that justifiably these kids get a Target they get a certain track they get a certain program and they're getting pushed and pushed out I won't even get into the curriculum and the lack there arriving how it's been addressed or taught or the pedagogy on anti-racism I'm sorry I I don't mean to be rude but there is just a lot of people left and I yes to speak there are a lot of people left I just I definitely have a voice as well yes I agree and just to be clear Sheila I asked a lot of those people to attend tonight for this purpose just to be clear we're all attending for this purpose it's not just the Kia it is for all

062our children and I won't have time I'm taking my vacation time in Martha's Vineyard to sit here and cancel my dinner plans so I'm going to explicitly say to you you need to have better answers than we are figuring this out or we're gonna listen haven't you listened to me for eight years I am an educator I'm a principal I have black students in front of me that I fight for every day every day I am tired I am tired do you understand the pain that we go through do you understand what it's like to have your black child come home and feel defeated and say guess what Mommy you shouldn't be surprised that's Milton of course Miss Jared is going to be suspended they haven't cared about enough about our blood children that they

063have to accept that that is the outcome when they are adults and I refuse it I refuse to have it today and I will stop here but I want you to walk away with this you have not done enough and you have sat too long and we do not trust that there is action that's going to take place there has been hurt and yet we still do not hear the accountability we have yet to hear this is where we screwed up we have yet to hear this is where we silence the voices of black teachers and black kids and black parents because we have not come out and said enough my daughter might be going to Bremer in May but I am not leaving and I'm not going to leave this fight because all the

064rest of the children who are impacted and affected still exist and so do their parents and communities and if none of you have a black child then you don't know this pain in this way you don't know this pain in this way to have to tell my daughter turn that social media off turn those comments off ignore those same boys that Dr Spaulding she went to you and complained about and that said to you I am not comfortable to put her in front of them and be attacked even further where are you all standing up when are you going to speak up when are you going to do something because I am tired and exhausted from it and tonight is just the start I believe you me this is a start and I'm getting very

065emotional but I really hope that you can hear and feel my emotions because this cannot contain you and we cannot continue to be silenced and this anti-racist systemic education it can be done unless this has changed within leadership and how you respond and how you take accountability and transparency and repair the harm that you've caused thank you very much for making the time for me to continue speaking much Dr palacek the next speaker uh Patricia gulietta I'm sorry Trish we can't hear you I can see you but I just can't hear you [Music] um wait a minute is that no still can't hear do you wanna do you want to try do you want to try to read we resubmit in Mike Lynch are you what are you watching why why don't you think we

066can hear her it must be a setting on her end I would suggest just trying to call back in and yeah yeah and move on to the next person and go back to Trish right so I've uh promoted to Stacy Solomon can't hear you but you're unmute on the lower left hand side okay looks like she's left the meeting we'll have to rejoin I'm looking forward you're the next person Glenn next person is tomorrow there's oh the oh it's yeah you go first and then and then and then we can have the Sabbath after okay sorry I don't know what happened it just went out um hi my name is Stacey Salman I live on 54 Beacon Street Circle uh my daughter will also be a rising um sixth grader um I have spoken to

067this committee before um I am an educator myself I've worked at the boss in Boston public schools for over 20 years now and um I guess what many of my peers have said that I just want to make sure is understood is really what is being asked and it's a it's a it's basically an overhaul right so I think what we want to understand is that it's it's it's not just about allowing our teachers to talk about race um which is definitely something that we want but it is sort of an a restructuring of how Milton Public Schools works that's really what's being asked and because if you look at the data in Milton there are the data is alarming this over-representation of students of color um in your behavior policies the overrepresentation of students

068of color in special education your underrepresentation of students in color in your Advanced programs this idea of tracking in and of itself is a systemically racist trait or uh system and it means really taking a look a long hard look at what's happening my daughter is 11 and when things come up her she is a biracial woman young girl I should say young woman and she is also Jewish and a lot of what she hears are the the negative things that are happening to people like her people that look like her and not only from people of color but also by being Jewish there's been um a lot of things that have happened recently and what I need my daughter to hear and not just for me because it's I am a white woman um

069the rest of my family is not but this is also about what um what the previous person started to talk about but it's about pedagogy it's about what happens where are these students represented in your curriculum right what are the his what's the history that the kids are learning about whose history are they learning about it whose perspective are they hearing from and see themselves represented not just in things like slavery but in all of the wonderful attributes and contributions that people of color have made and really understanding perspective and so what all of us are really asking is something really Monumental is an overhaul of how teachers are trained really what are your expectations in a classroom it's are your expectations quiet and sitting quietly and patiently waiting your turn because that's not how

070students learn anymore that's not how students should be learning you know my favorite type of classroom to walk into as someone who's an administrator in BPS is a chaotic crazy looking classroom that's what I want to see I want to see kids being able to walk around and move and express themselves in all sorts of varieties of ways that I want their voices to be heard in a variety of ways and so this is about your policies your procedures your pedagogy your training your curriculum all of it because Milton has the opportunity to do that I will say I work for a system that has all the same problems and it hurts me every day because it's making it harder and harder for me to wake up every day and work for that system but

071BPS is also a ginormous system and much harder to make these changes in because of how big it is Milton you know it's five schools four six goals excuse me six schools that's it it's six schools to be able to do this is possible and necessary and I really hope that it's something that this panel takes on also really thinking about your hiring procedures and making sure that they're you're representative of who we teach and educate in this system so I just wanted you to understand that this is no small undertaking but it's a very necessary one and it is a possible one in a short amount of time not not a month or even a year but it's possible in a system that's as small as six schools and I really hope that it's

072something that you really consider taking on so thank you for your time thank you so much who we want to next the sabbas are waiting yeah okay so stuff is yep okay good evening everyone my name is tamoria saba and next to me is my husband Robert we live at 17 Brookside Park um I'm a maternal Health Advocate with a focus on trauma mental health and racial equity and health care I'm a commissioner for the state of Massachusetts on the senator Ellen story postpartum Mental Health commission as well as an advisory member of the title five Maternal Child Health Grant committee but for the purposes of this conversation we are the parents of a rising fifth grader and a rising first grader at Tucker elementary so one of the first things that I'd like to

073speak about with you is in listening um to this call tonight listening to the parents and also looking at your reactions I think the most important thing that you can do as individuals is realize that you are not capable of understanding this issue I think that there needs to be a lot of humbling and really uh focus on listening to these stories and not just listening but choosing to believe everything that you're hearing as white people you have not been on the receiving end of any of this behavior and it is so important that you validate all of the lived experiences that you're hearing tonight because that's where the the beginning of healing actually can take place if you are not capable of inside of yourself saying I don't understand and then moving from that

074saying but I believe all of them this is not an opportunity to question or disbelief I think we now have more than enough proof to know that this is a deep set problem and it always has been but you have been given an extraordinary resource in all of these parents who have come together and they want to help you and I think that you should really be receiving this as a gift a gift that the parents are still saying we are here we're going to continue to speak up and we want to be involved so with that said Dr Gormley I sent you an email a couple weeks ago laying out my background explaining who I was and asking if I could be a part of the task force and I never heard back from

075you so these are the types of uh missed opportunities that are a problem when you have a black parent reaching out who has uh you know certain expertise and wants to contribute why not respond to that person and say I want you on the team you know other people who would like to be on the team we need your help now I gave my address earlier and I'd like to talk about that for a minute as well we are zoned for Glover school but we chose Tucker and I think it might be obvious why but if it's not obvious I'm going to just go into it a little bit we've only been living here about a year and a half and we had heard stories about racism occurring uh from the administration at Glover I'm

076going to go over just a little bit but not too much um so we were already coming from a district that my children had dealt with racism and we didn't want to deal with it again and so thankfully I'm glad that you put us into Tucker however that really shouldn't be the solution we chose a neighborhood for a reason I would love to be able to have my kids have the experience like so many of my white neighbors kids they just get the junk off to school they can walk to school just four or five blocks I would love for my kids to have that opportunity but because I already knew what they might be dealing with we did not want to put them through the possibility of dealing with racism on top of having

077to deal with everyday things in terms of growing up they should just be free to learn and enjoy and form social friendships and enjoy strong academics without feeling like if they have a problem that no one in that building is going to stand up for them and I think that in terms of equity the there is segregation happening in the schools which has to stop the answer is not to move black children into Tucker School the answer is to force and I'm going to use the word Force right you have to force this Administration and these teachers who are committing these heinous acts of racism against these children and not standing up for them a teacher as a teacher but a teacher is also an advocate they are charged with a duty to protect and

078they are not protecting these black children when the black children come up to them and say that they have experienced something and I'm going to go back to the first thing I said they have to be believed they are the ones with the lived experience a white person will never understand the lived experience of a black person a white child will never know what it's like to come to a teacher with a type of problem that our children face and and understand what it's like to not be believed in that problem and so I'm going to charge you with the duty of this now has to move into action you will hear so you've heard so many stories and you're going to hear so many more what is the action piece going to be it

079has to be anti-racism education or a disciplinary action against teachers who will not stand up for children every child deserves to feel safe and every parent should have the opportunity and child as well to live in the neighborhood they choose and not have to worry about whether or not they're not going to be protected at school and so that really for me was a it's really really disheartening to see that the answer seems to be let's just Shuffle the black kids to Tucker the student body is so segregated at these schools that is why when they get to pierce they have all these problems so many problems start to brew in sixth grade because most of the black population has been at Tucker for five or six years and then all of a sudden they're

080thrown together in middle school and some kids haven't been exposed to kids of color and they're all just trying to work it out so there's a responsibility on your part to make sure that these schools have are doing what they need to do to not lose children of color and in particular black children when these things happen the the teachers and you know I understand like you know anti-racism and the trainings and the workshops Manny about dignity I would stand up for anybody experiencing something that is causing them harm regardless of their race their age their abilities their sexual orientation etc etc just because I am human and I care about other humans and that is what I want to see the teachers begin to do thank you comparing back in Trish billiata you just

081have to unmute wow I'm so um lucky um so hi I am Trish gulletta I have um two children at uh that began at Pierce um both of my children are Haitian they were adopted as infants Toddlers and so I have the unique perspective of being a white person who is uh the child of two children of color um I'm also the The Physician for the military Public Schools so I um and I work in a primarily immigrant and um population in Chelsea Mass which is a very under underserved and and poor area so I have a lot of experience trying to um live my life in an anti-racist way and I just wanted to talk a little bit about what's happened and and some of my son's experiences and thinking about what we can

082do going forward I think um I'm just going to tell you three things that happened one is that at the beginning of this year the students were doing a social studies project um and I objected to the to the uh way that there was a hierarchy place where the teachers were was a pyramid of power the teachers were at the top and the children were at the bottom and the children were called slaves um and I spoke um to Mr Fish and Mr Fitzgerald about this Mr Fitzgerald said that he was never offended by the by that which of course I thought well of course not you're not being called a slave and I thought that it was it was possible to use a different terminology like surf or peasant or Minion or something else

083to describe my child as a slave was not um something that I felt like I was comfortable with um as a result um the Mr Fitzgerald told me he didn't think was a problem and that I could speak to the curriculum coordinator if I wanted to she never um reached out to me so I kind of let that go I think um my son Anthony is um a rise in seventh grader last year he and one of his friends who's white his best friends were goofing around and laughing in the hallways and getting into a little bit of trouble and the white friend was let go and then Anthony was spoken to and said that he was going to get a warning if he still behaved in that way and that's a teacher who's pretty

084well known to people of color parents of color that I know as a person who has had uh what we consider to be unequal or inequitable um interactions with people of color at the school and Anthony's response was well that's how it is the black kids always get in trouble and I my heart broke because that's not the way it's supposed to be and yeah he was at Tucker so he didn't realize that he was going to get in trouble just for being the brown kid he didn't understand that and I truthfully didn't either I was so happy we moved to Milton I was so happy we were Tucker and now at Pierce it's been awful he sits at the Tucker table where all the brown kids sit and they're always getting in trouble and

085none of the other kids are getting in trouble and the other kids can be doing the same thing back and forth but if a brown kid gets in trouble then they get suspended and it's just the way it is good kids a students are getting suspended for things that that everybody does I don't know if people are threatened because it's a brown person I don't know what it is but for me this has been what am I doing can't we just come back to Tucker where where oh I was told oh we your kids were too sheltered at Tucker well I'm glad they were sheltered I'm glad they were sheltered from this kind of experience I'm glad that they got to sit at any table they wanted and they weren't called the Tucker table and

086one thing Miss Jarrett did for my kids for my son was that he and a couple of his buddies were walking down the Halls being silly and being loud and Miss Jarrett said to them hey you guys listen you are black you cannot be behaving like that because the expectation is anything you do you will be judged for that and and that lesson in sixth grade I'm sorry but I wasn't ready for that and I I think my kids just accepted it as this lot and that just kills me so I feel like this is a stepping stone this is a break this is a this was a crisis of conscience and that we can go on from this and we all have to try and it's not my kid's job to try it's the

087school's job it's the teacher's job those teachers that behave that way to children need to be singled out those people that behave that way to my children need to be spoken to re-educated let go or something because this kind of culture is breaking my heart and I I don't know what I'm going to do about it and I think everyone has good intentions but we need to start working at like some of the things these other moms have said I hear you I feel it too and I don't know what else to do but we have to do something to make it go forward and um that's it thanks thank you so much Glenn our next speaker Sandra Joseph hello is it my turn yep okay I'm sorry I disconnected for a second all right

088well thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk tonight um I'm actually still traveling from all the different testimonies tonight and I think talk about my personal Journey because I think it's telling a lot about or turning back from this we can only move forward and A change is needed I am back I am Haitian and Canadian who decided to move into the US um the land of opportunity they say that that permits to have the American dream I come from Montreal I'm not sure if you guys don't know it's a place of diversity um you know this all the cultures all the different country races are cultures in the world are represented never really felt yes we are different but never really felt the kind of racism racism that we're talking

089about right now with kids that are in first second third grade or fifth grade so to me it's just mind-boggling that the segregation still exists um we have I I'm at six future world in Milton um we have two kids my son Xavier is in second grade going to third grade my daughter Josephine is in fifth grade and I have to talk about her because I was that we were doubting my husband and I about bringing her to pierce about the reputation but Pierce has um and we were doubting to even bring her to pierce and we're like we're not sure if that's a great fit for her she is smart she is Sassy but she's not being herself when she's surrounded people that are different than her and don't understand her so I'm actually

090have a different situation because our kids are at Cunningham so been there since second grade it was the only child of color for the only girl black girl for the longest time and she's used to it uh we have those conversation about you're different be yourself um the fifth grade was more difficult because I did see that stigma about you know oh you're having an attitude and she would tell me but my other friends are doing it but I'm the one getting blamed for it um you're talking she wasn't even talking so there's a stigma about the fact that because of your color you're doing something wrong sometimes you're not this is inacceptable I don't see how we can ignore all the people that talk tonight and move forward the same way we are moving

091today I think that this diversity inclusion is necessary I don't not racist we have in our my family I have people from all over the world my brother is married to somebody that's from Algeria my cousin is with the French Canadian we have people from all over the world I travel the world for work I try to embrace diversity I go to Europe I go to Taiwan I be myself and I want to be proud of who I am because I'm a black woman from the first country that was an independent in Americas I want to be proud of that and I want my kids to be proud of who they are so diversity is important and we need to talk about the stigma we need to talk about the racism that is happening in

092this city you don't feel comfortable sending my daughter to Pierce Middle School next year if all the experiences that the parents talked about tonight are gonna happen to my daughter because this is not how I want to raise my daughter or my son who ultimately will go to this to these schools we tell our kids to be citizens of the world we need to talk about what's going on in the news we listen to the news with them all the time sometimes we can explain what's going on sometimes we can't but when there is school they need to be able to have those conversations about what's happening in the world and if we cannot address it then that's a bigger problem that we need to address at this time I don't think that we need

093to not talk about it it's going to be difficult conversation but it is a conversation that we need to have we are happy to be in the French immersion program we love the program I think there's opportunity not to talk about only only about friends I'm from Haiti we thought we thought French there there's countries in Africa they speak French why don't we include all of that in the diversity of the French immersion program the inclusion and diversity could be included in different ways in the in the Muslim public schools and this is what I advocate for so today how I feel as a parent of two children that are black Haitian Indian Living in America is maybe that I've made the wrong choice of actually being in the Milton Public Schools and I hope

094that as of tonight with everything that's happening in the world being in 2020 still having this conversation that you take this opportunity to listen in take it in and you will never understand how we feel you can't you're not black how we feel when I hear everybody talk tonight I'm crying because I don't want my kids to go through this don't need to change and to do better we have to do it as a community not only the white people not only the black people not only the brown people well all together so if I need to be included in this conversation I will do so if I need to implicate myself in any way shape or form I will do so I'm so happy that I'm here tonight I didn't even know about that

095school my comedy but I read about it through a friend which I totally appreciate the opportunity to talk tonight and hear the concerns of people that are talking about problems for 10 years and sitting here talking about things that happened nine years ago guys it's 20 20. we need to change and we will not allow our taxes to pay for something that is not to the standard of what we are expected to have for the opportunity to talk tonight thank you so much Glenn do you have the next speaker next is Aaron Hardy hi sorry I didn't know I was up in the queue thank you can you hear me not that well Erin can you maybe turn volume up a little bit okay let me just get a little closer can you hear me

096now yeah a little better maybe just talk a little louder yeah okay um so I um Erin Hardy um I have 155 Robin Street um please signal to me if you can't hear me um I have a rising middle schooler um I also have a Tucker first Rising first grader and another little one who'll hit the schools um in a couple of years this group has heard from me at meetings in the last week as a representative of the Milton anti-racist Coalition that's come together in the recent weeks um and I've shared this already with some of them some of you that are on the call but it Bears repeating that you know the parents that have come together to advance the platform we did that because we felt we needed to do it um

097in response to the lack of action that was happening in the district so we felt we needed to organize we needed to find new ways to articulate our hopes our dreams our vision for our children's education um and we realized that we needed to find new ways to hold the leadership of the schools the school committee superintendent the entire leadership team and the educators accountable for making what where as we're hearing tonight these aren't small resets it's truly transformative changes overhaul that are needed um top to bottom and those have been around for a long time um so I think the fact that we felt as parents that we had to do those things over the last several weeks that in and of itself says a lot um but I wanted to share a little

098bit more from a personal perspective tonight we moved to Milton in the Tucker District in particular because we wanted our children to have the what's a very rare opportunity to attend a racially and socioeconomically diverse School the thing that my husband and I value most in an education is diversity of thought diversity of experiences um those are the key to enriching our children's lives pushing them as thinkers as people and that's the gift we feel we owe to our children and we want for our children um professionally my husband and I have been studying and working to address racial inequities in children's opportunities to learn to play grow develop we've been in the field for over 15 years and our family has long been well aware of how much work there is to do everywhere

099in this country um including Milton to address racism that it's systemic it's endemic and it's in all of our policies our ideas and in our behaviors and what we've seen in Milton for the past seven years and we've been growing increasingly and perhaps too quietly dissatisfied with the lack of discussion and the lack of attention to issues of race and equity and just the complete lack of a real and substantive plan in the Milton schools you know what I've observed is a dancing around the issues of race and the dance is worse um than doing nothing right because it's fooling parents and even Educators within the system into thinking that they're doing something that matters on the issues of race and equity which in my opinion is worse than admitting that we're not doing the

100right things and we're not doing enough there's a famous quote that's don't confuse motion with progress you know the terms that I hear circulating in the district around issues of race and equity um don't have the words race and equity in them the Arab teaching tolerance discovering Justice Second Step social and emotional curriculum positive behavior intervention system cultural competence neighborhood schools a training on the n-word why in this day and age would an educator that is qualified to teach our children in Milton need a training on the n-word the terms that don't circulate are race racism segregated schools segregated classrooms racist policies racist ideas racist behaviors the juxtaposition that I see of this very rare and precious diversity with what's been really a misplaced and performative approach to this um it's just grown increasingly unsettling

101to to us over time and that dysfaction reached a fever pitch in recent weeks says we've been frankly dismayed um by how the schools have failed to respond to this moment when the entire country is Reckoning with issues of race and right now just being completely candid we're really questioning the educational environment that our children are learning and developing in and there's nothing more sacred to us and we only have one shot at this to do right by our own children and all the children in our community um you know I speak as a concerned parent I feel I can't let my kids be educated in a system that's diverse on the one hand but where racist policies ideas and behaviors go undiscussed and unaddressed and even worse one that's operating under a kind of

102a false cover um you know racism does not only hurt children of color um although the pain that's here tonight is is it's it's resonating through everyone right now um it hurts everyone and you know I don't want my kids just to be in a place that um you know avoids being racist it needs to be a place and and educates them in a way that equips them to confront racism in their lives um and you know the school is the schools have to lead on this right what we've we've the Reckoning that's happened in this country makes us realize racism for what it is it's all around us it's in all of us it's the air we breathe and it takes the work of everyone together to get it out led by the schools

103and it just makes me heart sick to think that my children might not have the opportunity to have zacchaea Jarrett who's so compassionate especially to her white students and her um the white parents in her classroom and if anyone hasn't listened to the WBUR interview with her it's her compassion is something that that I've learned from in in the last few weeks um and frankly there's no better educator to teach our children in this moment and the idea that the district may have jephrata is that is is just so troubling so I'll end with you know I'm a policy researcher and I'm the first person that wants to find a solution I want to lay out a plan I want to set up policies and steps but the one thing that I want to advise

104from that policy to the district is that a plan and a set of initiatives is is only a small part of the work right it's recognizing what's needed it's a transformation of values of organizational culture of practices in everyday um and it's going to require a lot more the district cannot how to their way to change on this um and you know it's going to start with a genuine and deep-rooted commitment to dismantling dismantling racism starting with leadership building a culture of Educators who are deeply committed to providing an anti-racist and Equitable education deeply committed meaning they are not qualified to teach in this district there are plenty of other racist districts in Massachusetts where teachers can go teach if they are not deeply committed to providing an anti-racist equitable education to children in Milton

105it needs to become part of every decision every day in the district and it's life work so the last thing that I ask is for the leaders in the district to be honest about whether this is your life's work whether you're up for this job and if you truly care about this you'll reflect on that and do the right thing for this community for the children of all the parents that are here tonight thank you thank you Glenn the next speaker um Mr Miss palawai hello my name is Lisa Holloway I'm at four collar Ave um I have a few words to offer this committee and the other parents that are on this call first I want to just thank the generosity and authenticity and love that the parents in this community have for our

106kids Tucker has been brought up several times this evening and I just want to make one correction maybe just a a another way to describe Tucker it's not that Tucker sheltered our kids it's the Tucker honored our kids honored every single one of them and the contradiction that happens when you walk down the street is mind-boggling I'm an educator that have been working in higher ed for the last 20 years and my colleagues and I and this whole country has realized we are in a convulsion and one way that my black colleagues has described it is that now that the white Community has realized racism is real we're dealing with it I am trying to reconcile at this moment is that Milton does not seem to understand that racism is real it has been one

107month the Kia Jarrett's incidents and we still have the pain and hurt from parents on this call tonight the leadership on this call needs to do better and I want to just introduce a term that is not about cultural competency it's cultural humility we need everyone on this call do not sleep tonight to be haunted by these stories and to do something else we we need better for our kids I am heartbroken as many of my Tucker family has said this evening there's a community a wide deep pool of expertise and education and health care that is on this call and not on this call willing to help I have not had the opportunity to talk to this group because I haven't at Tucker I've but I feel like we have been lucky but as

108another parent said it shouldn't just be a Tucker if you're looking for an example you have a model in this District not every school is perfect but you don't have to look very far another parent had said it there are many ways and next steps and things to do but the first thing we need to understand is that we need to listen thank you very much Glenn next speaker next to Stephen Godfrey hi we're this is actually Ayanna and Carlos Quinones um not Stephen Godfrey we have multiple um Zoom accounts so I apologize for that um we are have two children both at Pierce right now [Music] um I I wanted to I'm actually glad that I'm I'm following Lisa um who was talking about um sort of the I don't know the the overarching

109impact that racism and um and how real it is um so I'm a psychologist I work for many many years in Boston public schools and now I have a private practice in Milton um and my kids of course go to appears um I've been struck by and every year that I've had my private practice um had been saying to my family I can't believe how many black children I'm getting in my practice from Glover from hollycop from Pierce from Cunningham who until they got to those places miraculously we're not suffering any grave mental health issues and then all of a sudden the little bit of ADHD that they may have had or the little bit of learning a disability that they had coming from another District no problem they've dealt with it and then all

110of a sudden they're faced with um insurmountable pain on top of the things that they're already dealing with and so it's a the thing that I want to hit home is that it's not just I feel bad um but it's a mental health risk that we let these things go on Challenge and unaddressed um so that's that part the second thing that I really wanted to say um is that there are organizations throughout this country that are dedicated to helping educators learn how or appropriately educate children of color kosbach is one of them it's the Coalition of schools educating boys of color it's not just about boys of color it's about lots of people of color but they have conventions they've got conferences they've got education resources they support teachers that's just one of many

111and so if there's anything that I would like to urge is that while Lisa said it's important to listen and I absolutely think that that is crucial it's also important to act out of that listening to take steps in the right direction to make sure that you know we're all taking responsibility even as a person of color I can't profess to know everyone's culture I came for best to know um how everybody's impacted right but it's my responsibility as an educator as a psychologist as and and Educators that you all are to make sure that we are well versed and so I am urging you and challenging you to take steps in that direction to get the training to get our teachers and our staff the training that they need because I don't expect you

112to know but I expect you to want to find out did you want to say anything oh I did definitely so my name is Carlos Quinones um my wife we live at One Killer Ave I wanted to let you guys know that on a daily basis because we sit down at dinner together every single night I have to debrief my children and ask them what happened at school because of The Duality I have to explain to them why it is we have to know everything that has to do with white people in this country and it's history it makes me upset but I still have to keep my composure right because that's what's foreign would do but deep down inside I really hate the fact that I have to do that and to hear that

113after coming from Tucker which is very open in terms of having myself being involved in the classes and knowing all the teachers to be stopped at Pierce not be allowed to come inside and be a part of that Community unless you make an appointment I understand with security risks of course we have to do that but then I have to hear stories about black children being treated differently and my children not given all the opportunities that they should and I know they get A's they get a pluses and I'm the first one to fight for what they need but I want you guys to all recognize me and to see me because I will be involved a lot more that's all I have to say thank you very much check next caller um speaker rather

114under the name Dimitri I just want to make sure that my mic is on and I can be heard yeah we can hear you uh thank you very much for giving me the opportunity uh my name is Dimitri pation and I'm a long time Milton resident I have two boys who have gone to the Milton School System slack correction two boys that have gone up to the sixth grade in the Milton Public School Systems and I'll explain why my first son is a junior in college and we have to take him out of Milton after the sixth grade because of everything that we encounter with the teachers we experience bias with the teachers biased with the administrators in terms of Behavior through its boys of color if Johnny O'Malley speaks in the classroom and he's

115sitting next to Derek the teacher says Derek is speaking and Derek gets in trouble this has been going on in Milton for a long time and it's something that most of the folks who are on this call are aware of most of the folks who are on this panel are aware of I have a Rising seventh grader that I'm going to have to take out of Milton public school system who from an academic perspective have been one of the highest scorers on the MCAS for the district but yet we're going to have to pull in by the Milton because we don't want him to experience what we have seen so far we need to address the issue for what it is boys of color kids of color are treated differently in the Milton School System

116once they get to the middle school we have encountered issue with a child as a straight A Child where he's being sent out of the classroom because somebody else spoke and he answered the person who is speaking the teacher singles about so why is that happening why is Johnny O'Malley not sent to the principal's office but the brown and black boys are what is the data and I'm sure the data is there I've asked for that data before and no one wants to produce that data so we know these things are happening yet we don't want to address them heads on so again unlike many of the parents on the call I have had the opportunity to pretty much had a mulligan with the Milton School System I have a boy my oldest who's in

117college was a junior and my youngest who's a seventh grader so as we try to talk about issues of racism that are encountered in the Milton School System we have to deal with the biases that we see with the teachers we have to deal with the biases that we see with administrators where when we can see pattern with the data in terms of who's being sent to the principal's office or who's being sent out of the classroom where that child's education is being adversely affected yet no one is saying anything about it the data doesn't lie let's use the data and let's decipher what the data is telling us we have a pattern and that pattern needs to be corrected and most parents in Milton most parents of color when their kids start running into

118issues in the middle school they pull those kids out how many kids successfully go to the Tucker and spent one year at the Pierce and they disappeared there's a reason for that the reason parents are pulling kids out of the peers is because of all the issues that they encounter at the Pierce and it's very it happens day one there's a language that's being used there's a late language that's being conveyed to the kids when the kids come home they'll tell you what a teacher says and you know exactly they're being mocked and they're being targeted again the kids are not allowed to express themselves um if they have a certain amount of You In Their Skin if they do so then they are identified as being this disruptive disrespectful and it seems that especially

119when we're dealing with boys of color the folks who are supposed to be educating them seems to be afraid of them by the time they get to the sixth grade so I would love to hear and and I'll speak um with regard to the issue of experience with my older kid is something that I've shared previously shared with the superintendent and I'd like to hear what is the game plan this time around again the Gap I'm talking about is I have a junior in college and now I'm pulling my younger kid out for the same reason what are we gonna do this time around and I'll end there thank you very much uh next speaker Dr palatek um the last speaker in our queue is Kian Thornton okay but I don't see my face so

120can you see me um if you uh if you go to the lower left hand part of your screen if you move your mouse you should probably see the video where you could click on it yeah oh it's not working but that's that's okay um I just wanted to be one more voice of um an African-American parent in the school system um I've listened to everybody speak today and I just see like a lot of blank stares from the school committee um and a lot of pain coming from the parents that are speaking um and that's a little disturbing to me I really would like to see some pain on the side of the school committee too um my children um one of them went to Glover and has just graduated from Pierce the other

121one is currently at Glover um my daughter went to Glover and had a problem with the third grade teacher so um we spoke to the principal we went around and around with this she was saying inappropriate things to my daughter she was singling my daughter out um and saying things that to me came from a place of racism um we spoke with the principal we had meetings with the principal and the teacher nothing happened nothing happened to that teacher nothing happened that my daughter was moved out of the classroom nothing happened that my daughter was offered counseling nothing happened the teacher was allowed to continue teaching and was allowed to continue treating my daughter poorly um I didn't know who to go to so I had no choice but to just leave her there that's

122a problem every single black parent that I have spoken with has had a problem in the schools with their child um be it elementary school or at Pierce now my daughter just graduated from Pierce has had an ongoing problem with a specialist teacher there I spoke to the teacher I spoke to admin at Pierce um Mr Fish was extremely dismissive of my issues and I was pawned off onto somebody else we had a meeting with that admin and the teacher and my daughter was basically dragged through the mud she was not believed at all my daughter repeatedly said I feel targeted by this teacher he comes after me only that's a huge problem to me and again nothing was done the admin took the teacher's side even told my daughter that she was insulting the

123teacher it's completely wrong this cannot go on my son is in Glover now and I talk a lot about the fact that people black parents that I know have chosen to send their students to Tucker because it's the more diverse School my problem with that is that that takes away the diversity from the other elementary schools I don't want my child to be the only black student in a class I made that um I made that request to the principal who's currently at Glover I do not want my child to ever be the only black boy in his class kindergarten he had a black teacher he had other black children in the classroom it was great first grade he was the only black boy second grade which he just finished one other black child in

124there and I have a feeling he'll be with that black child um throughout his Glover career and that's a problem for me I'd love to see rezoning but more than that I'd love to see a commitment from Milton public schools to diversify the faculty and that means actively recruiting faculty of color and then retaining faculty of color and I think that that is of utmost importance and I think there's a sense of urgency to that okay um I know my time is almost up so I just wanted to make my voice another one heard um amongst the black parents that have showed up tonight thank you thank you very much we do have one more Nicole Dan foreign [Music] I did not intend to be the last person but I just wanted to express um

125my view right now after the things I've heard and my dealings in the district so we moved to Milton after being in another town for about a year and we moved to Milton because my daughter um in kindergarten had a really good friend and that friend told her one day my mom does no longer wants to be playing with the dark kids so we decided that District was not the place we wanted to be we moved to Milton because being a kid from the city Milton was sort of the ideal place to go there were black folks there were you were out of the city you were a little safer you could buy a home there and so we came to Milton um since then I've worked with a lot of you on the school

126committee a lot of the people I've heard speak tonight are now friends um of mine and I'm very proud of that they were on this call and we've worked primarily I've worked primarily in the Tucker District to um bring more to the to the young people at Tucker so we've had great stories tonight about Tucker and I want to speak to the culture of Milton uh the culture that has me right now um sitting I am across the street from a person who just a few years ago called the police on me for ringing their doorbell and almost had me murdered um across the street from my own home and that person now has a black lives matter sign um on their lawn so that is the culture of Milton and that is the culture

127that elected all of you um it is the culture that keeps you all in power and we've had these discussions about Tucker but I know the way Tucker's viewed in the district I've been in the site Council meetings where we're talking about Tucker test scores about us being lower about how the other schools are higher and the kids are so much sharper and the real estate agents use it to sell homes and the culture is and that is why when the kids head to pierce they are now at the Tucker table and they are why the teachers automatically discount our students because the culture has already said that they are less than so they can be at their very comfortable Elementary School and enjoy themselves and enjoy their cultural diversity and they can enjoy their

128their their their nights at the high schools but when they come to the Middle School the rest of the Town shows up and begins to show them what they truly think of them so what I am saying right now is what are you all going to do about the culture because you've heard the stories and this conversation continues to be framed upon the pain of black and brown people we think if we tell the white people enough how much this hurts they will stop and we have not seen that happen yet so what is going to change in the culture that puts you on this board that puts you in this position of power how are you going to step away from it to say no I actually believe in this anti-racist education I believe

129in the things these parents have told me I believe in this I'm not just going to send out a policy I'm not just going to send out some new guidelines or bullet points or steps for us to take I actually care so the next time a parent comes to me or that I will actually apologize to some of the parents that have been on the call tonight and shared these heart-wrenching stories about what has happened to their children and what continues to happen to their children when are we going to see it when are we going to hear and why should we even believe it I almost feel complicit because I've been on almost every committee diversity council meeting task force this town has had to offer for the last five years and I feel

130almost complicit because I've told people don't send your kid private we can do this in Milton we can band together and we can and we can make this happen we can have a voice and I don't know if I believe it I haven't seen it I haven't seen the change I've been in the discussions around diversifying the teachers I've been in the discussions around changing the way the schools are districted changing how we hire changing how we interview and I haven't seen anything so I feel complicit I've told people I've told my brothers and my sisters no no stick it out with no I no longer believe that and that was before what's happened with with Sakia so we want to see action we want to see you actually believe this that this is not

131in vain and I will leave it there thank you uh Glenn are you sure there's um is there more some more speakers two more have just raised their hands Catherine Arnold [Music] uh hi I've uh I was really inspired I mean I've been inspired by all the speakers tonight and I was really taken by Mr Daley's remarks at the end there um my husband and I bought our first house in Milton in 1996 both of our children were born here uh both of them have gone through the Milton Public Schools um at this point I live on Churchill's Lane 188 Churchill's Lane um I have always been concerned my my older son went to Glover my younger son went to Cunningham about the lack of diversity of the student body in the schools that my

132children went to um I was very happy that my older son had two Senegalese French teachers second third grade at Glover and that uh Mr Redden was the principal at Cunningham when my son was there my younger son um but and truthfully I have never paid a bit of attention to the school committee but when I heard and read the stories about Ms Jarrett and what happened to her I have become woke as to the school committee and I have been involved in earlier uh school committee issues to a certain extent particularly John O'Connor's case and I am disgusted and I am done and I vote I vote in every election I am the kind of a crazy person that writes postcards and puts signs in my yard and I pay attention and I know

133that the school committee is elected and some of the people in the school system at the top are hired and there's a time to clean house and I truly I'm at the point where I feel like it needs to happen because if someone likes Zakia Jarrett doesn't want to teach in Milton anymore because of the way she was treated for doing a great job then we're done our reputation as a great school system and French immersion and blah blah blah we're done so I would encourage all of you to do more than you have so far because and I I emailed the school committee I did get a reply from um director Varela or chairman Varela and I appreciated that but there's been no Collective Maya culpa for this and at a minimum that's what's

134required to start and then we can move forward and until then it's just sweeping it under the rug in the Milton way and my next move will probably be to file a public records request with the school system to find out who submitted this video where it was passed around who gave the orders for principal William fish to administratively discipline Zakia Jarrett because he didn't make that decision it came from somewhere else and we need to know the town deserves to know and we need to move forward forcefully to be a better place I've lived here for 24 years and I've never been so angry about anything in this town I can't even tell you so I'm done thank you very much next speaker lanita McCormick foreign I think you have to unmute yourself on

135the lower left hand side yep sorry about that unfortunately tonight it's just me my husband that in his class right now but um I'll speak for the both of us we are probably more recent families to Milton we've been here for going on five years now and have had a number of interactions with the schools overall um mainly at Tucker and it's been a great experience thus far I'm very incredibly saddened to hear all of the stuff that's going on at Pierce and really makes um the conversations we've had internally in our home even that more uh important around where we might end up placing our children who are both now currently Tucker students um and Winston we've had this conversation a multitude of times but one of the things I would really like to

136see and I'm sure my husband if you were here would be saying the same thing is it's time for the school committee to look different let's start from the top and bring it all the way down it's not just the teachers in our in our classrooms that need to be different but also the school committee and I know that that your seats are elected seats and um I think it's time for us to show up and look uh a little bit more like the representation of our community in which we sit um I was this is the first uh school committee meeting I've had the chance to attend and when I first jumped on the zoom I was kind of caught off guard I was looking at nothing that looked like me um and that's

137a little saddening to see that representation um at the top and to watch for the last almost two hours as people are giving their heart-wrenching stories and to see very little emotion on people's faces is incredibly disheartening so we as a community for the others of us who are on the phone and haven't said anything or have said something um I think it's time that we make the change uh and put our votes um where we're actually having this conversation now thank you uh any more speakers Dr palacek thank you Ashley my name is [Music] and I have four children two of which okay and one 's first grade this year coming from a private school in Boston and the moving to Milton process as a black family and trying to get your school your

138children registered for school was an incredibly like disheartening experience I've emailed and spoken to several people who are on the committee right now and I Echo a lot of the sentiments here and instead of going through all of the woes of our experience I just want to highlight like they're on black families at these other schools as well and in fact when my preschool child was um exceptions in the lottery for Tucker and is it possible us being a new black family coming to this community that I can keep my children together at the same school but if I'm going to have to commute for one child both of my children be able to be in the same space and the response to that was essentially well you don't have any buses that go to

139Tucker from East Milton and for clarification I live at 202 Church Street in Milton and everyone on my street is white when I go to the bus stop my children are the only black children and so I talked about my fear of having transitioned from the city to Milton um and what that experience might be like for my kids and it was so underwhelming and in fact one of the responses were well you know in an effort to make that not the case like we need to continue to have children of color in these other schools while that is also tokenism and it's concerned for me as an educator and someone who's taught me up for over 10 years and who currently works on curriculum development for inner city use 18 24 to think about

140what that means that I moved to Milton thinking okay we're affording our children this great academic opportunity but is it coming at the expense of them being validated and seen as brown and black children and so I share the sentiment you know to just move here and realize that the whole school committee is white is alarming for me and then to also realize that part of this almost integration of other schools every black family out here talking is in Tucker and so it makes me not I already felt alone and it feels even more Lonesome and it feels like wow will my child be the only black child going through Cunningham who thankfully they were able to find another young black girl who also wasn't able to go to Tucker so they're together and now

141that mother and I are trying to collaborate like oh my gosh I hope they're in the same class at least next year and it comes down to you're not even knowing if your kids like each other or if there's you know any commonality the point is is that they're both black and you hope they see someone that looks like you and to pay all this money to be in Milton and that be where I am is absolutely unacceptable in my opinion and so you know I do hope that it's some real change and you know I appreciate any solidarity statement that would come even though I haven't seen much from Milton um and I think if it isn't going to be a media change because you're in elected positions the start really is showing that

142you care and I get that it's tiring and exhausting I've also been on several of these calls like I said I've got four kids I'm having this conversation at work I'm having this conversation here I'm having this conversation in my other children's school districts and it's exhausting but some of you like look sleep on the call Super disengaged you're busy reading email I don't know but I also worked all day other feelings on this call have worked all day and it doesn't feel you know it's great for a listening session but you don't feel heard and so I think there's been some real non-verbal confirmation on other points but nothing when it comes around what the experience is the head nods come when we're talking about yes all children do deserve equal access and we

143should have you know representation but when people are talking about oh I tried to call you directly or I've had this conversation with you directly or I have a plethora of emails from me just onboarding into the school system that would make you would make you cringe so I just said you know think about that I don't know if you all have taken a training on how to keep a neutrally Charged face or if that's important but I do think that it's something to think about um if you're going to continue to have future conversations with this community thank you very much uh for your comments uh next is there anything Lauren Brown Lauren back hi sorry my name is Lauren Brown I live 32 Parkway Crescent um I've written several letters and played phone

144tag with Miss Gormley um so I do feel like um I have tried to speak up um we have played phone tag but I just don't feel like the response has been very good there's been a lot of back and forth um but mainly when I call to say it's I'm disappointed with how our school system is I'm disappointed with a response to Zakia I'm disappointed with so many different things right now and to see hearing all these families speak and seeing pharah in tears for how her daughter was treated and ignored it's heartbreaking but it's also a reminder that as a white person we need to speak up you know like she said they're tired I'm the white mother of brown child and I know too many black and brown mothers and fathers that

145are literally tired of fighting this battle and they shouldn't have to continue doing it you know this is not a this should not fall on the shoulders of people that every day have to explain to their children why they're treated differently like my daughter asked me why do white people think they're better than black people and brown kids like me I don't have an answer for that and to see you know everybody's sitting up here hearing stories but not really feeling it you have no idea what it's like to have to explain to a child that on a very basic level without getting into systemic racism and so microaggressions and so many other things that we have to face but on a very basic level just telling them that people don't like them because of

146their skin color and to think that my daughter's at Tucker now my son's going to soccer next year to feel like Tucker is such a great school and it's diverse and people are welcoming and it's all different kinds of families not just color wise but gay families lesbian families adopted families it's it's it I'm proud to send my child there every day but when I realize that the rest of the school system isn't like that and I have a neighbor across the street that goes to Glover and she says it's all white and there's no diversity and then hearing these stories about peers it's terrifying it's terrifying to think that kids think it's okay to have a Tucker table and I'm sure this is not a news flash to principal fish and it's you know

147what goes on in your school and if you don't then that's another problem but it's just time that we recognize it and I'm very disappointed in the fact that um as a school system this was a learning moment with Zakia and to get a letter saying you know we're a diverse community and we all stick together and literally within a week this black woman was fired or and then for saying that many cops are racist which is a true statement because no matter how you break it down many people are racist and then to see the trauma that it caused her and then reinstate her like that just makes up for everything and then another letter goes out saying you know explaining the situation and it didn't explain the situation at all if I didn't

148know what had happened personally I would have thought that the family that videotaped the class got in trouble and not that a teacher was fired that was not clear at all and that overall is just disappointing and shows that you're not willing to take responsibility and if you're not willing to take responsibility then we're not ready to move forward and make changes if you can't say we messed up and write a letter to all parents which I think many people have mentioned tonight and have a broad you know on the blog that goes to everybody and says we screwed up we we are responsible for what is going on in the world we all are we all want the best for our children we all need to speak up we all need to stand up

149and we all need to we're not perfect it's it's okay to mess up but there has to be some responsibility to say we had an opportunity to treat something as a learning moment and we completely screwed it up we fired a teacher and then reinstated her and thought we were going to sweep it under the rug and nobody would know about it and we'll put out a broad statement hoping that nobody notices and I want to know why as a school system we didn't you didn't stop to say wait a second this is a this is that moment in time where I make or break myself and unfortunately you broke yourself you didn't take that opportunity to say to the family that videotaped number one you're wrong against the rules black and white very easy

150but number two to say to that family why are you so offended by that statement what makes that such a you know raise a hair on your back to like react in such a way and it's just very disappointing that I want to know how that decision was made to fire the teacher rather than address the problem which was the family and to ask them that's a that's a place to start to say what about this offended you so much and how can we change it where can we go from here and it was just a last opportunity and I don't think there's been good follow-up and there hasn't been a good response and that bothered me enough but then on this call to see all these other problems and sounds like Pierce is number

151one but it's just there's a lot of change that needs to happen and it can be done like Stacy Solomon said but we need to be able to admit when we're wrong and you know being honest and saying I'm sorry goes a long way and I mean that's what our kids are learning at Tucker in kindergarten and that's what we need to be doing as adults thank you very much uh I think we have another speaker Dr palacek um Tamika hello this is uh Ryan gagne husband of Tamika we live at 30 Churchill Street um which we commonly refer to as The Fringe of Milton versus East Milton uh we're very close to High Park and opening a stone's throw from Mattapan our daughter went to Tucker had a great experience as well like other

152children but when she went to pierce for her first year here she did have some challenges and one of those was a teacher actually accusing her of cheating which she was not doing and we made it clear and we helped our daughter explain that to the teacher but it was the teacher still insisted and there was even another Tucker Student in the class that said to our daughter I know you're not cheating I believe you so that was one thing and it's like with other parents that we're hearing it's making us think you know should we consider to have our daughter in the school system the last thing I'll say I don't want to keep this too long is that just hearing that there's a Tucker table at Pierce that's not okay let's lead by

153example who's ever at Pierce get rid of that Tucker table sit down take those kids move them away get rid of that table let's lead by example that should not be there thank you thank you very much I think what to move on to um the superintendent's report I'm gonna make a motion that the superintendent um you could uh uh speak to item a but then I'm going to move up our citizen speak uh response on behalf of the school committee um to after your item a and then uh we could move on to uh your item B of return to school update thank you chairman Varela um I have a statement to make the Milton Public Schools is a community of lifelong Learners students and adults alike who strive to be better to grow

154to improve as individuals and as an institution over the past four months our community has been transformed in ways that none of us could have imagined in the midst of covid-19 Crisis our school buildings were closed turning our kitchens and living rooms into virtual classrooms many of us have adapted to working from home we learn social distancing and wearing face coverings we endured extended isolation from Neighbors families and friends some in our community have faced even greater hardships losing their jobs the losing loved ones to the disease needless to say none of this has been easy and it is far from over we now face the enormous challenge of devising plans to reopen schools to allow as many students as possible to return to in-school learning while ensuring the health and safety of all children

155and adults it is a complex daunting task but we work on it together it will be a stronger Milton Public Schools but not all the lessons learned over the past few months are specific to covet 19. this spring communities across the country began to confront like never before the devastating effects of institutional racism in the United States spurred by the deaths of George Floyd Brianna Taylor and Ahmad Aubry and far too many others the black lives matter movement has galvanized Legions of Americans to stand up speak out and demand change conversations about racism bias oppression violence and Injustice are difficult to say the least but they are critical conversations to have if we are truly committed to moving forward and building a stronger more inclusive Equitable Nation these difficult conversations are particularly vital in schools

156from preschool through High School our Educators must be equipped with the knowledge skills support and academic freedom to facilitate classroom lessons and discussions about these complex issues of race and racism every student in the Milton Public Schools should engage in thoughtful conversations meaningful study and critical thinking about race and racism both historically and today's context beginning last month a series of events here in Milton reminded all of us that we have much work to do on the issues of race and racism is your superintendent I accept full responsibility for mistakes that were made for the unfair treatment of a valued educator I've apologized publicly and privately for an errand judgment that I deeply wish I could undo I am grateful to the school committee for their willingness to join me in saying that what occurred

157was one should have never should never happen again and does not reflect who we aspire to be as a school system or that I aspire to be as your superintendent our responsibility now is to forge a path forward as a community of lifelong Learners we must be not only willing but in fact eager to improve our students all of our students deserve nothing less I'm proud of the work that we have undertaken together over many years to foster a more diverse Equitable and inclusive school system we know that families of many different identities and backgrounds often choose to live in Milton precisely because of us that our schools serve a diverse student population and work hard to create safe welcoming learning environments for all students and Families we have prioritized the hiring of teachers and

158leaders of color to ensure that our faculty will closely reflect the students we serve in fact one of the six Central pillars of our strategic plan is focused on creating a more Equitable and inclusive school system that work is centered around eradicating bias in many forms including racism sexism um excuse me transphobia xenophobia and Moa but we also know that these efforts are only the beginning of our journey members of our community should still experience in her tonight racism discrimination harassment and Injustice both in and out of school in everyday interactions and sometimes in larger more systemic forms of Oppression tonight we heard powerful testimony from members of our community parents of children in our schools about their experiences of racism and other bias I personally want to thank each of you for having the

159courage in your candor and sharing these painful personal stories our work must always be grounded in and elevated by the authentic voices of our students families and staff as I have shared previously I plan a series of listening sessions during this coming summer to hear additional additional voices from those with a range of experiences in our schools in addition to these individual experiences we also recognize the broader War systemic challenges we face we know that access and achievement gaps persist in our schools and that students of color particularly black and brown boys and young men experience disproportionately higher rates of special education qualification disciplinary action and other inequities these disparities are unacceptable and until they are remedied we as a school district will not achieve excellence over the past month in particular the call for

160significant change has been sounded most loudly and most clearly by the Milton anti-racist Coalition or mock I am deeply grateful to this group as well as to Citizens for diverse Milton both consider both consisting of parents and community members who have come forward not only to highlight what is broken but also to offer constructive ideas for reform Mark has challenged us all of us to proceed with a greater sense of urgency determination and accountability in becoming an Excellence with Equity anti-racist educational system one that rises raises the bar and closes gaps and they have rightfully pointed out that the school district Excel itself starting with the school committee and the superintendent must not merely support their work but lead it as your superintendent I have always been committed to ensuring equity and access and I

161have always acted on the principle that every student in the Milton Public Schools deserves the best educational experience one that enables them to reach their full academic and personal potential but I also hear the voices of those who say that has not always been their experience and I recognize that as a white person I operate from a position of privilege a critical component of this journey is for each of us to recognize and dismantle our own bias in blind spots learned in some cases over many decades inspired educated and challenged by neighbors and colleagues I commit with more determination than ever to lead this new chapter in the Milton public schools in Relentless pursuit of becoming an anti-racism school system to that end tonight I am reporting on some of the immediate steps we have

162already taken and the work we will Embark upon moving forward we are guided in these efforts by the Marx Milton Public School Reform platform that Mark submitted to me in the school committee the document proposes a variety of measures to promote an anti-racism School District in policy practice pedagogy programs curriculum resources and more the mock platform serves as a powerful starting point for the work ahead the document calls for a multi-purpose process that begins with phase one learning to make a comprehensive look at all aspects of the district's work through an equity lens and that is exactly what we have begun this week we will be seeking feedback from the community on our request for proposals to select an external consultant that will conduct an equity audit and serve as our lead partner on this

163work we are seeking an organization with deep experience in anti-racism work to help us access where we are and shot a course for reform moving forward we also share Mark's belief that this work must be guided by a plan not one that sits on a shelf but an actionable plan with specific targets milestones in metrics for measuring progress it is crucial crucial that this road map be aligned with the district's overarching five-year strategic plan as I mentioned earlier our strategic plan already includes a primary goal related to equity and cultural competency but I believe we must be more intentional in naming and distinguishing the work therefore tonight I am announcing that we will first establish the Milton Public Schools anti-racism action team this group will include members of the existing strategic plan subcommittee on equity

164and cultural competency as well as additional members including parents and community members we are hopeful that the representatives remark I am hopeful will that the representatives remark will participate in this action team I will co-chair this action team with a parent or Community member secondly the anti-racism action team will be charged with developing an anti-racism action plan it will build on the initial recommendations presented in the mock platform and will include short term and longer term goals and priorities as well as specific actionable steps with clear timelines and metrics for accountability the action team will submit a draft of its plan to the community and to the school committee for feedback revision and approval the action team will then lead implementation oversight and monitoring of the action plan itself in collaboration with the school committee

165we will finalize details on the action team and the plan in the coming weeks of course there will be challenges associated with launching these efforts in the midst of much uncertainty about what the new school year will look like but we are proceeding with a clear and compelling sense of urgency we will continue to keep the community informed about this work in a variety of ways including a new web page devoted to our anti-racism work linked from the home page of our District's website in closing I would like to share a personal reflection about this experience what this experience has meant to me as a lifelong resident of Milton a graduate of Milton Public Schools an educator and your superintendent during my time in the Milton Community I've seen the district evolve and improve I'm

166honored to have played a pot in the trajectory of progress like many learning organizations the school system changed over times time and with changes in our society in our town whether incorporating Technology Building new schools adopting new teaching practices or responding to National and international events we have demonstrated time and time again of our willingness and our ability to improve we are a strong school system because we have always refused to settle for the status quo I for one will Embrace this opportunity to discover what is possible and to strive to become anti-racism School District I still have a lot to learn a challenge I accept with great Passion above all I look forward to working with the school committee the Milton Educators Association staff parents Guardians students and community members to lead the Milton

167public schools to even greater Heights I have the utmost confidence that we will become all that we aspire to be thank you superintendent Gormley um uh so I I've moved up the school committee citizen speak um response uh um to this point in the meeting so I just think it's important after listening to such powerful uh statements tonight by parents um that we we give our response uh now um first and foremost I want to say that uh that on behalf of the school committee um you know we we do hear you and I want to say I and I know Mike my fellow colleagues we believe you um I'm sorry uh on behalf of my colleagues if our Expressions weren't um one that you feel worth concern but I've known these people for several

168years and um this is very powerful to hear um it was very very disheartening um I know there's a lot of work that needs to be done it's been a tough tough tough couple of weeks um I've raised my kids in this town my kids um all right Puerto Rican as well and I know that I I wanted to say that the statements that a lot of you said tonight was the same reason why my husband and I chose to move to Milton because of the diversity and I know that I've always said that Milton um is not a perfect school system um I have to say hearing the stories of the Pierce tonight has been um a lot to a lot to take in um so I just want to say as chair of

169the committee that I believe you all and I thank you very much for bringing your truth and speaking so honestly um you know your statements tonight were powerful and emotional um I'm sorry that uh you've experienced them and your children have experienced them um you know I think all the testimonies um underscore the the need for the Milton public schools to accelerate and deepen our work on becoming a more welcoming inclusive and Equitable school system um that um this is a time for us to look forward and to focus on uh some of some of the some of the initiatives that superintendent currently spoke about now but what we'll do for uh the immediate future and Beyond um in that spirit I I also want to um Echo the superintendent um and thank the Milton

170anti-racist Coalition and all the others in town who have spoken out signed petitions attended rallies um and have participated in other Civic activities that you've made your view known and again your voice is heard um again I want to say unequivocally unequivocally that we hear you we do hear you and we understand that um that what is needed is again as I said to move the district forward and become an anti-racism educational system A system that I I hope and I know that we can be um we're committed to making reforms and Investments needed to achieve the goal uh I know that superintendent spoke about the equity audit which I'm glad is the first Next Step also um the anti-racist action team um and you know again this was said to empower the team uh

171to develop an action plan that will serve as a road map um for the critical anti-racism work in the months and years ahead that need to happen um in this District um you know as a school committee we we have a critical role to play in leading the work particularly as it relates to policy that we're in charge of strategic planning and and Financial Resources you know um we oversee the budget and we have to work with other town officials uh the select board the appointed warrant committee who controls and oversees the allocation of the budget and um that's difficult uh getting the resources even in a town like this is always in all the years that I've been participating in the schools uh sharing overrides and um PTO leads and now as a school

172Committee Member it's um it's very stressful about how much um we have to continue to advocate for money to do what's needed for this system to move it forward but with that we are we're willing to stand ready and and be willing to lead and we will lead with courage and conviction um you know we do so I think with the full confidence many of you have spoken here tonight parents students staff mem staff members community members of the of the public schools that we hope will work with us every step of the way uh I feel that we will achieve success um but undoubtedly we will make some mistakes and um I hope that we can weather the highs and lows together and listen to each other and emerge um as a truly exemplary

173school system as a result of it so you know I want to thank again everybody for coming tonight and sharing sharing again their truth so I don't know if any other members of the committee want to share any thoughts before we move on um oh I think eight is going to go first oh sorry go ahead thank you um I also want to thank all of you who spoke tonight for sharing your experiences your your stories really break my heart and um Milton has become more diverse in the 32 years that I've lived here and I have been so happy about that I think it makes our community stronger more wonderful place to live my children were all raised here we're at Tucker school also know the beauty of Tucker School um and um it's

174heartbreaking to hear the painful choices that some of you are considering about what to do with your kids for Middle School and I just hope that you will you you all have to make your own choices but I hope that you will work with us to try to rectify the situation um in our schools and um we need you we need you to to work with us and I hope you will um as chair of the strategic planning advisory committee I make a commitment to continuing that work that will dovetail with the superintendents plans and incorporate those into our strategic plan so that we will all stay on top of the progress that is made and I hope that you all will stay um stay in touch and and volunteer if you are interested in

175volunteering to serve on the strategic planning committee I hope you'll contact me I would love to have some of you on that committee um we need we need your perspective and it would it would strengthen our work as well um so thank you and um thank you for speaking I I hear you and my heart is with you thank you remember Everhart do you want to speak sorry yeah I I um like you should I I think I'm in a little bit of shock um I think Winston's comments are being about being complicit like like juvenile right through my heart what he and Beverly said and I and know them because they've come to us many times on site councils and worked in good faith with us and um sometimes you just I don't know

176living in some other reality that's not real and I want to say to all those families that we hear ncu we are going to listen more and work harder and not be complicit anymore um anymore and I you know school committee meetings are not the best Forum um for these rich and important conversations and so we probably need to think about better ways to work with the community and have conversations that aren't just as school Community meetings but and are in the schools in the community um but the only reason you ever or at least for myself personally get involved is to not make bad decisions on the backs of children not support to support educators and to hear the stories and to realize that yeah we've been complicit in those things it's just not

177okay and unwilling and committing myself to the work of reflection and thought about how as a racist person we can undo the structural racism that exists and do better for our students because that's the only thing that matters in the world it's the only thing so I thank everyone for sharing their stories and for coming tonight I hope that people come more um to school committee and talk to us but I think I hope I say his name right and I have said about coming to our meetings no we want more members to come more people to talk to us and be engaged and we clearly haven't done a good job as a school committee of of doing that and of of welcoming people and being engaged as a committee in conversations so we can

178do better um and I hope I truly do hope that people will run for school committee and and and and and and be on the board I think you're we are too white and I would love for the school committee to reflect the community that we're a part of and I'll be the first person to come and help um if anyone seeks to do that in the future um but we do see you when we hear you and we will we will make change for certain it will take time and we'll make mistakes like you said Sheila but we can we can work together I I love this community too I raised all three of my children here and I I want to see people stay and be committed but I don't want them to

179feel unwelcome and to feel like their voices are not being heard and clearly that's how they feel so thank you for coming and sharing and um I I hope that we can work together to do better for us for our children for your children remember White um I just want to Echo when everyone else has been saying thank everyone for coming to speak tonight I know that I hate public speaking and it takes a lot of courage to come and to speak about such personal and such painful experiences I really appreciate appreciate people's um honesty and their willingness to share with us and we are listening um you know I love working with children I do that for a living and I listen for a living and you know children's pain is really tough it's

180just it can be heartbreaking and when you're a parent and you know your job is to advocate for your children in all settings you know it can be really very painful when your children are are dealing with things and you sometimes feel helpless so I also want to Echo everyone's comments that we need your help we need your passion we need your life experience that's different from to my life experience but I hope you will not give up on the town and not give up on the school systems and even though everyone has to do what's best for their children I appreciate that I'm hoping you can stay and help us make the system better and stronger yeah talk to Donahue thank you chair umbrella um that was I think I think the best word

181that I have for what I feel now is um grief grief at your experiences and um the reaction of that with which your experiences were met and that it it took us this long to to be here and I'm sorry for all of it um okay uh we do have to do a couple of uh other stuff on the agenda um I'm going to go back to um superintendent Gormley um could you move to uh Item B and give us a return to school update the return to school update and the happenings will be in tomorrow's blog and in each superintendent's uh e-blast this week okay great move to back under the chairs report we do have um uh I think we all had it in our packets I don't know where I put it

182with all my stuff here uh here we go um so the Massachusetts the Statewide Organization for school committees in Massachusetts Association of school committees um is putting together a Statewide resolution that they're asking each district um to Statewide resolutions they're asking each district to um vote to um to uh support the resolution and um and also um move the resolution out to our I'm sorry I just missed uh some reason I'm missing second resolution just give me a minute here put it here it is I apologize um so so they're they're making two resolutions um that they're asking again the school committees around the Commonwealth to vote and support uh the first one is a covid-19 state funding resolution and the second is a Statewide um anti-racism resolution so I'm just going to read uh

183I'll read I'll read the intro and then both of the resolutions and then I'm just going to ask for a joint move and vote for them so the Massachusetts Association board of directors has recommended um that we support um these two resolutions um and and for them to be forwarded uh for them to then forward them to their Statewide resolutions committee for can for consideration under the entire mask that's their acronym membership um the resolutions address the funding for expenses related to covid-19 including supplies and equipment needed to help reopen safely that originated with some of the CT Valley School committees and um also the response to the issues of racism equity and diversity um that have of course moved to Central stage in our country as a result of um the past few weeks

184um these resolutions were developed by their vice president and their past president um of the Milton I mean of the Massachusetts Association of school committee members um so I'm I'm going to read each one of them and then make a motion um that we approve them and once they're approved I then will ask if um if um Charlene can then send our um our resolutions and our approval of them to Governor Baker um uh education secretary Pfizer uh our state our state senator uh Timothy our Webb's Driscoll and Colony um Senate President Karen spilka and also house Speaker Robert DeLeo so I'll do covid first whereas if the schools are to reopen this fall in the midst of covid-19 pandemic it is the responsibility of each School District to do it safely and responsibly and

185whereas it is the responsibility of the state to ensure that each school district is able to pay for the enormous additional Staffing transportation and material expenses required to do this and whereas the state cannot expect mandatory covid-19 safety guidelines to be followed without also ensuring that each school district has the funds required to implement these guidelines and therefore let it be resolved that the state must guarantee each School District full reimbursement for whatever covid-19 expenses um are required to follow State mandates we must ensure Statewide School reopening that is safe responsible and equitable and then the second resolution States whereas as schools have the responsibility to equip students with their civil rights of obtaining a free and appropriate public education it is the responsibility of each school to ensure we create a welcoming Community for

186all students and whereas it is the responsibility that every District provide to All District staff including school committee members annual professional development on diversity equity and inclusion and whereas every district will commit to recruiting and retaining a diverse and culturally responsive teaching teaching Workforce and whereas every district will examine their policies for institutional and systematic racialized practices and Implement change with sustainable policies that are evidence-based and whereas every district will incorporate into their curriculum the history of racial oppression and works by black authors and works from diverse perspective and whereas we are a school district we as school district leaders can no longer remain silent to the issues of racism and hate that continue to plague our public and private institutions be it resolved at the Milton District and all the school districts in the

187Commonwealth must guarantee that racist practices are eradicated and diversity equity and inclusion is embedded in practiced for our students families faculties and staff we must ensure our school our own School culture and that every District in the Commonwealth is anti-racist that acknowledges that all lives cannot matter until black lives matter so can I have a second um to approve and adopt accepted by Dr Donahue I can see all of you so all those in favor of the adoption of both resolutions please raise your hand so I can sing okay it's unanimous great um so I think that we have um Dr I mean uh Dr Craig was unable to be here tonight uh because she's on vacation but there's a power outage um where she's vacationing so she has no internet and couldn't get on

188um so I in her place um unless Margaret you want to do it um because you're a member of Finance subcommittee um I'll make the motion to approve the following vendor warrants does that make sense that's fine I wasn't at the last meeting so I don't know before I do it um um member white are there any ones that you need to be I'm all set for all of them yeah all right so I'm gonna I'm gonna do um um an all-encompassing motion to um to approve all of them so I'm going to make a motion it's made to approve the following vendor warrants warrant 50 payable June 11th in the amount of 142 172.50 warrant 51 payable June 18th and the amount of 345 000 372.28 warrant 52 payable June 25th in the amount

189of twenty six thousand dollars twenty six thousand one hundred dollars warrant fifty three payable June 2nd and the amount of 490 820.44 and warrant fifty four payable July 9th and the amount of 193 616.53 you have a second second with weight all those in favor raise your hand it's unanimous um okay I'm going to um move to a policy uh so Dr Donahue I didn't know if you wanted to just quickly update and discuss the policies uh yeah so just briefly um uh we we spoke about our educational Equity policy that we're in the middle of crafting and um the steps that we're going to take to ensure that we have a a robust policy that's um uh actionable and meaningful and that will involve a lot of I think Community engagement in the development

190of the policy which I hope will take for the next few months so our my plan is to um to put together an initial draft uh and submitted or circulated uh to the community and to some various stakeholders in the community receive some feedback work on the policy and then hopefully you buy um by September we should have something that's um appropriate and we can bring it for the school committee similarly with remote learning um that's obviously an important policy we're working on crafting a policy that's both General and specific and I addresses a lot of the issues that are we're in the middle of right now um uh as well as some of the um the other related issues and the sort of tangential policies that it touches on with internet usage and intellectual

191property and um a recording of our of our remote learning Etc so that I also expect to to have to take several several weeks to craft a policy that's appropriate so hopefully Again by the Fall um we'll have something that we can discuss as a as a school committee ritol there are a number of other policies smaller policy issues where you know some minor additions and revisions to policies unrelated policies to these that you'll probably see in the next meeting or two trickle through and then um my last point is I think it's I think it's worthwhile as we sort of think about policy not just thinking about policy for the schools but um policy for the the town uh writ large and if there are things that we should undertake both in terms of

192our our desire for an anti-racist Town um but also sort of more mundane nuts and bolts in terms of um uh other active issues in the town be it commercial development or what have you um whether it's worth us taking a position as a school committee then hope then that's something that we should talk about as well so at a future meeting I'll um I'll try and put together some thoughts on that for us to talk about thank you very much uh Dr Donahue uh next we have approval of minutes uh there are three uh minutes to um approve they are uh the minutes of May the May 27 2020 school committee the June 3rd 2020 school committee and the June 10th 2020 school committee um so I'm gonna make a motion I know that

193we had those in our packets and were sent out to read um uh I'm gonna make a motion for approval of them do I have a second does anyone have any changes or additions to the mom to them okay so all those in favor if you can raise your hand okay unanimous um okay next is old business which we don't have any um next um next meeting agenda items [Applause] um I think that so our next meeting is is it the 28th I believe and just double checking uh we have school committee on the 28th correct yeah okay um that's a Tuesday so it must be the 29th Jill are you talking about July yeah okay when is the special town meeting you know that the Warren tonight but I can't remember what date it

194is I see July 22nd I couldn't recall the dates I knew it was 20 something sorry well July 28th that's 28th okay it's a Tuesday so I I think 22nd yeah ours is the 22nd yes oh yes all right yeah because I know that we want to meet for them for that budget right so 22nd all right 7 P.M I um I think that we'll have policy on that Dr Johnny you'll be able to have an update on policy um and then um we would have a more maybe a little bit more thorough update on return to school as well mm-hmm yes yeah we'll have Finance as well as always um is there any health and wellness um Betty that that are you guys meeting over the summer or not at all no okay all

195right so we'll put those three um on um on that on the agenda and um anything else that comes you can let us know and we can add for for that meeting um uh there's a there's a citizen speak portion um number 12 um I don't know if there's anybody else left that might have anything else they want to say we have it at the beginning at the end of the meeting there are no hands raised okay checking okay then I'm gonna make a motion to um conclude um the meeting can I have a second okay all those in favor they can raise their hand thank you and thanks again for everybody who um spoke again tonight and who turned in and to listen we strongly urge you as um many members said tonight um

196to to please attend and to please speak um we'd like to hear from you and um it's meaningful and important work to come to Citizen speak and share thank you all good night