[0:00] called this moment this meeting to order
[0:03] with a moment of silence
[0:04] and then a salute to the flag
[0:13] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the
[0:16] united states of america
[0:18] and to the republic for which it stands
[0:20] one nation
[0:22] under god indivisible with liberty and
[0:24] justice
[0:26] ms santiago can you call the role please
[0:34] yes present andre green
[0:38] here laura patone
[0:54] mclaughlin yeah
[0:59] emily ackman here carrie normand
[1:04] here we have a quorum
[1:07] thank you so much for that um i i also
[1:10] wanted to say welcome to everyone i know
[1:12] it's been
[1:13] a if you had a summer it might feel odd
[1:16] and it's an odd start to the year but
[1:19] um to our families our students our
[1:22] educators and our staff
[1:24] thank you for uh making the best of what
[1:27] is
[1:27] an unbelievably complicated and
[1:31] sometimes confusing and frustrating uh
[1:34] state that the world is in right now
[1:36] so i particularly as a parent i want to
[1:39] really thank
[1:40] the educators i can tell you
[1:43] the warmth and the confidence
[1:47] that educators have conveyed to students
[1:50] and families has been
[1:52] reassuring um
[1:55] so i i that is as a parent and i'm part
[1:58] of the school committee i just want to
[1:59] extend a huge
[2:01] thank you and the next
[2:04] the first item is the report of the
[2:06] student representatives in the santiago
[2:08] i don't
[2:09] see cut cat natalia are they
[2:14] have you were you able to have you
[2:16] spoken with them yet tonight
[2:18] natalia's on the call she is
[2:22] under attendees and
[2:25] cats should be joining us shortly okay
[2:29] um well you know that
[2:33] should we wait for cat is that do we
[2:36] know she's coming soon
[2:38] they are both on the call fantastic
[2:42] all right well uh you know what there's
[2:44] nothing uh
[2:45] i love more than hearing from our
[2:47] students and so
[2:48] i want to welcome back natalia and kat
[2:52] as our stu representatives and so item
[2:54] number two is a report of our
[2:56] student representatives i would love to
[2:58] hear from you both
[3:00] first how are you doing how was your
[3:01] summer the start of the year
[3:04] from a student perspective welcome
[3:13] do they need to be unmuted
[3:21] natalia is self-muted
[3:24] i'm not sure if she could hear us
[3:26] natalia can you unmute yourself if you
[3:28] can hear us
[3:30] because you're unmuted
[3:34] yes hi it's so nice to hear your voice
[3:38] this cat with us too um yes
[3:42] i texted her and she should be i don't
[3:44] know if she's having any
[3:46] difficulties right now um um
[3:49] natalia do you want to kick us off yeah
[3:52] sure
[3:53] so um hello everyone it's nice to see
[3:55] you guys hope you all had a great summer
[3:58] um i had a for the most part a good
[4:01] summer
[4:02] um so the first thing i kind of want to
[4:05] mention
[4:06] um so i'll be talking a little bit about
[4:10] some things i've heard from the student
[4:11] body about online and remote learning
[4:13] and then kat also
[4:14] has her part as well so um
[4:17] a little bit about remote learning is
[4:19] that the
[4:21] summerville high school students have
[4:22] felt a little strange um
[4:24] kind of getting back into it which is
[4:26] totally understandable
[4:28] um some have expressed how they do not
[4:31] like having classes
[4:32] after 2 30 since that is like the usual
[4:35] time we all get out and then some have
[4:38] worried about
[4:39] learning like math at home because they
[4:42] don't have
[4:43] the teacher present to be able to help
[4:45] them on the spot
[4:46] to have that connection between teacher
[4:48] and student
[4:50] um also some have asked me questions
[4:53] about block 7
[4:55] and how that's going to work because
[4:56] sometimes it does go past that
[4:58] two o'clock mark where it starts going
[5:00] towards three
[5:02] i know some students have like mandatory
[5:04] classes and then some don't so um
[5:09] there's a little bit of um
[5:12] students just don't like seeing that
[5:16] at least that's what i heard and then
[5:21] besides that i haven't heard any other
[5:23] complaints
[5:25] i think it's very close to what we did
[5:27] at the end of the school year
[5:29] so and then i also wanted to mention
[5:31] something that i
[5:33] have been part of which is
[5:36] the sunrise somerville group here
[5:40] um so the sunrise tell us what that is
[5:43] so it's run by um shs students
[5:46] this group aims to combat climate change
[5:50] by informing students about
[5:52] climate change and how students can use
[5:54] their voice
[5:55] to spread awareness as well as inform
[5:58] others on how
[5:59] we could vote for certain people and
[6:02] certain laws
[6:04] that could then help climate change so
[6:07] um i've only been to two meetings so far
[6:11] i'm it's very new um so
[6:15] if you guys want to check out um what
[6:18] we're up to
[6:19] um we have an instagram account it's
[6:21] sunrise somerville
[6:22] so i just wanted to put it out there and
[6:25] then
[6:26] that's all i have to report for the path
[6:30] that is that is a lot and first of all
[6:34] how exciting that students again from
[6:36] somerville are
[6:37] becoming active both within the school
[6:40] but also
[6:40] in the greater uh political world
[6:43] democracy
[6:44] voting i it matters so much and we have the
[6:51] presidential election this year we have
[6:53] local elections
[6:54] next year there is a lot
[6:57] going on and i think what we've
[6:59] discovered
[7:00] we already knew but i think covet has
[7:02] really highlighted
[7:03] is that your local government um
[7:07] is it matters too right because when you
[7:10] don't have leadership at other levels
[7:12] it becomes even more important so i am
[7:15] thrilled that you are doing this
[7:17] um and before we i was gonna ask
[7:19] assistant superintendent mazza if he
[7:21] could address some of your questions
[7:23] cat are you with us yet
[7:26] i didn't she may be happy
[7:33] [Music]
[7:37] terry are you waiting for me to answer
[7:38] or do you want cat to um
[7:41] i don't know if cat's there
[7:44] so um
[7:47] can you hear us
[7:51] she's unmuted
[7:54] and she's not muted herself
[8:02] maybe while we're figuring that out mr
[8:04] mazza if you could
[8:06] speak explain what the
[8:10] class 7 is the fluctuations at the high
[8:13] school level but also speak
[8:17] to some we've only had
[8:18] we haven't had a full week of uh regular
[8:21] high school yet or
[8:22] um or any school if you could speak to
[8:24] that
[8:25] question of how does a student when they
[8:27] have a question in particular so you
[8:29] know
[8:30] natalia mentioned in math how is it
[8:32] going to be
[8:33] both instruction for the class and
[8:34] individual
[8:36] help individual students um could you
[8:39] just repeat the last part
[8:40] you faded out a little bit i just didn't
[8:42] hear that last part i'm sorry um
[8:44] so there's the question of what block
[8:46] seven is and why what how that
[8:47] fluctuates but also
[8:49] in terms of when we're teaching remotely
[8:52] that
[8:53] if an instruction teacher starts teaches
[8:55] a lesson
[8:56] how then will there be either individual
[8:59] student support or small group
[9:01] work done especially
[9:04] in something like math where it really
[9:06] is you need to be able to
[9:08] do some of it to be able to figure out
[9:09] what you know and what you don't know
[9:11] sure i'll start with that uh through you
[9:14] um
[9:14] so the support piece i mean it's a great
[9:16] question right you have your teacher
[9:17] teaching the class
[9:19] um you need a little additional support
[9:20] how do you make that happen i think
[9:22] one of the pieces is we need to work
[9:24] with our counselors to create a schedule
[9:26] that works for you so you can get that
[9:27] support
[9:28] obviously you can't get the same support
[9:30] when the teacher is teaching you know
[9:32] a lesson but i think really looking at
[9:35] finding places
[9:36] within schedules that you can carve out
[9:39] for that support
[9:40] i was going to take a little creativity
[9:42] on everyone's part
[9:43] because i know most of the high school
[9:45] student schedules are pretty full
[9:47] even though there's a few you know few
[9:49] classes one week and then you have three
[9:51] classes
[9:52] another week but i think the the support
[9:54] piece
[9:56] i would say talk with the counselors um
[9:58] and let's make sure that we
[10:00] can fit that into your schedules i mean
[10:02] we can also look at you know tutoring
[10:04] opportunities
[10:05] um if need be but we want to make sure
[10:08] that you know if you do have questions
[10:10] if you do need support
[10:11] that you can't get it sooner than later
[10:14] so that way we're not falling too far
[10:15] behind
[10:16] i think that's an important piece i
[10:18] think black seven was a creative way
[10:21] for teachers uh to allow for
[10:24] some of that support to happen um we
[10:27] know it runs a little bit it's
[10:29] the class is a little bit shorter than
[10:30] the other blocks
[10:32] but the teachers are looking for ways
[10:34] that they can provide support
[10:37] and give students an opportunity to have
[10:40] advisory
[10:41] to do some creative things as well
[10:44] so you know within black seven again i
[10:48] think it it
[10:49] comes down to you know what students
[10:52] need
[10:52] um at the end of the day
[10:56] okay and i think natalia
[11:00] if you're wrong i think part of the
[11:01] question was at the high school where
[11:02] classes are in 90-minute blocks
[11:06] will there be time during those 90
[11:08] minutes when we have
[11:09] a more typical week for some individual
[11:13] student work with the teacher or maybe a
[11:16] teacher breaking into a smaller group or
[11:18] if it's a class that's also supported by
[11:19] a pera
[11:21] how will that those blocks of time be
[11:23] used
[11:24] sure yeah through you chair norman i
[11:26] think that's right i think the reason
[11:27] for the longer blocks is to build those
[11:29] supports in
[11:30] um as needed uh and and to really allow
[11:34] teachers to break classes into smaller
[11:35] groups
[11:36] because we know that's when you know the
[11:38] true uh learning happens
[11:40] and teachers uh you know one-on-one
[11:42] relationships or in small groups
[11:44] allows students to master skills ask
[11:47] live
[11:48] questions get live feedback uh more so
[11:51] than you would in a class of 25.
[11:53] so i think within the 90 minute blog
[11:55] there are ample opportunities for
[11:56] teachers
[11:57] to split the class into several groups
[12:00] so that a teacher can rotate from group
[12:02] to group
[12:03] allowing students to get that support on
[12:05] a daily basis
[12:07] thank you natalie does that answer a
[12:11] question does that give you some more
[12:12] information
[12:14] um for the most part yes but i also have
[12:16] a question
[12:17] on so we do our classes on
[12:21] zoom and when we break out into groups
[12:24] we can't break up into like four or five
[12:27] people
[12:27] because of like they've told us that um
[12:31] the kids the students need to be
[12:32] supervised and then
[12:34] each individual kid is is kind of
[12:37] separated into their own breakout room
[12:40] and then that kind of takes a little
[12:41] longer for the teachers to get to one
[12:43] student than the next and the next and then by the time he gets
[12:47] back to you or she you might have
[12:49] already
[12:50] forgot your question or maybe
[12:54] more confused and then you run out of
[12:55] time so
[12:57] how is how like
[13:00] in what ways can we make that
[13:04] better if that makes any sense yeah
[13:06] through your chair no it does make sense
[13:08] and and i totally understand where
[13:09] you're coming from i think this is
[13:10] new uh for everybody the idea of
[13:13] instead of breakout rooms you have
[13:16] individual rooms or
[13:17] basically waiting rooms where you're
[13:18] doing some work waiting for
[13:20] you know your teacher to come and answer
[13:23] your questions work with you
[13:24] individually
[13:25] while the teacher is working with a
[13:27] small group um one of the suggestions i
[13:29] have is
[13:30] if you do have a question when you are
[13:33] in a waiting room i
[13:34] would write it down just so you have it
[13:36] um because it
[13:37] you know and i think teachers are trying
[13:38] to figure out and navigate
[13:40] the complexity of having a small group
[13:42] and then getting to individual students
[13:44] um i think as time goes on i think it
[13:47] will get more efficient it'll be easier
[13:49] i mean teachers will be able to navigate
[13:51] a small group and then move to
[13:53] individual students
[13:54] a lot quicker but again i would write
[13:57] some things down
[13:58] just to have them because it's important
[14:00] that you're able to ask your question
[14:02] and we don't want you to forget your
[14:03] question because it might
[14:05] you know lead to a different question
[14:06] down the road with basically what you're
[14:08] working on right now
[14:09] so does that help at all
[14:14] yes it does okay love your questions
[14:18] um one last question i'm sorry oh yeah
[14:21] absolutely
[14:22] um i heard from another student um that
[14:27] um block seven will continue being um
[14:30] remote learning even though we're back
[14:33] let's say we have
[14:34] we're back in school that block seven
[14:37] would continue being online
[14:39] is that true or false
[14:42] uh through your new chairman chair
[14:43] norman through you um there's a
[14:45] possibility that it will remain
[14:47] remote and i think if it does it really
[14:49] allows for greater flexibility
[14:51] for both students and staff um to create
[14:54] you know authentic learning experiences
[14:56] more so than everybody coming together
[14:58] in one space
[14:59] you can actually be in your own space
[15:02] learning in a different capacity
[15:03] um so there's a possibility yes
[15:06] there's also and mr mazda correct me if
[15:08] i'm wrong part
[15:10] so for those of you who uh are not
[15:12] familiar with the high school schedule
[15:14] the high school will be doing
[15:16] three one week a which will have three
[15:18] longer
[15:19] three classes longer blocks and a week b
[15:23] uh and then there is block seven which
[15:26] will be
[15:27] which will meet four times for a shorter
[15:29] period of time in both weeks
[15:31] the other part about it natalia is is
[15:34] getting back to this is a
[15:35] health health concern so because glock
[15:40] 11 is
[15:40] running both the a week and the
[15:44] week so if you line up going back in
[15:46] different cohorts
[15:49] it would cross over that and i think
[15:51] some of the concern will be a mixing of
[15:52] students
[15:55] trying to minimize and again a lot of
[15:57] this
[15:58] we will know more when we know which
[16:01] students want to remain remote
[16:03] there's a lot of logistical pieces to
[16:05] this
[16:06] but you're right to question you know
[16:08] why is this one class
[16:10] potentially still remote um
[16:14] yeah i mean that's a that's a really good question
[16:17] and it affects a lot of students so
[16:19] thank you for asking that
[16:21] sure norman you are a spot um thank you
[16:25] um cat are you with us and did you want
[16:27] to add
[16:28] anything or um can you hear me this time
[16:33] yes absolutely you have the floor my
[16:35] friend it's so nice to hear your voice
[16:37] it is nice to see you all as well i'm
[16:40] grateful to have this opportunity to
[16:41] come back and check in because
[16:42] um i don't think i'll be a student
[16:45] representative this year
[16:46] unfortunately um but it's good to be
[16:49] able to check in with you guys about you
[16:50] know how the summer went for us shs students and how um we're
[16:54] taking the reopening
[16:56] so thank you guys for having me um i
[16:58] apologize earlier i was like on the
[16:59] phone call and it wasn't working but i'm
[17:00] here now
[17:03] welcome thank you so i
[17:06] want to reinforce everything natalia
[17:07] said she like hit the nail on the head
[17:08] with like what she said um
[17:11] i think that if what mr mazza said like
[17:14] really
[17:15] clarified um to me what the remote seven
[17:18] was because i think i was personally
[17:19] confused about what the remote seven was
[17:21] because i
[17:22] had never heard of michael rowley mr
[17:24] rowley who is
[17:25] my my counselor for that so i was a
[17:28] little bit confused as well
[17:29] but this clarifies it that i think that
[17:31] you know i'm seeing the teachers do want
[17:32] to give a lot of
[17:34] area for support which is amazing um
[17:37] i will give like the general like um
[17:39] feedback that i've heard from students
[17:41] uh before we reopened the school and we
[17:44] were just doing online learning
[17:46] um in the beginning of the quarantine i
[17:48] think that a lot of kids were
[17:49] worried because they thought that online
[17:51] school was going to be distracting
[17:53] or it was going to be difficult you know
[17:55] with kids that have like
[17:56] multiple siblings or just have a noisy
[18:00] environment i think that was
[18:01] one of the biggest concerns but giving
[18:03] all students access to chromebooks
[18:04] really really helped with that you know
[18:06] there's no excuse not to show up right
[18:08] um and uh i think that we're all been a
[18:11] little bit forced to take control of our
[18:12] own education
[18:14] because you know no one's going to tell
[18:15] me to get off my phone if i have my
[18:16] camera off and i'm muted and no one can
[18:18] tell if i'm
[18:20] um if i'm just you know paying attention
[18:23] to the bird outside my window or if i'm
[18:25] actually listening to the teachers just
[18:26] saying
[18:26] so i think that a lot of us have had to
[18:28] um
[18:29] have had to take a lot of control over
[18:31] our own our own education and our own
[18:34] uh learning which is you know not easy
[18:36] for any of us but um with the reopening
[18:40] something i did see was uh there was a
[18:42] lot of confusion about
[18:44] um you know the new classes the new
[18:46] stuff which is why i think it's a good
[18:48] idea that we had a whole week for
[18:49] orientation at the high school
[18:51] um i think that's that's helped you know
[18:53] people find the zoom links and people
[18:55] understand their schedules and all this
[18:56] and all that and i've been personally
[18:58] emailing mr richard nonstop to try to
[19:00] figure out what's going on so
[19:02] i think that the support groups have definitely helped
[19:06] um people on my on my snapchat my social
[19:09] media people were asking me
[19:11] mostly about the teacher mentors and i
[19:14] personally i'm still a little bit
[19:15] confused about what uh as to what a
[19:17] teacher mentor is
[19:18] but um that was that was the biggest
[19:20] thing that i heard like what is a
[19:22] teacher mentor what is this person doing
[19:24] why am i assigned this person that
[19:25] person so i think that was
[19:27] the biggest thing that i heard from
[19:28] other people another thing for me i'm a
[19:30] senior
[19:31] um i only have to take 20 credits
[19:34] and i have a lot of gaps in my schedule
[19:37] um i think people were confused about
[19:39] that and about like remote seven the the
[19:43] thing that i saw with remote seven was
[19:44] not only
[19:45] um is it gonna continue to be this way
[19:47] after you know if we go back to school
[19:49] like physical campus
[19:50] and also what time is it gonna be
[19:52] because i have a class that's remote
[19:54] seven
[19:54] but it's from eight to nine instead of
[19:56] from two to three
[19:58] so those are the biggest things that i
[19:59] found i've been mostly you know emailing
[20:01] rashaw to figure this out
[20:02] but i think the one thing that i will i
[20:04] will ask to the committee is how can i what can i
[20:09] tell the students when they ask me
[20:11] what is a teacher mentor
[20:14] uh through your chair norman so when
[20:17] um the high school staff was you know
[20:20] planning
[20:20] building schedules and planning for you
[20:23] know this reopening
[20:24] they were trying to figure out a way to
[20:26] have each student
[20:28] have an adult in the building that they
[20:30] could connect with
[20:31] on a daily basis someone that they could
[20:33] go to really just have a conversation
[20:38] knowing that
[20:39] high school students are extremely busy
[20:41] but they wanted to provide
[20:43] at least one adult to have a
[20:46] communication have a relationship
[20:48] with and i think that is so important
[20:50] because with with
[20:51] high school students schedules being so
[20:52] busy and you know after school schedules
[20:55] there's never really time to make that
[20:57] connection with adults
[20:59] in high school and i'll be honest with
[21:00] you this is you know one of the first
[21:03] times that i've heard
[21:05] about this kind of mentoring program in
[21:07] a high school
[21:08] i've heard in elementary and middle
[21:09] schools but at a high school i think it
[21:11] takes on
[21:12] a whole different level of of complexity
[21:15] but it's necessary and i think
[21:18] it's a little startling for students
[21:19] because you're not used to
[21:21] you know you have a person that you
[21:22] specifically can go to that's not your
[21:24] guidance counselor
[21:25] um you know or an assistant principal
[21:27] but it's someone really to form a
[21:29] relationship with and someone that you
[21:30] know will be there
[21:32] if you need to have a conversation um
[21:34] you know
[21:35] and we think it's important those
[21:37] relationships are crucial
[21:39] especially now with you know everything
[21:42] being remote
[21:43] we want to make sure that all students
[21:44] are comfortable you know with the person
[21:47] that they have
[21:47] and again it will take work to build
[21:49] that relationship but
[21:51] we think you know students in high
[21:52] school really have the capacity to do
[21:54] that
[21:55] and so that's that's a staff they were
[21:57] very excited about this
[21:58] um about building relationships with
[22:00] students and i think it's just it's
[22:02] going to be an incredible thing
[22:03] but it will take time to get off the
[22:05] ground
[22:07] and let me just add to that and
[22:10] cat natalia you are so good at asking
[22:14] questions and knowing and i applaud that
[22:16] and not just
[22:17] for yourself but on behalf of other
[22:18] students the mentor
[22:21] i think is also there are so many
[22:23] questions about the schedule and how do
[22:25] i do
[22:26] this and i mean this is new to everybody
[22:28] right there was no
[22:29] like pandemic education textbook handed
[22:32] out so
[22:33] um i mean i applaud the all of our
[22:36] teachers
[22:37] and this is about the high school the
[22:39] mentors it is
[22:41] it comes from a place of wanting to have
[22:42] as much
[22:44] give students as many as much access to
[22:46] adults to ask questions to check in with
[22:50] um and that's why this it was created
[22:53] in particular this year right now when
[22:55] we are remote and will be i mean earlier at the town
[22:58] hall
[22:59] the mayor was saying december 1st would
[23:02] be the earliest that we opened the
[23:04] buildings and then and then the rest of
[23:05] the meeting was to describe
[23:07] all the different steps that need to
[23:08] happen so
[23:10] that's where it came from is is a real
[23:12] because we're not
[23:14] you know there's you're not walking down
[23:16] the hall and running into
[23:18] ms brewster cook where you can just ask
[23:20] her a question so these relationships
[23:22] these questions these
[23:23] have to be much more intentionally set
[23:26] up
[23:27] and especially some students are not as
[23:32] they asking questions asking for help
[23:35] doesn't come as easily and so if there's
[23:37] already this designated relationship
[23:39] we're hoping that that will alleviate
[23:42] that
[23:44] we don't want any student to be left and
[23:46] or any family to be like you have a
[23:48] question to ask it and if you don't know
[23:50] who the mentor is a great place to start
[23:53] if you have a good relationship with
[23:55] another teacher or your guidance
[23:56] counselor
[23:58] this doesn't you know have to go to the
[24:01] mentor it's just to give students
[24:03] another
[24:04] option and also to have another adult
[24:07] who's checking in on you just making
[24:09] sure like do you still have your
[24:10] connectivity uh are you looking at your
[24:14] senior what are you thinking about for
[24:15] next year because it's going to look
[24:18] your senior year is going to look so
[24:19] different you already know that
[24:22] so that's really the the thinking behind
[24:25] it
[24:26] and chair norman if i could just make
[24:27] one more comment okay you know you bring
[24:29] up a great point about
[24:30] you know nobody's going to tell you to
[24:32] get off of your cell phone and and
[24:34] you know off of snapchat and things and
[24:36] i think one of the things that
[24:37] the teachers and all the adults at the
[24:39] high school did is when they were
[24:40] looking at creating this program for
[24:42] everyone
[24:44] they first did it from a teacher
[24:45] perspective but then they also
[24:47] looked at it from a student perspective
[24:50] so they could tell okay
[24:51] is this going to work for students and
[24:54] anything that they did they vetted
[24:56] through a student lens
[24:58] because they wanted to make sure that
[25:00] what they did represented
[25:01] you know what students wanted as far as
[25:05] an education at the high school given it
[25:06] being remote
[25:07] because you know student voice i mean
[25:09] we're really really
[25:11] you know big on that we think it's so
[25:12] important to hear from you what's
[25:14] working what's not working what do you
[25:16] need
[25:16] so we can improve your experience
[25:20] and the other students experiences you
[25:21] know at the high school and make it
[25:22] really authentic
[25:24] and something that really is
[25:25] transformative for you as you graduate
[25:28] and move on to you know higher learning
[25:31] so
[25:31] you know i i can't thank them enough but
[25:33] also the student body i mean this is
[25:35] not an easy thing to come back to
[25:39] if you can say come back to um you know
[25:42] and it's going to take work on both ends
[25:44] but
[25:44] i really want to thank all of the
[25:46] students at the high school for
[25:48] being prepared coming back to school
[25:50] with this reopening that is so different
[25:52] than what we're used to
[25:53] you know we always want to hear feedback
[25:56] so
[25:57] we're so happy that you came forward
[25:59] with what happened over the summer
[26:01] and the start of the school year because
[26:02] we need to know if things aren't working
[26:04] so we can change them so thank you
[26:14] go ahead i was just gonna say yeah no
[26:17] problem and thank you for your answers
[26:19] um
[26:19] it it's come it's come across that um
[26:22] the biggest
[26:23] reason for all you know the remote seven
[26:24] classes and the teacher mentors and
[26:27] um this counselor and that counselor has
[26:29] just been
[26:30] to give the support um i will just bring
[26:32] up lastly that um
[26:34] you know as as you mentioned if you do
[26:36] have someone in the room in the high school that you trust and
[26:40] you can go to i personally you know have
[26:42] my people that i've
[26:43] created bonds with i can personally go
[26:44] to miss mosby or mr jabor or mr rashad
[26:47] i've just gone along really well with so
[26:49] um
[26:51] as you said like there are relations
[26:53] that exist and
[26:54] um it's it's become clear to me that um
[26:57] a teacher mentor is just you know an
[26:59] additional support i'm just wondering if
[27:01] there's
[27:02] a possibility that you know in case like
[27:05] the relation just doesn't work out or
[27:06] there's just some complication or
[27:08] there's a history or there's i don't
[27:09] know whatever it is
[27:10] um would students hypothetically be able
[27:13] to change their student mentor because
[27:14] that's something that i've heard
[27:16] um with my participation in the bsu i
[27:18] feel a lot of students
[27:20] i mean they weren't happy with their
[27:22] school counselor and they wish they
[27:24] could change it but it was just never an
[27:25] option to them so i'm wondering um
[27:27] as you said like the student the teacher
[27:29] mentor may not be as influential or as
[27:32] may not be as necessary as for example a
[27:35] counselor
[27:36] but um if that if that were necessary
[27:39] would there be an option to change
[27:41] one's teacher through you turn normal
[27:42] yeah i believe so i mean i think the
[27:44] last thing
[27:45] you know that anyone wants is a
[27:46] relationship that's not working but yet
[27:48] we have to continue
[27:50] you know with it for the remainder of
[27:51] the school year i think you know the
[27:53] important
[27:54] focus is on building that relationship a
[27:56] positive relationship so if things
[27:58] aren't necessarily working
[28:00] you know the way that they're supposed
[28:02] to there
[28:03] should be an opportunity to you know
[28:05] change absolutely
[28:07] how could how could you
[28:11] um we are two days in my friend okay so
[28:15] we i i love that you brought up the
[28:17] question
[28:18] and so uh i don't think we've even
[28:21] we considered it yet i think can we get
[28:24] back to you at the next
[28:26] meeting and make sure superintendent
[28:28] skipper just to make sure that you heard
[28:30] uh the question was about what are these
[28:33] teacher me
[28:33] this the mentors do they preclude me
[28:36] going to someone else so i may already
[28:38] have an established relationship with no
[28:40] and then
[28:41] what if it's not a good uh mix is there
[28:43] a way to
[28:44] change it up yeah um so hi
[28:47] first of all hi uh to our student reps
[28:50] um
[28:50] another another good year coming up my
[28:53] recommendation
[28:54] would be to have a conversation with
[28:56] principal lagambina to start
[28:58] um principal lagunbina and the staff um
[29:02] co-developed what you know including the
[29:04] teachers co-developed what the mentor
[29:06] program would look like
[29:07] and i'm sure that they factored into
[29:09] their thinking situations where there
[29:11] might not be a compatibility between the
[29:13] mentor and the students
[29:14] so i think um it would be good to start
[29:16] with mr logan bina
[29:18] i've also alerted him and let him know
[29:20] that the question came up
[29:21] so i would just i'm going to ask him to
[29:23] reach out to you both tomorrow
[29:25] sound good yes thank you so much and
[29:28] i apologize now i know
[29:31] it's interesting because it it actually
[29:34] shows
[29:35] you know typically you would just go
[29:36] down and knock on mr lagan being his
[29:38] door
[29:39] and you would know where to find him but
[29:41] it brings up the issue
[29:42] if you have a a question like this how
[29:45] do you go about finding mr lagamina
[29:47] so i think um we can help with this one
[29:50] okay thank you so much thank you good
[29:52] luck with the studies this week
[29:54] thank you thank you so much you too we
[29:57] rely
[29:57] on you to convey the students uh
[30:00] perspective
[30:01] and questions and concerns and
[30:05] it's always i know i speak for the
[30:07] entire school committee
[30:08] hearing from the students is always the
[30:11] highlight of any meeting
[30:12] so thank you so much for joining us
[30:14] tonight
[30:15] thank you for having us have a good
[30:17] night thank you
[30:19] who wanted to pop in before they popped
[30:22] off is that all right
[30:23] oh sure uh miss patone you have a
[30:26] question
[30:26] yeah i apologize um it's first of all i
[30:29] wanted to applaud
[30:30] um the students and i think you spoke to
[30:32] this kiri miss norman
[30:34] is that they really include in on a
[30:36] couple of things that
[30:37] students and families are really
[30:38] confused about um
[30:41] in particular the mentors which i think
[30:43] both um
[30:44] mr mazza and miss norman did an
[30:46] excellent job describing but i really
[30:47] would ask
[30:48] that there was some follow-up
[30:50] communication with all the student
[30:51] populations as well as maybe the parents
[30:53] about what this role is and
[30:55] how can we best take advantage of it um
[30:58] and you know another um
[31:02] question that came up that i don't i
[31:04] thought that there was some more work
[31:05] going on was about
[31:07] pursuing whether or not there's a high
[31:09] school level
[31:12] and i will just have i know
[31:15] i'm hearing you sorry um i was talking
[31:18] about the
[31:19] i'm using breakouts can you not hear me
[31:22] no it's like it's getting older um
[31:25] i'll type in you can read it if you want
[31:30] okay okay um
[31:35] oh and eleanor i did not i was not
[31:37] looking at the chat miss bearish did you
[31:39] also have a question
[32:05] the question is about breakouts and zoom
[32:07] for high school students
[32:08] wasn't there work being done to look
[32:09] into that so we are we're looking into
[32:10] this with our legal uh our legal team right
[32:14] now
[32:15] breakouts are supervised we're looking
[32:16] at the possibility at the high school
[32:18] level
[32:19] um of having a permission that that
[32:21] parents can sign off on
[32:24] or let us know if they have a concern
[32:26] for breakout rooms at the heights high
[32:28] school age students
[32:29] to be able to do breakout rooms without
[32:31] the teacher and you know much like a
[32:32] classroom
[32:33] where students will be in small groups
[32:35] and the teacher will rotate through the
[32:37] small groups
[32:38] they don't hear all the dialogue that
[32:40] goes on in the small group but they're
[32:41] constantly popping in and out of it
[32:43] very similarly on zoom to have them be
[32:46] able to go in and out of the breakouts
[32:48] so um we are working actively with the
[32:50] high school team as well as with our
[32:52] legal team
[32:53] and we hope to have an update on that in
[32:55] the next couple of weeks
[32:57] thank you miss paris did you also have a
[32:59] question about the student report
[33:04] i did thanks so much um i just wanted to find out a guest through you chair to
[33:10] mr mazza
[33:11] um are the mentors to stay with the
[33:14] students throughout their four years or
[33:16] is this going to change on a year by
[33:18] year basis
[33:20] um through youtube norman i will check
[33:22] and get back to you on that
[33:24] because i'm not sure but i want to give
[33:25] you an accurate answer okay
[33:28] thanks you're welcome
[33:31] thank you okay superintendent did you
[33:34] want to say anything at the now 7 45 top of our meeting
[33:40] um so i mean we just left a town hall
[33:44] that was really well attended
[33:45] um and we shared some important
[33:47] information um that we will
[33:49] there will be slides that will be put up
[33:52] on the websites
[33:53] it was really to talk about the work
[33:56] that's been done on the city side
[33:57] with the buildings to do a very thorough
[34:00] evaluation of the building as one of the
[34:02] conditions
[34:03] for a safe and healthy um we talked
[34:06] about
[34:07] as part of that process uh that december
[34:10] first
[34:11] is the the deadline right now that we're
[34:13] looking to be able to bring the
[34:15] buildings
[34:15] online um each building has gone through
[34:18] a metric
[34:20] of risk analysis looking at everything
[34:23] from air filtration
[34:24] air flow and exchange to humidity
[34:28] and the goal is to move all of the
[34:30] buildings out of the category they're
[34:32] currently at for risk which in most
[34:34] cases is a moderate risk level
[34:36] and move that move the building into the
[34:38] low risk level which is
[34:39] for astra they're the acceptable um the
[34:42] acceptable range
[34:44] we also had an update from health and
[34:45] human services
[34:47] and the city around copa testing and
[34:49] some progress that's been made with a
[34:51] partnership with broad
[34:52] um relative to being able to have that
[34:55] operationalized
[34:56] for in-person return so i would just
[34:59] encourage the audience
[35:00] um to you know to go and look at the
[35:03] slides if they were not able to join
[35:04] and then certainly we can look to see if
[35:06] we can um
[35:08] re-present that information on the safe
[35:10] side
[35:11] at one of the upcoming school companies
[35:13] and will that slide deck
[35:15] be it's on the city will be on the city
[35:17] side will it also be on the
[35:19] summerville public schools website i
[35:21] believe it'll likely be a link on our
[35:23] side to theirs
[35:25] yeah thank you so much for that and okay
[35:28] and with
[35:29] that we are going to go on to item
[35:31] number three which is public comment
[35:34] um and uh hi sam
[35:38] i just realized i did not read the the
[35:40] blurb at the beginning of the meeting so
[35:41] i'm gonna
[35:42] get all my official i should have said
[35:45] at the top of the meeting and
[35:47] my po comment i'll be taken care of
[35:50] right now
[35:51] uh persian of governor baker is march 12
[35:54] 2020
[35:55] orders suspending certain provisions of
[35:57] the open meeting law gcl
[36:00] 30a s18 and the governor's march 15
[36:03] 2020 order imposing strict limitations
[36:06] and the number of people that may gather
[36:07] in one place as well as mayor cody
[36:09] tony's declaration of emergency dated
[36:11] march 15
[36:12] 2020. excuse me this meeting in the
[36:16] summerville school committee will be
[36:17] conducted via remote participation we
[36:19] will post an audio recording
[36:21] audio video recording transcript or
[36:23] other comprehensive
[36:25] record of these proceedings as soon as
[36:26] possible after the meeting on the city
[36:28] of summerville
[36:29] website and local cable access
[36:32] government channels
[36:33] scat and then at the top of public
[36:35] comment
[36:37] i also need to read this so bear with me
[36:42] at the start of each regular school
[36:44] committee meeting individuals or groups
[36:46] of representatives will be invited to
[36:47] address the school committee the length
[36:48] of this public comment would ordinarily
[36:50] be 20 minutes in length
[36:53] i'm going to let more likely go over
[36:56] that but i'm going to limit
[36:57] speaking speakers to two minutes tonight
[37:01] speakers will be allowed three minutes
[37:03] to present the material the presiding
[37:04] chair may permit extension of this time
[37:07] additionally the chair may limit
[37:08] comments to two minutes based on the
[37:10] number of individuals signed up to speak
[37:12] and a group of residents appearing as at
[37:14] a meeting to express favor or opposition
[37:16] to a particular agenda item
[37:18] is encouraged to designate one member of
[37:19] the group as a spokesperson to be heard
[37:22] on the topic other members of the group
[37:24] may be heard if they feel they can
[37:25] contribute additional information
[37:26] regarding the topic
[37:28] improper conduct and remarks will not be
[37:31] allowed
[37:32] defamatory or abusive remarks are always
[37:34] out of order
[37:35] if a person continues to just disrupt
[37:38] the meeting
[37:39] after a clear warning the chair has
[37:41] authority to order the person to leave
[37:42] and authorities may be called
[37:44] per massachusetts open meeting law all
[37:46] remarks will be addressed through the
[37:48] chair of the meeting and the school
[37:50] committee will not hear personal
[37:52] complaints of
[37:53] school personnel nor against any member
[37:55] of the school community
[37:56] in public session individuals may
[37:59] address topics on the agenda or items
[38:01] within the school committee's
[38:02] scope of responsibility under most
[38:04] circumstances administrative channels
[38:06] are the proper means for disposition of
[38:08] legitimate complaints involving staff
[38:10] members
[38:11] and written comments may be presented to
[38:14] the school committee
[38:15] before and after the meeting for the
[38:16] school committee members review and
[38:18] consideration
[38:19] and the public is also encouraged to
[38:21] submit their writing their comments
[38:23] and writing you can send them to the
[38:25] central office
[38:30] there that's it so uh so much
[38:34] the speakers tonight i'm going to read a
[38:36] list of
[38:37] three at a time so that you are ready
[38:40] you will need to get two minutes
[38:42] when um when you were given the floor if
[38:44] you can give your name
[38:46] and your home address that would be
[38:48] helpful so
[38:49] the first three speakers are amy
[38:52] marinville
[38:53] danielle latonya and then annie march
[38:56] amy you have the floor
[39:02] can you guys hear me yes all right
[39:05] excellent
[39:06] thank you uh for giving me the time to
[39:09] speak
[39:10] uh my name is amy moranville i have two
[39:13] young children both
[39:14] autistic who are both going
[39:17] to and have been in public schools here
[39:19] in somerville
[39:21] when school shut down in march the goal
[39:22] was to flatten the curve so the
[39:24] hospitals didn't get overwhelmed then we
[39:25] did that and we know
[39:27] what it takes to keep risk low in
[39:28] contrast
[39:30] we do not know how to safely provide
[39:32] resources and support for special needs
[39:33] kids
[39:34] outside of school our children are
[39:36] suffering they are struggling
[39:38] and the schools are failing them keeping
[39:39] children especially those with special
[39:41] needs
[39:42] out of school is not tenable especially
[39:44] considering that a
[39:45] young children still need to be cared
[39:46] for many of them outside of their homes
[39:48] so school closures are not preventing
[39:50] children from exposure to others and b
[39:52] covet is just one of the dangers facing
[39:54] our kids this fall there are other
[39:56] dangers including
[39:57] massive social regression extreme trauma
[40:00] from loss of educational support and
[40:01] learning
[40:02] and the seemingly endless slog through a
[40:04] situation without clear goals
[40:06] or end nates when we all started this
[40:09] journey in march
[40:10] the reasoning was clear and the
[40:11] expectations understood now
[40:13] that situation has unraveled and debates
[40:15] continue between the stakeholders with
[40:16] no clear end insight
[40:18] as such i believe that a decision maker
[40:20] should be identified who will be the
[40:22] final decider for reopening
[40:24] this person should have the knowledge of
[40:25] the science required to create safe
[40:27] spaces
[40:28] and leadership ability to lead
[40:31] somerville through this mess right now
[40:34] we have boards and committees and
[40:35] political leaders and no clear singular
[40:37] voice telling us what will need to be
[40:39] done
[40:39] this czar would should be someone for
[40:42] whom success is implicitly connected
[40:44] with school reopening not a
[40:45] superintendent or a mayor but a person
[40:47] who will be the liaison for all parties
[40:49] someone who is a point person for
[40:51] collecting information
[40:52] and making final decisions summerville
[40:54] has a rat czar
[40:55] why do we not have a school czar i
[40:58] request that we discuss
[40:59] why tents and other outside spaces
[41:02] aren't an option
[41:03] i request that sps acknowledge that the
[41:05] school district is failing
[41:06] to provide services for equal for early
[41:09] special education
[41:10] virtual systems are not a substitute
[41:12] there is no way to meet the necessary
[41:14] standards without in-person therapy and
[41:15] support
[41:16] and i request that that project those
[41:18] priorities be readjusted to consider the
[41:20] definite and immediate harm being caused
[41:22] every day
[41:22] to the most vulnerable among us thank
[41:25] you
[41:27] next is danielle
[41:30] latonya and then annie march and then
[41:33] allison goodman
[41:34] danielle you have the floor
[41:38] hi my name is danielle lanting 234
[41:40] summer my kids are third grade and pre-k
[41:43] both now with john from somerville
[41:44] public schools i sit on international
[41:46] code committees discussing coveted
[41:48] transmission routes
[41:49] tonight we heard to reopen schools we
[41:51] are planning for a worst case
[41:52] theoretical
[41:54] aerotrial aerosol transmission events
[41:56] from young children
[41:57] note this worst case situation isn't
[41:59] supported in epidemiological data
[42:01] but to plan for this theoretical we need
[42:03] to do extensive mitigation measures
[42:05] masking social distancing hand-washing
[42:07] services infection surveillance testing
[42:08] of k-12s potting extensive hvac repairs
[42:11] to be clear i know of no other school
[42:14] anywhere in the world that is planning
[42:16] for this this is unique worldwide
[42:18] and as some of these measures take
[42:20] extensive time and resources it is now
[42:22] clear remote in somerville is long term
[42:24] with the first students potentially
[42:26] returning december 1st
[42:27] thus i have three requests one be
[42:31] transparent remote schooling is no
[42:32] longer only an emergency
[42:34] measure but instead for many families
[42:36] could be for much or
[42:37] all of this school year to understand
[42:40] there's knowledge from across the world
[42:41] not just the us
[42:42] on how to safely reopen schools if
[42:45] somerville is remote long-term in a low
[42:46] transmission setting
[42:48] we are unique and we will be conducting
[42:50] an experiment on our students
[42:53] three understand remote learning is less
[42:55] effective than in person and is
[42:56] intensely difficult
[42:58] for our at-risk populations ell sped
[43:01] for these populations long-term lack of
[43:03] services could have lifelong impacts and
[43:05] regression dropout rates learning and
[43:06] earning potential
[43:08] to end i don't give a somerville rats
[43:10] behind if sps
[43:12] offers my children anything this
[43:14] academic year
[43:15] however as a community we are morally
[43:17] and ethically obligated to provide
[43:19] services
[43:19] to our most at-risk populations and it
[43:22] is a
[43:23] failure of political leadership if we
[43:24] fail to do this in a timely manner
[43:27] thank you for your time and for all your
[43:28] work
[43:31] thank you the next step is annie march
[43:34] then
[43:34] allison goodman and then elizabeth
[43:36] gaskell annie march you have the floor
[43:44] awesome i just got admitted it's annie
[43:46] march
[43:47] address do we give addresses to yes
[43:50] please
[43:51] okay 29 berkeley street in somerville
[43:54] our beautiful city
[43:55] those were some awesome comments that
[43:56] preceded me um i wanted to let you all
[43:59] know that my second grader had an
[44:01] awesome awesome first day it went really well
[44:04] and i wanted to say thank you to
[44:06] everybody who made that possible
[44:08] that's on this call because i've
[44:09] listened to a lot of your calls and i
[44:11] know you guys do a lot
[44:12] all the time um one of the things that
[44:15] was awesome is that his teacher had this
[44:17] nifty camera
[44:18] that showed her desktop not her computer
[44:20] desktop but her physical
[44:22] desktop and we could see her turning
[44:26] pages and writing things and i really
[44:28] want that
[44:29] for my four-year-old next week and i
[44:32] don't know if he'll have it i don't know
[44:33] if his teacher has it
[44:35] but it would be great to have that to
[44:36] show manipulatives so like little pre-k
[44:38] kids
[44:39] um i think would make a huge difference
[44:41] there were problems with camera angles
[44:43] and things last spring
[44:45] so i'm i'm saying i'd like to request
[44:47] that um
[44:48] also i want to say my kid is non-ell
[44:51] he's non-sped
[44:52] he's uh a white middle-class boy
[44:55] with a mom who can pay a lot of
[44:57] attention to him and he had an awesome
[44:59] first day but i'm concerned about all
[45:00] those who did not
[45:01] have an awesome first day okay oh also
[45:05] please don't have a town hall and a
[45:06] school committee meeting on the same
[45:08] night again
[45:09] okay that's it i'm done thanks
[45:12] thank you for that in particular the
[45:14] last comment uh
[45:16] so next is allison goodman and elizabeth
[45:18] gaskill then gabrielle
[45:20] jacquet allison goodman you have a floor
[45:25] great um hello my name is alison goodman
[45:29] i live at 15 cutter street unit 1 in
[45:32] east somerville
[45:34] i'm a mom to two kids one in second
[45:36] grade
[45:37] and one who is a three and a half year
[45:39] old and
[45:40] she has significant special needs she's
[45:43] in a self-contained classroom at the
[45:45] capuano
[45:47] she's been receiving early intervention
[45:49] in private therapy since she was three
[45:51] months old
[45:52] now it's been six months without real
[45:54] services
[45:56] that's 15 of her entire life and
[46:00] at an age where interventions are most
[46:02] critical
[46:04] i'm feeling unsupported by the district
[46:08] it's not enough to wait and see how
[46:10] virtual learning works in the fall for
[46:12] kids like mine
[46:13] we know it doesn't work it can't work
[46:16] despite the you know heroic efforts of
[46:19] her awesome teachers and therapists
[46:23] it was understandable during the surge
[46:25] when kovit was in the community at an
[46:27] extraordinary
[46:28] rate and we knew very little about it
[46:30] now we know
[46:31] a lot about transmission and risk and
[46:33] ppe
[46:34] and community levels are really low i
[46:38] beg the district to talk to families
[46:40] like mine
[46:42] you know show some urgency and
[46:43] creativity involve the scientists i know
[46:45] everyone is working hard
[46:48] but it's truly not hyperbole to say that
[46:51] my daughter's future
[46:52] depends on you thank you um next is elizabeth gaskell
[47:00] then gabriel jackie and and then
[47:04] ronald mclaughlin elizabeth you have the
[47:08] floor
[47:13] elizabeth are you there does she need to
[47:16] be
[47:18] unmuted elizabeth you are self-muted go
[47:22] ahead and unmute yourself
[47:31] elizabeth are you there and can you
[47:33] unmute yourself
[47:37] um gentlemen do you want to move on to
[47:41] yeah let's move on to and i will put
[47:43] elizabeth
[47:44] we will call on her again at the end of
[47:47] the
[47:49] to give her another opportunity so next
[47:51] is gabrielle
[47:52] gabriel and then rana and elizabeth
[47:55] penske
[47:57] so gabrielle you have the floor got
[48:06] really there
[48:09] uh i can see the mic but i can't can
[48:12] anyone hear her
[48:15] um
[48:19] shoot i wonder what's
[48:23] gabrielle oh we cannot hear you
[48:29] gabrielle please try rejoining the
[48:31] meeting
[48:32] um we can move on to the next person and
[48:35] then try you when you're back for some
[48:37] reason we cannot hear you
[48:39] and it may just be an audio issue on
[48:41] your computer
[48:44] thank you miss artiago uh rihanna
[48:48] mclaughlin are you there
[48:54] i'm here can you hear me this is
[48:55] gabrielle oh
[48:58] um we can't run sorry i just
[49:01] i had to unmute but it kicked me out of
[49:03] the meeting to do that
[49:04] can you want me to wait who's speaking
[49:08] now
[49:09] this is gabrielle but i could wait if
[49:10] you want me to
[49:12] no why don't you go ahead are you okay
[49:15] yep
[49:15] thank you my name is gabrielle jacques i
[49:18] live at 24 appleton street and i have a
[49:19] first grader enrolled at the brown
[49:21] current
[49:25] doing remote learning at the summerville
[49:27] ymca every day and a three and a half
[49:29] year old at somerville
[49:30] preschool
[49:33] you're breaking up a little bit we're
[49:35] having a hard time hearing you now
[49:39] oh
[49:42] gabrielle we cannot hear a word you're
[49:44] saying
[49:46] maybe um can you hear me now
[49:50] no i can yes okay do you
[49:53] do i need to start again or did you hear
[49:56] um
[49:57] we did not hear anything i didn't after
[49:59] ymca and you have another
[50:01] child at a daycare center then we did
[50:03] not do anything
[50:05] okay i am also an emergency physician at
[50:07] boston medical center safety net
[50:08] hospital
[50:09] and currently teaching in person at bu
[50:11] school of medicine we all acknowledge
[50:12] that school closures are
[50:14] necessary in march since we didn't
[50:15] understand what we were dealing with and
[50:16] now six months later
[50:18] many of us have been back at work with
[50:19] our kids in organized group child care
[50:20] settings
[50:21] we now have information on what to do to
[50:23] prevent covid and we know that the
[50:24] disease isn't going away for a long
[50:26] time now it is time to stop and reassess
[50:28] the situation from a public health
[50:29] standpoint
[50:30] at this point in time i firmly believe
[50:32] school closures are doing more harm than
[50:33] good for our children
[50:34] by keeping schools closed right now we
[50:37] are not in fact reducing risk we are
[50:39] instead pushing it out
[50:40] to groups that aren't unionized such as
[50:42] remote learning centers such as the ymca
[50:44] where my daughter is
[50:45] that often have 60 students in a room
[50:46] together with unknown hvac
[50:49] and a teacher of unknown age and
[50:50] immunocompromised status
[50:52] to quote someone from the town hall
[50:53] we're rolling a different set of dice by
[50:55] doing this
[50:56] believe me i would be happy to help
[50:57] facilitate remote schooling at my house
[50:59] if we're actually evidence-based
[51:00] and indicated however i really believe
[51:02] we're harming our most vulnerable
[51:04] for no evidence-based benefit to our
[51:06] teachers or any other group on a macro
[51:08] level as a public health practitioner
[51:10] physician i'm very distraught at work
[51:12] due to school closure i've seen
[51:13] many exacerbations of mental illness and
[51:15] eating disorders increased rates of
[51:17] child neglect and suicide
[51:18] these numbers are delayed in being
[51:20] reported in the press and so the data
[51:21] will not be available for a while
[51:23] watching my first grader on zoom on
[51:24] friday broke my heart because honestly
[51:26] all that she and the other vulnerable
[51:27] kids at this age
[51:28] is social all they need is social
[51:30] emotional development safety and
[51:31] security and that cannot be provided on
[51:34] zoom no matter how hard everyone is
[51:35] working as i saw
[51:38] for my own eyes they cannot
[51:39] self-regulate their emotions on zoom
[51:41] learn how to share take turns interact
[51:42] with others
[51:43] or become a contributing member of our
[51:45] somerville community on zoom
[51:46] for what gain are we doing this the
[51:48] public school systems of most other
[51:49] towns are letting our most vulnerable
[51:51] students return in person private
[51:53] schools are as well time is brain as we
[51:55] know
[51:56] it's time to listen to the science and
[51:57] stop sacrificing the children
[51:59] of somerville for no evidence-based
[52:01] reason i ask you please consider the
[52:03] public health tool we're taking
[52:04] the physical and mental health of our
[52:06] most vulnerable children is truly at
[52:07] risk
[52:08] and as i currently contemplate
[52:09] withdrawing my first grader from sps
[52:12] i ask that you give us an actual return date for each group of students
[52:16] so that we can expect uh return to
[52:18] in-person learning at some time this
[52:19] year
[52:20] thank you very much thank you
[52:24] uh so next step is
[52:27] ronna mclaughlin then elizabeth pinsky
[52:30] and then lauren
[52:31] hittner rana you have a floor
[52:38] she's still with us
[52:42] hi it's rhonda can you hear me yes we
[52:45] absolutely can welcome
[52:48] great thank you um so hi i'm ronna
[52:50] mclaughlin 96 rogers ave in somerville
[52:53] i'm a mom of two kids um a pre-k that's
[52:56] going to stay at his full-time in-person
[52:58] private day care
[52:58] since remote won't work for a
[53:01] four-year-old
[53:02] and first grader um that was going to be
[53:04] going to brown
[53:05] and is enrolled there and then doing the
[53:07] remote schooling as of the past two days
[53:09] but via the
[53:10] ymca sacc program as my husband is an
[53:14] essential worker and i have a demanding
[53:15] full-time job
[53:16] um and uh this is a feminist issue
[53:20] um so they're in full-time care um
[53:23] why are these full-time in-person
[53:25] centers and very old buildings with no
[53:27] testing plans low bars for hvac
[53:30] ventilation that have been running for
[53:31] months in somerville and have been so
[53:33] successful
[53:34] not informing the somerville strategy
[53:36] for those under 40 years old the flu is
[53:38] actually more deadly than covid
[53:40] i'm not a trump supporter um i'm just
[53:43] saying that the flu is more deadly than
[53:44] covid for under four years old that's
[53:46] just a fact
[53:46] it's not politics yet schools never
[53:49] closed for that
[53:50] instead it seems the city has set an
[53:51] almost insurmountable bar
[53:53] with their approach to building
[53:54] ventilation this new safety first
[53:56] mentality of our current administration
[53:58] when it comes to schools is becoming
[54:00] much more dangerous
[54:02] than the virus itself what we are doing
[54:04] is subjecting a vulnerable population to
[54:06] the cruelest of experiments
[54:08] we're seeing how long they can go
[54:10] without essential services and how much
[54:12] isolation and screen time
[54:13] over long durations the youngest can
[54:16] tolerate
[54:16] the effects of this experiment that
[54:18] summerville is embarking on will surely
[54:20] have many long-term
[54:21] unintended consequences regression poor
[54:24] mental health outcomes
[54:26] and pushing our loved families out of
[54:28] the city
[54:29] and loss of job satisfaction in our
[54:31] educators who
[54:32] many of which severely want to return to
[54:34] the classroom
[54:35] but as i've been told by several are
[54:38] intimidated
[54:38] and harassed by a subset of their peers
[54:41] into silence
[54:42] thank you for listening
[54:46] thank you next is elizabeth pinsky
[54:51] then lauren hittner then vera silva
[54:54] and then if elizabeth gaskell is back
[54:57] we'll
[54:57] have her be the last speaker
[55:01] rana are you there
[55:09] elizabeth spinsky is the next person
[55:12] oh i'm sorry elizabeth
[55:15] it has been a very long day thank you
[55:17] for that ms santiago
[55:19] elizabeth penske you now have the floor
[55:25] elizabeth are you with us
[55:31] [Music]
[55:33] i see her there we go elizabeth can you
[55:35] hear me now
[55:36] yep yes we can okay great thank you
[55:40] my name is elizabeth pinsky i live at 27
[55:42] william street
[55:43] i'm a pediatrician and a child
[55:45] psychiatrist at mass general
[55:47] i come at this problem from the angle of
[55:49] child mental health
[55:50] development and trauma covet is not the
[55:53] only threat to the health of
[55:55] somerville's children the mayor said
[55:56] tonight that he is not quote
[55:58] rolling the dice unquote with health in
[56:00] somerville and i agree
[56:01] we are not rolling the dice we are
[56:03] assuredly doing some children harm
[56:06] we were already facing a child mental
[56:08] health crisis prior to the pandemic with
[56:10] escalating rates of self-harm and
[56:12] suicide
[56:13] we know that isolation and loss of
[56:15] structure are leading to loneliness
[56:16] anxiety and depression we also know that
[56:19] despite having the
[56:20] best teachers imaginable the social and
[56:23] emotional needs of younger children
[56:24] simply cannot be met remotely we know
[56:28] that for children with developmental
[56:29] disabilities including children with
[56:30] autism
[56:31] missing services has lifelong
[56:33] consequences and we are planning to ask
[56:35] these children to wait
[56:37] nine months to resume services if they
[56:40] live in somerville
[56:41] but not if they live in our neighboring
[56:42] cities and towns that is damage that
[56:45] cannot be undone i am
[56:48] frustrated by the lack of adequate
[56:50] public health and medical expertise in
[56:52] this planning process and i understand
[56:54] that the mayor would like reopening to
[56:56] be exceptional in somerville
[56:58] and if there were data to support that
[57:00] plan i would be in wholehearted
[57:01] agreement
[57:02] but we cannot ask children with special
[57:04] needs young children and english
[57:06] learners to be patient without
[57:08] very good reason these needs are urgent
[57:12] we need a plan that is safe for teachers
[57:14] and staff
[57:15] and safe for our community we do not
[57:17] need a plan that is better than
[57:18] cambridge
[57:19] we need more input from experts
[57:21] infectious disease doctors
[57:23] epidemiologists and public health
[57:25] engineers because they are telling us to
[57:27] get our most vulnerable children black
[57:29] and i would beg the city please involve
[57:31] these experts in the process
[57:33] thank you uh
[57:40] okay so
[57:43] it appear uh
[57:46] so it appears that lauren hittner's uh
[57:50] emailed in her comments uh
[57:53] and did she not want to speak i don't
[57:56] know she's still here
[57:57] lauren hittner is on the call carrie
[58:00] very sober
[58:02] send her commented oh i'm sorry i
[58:05] okay um lauren you have the floor now
[58:09] i am i apologize
[58:13] lauren hitler are you there
[58:22] lauren are yourself muted
[58:34] uh lauren outlook
[58:38] so is elizabeth gasville there
[58:43] can we go to her give her one more
[58:45] chance to
[58:47] speak
[58:51] hi thank you so much sorry i have a phd
[58:53] biochemistry and i can't work out how to
[58:55] use go to meeting i really appreciate it
[58:57] can you hear me now
[58:59] we can can you give us your name and
[59:01] your address please yes on
[59:03] gaskell at 35 electric avenue and thank
[59:06] you for the opportunity to speak i'm a
[59:07] mom to a west summerville neighborhood
[59:09] school first grader
[59:10] i want to address the town hall
[59:11] statement about surveillance testing of
[59:13] staff and students
[59:14] we all agree that testing and more
[59:16] testing is a good thing
[59:17] ensuring equitable access to fast
[59:19] turnaround diagnostic testing for
[59:20] symptomatic individuals should be our
[59:22] highest priority
[59:23] however i'm concerned that the plan for
[59:25] surveillance testing of asymptomatic
[59:26] students is beyond the bar set by other
[59:28] in-person learning establishments
[59:30] i encourage us to think carefully about
[59:31] whether the positive impact of proposed
[59:33] surveillance testing is worth delaying
[59:35] in person learning
[59:36] i want the committee to understand that
[59:38] surveillance testing of students
[59:39] requires a separate infrastructure to
[59:40] diagnostic testing including an
[59:42] operational partner willing to test
[59:44] minors
[59:45] this is an addition to the broad
[59:46] providing the lab work as doug knows
[59:48] it is also very costly due to the scale
[59:50] involved to test everyone in sps once
[59:52] per week is likely to cost about half a
[59:54] million dollars a week
[59:56] it is also unclear what the benefit of
[59:57] surveillance testing of students in our
[59:59] schools will be
[1:00:00] but we can estimate that at our current
[1:00:01] rate of community transmission
[1:00:03] we might expect to perform 6 000 tests
[1:00:05] every week to find one positive person
[1:00:07] in our schools
[1:00:08] professor scott pina presented a helpful
[1:00:10] slide on viral load over time but we
[1:00:11] must assume that one infectious person
[1:00:13] per week will
[1:00:14] be masked with a six foot distance
[1:00:15] creating minimal opportunity for viral
[1:00:17] transmission
[1:00:18] i fully support access to optional
[1:00:20] surveillance testing for staff however i
[1:00:22] argue that surveillance testing of
[1:00:23] students should be considered the icing
[1:00:25] on the cake of code mitigation measures
[1:00:27] and should not be a barrier to returning
[1:00:28] to in-person learning
[1:00:30] in addition if surveillance testing is
[1:00:31] mandated as opposed to optional it's
[1:00:33] likely to cause delays to reopening with
[1:00:35] negligible impact
[1:00:36] for example has this been negotiated
[1:00:38] with the sda
[1:00:39] most importantly how does the male weigh
[1:00:41] up the merits of spending half a million
[1:00:42] dollars a week on surveillance testing
[1:00:44] as opposed to providing for the
[1:00:45] immediate needs of students
[1:00:46] disproportionately negatively affected
[1:00:48] by remote learning now
[1:00:50] such as special ed and ell populations
[1:00:52] and those families who are struggling
[1:00:53] financially
[1:00:54] i suggest the district instead
[1:00:55] prioritize equitable access to fast
[1:00:57] turnaround diagnostic testing for
[1:00:59] symptomatic individuals
[1:01:00] and an optional surveillance program for
[1:01:02] staff should community transmission go
[1:01:04] up or the price and availability of
[1:01:05] testing come down broader surveillance
[1:01:07] testing can be revisited
[1:01:09] and thank you very much for staying
[1:01:10] awake this light and letting me speak
[1:01:14] thank you so much santiago is there
[1:01:17] anyone
[1:01:18] is elizabeth penske here and did she
[1:01:21] speak
[1:01:22] she did so we are now concluded um i'm
[1:01:25] sorry it is
[1:01:27] lauren hintner is the last person on the
[1:01:30] caller
[1:01:36] i see her but i can you can you hear me
[1:01:42] lauren yes we can welcome sorry
[1:01:46] my name is lauren hittner i live at
[1:01:48] seven park place i have
[1:01:49] a second grader in argenziano and a
[1:01:51] four-year-old attending in-person
[1:01:53] preschool
[1:01:53] i'm a pediatrician in a district north
[1:01:55] of the city where about 30 percent of my
[1:01:57] patients come from an
[1:01:58] urban setting similar to our own in
[1:02:00] summerville
[1:02:02] i haven't actually been able to be in
[1:02:03] this firm before because i work late on
[1:02:05] monday nights completing physicals and
[1:02:07] corresponding forms required for
[1:02:08] in-person return to school
[1:02:10] from the delays at the height of the
[1:02:11] stage that means i've been really busy
[1:02:13] trying to keep those commitments
[1:02:14] that we made to our population to ensure
[1:02:16] that they're healthy and ready to return
[1:02:18] to school
[1:02:18] because all the districts in my region
[1:02:21] are returning in some form
[1:02:22] i spent a lot of time asking kids how
[1:02:24] school is going and they've started
[1:02:26] before us
[1:02:27] it has been about a week but the
[1:02:29] experience mirrors my own in the past
[1:02:30] two days in summerville
[1:02:32] the kids who've started off only remote
[1:02:33] due to their choice or because they
[1:02:34] haven't had in-person school days yet
[1:02:37] are disappointed they've shed a lot of
[1:02:39] tears their parents report they've shed
[1:02:41] their own tears
[1:02:42] families do not think they're getting
[1:02:43] services equivalent to their own
[1:02:45] prior iep standards kids who have had
[1:02:48] their in-person days say to me
[1:02:49] unequivocally
[1:02:50] it was weird and then i can't wait to go
[1:02:53] back
[1:02:53] they have forged connection with their
[1:02:55] teachers they've stood six feet in the
[1:02:57] hallways they've worn their masks
[1:02:59] and they're ready to do it again when at
[1:03:01] the height of the surge healthcare
[1:03:02] providers asked everyone to stay home
[1:03:04] we did as a community and we listened
[1:03:06] and agreed that it was the right thing
[1:03:08] to do
[1:03:08] when we brought this pandemic under
[1:03:10] reasonable control and your healthcare
[1:03:11] providers are saying
[1:03:12] kids belong in school we can do this
[1:03:14] safely look around you at the preschools
[1:03:16] and open schools
[1:03:18] in low community transmission
[1:03:19] environments we have plenty of evidence
[1:03:22] suddenly we've decided to go against
[1:03:23] advice and go it alone and i really do
[1:03:25] mean
[1:03:25] alone no other district that i'm aware
[1:03:27] of is trying to achieve so many layers
[1:03:30] of protection so as to put our children
[1:03:31] at the bottom of the list of people to
[1:03:33] protect
[1:03:34] protecting our kids means putting them
[1:03:36] first lifting them up it means
[1:03:37] recognizing that we have what it takes
[1:03:39] to put our most vulnerable children
[1:03:41] in school already we only seem to lack
[1:03:43] the will to do that
[1:03:44] thank you and thank you to all of our uh
[1:03:51] public
[1:03:52] comment speakers tonight it's always
[1:03:55] good to hear from the public
[1:03:57] so we are now moving on to item number
[1:03:59] four report of the superintendent
[1:04:01] uh superintendent skipper
[1:04:06] thank you gentlemen just in terms of the
[1:04:09] personnel report
[1:04:11] there are two retirements i'd like to
[1:04:13] actually three
[1:04:14] um argenziano a grade four c
[1:04:18] teacher uh common chagas uh for
[1:04:21] 33 years and 158 days of service
[1:04:25] at the healey of special education
[1:04:27] teacher barbara stroud
[1:04:29] at the end of this year 32 years of
[1:04:31] wonderful service
[1:04:33] and at somerville high school health
[1:04:34] education teacher janet flynn
[1:04:36] and this is at the end of our school
[1:04:39] year for 33 years of service
[1:04:42] just like to thank all of these
[1:04:43] educators for a wonderful career
[1:04:45] and all of the benefits that our
[1:04:46] students and our staff have received because they have been a
[1:04:50] part of our somerville family so
[1:04:52] to them we thank them and we'll
[1:04:53] recognize them for sure at the end of
[1:04:54] the year
[1:04:55] during our retirement uh celebration
[1:04:59] um and
[1:05:03] that is actually uh all in terms of the
[1:05:05] reopening
[1:05:06] um just a few comments i think um
[1:05:10] i think in terms of the remote learning
[1:05:12] uh our staff collectively
[1:05:15] um is owed a great deal of appreciation
[1:05:17] and thanks for
[1:05:19] long days and hours across the board to
[1:05:22] be ready for the remote learning
[1:05:24] we made a commitment when it was clear
[1:05:26] that we could not return
[1:05:28] initially in the hybrid in person to
[1:05:30] make sure that the remote learning could
[1:05:32] be as positive as possible and as full
[1:05:34] as possible
[1:05:35] and that's the effort that we have tried
[1:05:37] to do
[1:05:38] we've had excellent attendance and
[1:05:40] engagement in the first couple of days
[1:05:43] relative to about 25 we continue to
[1:05:46] resolve last last minute kinds of issues
[1:05:49] relative to the technology
[1:05:51] there will be some additional
[1:05:53] multilingual um
[1:05:54] tech sessions that will take place at
[1:05:56] the east somerville school anyone is
[1:05:58] invited but it specifically will have
[1:06:00] uh bilingual supports um and that will
[1:06:03] take place 8-12
[1:06:05] on wednesday thursday and friday and
[1:06:07] saturday of this week
[1:06:09] many of the schools on saturday continue
[1:06:11] to give resources out to families
[1:06:14] and we'll do so again next saturday
[1:06:17] i think additionally all of the
[1:06:19] preparation teachers have done both
[1:06:21] during the summer
[1:06:22] in terms of training and then certainly
[1:06:24] in the first 12 days
[1:06:25] that were allocated from deci to us i
[1:06:28] think
[1:06:28] shows in their preparation of their
[1:06:30] classes
[1:06:31] their excitement to see their students
[1:06:33] and their students excitement to see
[1:06:35] theirs
[1:06:36] there is no way to replace in-person
[1:06:38] learning as i think
[1:06:40] um all of the prior speakers have
[1:06:41] indicated and i know we share that
[1:06:43] sentiment
[1:06:44] but i think in terms of the remote we're
[1:06:46] attempting to do our best
[1:06:48] um while we continue to um
[1:06:51] work with the city to resolve the
[1:06:52] building issues and the testing
[1:06:54] protocols
[1:06:55] to make the remote as robust and
[1:06:57] rigorous as possible
[1:06:58] um and just you know just again thank
[1:07:01] you to
[1:07:02] all of our staff for just exceptional
[1:07:04] work um in these first couple of days to
[1:07:06] get everything launched
[1:07:10] thank you presentation um in the
[1:07:13] beginning of october
[1:07:16] just to remind um that we'll this was a
[1:07:19] modified summer school obviously because
[1:07:20] of covid
[1:07:21] but we still had an extensive service
[1:07:24] menu
[1:07:24] for ell learners for special education
[1:07:28] learners and a reading program of a
[1:07:30] one-to-one reading
[1:07:32] using the digital tools also
[1:07:35] with rory harrell and community school
[1:07:37] so
[1:07:38] all that data is being pulled together
[1:07:39] and will be presented um
[1:07:41] at the next school committee in october
[1:07:43] which i believe is the first week of first week of october i
[1:07:47] believe
[1:07:50] um i should know it it is actually
[1:07:52] monday the 5th
[1:07:54] yes uh yes and then the following week
[1:07:57] is indigenous people weekend okay thank
[1:08:00] you
[1:08:01] we look forward to that and um
[1:08:03] especially since it was a
[1:08:04] an unusual summer and does that conclude
[1:08:07] the superintendent's report
[1:08:09] it does today yes thank you so much for
[1:08:12] that
[1:08:12] moving on to item number five reported
[1:08:14] subcommittees the school committee
[1:08:16] meeting for rules
[1:08:17] management um dr ackman actually you
[1:08:20] have two reports i don't know if you
[1:08:21] want to
[1:08:22] go through them both and then make a
[1:08:25] motion or however you want to handle
[1:08:29] uh i think technically i have two
[1:08:32] meetings to report out on
[1:08:34] i'm not sure that i have both of those
[1:08:36] reports
[1:08:39] so let me find
[1:08:43] i apologize uh
[1:08:48] let me find the report that i do have
[1:08:50] bring that up
[1:08:52] and is it in
[1:08:56] oh it's not nothing that's okay uh so
[1:09:00] the rule subcommittee report i do have
[1:09:02] is for september 16
[1:09:04] 2020. uh called to order at 4 23 p.m
[1:09:07] with myself and miss bearish dr phillips
[1:09:09] arrived at 4 26.
[1:09:11] in attendance was miss corruption
[1:09:12] superintendent skipper and
[1:09:14] the superintendent fellow iwasaki in the
[1:09:17] audience was the vice president of the
[1:09:18] sta megan brady
[1:09:20] we reviewed we reviewed an amended
[1:09:22] version of policy ebc supplemental
[1:09:25] that was first discussed in the meeting
[1:09:27] on september 11th with additional
[1:09:28] language that was added by the
[1:09:29] superintendent
[1:09:31] and mr rasaki the body decided to pull
[1:09:33] out the language around
[1:09:36] the attendance policy which is a
[1:09:37] temporary addendum
[1:09:39] um and it was passed out of subcommittee
[1:09:42] as a standalone policy which is
[1:09:44] j.e temporary addendum which will be
[1:09:47] addressed tonight after further
[1:09:49] discussion the body
[1:09:50] passed policy ebc supplemental out of
[1:09:53] the subcommittee as it was originally
[1:09:54] proposed with the additional statement of the
[1:09:59] superintendent will bring any
[1:10:00] substantial changes of policy to vote
[1:10:03] for the school committee while minor
[1:10:04] alterations to policy as warranted do
[1:10:06] not need to be brought to the school
[1:10:08] committee
[1:10:09] all motions were put forward by ms
[1:10:10] barrish and then seconded by dr phillips
[1:10:12] each was passed unanimously
[1:10:13] the meeting adjourned at 5 17 pm
[1:10:16] um i can also
[1:10:21] offer a brief synopsis of the
[1:10:25] meeting which was before that i'm trying
[1:10:30] or i can we can vote that out and i can
[1:10:32] have minutes the following
[1:10:34] in our name why don't we do that why
[1:10:35] don't we take a vote on the report that
[1:10:37] you just
[1:10:37] um provided and you can make a motion to
[1:10:41] accept and then we'll take a vote on
[1:10:43] that
[1:10:44] and move to accept the minutes seconded
[1:10:47] by eleanor
[1:10:48] thanks thank you so much so there's a
[1:10:50] motion by dr ackman seconded by eleanor
[1:10:53] barish can i go to
[1:10:54] is there any discussion or questions on
[1:10:57] that report
[1:10:58] can i get a roll call vote please
[1:11:03] certainly dr phillips yes
[1:11:08] description yes
[1:11:11] president mclaughlin yes mr green
[1:11:15] yes mayor curtis tony
[1:11:19] miss parish yes ms patone
[1:11:24] yes dr ackman yes
[1:11:28] and miss norman yes motion carries
[1:11:32] thank you um dr ackman would you like to
[1:11:35] make
[1:11:36] the we can put the report for the next
[1:11:38] one on to the next school community
[1:11:40] agenda would that be
[1:11:42] let's do that thank you so much so then
[1:11:44] moving on to unfinished business item
[1:11:47] number six uh
[1:11:50] under i i spoke with our attorney
[1:11:54] mike long who recommended that we hold
[1:11:57] off
[1:11:57] on the following the policy of
[1:12:02] jlcb the immunization policy
[1:12:06] he wanted to look further into it and
[1:12:08] also
[1:12:09] um
[1:12:13] that it might there were some more
[1:12:14] information from the town hall tonight
[1:12:16] too
[1:12:17] so we would like to put that off for
[1:12:20] another
[1:12:21] to the next meeting until i've gotten
[1:12:23] more feedback from
[1:12:25] attorney long the next item is new
[1:12:28] business
[1:12:28] and the first item is summerville public
[1:12:30] school policy
[1:12:32] manual and there are two policies for
[1:12:36] their first reading
[1:12:37] so what that means is these these are
[1:12:39] policies that the
[1:12:41] rules subcommittee has already worked on
[1:12:43] and this is the language they have voted
[1:12:45] out
[1:12:45] which will now be considered by the full
[1:12:48] school committee
[1:12:49] and i know they are lengthy policies but
[1:12:51] i think uh
[1:12:53] for the first reading it's important to have the public
[1:12:57] hear them can i get someone to volunteer
[1:13:00] to read
[1:13:01] the first one and then someone to read
[1:13:03] this a second
[1:13:08] would you like to sure i'm happy to do
[1:13:10] either i'm also happy to offer by means
[1:13:12] of explanation
[1:13:14] is there any clarifying points um so as
[1:13:17] i just mentioned in my committee report
[1:13:19] um the je attendance
[1:13:23] or temporary attendance addendum is
[1:13:26] uh intended to address attendance issues
[1:13:30] during the pandemic
[1:13:32] and um file evc supplemental
[1:13:35] is was voted out of committee
[1:13:40] with the intent of uh
[1:13:43] hopefully still making some changes to
[1:13:46] it
[1:13:47] but the goal was to get in front of the
[1:13:49] full body as quickly as possible
[1:13:51] ebc supplemental is
[1:13:54] something that was put out by masc
[1:13:58] we've added a little bit of language to
[1:14:00] it it's intended to sort of touch on
[1:14:03] all of the policies that might be
[1:14:06] uh needed to be addressed
[1:14:09] by the superintendent during the
[1:14:10] pandemic and
[1:14:12] the intent is sort of to give her and
[1:14:15] her staff
[1:14:16] um authority to address these as they
[1:14:19] see fit and
[1:14:21] bring uh as we mentioned you know the
[1:14:24] important issues to a vote in front of
[1:14:26] school committee and the minor issues
[1:14:28] um to address them themselves and to
[1:14:30] notify the school committee
[1:14:31] so that's that's broadly what it is for
[1:14:34] uh just because it is a very fun policy
[1:14:37] um
[1:14:39] i i'm happy
[1:14:42] to read uh i see that
[1:14:45] miss bearish is happy to read one so i'm
[1:14:48] going to choose to read the shorter one
[1:14:49] to start and
[1:14:50] uh let her work her vocal cords on
[1:14:54] the longer one so ms barish please
[1:14:57] uh get ready
[1:15:01] so what happens when you volunteer right
[1:15:03] um
[1:15:04] so a policy oh up here there's a mistake
[1:15:07] it says jh is policy je the attendance
[1:15:10] addendum
[1:15:11] uh i'll i'll submit a corrected one all
[1:15:14] summerville public schools students are
[1:15:15] expected to attend and engage in all
[1:15:17] synchronous and asynchronous activities
[1:15:19] designed by their teachers for the full
[1:15:21] school day sps teachers in pre-k through
[1:15:23] 8 will take attendance during homeroom
[1:15:25] daily and report
[1:15:26] in aspen all teachers must enter virtual
[1:15:29] present or virtual absent in aspen each
[1:15:32] day for
[1:15:32] each every student pre-k to 8 teachers
[1:15:35] will also take attendance during each
[1:15:37] learning block and keep an electronic
[1:15:38] record of student attendance for high school students will
[1:15:42] be taken daily at the beginning of
[1:15:43] period one at the beginning of every
[1:15:45] academic class block during the school
[1:15:47] day
[1:15:48] in addition somerville public school
[1:15:49] educators will monitor whether
[1:15:52] students are present asynchronously for
[1:15:54] example submitting
[1:15:55] assignments online logging into online
[1:15:57] learning platforms and attending
[1:15:59] virtual check-ins during remote learning
[1:16:01] in the case of illness parents and
[1:16:03] caregivers must
[1:16:04] call the school sick line to report a
[1:16:05] student absence
[1:16:07] uh the contact information can be found
[1:16:09] towards the bottom of each school's
[1:16:10] website homepage
[1:16:11] and after three days of consecutive
[1:16:13] absences due to sickness parents
[1:16:15] caregivers
[1:16:16] must submit a doctor's note
[1:16:17] electronically to the school office
[1:16:19] throughout periods of synchronous
[1:16:21] learning
[1:16:22] uh sps educators will observe will
[1:16:25] observe for students presence if it
[1:16:27] observe if it is observed the student is
[1:16:30] not continuously present
[1:16:31] the educator will contact the building
[1:16:33] redirect teacher or dean of students
[1:16:35] for follow-up action the redirect
[1:16:37] teacher or dean of students will contact
[1:16:38] the student's parent caregiver to
[1:16:40] support getting
[1:16:41] the student back online if a student is
[1:16:43] consistently absent
[1:16:44] and does not respond to outreach by the
[1:16:46] classroom teacher the school redirect
[1:16:48] teacher or dean of students
[1:16:51] that student or dean of students that
[1:16:53] student will be referred to the school's
[1:16:55] student support team for further support
[1:16:57] it was passed out of rural subcommittee
[1:16:59] on september 16th
[1:17:03] thank you for that um and then ms
[1:17:06] barrett
[1:17:07] uh superintendent skipper yeah i just i
[1:17:09] just wanted to
[1:17:10] comment on this um that the virtual
[1:17:12] present and the virtual absent are new
[1:17:14] codes that the department of ed have
[1:17:16] added this year
[1:17:17] thus the need for us to be able to
[1:17:19] modify the policy
[1:17:20] procedurally this is pretty similar to
[1:17:22] what we do now
[1:17:24] at the high school it's identical in the
[1:17:27] case of the
[1:17:27] k-8s the only real difference is that
[1:17:30] typically teachers are taking visual
[1:17:32] attendance
[1:17:33] so because they're with students for the
[1:17:35] day so they're making sure
[1:17:37] as kids are coming in that the student
[1:17:39] is present
[1:17:40] this here is just asking them to keep an
[1:17:42] electronic record of that attendance
[1:17:44] which is again something the department
[1:17:46] of ed is asking so those are really the
[1:17:48] changes to it
[1:17:49] and again the change of coding virtual
[1:17:51] present and virtual absent
[1:17:53] is necessitated that is how students
[1:17:55] will be identified in the collection to
[1:17:57] sims by department of ed
[1:18:00] thank you for that miss um ms viton you
[1:18:03] have a question
[1:18:08] yes through you chair norman um i don't
[1:18:10] know if this will
[1:18:11] go with the superintendent or to dr
[1:18:13] ackman
[1:18:14] i just had i'm curious is there a reason
[1:18:17] in the beginning of the policy we don't
[1:18:18] reference why this is being put
[1:18:20] in place there's no reference to remote
[1:18:21] learning or coping 19
[1:18:25] just it's city it's something
[1:18:28] right and this one or two the broader
[1:18:30] policy miss paton now they tend this one
[1:18:32] i mean just like a little caveat at the
[1:18:34] end of the first paragraph saying during
[1:18:36] remote learning implemented in response
[1:18:38] to the coven 19 pandemic just because
[1:18:40] there's no context to it
[1:18:41] sure i'm just like yeah
[1:18:44] good point we can make that note
[1:18:49] all right so we will
[1:18:52] sorry okay one moment one moment i so
[1:18:55] we'll
[1:18:55] uh when we see the policy again there
[1:18:58] will be that introductory remark but
[1:19:00] also
[1:19:00] to my colleagues one at the second
[1:19:03] reading
[1:19:04] uh before but we can always amend it to
[1:19:07] ms fatone yeah thank you through youtube
[1:19:10] norman um the second thing just
[1:19:11] again also just context maybe just one
[1:19:13] little blurb about what synchronous and
[1:19:15] asynchronous learning are
[1:19:16] i mean we use these words a lot but we
[1:19:18] don't actually put definitions down and
[1:19:20] i think that would be
[1:19:21] good context sure
[1:19:26] thank you uh mr green you have a
[1:19:28] question too
[1:19:31] yeah just a point of information is
[1:19:33] there anything in this policy
[1:19:34] that isn't required by uh destiny is
[1:19:38] there any
[1:19:38] like or is this just staying in
[1:19:41] compliance with with this
[1:19:42] requirements so uh three months here so
[1:19:44] it's a good question
[1:19:46] obviously some of this is our own
[1:19:48] vernacular like the dean of students the
[1:19:50] redirects some of these are the
[1:19:51] procedural
[1:19:52] um no i mean the main pieces to the
[1:19:54] department of ed is the
[1:19:56] again it's not an extensive uh guidance
[1:20:00] but it's really about the coding and
[1:20:02] then it's just about
[1:20:03] um you know multiple points of contact
[1:20:05] during the day
[1:20:06] keeping a log um and relative to the
[1:20:09] asynchronous
[1:20:10] looking at things like the submission of
[1:20:12] assignments online
[1:20:14] um or logging into particular
[1:20:16] applications that an educator may assign
[1:20:19] a student as a way to be able to measure
[1:20:21] asynchronous participation so
[1:20:24] okay thank you you're welcome thank you
[1:20:27] are there any other questions on
[1:20:30] this policy clarifying
[1:20:33] okay ms barish would you be so kind as
[1:20:36] to read the second policy
[1:20:37] for the first reading
[1:20:41] i am happy to do that i just want to
[1:20:43] double check because they're um
[1:20:45] i think there are two similar policies
[1:20:47] in our handouts and i just want to make
[1:20:48] sure that i read the correct version
[1:20:51] um i see ebc supplemental
[1:20:55] and then i see masc pandemic
[1:20:58] you want the evc supplemental the other
[1:21:01] one's the one i edited
[1:21:02] thank you so much dr phillips here we go
[1:21:07] uh let's see oh shoot hold on
[1:21:13] i thought i was ready let me try again
[1:21:20] okay policy issues for the pandemic
[1:21:24] file ebc creation of a general interim
[1:21:28] policy on covid related issues
[1:21:30] supplemental oh sorry file abc
[1:21:32] supplemental
[1:21:33] the school committee takes note of the
[1:21:35] covet 19 emergency resulting disruption
[1:21:37] of the traditional school
[1:21:38] day and year growing concerns of
[1:21:40] students families and the community
[1:21:42] and the growing number of issues that
[1:21:44] will affect public education
[1:21:46] therefore the school committee
[1:21:47] establishes an emergency interim policy
[1:21:49] to
[1:21:50] promote public safety and safety of
[1:21:52] students and faculty
[1:21:53] maintain to the extent possible the high
[1:21:55] and efficient level of educational
[1:21:56] services
[1:21:58] ensure support for students in general
[1:22:00] and in particular for those at highest
[1:22:01] risk educationally
[1:22:03] as well as those at social and economic
[1:22:04] risk and
[1:22:06] comply with the emergency orders of the
[1:22:08] governor and adhere to the
[1:22:09] extent possible to the guidance of the
[1:22:11] department of elementary and secondary
[1:22:13] education
[1:22:14] and other agencies of state and federal
[1:22:16] government and
[1:22:17] expedite the safest strategy for
[1:22:19] returning students to school
[1:22:22] the school committee will approve the
[1:22:23] final plan submitted to desi
[1:22:25] which will outline its strategy for
[1:22:28] returning students to school and will
[1:22:30] in collaboration with the superintendent
[1:22:32] make such modifications to the back to
[1:22:34] school plan
[1:22:35] and district policy and will authorize
[1:22:37] the superintendent to suspend
[1:22:39] revise or create protocols to facilitate
[1:22:41] the safe return to school
[1:22:43] the superintendent will designate the
[1:22:45] appropriate staff members to oversee the
[1:22:47] safe administration of coveted related
[1:22:49] policies during the period of the
[1:22:50] pandemic emergency
[1:22:52] and shall make such recommendations to
[1:22:53] the school committee as needed
[1:22:55] the school committee will authorize the
[1:22:56] superintendent to act expeditiously in
[1:22:58] executing the back to school plan in
[1:23:02] accordance with current law and
[1:23:03] regulation and will
[1:23:04] where noted authorize the superintendent
[1:23:06] to suspend revise or recommend policies
[1:23:09] rules and protocols as needed to serve
[1:23:11] the best interests and safety of
[1:23:12] students their families and the
[1:23:13] community
[1:23:15] the superintendent will bring any
[1:23:16] substantial change of policy to vote for
[1:23:18] the school committee while minor
[1:23:19] alterations to policy as warranted do
[1:23:21] not need to be brought to the school
[1:23:22] committee
[1:23:23] the back to school plan shall constitute
[1:23:26] the policy of the school district
[1:23:27] during the pandemic emergency and the
[1:23:29] superintendent shall exercise the
[1:23:31] authority provided in law to carry out
[1:23:33] the plan as needed
[1:23:35] general district goals affected by the
[1:23:37] pandemic
[1:23:39] the superintendent with the advice and
[1:23:41] consent of the school committee may
[1:23:43] suspend or modify
[1:23:44] individual district policies to address
[1:23:46] the kubernetes emergency
[1:23:47] as declared by the governor such
[1:23:49] suspension of policy shall expire upon
[1:23:51] the end of the emergency as declared by
[1:23:53] the governor
[1:23:54] the goal of her of emergency pandemic
[1:23:56] policies shall be to
[1:23:58] ensure the safety and health of students
[1:24:00] faculty staff and all persons who may
[1:24:02] come in contact with them
[1:24:03] provide the most effective educational
[1:24:05] services as possible to students under
[1:24:07] the
[1:24:07] circumstances authorized changes to
[1:24:10] operating protocols as needed to open
[1:24:12] and operate schools effectively from
[1:24:13] various venues or platforms
[1:24:15] conduct the district business and
[1:24:17] operational functions of the district as
[1:24:19] efficiently as possible
[1:24:20] allow the superintendent and staff to
[1:24:22] act quickly to carry out a
[1:24:24] back-to-school plan
[1:24:25] and facilitate the re-establishment of a
[1:24:27] safe and productive school day and year
[1:24:30] student assignment to schools file jca
[1:24:34] subject to the guidance from the
[1:24:35] department of elementary and secondary
[1:24:37] education the superintendent may suspend
[1:24:38] or revise the assignment of students to
[1:24:40] schools
[1:24:41] including the assignment of new students
[1:24:43] for such a period as the emergency
[1:24:45] declaration is in force
[1:24:47] school calendar file ic ica
[1:24:51] subject to the guidance from the
[1:24:52] department of elementary and secondary
[1:24:54] education and the provisions of
[1:24:55] collective bargaining agreements
[1:24:57] the superintendent may suspend or revise
[1:24:59] the school calendar with the approval of
[1:25:00] the school committee
[1:25:02] class size file iib in order to maintain
[1:25:06] healthy safe and effective classrooms
[1:25:08] the superintendent may suspend district
[1:25:09] policy on class size
[1:25:11] subject to the provisions of the
[1:25:12] collective bargaining agreements where
[1:25:14] applicable
[1:25:16] attendance file jh subject to
[1:25:19] operative law and regulations suspend
[1:25:21] modify or adapt policies related to
[1:25:23] student attendance including the link
[1:25:25] between the app
[1:25:26] the link between and absences when
[1:25:28] appropriate
[1:25:30] including the link between attendance
[1:25:32] and grades
[1:25:33] chronic absence policies and
[1:25:35] accommodations for students requiring
[1:25:37] special
[1:25:38] placements time on learning file ic
[1:25:41] ica and id subject to the guidance from
[1:25:45] the
[1:25:46] department of elementary and secondary
[1:25:47] education and the provisions of
[1:25:49] collective bargaining agreements
[1:25:50] the superintendent may suspend or amend
[1:25:52] requirements for time
[1:25:54] on learning for the duration of the
[1:25:55] coveted pandemic
[1:25:57] grading and retention file ike in
[1:26:00] accordance with guidance from the
[1:26:01] department of elementary and secondary
[1:26:02] education the superintendent may propose
[1:26:04] subject to the approval of the school
[1:26:06] committee
[1:26:06] modifications to the policy of the
[1:26:08] district for grading and retention of
[1:26:10] students
[1:26:11] local graduation requirements file a ikf
[1:26:16] in accordance with guidance from the
[1:26:17] department of elementary and secondary
[1:26:19] education and modifications of
[1:26:21] to current regulation or law the
[1:26:23] superintendent may propose
[1:26:24] subject to the approval of the school
[1:26:26] committee modifications to the policy of
[1:26:28] the district regarding graduation
[1:26:29] requirements
[1:26:31] duplicate statement in special education file ihb ihba ihbaa
[1:26:39] ihbf the superintendent and school
[1:26:41] committee should be mindful that
[1:26:42] attainment of a high school diploma may
[1:26:44] render certain students ineligible for
[1:26:46] further services
[1:26:48] discipline and suspension expulsion with
[1:26:50] homeschooling rights
[1:26:51] file jic and jk
[1:26:56] the back to school plan recommended by
[1:26:57] the superintendent and subject to the
[1:26:59] approval of the school committee shall
[1:27:00] contain protocols for serving students
[1:27:02] who are disciplined or suspended during
[1:27:03] the pandemic emergency
[1:27:05] further the superintendent shall provide
[1:27:07] in these back-to-school plans
[1:27:09] provisions for students
[1:27:13] who were disciplined or suspended or who
[1:27:15] may elect to remain
[1:27:17] at home under the provisions of the
[1:27:18] policies related to homeschooling
[1:27:20] or who may elect remote learning in the
[1:27:22] interests of safety or health concerns
[1:27:25] exemptions for particular groups of
[1:27:26] students i.e use of masks for youngest
[1:27:33] sorry
[1:27:37] um use of masks for youngest children
[1:27:39] high-risk students file jl
[1:27:42] superintendent shall provide protocols
[1:27:43] to principals and teachers regarding
[1:27:45] students
[1:27:46] who may require special exemptions from
[1:27:48] health and safety standards during the
[1:27:49] pandemic emergency
[1:27:51] such protocols may address exemption for
[1:27:53] utilizing support animals
[1:27:55] job descriptions file gca the
[1:27:58] superintendent may revise job
[1:27:59] descriptions for district staff
[1:28:01] considering the provisions of current
[1:28:02] collective bargaining agreements
[1:28:04] in order to secure the safety and health
[1:28:05] of students and staff establish
[1:28:07] effective
[1:28:08] communications between school and
[1:28:09] community maintain facilities
[1:28:11] transport students as needed provide
[1:28:13] food services and acquire necessary
[1:28:15] materials to operate schools safely and
[1:28:18] securely during the pandemic
[1:28:19] the superintendent will inform the
[1:28:21] school committee of any such changes
[1:28:23] any changes to job descriptions shall
[1:28:25] expire at the end of the declared
[1:28:26] emergency situation
[1:28:28] students at risk j-i-e-j-l jlc
[1:28:31] jlcc during the coveted pandemic the
[1:28:35] superintendent or principal of a school
[1:28:37] may revise or suspend provisions of
[1:28:38] policy to facilitate the education of
[1:28:40] students at risk or with special
[1:28:42] physical needs or their family
[1:28:43] caregivers including but not limited to
[1:28:45] caring for
[1:28:47] or educating students with disabilities
[1:28:49] illness pregnancy child learning
[1:28:50] responsibilities or special education
[1:28:52] needs consistent with law and regulation
[1:28:55] privacy of students file jra
[1:28:59] during the pandemic the rights to
[1:29:00] privacy held by students and their
[1:29:01] families shall not be abridged by the
[1:29:03] public schools
[1:29:04] such rates extend to the confidentiality
[1:29:07] of student academic records health data
[1:29:09] economic status and other such
[1:29:10] information as may be considered
[1:29:12] confidential by law
[1:29:14] massachusetts law prohibits the
[1:29:15] recording of individuals without their
[1:29:17] permission
[1:29:18] similarly students may not be recorded
[1:29:20] in classrooms by audio visual or remote
[1:29:22] means without the permission of parents
[1:29:23] or
[1:29:24] if of age by individual students during
[1:29:27] periods of remote learning
[1:29:30] the privacy of students participating in
[1:29:32] online classes shall not be violated by
[1:29:35] recording them without appropriate
[1:29:36] permissions
[1:29:38] pivoting back to remote learning or back
[1:29:39] to in school instruction
[1:29:41] the superintendent shall incorporate
[1:29:43] into the back to school plan
[1:29:45] protocols for modifying these plans
[1:29:46] including addressing the needs of
[1:29:47] students who may require reversion from
[1:29:49] in-school to remote learning modalities
[1:29:51] because of the pandemic emergency
[1:29:54] homeschooling file ihbg temporary
[1:29:57] homebound instruction file ihbf eg
[1:30:00] students with physical disabilities and
[1:30:02] remote instruction for students in
[1:30:03] quarantine
[1:30:05] the back to school plan shall provide
[1:30:06] for students who are temporarily
[1:30:08] homebound due to illness quarantine or
[1:30:09] disability
[1:30:11] public safety officers including the
[1:30:12] school resource officer moa with the
[1:30:14] local police
[1:30:16] subject to current law or regulation the
[1:30:18] superintendent shall report to the
[1:30:20] school committee of any change in status
[1:30:22] of the school resource officer
[1:30:23] if the district eliminates visitors to
[1:30:25] school during the school day the sro may
[1:30:27] be impacted
[1:30:29] eligibility for participation in
[1:30:30] extracurricular activities including
[1:30:32] sports
[1:30:33] file jj subject to law regulation and
[1:30:36] standards established by the appropriate
[1:30:37] and legitimate regulatory body
[1:30:39] the superintendent may propose changes
[1:30:41] to district protocols
[1:30:42] for participation in extracurricular
[1:30:44] activities including sports subject to
[1:30:46] the rules established by the
[1:30:47] massachusetts interscholastic
[1:30:49] athletic association attendance versus
[1:30:52] participation in events
[1:30:54] file jh and student athletic handbooks
[1:30:57] subject to law regulation or emergency
[1:30:59] delivery declaration
[1:31:00] the superintendent may propose protocols
[1:31:02] or modifications or suspensions of
[1:31:04] district policies
[1:31:06] regarding attendance by students or the
[1:31:07] public in school events including but
[1:31:09] not limited
[1:31:10] to assemblies sports events large
[1:31:12] gatherings or other programs
[1:31:14] visitors in schools and buildings file
[1:31:17] ki
[1:31:18] subject to current emergency
[1:31:20] declarations the superintendent may
[1:31:22] propose suspension or modification to
[1:31:24] district policies regarding visitors to
[1:31:25] school buildings during the school day
[1:31:27] and after school hours
[1:31:29] illness and contact tracing file jlcc
[1:31:34] subject to the provisions of the back to
[1:31:35] school plan the superintendent may
[1:31:37] establish protocols for tracking student
[1:31:38] contacts
[1:31:39] as a means of locating others for whom
[1:31:42] the student
[1:31:43] from whom students may contract or
[1:31:45] expose other persons
[1:31:47] to the covid19 such protocols will be
[1:31:50] consistent with law and regulation
[1:31:52] and be consistent with standards to
[1:31:54] protect the privacy of students their
[1:31:55] families and other persons
[1:31:57] transportation and busing file e e a e e
[1:32:00] a a e e a e c e e
[1:32:03] a g subject to current law and
[1:32:06] regulation the superintendent may
[1:32:07] suspend or modify policies related to
[1:32:09] the transportation of students by the
[1:32:11] school district legal requirements
[1:32:13] relating to ieps that contain
[1:32:15] transportation for students shall not be
[1:32:17] altered without the appropriate family
[1:32:18] consent
[1:32:19] these modifications shall be consistent
[1:32:21] with the district back to school plan
[1:32:23] operations and plant maintenance file ec
[1:32:26] eca
[1:32:28] subject to the provisions of law
[1:32:29] regulation and collective bargaining
[1:32:31] agreements the superintendent may
[1:32:33] suspend or
[1:32:34] amend current policy to ensure the
[1:32:35] efficient operation of business
[1:32:37] functions and maintenance of school
[1:32:38] buildings
[1:32:39] and other such offices as the different
[1:32:41] district remains
[1:32:44] sorry as the district maintains
[1:32:48] and this last bit i suspect is a note
[1:32:50] but it says possible need to add
[1:32:51] something on technology
[1:32:56] that is all i hope everyone is still
[1:32:57] with me thank you so much for reading
[1:33:01] that um i would anticipate that we might
[1:33:04] waive the second reading
[1:33:05] at our next meeting but i do think it's
[1:33:08] important
[1:33:08] to to hear it and see it um
[1:33:12] so thank you so much so the next
[1:33:15] item is uh fy20
[1:33:19] yes i'm sorry someone has a question oh
[1:33:24] i do mr green please jump in thank you
[1:33:27] so much
[1:33:28] oh and certainly dr phillips has a
[1:33:30] comment i'm sorry
[1:33:31] first i want to commend uh miss parish
[1:33:34] on her
[1:33:35] excellent reading and speaking voice she
[1:33:38] should have considered a career in radio
[1:33:41] um but i do have a question sometimes in
[1:33:44] those
[1:33:44] you know sub-sections the grant is to
[1:33:48] the superintendent and other times it's
[1:33:49] the superintendent
[1:33:51] with the consent of the school committee
[1:33:53] and i was just curious to know
[1:33:55] what made the distinction between those
[1:33:57] two and
[1:33:59] why that might be
[1:34:03] uh dr ackermann as sheriff
[1:34:06] rules do you want to speak to the origin
[1:34:08] of this
[1:34:10] sure so um and this actually i think
[1:34:14] feeds in well
[1:34:15] to dr phillips uh hopefully imminent
[1:34:18] comment
[1:34:19] is our goal was to get this in front of
[1:34:21] school committee as quickly as possible
[1:34:23] we did not think the language in this
[1:34:25] was perfect this is almost verbatim the
[1:34:27] language that came to us
[1:34:29] from the masc sample policy
[1:34:32] and we passed it out of subcommittee so
[1:34:36] that we could have a first reading
[1:34:38] dr phillips in that time has made some
[1:34:41] edits but
[1:34:42] because the superintendent expressed
[1:34:45] urgency in getting
[1:34:46] some sort of policy such as this past we
[1:34:49] passed
[1:34:50] uh this version as it was
[1:34:53] taken from the masc website out of
[1:34:56] subcommittee
[1:34:57] and i'm going to lead into dr phillips
[1:35:00] who has made
[1:35:01] done work on this and has um some
[1:35:04] amendments
[1:35:06] that we will probably discuss next time
[1:35:08] but has a version of this that
[1:35:09] uh sort of addresses those
[1:35:13] questions if that makes sense are you
[1:35:15] comfortable with that doc
[1:35:16] mr green that makes sense i'd love to
[1:35:18] hear
[1:35:19] um dr phillips um
[1:35:23] two amendments
[1:35:27] uh through you madam chair thank you for
[1:35:30] that lead in mr green and dr ackman
[1:35:33] um just kind of his background um as dr
[1:35:36] ackman said
[1:35:37] you know we wanted to get this policy
[1:35:39] before everybody
[1:35:40] so that we could make changes not let
[1:35:44] um perfect be the enemy of good and make
[1:35:46] changes together as a group
[1:35:49] um as background you know like for my
[1:35:52] work
[1:35:53] i spent a lot of time doing statistics
[1:35:54] and we're always interrogating our
[1:35:56] measures and trying to figure out what's
[1:35:58] the signal
[1:35:58] and what's the noise and in the policy
[1:36:01] as written by masc
[1:36:02] my read is that there is some very
[1:36:04] important signal and a lot of noise
[1:36:06] and so the revisions that i did in the
[1:36:10] version that's titled masc
[1:36:11] pandemic with sp edit at the at the end
[1:36:15] is trying to get rid of the noise and
[1:36:16] the noise that i saw was
[1:36:18] it seems like there's a lot of guidance
[1:36:20] in the masc policy so i tried to strip
[1:36:22] that out
[1:36:23] um there's a lot of confusion in terms
[1:36:26] of
[1:36:26] kind of the things that that mr green
[1:36:28] was pointing out
[1:36:29] sometimes it requires the advice and
[1:36:32] consent of the school committee
[1:36:33] sometimes it doesn't
[1:36:34] sometimes it requires that the
[1:36:36] superintendent pay attention to
[1:36:38] regulations sometimes legislation
[1:36:40] sometimes collective bargaining
[1:36:41] agreements
[1:36:43] um and it wasn't really clear what the
[1:36:45] change was
[1:36:46] so in the version that that i
[1:36:49] revised and and that we added to the
[1:36:52] packet
[1:36:53] it tries to strip out all the noise i
[1:36:56] tried really hard
[1:36:57] not to edit the policy like i think
[1:37:00] there's further changes we should make
[1:37:02] but i tried to just cut out the guidance
[1:37:05] streamline the what the superintendent
[1:37:08] has to check
[1:37:09] um and so it's there for your review
[1:37:13] i'm not quite sure what the next step is
[1:37:17] so hopefully
[1:37:18] you can help me there uh chair or dr
[1:37:21] ackman
[1:37:23] um well i think so
[1:37:27] first of all thank you for the sub
[1:37:29] commit the rule subcommittee for doing
[1:37:31] this so
[1:37:32] um efficiently but also thank you
[1:37:36] dr phillips for then taking the time to refine it and to
[1:37:40] clarify it so what i would hope
[1:37:44] uh if we could submit that
[1:37:48] for the next meeting is that um
[1:37:51] are there two versions so there's the one that's straight up from
[1:37:55] maac and then there is your version and
[1:37:58] so what i would like maybe we entitle
[1:38:02] yours
[1:38:03] so you know sarah with edits to have
[1:38:05] both of those policies
[1:38:07] in the packet for the next time and we
[1:38:09] can um
[1:38:11] uh decide to approve one or the
[1:38:14] other or to work you know take one and
[1:38:17] amend that
[1:38:18] and um but i think it would be very
[1:38:20] helpful to see
[1:38:21] both of them um
[1:38:25] mostly in just what you were saying how
[1:38:27] to use how do you go through a document
[1:38:28] and pull out the noise versus the
[1:38:30] signals
[1:38:31] and i think that is very helpful i think
[1:38:33] maac is trying to cover
[1:38:35] everything possible and sometimes
[1:38:41] it's not always clear so if we could
[1:38:43] have both of those
[1:38:45] versions to look at beforehand and then
[1:38:49] at our next meeting i think i would
[1:38:52] entertain a motion to well let's look at
[1:38:55] that whether we
[1:38:56] amend it or whether we just wholesale
[1:38:58] vote one
[1:38:59] down and and then more work on the other
[1:39:03] um so yes dr phillips by all means
[1:39:08] clarify they're both in the packet now
[1:39:10] in case anyone
[1:39:12] didn't have a chance to look at both in
[1:39:13] advance of this meeting
[1:39:15] i'm assuming since it's already in this
[1:39:17] week's packet it'll be in the packet for
[1:39:18] the next meeting
[1:39:19] yes it's fine just flagging that it's
[1:39:22] there
[1:39:24] it's the one masd pandemic specific
[1:39:28] thank you so much for that clarification
[1:39:30] i can say that
[1:39:32] um that was lost on me but that is very helpful
[1:39:35] and so um we haven't
[1:39:39] we've just had a reading we haven't had
[1:39:40] any motion to go vote on either of them
[1:39:43] so that gives us more flexibility
[1:39:45] so thank you very much for that
[1:39:46] clarification um
[1:39:49] does anyone else want to make a comment
[1:39:51] or
[1:39:52] have a question on this
[1:39:55] okay so both of those will be up for the
[1:39:59] second reading at the may
[1:40:01] 5th school committee we are now on to
[1:40:04] item c
[1:40:05] donations and i would be happy to
[1:40:07] entertain emotion
[1:40:10] oh diplomas excuse me wow uh
[1:40:14] i don't know be fyi 20 scale and adp
[1:40:17] diplomas
[1:40:18] can i get a motion on that
[1:40:22] yes um i
[1:40:26] moved to approve
[1:40:30] uh the fy20 scale adp diplomas for
[1:40:34] uh ronald omar santos morales in
[1:40:37] somerville
[1:40:38] a samia scheib from somerville
[1:40:41] and ellie daniel bion from summerville
[1:40:47] aren't you great thank you so much mr
[1:40:50] green for seconding that motion
[1:40:52] is there any discussion can we get a
[1:40:54] roll call votes on approving those
[1:40:55] diplomas can i just ask a quick question
[1:40:57] kerry
[1:40:58] sure of course do we have scale
[1:41:01] of graduates all through the year are
[1:41:02] there specific times that they happen
[1:41:04] just curious that's a great question
[1:41:08] or is there like you know superintendent
[1:41:12] sure as they as they actually meet
[1:41:16] their um their requirements same with
[1:41:18] the elp
[1:41:20] so you know that that um yeah so
[1:41:24] and that's great and congratulations and
[1:41:26] yeah so i was just curious thank you
[1:41:28] so that's always good to clarify and
[1:41:30] then as they graduate throughout the
[1:41:32] year
[1:41:32] they're all invited to the celebration
[1:41:34] and the graduation at the end
[1:41:36] of the year fantastic so with that
[1:41:40] there is a motion by dr ackman seconded
[1:41:42] by mr
[1:41:43] green can i get a roll call vote please
[1:41:46] sure dr phillips
[1:41:51] sorry yes miss corruption
[1:41:55] yes president mclaughlin yes
[1:41:58] mr green
[1:42:01] yes mayor carter tony mr
[1:42:06] yes ms patone yes
[1:42:10] dr ackman yes ms norman
[1:42:14] uh absolutely yes passes congratulations
[1:42:18] thank you so much uh next item is item c
[1:42:20] donations
[1:42:21] can i get a motion please
[1:42:25] i move to accept the service
[1:42:27] recommendation to accept with gratitude
[1:42:29] to find donations
[1:42:31] from 400 in cash to
[1:42:34] from the somerville high school track
[1:42:36] pack to the somerville high school
[1:42:38] athletic scholarship fund
[1:42:40] and standard 85 supply kits valued at
[1:42:42] two thousand eight nine
[1:42:43] sixty five dollars from staples today
[1:42:45] it's third row public school students
[1:42:48] second and who was national second
[1:42:52] emotion please
[1:42:52] eleanor barish thank you miss bears uh
[1:42:56] there's a motion by mr green seconded by
[1:42:58] ms barish
[1:42:59] is there any discussion can i get a roll
[1:43:02] call vote on that too please
[1:43:06] um can you have a
[1:43:09] question i i think that was from before
[1:43:13] mr green was that question from
[1:43:15] before it was indeed and the previous
[1:43:18] thank you so much
[1:43:19] go get a roll call vote on the approval
[1:43:21] of donations
[1:43:23] certainly um phillips yeah
[1:43:27] miss corruption yeah president
[1:43:30] mclaughlin
[1:43:31] yes mr green
[1:43:35] yes mayor carter tony miss parish
[1:43:38] yes mr tony yes
[1:43:41] dr ackman yes miss norman
[1:43:45] yes motion passes
[1:43:49] thank you so much i miss uh
[1:43:53] mrs skipper did you want to say anything
[1:43:56] i did i just i actually wanted to
[1:43:58] mention the staples donation um and um
[1:44:01] we really appreciated the kits these
[1:44:03] were back to school kits
[1:44:05] that contain school supplies for our
[1:44:07] students
[1:44:10] we uh
[1:44:14] picked the kids up but there was a team
[1:44:17] of people that worked
[1:44:18] back at edgerly to put the kids together
[1:44:21] and to
[1:44:22] ensure that we could give them out so ms
[1:44:24] santiago played a pretty big lead role in this so a big
[1:44:28] public thank you to her and to stephanie
[1:44:30] from
[1:44:30] special education uh into our attendance
[1:44:33] officers um
[1:44:34] matt and jen uh as well as lynne
[1:44:36] doncaster so
[1:44:38] um it really was a team effort to get
[1:44:39] the kids out to the school santiago uh
[1:44:41] really spearheaded it so
[1:44:43] just want to say a big thank you to her
[1:44:45] uh
[1:44:46] huge miss santiago not only it keeps
[1:44:49] everything moving but
[1:44:50] it has always whatever has been asked of
[1:44:52] her
[1:44:53] name um matt and jen and also
[1:44:58] stephanie uh they all were at edge early
[1:45:02] and and helped in and it was
[1:45:03] no small feat and we also want to thank
[1:45:06] staples for donating it
[1:45:08] um it does take a village to get kids
[1:45:11] crayons
[1:45:12] i think that's what we've learned so
[1:45:14] thank you so much
[1:45:15] especially miss santiago uh are there
[1:45:18] items from
[1:45:19] board members
[1:45:23] hearing uh mr mazza and then mr green
[1:45:28] uh through your near chair norman i just
[1:45:30] have an answer to that question about
[1:45:32] the uh
[1:45:33] teacher mentors and i just wanted to
[1:45:35] publicly say it's for one year um
[1:45:39] it's for this year only right now the
[1:45:42] teacher mentor program
[1:45:44] thank you so much for that clarification
[1:45:46] and that bit of information
[1:45:48] mr green i just want to make sure we
[1:45:51] took a moment
[1:45:52] on this second day of school to really
[1:45:55] thank
[1:45:55] the teachers who are you know busting their butts to
[1:46:01] make remote learning as
[1:46:03] good as possible and have to do it with
[1:46:05] the unfortunate especially for those
[1:46:07] who are parents little kids who still do
[1:46:09] it with parents watching
[1:46:11] in a way that you know allows for some
[1:46:14] you know tripping from the cheap seats
[1:46:16] that might otherwise be happening
[1:46:18] um and i want to especially contrast
[1:46:20] that with
[1:46:21] hybrid the schools that are currently
[1:46:24] doing hybrid
[1:46:25] which are you know also learning as they
[1:46:28] go and
[1:46:30] oftentimes making mistakes but since
[1:46:33] kids aren't since the parents aren't in
[1:46:34] the room
[1:46:35] those mistakes aren't as visible so i
[1:46:37] want to thank our teachers
[1:46:38] because i want to be cognizant that two
[1:46:40] days in they've done a great job
[1:46:42] but you know this is still very much on
[1:46:43] the learning curve
[1:46:45] and i want to encourage everyone to be
[1:46:47] patient as we figure out how to do this
[1:46:48] as well as possible because even when we
[1:46:51] start a hybrid thing
[1:46:52] the remote learning price will be a huge
[1:46:54] part three days of a school of a
[1:46:56] student's education will still be remote
[1:46:58] it's important that we take this time to
[1:47:00] learn how to do it right
[1:47:03] thank you for that and i could not agree
[1:47:06] with you
[1:47:07] more i i have
[1:47:10] heard from a lot of parents and
[1:47:13] it has been overwhelming the the amount
[1:47:16] of gratitude
[1:47:17] and the towards teachers and said you
[1:47:20] know
[1:47:21] this one went above and beyond and
[1:47:23] here's what this one did and
[1:47:25] um it is it is incredible
[1:47:29] i mean i have a high schooler so that's
[1:47:31] the world i'm in that high school
[1:47:33] orientation on thursday it was
[1:47:37] to be able to make remote physics seem
[1:47:40] not only doable but exciting
[1:47:42] it was really quite something and i i i
[1:47:46] as a parent i'm very grateful because it
[1:47:49] means a lot these
[1:47:50] uh all of our educators are such
[1:47:52] important adults in our kids lives so
[1:47:55] thank you for that um
[1:47:58] any other uh dr
[1:48:01] ackman are there condolences
[1:48:05] they're not they're not and with that
[1:48:09] this meeting is adjourned
[1:48:12] thank you so much