Roundtable/Working Meeting

Great. Good afternoon, everyone. With the quorum being present, I wanted to call this afternoon's March 4th joint roundtable meeting of the Cambridge City Council and School Committee To order, the purpose of today's meeting is to discuss the FY27 Cambridge Public School budget. Priorities. The first order of business is a roll call of members present from the city council and the school committee, clerk of committees, Erwin. Councilor Al-Zubi?

Present. Present. Vice Mayor Azeem? Present. absent, Councilor Flaherty, absent, Councilor McGovern, absent, Councilor Nolan, present, present, Councilor Simmons, present, present, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, present, present, Councilor Zusy? Present. Present. Mayor Siddiqui?

Present.

Present. That's six members present and three recorded as absent. And for the school committee, Vice Chair Zubi? absent member de Paula Santos, absent member Harding, absent member Hudson. Present. Present. Member Jake Kumar.

Present.

Present. Member Siddiqui?

Present.

Present. And Chair Weinstein? Present. Present. That's four members present, three recorded as absent.

Per Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025 adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the Governor, the City is authorized to use remote participation in meetings of the Cambridge City Council and School Committee. You can also view the meeting via the City's Open Meeting Portal or on the city's cable channel 22. There will be no public comment today. If members of the public would like to submit any written communications, they can email them to cityclerk at cambridgema.gov. Great. So I want to welcome everyone. We have a presentation from our school folks today. And so we'll go ahead with that. There'll be hopefully getting through it fairly quickly and then we'll open it up to questions from the city council and then of course our school committee can also weigh in. We've We've been more familiar with this than the city council.

But yeah, I'll pass it to Superintendent Murphy and then CFO Washington. Well, before I do that, my budget co-chair... Chair Weinstein, do you want to say anything?

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I just wanted to very briefly note that Mayor Siddiqui and I are serving as budget co-chairs. This is a budget cycle that spans, you know, two school committees and obviously two city councils as well. and I really appreciate this opportunity for us to get together and look at this budget planning process at this stage. Thank you to Superintendent Murphy and CFO Washington for the work you're doing and for this in advance for the presentation. And last time that we met together, school committee and city council, all of the members school committee members elect joined us which was really appreciated very valuable and because they had not yet been sworn in we're not able to participate in that conversation so it's you know even more important that we have this opportunity to talk together So, you know, with that, I'm headed over back to the mayor. But again, thank you for all for being here. I look forward to the conversation.

And Council Member McGovern is present. Present. Superintendent.

Thank you, Mayor, and message received on moving efficiently through this presentation. So I want to thank the members of the City Council for joining us, and of course, a welcome back to the school committee, who I feel like we just left here just a short time ago. So tonight, this is the rescheduled roundtable on the school department budget. I think, Ms. Washington, are you controlling the slides?

I am not.

Whoever is, feel free to move. to the next one. So again, tonight we're talking about our budget process. Thank you for specifying and extending our gratitude to the city administration and the city government for the budgetary increase that we will be seeing. Miss Washington will walk us through some of the background sort of structural pieces of our budget that are really important for understanding I'll talk a little bit about the priorities and how we are envisioning This next round of investment by this community in our public school system and then of course we're looking forward to taking your questions and hearing your comments. We can move on. So again, this is the timeline.

We try to have a very inclusive budget process as part of the school department budget, not just because it's important to get input, but because it's an opportunity for the school district to articulate the goals, objectives, and priorities that will guide us through this fiscal year. and certainly will be helping to inform our upcoming strategic planning process. So preceding the dates that are in front of you, and it looks like we're starting from today, We've had a number of community engagement sessions, had the opportunity to meet with a lot of caregivers as well as staff, and we've had a series of updates to both the preceding school committee as well as the committee that took office in January talking about how We're formulating priorities in ways that will have an impact on students and making good on the city's investment in the school district. We can move on to the next slide. This is the aforementioned community engagement process, so we can move on to the next slide.

And so here, this essentially talks about You can sort of see here that based on the increases, there's a number of established costs and fixed costs that are increasing as they are. in all school systems. There are certain budgetary pressure points that are highlighted here. You can see our special education tuition is going up. That is a fact of life in school systems and something that our school system and all others are grappling with. It's also something that because of being as well resourced as we are, we're relatively well positioned to try to address as best we can. to try to, again, first and foremost, do right by our students, but also put us on a path towards sustainability and making sure that we're having the type of internal programmatic development that can control for those potential escalators moving forward.

So most of these are relatively typical increases. The facilities increase certainly stands out. That is attributable in part to the new facilities that are coming online and are in my view outstanding investments on the part of the community and creating the type of learning environments we want for our students but there are additional costs that come with that at least in the short term and that's I know I fully expect there'll be some questions on this, but to the mayor's point earlier, I'm gonna try to move on as quickly as I can through this presentation so that we can focus the discussion on Areas that are of interest to members of the council or the committee.

Madam Mayor and the Superintendent, if it's okay to just mention two quick things for the school committee members who have seen this slide a number of times. The numbers that are different on here from the previous presentations The facilities number is slightly higher and the special education tuition number is higher. That's why they're in bold. And for the city councilors, thank you for having us. I'm Ivy Washington, CFO. The last line might be of interest to the folks on City Council who may remember. that city council voted a few years back, 2022, to fund MBTA passes for our high school students. That money is not necessarily an addition, it's transferring from the city Thank you, Abby.

Again, we can come back to areas where people have questions, but we can move on to the next slide, I think. This is just the sort of background as to how the budget comes together. As you can see, in this community, we are not overly dependent on The Chapter 70 funding from the state. We have a large local base that makes up the vast majority of our investment, but you can also see the corresponding increases here. and the various funding sources on which we're reliant. Then we can move on to the next one. So this just reflects Again, the school committee and members of the community that follow the school committee have seen a lot of this data previously.

What this slide reflects is the substantial investment in public education that this city has made over an extended period of time and how that investment has increased to a significant order of magnitude in recent years. This is our second year in a row with an increase in the 4.5 to 4.7 range. We're very grateful for the extent to which our community prioritizes public education. and I think there's very few ways in which we can sort of capture the extent of that prioritization as effectively as we do in this slide. As you know, there's been some significant specific initiatives, including the lengthening of the school day, that is a big part of how and why that investment has increased. But I will just say here what I say to our team frequently, which is that in light of this investment, there is a responsibility on our part in the school system

to hold ourselves to a higher standard to make sure that we're maximizing the impact on students that this investment represents. We can keep going. One thing that's true for all school systems, this one included, we are a personnel investment. That is the nature of a public school system. The investment is about developing people through the use of Human Capital, and the driver of our budget and every other budget are the collective bargaining agreements that Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We did not make widgets, so there's no budget to reduce in that sense. But I think we can keep going. Ms. Washington, do you want to speak to the birth rate piece?

Sure, absolutely. So this slide we do each year. It was new last year, but we thought folks found it helpful to see both the birth rate in Cambridge as well as how that translates into kindergarteners five years later. So that's the two different scales that you're seeing on this chart. And as you can see, there was a big shift in 2008 and then you can see where the COVID pandemic had an impact but you can also see that there's not necessarily a full downward trend which we were concerned about a couple years ago so when we saw 2020, 21, 22, 23 that that Declined straight down. We were worried it might continue in that way but we've bounced back a little in the past couple of years and so we're hoping that means we've sort of leveled off which is helpful for us in terms of planning and sort of Thinking about enrollment and having some understanding of where that's going going forward. We are seeing in general a slight decline and that's what we're projecting in the long term.

and so this slide is a little bit showing that as well but in terms of the city information it's really helpful we get it from the city clerk's office which is fantastic and they actually we always are looking not only at what we're seeing in the Cambridge Preschool Program, in CPP, in kindergarten, and in our grades as they come. But we're also looking at these trends at birth to see if we can predict anything about changes in the future.

Exactly. All right. So I'd want to keep going, Ivy, and then I'll jump in when we get back to the priorities.

Sure, absolutely. So we just this is a reminder, particularly for the city council members, just of how our staffing works, since it is such a huge part of our budget. We have base level positions that are the same at every school. That's principal, assistant principal, psychologist, social worker. We have a number of positions, many positions that are base level that all schools have. We then have positions like Thank you. Thank you. that is really the the sort of tiered approach that we have to staffing the schools um and as the superintendent mentioned um right our our sort of allocation looks much like all other school districts in that the vast majority of our funding is going toward and that's really the sort of key driver of both our budget and our expenses. And we can go to the next slide. The next slide is about charter school enrollment.

So we showed a little bit about how we're thinking about enrollment in the Cambridge public schools. Just we had a question from a School Committee member about some more information about charter schools. So even though there may not be as much of a direct impact on the Cambridge Public Schools operational budget, it does It does impact in terms of the revenue and the net revenue of property taxes coming from the city. And obviously then it does impact the city's budget. But you can see there's also been sort of a downward trend in Charter School Enrollment, but we're at about 475 students that are Cambridge students attending charter schools. and on the next slide you can see the breakdown the vast majority of those students that 473 almost more than 98.5 percent are attending Benjamin Banneker, the Community Charter School of Cambridge or Prospect Hill Academy. and then there are a few other schools. Those change from year to year.

There might be one or two students at those and what happens is they receive the CPS, the Cambridge Public School per pupil amount for each of those Cambridge students that is attending their charter school. and that it was 18 million for FY25. In this budget, there's an assumption that that increases by about a million dollars. And then when charter school enrollment increases significantly, DESE Thank you so much for joining us. The per child amount for all of those charter school students. And part of the reason that might be relevant right now is that recently in 2024, Benjamin Banneker acquired the Matanon campus. And so We anticipate that there may be changes in terms of their enrollment when they move into their new building.

I believe they're planning on moving in this coming summer. We'll have to wait and see how that plays out, but it may be that their enrollment changes and potentially it could change significantly because the campus is much bigger than the space that they're leasing currently. We can go to the next slide. The next slide, this information will look very familiar both to school committee members who have seen this slide, but also to city council members who I know have had a number of presentations from city staff around what is happening with The macroeconomic drivers in Cambridge and outside. And just this slide is just gives you a sense of sort of how Cambridge fits in with that. So we are that orange slice, that 28.3%. And then we also in that debt section, the 11% for debt and interest on Cambridge properties, obviously, There are a number of very large school buildings that are included in that 11%.

So that, and I think the economic slowdown piece, my guess is everyone has heard plenty about that and we don't need to cover that again for this group. And then on the next slide, we get back into budget planning and priorities. So I'll turn it back over to the superintendent.

Thank you, Ms. Washington. And so again, Ms. Washington just said that this is a group that we're presenting to tonight is very familiar with. The sort of increasing level of risk that comes along with economic uncertainty and some of the ambiguity around the macroeconomic conditions. as we get into talking in a moment about the priorities that we've as a school department set to try to again make good on this significant investment that the community makes in our public schools, we are developing those priorities sort of amidst like three significant variables in terms of the economic conditions. It is a lower projected budget increase than in past years. You saw the slide earlier that talked about a 26% increase over four or five years. To be very clear, we recognize that 4.5% plus is a healthy investment and it's one that we're grateful for and we intend to really maximize the impact of.

Another very significant variable is that we do have nine expiring collective bargaining agreements. And as I mentioned earlier, that is the major driver behind our budget. And so with those agreements coming up, There is a level of uncertainty that needs to sort of help influence our prioritization and our goal setting. And then sort of connected to those two things, and I think connected to sort of what I said earlier about trying to hold ourselves to a higher standard to maximize that investment making sure that we're being thoughtful about how we structure our staffing models to make sure that we're First and foremost, serving the interests of students with a particular emphasis on our high need student populations so that we can confront Some of the persistent opportunity and achievement gaps that we know this school system and many others have struggled to eliminate over time.

That is all part of sort of this budget planning, the sort of degree to which each budget is sort of its own annual strategic planning process. and then the more comprehensive strategic planning process that we spoke about at last night's school committee meeting and will be engaged in in the coming months. If we go to the next slide, we'll talk a little bit about Some of the standing priorities that are sort of the cornerstones of the goals that we've had in recent years and Thank you. Thank you. We are being thoughtful and strategic about the ways in which we invest in our human capital Thank you for joining us today.

We have to acknowledge the fact that we have to improve upon is the fostering of strong partnerships with our families. Our caregivers are our children's first teacher and the stronger the relationship that our school communities Enjoy with those parents and caregivers the better positions the students are going to be to learn. And then we have a series of priorities that are sort of specific to this particular time period where in the early years of Thank you. Thank you. to make sure that we're maximizing our impact in the early childhood programming space. We have a significant decision that will be before the committee at some point this year regarding the use of 158 Spring Street, the former Kennedy Longfellow and making sure that we're making a strategic decision that maximizes that asset Thank you.

Thank you. In FY28, but sort of looking ahead to that, we have our expanded learning time programs at the Fletcher Maynard Academy and the King School that have been in place for an extended period of time. That's a significant and important and I think impactful investment. and one that in the case of the Fletcher Maynard Academy, I have every expectation will continue certainly in the long term. But I do think there's some strategic decisions that we have to start thinking about in terms of how we support all of our individual school communities and what is the sort of rationale and the basis for particular investments that we're making with regard to specific schools. Now, moving to the next slide, we'll talk a little bit about FY27. You can see educator empowerment, evaluation, effectiveness, and family engagement. Those are sort of our standing priorities that transcend school year.

This year, again, keep bearing in mind The uncertainty of those variables that require us to sort of think strategically, maybe a little more strategically about the investments that we are able to make. Improving student supports is an umbrella term that we use that we'll unpack momentarily. recognizing the fact that from a programmatic standpoint we have evidence that in certain areas we're not meeting the needs of students and trying to think about how we can make strategic investments that Thank you so much. I know the committee is aware, and I imagine the council is as well, that next year we will be moving to a two-tiered start time system.

So currently the Cambridge Public Schools operates on a three-tier system of 745, 815, 845, and we will be collapsing those into an 8 a.m. and an 845 a.m. start. The primary driver behind that Thank you for joining us today. and that there's some programmatic opportunities available for students in the AM hours and many more. We have some great practices that are in place at some of our schools right now.

Thank you so much for joining us. I'm grateful for the action of the previous school committee as well as the support of the current school committee in aligning our start times in ways that families will be able to rely on us, I hope, to a much greater extent. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you.

are all committed to trying to really prioritize and cultivate a data inquiry culture within our schools so that we can have better, more effective and systematized routines around data inquiry driving our instruction and driving our strategic decision making. And we can move to the next slide where I believe we're going to unpack So this is essentially what I just said, but in a different format. And for people that like it in a different format, you can refer back to that. But I think if we go to the next slide, I think we're going to unpack Our student support piece. You can see the arrow there. This really is our top priority coming into FY27 is recognizing that There are areas in our individual school communities where we have not been able to provide a response to students that are experiencing specific challenges in certain learning environments.

Thank you so much for joining us. both in elementary as well as in our upper schools who may need a slight modification of an environment either in a short-term or a long-term basis to make sure that we're meeting their needs. And so with some modest staffing investments along with Thank you so much for joining us. to create a more optimal learning environment for students. The opening of the Darby Vassell Upper School and the infrastructure that is available through that space is one of the ways in which were able to have that level of flexibility.

And that sort of goes back to a point that Ms. Washington made earlier, just about the ways in which this school system has been a beneficiary of the investments that this community has made in public education. We can go on to our next one. So again, for the school committee, this is a repeat essentially of what we've talked about before, but talking about just how we're sort of teasing out the different types of supports. Again, specifically elementary and upper schools. to make sure that there's some programming models that have not previously been tried that we are to some degree sort of piloting at least at the upper school. I think it's probably we try to avoid that term because We're not looking at this to be sort of just a certain experimental phase. We have pretty good data to support. There are areas that we need to open up some additional opportunities for students, but That's essentially what this sort of spells out.

I think that if anyone watched the school committee meeting last night, I think one of the terms that we come back to over and over and over again that we know as an organization we have to do better is establishing greater consistency across our school communities. Our schools, I think very much do right by this community We are a good investment for this community. We're a school system that I think caregivers and certainly our educators should take a great deal of pride in being associated with. But we also know that there are areas that we have to improve upon and we have to improve upon that with significant urgency. And so, again, taking into account the fact that there are The degree of flexibility we have Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for joining us. I believe firmly that that's a reflection of the values that this community has and the extent to which you all have prioritized public education in this community. and from my perspective that means that that comes along as I said earlier with a heightened set of standards and expectations in this budget and the budget that I will recommend to the school committee tomorrow, excuse me, next week. that is meant to reflect our efforts to meet those heightened standards. So Mayor, that's the fastest I think we've done that presentation to date. but certainly looking forward to taking your questions.

And I know Ms. Washington will jump in if there's anything, any glaring omissions that I missed.

Great. Thank you. I want to welcome all the other members who've joined. Vice Mayor Azeem, we have member DePaulo Santos, member Hudson, member Harding. So thank you all. With that, it's 4.31. So we can go ahead and I know some folks have to leave. So if you can raise your hand and I will take your questions. We'll start with two questions. Councilor Zusi, I know you said you had to leave, so do you want to start? No, I'd like to, not yet. Thank you. We'll go to Councilor Nolan and then Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thank you, thanks for this presentation, for recognizing obviously the tremendous investment we've made. I do have a few questions, but I will just start with a couple. One is on the, I know it's a very small part of the budget, obviously all of it's salaries, etc. However, there's the area of Facilities and energy savings over time, it should be that that will actually eventually go down because we've poured a lot of money into ensuring that we have a far more efficient school building. So I'm just interested in that and related to that other... Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for joining us. I think the overall question, knowing that the student supports it, it sounds very familiar with what, frankly, the district has been trying to do for, you know, two, five, 10, 15 years. Are we learning from best practice from other districts who don't have $40,000 a student? Because it's 80% of salaries, and yet other districts have about... The state average is half of our per pupil spending. Nearby districts have more like 75%. Somerville and Boston are above state average, but... Very few are near us.

So my question is, are we learning from other districts who manage to provide student supports in a way that meets the students' needs but is far less costly than what we're doing?

I'm sure. Thank you. Mayor, may I respond? Yes, please. Go ahead. Thank you. Through you, Mayor, to Councilor Nolan, I think that my short answer would be yes. I think that we do spend a lot of time at various grade levels making sure that we're collaborating and observing I would say that there are some specific examples of that. I think the model for the upper school support program that's referenced there, the Bright program, which Itself was modeled after a program that originated in Brookline. And that's sort of one example, but I think that being in continuous communication I would say that there

Variables that distinguish Cambridge from other school systems, the number of our schools and the size of the buildings would be just one that sometimes it does make an apples to apples comparison more challenging. But I think I take your point. I think you're right that we have a responsibility to be constantly looking for those best practices. To the specific points that you raised around special education, our out of district placements have been relatively stable. The costs themselves are what are escalating dramatically, which is why this is a pressure point across all school systems. But I think the point that you raised is really important, which is that it's not just from a financial perspective. Children have a right to go to school in their hometown. Um, and that's certainly a family choice and that we always work to collaborate with families but we feel a responsibility to do the programmatic development necessary to give children the opportunity to stay here in Cambridge and ideally here in the Cambridge Public Schools and have their educational needs met.

As it happens, there's also a financial advantage to that, which is something that we also have to prioritize. With respect to the infrastructure, I think that These are very expensive buildings to run and they're certainly more efficient and more environmentally efficient. Over time, what exactly that will mean with respect to costs, I think there is a little bit of an open question with regard to that. But what is definitely true, and this is something that we're in frequent communication with our partners in the city administration about, is that just like the investment brings with it a heightened responsibility with regard to instructional quality. The tremendous investment that you as a community have made in this infrastructure means that it's incumbent upon us to make sure that we are taking good care of this infrastructure and running it properly in ways that will last for generations. So that is definitely a commitment that I want to just sort of speak to publicly.

But I will say that it's also true that these highly sophisticated, environmentally efficient buildings are very expensive to run. And I do think there's a little bit of an open question as to from a financial perspective whether or not they will be cheaper in the long run. I'm not sure that's a commitment I would be prepared to make at this time.

Pastor Nolan. Great, thanks. I will, I guess, hold off on other questions. I will note that we do like to think we're special. In reality, when you look and we are in many ways and yet when you look at the average class size across the state, when you look at the actual number of students in buildings, we are not actually that different. So I will push back a little bit on that to suggest that that is the cause of our We may be staffing our schools differently. We may have way more administrators. And again, that's fine if the achievement is there. But if the achievement is not there, then we really need to consider whether the staffing at those schools are. I have done that when I looked across the state. People think, oh, well, we have such low class size, but that is true for many, many districts across the state who spend half of what we spend in our average school size other than a couple of outlier districts. I do have a couple other questions Mayor Siddiqui but I will certainly wait

I certainly agree on the class size point. 17 schools for 7,000 students. I do think that might be a little of an outlier, but the class size, definitely. We're certainly not above any type of averages with regard to that. And our staffing is much higher.

We will go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler and then Councilor Zusy.

Thanks, Madam Mayor, through you. Thank you to Mr. Murphy as well. Washington for this presentation and for my colleagues on the school committee for all your work on the budget. I have two questions. The first was a follow-up on the special education costs. And you've answered part of my question already, was that this is not a unique Cambridge thing. The costs are going up across school districts. I was just hoping you could say a few more words about what's driving that trend is that There's better special education technology out there and that costs more when school districts are investing it. Is that more students are being diagnosed as special needs because of the diagnostic criteria have expanded or something else? Could you just talk a little bit about those trends?

I want to clarify where I'm speculating and where I'm making sort of an informed statement. Costs have definitely gone up. Thank you for joining us. I will say at the beginning of the 2000s with regard to incidents and high-need supports. The part that I'll speculate about is I think that as we saw that dramatic increase I think it became a field in which there was much greater interest and I think that sort of stimulated the economy of organizations and entities providing those supports. And I think that is the cumulative effect of that is a little bit of what we're seeing.

I will say that I also think it's an area that is never going to be solved at the district or municipal level. And it's something that I would call upon state leaders to take seriously because I think we have both a financial sustainability set of challenges that The labor leaders as well as superintendents have been Asserting for some time, you may be familiar with the Fiscal Crisis Letter, sort of a generic name, but it's a campaign that's been going around across school systems and many more. I don't actually have a theory beyond that, but maybe Ms. Washington knows.

I can say a few words through you, Madam Mayor, just so that for folks understanding the private institutions, which are mostly nonprofit organizations that provide the placements, Their rates, they set them with the state. So the operational services division actually tells them how much their rate can increase from year to year. So for instance, in FY27, the rate that is going up exactly 3.04% and that is the amount they get. The problem that we have noticed this year, which is different than in prior years, is that we have found two things that are happening that are unusual and impacting us. And again, impacting all districts and alike. One is that a number of those schools have gone back to the state and asked to be restructured and considered to be a different category, which changes the reimbursement rate dramatically mid-year, right? So it's not a cost that then we can predict.

The other piece is that they have also started asking for additional funds for additional services that are outside of that rate. And so we're seeing increases that In the past, it really was driven, as Councilor Nolan had mentioned, really was driven by just the number of students and what type of placement. And now we have these other drivers that are impacting the costs. The only other thing I would say is that there is a lot of variability from year to year. In this budget, we're assuming with that 3.04% increase, which I just said might Thank you. Thank you. being in a residential placement instead of a day placement can make have dramatic impacts on the budget and so some of it is also just needing to be conservative for the the constellation of whatever students needs are in a particular year So that's also a piece of it.

So none of that answers the full question, but I feel like those are some other pieces that are drivers in terms of what that total number is.

Thank you. That's helpful to understand some of those factors. And then just one other question. I feel like there's so many things we could ask about. It's so important. It's such a big part. But we'll just ask one other. And the superintendent sort of alluded to supportability, you know, Crisis across a lot of the U.S. right now. One part of that, which is paraprofessional salaries. We want Cambridge an expensive place to live. I think on the council side, we're trying to work on the cost part, especially housing costs, which are such a big cost. I think there's been ongoing conversations about professional salaries, which are these jobs which are sort of lower in pay than others. where we're at and how that fits under the cost model. So just ask the superintendent to speak a little about that.

Sure. Thank you, Councilor. I think that I would start by just saying that There's definitely a shared interest between the district and our labor partners with respect to wanting to maintain highly competitive compensation for all of our employees. Thank you so much for joining us. As I mentioned earlier, we're at the bargaining table now working to complete collective bargaining agreements with the majority of our workers. I think that we're trying to think strategically around sort of how do we make priority and strategic investments in ways that advance our core mission and It's certainly true that we want to make sure that obviously we want to make sure everyone's treated fairly.

And as I said, we'll make sure that the pay is competitive. But also I think sometimes there are places in which the paraprofessional position is It's somewhat unique in that they serve both as sort of the foundation of our relationships with students and families and really position our Our teachers and our administrators to be able to do the work that they need to do in the classroom into leading buildings. And there are also specific responsibilities within the building that sometimes end up going to paraprofessionals by default and I think we want to be thoughtful and strategic about recognizing that the different types of work that are done that that does not always necessarily translate into disproportionate across the board, compensation increases, frankly. But I do think it's important that we are thoughtful and strategic about how we make investments that can then have sort of outsized impact on

The quality of the educational experiences that students have. So it's definitely an ongoing sort of inquiry in areas, places that we're trying to be creative. But again, I think what's important is that they be anchored in How do the investments translate into improved experiences for students so that we can position them, obviously, for post-secondary success?

Thank you. I yield back.

Thank you. Councilor Zusy and the Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you so much, Mayor Siddiqui. I wanted to pick up on some follow-up questions from what my other colleagues have asked. I wanted to ask, so how many... Students do we have in outside special ed placements? I'd love to know that. How many are residential and how many are day? and I guess let's start with that and then I'm eager to know more about whether all our schools are at capacity and should we be thinking about Consolidating schools. Should we be closing some schools? Would that make sense?

Well, I'll start with the second part first while Ms. Washington gets the exact number, but just for, I think it's 125, but if I'm way off, she can correct me because every once in a while I quote a data point from a previous district that I was in and then I... I'd feel embarrassed by that, but I think it's right in that range. With respect to the idea of our schools, so we measure capacity in different ways, both in terms of The programmatic model that we have in place in a particular building and then there's the sort of infrastructure capacity and sometimes we're in places where we're sharing space either with DHSP or with other partners sometimes that number can be somewhat fungible. The short answer is no, our buildings are not each at capacity. And I think it's important that we are always thinking strategically about the ways in which we build

effective instructional synergies amongst programs that make the environment Thank you for your time. The questions around what is the right number of schools for a district has to be sort of the end point analysis as opposed to the starting point analysis because we've got to think about how do we create environments again that maximize impact on all students. and then fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, if you will, to make sure that we really are making the most of the entirety of the investment. that a community makes. So it's sort of impossible for me to answer. I think that a big part of our strategic planning process, and it's not necessarily about consolidating schools or not, but it's just about thinking about all those programmatic models and the ways in which we maximize those investments.

And I think that's how we can then sort of develop plans to determine what, if any, changes need to be made in the programming that we have available at our schools. Am I anywhere close on the number of out-of-district placements there?

Yes, you're very close, very close. Through you, Madam Mayor. Councilor Zusy, so it currently is 118 day students and 17 residential students, and then as of the Last count I got, there were three that are in 45-day placements, which is sort of an interim placement while it's determined what the correct placement is. So they will end up in some sort of placement probably. is 138 altogether. And as I noted, because there is Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you so much. So it sounds like you're thinking about like creating our own outside placement school within the city, right? Yeah.

Councilor, what I would say is that it's an ongoing responsibility that every school system has to be thinking about what programming we have available and looking to create opportunities for the children of a community to stay within our school system. So I definitely wouldn't classify it as sort of like a new initiative. I would say that it's just a fundamental responsibility that all school systems have, that if you have If you have a cohort of students with a particular Profile of Needs that you are, you know, year after year needing to place in an out-of-district placement. Sometimes, I mean, every district has some limitations, even as well-resourced as we are. But you have to constantly be thinking about what are ways to serve those students and families better. And part of that is just sort of the ongoing continuous review.

No district of our side is going to have no out-of-district placements. That's not, I mean, just practically speaking, that's at least as of right now in the state of education. Any district with 7,000 students is going to have out-of-district placements, but that kind of goes to what I said earlier to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler about The fact that this is something from a state perspective I think needs to be looked at because I don't know if that statement should be true in perpetuity. It's been true for a long time and I'm not aware of any particular efforts that would lead me to believe it's going to not be true in the short term.

I thank you so much. I have more questions too, but I will yield. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just had two quick clarifying questions. I had not heard this before, so apologies if I repeat it. Not exactly. But did you mention that the newer buildings actually have higher maintenance costs than other buildings?

They can have higher maintenance costs. I mean, it's a much more sophisticated set of technology in which the buildings run They are environmentally obviously much, much more efficient to an order of magnitude that they're not even really comparable. But there are additional costs that go along with those buildings. And that's both from a personnel perspective as well as from a maintenance perspective, when there are problems in the new buildings, they are definitely more expensive to fix. And so I think that to be very clear, they're a very, very good investment. They're creating a much more optimal learning environment. and there will be opportunities for other efficiencies I think in the long term but it's not in the short term I wouldn't consider it to be an obvious place of like cost savings.

Could you say more? Like, this is just novel information. So it's just updating my priors on all of this. Could you tell me a little bit more of like specific, is it like specific maintenance or technology is more expensive? What do you mean by staff? I think that my assumption, perhaps wrongly, was that we would have these newer buildings, but because they were all electric or they had geothermal wells and all this sort of stuff, our utility costs would go down and the overall cost of running these buildings would actually be Lower than before. Is that not accurate? Could you give detailed examples?

Well, one example would be in the Darby Basel Tobin complex. There is a considerable amount of infrastructure that didn't exist in the previous building. So there's the, I refer to it as the water tank, but I'm not a water tank expert. So there's probably a more technical term that Ms. Washington might remember, but the storm tank, is that what it's called? There's a massive storm tank under the building that itself is a necessary and important part of the city's infrastructure. But my understanding is that as part of this massive This was the sort of common sense place to include this infrastructure, but that itself brings with it additional costs. In the absence of that storm tank, there would be certainly a significant amount of additional risk. and presumably there would be other infrastructure elsewhere that would have costs associated with it.

So that is one example, which I think this amounts to like $105,000 just to be specific that It wouldn't be part of our budget at least. I don't know whether it would be a cost that exists elsewhere in the city. I think I'd have to defer to others on, but that's just one example of the complexity and the sophistication of this infrastructure brings with it certain additional costs. Perhaps necessary costs, but that would be one example. But I don't know, Ivy, if you have others.

Just two quick ones, I would say. One is I think we struggle often where people are expecting it to be to again a one-to-one from the building that used to be to the new one but often the new building actually is Thank you for joining us. The HVAC systems I think are probably a good example where you may be saving costs in certain areas, but definitely supplies for those HVAC systems are expensive and getting more and more expensive. and the maintenance on like if you are contracting out maintenance to groups that do HVAC maintenance, the maintenance on that is not only more expensive to maintain but also is getting more and more expensive and if you're looking for in-house help the cost of the employee and what you would need to pay to have someone who's an HVAC expert

versus who you could have work on the HVAC system I feel like HVAC you can really look at and see a real difference and every year we're having to budget more and more for the HVAC systems in these brand new buildings.

Thanks, Mary-Azeem.

Got it. And then it's just my second question and then I'll yield. You know, years ago when, you know, COVID first hit, we were hearing about, like, you know, people were Thank you for joining us. I was wondering if we do see a noticeable size difference in the entering classes or we expect one or if that's just kind of been washed out.

Lieutenant?

I think our enrollment is relative. Ms. Washington referenced earlier that we've sort of stabilized, that we saw the decline that at least I think was anecdotally associated with some of the concerns that you've raised. That has... It's gone up, but it's also sort of plateaued in the projections right now that it's relatively steady. I don't know in terms of COVID implications, but I would imagine that cost of living in Cambridge is one variable that is being taken into account in terms of We're seeing relatively stable enrollment. But right now, we predict stable and potential for a very slight decline in coming years.

Yeah, and it never reached the enrollment level it was prior to COVID. So we came back up dramatically, but it never made it back there.

All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Madam Mayor.

Yes, Councilor McGovern.

Sorry, I had to do this on my phone today, so I couldn't figure out how to raise the hand. I do have to say before I make some comments, I'm a little, I feel guilty. I'm watching Jeevan burn calories on his treadmill and I'm eating Girl Scout cookies. So anyway, I don't know. He's going to cover about five miles by the time this meeting's over. I want to thank the superintendent and the school committee members. I think those of us who've been on the school committee before understand how difficult putting this budget together is and to balance all the different needs in our district. So I just want to thank you for your work. I just want to comment on a couple of things that we've talked about today. Real quick on the audit district. School Placement. Now that's where I've spent half of my social work career.

I was a clinical coordinator at the upper school at the Judge Baker Children's Center, the Manville School, and I was a clinical director at Pharr Academy in Cambridge. Those schools are, first of all, to the superintendent's point, we will never get to a point where we won't have out-of-districts placements and we should never get to a point because A lot of those placements are what the children need to be successful. This is not just a money issue. And I, over the years, always appreciated that work with schools districts from across the state. and I would go into meetings with a lot of other districts that would say, we know the child needs an out of district placement, but we're not paying for it, sue us, it's too expensive, we don't wanna pay it. And we didn't really have that problem with Cambridge. and it was all it was it was about you know what is in the best interest of the child and what is in the best interest of forwarding that child's education now in theory being in the district I think

even as someone who's working out of district placements, I think being in the district tends to be better when things are more or less equal. You're more part of the community. You can participate in after school activities, which is really hard if you're going to an out of district placement in Lawrence. and it takes you an hour and a half to get back to Cambridge because of traffic. It is better in a lot of ways, but a lot of times out-of-school districts are better in what the children need. I don't want us to lose sight of that. They're also very expensive programs to run. I was in classrooms with three teachers and six kids, right? And these were teachers who were not union. They were not getting paid what teachers in public schools get paid and have the benefits. You know, they were doing, they would visit kids on weekends, which, you know, that's a contract negotiation. They didn't have, it's very hard to replicate what an out-of-district school provides.

in a district. And it may not be the savings that people think it's gonna be if we're going to do it right. So I just wanted to share that experience. And then I would also say on the question about Closing schools or buildings. I think Patty will remember that one of the first, you know, one of the first things when we were on school committee was the question about the Longfellow School. And it was after the consolidation and you know, the Longfellow merge with Kennedy and that building was empty and the question came up as to whether the school district was going to give that building back to the city. And we voted not to do that. and look at how useful that building has been and how important that building has been to the district as Swing Space, as the High School Extension Program, So I just want to caution before yes, enrollment may be going down slightly now. It may not be down slightly in 10 years or 15 years.

And if those buildings, get returned to the city and the city sells them or they get renovated as something else, you don't get them back. So I just I think, you know, before we start thinking, oh, this is what the numbers are today and what the projections are for the next couple of years, let's start giving away buildings. You may want those buildings in 10 years. Just a little bit of experience that I just wanted to offer, but I do appreciate the work. I want to give a big thumbs up and appreciation to the bright program at the high school. Please make sure that... You know, as you look at funding that we continue to fund programs such as Bright that really help children who have social emotional challenges. That's another way to keep kids in district, right? If we can provide those programs. So thank you very much for your service and for the work you're doing. I yield.

Thanks, Council Member Govern. And with Bright, we are going to, you know... Make sure there's investment at the upper school level as well. So we'll go to Councilor Al-Zubi.

Yeah, thank you. Through you, Madam Chair. I really just want to appreciate the work that you're sharing with us. I'm trying to better understand the piece on slide 10. I think throughout the presentation you mentioned trying to address needs in the different schools to help address equity concerns and outcomes, like how we can improve those. And I'm curious, what percentage does the base level piece constitute of the employee's hiring process for a school? And is it like the Is the last tier the needs piece? I'd love to better understand that process.

Thank you, Councilor. We have a slide that didn't make the cut, but I think was in an earlier version of this that actually... is exactly on point to that. The rough estimate is it's about a third, a third, a third in terms of the entirety of the budget. And so I haven't seen this broken down on a school by school basis, but Certainly in some of our schools, the first tier, tier on the far left, would probably represent a slightly larger percentage of the Thank you. Thank you. In terms of the overall district, it is essentially each tier represents essentially one third of the personnel investment.

Gotcha. That's helpful to understand. So it's not necessarily tiered up to down. It's left to right when not necessarily a priority for one over the other.

Yeah, it's need-based. So it's essentially that, as Ms. Washington said, there's a certain group of positions that the fact that it is a school necessitates The existence of those positions, certainly the high school is an outlier because of its overall size, but generally speaking, the rest Everyone has a principal. Everyone has an assistant principal. Where you see more healthy human capital investments in Cambridge than you would in comparable districts to the extent that there are any. You see heavier investments in instructional coaching. You see heavier investments in paraprofessionals. You see heavier investments in interventionists. And I'll just say, because in response to the meeting last night, I made this comment publicly, I'll say it here.

One of the strategic investments that is not called out explicitly in these presentations around student supports that will be recommended as part of next week's recommended budget is an instructional interventionist complement that we are essentially maintaining the staffing level that we had prior to the closure of one of our schools. We may be talking about a handful of positions, but I think the reason that that is significant and is important in the context of the question that you're asking, Councilor, is that We are looking at a district that is very well staffed to begin with, and we're making certain strategic investments that are based on maintaining staffing levels, essentially altering our staffing formula to be responsive to the needs that have been identified through a variety of analyses.

that have been done around our school system. So it may look like a relatively modest increase, but when you think about the significance of the changed variables that would have under the previous formulas led to more of a staff reduction, That's where we're sort of concentrating that investment, hopefully in response to our students' needs.

Yeah, it's definitely helpful to better understand. I know especially when, you know, you mentioned some needs are not being met and You know, how we explore defining the structuring process could be helpful in how we better understand how to address specific schools and their needs and the neighborhoods in which they exist. The other question that I have is more so related to, I think, Something Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler brought up. Just across the board, are you guys currently working on ways to better Thank you so much for having me. the work that they're doing to outcomes and be curious to hear more about how you guys are doing that work and what that looks like.

Yeah, I mean, so thank you, Councilor. It's a really good question. I'd say it's sort of the core question of each budget, which is How was this mammoth investment on behalf of the taxpayers of Cambridge going to turn into higher quality experiences for the children of Cambridge? I think that essentially is at the core of your question. And I would say, I'll say two things. One, We refer to ourselves as a singular mission organization. I mentioned earlier that we're not in the widget production business. Our mission, our objectives are to improve experiences for students. that will be reflected in improved outcomes. But we certainly start with the quality experiences and know that the outcomes will follow. And ultimately what we're trying to do is position our students for post-secondary success. That starts from the day they come in as a three or four year old in our preschool programs. And that's the goal as they go through grade 12 plus with us. So making sure that we maintain that singular focus, I think is one piece.

The second thing I would say, and I know that as always, most of the people on this call have been I've been affiliated with the Cambridge Public Schools longer than I have and I am well aware of the fact that I'm not the first superintendent to say this and all of you have an awareness that reflects your long-term sort of connection to the district. We are a very well-funded district. There are some school districts in this state and elsewhere where the variable that is holding them back from reaching their full potential is a lack of resources. That's not true for the Cambridge Public Schools. We have the resources that we need. We have a responsibility to execute In a more precise fashion so that the quality of our students' experiences are of a higher quality and their outcomes reflect that and therefore they've got more and better options in their post-secondary lives.

I want to take this opportunity to say this because as the governing body responsible for appropriating this funding, I want you to know that our team recognizes the responsibility that comes with that investment and we have no basis to complain about the funding that is at our disposal. We just have to, and to be very clear, thanks to the hard work of our educators, we do execute on this mission well. and for a large number of students, we are giving them the experience that they need and that their families expect. And it's our responsibility to make sure that that's true for all students.

Yeah, thank you for sharing a little bit more about that. I think in the future it would be definitely helpful to just better understand if you guys are thinking about that translation through specific schools or Thinking about it from like an instructional level, like thinking baseline on the different positions or if it's a combination of both. I also do want to comment that, you know, The different positions that people hold, and especially paraprofessionals in particular, have been holding Thank you. Thank you. We are trying to translate that piece when the majority of the budget is going into instruction and staff. And I definitely wanna also acknowledge the piece where

The City Council can help address and weigh in on these challenges from talking about things like workplace housing to how homelessness impacts students' engagement or experiences in our school district. I say this in part to say I hope that you all know that this isn't only on you all. I definitely hope that we're in Thank you so much for joining us. All yield, thanks.

Other questions from the body from anyone who hasn't spoken? School committee members, feel free to chime in as well. Yes, Chair Weinstein.

Thanks. I just wanted to actually really piggyback on something that Councilor Al-Zubi just said. So I took the opportunity to jump in while others are thinking about their thoughts and really appreciate her lifting up that interrelated nature really of the work of supporting our children. This is something we've talked a lot about. I've been very involved with work around developing this coordinated cradle to career system of supports that would bring our children really from birth through launching in their lives independently. and that really can't happen by the schools alone. There are all these, what I've started to hear called, makes a lot of sense, social determinants of academic success. And the schools are an important part of that. academic work is an important part of that. Schools are also a place where at least for a pretty expansive age range, we are

really the only place outside of a student's a child's family that you know really always has to know where is this child So we're an important piece of that, but I really do agree that this is something that we can and should do even more to coordinate with all the resources we have to piggyback on something that I think the superintendent was saying, With all those resources, there's no reason any child should not have what they need other than work we need to do to really better coordinate and make sure nobody falls through the cracks and so that we can better identify the places where we are missing some support because we know what's going on with each child and no, there isn't something available for this particular need. So now we need to figure that out. So anyway, I really appreciate the council raising that.

I can't speak on behalf of the entire committee, but I think both the funding that's been provided and the general support that's been provided and other work we've done in collaboration, like launching Universal Preschool, I think The City Council has certainly demonstrated that commitment, so I look forward to continuing that work.

I yield. Thank you. Councilor Nolan, did you have more questions you had said?

Yeah, and it actually follows up on, all of us ultimately are exactly where we have wanted to be, which is how is this budget producing for students? How is it that we can provide The resources in the form of people, programs, support, whether it's family engagement, teacher effectiveness, all of these measures. And I think some specific questions are Whether we feel like we have the capacity within our district and or elsewhere to actually effectively monitor, evaluate and understand what is delivering. I mean, I know Dean Fantini for years. So when I worked with him, we talked about starting the individual success Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for joining us. So we have some family, my several relatives were teachers, is that professional development, for instance, can really, really help teachers, but also if it's not tied directly to the classroom, it often is not that effective. We as a district continue to spend two to three to four times as much per student on professional development based on the analysis that DESE does and provides district by district comparison on professional development than any other district in the entire state. We spend two to three X on instructional materials. Across the board, there's just so many areas in which we have made investments.

and the real question for me is how is it that this district, as you all move forward, how will the budget ensure that monitoring the effectiveness of programs and, for instance, how effective are the supports we're providing for teachers, or should we have different because that gets to the heart of how it is that we can as all of us have been saying is use this amazing resource and the community support that is to die for from other districts. I mean, I remember it's still the case that, as all of us have said, Thank you for joining us today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council. I mean, I think what I would say is that one, with regard to the cost comparisons, given that we do invest at such a higher level than other communities, I think if you look at any breakdown from DESE and there are always questions about exactly how we're breaking those down because districts are structured differently and so the sort of the data some of those pieces I trust the DESE comparisons with regard to student achievement. When it comes to the actual budget, there are so many variables that distinguish how districts are themselves structured that I think it can be a little more complicated. Having said that, We spend so much more per student that in virtually any category you're going to see a higher investment in Cambridge than you're going to see elsewhere. I think that your question really gets to the heart of accountability. and how do we determine whether or not the strategies that we are employing are paying dividends for students. And I will say two very quick things to that.

I think it's always important that we measure success by multiple metrics. Whether it's assessing an individual student or an employee or a school, I think you always want to stay away from single variable metrics in terms of determining success. I think in such a data rich environment, I think that's really important because data can always be manipulated in one way or another. And I think we want to maintain that lens. Having said that, to go to what I mentioned to Councilor Al-Zubi earlier, I think it was in response to Councilor Al-Zubi's question, being a singular mission organization means that There is a relatively narrow way in which I think we should define success. I refer to it as the student experience because the student experience encompasses more than just standardized test outcomes.

Standardized test outcomes, when normed appropriately, are really important metrics for determining the quality of the product that we as a school system are producing and who's benefiting from that. So those objective data measures from my perspective are critically important. as is making sure that we're not using them as single variable metrics. And in terms of from a professional learning perspective, what we have seen and what I genuinely believe has paid dividends Thank you all for joining us. has allowed us to have a much higher level of intentionality and consistency within our professional development.

and I think while there have been growing pains to that and there's been an organizational challenge to some degree, and I know for a lot of our educators, It's been a significant change in practice and it's one that we're still growing as an organization. We're only in year two on the ELA front. I think that what you're seeing is professional development that is both more impactful and more relevant to what educators are charged with doing on a day-to-day basis. The discussion last night, if you saw last night's school committee meeting, was about making sure that those improved practices extend in a cross-departmental, organizational-wide, from an organizational-wide perspective, to make sure that our staff charged with supporting all of our students, including students that qualify under high need categories are benefiting from that improved professional learning. And I think to your point, we have to just continue to monitor that

to make sure that that is translating into improved experiences as measured in part by improved outcomes.

Pastor Nolan?

Yeah, I appreciate that. And it's exactly what we have seen works, right? Teachers want to be effective. Students want to learn. Families want... Thank you for joining us. Many programs, I will also say there's some programs just like there's some teachers who, oh my gosh, that's a fantastic teacher. And then, well, you know, there's some kids who... may be able to better access that teacher or learn from it. And the whole key is, particularly on programs, I do think there is an evaluation component that We need to be, again, just focused on is this helping teachers if it's meant to help teachers or not. So that was, I'm happy to yield for now, Mayor Siddiqui.

Comments, further questions? It's about 521 right now.

Yes, Councilor Zusy? Yeah, I wanted to ask about, a friend of mine is leading a nonprofit in Washington called Bright Paths DC, which is providing tutoring for, at schools where children are really struggling. I know that we have a lot of tutoring opportunities in Cambridge, but I just wanted to hear, I wonder, And I know my own son had executive function issues and was getting tutoring that made all the difference for him in the world. Has there been any thought as to... There are many, many different ways to support children, but would funding... I'm sure you're thinking about all of this.

It's a really great question, Councilor Zusy. I really appreciate you raising it because what it speaks to, and I talked a little bit about this, I think, in response to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler about We make significant investments in paraprofessional staffing. We have a more robust paraprofessional complement than virtually any other school system. And I think that's a good thing. And I think we want to continue to do that. I also think we want to continue to be more strategic, I would say, than we've previously been, which means identifying specific classifications and types of work that we believe will be more impactful. Sometimes that's within our Power Professional cohort and sometimes it's outside of it. But I think making sure that those increased investments are tied to specific measurable goals, I think is really critical to our success.

On the tutoring front, we are now in year three of a tutoring initiative with a partnership that we have with Excel Tutoring. We have seen accelerated growth, modest but accelerated, modestly accelerated growth in our students who have participated in that high impact tutoring. You mentioned that we have a lot of different tutoring opportunities. We do. I think one of the challenges that we have, and to be very clear, I want to preface this by saying that I'm very grateful to all of our tutoring partnerships, of which there are many. and I want to maintain those because I think they can yield dividends for students. But I think the reason we've seen specifically more accelerated growth as a result of the Excel tutoring program

is because the Excel tutoring program is done with close coordination to our instructional objectives and our instructional leadership. And so you're benefiting not just from the investment of the small group, one-on-one at times, contact. but you're benefiting from the fact that those tutors know the specific gaps that have been identified in the data that we have and the specific objectives that we have as part of that aligned curriculum that I referenced earlier. And I think that where we need to go from there in order to improve our practices is to make sure that all of our tutoring partnerships are done and are facilitated in a more coordinated fashion.

And I'll just say, because I have a tendency to speak candidly in public forums, that that will yield some growing pains within our organization, because we have not as an organization been short on what I'll describe as sprawling autonomy. We have allowed and encouraged in many places across our organization, individuals and entities to pursue noble goals that are not always developed strategically with all of the data that we have at our disposal. And I do think that to speak to, I often am asked by the school committee or by the city council, what is it that we are going to do differently to yield different results?

and better coordination and a higher level of accountability to enforce that that coordination I think is one of the areas that we as an organization need to grow and if we do I think you will see and even more pronounced impact through those types of investments.

What a great answer. That sounds like very important work to do. So I thank you for doing that.

I just want to make sure that everyone heard the part that there's going to be some growing pains. And some people will say, I used to have complete independence of what I used to do. Now the school districts are saying, we want this work tied to these goals. That is a growing pain for our organization. And we are fortunate to have so many partners who want to contribute and want to advance these goals. But unless we're leveraging the whole of the organization, I think you will continue to see this sort of fragmented success that has sometimes been associated with our district. But thank you, Councilor Zusy, for the chance to speak to that.

I thank you. Can I ask one more question? Yeah, go ahead, Councilor. It's just a little one. I was talking to a parent on my street And she was saying she's worried She says, the district is working hard on equity, but to the detriment of creativity, unfortunately, because there's such emphasis on MCAS skills. or scores and she says there's a push to standardize everything which is making school choice less meaningful and significant much less project-based learning than in the past because there is no time Can you speak to that, please?

Thank you, Councilor. I appreciate that question, and I don't think that your neighbor is the only one in our community who has expressed that concern. and I think it's really important to me and I think it's important to our team and I know it's very important to our school leaders that members of the community hear our response to that. It is true, as I just acknowledged, that in order to improve experiences across the board, we have to operate in a more consistent fashion and a more coordinated fashion. I think it would be a disservice I think I would be being disingenuous if I did not acknowledge explicitly that that is an objective. But I want to be really clear, as I said earlier tonight, the goal is not increased MCAS scores or any other particular metric, frankly. The goal is improved experiences across the board. And through those improved experiences, I believe strongly that we will see improved outcomes.

The part that I would push back on respectfully, and not just to your neighbor, to any neighbor, because again, he or she is not the only person who has expressed this concern, is that this is not a zero sum game with respect to equity and creativity. Our educators are immensely talented. They work incredibly hard. This is a profession that has gotten harder and it's going to continue to get harder. But I believe fully in our educators that we can maintain the joy of learning and the creativity and the innovation that is why most of them frankly got into the profession. while also creating a more equitable environment. It would be Antithetical, in my view, to the basic principles of public education to suggest that the only way to advance equity goals is to diminish creativity or, perhaps even more so,

that the only way to maintain and increase creativity and innovation is to somehow deprioritize equity. I believe fully, and I have seen our educators in action doing this, that those two goals can go hand in hand. Now, the reason I think that this is a line of dialogue that has circulated in this community, For good reason. This is an important point that we have to take seriously because it is an experience that some of our educators and some of our characters have had. Not all, but some. is because through that effort toward greater consistency and building out all the benefits and advantages that come with having a moral alliance curriculum, there are growing pains again that go with implementing those new systems. But the reason that we've made the investments that we have is that over time,

When fluency in those systems is achieved at a higher level than it has, because again, we're in year three of math and year two of ELA, but by maintaining that stability, what you're going to see is a greater familiarity and a greater fluency with those programs and we're going to see educators finding and developing the space to lean into the creativity and the innovation that is absolutely a cornerstone of all educational experiences. And a very concrete example and illustration of that will be a prioritization of project-based learning. No one is opposed to project... No one that I'm aware of is opposed to project-based learning. For many of our students, it is what keeps them engaged and truly helps them to maximize their full potential. Project-based learning has to be a manifestation of and a component of the type of instruction that we are prioritizing

And as I said, nowhere in the programming that we've invested in or in the practices that we are helping educators to develop is it the case that you have to choose between creativity and equity. There may be moments in the course of instruction where things have to be balanced in ways that in the absence of a prioritization of consistency, you don't have to do. But in the end, I do not believe that we are in the long run going to be diminishing you know those elements of the profession and I think it's critical that we don't because if we do and educators become less engaged It will have a disproportionate impact on the level of engagement that our students have. So it's not the engagement, the creativity, the innovation, those are not add-ons, those are not extra benefits. Those are things that are cornerstones to the instructional experience. And that will continue to be the case in the Cambridge Public Schools, even if what I referred to earlier as the sort of sprawling autonomy is right-sized to a certain degree, as it has been in recent years.

That was a long answer, but I appreciate you letting me get it all out because it's a critical thing in our organization right now.

Thank you so much and I hope that's the case.

Thank you.

Does anyone who hasn't spoken would like to speak with second round of questions? Okay, well, it's 533. I want to thank everyone who could make it today. I know it was short notice and, you know, We made it virtual, but I really appreciate everyone making it and we'll be sure to have some follow-up. After this, we'll go ahead and do a roll call on a motion by Councilor Zusy to adjourn.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty. Absent. Councilor McGovern.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Absent. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes. That's seven members voting yes and two recorded as absent. Vice Chair Zubi? Absent Member DePaulo-Santos? Absent Member Harding? Sorry, I'm present. Don't know if you can hear me. Member DePaulo Santos is a yes. Member Harding? Absent. Member Hudson? Yes. Yes. Member Jay Kamar? Yes. Yes. Member Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And Chair Weinstein? Yes, that's five members voting yes. We are adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.

Have a good night, everyone.