School Committee Meeting - December 1, 2025

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this December 1st meeting of the Somerville School Committee. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of the School Committee will be conducted by hybrid participation. We will post an audio recording, audio video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Dr. Carmona, will you please call the roll?

Through the chair, Ms. Piton?

Present.

Dr. Ackman?

Present.

Mr. Green? Present. Mr. Piton? Here. President Davis? Here. Mayor Ballantyne? Ms. Barish?

Here.

Dr. Phillips? Here. Ms. Krepchin?

Here.

We have quorum.

All right, we will start with a moment of silence and a salute to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we will start with the report from our Student Advisory Committee.

Good evening. Last Wednesday we had our fall pep rally, which was a big success for us. We had high turnout, especially from the freshman class, and each class showed up in their specific class colors for the day. It's a big improvement with school spirit. And our pep rally raffle, which auctioned off two Celtics tickets, raised over $200 to put towards the school food drive. and the pep rally also involved the drumline cheer team and chorus as well as individual students volunteering to play the pep rally games so it really pulled together a lot of SHS We also celebrated and recognized our GBL all-stars, MVPs, and champions across all of our sports in a more official way.

And then today we had the Greater Boston Regional Student Advisory Council meeting again today at Roxbury Prep. Representative Eva Pesico and myself attended and today we were working on discussing and emailing School principals, counselors, nurses, and other related rules to a community dialogue in January regarding student mental health about sleep and chronic absenteeism. In a more specific Somerville role, we are also thinking of inviting employees from the CHA Teen Connections Clinic. And that's it for me.

Yeah, okay, good evening everyone. So just some more general updates about what's happening at Somerville High School. There's been a lot of discussion surrounding how to get more recognition for the clubs at our school. especially was in our school's improvement council and I think something really great that we're seeing is that a lot of students want to get more clubs started and they're really interested and they're like finding these topics or like other organizations that they want to We're having some difficulties managing that type of interest with our current funding I think there are a lot of students wanting to get more involved but we are already struggling with getting our current like club advisors like funded and there's like some clubs that have like

Club Advisors who are not being paid currently and there's just some difficulty surrounding that but just overall it's really great to see that like energy within students wanting to get more involved in the school and I think Something that we touched upon a couple or like a little while ago now was that we were seeing a lot of students who have already been involved in so many different things continuously being involved in like leadership roles but I think what we're seeing recently is that a lot of Students from like different areas and like students who you might not usually see in these types of roles want to get involved and are showing that leadership which is really amazing to see and I think that also relates to that shift in our school culture that we're seeing and how students want to take initiative and like if they're seeing something or if they're seeing a lack of something and they're School Community, or like in Somerville, they want to take initiative and get other students involved as well.

Just about our own student representative committee and other students who are in leadership roles within the school, we're trying to figure out a project that we're going to be focusing on for the year, which is really exciting. We did some brainstorming and some students want to focus on bringing a more representative school curriculum or like some new electives that include more diversity and inclusivity for different cultures in our school. are just what we were talking about more like getting more recognition for clubs and like figuring out how to spotlight clubs that are doing a lot of great work over the school year so just the student representatives are like coming together we're going to be meeting again this week to discuss which projects we can be doing and then just some other general updates surrounding this week is that during x block the equity team is going to be hosting a space for students to discuss the hate speech we have been seeing

at our school it's going to be called community conversation let's stop the hate and i think we've definitely seen an increase in hate speech or it's just been A lot of students think it's really important to have that conversation and that's going to be a great space to discuss and have these important but also difficult conversations. There is also going to be a closing swap hosted by our school's community service club and we've seen a lot of students wanting to be involved with this and it's just A great way to support the Somerville community and students at our school. Yeah, so I think that's it from us, but yeah.

Great, thank you. As always, are there questions or comments from my colleagues? Ms. Pitone.

Thank you through the chair to our student representatives. Thank you for sharing specifically about the advocacy around having an Xbox event around discussing hate speech. really painful and the brave thing is to confront it and I just really appreciate that the student body is supportive of that and I hope that it's successful and if there's anything the school committee can do to support you let us know

Yeah, great. Thank you so much. Mr. Biton?

Thank you, Chair, through you to our student reps. I am also really interested in hearing about The leadership that you've described of our students in setting up clubs, in you know identifying different opportunities for representation in the curriculum and like my colleague Ms. Pitone said I'd also be interested in hearing more so you know I'm hoping that Through the administration, school administration, we can hear opportunities to support clubs where there is active engagement. You know, a funding gap.

You all have been very supportive of finding ways to fill those as well, so really appreciate hearing about it, and thank you.

Ms. Piton? Thank you. This is a question either to you or to the superintendent. I know we've had some challenges with scheduling about the student advisory. I would really like to know By next week if we can put something on the calendar so so just so everybody knows there's a student advisory that exists to the school committee so more than having your representatives come here which is really wonderful we're supposed to meet at least every other month with I think the Mass General Law says something like five students that are elected by the student body. I'll let you guys figure out the actual format, but we've done it on Zoom before and we try to get as many school committee members as possible, but can we have a date? Next time we meet, if possible.

Thank you. My understanding is it was trying to be scheduled, but thank you for flagging it. I hadn't forgotten was all that I wanted to say. Are there any other questions or comments? All right, that brings us to public comment. Do we have any public comments? So then that brings us to the report of the superintendent, Dr. Carmona.

Great. Thank you, through the chair. First of all, I want to thank Aiden and Babica for their reporting. I also feel that really the pinnacle of What we want for students is that they have a power and a voice. And I think that what I'm hearing is music to my ears. It's just to make sure that we provide more opportunities for students to actually advocate for themselves. I just wanted to share that we have a joint study to review CLAP stipends with the SEU so that is something that we actually are discussing right now to make sure that we provide more avenues for students to actually get together and create advocacy for things that are meaningful I heard you multiple times talk about the shift in culture. I do want to highlight that that doesn't just happen by just osmosis.

It has been a work in progress, but I just really thank you because it doesn't happen if the students are not involved. Is that right? It's great to hear that you are walking together with us in building that community. Thank you for sharing. I just wanted to welcome everyone back from the Thanksgiving break, and I hope that the time away offers some time For your families, for you to have some rest as well as some quality time with your families. So I hope that that was the time that you were able to spend with your families. Before we begin, I want to also take a moment to acknowledge that this season holds many meaningful celebrations for members of our community across different cultures, different faiths, and different traditions.

And whether you are observing holidays now or later in the winter months, I hope this time brings rest, joy, and connection for you and your loved ones. So thank you for being here tonight and your continued partnership on behalf of our students in Somerville. And as always, we are prepared for any necessary weather emergencies, delays, or school cancellations. If schools must be canceled due to inclement weather, families and staff will be notified by voicemail, email, social media, and other district and city communication platforms. So we make every effort to share these decisions the evening before so families can plan accordingly. If conditions allow for a two-hour delay opening instead of a cancellation, we expect to notify you and the families via voicemail and email the evening before.

Our focus remains the safety of our students as well as our staff as we anticipate that what is predicted to be a rather snowy winter season. So that is the expectation, so hopefully those estimates are not right, but be prepared for snow. So hopefully the weather will not impact our family listening sessions which will continue in January and February. So these meetings will bring our school community together for thoughtful conversations on various topics including special education, and many more. We hope there is no impact to those meetings. And I'm also pleased to share that the early feedback form from our first special education session has been very positive. and we still have four different sessions still to come including two evening options just added for January and February.

And I believe that the night options, the evening options were a result of the advocacy from many of you as well as some committee members. So the days and times are available in the district newsletter on the SPS website. We encourage parents and guardians to join us and help strengthen the work we do in our schools. And lastly, before we begin our department reports for this evening, the District was excited to welcome the Commissioner, Dr. Pedro Martinez. He was here at the Somerville High School just before the break. He and his team join us along with the State Senator Pat Gehlen, the State Representative Erika Uterhoven, and SEU President Deshaun Simmons. and we had an extensive tour of the CTE program by the group of students who actually were leading the program with Principal Kirsten and also with Director Jim Hatchie.

But what stood out most during this visit was how the Commissioner connected with our CTE students and how confidently they talked about their coursework, their skills, and their future goals. To wrap up the visit, the commissioner sat down for a roundtable conversation where he spoke candidly with our students and also they had a thoughtful discussion about the challenges to access programs and best ways to strengthen CTE options for all our students. I was really impressed with how honest and open they were about the challenges we're facing and also how proud they are of what we offer for them. So we look forward to welcoming the commissioner back in the spring when we'll have a chance to showcase some of the other K-8 schools in our district. And now for our first presentation.

We will be highlighting our adult learning program, which offers an essential pathway for our older students to complete their core words. that is critical to their lives and future careers, particularly for those who might not otherwise have the opportunity. So the ongoing efforts to strengthen and expand adult learning have been deeply impactful and for many participants a true life-changing experience. The City has been a dedicated partner in our effort to provide high quality adult education, support in programs like basic education, English language, and many other programs, which are essential and have been actually supported through the Job Creation and Retention Trust Fund. So we're really thankful for that partnership. So last year we celebrated 115 graduates, the largest number in the program's history.

including 45 high school equivalency graduates and 31 paraeducator diplomas. So this is a clear indication of the need for these adult learning opportunities and the willingness of our community to embrace it and continue to grow. So Director Jocelyn Marte joins us this evening, along with some special guests, to elaborate on the work that takes place at the Somerville Center for Adult Learning Experiences scale. So welcome, Jocelyn.

And just before you start,

Thank you, Dr. Carmona. Appreciate that introduction. Good evening, school committee members. It's always my pleasure to come to you to share some of the highlights of our scale school community. And thank you for sharing that information about our I'm very happy to be a part of your graduation from this summer. Eric, if you want to move the next one. I always want to start by sharing some of the numbers to kind of do a comparison from last year to this year. So, as you know, this is my third year here at SCALE and I'm very grateful to have been given this opportunity to work with the wonderful staff as well as community members, our students, to really Help propel scale forward and to do partnership with organizations such as the Somerville High School CTE department, which is like one of our strongest partners. I'm proud of the work that we've been able to do together.

So I wanted to share some numbers. So our adult diploma, I'm sure you might remember that it is a very specialized program, only six in the state. We actually are approved by the Department of Education. We are one of them. So we work closely with the Somerville High School goal students to be able to help them get their adult high school diploma, which you guys get to sign when they complete it. So the last year we had four graduates and this last fiscal year we had 12. So that was quite a high number. of our kids at the high school. And the great thing about it is that we worked it out with the principal that the students are able to participate in all of the graduation Ceremonies with the high school students. That's who they know, right? Those are their friends, and it's really great that they have that opportunity, and I have a special guest that will be

Speaking, who graduated from that program and is here today to share a little bit of his journey. Our Bridge program, this is a program that we work with the students that completed the high school equivalency but might need more extra support in reading and writing. to be able to go on to either college or workforce training. So this past year we had 21 and the year before 19. Our ELM numbers, as you can see, have gone up every year. Last year, too, we started, thanks to a JCRT grant from the city of Somerville, we were able to start a contextualized ESO. We certified nursing assistants. along with our partners at the high school so we use the teachers instructors that teach the day program they work with us in the evening and you know we finished one cohort last year this year we just completed a second cohort and I'm proud to say that out of those 12, 10 of them have passed their test within two weeks of completing the program. So they are getting their certification as CNAs.

And then the ESO with Early Childhood Education, that's another program that we also host at the high school in the evening. and we have the same amount of students. Some of the students that graduated from last year are now working for the Somerville Public Schools, so we're very proud of that. Our high school equivalency graduation went up to 45 this past year. Our PACMAN program, which was a one-time summer program, funded by Mass Hire and we did it in collaboration with the CTE department. We took 18 to 20 year old Youth from the city and from the metro north region. And we trained them in carpentry, plumbing, and electrical. It was a 10-week program where they got paid. Thank you. Thank you.

are getting into employment and we have one of our graduates who's going to share that his journey with the program and the test center I'm very proud to say that uh last year was the first year that we started we got approved to offer the GED and we were pleasantly surprised to find out that out of 30 plus test centers in the state, we were number two this year in administration of GED testing. We are part-time chief examiner when other programs have full-time staff. So that is phenomenal and we have been recognized as a center that is always open and available for people who need accommodations like Visually Impaired students. I know that we get calls throughout the state. Can you schedule someone to go and take the test because they know that we're always willing to provide that support. and last but not least, WIOA out of school youth. Last year was the first year that we received it and we were able, we got funded for 22 kids. We enrolled 22, 18 graduated from the program

and this year they increased it to 30 so we're very proud of that as well. You can change it to the next one. And I just wanted to share the next one because it's easier to see. Thanks. So I wanted to share our funding sources. I think this is really important for you to know. We continue to receive funding from DESE, HCLS, which is our major funder. This past year, we did get an increase, so we now receive $915,000. The WIOA out-of-school youth this year went up because now we're serving 30 kids, so it's 259,000. And in addition to that, we get funded to do the follow-up for the 20 kids that were with us last year, 22 kids. So that's an additional $26,000. And then the summer Pac-Man, we were able to receive $154,000 for those 20 kits that we work with.

and part of that was really their recruitment ensuring that they completed the program that they completed getting them into the internship completing the internship and now helping them get jobs so we we are very busy now doing that uh between now and the end of the DeSember when the program technically ends. And then recently we were awarded with the CTE department and MAS hire. The MAS Clean Energy Center funding for HVAC, which is $789,000. So we're very excited about that. We are in the process of starting a pre-vocational mass to start preparing students that might be interested in going into the program but don't have the math skills. So we're gonna be able to do that. And the first cohort will be starting in February. So we excited about that. and then we recently learned, we applied for JCRT to continue with our ESOL CNA program. So we recently learned that we were awarded $200,000 and that's gonna cover two years.

And then also we applied for a new JCRT grant that was looking to do training for facilities maintenance to help Somerville residents get jobs in the city of Somerville. So we were awarded that and we're going to be doing kind of like what we did with the Pac-Man over the summer. We're going to do that and we're starting the first cohort in February as well. and we also receive a CTI planning grant for $50,000 which is actually wrapping up the work this month and Jim and I and his staff and my staff work together and getting information about creating an automotive technology and an electrician pathway in the evening. So now the next step once we submit the planning grant report is applying for the implementation grant which is due next month. That's a huge grant and we're excited about it and we think we are in a really good place in being able to receive it for the next couple of years.

So, thanks Jess. So, as I mentioned, the Prevocation of Math and the HVAC is a collaboration with Mass High in Metro North and Somerville High School, the CTE, and the Facility Maintenance is with the JCRT Board and the CTE Department. and in the works is the one that I mentioned, the planning grant. So now I'm very excited. I have a few guests with me. I think it is more important to hear from them, you know, how SCALE was able to really help them. So I wanna call Angel over here first. Angel, come on, come on down. Angel attended Somerville High. He was a gold kid, and then he finished gold over the summer and entered a Pac-Man program and graduated from Pac-Man. Now he's again fully employed. So why don't you tell them a little bit about it?

My name is Angel Saavedra. I graduated from high school, Somerville High School. I want to thank young people like me, like immigrants, for giving me the opportunity to study a career. Enfocarse en carreras como electricidad, plumeria, recibir cursos. Siento que es una ayuda para los jóvenes hoy en día más que nosotros lo que queremos es enfocarnos en un futuro. We want to have a better job. We are a different culture. We are a different culture.

Thank you very much.

So he wants to say that he's very grateful to the Somerville community because he offers all these opportunities to young people to be able to access training like the one he did this summer. because that especially immigrant youth that come to this country and they're not coming to take they're coming to really give to get trained and he's so grateful for you guys and for the Somerville city for offering all these opportunities to him

Maloney Properties

So he was able to get a job after he finished the Pac-Man program and did the one month paid internship and now he's working for Maloney Properties. El Salario. El Salario, 25. $25 an hour starting salary. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. And Ali, if you come over. Ali was also at... We have a kid from Somerville High who came to scale because you know the high school was not working for him and he was able to get his high school equivalency diploma with us. They extremely well did Pacman and now here he is.

I don't even know what to say. I'm so nervous. I'm Ali and I'm really nervous.

Is it all right? Just tell them how, you know, coming to the program.

Oh, well, I came to scale because I was struggling in the high school. I was not being... you know I feel like I was being bossed around too much and I didn't really like that so I left high school and the struggle with that was not having a you know high school diploma for like jobs or anything like that so I was like you know I have people to like push me go to go like to school and I found scale. I met someone who I knew for a long time and he helped me get into scale. It was great.

Everyone really helped me in scale, even got me into the Pac-Man program. That was also great working in the high school. Were you able to come every day? Yeah, I was able to come every day, even with scale. They were flexible with my scheduling, patient. But yeah, I managed to get through it and yeah, I'm still looking for a job.

So I don't want to ask you a question.

I just want you to know that I will speak for myself, but I know I'm speaking for some of my colleagues. Just because we're in blazers or nice sweaters does not mean that we breezed through school that it was easy for us and actually one of our colleagues on on city council made it out of full circle which i know different but like um one of you know We're here because we know that education is complicated and hard, and I will speak on behalf of my colleagues. I'm very proud of you. When you feel like the system isn't working for you, trusting again to go back and get it to work for you is really hard. And so, congratulations. I'm proud of you. I think we all are. I hope you're proud of yourself. That's a really big deal.

And like, again, just because we're in nice suits and nice clothes and sitting here doesn't mean that we don't get it. So I want you to know that like, We get that education can be difficult because people are bossing you around. And we're so glad that you found a place in Somerville that worked for you.

Mr. Davis, you also, before you go, just a moment, Mr. Davis.

Thank you. Just really briefly through you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I also want to thank both of our speakers for coming here. It does take a lot of courage to come up and talk in front of a bunch of folks that you don't No, and I certainly echo my colleagues from Ward 1's comments. One of my colleagues on the council is watching and texted me and said, hey, let them know that one of the city councilors is a skill grad as well. So we're all very grateful for the program and very impressed by your commitment to go back and finish it up.

Mr. Dean?

Obviously echoing the pride and my colleagues, I know we have more speakers, so I don't want to belabor that point. I'm an emily practical practical person and you said you're looking for a job what are you looking for so like there's a whole lot of connections and networking in this room Make your pitch.

Well, I'm basically looking for anything that has to do with electrical work or HVAC. Yeah.

We know people. Let's see what we can do here.

And Ms. Pitone?

Thank you, Chair, through you. Thank you. The only thing I'm going to add here is how important it is to us to hear from you. We're here to make sure that we continue to invest and our students and continue to invest into all alternative pathways and I know it might not be easy to come up and speak but this moment that you've taken that was challenging for you is really important for this work and it really puts us in a position to be able to continue to support it when we hear Such fantastic stories. So bravo, thank you, appreciated.

And I would like to call Natasha Rosario. Natasha went through a para program and she's now working for the Somerville Public Schools.

Hi, I feel like you guys have heard so many people already. My name is Natasha Rosario. Good evening, nice to meet you guys. I'm a part now in the SIG program at the Kennedy School. I started I heard from scale from like a person you know this head start people they would visit kids at home I'm a single mom of two beautiful daughters and the little one was a baby and she said you know there's like this programs that are like for adults and I was like you know I would love it but I really think it would be like really hard for me because I was like a full-time mom full-time manager at a restaurant I was like there's no way I can fit that in she was like well you should try because you never know there are like new opportunities so I like make the sacrifices it was a lot because I would like

Go to classes, then go home, eat something real quick, change, and go to work, leave work around 12 a.m. one, and then go home, do whatever I could really fast, get a couple hours of sleep, and then go to classes the next day. but there was like some days you know like I would be like super tired and like I would miss classes and I would have like Janet or Jocelyn like hey you have you have not come to school like what's going on so that's something that I really appreciate because they were like always like pushing me even though when I was like giving up on myself at points but the fact that I did the sacrifice and now I do even more work less hours I feel so much better, more energized. I get to spend time with my kids that I didn't get to spend before. I would leave super early when they were sleeping and I would come back when they were sleeping again.

So this was something that really was a life-changing opportunity because now I enjoy my kids, I enjoy my life. As hard as working in a school it is, I love my work, I love my students, and it's just amazing. And I love the way that, To be honest, I never thought that I was going to be able to go to school after becoming a mom because it's hard. It's really hard to make the time and everything, especially when you have all the weight on your shoulders. but they support me a lot. I made it and here we are and it's amazing and I keep like breaking barriers now I did like a little course that the school district give me the opportunity and I'm joining the interpreter pool which is opening me more windows and doors which is amazing so thank you so much guys for funding and supporting all of this because at least for me truly was a life-changing opportunity.

Thank you.

Mr. Green and then Dr. Ackman.

Okay, so I can get through this without tearing up. First of all, I'm a child of a single mom. Single moms are freaking superheroes and I will never ever lose sight of that fact. And it reminds me that this is not just generational, this is multi-generational work, right? You know, your kids have now seen you do something hard and they've seen what that means and, you know, I know as the first person in my family to complete a bachelor's degree, I know my mom's example being the first person in the family to get an associate's degree, Mather, and it mattered to me seeing her at night working 11 to 7 as a nurse, coming home Taking a quick nap, getting up just in time to see me come home from school, doing homework alongside me, and then coming back to sleep for work.

It was hard, but I know that if I didn't have that example, I wouldn't be where I am. and I know that my sister's two kids wouldn't be college graduates. So the work you're doing isn't just, and you know this, but I think sometimes people who haven't been there need to hear it. It's not just... The example you're setting in improving your life, the example you're setting in improving both the example you're setting and the reality of being able to have a career for your kids. I just want you to know how incredibly proud I am. And to remind you that we also have programs to help parents become teachers here in Somerville. and so I hope you take advantage of those and I hope that when you take advantage of those programs, if there are ways we can make that path easier,

and ways we can better support the holistic things that it takes to have someone who is managing a job, managing a kid, managing all these things succeed, we want them to be who they are so we can make sure we're doing them. I just can't wait to see what happens next with you.

Thank you, appreciate it.

Dr. Ackman, and then Mr. Biton. Thank you. Through the chair first, I just want to note to Angel, mi espanol es muy malo, pero... I'd try, but I'd fail embarrassingly. But I just, I firmly believe we will have real equity in this district. I'm sorry, I thought you were trying to finish. Oh, sorry. I was. I was starting. It was bad, right? but it just you know I will say to you but the when you come up speak in Spanish confidently and I I see that as equity as as us as a district supporting every person who we are looking to support so I was very happy to hear that and Jocelyn thank you Again, thank you. Thank you for sharing your time. Thank you for making time and taking time away from your children to be with us. We appreciate it. I echo what my colleague said.

But I'm also curious, you know, You said Jocelyn was a resource, that you had other literal human resources, but if we want to support others who are going through this, which we do, you know is there something you know we can't change what the requirements are We can't, you know, we can make certain, I don't know if we can make certain things more flexible. Are there things that you would recommend for the next version of you to be going through this if it's a single working parent? Trying to get the certification in order to get this job.

To be honest, I think I had everything that I needed because even though when I was like super tired sometimes I would be like For example, if I have to give a work something and I would be like, I'm sorry, I couldn't do it, I was exhausted, I passed out, I had to work more hours, that would be really understandable. and they even because I have to like lower my hours so to be able to go to the courses they help me connect to like more resources to get like grants and stuff like that to kind of like help me keep going to classes and not have to leave it because work because at the end of the day if you don't work you don't get the money you don't pay rent you don't pay bills So at least in my case, I think they did everything in their hands and connect me with everything that I needed for me to succeed, which I did. Thank you very much. But it's good. I feel like maybe sometimes

Spreading the word more sometimes is hard because for example before I got connected to resources it was really hard for me like if you don't know certain people you never get to connect with the resources which I know a lot of like and many more. even like scary even though I have like some sort of like a strong personality I will still like struggle sometimes to like Ask for resources because sometimes it's hard even though like you have your pride and sometimes you're like you're here to grow and you don't want to be like hey I need help. and I know like a lot I think it's a lot of like a cultural thing of Hispanic families where we are a little proud. A lot of times. And we're raised like that.

And sometimes it's really hard to say, no, I need help, and to go looking for them or ask for them. Because just like, no, I can do it and I'm going to deal with whatever I can deal with what I have. But in that, I think it would be a really good thing to work on, on how to connect with families that are not a reach of this information.

Of course. Mr. Biton and then Mr. Green.

Thank you, Chair, through you to Ms. Rosario. I just want to thank you for Taking what you learned in scale and what you earned in scale And coming to give your gifts to Somerville Public Schools, I'm so grateful you're here with us and that you are reinvesting in our kids. I know your kids are the most precious to you but it's so meaningful to me that This program exists, it really is a shining jewel. It is so precious and you are such a great, and the other speakers I think are also just a great representation of What this program has to offer because we are

Through you, reinvesting in our kids. So I see it so clearly in you, and I'm just very grateful that you have chosen to continue on with us. So that's all. Thank you.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to.

Building on to some degree, Ms. Pitone's comments, I think we would be remiss to not acknowledge that we're also seeing, for us as a body, some of the real world effects of our work, not just in the program to help People Become Parents in the District, not just in, again, the program to help parents become teachers in the district can't hit. But in the... The real investments we've made in the last 10 years in power of pay. In cooperation with the SCU, we have gone from when I first came on, I want to say Parapay started in the $17,000s and come the 28-29 school year, Parapay will start at $50,000 a year.

and if you know if we have any question that's like a life-changing investment we're looking at the proof of that right here So the next time, because I've gotten the call in the past, I'm sure I'll get it in the future, I get a call from another school committee saying, you did what in your contract? I'll be able to say, I can look at Natasha and know that we did the right thing.

You can call me. I'll go tell them.

I like to give on that.

Ms. Pitone. Thank you through chair. Thank you for being here. I think my question is kind of more global and I don't know if it'll go to Jocelyn or the superintendent. I know that this work is funded by grants and the question always comes to me personally of like Ackman program Sounds like it was very effective. It had a really impact on students. And now we don't have grants for it anymore. and we're not going to do it anymore so we've done all that not only did we support kids but we did all that learning we learned about how this can support students and I don't know at what point we as a district or as a city can make decisions like how do we invest in these programs and sustain them longer term. And so I don't know what the answer is here other than to A, ask the question one, Can we self-fund something like Pac-Man to move it forward, whether it's the district or the city or both, obviously? And, you know, too, what's...

The process for doing something like that. And again, I'm not necessarily saying that Pac-Man is the right program. You know, if someone said we were gonna spend $150,000 years focused particularly on workforce development. I'll just use that as an umbrella. That may or may not be the right choice. That would be up to the education leaders to say that. But I'm putting the question out there. It makes me sad. that great work gets done grants are amazing but the point of grants is usually to prove a point and say what we can do this and we can serve students and then we as a city or a state need to make those decisions about do we want to continue this investment so I'm I guess putting that question out there and asking the through the superintendent to report you might not have an answer right now but to report back and where can we empower ourselves to make sure that you know if we're investing in this now through grants how do we sustain it if it

I just really hate to think that these things just drop out Because the grant's not available anymore.

I think, yeah, I agree with you. And that's the reason why we apply for the JCRT funding. So the facilities maintenance, pretty much the Pacman. So we are making sure that we recruit some of the young people that are coming to our school to be able to enter that program and continue to benefit from that. And that is a two-year grant, so we'll be able to offer full cohort. So that is one way and the other one is applying for the CTI. There's a lot of money there for like vocational schools and that's kind of the route that Jim and I are kind of going forward trying to apply because those are multi-year grants that can at least sustain the program and allows us to create curriculum that is geared towards young adults and adults in the evening. So that's what we are looking to do.

Can you just remind us what CTI stands for?

Sure. It's the Career Technical Institute. And the funding that we apply for that I mentioned, the planning grant, is specifically for vocational schools to be able to create evening programs for adults. So there's a lot, millions of dollars there right now. So we are kind of trying to tap into that.

Through you, Chair. Just to clarify, so Bootstrap, I'm sorry, Pac-Man ended. and you're saying that the JCRT It might be a little different, but it's going to serve similar students. Yes.

Yeah. We saw the success of the Pac-Man. It was just a summer program funding through Mass Hire. So when JCRT put out the RFP over the summer, We said, let's apply for this program that we saw was working. So we recently found out that we received it.

And this is a multi-year program?

Yes, two years. Two years. So we're going to do it with less money. We're not going to be able to pay them the salary that they received. That's why the Pac-Man have more funding. That was too much higher than the way we would pay the kids to attend the program and do the one paid internship. I know that. that's the sad part because the city only put out we thought it was going to be more money and they said the max is $200,000 for two years so We basically fit the instructor, you know, like the toolbox, the work boots, things that we know they need to be able to do this training.

So just to follow up, I do think that if there is a sum, something in terms of to make this program what you want it to look like again I don't want to put anybody through some crazy exercise that we can't execute but I think it would be helpful because if we can't add like we as a school committee need to know what to ask for Right. Yes. And so what we can advocate for, same as our colleagues on the city council who I also know I can't speak for them, but I imagine they'd be pretty excited about workforce development programs. So in any way or form that we can get, whether it's a memo or something that gives us a little idea of maybe to seed this and whether or not There needs to be more funding to make this what you want it to be. To be able to get the right kind of students and be able to give them what they need. That would be great. But I also applaud you for getting the next grant. But I just hate that feeling of like skill having to constantly... A lot of my work.

Yes. Thank you. And I don't want to forget Anahulia.

Her daughter had a soccer tournament and she came to share. Thank you. Ana Julia started in our Spanish high school equivalency program. Remember, we started that last year. She graduated, and then she did the paraeducator, and she's working for the Somerville Public School as well. So, yes.

Good evening. I'm a little shy to speak in public, but I'm going to read a little bit about my experience at SCALE. My name is Ana Julia Portillo. I have been a pleasure to study at scale for almost two years. First, I took classes for my GED. and then Eskel gave me the opportunity to complete the paraprofessional teacher assistant training. Having this opportunity helped me to not only achieve my educational goals, but also my personal goals as a Latina, As a mother of three children under age of 16, I can say I feel proud of myself and now I can tell my kids that if I did it, they can do it too. Sometimes

It's so hard to achieve our goals, but when you work hard and have the right support, you can achieve anything. SCALE has been that support. Thanks to SCALE, now I'm working as a teacher assistant in one of the public schools in Somerville, doing what I love, and I'm so happy. Having this job allows me to have to have a job in which I can support my family while having the benefits that they offer working for the Somerville Public Schools. I want to thank SCALE and the entire team for opening up new programs for the job, for my job and for the opportunities for immigrants like me. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being here. Okay, and we'll jump back to our earlier conversation because I think there were a few more questions, right? Mr. Biton and then Mr. Green. or did you, okay, Mr. Green?

I was going to bring this up slightly later in the presentation, but as someone who does do workforce development, and particularly workforce development philanthropy for a living, I always find that Somerville is an interesting place. We don't do as much investment as Boston or Cambridge does, surprising no one. But we do more than anyone else does, which is nowhere near enough. So that's the bad news, and I would 100% support any efforts we could find to find more revenue city and stateside to support sustainable workforce development programs. And... Because for the last two years, I've been particularly focused on vocational ESOL and pushing expanded state funding for that, which we managed to see some of. And because I'm on a committee that oversees

A different pot of money, but WCTF funding. I would love to talk to you more offline about where I think there are some places, it's still grant money to Ms. Pitone's complete accurate concern about the compensation grant money, but right now there does seem to be A window for greater philanthropic investment and greater state investment in especially things like the ESOL, CNA Programming, like Eastern Bank is going to be coming out with an RFP I think by year's end around how they're going to put their investment particularly around development curricula for Healthcare Career-Based, ESOL. And I wanna make sure that we're in a position where we can help scale, get some of that money. So let's have a conversation.

Thank you, I appreciate that, yes.

Mr. Davis and then Dr. Phillips.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Through you, just a real quick question that came up really early in your presentation here and I think is, well, I almost forgot about it because of all the incredible stories that we heard here but I do want to go back because I'm curious and there may not be an answer but if we go back to the second slide where you had just some some high-level data On sort of the numbers from past years, that one there. The one thing that jumps out to me is in the English language learners numbers and what looks to be, at least on its face, Yes, I'll tell you why that is.

Because the first two numbers are for the entire year. We're still in this year. So I guarantee you that by the end of the year, that would be a lot higher. That's a much better answer than I figured it might be. OK, thank you. Yes.

Dr. Phillips. I just want you to know, Director Marte, how much we all appreciate you and how grateful we are that you and your boundless energy and your drive to write grants and your love for our students have chosen Somerville. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And just to add to that, I've been super excited by the collaborations you've been doing with the CTE and I think you guys are really knocking it out of the park. and one of my personal goals since I've been on the school committee is to see our CTE shops used more in the evenings so that adults can access this. So I'm really excited to see that happening. So thank you again. Ms. Barish.

I have nothing new to add, but I can't let you leave without saying thank you to you and to the graduates that you brought here tonight so that we could meet them. really just appreciative of all that you're doing and their time and we're just so lucky so thank you thank you Mr. Green

All right, this is what I do and I get excited about it. But because President Davis brought up this point, without going into the incredibly stupid weeds on it, Part of the challenge groups like SCALE have is that current useful funding is based on attendance, not achievement or proficiency. And so, one, yes, that means they're constantly making sure they're getting more and more people in the thing. But it also means that, one, while we have statewide a waitlist of 25,000 people.

The waitlist, yes.

We're not, we're not, and scale is unique in this, like, 70% of People in the state who are looking for useful are looking forward to get or improve their jobs. Six percent of statewide useful funding is job focused. Scale is unique and a leader in that regards. There's a great deal of room for statewide advocacy around the state investing more and vocational ESOL. Allow me to pause for a second, because again, this is what I'd do if I didn't.

If we were able to reduce that wait list by 10,000 people, which we estimate will cost about $45 million statewide, over 15 years we would see $1.3 billion in new wages. In a time when the Khamoth has a shrinking workforce, in a time when the federal government is attacking our very communities, This is a relatively low-hanging way to see real, meaningful economic investment and development in communities that deserve it and need it. You know, scale, we are lucky to have, scale is a regional leader for a reason. We are, I would say we are lucky to have it because it's a lot of work and a lot of sweat. and there's so much more we could be doing as a commonwealth to invest in this.

So I'm encouraging people to understand how important this is as an issue and to do what they can to push the state to do more even though Massachusetts does more than most states.

Thank you, Mr. Green. And actually, I want to share that I was appointed chair of the Adult Advisory Council to the commissioner. And yes, we just had our first meeting. And the goal is for... It allows us to really raise awareness and be creative about how we're going to serve those people that are on the wait list. At scale, we have about 650 people on the wait list right now for ESOL. Just so you know.

Thank you, Chair. Through you and building off my colleague Mr. Green's points, Somerville can't be the answer to our regional problems or in meeting the regional needs. Nor can the school committee, I think to Ms. Pitone's point, address All of the provide all of the support part of why I'm so grateful for the diligent work that you and your colleagues have been doing to secure grant funding and I hope In partnership with the city, we can find other opportunities to Siphon funds or you know supply funds that that can help make continue to make this even more sustainable and

I'll be looking toward the new administration to lean in and have some of those conversations and figure out where they can connect in. So really excited to see where this goes.

Thank you.

all right if there are no oh yeah that's best news I just thank you chair I just also wanted to echo I was going to share if you didn't have a chance that Jocelyn was appointed chair of that I just want to say how much of a pleasure I get to work very closely with Jocelyn. We just met today. It is to work with Jocelyn and it's really a testament to strong vision and leadership. Many of the programs and the things that we heard about didn't exist or were not to the you know extent that they are today you know just three four years ago so I just want to Again, in this space, thank you for your leadership and all of your vision and to your team because it really it's it's

amazing the work you're doing thank you to the students also who who came or former students who came current employees thank you um but just Jocelyn really really appreciate it and you know thank you for all your your your work and effort

Thank you guys for your support. We couldn't have done it without the support from the superintendent and yourself and the school committee. So we're very appreciative and we're going to continue our job to do well. for scale for the Somerville residents and for all the students that we serve. So thank you and have a good night.

And just one more final comment to build off of what Dr. Bossendeva said. Having you come and present always reminds me that all the money in the world doesn't matter if you don't have good people doing the things with the money. So I just want to thank you again because you always remind me of that. Like, oh yeah, we have this fabulous person who's like, if I have this money, I can do these amazing things. And it's just, it's really exciting. So thank you again.

Thank you, Sarah. Have a good night.

Now if only we had all the money in the world. All right, Superdome.

Great, so thank you, Director Marte. Just a quick note, Director Marte is here because that was part of the charge that you had for this administration. It was one of the recruitment efforts that we had for diversification when we hired Director Martich. It was a great choice. You have been part of the negotiations with SCALE that have allowed us to actually make arrangements both at the administrative level and at the teacher level. So just also thank yourselves because this is not just an isolated effort. The fact that the work with CTE also has been integrated with the work that is being done at the district level. It's not just by coincidence, but I think it's part of a larger attempt to make sure that we de-silo the work and we also put our efforts in the places where it's needed. and I also have to highlight that the city has been very generous in supporting that work as well.

So thank you, Director Marte, and thank you to all the students that came with you. I know it's late, if you wanna head back home now, this is the time, but thank you for coming tonight. Yeah. So as you guys exit out, I'm going to welcome our Chief Communications Officer, Mr. Darrell Nash. He, of course, is coming from You have actually met him before. A couple of things that you probably don't know is that he traded the beautiful sunshine and warm weather of the West to come to the cold winter and snowy Whether here in New England, he also was in a charter environment and now he's now in a public school district.

and he has been since he has got here has been bringing some great ideas in terms of how to provide more access to families and how to market the ideas and the image of the district His work around his strategy is the one that he is going to highlight tonight. So with no further ado, Mr. Darrell, please.

Thank you, Dr. Carmona. Thank you, Chair, members of the committee. I'm pleased to spend some time with you this evening to discuss strategy and planning and communications across the district. Before I get into my presentation, I would like to first acknowledge Ruth Ronen, who's in the room with me. She's our communications specialist. who is instrumental in keeping our department running smoothly in the absence of a director earlier in the calendar year. Ruth is also instrumental in many of the successes we enjoy as a department and we are working in tandem towards even bigger and better things. Having been in this role for about a half of a year, I've spent considerable time working with Ruth. To conduct an informal audit of our communications channels and practices in order to develop a year one plan for enhancing and evolving communications and marketing district-wide. And tonight I'm pleased

to summarize that plan for you. Erica, thank you. The communications department oversees a variety of responsibilities, digital platforms like social media and the website, enhancing direct communications with Somerville families and the community at large. Fostering development of collateral and publications and serving as keepers of the brand. All of these top level priorities are outlined in the strategy and planning document that is included in your packets this evening. With each of these priorities, we have associated three target goals for the year. With every intention of achieving short-term progress to build impactful long-term success. Our strategy plan also identifies four main goals this year. The first is social media growth. Social media, as you know,

is the single most effective way to communicate with a contemporary audience without question. Here we will develop platforms with the specific audience in mind aimed to increase following. Interaction with the audience, I believe, is the best litmus test for how we're delivering our content and establishing an appropriate cadence to engage but not overwhelm our audience. In the overall district strategic plan, this does reflect priority number four, as you see on the screen, which is community and family engagement, and the data we will track from social media growth involves our following on our channels and our interactions which are very important and of course how our content does in paid performance when we try to reach audiences that are not within our sphere of influence already.

An example of data from posts on website is this data on the screen from our recent post about Brunt Workwear's donation to our CTE program. And as you can see, there are some very important pieces of this data. The first, of course, is nearly, what is it? and many more. of the people who viewed the post were non-followers of our channel, which means we're reaching people who are not already involved with Somerville Public Schools, reaching new audiences, which is fantastic. It also allows us to view content about the age and where people are who are viewing our information as well as the interactions and that's actually the most important. Interaction shows that someone took the time even if it was a fraction of a second to hit the like button, to hit the heart button, to say that they appreciated this content. So in some way, shape, or form, it sunk in with them.

I would also like to point out, Eric, if you will, Thank you. A shameless plug for those who are watching at home to follow our social media channels on Instagram, on LinkedIn and on Facebook. The website has long been a topic of conversation and we will endeavor as the second goal of our plan to completely rebuild the site. This will be a lengthy process, Andre. which will gather feedback from stakeholders. It will create a more modern site with a more streamlined user experience. Create effective landing pages for each school so the parents have a very specific place to go to learn more about their school and the things that are going on in that school. and it will ensure ADA compliance which is legally required for websites such as ours. Now this does reflect priority number two of the strategic plan which is equity and access.

and allow us to build into a new site analytics that will study traffic and the user journey. We'll be able to see what pages are most popular on our site. What the journey was. Did they come from Google? Was it an organic search? Did they come from the website? Were they on the site for five minutes? Were they on that page for two minutes? We can see all those types of things, so we'll determine The most important things that we need to know, we'll study and track those and that will be the data that is most valuable to us. As an example, next page please. and you can see here top 10 website visits for the school year to date outside of the home page the calendar and food and nutrition services which generally is the lunch menus are the two most popular places. As a point, I would see adult learning there in scale in the top 10. So there, as you can see, the clicks are there. The total site visits of just over 141,000 visits on the school year so far, which is a lot of touches on our website.

Does that mean that all those folks are fully invested in Somerville Public Schools? Well, we can see, as I mentioned earlier, about data analysis, many of them from the United States, many from Boston, Somerville, Cambridge, but as you see in the graphic, where the arrows are, a lot of random places that we get hits on the website. Where do those come from? Well, there may be a few people here and there who are thinking about moving to Somerville, most of them trying to hack our website. Okay, so that's why security That's why security is very, very important on our sites so that all these random clicks from Singapore and India and China, I'm pretty sure we don't have, you know, thousands of people in China who are really invested in what we're doing in Somerville and so those people perhaps are people with nefarious ideas so It's very important that we keep that under control. Moving along to letter C, goal C, the third is impactful storytelling.

So right now in our school, aside from what we already heard this evening, we've got A program that invites mentors to assist first-generation college-bound students with their applications. We've got a teacher who ran the New York City Marathon to support a school-based soccer program. We've got a program that teaches our youngsters to swim. We're implementing enhancements to our curriculum. We have a father and son teaching duo. These are all examples of what's happening in our schools, the positive great stories that are coming out of our schools. And so it is a very strong goal of ours to SBC and the priority for community and family engagement to tell these stories so that people know all the great things that are happening within the walls of our schools. and what I say when I say under data when I say a digital connect the dots well when we place these stories on digital and print platforms

We follow the resulting data, we track the interactions, and then we see what kind of stories are resonating with our audience. So not only are we pulling people to our website, which is kind of the nucleus of our information, This is also telling us what our audience is really interested in, so we're very true to our audience to give them what it is that they are looking for. And lastly, goal D would be in-house development. We do provide guidance and leadership related to best practices, brand management, and departmental support. While this is behind the scenes, our efforts here are impactful in that our work at the central office level trickles down to school buildings across the district with regards to communication, brand management, and the like. Quickly, some highlights from our strategic planning. Thank you. Some of the things that we are working on, number one, is a new podcast coming up fairly soon.

We're working on it for a January launch that is about teachers and learning. We're going to highlight and profile one teacher in each of our schools, how they got into the profession, what teachers that they had who impacted them, what's unique about what they do in a classroom, and what stories they can share with an audience about what they do within Somerville Public Schools. The second thing, you may be familiar with publications like the Somerville Times, Cambridge Day, newspapers like that that you find in Cafes, Libraries, Community Spaces. We're working right now to launch in January SPS in print, which is comparable in presentation to those publications, but what we'll allow us to do is to start to tell these stories to a mass audience and not necessarily the people who are again within our sphere of contact. It's people who are within the community who we will be able to reach and again tell them the stories and hope that that results in more investment and input and interest in what we do here in the school system.

With regards to communication and technology, we are talking consistently about the viability of SMS texting as a more appropriate means of communication at certain times. That is a very popular way for people to receive on-the-go information. So we're looking at the most effective ways to do that and also working not just internally with our internal departments but also with our colleagues at the city level. to develop a strong and effective crisis communications plan in the event that there is a need for such. In fact we just talked to them today about setting up a meeting coming up very soon to develop that a little bit further along. and very quickly a note of the ease of access portals that are being used across the school. These are things primarily used within the schools for teachers to talk to parents, for staff to communicate, in some cases to develop newsletters that go out to parents. Arbiter has come along a little bit later in the game. We've been using them very recently.

Launched initially for out of school programming and registration and now being used for clubs and athletics. and that is a system that has proven very successful in the schools so far and so we will continue to engage that platform and use it to its best possible way. And then lastly, Coming up in January, we'll be coming to the school committee for a brand new group photograph, so please be prepared to flash those pearly whites. because that's something that we need to update on the site. Unless you have any questions, that will conclude my presentation this evening. I'm happy to answer any as you like.

Sure, there will be questions. Thank you. Mr. Green, Mr. Davis, and then Ms. Barish, and then Dr. Ackman, and then Ms. Pitone.

Thank you. Thank you. Wow, that's a lot of stuff for what is still a small but mighty team. I'm really excited to see what happens with this. I am very excited to see and hear the parts you're making and telling our stories beyond the Somerville community. Something that's kept me up at night for as long as I've been on the school committee is I'm fully aware of the trends nationwide that suggest that as a community sees a smaller percentage of children from the community and at the school district, their support for paying for that school district goes down.

Somerville has historically, for reasons of culture, temperament, whatever, avoided that trend. but it's always been a concern of mine that one day that we would stop, we would fall subject to laws of nature, especially when the data started coming in Earlier this this decade that that trend is accelerated in communities that have high immigrant populations So The need for us to be selling Somerville Public Schools has never been higher, especially as If we continue trends that we see in communities like our neighbors across the way in Cambridge, where the disconnect between the voting population and the school population increases in terms of demographics and those issues.

And I think as that becomes more real, the need for us to be selling ourselves becomes all the stronger. So when I see this deeply ambitious plan, the first that I 100% support, I want to do everything you suggested, I can't help but ask what are you going to need to do it and sustain it?

Well, we could use more hours in the day. Aside from that, I think it will be focused on prioritizing and reprioritizing to make sure that we achieve what we wish to achieve. Now we will achieve in pieces and we will not completely turn around the existence of communications in our district in a way that It'll take some time. It will not be an immediate turnaround. We have some work to do, but I think you're correct that we do have a strong school district. To an extremely strong school district is one that has the ear and the support of people who are not involved in the schools, people who do not have children in the schools but still find reason to invest. In what we do here within the district and so I think it's important to reach those people and so we will work hard in various ways to reach those people to maintain that support

And the answer to this follow-up question, you may not know or may not want to give me right now, but whenever someone says reprioritize or prioritize, The recognition of course that time is a finite resource and you're gonna put more time into some things as it come from somewhere. So if you identified things that perhaps we're maybe doing that aren't worth the time and resources we put into it,

Well, I think when we identify the four main goals, I think those are the high-level priorities that day in and day out we spend some time on, and we seek to really reach those goals. When we look at the priorities and the three target goals that are associated with those, and you'll find those as I mentioned in your packets, we created those as progress but attainable. We did not set goals that are unattainable in order to find ourselves behind the eight ball. I think we set ambitious goals, but not unattainable goals. and we will work hard towards those and we will find out as I said as a year one project we'll find out how attainable they are. I feel confident based on my experience and Ruth's experience in the schools that we'll be able to make a very large amount of headway.

Thank you. Through you, I was going to touch on a lot of what Mr. Green said. I just want to add that as we approach or as we continue on the MSBA process and we're gonna we're looking at a proposition two and a half override vote like those things just make that storytelling and that um that community awareness of all of the awesome stuff happening in our schools even more important so I'm like Mr. Green I'm so happy to see this as a priority and something that you I I love that there's going to be A paper newspaper. I don't know why that excites me so much, but I'm really excited about that, and I'm not going to be on school committee anymore, and I'm going to go looking for it. Sorry, I'm going to go looking for it at the library and the cafes and wherever it's going to be. I'm really excited about that.

And yeah, just thank you because I you know Somerville already has I think the lowest ratio of school-aged children to residents which is like already concerning but then Mr. Green obviously the things he shared were things that I did not know about the trends but that's just like heightens the um anxiety for me um heightens the importance um so yeah Thank you. This is great. And there might have been a question in there, but I don't remember what it was. So thank you.

Just to quickly add the newspaper piece, which I was also excited about, seems it could be a great way to potentially reach older residents. who definitely tend to vote but don't have kids and so I just want to plug the idea of wherever you're distributing the newspapers perhaps assisted living places or the I know that you know the Somerville, Cambridge, Elder Services, any of those kind of places might be a great place to think about doing that once you get it off the ground.

And it was one of the One of the main reasons for developing this project was to reach people that we do not reach. To catch random people just waiting for their coffee in a cafe or waiting out a rainstorm in a library or something is an ideal way to do it.

I have Mr. Davis and then I will thank you madam chair um through you to uh the director so thank you um for the presentation and I also my question is actually She specifically is on the SPS imprint. And with a way back journalism background, I also I'm tickled and thrilled with the idea of an in print newspaper. But I wonder, have you thought about initially or eventually, You know, incorporating student input either through coursework or clubs or other ways to, you know, make that as much of an integrated learning experience. and then this sort of related question would be and then because we live in 2025 social media integration with the print Version, and sort of all of that. That could be an entire department, so I recognize it's just sort of a lot, but that's kind of where my brain went and just wondered if there's been some thought to that.

I'll answer them in reverse order. The social media integration is a given for sure that there will be some cross-pollination of stories. They may be longer in the print version than on the online version. So there still will be some new information to share. And I do believe, because the high school does have a strong media department and some media curriculum, That incorporating some folks there either for some credit or just for some extra work in the future once we have it off the ground and solid would be outstanding. I mean, it would be a, there's no better reflection of what we're doing at that level than to have the kids actually creating content for a publication. Mason. And maybe help you out with some bandwidth issues too. The possibilities are endless.

I have you on my queue. Okay, I have Dr. Ackman. Thank you. Through the Chair, President Davis took a piece of my question. The only thing I wanted to note which Chair Krepchin made me think of with an earlier comment is not just sort of celebrating To Ms. Barish's point about the Prop 2 1⁄2 override and our student voter population or student voter ratio, you know our building has the fab lab like you can get your hair cut for 10 bucks like that you know there are i i hope that we work to celebrate Our community ties with you know with all of you know it's one thing to like hold our students up and celebrate them and we should be doing that and I've seen the great work you're doing but like

it's a small city a dense city people live in small places and so giving them a place to go to you know a lot of prop two and a half override money went into that building like you know come See it. Use it. It's yours. And so I hope that we, through our messaging, are celebrating The amazing work of our educators, the amazing work from our students, but also that this belongs to Somerville residents and we want them involved and engaged. I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Thank you. I agree.

Also, just unless the price has changed, it's $5 to get your haircut. Oh, snap. My bad. I have Ms. Pitone.

Thank you, through you, Chair, to Mr. Nash. Thank you for being here. Thank you. I was excited to hear, you know, updated website, Bravo, storytelling, in-house development of Communication Capabilities. I think that's really exciting. I just wanted to touch on that. I know we have a lot of talented educators and building leaders, Everyone needs support, particularly comms, if it's not something that you do on a day-to-day basis. I'm excited to see how that influences and impacts. And also, we're developing our leaders, and that's exciting to me. I also wanted to touch on the SMS text viability. That is something that I feel like we haven't tapped into as well as we can. We know that we have student populations that their families rely they're not necessarily in the email space and they're not necessarily engaged particularly on social media but I don't think we've tapped into that as well as we could.

I know we have talking points and we have different vehicles, but I really look forward to hearing more about that because I feel like that's a missed opportunity. And to extend that, I guess this is the question part. How are we, what is our vision around the two-way dialogue? So right now this is kind of very focused on brand, which we need. and I know you're a very small team so I know that two-way dialogue might be something that is more in the future but I'm thinking about you know we have different avenues that we try to get input we're having listening sessions we're We have different surveys that we use, such as conditions of learning. And I'm kind of thinking about that whole strategy of community engagement. And I think that communications is a key player in that work, and I don't think necessarily it sits all in that team but especially because we have such a small team but that topic of the two-way dialogue and where does that fit into this strategy and if you could talk to that that would be really helpful.

Certainly, we do a fair amount of work with the SFLC, Ruth Santos and Tina, and what we do with them, really. As you say, a lot of what we do is a one-way communication. A lot of what they do is a two-way communication with the listening sessions and other group sessions. We work with them extensively to make sure that our one way is promoting their two way, if you will, and that we bring more faces and more interest to those discussions. In fact, we met with them this morning. To talk about how we are rolling out the additional listening sessions that Dr. Carmona outlined earlier on. and so we will continue to have those conversations about those about some multilingual events that are coming up where we need community input and so those conversations we have with them and how we work in tandem with them and collaborate is very

is meant quite often to promote some of the two-way conversations and learning that we experience in the school. So I think that is where our work with them is most effective. and the SMS I will sorry I will add the SMS on the platform that we use has been a little bit limited and I think that's why we've had some issue with it so we're studying that to determine if our platform can enhance and improve in some way and if it can't if we need to make a shift to make that a more viable option.

Mr. Pitone, and then Dr. Phillips, and then Dr. Adler.

Thank you, Chair, through you. To Mr. Nash and Ms. Renan, thank you both for being here tonight and for this, what I think is an exceptionally and many more. I am very excited also about how this ties into the strategic plan and sort of speaks with it. I'm really excited about almost everything I've seen here. I just want to say almost. The footnote, sir. No, no, everything. I'm kidding you, of course. No, of course. No, I get it. Goal D, District Support and PD. You are, as you said, a small team. But by the same token, almost everyone in the district's job contains some element of communication, right?

By extension, almost everyone in the district has some part of this strategy embedded in their job. And so I think that this, PD, and supporting everyone in doing communication better. Every educator, every classroom, every principal has communication built into it. So we're engaging with families, we're engaging with educators. right it's it's all happening and so I'm really excited to see how you've structured this to do outreach to help elevate everyone's game in that arena. I think that's spot on, and I'm really excited that you've identified this as a key area. Social media. I guess my question, just going back to social media, is you've identified data that you want to see around engagement.

and I'm just thinking about my own experience in social media. Engagement isn't always good, right? Like, you know, A click on Facebook could either be a like or it could be a laugh emoji and those mean very different things. So I guess I wonder if you can speak a little more about how disaggregated you plan to get with your data analysis and you know What are you hoping to see in that?

Well, it's interesting. You know, when people say in some terms that any exposure is good exposure, sometimes it's good and sometimes that's not quite as good. With regard specifically to social media, because social media works on algorithms, and even if you get 10, 15 frown faces that's going to accelerate the movement of your post regardless so we still reach more people now If we're getting frown faces at an alarming rate, we realize we're doing something wrong or that the community is sending us a message, our readers are sending us a message. But to some degree, that is positive for us because that still We will still see our follows go up. We will still see interest go up. And so when we put out other messages, positive messages, interactive messages, it's still reaching more people. We do look for trends.

To me, data is a way to identify trends. And so we will look for trends. We will not achieve You know, 23,000 or however many views it was on all of our posts. So that's not a trend to us. That's a little bit of an anomaly. But we do want to see positive trends, positive response. And it will give us a A fairly strong idea when people get really into the nitty-gritty of leaving comments and such. It'll give us a pretty good idea of what the community is thinking. Now, we're smart enough, I think, to realize that if there are If the post only gets one negative response, there may be a lot of people who viewed it positively but just didn't feel like leaving a response. So we have to view it, I think, with a little bit I don't know what the term would be but we have to view it a little bit cautiously but look for the trends look for what the community is telling us through our social media and as long as we see things trending in the right direction I think we feel it's a positive

And to your earlier point about what we're doing within the school department, we found pretty early on at things like all team meetings and other opportunities where we had a larger audience to really just drop little Little tidbits and pointers and things that people could bring back, whether it's a PowerPoint presentation, whether it's how to structure an email most effectively, things like that, and the feedback that we've gotten so far on Very brief three or four minute presentations like that has been very positive so we're going to continue to do that and hopefully that trickles down through the system even more.

Phillips. Thanks to you, Chair. Thank you very much for this presentation, for all the great work that you guys are doing. Like my colleagues, I love it. You're probably going to get to this when you redo the website, but I just want to put out there that as a parent who thinks of herself as It is incredibly difficult when I need to look up my kid's teacher's contact information and that feels like a huge unnecessary barrier that I hope you will be able to fix. and I'm sure you know right staff directory doesn't actually have teachers in it the schools some of them have teacher contact info some of them don't it's impossible to find and it drives me batty so I am raising it in front of all of you here tonight so thank you.

Now what I will tell you is we're at a point in the process We have a process right now where we're speaking with the principals and some of the liaisons to find out the questions they get asked most often, the things that people are seeking most often. One of them is a staff directory and making it easy to find. and so the reason for those conversations is that when we build those individual school pages they'll all be consistent across the board based on the feedback we got from staff from principals from other stakeholders that tells us what the top level things are. And I imagine that will be one of them along with multiple other things. So in due time, that will be very easy to find.

I had Dr. Ackman. Thank you. So meant to bring up on slide 13, Ms. Garcia, I don't know if you're willing to go back to that. The access portals.

Use of access portals, yes.

Yes, of which I have a few too many of the apps on my phone. I've heard this from many parents I've spoken with especially in like you know year to year you know teachers have the right to choose what they want and switch but If there's a chance that there could be encouragement from the district for a consistent parent communication access portal, pretty much every parent I know would appreciate or every parent I've spoken to about it would appreciate that like you know I have a few of these on my phone uh and it's you know and a subfolder labeled kids. One year is class dojo, next year is talking point, but the literacy coaches, they're s'more.

and so if you want to talk to the right teacher sometimes you have to use one of these and yes on behalf of parents you know similar to dr phillips i know it would be appreciated and and you know i would like to like shout out to our ptas who i think i don't know if it's consistently at every school has created like a I'm going to say Snapchat. It may not be right. WhatsApp group. I think WhatsApp group per grade that grows with them so families can kind of learn from each other and grow. And, you know, I... Hope that we can see some level of consistency for grade over grade from the district as well.

We have had some demos from a couple of platform providers that we do not currently use that have pretty strong standing in the education field. and so we've had some internal discussions about that and it may be a budgetary issue or may not be but we'll definitely continue to look at those and how we might be able to implement them to achieve exactly what you're referencing.

Do you want to follow up? Yes. I didn't start with thank you. I apologize. And like my colleagues have said, deep appreciation, very impressive. and you know thanks Ms. Ronan for having kept it going but like yeah thank you this is great and uh and again the use of data that Dr. Carmona champions that you put at forefront is just so huge and the data points you're using and how you're tying it with our strategic plan like can't thank you enough thank you

Just to follow up on Dr. Ackman's point, when you do this work, and I also encourage you to Reach out not just to programs that have cachet in the education community, but programs that have cachet in the immigrant community. The reason the PTAs have settled on WhatsApp groups is because that's what the immigrant communities in Somerville are already using. And so I think whenever it's possible and we actually want to walk our walk to meet people where they already are rather than asking them to come to us, we should be trying to do that. Absolutely.

And I don't know if I have a question so much as a comment, but thinking about the earlier presentation from scale, one of the graduates just talked about knowing resources that are out there right that one of her comments was about how it can be hard as a single mother to know that there are these resources that could help you get a job or help you do this or that and so I'm just thinking about how that ties in with the communication plan and I don't actually have a question just thinking about it since we had that presentation earlier.

A couple of ways I could answer that. The first one to be the most obvious is that I did turn to Ruth during that presentation and say, wow, there's some good stories that we can tell right here. and secondarily I think we did look at and this is a very broad answer to your question but we did look at how scale among other particular of the Departments is reflected on the website. And that I believe is one of the ones that will get a little more of a unique Redesign and that it will be on our website but it will feel like it has a little different energy to it and I think that will expand in ways that just hasn't been addressed before but we can address larger That's exciting.

Okay, if there are, oh, yep, Mr.

I wanted, in part because this is a comment, a question I wanted to ask, a comment I wanted to make during the superintendent's report earlier, but it's relevant now, it's a storytelling piece. For those of you who may be following our superintendent and the school district on social media, I just want to highlight the The leadership that this Archipelago has displayed over the last couple weeks, he mentioned correctly that the commissioner visited. I was there. It was a great visit. He didn't tell a story about why the commissioner visited. The Kutcher visited Somerville in part because Mr. Carmona pointed out to him in an earlier encounter that he had been only visiting schools with high MCAT scores and that there was really exciting work being done here in Somerville. that wouldn't necessarily show up in high MCAS scores. And LeCousteur Kane, he was rightly impressed by our students, et cetera.

It's the same period of time when our superintendent also went to the state house to provide support for disabilization and rent control and keeping acceptable values and if we're going to keep Our remaining low-income students, some of which are not as necessary. And then just to top it all off, if you have an opportunity to see his Thanksgiving message, you should do so. I think the word of its tribes is swag. So it's a testament to the ability of our leadership to use these tools to make our stories with coherent narratives, with interest, and really show leadership. And I think that's what we've done over the last couple weeks. And I just wanted to highlight that, both to start our comment and to the story telling piece now.

I'd like to respond to that because it wasn't really, I mean, Daryl and Ruth Ronan have been the ones who actually have helped in making this as possible. It's easy to tell the story of CTE and the high school, a comprehensive high school that does as much as we do, I think is a low-hanging fruit for anyone, and especially to the commissioner. So I think that the stories are easy to tell. Again, the mediums that Daryl and Ruth provided to share the message. I mean, one thing I regret is I did not send that message in Spanish and Portuguese. That is the one thing that I just realized, ah, this would have been an easy thing to do. But again, I think it's, It speaks to the district where we are. And so, to me, it makes it easy to really showcase the things that we, the strengths that we have as a community. So thank you for that, but again, it's a reflection of the team that we work with.

and there's always next time you can do it in spanish and portuguese yeah exactly okay if there are no further questions thank you again for being here thank you thank you all Is there more to your report?

Yes. Lastly, you have in your packets the draft 26-27 school year calendar. And before I let you loose to start the discussion, I want to have Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis provide a little bit of context or some kind of the rules of engagement so we can finalize the process. So the floor is yours.

Thank you through the chair. So in your packet you'll see the first draft of the 26-27 school year calendar. I also included some of the guidance from the state. I thought that would be helpful. It comes up every year kind of some Some questions about the role of the committee in this process, why we schedule certain days, and so I wanted to include just that language directly from the state regulations. and I'll go over it just at our very high level including for anyone watching that the committee is They are required to schedule the school year. They are required to schedule up to 185 days, which is why you'll see on our drafted calendar A 185th day, though the school year just needs to operate for 180 days.

And then there's another regulation around kindergarten language below. The other thing that I'll mention is on our drafted calendar, you'll see there's a lot there. So the regulation is around the schedule, so the days that we're in school. But there are a lot of other features that we've over the year incorporated into our calendar. So you'll notice the first day of school is in fact before Labor Day. That requires what we call a soft We talked about this a little bit last year, but just as a reminder for anyone who's watching, that allows the teachers to really be established with the students. There's a lot to do. I'm thinking about my days There's a lot to do to get to know, get your classroom routines established, have your students meet the space that they're in.

and also to connect resources to students that may need it that allows for that to happen in addition it's my understanding when this was established many years ago that This happened after a really big snowy school year and so this also allows us to start a little bit earlier in the school year. And finally I'll mention that it is also within our Educators Union Contract. So it is also contractually scheduled. As are some of the other breaks. For example, February break and April break, there is language in our contracts around when those breaks start, and so that helps to determine when those are. I included, as it was a great recommendation from last year, I did include the tentative school committee meeting dates. Those are obviously tentative, as the committee needs to vote on those dates.

but I put in a schedule for you there. And I think with that, let me just check my notes and see if there's anything else that I needed to... Oh, there is one error that I caught despite a couple of us looking at this calendar for many, many hours over the course of several weeks. there's an error that I caught just a few minutes ago which is I recognize that the last day of school in the key says June 12th it is in fact tentatively June 21st. So that will be corrected. But I'm happy to entertain. In fact, I can correct that real time because this is a live Canva document. But with that, I'm happy to hear any questions or receive any feedback.

Okay, I have Dr. Ackman.

I would stand up, I'm gonna give you a standing O. This is like, I know how hard you've worked on it and like how you've worked with graphic designers and like I just, this, I want to point to one thing as far as communication and transparency and my tenure on the committee. And since you have been on board with us, I love looking at this every year. And it gets better every year. I can't thank you enough. I was going to say I was putting on my best member Barish hat by noticing the 12th and 21st thing, but you also noticed it. So I did want to note that that seems to be a Monday after what would be a long weekend. I assume you've looked into it, but is there any chance that something could get moved around so that

School would end like on the 17th instead of I mean well it's not no one like our staff are mandated and like people will be there but I I you know as far as thinking about um the purposes of instruction I and again like there are no guarantees obviously with snow days which is why we have the 185 days keeping that in mind but you know we have had many conversations about with climate change the the likelihood of snow days has greatly diminished so that was just a lot of verbal whatever at you to ask to possibly take that into consideration.

Thank you to the chair. Yes, absolutely. First, I want to thank Erica Garcia, who always takes the first pass at this. So thank you for doing All of the, you know, changing of all of the numbers and the colors and the fonts and all of that. So thank you, Erica. We did have the 18th as the last day of school and Erica I did a good amount of research and I do believe that federally Juneteenth, given that it does fall on a Saturday, will be observed on the 18th. That being said, as I mentioned because many of our breaks are are determined and supported through our language and our contracts. The flexibility there is a little bit tough. I'll give you an example. We have December 24th off

And so that day is always no school. And so unless we were to bring students back sometime in that recess period, that date is kind of set. Similarly, if we look at April, April break is always starts on Patriots Day and that actual language is in our contract. and similarly for the February vacation starting on President's Day. So there is not as much wiggle room there as you would think. I can continue to look back And I also often peek at what our neighbors are doing. I've not seen other calendars yet approved, but I always am checking other districts to see if their calendars are any different than ours.

Through the chair. Thank you. I had assumed you had looked into it in depth. I'm curious with The, you know, a federal holiday observed, and this is a genuine asking because I don't know, like... you know again looking at the calendar if we wanted to have the last day on the 18th because that is not Juneteenth and observe Juneteenth on that 21st, is that legally permissible? I don't know what the rules are around contracts and around... you know when an observed day if it has to be when the federal government does it but if not if if we're just granting the observed day like can we can it be the monday after instead of the friday before

Thank you. It's a wonderful point. I am very familiar with other districts out of state due to family that I do know attend school during certain federal holidays because they have other religious observances off. Aboff. Possibly, I will absolutely look into that. And my guess is that it's up to the committee to determine. So I think the answer is probably yes. But let me just confirm and we'll get back to the committee.

Thank you through you chair this is just an extension of that conversation and I don't know the Kind of the details about the impact of observing a holiday on a different day, but I appreciate Dr. Ackman's creativity and thinking out of the side of the box to that point. It may be worth a conversation with our partners in the SCU if we don't want to make that change because maybe out of disrespect for that holiday or I don't know what... How it manifests itself, whether or not there's worth having a conversation about Good Friday for this year only, because I would think that the educators would be interested, and I don't know. but I would imagine they're not going to want to have kids back on a Monday but and again it doesn't necessarily have to set precedence but it might be something that's a dialogue worth happening but I trust you to decide whether or not they even want to engage in that question

and I also know that there is a question mark about students and are students gonna be in school on Good Friday so again I really knew that you'd done all their homework and we're just throwing other ideas out there and I trust that you would Come up with the best solution. Can I one other quick thing? I know these are not the school committee dates and I guess at some point we'll have that conversation because it usually comes out early in January, but I I am curious why we might put our first school committee meeting on the 21st versus the 31st of August because we usually have it that Monday of that week unless I'm wrong unless I'm misremembering what we've done in the past I know there's sometimes we have maybe sometimes we haven't but um yeah so that's one thing and you know the 14th and the 21st two in a row versus the 14th and 28th in September, but that's something obviously that I know that Erica will be very much part of doing the planning on that. I just wanted to flag it because it was up there.

Just briefly, thank you. I failed to mention, and I appreciate you just bringing into the conversation, for those that do not know, Good Friday is also off. Thank you for just naming that. It's certainly something that I'm willing to have a conversation about. And yes, we can look into the dates for the school committee I know for the school committee meetings obviously that's for this body to determine. I do know that we did receive feedback from a constituent last year I believe in the process. because the dates weren't always the first and the third Monday and so I think to the best Possible, though obviously there's a lot of holiday, it wasn't neat, that was the attempt, though obviously again it will be up to the body to determine and those are just kind of there as placeholders for now.

It does say in our policies that we meet on the first and third Monday of the month. I had Andre and then Sarah.

I just wanted to commend the administration because this is the earliest I've ever gotten the first draft of the new calendar. and I should know technically ready it was almost ready for the last meeting so like bravo um and yeah I think To echo Dr. Atkins' conversation about having a conference and, I guess, start having a conversation with SEU, because I don't think they want to come back for a Monday anymore than anyone else does. So if they have some creative ideas about things we could do differently, Let's do this collaboratively. Because if we come up with something collaboratively, everyone will want to buy in.

Thanks through you, Chair. First, I second my colleague's praise for this calendar. I think since you've taken it over, it's turned into this beautiful, really efficient document, so thank you. Minor thing, just wanted to flag that Diwali and Eid al-Adha need to be underlined, I think.

Any other questions? Then we will have this on our agenda again at the next meeting. All right, is there more to your report, Superintendent?

That is the end of my report.

Thank you. That brings us to a report of subcommittees. I will entertain a motion.

I move to accept the report of the Rules Management Subcommittee meeting for November 20th, 2025.

I have a motion by Ms. Barish, seconded by Mr. Biton. If there is no discussion, all in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. That brings us to an MSBA update. Should we save that for the conversation about the CAG recommendations or is there anything? We'll do that then. Okay, that brings us to a motion to authorize me to sign the scale unit D MOA evaluation tool.

I move to authorize the chair to sign the ratified MOA scale evaluation tool.

I have a motion by Dr. Ackman, seconded by Dr. Phillips. Yes, Mr. Biton.

Friendly amendment to include this and the superintendent.

Thank you. I accept.

I just wanted to thank everybody who was involved in this work. It's really exciting that people were able to invest the time and collaborate in coming up with a better tool to Evaluate. So thank you to everyone who did that work.

And it's no surprise given all the amazing things that Ms. Marte is doing at scale. So it is exciting. All right, if there is no further discussion, all in favor?

all opposed motion carries that brings us to a side letter entertain a motion I move to authorize the chair and the superintendent to sign the evaluation side letter with the AFSCME cafeteria employees union I have a motion by Dr. Phillips, seconded by Mr. Vitone.

If there's no discussion, all in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. That brings us to November bill rolls. I will entertain a motion.

I move to accept the November bill rolls. Or approve? Are we approving or accepting? Whatever we're doing, I move that we do it.

I think we approve.

Second.

I have a motion by Dr. Phillips seconded by Ms. Pitone. If there is no discussion, all in favor? all opposed motion carries okay so the CAG we talked about having that on our agenda last time you should have received a draft of the CAG recommendations in your email from Ms. Garcia Last, shortly after our last meeting. But it is my understanding that the final recommendations from the CAG are not done yet. That is correct. Do you want to give us a quick update?

Sure. So yeah, the TLDR is there are no final recommendations as of yet. The goal is to have those done by Christmas. but they don't exist yet. What I can say at our last meeting, there were some areas of consensus and some areas That is consensus. So to be clear, the CAG unanimously recommends rebuilding at Sycamore. The CAG, overwhelmingly but not unanimously, recommends building as large as we can get away with and the district feels appropriate. There were some dissenters, notably Councilor Strezo. Admiral Lee does not want to see a building of that size.

and to paraphrase as little as possible, has concerns about the district's ability to run a school of that size. There was no consensus on whether or not to make a recommendation about the future of the Brown School, much less what that recommendation might be. Although there was a strong sense that that was a topic the school committee should take up as part of this process.

So just a clarifying question, because I know we've asked this in the past and you still may not know. If we build as large a school on Sycamore as the MSBA will fund, does that require us to close the Brown School?

It's a matter of some frustration to me that I've not gotten a definitive answer to that query. I think the closest that I think You know, I think in some ways this was Rich Bates' best good faith attempt to answer an unanswerable question. Nothing is guaranteed. But his sense was that if we were to build the biggest school possible, he does not believe, and I think he's almost certainly right, that there would ever be MSBA funding. to rehab the round. But that is not a given. That's not a guarantee. And, hmm? Krishna Raich.

As I give it, as I guarantee it, it's not a requirement that we agree to do the building. I do think the sense of the CAG was some sense of our plan is probably necessary to sell a debt exclusion.

You mean to sell it to the voters? Yeah.

Right.

And do we have a sense of the timing of that debt exclusion? At this point, are they still thinking 2027?

So I have heard conflicting things on that point. It did not come up in the CAG. But I've heard some conversation of trying to move that exclusion vote up to 2026.

Interesting.

But I got a clear answer on that.

Okay, so since there is not a final recommendation from the CAG yet, does it make sense for this body to deliberate on something or should we wait until that final recommendation from the CAG is before us? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

What I will say is that the sense I get from the CAG repeatedly is the more guys they can get from us the happier they'll be. What that means It depends on which member of the committee you ask.

Ms. Pitone. I think the bigger question is whether or not the school committee wants to have a say on this. If the CAG report is not coming out to the 25th and therefore the mayors will not be weighing on it, until that point um and if so either if we deliberate on it now or the 15th or punt it to i don't mean pundit but move it to january you know we may or may not have a say on this and if the body wants to have a say on In the context of this draft, and I appreciate Mr. Green's clarification of what components are Consensus on what components are largely supported and what ones there is no consensus. I think that we as a body should have a say. Whether it's this meeting or the 15th, I don't have an opinion, but I do think that we should weigh in. Myself.

Well, to that end, if someone wants to make a motion that we could then discuss, I think that is on the table. Ms. Barish.

I move to endorse the Majority CAG recommendation as expressed in this draft from November of 2025.

I have a motion by Ms. Barish.

Mr. Green?

The motion was to endorse the majority CAG recommendation as expressed in this document which is the location and school size second

I have a motion by Ms. Barish seconded by Dr. Ackman. Dr. Phillips has her hand up.

Just clarifying that the majority CAG recommendation is that a school be built at the maximum capacity allowed by MSBA at the Sycamore Street site. That's just a direct quote, so we all have it. Mr. Bichon?

Thank you, Chair, through you, to Ms. Barish, I believe to Ms. Barish. Would that be, just as a point of clarification, at a size of around 925 seats?

That is my understanding. of what the maximum size MSBA would fund.

Thank you.

If someone can correct that if that's not their understanding. Mr. Davis.

Thank you Madam Chair. On the motion which I think to the clarified motion, I guess to that concept, because we don't really have a recommendation for the CAG, but to the concept stated in that draft, I strongly disagree with that approach. which is probably no surprise to anyone here you know I think that so My opinion is informed by my experience as a Somerville, as a parent of kids in schools, as a son of a second grade teacher for her entire career, brother of a public school teacher. and just and representing the community and friends of lots of people who have kids in the several public schools.

I believe that small schools serve a very, very specific and very, very important purpose in a school system, particularly in a school system like ours. I think that It's unfortunate that this entire process, in my opinion, got sidetracked by this concept of creating this mega school. I think that was entirely unnecessary. I don't believe that we haven't lost time. Even though the administration repeatedly tells us we haven't. I could be wrong about that, but my gut tells me we've perseverated over this for unnecessarily I think that the correct approach would have been to rebuild the winter school as quickly as possible, get those kids back where they belong and then address the next school in line. And I still think that's the right approach.

I think creating a school of the size that's proposed will take away educational variety. It'll take away educational opportunities for the kids in this city. To be very clear, I also independent of those issues and those considerations very much will not support any plan that leaves one ward in the city without any schools. I think that goes counter to our general approach to providing To providing local options and neighborhood options for those who care to take advantage of them. I think it'll put a lot more people in cars. Unless we have some plan to start busing because you're going to create a situation where it's not practical for kids to walk to school from a lot of areas of Ward 6. I think it would be I think to my good colleague from Ward 4's

I share the frustration that we really still don't know what it means vis-a-vis the Brown School to just say we're going to build a mega school at Sycamore Without mentioning the Brown School, my understanding from talking to some folks in the CAG is that some of the changes to the draft may involve just sort of removing the references to the Brown School and kind of leaving it unsaid. I believe there are people in the administration that for reasons that I can't explain sort of have have had an idea of what they think is right from the beginning, and they've been pushing that, and the narrative has been delivered to the CAG in a way that is intended to lead them to a specific conclusion. And that's based on lots of conversations with lots of people who have been very intimately involved in the process and watching meetings myself. Not all of them, but some.

And I also think that it would not be particularly wise for the city to undertake a process and to go to the voters with a plan that I know I won't support. and I anticipate a significant portion of the community will at the very least have concerns about, if not actively opposing it. I think we put at risk the future of the kids at Winter Hill. I think we put at risk the future of that project. The right answer would have been to take care of them straight away. For some reason, we've got wrapped around the axle with this plan, and I think it would be a mistake to move forward with it. And I won't support it.

Anything that leads to the removal of two of the smallest schools in the district in favor of a mega school and leaves one ward without any public schools, I will oppose.

We're talking, correct me if I'm wrong, about a building, right? A building that will seat 925 kids. It doesn't mean that we have to put one school there. Correct me if I'm wrong. We could put four small schools, right? Chicago does it all the time. They co-locate small schools in one large building. Works okay. Could be a plan. I said this at our last meeting. I'll say this again. Ward 3 currently does not have a K-8. It hasn't had a K-8 since the Cummings closed. We are fine for that. We can go to Ward 2. We can move over to the Kennedy, which is outside of Ward 3. It's fine. I think what we care about is that All kids in the community have a great school. And I don't think that we can guarantee that with the way our schools are currently structured, right? The Kennedy and the West don't have capacity.

for the Brown kids and that's a fight every year where those kids are going to go when they get to sixth grade and we can't figure that out with this process we can just put it in a holding pattern for like another 10 or 15 years If we choose to do nothing about it. So that's what came to my mind when I was hearing what you were saying, Member Davis, and I guess we just disagree. Green, and then Ms. Patel.

Okay, Ms. Patel. Through you, Chair. Thank you to everyone who's speaking out about this topic. I know it's complicated. Anything that gets into... impacting current school communities is really hard and really painful. You know, when I think about the decision, I think about access and equity, I think about education and the planning from education. I think about location. I think about cost. I think about the operations. And I think Dr. Phillips spoke about one operational aspect of running a small school and having to place those students and I've been on this committee for 12 years and I also had kids before I was on the committee and I watched every single population of families go through that transition process and it is never easy and people are not satisfied regardless of how it turns out and it makes it really challenging and difficult. But I also am empathetic to the idea of smaller schools, smaller communities that really work well For some kids.

And I do agree with Dr. Phillips that there are ways, upper school, lower school, there's different ways to model and that's what I hope this team will come up with the appropriate solutions. However, I also want to be super clear that Keeping the brown which doesn't provide the equity and access that all of our other schools provide is in a long term without a plan to spend the money to fix it is unacceptable to me personally when we have kids who are getting special education and Suboptimal situations when we don't have large gross motor spaces. That is not the quality of education that I want to give our kids, broadly. So I feel really strongly about it. If somehow the city was like, yes, we're going to spend the extra 55 to 65 million dollars Not, you know, $65,000 or $6 million, $55 to $65 million that they've estimated it would cost to repair that building.

I feel like I can't be fiscally responsible and sign on to it unless the city said we're gonna spend that we're gonna figure out how to put that in their budget especially now when we're in these tough budget situations so I just don't think I can you know be have my eyes closed or being naive to the situation so sustaining a school that's a high-risk school for another x years with no plan to actually I know it's probably not easy as someone who came from this community. I've heard from a lot of families that are currently in the school and I've also heard from families that have been through the school. You know, one person I spoke to that is a current parent at the school who loves the Brown School and what's going on there. And there's just beautiful things going on. There's beautiful community. She works in education policy, and she said, you know what? This has to happen.

She said, I got lucky, quote unquote, and my kid got to go into this precious small place, but I know it's not sustainable to meet the values and the vision of this district to sustain a smaller school. that doesn't have the equity and access the rest of our buildings has and that really meant a lot to me so I really respect and President Davis' point of view. At the same time, I hope that the community can come together. If this is the decision that does get recommended and the mayor does support it, that we as a community come together and kind of put our concerns Disappointment aside, as the beautiful right up here talks about ways to sort of acknowledge people's issues and concerns and I hope we can make that happen, but that we also can all move forward in support of whatever decision gets made moving forward.

So I am of several concurrent minds on this. At its simplest and its most basic, I'm of the opinion that at the time when MSBA which works on a deeply broken equality and equity model, offers you more seats, you take them. Even if you do not originally build a school designed with 100 people in mind, the space allows the district to be flexible, to be mindful. So that's my first thought. If MSB is offering you more seats, you take them. If they offer you money, you take them. You figure out what to do with it later. and I think to me that flexibility is the key value. I've mentioned before that like we built the Capuano School

to make a similar model of providing early education, which we as a district have moved away from, but the way the Capuano School was built, we can't really repurpose it easily. and so we had to figure out like, so now we have a policy around a pre-existing building rather than having to build buildings to meet our visions. I think, The larger school at Sycamore gives us flexibility to meet not our needs now, but 25, 30 years on the line, I think. In that same spirit of being prudent to the people when those decisions are made, giving them more options is better. And, and I said this in CACS, I don't think you can talk about The magic of small schools without acknowledging the reality of the small school in our district. We're talking about the only majority white school in the city of Somerville.

We're talking about a school with substantially fewer low income students than any other school in the district. I would love to say that the magic of the Brown has somehow managed to break the tie between socioeconomic status and outcomes in K-8 schools. But we know that it's not. We know that it's hard working as, meaningfully, Well-meaning, as caring, as talented as the Brown staff is, they are not teaching ten times better than the teachers at the Winter Hill are. So it's hard for me to talk about preserving This special school without being honest about why it's special.

And it's impossible for me to talk about going to residents of the Mystic housing and talking about spending $60 million to renovate the school without talking about the fact that that school is, to use the terms of the state, racially imbalanced. Now, it may be that in the course of this conversation, we think about other uses of that building. But the reality is, even with this investment, we're not going to be able to create a 21st century learning environment that works for all students in that space. The footprint just isn't big enough. So we'd be talking about, if we're talking about really building a school that works for every student, we're talking about eminent domain. We're talking about years of lawsuits that we're not guaranteed to win. Like, I think we can think about different approaches that are more in keeping with our values, but I think if we're being honest about

Our talk about equity and caring about marginalized communities is hard to come up with a sustainable plan to keep the brown as it is and modernize it. for the community that I interact with as it is, that strikes me as a fair use of our limited and only getting one-minute resources. And like I've mentioned this before, but other schools, I recognize that We all, and I certainly do, value the ability to walk our kids to school. It is something that makes, for a lot of us, Somerville magically a place out of time and space. But the reality is, we're also, A city of four square miles. and I've done this before. Admittedly, I live fairly centrally located in the city, but from my door, every school but the West is within the state's two mile window.

And the West is only out by a couple hundred feet. Like, we should have conversations about transportation. We should have conversations about school, and we're gonna have conversations about school choice and equity. We promised that to the union about the contract. So we should have those conversations. and one of the conversations should be how to make sure that if we're going to have differentiated programming in schools that differentiated programming is accessible to people regardless of where they live in their resources. and if that's the case that's me makes it all the more reason that I cannot justify spending the kind of money paid to make the Brown sustainable building in the long term. without any dedicated plan for what that school means, that's not the status quo. So, For me, endorsing the Labarge School District Award is a no-brainer. I think we're also forgetting that all Somerville schools are small.

This notion that a 900% unpaid school is some unworldly huge thing is just not... Not the experience most districts have, where the 20% school is almost, understandably tiny, even if adequately structured, built, and funded. So yeah, that's where I'm coming at from this.

Mr. Bichon?

Thank you chair through you and first I just want to begin by appreciating Mr. Green's work on the on the CAG and appreciation for the tremendous amount of work Overall, that those who served on the CAG have undertaken over the past year. 13 meetings, I think, hundreds of pages of documents reviewed, countless hours of public input. I also want to acknowledge the strain that this process has had on families, especially the Winter Hill community. who've had to endure this displacement, the uncertainty, and the lack of clear communication so far.

When I review the draft CAG recommendations, for me, two things are clear. One, the Winterhill families have lived through an experience that should never have happened. through years of declining building conditions, a sudden structural emergency and then a protracted period of instability without a predictable timeline. The CAG has itself, I think, among the members acknowledged that there is a deep mistrust, mistrust that is entirely understandable. and if we're gonna hope to move forward together in whatever the plan is, whatever the outcome of our deliberations and whatever the mayor, current mayor or future mayor decide, that we need to rebuild that trust and that's fundamental that's not optional. That means transparency, proactive engagement,

and direct partnership with educators and families at every stage going forward. So to that end, I'm really glad that Ms. Pitone has suggested that we have this conversation because I think getting this conversation out at our level and in full light of public view is really important. Second, this process has made visible something we hear repeatedly from families at both the Winterhill and the Brown, and that is that school identity matters. These schools have each have unique cultures, tight-knit relationships, and strong educator communities. Families have been clear that they value those independent school environments, and I heard it from my colleague here. and that they don't want to see them merged into a single very large school. The CAG's own data affirms that there

The preference among significant segments of families, especially Black, Hispanic, multilingual, and special education families. At the same time, The school administration shared earlier in the process what research has long shown that school size matters. and schools beyond roughly 700 students tend to see less favorable outcomes. Less personal connections, more behavioral challenges, Weaker family engagement and a harder time ensuring equitable access to support. A 900 student K-8 school raises for me some real concerns. Not only for educators and families, but for the quality of learning for future generations of Somerville students.

I want to be clear that diversity, and Mr. Green mentioned the diversity of the Brown School, Racial, socioeconomic, linguistic is essential to our mission. But school size is not necessarily the way. It's a building, right? As Dr. Phillips mentioned, this is a building. One way to achieve different diversity outcomes could be through a more equitable enrollment policy. That's something that we as a school committee have committed to work on with our partners in the Educators Union. The Winterhill community deserves a school that is stable, modern, and built for the future. And the district as a whole needs a plan that anticipates growth, acknowledges past errors, and restores confidence. But this decision is not simply about building capacity.

I really don't believe that it is. It's about whether we honor the voices of families who want their school communities preserved and whether we Heed, what we know about what smaller schools can deliver and do currently deliver in Somerville. So given the long-term implications of constructing a building designed for nearly 900 students, I believe we should proceed with caution. What we decide now will shape the district for a long time to come. As others have noted, it could be a 50-year decision. So my view is that we should move forward with the Winterhill redevelopment that is forward-looking, flexible, and sized to serve the Winterhill community and anticipated enrollment growth without committing the district to merging two distinct school communities into a single oversized school.

This path, which supports stability for the Winter Hill students now, aligns with the educational evidence on school size that we have been presented. and respects the voices of families who have consistently expressed the importance of maintaining strong community-centered schools. Most importantly, it creates conditions for the city and SPS to begin rebuilding trust step by step with the communities most affected through transparency, accountability, and authentic partnership. and for that reason, I will not support the motion. Thank you.

Mr. Green, you had your hand up.

Yeah, I did some digging into the school size thing. After hearing a similar comment from Councilor Strezo, as well as the bare majority around Black and Hispanic students, respondents wanting to I'll come back to that in a second. But on a school size issue, if you dig into and you do some regressions, the reason you start seeing a larger You start seeing less academic output at schools of certain sizes. Schools of a certain size are overwhelmingly more likely to be People of Color, Poor and Poor Districts, and any associated identity factors, it is not clear

There's actual correlation between the size of the schools and the outputs as much as it is demographics of the schools. Because poor districts can't afford to have ADBD schools. So most of the variation in outcomes, as is always going to be the case in educational outcomes in America, are actually issues of class and race. And I would love, it is my dream, my goal, the reason I do this work, to see Somerville be the district that figures out how to have race and class not be the primary picture of educational success. We have not done so yet. So it comes back to the fact that as much as we want to say otherwise, we have a school as an outcome outlier, we have a school as a class and race outlier.

That said, there are There was the fact that a bare minimum of students of color who, by the way, were disproportionately better than we normally do in Somerville, but still underrepresented. When you talk to these families, and I didn't mention this in the first comment because it's just like picking out a scar. When you talk to these families about why, Their concern is not a mega school. Their concern is losing their school But their concern is losing their school to the reality that they have a school community that is disproportionately well organized and used to get in their way. This has been the case since

Superintendent Parentazzi suggested renovating the then powder house and closing the brow and frankly was torched by the community by the committee for recommendation. Now it may be that we still feel, and this is not going to happen here, that we do not feel that we could build a pluralistic integrated community in a school that size that represented diversity and our values. That may be the case. I don't think it's true. I think we do a pretty good job at Ziziano and Brown, and that 700 students isn't Functionally, organizationally, I know it's hard to see this in Somerville, that much different than not a prison school if it was full of 100 people, which again, we're not saying it would be.

But I think I find it hard to hear and to argue that because a racially-balanced school is beloved,

We should notify those recently unbalanced. Thank you. Through you, I In part made this motion because I think this is an important conversation to have. Ms. Pitone is right. It is a hard. A hard thing for me. My three kids attended the round school. I'm very much a part of that community. We were there together, how many years ago? in the basement of the church on College Ave talking about what we love, what we wonder, and what we hope for the Brown School. And

Some of the reasons why I support the CAG recommendation, one, I found what Ms. Pitone shared with us very compelling about the limitations of the size of the Winter Hill. As far as the inclusion model goes, the number of students that One might like to include in the general education classroom experience just can't be accommodated in that size school. The fact that the

that students who are receiving services at the Brown School have to receive them in hallways and on landings and that's knowing that The Brown School has fewer students receiving services than many other schools at this time. The number of students in the future who Do receive services at the Brown School or who would may increase so I'm concerned about the capacity of the building to serve students going forward in that sense but also I'm concerned about the physical building being sustainable. I would hate for us to find ourselves in a situation where Brown School students and staff and families are

In the same place that the Winter Hill School community is in now. That what we thought was a building that might last 10 or 20 or 30 more years suddenly is not usable. We find ourselves as a community again with a group of students who have no physical school to attend. Even if the Brown School, even if we were to Renovate the Brown School, bring it up to ADA code, compliance, add a gymnasium and a cafeteria. If we were to do those things, the students who attend the Brown School would need a home, a temporary home.

Would they go to the Edgerly across town for five or six years? I'm not sure that's a better solution. I don't know if, Davis's point about you know adding cars on the road and not having a walkable not having walkable schools like As we've observed with the Renner Hill School at the Edgerly, it's a real... It's difficult, and the distance from Sycamore to the Edgerly is much shorter than the distance from the Brown School to Edgerly Those of us who had students at the Brown School when the roof collapsed know well.

So these are all things that concern me and I'm and I'm very concerned about the possibility of actually getting MSBA money five years from now or seven years from now or ten years from now to to renovate the Brown School in a way that would serve the community well. So these are all things that Contribute to the motion that I made. Do we have to close the Brown School? I don't know, but we need to have a solution that can accommodate more students. I think Davis's concern about not having a school in Ward 6.

You know, I think Dr. Phillips spoke to it to some degree in that Ward 3 doesn't have a K-8 school either. But also the Kennedy School is across the street from Ward 6. And honestly, the Brown School is across the street from Ward 5. So they're both basically on the line. And who knows where the lines might move. The lines are, is fungible the word? The city can change them and has changed them. over the years. I do think that the loss of walkability is a concern. I do

I empathize and feel the pain of families who are very committed and attached to The schools that their kids have been attending and the schools that they have anticipated their kids attending for years. I met people knocking on the doors six years ago who had newborns saying Tell me that the Brown School is going to be there when my kid is old enough to go to kindergarten. And I said, well, we can't close the Brown School because we don't have enough seats in the district. And that was true at the time. Yes, her kid was going to go to school there.

So my point is, it is hard, but I cannot I can't leave

The kids of Somerville in the lurch or worry that I'm going to leave them in the lurch five years from now when we've built A wonderful and beautiful small school at Sycamore Street and suddenly the kids who attend the Brown School have nowhere to go and there's no money to fund a new school. and also I hear 100% what Mr. Green is saying about preserving a school that in a location that Perpetuates Inequities. And I do think that there are other ways to deal with that, to Mr. Biton's point. But I don't know.

I don't know if there's the I'm just not sure how that would pan out Thank you for listening for all that time and being patient with me as I found my words.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to respond to several points that were made, as much for the public for the record as for anything else. Obviously, if folks are still willing to be swayed, then I would welcome that as well. I respect all of the points that have been made and the opinions. My colleague, Dr. Phillips, noted the possibility of Now I've forgotten the term. The co-locating schools. We don't have a very bright history of doing that in the city, so I immediately look at that with a bit of a sideways glance. Thank you, Madam Chair, to Mr. Green. I hear all of what you said. None of the arguments that I made had anything to do with a love or passion for a specific school. So I sort of, you know,

I reject that counterpoint because none of the reasons that I take the position that I have taken have anything to do with that. My kids were the kids who were getting services in the hallways. I understand that the school as it currently stands is not sustainable long term. But I also want to counter the argument that small schools can be beneficial is countered because we'll just look at at the economic situation where they tend to be located. That may or may not be true, but none of the experiences that I'm drawing from are from within districts

where that certainly wasn't an issue from educators who saw many different scenarios firsthand and through whom I learned some of the different ways that You know, that a facility and an environment and a community and the size of that community can impact the ways that kids learn, particularly those who don't learn the same way as the majority of other students. And, you know, in terms of the potential that In terms of the need to relocate kids while a hypothetical renovation might happen at the Brown School, and the traffic impacts of that. I certainly will take that for five years compared to having that forever.

As Ms. Barish noted, we dealt with that when the one The new part of the Brown School roof collapsed. The old roof is actually in great shape. If you look at the list of things that need to happen to our schools, you go down a good ways before you see the Brown School come up in that list. My position is what it is. I think that There were other points I wanted to make and now I've forgotten them all because I printed on both sides of these papers and so I didn't have anywhere to write notes. But that's okay. I'll think of them when we're arguing this to the public. The idea that because of the demographics and the demographic makeup of areas of the city should result in it being a good thing that no area of the city has any public school, and there certainly is a big, beautiful public school sitting down the street in Ward 3.

Oh, I know what the other point was. You can wipe the ward lines off the map. This concept, if we were to go this route, would still create a significant... area where there is no access to public schools, including K-8 schools. So forget about the word lines. The Kennedy School is at the very, very far southern corner across the street from Ward 6 there. To me, that really isn't a mitigating point. So for folks who are watching, those are my counterpoints to some of the arguments that were made. I think this is a... Going forward with a plan that would result in closing this school would be a mistake, and we need to come up with a better plan. We need to come up with a better plan.

And we should have done that years ago when we knew the Winter Hill was going to need something. for reasons the city didn't but we shouldn't make another mistake now because we screwed up in the past few years.

Thanks. I appreciate everyone's comments, and I appreciate everyone's thoughtfulness. I had four points that I wanted to raise before we vote. I don't know. I'm going to sway anyone's mind, but they felt important to say. I think the first is that I heard in some comments that, you know, we should really be listening to what the school community wants, and the Brown community does not I want the combined school is what I heard. Maybe I heard it slightly off. It made me think about Ms. Pitone's experience with the Choice program, right? And if the school committee always did what the community wanted, not necessarily what was aligned with Our stated values or our goals for the district, well then we'd still have the Choice Program, right? And I think all of us today think that was the right decision that that school committee made to integrate the Healy with the Choice Program.

So that's the first thing. Second thing is, I just want to say it one more time loud and proud, we're not talking, and correct me if I'm wrong, we're not talking about combining the Winterhill and the Brown. We are talking about building a big school at the Sycamore site. And as part of that, we will redistrict the whole district that we're already committed to doing as part of the SEU negotiations. So we're not talking about combining the Brown and the Winterhill. Maybe I'm trying to thread the needle too much, but... This is not that decision. We are not making that decision. The third point is a point of clarification. I have heard from a couple very not very happy CAG members that we are about to take this vote tonight. and one of the things that I am understanding is that in part of finalizing the report there will be a bunch of recommendations for the school committee about things that they would like us to do.

I think those are really recommendations for the administration and the work that I forget what they're called the team of educators from the ILT that are working with the building committee to shape what the educational vision for the school which will be which will then be what we sell to the community the school School Committee is not going to come up with that vision. Andre and Laura, maybe you can jump in here.

There should be a vote by the body to approve that vision, but that will come in probably February of March, it sounds like.

Yeah, right? And that's exactly what happened with the high school. So that vision is going to come not from the school committee. Last thing, just wanted to point out that as of October of this year, there are three majority white schools in the district of which Brown is one.

I'll just quickly call on myself and then I have Dr. Ackman, Ms. Barish, and Ms. Pitone. I think part of the problem is that we want to come up with a perfect solution and that does not exist so I just want to name that there is not a perfect solution we're not going to sit around this horseshoe and come up with it For me, I want to appreciate Ms. Barish reminding us about Ms. Pitone's comment about the size of the Winter Hill and the programming that's at the Winter Hill and that a bigger school would actually benefit that programming. that really spoke to me. And then I also just wanna quickly go back and talk about Ms. Pitone's first comment about like, well, if the city was gonna, you know, could guarantee 55 to $65 million, et cetera. and it struck me in that moment that if the city could guarantee 55 to 65 million dollars that's not how I would want to use it.

I don't know that I have a vision for what that would be. I just don't know that for the district as a whole that would be the best use of that money. So that's where I am right now and I just wanted to throw that out. I think the important thing to remember is we are not gonna come up with a perfect solution. With that, Dr. Ackman. Okay, Ms. Pitone.

Thank you through you, Chair. I just wanna, I'll be quick. I wanted to acknowledge what... Dr. Phillips is saying is yes it's not saying that we're combining two school communities we're building one new school and I agree and I appreciate your framing of that I also want to acknowledge the CAG has done really hard work. I mean I tried to do some of this little work on my own independently in my own bubble of like reading all the reports and there was a lot of great material provided by the district provided by the city but I don't I want to be really take care about making a decision or making a recommendation that in a way I'll have to say frankly disregards their work and says well the survey said this and therefore I'm going to lean towards what the survey results said and they were these particular families. The CAG actually did the systemic complicated work

of saying there are awful trade-offs we're making here and this is what we recommend. And I really respect the team that did that work. I really respect the consultants that came in and did that work. And I just want to remind the members to take care with that if we make a decision to disregard that or disagree. I don't even want to say disregard, disagree. I also want to tell one last anecdote that was really moving to me that sort of sent some light bulbs off in my head. And I've told some people privately and they were like, you really should share that. So I'm at a community meeting with Brown school parents. Obviously, they're very passionate about their school. Everyone makes the choice of a school based on what they feel like is going to fit back Best for their student and best for their family. And I 100% respect that. So we're having this conversation with this parent and I'm explaining that the way the building is,

We have families, and I know families, that don't opt into that building because they have kids with complicated needs. They make those choices because they say, you know, this building, its limitations, having to deliver special ed in on optimal places is not okay for my kids. So people are opting out of this building. What this person said to me which was it kind of gives me chills was that says that well if my kid had special needs I would definitely send them here because there's less kids with special needs and I practically cried when they said that because they hit the nail on the head we've created a systemic inequity We have decided that it's okay to sustain this school because we have a very vocal parent population who love this school. I completely respect that and I honor that. And I don't want to disregard that. But at the same time, we as a body, if we choose to not create a large school that creates us more flexibility, regardless of what the final decision is about what happens to the Brown and all that,

We are opting in and saying, we're okay with systemic inequities. We're okay with the families saying, you know what? If my kid has special needs, I'd spend them there because there's less kids with special needs there. where it's kind of highlighting to me that okay we have all these schools with lots of kids with special needs that you know they can't be in this building and I feel like I might not be articulating it well but that is not okay with me from the big picture standpoint from the 50-year standpoint and I'm it's really hard for me to ever Takeaway Family Choice. I love that. I think that's a real value in our system. But I feel like a vote against the CAGS recommendation is a vote against the hard work they did and a vote of ignoring the systemic inequities that we create with a building that doesn't have access and supports for all of our diverse learners. So I'll just leave it at that.

Ms. Barish? Thank you. Through you, you know, I heard Councilor Davis, President Davis, sorry, saying that we need a better plan, and a better plan would be good, but I don't think we have time to come up with a better plan. So I don't see that as an option, unfortunately. I think a better plan would delay this process further. And yeah, so I just don't think we have time. Davis, and then Mr. Biton.

MR. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on that, actually the last two points, and thank you both. Just to be clear, I agree that we've We've squandered the opportunity to come up with a different plan, but I certainly don't look at this vote. It was said earlier, we've had this, We actually don't know whether a vote like this would require closing the Brown School or not. We've said we don't know, so I think that's still an open question. I look at this, as I said, the Brown School as it currently is being used is not sustainable. The better plan that I would propose is

As I said at the outset, rebuild the Winterhill School and then do something with the Brown School, whether it's rebuild something new on that site, use the Matt Rice plan that Incorporates the schoolyard and makes it fully ADA compliant, expands spaces, et cetera, that it was around when I was serving on the PTA. 15 years ago? 10 years? I don't know. It seems like a long time ago. Or something like that or different, right? By no means should anyone think that I think we should just let the Brown School as it currently sits ride for 20 years. I agree. Not going to work. But I don't like the idea of just closing it. Moveaway, figure out where you're going to go, look to the other schools that are outside of any reasonable walkshed.

Mr. Bichon.

Thank you, Chair, through you. I just want to reflect on what Ms. Pitone said a few moments ago. and how it both resonated with me and upset me. I just want to be clear for myself Through you, Chair, to Ms. Pitone, the two arguments I heard you make, that voting against the CAG majority recommendations would be a vote against the hard work that they did. And also would be a vote in supporting the systemic inequities in our district. I have a really hard time with that. Um...

I think the hard work that the CAG did is embodied in the entirety of their document, which includes both the majority recommendations and dissenting views. So what we're discussing right now is endorsing the majority recommendations. The hard work that they did was all of it. And yes, there was about a two to one majority in the final tally, I think, in supporting the Majority Recommendations versus the dissenting views. I don't know. I'm ballparking it.

Madam Chair, May I answer for a question? Did I misunderstand that there is a final recommendation, that there is a final tally? Because I thought I heard that we actually don't have a recommendation.

There is not a final recommendation. There is just the draft recommendation. That is my understanding.

If I may? My understanding is that in the last meeting there was a A straw poll, not a binding recommendation, but a straw poll of school size endorsements. that sort of thing so fair I mean you know I guess the part of the point and this maybe elucidates the point is that This majority recommendation is part of a spectrum of recommendations that really we're picking the strongest signal of, but I don't feel that voting only to endorse that strongest signal is really impugning the work of the CAG. So I just want to say that.

The other thing around the systemic inequities, 100%. We have systemic inequities in our district. And part of that is embodied in the building model that we have. I think ignoring that would be a fool's errand. I think part of the charge that we have appears to be sort of fixing everything. And I don't think we can do that with one discussion, with one vote. Saying that I don't support endorsing only the majority CAG recommendations does not mean for me that I Disregard the systemic inequalities in our district and how

Serious, I take it that we need to improve our service delivery model across the district around special education, pull out services, So I just, I feel very strongly that these are not, one does not necessitate believing in the other. Lastly, I've heard a $55 million, $60 million figure thrown around about what we might need to pay for a future renovation of the Brown School as a city. I don't know what the numbers are. But... I haven't seen these numbers presented in this body about what the future cost would be. Maybe they have been.

We are also committing to building a bigger school now, if we do. That would cost more than building a smaller school now. So, you know, there are trade-offs, I think, in either case. So I just... This is a very simple vote we're taking that has a lot of complexities built into it that I just... I think there's it's hard to boil it down to one sort of yay or nay but here we are anyway thank you chair and that sort of speaks to my earlier point about how I think we're looking for the perfect solution and it doesn't exist at this moment in time

Did you want to respond?

Just briefly through you, Chair. To Mr. Biton, thank you for sharing your point of view and acknowledging I think we're all trying to distill as simply as we can in terms of what our value set is and I appreciate that you shared that. I also want to clarify that we did get a presentation or at least maybe I went to the CAG site I don't know there is a presentation out there that clearly says that if the difference between building A building in renovating the ground is, I think the range was, I have it in my newsletter, $57 to $67 million more to have two buildings. and that the difference is between the two locations of Trum and Sycamore.

yeah that was the 57 to 67 um and i do want to also be clear i know it's not all about money but when we did do this not we when the survey was done in the community there was no data about costs So when someone's looking at a survey and saying all things being equal of course I want to maintain school choice but If you want me as a taxpayer to fit the bill for another $57 to $67 million, Again, I think Mr. Davis was very clear that the way the Brown is right now is not okay, and we have to do something about it if we were sustaining to schools. That might influence a few people who are filling out those surveys. Chair Krepchin said if there was that money available there may be other things that she as a school community member might choose to spend that money on instead of renovating our oldest school on a very small plot of land that we all know. I saw Mr. Rice's

Designs that President Davis referenced and would you know take over the entire playground there really would be no playground which again doesn't meet our goals in terms of gross motor and outdoor and being in nature so Anyway, I just, again, I wanted to acknowledge Mr. Biton and appreciate and value his point of view and also just add that additional information about the costs, which I did not make up, but were in a presentation from the city.

Okay, with that, we have a motion on the table. We can vote on it tonight. We can take some time and vote it at our next meeting. That's the will of the body. Dr. Phillips.

I'll call the question.

All right, great. So then I just call the roll for the motion, right? I don't have to, right, procedurally? Or do I have to take a vote to call the question? Okay, there's no objection. Okay, then I think we should do a roll call vote. So Dr. Carmona, will you call the roll?

Yes, to the chair. Ms. Pitone?

Yes.

Dr. Ackman?

Yes.

Mr. Green? Yes. Mr. Biton? No. Justin Davis? No. Mayor Ballantyne? Ms. Barish?

Yes.

Dr. Phillips?

Yes.

Chair Krepchin?

Yes.

So the yes, one, two, three, four, five, six, yes and two no, so the yes have it.

Okay, thank you. All right, that brings us to policy manual, which we do not have yet, so we are gonna table that. So that brings us to some field trips.

I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve a January 4th field trip for 25 students with an eighth grade chorus to travel to the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island to perform at the Providence Bruins game. The travel via bus student costs $25.

I have a motion by Dr. Ackman, seconded by Mr. Pitone. If there is no discussion, all in favor? Aye. Everyone's excited for this field trip. Sounds great. All right, that brings us to some grants, so entertain a motion.

I mean, I move. That was fun, sorry. I move to accept with gratitude the Mass Clean Energy HVAC Electrical HVAC Training Program for CTE and scale grant. Is this right for $789,870.90? Woo! Partnership for Reading Success Part Two District-Wide for Professional Development. Again, an impressive sum, $166,500. and MyCap, CTE for professional development, $7,000. Can I do federal as well? Adult education and family literacy grant increase for the SCALE department in the amount of $36,626. Second.

I have a motion by Dr. Ackman, seconded by Ms. Pitone. If there is no discussion, all in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. Bring on the money. That's great. All right, we have a donation.

I move to accept with gratitude the donation of equipment from Alice Grossman for the value of $2,520 to the Art Department.

Second. Motion by Ms. Pitone, seconded by Dr. Ackman. Mr. Pitone.

Thank you, Chair, through you. I just want to acknowledge how wonderful this equipment is and appreciate the district sharing the details of the donated equipment. An extraordinary list of looks like mostly photography equipment, actual 35 millimeter cameras, lenses, black darkroom equipment. You name it. Really grateful to the donor and just thank you for thinking of our kids.

Ms. Barish, did you also want to say something? No, I was going to say not quite as eloquently probably, but just share what the donation is of because it's not clear from the agenda. But we did get that nice document from the administration, so thank you.

All right, all in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. That brings us to items from committee members. Does anyone have anything? So go ahead, Ms. Retone.

Thank you, Chair, through you. I want to make the community aware of an important opportunity to help shape the Kennedy School Playground Renovations Project. Thanks to Community Preservation Act funding, the City is beginning a process of reimagining the Kennedy Schoolyard. We saw this a few years ago at the West where my children have gone. So this is a great opportunity to weigh in and create an inclusive and welcoming space for all of our students K-8 at this amazing school. The first public community meeting for this project will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, December 2nd at 6.30 p.m. on Zoom. City staff will be there to share info about the project, preliminary designs. Go share your thoughts.

That's it. And I just have a quick thing that I was asked by the woman who's helping the library with their strategic plan to get my input. So if anyone, I am having that interview tomorrow, so if anybody has any thoughts, school related, directed to the library, shoot me an email before one o'clock tomorrow. All right, if there are no other items from committee members, I believe we do not have any condolences. We are adjourned, everyone. Good night.