School Committee Meeting - February 2, 2026

All right, thank you very much. Welcome at 7.02. I'm calling this meeting to order. Good evening and welcome to the February 2, 2026 meeting of the Somerville School Committee. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of Acts of 2026, this meeting of the school committee will be conducted via hybrid participation. We will post an audio recording, video recording, Transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Superintendent, can you please call the roll?

Through the Chair, President Davis. I heard he's online? No. Member Piton?

Here.

Member Lippens?

Here.

Member Eldridge?

Present.

Member Green? Dr. Stellman. Mayor Wilson, Member Biton, and Dr. Ackman. With a present and one absent, we have quorum.

Thank you. Now it's time for a moment of silence and a salute to the flag. Okay I've been informed that as of right now there is no or there was not public comment before seven o'clock um so we are going to go to the approval of minutes um Is there a motion to approve the January 12 minutes?

So moved.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All right. So moved by Member Biton, seconded by Mayor Wilson. All those in favor? Aye. All opposed? I would like to note that at the request of the student reps, until they're both here, we're going to keep going with our agenda. When they're both here, we will move over to have them speak. So let's go to number six, report of subcommittees. Is there... Member Green, the January 14 subcommittee, finance subcommittee got in, great. Is there a motion to approve the December and January finance subcommittee reports? All right, motion by Member Green, seconded by Member Pitone. Yep.

May I request, since we didn't have the January 14th finance subcommittee meeting until just recently, I haven't had a chance to review that we tabled that?

Sure. Since the motion was seconded, can I take that as a friendly amendment, member Greene? Okay, so the motion is to approve the December 17th Finance and Facilities Subcommittee. Anyone wish to speak? All right. All those in favor? Any oppositions? Abstentions? Great. That's all set. I think I'm trying to plow through things. I'm going to jump to item number eight. Can we go to November and December bill rolls? I will accept a motion. Member Green motions to approve. Do I have a second? Motion by Member Green, seconded by Member Lippens.

Any comments or questions? All in favor? All opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. Just plowing through here. Trying to look at any of the other low-hanging fruit. Is there a chance, Dr. Boston-Davis, 7A, is there something on the calendar? Are there updates on the calendar you're willing to present?

I would love to have you share them if you're willing to thank you absolutely the chair good evening everyone uh good to see you all again uh so on you'll see in your packet a draft of the 26-27 school year calendar. Just as a reminder for the committee and for those who may be tuning in at home, the initial draft was presented in early December. and the there were members of the committee that noted that the last day of school fell on the Monday after a three-day weekend the tentative I should say last day of school felt fell on a Monday after a three-day weekend. So the previous and the first draft presented first day of school was, excuse me, last day of school was on Monday, June 21st.

and so the ask was are there ways that we maybe can explore other possibilities either starting school at a different date or through some of the days that we have off Could we possibly look into some of those ideas and talk with different stakeholders, notably our SEU partners in that The contractual language for the SEU names Labor Day and the start of school the Wednesday and Thursday. Prior to Labor Day with the Friday and Monday around Labor Day off. That is how it's written in the contract. And so that usually determines when we start school. that's why we usually start the Wednesday and Thursday before Labor Day that said Labor Day falls late this year so in the draft in front of you We are exploring one opportunity here.

We have discussed this with both the SEU and recently the SAA and the SEU will be engaging with their members on this later this week. But we and obviously we also have other stakeholders to talk to but I just wanted to let you know that we've talked to those unions. So the What's here is proposed is for the first day of school to actually fall on a Monday. Monday, August 31st. It would then have the first week of school go Monday to Thursday. Still with the Friday and Monday around Labor Day off. So that is a shift in practice. It would certainly need to be agreed upon outside the CBA, but that is one proposal that we have on the table, and so we kind of illustrated that here.

In draft form, hoping to get your reactions and your feedback or if there's anything else you'd like us to explore, we're happy to entertain that as well and kind of put another draft before you to approve.

Member Green and then Member Biton.

This is, I guess, kind of a procedural question because I can guess some of the options people are going to ask about. It feels like asking if you've talked to the union about X is an executive session question. Am I right or wrong on that point? Because that would be, you know, this is to some degree a negotiation because they're going to agree to a side letter on whatever we do. So where does discussing the options and the union's position on those options fall vis-a-vis executive session law?

So I can, you know, encourage us to go back to our attorneys. My understanding is executive session is a privilege that we exercise. It's not a mandate. And if the, you know, my... Presumption, based on the fact that Dr. Boston Davis is willing to talk about this publicly, is that that is with the consent of union leadership and not doing anything that You know, our union would be Put-Off-By. That is an assumption on my part, but it's, you know, executive session is a privilege, it's not a mandate, is what I would start with there. But that's a really good question. Mayor Wilson, you have a...

Response? Chair, on this point, there are specific reasons you can go into executive session, legal strategy being one of them. If we're not discussing narrowly our legal strategy, I don't, not an attorney, Not your attorney but I don't believe that executive session would be proper to go into unless we're talking about our actual narrowly defined legal strategy.

But that's it. Member?

Very respectfully, I disagree with the Mayor, because a negotiating strategy is one, and what we ask for in a negotiating strategy is a executive session to cover. The question, I think, The Chair Ackman's point that we don't have to go to an executive session is fair and correct, but it is absolutely something that could be an executive session.

Thank you. Great question. I think we can bring that back to legal counsel to confirm, but given that I can't imagine that Dr. Boston-Davis would come to us without speaking to the union about speaking to us. I'd be surprised. Did you have a response? Okay, so after Biton, then Pitone. Thank you. Member Biton? Thank you.

Thank you, Chair, through you. I have just a clarifying question, if I may, through you, Chair, to Dr. Boston Davis. Is the earlier start of school By two days, and I note the end of school is two days earlier, does that represent the only substantive change other than I also note the Movement of the Professional Development Days to the 27th and 28th of August. Is that the whole change?

Through the Chair, yes. Those are the substantive changes that are reflected here. There were a couple of pieces of feedback that I incorporated and revised, but nothing that would require a vote from the school committee in terms of dates so the date that will require the vote that I wasn't assuming would be made today are the start of the school day so the answer is yes the start of the school and school year and the first two days of PD for the educators. But obviously those are district determined.

Member Pitone.

Thank you through the chair to Dr. Boston-Davis. Thank you for bringing forward a creative solution. I'm curious if any other non-federal holidays are being considered in this discussion and which ones which I kind of flagged some myself but I'm curious what else would be on the table P.S. This is not a pro or con of this suggestion, but I feel like we should have all the options.

Through the Chair, yes, Good Friday was also discussed as a possible A possible day. It is not a federal holiday. It is a holiday that we know many members of our community observe, but it is not a federal holiday and it is a day that is off in our school year calendar. Again, we don't have feedback from the SEU yet, but that was the other option beyond do nothing. You know, start it two days earlier or considering Good Friday.

Member Pitone?

Yes, through you. What about Election Day? that was not excuse me through the chair that was not discussed not that I'm a proponent necessarily for not having election day off because that benefits so many people but it's not I don't think it's considered a holiday so

Thank you. I have a question for Dr. Boston-Davis. I was wondering, I think I had asked when this was first presented to us if we know that it is a requirement, you know, say for example, There are two studies. And then that brings us back to the original challenge presented. I know I had inquired about whether a federal holiday observed has to be like if we are legally bound about when to observe it if it's not on the actual holiday and so I'm curious if we if we found out about that.

Yes, through the Chair, I did discuss that with SEU leadership. I would have to look closely at the way the language is written in our collective bargaining agreement that said there is language around A federal holiday being observed when it is observed federally. Something to that extent. I can find the exact language. I don't have that off the top of my mind, but we did discuss that. The language in the contract that I need to look closely at is when it falls on a weekend. I think there's language specifically around Monday, and I'm not sure about Friday. But we talked about it and it was interpreted at that time that it needs to be observed when it is observed federally. That said, we can look closer into that. If that makes sense.

We had the conversation around that and I understood from SEU leadership that the that we should observe it when it is observed federally. We can look back at the technicalities of the language because it is not clearly described in that way, but we can look back.

yeah I think my request would be you know should the calendar pass as is in case there are only you know there are only two snow days I have my I theorize that A significant portion of the union will also maybe want us to consider that as a possibility. Again it's a lot of ifs but given the two snow days we just had not out of the question. Member Lippens.

Forgive me if this has not already been spoken for, but is September 4th, the Friday, through you, Chair, the Friday, an option, or is that like historically not, and it's not a holiday? So I'm just wondering.

Through the chair, so that's language of the collective bargaining agreement that currently it's written that the Wednesday and Thursday before the Labor Day holiday are the first two days of school with the Wednesday being a half day and the Friday and Monday being no school and no work days for the SEU. and as we discussed starting earlier it was keeping the four-day weekend around Labor Day.

Remember Green.

Actually, on everyone's note here, I think, and I think you pointed out well, the real problem with this day is it ends late no matter what we do. As the chair pointed out, it only takes two snow days to throw everything a whack in it. you know three or four which at least in the old days wasn't an unusual number of snow days has this ending the last week of June um so I appreciate the creativity i appreciate the union's willingness to be flexible I think any days we can front load should be explored. And so I would ask that the conversation take the frame of and not or. If we can get more than two days somewhere, we should try to do that.

Thank you. As a follow-up to Member Green's comment, I also want to thank the union for their partnership, their thoughtful partnership and engaging, and thank you for your work. Dr. Stellman.

Through the Chair, I just want to I echo that this is very challenging to rearrange a calendar at this scale, so thank you for this hard work and for your for our colleagues in the union who are doing that with you. I want to just comment on what member Green said in terms of any possible way of front loading because we know that those are More substantive learning days and that the closer we get to the very end of June, they are Real school days that count, but the kind of learning is usually much, much less. So if that is a possibility, but you've already done a pretty heroic job.

Boston-Davis. Thank you, Dr. Ackman. I just wanted to echo what you said and, you know, in this forum, thank our partners with the SCU and the SAA but the SCU particularly and that this is part of their collective bargaining agreement have just been really thoughtful at the table helping to problem solve partners so I really deeply appreciate that. I just wanted to echo your thoughts.

Thank you. All right, so this will be presented to us for second reading at our next meeting, which will be after February break.

to the chair not to be a sickler but like this is not a an official proposal at this point is it or is it something that's still in conversation I just want to make sure there's room for the body to deliberate and so technically I think the next time it comes forward with whatever you share it may or may not be the second reading it might be the first reading because it might be different point taken

Yes, I think we are now going to thank everyone for their patience as we jump around. Bhavika, I just want to let you know we have other people who are in the audience who are waiting to present, so we'll... Be patient with Adam, but we may have to take some of our bigger presentations. But I do want to note the third bullet point on 5A of the district report, the SEU update. partnership with the city to maintain safe and healthy facilities memo Superintendent Carmona?

Through the chair, yes. And do you have a packet that was submitted by the city? And as you know, this was part of a conversation with the SEU during the negotiation process. There was language in the CBA about making sure that the city provides an update on the critical infrastructure around safety in schools as well as The progress around the climate plan that the city has outlined for us that also includes the quality as well as any efforts to improve the energy efficiency of every building. So that is in your packet. And so I wanted to just point attention to all the different elements that are included. Air quality is one of the things that usually the SEU has been very focused on. Curious as to making sure that we are protecting the quality of the air in schools. There is a piece around resiliency, climate forward. There's also a lot of work that has happened around that.

I know that the high school has been deeply involved in this process. and there are other pieces there that is up to you to read. I just know that the asbestos, the AHERA report is one thing that we got. At some point there was, A very loose way to manage these reports and after the incident that happened at the Winter Hill, we determined that those reports needed to be in place on a regular basis and those corrections have been in place as far as I know. But and then there's no removal also is there and again if you have any questions or does I'm not the the Thank you, Superintendent. Are there any other questions?

Questions? All right. Bhavika, would you like to go and then so your piece can be done? Is that? All right, so we are going to go to at least a portion of the student committee advisory representatives. Thank you.

Okay, yeah, great. Thank you. Sorry for pushing it back a little bit. It's been a fun game for me. Yeah, so just to start off with some updates. So prom and semi-formal tickets will be sold soon during lunch, during all three lunches at the high school. and I'm not as well informed about what's going on with prom but I know for semi-formal it's for sophomores and juniors and after several years of not having it We are able to have it again this year due to efforts spearheaded by the 2027 and 2028 class officers. So we're really excited for that. It's gonna be happening in late February. and it just goes to show that the initiatives of these students is really paying off and it's really leading to a better and like more inclusive school culture and community

Moving along, we've been having this class cup challenge over a little while now already. it's been a really great success and revisiting what we mentioned at the beginning of the year or the school year about our improved school culture this class cup challenge has really contributed to that but a little summary about it is that tickets are awarded to students who are being SHS which is which is like our new like motto and like habits we want all students to exemplify but it's basically if students are demonstrating leadership The class was the most tickets wins a prize at the end of the competition which and before we leave for February break so this challenge has been really great to motivate some more school or class involvement and really brings the different classes together.

and moving along that's kind of the end of our updates there's not that much but we kind of wanted to start this new thing where we highlight or promote different clubs that are going on at our school and just the successes that are happening. And we wanted to bring that to the school committee because we thought it would be great to just appreciate the work that our students at the high school are doing. So this week we're going to be highlighting the efforts of the ACLU Club, which is the American Civil Liberties Union Club at Somerville High School. and even without being a funded club, they have been working really hard to promote their cause and support younger students. Harman Kaur who is part of the school improvement committee which many of you may have likely met before during our

She shared how they recently partnered with middle schools to run fun, interactive sessions on civil rights. helping students explore fairness equality and their own rights through real life scenarios discussions and hands-on activities that inspired confidence empathy and social awareness basically the The activity that they had was a mini model UN in debate which helps students then critically understand global and civil rights issues. So high schoolers part of the clubs went to middle schools and they taught this lesson. to different middle school grades throughout Somerville and so that was really great and I remember the last time we were here there were some questions from the school committee about How we can bring in Pre-K to 12 and how we can include voices across all schools in the city and in younger grades.

a lot of what we're doing at this high school does actually focus on supporting the younger grades such as middle school students or elementary school students so the school committee representatives were talking and hopefully through different clubs initiatives we can get some insights from The middle schoolers or elementary schoolers or even younger about how they feel about high schoolers supporting them and the different initiatives they're bringing to their schools. So hopefully as the school year continues, we'll bring more updates directly from those students and seeing how they are liking or what any comments they have about what the high schoolers are doing to support them. And yeah, that's mostly it.

That was wonderful. Thank you so much. I've been so impressed personally with hearing how high schoolers are getting into middle school and passing on knowledge that they're passionate about. It's inspiring. Do my colleagues have any questions? Member Biton.

Thank you, Chair, through you. Wonderful to hear what's going on and I really appreciate the club highlight. Keep them coming. I wanted to just, Raise up something you mentioned at the beginning, the work that the 2027-2028 class officers did to bring back the semi-formal. What a terrific example of how students can impact their own school community through their own initiative. So I just I think that is worth celebrating and also I just want to extend thanks to principal Kirsten, school administration for

Making space for what is already, I mean there's such a complex calendar that happens in trying to find ways to incorporate elements of celebration and culture. and Student Initiative. So just all around great work and I'm so glad to hear that it is back.

Dr. Stellman. Yes, again, thank you. It's really wonderful to hear directly from students since we serve you. and we've worked together. Wondering about if you happen to know if there are ways that, are there ways in place for students who would need help paying for who may need help getting financial support to get a nice dress or a suit or whatever they plan to wear. Is that something that you guys discuss?

Yeah so I'm not directly part of the class officers but I know in the past we've definitely had supports for for example like prom dresses and I do believe there are supports for um if you need financial support for getting tickets as well but I'm not completely sure so I apologize for that Mayor Wilson

Thanks, Chair. Yeah, I really appreciate that update. I'll say I'm looking forward to my meeting with the ACLU club at the high school on February 25th.

Dr. Stellman, what I will say is my understanding is that there are many avenues for students to get support. I also don't know as much about semi-formal, but I do know there's a solid network for prom. That is a great question though about me.

Thank you to the chair. If there's a way that we can get that information of how to help that comes to the school committee, I would be happy to Thank you to each of you.

Member Green.

So, again, I can't speak to this to be formal, but I know that the clothing closet which exists, historically, more years than not, has a fairly large selection A formal wear for people to choose from. It's something that we get a disproportionate amount of donations about. I can't speak to the current state of that closet, but historically and in general, formal wear is not something that the closet has lacked. Of course, even clothing donation, you can always get more.

All right. Thank you, and if Aiden comes, we will give him a chance to speak. All right, with that, I've done my ping-ponging. I hope my colleagues will keep me honest if they see that I've missed something. I'm now going to move on to item five, the report of the superintendent.

Thank you through the chair. Good evening, everyone. Babica, thank you again for bringing the voices of the students. One of the things that I think resonated with me is this sense of community. and I am going to make that connection to the opening of my remarks that is all about community. I want to thank the community that has been here helping us basically shoveled out of the snow. DPW was, again, it might sound like a broken record, but the fact that they prioritized their schools to make sure that they were ready for school on Wednesday, that was very important. There was a heartfelt commitment to making sure that our students and our buildings were ready for school. I also have to extend that thank you to Chief Benford. I know that we had police in every building to make sure that The pedestrians were safe at all times and we know again that that requires a collaboration across the board.

So with that, I'm also going to give a space to a big reminder for everyone. I know there was a play that took place on Thursday and over the weekend. I was really moved because it was basically the focus of a student who is an outsider who comes in and has a difficulty fitting in. It just reminds me of my daughter's experiences in her last year in high school. But the thing that really was touching for me is I know I spoke to some parents of kids who actually were part of the performance. The students who you otherwise would not say are popular in the traditional sense but displayed a sense of We have amazing creativity and talent and I think that what our high school does is that creates spaces for students to have their own sense of and I have to thank all the teachers of the high school for that support.

If you missed that one, please make sure that you mark your calendars March 26, 27, and 28 we have another school performance. It's a Peter Pan theme. It's called The Lost Girl. If you are thinking of going to the movies or watching a basketball game, add the performances of the high school as one of your options to celebrate or enjoy your weekends. It was outstanding. With that, I am going to start with a celebration of having a group of folks here that are the cherry on top of the ice cream for the high school, the CTE program which is, as you know, is a program that offers students a pathway to develop real-world hands-on skills in a wide range of trades and technical professions.

We know that these programs not just prepares our students for what comes after graduation, they give them a head start whether the path leads directly into the workforce, post-secondary training, or to college. and with that I am going to open the floor for our amazing amazing CTE program that also aimed The same theme around connections and partnerships have been amazing creating relationships with both Groups here in Somerville and beyond. CTE Director Jim Hatchi, welcome back again, and the floor is yours.

Thank you Dr. Carmona. I really appreciate the time for me to present here today. and I'd like to go over and introduce some folks that are with me. Meg McDevitt is the director of co-op and work-based learning. and then I have Tom Bent, the general advisory chair and a community leader. And then I have Jack and Eden that are outstanding student leaders in CTE that are gonna help me with my presentation today. I'd like to have Tom come up and talk about what we're doing, some of the things we're doing in CTE and the reason why we have the general advisory and then I will continue with the presentation.

Thanks, Jim. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for this opportunity to address the committee regarding Somerville High School's Career and Technical Education Program, or CTE. My name is Tom Bent and I am chair of the CTE General Advisory Committee. Under Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 72, Section 2, the chair of the CTE General Advisory Committee is required to meet annually with the school committee. and the advisory committee must convene two general and program advisory committee meetings each year. These meetings are held in this fall and the spring. Our most recent fall meeting took place on October 16th, 2025. and was attended by more than 70 business representatives, students and parents. Each of our 14 programs is supported by a program advisory committee combined of Representatives from local businesses, industry, organized labor, postsecondary institutions, as well as parents and students.

These committees provide recommendations to the General Advisory Committee. In total, the advisory structure includes approximately 170 members, including 100 representatives from local businesses and organized labor. Last year, the Advisory Committee requested a dedicated CTE budget separate from the high school general budget. I'd like to thank Superintendent Carmona, Principal Kirsten, and CTE Director Jim Hatchie for responding to that request in providing us a detailed CTE budget. So thank you. CTE students now compromise 66 and that's 66 percent of all Somerville high school enrollment and the general advisory committee fully supports this year's proposed budget At this time, Jim's going to pick up now for the slide presentation. And as usual, I'll butt in when I need to, right? But again, thank you.

Thank you for having us come up tonight.

Thank you, Tom. So my first slide talks a little bit about some of our programming that we've done over the summer. What I've done over the years is I use a three-prong approach to community engagement that's really important for us in career technical education. and the first prong approach is the middle school summer programs that we offer for middle school camps and we have been doing for the last four years. The second prong is the high school offerings along with some of the partnerships you'll hear about this evening in this presentation. and then the third prong as you've probably already heard through presentation through Jocelyn and the skill is the community engagement will be with night school grants programming

that we are partnering with Jocelyn and her team of scale so they've done an outstanding job and we've been all year we've been partnering with them on many grants and as you May have seen we've been pretty successful in getting those grants, so her team is unbelievable. So to go over a little bit of the summer programming that we offer, So we offered four different CTE programs for rising 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. We did cosmetology, culinary, graphics, and health careers. It ran for two weeks with over 50 students enrolled. In the years past we ran it for three weeks but that third week we saw the enrollment really drop so we did it for two weeks and we had a very consistent Over 50 students enrolled, so I think we'll stick with the two weeks. And there's a lot of options for these students, which kudos to the city of Somerville for giving these students these options.

and then over the summer last two summers we did the pre-apprentice program and this really got things going for our night school programming so we ran the pre-apprentice program for construction trades There was 24 young adults, 18 to 22-year-old, for a nine-week program. Five weeks was in carpentry, two in plumbing, two in electrical, and they earned their OSHA 30 and Hutt Works industry credentials. anything that we do whether it's the day program or summer programs or night programs we're gonna we always attach those industry recognized credentials so that our students get recognized whether it's you know the high school students or the adults I truly believe that we do build our community one student at a time through community service. I truly believe that. Next slide. All right, so talk a little bit about the CTE enrollment over the last four years.

As many of you are aware, we changed the schedule four years ago, and we're still seeing the improvements of the CTE overall enrollment from 44% I still think we can continue to grow those numbers. Whether we level out or not, that will remain to be seen. But I still think there is some room for growth for those numbers. Next slide. The collaboration with Brunt. I know some members have heard at the end of last year this collaboration and I think it's worth bringing up again. Brunt Workwear donated 700 pairs of boots. For our students. Over $100,000 they donated just to our district. Now, Brunt has said they're going to continue to do this. They're doing it throughout the state.

And they donated over 10,000 pairs of boots to students in vocational career education. So kudos to them. It's just amazing what they're doing. I'm at the forefront of that through the Marver Vocational Directors Group. and so we're helping them set it up and get those pallets we got seven pallets of of boots for our students so it's amazing and we've been working with different schools we have some sizes that they don't have so we've been and back and forth. So it really worked out well and that's the point of doing that and that's the point of the collaboration with this so that every student gets a pair of boots. and so um and the last year we did distributed over 100 pairs for our juniors in our programs and then this year we distributed over 200 to the sophomore and junior classes so we do have several hundred pairs left over We're probably the end of this school year. We'll get another shipment.

Probably not gonna be 700 more, but we'll get a little smaller shipment in. And they are willing to keep the boots coming and make sure that our students are Well prepared for the world of work.

Director Ahatchee, can I ask you to tell us what MARVA stands for?

MARVA, Mass Association of Vocational Administrators. Thank you. Thank you, sorry. And I'm lucky enough to, I think the last seven or eight years, is to chair the Mass. Association Vocational Administrators, Vocational Directors. So that's something I enjoy doing. It helps because I'm at the forefront of what's happening, so thank you. Next up, I'd like for Ms. McDevitt to come up and talk about our Let's Get Working program with the DPW.

Hi everyone, thank you. I'm very excited to talk to you about some of the wonderful programs we have going on for our senior students. One of them is the Let's Get Working program that we have been working on for the past couple years. And it's a collaboration partnership with DPW. and our senior CTE students in four programs that I'm gonna explain. And basically what this is, is it's an opportunity for our students to be able to be out in the field Learning, Critical Job Skills, Hands-on Experience, while also being able to fill some of the labor gaps in our DPW. The program that we have currently going on is a co-op. It's a cooperative education program. where our students are out and they're working.

They're working with a direct supervisor in the automotive, Carpentry, Electrical, and Plumbing Fields. Automotive is new this year, which we are excited about, and this is the second year. We have our second cohort of students There's four students. We had four available opportunities and we have four students that we have been able to be out in the field. It is my great honor to introduce Eden Nguyen to come up. Eden is one of our students working in electrical with DPW. And Eden's gonna explain what it's like to be part of the Let's Get Working program.

Hi, my name is Eden Gwynn. I'm in the electrical program. I've gotten to work alongside two journeymen electricians just to help maintain the Somerville public buildings around and I've really gotten to learn what it's like to be an electrician and what trades people contribute to like community in the city and it's just been a really good opportunity for me to see what it'll be like for my future as an electrician. Thank you.

We had been trying to form this collaboration for many years and last year and this year with the We were able to get it up and running and we're very grateful for that and look forward to expanding and continuing that partnership. We can go on to the next slide. The next program that I am excited to talk about is called the Compliance Mentor Group. The program that is involved in this compliance mentor group is called CPM. It's the Construction Mentor Program. And what this is, I'm gonna first talk a little bit about what the group is, and then I'm gonna describe what the program is.

So the group is, it was founded by a woman named Nicole Richer. And what the group is, is it is a group of industry partners that get together and their goal is to help guide, mentor, educate and give experience to vocational students in the Boston area. and luckily Somerville is one of the districts that is able to be in this partnership. We've been in this partnership for five years. We were one of the first districts to join. It went on through COVID and it's still going now and growing and growing. Each year we get more slots, so we get excited every year this comes about. What the program is is that we have seven of our students,

In carpentry and electrical that over an 11 month process, it's a three tiered system where these students get to go and they get to be part of a group with other districts in the area. They come together one day a month and they get to partner with Industry Partners, big construction companies that they have mentors that work with them. They learn about what it's like to be out on the job, what it's like to The goal of the program is to bring awareness and networking opportunities to students and bring them out into the field in live construction sites.

Some of the sites that we are part of now and have been a part of in the past are the Ambulatory Care Center at the Boston Medical Center, the Charles View resident in Brighton, Tata Hall Harvard Business School, Mass College of Art and Design, the residence hall, and some of the industry partners that we work with are the Harvard Alston Land Company, Turner Construction, Tishman, Speer, Suffolk Construction, MIT, and Harvard University. So this is a wonderful experience for our students to be able to go out Make connections, network, and see what it's like to actually be out in the field on sites.

and I am very excited to bring up Eden again because Eden is also a part of our CMP program and Eden is gonna explain a little bit about it.

Hi, for me it's just been a really good opportunity to see like a more broad view of what the construction industry is like because like Previously I was focusing on just electrical, but in this I see all the different trades and how they all work together and come together to form a project. It's been really good to speak to people that are working in each aspect of it. and like because they're all there presenting and it's good for me to be able to talk to them and speak like learn directly from them what goes into a project in total. Thank you.

We can go on to the next slide now, please. Cooperative Education. Cooperative Education is a program that we have. It comes with Chapter 74 programs. It's something that we are very proud of at the high school. It's an extension of learning for our students outside of the classroom. And cooperative education can be two things, an actual employment job and an internship. And there are... requirements that need to be met that we follow through the through the state students need to be 16 years old they need to have been in their program for a year and a half they need to be enrolled in one of the chapter 74 programs

Currently, we have seniors that are participating in co-op right now. We have 52 out of 147 students that are actively out. It's 35% of our senior class, which is the largest that we've ever had as of January. It's actually the largest that we've ever had students out. I know it may not seem like a huge number but considering that we are a comprehensive high school and the definition of that is that by state is that we do our students do our vocational classes and academic classes in the same day. So you can imagine that that's difficult for students to go out and work in the job sites that we were just talking about. You know, students,

Our students are vocational students going on an academic schedule. So they are able to leave the building at like 11.30 and the job site is half over by then. So really, these may not seem like big numbers, but this is huge for us and we're really proud of it. So some of the programs that you can see up here that have students out are here. We often have a lot of students out in health careers and dental because They have the opportunity to have a later shift in the day. But we do have some students out in automotive, carpentry, Early Education and Care. So they're really out in a mixture of places throughout the city. And that's it.

Thank you Meg. Thank you Eden. So up next is CTE students excelling in dental assistant. As Ms. McDevitt said, we have a lot of students that go out on the internship. All 13 senior students pass their radiology certification at Tufts Dental School at the end of November. We are working on a collaboration with Tufts Dental School for internship experience We're starting in the beginning stages. We did it for years before COVID. Now we're trying to bring that back and they're just allowing a certain amount of schools to come in. So hopefully we're in line for that. And what that is is the collaboration with Tufts Dental School will be our students working with Tufts Dental staff and students on chair side skills with clients within their clinic at the Tufts Dental School. So we're looking forward to get that partnership back going. Up next is the culinary arts showcasing their skills.

We're offering monthly veterans breakfast through the Veterans Services Office. Thank you to Jerome Thomas and his team. Jerome's been outstanding working with and our CTE programs and he's trying to include the veterans in almost every one of my programs which we are very excited about. So thank you to Jerome and his team, they do an outstanding job. The Highlander Cafe is open in-house twice a week and to the public on Thursdays. So we're going to continue to do that. The menu is on the website. And then we do several catering events. Thank you to the superintendent's office for keeping us busy with some of those events. So it's great. I see the emails. I go, all right, here we go. Thank you. We do appreciate that. And they do a lot of different other community events as well. Up next is cosmetology showcasing their skills. The salon clinic is open to the public two days a week.

Students travel twice a month to the counseling on aging. to offer services to Somerville residents. So we're excited about that. Prior to, they used to come and see us, but I guess now they don't have the transportation Some issues with transportation, so we're going there. So we're going to still meet their needs and be able to service the council and on agent. We have Jerome set up a salon date set up through the veteran services for March 5th. We're very excited about that. and the salons open for services Tuesdays and Thursdays. So all you got to do is just call and you can get your hair, facials, whatever you need. We'll do it. All right. Up next is our automotive program. They continue to meet the needs of the community. So our automotive program just is Outstanding and they do a great job.

The students are just they're just there and they're eager to learn so the program services approximately 20 to 25 vehicles each week and Provider Maintenance and Repair Services to community members. Also, we're in our second year of participating in Second Chance Cars, through which our students complete automotive repairs on a vehicle. that they are donated to community members. So this is a great program. We talked a little bit about it last year. Community members that are in need of reliable transportation that normally couldn't afford it, It's not 100% free, so these community members will pay $1,000. And at the same time, they set up payments, and they really teach them how to make a budget.

A service giving them or you know setting them up for a thousand dollar car but these cars are six seven thousand dollars one of the ones that we gave away was actually from The meeting last year, a community member saw us. Thank you, community members. And she donated a car. She was able to come back. and she was part of the presentation to give that car away. So how awesome is that? So these are the things that, you know, and Dr. Carmona and Dr. Boston Davis were part of, you know, We're going to continue with that program and we hope to do some more vehicles. All right, up next is our SkillsUSA. SHSCT is dedicated to building skills professionals, career and college readiness leaders, and responsible community members.

Last year we have grown our SkillsUSA presence with 107 students competing in the district competition with 19 students moving on to the state competition. Currently, we have 111 students registered for this year's district competition on February 25th, which we're very excited. SkillsUSA participation is We're very excited about that. The SkillsUSA competition started at the local level. So that's our students competing against each other. The next level is the district. So that's a second level where we compete against 10 different schools. Within our district and six of those ten are vocational schools where they're one week on one week off. And then if you win districts you compete against the best within the state. If you win the states, then you move on to nationals.

So we were proud to become a 100% district that opens up, that it costs money to become a 100% district, but what it does is open up a lot of leadership events to our students. It opens it up to leadership competitions and more opportunities for our students to excel at competitions. I'd like to have Jack come up and talk a little bit about his experience at the SkillsUSA competition last year. States.

Hi my name is Jack and I'm a senior in the drafting program and I think that like SkillsUSA is really important for CTE students to be able to use their like They're like their skills basically to kind of grow and like show that they're ready for like the real world and like experiences and I got to like compete and it really kind of prepares you for like kind of readiness for careers and also professionalism and like

If you're wanting to go to like a four-year or post-secondary option, which is what I'm considering. So I got to like... basically builds or like create a design of a physical model as a 2D drawing with like a bunch of different parts that kind of move and it's like a lot of really interesting things that you get to like push yourself to do and there's like a lot of learning in the process and you get to meet a lot of different people in a lot of different disciplines and

There's also like the aspect of professionalism so you get put like into a timed kind of environment and also you have to like dress like there's a dress code that you have to follow and um yeah it's like yeah

So yeah Jack so it really puts you on the spot those competitions and it really the real world experience working with different teams and so Jack did an outstanding job last year and we look forward for him to go states. and maybe even nationals this year, right? All right, we'll be looking forward to announcing that. All right, next slide. So we can't do this all without our local business getting involved as we keep talking about the The community connections that we have and the community engagement. So we talked a little bit about the Brunt Workwear. We have Evie's Salon. We have Donations from PJ Deon, Bell Simons, Plumbing Supplies. So these are all companies that donate to us that You folks actually approve. So the salon at 10 Newburyport, Dale Engineering. We just got in another...

where you'll be seeing another one through Dale Engineering. I think it's another $5,000 worth of supplies. The Northeast Regional Council on SMART, so that's Sheet Metal Workers, and so that's the union. Last year they donated, I want to say it was like $6,600 worth of supplies. Here they pretty much asked my instructor, hey, what do you need? So I got to talk to him. He's going to up that number a little bit. So as you can see we have a lot of great partnerships and we just keep building those every year so we look forward to Those are our business people. Those are the people that are going to hire our students. Those are the people that are getting involved to say, hey, I want to donate. I want them to work on this type of metal. I want them to have that experience. So it's really, it's great. So speaking of another great collaboration, so as some of you remember, we had the Bosch and the Bruins collaboration. So over the last, this will be our third year doing this.

Over the last couple years we've built some furniture with Boston Bruins game used hockey sticks and so this year we're doing something a little different is we're going to build a couple sheds for them. This is great. It's a real practical application. This is real carpentry. It's like building a small house, right, as I mentioned earlier, without the plumbing. Maybe the electrical, but... We may put electrical in the big shed though. So I want to say that Bosch reached out once again this year to say, hey, we want to partner. We chose you to partner with. So last year, the first year they donated almost $7,000 worth of tools to build this Last year they donated $10,000 worth of tools so I asked them to step up their game a little bit so we'll see what we get out of them this year.

but it truly is a great partnership they come in they do training with our students on the new equipment it just it is a true partnership and then we have blades that's going to come in this year and so we'll once again we'll meet with the hockey team and we'll get some pictures and you know it's just really an outstanding partnership and we continue Last year they gave our students that made the chairs, they gave them tickets to go to the game, so it was awesome. So hopefully we'll get some playoff tickets this year. I'll let you know. I'll call you right after the game. All right. So that's another great partnership that we're just continuing to build. So I come in here with just excitement because tonight was our first night of the Facilities Technician Program and the HVAC Program. So I was meeting with the students before I came over here.

And just to see these adults, So excited about the program and we talked to them about the industry credentials and the opportunities for them to get a better paying job or to get that next job. It's just amazing. So I come in all excited and I'm probably throwing away my presentation at this point, but it really is that exciting to have that happen. Last year we did the uh the beginning of this year it was session one so we did the early ed and the certified nursing assistant program and I have to say Meg was a big part well Meg was the person that that wrote that program and she got it approved through the state. So kudos to her for doing that program for our night school. So as we talked about this spring, Winterspring that's a clean energy center grant so that's the HVAC program that I was just talking about so just for Our program, we've got $307,000.

That's for CTE staff and HVA training equipment. That's $75,000 worth of equipment that not only the night school is using, this now allows our day school to use that training program, those trainers. So my goal is with these night school programs is really to leverage that night school equipment So that our students are able to use it as well. And so then we got, as far as supplies, equipment, tools, that's another $99,000 that we're gonna get for our night school program. So that's great. We're so excited. And then we were awarded the Facilities Maintenance Program by the Jobs Trust, which Tom and I are part of. And they've just been outstanding support on supporting this night school program and scale and everything. So, next slide.

So we did the career tech initiative. We were awarded $50,000 to work with scale. And so we wrote curriculum for electrical, Program, 200 hours, Automotive Program for 200 hours, and then the HVAC for 200 hours. What is it? Yesterday, it just came out that the CTI grant is now out. So now we will be applying for the electrical and then we'll have to wait till the following year on the HVAC program because we have that other grant. So we will be applying for that and we're just very excited and we may look at A couple different other programs. I talked to Joshlyn tonight. She's like, well, I think we can do a couple more programs. I'm like, okay, Joshlyn, just calm down. But yeah, she's very excited about it, we're excited about it, and I know my teachers are really excited about teaching at night as well.

So that's half of it, to have your instructors during the day to teach at night. that's more than half of it trust me I've done it the other way at my other school and that that really helps to have those same instructors All right, next slide. So Perkins grant funding, we get about $84,000 for the Perkins grant. So we do funding for OSHA Train the Trainer for our students. We'd much rather train our students in person than rely on a 10-hour or 30-hour online program. So training up some staff, training some staff for first aid training. SkillsUSA membership, as we said, that's about $32,000 for SkillsUSA per year for competitions. Now, only $10,000 comes out of our Perkins grant. Industry recognized credentials for all our students in the programs, that's about $8,000 or $9,000.

We're getting two air scrubbers for carpentry to get the fine dust particles out of the air, so that's 10,000. More power hand tools for plumbing and electrical because we have more enrollment. So that's approximately 15,000. And then MAVA, Mass Association of Vocational Administrators membership. Professional Development, and CTE courses. So that's about $8,000. And really important to have that MARVA membership is two years ago, Desi thought that it was a good idea, or Desi talked about Taking all of the CTE programs and making them specific hours. Like for instance, our welding program, they wanted it to be 1400 hours. We're at 900 hours, 950 for all of our programs. They wanted the plumbing program to be 1,600 hours. So MAVA had to go and fight against all of this because of all of our Chapter 74 programs in the comprehensive districts.

And half of representation of MAVA is the comprehensive districts now. Where before it was, when I first started, it was a lot of just vocational schools. But now MAVA represents all those comprehensive districts. So that's really important to stay at the table and have those conversations and be representative. So that's very important. Next is the commissioner's visit. So all of this hard work sometimes does pay off. So the commissioner contacted Dr. Carmona and he could talk a little bit about how that conversation went and so what we did was is we included There was a lot of people on this tour, but it included two DESE representatives, Senator Jalen, State Rep. Erica Eidenhoven, Idahovan, School Committee Member Green, six student representatives, Union President Simmons, Tuhavid,

Fellows, Chief Communication Officer Nash, Superintendent Dr. Carmona, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Boston-Davis, The two principals within the building and Commissioner Martinez. So this was very important for our students and our staff and the presence and engagement made the day especially meaningful for all our staff. and students. It really was a special day and I know, I don't know if you have anything to add about the That day, Dr. Carmona.

Through the chair. No, I think part of what I wanted to showcase was the idea that although our MCAS numbers are not at the top of the rank, There's so much that we have to show. So I wanted to make sure that the Department of Ed expands their notion of what's good quality. We will get there in terms of the academic numbers as well, but I think that For me is seeing the students actually being the actors and the owners of their own learning, being able to showcase all these spaces and being able to speak eloquently about what we're doing. was the impetus for having the commissioner in our district. So that was a great day, though.

Yeah, and it was really hard. He was so engaged with the students and staff, it was hard to keep him moving. We kept going, all right, we gotta keep going. So thank you to the superintendent's office for letting us showcase our students and staff. It was really a proud moment. I believe we're on to the last slide. So our budget, as Tom mentioned, we asked for a separate budget. The leadership did that. We asked for some increased funding. So far so good. So I do want to take a moment to thank Dr. Carmona and Bob Ibarretta and the leadership team for their continued support of the CTE programs. I know sometimes we come off hard like, hey, we need this, we need this, but it's really fighting for our students and our staff to get the best education for all of us. So thank you all, and if you have any questions.

Thank you. Do my colleagues have questions for Director Hatchie, Chair Bent, Director McDevitt, Eden, or Jack? I see, I'm just going to go this way. Member Lippens, Member Green, and then Member Biton?

Thank you. Through the chair. Just wow, the breadth of community partnerships you've established is a clear testament to your like leadership in the vocational sector. And I'm excited. Somerville is clearly a model for the CTE programs that's really centered around students. I know my 11 year old, I'm just putting a plug in there, he really would love to Get his hands on some of those power hand tools this summer. It's also impressive to see how effectively you've managed to I've spent some time this summer talking to our local seniors in buildings and they've mentioned how much they I really love getting into the high school but mobility is a challenge even for getting to the Center for Aging sometimes so I'm just wondering

If it might be a possibility to expand this amazing program like to go into senior housing centers, so I know many folks might be Thank you again. This was really a wonderful presentation.

Thank you.

Member Green?

All right. So this is like what I do for a living and have for almost 20 years now. So every year I only pick one thing to focus on. Last year was ESOL because that's what we're doing. I do have some questions I'll ask offline about that. Just to say that when we say Somerville leads the way, Somerville, the program you mentioned, the Center and Comcor, it's probably one of the 10 best vocational ASL programs in the state, full stop. And I want people to know that. But what I'm going to focus on this year is actually the electrical program and the value of it. So first I'm going to ask a small question, then I'm going to ask a larger question. Sound okay? Small question just to make sure I'm up to date on some stuff. Through you to Mr. Bent. Is Bent Electrical still sponsoring apprenticeships with IBW?

Is Bent Electrical?

Yes.

Yeah, well, I retired at the end of... No, not allowed.

I'm sorry. I told you we could do that.

But yeah, Beth Electrical is still involved with the program. I represent them also, but through Local 103, we created the partnership with the unions back I don't know, 25 years ago that I can remember it was a Friday afternoon and I was having a discussion with Mike Monahan who now is the Senior Vice President of IBW. but Mike always looked at the vocational programs as the feeder for the non-union sector so they were never involved with and So we get into, I would say, a pretty good heated argument about this. And I said to Mike, why wouldn't you want to take the top one, two, or three kids to get them in the union and kind of work it that way? We kind of hung up on each other that night. Well, Sunday night, I get a phone. My wife picks up the phone. She goes, it's Mike Monahan. Hmm, I wonder what he wants, right?

He said, you know, I was talking to my wife about this, and she says, you are a jerk. She goes, you should be doing that. And that's how that program created. And now, 103 is in, I think, every vocational program in the state. Now on top of that, we have the Carpenters Union, the HVAC, plumbers, they're all there. One thing I did really quickly, and I know we're probably going longer than we were supposed to, I really wanted to shout out to all the business advisory members they're the ones that are hiring these kids on co-ops they're they're hiring them you know once they graduate but also making those donations and then a lot of the students I mean, a lot of the people that are now representing those companies like Deal Engineering, right? I think they send three people all the time. They're all alumni and they're very successful with what they're doing. Even for us at Bent Electric,

We have two great students that started here, came to work for us, went through the whole program, five years, going to school. working for us and now one is a foreman and the other one was the first female graduating from the electrical program at Snowville High School. She's an estimator and a project manager today. So the program's been extremely successful over these years. And I just wanted to... The beginning of my thing was, I said I was going to butt in on, but he was on such a roll, I'm like, I'm not bothering him, you know. You know, we did a good job kind of putting that together. But I got to say, Jim has been the heart and soul of keeping that program going. and you know we we were through some tough times there through covet and like everybody else but vocational education really took a hit with that but so i really want to thank everyone involved meg's done a great job and the two students here tonight uh outstanding and uh

and we really want to thank your support the uh the business community sees that and that's why we uh i think we're the number one uh in the state but uh overall absolutely the comprehensives too yeah oh it's a lot harder to run a comprehensive high school than it is the week on week off in the regional so and again it's thank you for your support too thank you all May I continue?

You actually not only answered, you set up what I wanted to say beautifully. I think, you know, we talk a lot about this in the abstract, the value of these jobs, the value of skilled trades. The reason I wanted to focus particularly on the electrical program today, in part because I had to learn this all over the holidays, but I want my colleagues to know, when we say these are good jobs, we're saying what we mean. First of all, I want to let people know that Massachusetts is hired, the number of electricity in Massachusetts has increased by 50% in the last 20 years. It will have to continue to increase by about $20,000 a year to maintain demand. A IBEW journeyman. Which, as Mr. Witt pointed out, takes about four to five years. An IB German makes $68 an hour at the current rate, or annualized to about $125,000 a year.

When I actually pays about $125 with all the benefits an hour. Right, yes.

I'm using the wage rate.

Basically, you know, they're walking, especially a student that just comes in as a first-year apprentice is making over $25 an hour in full benefits. and then by the time they graduate five years as a journeyman they're making well over $100,000 a year. Zero education cost, the contractors pay all that. So one of the students that was here, he was, I think, the top vocational student. I think he was one of the top. He might have been valedictorian or not, but his parents were both PhDs, and they were very concerned about him not going to the college track.

My first year on school committee, I remember this kid.

And so they sat down with me, and once I laid out how it would work, the dad said, where can I sign up? So it is a great alternative. But thank you for your support too, Andre, over the years. You and I have talked a lot about vocational education. But again, yep.

And the last thing I want people to know, just this is about IBEW and, you know, they wouldn't be this place if they had led the way. The national average for electricians for women is about two to three percent. IBEW is at 15%. For the last three years, IBEW's internship classes have a majority of women and people of color. perhaps the only local in the country that's the case so you know we are making good jobs for all of our residents and you know me whatever you guys want just let me know i'm going to push for it because it more than pays for itself

Yeah, 103 is probably one of the most progressive of all the unions. They started the program to bring in, whether it was minorities and women, You know years before a lot of the other MEP trades did so you know kudos to them they've done a great job over the years and I can remember when I was a first year apprentice back in 74. We had was the first woman apprentice who was in the loco back then and it's like Andre said it's it's it's the percentage just keeps growing and the acceptance level is through the roof. Everybody works really well together. You don't have the problems that we had 30, 40 years ago when I first started and it's really changed. So again, that's through a lot of efforts through, Programs, and things like this. So again, thank you.

Thank you chair through you. First I'll just say I this is the first I knew that this was a statutory requirement Mr. Bent to have you in front of us. I would propose that we lobby to increase the So I just overall, Director Hashe, and Director McDevitt. What a fantastic, overwhelming presentation. I wanna celebrate the work that you're doing to provide just building on the points that member Green and Mr. Bent just provided real opportunities for our students to develop A foothold in the trades and build a career through the let's get working, compliance mentor group program, cooperative education requirements, all as part of comprehensive high school experience.

Phenomenal. And it's clear that the students see this value too, right? More and more students every year are joining. This is a testament to your work. So just thank you. I wanted to pull on the one piece about the seniors participating in the off-site cooperative education, Director McDevitt. If I may, through your chair. We have about a third of the CTE seniors participating in that program. It sounds like a tremendous opportunity. One, I wonder, what do you see as the ceiling for participation in the program? I understand this is growing. This has been a gangbuster year. What is the ceiling and what is the limiting factor? And how can we help in removing those barriers?

The limiting factor is I briefly mentioned is the is the schedule that is 100% the issue that we see often. I would say that is the leading issue. Another part of issue is some of the Industry Partners. Certain job sites, they may require a driver's license. Our kids are in the city. They don't have a driver's license. Or they haven't taken Drive-A-Zed yet and they are not 18 so they aren't able to do it. We are in the process of working with College and Career to try to figure out a solution for that. and hopefully that will come but that is that is another one but I would say that the major issue that we run into with industry partners is is unfortunately the schedule

Yeah, thank you, Chair, to follow up. I've heard from families, I'm not sure whether in CTE or not, but families at the high school that getting education Drivers Education has been a challenge regardless and I'm wondering if that's something our administration can work on trying to Fill that gap because that may help our CTE and our students in general. Thank you.

Yes, through the chair, and you actually may know more than I do, but it is in the works. That's certainly something that I've talked to Melanie Kessler, who's our director of College and Career Readiness. And I think she said she's collaborating with CTE. So it's something that we are exploring. How can we make it work within the confines of our schedule and the demands that it takes? So it is certainly in its very beginning phases but There is a strong desire from the administrative team to figure it out and bring driver's ed to our school. So I don't have a fully fleshed out response, but I know that it's in the works. We just talked about it last week.

Thank you. Mayor Wilson, Member Pitone. Oh, you have a follow-up? Sorry, Member Pitone.

Thank you for that courtesy through the chair to, I guess, to the superintendent's office. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think in our SCU contract we have a joint study that's supposed to be looking at the high school schedule. Am I misspoken? Because this is something that's been an issue and a concern at least of mine for probably five or six years since the time that we actually had a redesign of the high school schedule through the Barr Foundation grant. that didn't go through with the union it didn't pass and so this keeps coming up and it keeps coming up and it keeps coming up and I'm only bringing it up not to complain but as a school committee member I feel like it's our responsibility to take this We want to get the project on and put the advocacy around making sure this happens because it is not just about our CTU students. The initiative originally was that all of our students would have real-life working opportunities and the number one barrier to that was the high school schedule. So I implore

the superintendent's office to follow with us up with us as the school committee to let us know what the plans are to pursue this and if you need a school committee member on that committee my hand is up I am very passionate about this as you guys can tell and I really just you know we have mechanisms as a body and this is one of our mechanisms and I know we're super excited about wanting to support our CTE students but we need to take our authority and our responsibility to move these things forward and this is one opportunity to do that.

Superintendent Carmona.

So I did talk to Principal Kirsten and I said, what is the biggest pain point you have right now? And the first response was scheduling. and I did ask you know how is this happening and I know that there have been conversation about A and B different different options it is a big pain is a big Payne Point because it's a comprehensive high school. We have also other requirements around how we provide services to kids. The absence of commitment to fixing the problem. I think that, and I necessarily don't think it's the need of having The school committee kind of put some pressure on the district to figure that out. I think it's a question that we, I think the question for me is what are the resources needed and then After that is like, what do we need to do to make sure that that happens?

I know that it's something that the district is aware, it's something that the high school is aware, and I think that they have talked about different options but again last week that was the conversation we had I know that for a lot of the comprehensive high schools is the same thing it's like how do we figure this out with the complexities of a high school but You know, I definitely will continue that conversation with the high school director.

Just through the chair, just to quickly follow up. This wasn't a finger wagging, by the way. It was more something that came up. It was a big issue prior to COVID. The pandemic happened, it got back-burnered, so I really just want to elevate it and make sure that we're doing everything in our power to make this happen and to collaborate with educators because we know this is something that's going to have to be negotiated or not completely it's more complicated than that I was just looking at the contract but it's something that how do we prioritize it and I do understand there's other issues and there's so much progress going on in the district and the high school so I didn't mean to make it finger wag it wasn't it It's just something in particular that I'm passionate about and I want to see what we can do to use our tools that we already have to make something happen.

Member Green has a follow-up.

Yeah, I just wanted to actually build on Dr. Capona's point. Every comprehensive school struggles with this part of the CT experience. And I was gonna ask this question more broadly, but I think this is relevant. Historically speaking, Massachusetts state policies around CTE and a lot of the advocacy, as you pointed out, was not very comprehensive school friendly. Now that Mavia is moving in that direction, that's fantastic to hear. I'm glad to hear it. And I want to ask some questions about that in my other role offline. But my question would be, what are the things we could be advocating for from the state to make comprehensive high schools better positioned to have their kids thrive in CTE while not abandoning all of the virtues and values of a true comprehensive high school.

To the superintendent or to Director Hatchie?

To whomever has the answers.

Sally? Yeah, I mean, it is kind of a loaded question. You know, the... When you look at comprehensive districts, as Ms. McDevitt pointed out, the one tough thing is that we need a different schedule in order to make that co-op work. So the one area that I would look to the state to try to help and whether that's, you know, funding for for a different schedule i know there's some schools that run like a different school like a cte school and then some that you know run on a little bit different schedule so they're allowed to do like an a b Not a AB week like a vocational school does, but like an AB day, you know, for those seniors. And so they would be out maybe two days a week. Full-Time, and then come back for their academics and have longer periods.

So there are some ideas floating out there, but those are things that we could look at. And maybe there's some funding out there through the state look at the different schedules to you know put a team together to do that and it wouldn't be just you know Somerville team like a team of directors you know and academic and vocational directors because it is both sides of the house that you're trying to figure out

Thank you. Member Wilson, Member Pitone, are you still in line? All set. Okay, so Mayor Wilson and then Dr. Stellman.

Thanks, Chair. Through you, really appreciate that. Long time big fan of the CTE program, even bigger fan now that I have a freshman at the high school who's doing the CTE survey program. I met with a lot of union folks last year, a lot of the locals that were specifically mentioned a short time ago. and they would bring up the partnership they have with the CT program. And the best part was it wasn't in a way of saying, hey, look what we're doing for you. It was talking about what they were getting out of it. And along those lines, the Let's Get Working program with the DPW. yeah it's great from like a workforce development standpoint it's great for the you know the kids at the high school it's also good for the city because i'll point out the four things mentioned automotive carpentry electrical and plumbing we have vacancies right now in our dpw in All four of those areas that we've had a real problem filling. So potentially great for the city also. in terms of getting people into roles that we pay a lot of money to outsource. It impacts the schools.

I had to go through the process of a 311 for a leaking faucet at the Healy School. without a plumber on staff and it takes a while to bring someone in so it impacts it goes full circle and comes back and impacts the schools the school buildings as well not having these roles so it's this is just it's a win all around I'm really, really glad to see that.

Thank you. Dr. Selman. Great. Thank you so much for this presentation. It's phenomenal. The mom of somebody who went through CTE and it was a phenomenal program. and really changed the way our child, not a child anymore but our young adult really yeah really saw themselves and their ability to just be able to go and get a job because people in Somerville employers look at a resume that says CTE Somerville That's it. You're good. And that's saying a lot because it's hard, you know, Hiring a high school kid for after-school job and weekend job is a risk, right?

But it's less risky for our local employers who know this program. It's fantastic. I want to just echo what Mayor Wilson said because this is an incredible investment. It's such a diverse investment. This is like a really interesting portfolio because you're investing into We need so many more people and I want to just mention two things. Remember Pitone talked about the Barr Foundation grant and that was so exciting and then we sort of came to a screeching halt. and the schools that were able to take part in that and invest in internships

and figure out how to do that very complex dance have really over the last few years are seeing some of the results that we are seeing from CTE in terms of opportunity for students and it doesn't It not only doesn't it put a sort of ceiling on what choices our seniors are making, but it actually really opens up so many opportunities, and I think that being able to explore and just especially for those of us like myself who are new to school committee to be able to understand how to help pick this up again and explore it given the complexities. Um, The last thing I have is just a question through the chair to you is around what kinds of things are you doing to create more equity between genders in

These different programs. How do you bring more young women into the more traditionally male focused?

Yeah, so that's the big part of having all of our students go through the exploratory program so that they can see, I can be a carpenter as a female. I can be an electrician. I can be a male in health. I can be a male in dental. So we look at what they call non-traditional, right? That's what the state calls it is non-traditional medicine. Sharps. So we do put every student through all of our exploratory, so all 14 programs they go through. We try to hire, so we just hired an electrician educator. She comes out of the union, you know, so we're very excited about that. So that's a lot of A lot of opportunity, and we were able to do that at my prior district, was hire non-traditional staff in those areas. And it's something that we look at every time we put out a posting.

So follow up through the chair to you. What are the ways that you are helping parents or caregivers to understand things? Because sometimes it's not, The issue is with the family having different opinions. I know people with kids who are male who want to do cosmetology, and it's helpful if... you know if if you have the experts can sort of so I'm just wondering what what your outreach what does your outreach look like to

Sure so yeah there's a lot of staff do reach out to the parents so once they get that grade for the week and you know if there's a student That may be non-trad looking at a program. They may send an email home just saying, hey, your student excelled at this and we really look forward. If you have any questions, help making that decision. So a lot of times the teachers do reach out. because we know that could be a potential difficult conversation for the student.

Thank you. What I would like to say is each year when we get to vote for the out-of-state field trip for the SkillsUSA, for the students who are going on to the national competition, it's pretty exciting. So to Jack, to Eden, to your peers, Please keep working hard. I look forward to supporting your successful SkillsUSA work and whatever work that you do. Member Pitone.

Quickly, thank you through the chair. I just wanted to do an extra bravo for the adult education work that you guys have been doing in partnership with Miss Jocelyn Marte. That is just... Phenomenal this is something that you know it was pent up capacity and we're moving forward with that with outside funding and I just wanted to give a little extra bravo to that because it just really sings and thrills me so thank you. Member Eldridge.

Thank you. Through the chair, I just wanted to say that I had an amazing experience my son did last year. Thank you so much for participating in the middle school culinary program. It's a really great opportunity and we really look forward to participating again this year. Thanks so much for the presentation and providing I wanted to better understand what the maximum capacity is of our CTE program because 66% is a really robust number and it's really fantastic and I'm wondering where like we max out capacity wise and then I'm also wondering like if there is Are there currently any waitlists for any of the specific of the 14 offerings?

Sure, so we rewrote the admissions policy so we will not have a waitlist for Students to get into the exploratory program. The only wait list we will have is for students that choose a program that's oversubscribed. So for instance, like last year, Carpentry had I want to say 30 kids that wanted carpentry and we only have 20 slots for the carpenters so what we'll do is they'll go into a lottery and so the first 20 students that were picked and then you know 21 will be wait-listed so on and so forth So that's the only time we have a wait list for our programs. What's the max capacity? That's a good question. We've been kind of searching that out. It's probably 20 per grade level, 20 per grade level for each. Each program. So you look at your 14 programs and you max that out at 20 each grade level.

So, yeah, I'll do the math. Maybe 12, you know, probably right around 1,200, I would say. And that's like pushing to the max. And my dedicated staff, I'm sure they're home watching this. So, you know, there's some bartering back and forth and everything with that to take those numbers. and the enrollment like we had great enrollment in plumbing so the district supported us in hiring a plumbing instructor so you know and that just means more more staff if we continue to grow these programs which is Ruben, Dr. Carmona tells me it's not an issue.

All right. With that, Member Biton.

Thank you. This is a quick one through you, Chair. We had office hours in Ward 7 this last weekend and a resident told me he'd actually been speaking with the mayor about, well I don't know what, but Mayor, you had mentioned to him the culinary program and that they have and many more. I appreciate you enumerating the presentations. you know those those opportunities are not widely known which is a shame because we offer great opportunities automotive the the haircuts and all you know all the different services I'm wondering,

is there a mechanism for us to share this with the broader community not just schools but through a city newsletter or a city side website so it's really a question through you chair perhaps to the mayor

Chair Wilson.

Yeah, thanks, Chair, and thanks to Member Biton for bringing this up. Yeah, when we've looked into this, we've also, in conversations with the folks in CT, there's a There's a capacity issue in terms of when students are available to work. The Thursdays, in particular, that they are open to the public, we're going to post signage around City Hall. It's a bit of a... Restaurant Desert up here on Central Hill and so letting staff know about that and I also emailed I emailed you earlier tonight to see if we want to maybe set up some sort of catering thing for the recurring lunch. So there may be more catering business coming. Yeah, no, I hear that and we'd love to figure out how to make it happen. It's also, I wanna acknowledge it's a big imposition on staff to have to staff that entrance because of the layout of the high school.

we have to post someone there just to deal with the public coming in so there's as i understand it happy to be corrected here it's a capacity issue in terms of the the students and then the schedule of when they're available to do lunch along with the demands on staff

Yes. Yeah, that is correct. It is. And so we do the Thursdays because there's no freshman exploratory kind of in that middle of when that prep would be. So Thursdays is ideally the one day that we can open. and it's been been going pretty consistent this year but yeah we'd love the support of getting more people in there all right um thank you thank you so much and uh I'm supposed to be home by now. Thank you. I appreciate all your continued support.

Thank you. Superintendent.

Yes, so Jack and Eden, I want to make sure that a final reminder to everyone that The work that happens at CT is life-changing. I was part of the Second Chance Cars presentation. This is basically an option for Folks who have interrupted lives if you will that have a second chance and they not only get a new car or newer car but also a way to actually manage their finances. The folks that were part of that were really, this is a life changing thing. And so I just wanted to highlight the fact that we're not only creating pathways for students to Thank you and have a wonderful night and really welcome you.

And now we're gonna have the last part of my report, which is a conversation about our school improvement planning process. and you know as you know we have gone through a an improving process through the strategic plan part of the challenge that we have is also we need to give voices to every school to kind of We have to identify what are the goals and the way they want to show their growth, but we also have to provide some cohesion and some alignment across the board. What you have in front of you is a packet that we share that tries to do that, that tries to both honor the differences that we have in every school, but also to be coordinated along the lines of certain goals and principles that we have established as a district. And for that, I have our director of data, Sam Elagin, who is here to share some thoughts around the school improvement process.

And if you have any questions, she will be all yours. So Sam.

All right, thank you, Dr. Carmona. Good evening, everyone. I'm Sam Elegine, the Director of Data Assessment Accountability for Somerville Public Schools. Just to kick off our school improvement plan updates over the next several months, I just wanted to come in and discuss our school improvement plan process, the refinement of this process over many years and what you can expect from the presentations that are coming. So the school improvement planning process predates my time here in Somerville, and it's also changed over the years to meet the needs of our students. So many years ago, each school would create goals centered around things like academics and wellness. And then in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we slightly shifted the process to instead focus on supporting the whole child through their academic and social and emotional needs with a focus on equity. and now after going through a rigorous process of stakeholder engagement we now have our guiding document which is the district strategic plan

and it has priority areas focused around academic excellence, equity and access, wellness and joy, and family and community engagement. And so we're now able to align our school improvement planning process to the overarching District Strategic Plan to really ensure that there's coherence and alignment between our school and the work that's happening across the district as well. So in the past, our school improvement plan process was actually a two-year process, but after receiving feedback from school leaders, we did shift and transition to three-year plans to really give more time for schools to go deeper in their plans and implementing the different action plan and strategy for that. So you'll see in the memo that it's broken up into different sections, starting with the purpose and components. So the SIP process overall really just provides an opportunity for principals, educators, and families to collaborate and engage in a continuous improvement cycle to lead to positive change in their school for students.

So as you'll see in the memo, through the thoughtful review of data and practice, Schools then identify areas of strength and areas for improvement. They create SMART goals, which are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timely goals aligned to the priority areas of the strategic plan. and they create action steps and strategies to address their goals. And they also highlight specific data and outcomes and key performance indicators that they're going to use to monitor the progress over the three year span of their plan. So as you'll see in that next section of the plan, you kind of get a sense for the process that's taken in developing these SIPs. So of course that starts with reviewing data This is a variety of data, things like our assessment data like I-Ready or DIBELS, MCAS, ACCESS, but also things like survey data like our annual conditions for learning survey, which is administered to students, staff, and families every year.

So once schools have reviewed the data, they engage in a root cause analysis. This is to really allow them to get deeper into the why behind some of the trends that we're seeing in the data because those whys are often what we want to target our action plans to. Once that root cause analysis has happened, they create SMART goals based off of the areas identified for improvement and they outline action steps that they're going to use to address the goals over the span of the three-year plan. Next, they also specify desired outcomes that they'd like to see based off of their plans to really meet their goals, and they identify which specific data points they'll use to measure progress over time. In terms of deliverables, that kind of varies depending on what stage we are in the SIP process. So last school year, we similarly presented about the SIP process.

and schools were expected to share their full school improvement plan document as well as do a presentation just sharing about all of their goals, their action plans, etc. This year it will be slightly different in that schools will be submitting memos to the school committee which includes their goals as well as any general updates and progress towards their goals and data to support. and they will also be coming and doing their presentations here for the school committee between February through April. In terms of the document, you also have a breakdown of the timeline. This includes the timeline for last year's school improvement planning activities as well as the timeline for this year. So just at a high level, you'll notice that at the beginning of the year, We have a principal kickoff meeting and we shared out about the changes to the school improvement planning process mainly the shift to the three-year plans as well as a template document to help with organizing their school improvement plans.

From there, the data team, which includes myself and Ms. Arundhati Saral, the data and evaluation specialist, go and meet with each of the schools to discuss their school's data. and to discuss where they are in their thinking with their plan, where their school site council is in their thinking with their plan. and to support with any analysis that's needed, visuals, anything along those lines. From there, we kind of had these schools share their goals and their plans in two phases. after which each phase Dr. Carmona, Dr. Boston-Davis, myself, and Ms. Sarol would meet and review each of the plans and give specific feedback and comments to each of the schools around these areas. And then throughout the year, both last year and this year, Dr. Carmona regularly meets with the school principals as well to provide additional feedback, coaching, and support. This school year, something that was a little bit different than the previous year is that we launched a new data platform called Open Architects, which just gave increased and more

Straightforward access to a wide range of student data to all of our school leaders, district leaders, and educators and was really helpful in folks being able to monitor the progress of their school improvement plans as well. As we did last year, the data team, which is myself and Ms. Saral, met with all the school principals at the start of the year, and we really took the time to review things like MCAS 2025 results, accountability results, and any other relevant data to their plans and to discuss the progress that's being made so far, discuss ways that we could support them on an ongoing basis for the year and then we usually will meet with folks as needed throughout the year as well and so you'll see at the bottom here at the memo that each school will be presenting starting later this month with Somerville High School and Next Wave Full Circle. and you'll also notice in the memo that in the appendices we've attached a couple of documents that we've shared previously with the school principals around school improvement planning

So Appendix A includes a schedule from last year of when the presentations would happen along with some documents that just kind of outline expectations. We also have the actual school improvement planning template which was used by schools last year to create their SIPs. Beneath that we have a more recent update document which just includes things like presentation dates for this year, what's expected to be included in presentations that are coming up, As well as the memo template that you'll be seeing with the presentations in the coming months. And with that, I will stop and open it up for any questions that folks may have for me through the chair.

Thank you so much, Director Ellingen, both for your patience this evening as we went through other items and for, as always, your really thoughtful, comprehensive work. Member Pitone.

Thank you through the chair to Ms. Elegyne. I just want to compliment this sort of snapshot that you gave us very quickly, very targeted, very specific. This is a very Thank you so much for this very clear, powerful, and systemic framework that you've created. This process has evolved since I've been on school committee and it has really moved forward in a very positive way and that for me as a school committee member it's great to see all this here. I think I have a quick question which is I think if people do want to see the full plans from last year they're gonna be on the drive so any of my members if there's a particular school that you represent and you want to kind of dig in a little deeper those will be on the Google Drive and just to clarify this is year two of a three-year cycle for everyone because we also had a period of time where we were sort of different schools were in different cycles and I'm really

looking forward to seeing the reports but it just was a you know a really good kudos and I can just see the evolution here of this work so thank you very much

Through the chair, I was going to say thank you for your comment. And also, it's largely in part due to feedback from folks like you, the school leaders, Dr. Carmona, Dr. Boston-Davis. So thank you for the feedback.

Yeah.

Dr. Boston-Davis? Thank you. Thank you. The only other addition that I'll add is that the school improvement plans are all also on our SPS website. So you'll see the school site council agenda and minutes for each school followed right underneath. The school improvement plan and it's the 25-27 as Member Pitone mentioned they're all on the same cycle. The way that I found that was I just under the search I went to our K-12 website and under search I just typed in school improvement planning but I'm sure you can also click through but that's the quickest way to get there.

Dr. Selma.

You're the chair. Thanks, Ms. Elgin. This is fantastic. A couple of questions and thank you. You actually answered one of my questions, which is how do we see these Now I know. Thank you. One question is how does open architects interface with DESE and does the data collection from DESE, do they talk to each other?

Through the chair, that's a great question. It's kind of, sort of, if I can answer. So a lot of the DESE data for state reporting comes directly from our student information system aspect. There's a direct connection between Aspen and Open Architects, so it refreshes on a nightly basis. So we're constantly pulling in that data. It also connects to things like our iReady assessment system, DIBELS, a few other things. So we're getting live data on a nightly basis.

Yes, that's fantastic. Really excited to hear that. Wondering about how... How have you been training and supporting people and how have you been and what is the process moving forward to support folks in doing root cause analysis because that's complex.

Yeah, through the chair, that's a great question. So in terms of root cause analysis, we typically share a few resources with the principals as to how you can go about that. So we shared things like the Five Wise Protocol or the Fishbone Protocol. We also kind of got a chance to model it through the strategic planning process because we did engage the principals as kind of like root cause analysis partners. So I think A combination of sharing those protocols and engaging them in the process themselves has helped with that.

Two more questions. Dr. Stellman, I want to pause. Does anyone else have questions? Go ahead, thank you very much.

Thank you to the chair and thank you for your patience for multiple questions. What kinds of goals or expectations have you set in terms of Understanding how well this is working out. I guess I'm asking an evaluation question of the process and what are ways that we could help if we can in any way to support that and I'll ask a second question because I know you can hold those two together and I'm just wondering is there do you collect data on Postsecondary Persistence and Outcomes.

Through the Chair, that's a great question. So in terms of kind of evaluating the process overall, I'd say that at least in my experience in the time that I've been here at the end of a school improvement planning cycle we kind of take the time to reflect on what worked what didn't quite work and what goals were met what goals were not met at the end and so I'd say that process is kind of in a sense evaluative I feel like this three-year process that we're in right now I feel like on an ongoing basis year by year we We kind of try to do that. So when we check in schools at the beginning of the year and the end of the school year to see, you know, what progress are you making on your SIP? Were we not quite making progress? What is the reason behind that and how can we adjust and shift? So that going into the next year or going into the next school permit planning cycle, we can see the progress that we want to make. And then in terms of post-secondary data, I am not the best person to speak to this. So I would say that our Director of College and Career Readiness, Melanie Kessler, can speak to a little bit more.

But I know that they collect data on a wide variety of things, things like completion of FAFSA, things like who are the students that are going to two-year institutions, four-year institutions, who's persisting in those institutions. And so some of that data is available through things like DESE. I know some of that data is available through National Clearinghouse. I'm hoping that in the coming, months or so from what I've heard that Open Architects is planning to roll out a post-secondary data dashboard so once that is available I am interested to dig into the data a little bit more and see what valuable lessons we might be able to learn from that.

Superintendent.

Through the chair, I wanted to add a couple of examples of the process that we embark as we look at data. And part of the question is always what is the correlation? So if you look at, I just heard a conversation that happened early on was, It looks like some of the data is pointing out to the fact that there might be a tier one challenge in the implementation of the new programs. or we also ask the question why the growth that we have for our MLE students and based on the access data tell us that there is a somewhat of a very slow growth in comparison to other districts or our kind of comparable data Or when we look at these different subgroups and show that there's also some questions around performance both in the criterion reference data as well as in the percentile data. We are asking all those questions.

Every school also asks their own questions about why do I have, I'm just thinking about the Argentinian, for example, who said to us, It looks as if our Hispanic subgroup seems to be stuck in this growth. So where are we looking at in terms of accelerating that growth? They might look at our X block intervention or they might look at what are some of the other things that are, what are the gaps that we have in tier one. So those questions we continue to ask them. But what I wanted to contribute to the conversation is that there's both a local discussion at the school around their SIBs and also an overall discussion as a district as we look at the overall trends that we see in both iReady, DIBELS, and MCAS data.

Dr. Stellman. Thank you, and through the chair, thank you for that explanation. I do want to emphasize I think particularly for school committee for us to be able to see post-secondary success or just outcomes data and I know that there is a National Clearinghouse and all of those things, but in my opinion as a school committee member, it can't just fall on the director of college and career I feel like it's a set of data that's absolutely critical for us to talk about the way that director Hachi

could spell out and talk about what's happening with our graduates in the field and where, and that feeds back into their programs, oh, people want to use These are really specific things and also bigger picture. And I'm wondering where we are in the planning towards rebuttal. towards supporting gaining that data and then bringing that forward so that we can have a sense of how we're doing.

I did have a conversation with a high school principal about a comprehensive view of what's happening, and I think it lives in different places, but it's not comprehensive at this point. But it's definitely a question that is worth exploring and we definitely will be coming back to that conversation.

Thank you through you Chair and thank you for this great presentation. I know a lot of work and thought went into the school improvement plan and It's a big task actually to write these, so I appreciate how we're now all on the same level. I'm thinking about where does, we had all this talk about data we heard from our CTE programs and we heard from students. And I'm thinking about where does school culture and student sense of belonging fit into the school improvement plan. There are certain aspects that are harder to measure but yet really important. that can't be measured through things like MCAS and I-Ready and DIBELS. But we know kids can't learn if they don't feel like they belong. So I'm just thinking like where does that show up under the indicators of like where does it align? I'm thinking like academic excellence, equity and access, wellness and joy, family and community engagement.

Like where does that fit in?

Through the chair, I would say that area that you'll commonly see it in throughout the school improvement plans is definitely in the goals that align to the strategic plans wellness and joy focus. So one of the schools for instance that I can think of is the West Somerville and they have a focus on knowing all students so really thinking of how many connections do students have do they have a A trusted adult that they can speak to if they need anything at their school and then in turn how many of the staff feel like they have connections and relationships with the students as well. So you'll notice that similarly at several of the schools they have a focus on really making sure that there is that sense of belonging and that there is that positive school climate. and some of the other ways that we collect that information too is through this conditions for learning survey so the survey has a range of questions on it relating to things like academic engagement but also relating to social emotional well-being

and feelings of belongingness at school feelings that you know I'm accepted for who I am as a person for my background at my school and so that data also really helps to paint the picture of where we are in terms of belongingness at school.

Thank you so much that did that so I'm wondering given that if there's more alignment across all schools because it is such an important element and I haven't read all the school improvement plans yet I but I'm wondering if in the future when we think about use every three years you know we're going to come back and think about this document itself if we might want to perhaps make a separate category because it is so fundamental to and a big part of our strategic plan. I just didn't see it named anywhere, but I'm new, so I'm still learning, so thank you.

Member Eldridge, then Member Piton.

Thank you so much for this. Question for you. I was looking through the template on, like, the Appendix B template, and it notes that there's an insert list of teams here, example, school site council, etc. Is there an opportunity within there to like delineate the composition of these teams? I say this because I was looking at the, Agenda notes from SIPP meetings at different schools and one stood out to me which was the high school in which they said this person is a student and this person is a teacher and this person is a freshman and this person... and so it was really a nice way to see all the different voices that went into creating the plan and to kind of you know encourage not only that family and community engagement I don't know.

Through the chair, I think that's a great suggestion. Great suggestion. We can definitely share that with our school principals as they think about their presentations. Thank you.

Member Biton?

Through the chair, I just wanted to thank member Lippens for bringing up sort of the general climate, social, emotional, and just give a, you know, 60 Second Background on the Conditions for Learning Survey, which is something that has developed and evolved within Somerville Public Schools to, as part of originally The MCIEA which is the Mass Consortium for Innovative Educational Assessment which is we were one of the founding members and this work came out of work probably from almost a decade ago that Jack Snyder did who is a educational researcher who lives in Somerville has kids in the Somerville public schools and the idea originally was around how do we get beyond MCAS? That was kind of the original actually title was like how beyond MCAS, how do we come up with ways to evaluate and assess the quality of the Educational Experience of Our Students.

So I just really wanted to compliment Member Lippens for bringing that up and also compliment the schools because they do always utilize that data, maybe a little differently, for each school because each school has different issues but it's been an incredible tool and I also I don't know with the status of the work of the MCIEA but I really would like to get There's another piece of background. All the phenomenal work that's been done at Next Wave Full Circle around competency assessments was like seated in that work. And that work, when you guys get the opportunity to see it, is just incredibly powerful how we have developed this system. And I say we, I'm not we. How schools have developed this system to help students see themselves in a different light and understand the skills they're developing and their competencies beyond

and a scale of A to F grades so I just as a little another plug not only for the Slippens but also for the work at next big full circle and the work of this team and and around the conditions for learning So that's just the 60-second frame on good stuff.

Dr. Boston-Davis?

Thank you, the Chair. First of all, thank you, Director Elegyne, for always, for all the hard work you do. I actually wanted to just, through you, to follow up to Dr. Stellman, just so I could make sure I... Move forward with the request that you're asking clearly. Your ask was around post-secondary plans. I had a moment where I was like, we do have some data there. So I guess I'm wondering, I can share with you what we do have. We typically present it at the budget so I pulled up the last year's budget hearing slides and present what the class before Post, you know percent of students going to four-year colleges, percent of students going to two-year colleges, percent of students going to the military, such as that. Can you say more about what you're hoping to see that may be different than that?

Yes, thank you. Through you, Dr. Boston-Davis. Yeah, I think it is not so much the plans that, because those are published, It's not so much the plans that I think are very helpful for the high school and for us as a body is to understand what the outcomes are. So, for example, For those who go into a higher education, understanding what percentage persistence we have and to get even a little more Aboff, Ackman, Biton, Brockelman, Carmona, St. Louis, St. Louis, St. Louis, St. Louis, support to make choices about you know

What they're signing up for. There's a finite number of these possibilities because there are a lot of folks who are collecting persistence data. It's not a total empty space. So I think the reason why I bring this up is that there Because Somerville High School has high expectations and because Somerville High School really strives to help students We have a lot of students who are not white We have many many students whose whose parents or caregivers may not have gone to higher education or if they had they've gone to it in a different country which is not at all

It's really important for us to understand how to better prepare our students and also how to respond and to support our alumni who may be struggling and we actually, given everything we've heard, In this meeting, this is a city that invests in our people and and many more. We have it set up and I feel like when the ship sails, when a lot of our students go out into the world, unless they're sort of still connected to CTE,

which clearly has a beautiful mechanism there a lot of our students are getting lost and I'm not saying that because I have specific data but I'm saying that because that is the reality across The United States, particularly for areas in which we have a lot of first gen students. So what I'm asking in particular is looking at what What successful institutions are doing, what type of persistence data they're collecting, and how we can support the high school in collecting that data because a lot of that is texting, is communication, and it's very intensive. but I think it's an incredibly it's it's the ROI the return on investment In that is huge for the high school itself.

It's huge for our community and just the learning that we can

that we can then we can gain from that feels really important does does that is that more specific absolutely thank you I wanted to be able to if you were asking more about plans to give you that information I hear exactly what you're asking around persistence and have some thoughts but let me talk to our team and get back to you.

I highlighted something that is actually a challenge, which is the toll that it takes on actually collecting this data. Usually we have a lot of social workers that actually are over, you know, We are challenged by the complexities of the needs of the students. We have a good understanding of the students who have dropped out, where are they coming from, what are some of the challenges. The persistent data that you're describing requires also one of those counselors to actually engage with someone because not every kid is going to say, well, I'm dropping out because X, Y, and Z without having a relationship with you. So I know that. That is part of the challenge. Unless there's a tool that you know that other schools are using that we can actually borrow or try to replicate, It is a lot of human labor one-on-one relationships and so I am curious as to if you know anything that is being used out there that we can use as a reference.

I would encourage if you do that that's an offline conversation. Thank you. One of the things I do want to say to that though is that Full Circle does have There's a lot that happens at Full Circle that I think My one frustration is that it's not making its way into the high school more every year because there's a lot of great, as Member Pitone mentioned, innovative work being done there. Thank you. Director Elijin, thank you so much. Are there other questions? All right, it is late. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you, Director Lejeune. And before I close my report, I just wanted to remind our audiences out at home that Given the fact that we had two snow days, the end of the school year is on June 16. So just mark your calendars, move those days along the continuum. So June 16 is the last day of the school as it is right now. and thank you everyone. That was the report.

Thank you, Dr. Carmona. Thank you, Chair. And just to build off of Dr. Carmona's point, the calendar has been updated and we are working on, we were working very hard to make sure it's all translated and so that will be uploaded onto our website. as soon as possible if not but a huge shout out to Ms. Garcia who was translating in all the languages and making sure that everything so by Friday we'll have an updated calendar on our website.

Thank you.

Member Petonia, something on the report of the superintendent? Yes, thank you. Through you to the superintendent and to the mayor, I just wanted to compliment this very comprehensive biannual update about facilities. There is a lot in here. and I'm still processing and digesting it all there was one thing I do want to ask about in the context of snow removal and I know it was Yeoman's work that it was really and I appreciate all the communication came out of the mayor's office. And something that has come to my attention is there actually is a technology called a broom sweeper that is used for granulized rubberized surfaces. It may or may not be helpful with 20 inches of snow. I do understand that. And I also know there's some complexity in terms of owning, storing, buying all these things. But I really would like some explanation about the broom sweeper to be shared with the school committee.

So we know whether A, whether there's plans to pursue one, or B, why we wouldn't pursue one, and it could be in a memo format, whatever makes sense, or whether or not it needs to go to the city council school committee joint. And you don't have to be prepared to respond to this. It was just something that came up.

Mayor Wilson? Thanks, Chair. Through you, I'm all ears. Happy to take an info about that. I'll also point out I was at the Mass Municipal Association Connect 351 convention two weeks ago, and the floor show there, they had a booth With a vendor who basically sells this very cool rubber mat you can put over the mulch, the fiber or whatever, or over poured and placed concrete. Port in Place, Rubberized Surface that allows you to shovel. It allows for a lot of different applications. So I got their info. and I'm very interested in following up with them too because we'd love our kids to be able to use the playgrounds in the wintertime. I know it's very tough to do indoor recess over and over and over.

Fantastic. Okay. Again, given how much we hopped around in the beginning, I'm hoping my colleagues will make sure that they're keeping me honest according to my Notes. We are on to 7b of unfinished business, EMSBA update. Before we go into that, I just want to note I am meeting tomorrow with Director Raesch to outline my understanding of what the votes are left that are required by MSBA for school committee and then the timeline for that once we have that my goal is to and many more. Mandatorily our decision, but the mayor sees value in us weighing in.

so my hope is that you know that is presented long before the next meeting to the body uh mayor wilson i don't know if you have any anything else

Yeah, I mean, I'll just say, don't love that it's coming to this body with such little notice. There should be much more notice on it, but we thought it was important to involve the body in these really consequential decisions. I just, in the end, I'm fundamentally not okay with potentially the SBC being out on a limb not having gotten the buy-in from the school committee on these things it's just it's not a good position to be in so I think it makes all the sense in the world to bring it to the school committee we're going to look to bring it to this body with as much warning in advance as we can so we can have a real discussion about this. And I know the community is going to be looking to follow that discussion very closely as well. I really appreciate the chair for engaging on this. We've had very productive meetings where basically it's become very clear to us that if we want to, there's a deadline rapidly approaching that we need to be on top of if we want to do this the way that

I really fundamentally believe is the right way to do this which involves getting the school committee to weigh in on the programmatic decisions that are going to have to be made anyway so better do that now Thank you.

Just to say that we met with the Brown community a week ago, two weeks ago, and we basically gave them a space to discuss questions and share their concerns. We have a meeting, a coffee hour. We have one tomorrow at 8.30 at the Winter Hill at Edgerly. So everyone is welcome to join. But we will continue to have these conversations. We also had a SBC meeting today at five o'clock, and one of the things that they shared was that there will be a, The space summary and the educational program is going to come your way for approval. So that's coming. We haven't seen it yet, but that is one time in which you will be asked to review and process. That's about it for today.

That's Ms. Beard.

Thank you, Chair. Through you, just for everyone's awareness and also just for the public record, the Joint Committee, City Council, School Committee, We often have a standing item on the MSBA process due to some scheduling disagreements between city council and school committee We will not be able to meet until March, so I just wanted to get everyone's awareness about that. It's not where we want to be, but it is where we are. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Member Green.

Building on the mayor and the superintendent's comments about buying, especially around, as the superintendent mentioned, the upcoming space and educational plan summaries, my understanding from the SBC is that that will B, then they will, I guess, move on in March. So I have already, we already made it clear to them that we need to get it before our next meeting. Ideally, well before our next meeting, which is in three weeks because it's February break. So the drafters of those things are aware of that and hopefully they will follow through. But if they don't, it's not because they didn't know.

We appreciate your hard work. Anything else? Okay. Again, asking my colleagues to keep me honest. By my reading, we are on to item nine, community or calendar items from committee members. Member Biton?

Thank you, through you, Chair. I just wanted to, something we got in our email as school committee members is the student health survey on February 12th. is um used to be called the youth risk behavior surveys we're still trying to figure out is it different or the same we think it's mostly the same we're not sure but what the city has done which i'm really excited about is there's going to be a youth-led presentation and discussion on the outcome from this. This is the first time the city has done this that I know of. It's going to be at the Armory from 6 to 7 30 on February 12th. I'm super excited. I also for the context of the school committee I did a reach out to the mayor's office to say well when are we getting our presentation because we did have one in the schedule in November and it didn't happen so hopefully I know everyone here is probably Eagerly trying to reschedule that it's something that I find really and I think my colleagues in the past have found incredibly valuable to

understand where our students are and how they feel but something so unique about having our students doing a presentation and discussion and I hope members of the community participate in that on February 12th.

Member Granger, do you have something else? Okay, Mayor Wilson.

Thanks, Chair. These are harrowing times, so it gives me a lot of pleasure to share an update on a news item that came out while we were meeting here tonight. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration's attempts to rescind temporary protected status to Haitians. That's huge news for our community, huge news for the SPS community, so I think we can all celebrate that.

Thank you. Other community or calendar updates? Member Pitone.

Through you, Chair, just quickly. On March 14th, myself and City Councilor Naima Sait from Ward 5 and Senator Pat Gillian and Erica State Rep Erica Eiderhoven are going to be hosting a coffee on the 14th of March at 10 a.m. at Zaruma Cafe.

Other community calendar items? All right. My understanding is we do not have condolences.

No condolences tonight.

Okay. And with that, at 9.30 p.m., we are adjourned. Thank you so much.