Regular School Committee Meeting - March 2, 2026

Good evening and we are so thankful that all of you are here. It is 7.01 p.m. and with that we are going to call this Monday, March 2nd meeting of the Somerville School Committee to order. We are going to take a moment of silence and then salute the flag. Is that right? Or do you have to call us to order first? We're going to take a moment of silence and slip the flag and I'm going to get my head together. Thanks.

Thank you. Superintendent Carmona, would you mind calling the roll?

Through the chair, President Davis. Here. Member Piton? She's virtual, so.

Present. I hear.

Member Lippens? Present. Member Eldridge?

Present.

Member Green? Here. Dr. Stellman? Mayor Wilson? Present. Member Biton? Here. Dr. Ackman?

Present.

We have eight members present. We have quorum.

Thank you. All right. I will jump right in. I see our student reps here. Would you all like to report out? Is that a yes? Can you use Babacus? Okay, great, thank you.

Hi, I'm Aiden. I know I haven't been here in a while, so I'm just going to reintroduce myself. I'm a senior at Somerville High School, and I also participate in numerous student leadership programs. Thank you for joining us. So yeah, that was great. I'm a senior so I was not there We also had the Class Cup recently, which had a lot of spirit and really represents the change in the student body where students are a lot more excited for school events. So that's something nice to look forward to. Some senior updates. Prom is at the State Room in Boston this year.

It is, I think, probably the most expensive or one of the most expensive venues that we've had in previous years, topping last year's yacht. Thanks to many donations, students have been able to have their tickets paid completely or partially. By asking their communities for financial assistance and we've sold nearly 200 tickets already to people across all communities so Elm Community, Next Way Full Circle, and the other three Highland, Broadway, and Beacon. And that is about it for senior updates.

Okay, yeah, I want to reintroduce myself as well. Hi everyone, my name is Pavlika and I'm a junior at Somerville High School. We wanted to continue the club highlights we've been doing, or that we started several weeks ago. But this week we want to highlight the Highland Advocate, which is a newly started club that is currently running its pilot year. I spoke with co-founder and editor-in-chief Carmen Wheeler who is a junior at Somerville High School and she shared why she strives to start the Highland Advocate along with the progress the group has made so far. So to begin, she shared how her initiative to start the Highland Advocate stemmed from the fact that our school didn't have a school newspaper. There may have been one several years ago, but ever since we were freshmen, there hasn't been a newspaper. So she shared how she knew that there were many students who had interests in journalism, making games, and other activities. But they didn't have an outlet for those artistic mediums.

And because of the wonderfully supported CTE programs, The graphic department was able to advise the club and provide printing services, which is amazing. Since then, the club has had over a dozen students learn how to write newspaper articles and like it hasn't been done in a long time so it's really great to see that happening and within the school it's helped to connect everyone and spotlight specific people groups and movements For instance, one student recently interviewed Pluto's Return, a student band, and is writing a piece about them. And the paper also covers topics relevant on both the local and In just a few months, the newspaper has already taken us or taking the group so far and accomplished so much.

So she wanted to emphasize how she can't wait to see it evolve, become stronger and reach more people. So we really wanted to highlight the Highlander Advocate because they've been doing so much to connect the school community together. They have the printed copies available in every classroom and I've seen a bunch of students reading them so it seems to be really great to help connect the students. We also wanted to share an update about some of the initiatives or opportunities other clubs are doing or other clubs have within our school. We wanted to highlight the Community Service Club, which will be attending The Inspire Massachusetts Youth Leadership Institute this month on the 18th. So last year, the Community Service Club, they attended this Leadership Institute, which is like a full day.

and they formed a project based off of the activities there. So the project was focused on a multicultural reading program which ran for of Pre-K and Kindergarten Students, and it was basically student volunteers in the club went to the Capuano to read multicultural books to really We emphasize and highlight the beauty of different cultures. We were partnering with this organization called Reading Multicultural Books. and yeah it was really great. The organization has a lot more details but it really works to combat biases from a young age. So this year they're going to be attending the Institute again so we just wanted to highlight the work that they're doing as well and also how they're reaching out outside of the high school community and going to the Capuano for example and it's definitely expanded this year.

That's about it from us and we'd also like to take this opportunity to have school community members ask any questions that might be unrelated to what we just talked about.

Fantastic. Thank you for the report out. Thank you, Chair, through you.

So exciting to have a newspaper. And I'm frankly surprised that there wasn't one already. and I applaud the students for the initiative to put one together. Do you know how often they plan to publish new issues?

I think monthly, so they've only published one edition so far, but I believe that was just for January. And they have weekly meetings with the graphics department, so they... They are going at their own pace right now to start, but they'll probably start publishing regular editions every month or two weeks.

Thank you. Yes, that's exciting. Keep local journalism alive. All right. Thank you. We have a packed agenda tonight, so I'm going to move on. We have public comment tonight. I see eight total, and I'm confirming it's eight including online and in person. No. Okay, we have about 20 people registered. So with that, I will read our public comment declaration. Welcome and thank you to those who've signed up for public comment. Speakers will be allowed two minutes to present their material.

Speakers should begin their comments by stating their name and address, or in the case of district employees, their role within the district. The chair of the meeting after a warning reserves the right to terminate speech which is not constitutionally protected because it constitutes true threats that are likely to provoke a violent reaction and cause a breach of the peace or incitement to imminent lawless contact. Conduct. Public comment is not a discussion, debate, or dialogue between the public and the committee. Members of the committee will not reply to public comment during the course of the meeting. Though individual members may follow up and items from public comment may be taken up in future meetings. The school committee will not hear personal complaints about school personnel nor against any member of the school community in public session. Individuals may address topics on the agenda or items within the school committee's scope of responsibilities such as the district budget, goals, and policies or the role of the superintendent.

The public is encouraged to submit comments in writing for inclusion in the public record. With that, we are going to start with in-person, and then we will move on to Zoom. I'm going to try and do name three at a time so people know who is on deck. We have Sarah Campbell. Please have grace for me if I do not get your name right and let us know what it is when you come up and introduce yourself. Sarah Campbell, Caitlin Rameau, and Leah Charbonneau. Sarah, come on up.

My name is Sarah Campbell. I live at 18 Troll Street. I have a third grader at Brown and a sixth grader at Kennedy. I'm here to express my concern that the Somerville School Committee is discussing closing the Brown School. A school ranked 101 in the state by US News and World Report due to its high test scores in reading and math. I'm equally disturbed that the proposed replacement is a 900 student behemoth that is a student population two-thirds the size of our high school. The logic from what I've heard is that we can get more state funds by building the largest school possible. Why not take this to the ultimate conclusion and have just one K-8 school for the entire city then? This Frankenstein monstrosity will have six to eight classes per grade. We have a school with four classes per grade and it has many challenges academically and in terms of Management of the students.

From what I've heard in this meeting and this very committee meeting in the past, This gives me zero confidence that Somerville will be able to manage or support such a large school and I believe such a large school will require vast amounts of administrative and financial support in order to maintain academic standards. I believe that this committee puts a great deal of weight on diversity and equity concerns but I think that if the Brown closes we will see West and Kennedy schools get wider and higher private school enrollment in West Somerville as neighborhoods previously attending Brown do not go to the new giant school but concentrate in Winterhill and Kennedy making them less diverse and the schools more segregated reflecting Somerville's east and west divide. I also believe it's a great inequity to have a school with six to eight classes per grade

While others in wealthier neighborhoods have more personalized instruction with only two classes per grade. As a city, we should be working to make our schools better, make them smaller, not larger. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Next we have Caitlin Rameau, Leah Charbonneau, and Kayla Burgess.

My name is Kaitlyn Romo and I'm a third grade at the Brown School. I'm here because I don't want you to shut down the Brown School. Even though I'm not going to be there when it happens, other kids will be there. I know they will be frustrated and very, very sad if the Brown School is shut down. I know that they will be sad because last year I cried because I was leaving Ms. Bourne's class. But imagine that 100 times worse because you're not leaving a classroom, you're leaving a whole school for all eternity.

Thank you so much. We really value student voice. We value all voice, but that was wonderful, and thank you for sharing. Leah Charbonneau, Kayla Burgess, and Hannah D'Souza. Leah, whenever you're ready.

Good evening. My name is Leah Charbonneau and I'm a third grade teacher at the West Somerville Neighborhood School. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing additional staffing in next year's budget, specifically more interventionist positions. Currently, West Somerville does not have a math interventionist at all, and our reading interventionist is split between two buildings. Although we have two dedicated intervention blocks in our schedule, I alone am unable to meet all of my students' academic needs during this time without additional National Support. Each week the other third grade teacher and I meet and review student data and plan reteaching groups for our intervention blocks. Much of this time is spent reteaching grade level content that students struggle with or did not master during regular class instruction. This work is incredibly important and has helped many students achieve mastery and demonstrate meaningful growth. However, it still leaves a significant gap for students who lack foundational skills.

During our literacy intervention block, our reading specialist works with students who need support with foundational skills from previous grade levels, while I'm able to focus on students that need help with grade level content. Even so, because she's shared between two schools, we must make difficult decisions about which students can receive her support. In math, the challenge is even greater. Only one group can receive additional support at a time. I still have reteaching groups that I've planned from assessments given before the winter break that I have not yet been able to teach because I'm stretched so thin during this block trying to meet the needs of all the students. Without additional interventionists, classroom teachers are forced to choose between supporting students who need foundational skill development, helping students that are struggling with grade-level material, or providing enrichment for students who have already mastered it. all of these students deserve our time and attention with more interventionists we would be able to meet these diverse needs more effectively and equitably

I hope you will join our efforts and support the SEU's vision for high quality education in Somerville Public Schools. That's what our students deserve.

Thank you. Next is Kayla Burgess, Hannah D'Souza, and Cesar Oranga. All right, Kayla.

Hello, my name is Kayla Burgess and I'm the sixth grade math and science teacher at West Somerville Neighborhood School. Like Leah who spoke before me, I am speaking tonight in support of prioritizing additional staffing in next year's budget, specifically more interventionist positions. As you just heard, West Somerville does not currently have a math interventionist. As a second year teacher, I look to educators like Leah and her third grade teaching colleague as models for absolutely maximizing Thank you for watching! We are forced to choose, as Leah said, which is inequitable and unfair. Now take those same third graders who struggled with foundational math skills three years later as sixth graders.

Because the city has failed to provide the critical intervention staff needed to support those learners throughout elementary school, they are now several grade levels behind in math. 32% of my sixth grade students started the year two or more grade levels below where they should be at a critical time in their development. These children are now becoming alienated from their peers academically which has implications as we know for their social well-being and their confidence. In my second year, Educator PD focused on equity and excellence in SPS. I was asked to disaggregate my students' academic testing data based on key social factors. Such as income and race. Lo and behold, I was unsurprised to see that low income and black and brown students in my sixth grade classes are the ones who have scored the lowest, who need the most support because of factors outside of their control. The district who preaches equity has not funded intervention, which is one of the most powerful tools for closing that gap.

Instead, the city continues to ask classroom teachers to put on their capes and try to be the superheroes who can meet every general education student's needs. Not only is this unfair to the students who need extra support, it's unfair to the teachers who are given this unattainable task. I hope to be in this work for the long haul, but boy is it disheartening to be told look at these students who are struggling. You are responsible for catching them up for several grade levels worth of background knowledge.

Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Now we're on to Hannah, then Cesar, then Ray Woodcock.

Hannah, the floor is yours. Good evening, my name is Hannah D'Souza and I'm an educator at the Argenziano School where I have worked in the newcomer program for the last 19 years. I am speaking tonight in support of prioritizing ESL staffing in next year's budget. I'm speaking on behalf of myself and other SAI 1 teachers whose classrooms will be closing after this school year. My colleagues Gina Yarmel and Diana Garrity are joining us virtually this evening. The SA-1 program is a specialized instructional model that serves immigrant newcomer students at the beginning stages of learning English. Our program has been part of the Argenziano community for the last 25 years. With the closing of this program, at our school there will be an increased need for supporting multilingual learners, or MLs, in our general education classrooms. We are asking you to support the conversion of our classroom positions to much needed ESL specialists. Students who were receiving ELSL support during all subject areas in the SCI 1 classroom will now be integrated into Gen Ed classrooms.

Next year, Argenziano will also be welcoming the AIM Autism program. There are MLs in this program as well that will further increase the number of students at Argenziano who will require ESL services. Right now, ESL specialists are only able to push in during literacy blocks or intervention blocks, and sometimes not even for the entire block. In some classrooms, ESL specialists are supporting as many as nine MLs at a time for as little as 45 minutes a day. As teachers of MLs, we know that language learning happens all day, not just during literacy time, and we believe that our students deserve better. In order to support our students, we need more ESL specialists so that there is time to co-plan and co-teach to give our students equitable access to the curriculum. We have a duty to continue to make Somerville schools welcoming to immigrant families, and we must maintain supports for MLs, not take them away.

In order to meet the unique cultural and linguistic needs of our immigrant students, we hope you will consider converting SCI1 positions into ESL specialists to best serve our multilingual learners. Thank you. I timed it. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for your grace with my mispronouncing your name. Cesar, then Ray, and then Naina Sudfox. Thank you. Whenever you're ready. Same.

We'll see. Good evening. My name is Cesar. You got that right. It's Oronaga. I live at 45 Oxford Street. I am a parent of a 10th grader. and I am a 7th grade math teacher at ESCS. I am speaking tonight in support of prioritizing additional staffing in next year's budget, specifically math interventionists. I would like to tell you about what having math intervention has meant for students and what it has looked like in my classroom. Last year, my students had the privilege to have the opportunity for math intervention. And I saw firsthand how intervention allowed students to reach the seventh grade math curriculum. When working in class, I would hear them say, oh, we just did that math intervention. Oh, Mr. Novitz just taught us that. And it was amazing to see.

This year, we fast forward to where we are now, we do not have intervention in the middle grades at ESCS. We just don't have the staff for it. I have more than a handful of students that would could very much benefit from this for math intervention the students just need just a little bit amount to bridge the gap that they need to be able to fully engaged with the curriculum. I found that operations with fractions is really tough for some students. Integers, and while trying to fill these gaps with some reviews before units or we use programs like iReady, it is just not enough to do everything that we need to do. There's nothing that can take place of a one-on-one small group math intervention time. Every second spent by teachers in class working to bridge gaps means that something will not get taught.

There just isn't enough time in the year for both review to fill knowledge gaps and fully teach the curriculum. Of course, intervention is not the answer to all, but it does help tremendously in the classroom. And I do hope that you will join our efforts and support. The SCU's vision for quality education in Somerville Public Schools is what our students deserve. Thank you.

Thank you. Ray, Naina, and then we will go virtual.

Hi, my name is Rae Woodcock and I'm a fourth grade teacher at East Somerville. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing additional staffing in next year's budget, specifically additional ESL specialists. Recently, our administrators have growing concerns regarding how many fourth grade students are significantly behind where they should be in reading. Currently, 11 out of my 20 students are reading below benchmark, and that's similar across all four classes. In response, our administrators organized additional coaching for us to be able to implement reading intervention during X block as the fourth grade doesn't have access to pull out. And while grateful for the coaching and more than happy to teach the intervention, it's frustrating that this is the best that can be offered to our students. The majority of the students below benchmark in reading are English language learners and the ESL staffing levels at East Somerville are not adequate to provide the high quality ESL services that our students are entitled to and need to grow.

DESE's guidelines outline that students at WIDA levels three and four are to receive at least 45 minutes of services with an ESL teacher, while levels ones and twos are to receive double that. E. Somerville's current staffing levels doesn't allow this. Instead, we utilize loophole. So ones and twos who happen to be in classes with teachers who have a dual license, and then are not provided with the second block of services with an ESL teacher. While a dual licensed teacher may have specialized knowledge, they are not two people able to provide the individualized support Students Deserve. Additionally, in fourth grade, our ESL specialists is split across three grade levels, forced to try to keep up with three curriculums and six teachers pacing. By being spread so thin, our specialist isn't able to properly plan with us.

One person can't successfully plan with six teachers across three grade levels in the CPT time we're given. Without that co-planning, students miss out on thoughtfully planned accommodations.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Naina Sood-Fox. I teach fifth grade math and science in the neighborhood program at East. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing staffing for the budget, and I am specifically speaking about the inclusion model at East and across the district. So I have been lucky enough this year to be a part of the pilot program for the inclusion model. And I cannot emphasize enough, but I'm going to try, what a positive it has been not only for my students, but also for my own teaching experience and for my ability to reach all of my students. As you know, East is one of the highest needs school in the district, both when it comes to language learners and students on individualized education plans. This year, like so many before, I have students who are academically anywhere from a kindergarten level to a fifth grade level. Year after year, I have struggled to meet all my students' needs. It is very frustrating. It is impossible most of the time.

And this year, for the first time in a very, very long time, I feel like I am actually able to reach all of my students. and this is because of the support that I get this year by having my incredible inclusion teacher in my classroom. She takes the students who have the most intensive case loads, the most intensive special needs case loads and I get to work with all the rest of the students. And so my data this year has really shown so much growth simply because of having this support in my classroom. I handed out some data because I'm a math teacher. This year we take an iReady test in September and then again in January. In those four months my students have made almost 100% of the growth that they are typically expected to make in a year. They've made 94%. I have gone from having three students at or above grade level in September to having 13. in January.

I started the year with 20 students, about half of my students who were two or more grade levels below where they needed to be. That number has shrunk down to 12. My mental health and my data both show that the inclusion program has so much positives and I hope you will consider prioritizing staffing for it. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Okay, we are moving to our Zoom public comment. All right, so we are starting with Karina Johansson, then on to Colleen McGowan, and then Allison... Sotowias, I hope. Again, I have Grace, please. And I think we're ready for Karina.

Hi, am I being heard? We can hear you. Great.

Go for it.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Karina Johansing, and I'm a fifth grade ELA social studies teacher in the neighborhood program at East Somerville. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing upscaling the inclusion model which launched this year in next year's budget. This model will allow for the shared responsibility necessary between special education and general education teachers to ensure all students within the classroom get their learning needs met while avoiding educator burnout. There are 21 students in the fifth grade inclusion model classroom. Beginning of the year i-ready data showed seven students reading two grade levels below and eight students reading three or more grade levels below. That's 71% of the students in one classroom requiring serious attention and support during Tier 1 instruction and intensive intervention at Xbox. Sadly, this data isn't shocking to me anymore. I see it year after year at my school. Every year as I reflect on the daunting task ahead of me, I ask myself, how does this happen? And I know how.

Because I've experienced it every day for eight years. Many students have literacy needs They get unmet year after year as early as kindergarten because their general education teachers are spread too thin, being asked to meet the significant and specific learning needs of special education students along with the needs of every other student in the classroom. and impossible feat for a general education teacher. However, this year has been different. Within the inclusion model classroom, the special education teacher is focused on meeting the learning needs of five special education students. While I'm focused on the rest, especially Those other 10 students with learning needs just as dire, and it's working. Mid-year I-Ready data shows 9 out of those 10 students have already met their annual growth goal by at least 100%. Some students made it by 200 or 300 and are now just shy of grade level. One student grew by 400% and is now reading at an early fifth grade level. We are only halfway done, but it is clear this is working.

This inclusion model works especially for our students at the highest need schools in the district, like East Somerville. Please consider...

Sorry about that. Thank you, Karina. We have Colleen McGowan, and then Allison, and then Kelly Williamson. Colleen, the floor is yours.

Hi, I'm actually going to save my comment for another meeting. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Colleen. We are moving on to... Allison, then Kelly Williamson, and Esme von Hoffman. After that, Allison, the floor is yours.

All right, can you hear me? We can. Go ahead. All right. Hi, I'm Allison Chocolis. I live at 89 Rogers Ave. I'm going to take a moment and say thank you so much to the teachers who've been speaking up for additional funding for staffing. It's fantastic to hear your points and I can hear in your voices how much you really, really care about our kids. My kindergartner is at the Brown School. I hope his two little sisters will be attending too in the next few years. And I wanted to have some comments and questions about its future. First, big picture process-wise, it's difficult for me as a parent to understand who is responsible for the decisions about the future of the Brown. I've read school committee does a formal evaluation before we close any school in any circumstance but also from watching the last school committee meeting it sounds like that evaluation that investigation doesn't actually start until the town has committed to taking more state money which comes conditional on closing brown and it feels like a little bit of a circle i hope we can

have some clearer information about what's going on, who's responsible for the decision, what happens in what order. And then secondly, I'd like to speak in favor of keeping the Brown School operational. it serves many important needs in the Somerville community goes without saying it's a fantastic school by the numbers but also it's a public option for families who are looking for a smaller school for young kids who need that kind of environment without the brown Families would need to go to the private system for this. That's not an option for a lot of families. Takes cars off the road in our whole city by giving a walkable school to words five and six. provides needed seats on the west side of Somerville. The other schools out here are already oversubscribed, might be even more so with new developments on the red line in the next few years. and last of all neighborhood schools are a foundation of local community local connections uh just a building block for everything else i'm really worried that the proposal to close the brown hasn't taken this into consideration

Thank you, Allison.

We have Kelly, then Esme, then Priscilla Ewen. Kelly, whenever you're ready.

Great. Thank you. Can you hear me? We can. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Kelly Williamson. I live in Ward 6, and I'm the mother of four young sons, ages 2, 4, 6, and 8. My two oldest children attend the Brown School, currently in kindergarten and second grade. We hope, like Allison, to send our younger sons to the Brown School as well. I'm concerned about the recent updates shared regarding the new school building and its impact on the Brown School's future. When we chose the Brown School for our children's education, we did so for three main reasons. One, walkability. It's the closest school to our home. Two, school size. Roughly 225 children attend the Brown School, which means that every single child is known by every single adult in the school. and the children are given quite a bit of autonomy within the walls of its small building. And three, the age of its students. The Brown School is the only K-5 school in the district which was its most compelling characteristic as we considered sending our five-year-old to school for the first time. A 900 capacity building located at the former Winterhills site meets none of those criteria for our family.

We would likely choose to send our children to West or Kennedy instead. First, the new school is not walkable for us. Our half mile walk would become a one and a half mile walk, which would realistically become a car ride, something we loathe as urban dwellers and aim to avoid at all costs. Secondly, it's not a small student population. 900 students is quadruple the size of the Brown School population. And finally, the proposed new school is not a K-5 school. The social and behavioral problems of sixth to eighth graders are drastically different than those of elementary school learners, and that concerns me. When we moved to Somerville, we valued the neighborhood school model and the choice the district offered families to find the right learning environment for their children. Eliminating two small school environments, one neighborhood school, and the one and only K-5 school in the district drastically reduces choice for Somerville families. Prior to committing to the proposed 900 student building on the former Winterhills site,

I urge the school committee to have concrete answers that address enrollment needs on the west side of the city catchment reassignments district-wide and accompanying walkability and transportation needs for those in dead zones as well as a transition plan for the brownfield

Alright, thank you. Esme, then Priscilla, then Heidi Gibbon. Esme, whenever you're ready. Oh, so Esme von Hoffman. Esme von Hoffman? Third time's a charm. Esme von Hoffman? Alright, we will come back to you should you pop up. We're moving on to Priscilla Ewen. Priscilla, whenever you are ready. Priscilla Ewen.

Hi, this is Priscilla. Can you hear me? We can now. Fire away. Thank you. Great. Hi, my name is Priscilla Ewen. I live in Ward 5 at 85 Rogers Ave. And I'm a Brown School parent. My older child has thrived at the Brown School. It feels like everyone there knows them. and the Brown School is the heartbeat of our neighborhood. I'm looking forward to sending my daughter there next year and I'm very disappointed that the district wants to close the Brown. As a public school teacher in another district, I'm also very concerned about what the closure process will be for the Brown School teachers. If it's not handled well, I worry that you will lose some great teachers much sooner than the 2031-2032 school year. Thanks.

Thank you, Priscilla. We have Heidi Gibbon, Jeremiah Hay, and then Swetha Kaluri. Heidi, the floor is yours.

Great. Can you hear me? We can. Go ahead. Super. My name is Heidi Given, and I'm a math interventionist at the East Somerville Community School. Previously, I was the district equity coach. Now in a role in which I closely screen hundreds of students quarterly and monitor testing data, I have a much deeper understanding of the structural, systemic, and staffing issues that underlie the academic inequalities that we see when we examine our MCAS data. Tonight, I am speaking to the need for more math interventionists. I am a singular interventionist in a school with approximately 740 students. My screening data indicates a range of between 15 to 50 percent of any given grade level could benefit from receiving math intervention. Yet I am one person and there is no way to meet that level of need. In fact, I am not even able to serve all of our grade levels as Cesar spoke of tonight.

The inequitable decisions this leads me to have to make greatly pains me. I post six small groups of students daily working intensively on foundational math skills around targeted concepts and topics. Many of my students gain understanding and comfort and confidence and have shown significant growth on their I-Ready scores. And a small few continue to struggle, not demonstrating growth. Documenting their struggles while receiving Tier 2 intervention supports the work of our child study team. It is so very true that my school would benefit from a second or even a third math interventionist. Similar to staffing ratios for reading, MLE, SEL, and special education services. And it is true that the district as a whole needs more math interventionists. Did you know there are only four of us across the city serving only four schools? Other schools in our district and their students have no access to math intervention.

Please prioritize and fund more math interventionists so that all of our students can receive the instruction they need in order to thrive and be successful and an increasingly digital technological...

Thank you, Heidi. We have Jeremiah Hay, Swetha Kalori, and Ksenia Samkowalowa. Jeremiah?

Hi, thanks, everybody. Hope you're all having a nice night. I did want to say my wife, Esme von Hoffman, she was unable to talk earlier. I can't tell if it's a Zoom issue or what, but if somebody could circle back to her, that'd be wonderful. I do think that the mayor and the superintendent are absolutely right that real problems exist within the Somerville Public Schools. So just to name a couple, staff compensation and the cost and availability of aftercare, the appropriate need. I'm sure we'll continue to hear about this evening. And achievement levels and gaps around the district are real needs. And I was thrilled last week to hear the mayor acknowledge that our school system needs serious investment. I could not agree more. But honestly, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that the only investment that we're here to talk about tonight is pouring hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into a new building while closing one of the best schools in the district. I know that there's been an incredible amount of time spent developing the solution. But that is not a good reason to move it forward.

I think the basic fact is that this equation just doesn't make sense, especially at a time when the federal attitude towards public education, health and social supports generally have made our state and local services and resources far more precious for many families. New buildings don't make better schools. I want to say that again. New buildings do not make better schools. And we don't need big new buildings to provide every child in Somerville with a great education. We need strong, dedicated teachers and staff. deeply engaged and committed school leaders, and an active invested school community. And we have all of that already at the Brown School. So what are we doing? We're closing it for a new discount on a building that's much bigger than what we need. New buildings and great schools are not the same thing. and I encourage, I urge all of our school committee members for whom I have a great deal of respect to realize that we have just lost the thread here and to do what you can to push our investments and our focus back into school quality

and not school construction, even if that means harder solutions. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Swetha Ksenia and then back to Esme.

Hello, can you hear me? Hello, my name is Swetha Kaluri and I'm a math interventionist at the Winter Hill. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing adding additional math interventionists into next year's budget. Currently, there are four district-wide math interventionists servicing four of the highest needs schools. While we do our best to meet the need, we are not able to provide intervention services to all the students who would benefit from the small group intervention support. We work in eight-week cycles so we can switch students out and see more students. However, some students would benefit from meeting a math interventionist throughout the year, similar to reading services. because math interventionists work across multiple grade levels we have developed a strong understanding of mathematical learning progressions and we have the resources to meet students where they are which is often two or three grade levels below their current grade level

While classroom teachers work tirelessly to meet the needs of all learners, addressing such significant gaps in the classroom can be incredibly challenging. With small group support, students are able to talk through their thinking and learn from one another's ideas. They play engaging games that strengthen specific skills, and they take on challenging problems that build both confidence and perseverance. From these interactions, students began to see themselves as capable, confident learners who can succeed in mathematics. Expanding math intervention services would allow us to reach more students consistently and intervene early to close academic gaps as early

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hi, can you hear me?

I can.

Go ahead. Hi, my name is Ksenia Samahvalova. I live at 75 Ring Street in Somerville in Ward 6, and I have two children in the Somerville Public Schools, a third grader, the brown, and a former brown school student who is now in seventh grade at the West. I'm calling to express my extreme concern because it appears that the recommendation of the construction advisory group to build the biggest capacity school at 115 Sycamore Street is now being used to imply that the city will be closing the Brown School. Once the winter school is built. I want to remind the mayor and the school committee that the construction advisory group has not made a recommendation about the closure of the Brown School and has explicitly called for this decision to be made by the school committee. As a parent who has been part of the Brown School community for eight years now, I want to implore the school committee to not abdicate their responsibility

to make a thoughtful decision whether the only way to proceed is to close our school. I'd like to join the construction advisory group's frustration about the lack of vision and educational perspective from the school committee on the preferred student population size and alignment of options with long-term goals. No matter the size of the school that is in need, For the school committees, Somerville Public Schools and the City to provide robust plans for staffing, management, redistricting, safe routes to school and programming, and a compelling vision for how this new building will maximize benefits for the district and the community. This vision must come from the elected officials of the city and the school committee level. To date, we have not seen analysis done to support the decision to close the Brown School, which is frankly completely unacceptable. And I have requested personally multiple documents that I have not received.

So I'd like to request that the school committee makes this decision thoughtfully. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Esme?

Hi, can you hear me?

We can. Can you hear me? We can. Go ahead.

Okay, great. Hi, I'm Esma Fafiva Hoffman, a current parent at the Brown School. I'm confused every time the mayors speak. He talks about closing the Brown School. as part of building the new Winter Hill School. But according to CAG members, CAG video... and Recordings, and the final CAG report, C, Section 3. That was not what the CAG voted for. Instead, they voted to build a new Winner, Hale School, potentially use it as a spring space, and then years from now, after all this has happened, assess what the school needs. The decision to close the Brown School without good solutions to the following issues would be reckless, hurt students, families, teachers, and staff. One, different students have different learning needs. Many students at Brown need small school environments to thrive, for instance, because of sensory overload issues. Combining Winter Hill and Brown would get rid of the two smallest schools in Somerville.

also studies from top research institutions overwhelmingly show that kids do better in small elementary schools without the Browns parents who could afford to are already talking about sending their kids to private school in SPS enrollment, which would affect budgets, which would force firing of teachers during crisis for staffing, which we are hearing about today. But the kids it would hurt most are the underprivileged, often minority or immigrant kids who will lose the chance of the education they need. These are real children, friends. I see every day the length these families go to to get their kids to the Brown School for the education they need for their child using city buses or single moms taking time off of work to drop off and pick up their kids. And these families are the families that have least time to advocate for themselves and are most scared due to the federal situation. Please, school committee members, be these children's advocates. At a giant school, no matter how you configure the building, the principal cannot know all these students' names,

and there would be huge classes that they will be shut out there is also the problem of that there will when you close the brown there will only be one school in all of West Somerville that's a huge geographic area it will cause major traffic and also

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you to everyone who participated in public comment. This is the backbone of our democracy, and we really appreciate you taking the time. We are now moving on to Roman numeral number four, the report of the superintendent, Superintendent Carmona.

Through the chair, thank you. And I will echo your voices. I will echo your comment that the voices of the community are always welcome. Whether it is in present or virtually, that is again a healthy, fluid environment in which ideas, best ideas prevail. So thank you, everyone. And we have a full agenda today. And I wanted to make sure we jump right into it. Our presentation tonight will be starting by our director of athletics. Mr. Stanley Vieira, please come up to the podium. I also will just mention a couple of things. We all know that The hallmark of good education is also embedded in our understanding of the whole child and also ways in which we can actually support them in multiple ways. Sports is a place in which that happens on a regular basis.

So I wanted to have Mr. Vieira share with us the strengths of our program. Before I do so, I also wanted to say that I attended A wonderful celebration that happens every year with the hockey team. They always choose to celebrate teachers and this year the team honored the CTE instructors Matt Weldon and Jim McGrath. also a world language instructor Gino Colantunu and also math teacher Dan Backman. These are positive role models that were chosen by the students and celebrated in front of the entire community. We are grateful for this dedication as well as for the celebration. It is a true exercise of community celebration. And so I'm going to invite again Mr. Stanley Vieira to share the presentation about our athletics department.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Corona. And thank you, school committee, for having me here today. It's an honor to be invited and to share a little bit about what's going on with our city and Somerville athletics. We can bypass. So I just want to give a sense of the takeaways from this presentation tonight and really focus on some of the things that we're very proud about. So, number one, the growth and success of our athletic teams. The increasing cost due to increasing rosters. The commitment, the continued commitment to equity and access and the continued commitment to culture building, leadership development for our staff, coaches, and our student athletes which is very near and dear to us. Our vision statement is very straightforward. I'll read it to you and it really means a lot to us and it's very intentional.

The athletic program intends to provide an opportunity for our student athletes to develop and display their talents through competition. All student athletes place the highest priority on the quality of education and the successful completion of academic programs. Athletics are conducted as an integral component of our overall educational experience. With the goal of having student athletes strive to reach their potential and give their best on and off the playing fields. For some of you who have been here, my guess is that you know who's actually in the graded Boston League. But for some of you who do not, I just wanted to kind of go through exactly who's in the graded Boston League. So if you do come to competitions, you won't be surprised by the schools you see on the other side of the field. So it's ourselves, obviously, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Revere, and the two Lynn, Lynn Classical and Lynn English high schools. And I think the nice thing about our league is that they're all urban schools, all similar settings.

Similar challenges and it's been a really amazing partnership with these other schools in our league. This is just a quick snapshot. We are governed by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, our governing body, our umbrella, so to speak. These are all the sports that are sponsored through the MIAA and the offerings we have here at Somerville High School and at the middle grade levels. You can see it's very robust. We have quite a few offerings for our students. We're very proud about the offerings and everything available to our students to choose from. Again, everything from more competition from a collision standpoint as far as collision sports, but also a wide variety of other options. Everything from running to tennis to swimming. A lot of amazing options for our student athletes.

Some of the achievements that we're also very proud of, and again in the last calendar year, a couple months back the Boston Globe reached out to us and told us that we were ranked sixth in the state of Massachusetts for overall winning percentage. That's a really amazing achievement. And the reason I bring that up is because it's not to pat ourselves on the back. It's really to pat our students and our coaches on the back. To see who was above us, when you think about some of the resources available to those schools, the Bedfords, the Lexingtons, the Winchesters, To have Somerville ranked number six is a real credit to our student athletes and our coaches. It's amazing to see what they've been able to accomplish. Our students take athletics as important as their academics and their training year round, not just in season. and it's really a joy to watch. It truly is. The best part of my day is watching them play. It truly is. I'm sorry, if you wouldn't mind going back, I apologize. There's a few more points I just wanted to hit.

We've had an amazing relationship with Tufts University and every season now we have a Tufts University classic events. So the genesis was through basketball, for boys and girls basketball. We now every season have an alternating gender sport that we have over at Tufts University. It's an amazing thing for our community, both for Somerville and for Medford. And if you haven't gone to a match or a game, I highly recommend it. It's an amazing experience, it truly is. And then the next few bullet points are just to give you an idea of how hard our students are working. When you look at the sheer number of all-stars that we've had from our school in the Greater Boston League, it's just very impressive. All-Stars, MVPs, Coaches of the Year, and then at the end of the year we were awarded two Greater Boston League Scholar-Athlete Awards. It's a real credit to all the hard work of our students. We also have club sports at Somerville High School.

Also, an integral part of what we do and the offerings we have for our kids, cheerleading, ultimate frisbee and crew. The MIAA does not recognize these sports as a varsity sport. But essentially they are varsity sports. Our students are working just as hard and as committed and have a full schedule. You'll see a little later on in the presentation the sheer number of students we have rostered on these sports. It's a real amazing thing to see. And if you've ever been to some of the, in particular, I think about KU and being on the water on the Mystic in late March, it can be a little challenging from a weather standpoint. So it's pretty awesome to watch how dedicated they are. A snapshot of the championships that have been won by our teams over the last nine years or so. At one point, we were in the Northeast Conference.

and then we joined the Green Boston League in 2019 again with more similar, more like schools. It's a real credit to see how many championships our teams have won. This is also just to give you an overview of exactly what we offer from a sports standpoint for our fall sports. We break it down levels, freshman, JV, varsity sports, and then divisions of what the MIAA categorizes us. And the divisions are based on overall school enrollment. These are our participation numbers. And I think the important thing to see is the last box on the right-hand side where our all-time highs. 360 participants for fall sports. A real credit to how many kids have come out to play sports and how dedicated they are.

Our records, as I spoke to earlier, it's been an amazing year, but it's been a few years now. We've had a lot of athletic success, and you'll see via our records how well our teams have done. Same thing with winter sports, same format. The levels that we have to offer our students and then the divisions we'll run based on the MIAA. Same thing with the participation numbers. We're at an all-time high of 343 for last winter, which is again a real credit to how many students have come out to try out for our teams. Overall records, as you can see, some astonishing records by some of our sports teams have done an amazing thing to put themselves really in the middle of the MIA tournament.

It's really one of the big roles of our student athletes and our coaches is to get to the MIAA tournament. It's not an easy feat. A lot of our teams have gotten there, and it's an amazing experience to be part of that. particularly when the MIAA does their pairings and we're playing teams we in some cases have never played before. It's an amazing experience. And again, same thing with the spring sports, the levels we offer for each sport and then the divisions we're in. And again, you look at the lower right-hand box and the number of participants in our spring sports. And again, all-time records as far as the amount of kids who were participating in our sports teams. Not to be repetitive, but again, we have some wonderful records and a lot of success. This is a page that I really wanted to make sure I hit home as well.

It's the overall facility cost of what we're paying for use of our facilities. And I think that some of them are very clear what we're paying for to Somerville Recreation for our outdoor fields use. FMC runs the private organization that runs our rink and what they charge us. What our golf team is paying for their greens fees, and then what the DCR, which was the old MDC, is charging us to use Foss Park. So it just kind of gives you a nuts and bolts as far as what we're paying, and you can see some of the costs are expensive. And just to give you an idea of how unique Somerville is, Cambridge, which has a very similar situation, uses their fields as well, but they pay nothing for their fields. It's interesting that we have this interesting A situation where we're paying for our fields but surrounding cities are not paying. So as you can see, this is one of the reasons why our costs have gone up.

Same thing with transportation. As we increased over the years regarding roster numbers, our transportation costs have really gone up. You know, and transportation essentially covers our teams from the high school to away games and then from away games back to the high school. And essentially you can see some of the numbers and where it's gone over the last eight, nine years. I also want you to see the participation sports, excuse me, the club sports and the participation numbers we have for them. There was a spike in 2023. that really went up and it's kind of leveled off the last couple of years but some tremendous numbers on the club level to give you a sense of how many students are coming out to play for these teams. and our middle grade sports. I implore you to go out to a middle grade sports event. It's an amazing thing to witness.

There's almost a misconception about Somerville when people talk about urban and how hard it is to navigate sometimes and get around. If you've ever gone to a middle grades cross-country meet or a track meet, or anything else for that matter, it's amazing to see how the community rallies around their kids. It's actually pretty special. You'll find parents coming with food and other things. Parents will help the coaches time. It's really impressive to see exactly what is involved when you're building community. and as you can see the numbers have grown. We're very healthy in that regard and we have some great coaches and some wonderful families that have really come together and made it a very special situation for our kids. And this is obviously a very important page that I wanted to highlight as well. Our commitment to gender equity, which is really important.

and I just wanted to make sure I go through the bullet points so you understand that we're always looking at everything from an equity lens to make sure that we're doing everything in our power to make sure there's access and inclusivity for all of our students. So the first is the transportation that I talked about. Same company, same transportation for all of our students. Facilities and fields, same exact. Every student is having access to the same fields. The same facilities, the same locker rooms, everything. Practices in game scheduling, we do a great job at alternating our schedules to make sure that if one week the boys are early, The next week the girls are early, and we flip-flop that on a regular basis to make sure that obviously we're being equitable, but obviously we also want to make sure that our parents are planning their schedules accordingly as well. Our social media and publicity. If you follow Somerville Athletics, you'll know that we put everything

Under the Sun on our Instagram page to make sure everything from middle school grade athletics all the way through varsity, club sports, everything, we want to make sure everybody's getting equal coverage. It's really important. And the students really get a real kick out of seeing themselves. on social media. Conference and event opportunities. We want to make sure that our students are getting plenty of leadership opportunities throughout, whether it's MIA events, student forums, GBL summits, Those are all important. We choose different students, both genders, to make sure they're all getting an equal opportunity to go out and get leadership opportunities and those skills. uniform quality and rotation we want to make sure we obviously have one vendor or a few vendors that have the same uniforms for all of our kids But I also, and I'll talk about this in a few slides, I also wanted to make sure you also knew that every four years, our uniforms are on a four-year rotation, so every four years, every team is getting a brand new uniform. And then equipment and supplies, same exact thing.

We're getting the same vendors for our student athletes to make sure they're getting the best possible equipment and the best possible supplies. and just some initiatives that we've had in place that are really also very important to us. We have a captain's council that's really critical to our growth and to the growth of our student athletes. Each team has two representatives that they send. We meet once a month and we discuss everything from problems with the team, ways to make the team better, ways to give back from a community service standpoint. Leadership opportunities, all things that we hold near and dear to us to make sure we're helping our students grow. You know, they become advocates and kind of point people for their teams, which is a really big deal for them and for our programs. A few years ago we connected with Boston University. They have an amazing sports psychology program. Every year they give us two sports psychology interns.

That meets with all of our teams and has a growing number of student athletes who have gone and made it probably nice to see them. They do an amazing job at talking about goal setting and working through Shooting slumps or anything else that comes along their way. It's been an amazing resource for our kids and for our coaches. And a few things, again, that I mentioned earlier, the Greater Boston League Summit. We bring 20 students every year to meet with all the great Boston League students, student-athletes I should say, and talk about a variety of issues, whether it's life after high school, what it means to go to college, what it means to be a student-athlete, all wonderful topics. And then these are some of the MIA workshops we've covered over the last year or so. The Sportsmanship Summit, the Girls and Women in Sports Day, and then the Respect and Civility Youth Summit, what the MIA has every year. It's amazing events that our students get a lot from. I love it because they interact with other students from other high schools in Massachusetts.

And then just some additional information. This was important. I wanted to make sure you knew that we do not charge any SPS students who attend an athletic event. It's really important. We want to make sure our kids have access to going to games and having a good time. Having a student session in the game is amazing, actually. Again, a uniform rotation every four years for each of our varsity teams. SPS is not a pay-for-play athletic program. We do not charge our kids to play sports. We're very proud about that. We want to make sure all kids have access to that. It's really critical. And we have two full-time athletic trainers that service close to 600 athletes. And I say that to you because if you ever go down to the athletic training room, In season, it can be like a mass unit. It's a pretty long line waiting to get treatment, and our trainers are so great and so... Full of experience. You'll see everything from e-STEM service to ice to rehab to cupping. They do an amazing job at getting our students who are hurt back on the court, back on the field.

A wonderful collage of all of our teams. I hope I didn't go over. I apologize if I was a little too lengthy. Hopefully I was in my 10 minutes. Thank you. Any questions, please?

Go Highlanders. Thank you so much. Of course. To my colleagues, are there questions? Member Green?

So, thank you as always. Of course. And I want to thank you for that first slide where you laid out a vision for Cerro Velazquez because it's something I feel we've struggled with articulating as a district. Other than a general offense that sports are good, why are we investing in athletic programs? I really appreciate that attempt to move that ball forward. What it still raises for me is how do we know if we're doing a good job? We're mentioning this as our athletic program by championships and records because that doesn't feel like our intent and not what we talk about our athletic program. But if that's the only measure we have of whether or not our athletic program is serving students well, that feels inadequate. But if we have more, how do we know that our students are benefiting from it?

Sure, it's a great question. I'm glad you brought that up. It's not just about wins and losses. That's an equation, part of the equation, I should say. I think one of the things we've done, we've been very intentional about the last couple of years is making sure we're getting student feedback about coaches. It's critical. We really value and put a lot of intentionality into evaluating our coaches, making sure we have the right coaches. It's really important. We do that at the end of each season. We have our students meet. We work together as a group and we via QR code and anonymously we have our students rate our coaches. It's really important. Beyond that I try to do a very comprehensive evaluation of all of our coaches whether it's going to practice, going to games, Finding out what's happening on the road, making sure that our students are having, in the end, Our goal through everything else that we do is to make sure that this is a rich experience for our kids. It's critical.

and that we're being inclusive and that we're being intentional with what we do to make sure they feel like they're a big part of it. Things like the Captain's Council, these leadership opportunities, making sure our students have a voice. Just to give you one more quick piece. Every year we have a training for our coaches and our students with an organization called Positive Coaching Alliance. We've done it for a few years now. Our annual one is tomorrow. For the first time, we're including parents in that. I want to make sure our parents have a voice. It's really important. They're part of our community. They're a big part of what we're doing here. So I want to make sure that everybody has a voice. and we're all at the table together. It's really critical. So just to give you a couple of pieces.

So obviously it would be wildly inappropriate for you to tell us how our coaches are doing on these things, but I would be curious to know what other questions you're asking about when you're asking, when you're evaluating our coaches, like what are we measuring them on?

Sure, sure. What I can do to make it easier for you, if you email me, I can send you a template of exactly what we're asking. It's consistent across the board.

Thank you. Mayor Wilson and then Member Lippens.

Thanks, Chair. Three to the Athletic Director. I appreciate you mentioned the Positive Coaching Alliance and the event coming up. Positive Coaching Alliance also offers a specific parent workshop. I know we put that on a number of years back with Somerville Youth Soccer. Any thought to offering that parent workshop to just the wider parent community here? You could probably fill the auditorium with that. I ask because I attended that and it changed how I treated my kids after games. And I think... I think the student athletes would really benefit from their parents going to that. Spoiler alert, two things you say to your kid after a game, I loved watching you play, and did you have fun? And that's it.

I couldn't agree with that last sentiment, absolutely. We're on the same page. Tomorrow's training is really a springboard to this. We haven't included parents to this level. So I think tomorrow was really kind of a litmus test as far as Thank you very much.

Thank you, Member Lippens, then Member Eldridge, and then President Davis. Thank you, through you.

Hi, thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate it. and it's so wonderful to see it all in one place like all the offerings. I have a question about the middle grades. As a mom of a middle school student, I'm just wondering about Winter especially when it's really hard to get outside and I noticed that there's basketball which is great actually I have a participant in that and I'm wondering if there's thoughts on increasing offerings and if not like are there what are some limitations that You've noticed. Thank you.

That's a great question. So we typically, the league kind of votes as a league as far as what makes sense as far as adding sports. I think one of the limitations we all have is a lack of facilities. That's the issue. Winter is really hard. I can tell you that, for example, our high school gymnasium over the winter is booked from 2.45 until almost 10 o'clock at night. and that's from all the sports teams that are there so and and that that same challenge is across the board for all schools so we we have middle school basketball we have spoken about What else makes sense to add? We've talked about volleyball on a middle grade levels. So we've talked about these things. I think it's a matter of trying to figure out facilities and how that works.

Thank you. Member Eldridge, and then President Davis, and then Member Biton, and back to me.

I appreciate the presentation. Of course. This is really great stuff and it's so nice to see it all. Like Member Lippens had said, all in one spot. My question actually is a constituent related question. and I'm sure read it verbatim as it says it says how does the athletic department how is the athletic department thinking about inclusion for students with disabilities

Sure, that's a great question. So a few years ago, and I'm glad you brought this up, we brought on board unified sports to Somerville High School. We started with basketball and now have moved on to track last year, and it's been an amazing addition to our program. I think one of the things we're really very proud of as far as our time together, myself and our staff, and our coaches is making sure that we are inclusive of anybody who wants to get involved with sports. And I think there are sports from a health and safety standpoint that are sports that are It's really important to make sure that our students are fully prepared to play that sport, whether it's hockey, football, whatever it is. A lot of offerings at Somerville High School. And we've had students with various disabilities play sports throughout whether it's track. And we also have sports that are traditionally non-cut sports. It's very inclusive.

So we've done a lot in the way of access, inclusivity, locker room access, making sure that all students feel like they are both taken care of and heard. So from a unified sports standpoint, from a wide array of offerings that we have. In my time at Somerville High School, we've never turned anybody away. we've had students with severe physical disabilities that have been part of the team from a manager standpoint you know our goal is to make sure our students are involved in any way shape or form you know so we we pride ourselves on making sure that that's the case if there's a particular constituent that would like to speak with me please give her my number and i would gladly meet with her and talk about what exactly her child has as far as you know limitations and what we can do to place that child in a sport is it a younger child or high school

There's a follow-up question asking how coaches and programs are supporting and fostering inclusive culture among all participants at a younger age, I guess is also a part of it.

Sure. I think one of the things I talked about is one of the things we are really excited about is the PCA training. They do a lot in a way of making sure that our coaches are fully prepared to be inclusive and to be welcoming and to be ready for Any student that needs support, you know, so the PCA training has done an amazing job the last couple years. We do additional other trainings, whether it's through Greater Boston League or the MIAA. It's continuous, you know. There's a variety of organizations that do a really good job at webinars that our coaches are regularly taking as well. So there's constant training happening for our coaches. And again, if this parent wants to talk to me, I'll gladly talk to her about options sheet that we have. Thank you so much.

President Davis, Member Biton, and then Member Green.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director Vera. I appreciate the presentation. I appreciate the work that you and all your staff do. As you know, I'm a big fan of kids participating in sports at all levels. I think it's an unbelievable experience and incredibly important and one that... I guess I should say it goes overlooked. I think in a lot of communities it doesn't, but it's easy to overlook. We'll put it that way. And I appreciate the question on sort of how we measure the success there. And I agree that certainly the win-loss records are certainly not the top way one would do that. It's relevant. Winning's fun. And it encourages more people to pay attention sometimes and then maybe sign up the next year. So that's good. I appreciate, I think, another way to measure that is participation, as you noted. And a lot of the numbers here seem to trend higher in a lot of these sports, so that's great.

So that's all just the praise. A couple specific questions, though. My colleague mentioned the middle school sports issue. I won't repeat that, although that expressed my shared interest in I think it'll help those, you know, the participation levels at the older ages as you start the kids, get them into the program. And related to that, so you know, there's If you look through these numbers, for the most part, there are significant differences in the participation, especially where there are the same sports between boys' participation and girls' participation. fully understand there's a myriad of reasons that that is the case. So two questions, generally, Generally applicable, could you just talk about what you all are doing to try and encourage... I want to say to bring those numbers to a level. We're away from that, hopefully someday.

But what efforts you've put in to try to get more girls involved in sports and offering those possibilities. I want to talk about girls hockey because there's one number that stands out in this list and that's girls hockey and in my opinion collectively we all there's no excuse that we all have three girls playing high school hockey and they're not even playing for Somerville technically they are but they're wearing Medford jerseys and I totally understand why that's necessary right now the co-op option in MIA is great and it gives more kids opportunity to participate and thrilled that y'all are making that that available but Thank you for watching! and I know there's also a lot of reasons why that number is what it is at the high school level that have nothing to do with the high school sports department, right?

We have heard at the city council level from a number of constituents who are interested in building girls hockey in the city and looking at other ways that we can do that from the youth level. Potentially middle school program that we're looking to I know in the past there's been some sort of a middle school boys hockey program. I don't know if it was an So, long question, but can you just talk about, as I said, generally, the extent to which you have specific efforts to encourage more girls to participate in sports, and then Have you had any conversations about girls hockey? What can we do? How can I help to make that number different than what it is now?

Of course. I can tell you that we have your first question regarding more girls participating in sports here in the city. We've had a really wonderful relationship with Stonewall Recreation. And I think from a youth level, I agree, I think more needs to get done. We've talked about this for a few years now. We have this captive audience of high school and middle grade students, right, six to eight. We have not done enough in the third, fourth, fifth grade levels to really get students to really understand what athletics is all about. Particularly with the changing demographic in the city of Somerville, we have a lot of new parents coming in and they're not fully aware of the offerings. We've worked hard with Sound Recreation to put on clinics and camps and things to introduce that. There's also Intimurals that helps kids kind of participate on a more less competitive level, you know? I shouldn't say that. I feel like everything's competitive these days, but I think you know what I'm saying.

So we've done a really good job there at trying to work with them and partnering with them to get more students out free of charge to come out and participate. whether it's sports that are fairly new to Somerville like lacrosse and other things like that. Your second question is a wonderful one. I've had several meetings regarding girls ice hockey. and it's been an interesting set of meetings. I think that since I've been in Somerville, since it's not my seventh year, I feel like any student, any girls hockey player, who's come up as somebody who's played from a very young age. I feel like everybody that I've known from a parent standpoint has sent their children to a private school, right? And I get it, I understand it. I think one of the things we've talked about via these meetings is what have we done from a grassroots level to get girls excited about Isaki. It comes with a cost.

We understand some of those costs. But what are we doing to get them excited so they feel like I really want to be part of this sport? you know you can't jump in to play girls ice hockey or any sport for that matter at the high school level it's very difficult you know and it's not a sport that you can just jump into right So, and we also have a really good relationship with Brenton Stewart, who runs Somerville Youth Hockey, talking about what can we do to put on either free clinics for learn to skate, interest in girls' ice hockey. Our coaches have helped out. I can't look at you today, Lance, and tell you I have all the answers of how I'm going to get 30 girls to play. I wish I did, because I feel like it's such a historic sport. It's so much history behind it, and we would be very excited to have a growth team. We really would. And it's been frustrating to see the lack of results or the lack of numbers.

and I know your your child played and I know was a wonderful player when we had a relationship with Cambridge and now at Medford I thought maybe those numbers would spike and it really hasn't you know so We'll continue to work and do those meetings and work with Somerville Recreation. Somerville Recreation did a floor hockey, street hockey type of foundational, you know, and they had some some turnout you know not as much as I thought they would so we'll continue to work on those things to see if we can hopefully increase those numbers.

Quick follow-up on that. And I still thank you for that.

Emphasis on quick? Emphasis on quick follow-up?

Quick follow-up, yep. I coached the girls, some of whom are summer hosts, some of those three in a fall team. It's not paid, so there's no financial interest. So, you talked about opportunity, though. Getting a second ice rink back up would, I'm sure, help. So, please ask for anything we can do to help that.

Absolutely. Thank you. I have Member Biton and then Member Green.

Thank you chair through you and just a side point on that with the success of the U.S. women's team in the Olympics I expect we'll see some sort of renewed interest maybe in the younger grades and we'll see the pipeline increase over the years. Fingers crossed. Through you, Chair, to Director Vieira, congratulations. The program is clearly moving in an incredible direction. I think the growth in the numbers of students participating Thank you. And I think that doesn't just happen by itself. It happens through investment. It happens through cultivation and care. And the students understand that this is a place where they can grow, succeed, and invest in themselves. So just first off, congratulations. I also see sports as an important way for developing student leadership and student resolve in their own capabilities.

I was never good at sports, so I learned that vicariously. Given the importance of athletics for our students, I'm curious to know more about the demographics of students participating in the program. and what areas there may be where those demographics don't match the overall demographics of our school community and If you have any ideas where there may be gaps, what help we can provide to help close those gaps.

I regretfully didn't bring data to give you exact numbers. I think we have a really amazing, vast, diverse population in our student athlete groups. It's amazing to watch. I think one of the things that I marvel about our kids is how welcoming they are of each other. because we have students from all walks of life. It's amazing to watch where they've come from, whether they're new to Somerville, whether they're living in West Somerville, East Somerville, whether they're brand new or only been here for a couple of years. I think one of the things you'll see from our coaches and our student athletes is how welcoming they are from an environment standpoint. They really do an amazing job at making our students feel, each other feel very welcomed and a part of something.

I think it's one of the things our coaches do a wonderful job at is not just X's and O's but sitting down with students before the season and getting to know the students individually but also talking to them about what are your goals for this year. What are you looking to accomplish? Not just as a team, but as individuals. And I think it speaks to some of the bonding exercises that our coaches do with our students to get to know them as people. You know, when I was a student athlete, I deep myself back in the 80s, it was very different in this way. Most coaches, through no fault of their own, motivated in more of a group setting. We can do it, and that's not today's student athlete. You have to really recognize each student athlete and what they need. There are student athletes that need pats on the back. There are student athletes that need more support. and our coaches do a really good job at that. We try to make sure by starting something like Captain's Council, we try to make sure that our student athletes

are really represented and their voices are being heard as far as what are some of the issues, what are some of the complaints, where are some of the areas that we can grow as a department and as a program. So their voices are really truly heard by us because it's important to us to make sure they are having not just a good experience but a great experience.

Quick follow-up?

Very quick. If you could follow up with the statistics that you mentioned, that would be fantastic. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.

Member Green?

Thank you three. Again, one of the reasons I love the cycling through is because my last question both built on my first question and synthesizes some of the things we've heard. As you can tell, we are, as a body, and I think as a community this way, paying attention to issues of access for all of our students. And we've touched on some of the needs to reduce barriers, which as you pointed out yourself, can't start in high school. So it's how we're using access to younger grades to build meaningful pathways for participation at high school level. And when we say participation, I want to be clear that we mean meaningful participation. We all know of the stereotype of the student who may be on the team but never sees playtime or never sees meaningful practice. So how are we actually making sure that Students have a meaningful choice.

And again, I think that comes back to building a system down through the lines. and that we are reflective of choice which is why I want to make sure that it may be that for some of our sports that may not represent the full diversity of our community that is because of barriers and when that is the case that we should we should reduce those barriers and it may be at times that we're we aren't providing the options that meet cultural or personal choice and we should respect that and make sure that we are meeting those choices we're not trying to force existing choices onto those students. And so I also want to see those demographics, but I also want us to take this moment to build on this, to think about what does it really mean to build a Kate's Health Athletic System that means that we are addressing barriers at the root level so any child who starts kindergarten next year who may dream of being

Playing, going to college on a hockey scholarship, can start a dream in kindergarten, not until high school where it's too late because their parents can't afford it, for example.

Yeah, no, 100%. And just one more thing just to finish off. I also wanted to point out that I think one of the things we really pride ourselves on doing as well is connecting with the other youth groups in the city. For example, Somerville Youth Soccer, Little League, Babe Ruth, the travel basketball youth groups, we invite those organizations to our games and we'll have Somerville Youth Soccer Day, or whatever it is, we have a really amazing relationship with the directors of those individual youth programs. So they'll come to our schools. I think it's an important piece, not to answer all of what you said, but I think it's an important piece for our students, our young students, to kind of see what they may aspire to do. Athletically when they get up and it's really kind of a fun thing that I've heard them say as they're sitting in the stands I can't wait to wear number 10 or I can't wait to play third base

it's really amazing you know and to have those parents there I think you're only as good as your community that's really something I've always lived by and I feel like we have A really strong community here in Somerville. A community that rallies behind each other and supports each other. And I'm proud to be here, and like I said, I don't have all the answers to all of your questions today. I'll get them. I'll make sure of it, but we'll continue to strive to make this a model program in the state of Massachusetts. That's our goal.

Thank you, Mayor Wilson, and then Member Pitone, and then, yep, all right, go ahead.

Thanks, Chair. Just one thing that popped into my head before I asked the question, just on that point that was just brought up. A thing that I don't see here as much as I remember growing up in the community I grew up in is younger kids going to the high school athletic events. And I'd love to see a way to get those schedules out to elementary schools. and really encourage the younger kids to come watch those games. It adds to the atmosphere. To Member Green's point, I think it can help with that pipeline and help plant that seed in kids' heads. When you talk to your coaches, what do they tell you that would really help them bring their program forward?

That's a great question, Mayor Wilson. I would say, I think probably one of the biggest things that our coaches consistently talk about is just more access to facilities. We're limited in that it's not unlike a suburban school. The fields are not behind our high school. So there's limited access. And I get it. It's all mapped out and scheduled. So if the teams are practicing from 3 to 6, there's somebody at 5.59 waiting to get on that field. So I think access to fields, more access, is probably the number one thing that comes back on a regular basis. I think we do a good job at making sure that our students have everything they need from a uniform and equipment standpoint. I think our coaches are very happy about what we're giving our kids. It's really the field access and the opportunity to get more time. There's never enough time to practice and get enough, particularly on the weekends.

It's very, very hard.

Thank you. Member Pitone?

Thank you for your patience with my remote participation. Can you hear me?

We can. Fire away.

Great. Thank you for the presentation. And I had a question specifically, and I don't know if this goes to the athletic director or to the superintendent. I'm just curious about the intramural sports program. that I think used to, and I could be wrong, fall under the athletic department. Now it seems to be run under REC. I'm just curious about why and kind of, you know, obviously the thing, not obviously, but in my experience, the intramural program, that's where the schools play each other. They don't interscholastic play other communities. it's very very accessible it really builds school spirit and it can really be a particular pipeline we had an example where I really think we didn't have a particular high level of and so on. And then we had interest in volleyball at one point in time and that became an intramural sport. And now we have a JV and a varsity program for at least The young women.

So I'm just really curious about how that plays into the whole sports strategy. Why is it not viewed into this whole umbrella of athletics? and how we as a school committee do we have access to the information in terms of who participates and or should we because it now doesn't fall within school purview.

I want to tell you, Laura, that it's been under the direction of some recreation for some years now. And I believe the reasoning was that from a staffing standpoint, they had a much bigger staff. and access to the schools from a facility standpoint. And we at that time were just starting middle school, middle grades athletics. So I think it just worked out that way that they felt like It was something that they would prefer to handle because of their sheer staff that they have in place. I feel like I'm going on just what I've seen and what I've observed. I've gone to plenty of I feel like they've done a nice job at organizing that and making sure that our teachers are the first in line to be coaches for intramural sports. And there's been some amazing numbers, particularly with soccer. Intramural soccer has been Amazing from a participation standpoint. So again, it's been under their leadership for quite a few years now.

I think almost the whole time I've been here. And again, where we are overseeing both varsity at the high school and middle grade sports, it has worked and has made sense. Is there anything that you've seen from your end that you have not been happy with or are concerned about? Thank you.

Just to follow up, no, this is not a critique or a criticism. It was a question. And I guess as we're looking at our overall vision of high participation and pipelines to kids getting access to high school, I would imagine in some worlds it might benefit to be all be looked at at one from one vision and have one direction, one set of leadership. to support the kids, to know the kids and have them through line through all of our programming. So again, it wasn't a criticism, it was a question, but I would, as a school committee person, I think it's valuable to understand that kind of participation the equity all the things that you have a vision around how that applies to this programming but if it's not under the school's purview you know I you know whether or not we can get a memo or something from the city but I'm curious because again I think it's one of the most accessible ways for students to participate in sports particularly from my understanding there's a lot of beginners that get into these programs I couldn't agree more

Thank you.

So that's why my question was somewhat to the superintendent as well.

Mayor Wilson?

Chair, happy to answer. I know we're supposed to be talking about this, but happy to follow up with Member Pitone about this as an intramural coach myself. I know that program all too well.

Thank you. Superintendent, yeah.

In regards to these, No, I just thank you for the question. I am just concerned. We have three Q presentations that are, and the presentation by our design team and The architect team is going to be a little bit lengthy, so if I can join on the response electronically, I will do that. With that, if I may, I'd like to thank Director Vieira for the extensive report as well as the efforts. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you very much. And with that, I'm going to bring to our... Building Leaders for the next part of the conversation. Every year we engage in a conversation about its trends and areas of growth, and that becomes our school improvement plan. and every building in collaboration with faculties in the district discuss ways to address the gaps that we see and the strengths of the community.

So with that I'm going to have Principal Pelletier to come and share The strategies, the challenges that they're facing and how they are addressing ways to accelerate the growth for the students of the West. So welcome, Principal Pelletier.

Thank you very much. I wanted to start by saying so that was a really important discussion about athletics. One of the metrics for success that maybe we should consider is that my fourth grader comes home from basketball practice every and one of his teammates is the younger brother of the point guard on the basketball team and he says everybody's got to go to the game we've got a game on Tuesday night and so we went to five or six home games this season so I think that's a success. and half of the team did too so we had a bunch of fourth grade boys running around the gym probably running upstairs which I shouldn't say but But it was great. All right. So we're here to give a little update on our school improvement plan for West. We can go ahead and move forward, Erica. Thank you so much.

This is how we presented the plan last year as a puzzle and I wanted to start here because it's a really important reminder and point to reiterate that When we designed this plan we were very intentional about choosing goals that were relevant for everybody in our building that everybody could be working on so they weren't just tied to one content area or one It was really intentional that the goals all do work to support each other. And we'll talk through that a little bit as we go. So I wanted to remind people of that. Next slide, please. Thank you very much. Our academic excellence goal was focused on discourse, student discourse in their learning experiences.

and I chose to put a few images up here because I think one of the things that we noticed as we were really focusing on this is that As we focused on upping and lifting both the consistency and the depth of the opportunities that students had to engage in discourse in the classroom, Thank you for watching! and I think the reason I wanted to point out all of the different things that we have here on the screen we've got pre-k doing some center work we've got a small group happening in the hallway being pulled out of a sixth grade classroom we've got A second grade whole group lesson, but you can see that the kids are turned to each other because they've got pairs that they're discussing what's up on the board.

And we got our mock Supreme Court happening in eighth grade. All of those are different versions of kids really engaging in the thing and talking about the thing together. And I think that it's important to point out that all of that is happening at a time in our building and all the buildings across the district where we're digesting new curricula across ELA and math and so teachers are immersing themselves and getting more familiar and more comfortable with The big things that kids should be chewing on within that content. And as we were focused on giving kids opportunities to engage in discourse, what we realized is that The more we got kids doing the work and the clearer teachers are getting on what the big ideas are within the curriculum,

The more engaged kids are in the work and the better engaged they are the deeper their conversations can be and it becomes a little circle of just deeper, more intimate, more relevant learning. One of the things I'm going to talk about in the next slide is how that's impacting teachers' ability to listen and observe and take away both Thank you for watching! the next slide which is up here right now is some data that's collected from the walkthroughs the informal kind of classroom observations that Kim and I have done, we hit 400 today, so 400 classrooms visited this year. And this is data around the specific elements of discourse that we are trying to pay attention to. The takeaways for me are that we're seeing an uptick in the consistency and opportunities for discourse.

We're also seeing opportunities for Especially in all the new curricula that we're getting used to as teachers, opportunities to break up the curriculum with opportunities for discourse. I've laid this out a little bit so that I sort of see it as getting kids to engage in the discourse is like the first layer. Getting it to be deep and requiring evidence is kind of like a second layer. Getting kids to build on each other's thinking is the third layer and I think we're really primed to dig deeper and push on how are we getting that stuff to be a little bit deeper, those experiences to be deeper for kids. We can move on. Thank you. I wanted to connect it a little bit. Our goal is really about the practice that's happening in the classroom, but we wanted to tie it obviously to some data and some achievement.

We were noted last year by DESE as really needing improvement in terms of the lack of growth in our population of students who identify as Latinx. and so I wanted to try to paint a picture of how I think this like focus on deeper engagement and deeper discourse in all the learning experiences is starting to impact our year-to-year achievement so this is our numbers and our data for Both are population of students who identify as Latinx and are overall in terms of their I-Ready ELA growth both this last winter, so 24-25, you can see that the numbers, you can see what they are. But for both the smaller group of Latinx students that we have in our school and for all students, we've seen a significant increase in the growth this year in the ELA.

and then I wanted to include the subcategory of the comprehension within the reading that i-Ready assesses because I think If we're talking about discourse and deep engagement in things and really articulating making sense of things comprehension makes sense to be kind of a proxy for that and you can see that the the growth curve for Both groups this year, both overall students and the students who identify as Latinx, is steeper than it has been in the past. Some indicators, some leading indicators about the work that we're doing and how it's impacting that specific measure. In terms of that academic goal, the lessons that we're learning are that we do have a lot of really impactful, powerful practices happening in classrooms in the building. One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to get into all the classrooms and see all of the things.

and so one of the things we're working on right now is building more of a culture of helping teachers get into each other's classrooms to see different practices and so We actually just started a Google survey where people could fill out, I want to go see so-and-so's classroom because I want to see how foundations, for example, is being practiced in second grade because it's new in my third grade classroom and I want to see how it's landing. and we launched that like opportunity we're going to figure out how to cover that internally but we launched that right before February vacation we've already had 3 people sign up and take advantage of it and they are really specifically tied to pieces of the new curriculum that they're struggling with and they want to see how other people in the building are navigating it. We're sort of identifying really impactful practices in the building and wanting to spread them. And then the other big lesson that we're taking away from it is the deeper and more

and more engaged kids are in the learning and in the discourse in learning experiences, the more teachers are able to listen to that, pay attention to that so that they can identify specific One important thing that I can go back for a second, sorry Erica. An important question that I think comes out of this that I noticed when I was trying to balance this with some of the feedback from our conditions for learning survey is that I think our teachers are becoming more and more comfortable with the new curricula as I mentioned and so they're understanding how to deliver that in ways that deepen things for kids. At least that is the perception from the adults. So this little snippet from the conditions for learning talks about how students are feeling about how engaging their learning experience is and how Adults in the building are feeling about it and there's quite a big disconnect. So I think it's an important question for us to ask.

How do we define engagement and why is it feeling like adults feel like things are really engaging and kids, you know, It's not bad, but it's different. So there's a gap there. We want to address that. Thank you. Our equity and access goal is around students feeling connected to adults in the building. Some of the comments that that came up in public comment were about size of school and how that can really play a factor in adults knowing all the kids in the building. I think our building is a really great size for that to happen it's a huge goal of ours to have every kid have connections in the building that they feel comfortable about and trust We've had work that's established before the school improvement plan. We do a seeing all students process at the beginning of the year where we think about the kids that I think they have connections with.

We did a lot of work last year as part of our school improvement plan to build a hearing all students process that we followed last school year to survey kids to find out who they were connecting with and who they were not connecting with. One of the things that we found from that was that it is possible to do a little too much The bang for our buck in terms of what we learned from that three times a year survey wasn't what we thought it would be. and the feedback that we got from staff was that what's actually missing is we have meetings at the beginning of the year where kindergarten meets with first grade, first grade meets with second grade to sort of talk through, here are the kids that are coming to you, here's what we think would be helpful for you to know. They said it would be really helpful to revisit those conversations. so having the adult connections multiple times over the course of the year to say I've had these kids for a month and here are some new questions that are coming up so we've built those

Transition meeting follow-ups into our PD schedule as a way to enhance the kid to adult connections. And I put Big Brothers Big Sisters on here. It doesn't directly connect to our goal of our staff knowing the kids, but we established a partnership with them last year. We're able to make seven matches by the end of the year. I think we started midway through the year. This year we're already up to 22. We matched 21 and 22 today to a fifth grader and a sixth grader who are new to our school that we're pumped to meet their Big Brothers from Tufts. And it just sets a vibe of another connection in the building that helps kids feel good about coming to school. I talked about how all the elements of our school improvement plan, the goal is for them to connect to each other. And so the next goal, which we'll get to in a second, is about kids feeling joy in school. And I think all these things kind of like build a foundation for that. But we can move on. I think I talked too long about this slide.

This is the raw data from that question that we're basing this goal on. There's an adult in my school that I feel comfortable with. There's slight improvement from 2004-2005 in terms of that goal, but I think what's more telling about this data is if you kind of break it down by grade as kids get older, Their sense of connection with the adults seems to wane a little bit. And so that raises some questions for us. If we scoot forward, Erica, please. Part of it, I think there are many factors that go into this. We have four out of the five of our seventh and eighth grade team are new in the last two years, and so it takes a while to build relationships with kids, so that's an element of it. but the question has come up about you know being a pre-k to eight school the adults who connect with kids earlier in their school experience

have that and we can lean back on it as they get older but the adults who are going to connect with the kids later in their school experience don't have those built-in connections so we're thinking about ways to establish connections with the teachers who they won't actually I think the best way to find out about that is to engage kids in learning about And our next goal is our... Wellness and Joy. So this goal was all about kids feeling joy coming to school. So we've done a ton of work in the last 18 months thinking about the experiences that kids are having in school as a community. So we have all floor assemblies that happen every month.

Sorry, last year they were every month, but just like it's possible to do too much in terms of surveying kids, it's also possible to Stretch Yourself Too Thin and try to bring all the kids together once a month. But we also are thinking about not just having opportunities for communities to come together, but the role that kids are playing in that. Our theory of action here with the joy is that the more we can get kids into leadership experiences and to places and spaces where they are sharing their voice and they are in charge of showing their work that produces pride in school and which produces engagement in school which makes school more fun for everybody so The things that are on here are student council. We hadn't had student council going for a number of years and we reignited it this year and that's been a really interesting process. They're learning a lot through it. but one of the best things about the student council this year is they're really excited to pass along the torch to the kids for next year.

So one of their big goals this year actually was to set things up for the fall for next year's student council. So they're gonna run elections this spring, they're gonna lead all of that and kind of set the stage. They think it's a really important practice for us to move forward with. Our all-floor assemblies we shifted this year to be once a quarter and they are led by students. So each iteration of them, we have three of them each year. once each month so pre-k to two is an assembly three to five is an assembly and six to eight is an assembly and so grade level teams take turns leading those and the kids are the ones kind of presenting their work or planning what those are It's another way for kids to get out in front of each other. We've started a more robust and consistent Westy Besty program where younger kids are connecting with older kids and we set it up so that the connections will last for a number of years. So for example, If it's a, remind me, Liz, what are the connection? Pre-K and 4th grade.

Pre-K and 4th grade, so they will still be buddies in 1st grade and 5th grade, and they will still be buddies in 2nd grade and 6th grade, and they, so... We set it up intentionally to build those connections and to foster them over time and those happen once a month. We've got them on the school calendar. Our school-wide events just have been just a little different this year. There's been more child engagement and then there's been more kids. So for example, at our concert, this is like a little thing, but I think it The kids were there with the families. So like all of the pre-k to kids, Pre-K to 3 students were in the gym watching the concert which just sets a different tone and a different sense of pride. And it also gets more families to come in because when kids are excited and jazzed about things, The families are more likely to come in. We can move on. I keep forgetting that there's more slides.

And I think this shows up in all of our data. So happy kids. We are second in the district in terms of our Our lowest chronic absence rate and some of that has to do with some processes and protocols and structures that we've put in place for supporting attendance but a lot of it I think is down to kids enjoying coming to school. and then there has been a you know not a rocket ship increase but an increase in terms of the the student responses I'm eager to see what those look like this year after engaging in a few more of those opportunities The children are our future, so the more we can give them space to be the ones out in front and showing their work, I think that's going to make all the difference.

This did get me thinking as I've been meeting with the student council members to kind of work with them on a few projects and also learn about their goals for the rest of the year. I feel like there are real strong implications here for kids feeling comfortable in school which can also lead to us getting better feedback from kids and more authentic feedback from kids and I think there's implications for Teachers getting feedback from kids about their teaching, not just about their school experience but about their teaching, setting up that dynamic. And then the fourth goal is around family and community engagement. Our goal was around the question in our conditions for learning about do families feel like the school and the teachers understand their family and their needs and know how to like leverage those or think about those in terms of supporting their kids.

and I chose to put a couple of examples of you know things that we are trying to think about or things that we're trying to do to to learn more about this I don't think we have a clear direction in terms of how to make this We're thinking a lot about How we communicate with families. We're doing some inventory about different ways that different grades are communicating and trying to figure out is there a more streamlined expectation for families from K I'm also trying to gather feedback from anytime that families are coming into the building and so far I've really only dabbled in like electronic surveys which I realize is is very narrow but trying to use those not just as opportunities to get feedback about the events but to get

Some input about like what are the questions that you have for us as a school? What are the things that we can provide that we're not providing? And then again, I talked a little bit about this in the joy part. I think the more we can lean into events that kids are excited about the more we will get families connected to our school community so again thinking about kids being Thank you for watching! Some increases or slight increase in positive responses around that family, around that question from families. I also... I thought it would be interesting and important to look at that communication piece, like our families feeling like they're getting communication from teachers and staff in a timely manner and a consistent manner.

and I think what's more apparent out of this data is yes there's a little bit of an upward trend but the the bigger thing is about the question that looms around that disconnect like families feeling like Well, you can see, especially in the 2025 graph for the understanding families' needs and strengths, the staff feels very strongly that we're doing a really good job of that. and families feel strongly that we're doing a good job but not to the same degree so I think it's another question of like what does that mean and how do we bridge that gap a little bit and the lessons I mentioned them a little bit already. Next steps, more consistent communication, figuring out how do we do that. One of the things we've tried to do started with our leadership team is increase positive outreach to families so I try to you know once or twice or three times a week make positive phone calls to families just to talk about things that we've seen in classrooms I think that's

We have talked a little bit about what it could look like to redesign some of the things like Back to School Night and Family Teacher Conferences so that they're more framed by what families are curious about and what families need as opposed to us delivering information to families that we think is important. and we've started to do some family focus groups. We've started to reach out to families. Right now we've started to reach out to families of those students who identify as Latinx to try to learn a little bit more about Is there a difference or how are they feeling about their connection to school? But I think we'll expand that to think about just families in general as well. and like I said I think I've already mentioned a couple of the questions that have come up so again trying to frame this with curiosity because there's a lot to figure out but that is our family and community engagement goal

and once again just a reminder that it's really important to us that all these things support each other and connect to each other and so they are And that's our update. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Wilson and then Member Lippens.

Thank you, Chair. Through you, I appreciate the piece about sort of rethinking back to school life, especially the parent-teacher conferences. When I talk to educators about parent-teacher conferences, the thing I hear over and over is it tends to be the parents who show up that they least feel like they need to talk to? Is that part of the rethink? How do we get the parents, how do we get them connected with the parents who they feel like they could really do with a conversation with?

I don't know if that's necessarily the question that we're asking. I know that Leanne is here, our family liaison. She does a fantastic job trying to set up those conferences for families that we really want to come in. We're super flexible in terms of finding other ways to connect with families. I think honestly the way I think about it is sometimes like The stuff that we talk about at conferences just aren't the things that are really on the top or at the front of families' minds. So I think I look at it as like we have this... for lack of a better way to phrase it like outdated model of like when you come to a conference you get a little bit of information I tell you how your kid is doing and it's a quick ten minute thing

I think it could be different and so I think framing it with what are the questions that parents have for us just changes the dynamic a little bit so that's kind of the the biggest piece that I think is worth exploring is like how do we ask questions of families before We start that process and I think it starts with the back to school night. This is just like a pipe dream, but like at one of the schools I used to work at, we revamped the back to school night to be like a workshop model where all the staff in the building Delivered workshops about different content areas so it'd be like reading aloud with your kids if they're you know between five and seven and so a literacy coach and a kindergarten teacher say would give a little 25 minute like here are some things you can do at home reading aloud with your kids and but we got the ideas from surveys that we did with families about like questions they had about how to support their kids at home so it led with What are the things you are curious about or you are confused about that we can help with? And then that's what brought the buy-in and the energy.

that's what I think about I don't think about like how do we get all the parents in that's not necessarily the question on my mind it's like what are they what's on their mind because if it's not you know the i-ready reading scores then we should we should know

Thank you. Member Lippens. Thank you. I'm always so impressed with how much work goes into this. I just did it today. I love it. But I know you didn't do all that data today. And so my question for you is I know hearing from your students is so very valuable. I'm wondering what questions might come up if you disaggregate it based on like reporting groups like demographics and what what that might tell us about your students and how they Identify, and what changes you might make. So I don't know if you're able to do that, if you've already done that.

We are able to do it. One of the tricky things about the conditions for learning survey is like not all of our kids took it and I'm not really sure why like I wish they all did but I think one of the things I want to make sure is that we're look when we're looking at that data especially if we're Starting to try to disaggregate it out based on different backgrounds or cultures or needs that we've got a decent sampling of the kids. Does that make sense? but I think it's super important I think going back to the idea that like we are a small enough school where we do know everybody I would lean really hard on Leanne again and thinking about like How do we leverage the tight community that we have to try to get some of that data? I also think that, I'll be honest with you, I think that leaning into the student leadership, I think they can help us

Thank you for joining us. Thank you.

Member Eldridge?

Through the chair, thank you for the presentation. It was fantastic. I'm wondering if you could provide a little bit more information on DIBELS and iReady placement scores I see the growth and that's so fantastic but to get a really clear picture of what's going on it would be really helpful to understand the devils and then also

I don't know if that's readily available I mean I don't have it here but I can totally it's really easy to pull that up yeah I can share it with you Can I just say that one of the things that's been really cool this year is with the Open Architects platform that the district has. being able to look that up both as the school leader and as a teacher is really seamless and so that platform has really helped in terms of like giving us the ability again both as school leaders and as classroom teachers to get that in a quick way which then we can do a better job of like making sure it's impacting our planning and our instruction but so should be easy.

Thank you. Member Green then Member Biton.

Thank you to the chair. I think I mentioned this last year, but I really appreciate the emphasis on the need for everyone to have a caring adult. You know, if I want to be data-driven, it's the biggest variable that protects student success, outside any one non-demographic variable. And also, you know, my bleeding heart loves it. But in particular, when I look at the strongly disagree percentage, I'm curious, do we have a profile of what those students look like? Like, are there traits that those students may have in common relative to the rest of the population?

I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head, but it's a really good question.

Thank you. Member Biton?

Thank you, Chair, through you to Principal Pelletier. Great to see you. Thank you for the presentation. Shout out to the great group of educators I see in the back from the West. Thank you for coming out tonight. I agree with my colleagues. There's a fantastic amount of information in this presentation tonight and in the memo. I have to admit, not being Someone with an education background, myself. I found it hard. So what I like to do is go through the memo in advance and sort of have an opportunity to prepare some thoughts and something I could use just for myself. is a little more narrative around some of the data points. There's some great data in here that

Again, not being in education as my day job, it was a little hard for me to engage. So just I guess a question or a request through the administration is to help make sure that Uh... These memos have a little more to carry someone like myself along. So anyway, I got a lot of the answers in your presentation tonight, and I really appreciated it. But that would just be my request. Thank you.

That's not on. All right. With that, we still have a lot more. Oh, superintendent? Yep. Fire away.

Thank you.

Thank you for the West team also who joined tonight. I am now inviting to the podium or to the front our principal, Berenice Meyes-Diaz, principal of the of the East Somerville Program, and we house the one and only dual language program, the Unidos Program. I also have to mention that our... The students in the Unidos program made the largest access growth in our district and also overall the academic growth that they have. is at the top of the average in our district. So that is a great accomplishment. Kudos to you and kudos to the team who is here presenting it. So please fire away.

Thank you. Well, thank you also for our East educators who are still here as it feels like it's 1 AM. It's definitely past my bedtime. So hi, my name is Bernice Meis-Diaz. I'm the principal here at the East. Our mission and vision has stayed The same since I started. We're probably going to be looking into updating our mission and vision after probably this round of our school improvement plan. Can you next slide please? These are our four goals. You don't have to look at them. I will go over each of them as we go on to each of our goals. So don't worry about them. So next slide please. Thank you. So for academic excellence, we have five indicators. Next slide.

We have five indicators that measure academic excellence, which is by the end of next school year, 70% of our students will be reading at proficiency, measured by the standards of grade level. Next slide please. We'll start with DIBELS. We'll start with DIBELS because there's an indicator that measures K-6. So if you can see the mid-year, last year to mid-year this year, there's a slight decrease in the proficiency in the core standard, which means that our benchmark, our students are reading, 44% of the students are reading a reading success. Next slide please. The next reading, the next measure of academic excellence is I already reading. This is now going into third and eighth grade. Something to really note, and for the academic excellence, I really want you to see the trend of grades five and six.

I'll make a note at the end of our presentation today. But in particular, really, really, truly see the growth of our students. Typical growth, I know that you probably heard this already, but it's the growth that they make in a school year. I want you to really see the growth of Our students in grades three to eight, they're making above the growth of a school year. So they are what we call in catching up to their other peers. Next slide please. Specifically into our MLs and our students with special ed, both of those subgroups, they are as well catching up. Again, once again, in particular grades in five and six. Grade five is our students, specialists and disabilities. Grade five is the inclusion pilot this year. and our in grade eight our students are our ML students our that subgroup is our students are obviously we're trying to prepare them for high school

So that subgroup is working together in a pull-out model with our ESL specialist so that model is working really well. And as a result, you can see the progress that they're making. Next slide, please. This is the math progress on iReady. Typical math progress, they are making progress, a steady progress in math, not as high as reading. But if you can see in the scale score, which is the graph on the right, the scale score is better than last year. Next slide, please. Similarly to reading, we are making progress typically, but in this particular case, I do want you to take a look at

8th grade in particular for MLs and special ed both of those subgroups are making above a hundred percent of growth on those two subgroups in particular here fifth grade math Special Ed, it is making above 100% of progress. Next slide, please. This graph, this is for UNIDO's program, our dual language program. We're continuing to use American reading. Curriculum, the ANIL, the ERLA are the two reading assessments that we use for English and Spanish. This map of biliteracy we introduced last year, we had questions last year about how those are going to work, how it's going to measure. So I have a model sample of how this measures, right? Because we have introduced open architects. Next slide, please. So when you're looking at open architects, it looks like this. In a dual language program, it looks like this. What does this mean?

Just click next. So you look at it and you look. yeah you look at the red line oh we're making progress right but that doesn't really tell you about the access of dual language or progress in English or Spanish, right? And so let's zone in on grade two, right? And so if you look at grade two, right, you don't really know the access or the knowledge or how our students are doing in English or Spanish, right? Next slide please. And so this model here, our UNIDOS specialist, Annalise Registrar, really introduced this model and really allows us to really understand The process of the accessibility and the strengths of our students in English and in Spanish, horizontal is English, vertical is Spanish.

and allows our teachers to really intervene early in the strength of the students whether it's English or Spanish and with her expertise in implementing professional development during CPT time introduce bridging strategies, our students are able to now be on that yellow brick road, right? So this is mid-year data. As you can see, a lot of our students are at grade level in our NEEDLS program. Next slide, please. This is access from last year. As you can see, zero points out of four. We didn't really quite hit all of our benchmarks for access. So as a result, we had to do a little bit of digging around to our data. So we looked at a reading. We also did a little bit of PD, professional development.

and we met in grade level teams and teams of teachers with special ed and MLE specialists and educator teams. really looked at student specific data and looked at their targeted goals and developed specific goals for them to really try to hit those benchmarks and along the way we are now continuing to do that work it is again not perfect but we'll try to we just finished our access so we'll see how those Goals hopefully will do towards the end of the school year. Next slide please. Equity and access. So this particular, these two next goals, so equity and access and wellness and joy, they're really tied together. They are tied together because they are a result of the DESE accountability data that we reported on.

Two years ago, we were underperforming with our black and African American students. And so our IL team met and we determined that as a whole school, we needed to do three things, our staff, We needed to do some learning, then as a staff we needed to do some tracking of that learning, and we also needed to measure how our staff as a whole was doing with that learning. And so our ILT developed or decided to do this book series. So we use cultural response and teaching of the brain by Saretta Hammond. We developed a book series, so it's a whole year. We have mid-year check-ins with our staff about soft culture. and our ILT performs a walkthrough with a new developed ILT walkthrough tool. And with that, all of those data points together have allowed us to

to track the process of implementation of the data and the culture and to track how things are going in our school. Next slide, please. And, yeah. So this is the fall of 2024 to this past fall. Thinking about where our school culture has been and where it is. A couple years ago we went to Professional Development, myself, went to PD where I went to see John Gordon and he introduced this idea of the Positivity Bus and I really asked my staff to really come together and join us together. and really commit to these four C's of communication, connection, commitment, and care. And through that, as you can see, our staff has really bought into this idea of really truly being together. The work that we're doing here at the largest pre-K to 8-year-old school, it's a lot of work.

It's two schools in one. It takes a lot of work to doing that together. and so we really need to be committed to doing the work that we do here at the East. And so, next slide please. The next two slides are together, that is the result of the ILT walkthrough tools and the ILT team walk through 32 classrooms we gather some data we are actually going to a school be looking at these We're going to be looking into doing next steps and implementations of the work that we've been learning through the Sarita Hammond book series. This first question is a direct question from the equity, I think it's the equity, the SBS equity, I think it's part of their Part of their guidelines that they use. And so that is one of our questions.

And then the other ones are part of the questions that we have from our ILT tool. and as you can see a lot of the things that we're tracking is how our students' voices are actually being heard in the classroom and not only that but how they're talking to each other, How are they utilizing the curriculum and how they're talking to each other about what they're learning. Next slide please. and so the hope is that through these through these results we are going to continue and to use what we're learning with Sarita Hammond to really to really push that culture cultural competence competencies we're learning. Next slide, please. Wellness & Joy, so it continues the same, the same thread continues with the book series. Next slide. And this particular one, it's another piece of the puzzle.

The wellness and joy in this particular piece goes in the other side of it, right? And so this is one of them is the student The staff piece and this is the student and staff piece all together in the classroom, right? And so the work that all of them do together, it is the sense of belonging in the classroom. It's a collaboration between the staff and the student together. And so in this particular case, when we were doing some deeper learning about our data, excuse me, We actually realized that also our student voice was not really heard and through the seed data that was presented I think our school committee a couple years ago There was some harm that was being caused, used by harm language and also by harmful, racially charged language.

Equity team three years two years ago started some work at our school and our current equity team just finally finished putting all the work together and that was thanks to Carly Livingston and so she finally finished this Identity-Based Response Guide, which we hope to have it ready by the end of the school year. And so that is a big piece of this puzzle. In addition to that, we have our SEL and our PBIS that kind of encompass all of that work together. And next slide please. And so as you also can see, students as a result of this positive culture also like coming to school. Our behavior data is down as the lowest it's actually been in the last three years. And our attendance is up almost close to 95%. Family and community engagement. All right.

So for this one, we have done a lot of work into bringing our families into our school. It's been slightly challenging with the climate of our current society. But we are really trying to work really hard into making our families believe in us and making this a sense of belonging in our school. and as a result our goal here is to have our families know that they can trust us in making the decisions together and so our goal is to have 80% is the goal. We are right now at 77. So we're very, very, very close. The biggest part of all of this is the family nights have been The best events that we have, they are a hit. Mostly happen in the fall, so we're trying to figure out how to make them happen all year, but there are They're very challenging.

Quarterly assemblies are great. We do them together, so seven and eight, five, six. And then the monthly coffee hours have been a hit and miss because of the snow. So those have been kind of challenging. and then the back to school nights they are also our biggest event so those are those have been the best the best events that we've had so far next slide please and next slide and as a result so we we're actually trending in a really positive direction our school my school seems to be headed in the right direction and I think a big big component is of our school and our staff. I'm really honored to be the principal of our school. Our staff works extremely hard and gives an effort, an A effort, every day. Our attendance for staff attendance has increased

Since I started and I think that's a big part of all of the work that we do and also you can see throughout the data that like our data is increasing as well. Next slide please. So I told you at the beginning to pay very close attention to the five and six data because you can see that their X block data, they have made an incredible effort into really doing They have actually done an incredible job at making their Xblock groupings so that they can so that they can actually have specific groups of students by doing an individual group at the beginning, they do a midterm group, and then they regroup them

and so that is what we're hoping to do for other groups maybe possibly the whole school not sure yet so um so that's that's our hope so yeah that's all thank you thank you All right, thank you.

Can I have this? My colleagues. Thank you. Member Lippens.

Thank you, Chair. Wonderful presentation. So this kind of came up actually at another presentation. So I want to just give a little bit of background about I-Ready. When students take I-Ready in the fall, In the fall it's like a baseline and then they take it again in the winter so what we're hoping for is that by halfway through the year students make at least 50 really 60 percent of progress so when you look at and UC students make growth more than 60% and I would love for you to pull up some of your data for both ELA and math. When you see scores that are 60% or more, Like that means that that many students are already on track to make their growth for the year. The other component of I-Ready is we look at stretch growth. Now stretch growth tells us students progress towards like closing the gap. So I just want to really highlight how phenomenal this data is.

And my question to you is, you've already pointed out about fifth and sixth grade and the work that's being done. From a budgetary and school committee perspective, what are some things that are going really well that we could do as a school committee to really help support the phenomenal teachers and educators and the work that they're doing? So we can continue this trend.

I think I highlighted the eighth grade. I don't know if you can pull it up again, but I think if you look at the eighth grade reading, Data for the ML. So that particular cohort, that educator pulls her ESL WIDA levels one and two. They are doing a new Sunday curriculum. that also that same educator pulls her group in grade six for a small group for her WIDA levels one and two. So if you can see in reading for MLs in grade six, those two grade levels, those MLs are doing really well. And so when you only have an intervention

with a high quality curriculum that is effective. And then not only that, but then the students are able to apply the learning in the classroom because the teacher is in the classroom with the support. You have the ESL specialist. and the classroom teacher working together and collaborating together, that works, right? So that is when it works. So that will be something that if it could be duplicated at another grade level, that would be phenomenal.

Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Thank you. Member Eldridge and then Mayor Wilson.

Thank you for this presentation. It was really wonderful to look at. It was very clear and transparent. And I know sometimes when the data isn't exactly where we want it to be, it's it's hard to present it and I just really appreciate the clarity and just like the honesty and where you are and where you want to go and I guess I have a question and then just a clarification maybe you can lend me a hand here The goal one of wanting all students to be at 70% reading by the end of 2027 school year is fantastic. I think reading is the key for all success in school and focusing on literacy is absolutely fantastic. How do we support you to ensure that you can reach that goal by the end of next year? That is the question of the year.

That is a challenging question. I think 70% is a stretch. I think given where we are, I think a little more time would probably be necessary. I think we are moving in the right direction. I do think that I think more support in the younger grades to catch them to reading at grade level would probably be necessary. I think interventionists to really get to those kiddos who are still struggling readers could be a possibility. But I also think that some of the things that we are doing with what we have, it's working. It's just maximizing, trying to duplicate in other directions, right?

Like we talked about ESL specialists, how we can duplicate that somewhere else, right? is this on the curriculum effective not just six seven and eight right can that curriculum be for five and like you know five and four I don't know the answer to that I haven't haven't really K-3 is not my forte. I don't know reading at that level, so I will have to sit down and really think about how to support the kiddos at the grade level. But we have a lot of kiddos that need reading support. So that's something that's always in the back of my mind. Quick follow-up?

Mm-hmm. So early intervention obviously is wildly important because as we wait, issues compound and become larger and it becomes harder to close gaps. So when we're looking at the stretch goals and the progress over the year, and the typical progress if a child is possibly many years behind a hundred and sixty percent is great but it's still gonna take if I'm understanding correctly it's still these kids have to do overtime many years in a row to be able to Close that gap. Whereas if we were able to get in there sooner with more support and more intervention as earlier, we wouldn't have such a large gap to close and things wouldn't have to be done over time quickly to close things that could have been addressed earlier on. Am I understanding that correctly?

Yeah, and then I think I-Ready has, especially now that we have, you know, we have access at home, parents in grades three to eight are going to be given. Access with the guidance of using this at home. And so they're going to be able to catch up to some of those missed chunks of learning for reasons A or B, right? but if you know similar to the UNIDOS intervention right if those interventions are done earlier you know in appropriate time with the appropriate Thank you. I mean, the numbers are there. The growth is there, and it's great. Our educators are working extremely hard to get them cut out.

At 8th grade, if you're already two grade levels behind, it's a little bit more difficult to get caught up, to be at grade level by the time you get to the high school. Yeah, you're welcome.

Thank you. Do you have a follow-up, Member Green? Okay. All right. Member Green?

Thank you and actually a lot of these questions build on member Eldridge's questions but starting with highlighting the real progress both in absolute terms we've seen access Scores for foreign language learning students and in relative terms compared to where the East was, say, five years ago. So I want to highlight that because part of my question is, how do we... Short of creating dual language programs at every school, which is a large and different historical conversation, what lessons can we learn from that for other schools? and then I'll come back with my next round of questions I want to start with that like what do you think you're doing right as far as access scores growth and what do you think we can learn from that and that might be for you and the district

So what are we doing right as a school in terms of access score growth?

Yeah, and English language attainment. Again, I think the question for you and for the district because I have a question is what can we learn from that to apply to other schools?

Well, I think it all comes to, I think it's the commitment, I think the commitment as a school to really wanting our students to do better. And I think the commitment to each other to really making our students grow. I think that's number one. and that is the other pieces that the belief that our students can do better and so I think when we come to the table and we are together and we are truly coming together to say our students can do better and I think when you come to the East, I think there is not an educator that can tell you that their students cannot do it. I think you come to the table and they will tell you their students are able to do it. Not only that, but they will try to do their very best to get their students to get there. So I think that's number one. And number two, I think, is the creativity.

In terms of all of the pieces of the puzzle that come into the classroom, I also think the new curriculum in middle school has played a big part of it too. So that started last year in grades six through eight, and then now it's down in grades four to eight now. So I think that is a big part of it. I think the other piece to it in the UNIDO side is that they have been using ARC so American Reading Company which is a high quality Instructional curriculum for a lot longer period of time. And so the exposure of a high quality curriculum with high quality training and the delivery of that instruction to the students that you have in front of them do make a difference, right?

And so I think that is a big part of it, right? It is nothing to say for the educator. It's just the quality of the materials just makes a difference in the instruction and also the training of the educator. and the educator wanting to actually do all the work for the students. So I think it's two parts of it.

As far as lessons learned, the theory is that even behind bilingual education or dual language Learning, is that utilizing the primary language as an asset allows to build on the cognitive skills that a student has to continue building is more of a strength-based approach Often there's questions about that theory, but it's always the idea that that is supposed to work, and I think the fact that it's happening tells us that it always has been the argument, but making it happen in the district kind of reinforces the idea that it's possible but it does require other elements such as having and many more. We have high quality instructional materials, having systems and collaborations in the grade levels, having support.

I believe that this is a process that will continue to snowball and hopefully we will prove that this idea of students achievement can be We disrupted along the lines of zip codes. That's my learning. And short from offering dual language programs to everyone, but I know that there's a question about expanding the dual language program, but that's not for today.

All right. Thank you so much and thank you to the...

I thought the mayor was on question two as well. I didn't ask that all at once. The second question is really, and I think this actually really is for the district, is about that falling behind piece. I know that Pre-pandemic, we the district invested real-time energy into closing that kindergarten readiness gap. We didn't fully close it. We were trying to close it because You know, long-term students come in roughly already a year behind. You're starting off behind the eight ball. And I've obviously, like many things, the pandemic wiped out those efforts in a very real sense. I would love, now that we're somewhat returning to normal education policy, at some point in the nearest future to get an update from the district.

on where those efforts are now because if we can really narrow those gaps to start, it's much easier to keep up than catch up.

I do have an answer to that. So one of our family nights this year was a literacy night for K-2. Through DonorsChoose, we were able to get a book for every student who was able to be there. Hopefully, where our funds are for the school funds next year, we'll be able to purchase books for K-2. Enough to do two literacy nights for K-2 in the fall and another one in the spring. The hope is that we will not only have it for the students, but we will also have it for the families. Working with teachers to read the books, have families participate, do some sort of workshop in the fall and in the spring. So that's on the works for next year. So yes, working on that K-2 literacy.

Thank you and thank you for your wonderful presentation. If I may just briefly Add to your response and then provide a more extensive memo, more thorough when I can think through with the team. The other thing that is just really key to remember here is high quality instructional material, like research suggests Those high quality instructional materials based on research are crucial in classrooms and in K-2 across our district, with the exception of ARC, we currently do not have those things in place. So those will be implemented next year in terms of literacy. We're rolling out illustrative mathematics this year and so we can't ask folks to do all of it at one time and so that's why it was intentionally staggered but I am

The structured literacy routines, there are a number of pieces in terms of high quality instructional materials and research based practices that need to be in place across our district to really strengthen tier one to this point around strengthening core Prior to students growing older and performance disparities growing.

Thank you. All right, with that, thank you so much. Thank you to your colleagues who stayed. All right, and on to our final presentation.

Excellent. Well, I am thrilled and very thankful for the patience that our team at the Perkins Eastman firm. Actually, let me let the East team transition a little bit. So the next part of the conversation is a little bit of a departure from what we have been doing, talking about improvement and performance. It's about the MSBA process in some degree, but more More center around the work that has been evolving as we work on envisioning what this new facility is going to look like. We are fortunate to have a team that has been working on that. Perkins Eastman has actually led the work. created some spaces for people to provide feedback. And that feedback actually has served to create a vision that seems to be very consistent. There are some themes that actually will be shared and discussed at some point.

But the main part of the conversation tonight is from the team Perkins Eastman that will describe both the structural designs as well as Thank you for your patience. Thank you.

So thank you very much. My name is Lisa Pecora. I'm the project manager for the 115 Sycamore Street new building project.

And my name is Robert Bell, also Perkins Eastman. I'm an educational planner and programmer.

So if you can flip to the next slide. So I just thought I'd start by just sharing with you the project timeline for the new building school project at 115 Sycamore Street. This is a big picture look at all the work that's ahead of us from feasibility study all the way to project completion. So starting at the left side of the graph, we are in the Kind of the early stage of the feasibility project, which will take us all the way through August, where we'll select the preferred schematic design. Then we'll move into the schematic design phase where we'll develop the project budget. The schematic design drawings in the project budget would then get submitted to the MSBA in February of 2027.

for their approval at their board meeting. After the MSBA approves the project, the proposed budget will go to city council for review and approval and then onto the ballot for debt exclusion. If the community approves the project in June of 2027, then we can begin the design development phase and prepare early bid documents to abate and demolish the existing school at 115 Sycamore Street by the fall of 2027. We would then We'll be working on the design development drawings. We'll do a cost estimate and submit that to the MSBA in November of 2027 to ensure that the project is staying on budget. These drawings will have more detail.

We'll be meeting with the users and city departments to get their input and start to really develop what this new school is going to be made of. So next is the construction document phase where we'll submit a 60% CD set and a 90% CD set to the MSBA. along with cost estimates again to ensure that the project is staying on budget throughout the design phase. Then this would go out to bid in the fall of 2028. It would take probably about six to eight weeks to go through the bidding process and then a contract. with the construction team would be procured in January of 2029. The construction of the new school would probably take maybe about two years. with a possible mid-year move-in in January or February of 2031.

This is just a rough draft at a schedule. It could, you know, As we develop through these phases, things could swing in one direction or the other. So if you go to the next slide, this is just an overall look of our current work plan from feasibility through schematic design. We have three submissions that will be making to the MSBA. We're near the end of the first phase, which is the preliminary design program. which is scheduled to be submitted March 31st, end of this month. And then the next phase is the preferred schematic report where we'll submit the preferred option to the MSBA in August. They will actually review this at their board meeting and send us their comments and approval after their October board meeting.

Then from there we'll move into schematic design as I just mentioned. But Bob's going to take you through a little bit more detail of what's actually in these submissions.

Great. Thank you, Lisa. Next slide. So what Lisa just showed you, these three phases that we have that take us all the way to a vote, the preliminary design program is where an awful lot happens. This is very simplified. Existing Conditions, Site Assessments. The three documents that are flagged, that are surrounded with a rectangle, those are key educational documents. So the educational visioning is really establishing goals for the project. And it's not a one-off. It's just a kickstart. And I'll explain what was involved in that. The second document you see in PDP is the educational program. And I'll go into a little bit more detail about what that is that comes from the district. And it's really a central document. It guides the design.

And then the last document there is the space summary, which is the tabulation of your program, of your actual needs. So there's a lot in this first PDP phase. It's five months long. We're about four months into it. We are four months into it right now. The next phase is also about five months long and as Lisa had said, we'll take the myriad of options that we've already looked at and they'll start to get distilled down. By the end of that phase, there will be one preferred option. and then that one option in schematic design gets developed in great detail to establish a robust budget A budget that's got enough detail that the MSBA locks their funding into it and it's what's taken to a vote and for approvals. Next slide. So those three documents that I spoke about, they require a lot of work from us. It requires us to come up to speed with what Somerville is all about.

but it also requires a lot from the district and this is why we formed in green you can see an educational leadership team It's a team that usually starts with the superintendent, assistant superintendent, principals, special ed director, special needs director, support staff in this community, newcomer academy, The Somerville Family Learning Collaborative, all these things, great programs. Getting everybody in the same room so that we can get up to speed quickly, understand what's happening in the school community, and then start to have the conversations about moving forward. This group also helped us put together the larger visioning forum which I'll get to in just a second which is part of the process and then ultimately the space summary comes out of this as well. Next slide.

So the process we work with, part of our team is My Learning Places Integrated Design, Mike Pirolo, so he helped lead these efforts. What we charted was a process that started with a shadow day, so we spent time in each school. and then it also included school tours to see some recently completed modern educational facilities, very forward thinking. And in the center here is the visioning itself, which I'll explain a little bit of what was involved there. But it was, again, to establish the goals. We had a lot of community members involved as well as heavy with educators. and on the right hand side you can see we had a series of program workshops and this again is all to shape these three pivotal documents. Next slide. I'll skip over this one, but this really just says that we had 60 forum participants.

You can see it included educational leaders, teachers, parents, city leaders in departments. We had set out a purpose and an agenda. Next slide. I think she gets into some of the outcomes. So there's two in a row looking at educational guiding principles. The next slide also shows some of the developmental implications as well as the building design implications. and if you crosswalk all three of these things together there are six really commonalities that I'm sure will be very familiar to you for this project and that is scale and age appropriate is very important What came out of this is grade level groupings are really kind of focusing on an elementary experience and a middle experience. So zoning the school for those to help scale it, as well as creating learning neighborhoods.

Also supporting the whole child, wellness and sensory needs resonated very highly. Having equity and inclusion, making programs visible, valued, and integrated into the school. Flexibility, adaptability, and creating collaborative spaces also loomed large, and that means a variety of spaces. We know that the school needs to be a community hub, both inside and out, and to foster belonging and connection through the adjacencies and the placement of programs. This is really a summary of what came out of the visioning. The next slide then leads into the educational program. Next slide. So the educational program is a requirement from the MSBA.

You can see there are 20 categories and what the MSBA wants the district to compose is What happens currently within all of this subject matter? And where are you going? What does the future look like? So the visioning, which you can see summarized in the far right, is woven into the educational program. So these goals and objectives are built into this. The educational program right now is being developed and obviously will have two reads. It is iterative, so even as the school committee will be voting on the educational program in the space summary, Both of those documents will continue to evolve in the next phase, the next five months. So it's not just a one time vote for certain. Next slide. So the MSBA space summary, this is the third document. It's a really difficult document to present.

I have it in the background and you can see From top to bottom there are 12 different categories of spaces and from left to right at the top it's showing the existing conditions at both Brown and Winter Hill. And then it's showing the proposed program in the middle two columns for both enrollments, the 690 and the 925. And then on the far right are the MSBA's guidelines. Down at the bottom of this spreadsheet, you can see I flagged a little area there. This is where the enrollment is plugged in. So in the MSBA side of this template, the enrollment is plugged in and it back calculates all the spaces you need. but that is based on a lot of assumptions and so it's not necessarily what's right for Somerville so I'll walk you through what we've seen what we've heard and how we're Shifting off of what the guidelines say to make sure we're building space purposeful for Somerville.

Next slide. So starting with core academics, the class size policies here are maximum of five in kindergarten, maximum of 26 in grades one through eight. The MSBA uses an average to calculate the spaces of 18 in kindergarten and 23 in grades 1 through 8. So we recognize the maximum class size Somerville has, but we're using the MSBA averages because clearly the averages need to be below the maximum because the enrollments will not be equal throughout every grade level. So at the 690 enrollment, that's about 77 students per grade in three and a half classrooms. So that would be some grade levels would get three, some would get four. And it would need to be flexible to change year to year. At the 925 enrollment, that would be 103 students per grade average.

and that's five classrooms so I heard earlier eight or so mentioned it's it's about five and it could be tightened up a little bit more What the MSBA doesn't recognize are some of your wonderful programs like the Newcomer Academy. So we have built in six Newcomer Academy classrooms knowing that they may have a range of eight to 12 students. And that's a capacity of 48 to 72, which is forward thinking for what that program may need. We've also included a world language classroom, which the MSBA doesn't recognize, but is something that's very real and necessary, I think, for grades six through eight. And that's considered basically a pull-out space, a specialty space for students in those grades. And we've also included breakout spaces. So part of the vision and goals is that we're hearing that

Having breakout spaces connected to classrooms so students can get additional support services or do independent work is really important or to do collaborative work. So we have an allowance in there for that. This will go a little bit quicker now. Next slide is special education. And the only thing I can really say here is we would never adopt the MSBA's guidelines. It's just a starting point. Everything we have done here is built from the ground up, speaking with the educational leadership and the special ed director about what the future needs will be. So this is very Somerville specific. And the MSBA in fact themselves defers to the DESE for approval of this. So this is kind of just shepherding the program needs. Next slide.

So for the specials, I've grouped together here art, music, theater, tech engineering, PE, media center, and you can see that these are What we understand are the specials now. The Tech Ed Engineering program is actually something that is forming. So in this case we understand the way the schedule works now is that every class takes All of the current five specials every week. And that happens within a 30 period cycle or a 30 time slot cycle. So that tells us that for every 30 classrooms or increment thereof, you need one space for each one of your specials. It just so happens that even in the smaller enrollment, you tip just over that 30 classrooms. I think it's like 34.

and so we're providing two spaces of each special for now we're just holding one tech engineering because we're understanding what a new schedule might look like Whether that tech engineering happens at all grades or if it happens in rotation with some of the other specials. So we're able to evolve what that becomes, but we do have it in here as a placeholder. I'll also just point out a few other things. We've increased the size of the gymnasium. You have adaptive PE. But this is also by creating a slightly larger gymnasium. It's a community asset. That will be very useful and I think that's it for this slide. Next. So for the administration, nurse, guidance, custodial, we are working within the MSBA guidelines, but we have a different allocation based on your needs.

Administrative positions that the MSBA doesn't default to, certainly the deans. And we also see that in this new school where there may be an elementary experience and a middle experience that the administrative structure may be a single principal for the pre-K-8 school but two assistant principals, one elementary and one middle. There is flexibility, of course, to evolve this over time, but that certainly is online with what we've heard. And then the last category, next slide. It's actually two categories, the food service and cafeteria. We understand that this will be a central prep kitchen. It was maybe in its former life in this location. So we are preparing for something that will be a bit larger to accommodate that.

The MSBA sizes the cafeteria very generously as if you would have two lunch seatings. That's half your enrollment in the room at one time. You will never do that. But we are carrying the MSBA default size because that allows a larger audience for performances. It also is A larger community space that is beneficial and most important we know with your programs like the SLFC they need Playspace, Playgroup Space that otherwise wouldn't be afforded or wouldn't be funded. This is one way to provide extra space. We can section it off so that it can serve that purpose and it's fully fundable. We are trying to work within the MSBA's guidelines and move things around so that matches Somerville and has the highest reimbursement. The other category, the MSBA doesn't list anything and so these will be negotiated whether they will participate in funding.

They usually participate in a handful of things but not everything even though they support it. and in this category we certainly have the SFLC, we have the after school program or the outside of school time The Becoming a Man program, the Working on Womanhood program. The MSBA also lists pre-K rooms in this category. We have your newcomer academy office, your social worker office, and a mother's nursing room or two, as well as a health classroom is a need that we've heard that doesn't fit in the other MSBA boxes. We think this is a really good progress. It reflects what we've heard. It's not done. It will evolve. And we will continue our programming meetings. So thank you for letting me walk you through it. Pretty tough spreadsheet.

The last big element of this phase, the preliminary design program, is the exploration of options. So we're not prepared to go into the options with you, but what we have here are required ad reno options for both enrollments, the 690 and the 925. New construction options that would be 2A, B, 3A, B, and 4B and the A's and the B's are the two different enrollment sizes but we've been busy Trying to test fit on this site. We've been getting feedback from the building committee and others to make it more community friendly, to see how we can mitigate the massing. and so that's why there are a number of options for that new construction and then we are obligated to look at an alternative site we've heard loud and clear from the community that there isn't a desire Thank you.

We're going to go to the superintendent and then I'll take questions from my colleagues.

Thank you, Bob. That was a really comprehensive explanation of where we are in the process. I wanted to highlight a couple of things because that's something that has been The work that has happened both the ELT as well as the visioning sessions is something that has been shared as a concern or a need from both communities. and is this idea of how do we create a space of a sense of smallness and community in a place that looks significantly bigger than some other facilities we have in our district. One of the ways that we have been able to capture that concern or to address that gap is the idea of having a building that is divided into and many more.

I know that the feedback we got from principals was also, let's not forget about our early childhood experience. And so that's also something that can be fit in some of the schematics that I have seen from Eastman. from Eastman and Perkins. And so I think that that's one thing that I, again, it doesn't answer all the It doesn't provide all the answers in terms of the question about the size, but it does create an internal experience in the building that gives a sense of reassurance. The example that I used for that was the high school. When you come into the high school, it's a massive Thank you. Thank you. So that's one. And then the second one is there's an element of flexibility that is being designed as we go along because there will be some changes

Some needs that will be changing along. And the third thing I wanted to highlight is the idea of building some of the innovation charter idea that comes from the Winterhill currently has an innovation charter school status. and that allows us to be also flexible about how do we build in the specialists that are happening in the building and so the idea of the STEM or engineering We have theater as well as an option which is currently offered but we are thinking about how do we scale up these things for a space for the middle grades experience that is robust and also in some degree unique in our district. So those are the three things I wanted to highlight. We continue to work on the document. It's a massive document. It's gotten multiple revisions. Where it needs to be right now, but we are really close.

I also wanted to thank the school committee for allowing us the space and the time to actually work on fine tuning that document. We will be having a first reading on Monday. That's why we asked for an emergency or a whole team meeting. And then the second reading will be on the 16th. So with that, I am going to pass it back to the chair.

Thank you. And just to reiterate what the superintendent said, the educational program will be read and discussed by the body in a special meeting a week from tonight on the 9th and that will be entirely virtual and then Back in Chambers two weeks from tonight as part of a regular meeting. Just to reiterate that. Okay, Mayor Wilson and then Member Biton.

Thanks, Chair. I want to acknowledge that in January when I announced the intention to involve the school committee in this decision that it was a big curveball. I want to lift up the work our Chair did to really dig in on this as it quickly became clear to us that this was going to have to be something that had to be taken up in March. And so then I want to thank also the district administration. for really scrambling with that educational program. This is happening really, really quickly and I'm just really appreciative of that work and then also to the Thank you to the team working on this for making sure that this was ready to present to us tonight. It's so important that the body elected to weigh in on decisions like this should be given a voice on this and that's why everyone's doing this work. It just seemed completely illogical to me to try to arrive at a decision like this without this body's input on it. Thanks.

Thank you. Member Biton.

Thank you, Chair, through you and appreciation to Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for involving us. I think this is exactly where we need to be. I also want to extend my thanks to the administration for all of your hard work. Take the time that you need to get the educational programming plan correct, right in front of us. I am so grateful for your work. I am sure it is a staggering amount of work. I'm glad it's you and not me. So thank you. And also thank you to the Perkins Eastman team for coming and staying so late and watching. We've got really fantastic presentations so you get a sense of the schools that we have in our district and the great care that we take in our district to educate our students. It's why we're here late on a Monday night and I'm glad you could join us.

My question, and I apologize, I want to pull back just a little bit to some of the numbers that are sort of implicit in the big spreadsheet that you presented. And you referenced the 925 and the 690. These are the numbers of students who would have the numbers of seats for the school that is being proposed. And there's two options, right? You mentioned that under both scenarios we were just above and some threshold or ratio that would require us to essentially dedicate more space to gyms and other resources that serve the large The larger school population.

I'm wondering If there is any flexibility in the choice of numbers of seats that could help us avoid and many more. If we looked at a slightly lower number than 925, could we be looking at a more efficient allocation of resources or are we locked into those two particular numbers?

Yes, thank you for the question. You are locked into those two particular numbers. It's an agreement with the MSBA that precedes our involvement, but there's plenty of flexibility in a number of ways. So when we talk about tipping into needing two, if doing that means low utilization, then we can be creative about what those spaces are, something in the steam variety. and then a flexible room that has both technology and art capability. So that's one way to be flexible. Another way to be flexible is in how it's scheduled. These are some of the exact conversations that are happening with the educational leadership and those involved with the educational program to consider such things.

Thank you. President Davis

Thank you through the chair. Thank you for the presentation. A lot to digest for sure. And I was digging through the bigger spreadsheet. You hit a few of the things that kind of jumped out at me. I just want to make sure I understand and these might seem like kind of small detail questions, but they're the things that jumped out at me. you know particularly looking you know between the two the two different options um you know it's like it Some of it's pretty easy to understand, right? With the 960, you said, for example, grades one through six, you're looking at like three, three and a half classes per grade versus five. in the 925 but I noticed that and you touched on this a little bit that the A number of the other facilities seem to effectively stay the same.

There's a few that are a little bit larger with the larger thing. But when I was looking at this before hearing your presentation, my read was, well, geez, it feels like reading this that the The 925 version, you know, I mean, it There's sort of less space available per student. I know that's not quite the metric to use, right? You know, you've got the same amount of other facilities outside of classrooms for a large amount of students, which strikes me as, you know, that might be more challenging for program, etc. and the things that really jumped out at me were the counselor spaces same number of counselor spaces for 300 more well whatever it is 200 something more kids um I have a particular personal interest in that one. And then art and music, same number of spaces in the larger classroom of which would be below the MSBA recommendation.

that flew off the page for me and I definitely need to understand that I don't I mean full disclosure I don't love the big building plan anyways as you all well know I'm not going to support it but If we end up going that route, I really want to understand how we're proposing something that would look on the page to someone like effectively undercutting art and music, which is something in Somerville we've never We've been very proud to not have done what other communities have had to.

Yes, so I'll start backwards with that one. The MSBA in their calculations assumes a similar 30 period cycle but with programs being taken twice a week as opposed to one time per week. They also have art, music, and tech. They do not have theater as one of theirs. So it's really a very different scheduling and participation than what the MSBA would default to.

A quick clarification on that? Sure. Because that may be a great answer. So effectively, the MSBA number that will take the three, That would be art, music, and theater together. That's how they calculate it through the chairs, is that what you're saying? Whereas what we have is effectively two art, two music, two theater, so it would be... Both numbers equal six. Am I looking at that the right way?

Yeah, it's a different participation. And the reason why you see in some cases the same number Regardless of the enrollment 690 or 925 is that in the 690 you just tip into needing a second In the 925, you're comfortably using that space, relatively high utilization. And that's where creatively, some multi-purpose spaces can save in efficiency. Some other programs like the Central Kitchen is the same in both because it's serving, it's intended to serve the meals for From what we understand in speaking into detail about the special ed programs, they are predominantly Coming from Winter Hill, from the current program, and there would not be a significant change despite the combined enrollment.

That may strike you as odd, but again, this is also an initial iteration. And as far as the guidance counselors, those are some areas where we're just the counselors Those are some areas where we need some refinement. We actually feel like we may have a little bit of double dipping between some of the councils we list up with the special education versus with the administration, but still being sorted out.

Thank you for that. I appreciate it. I guess one brief comment. I would caution any calculus that assumes that the Brown school population is just going to go to this school because we heard in our public statements tonight that is absolutely not what's going to happen. So I wouldn't rely on that.

Okay. Other questions, other comments? All right. I cannot thank you enough. In one week from tonight, we will be discussing the educational program. Hopefully in two weeks from tonight. Oh, remember Pitone? She's still online. All right, I'm going to keep talking. I see a hand popping up from her. And then... As of right now, the vote is scheduled for the 16th with the option of moving it out another week if need be. Because again, this is a lot of information for our body to digest. I also just want to make a note because once we get past this March vote, we are going to have to figure out as a body in collaboration with the city and Perkins Eastman.

They want our feedback on something that has an August 27th deadline and asked for a vote, I think, by August 17th. We are typically not in session in any capacity and often there are people traveling overseas and while it is easier to have meetings when traveling, it can make it a lot more complicated. So I just want to note that for us. Okay. Thank you. We still have more agenda. And so we are going on to... The personnel report.

Through the Chair, yes, that is the last part of my report, the personal report. And I just wanted to highlight a couple of things. We will have a very Important retirement, Will Burvis, who is our special education department coordinator for the Kennedy School. He has been with us for five years and has so many years of experience in a special education field. So that's a retirement that is coming up. We also will have some adjustments that are coming up. Catherine Vieira. Our payroll coordinator as of 2-20-26 will now be part of the team. And also Gladys Valle. She is our MLE assistant director. And at the end of the school year, she will be transitioning to a different position. We also have two staff members who will be filling in leaves.

Paraprofessional Nick Trant will be Filling in as Dean of Students at the Healy School. And we also have our OST Assistant Site Director, Alexander Walters will be filling in as OST Site Director. We also have had some new hires. We have the technology specialist trainer Claire Messier and also a special education paraprofessional Wayne Gethers. and we continue to hire substitutes as well as lunch attendants. So spread the word if you know of anyone who is interested in being employed by the Somerville School District. And also our summer school positions are being posted and we are in the midst of the hiring season for that. So the postings are already up. So that is that for my report.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. We are hopping along to new business. I see a diploma request that I'm hoping someone has the agenda in front of them to put a motion forward.

Chair, I move to approve the high school diploma request for David Didier of Somerville, Massachusetts.

Second. All right. I have a motion by Member Biton, seconded by Member Lippens. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? Congratulations, David. Item B, the school committee meeting schedule. This is just the update, I think, to note that we have a special meeting on Monday. If there's anything else. Oh, for next... Oh, that's on me. Sorry, sorry. I'm going to ask for grace because it's quite late. The... Yes, the district, really, Erica, largely, has come up with a proposed meeting schedule for next school year. Look at it, provide us with feedback, and run it against calendars.

We've already gotten a little feedback from it, and more is welcome.

Should we just email the administration with feedback on that?

Yes, please.

Okay, thank you.

CC me. Thank you. Okay, and I think we are on to community or calendar items from committee members. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair, through you. Just wanted to share that I will be having joint office hours with Ward 7, Councilor Emily Hardt on Saturday, March 14th. from 10 to noon at North Street in the Stephamon building. So for the residents there, hope they can come out and share their concerns.

Thank you. Member Pitone?

I have also office hours on March 14th from 10 a.m. to noon at Zuruma Gold Coffee, which is on Woodbine Street, and that's with Senator Pat Jalen, and City Council Member for Ward 5, Naima Sait. Please join us.

Thank you, Superintendent. Oh, sorry, Mayor Wilson and then the Superintendent.

Thanks, Chair. I'll be at the Ward 5 office hours as well.

Thank you.

Can I just have a quick announcement?

Great, you're welcome.

A quick announcement or a reminder that tomorrow evening at the Somerville High School, we will be joining the city and our friends at Perkins Eastmans to host a community forum conversation. That will be in regards to the new building project. It's going to begin at 6 p.m. And again, this is an opportunity for the Somerville community at large to learn more about this project. Offer feedback and post questions to the panel, including myself and Mayor Wilson. And everyone is welcome.

Thank you. OK. Member Biton, do we have any condolences?

None tonight.

Okay. With that, we are adjourned at 1028.