Regular School Committee Meeting - February 23, 2026

All right. It is 7 p.m. And so with that, I will call this meeting to order.

I'm going to find the language I have to do that and we will get underway.

um all right uh forgive me i'm working from two screens so for not looking straight at the camera uh good evening welcome to the february 2023 2026 Meeting of the Somerville School Committee pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2026. This meeting of the school committee will be conducted via Zoom webinar participation. We will post an audio recording, video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Superintendent, can you please call the roll?

Yes, through the chair. President Davis. Member Piton.

Present.

Member Lippens.

Present.

Member Eldridge.

I didn't hear you.

Member Green? Here. Dr. Stellman?

Here.

Mayor Wilson? Present. Member Biton? Here. Dr. Adman.

Present.

With nine members present, we have quorum.

Okay. We are going to do our moment of silence and salute to the flag.

Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

It is my understanding that we have no student reps today. Is that going to let someone pipe in and tell me if I'm wrong?

Correct.

Great.

Okay. So we are going... Next to public comment, I'm going to read the script and then I will zoom in on the script and then I will open up the email from Erica and I will

Dig in on that, on how many people are speaking.

So welcome and thank you for those who have signed up for public comment. Speakers will be allowed three minutes to present their material. However, the chair may limit comments to two minutes based on the number of individuals signed up to speak. Speakers should begin their comments by stating their name and address or, in the case of a district employee, 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 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 of school personnel nor against any member of the school community in any public session.

Individuals may address topics on the agenda or items within the school committee's scope of responsibility, such as the district budget, our goals, and policies or the role of the superintendent. The public is encouraged to submit comments in writing for the inclusion in the public record.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

So of these seven members or seven individuals, everyone is going to get three minutes. Yen, please have grace for me if I mispronounce your last name and or your first name for that matter. Let me know what it is when you come up to speak. Yen too. who's a teacher, and next on deck is Jill Downer and Tim Stefanik.

Erica, whenever you have the counter up, we can unmute Yen and get underway.

Hi. I hope that everyone can hear me. We can. Thank you so much. So good evening. My name is Yen Tu. I'm an educator at Somerville High School. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing the Somerville public schools in the budget that fully funding our special education department to ensure students receive all of their legally mandated services. In particular, I would like to tell you about the joys I find in being an educator and how my joy trickles to my students. I've worked previously as a high school math and physics teacher for 14 years prior to transitioning to Somerville and working as a special educator. I've worked from both sides of the inclusion model as both a general educator and a special educator. One of the hardest struggles that I have

about being a special educator is the majority of students I've worked with struggle to learn a given content area, sometimes multiple content areas. It is important to meet the student where they are at, providing gentle nudging and coaxing It is vital to build a trusting relationship with a student. The joy for me as a teacher when I have been able to build a genuine and trusting relationship, I am finally able to do my job as a teacher. The joy I experience when I see my students' growth and self-confidence when they learn something new and can do something that is hard, and I hear them tell me, that wasn't that hard, Ms. Tiu, is incredible. But my struggle and the struggles I see mirrored in my special ed colleagues is burnout. For myself, my motor has been running at a particularly high intensity for the past six years. My motor is burning out.

It is not sustainable to expect high school special educators to teach five core classes plus have a full caseload of students. It is important to consider how the jobs of special educators has shifted and the classroom expectations of what a special educator does in and outside of the classroom. Please. you will join our efforts and support the SEU's vision for the quality education in Somerville Public Schools it is what our students deserve and thank you very much

Thank you so much. Next up is Jill Downer followed by Tim Stefaniak and then Casey Mullane. As soon as the timer is up again and Jill is all set, you are ready to go. Good evening.

My name is Jill Downer. I live in Ward 3. I have two children who attend school in the district, and I'm a special education teacher at the high school. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing Somerville Public Schools in the budget. Specifically, I'm asking you to prioritize fully funding our special education department to ensure students receive all of their legally mandated services. This year, I have missed 4,090 minutes of direct services because I have been scheduled for meetings or testing during times that I'm also scheduled to provide services to students. There have been times when I've had to make the decision between taking a lunch break are providing services to students. This is unreasonable burden to put on special educators. Because I co-teach many of my classes, I often have to leave my co-teacher alone in the classroom. which means it's difficult to do pullout groups and interventions that are both beneficial and legally mandated for many of our students.

This fall, special education teachers met with the district and proposed a solution to this problem which involved hiring more special educators. The district's response was to hire one special education substitute, but this is just a band-aid for a larger problem. When meetings are held, multiple educators are present, so a single substitute cannot logistically cover for everyone, and services will continue to not be met. I'm asking you to fully fund special education at the high school by allocating funds for more special education teachers so this problem can be resolved in a thoughtful manner thank you for your consideration

Thank you so much. Tim and then Casey Mullane and then Samuel Freilich. Whenever the counter is up and Tim is unmuted, feel free to get going.

Hi, can you guys hear me? Great, thanks. My name is Tim Stefaniak. I'm also a special education teacher at the high school. I've been teaching at the high school since 2019. And I also just want to encourage the school committee to fully fund A little bit of context so we used to basically the issue is that We get called to IEP meetings because as Yen said we have a full caseload of students and then we also teach five classes. We used to be able to submit like an input form and not attend the meetings and Teach our classes and then a couple of years ago Desi made it so we have to attend all the meetings no matter what and so basically that has caused a strain like an additional strain

that didn't used to exist but now in the past couple of years whenever they made this switch now it makes it so we kind of have to be in two places at once which you know we obviously can't do So I've missed like 17 classes this year which amounts to like 96 hours of like services missed for my students and when I do get pulled for a meeting I basically either have to leave my co-teacher By yourself to teach the class or if it's a class that I teach by myself, I have to scramble to arrange coverage so I can go to the meeting. So I would like to again encourage everybody to, I think we're asking for a couple more positions that would allow us to attend these meetings and have our students still get the services. Thank you.

Thanks so much. Next up is Casey Mullane and then Samuel Freilich and Kelsey Lomag.

Momigdeli, I hope I got that kind of right, Casey, then Samuel, then Kelsey.

Hi, everyone. My name is Casey Mullane and I am additionally a special education teacher at Somerville High School as well as a resident of Somerville. First, I wanted to thank you all for allowing us to share our thoughts and perspectives. And I just wanted to start by saying that I truly do believe we have an amazing team of special educators at the high school. and I'm very proud to be part of this team. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing SPS in the budget. Fully funding our special education department will ensure students receive all of their legally mandated services. In particular, I have tracked that students with disabilities in my classes have missed over 6,000 minutes of services outlined in their IEPs while I have been attending annual special education and re-evaluation meetings for students.

As a special educator, I feel both the importance of my presence and time spent in each of these meetings, as well as the pull to be in my class supporting students who have services there. Similar to what Tim had mentioned, while I do wish I could be in two places at once, we just recognize that that's not possible. and I think that our team of educators has come up with a really excellent proposal to make sure that students are not missing services and we as educators can still attend these meetings. When we shared this idea with the district, they acknowledged that it was a good solution, except for the fact that it wasn't in the budget. So I'm here today to ask you to help us make this solution a reality. By funding additional special education teachers at the high school, we'll be able to ensure that meetings are fully staffed by special educators and also that students aren't missing out on their services.

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

Thank you. Now we have Samuel, then Kelsey, then Allison, Congas de Vallalta, Samuel and the

Timer goes. The floor is yours.

Hello? Is my audio okay? It is. So I have something much less important to comment on. I want to comment on the proposed schedule for the new school year. I raised these concerns to the committee by email as well, so apologies for some repetition. For the last five years at least, I'm not aware of before that because my daughter is currently in the fourth grade, The school year began on the Wednesday before Labor Day, which this year would be Wednesday, September 2nd. I hear the committee is considering a schedule for the coming year that begins on Monday, August 31st. I do see the advantages of starting the school year on a Monday, and I also see the advantages of avoiding ending the school year on a Monday, especially one that's after a long weekend. Though, as we've seen recently, the exact weekday of the end of school can be a bit variable.

But the late announcement of this year's schedules left parents with a dilemma between making plans on the assumption that the schedule would be the same as it was for the last half decade and delaying putting together the many pieces of coordination needed to figure out travel and childcare over the summer break. I hope the committee will consider keeping the Wednesday start for this coming year. And I hope they will take measures to announce the end date for summer break earlier in future years to make it easier for families to plan the whole summer by late February. A lot of activities for summer are already filling up and there's many things that get more expensive and more difficult to coordinate as time goes on and it gets closer to summer. That's all I have to say.

Next, we have Kelsey and then Allison. Whenever the timer's up, Kelsey, you're ready to go.

All right. Can everybody hear me?

Thank you so much.

All right, great. Good evening. My name is Kelsey La Magdalene and I am a resource room teacher at the Argenziano. I am speaking tonight in support of fully funding our special education department to ensure students receive all of their legally mandated services. Weighted caseloads have been extremely helpful for recognizing that some of our students require a substantial amount of specialized instruction in order to access the curriculum. This year, I have more students than ever who require specialized instruction in at least three academic areas, as well as modified work in all content areas. I don't play favorites, but I get to spend a lot of time with these kids and I really enjoy every minute of it. Educating and advocating for these students is why I'm here tonight. While we have these new weighted caseload limits, we did not start off the year at Argenziano with any increase in resource from teachers.

As I predicted at the start of the school year, at mid-year all of us are now at or over our caseload limits. Working at our uppermost limits affects our availability to our students and their families as well as their general education teachers. In January, I watched in real time as missed services due to meetings and testing paired with a reading group that grew far too large for the needs of the students caused half the students in that group to fall behind their expected growth rates which I measure each month. These students are already reading two years below grade level I watched those growth rates pick back up after two weeks of consistent instruction in February, but these students need and deserve more than struggling to regain ground lost because their teacher wasn't available. and their group is larger than our tier two reading groups because I am the only special educator for three grades. Students with learning disabilities are highly prone to regression.

We need to fully fund our special education department to protect the rights of our most vulnerable students. Thank you for your time.

One more, Allison? As soon as the timer goes up, we're ready to go.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Thanks a lot.

My name is Allison Kangas-Debe Alta, and I am a special ed social studies teacher at Somerville High School. I am speaking with you tonight to ask you to fully fund our special education department in order to provide the legally mandated services that our students require. I'm definitely going to echo what my esteemed colleagues have already said but we are all struggling from the I believe deeply in our inclusion and co-teaching model at the high school. Unfortunately, I've had to miss a significant amount of time from my classes providing services for my students with reading and writing disabilities. Because of the work that I have to do outside of the classroom, like attending meetings and performing testing,

My students are missing the support that they are legally due when I am pulled away to attend these meetings and perform this testing. while I'm in the classroom with my co-teachers I spend a significant amount of time with each of my special ed students that my co-teachers simply cannot provide when I am pulled away for these extremely large number of meetings and other duties that I have to do as a special educator in addition to the five classes that I teach thank you very much for your time I appreciate it

Thank you for everyone who spoke today. This concludes public comment. We always appreciate civic participation.

We are moving on to item four on our agenda room. Can somebody put forth a motion for the approval of minutes?

I move to approve the minutes from the January 26th meeting of the school committee.

Second.

Thank you. I have a motion by Member Biton, seconded by Member Lippens. Is there any discussion? Superintendent, can you call the roll?

Yes, through the chair. President Davis? Member Biton?

Yes.

Remember Lippens?

Yes.

Remember Eldridge?

Yes.

Remember Green? Yes. Dr. Stellman?

Yes.

Mayor Wilson? Yes. Member of Biton? Yes. Dr. Ackman?

Yes.

With eight yeses, the approval of the minutes is sure.

Thank you so much. Now we're moving on to Roman numeral five. For those who are playing along at home, we're going to the report of the superintendent. Superintendent, are you ready?

I am ready. So good evening, everyone. I first of all would like to begin by welcome back all our students and our staff. and for what I hope was a refreshing winter break and obviously after a couple of unexpected snow days that extended the break just a little bit longer we're very grateful for the flexibility of our families and staff We're looking forward to returning to our routines. And I'm also very grateful for the support that we got from DPW, from the mayor's office and all the operations team. who have worked tirelessly to get our city and our schools ready for learning. So thank you. So across our district, there is a great deal of meaningful work unfolding and it's all centered around opportunity, growth, and connection.

At the high school, for example, many of our seniors are eagerly awaiting news from college admission offices across the country anticipating what is the next chapter of their educational journey. At the same time, our new school building project continues to move forward. And as we will discuss later this evening, the district is working closely with architects and city staff to engage our community in what will be a thoughtful and collaborative design process And also, as you know, at this time is the time in which we look at our priorities and match them with the financial investments that we have made and will make. and then implement them in lieu of our strategic plan. The department heads and the principals have already presented their plans and their strategies for the year ahead.

which we are now refining, revising into a comprehensive proposal that will be later given to you for review. And as we look for new ways to stay engaged with our community, I don't know if you have seen the first edition of SPS in print at cafes and gathering spaces throughout Somerville. Thank you so much for joining us. across our schools who shaped the lives of all our Somerville students. And so together these efforts reflect a district that is planning thoughtfully, building strategically and intentionally, and celebrating the people who make our schools so vibrant. And now I want to switch gears. The summer bill has taken, as you know, today, the focus today is around school improvement plans.

We will discuss our calendar and we will also have an MSBA update. and we will start with Somerville High School. We know that Somerville High School has taken a thoughtful and data-informed look at where we are and where they want to grow and how we want to continue to strengthen the experiences that we provide for our high school students every day So Principal Kirsten has identified several key priorities that are designed exactly to do that, to enhance the academic achievement, to deepen student engagement and to expand access to meaningful opportunities to make sure that every student feels supported and challenged. And so with that, we are very fortunate to have our very best and very great high school principal, principal Kirsten. So she's going to share our strategic plan with our committee today. So with that, I'm going to give you the floor, Principal Kirsten.

Thank you for that introduction. I think you're going to hear from the two best high school principals tonight, Margaret Green and myself. Margaret, sorry, DiPasquale and myself. I also have here with me tonight Patricia, sorry you can't you're reading your name, Trish Murphy-Sheehy who's the head of our math department and Stephanie Villagas who is head of our multilingual education department and they're here to also answer any questions. We have a very comprehensive, broad school improvement plan, and I'm going to rush through it. I think we timed it earlier today. I should be able to do it in about 15 minutes. But to be honest, I could do about an hour on each one of the slides and the goals. So we can answer a lot of questions afterwards. And if we run out of time, you can always invite us back to do a deeper dive on any one of them. Am I sharing the slides or does Erica share the slides? You can go ahead and share them. I'm going to share them. Just give me one minute. I'm so used to Teams now, I'm going to be a little bit clunky with Zoom. Give me one second please.

Okay, can everyone see my slides?

We can.

Excellent.

Yep, now it's in show mode. Okay, thank you.

Okay. So instead of going through goal by goal, our administrative team met and we decided instead we're going to give you some highlights in general. and some next steps in some areas of need. And then there's the data, some more specific data at the end. But like I said, I could provide you a lot more data on each one of these goals, but it's so comprehensive. We really wanted to pull out some of the highlights. So our mission and vision, we really lean into what we are, which is a large comprehensive high school, one of the few comprehensive high schools Comprehensive High Schools in the state with our CTE program embedded. We have an incredibly diverse population in terms of ethnicity, income, interest, everything and so we really lean into that and our mission and vision is around really helping students find and explore their passions and choose It's not an official pathway, but we like to use the word pathway of what is it that they're interested in? What do they want to move on to after high school? And are we really preparing them to do that?

We have our Highlander habits, which is what we used to call 21st century skills, because no matter what path a student finds them on, they need those skills to be successful. So that's really what our mission and vision is, is to prepare every single student, regardless of their interests, regardless of their life circumstances, to be able to be successful at whatever it is they choose to do after high school. The theory of action behind our school improvement plan, it's large and comprehensive, but it was really came out of these really struggling attendance rates coming out of COVID. And I know we're five years post COVID and I hate to keep talking about it, but we still have some of the effects. but our school improvement plan that we made almost two years ago now was really rooted in the attendance data which was skewing everything we were looking at. So our theory of action is if we could really dive in and improve the attendance that all of our other metrics would rise. And so we wanted to improve attendance.

We have our deans and APs working really hard, making phone calls to parents, doing family meetings, individual supports when we notice that students are struggling with attendance. But holistically, Our theory is that if we could provide more student-centered, engaging curriculum and instruction, if we could refine our systems of support and intervention, strengthen our partnerships with families and caregiver, and create a stronger sense of belonging and ownership for students, that our attendance rates would get better and all the other metrics would rise. Very quickly, for those of you who aren't familiar with the plan, we had two academic goals. One is around engaging students in learning that is grade level and above, really focusing on increasing rigor. Again, that's a post-COVID. I think response when we came back from COVID they're literally students spontaneously bursting into tears in the hallway and we were really focusing on wellness and connection and now our focus the last couple of years has been Getting back to that really rigorous engaging education.

And goal number two was about improving our use of data and systems. to make sure that we're connecting students to what they need based on performance and database, the data of their attendance, their performance, social, emotional wellness, etc. For equity and access, we have this incredible school with all of these opportunities, but we want to make sure that all of our students, regardless of their background or profile, that they can actually access some of our opportunities. Wellness and Joy. We want to increase student leadership and a sense of belonging. In family and community engagement, we had two goals, which is providing every single student with at least one beyond the classroom experience, whether it's a college course or an experience beyond the classroom. And the other one is improving our communication with families and providing more opportunities for family to engage. So again, you can read all the specifics of the goals on the plan and the memo that accompanied this, but these were the basics of the goals. So I'm gonna give you some highlights.

Highlight number one, attendance is definitely improving. You can see we have the, this is the way DESE measures it, an 88% attendance rate in SY22, and last year we were up to 91.3. Pre-COVID levels were 92, 93. And our open architects data, we're monitoring it. We are definitely looking like we're above where we were last year. So we're still moving in the right direction. And the way DESE measures significant Benchmark for DESE is the chronic absenteeism rate and you can see that we had a nice improvement in that area as well. We also feel like our school climate is improving. Number of fights when I first took on this job, we were not different than any other school. And by the way, not different than any other school with the attendance issue as well. These are nationwide issues. But we had a significant number of fights that resulted in out-of-school suspension. You can see between SY23 and SY25, we cut those in half. And then monitoring...

People put in, teachers and staff members put in conduct referrals into Aspen for something called disruptive, which is a catch-all for anything that's like a disruptive behavior. And when you look, again, using open architects or new data system, Between SY24 in early February, SY25 today, we are significantly down in the number of disruptive conduct referrals that are coming in. So we have some data there that our school climate is definitely improving. This is the bullet I could talk for a long time about. We really are proud of all the moves we're making in instruction. We did a lot of work this past year. We redid our Tier 1 guide. and have done a lot of professional development around tier one moves that every staff member should be making to be making sure that all students are supported and can access the curriculum. That's been a big emphasis this year. And meanwhile, each department has been focused on content specific

Professional Development around our instructional focus areas which are raising expectations, increasing rigor, and shifting the heavy lifting to the students. I have been to all the academic department meetings this year and they're all doing incredible professional development or very concrete Thank you for joining us. and we started this year this was a district initiative that we picked up on we're starting peer walkthroughs so we have uh you know our um Our ILT instructional leadership team, several members started doing walkthroughs this year collecting data specifically around the level of rigor and our students doing the heavy lifting and actively engaged. and we found that in most classes you can see I can't see my own data here with the screen sharing from their walkthroughs in December 78% of the walkthroughs showed students actively walking and most of the classes showed students doing deeper than recall

We have a little work to do there, moving students up on the depth of knowledge chart. But again, if you could see the work that the teachers are doing to improve their practice, it's really about getting students truly and deeply engaged. This one I'm also very excited about. We've had a significant increase in access to college credit and beyond the classroom learning experiences. For those of you been around a long time, 10 plus years ago, we had a Bar Foundation grant and we worked a lot of what we do it's where the highlander habits come from and it was a real focus on beyond the classroom learning making sure that what students are doing as real world and and really connecting them to things beyond the classroom So this year we have 40 students taking a course at Bunker Hill Community College, which is up from 18 at SY25. That's an existing partnership. It's not a new partnership. It's just we have more students taking advantage of it. This we're super excited about. Every single student in a senior English class has an opportunity to earn college credit.

So this year we anticipate 130 students earning Bunker Hill Community College credit. those are only good if you go to Bunker Hill but they're still doing the Bunker Hill remedial English course we have 70 students earning a Syracuse University credit and if they finish everything they will have those credits that will be transferable we get teachers trained by Syracuse it's called SUPA is the acronym and then they come back and they teach that course to the students it's incredibly rigorous if you ever want to come by the school I'll have you walk into those classes it really feels like a college classroom in there And then we have 67 students enrolled in the Advanced Placement English that gives them an opportunity to earn a college credit. So again, across the board, we have students getting access to that college level education. I was here last year talking about the ECHO project pilot. We are bringing back the pre-COVID practice of having every senior in their English class do a capstone research project and presentation.

and students can apply to actually go outside of school not come into school on a regular basis for the last quarter it's about five weeks that the seniors have their last quarter and do something meaningful in the community and we had 140 students apply for that. So we're figuring out how to manage it in our pilot year and they're gonna come back and present. One example I have is, and this is sort of partly what it was designed for, We have some students in automotive, you know, who are there four blocks a day, but really can't do some of the bigger work. And so they're actually, these students in automotive are taking that time for their echo project and they're completely taking apart and rebuilding an engine in a car. and that's their ECHO project, which is really exciting. And then this year we had an increase. We had 52 students do co-op education. I think you had the CTE presentation last week. We've had an increase that are continuing to work on that. So this we feel very successful in really connecting students to beyond the classroom learning experiences and access to college credits.

Another place we feel pretty successful is increasing student leadership. Across the board, we talk about if we're doing something and we're working hard, is there any way the students could be doing it instead because the right amount of support odds are the students are probably going to do it better than we do if we give them the right amount of support we added a ninth grade mentor program where we have juniors and seniors who meet regularly with ninth graders we're going to expand upon that for next year We're really excited about our class officers, our elected student officers that feel like it's up and running in the proper way, largely because of a nice partnership with the PTSA. They have like a Assigned PTSA members meet with our class advisors. We have some awesome class advisors too. You just heard from one of them in the open. Comment section. But they meet every couple of weeks and it just feels like it should. A lot more student leadership going on and very active again. Athletics added to Captain's Council sessions. And I think you've seen our ambassador opportunities.

if you came to our parent teacher conferences we're just letting the students greet everybody get them to where they need to be there are tour guides when you let students take the lead with the right amount of support they really do an amazing job we're also having a uh we're trying to increase opportunities for student voice Right now we're looking at bringing in a new Somerville High School mascot, so that process is underway. and then our systems and access to data this is not well for some of you this is probably the most exciting it's maybe not as glamorous on the outside but it's something that's so powerful we have a new last year we brought in a new director of Our school counseling and she has been incredible at taking all of our opportunities and streamlining it into one system so that now when students need extra support, it's going into one system. it's improving the speed of how we connect students to the support but also our accuracy of data collection we're going to be able to not just pull individual data but also some aggregate data to really look at our programs and see how they're working

And then I think you're aware of open architects, this build out of open architects, which is a little clunky at the high school for what we want it to do, but it's got incredible potential, which is going to allow us to look at individual student and aggregate data and really make some important decisions. And then this is a really a highlight, but I wanted to put it in. And this is a, I'll talk about this a little bit in our areas of need. Our academic and some of our key metrics It's not necessarily getting better. And maybe like in the MCAS, it went down a little bit. But it's not getting worse. So it's not really a highlight. I put the question mark there. Our composite MCAS scores are down a little bit. We did a deep dive on there. Some of the impact there is with the test not counting for graduation, we had almost a double increase in the students leaving the open response for English blank. We had a lot of reports of students just marking C. It had a much bigger impact in our ELA scores than math and science scores.

But the not counting really makes MCAS a little problematic for us and really counting it as a measure of student improvement and growth. We had a slight improvement in the percentage of students meeting their progress goals for access. That's the test that English language learners have to take to to test out of being considered an English language learner. More on both of these things in our areas of need. Our failure rates are not getting worse, and they're showing some improvement in grade 10. and our demographics of students taking at least one AP test is holding steady with some groups, Hispanic students, Latino students, and our low-income students they went down a little bit during COVID and those are bounced back up to pre-COVID levels so again it's not really a highlight but it's not nothing is shifting too badly in that area. But our next steps, we are really excited to keep working on our efforts to improve instruction.

We've got such a vision in each department and are really leaning into that. That includes that increasing rigor and engagement. Improving our systems and collection and use of data, providing that beyond the classroom learning experience to all students, increasing student leadership, improving communication with families and each of these, we are not letting go of them and have plans for the next step. but I wanted to highlight three areas of need that have really popped as we were doing this reflection work and I will highlight all of those here. Number one, and this is also based on conversations with Dr. Boston Davis, is that if we're not feeling MCAS is very accurate, how are we truly tracking students' academic achievement? and so what we want to do is by the end of this year have a plan to implement for next year is a how are we tracking have a better plan for how we're tracking academic achievement We're meeting with Sam Allogene and some folks from iReady to take a look at using iReady for math and ELA in the 9th and 10th grade.

But we're also looking at taking advantage of As I'm sure you're aware, when MCAS went away as a graduation requirement, the state is requiring each school to come up with its own competency determination, its own benchmark assessments. We have them, they exist, but it is a very big lift. to put together a system to track them for every student and identify the key ones and track them. But I think we're going to lean into that and that might be something that open architects can collect for us as well. And so how students are doing on our own internal Benchmarks. But by the end of the year, we want to have a plan so that next year we can start collecting that baseline data, whether it be iReady or these benchmark assessments or both. But we don't feel like we have a really good way to be tracking our students' academic achievement. Another area that came up, and Stephanie's here to help me in case I mess this up, but this is also not just a Somerville High School issue. This is across the state.

The number of students who were identified as English language learners but have not tested out of that status has almost doubled in the past couple of years. So this could be students who have been here five plus years. We are counting in our data students who have been here less than five years but have already taken all of our English language courses. So these are students who still have to take ACCESS. They are still labeled as English language learners. And they just haven't gotten the passing score on the ACCESS test, which is given annually. What this means is that 200 students, and this has really come to play this year, the federal requirements are that we continue to provide English language instruction. And what that looks like at the high school is a course. like an academic support course with English language instruction or we've found some creative ways to put that English language instruction into other courses but it's an additional course

So now we have 200 students who are taking an additional course, which is sometimes getting in the way of them accessing support or opportunities that other students have. for example we have a class called rise we've identified students who might need a daily counselor check-in and some tutoring and they go through the they have a course assigned to their schedule some of these students might need rise and they can't fit it in their schedule It might be impacting their ability to access our CTE programs, music, art programs. And so this is something that we need to work on. the way we need to work on it and I can hear every person who's got an MLE background being like yes we've been saying this forever is to really make sure that all of our classes every single teacher in every single class has an English language learner and so making sure that we're we've all been trained in it we're all SEI endorsed but making sure we're focusing on language objectives and maybe even pulling in some of the access testing materials and practice into our courses across the board. Access test is no joke.

Like I think we have non-English language learners who would probably struggle with it. It's a very language intensive test. but to make sure we're really embedding those language objectives and then the other piece we're going to do starting next year is we're going to start some team teaching. Stephanie's been talking to a lot of other schools as have Paulina So our ninth graders who are coming in next year, if they are in LTEL or they've come out of our English language program and they are in an English class, the ninth grade English, that is actually going to be team taught with an English teacher and an ESL teacher so that that counts as their English language instruction it's going to improve our instruction but it's also going to free up the other course for ninth graders We piloted it this year in one of our resource English classes and it got rave reviews, but we're trying to see how we can incorporate that and embed that throughout our practice. So in other words, the goal is to get students to be able to pass the test at a higher rate, but for those who haven't, being able to embed that English language support in a meaningful way so that they're not limiting, don't have their access to opportunities and supports limited.

200. That's a lot of students last year. And then our last priority is when we were doing this presentation and when we've been looking at a lot of our measures, we're noticing a Lack of student voice. And I just recently even had a conversation with Dr. Carmona and Dr. Boston Davis about a couple of our programs. We're missing a way to reliably collect student voice. These are high school students. They have very, very thoughtful opinions. They can tell us what they need. They can tell us what's going on. The district historically has had this conditions of learning survey, but it's very long. It's not really granular data and it's We don't have a big success rate on students taking it seriously and thoroughly. We don't have great yield on that. So we want to find some more regular ways to get student voice. Classroom teachers do it regularly. It's part of our practice for classroom teachers to give a survey on student experience on a unit or what they need but we don't really have that data about student experience in general. So we have a couple of ideas.

I don't want to use the word screener because it's not quite the same as a screener, but some simple student surveys that are given on a regular basis and then inputting that data into Open Architects so we can really collect that data. information teachers can see individual student feedback on their experience and what they need but we can also use the aggregate data as well so if we can do that more systematic collection of student voice we feel like that's really missing in what we're doing to improve the school So I can walk through the data if you want. Again, this is just highlighting what we've already talked about. Our failure rates are not getting worse, getting a little bit better in 10th grade. The state is a little wonky because of students who are classified as 9th and 10th grade, particularly 9th grade for a second year. But again, it's just showing that it's not getting worse. Our MCAS data is still above the state average, but did go down a little bit in comparison to the state.

Again, our analysis indicates a lot of that is around the ELA scores and the leaving blank or the just filling in C on the multiple choice. Our AP test takers, again, just trying to show you it hasn't gone down and we have some populations like Latino went down to 21, 25% in 23, 24 and it's back up to where it was. Without a significant change in our school population, by the way. This was just kind of interesting for me, the number of... Boys and girls or males and females. This is AP language here. Males and females taking the test went from more female to about equal male and female. But I looked it up and we actually have a lot more boys at the school or students identifying as male at the school this year than we have in past years. And again, low-income students rebounding to pre-COVID rates. This next couple of slides just showing that we continue to have an uptick in students accessing higher level math class.

And access testing, what I've already mentioned, we have about 25% meet their state established progress goals, which is up from the past couple of years. These are just the demographics of the school in general if we need to refer to those. And I was going to open up the floor for questions or comments.

Lightning. Lightning quick.

Very impressive. We practiced today. I'm going to stop sharing. Hold on.

I stopped sharing. Did I stop sharing already? No, we can see it still. I'm telling you I'm real good on teams now we switched there you go stop share I have the same I have the same problem um thank you thank you thank you that was amazing um uh I wanted to ask just because I encourage all our presenters you did an amazing job every time for the most part I saw an acronym you explained it but PTSA. I don't remember hearing that one explained. Do you mind telling us what that is?

That's just the PTA, the Parent Teacher Student Association.

Ah, Student Association.

Got it. Thank you so much. The students can be members too.

Thank you. All right. With that, are there follow-up questions? I know there's a lot to digest very quickly. Also, thank you for the feedback from my colleagues that you can hear me. Hopefully, you can hear me better now. Yes. Member Green.

Thank you. As always, thank you, Ms. Kirsten. That was very helpful. I'm particularly interested in the The students who are English language learners, and I appreciate your focus on them. I appreciate some of your suggestions. And as you know, we are starting our budget process. So my immediate question is, Are there places on that particular challenge where more resources may be advantageous?

Yeah, so for this year, and I could have Stephanie speak to it too, Stephanie and our associate principal, Jody Remington, have done a really nice job looking at the schedule for next year. We can do it next year without adding any ESL teachers and Stephanie correct me if I'm wrong moving forward depending on how this goes this year and depending on what the numbers look like we might need to add in that area. Stephanie do you want to add anything?

No, I think you mentioned it perfectly. I think this year we do have enough staffing, but as we kind of continue and think about the other grades and expanding the model, we would need to think about staffing.

Yeah, and your sound is a little low, Stephanie, but she just emphasized what I said, that we're piloting it next year with ninth grade, and we have a couple of duly licensed folks for 12th grade that we might be able to do it with, but we're looking at... depending on how the model goes this year we can make it work this year with the numbers we have but moving forward ideally though we do such a good job next year that the number of LTALs goes down and that will also impact our staffing as well

Thank you, Member Piton.

Thank you, Chair, through you to Principal Kirsten. First off, as the parent of a high schooler, I can attest to the excellence of your school and the school environment. for promoting all the best things in our students. So really always appreciate hearing from you. Just in that vein, I wanted to return back to one of the core issues you've been focusing on in the school improvement plan, the attendance rates. and I am really glad to see that your strategies are working. I think last year you talked about Pulling and pushing, right? So different strategies to kind of draw our kids in and, you know, kind of Push them in.

I don't know what the other end of that is. But one in four kids, 25%, is still a lot of kids who are chronically absent. That remains a challenge and I'm glad that you identified it in your presentation. My question for you is what is the, I guess, The main drivers of that that Number, that recalcitrant number. And what are your strategies for continuing to address it? And then as a follow up, how can we help?

Thank you for that. That's another topic that I could come back here and speak for an hour on. We, as you said, I'd forgotten that I'd phrased it that way, but that's exactly right. We have the pull factors and the push factors. Thank you so much. It's doing incentive plans, rewarding students who improve their attendance. We have a pretty strict attendance policy about you can't pass a class if you have more than five unexcused absences per class. but mostly it's a lot of incredible work by our assistant principals and our deans then we've really upped the number of family meetings so as soon as a student is in danger or the data triggers them to show that they're missing a lot of school and classes. We have the families in, we have different plans.

We're actually right now entertaining internally changes to the handbook and really looking at attendance as part of that. So I think you'll probably be hearing from me in a month or so or a couple months with some proposed changes to the handbook where I can give you more details on the route. Cause. It's a variety of things. And our MLE population, which is the majority of our dropout population, it has to do with work. Work, work, work. Like they're working so much. We still have a slice of students that's really... just has that school avoidance issue we have it's less than it was but it's really intractable so we've really this year we've reworked our bridge program a little bit which is a program that if students who've been out for a while whether for medical or something else to help them transition back we've reworked that to try to make it a softer landing when a kid has fallen into that school avoidance trap but I don't have exact numbers from you for this year right now but basically Every kid is different. We try to do like a data of which things are working and every student is different.

And so really trying to tailor the supports or the encouragement for that. Stephanie, did you want to add specifically about the MLE population?

No, I think you mentioned it well. I mean, I think a lot of our students have a lot of responsibility outside of the school during the day. So that is just adding to that stress. And so thinking about How we can be supporting those students and giving them both their ability to work but also to learn at the same time is kind of I think a future focus.

We're actually one of the, I don't know if you know, we have a partnership with, I'm going to talk too much. We have a partnership with Harvard doing youth participatory action research projects. And there's about four going on at this school right now this year. And one of the groups of students chose Work on how it's a group of English language learner students in Elm community. And they're working with some Harvard researchers really looking at the impact of working long hours on students and what they need. So we should have a report by the end of the year. on what the students are recommending that we can do as well for that particular population.

Excellent. Thank you.

I'm excited to read that. Yeah. Thank you. Member Eldridge and then Member Pitone.

Thank you so much for that presentation. I'm wondering if maybe you can provide a little bit more context specifically on maybe a quick update on special education in particular. I know it's about 18% of the population at Somerville High School. and I'm noticing some comments about tier one and then also but not seeing much about tier three or tier two intervention and just wondering if you might have some more information that you could share or that someone else here might be able to share.

Yeah, so Tier 1 was our focus this year. Our Tier 2 and our Tier 3 is always our focus also. What we're doing this year is being able to... We haven't been able to collect the data on accessing Tier 2 and Tier 3. It's a little bit collected, but we're really, at the end of this year, I think going to have a really nice sense of who's accessing Tier 2 and Tier 3. I'm not sure exactly which data you want about special education in general. I can tell you that when we did our dropout analysis, 67% roughly of our dropouts were MLE and then it's about 23 were special education students so it's slightly above that 18% but not as glaring as the as the MLE. I do know that one area that we're working on is that we have relatively low access to AP courses for our students with IEPs and we're taking a look into that and trying to figure out what's going on there and how we can

make sure that the level of education they're getting and support they're getting can provide an on-ramp or can we also provide additional support so when we talk about special education things that are good for students with an IEP are good for all students right and so really trying to make sure that we have the right level of support for students to access our AP courses or higher level courses. I do know that Everything that we're doing when I talk about improving instruction and engaging instruction and making sure we're supporting students the right way is included in our special education model. Those educators you heard from today, I agree, they're incredible educators. I think we have strong teachers. We just have to make sure that our systems are in place to be properly supporting students with IEPs. We have will, we have skill, we just have to make sure our systems are doing it. So I don't know if there's more specific data you're looking for and if so, I can also gather it and bring it back to the committee.

No, I totally appreciate that. Thank you for that quick overview. If there's specific data, I can kind of shuffle that through. I'm wondering, like you were saying earlier, the systems and the best way to support, not necessarily in reference earlier, but it's something that I'm really passionate about, special education, just like you said it perfectly. is how when we're meeting these special education students what we're doing really works well for everyone so if you could share maybe some of the systems that you had in mind that would be beneficial for our special ed kids but then also our gen ed students I'd love to hear more about them Yeah, you mean right now or at a later date?

Right now? If you got some right now, that'd be great. Okay. One thing that we work on, and I think it's going to be, I'm going to jump ahead for next year, but I think what we're realizing for our focus area is that Teachers using data formative assessments on a daily basis. And so identifying regularly who is mastering the content, who needs that extra support. and again that doesn't necessarily fall just along IEPs. IEPs for a lot of different reasons but making sure that in the classroom on a regular basis you're aware of all your students are and providing those tier, this is where we talk about tier one supports, things you can do in the classroom to make sure those students are getting what they need to master their content and being able to access it. Our Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports, the system that we have, honestly, it's just this very cool umbrella Google form, but it's just really well done. where anytime a teacher is noticing that whatever they're doing a student needs more or a counselor is noticing or any staff member they put in a referral for the student to be able to access that more support.

And that's another way that we're trying to connect students to a tier two or tier three support and trying to move them on in a more traditional intervention model where we're trying it for X amount of time. and then moving it on to the next one. We also just did a full training for the staff on the difference between tier one supports and specialized instruction to make sure that our staff is Again, everybody's been trained in this, but just reiterating it for everybody about what it looks like to support everyone and what it means to need specialized instruction. That was a full staff training from Ildefonso a couple of weeks ago, actually.

Thanks so much, Member Pitone and then Member Stellman.

Thank you through the chair to Principal Kirsten. Thank you so much for the presentation. There's a lot of things I was excited about. Hearing about the peer walkthroughs and the practice improvements and this really targeted practice improvements where you're tracking very specific things. That's really exciting. The fact that Open Architects has been a really powerful tool for you and then also how you're moving forward to gather, create new mechanisms to gather data, whether it's academic achievement or also student voice. So incredibly excited. and you know as someone wanted you know there's only a couple of us around the committee from the original bar foundation work but seeing that progress on having students participating in activities outside of the classroom is

you know very encouraging um and i'm very excited about that and associated with that i'm curious about what your thoughts are or what the team you know your leadership's team's thoughts are on how you know what was identified formally as constraints associated with the school schedule and whether that rolls into your goals or that there's a vision to move forward with something new regarding schedule because it's not in the improvement plan or am I just working off an old paradigm or old data where I think that that's been a challenge and so I'm really curious where you are with that.

No, it's a great question. Our leadership team, first of all, I want to say there's no such thing as a perfect schedule, right? No matter what schedule you come up with, there's strengths and there's challenges to it. Our leadership team at the high school worked really, really hard, not this year, but last year and the year before to come up with a model. I know it's specifically around CTE. What would work for CTE much better and then giving those placements outside of the classroom into internships is like an A week, B week model. or an A day, B day where there's some days where students can just do CTE. And we, Stephanie and Trisha here, we worked really hard to pull that off means there's certain things you run into compliance with MLE, for example, the federal compliance for X amount of time of daily English language instruction for special education, for math and for language. And we went hard at it for about a year and a half.

Thank you so much for joining us. but it's always on the back burner and I think we just needed to take a breath after working on it last year. I mean, we spent so much time trying to come up with something last year and just got stuck with the multiple, you know, sort of conflicting needs of students in different programming. Thank you for sharing that. It's not a priority at this moment.

I look forward to hearing when it's on the front burner, when it makes sense for you.

It's always right there. Thank you, Dr. Stellman, then Member Green. Still on mute.

Okay. Thank you, Principal Kersten and through the chair. This is a great presentation. I think and so on. is so powerful and tells a story. It's not always the story we want yet, but you have limited time and limited resources, so it's a great buff. Yeah, and it's the transparency for us is really helpful. And I also really appreciate a lot underneath a lot of what you were saying is trying to figure out the root cause, you know, and Obviously, it's complex, but it's very important. So I just want to say, you know, and then the folks, I want to say that I've really

like the the data targeted approach and then the support piece for your fantastic staff and faculty right that not just focusing on What the kids need, but what your staff needs to support them. My only request looking forward is I would love to see data around our outcomes, what's happening with our kids when they leave Somerville High School. and it's such a rich data set because we should we should know it first of all be wonderful for teachers to hear hey

Thank you so much for teaching us this type of like when I got to college other kids didn't know how to do this and I did you know so there's lots of positive reinforcement and then there's things that we should learn like how come we didn't know So we have such a great source of data that I feel like we should be tapping into more. And I'm sure you're thinking about it already. I'd love to see some of it. The other thing about alumni which is so important that I would also like to see is the way that they can bring their experiences to us particularly for for our students in junior and senior year there's nothing like listening to a 20 year old you know and it's like and who represents them and you know so I just I'm I'm hoping that that

I know you have a lot on your plate but I feel like that's the one missing piece here is looking backwards to see what's you know what to do more of and what what needs to change so congratulations on on this phenomenal work I know that Dr. Boston Davis was a big part of getting data too and you have a whole team thank you very much

Thank you. Thank you for that feedback. And I agree. And another slightly back burner that's always right there, we've had some false starts at it, is trying to bring in recent grads as tutors. We've had a couple of false starts. We had it going during COVID, a couple of false starts at it, but it's also one of those, I'd say it's where the schedule is, like right there, how can we do it? We prioritize it, but I don't disagree with you that having those recent grads All right, Member Green.

Thank you. I guess this is a different kind of data question, actually. So I know that in your, what, five years now?

It's my fourth year as principal, yes.

Fourth year, thank you.

Feels like five, six, anyway.

Yeah, COVID time isn't real. But in your time, you've made a real priority and it's really shown in improving and magnifying student voice. And I know, both anecdotally and from my own experience, That students really appreciate that. I think it's something you should be proud of. And I wonder how it would be that we would try to explain perhaps to families or to a federal government that doesn't understand the importance of these things how those things have benefited students both in the short and long term and if it's actually working how would you make that case

For increasing student voice?

Yeah, this being a good, like, given that resources and time and priorities are limited. That this has been a good use of, as it takes its time, these last four years. I believe that it is. I know that it is. But for those who might be more skeptical, how would you make that case?

I mean, I think that without everything just being anecdotal, and I think it's sort of the vibe in the building and hearing from kids. I think we would need to make the case through data that's the whole thing and so our data first of all we have to collect more on student voice but I think what we need is to show that the outcomes are matching that like When we're tapping into that student voice more, we need those academic outcomes to rise we need the attendance to improve we need all of that to go on if we don't have that then great we made it a nicer place to be but we're not actually having kids achieve at a higher rate or be more successful So hopefully the long-term plan and I like that Emma used the word longitudinal like the long-term look would be at as we've increased this and students are feeling better and having more voice that we're also increasing all of that the outcomes as well. but those have to go, they have to go hand in hand. We have to have the outcomes.

Stephanie, sorry, I think Stephanie wanted to add to that.

Thank you so much. that looked at students' experience in the classroom and then transition from the ESL classroom to the general education. and a lot of their voice and experience on that also led us to dig deeper into our multilingual learners who've been five plus years and so I think it's kind of corroborated a lot of the data that we're seeing these students are staying in our programs longer the data is increasing and also students saying hey we want to have a little bit of a different experience than what we have right now with our current Thank you. Member Lippens.

Thank you. Three-year charter. Ms. Kirsten, thank you so much. Great presentation. I just want to echo, and this is almost a follow-up to Mr. Green's question. When you talk about open architects and you're thinking about how you're going to create the survey and screener, which I think is really important, I'm wondering how you anticipate, like, who is going to be part of that group? Um, team, I guess, of thinking about what data we want to collect, like, what are those questions Correct me if I'm wrong, but will open architects also sort the data based on demographic? Is that just inherent in the program?

That's built in the program, which is huge for us. for grade level everything. That's a huge piece.

And then what do you need from us to like help? Is that like, is that on you? Is that through the program or is that just you communicating with open architects?

Yeah, that's us just communicating with Open Architects. Before Open Architects, everything's been just sort of homegrown. We had Insights, a program that was made just for Somerville, and we used Thank you so much for joining us. We're really leaning heavily this year into the teacher notes. The idea being that if I'm a teacher, I should be going into open architects every day and I can see other teachers' notes about the students. I can see their attendance. I can see everything going on so that I can better serve the student. and now if we can get student voice in there and we have a draft of the survey we'll get feedback from students we'll get feedback from teachers on what it should be I don't want it to be too long I want it to be like a five or ten minute thing that we could do regularly but we're hoping is that teachers will see

Thank you so much for joining us. We can also use the aggregate data. Oh my gosh, like all of our students from this demographic, from this grade level, from this whatever it is, is reporting a higher level of satisfaction or a different level of need. And we can use that in the aggregate as well. Sam Elagin, we have bi-weekly meetings with her, bi-weekly meaning every other week, not twice a week. And we've actually asked her to bring Open Architects To those meetings, sometimes we've had direct access. It's still very much a work in progress. It's wonky, doesn't have our data quite right. There's some other pieces. but I really am excited about when we have this. We've been doing everything homegrown. The central office was working hard to make all these dashboards for us and it's all gonna be built into Open Architects. We actually are building in,

Aspen is now we're turning in the rosters of students who are involved in athletics or in clubs and those rosters are getting inputted. We're calling them points of contact because that's really good information for us too. We were trying to home grow it before COVID. Who's participating? What demographics are participating? How many clubs are they participating in? And I'm trying to think about if we can actually add in leadership to that too, if they occupy a leadership position. but the survey we have a rough draft we'll get feedback from different student groups from staff but the number one goal for that is going to be for teachers to get to know their students better that's how we used to use it in insights and then we can use the aggregate data

and then to Mr. Green's point like if we know more about our students we can then tailor our instruction to meet their needs which will improve academic performance in in theory right and so I appreciate that this is under Academic Excellence. And I wonder if you could maybe tag those CPAR students to maybe help with some of this work because it is a lot of research and data. Yeah.

Well done, thank you so much. Thank you. The CPAR work is great, but one thing about the CPAR work is the students pick what they want to work on, not necessarily what I want them to work on. There's no like, you know, hey, be great. I try but uh and so what they do and and we try to honor it I'm also talking with Harvard to see if I can keep a group of students working on the same topic for two years because they come up with some great ideas but we don't have time to partner with them to implement it So we might go back to one last year they were focusing on mental health and wellness. And it was really interesting data for us. It wasn't just the kids we already have connected. It was just sort of the general atmosphere kids that maybe aren't on our radar wanting more support. And so... Anyway, I wanted time to implement that, but they switched to a different topic this year. So I want to go back to some of that too.

Maybe you can do your own CPAR at the high school then. I know. All right. Thank you so much.

Again, it's not a CPAR if it's my wins instead of theirs. That's the tricky part.

Thank you. This has been amazing. We appreciate your time. We do have another presentation to queue up. So deep appreciation. And we look forward to hearing from you soon enough when you present a handbook changes in a couple months.

I'm getting on your schedule for May. We're going through our process at the school. We'll have a couple for you in May. Thank you so much. I'm going to stay and listen to Principal DiPasquale, though.

Why wouldn't you? It'll be awesome. Thank you so much. All right, is Margaret... Ready?

So can I do a little introduction on that? So before I say goodbye to the team at the high school. I wanted to also remind folks of a message that Principal Kirsten embedded in her presentation, which was you're welcome to come and visit let me know when you're interested to come and see the raw experience of high school students 1,400 of them walking through hallways, experiencing learning. It is a real excitement going to the high school, both the high school and also the alternative high school at the Next Wave Full Circle. But please let me know. It really is a beautiful experience. Now switching gears, I am really excited to introduce to you our guest. Next Principal, the Principal of the Next Wave Full Circle. As you know, they also share the same space of the high school.

And we know that Often the Next Wave Full Circle presents an alternative option for students who have had some setbacks in life. and the bread and butter of the Next Wave Full Circle is personalized instruction that also embeds the learning in very real experiences. Again, when you come to the next week full circle, the experience that you see of that personalization of the learning is like no other that you have seen in our district. So with that, I want to give the floor to our amazing principal, Margaret DiPasquale, to share her improvement process at the Next Wave Full Circle.

Thank you so much, Dr. Carmona. Hi, everybody. I am Margaret DiPasquale. I'm here. with our assistant principal, Jack Haverty. And while I'm queuing up my presentation, I do just want to acknowledge my colleague, Alicia Kirsten. I'm always impressed with the work she's doing at Somerville High School with all of her teams in such a large, comprehensive setting. It's always impressive to see the work that she does. My screen says disabled share. I don't know what that means. Let's go with that.

Yeah, for some reason you're a guest.

Only the host can share this meeting, so can you make me a temporary one?

Erica, can you make her a... One second. Yeah, you're only a guest right now for some reason.

It's fine. I'm happy being a guest. But I can get started. I don't need all of my slides. You're a co-host now. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. So share my entire screen.

Yes, there we go. Aside from my face, we can see it.

How do I get rid of that? I don't know. Me neither.

Can I do that? There you go. I'm out. I'm gone. Okay. No offense, Dr. Ackman.

Oh, please. I'm thrilled. Thank you. So next wave full circle. Jack and I are here to present some updates on our school improvement plan. and I there we go um just want to start off with our mission statement we spent a lot of time crafting our mission statement um that next wave in full circle. And even as Dr. Carmona said, we are a tight knit school community for students who have experienced academic setbacks and that they benefit from a personalized approach to learning. In order to meet those needs of our students, we do emphasize trusting relationships, authentic learning experiences, growth mindset, student voice and choice as essential components in our daily work. Our students graduate with the skill set needed to adapt to the challenges and lead meaningful lives, meaningful and productive lives. Last year around the springtime, we rolled out our new school mascot, which is the goat. And we incorporate it with our old next wave full circle symbol of the rising sun symbol. But really the goat is a symbol.

This was all from student voice. Students selected the goat as the symbol. and really it's a representation of greatness of excellence and resilience if you've seen a goat and they can kind of climb steep mountainsides curiosity and that goats are quite independent and they symbolize a desire to keep moving forward So that is our GOAT. And our core values, a lot of our work is centered around these five core values of resilience, empathy, collaboration, responsibility, and excellence. Every month we focus on one of these core values. and we celebrated our all school meetings and students are acknowledged for the work that they're doing in each of these core value areas. I don't know my, I'm not moving forward smoothly. I apologize for that. About Eight or nine years ago, we embarked on a redesign process and we really kind of honed in on what our instructional vision is.

And so in that redesign process, we really leaned into and have been rolling out a competency-based learning system. with personalized pathways. We're focused on project-based learning and certainly our center is around social emotional learning as a therapeutic school. We are focused, all of our classes are competency based and they are focused on one or more of the five competencies around argue, discern, investigate, innovate, and connect. And for those that are kind of new to competency-based learning and project-based learning, we really want our projects that students are working on to be some form of transformative learning where they are learning something new and it kind of like encourages them to explore a little deeper. Every project has a showcase. We were lucky enough this year to have Senator Jalen come and be part of one of our student showcases. A lot of our projects are partnered with community partners.

We have guest speakers and we have something we call a double wow. Like, wow, I learned something new, but wow, I actually just did something that had an impact. So that's how we can focus our courses. I'm going to run us through our school improvement goals. Our first goal around academics as a competency-based and project-based system, we want to develop a portfolio system similar to like as Alicia was saying, you know, now that MCAS No longer high school graduation requirements. We do have our high school graduation requirements that our students need to do locally, but also like how they progressing towards the competencies. We're capturing that in a new system that we rolled out this year called Jump Rope. But we also want students to kind of highlight their work that they're doing and develop a portfolio system. So that is an area that we are working on.

to really, you know, so students can really own their learning and own the projects that they have been focused on for a trimester because we're trimester based classes. We have seen academic growth since we've been collecting data since we went to a trimester system in 2023. And each year we are seeing an increase in the number of classes that students are passing. and that is just a reassuring of the work that our teachers are putting into the project-based learning and what our students are doing towards the seriousness and how seriously they take their classes each trimester. I don't have a slide here. And Jack, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about our FaceTime data. We didn't include the FaceTime data this year in our presentation.

Yeah, I can do that briefly. Is my volume okay?

For me.

Okay, so FaceTime is not something we use on the iPhone. FaceTime is we take the number of hours that you're supposed to be in school, six and a half hours a day and kind of subtract six and a half hours if you miss a school day. Subtract time if you end up being late to school, subtract time if you end up leaving early, and subtract time for us if you end up utilizing the process room. So we have a process room where students will take five, ten minutes to just kind of gather themselves, talk to the dean of students and a counselor. and but we don't count that as instructional time because they might be missing the ELA or math or science or history curriculum so we have been tracking since pre-COVID Every student's FaceTime so that we can see if they're improving or getting worse and we try every month to take a look at the top two students from Next Wave and Full Circle and come up with a plan so that they're not at the bottom of the FaceTime and so that's what

And we talk about those students during our SST meetings and how do we help move them up. So our next focus area is on equity and access. I can do it. Do you want to do it?

Okay. Similarly to Alicia, we're trying to get access to iReady for 9th and 10th grade. Part of the reason is Our students come in so quickly and what I mean is we have students that are coming in from Somerville High School, coming in from all of the sending schools, coming in from move-ins. and we don't have a great way of figuring out where they are when they get to us and make sure that they're making improvements. Like Alicia had said, MCAS is becoming a little bit less reliable. So iReady data would really be helpful in capturing exactly where they are when they get to us so we can make sure that they're making improvements while they're with us. In terms of our equity and access goal, with respect to reading, we saw kind of a glaring need for students because in the 24-25 school year

80% of our students at next wave so our middle school were reading at three grades below level which obviously stood out now That's kind of an indictment on the district as well as us because they come into our school below. So our job is to give them that tailored instruction and remediation and also rigor and we've seen a pretty big increase this year to go from 80% down to 64.3% where our goal is by the end of next year to have it at 50% and then keep going. Some of the reasons that we've made progress is we've added MLE and many more. Thank you. Thank you.

didn't have that previously to a couple years ago but also we're working with the special ed department and they're making sure that we get more reading support for next year so that we're able to do the pullout direct instruction. Margaret, I think you still got to do the slides for me.

Is it not?

You're good now.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because we're now on to the next goal of wellness and joy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, so Wellness and Joy, similar to the Somerville High School presentation, we're trying to give students more opportunities for voice and choice and autonomy. We kind of run, we do run Next Wave Full Circle as a very democratic process, not only from the kids standpoint, but as staff. Margaret empowers staff to really say what they want and and we don't take it personally we want people to bring up ideas we want kids to bring up ideas we have a whole bunch of committees Margaret and I run one of them that's called principals committee students can come up with any kind of school improvement plan they can Pitch it to us. We'll find a way to try and pitch it to the rest of the school and then try and make changes. But not just principals committee. We have Like 10 different committees that all have a little piece of how can you make the school better from a student perspective. So wellness and joy.

We think we're doing pretty well where teachers respond positively to my ideas, suggestions, and concerns. We're at like 73% are either usually or always. And then students are involved in school decision making and improvement activities. We've got nearly 80% of students saying agree or strongly agree. And that's very intentional. Students usually come in being upset that they weren't able to be successful at the school that they're coming from. But within a few months, they're actually understanding that we're giving more support and giving them more autonomy to make decisions in their programming.

I also want to add, similar to what Alicia Kirsten was saying about student voice, high school students, middle school students don't love doing surveys, but they have a lot to say. I was super impressed. This data is from the school quality survey that we do every spring. and this last year spring of 25 was our highest number of students that participated in the survey so the data that we're sharing tonight just feels more meaningful than other years when we've shared um the student voice data um

And Margaret, before you keep going, can I just say, just to ride on Dr. Carmona's comments about coming to see Somerville High School, we have a lot of new school committee members here. And please, please, please, if you end up coming to see Somerville High School, Do not leave without coming to see us at Next Way Full Circle. We've had Medford, Boston, Cambridge all have come multiple times this year trying to replicate what we're doing. And Margaret's done an amazing job. and the last decade and more trying to really produce the best therapeutic alternative school in the state and that I think that's what we have right now so please come visit us.

Thanks, Jack. Our last goal is on our family engagement. And so we want to see certainly more parents involved, but we want our parents to feel like they are our partner. in the academics and not just listening and getting feedback from us. We do invite our parents to our showcases. I have more pictures, but I don't put tons of pictures of parents and kids if they don't want them there. Parents do come to our showcase, whether they're there in person. A lot of kids will present to their parents on FaceTime. And I love that day for so many reasons, but certainly when our parents come and the Student is just so proud of the work they've done and they're so excited to share it with their parent or guardian or whoever they've chosen to listen to their projects. And it's just a great day.

you know again this data from our school quality data and you know our parents definitely feel valued and connected to our school community and so The next step we need to take is to have them feel invested in the academics. The jump rope, that's the learning management system that we're using this year. It houses all of our competencies in our classes. So students are graded on using jump rope and not Aspen. Parents have access to that. We're going to be running some information sessions for parents so they can see and understand what our competencies are, how our projects are graded, and how they can support their student at home. and then lastly I do want to just celebrate some other data that we have that didn't really fit into the other boxes that we're presenting tonight but I do want to acknowledge the partnership that we have with Somerville High School CTE program. 90% of our ninth graders this year are are participating in the CTE program and that is huge. We also have a large ninth grade this year.

Our graduating class is a little bit smaller than last year. We have 13 seniors, but nine of those seniors are enrolled at Bunker Hill for the spring semester in the dual enrollment program. And as Jack mentioned, you know, through the redesign work that we've been doing over the years, Next Wave and Full Circle has really become an exemplar of an alternative therapeutic school program nationally and certainly throughout New England. and this year Jack and I were invited to present at the used to be called the Aurora Symposium but now it's called Full Scale Symposium and we did a presentation entitled Empowering Diverse Learners Through a Competency-Based and Therapeutic Alternative Model. It was a great experience for me as a leader, just connecting with other school leaders across the country who are either doing similar work or trying to launch similar work in their communities. So just being surrounded by like-minded school leaders was wonderful. And as Jack said, we host a number of schools throughout New England all year long for multiple years.

from Maine to Rhode Island to Western Mass. And Boston came this year, Cambridge, Medford, our neighbors. So it is, I love talking about Next Wave Full Circle. So I'm going to stop sharing and... Do questions did I stop sharing?

you did you did that was that was great no i mean uh i have the same i'm used to teams now and almost never use zoom so well i can see my own face so i'm just presenting and i was like i don't know where where we're going into the ether there you did perfect all right uh thank you thank you that was amazing thank you each thank you both um i really appreciate it i will start calling on members member green thank you um

You know, the great thing about having done this for as long as I have is I don't have to tell you all again how much I love and respect the work Necessary for the Circle does. I think it is arguably the crown jewel of what we do here in terms of public schools. and I'm going to highlight two things I think are part of what you do well, namely that student voice and that parent and family engagement. The showcases are amazing. And the thing I was most surprised to see when I've been to showcases is the times parents are listening to other students' showcases.

and that like that's one of those things like that's we really built a community that works um and so I guess my actual question is not so much but it's sort of for you but it's also for the district There's so much that Next Wave Full Circle do right that are models for the district as a whole. Without putting too much more work on Margaret and Jack who are already just flat out What and how are we taking those lessons and bringing them to the district as a whole? And what can we do to invest in doing more of that? And whoever's going to start out can start on that.

You want me to answer that?

No, that's through Member Green to the district. I'm going to surmise that... I'm just going to keep going and see if the superintendent is ready to respond or that is something that we could be provided information on.

Yeah, I could, through the chair, I'll quickly say a couple of things. Thank you. I know that she's constantly being asked to share her feedback so that's one thing as a colleague she actually provide support or other principles in terms of how to manage complex cases in their buildings so that's one thing that comes to mind and The other thing that you heard there's two things she's actually presented in different places I also have approached Margaret to represent our district and the work that happens through the I always forget the acronym but it's MCIA correct and so I think that uh we are fully confident that the voice of Margaret and her presence is a voice the voice of the district and so we both enrich um

The long-term vision around instruction and engaging in more experiential learning as well as ways to actually identify the strengths of students. So there are a couple of things that I can think of. But again, I think it's embedded in the flow of how our colleagues access the strength of the principalship and the experience that happens at the university. Next Wave Full Circle. I know that Jess might have some other contribution around that question, but so I'll let her chime in.

If I may do the chair. Thank you. The only other thing that I'll add to what Dr. Carmona said just echoing that there are so many gems to learn from from Next Wave Full Circle is we do instructional rounds as a principal's team at every school. um and at so the entire principals team gets to visit every single school and visit classrooms and talk to the principals the principals each share a problem of practice that they're Thinking Through, and get feedback from their colleagues. geared at developing a shared vision of excellent instruction across the district and as we think about curricular rollout. But we recently did our visit at Next Wave Full Circle. So kind of to Member Green's point around How are we sharing all of the good practices that are happening?

That was certainly something that came through in the walkthroughs, something that we started by saying. People were excited to be there. One line that stands out to me, as I recall, one principal said, I want to teach in this school. Everything that everyone's saying is very true. And I think to add another system that we already have to learn from the goodness of Next Wave Full Circle and all of our schools are the principal meeting instructional rounds. 100%.

Thank you. Member Eldridge and then Member Pitone.

Thank you for this presentation. As a new member, it's been really helpful to learn both about the high school but then next way full circle. And I look forward to visiting y'all. in the near future. I wanted to see if maybe you could quickly ground me in just a little bit more data in terms of if we can have some quick back and forth of how many students there are currently at Next Way Full Circle.

Mm-hmm.

So Next Wave and Circle are technically two separate schools by the state DESE's perspective. Next Wave enrolls 24 students. Right now we have 15. And Next Wave is middle school, grades six through eight. Full Circle is high school. We enroll 72 Full Circle students. And we have a couple of new students starting. We're supposed to start this week. We'll see how the snow shakes out. But we're going to be up to about 70 students at Full Circle. By the beginning of March. So full circle is just about full. Because we are a special education therapeutic school, we do have to keep some seats available for a move in. or high need, you know, transfer because of special education IEP needs. So I rarely fill full circle up to 72 because I just know like we have a move in, I think coming this week or next week, we're expecting a student. So, yeah. That's our enrollment right now.

Thank you. It's helpful to ground myself in that because when I was looking at your presentation in terms of Thank you so much for joining us. I'm trying to understand also, I saw that there is an MLE reading specialist. I saw one. It's not a reading specialist, it's an MLE... or just MLAs.

She's multilingual. Gotcha.

Yeah. So how many reading specialists are currently working with y'all?

So every one of our teachers is special ed certified and dual certified in the content that they teach. So we have a lot of ELA certified special educators, but right now we're just sharing a reading specialist from Somerville High School. and it's been identified that we need more than that and the special ed department has agreed to beef that up for next year and so uh

I know the reading specialist requires specific licensure from the state to become a reading specialist. And I'm sure you have caseloads in maximum in terms of how many students each reading specialist can work with and the prioritization with the schedule. What number of reading specialists will get your students to the goals that you're hoping to be at?

So we're getting a 0.5 next year, which right now we only have three to four students who have C-Grid, so special ed meaning pull-out reading services. Honestly, we could have seven to eight that need pull-out reading specialist services, but we're doing a lot of that support right now within the classrooms and using our para. to cover like while they're doing that work but it's it's kind of piecemealing it and we're really excited to have somebody who's with us half time 0.5 0.5 will go a long way for our population

Oh, totally. I think that's fantastic. The reading specialists are really important. Being the most highly certified and credentialed through the state, they are the most skilled Educators at working through reading disabilities and reading challenges. So that's why I'm bringing this to the table, trying to understand how many you've got, how many you could use. and kind of looking at the larger like larger picture so I appreciate the information transparency there and thank you very much Chair Ackman for allowing the back and forth.

Thank you Member Pitone and Member Biton.

Thank you. I think this question is actually to the superintendent and the assistant superintendent, not necessarily to Principal, Deepa Squally. And we don't have to talk about it now, but I just wanted to bring this up. I would love to understand more about you know our next wave full circle is this exemplar and I you know just been so highly impressed and just I'm very curious about how SEEK plays into our model of therapeutic delivery. and I know there's been changes made at SEEK because of some concerns and so the bigger question is a like how does this play into our bigger therapeutic approach what is the connectivity between Nextway, Full Circle, and SEEK.

Are we carrying through with the same population of students? So I just want to better understand like the more holistic approach that the district has towards Therapeutic and behavioral support for our students from first grade all the way through 12th.

Yeah, that's a great question. Through the chair, that's a great question. I think that probably we should have a conversation about because that has been an interest that has come from different places as to what is the kind of the thorough line across all the programs that we have. I know we're currently... Making some adjustments in both our AIM program and just to make sure that we align the services based on the targeted needs. So I think the larger conversation needs to happen. We probably could have a time in which we do that. So I would say let me put something together so we can actually have a larger discussion around that. But I don't know if there's anything that Margaret wants to say in terms of the current kind of intersection between those two programs.

Well, I mean, historically, there was always an intersection between SEEK and Next Wave. For people on the committee that don't know, I've been in the district for 26 years, so I certainly have seen... Some changes, though I never worked that closely with SEEK, I've seen the changes that have happened, but there used to be a great partnership between the students leaving SEEK and coming to Next Wave because there was this natural progression. For some students, and some did go on to Somerville High School, you know, it's all individual needs, right? It's all the individual supports, but there were some changes made because we didn't want to double service, like next wave starts at grade six. Seek went up to grade eight. And so there were some shifts there. If we're serving kids in six, seven, eight should seek. So those are, you know, they are much bigger questions as far as like

populations how you know that ebbs and flows over the years um and the need but definitely there is a direct correlation between the students that you know need a therapeutic setting um some don't need it in high school but some do continue on needing it yeah

Thank you to you both and I look forward to hearing more and you know between the superintendent the chair deciding where this sits and how we want to Pursue this forward. And I think right now I looked on the website and I think SEEK is technically one through six now. I could be wrong. No, right.

Because that happened a couple of years ago because there was this like, why are we duplicating services in two different locations?

It didn't really make sense. and I 100% understand that obviously students developmentally are in a very different place from first to sixth grade than they are from six to twelve and some of the things you're doing in your model may or may not really directly apply but all right thank you I look forward to hearing more

Thank you, Member Biton.

Thank you, Chair, through you, and I just want to compliment your background artist. I'm very much enjoying that performance.

Yeah, he is too. He is too.

I just wanted to... First of all, let you know that I have already emailed Dr. Carmona to request a visit to Next Way Full Circle. I'm very excited for that opportunity, so thank you for sharing that invitation.

Excellent. Thank you for sharing that.

So, Principal DePasquale, you mentioned something that actually Principal Kirsten had mentioned as well, which was the challenges of around the MCAS data now that MCAS is no longer a graduation requirement. So it's a little bit of a double-edged sword. It had me curious because both of you mentioned the potential use of iReady data in its stead. And so one thing that It had me thinking about is, I mean, I-Ready isn't a graduation requirement either, right? So can you speak a little more about that dynamic and why is it that Newcastle is...

Well, students aren't taking it as seriously because they think I don't need it to graduate. So I'm just going to sit through it. and complete it, right? I sit there for X amount of time and complete it. Some students just aren't taking it seriously. And I'll be quite honest at Next Wave and Full Circle, historically students have not really taken the test all that seriously. Thank you so much for joining us. Learners, strong citizens of our country when they graduate, they have to be able to read. And we have to close those gaps. If they're reading three grade levels below, we are not setting them up for success in whatever their next step might be. So for us, really, it's truly about that academic growth.

A graduation requirements you know students still need to pass their four years of English like we have set you know standards that students need to pass to graduate and students have been passing classes but they could still have a very low reading level. and I want my students to graduate from full circle being readers and not being three grade levels below in their reading. They should graduate with a high school level reading. So that is a data point and that's work that we have to do with our students with iReady. It's separate from the MCAS for us, but if we're looking at what are the skills students need to graduate, you know you have to be literate you have to be able to read um and so that you know we have to focus on that and students are taking that assessment seriously Yeah, so our middle schoolers are taking it.

You know, you can see the thing I like about iReady, no system's perfect, but what I do like about iReady is that it does tell you if a student is rushing through the questions. And so we can, you know, if a student, it's like... they were on grade level last year this year they're below and you can see that they rush through the questions that is the data is the data but it gives us insight into okay that's maybe not a true reflection of this student's ability And so that's why I really do like the iReady data so we can kind of dig into it that way. It's different than on MCAS like yeah you can kind of see how quickly students are going but the iReady data goes a little deeper than that.

It's also as these platforms are getting better and they're getting more personalized, students start to realize when the teacher tells them about it that if I don't take this seriously I'm going to start getting instruction that is not meeting my needs whereas MCAS was never designed to immediately improve instruction because there's so much of a wait time before you got your results I-Ready and I-Excel and I'll you know as platforms get better kids are actually seeing like with their teachers they trust them they're like if I can show you what you if you can show me what you can do I won't have you do this stuff and we won't go over this again but we need to take it and it's not and so on.

and it also connects with how we use our the jump rope program and how teachers are you know grading our students on their competencies students can see their progress every assignment they're turning in um and so they're like wait how do I get this grade up and what do I need to do and And so as Jack was saying, as these systems are getting better and the students are able to kind of see that their work has meaning, that is what's impactful.

Thank you, Superintendent Dr. Boston-Davis. I will let you decide how that's, what's going to go.

I'll just be quick and then I'll let Dr. Boston-Davis chime in. That's her area of expertise. But I have used the iReady website Thank you so much for having me. One of the things that I was concerned about looking at when MCAS, the feedback that we got was that that issue of not being reliable because of how students were reacting to that. We lost the tool to be able to compare to what's happening in the early grades. We know that our K-8 system still has a gap for our LTELs, for example, is one thing that you heard from Principal Kirsten and also our students who are marginalized who actually are performing at low levels and so to me we need to actually see how that gap changes once they go to high school

And so it allows you that longitudinal assessment of how kids are growing from all the way from kindergarten to the end of the cycle at the high school. And as Jack said, it's a formative tool. It allows you to actually reflect on what's needed The kids can see the progress, has some visuals that are great. And also it gives you a tool, a set of tools to actually create interventions out of that. and so on. up to high school. And so that's why I think the engagement and the commitment from the high schools to embrace iReady as a tool is one thing that will be beneficial for our district.

Dr. Boston Davis.

Thank you. The only other thing I'll add, and I agree with everything that's been stated here, I was going to make the point around the formative assessment, meaning it's a tool to help us instruct as opposed to A summative assessment, which is just kind of a stamp and an overview of how students are performing in that moment in time. and you receive it much too late to really make any action with that individual student. But the only other thing that I'll say here is that we do have an I-Ready. It ties in very nicely. It's not quite your question, Member Biton, We do have an iReady family information session that is virtual on Wednesday that will go over like what is iReady, how is it used in our schools, why we are using it.

and it is more than just what they call a diagnostic but more than just an assessment or a test but also there's a personalized instruction component so we'll talk through all of that on Wednesday. if there's anybody in the public that wants to join and just learn a little bit more about how SPS overall uses iReady. So I just wanted to plug that. I want to give the floor back to NextWay Full Circle, but it seemed like a great time. to do that and advanced registration is required on the happenings section of our SPS website.

Thank you. What a great plug. All right. Principal DePosquale, A.P. Haverty, thank you. Is there anything else? No. Thank you for having us. All right. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Okay. With the blessing of my colleagues, because we do have one more external person who is here to talk. And I want to be mindful of time because we still have a lot of agenda to get through. I'm going to jump to and, you know, Superintendent, let me know if you disagree to item eight. Point C, the new business, the MSBA space summary and educational program, our first reading. We...

I think also have the District's Chief of Staff here as well, is that right? And Director Raish. So what has been presented to the body, my understanding is... An educational program outline that is in the process of being not just filled in, but vetted by... you know many different administrators and staff and I appreciate all the work that has gone into it you know based on Many meetings I have attended, I should have brought this up before, my understanding is in order to stay on, you know, the most aggressive timeline that we are looking towards,

to stick to in order to get the Sycamore Street building up as quickly, albeit safely, as possible. This educational program and one other element that I can't think of right now. which is called the space summary need to be submitted to MSBA by March 31st. in order to stay on the timeline. We have this meeting. We have another meeting this upcoming Monday, March 2nd, and then another one on March 16th. Those are the three meetings we have These are two documents that both the chair of the school committee and the mayor need to sign off on. And the chair, I'll speak for myself, I assume I'm going to speak for the mayor as well, we won't sign off on it without School Committee weighing in.

So the outline has been presented. My understanding is we're going to have it filled in pretty soon. But if there are other questions Questions sort of about this process for Director Raish, for Chief Isoke, the Superintendent. Now is the time.

Thank you through the chair. Can I just do a quick framing around that? Thank you. So as the chair mentioned, in your packet, you have a template. that is the educational program template and also two examples from two other districts. I think and then the reason why we put them in the packet is so you familiarize yourself with kind of how the educational program is set up. For us, this is not just a simple submission or a simple requirement. I think that what this document can do is that it will define how we as a district Create the template for what our students need. What is the vision that we are aiming for? What is the design, the functionality? And it ultimately becomes the lens through which we Design all our future planning and how our decisions are evaluated. So I just wanted to make sure that you understand that this document really is a guiding document.

and it requires you know as it is right now is 64 pages and we still are working with our principals and making sure that all the information that has to meet the requirements of the MSBA, as well as our dreams and hopes are embedded in this document. I just wanted to give that a little framing because this is a great and rare opportunity to be able to say, what can we dream about? This is a beautiful chance that we have as a district for something that is going to impact the lives of our kids for now up to two decades. 50 years? I don't know. But this is a great time. And so this is a great juncture in our process. I'm going to pass it along to Rich Reich who has actually a lot of data points to make sense of this as well as the timeline that Chair Ackman has described.

Thank you. The mayor has his hand raised, so I'm going to let him pop in and then we'll bring it over to Director Raish.

Thanks, Chair. Quickly, just to add additional context here, if you're saying, well, this seems like an abrupt change. We talked about this a little. It was just so fundamentally important to give this body the opportunity to weigh in on this because these are really consequential decisions that really are... In my view, I think in most people's view, within the purview of this body. So we pivoted very quickly. To do this, which is why we find ourselves in this situation where we are presenting here information. It's being put together very, very quickly. And I just want to give a note of appreciation to City of Somerville staff and especially SPS administration for the just wild amount of work that's being done so quickly on this. so that we can let the school committee weigh in meaningfully on such a consequential decision. I'm so appreciative. It's gonna result in such a better process.

Thank you.

Excellent. It seems the team has been doing their job and we've got our leaders to have religion on this. I probably couldn't have articulated it any better than the mayor or the superintendent have. You know, we are in this MSBA process. We are seeking to open the doors on a new school. And this is the first real critical step where the district gets to provide the input. because you know yes sort of my job is to put up the brick and mortar but it it doesn't make a difference to the community unless it's achieving the community's goals and and so the the team and their Subconsultant have been working with Dr. Carmona and his staff and Dr. Boston Davis and Principal Goslin, Principal Ames. on really defining these needs.

And it's been an educational process for them because it's not really part of their You know, on that, you know, 25 to 50 year timescale or, you know, forget everything that's happening in your schools right now in an ideal world. How do you want to deliver educational programs? and so the consultants have brought them around to four different schools that have been recently built and had a number of workshops with them and I really can't underestimate the amount level of effort that has been put into this by SPS staff because they're continuing to do their day jobs full time, but also dedicating a lot of time and effort to this. And so, you know, it is They're working frantically on it. We hope to have drafts in your packets end of this week. We will have a more formal presentation. Our consultants will come in.

A week from tonight to give a lot more context to this but we wanted to have this opportunity So with the committee a week ahead of that, normally on a normal schedule would have been two weeks ahead, right? But now because the holiday or the vacation, we're one week ahead. Just to open up the concept and maybe start getting some feedback questions from you or at least get you thinking on those lines so that when we have a more formal presentation on the second. We can really hit the ground running and hit that MSBA target and really keep us on this aggressive schedule to opening the doors.

Thank you so the one other thing I wanted to add is that you know so far what I've learned is you know this March 31st deadline is the first deadline where you know Hard deadline we're aiming for. There's another one that is August 26th of this year and another one that is February 24th of 2027. Those are three, you know, to get Documents necessary in front of MSBA in order to get their feedback in order to maintain our timeline. That's just a high level overview that I wanted to make sure is sort of on the record, but because March 31st is, you know, around the corner. I want to be sure that we are focusing our energy right now there. Member Biton.

Thank you, Chair Ackman. Through you, I just want to thank, first of all, thank you, Chair Ackman for Staying laser focused on our timeline to make sure that our students at the Winter Hill particularly have the certainty that they need that we are not dithering. We are getting this done. on the timeline that makes the most sense in response to, you know, the situation that has come about. So... you know this is a remarkable opportunity but the timeline is so critical so I also want to thank Mayor Wilson Mr. Raish for your partnership and leadership in making sure that that happens. And of course to Superintendent Carmona.

I'm really excited about this. I haven't had a chance to review those materials. I'm really grateful for them, the outline and the comparables, I'll call them, from other districts. to dig into and what I'm assuming is next week will be our first reading I know it was built on our agenda tonight as a first reading but given that we We really just have an outline of the instructions. I think we can still have a fulsome discussion at a first reading and a second reading. and still stay on that March 31st timeline. So that would be my request and really excited to drive forward with you all.

Thanks. I mean, to answer that, I'm anticipating that we will. also vote on March 16th but for now I'm probably not going to call it we'll probably won't call it first reading again next time either we'll call it presentation uh or something else But yes, I am also anticipating that, you know, we will not be voting this through a week from today.

Thank you, Chair.

Since you don't have what you need to be voting on. Thank you, Member Pitone.

Oh, did I call on you?

That was my goal. Thank you.

You thanked me, but I thought you said Biton. So it's, you know, those names are complicated. Oh, through you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for you sent the school committee kind of a broader timeline in terms of what all the school committee's responsibilities are because the MSBA process is very clear. there's certain points in the process that the school committee is required to sign off on and this the first one is this educational plan and but I don't know if that kind of Data or timeline, including when... A potential vote to the public will happen. I don't know if that's been made public or not. And I want to acknowledge the city who's put together a new website. They've really enhanced and updated The website and there is a great deal of information around some recent dates. So this is just a

Thank you so much for having me. Timeline and where school committee what we have to prove and when when is that going to be more public including when there's going to have to be the ballot question and the second part was just complimenting the city and encouraging any families or Educators or community members who are interested in engaging this process that this stuff is up on the city's website regarding the new school.

So through the chair, I can speak a little bit to the schedule. And again, this is, it's a working schedule. It's, you know, we have to do the work associated with each one of these reports. We have to get on an MSPA agenda. They need to turn it around with minimal comments that we can. Address in an expeditious manner. So, you know, some of these dates are subject to change, but they are informed by You know, previous experience of both our designer, Perkins Eastman, and our owner's project manager, PMA. And we do think it's achievable. A set of dates so you know again the the first one is this educational program um I'll also say that the MSBA processes doesn't necessarily require a city council action, but both Chair Ackman and Mayor Wilson

are pretty adamant for them to confidently sign off on these things. We want to have these discussions with the school committee. So we're having de facto votes in alignment with these discussions. Milestones with the MSBA. So the first actual milestone, which is the March 31st submittal, is the preliminary design program. And there's a number of The most substantial for the city council is the educational program, which is Written by the district with some support and assistance of our consultants, but it's very important that it's a district-centric document. The other pieces of the preliminary design program are then more architectural.

There's assessments on the building, the existing building at Sycamore. and some plans for either renovation or new construction and broad level cost estimates with that. So that's more on the technical side. but then also where it ties in with the Ed program is is the the space needs right so the ed program drives the space needs which then drives the building massing and all that gets wrapped up in the PDP so that PDP is the the submittal but really the the part that um The school committee weighs in on is the ed program because, you know, unless you want to find out a bunch about how to handle asbestos or the cost of concrete, the rest of that document is probably less of interest to you.

So we hit that one at the end of March, and that puts us on track for what's called the Preferred Schematic Report, or the PSR. and that then is putting more detail into the building and options on the building. And to be clear, just so everyone understands, We still have to carry through in that preferred schematic report different options, including, you know, renovation of the existing Winterhill building. Demo of it we have to carry forward the Trump field options even though it's we know it's very unpopular with um with uh The city and unlikely to gain a vote support. We still have to document that to MSBA. So those options will be carried forward. And we're targeting a submission of August 26th.

And that would put us on their September agenda, which is a big milestone for us. And we do want to go through that because that's then starting to marry the educational vision with the brick and mortar. And I also think that's important to get school committee feedback. that then gets us down to one preferred alternate that we then dive down into more detail on what that building Thank you for watching! that we can be held accountable to. And that's the February 2027 date that we're trying to hit.

And that then goes into a more robust MSBA review. And a lot of that is around the money. because that's where the funding agreement gets negotiated. What we submit in February of 27 becomes the basis of the cost share. And that then also becomes, once MSBA agrees to what they will fund, what they won't fund, agree to what our estimate of the cost is, that then defines what our debt exclusion vote is. If all goes according to plan on that February, we would hear back from MSBA on the details of that funding agreement. by the end of April, 2027. And it's at that point, we have a defined project, X number of students,

A, B, and C program. Building looks like this is going to cost this much. City shares this. and our debt exclusion dollar value and what the property tax impacts are of that. That all then would be ready in sort of late spring, early summer of 27. Again, all those other things have to line up to hit that target. And that then... We as a city then need to decide on the timing of when we would put the debt exclusion. So we could do... We couldn't feasibly do the debt exclusion vote any time before June of 27. But all those other things being equal, June, July, September. What makes sense? Are there going to be other elections that we want to line up with?

Those will be discussions that we're having, I would think, in early 2017. Member Biton?

Thank you, Chair. Just a quick follow up. So when we did the high school, we did the debt exclusion in line with a general local election. So what I'm understanding here is that we don't necessarily have to do that. It could be at a different time. Just didn't realize that and I appreciate that level of detail. Thank you. And thank you for giving us the broad timeline. I think it's helpful for the community at large and parents, educators, etc. So, and there's more, like I said, I encourage everybody who's interested to go to the city's new website. or updated website.

Thank you. Yeah, to maybe answer the question that you weren't asking, the way it was framed to me is or were in some level asking is that If this gets passed in April of 27, as we hope, the time between that and when our general election is, which I think is November of 27... It would sort of force a chunk of time where the city can't be moving forward with this if we don't have a special election. And since, you know, we're The urgency has been made clear. That is why the special election is being considered. Does that make sense?

Thank you.

You've received synopses of many, many long... Thank you. If there aren't... Oh, remember Biton?

Sorry, just while I have the opportunity with Mr. Raish here, I'll ask a question that I asked a couple of meetings ago. I was up late one night searching for the copies of the letters of acceptance that we got back when we were first enrolled in the MSBA process. and I came up empty-handed and I'm wondering if that is something you can provide the committee so that we have a better understanding of the parameters under which we're operating.

I can follow up offline with you, Member Piton, on exactly what you're looking for, but I can find whatever document you need. Wonderful. Okay.

There's a bunch of them. I just want to make sure I get the right one for you. That's great. We can connect tomorrow. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Member Pitone.

Thank you through you. And not to launch a hot potato in the air, but... I do think that there was something that was shared in your email about timing around consideration of school closure. In this particular case, the Brown School. And I really think it's important for whether the city or you as the chair or the superintendent speaks to this and lets people understand sort of just very briefly how it fits into the big picture for the school committee who has the authority to decide whether or not the school is open or closed, when that would have to be discussed.

So, you know, as many things will be a much more formal presentation about it in a week. What I will say is what while it is not explicitly mandated. Director Raish, you can correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. Our understanding, based on what our consultants have told us, based on everyone who's gone through MSBA, is that voting to approve the largest school building possible which the CAG endorsed indicates a commitment to eventually shuttering the Willow Ave building. and then the other thing I noted is that the absolute earliest that our school committee can responsibly entertain a vote to close the Willow Ave building is only After the MSBA approves the proposal, which right now the earliest possible date of that is April of 27, and then the debt override passes.

which again we said you know spring summer fall of 27 um because without these approvals, there is insufficient funding for the new building and, you know, a new building as it will be envisioned throughout this process probably won't be built. So, I noted that the earliest potential date for that vote would be, I just put fall, capital F fall of 2027. Brief conversations with Perkins Eastman. I'm going to get that wrong. Perkins Eastman. I got it there. They said that like... Responsibly, that is the absolute earliest and there are other reasons to potentially wait a little bit because there are other things that need to be sort of guaranteed and solidified.

before certain choices are made. Is that what you were getting at?

Absolutely. And again, I want to thank you and the city for clarifying and putting all this information out there. It's very appreciated. And obviously, like you said, it was a lot of meetings and a lot of time.

Yes, and again, this will, like, Perkins Eastman is... They have this really well-illustrated timeline that they've been editing a little bit, and I'm confident they will put it in front of us as part of our presentation. And it will also help sort of envision... It helped me. Like timelines helped me, visual timelines. And so it helped me sort of really see what the earliest possible date was. We good? To my colleagues, thank you. To Director Raish, Chief Anisoke, thank you for being here. I know this has been a tremendous amount of work so far. All right.

So with that, we can now go back to Roman numeral six for those who are following or wait, sorry, to the superintendent. Is there anything else from your from the district report? As we go back to Roman numeral five.

Yeah, through the chair. Thank you for coming back to that. So the draft of the school calendar is something that we have discussed multiple times. We now have an update for the 26-27 school year calendar.

So that's in Roman numeral seven.

Okay.

That's why we're finishing the district update right now. Is there anything else in the district update?

That's the end of the district update.

Great. If you would like to jump to unfinished business, we can go to Roman numeral 7A, draft 2627 school calendar.

Thank you for keeping me organized. Definitely, this is really a priority. It's something that has been weighing in our mind and I know that we have heard from the community. So I wanted to make sure that we have a finalized version or we have a final decision around the multiple revisions that we have seen. and I will give the microphone to Dr. Boston-Davis if that's okay. She can walk us through the update and provide additional context and detail behind the proposed changes.

Thanks Dr. Carmona and through you, Dr. Ackman. Great, so I have before you the draft 26-27 school year calendar. This is the same calendar. There have been no changes from the calendar that was presented to you at our last meeting. As a reminder to you, the initial draft was presented December 1st. For you and for the community, the initial draft was presented to the committee December 1st. There were wonderings for the committee to explore what it might look like to start the school year a bit earlier, given that Labor Day does fall later in the year and for some consideration we have looked at other districts in our area surrounding districts and many are starting earlier than normal given the late start of Labor Day.

So with that ask to explore, I had many conversations with many of our stakeholders, particularly union leadership. And I think the SEU was It's especially important to partner with on this given that in their contract, the start date of school is actually named in the contract. So that's contractual language and a shift As it relates to Labor Day. So a shift to start earlier would then need to have a side agreement. So after exploring with the SCU, the SCU was able to pull its members and they are in favor of the proposed calendar that went before you in our last meeting.

which as a reminder and thank you Miss Garcia for projecting this worthy as a reminder uh which would make the first day of school uh monday august 31st uh which starts Two days before our typical start date, which would have been related to Labor Day, Wednesday, September 2nd, and that was in the first iteration of the calendar. I'm happy to entertain any questions, but this is our draft for you to consider to approve.

Thank you. Dr. Boston-Davis, I just want to reiterate, At our last meeting, and I think meetings before, our colleagues have had many thoughtful suggestions. I just want to reinforce my understanding is each of them has been brought in front of the union and that through... Thank you. We appreciate their partnership. I just wanted to, did I state that correctly?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for that. Helping me tease that out a bit. Yes. So we talked through a couple of options or a few options, I should say. Starting the school year earlier before Labor Day, as presented, we talked about some non-federal holidays or non- closures that are not federal holidays, such as Good Friday, such as Election Day, which was not an area that wanted to be explored. And we talked about maybe the option of not doing anything. and starting on September 2nd and based on the results shared with me, the first selection from the SEU, their preference would have been to start on August 31st. The second being Do Nothing. And I do not think they were...

The third of those three options, I should say, was the Good Friday start. So I do not think that would be... Or... attending school on Good Friday. So I do not think that would be something that our colleagues would entertain at this time.

Thank you. And so I just want to reiterate for the body and then I will call on you, Member Biton, that If that second choice is what the body votes through, which would be starting on September 2nd, it would make the last day of school, which would be a half day on June 24th. or June 21st, 2027. With that, Member Biton.

I move to approve the calendar as presented.

Do you have a second?

Second.

All right. I have a motion to approve the calendar as presented by Member Biton, seconded by Member Green. Is there any further discussion? Superintendent, are you willing to call the roll?

Yes, Sir Calendar, here we are. So, President Davis, Member Piton.

Yes.

Member Lippens Yes Member Eldridge Yes Member Green Yes Dr. Stellman Yes

Mayor Wilson. Yes. Member Biton. Yes. Dr. Ackman.

Yes.

Okay, with eight yes, the calendar has been approved.

Member Lippens, you have a question?

It's just a quick follow-up question. Can you just clarify why pre-K and K are starting when on the calendar as is and not on September 8th? Dr. Bosma-Davis?

Yes. Member Lippens, I'm sorry. I don't know if I fully follow your question. Can you just, is it why they start, why they do not have the same start date? or while they're not starting.

Yeah, so why is pre-K and K not starting a little bit later? I know they usually typically start two days after, so I'm assuming that's the reasoning, but I'm wondering... Given the new timeline, is it just because it's always two days so we just shifted and we didn't keep the pre-K and K?

Through the chair, yes. We typically start two days after first through 12th starts. And so I maintain that starting later. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Thank you for that. We will stay on unfinished business, Roman numeral. 7B. Dr. Carmona, is there anything else that's part of the MSBA update besides the space summary and educational program?

No, that was the extent of my MSBA topic.

Wonderful. All right. So we're done with Roman numeral seven. We are on to jumping back to Roman numeral six, report of subcommittees, finance and facilities of January 14th. Rules for January 26th and Finance and Facilities for February 7th. Do I have a motion? Move to approve.

Second.

All right, I have a motion to approve Finance and Facilities January 14th, Rules for January 26th, and Finance and Facilities for February 11th from Member Green, seconded by Member Pitone. Dr. Carmona, will you call the roll?

You're on mute. Got it. Thank you. President Davis, Member Piton. Yes. Member Lippens.

Yes.

Member Eldridge.

Member Eldridge.

Yes.

Member Green? Yes. Dr. Stellman?

Yes.

Mayor Wilson? Yes. Member Biton? Yes. Dr. Ackman?

Yes.

With eight yeses, we have approved the subcommittee reports.

Thank you. All right. We're on to Roman numeral eight. New business point A. Motion to approve the January bill rolls.

So moved. Second.

All right. A motion to approve January bill rolls by Member Biton, seconded by Member Green. Is there any discussion? Superintendent, will you call the roll?

Besson Davis. Member Biton. Yes. Member Lippens.

Yes.

Member Eldridge?

Yes.

Member Green? Yes. Dr. Stellman?

Yes.

Mayor Wilson. Yes. Member Biton. Yes. Dr. Ackman.

Yes.

A total, the January bill rolls have been approved.

Wonderful. All right. And we are moving right along to the Shore Educational Collaborative Appointment. Um, I have asked member Eldridge To be our representative on the Shore Collaborative. The Shore Collaborative is a special education collaborative that Somerville is part of with, I think, eight other cities. And each city sends a representative. It is a wonderful school slash organization. I served on the board for many years. and I hope when I step down from chair that the person who steps in is willing to let me take it again if member Eldridge is willing to step aside but you know Maybe she'll want to hold on to it because it is a really wonderful experience. So are there questions? I have asked her to take over but the body needs to vote on it.

So I'm seeking a motion to approve.

Motion to approve the appointment of Member Eldridge to the Shore Collaborative.

Thank you.

Second.

Great. I have a motion by Member Pitone, seconded by Member Grover. Green, Superintendent, what do you call them all?

President Davids, Member Piton.

Yes. Member Lippens.

Yes.

Member Eldridge.

Yes.

Member Green? Yes. Dr. Stellman? Yes. Mayor Wilson. Yes. Member Biton. Yes. Dr. Ackman. Yes. With AGSs, the team has approved the short educational collaborative appointment of member Eldridge.

That's wonderful. Congrats, Liz. I think you're really gonna love it. All right. 8D field trips. Do I have motions or a motion?

Chair, I've got a question for you. Are we voting on any subsidization of these by the school committee such that if we have a child going on one of these, we would need to recuse ourselves?

My understanding is no. I'm going to look to Member Green.

This is actually a strange question that MSPA is giving conflicting advice on. So there's no financial reason. I was going to just, for the purpose of safety, also not vote on that daily trip. The advice has been at best mixed.

So then I would then say with the chance of two recusals that I would ask maybe the first and third field trip. Go separately from the second, member Pitone and then member Biton.

I did want to highlight that if you when I read the ceramics field trip it referenced that the The district would pay for it if people couldn't pay. I know that doesn't have anything. I don't know if anybody's kids are on those field trips, but I was just going to flag that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. I also have a question about the ceramics field trip. And maybe I didn't, what Member Pitone just said might have answered the question for me, but We had some significant questions about airfare and travel for another out of state field trips and the cost associated with it. I'm curious to hear a little more from administration about This, I mean, seems like an exciting trip and I just would love to hear a little more if we can get more details.

That makes sense. I also want to note that the one we had a lot of questions on was a fairly large optional. I mean, this is also optional, but this is two students as opposed to a large number of them. So I wanted to note sort of The size of the group going. But to the district, is there anything about the NCECA trip? Dr. Basta-Davis.

Yes, I'm happy to. I apologize. I'm just trying to pull up my notes here so I don't say anything incorrectly and so I couldn't find my raise hand function. You're doing great. So there's a couple of, this is really exciting. Thank you, Member Biton, for actually just, we wanted to have the students We thought in person for today, but it was too quick of a turnaround. It might have been the last meeting. It was too quick of a turnaround. So we are going to try to bring A number of the students from high school arts department and really shout out to their dedicated teachers. This is really, really exciting, an exciting opportunity. So let me just take a look at my notes here so I don't mess this up. We have two students, Tad McDonald and Mateus Unger, and I really hope I pronounced both names correctly, had their work accepted into the K-12 National Ceramics Exhibition.

And it's going to be held at that conference in Detroit, March 25th through 28th. The work is incredible. I've seen pictures of a number of students' work. So that's at a high level. We, May Chow, who's the visual arts department head for K-12, Alicia Kirsten and myself have reached out with Dr. Beretta, Interim Chief Finance Officer to We are making sure we have the coverage available. You may recall from our We are looking at other ways to

to figure out the funding but we're making it work but that essentially it's the students were recognized at a national level for their ceramics and um the teachers really felt strongly that the kids have the opportunity to go um That's it in a nutshell. I hope I did it just justice. The very, so Taylor Brine, I hope I'm saying her last name correctly. I always just call her Taylor, the amazing passionate teacher who will hopefully be here to Present and talk a little bit more because they can speak a lot more eloquently than I can, but that's the opportunity. I'm really excited to support the students and being able to go to this national exhibition.

Thank you, Member Biton.

Thank you, Chair, if I may just follow up through you. I'm so moved by what you shared, Dr. Boston-Davis, and Just so grateful to be part of a district where we prioritize the arts and student success and student creativity. it's really wonderful so I'm so glad that we're able to offer these opportunities to those students and I can't wait to see their work and hear about their amazing trip so thank you

With that, do I have a motion on the first and third field trips, the March 25th and June 9th?

I move to approve the field trips from March 25th to March 28th, 2026 for two Somerville High students to travel to Detroit, Michigan to participate in in the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts travel via plane cost to students zero dollars and On June 9th, 2026, 45 8th grade students from the Kennedy School to visit my favorite, Canobie Lake Park in Salem, New Hampshire. As an end of year celebration, travel via school bus cost to the student zero dollars.

Do you have a second?

Second.

Alright, there are two field trips put up for approval by Mr. Biton, or by Member Biton, seconded by Member Green, Ms. Biton.

Thank you to you, the chair. I just want to note that I guess this is an amendment. The first field trip, the ceramics one, has a note that it says pending medical review. So if that is still relevant, I want to make sure that that's included with our motion.

Dr. Boston-Davis?

Thank you. And just a note, that is very typical for the nurses to write that to make sure that they check all of the students. The nurses just need to clear students. Obviously, it's the will of the committee if you choose to make that amendment. That said, that is a typical note on most of our forms before we can formally Put them in the system. So it just so happens that you see the form for an out-of-state one.

So just I guess to clarify, And, you know, if this is the process, are we as a school committee, do we approve trips before they're medically reviewed, which seems kind of not... Dr. Best-Navis

Thank you. And just one additional piece of context based, member Piton, based on your point is that sometimes in light of our some recent mishaps. We encourage folks to get the forms in because we know our nursing team is amazing and we'll, you know, kind of make sure they go through things. So I just want to Name that that could have been because we encourage this to get approved before making any additional plans by the committee. So that could have been, you know, if you prefer, we can also do things differently on our end as we process.

Thank you. Dr. Stellman?

Yes, thank you to the chair. My question and comment, I'm not a reflection of... I agree with what Member Biton said and... I actually have a kid who spent a lot of time in the ceramics lab at school, and we have phenomenal ceramics everywhere in our house, which is great. But I just, I think this came up, but I... I'm tired so my memory is not hanging on there as much as it should. So where does this money come from? Does it come from the art department line item? And I'm, yeah, so that's question one. And then, well, yeah, actually, I'll just love to hear the answer to that. And I have one more comment that goes along.

Thank you. Through you, Chair. I'm just trying to pull up my notes here. Make sure. So we have, I am not going to say the precise language. I may not say the precise language exactly correct. However... When the field trip opportunity was presented and we reached out to Dr. Beretta, he noted that there were student accounts, like funds allocated for student Use by school that had been that were available. and the art department happen to have some funding available. Again, we can ask Dr. Barretta for that specific language or I can comb through my notes and you can just give me a few minutes and I can get back to you with exactly what the account is.

But that being said, so we're able to use some of that funding and then the remainder will come from the high school's budget. And I'll find the exact account. I just need to look through my emails.

Thank you. I think... The thing that I just want to put out there for the body to consider is that we heard a very lengthy set of comments at the beginning of our session asking questions. for us to fully fund special education and we know you know from listening to Principal Kirsten's um presentation that a lot of wonderful things are happening and so much work needs to get done. And so I just, I do think it's really important for us to celebrate, especially Having kids could be a life-changing opportunity to be part of a national competition. And at the same time, it's two kids and it's $4,000.

Well, not quite, but... $3,500 and I just wanted to say just as somebody who's quite frugal and not just personally but like in organizations um It doesn't quite... It raises some equity issues in my mind, but only because I don't know the details. And I'm not saying this is inequitable. I'm just saying... As we move forward, I think it would be helpful in times like this to have a clearer picture so that we don't get into a place where some other great opportunity comes up and How do we manage that? So that's it. Fundamentally, I love this idea, but there's just a finite amount of resources. Thank you.

Dr. Buston-Davis, are you following up?

Yes, thank you, Dr. Stellman. Just so I could be a little bit more precise, I may have said this, but I'm not quite sure. So there's a student enrichment fund that that many schools and departments had remainders of. So those were funds that are different than local budgets that should be used for student focused, like student focused The Art Department had about $3,100 available and their student enrichment fund. So that will be used to pay for this trip. And the remainder will be covered out of the Somerville High School, which is about $500 or so.

Thank you, Dr. Boston-Davis, Member Eldridge, and then, oh wait, Superintendent, are you responding to this?

Yeah, I just wanted to add that this was part of the work that our interim CFO was doing when he was looking at revolving accounts. So there were some balances that were left from several years ago prior to his arrival and so those accounts were actually set up for out of revolving account but set up to for uh student activities and so they have been there he shared that at the beginning of the school year and so when we were looking for money we said Bob is there Bobby is there any place where we can actually find some funds and it's like and he shared that with the entire district. He said like these are the places where actually we have some balances. So I hear the question about equity. I also... know that there are many competing interests in terms of funding and you know on a yearly basis we have seven to eight requests of unfunded assignments of monies that we actually have to come up that are not approved by the school committee.

So I totally hear the question about how are we going to be careful about how we manage the balance of our accounts. And as the high school question came up We did not approve a full teacher. We provided some support, but we have had requests from multiple areas. on a regular basis that are unfunded requests that it is our fiduciary responsibility to be responsible for the purse. So, you know, as it is right now, we have a low balance to end the school year that is really below what is expected when it comes to a district and a budget of our size. Here, what you're saying, again, these balances come from a revolving account that has been un-spent. So just to give you some perspective.

Thank you. All right. Member Eldridge and then Member Green.

Nope.

As an arts family, we are in the arts. The arts are what we do. Also as a ceramist, I can say I spent many years in college doing ceramics and then also outside of school also doing ceramics. my heart's in this work I love this work I also recognize the points that Emma raised which are very valid points when it comes to The amount of funding that's being asked for for a few students. So I think those are both very valid and can hold, you know, very, they can both be true at the same time, right? I think that I'm wondering if there was any or if there was because of a shorter turnaround if there was any looking into fundraising or PTS or like the PTSA to support funding because I know some of On the lower K-8 models, the PTSA would often support the trips to nature's classroom and things like that if the funds weren't available. And I'm just curious if that was something that was explored for this specific proposal.

Dr. Boston-Davis or Superintendent Carmona, do you know?

May I respond, Chair? Thank you. Thank you. Great, great point, and yes. So I think we quickly try to say, well, we have this moneys available. allocated to the art department for student enrichment. Let's use this so that it was a very quick turnaround. I think we can, I think there was a question about the PTSA, but we thought this makes sense because the money is available and to be used for student enrichment from the art department. That being said, I can certainly bring back to the educators and to Principal Kirsten if you'd like for us to kind of consider other avenues.

I'm not fully remembering at this time what the conversation was about the PTA, but I can also check back in my emails and see if I see anything before we move on topics.

I think it would generally be helpful and in terms of like the precedent that we're kind of setting here but is this something that we will continue to do going forward or is there a threshold in which We ask for support from PTAs or PTSAs or fundraising or whatever it is. I think it's just an interesting area to be in and could create a little bit of a slippery slope because you know there is immense value especially in the arts for being celebrated for your work I'm well aware of that just making sure that the decisions we're making are consistent and keep all factors in mind I think would be really helpful

Thank you. Member Green?

I respect my colleagues' concern of the equity of the situation. I really do. And I want to remind them that we're talking about two students, and therefore there is a lot of The situation with those two students that we as a body cannot and should not be privy to. And so there comes a level where we have to trust our administration to be deciding if this is a good use of resources or not. I do. Now I'm coming from the bias of being that child who was not able to celebrate for my achievements as a high schooler because I couldn't afford to travel necessarily. So this is a decision that our art department and our central leadership think of a good use of resources. I'm inclined to trust them. And I'm inclined to remember that as a district, we've always adopted the policy of People shouldn't be not allowed to do things because of ability to pay.

So if this is our administration's decision is the right use of those resources, I think This is a level of granularity. I do not feel comfortable as a body arguing over. So either some of the issues of individual student equity, other districts, we don't. But we as a body, I don't think we should be trying to make these decisions at that level of granularity.

Thank you. Member Pitone and Dr. Stellman.

Thank you. I appreciate this conversation. I think that as new members, You're not going to be aware, there's not often, but these things do come up where students win things. There's competitions, there are events. The robotics, the kids who make something regionals and then they make National History Day. These things do happen. And maybe it could be helpful. To the body in general, maybe getting a memo of just examples of where we've had to do this before so that they have a kind of a broader view. But I personally want to support this. I agree with Member Green's perspective. about, you know, we have to trust the administration at some level, but it could be helpful to kind of get a broader perspective and kind of what's some examples of how this has happened in the past and how we've supported it or not supported it. So in a memo form maybe in the future, but I will leave that to the superintendent and the chair to decide if they want to follow up on that.

Thank you, Dr. Selman. Thank you, Susan Chair.

Yeah, I just want to clarify that there's me being able, as a school committee member, being able to Ask for transparency about the budget is not an indication of mistrust of the management. It's actually our... It's our purview. We have the right to ask. And it's not that I don't trust. It's that we should know. I have been a school administrator for many years and I definitely with a majority of students who couldn't afford to all sorts of wonderful things and spent a lot of money doing that and I don't It's not just philosophically, it's not problematic. to support our wonderful students and give them wonderful things.

I just don't want to set a tone in which I feel discouraged in the future to ask questions about Where money comes from and why and how. And so I want to feel like on my team here that that's okay for me to do without having... without having people think that I mistrust our management. I do not. I absolutely totally do. And I will tell you that I think these are, as I said before, these are life-changing events for many people. And we are... We are here to serve the larger community and I will always stand up to find out what do we not know so that we can feel informed. And I do absolutely trust

Thank you, Superintendent Carmona.

Through the chair, thank you. I just wanted to go back to the question about the memo about field trips. I'm curious as to what is the exactly request. So is it a... Some kind of background as to how we have finance field trips or what is the actual request? So I am clear.

Yeah. May I follow up through the chair? Yeah, we've had situations where things are not scheduled. They're not budgeted for particularly for trips. So if a student... Wins Regional History Day and they get an opportunity to go to National History Day. Or if our robotics team gets an opportunity to go to the next level of robotics and they have to go out of state, has to be paid for. This is not an uncommon thing. but we cannot budget or plan for it unless I guess we can look at what we've done in the last three years and say over the last two three years in general this is the cost and maybe we have um a cost center that covers that I don't know but I think it would be beneficial to the body to see the types of things that are happening and the type of students that it happens and how we pay for them So I don't want to create a ton of work, but I also think that we could all learn from it so that we can address and understand the scope of how this happens and how we can be supportive moving forward.

Does that make more sense?

I know what you're asking. I just don't know where that information... I mean, we have a new CFO. We have a former CFO, which I don't think that did a good job. Record keeping around these things. I'm just trying to identify where this information can be found. But I'll look into that and then we'll see what... And again, I don't want to create a ton of work, but...

I do think that the body, if it's accessible information, the body could benefit from it.

Thank you. Member Eldridge and then Member Biton.

I just wanted to echo the sentiment that this isn't a trust issue for me. It's just better understanding the world that we're working in right now. So I wanted to echo what some of what Member Stellman had mentioned earlier, that asking questions should be encouraged and isn't a means of a lack of trust. and it's also a means for some of us to learn and better understand the policies and procedures that we have currently in place because we don't have the historical knowledge that some members do have I also want to point out that Having access to these things I know is wildly important. I am intimately aware of what it is like to grow up as a child in low income. I am intimately aware. So I understand that these opportunities are rare.

and asking for a little bit more transparency around them and better understanding them in no way suggests that I do not support them or that I do not support or Trust, the administration. I took a bit of offense to that, so I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. So a bit more information would be wildly helpful, A, and some type of precedent in terms of How we do this, what we do this for when we don't do it, because I did hear earlier. Dr. Carmona said that there are requests that go unfunded, A. And then B, we have had a lot of discussion lately about access when it comes to field trips, when it comes to out of school time, but there's been a robust discussion about making sure that access is an opportunity. So you know making sure that there's that transparency here also feeds into that work as well. Member Biton?

Thank you, Chair, through you. I just wanted to thank the administration and all of my colleagues for this really Insightful discussion. I'm grateful that we're asking these questions. question asking is part of our job right um we're supposed to dig into the uh the budget we're supposed to be asking these questions and um you know i i just i I learned so much when people ask things that maybe there's a question somewhere in the back of my head but so many smarter people than me are around me here so I'm just really grateful for To be able to be in the room sparks so much knowledge for myself and I imagine for those in the audience. So just I for one really benefit from it and I appreciate that. What everyone is bringing to this conversation. So thank you.

Dr. Boston-Davis, then Member Green.

Thank you, Chair. This is not a direct response. It's something separate, but about this trip. So if you'd like to continue the queue and then I can come at the end, that's fine with me.

That's fine. Member Green and then Dr. Boston-Davis.

So I just want to speak from my perspective now as a nonprofit executive. When I talk about a board of directors, which some of us are trusting its administration, it's not a personal comment. It is a comment about the difference between management and governance. And it's about knowing when the question we're asking about is a governance question or a management question, which is an art, not a science. But I would never accuse members of distrusting Management on a personal level. It's a matter of understanding when and where is the right place for us to be talking about distributions in the battle of a Aboff,

That to me is a management thing, not a governance thing, and therefore I have a purview, not a comment about any individual member's ability to ask questions, which of course we should always ask questions. But a matter of, you know, there's a matter for the body, it's a matter of decision making. And the question to me is who makes the decision? And for me, this is a manhood decision. I'm going to defer to our management, and that's what I mean when I say trust. It's also a governance issue, which is where we should be paying our time and energy.

Thank you, Dr. Buster-Davis.

Thank you, Chair. There are just two things I wanted to say and I know it's late about this field trip. And the first is that the teacher's name is Taylor Byrne. and I apologize because I love Taylor so much she's an incredible educator and I mispronounced her last name and names are important so I wanted to just first say a huge shout out to the art department and Taylor Byrne, who was the one who has sent the emails, but I know it's her and other colleagues. And the second is just a fact about the trip that I failed to mention, but I noticed as I was reading through, which is that only 150 pieces from the country are selected and so two have been selected from Somerville so I know that is not about the logistics of the trip necessarily but I just Again, it will be shared but wanted to share that as well as a celebration for our incredible art team and students.

Thank you. With that, we have a motion put forward by Member Biton, seconded by Member Green. Superintendent Carmona, can you call the roll?

And just to be clear, it's two field trips, the National Council, and I forgot the National Council for what?

The... NCECA so National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts that's the March 25th through 28th and then June 9th yep Canobie Lake from Kennedy students

Excellent. President Davis, Member Biton? Yes. Member Lippens? Yes. Member Eldridge?

Yes.

Member Green? Yes. Dr. Stellman?

Yes.

Mayor Wilson, Member Biton, Dr. Ackman With eight yeses, we have approved the two field trips that are coming up.

Great. And then I wanted to clarify for, you know, they're abstaining because their kids, should it be approved, might be going. Mayor Wilson and Member Green would be voting present is that correct or abstaining for the next one Ms. Pitone or Member Pitone you have a

I'm just going to put the motion forward. Chair, my intention was just to be recused entirely from the discussion and the vote.

Okay.

Yeah, we just don't count.

got it okay thank you that's that's really it's it's getting late so that's that's what i was going for okay so motion to approve the may 27th through may 29 2026

Fieldtrip of 65th and 6th grade students from the Healy School who will travel to Groton, Mass. through the outdoor classroom program, travel via bus, and the cost to students is $390.

Thank you. I have a motion by Member Pitone, seconded by Member Bitone. And so my understanding is, Dr. Carmona, when you call the roll, you will... Skip over the two members who have recused themselves.

And again, is this a field trip again?

Yes, this is the May 27th Healy field trip to Outdoor Classroom.

Got it. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. President Davis.

Oh, sorry, Member Pitone.

I just have one comment for the other members that may or may not have seen these type of trips in particular and maybe they I just want to say it for the community that we talk a lot about money and in this one they've specified where students who can't pay that the friends of Healy will pay that. So it's not money that comes from the district, but that Friends of Healy, the nonprofit of the school, is scheduled to say that because we often talk about this in a lot of detail. So I'm just going to flag that.

Thank you for doing that.

And I vote yes.

There we go.

Member Lippens Yes Member Eldridge Yes Dr. Stellman Yes Member Biton

Yes.

Dr. Ackman? Yes. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six. There's six yeses. So we have approved, the school committee has approved a field trip on May 29th for the Hitler School.

Thank you so much. All right, we're on to item E, acceptance of FY26 grant funds. Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve. Approve with Gratitude the State Partnership for Reading Success Part 3 District-Wide for $186,500, the Early College Planning Grant Increase of $1,161 and a private grant from the Austin Institute, which is district ride for $3,800. Second.

All right, I have a motion by Member Pitone, seconded by Member Lippens. Dr. Carmona, or sorry, are there any comments? Dr. Carmona, will you call the roll?

President Davis? Member Biton?

Yes.

Member Lippens? Yes. Member Eldridge?

Yes.

Member Green?

Yes.

Dr. Stellman? Yes.

Yes.

Mayor Wilson. Yes. Member Biton. Yes. Dr. Ackman.

Yes.

So the school committee has approved the grants. Eight yeses and one absence.

Great. And I will take a motion on donations.

School Committee approves with gratitude the donation of equipment from Dale Engineering from Bedford, Mass. for the value of $3,839.39 to support the Advanced Manufacturing CTE program.

Second.

All right. I have a motion by Member Pitone, seconded by Member Biton. Member Biton?

Real quick, just wanted to thank Dale Engineering for this gift. I had the chance to... Visit the advanced manufacturing area of the high school, the CTE program. What a phenomenal program they have and really excited that... Employers see the value of it and want to contribute. So really excited. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. Superintendent, will you call the roll?

President Davis, Member Piton. Yes. Member Lippens? Yes. Member Eldridge?

Yes.

Member Green? Yes. Dr. Stellman?

Yes.

Mayor Wilson. Yes. Member Biton. Yes. Dr. Ackman.

Yes.

The committee has approved the donation from Dale Engineering to the CTE program.

Thank you. Do we have any community or calendar items from committee members? Member Eldridge.

I wanted to share some quick feedback from a constituent regarding the calendar but didn't want to muddy the approval of the calendar from earlier in this discussion. There was some constituent feedback around a request to have Future calendars approved before we leave for December break. And then there was also an additional recommendation that you know at face value not knowing the intricacies of what went behind the scenes um for um Dr. Boston Davis to come up with this agreement um uh an initial quest to to explore um When we announce the end of the school year, possibly announcing the beginning of the next following school year, so we know the beginning and a start and an end time for the summer when it comes to scheduling child care and camps, the December... Deadline would be really helpful for that because that's like in hot commodity in January but then also knowing the beginning and the ending of the school summer would be really helpful as well.

Yeah.

Thank you. Dr. Boston-Davis?

Thank you. Is it appropriate for me to just share in terms of the second request? So thank you, Member Eldridge, for that feedback. The one thought that I have in terms of the Thank you. Thank you. The regulation for the school committee's approval is to schedule a full school year. So if the committee would like, you know, I have no We have no problem preparing in partnership with Erica Garcia, who really does some of the hard work, but we have no problem preparing and bringing that before you earlier. but it wouldn't just be the start date it would be the full school year because that's what the committee is charged to do um to schedule the full school year so that that's just the only kind of um

additional consideration that I would provide should that be a request from the committee but otherwise yep thank you for the feedback totally understand the the summer camp uh and Summer Schedule concern personally. So thank you.

Thank you. Member Pitone and then Member Green.

I think Member Green had his hand up first. I don't want to... Okay, as long as it's not timely. All right, I just had a quick announcement, and I will probably keep announcing this, is that I and Naima cite the... City Councilor from Ward 5 and Senator Jalen are hosting a coffee on March 14th from 10 to 12 at Zaruma Gold Coffee, which is on Woodbine Street. We're going to keep promoting that.

Thank you. Member Green.

Yeah, I just wanted to touch on the other half of that schedule thing, which was that now it's the last day of school. I understand and frankly empathize deeply with parents who want to know that as soon as possible and I know that for state law reasons we can't officially know that until after March 15th because we're not going to make up any days that missed before then so like I just wanted to make sure we said that for people who might not know this, that legally we can say whatever we want now, but if anything happens to you on March 15th, we legally have to make it up so we can't officially have an essay in school until March 15th.

Thank you. That is a great calendar reminder for all of us. All right. Superintendent Carmona.

Yeah, I don't have an announcement, but I just wanted to echo what was said by the... Principal Pasquale that they have a showcase on March 12th. It's really great to have an audience for students who are actually showcasing their presentations so if you can make it uh please let me know uh we can set that up the other thing i wanted to say is that if you want to see flow if you want to see kids in the middle of something that actually takes away their attention and they just become one with with Ceramics. Go to the ceramic room. It's a beautiful round classroom. The kids are doing multiple things at the same time and many things are happening. and so I do take it seriously I think you should take a look at what happens in our buildings let me know please I'd love to take you around it is the work that happens in front of our kids That's kind of where you actually can see what's the quality of instruction that happens in our district. So just wanted to put that plug in there.

Thank you. Member Eldridge? Could you share the time on Thursday, March 12th? The date's been shared a couple times, but I'm unaware of the time.

I'll give you the time.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

All right. Member Biton, we have condolences.

We do. The school committee offers its deepest condolences to the family of Corinne Diana Butaro, formerly Mernan, mother of Tracy Mernan, I'm sorry, Tracy... Grenier-Mernan, Nurse at Next Wave Full Circle, and mother-in-law of Karen Grenier-Mernan, Dean of Students at the Argentiano School.

we are adjourned thank you have a good night thanks good night thank you