School Committee Meeting - April 6, 2026

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Hello, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Both for those who are in person, thank you for taking the time. And those who are virtual, we're stoked that you're watching us. It is 7.02 p.m. Welcome to this What are we at? April 6, 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 hybrid participation. We will post an audio recording, video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Superintendent, can you call the roll?

Through the Chair, President Davis? Here. Is he here?

I am here.

Great. Member Biton? Member Lippens?

Here.

Member Eldridge?

Present.

Member Green? Here. Dr. Stillman?

Present.

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

Present.

With a members present, we have quorum.

Okay. Now we have a moment of silence and salute to the fine. 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. all right thank you so we are going to take things a scotch out of order we are going to um

something that's on well we're gonna jump to something under the report of the superintendent is that correct that's correct all right thank you for your patience as we as we bounce around we will get to a public comment and then a report of the student Great.

Welcome, everyone. I want to celebrate a guest that we have here tonight. As you might know, every year the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year program recognizes an educator who is celebrated by multiple indicators. One is that it makes a positive impact on a student's life. also that is a student center in the way they teach innovative as well as committed to learning and demonstrates also that the learning happens beyond the the classroom So this year we are proud to recognize our SHS history and social studies teacher, Beatrice Thomas, who was the finalist for this year's top honor. So Beatrice, welcome. Thank you.

Beatrice, if you're willing to come to the podium, Senator Jalen has a proclamation that she would like to give to you. And we are very honored to have her in our midst to congratulate you on this accomplishment. We'll let you go first.

and the Teacher of the Year. And Ada Santos is now on the statewide graduation for council. So I think this is a tremendous honor. Social Studies is hard to teach these days, as always. I just want to say how important it is that we be developing the future citizens and participants and leaders. and that we develop a different kind than we currently have on the television and on Twitter or whatever it is. So I'm just here to give you a citation from the Massachusetts State Senate, which is the least we can do. And I know this...

School Committee is going to recognize you as well, but I'm sorry my grandchildren didn't get to have you, but they had some wonderful teachers.

Sorry, I have a cold. Thank you. I really appreciate all the recognition and celebration around this. And I'm very, very excited that some of my family is here and some of my former students are here. So this is wonderful. Thank you.

A couple of things that I also wanted to mention that Beatriz is a graduate of the high school. She also has been the member of the staff equity team, student council, and founded the Latinx Student Union. She also has received $5,000 because of this being a finalist and also that award is going to be applied to support the transition for students in the K-8 system into a high school. So it is a pleasure and an honor to celebrate you tonight. So thank you for all your hard work.

I want to say quickly as a former DESE employee who actually worked in the office where these decisions were made, there are thousands of applications that come in every year. and I think it is an absolute best case scenario for Somerville that you are a finalist because the person who gets chosen gets taken out of the classroom for a year which you know We want you in the classroom and so we're happy to celebrate you as you know many of our amazing educators here and and you know while we believe you deserve the honor selfishly was the best case scenario for us so congratulations um and thank you babaka do you want to say anything are you i know you were excited to Mention.

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't expecting to, but I just wanted to say I miss Thomas as my ninth grade world history teacher and she is just so amazing. and I'm just so grateful to be able to work with her and continue doing this work but she truly is such an amazing person and just Such an amazing teacher and you know that she truly cares for each and every one of her students. I remember that during the end of our ninth grade year, she wrote like a handwritten letter for everyone and I think That just goes to show what a wonderful person she is. And I know I'm going to get emotional. But yeah, I mean, I just truly appreciate all the work that she does and all the care and love that she puts into her classroom and for every one of us. So thank you so much, Ms. Thomas, and you truly deserve this so much.

Oh, Mayor.

Thanks, Chair. Sorry to call you back. I was privileged to attend an event at the high school where Ms. Thomas and some of her students and a corporate sponsor, of course, talked about the work that's been done there, the impact that she has on students' lives. We sat around here and talked about the importance of the transition process up to the high school. and here we have you know someone who's working with students on that exact work and I was just so impressed and richly deserved very very proud to uh to have you here in our public school system representing us so well and huge congrats thank you

Thank you so much. Okay, we are going to go to our student representatives and then we will go to public comment.

Yeah, so we have, I'm Marlee Thrasher, I'm an 11th grader at Somerville High School, and we have a bit of a list to share with you guys today. The first thing I'm going to touch on is our new kind of We have a new info sheet that all students have access to regarding clubs and sports and opportunities and like upcoming events that it's something that we're still working out but it is a more organized way for students and staff to access resources and yeah so the inclusion of events is also a way we're attempting to get More people involved in school activities and I'm going to pass it over to Peyton for the next part.

Hi, I'm Peyton Gates. I'm also an 11th grader at Somerville High. What I'm going to talk about right now is something that just opened up is the Mayor's Summer Job Program applications, which I'm sure we all know is a six-week career readiness program for Somerville teens. between 14 and 18 and most of the positions are running from July 6th to August 14th with 20 hours a week which is a great opportunity especially during the summer when A lot of us don't have a lot of things going on and applications just opened on April 1st and they're going to be open until April 30th for high school students and also other students above 14.

And on top of that, there will also be office hours running April 1st to April 30th to help students, which will be the mayor's summer job workshops, which are going to help students Build their resume building skills, their interview skills, and their financial literacy skills since a lot of those can be hard for someone who has not had work experience yet. and finally we're also going to have this or we did have the CTE fair on Wednesday April 1st which was a really good opportunity for the CTE students Since it gave them a chance to learn more about the different careers that they want to go into following high school. It was in the morning so the students went during class which was great since it was accessible to students who have a busy after school schedule since School events happening after school a lot of the time are just hard to go to if you have other commitments and it went really well.

So passing it back to Marlee for the next part.

Yeah, so the next thing I'm going to talk about is the student-staff basketball game. So this we have every year. It's a really fun school spirit opportunity where students play basketball against staff. This last Friday and I think we had a really good attendance turnout. Yeah, so what ended up happening was the students won 54 points to 50 and everyone was really excited about that. um so uh something that next i'm going to talk about is the may 8th first generation college celebration so our school has the opportunity to celebrate um The students who are the first to graduate from high school and their families and they're hosting a breakfast for them at the school on May 8th. So that's a really awesome just like celebration for people who are trying out new things that maybe the people around them haven't maybe done before so they have like less support so it's really a celebration of their efforts.

Then we've got some more events coming up. We've got a St. Patrick's Day bake sale on March 17th hosted by the junior class and we've currently got prom tickets. on sale until April 17th for students and prom will be on May 21st. And passing it back to Peyton for some stuff on the music and art department.

Okay, so there's a few things that have happened in the music and art department. So first of all, there was the school play a little bit ago, which was March 26th to 28th, which was Called Lost Girl by Kimberly Bellflower, which was sort of like a spin off of the Peter Pan story about Wendy after she returns from Neverland. which is just a great story about finding self-reliance and just learning to be independent. And that turned out really well. And then we also had the evening of song on April 2nd. in which the Somerville High Chorus performed songs from Hamilton and also multiple students performed their own solos. and students who played instruments accompanied the chorus as well. And students also sung in multiple different languages, which was really cool to see Different cultures being represented.

And Somerville High also made over $500 from the fundraising by the Somerville Chorus selling their chorus march, which was just really great to see. and coming up is the music department Chicago trip which most of the music department is going to be going on a field trip from April 9th to 11th. and the Somerville High Chorus is actually going to be performing at the DePaul University, which is really cool to see them being represented elsewhere. and yeah passing it back to passing it back to Marlee for the next part yeah okay so

One second here. Yeah, okay, so yeah, looking forward to the senior graduation, we're doing a little bit of a change this year by, The seniors who are speaking at graduation are filling out an application and two seniors will be chosen by a committee within the school. So before this only the valedictorian and the salutatorian of the class could be speakers but now kind of opening it up is shifting the attention away from academic success and kind of recognizing different types of success. Another thing that I wanted to talk about is the Multicultural Fair. It is on April 17th and this is an opportunity and an event that everyone looks forward to every year. It's a full day of like representation of many different cultures. Students can host tables and those tables will have just like like

Things that are representative of different cultures and the food, which is always a highlight for many students. And there will also be dance performances Performances from many tables and from like yeah there's always a really big turnout for like the different countries from the school year 2022 and 2023 there were 20 there were over 22 countries represented and I think there are even more this year so yeah we're really looking forward to that I personally am doing the Italy table and I know a lot of my peers are working really hard on that and even more of us are looking forward to it so yeah passing it back to Peyton

Okay, so the last thing we have on our list to talk about is the club of the week, which is the Dear Asian Youth Club. So there are a few different things going on in this club. For one, a couple of the board members, some of whom are actually on our school committee team. are working with the Somerville Asian Family Network to help plan the Cambridge Somerville Asian Festival, which is going to be a festival that incorporates people from both Cambridge and Somerville and is gonna highlight different heritages within the Asian American community and just try and bring hope In a time where a lot of people are pretty scared so yeah it's just a way to celebrate through food and music and just bring people together.

Board members are also working with the Cambridge Rindge and Latins Pan-Asian Club to plan another event that will be engaging students from both cities, which is great to see. and there were a couple different successful events hosted by the club already. So they had a tea tasting event where There was a lot of students that came. Over 30 students attended to taste teas from various Asian countries, which is really cool to see. I actually attended that myself and the teas were really delicious, so it was great. and they also hosted a K-pop demon hunters watch party to highlight AAPI media and yeah just represent some more of that culture for our students. But that's everything we have on our list for today. So, yeah.

Thank you both so much. Welcome, Marlee and Peyton. Do any of my colleagues have questions for them? Member Pitone and then Member Lippens.

Thank you to the chair. Thank you both for being here. I was particularly interested to hear about the change in terms of who's going to be speaking at graduation. It's something that's kind of been I'm excited to see how that hashes out I'm assuming that there's peers and teachers and different people on the committee making that decision. I don't know if you want to talk about that a little bit more or you're not aware.

I'm not personally the person who has that information. I assume that there are peers in the decision-making process, though.

so anyway it's just it's something that um really uh I feel like it reflects the values of the school and I was just excited to hear about because it's again it was something we've talked about before but would be nothing that I think that anybody would want to impose on a community and that it would have to come from the school community so I look forward to hearing how people feel like I feel about that afterwards

Thank you through you, Chair. Thanks for being here. That was great information and I was taking notes, but some of the dates that you mentioned, I'm wondering if we Maybe as a buddy, I know this is recorded, but if I could get like or we could get like a summary of like some important dates just so we could share at the community. I know I attended the Asian Festival last year and it was really great, so I just wanted to help promote. So thank you.

I don't have the specific date for it written down right now, but we can definitely work towards that and just getting the days kind of organized so that they're easier to find. Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you. With that, we are going to move on to room number three, public comment. Welcome and thank you to those who have signed up for public comment. Speakers will be allowed three minutes to present their material. Speakers should begin their comments by stating their name and address or in the case of district employees their role within the district or both if you both. 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, a debate, or a dialogue between the public and the committee. Members of the committee will not reply to public comment in 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 public session.

Individuals may address topics on the agenda or items within the school committee's scope of responsibility, such as the district budget, Goals and Policies, or the role of the superintendent. The public is encouraged to submit comments in writing for inclusion in the public record. So with that, I'm going to do three names at a time. We have eight in person and three virtual. So we have, and please, you know, when you state your name, I'm going to do my best. Please have grace for me. Cesar Urunga, Kyle Serena, and Jessica Da Silva. So Cesar. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Cesar Uronaga. I live in 45 Oxford Street. I am a parent of a 10th grader. I am a 7th grade math teacher at East Somerville Community School. I am speaking tonight in support of prioritizing student-facing positions in next year's budget. Tonight I also want to let you know about some realities that we as educators see every school day. At ESCS, in the current format, students with IEPs have support only in math and ELA classes. They have no additional support in science and social studies. Those teachers are on their own to provide support to these students. Students identified as multi-language learners have push-in support for only ELA classes.

It's as if math, science, or social studies don't have any need for language support. And we ask, why do students only have support in those classes? Well, there's one special educator for seventh grade at East. That special educator provides services to two blocks of ELA classes and two blocks of math and X block. There is one ML specialist, and that specialist provides services to seventh graders during X block and two ELA blocks, and then has to work with third and fourth grade students during their particular X blocks. My original ask coming here was going to be for getting more help getting paraprofessionals to fill the gap in student support, but I understand we're living under some particular constraints in this budget year.

I also know that we are doing much better than we have in previous years, but there is a lot more that we need to do. I also understand that Somerville has $23.8 million in free cash as of October 2025, and in fiscal year 2025 had a stabilization fund of just over $50 million, or a rainy fund. And I want to implore you to look at creative ways to make use of these funds to ensure that our students are receiving the services that they deserve. These rainy day funds, I can tell you, we can look outside, it is pouring and we need to make sure that these students are getting all the services that they deserve. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next is Kyle Serena, Jessica DaSilva, and then Jim Kaplan.

Hello, I'm Kyle Serena. I live at 174 Morrison Ave, and I'm a community member in Somerville. I'm here tonight to ask the city not to cut our school's budgets. Wisely, the education is always one of the first on the chopping block when there's a deficit. If anything, our schools should have increased funding. We need to stop asking our teachers to do more with less. Our schools need more paras, more specialists, and more supports. By talking to community members and teachers, I know this to be the case. And like Cesar said, There is $23.8 million in free cash and $15 million in the stabilization fund. Somerville has the money and it doesn't need to cut. It is high time that we properly fund our schools and support our educators.

Thank you. We have Jessica DaSilva, then Jim Kaplan, then Matt Uzunski.

Hi. I'm Jessica DaSilva. I'm one of our pre-K special education teachers at Capuano, or as most of you know, our program is called the AIM program. I'm here today to urge you to recognize that just because we have little people at our school does not mean that we only have little problems. First of all, this pre-K age is the most important and critical period for child development, and during this time is when 90% of a child's brain is growing. In order to support this development and growth in our kiddos, we need support. Right now, our biggest concern is safety within our special education rooms since we have one teacher and two paraprofessionals per classroom. All of these children have different needs and all different behaviors. Our paraprofessionals are an essential part of our days and the work is not possible without them. In our classrooms we have behaviors such as self-injurious behaviors, students intentionally hurting themselves when frustrated or upset, Peer-to-peer aggressions at times, elopement, which is leaving the designated area, and aggressive behavior towards staff members, which means when one behavior happens, our job is to keep our students safe.

This pulls a paraprofessional or teacher away from the entire group when these students need one-to-one attention which leaves one staff member alone with the entirety of the classroom at times even during little breaks or a simple bathroom run. which is another safety concern due to the fact that there could be multiple behaviors occurring at once and there often is and this is when a BCBA or admin is called for additional support which pulls them away from their current task as well. So for the last two years, my classroom has had a total of nine students come June. And this means that each staff member, myself and both of my paraprofessionals, has each had to work with and be responsible for the safety of three children each day, which is nearly impossible due to behaviors modeling on AAC for multiple children at once. And this is necessary because an AAC device is the voice of the student. and providing direct instruction to three students at once. Even at our current educator to student ratio, teaching the curriculum is challenging.

So we work extremely hard to make the curriculum accessible to every student and for special education, this necessitates a minimum of three staff members in the classroom. If we were to go up to 12 students, it would be nearly impossible to access the curriculum, as each staff member would be responsible for four students, each of whom requires specialized report. So our teachers and paraprofessionals are truly superheroes but we need real support and your help to keep us going and being as strong as we are. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Jim Kaplan, Matt Uzenski, and then Kayla Schmidt.

Okay, I'll be careful about this. My name is Jim Kaplan. I live at 48 Liberty Avenue. I'm a retiree from this wonderful School Department and veteran of this fabulous union of Somerville educators. I want to speak tonight about The situation of the budget because you all are going to be caught in a nutcracker between demands not simply from educators but the housing situation is miserable. The needs of elderly centers services all the way through the state. There are shortages on

There are problems with green space, loads of problems, and according to all the indicators on the budget, Going forward, they will burn through the reserve funds, not simply of Somerville, but of the state. Now, you're going to be in that nutcracker where the state is cutting and people are producing, not the small crowd here tonight, this is only first act, But what happened in Chelsea, if you saw the turnout there, all across Massachusetts. So instead of being in the nutcracker, I'm going to ask you to think about putting in resolutions, formal resolutions of this committee and then of the city council. against cuts in the state budget which are coming at us. Number one, there are the Mass High Tech Councils, two cuts, two referendum cuts on the agenda for the autumn.

Number two, the House of Representatives in Massachusetts has made, come out with what they thought would be adequate, a statement that they will decouple the Trump tax cuts from the Massachusetts tax code. But that is contingent only on the passage of the High Tech Council. So the plutocrats will get either one, half, Wolf, or the other half-wolf, but they will always get a half-wolf, either from their own referendum or from the gift of the Speaker of the House and the Governor and the President of the Senate. Thirdly, there are revenues that were given away before by the governor and the legislature that should be recouped In lower tax rates for short-term day traders and also by raising the exclusion and the tax-free zone for inheritance taxes.

Those should be clawed back. And above all, lastly, running out of time, We need to be coming out with more and more people mobilizing for a wealth tax. Short of that, it's just going to be Peter trying to rob Paul to make up for the shortages, their endemic situation that we're in now. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Matt Uzenski, Kayla Schmidt, and then Delia Hammerslaw. Thanks, Matt.

Good evening. My name is Matt Uzenski and I'm an eighth grade math educator at the Kennedy. This is my 21st year teaching and my 10th year at the Kennedy. I truly love what I do and I love that I get to do that here with for the students and families of Somerville. I also believe our team is remarkable at serving our students I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing lower class sizes in next year's budget and also continuing that priority for the 27-28 budget. In particular, I'm advocating for budgeting the additional hire of one 7th and 8th grade general education teacher at the Kennedy for this upcoming year and at least two 7th and 8th grade teachers for the 27-28 year.

At the start of this school year, an additional class of sixth graders entered the school and along with that the hiring of an additional sixth grade teacher to accommodate those students. Those current 6th graders will be 7th graders in September, but no additional teacher is budgeted to join the 7th and 8th grade team for this upcoming year. What that means is there would be about 115 total 7th and 8th graders split across five general education teachers. This is a recipe for teacher burnout and students getting lost in the shuffle. Imagine a teacher attempting to grade 115 essays. Imagine a teacher attempting to call and make conferences with 115 parents. Imagine a teacher working to attempt to connect with 115 individual students. On top of this, an additional class of sixth graders is going to be entering Kennedy in the fall.

This would put about 140 7th and 8th grade students at the Kennedy for 7th and 8th grade for the 27-28 school year. and we have not been given any assurance about if and how many additional hires we were to receive for that year. And I assure you, if you believe 115 divided by 5 educators is going to sacrifice the education of the children of Somerville, then I would guarantee that 140 divided by 5 or even 6 would for sure. To recap, I love what I do. I believe that I'm doing a good job. Please do not create the conditions where those two things are impossible. Please consider an additional hire for next year and two additional hires for the following year. It's what our students deserve. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Kayla Schmidt, Delia Hammerslaw, and Ellie Hunjian.

Go ahead. All right. Good evening. My name is Kayla Schmidt, and I'm a seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher also at JFK Elementary. This is my ninth year teaching and my second year at the Kennedy. I am so grateful for my students, my fantastic team that I've been able to be a part of and of course the community that I've been able to be a part of here in Somerville. Today I'd also like to address and bring awareness and attention to lowering class sizes and hiring additional educators for the 26, 27, and 27-28 school years. currently our middle school team is responsible for the education and well-being of 90 students at 90 we are already facing challenges but we're still able to provide time attention and support to our students However, the projections for our team are deeply concerning. Next year looking at 115 students and the year after that climbing to 140.

To put that in perspective, by the year after next, we will be expected to provide individualized feedback, grade essays and projects, and manage the social and emotional needs of 50 additional students that are currently already in our classrooms. all the while with the same 24 hours in the day, the same amount of support and the same amount of teachers. The consequences of these increases will naturally lead to less individualized instruction and attention as well as greatly impact our student experiences in our classrooms. In order to prevent this, we again are asking for one additional educator for the 26-27 school year and at least two additional educators for the 27-28 school year at the Kennedy to mitigate these increased class sizes. Thank you.

So in person we have Delia and then Ellie and then we'll go to our virtual attendees.

Hello, my name is Delia Hammerslaw. I'm at 14 Judges Road in Lexington. I'm a paraprofessional at the Kennedy School in the SCIP classroom. There's only one SCIP program in the entire district for students from K through 8. Then these students transition to the high school to the SHIP program. I'm speaking tonight in support of prioritizing staff numbers and needs, especially in specialized programs, in light of the potential budget cuts. In particular, I'd like to tell you all about how the SCIP, SHIP, and AIM programs were overlooked in the last round of negotiations for being released from the 209 contract. Arguably, these programs support some of the most intense and complex group of students. The staff is being held to the highest contractual obligations, which exploits the well-being of the staff.

Burnout in these professionals causes a constant need for new staff in these positions, which negatively impacts both students and staff. Somerville Public Schools and the City of Somerville need to continue to value the professionals and the teachers. One of the ways to do so is to allow these educators to take a summer break so that they can return in the fall refreshed and ready to support some of the highest-need students I ask that the district reconsider what it means for this group of employees to be 209. And perhaps more importantly, what it means for these same staff to teach the same students for potentially nine years. Also, it is critical that the district continues to appropriately staff these classrooms. The burnout occurring in 209 contracted staff A cause of perpetual staffing deficits and frequent turnover in these programs.

This is important to me and should be to you. As a paraprofessional for only the last seven months, I'm already at a point where I know I cannot return to this position due to its intensity without long respite. I hope that you will join the efforts and support the Somerville Education Union's vision for quality education in Somerville Public Schools. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Ellie and then we will move to our people who are online.

Hi everyone, my name is Ellie Hanjin. I live at 230 Broadway here in Somerville. I'm in a unique position here today because I'm a substitute teacher in the school district, so I work Day-to-day. I'm a contractor in another school district, so I don't work every day, but I do get a... I don't work in Somerville every day. But I do get a glimpse into what it's like to work in this school district and how special our students are and I really care about the students we work with. Something that we are told to uphold in our substitute training is that our prime responsibility is to keep our students safe. and of course I do my best every day to do that and as my colleagues have discussed so far today in this public comment it's increasingly more and more difficult to make that

Safety possible when class sizes are so large and so unmanageable with students having various different needs across a spectrum of vivability. So I want to thank you all for having me here today and having the opportunity to speak and represent substitutes in this district.

All right, thank you. We have three people online. We're going to shift. We're going to start with Kristen Spence, then Jane Ritchie, then Jess Perez-Adams. All right, Kristen, you should be able to speak. Could you hear me? We can. Go ahead. Thank you so much.

Great. I'm Karsten Spence. I live in Lowell, Massachusetts at 76 West Chester Street and I've worked at East Somerville Community School since 2009 and I love it there. I am aware that there are necessary budget cuts. As a special educator, I do remain slightly confused because the previously existing grades one through eight Multigraded special education classrooms there were closed a few years back and they were my blessing. I worked there. and we had paraprofessionals, small classroom sizes, frequent ESL services, and we were blessed with these children that had many opportunities for inclusion,

New Challenges and they learned in a manner that was extremely authentic and in those multi-graded classrooms we saw therapy dogs We received police escorts to beaches and biking and adventures. We had funding through Waypoint Adventure to go snowshoeing, rock climbing, and volunteer support like gardening and author visits. Well, those classes are long gone and the demographic language and ability needs remain. I miss those classes and the visits and hearing the success. But the support and resources have declined at East and now I'm a resource room teacher.

And it's great, but I find myself constantly shuffled through schools, shuffled through grade levels in compensating for missed services. Rather than actually investing myself in relationships, improving inclusivity and starting from the ground up, I'm finding myself just Quote unquote putting out fires. My ask is that no more cuts be made in student facing positions. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Kirsten, thank you for your grace with my pronunciation of your name. I apologize. We have Jane and then Jess. Jane, whenever you're ready.

Thank you. We can hear you. Good evening. My name is Jane Ritchie, and I am a 23-year veteran teacher at the Capuano Center, serving the city's youngest learners. I'm speaking tonight in support of including more paraprofessionals in our buildings in order to create and maintain safer and more stable school environments across the city. In particular, I would like to reflect on my own area of expertise and the message often repeated throughout the district. Special education is not a place, It is a system of supports, resources, and services. This statement should not be controversial. In fact, it would not be if all classrooms were adequately supported, resourced, and serviced. I have seen a great many changes in early childhood programming in Somerville, including the expansion of AIM and the pre-k gen-ed classrooms spreading back out across the city. I've also witnessed the changes in the students we service in early childhood settings.

And while none of my early childhood colleagues shies away from the hard work necessary to support progress across an entire classroom of three-, four-, and five-year-olds, Some with significant disabilities. The additional weight of the PELI standardized testing requirement, the frequent mandated meetings, adapting a highly structured and rich curriculum, All while supporting the increasing needs of incoming students is becoming too much and something we'll have to give. I'm here to advocate for increased staffing to allow effective access for all students and continued safety across all parts of the daily routine. I hope you will join our efforts and support SCU's vision for quality education in Somerville Public Schools. It is what our students deserve. Thank you. Thank you James.

Next, we have Jess Perez-Adams. Whenever... Oh, okay. Jess left the chat. So with that, we are concluding public comment. Thank you to everyone. As the superintendent has said many times, The foundation of our democracy is multiple voices, so thank you for taking the time to come share your perspectives with us. Okay, we're moving on to Roman numeral number four, approval of minutes. Do I have a motion?

Chair, I move to approve the minutes from March 2nd regular school committee meeting and the special meeting of the whole on March 9th, 2026.

Second. We have a motion by Member Biton, seconded by Member Lippens. All those in favor? All opposed? Any abstentions? All right, we're cooking with gas. We are moving on to the report of the superintendent.

Thank you, Chair. So welcome, everyone. And again, I will echo the words that Chair Ackman just shared a minute ago which is the foundation of democracy is that plurality of voices so thank you thank you for your participation There are a couple of celebrations this month that I wanted to acknowledge. One is the Autism Acceptance Month. You probably might know it by Autism Awareness Month, but I believe that we are beyond awareness, so we should move more towards acceptance. I just wanted to reaffirm the commitment that Somerville has for our students who are who have complex neurodiverse needs and I also wanted to recognize the efforts of our educators who work on a daily basis with and our students who need it the most. So thank you for your hard work on that.

We also have a, we have, starting on April 11, we have The Week of the Young Child. We are in partnership with the city. We're celebrating this event with a couple of activities of the high school. So if you are a parent with children, young children, please join us on April 16 at the high school for some pizza, some celebrations, and some fun activities. We want to highlight the importance of early learning. I also now want to switch a little bit to a recognition we had last week we were here. I know you remember we were doing the Scholastic Arts Awards. We have some high school students. I also have good news. We have a student, Mateos Unger. He earned a national gold medal last week for his ceramic piece called the Table Companions. This was really an accomplishment.

Only 1% of 335,000 submissions are accepted, so this is quite an honor. So Mateos and his teacher, Tyler Burns, will be honored at the Carnegie Hall in June. So congratulations to both of them. And with no further ado, we have two special guests tonight. We are really pleased to welcome the Argenciano team this evening to present an overview of their school improvement plan. As you know, the Argenciano school is currently It's a school that has an amazing culture that is always supporting our students with multilingual needs and all the students. They will be welcoming another subset of our students within the AEM program. So I just want to make sure that we give a space and time to the Argenciano to share the growth and the areas of work that they have in front of us. So welcome, Principal Soto.

Thank you so much, Superintendent Carmona. Good evening, school committee members. I want to acknowledge the fact that there are a team of people here from our school, including members of the School Improvement Council and our assistant principal, Ms. Candelora. the work that i'm presenting today is not my own work it's the work of a collective of all the stakeholders at the school so um it i don't take credit for it um so we're ready tonight to present how our school is doing in the school improvement plan I want to ground what I'm going to discuss tonight on the tier of action that we created after analyzing the results of the spring 2024 MCAS data. and the area of action in summary says if we look at the data deeply and identify the inequities that exist in the data and we address them and everything we do at the school is grounded on those inequities then we will see student improvement. For the Spring 2024 data, we decided to focus on our Hispanic students, which were the students that were making the least progress according to the data.

Two major goals this year are the academic goal and the equity goal. In summary, the academic goal is focused on improving student performance in math. The equity goal is focused on improving the student performance of our Hispanic students, which back in spring 2024, all the awarded points by DESE were declined because the students were not making significant progress. Ms. Garcia. So according to the accountability data from last year, spring 2025, the school made significant progress in the accountability rating If we compare it to 2023 when we were at 27% meeting the annual target percentage, and last year we were at 88% meeting the annual target percentage, We went from the 33rd percentile to the 40th percentile as compared to other schools in the state.

and we jumped from moderate progress towards the targets to meeting and exceeding the targets in 2025. I think we were the only school in the district that is meeting and exceeding the targets according to DESE. So that was a huge accomplishment, but like I said before, the credit is given to the staff because they're the ones doing the work every day in the classrooms. And we went from a 49, We're looking forward to seeing that continued growth in the Spring 2026 data. Areas of strengths that we saw according to the data before last year, there were a lot of areas where we did not get awarded any points, but last year we were awarded points in achievement, in growth, Chronic Absentism. We were awarded four out of four points, which means there was a reduction of that. As compared to 2024 where our Hispanic population made no points in the targets that DESE has established for them,

Last spring, 2025, they went to 9 out of 12 points awarded in the accountability data, so that was a huge gain. Our lowest performing group exceeded all the targets as established by DESE and both math and ELA, which was also a big one. and all the subgroups except our white subgroup of students met the targets or exceeded the targets in the science test. Another area of strength for our school is the attendance. As you can see from the data, we are currently at 94.8% attendance. which is higher than in the years before so that's an achievement. We have two grade levels that are above 96% attendance. and overall and then one of our grade levels that the attendance is the lowest but it's still around 92 percent 93 percent is kindergarten which There might be some misconceptions there that students that are five years old do not need to be in school. And so we need to work with families so that they understand that once they're enrolled in kindergarten, they have to be in kindergarten every day.

And there are certain cases, you know, individual cases. Kindergarten has our lowest attendance, but it's still pretty high. There was growth in our student data for the ELA MCAS, and as you can see in this table I provided, The percentage of students that are meeting or exceeding the standards by the subgroups, which is groups that we're monitoring very closely. and as compared to 2023, 2024, the column that says target is the target of their average scale score as established by the Department of Education. So in all cases, most of the cases we met Exceder improved the target. There was one subgroup that had no change, which was the ELL or the former ELL subgroup. Student growth is also very significant in reading, which is something that we are really proud of. I want to start off by saying that our kindergarten team last year

moved a group of kindergarteners to first grade that was 80% at core or core plus, which is amazing. because we're building that foundation of reading for the upper grades and that might be why right now, mid-year, 72% of the first grade students are reading at core already. If you look at the graph that's on the right side, you can see the line for 2025-2026. It shows you that right now at mid-year DIBELS data, we have 65.2% of the students Reading at Core or Core Plus, last year at the end of the year it was 64.5. So we already exceeded I did the target at the end of the year last year, so I'm expecting this percentage to be pretty high by the time we get to the end of the school year, which is really exciting in terms of laying the foundations of reading for our students, which reading is the key to success for our students. All right, Ms. Garcia.

Our areas of growth lay in the area of math. When we looked at the data, and this continues to be true from spring 2024 to spring 2025, The percentage of students that are meeting or exceeding the standards in math is lowest as compared to ELA and science. And then when we look at the subgroups, which again they're the groups that we are paying most attention to, we can see that our English language learner population are the ones that are not performing well or we have a very low percentage of students meeting and exceeding the standards in the subject areas. So therefore, we have our goals that we drafted last year and I'm going to report on the progress towards those goals. Ms. Garcia, please. You can keep going. So for academic goal, the School Improvement Council and the ILT decided to utilize The average scale score as reported by DESE as a measure of improvement.

So we've been monitoring that for two years in a row now and the students, our students improved, met or exceeded the targets as established by DESE in all subgroups. which is awesome because the year before that, that was not the case. So that's pretty awesome data. But even though you see that improvement, you can still see a gap between the highest performing subgroups and our Hispanic students and our low income students and our high need students. You can still see that gap and it is the goal of our school to make sure that we're closing that gap every year. Then the student growth in math, the table is the same, compared 2023 to 2025, percentage of students meeting or exceeding the standards. The targets, whether we met them or exceeded them or improved them as DESE established them and in math in all subgroups we did, which is really great data as well. We utilize the I-Ready data as well to progress monitor our goal. Ms. Garcia, please, if you can change.

I noticed in analyzing the data of the I-Ready that there is a huge discrepancy of 20% of students who are meeting the standards as I-Ready established them, degree level standards. But then when you look at MCAS, they are not performing, the same amount of students or the same percentage of students is not passing the MCAS in the same manner. So in discussing with IOT, with school council, and also in the grade level team meetings, we kind of came to the conclusion that it might be because I-Ready doesn't measure writing in math or writing in ELA. So our grade level teams decided to take on the task of asking students how do they express their thinking in math in writing, because that's the difference between MCAS and iReady. So they have taken on working with students in small group instruction during next block to build those skills to express your thinking in math and writing. And for MCAS, you have to express them in a Chromebook, so it's very different from

We're working on that one, and we think that's where the difference may lie, so we'll see the outcome of what we've been doing this year reflected on MCAS possibly. Ms. Garcia, you can move forward. Our equity goal, which is based on our Hispanic population. Again, our Hispanic students improved the average scale score in math and met the targets for ELA and then met the targets for math. We are focused this year for professional development with the staff. It's also around building the strategies that they have in their toolbox for multilingual learners. So we've been focusing all of our PD around this book, Unlocking Multilingual Learners' Potential. We are not done with the book so the next year we will continue the work with the book and we're seeing the effect of that in our progress at the school across the school and we

Observe classrooms, the instructional leadership team observes classrooms and they can see already how language is being utilized in the different content areas to improve students' thinking. And again, we continue with the focus of expressing their thinking in the subject areas. In ACCESS, we also saw significant progress. ACCESS is the test that measures English proficiencies for our multilingual learners. And as compared to 2023, when only 4% of our students had attained proficiency in English, last year, 12% of the students attained proficiency, so a big growth, even though it's not large enough yet. but it's as compared to 2023 is significant and we see that writing is still an area in access that our students need to make some progress on.

All right, so where we are now, we are moving forward into the last year of this improvement plan, and there are several different action steps that we still have to work on to make sure that we continue in the same The path of progress at an exponential rate. One of the biggest things for the Argentinian school community next year is the welcoming the AIM program parents, students, and staff. As you know, given the low enrollment of the newcomer students in Somerville, we had to close our five newcomer classrooms that have existed for 19-20 years at the Argentiano School. But that gave us the opportunity to welcome a new community of students in our building and our staff is ready to do that work we are ready to welcome the team work on the parents and work on the families and that is in our forefront in the next few months and until next year we want them to want to feel the same way the other students feel our school

Then in terms of the action step for each one of the goals, some of these are repeated from years before and there is a lot of focus on monitoring and implementing the high quality instructional materials for ELA and math that we already have. but there are three big ones for goal one in terms of the academic progress we would like to try to pilot of a math intervention and a push-in model so that our students are provided the intervention around the skills directly related to the grade level curriculum that they are having in the moment, not like missing skills from prior grade levels. And we want to develop professional development for our teachers around writing specifically for math, so sequential writing for math. and then also doing a deep dive of the data of the open responses in the MCAS that are related to writing for our students. So doing an item analysis to try to understand if we are missing points

A lot of points because students are not writing good open responses in math. In terms of the equity goal, we will continue the work with the book that we have grounded all our professional development in, writing across the curriculum. and we want to also be very thoughtful about maximizing our reading intervention groups so that we can impact as many students as possible with that very specific intervention. And then last but not least, goals three and four. Goal three is around wellness and joy. Goal four is around family, community, and engagement. In Wellness and Joy, we continue to work on training our staff on restorative justice, and right now we have about 54% of our teachers are trained in restorative justice, so we still have 46% of the teachers to be trained. and we need to continue the training around social-emotional learning and anti-bias and I think the fact that we dedicated so many years to these two things

It's kind of like the foundation that allowed us to create a healthy school culture and a school environment where kids are able to learn. So it is important to continue working on that. And for our fourth goal, which is a family community and engagement, of course, the forefront of that is welcoming the new community members in the AIM program. And then one thing that we were not able to do this year that we want to carry on to next year is creating math and literacy workshops for our parents because the way our kids are learning math and ELA now is very different from the way we learned it back in the day. So that's all I have for now and I'll open it up for questions from the committee.

Amazing. Thank you and congratulations on the growth in your subgroups. That's really impressive. member, Biton.

Through you, Chair. Thank you. Fantastic presentation. Thank you so much. I want to compliment you on and make a connection on the increased attendance rates and decreased absenteeism that we're seeing and the other fantastic outcomes that you talked about. We don't want our kids to come to school for the sake of coming to school. We want our kids to go to school because of all the fantastic work that they do there and the learning that happens every single day. Every day that our kids are not at school, They're not getting the benefit that we provide in our classrooms. So I really think The sort of progress that you showed in other areas is directly connected to the decreased absenteeism and the increased attendance that you highlighted.

So my question for you is, What do you think is working for you In pulling in kids to come into school every day, how have you been able to drive that success so that our other schools can also model that?

Definitely a lot of strategic thinking. It has taken many years to get here. We adopted restorative justice about three or four years ago. We started with the middle school and then we moved down in the lower grades. And one thing that we do differently from We have a morning meeting every day and that helps students build culture within their classrooms. and you know if a kid comes in with a problem or a situation it gives them the space to release that and let it go and then focus on their learning. So that happens in every classroom from pre-K to 8. And then there is multi-factor, absolutely. They feel that sense of community. And then we do PBIS as a whole school. to recognize students who are being safe, kind, responsible, and respectful every day. And we do that in the intercom. So we want them to feel joy of coming to school. Like you said, we want them to feel like the great things are happening here. and I think building those structures very strategically over time is what has led to the outcomes that we see now.

You're welcome.

Dr. Stellman. Thank you. Through the chair. This is not a question. It's just a I'm impressed and I'm really excited by the type of root cause analysis that your team does clearly. And I think many of us grew up in In schools and education systems that seem to think that language and math were two very separate pieces, but they're not. They're inextricable. And thinking about our population where we have many Multilingual students, people learning English, and people with special needs that we really put those two together and I think we're you know what's really exciting is what you're doing is something for the other

For our whole district to be able to look at, it's sort of a really good experiment that I think is going to help all of us understand better of how we embed reading and how it's just intrinsic and how we think and express ourselves. and we want our kids to express themselves because they're pretty darn smart and they're our future. So I just wanted to really signal that. and thank you and your entire faculty because they're terrific.

At the beginning of the year, the first professional development we had in August, I asked my staff when we were all together, How many of you here are language teachers? And I expected 100% of them to have their hands up, and some of them hesitated, and then one of the newer teachers was like, We all are. And I'm like, yes, we all are. The art teacher, the music teacher, all of us are. Even me and the rest of the administrators and the student support team, we're teaching kids language from the moment they walk in. We're teaching them to say good morning, to say How are you doing? I'm doing great. So language is being taught all the time. And we do not refrain our students from using their native languages. As a matter of fact, it's our asset and we promote it. But in the classroom, we're promoting the growth of English. It's all across the subject areas.

Thank you, Member Lippens.

Thank you through you chair. I really appreciate the time and work of your staff. I mean, the growth is amazing. I know accountability data seems dry, but it is really important. and I really appreciate the thorough line in your action plan like I know you had talked about workshops for parents on math and literacy and also I'm just doing more push in with math. So my question is actually this curriculum has a lot of embedded language supports for students and I wonder from at the district level like what might be the most impactful like professional development that can support teachers where they're not actually pulled out of their classrooms but some kind of like in the classroom where we can look at student work and think about what our students how are students responding to student work so just thinking about what kind of professional development opportunities would be beneficial to you and your staff

So in the choosing of our book, I collaborated with our director of the multilingual learner department. She actually, with her team, was the one who selected the book that we used for developing students' potential, multilingual learner potential. The curriculum is very heavy and I'm super mega grateful for the work that this committee has done to ensure that we have high quality instructional materials in all classrooms across the Pre-K to 8. And I can see the difference of the rigorous instruction on a day-to-day. Ms. Candelora can do the same as we're doing formal and informal walkthroughs all the time. So that has helped a lot and our teachers collaborate during CPT time which is another structure that has been built in the past few years with the ESL specialists and the special ed teachers to like kind of look at the language and determine okay these are the things that we should address ESL instruction is done in a push-in model, so we want to do the same for math intervention.

It's our hope that will create a greater improvement for our students.

Thank you. I have Member Eldridge and then Member Green, who's online.

Thank you. Through the chair. Thanks so much for the presentation. It was really wonderful. I'm wondering, I'm looking specifically at some of the student growth in ELA. and what stood out to me was the huge jump from 2024 of 8% of our students with disabilities meeting expectations to 15. That's a significant growth in a year. Could you maybe elaborate on why some of that growth occurred and is it related to the fact that you do have a really specialized reading program in your school and the repercussions of having that intensive support within the building?

So a couple of things. We have now three reading specialists that are full-time at the Argenciano School. We used to have 2.5. In addition to that, we are housing the language-based classroom from grades five through eight now, and the work that the team is doing around reading instruction and literacy instruction in those classrooms is amazing. It is very individualized support that the students are getting so that can account for some of the improvement of our students with disabilities and also the number of resource room teachers increase at the Argenciano School. So that helps us make sure that we are given the right supports and the number of, you know, the services that are required by law for the students who have IEPs. So I think it's a collection between the language-based classroom and the support of our resource room teachers being increased and also that we have a paraprofessional now. I think between all those factors is why we see the growth.

Thank you, Member Green.

Thank you. I apologize for not being there in person, but trust me, you're not what I have, so bear with me. So I really appreciate coming after the last two questions because it really gets to what I was about to ask about. You mentioned how more interventionists and more coaching and better curriculum have helped you get to where you are. And I know that you have I don't see these pieces student support and student safety So I'd really love to hear more from you about why that facility investment is needed and why we could be doing more to keep our students physically safe.

I believe you're referring to some of the requests in terms of safety so because is that correct yes Mr. Green

Yes, please.

Yeah. So in conversations with the director of special education and in sharing with the staff the changes that we are expecting for next school year, everyone has had an opportunity to chime in and say, oh please think of this, oh please think of that. So there are a couple of things that the staff and the parents I have brought us concerns already even though the program is not yet at the Argenciano school but it's awesome because it gives us the opportunity to address these issues before school starts next year one of those things is that our school doesn't have fencing around it So there are students that might come to us, and we have this. It happens from time to time. That's why I wear sneakers every day, because students elope. and you have to run after them. So we would need to consider it and I started the conversation already with DPW about the fencing around the school. Those conversations started early March. We did a walkthrough of the building for the several safety issues.

So the fencing around the school is one. The second one is that we have two open balconies on the second floor. and staff is very concerned that students have access to that balcony and anything can happen. So in my conversation with DPW has been around, could we make sure that we have netting? A net that goes up to the ceiling that is strong enough to hold if a student you know god forbid you know but um but that's the second and then the major thing that nobody probably would have thought about but we have is that we have a A really, really loud school bell that sounds every 30 minutes after 11.30 at dismissal time and in the morning. and we know that many of the students in the autism spectrum are very very vulnerable to noise and we already think that that bell is going to be a problem for our students so we have to

Make sure that the company that we contracted for the bell comes in and we can either shut it down and change it or put some music on or something different. But our school staff has been very thoughtful in thinking about those things that will require probably additional budgeting like the fencing outside and the netting. It's very complex. and in addition we have two blind spots where there are two doors that we cannot see if a child enters or leave through those doors that I would love to have cameras on just in case anything happens we can see whether a child left through those doors or not so yeah. Those will require coordination with DPW, the city, and the school department. Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you.

I think I heard him say yes. He said yes? I'm going to call on myself. My understanding is you are one of our longest serving principals. First, thank you. but you know there's data and like lived experience showing that you know when you can keep a principal in their role it helps students so If you have thoughts for us on sort of what the district can be doing, is doing to support you in your role. I know it's a hard one. You're very good at it. That we can be doing to make sure that the quality principles that we have worked hard to bring in and ideally to keep

what we can be doing you know I know that your peers learn from you and they tell me about it but uh you know what what can the district be doing to make sure that we're retaining principals

Thank you for the question. I think what under the guidance and the supervision of Dr. Carmona, the connection and the collaboration with the Lynch Academy to prepare principles, give us professional development has been amazing. and I say this because my colleagues have also stated the same. I think it will be beneficial now to consider moving that to the assistant principals which I think is already happening. So it will be important to maintain that so that our assistant principals can see themselves in our roles and they can take over if one of us decides to leave. But for sure and for certain, Ms. Candelora and I have been working together. This is our fourth year. And when you find the right partner to do the job, you can focus on what is most important, which is instructional leadership. Ms. Candelora's background is in literacy instruction in the lower grades. My background is in math and science in the upper grades, so it's an absolute great combination. And although some days we might wanna kill each other, That's okay.

We have fun while we do it. We enjoy working with one another and I think having those two consistent administrators in the building has created that stability for the staff. and they know they can count on us you know they they know us pretty well so you know that with the work that we have been the professional development have been receiving as administrators accounts for some of that stability that then the teachers can just focus on teaching you know we remove the barriers for them and they just focus on teaching students and of course what you see here I'm not in the classrooms teaching they are my educators are and I'm very proud for the accomplishments of our students, but our teachers are the ones to take the credit for it. I'm just the mastermind, the strategic thinker, They are the ones who are doing the work every day. So kudos to my team because I absolutely love our team and I think we have a great team to move our students even further.

Thank you. Member Eldridge. Thank you through the chair. Could you maybe paint a little bit of a picture for us since it seems like you mentioned the word pilot what a push in math model for A push-in model for math intervention would be is it happening in the district like could you paint a picture for some of us that might not have an understanding of what that is and what the benefit that that

Yeah, so right now what math intervention looks like we have an interventionist working with certain grade levels and unfortunately the students that might need the math intervention might be in a reading group or might be in special ed resource room or might be pulled out for this reason or another during X block time. So the math interventionist comes during X blocks and pull the students literally based on the data but the students that are left that need math intervention. So I did some research around different types of math interventions and some recommendations from different researchers about what would be a good math intervention plan and really well organized. and what I found was that it would be great in which is this is my hope in this pilot if it's approved. is that we create a team at the school level that includes our math and science curriculum coordinator, it includes a special ed teacher and ESL teacher,

A lower grades level teacher and an upper grades level teacher. And then we look at multiple points of data. Right now, the math intervention is really, really focused on specific skills. There are screeners that are giving in grades two 4, I want to say, and one screener for 5 through 6. So the math intervention is teaching skills based on that screener. What we would like to do is utilize different points of data to see how the students are doing. The I-Ready data in June, the MCAS performance, the formative assessments in the classroom, and the potential math screener that the interventionists can give them. to then decide which are the grade levels that we have to target because the math interventionists cannot teach all grade levels. So we have to be very thoughtful about Targeting a specific grade level that might need more attention. For example, I can tell you last school year, fifth grade, only 20% of our fifth graders were meeting or exceeding the standards in math.

That would have been the grade that I would have targeted this year. But it's not the structure that we have. So my hope is that in creating this team, we can look at all those points and then we can say, All right, so these are the grades levels that the interventionist can target and the intervention will be in pushing during math block, not during x block where where we depend on who's left in the room because they left for a reading intervention or for special ed services. During math block, when the teacher is teaching grade level content, the math interventionist is there pushing in to target the skills that the student needs to be able to access the grade level content. In some cases, I mean to what point like, A kid cannot multiply in seventh grade. To what point we say, OK, multiplication is not the problem. Give him a calculator. Let's just focus on the process. And if the child is able to do the process, then the calculator will solve the multiplication. They have a calculator on MCAS. So that's our goal. And that's in the works.

I already started the conversation with Dr. Jessica Boston Davis and with our math district curriculum coordinator. So we're hoping to put the team together at some point before school starts next year and we'd be able to do this pilot for next school year.

Is that happening anywhere else in the district to Dr. Carmona or Jessica Wassendeves?

Thank you to the chair. No currently math intervention in the structure that we have provided by interventionists. So that type of math intervention is pull out. So small groups pulled out of the classroom usually maybe only during X block.

I just wanted to highlight the headline of the data that was shared. A couple of things that I'd like to say. One is I know that Glenda has mentioned that the team, We need to give all the recognition to the team, and that is true. And also we know the role that principals play in moving that kind of data in that way. The other thing I wanted to highlight is that if you look at the growth, it's close to 70% growth in MCAS. I know that MCAS is not All the ultimate measure, but it is an important measure. And 70% growth, the state actually considers 50 to 60% a really significant benchmark. So 70 is quite high. So congratulations to the Argenciano and to you as well for that.

To the teachers.

You're right, to the teachers.

To the teachers, yep. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Principal Soto. I'm just going to step out because I have to go watch the NCAA tournament. So we have a championship to win. Enjoy. Have a good night. Thank you, everyone.

My practice was just great.

Now it is my pleasure to bring Steve Marshall, Principal Marshall, to the front of the The school committee chambers, we know that the Kennedy School has a complex system of services that they provide for the multiple neurodiverse profiles of the students. and I wanted to recognize the staff for the commitment as well as the skill set. It is very complex to teach students with profiles that are I wanted to recognize that and also to identify the fact that in order to get this orchestrated you need to have tremendous collaboration across the board. I wanted to thank Mr. Marshall for basically orchestrating all this work that happens in the building. So thank you and the floor is yours.

All right, thank you. I brought some other people with me. and Assistant Principal Sam Patton, and then one of our teacher leaders, Jen Leary. So it's really exciting to have Jen join us tonight because we are building up leaders in our school. It's a privilege to be here to share the information about the Kennedy School. Again, thank you to the superintendent, Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis as well, the mayor, school committee, Laura Pitone for always having our back. Just thank you for all that you're doing to keep our school running smoothly. But it's the people that work in the school that actually facilitate that. So I'm very grateful to some families that are here tonight and to the staff and again to the students. Next slide, please. Okay, you can go to the next slide. So just to summarize our vision, it's to be truly collaborative where students' growth relies on all systems, communication and community.

Our mission is academic success and future success is fostered by experiences, support from all our stakeholders, and celebrating the big and small wins. Core values, not only being impactful, innovative, and building relationships, but upholding habits that benefit all in our community and society as well. This is a picture of one of our students earning a Tiger Award for teamwork. Our Tiger Habits are teamwork, integrity, growth mindset, empathy, and respect. And this is something that we work into all that we do. Every conversation with students, even with staff, we utilize those habits.

All right, so our first goal is around academic success, and our goal is to increase staff capacity to implement tier two instruction, so including interventions and appropriate scaffolds in the classroom for students. It's to identify academic entry points for all students, especially students with disabilities. And a little bit of how we've done that already. So this is a framework for academic excellence and it emphasizes evidence, instructional rigor, and targeted student support. and over the last two years we have been working to improve our child study team so there were 26 academic referrals to our child study team in the 24 school year and a lot of the concentration were students in grades three and four and this year we've had referrals to child study that are almost exclusively in grades one and two. and that just shows that the students are now being referred earlier so the child study team and educators can implement targeted instruction earlier and make sure we're impacting students.

This shift aligns with the focused work we've been doing in the K-2 CPT time, where staff regularly analyze student data and collaborate around targeted interventions, and we discuss which students we should refer to child study. In addition, our professional development has emphasized data analysis, and we've been implementing an intervention site to support teachers as a resource. As a result, we are identifying and supporting students earlier, either through consistent Tier 2 classroom interventions or through the child study process. This early identification has led to fewer child study referrals overall and a notable reduction in the number of students being identified in the upper grades. To support growth this year, our child study team, as part of the MTSS model, has created documents to support families. We've created resources for families so they understand the process. and documents to help teachers to track data and make sure that we are tracking data with fidelity across all grade levels. We also created a learning walk tool to focus on interventions in small group.

and we've been doing learning walks and using the tool to make sure we support our teachers in professional development. As stated we also created an internal website where educators can share best practices and tools for various interventions to help students with different needs. and it's also to support teachers by providing effective interventions and the information that we need to be able to implement them and it also supports and guides teachers through the data analysis and decision making around creating interventions and it also requires a lot of collaboration so it helps teachers and special educators align their instruction and make sure that we're tracking data in the same way and lastly we are also working with our new curriculum to see how students can be supported while maintaining high expectations.

Hi, everyone. Thank you, Jen. Jen is part of the child study team and some other educators as well and counselors and things, and that has been really impactful. I think to tile this together in terms of what the district is doing and what we're doing also at the school level is that all teachers in the primary grades have really gone through small group reading instruction at our school and how to implement Fonix routines literacy interventions and that has enabled targeted reading interventions and support so if we're looking at this this cohort came in at 45 performing in core and then by the time they left second grade 88% were performing in core and to show that like these interventions are really working and they're supporting students.

Additionally, our site council has really been supporting some of this work by looking at our book room, which gives access for students to look at and so forth. We want to make sure that it's representative of the students that we work with and we want to make sure that it's equitable so those are along with like what the district has been doing along with the CPT time that the primary grade has been doing where they It's amazing what they're doing. They're leading it. They're talking about what interventions are working. They're sharing information and looking at that.

And that is being shown in the data that we're presenting today.

Thank you.

All right, so you can go to the next slide. Yep. Talking about our goal for equity and access, Using identified best practices to focus counseling, behavior support, to support our students in our specialized programming and students with IEPs, to increase confidence and stamina. So looking at the data, it shows that it's still an area of growth for us. We continue to explore how we provide our students access. To the curriculum with the mindset of academic excellence and success for all students. To the specialized programming population in our school, SEEK, LifeSkills, and SCIP. Even though it's a small number in comparison to the larger general education, our commitment is still strong to ensuring that all students are able to offer equitable opportunities.

As someone who I've been involved in special ed programming for a long time, I think it's very important to highlight the successes and challenges we face. So one example is that moved me is we had a girl come from a different school. Go into one of our specialized programming, much smaller class size. And she started to get control of some of the things that were barriers to her education. And then she started to learn to read. and it was amazing. To see the pride on her face as she's learning to read and showing us she can start to read is just one of the reasons why we do this work. Another student. was talking to me one day, was upset because she has to go out of the classroom for resource support. And she felt bad because she was the one that had to leave the class. But then she started to see other kids having to leave for different services. And she said to me, she goes, oh, that's teamwork.

That's one of our tiger things. And I said, yeah. I said, that's what teamwork is. And it helps you learn. And it was great to see that transformation, from feeling bad about herself to feeling encouraged. So I'm also in a working group that is working with the special ed department to look at how SEEK runs. and trying to see where we can come up with more inclusion opportunities. We know how important it is for their learning to be with their peers. and sometimes when they're out separate sometimes behaviors get in the way of actually gaining the academic content and so we're looking at ways we can increase inclusion and provide professional development for the staff who will be working with students who they may not have worked with before. It takes a lot of collaboration, it takes a lot of communication with Special education teachers and general ed teachers working together.

So the next slide is our MCAS data. So according to 2025, 31% of students with disabilities are meeting our exceeding expectations. That's compared to the 76% of our students without disabilities. So you can see the huge gap that is there, and we need to figure out what we're going to do about it. So the challenge is that high level of ELA instruction places significant demands on students' language processing, attention, and also their endurance. Students in our specialized programs require intentional development of academic behaviors. They have to learn behaviors they may not have had before. Continued focus, task persistence, that stamina, and then the confidence and then managing those extensive cognitive loads.

The solution We're hoping is prioritizing the development of academic stamina and learning confidence by implementing best practices. And that includes focused counseling, academic support, Behavioral interventions, support plans, if they're aligned and embedded in the high quality ELA instruction that we have through wit and wisdom, fish tank, We want to ensure that students can build those skills and then engage meaningfully with rigorous texts. The math achievement gap. Math 21% of students with disabilities are meeting or exceeding expectations compared to 78% of students without disabilities. Again, the challenge is the data. It highlights gaps in students' access to grade-level math, reasoning, and problem solving. And many math standards require students to navigate multi-step problems.

The challenges often stem from the need for strengthened executive functioning, structured problem solving routines, and opportunities again to build confidence. The solution are instructional efforts focusing on increasing access to grade-level math through explicit instruction, visual models, and consistent problem-solving structures. Targeted sports would include scaffolded tasks, Small group instruction and embedded behavior and counseling supports. Our new curriculum really is showing to benefit our students. We've seen their access to math language, Their access to quality texts in ELA, both supporting us in our endeavor to close those gaps.

All right, so next slide is wellness and joy. One area to highlight around this goal is our student equity action team, which is SEAT. Not seek, but seat. So I always have to spell it when I say it. but it's made up of seventh and eighth graders that are helping us better understand the student experience at Kennedy. After they interviewed Sam and myself, There's very interesting questions about second step, about restorative circles. So one of the things that they wanted to focus on is making sure that our social-emotional programming meets their needs. and talks about issues that are important to them. It could be peer relationships, identity, and mature decision making. Those are three things that they brought up.

This year we've trained students in restorative justice and peer mentoring, giving them meaningful roles in supporting the work with all of our students. Students again are navigating the global events, social media, all the things that can sometimes get in the way of their education. It can add to it, but it sometimes gets in the way. Sam and I are part of the middle grades working group. It's made of educators across the district and we're talking about things we can bring back to our school to help get our students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade ready for high school. Overall programs like SEAT and other ways of engaging students in restorative practices. The middle school kids in the C program talked about how they wanted more restorative circles in their classroom. So that's exciting. Tiger Tutors.

One of the things that's new this year, we have students who seek out extension work, but one day a week they go down and they work with our younger students. They volunteer once a week to support K-2 students through targeted literacy and math activities provided by the teacher. And it's an amazing thing to watch. One of the students was here earlier, but I had a student running down the hallway, and the tiger tutor was like, Mr. Marshall, watch how I can get him to walk instead of run. But then when you sat and you watched them work, They're so excited to be together. It's building great skills in the older kids, but it's also providing someone sees the younger kids. and it gives them a sense of how little kids learn and it's been just a really positive experience for the whole community. The next slide is just some pictures.

of what joy and wellness can do to support academic success. Whether it's going to Anne's Taqueria to speak Spanish and order your lunch and have a good meal, or if it's a group of kids making doing hands-on projects making unplugged arcade games the community Rallies around these things. We also have different ways throughout the year, festivals, things that bring the community together. Family and Community Engagement Talking about ways that we can increase our families' understanding of their students' work and all that goes into it. You can see on the next slide,

Just the responses, as we get more responses we get more information. So it helps us understand what we need to do to improve in these categories. And the district has already started that with a math presentation during the school day, an I-Ready virtual meeting just talking about I-Ready and how you can support your students. and then we just did a literacy night last week for K through two, pre-K through one, sorry. And we had about 90 people come out to that. It was great. It was run by our primary team. and they were able to describe the science of reading and really support parents and what they can do at home. So to sum it up, these things all work together.

It's a little puzzle, but it all works together. We can't have one really without the other. So our goal is to stay student-centered with every decision grounded in student growth, data, and well-being. Strengthen collaboration, consistent purposeful teamwork, lead with relationships, Engage our families as partners and move forward with purpose. So being aligned, focused, and committing to continuous progress. Using the strategic plan as our guide. Thank you for this opportunity and I welcome questions.

Thank you so much. Always wonderful to hear from our principals, APs, and thank you for bringing an educator. To my colleagues, we have questions. I know there are, so I'm just going to wait for it. All right, Member Lippens?

Through you, Chair, thank you. Thank you so much. This was such a great presentation. And I know I just I know that you have a background in social work and yes so and I that really comes through I think you recognize yes we have high quality instructional materials that we're using and we also need to really think about Things like stamina and productive struggle and how kids are social emotional plays into it and I think That is really you're really gonna see the benefits from that I also so kudos My question is actually around literacy and math nights and i-Ready. And I'm wondering, through the district, are there ways that we can support schools in doing these? professional learning opportunities for parents because it is a really heavy lift I think for schools to kind of take on math and literacy nights and they're so important and to get

Like 90 or so people is really amazing and it also takes a lot of work so I'm just wondering about that to the to the district on how we can better support schools and also thinking about not maybe just having them at schools but also going to outside locations where we know our communities reside so just thank you

Thank you, the chair.

I have a few quick thoughts, but then I'd also be curious if there's a way from the school's perspective that we can better support. I'd love to hear it. if i may um i think um there's a few things first of all absolutely love um the idea around going into the communities uh and into different centers etc to um Share Learning Nights or other kind of family engagement activities is something that is really core to me and we have not done a lot of that as a district. Sponsored event in recent years. Did it a little bit when I first got here so I really appreciate that question and something I will consider for the future. So I think What I've noticed is that different schools are very creative in the different ways depending on the needs of their communities.

I'm thinking about evening meetings at Healy. I'm thinking about some that happened at AFA. I'm thinking about the one that Steve just named at Kennedy. So I do think it's a little bit, I'm wondering about a best practice share because people are creative and kind of, Do different things that work for their communities and I want to support that. From our district's perspective and something that actually did come up in the school improvement plans There was a push of what are the district efforts being made, which is why you saw So many kind of district-sponsored events, some based at schools like the one that Principal Marshall Excuse me, as Principal Marshall mentioned. We also, though, had a couple of virtual ones during the day and evening. So that was kind of our shift and the push that we heard from the committee last year, as well as

more you know kind of literature about the curriculum going home uh so that's my my brief thoughts somewhat brief i'm curious though if there's a way that the district can better support i'd love to hear it

I mean I think one of the things that's challenging is getting the right people to come out to do those Getting the right people who are familiar with the content. I think that's always the question and I think you know when you have a group of pre-k through two teachers The way it worked for us is two of them did child care and the other two kind of ran the session. But when you have people who want to do those things too, that's the real benefit. So making sure that we have that encouragement. You know, people are taking their time at night to come do those things if it's a nighttime one. I love the idea of getting into the community. I think that would be, again, I echo that. It would be amazing. meeting people where they're at and if we had situations like the literacy night and people invested in that and it's part of my job is to keep building that investment

and encouragement. Again it's what I opened with with just the idea of getting people to lead and you know I'm going to highlight Jen for a second but Jen is wanting to be an administrator of sorts at some point possibly so Seeing her growth and seeing our opportunity to support her is what makes those things sometimes happen. I know that's not really an answer, but...

Well, if I may follow up, it seems like you did mention childcare, so staffing, like that's something. And then you talked about distributive leadership, so really like... Thank you, Dr. Boston-Davidson and Superintendent.

I just wanted to highlight that I know SFLC did run some math and literacy programs or events. I also wanted to highlight the fact that we do have home visiting plans work that happens in the early grades. So scale is a challenge and also sometimes finding the best way to meet people where they are. But I know that there are significant efforts to that. I can have a better breakdown of what that looks like next time that I... I get that information from SFLC.

Thank you. I was going to say something similar. I think there are a lot of different efforts and however we can best support. And sometimes it is sharing the ways in which it works in different schools is best. The only other thing that I would mention is sometimes I I hear myself kind of thinking aloud and I just want to name I named three schools and I know of examples at every school of really amazing I just want to name that for the record. It wasn't just kind of three schools that come to mind, but I can think of like amazing Things that I saw at CAP, at East, you know, all of our schools. So really an opportunity to share. I'm thinking about some principals using the back-to-school nights created. Like there are really... Creative examples that happen at different school communities and so we can facilitate that for sure.

Thank you member Eldridge and then Dr. Stellman.

Thank you, the chair. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you so much. I'm wondering if you could maybe elaborate a little bit more on slide six. You had mentioned the data outcomes, and then there's an area where you talked about After two years of data-driven instruction with teachers trained in phonics and comprehensive focused small lessons. And then there was a mention of like small group training. Is this something that's unique to Kennedy that

It's part of the larger district work, so they're teaching our younger grades small group work, small group instruction, so yeah it's a district initiative.

Okay. Thank you to the chair. Member Eldridge, and for anybody that was kind of tuned into ed programs, you asked a really great question around what came out of the hill for literacy audit. And I named the structured literacies Routines, PD came out and so I think I believe that's the professional development that they're referring to but it seems like they built off of the success of that.

Dr. Stellman. Thank you for your excellent presentation and the way in which you talk about your students and your teachers. It's very emotional and that's how it should be. The love that the community has for the adults and the children is just potent. It's wonderful. I've gotten some emails from concerned parents at Kennedy School and so I'm sort of naming the tiger in the room. Thank you for laughing. Which is just wondering what kind of supports do you think that you'll need When we've got these bubble classes coming through and just as a new school committee member, I would love to hear some of your thoughts.

Yeah, we've developed a number of different schedules. That's one thing we're trying to see which schedule would make the most sense. We had some teachers here obviously share their thoughts. I think it's always the and so on. We support our teachers in being creative around some of the concerns that were brought up, the amount of feedback on all these different things. I feel like there's a lot of creative ways to address some of those things. An example is if we start middle school like it is sixth grade but if we work with our schedule so that

you know we're supporting students maybe a sixth grade teacher's supporting some seventh and eighth grade students just depends upon how that would ultimately play out the other thing that we do A support that's sort of hard to work with is space. So there's not a lot of rooms left in the Kennedy, at least rooms that could hold We have some smaller rooms that aren't used in our SEEK program right now, but that can always change. It's one of those things obviously if we need to hire an extra staff person at some point we'll explore that and the question always is we have to look at the data and see Is it going to be an ELA teacher? Is it going to be another math teacher? So previously we had a second math teacher.

Our math teacher does like to loop 7th and 8th grade to keep that consistency with the students, but we'll look at the data and decide where it makes the most sense. That's what we've thought of so far. But I think the scheduling is going to be the big piece.

Do you have a follow-up? Thank you. Does the district owner respond before a follow-up? Do you have a follow-up or another question?

Well, I just wanted to say thank you for that. And as new ideas or ideas for support, we would like to hear that.

Thank you.

I concur. All right, Member Pitone.

Thank you. Through the chair I hesitated to bring it up too I was like we're talking about all this wonder work that's happening at the Kennedy and I'm super excited one thing I could highlight ten things but the seat program with the student equity access team thrilled the fact that you're explaining the spaces where the kids are paying up the leadership and asking from the administration and the educators what they need Just you know it's like a gift and that doesn't happen very often so I just really wanted to highlight and applaud that but also in reference you know I've been hearing from People at the Kennedy, educators, parents, but I'm also hearing from Brown parents, and it's a really tough space because clearly there's change and we really as a school committee really haven't heard much and I'm not asking you to talk to this now maybe this is something in the future like what happened it's very unusual that we have a double bubble nobody knows what I'm talking about but basically

adding a classroom last year this past year to a typical two-strand group you added an extra sixth grade to try to accommodate needs and then again for next year the plan is to do that and I have I have absolute strong confidence that that was the best decision that the district made because I know that these decisions are not made lightly so I just want to put that out there but from a school permitting perspective it'd be great to hear a little bit about that at some point and then you know the big piece I think for everyone is it sounds like obviously you're already trying to take this on head-on I would have not expected anything different from your team but the lack of clarity that's the thing that always makes people anxious and I and I someone said oh there's I said well they're probably gonna hire another teacher like that's never not happened but you know obviously you have to make your plans and I know we've had I think Am I wrong that we had one other double bubble? I think that was my daughter's grade. She wasn't at the Kennedy. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

So the district has been through this before, and I know that the district will resolve this. But I also want to... I know this is not the intention of anybody but like you know not wanted and feeling a little like We made this exciting choice. The district gave us this choice and we're really thrilled about it. And then all the energy and really legitimate concerns that are coming from the Kennedy community are sort of I'm just naming it and I'm actually not discrediting anybody. I think everybody has all these super valid feelings and this is a big change and the sooner that we can be as articulate as possible around what the changes or the enhancements or the supports as Dr. Smelman spoke of but also for the school committee like what happened why why are we here and you know What's the forecasting for the next year and the next year and the next year?

The best we can do with that because I know it's hard. So anyway, I just wanted to put that out there and I want to thank everyone for kind of patience and with this tough situation. Which also could be a great opportunity. I also want to add that word.

I just want to add going back to the C-team aspect one of the great things about the C-team is that they came and presented to our staff and so they presented last year's presentation that they did at Harvard to our staff and it was great and just watching the kids grow like that and being able to ask the right questions is it's a testament to their families it's a testament to their education but it's just a really nice way to see kids expressing themselves. So I know that's not the second half of your comment.

Yeah. We've been working really diligently on different options for what the middle school can look like. I do want to bring up that just hiring a person we had done that with the math and we found like it wasn't as effective as we wanted to because the middle school model they're very departmentalized it's a lot more complex We've designed different models where we hire humanities or we include sixth grade and like we're being very creative but I just want to Note that it's complex and then also like between all if we do do a six or eight model you're also working with a school-wide schedule of specialists and they have to coincide so I

I think we have four options right now and that includes like whether there'll be a bubble like in the 2027 year in that sixth grade again or not. So we're working on like lots of different creative ideas as much as possible. Thank you.

I can't remember who. All right, we're going Eldridge and then Stellman again.

Thank you to the chair. I believe you mentioned on the Tiger Tudor side that that came out of collaboration with other principals

I mean it didn't start out that way it was just we looked we saw an opportunity and just Some staff came up with the idea of how do we get younger kids and older kids. Given our model, it's really beneficial to have older kids have opportunity to work with younger kids. through buddies and all those different things but yeah no it didn't start out that way.

I just wanted to say how exciting it is just in terms of like that type of community building and understanding each other on a different level is really fantastic. So I really love the tutors idea. Is that happening anywhere else in the district just out of curiosity? Thank you to the chair.

I know of other buddies programs I don't know to the extent you know how similar they are but I know that there are other schools with other kind of you know older student younger student buddies paired through cohort programs yep it's not a formalized structure throughout the district though it's another great best practice year

I think part of the idea has been, part of the strategic plan was to create spaces for students to have a voice and have agency. It looks differently in different places. I know the high school has taken it in a different direction. The SEED program is one that actually was centered on the idea of providing students a voice and a vote, if you will. and so that has been done throughout the district it happens throughout the district and it happens different differently in every building again depending on the The profile of every school and so that's the one thing that you will find in Somerville is the right that not every school has the same the same They all have the same values, but they actually are reflected differently in how they're implemented. But I think, I mean, one thing to celebrate is the seed work happens. Great, I love the way the Kennedy is being translated into students actually supporting other students, coaching them.

But there are different versions of that in different schools.

One of the other things that we have an opportunity to do too is some reverse inclusion and things like that so we have students who will be in the first grade students will go down to the life skills classroom and join their morning meeting and things like that. So there's a lot of opportunity for students to be together and to learn about each other.

Thank you, Dr. Selman.

Thank you and I just want to shout out to the assistant principal Sam just about naming the complexity of this. There's no, this is not a linear problem and we can't just put things and we can't we can't actually even think about what how this is going to work out in the future so I really recognize that and I think that's and so forth. So it's really important for all of us to try to hold. Just in some families have been asking me about When or how might more official information be shared about this transition?

You're talking about the...

for anyone yeah for people who are coming into uh into the Kennedy um through the in the bubble yeah um

Over the next couple of weeks, we've been talking about ways to maybe do more like not tours so much but just like more information that would be helpful for a Brown student to know and coming up with a way to like I will say that the sixth grade year is always a bit of a challenging year for students who come from the Browns sometimes. you know they've been together for a long time most of them and so they they stick they stick together but as you see in seventh and eighth grade you start to see them Gain other friendship circles and and you know the first couple days is always like the cafeteria is so huge or where's the where's the nurse's office or you know

you guys have a gym and all these other things and so things that we sometimes just take for granted and you know a big cafeteria can be loud so you know there's a lot of different little things that people have to get used to when they come so that would be something I'd be interested in like kind of I know a lot of the questions I've heard them over the years and other people do too so it'd be a good maybe a helpful way to support that.

I just wanted to again highlight the work that is happening at the Kennedy. Excited about the leadership, Mr. Marshall, as well as the work that happens through SAM. I know that I've been in Jen Leary's classroom where the kids are actually growing chickens and doing all kinds of experiments. In fact, I just committed to host 20 chickens as soon as they hatch, so I'll take them all if I can. I think it's that engagement with the students, that sense of play as well, and the complexity and diversity of the different programs at the Kennedy I think is worth It requires a higher degree of understanding of that neurodiversity of some of our students in different programs. That is something that I want to make sure that is not lost as we talked about growth and as we talked about targets.

But thank you for the hard work, as well as the community that you brought along. I know they're very... Tiger Driven. So thank you for the hard work.

All right, thank you. If you have to go and watch the final four, we understand. Or whatever, the NCAA tournament. We still have our personnel report, right? All right.

Yes, I'd say it is my pleasure also to announce the two retirements notifications. So Nancy McSweeney, she's the head cleric. McQueenie is the head cleric of the Winterhill Community Innovation School. She is going to be retiring after her 27 years of service. And of course, she is going to be a great loss for our district. And she started as a resource room paraprofessional at the Brown and Cummings School in 1999. And then she became a school secretary for the Winterhill Innovation Community since 2006. So that will be a great loss for the community. I also just know that Will Vervis just was leaving, but I wanted to recognize him. He, again, has been a special education department coordinator for the Kennedy School. After five years of service, Will has been the ultimate 10 player.

He started in 2021 as one of the Special Education Assistant Directors who then filled For a short period of time in 2023, that's how I met him as the interim special education director in our district. So then he became a special education coordinator at the Kennedy in 2025. So I really wanted to thank you, Nancy and Will, for the years of service and the dedication to our students. So please join me on that, congratulations. Thank you. Just a quick brief acknowledgement that we continue to have parental leaves of absence, absences that continue to grow in our district because we have a very young population of educators.

So that is a celebration as well as an area in which we have to continue to advertise and recruit our substitutes to continue to keep up with the pace in that. We also welcome a new principal clerk in our school counseling and college and career department this March, Carla Tippetts. and again we continue to hire substitute teachers so if anyone knows of anyone please let us know and spread the word and that's the end of my report.

Thank you. We are moving on to reports from subcommittees. Can I get a motion on finance?

I think I'm doing this right. Motion to accept the report of the Finance and Facilities Meeting of the Whole for March 11, 2026. Is that not correct? Oh, good.

Second.

All right, we have a motion by Member Lippens, seconded by Mayor Wilson. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? All right. We are moving on to unfinished business. We have the Somerville School Committee resolution in support of Senate Bill 2571, an act empowering municipalities and local governments for a second reading. While the mayor has let us know that this was, move the term, is like sent to study, which is a way of saying it's probably not going to get voted on this term. I will call on you after.

Given what we're hearing on the budget, given our responsibility and our role, I think it is incumbent on us to make sure that we are letting our state representatives know that we believe You know that we deserve equitable funding and that they should be giving the municipalities some options for increasing the tax base as they see fit. Mayor Wilson.

Yeah, thanks, Sharon. I appreciate those comments on it. Yeah, it's one of those cases where it's an election year and people on Beacon Hill are afraid of being tied to any tax increase. Even if it would ultimately be us here in Somerville increasing those taxes, it's unfortunate. I think I mentioned this when we spoke last time, but there are aspects of this, the non-excise tax, That actually could be generally very helpful to us, such as allowing us to bond over 40 years as opposed to 30 for a school. Those could help. So and I agree with everything you said in terms of we should still stay true to our values and call for this because it would be good policy. So I appreciate you all taking this up here and I'm very supportive of it.

Member Green.

Thank you. Echoing the mayor, I also want to point out that as rough as this budget is going to be, things will be even worse. As one of the people in public comment referenced, there are several ballot items up This November, that would be devastating to state and local finances. So I fully expect that as the election comes along, we will be passing more resolutions in support of More revenue, not fewer, because there is no solution to the state and city's long-term fiscal picture that doesn't require both maintaining state revenues and giving cities and towns more ability to raise revenue when needed.

Thank you. With that, are there any amendments? I believe I read it out loud last time, so we don't have to. Member Biton?

Thank you, Chair, through you. I also will be supporting this. I think I agree as a statement of policy. This is a no-brainer. Wish to request that Senator Jalen, Representatives Eiderhoven, Barber, and Connolly be included in the distribution list in the last bullet. I know that we are so the second to last resolved Urges our delegation to advocate for the passage of the bill and what I'm requesting is that we add them also to the be it further resolved that we distribute this to them.

I endorse it and will add that in. Thank you. Anything else? Do I have a motion to approve?

So moved

Second. All right. I have a motion by member Biton, seconded by member Lippens. All those in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? All right. Thank you. We're moving on to new business. We have February bill rolls. Can I get a motion on the February bill rolls?

Move to authorize the February bill rolls.

Thank you. Second. All right, motion by Member Green, seconded by Member Pitone. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Abstentions? All right. February bill rolls are passed. We have some field trips. Who's going for that?

Chair, I move to approve the following field trips from April 30th, 2026. And point of clarification, I think it said May 5th here, but the supporting form said May 2nd. So I will look for clarification.

So my suggestion would be that we authorize through May 5th. That way, like unless you're uncomfortable with that, but you know.

Nope, that sounds great. So to authorize the field trip from April 30th to May 5th, 2026, hopefully they'll come back sooner, for 19 Somerville High students, From the CTE program to travel to Marlborough, Massachusetts to participate in the SkillsUSA program, travel via bus costs to students zero dollars. And on May 1st, 2026, for 15 students from Next Wave Full Circle to travel to Mount Manhattanock in New Hampshire, travel via Next Wave Full Circle School Van cost to student zero dollars. And on June 4th, 2026 for 10 students from Next Wave will visit Canobie Lake Park, in Salem, New Hampshire, travel via school bus, cost a student $25, I will note, with scholarships available.

Thank you. I have a motion by Member Biton, seconded by Member Piton. Any discussion? Member Biton?

Quick question through you, Chair. Regarding the first field trip Just looking for some clarification on noting that this is a multi-day event happening in Marlborough. It's only an hour away. So I'm just... Curious, not second guessing, just curious, why the choice to spend the overnights rather than travel back and forth? If we have that information.

Dr. Boston-Davis? Thank you to the chair. I do not have the information, but I can talk to Director Hatchie and get that information from him. Thank you. Great question.

Anything else? All right. All those in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? Great. All right. We hope they enjoy themselves. On to acceptance of grants.

Motion to accept all federal entitlement and continuation grants and all state continuation grants awarded to the Somerville Public Schools. Private, and the Job Creation Retention Trust, JCRT, the Scaled Department of Facilities Maintenance, CNA, for $400,000. Second.

All right, I have a motion by Member Lippens, seconded by Member Pitone. Dr. Boston-Davis, if you're superintendent, if you're willing to, that's a great grant. Do we know where it came from? How we got it?

Thank you to the chair. So this is one of the many grants that Jocelyn Marte has worked on through SCALE. I do not know the details of this one simply because she Moves Forward, so many amazing grants. But this one I believe is around workforce development. It may be in partner with the city. I'd have to talk to Jocelyn more. I can get more details about that. It is housed within scale around creating workforce development. I can get more details and share that with the committee.

Deep appreciation to Jocelyn. Member Biton. Oh, yeah. I mean, seriously, she is a force and we are lucky to have her. Yes, if you're willing to share any more information, that is substantial. And since Member Green professionally cares about workforce as the rest of us do in other ways, I have a feeling. We will want to hear about it and be able to celebrate it however we can. Okay. I have a motion by Member Lippens, seconded by Member Pitone. Any further comments? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? All right. On to donations.

I move to accept with gratitude the following donations for equipment from Jackson Lumber, in Woburn, Mass., valued at $3,121.42 to the CTE Carpentry Program. and equipment namely Bosch from Bosch Tools Corporation in Mount Prospect, Illinois valued at $9,855 also for the CTE carpentry program.

Second. All right. I have a motion by Member Biton, seconded by Member Lippens. Mayor.

Chair, Dr. Carmona and I had the honor of attending a ceremony this week. Was it last week? I don't know. What day is it? Last week. The Boston Bruins Foundation. The students did an amazing job. They constructed two sheds. Those will be auctioned off. And if you get a chance to see the work they did to create the version of the Bruins logo for it, it's really quite something. It was such a good event. Really, really grateful to these two companies for stepping up and for making these donations and to make it possible for our CTE students in the carpentry program to do some real work on this. You've got to see it to believe it.

Yes, I mean, I haven't seen this one, but seeing what they've done the previous years, I don't doubt it for a second. I would I mean every year the bids get way out of my price range very quickly but if if Mayor or Superintendent, if you're willing to share with us the auction site. For those of us who aren't as savvy on social media, an email would be great. So I can try and bid and then get quickly outbid on.

Thank you to the chair I was able to pull up my my one-on-one meeting notes with Jocelyn in which I take copious notes because there's so many grants and The JCRT grant that she's secured for the next, I believe, two years is for the certified nursing assistant program that Jocelyn has partnered with. Our high school department. There are 15 students total in the cohort, five of whom were SHS students that left SHS and came to scale to get their GED, and they're now getting their CNA. It's at nighttime. It's three nights per week. I believe they need to do 125 hours total, 100 on call and 25 of clinical. And the clinical work will be

Saturdays in a nursing home so that is an overview I knew I I take a lot of notes when she talks because there's so many amazing updates but that is what that grant I believe is supporting now I will email if that is not the case but I'm

Thank you so much that is even that's wonderful work and I'm glad that we are Getting grants to put more nurses into the world. All right, so we have donations. The motion was put forth by Member Biton, seconded by Member Lippens. Any other comments?

Can I just say something quickly on the donation side of it? Again, we had the Bruins What's the name of the famous player that joined us? Bob Sweeney. Yep. We also have Jackson, Lambert, and Bosch, and they all made a commitment to continue to support the district and the city for years to come. So that's great. But I mean, this is the kind of scale at which the work is multiplied when you not only are doing the work internally, but you're having outside I know also that

Being a comprehensive high school is not an easy thing, but I think we have some very creative systems that are very unique in the state. So I think more things to come around CTE, but really excited that The work is happening again through the work of the amazing work that happens with our directors and the educators. but also the community is lending in some support that is really crucial to develop the next level of work in CTE.

That's great news with that uproarious support. Our motion is put forth by Member Biton, seconded by Member Lippens. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? Great. We are moving on to community or calendar items from members. I'm going to go first. We have, there have been conversations about Enrollment and Catchment Zones. And in our last union contract, I'm going to make eye contact with the union president. He's going to correct me if I'm wrong. We committed to, or we could call it a working group. No. What's it called? Ad hoc committee. Thank you very much. An ad hoc committee on student enrollment. We are getting that underway. I'm saying it out loud in part to hold me accountable because there's a lot of things going on.

Looking to publicize to get members because it is much like the CAG. It's going to be a lot of work, a lot of reading, and we are going to hear the recommendations from that subcommittee or that ad hoc committee that I presume we will be taking up. So I'm saying that out loud because I want to make sure that we keep this ball rolling. The goal is to get in the public very soon what we're looking for for members of this ad hoc committee and then Get ideally many many applicants that we will sort through and then the hope is that before the end of the school year

There will be a packet of information that the members will be given to sort of read and digest and think about over the summer so that the work in earnest can be kicked off in We'll say September because the first day of school is August 31st. With the goal of them getting the recommendations to us ideally before the end of the 26-27 school year. So that is my community and or calendar item. Member Pitone.

To the chair, thank you for announcing that. First question about it is, is there going to be a school committee member on it? Okay, good. And I just wanted to bring up something that I also can share that's related. This is based on some earlier office hours. and it kind of goes the school assignment policy currently I guess is right now it's optimized to get as many people as possible to get their first choice and because we've had some change in How people game the system. Then we have a larger group of people now than used to be getting their fourth and fifth choice. And then... in turn then the waitlist itself gets re-lotterized puts back into a lottery system versus necessarily prioritizing the people that got their last choice because people got their second choice are still So I'm going to put in a little more detail in the email.

I'll include Mr. Biton because he owns rules and I think that's where the school assignment is. I'm not going to give you the exact date and it's not going to be exactly accurate, but we used to get very high percentage of first choices. This is one of the years that we got a lower percentage. and then we're kind of having this Thank you for joining us. It's all about what our mechanisms we're using and what the rules we're using through PowerSchool to make these choices. So I just wanted to flag that. And thank you for moving forward with the subcommittee.

Thank you, Chair, through you. Just as a follow-up, if I may, about Member Lippens. I'm sorry, Member Bitones. I should know because it's basically my name just with a P in front of it. If we could get statistics about I had not heard that. That's news to me, I guess. And disappointing news, but understandable at the same time. But I would love to just get the data on that if it's available.

If I may, so I have dealt with some of the issues at the kindergarten level. So every parent wants to have a space at their favorite locations. So we use a lottery system. My understanding, it was 91%. of First Choice. But, you know, there are folks who were saying, well, why do I get four choice Why shouldn't the system optimize for first and second choice? So I think it's a little bit more complicated. We pay a company to do that so we don't have to actually put our hands into that. It's a school works. But there was a question that came to me as an inquiry, and I think it's a legitimate question. I actually sent it to, I think I shared that with Andrew Green as well. I'm not a statistician, but I think there's, if there's a way to improve it, I'm all for that. There's no... We are not holding back in terms of like any preferences. It's just like whatever statistics can help us to figure this out, that's what we're trying to do.

But it's not, I mean, I am assuming that there is an element of, At some point, someone might not end up with the first choice and the second choice or probably the third choice. But again, if there's a way to address it, I'll let those who manage numbers manage that.

Okay, I'm gonna call on myself, then wait, do you need a follow-up, Member Pitone? Okay, I'm gonna call on myself, then Stellman, then Lippens, then Pitone. So I'll say the other thing that I think We should keep in mind, and granted we have to look at the data because I genuinely don't know, but that placements at assignment are different than placements the first day of school, right? The frustration with someone who is told you have your fourth or fifth choice is real. We have deep sympathy. But the likelihood that that's where that student actually gets enrolled, my understanding is pretty low. Again, I also would like to see the data to make sure that's correct, but I think You know, that is a component I want to make sure that we note. Dr. Stellman, then Member Lippens, and then Member Pitone.

Thank you, through the chair. I agree with Andre that These are my words, not his, but that would be good to look under the hood here at the algorithm that we're using just because it is a little odd to have such a I'd like to see the data, but also School Works will have published What's Under the Hood, and it would be great to take a look at it. Thank you.

Thank you through you Chair. This is in regards to the committee and will we also be considering how we place JK students because I know some parents have Wonders about if their child you know already has a child like enrolled let's say at the Kennedy but then they're you know pre-k student is at a different school that's also logistically so I don't know if we've just looked if that will be a topic on the committee or something we've already thought about

I will take that under consideration as a topic for the committee. If not, I think where we will divide what the ad hoc committee does not end up considering is basically what rules will end up Considering, unless you disagree. Great. Yes, we're going to go Pitone. Well, Member Pitone, are you okay? Member Green goes first? Okay. Member Green? Thank you. Sorry, Andre, there he is.

Yeah, sorry. Just as... As Vincent mentioned, he mentions to me and I have discovered through our networks that actually surprise, surprise, there's a little expert on this. So there's a professor at MIT who has done really groundbreaking work on equitable algorithms and he might be interested in doing some pro bono work for the district on this issue um so we're trying to schedule a meeting for him which we intend to on that issue to see what so you can't get an expert who's interested in this but as you can imagine it's kind of busy so hopefully we'll get it done soon but we haven't got it scheduled yet.

Thank you. Member Biton.

Thank you, through you, and thank you to Member Green. That sounds really exciting. I think that, you know, this, it can include the idea of where their waiting is on the wait list. So like if I got my fourth or fifth choice, and then there's a wait list is there a waiting we want to do for those people versus someone who's got their second choice and end up being one or two on the wait list like you know you got your first or second choice Maybe you shouldn't be the top person on the waitlist. But again, I think there's a lot of analysis to be done here. I think the other piece, I do agree with you, Dr. Ackman, that many... families do eventually get their choice but they lose opportunity for after school because if you are not placed in the time period during the original you will not be allowed to put yourself in for after school and so that's a loss for them just something to keep in mind and maybe something that we factor in. I wanted to bring up One other issue, but I don't think it's necessarily related to the committee, but it's more maybe to the superintendent's office.

Something that really got kind of hammered home to me over office hours this weekend is that New school being built, fantastic, fabulous. There's going to be this transition period where enrollment is going to shift because right now we're already seeing it at The Winter Health Edgerly numbers are low and so there's possibility that numbers will shift at the Brown School because people are thinking maybe the school may or may not be here anymore and so I think that it's something the more we're able to articulate how that's going to work for families or like families who opt in the next three or four years at the Brown or the Winter Hill what their future could look like or that would be you know I think we all have to be prepared for it because there's going to be pressure on other schools.

and so there's going to be high demand so if we don't address this question that I brought up earlier which around you know what what are we going to do under the hood how are we going to do things differently It can be really painful for a lot of people because people are going to scramble to other schools. So as much as we can be prepared as possible, and we're not going to be perfectly prepared, but you know doing that work in the next few months to support us as we move forward not the next few months but the next six months as we go into enrollment for next year so I'm just flagging that I also have something else This is really quick. Just going to excitedly announce the continued school committee coordinated office hours. And I'm just going to Quickly say the times. We had a couple this weekend. Member Lippens and myself hosted on Saturday. Next Saturday, Ward 7, Member Biton is going to be hosting from 9.30 to 11 at the Buzzing Bean with some other representatives. Committives.

Member Lippens and Member Eldridge are going to be hosting on the 11th at the Lincoln Park Playground at 10 a.m. On Tuesday, April 14th, I'm going to be hosting at the Kennedy School from 8 to 9-ish. It may be indoors, it may be hopefully it'll be outdoors. On that same date, Member Eldridge and Member Stellman are going to be hosting at Lincoln Park. from 8-10 to 9 and then on that same date on the 14th member Stellman is going to be We'll be hosting from 4.30 to 5.30 at the West Branch Common Room. And then Friday the 17th, Member Biton will be hosting at drop-off at the West Somerville Neighborhood School. And on Saturday, April 18th, Member Green will be hosting at 10 a.m. at the Winterhill Brewing Company

Thank you. Member Lippens. This Tuesday night, which is tomorrow, on April 7th, the MLPAC is having a community potluck dinner from 6.30 to 7.30 at the East Community East Somerville Community School so I do plan on attending and hearing from folks so just putting that out there thank you

Yeah, and also tomorrow at 7 p.m. the CPAC is hosting a business meeting. I think that Member Lippens is a liaison to both the CPAC and the MLPAC, so I'm probably going to attend the CPAC because Member Lippens has not figured out how to clone herself, and when she does, she'll be able to do both. So if anybody in the community wants to attend the CPAC business meeting, I'm sure it's a virtual meeting, so you can go on the website and find out the details for the link. Thank you.

All right. Vice Chair, do we have condolences? Okay.

The Somerville School Committee offers its deepest condolences to the families of Kathleen Ann Grigas Berkowitz, Mother of Jacqueline Berkowitz, early education pre-K teacher at the Winter Hill Community Innovation School. and to the family of Christina Fadino, mother of Andrea Palmer, K-8 math instructional coach district-wide. and finally to the family of John Joseph McGuire, father of Catherine E. McGuire, school counselor at the Somerville High School Broadway community.

You're adjourned.