Somerville School Committee Meeting 9-9-24
Below is a transcript from the School Committee Meeting on 9-9-24 (September 9th, 2024) in Somerville, Massachusetts. You can find the video and agenda for this meeting at the link above.
Apologies for any and all names being incorrect or any other transcription issues. The contents should be pretty much correct, the part that the AI struggles a bit more with is always inferring correctly who is speaking. The transcript is best-effort and was generated and cleaned up via AI tools without significant attempts to correct names. This may be improved in the future, but will never be perfect.
Chair: Good evening everyone and welcome to this meeting of the Somerville School Committee for September 9th 2024. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2024, this meeting of the School Committee will be conducted via hybrid participation. We will post an audio recording, audio/video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. With that, Superintendent, will you call the roll?
Superintendent: Ms. Barish?
Ms. Barish: Here.
Superintendent: Mayor Ballentine?
Superintendent: President Uwenkampen?
President Uwenkampen: Here.
Superintendent: Mr. Green?
Mr. Green: Here.
Superintendent: Mr. Bitton?
Mr. Bitton: Here.
Superintendent: Ms. Bitton?
Superintendent: Dr. Ackman?
Dr. Ackman: Here.
Superintendent: Dr. Phillips?
Dr. Phillips: Here.
Superintendent: Chair Kruption?
Chair Kruption: Here.
Superintendent: We have quorum.
Chair: All right, with that, we'll start with a moment of silence and a salute to the flag.
[Pledge of Allegiance]
Chair: And now we will introduce our interpreters. Spanish, if you could unmute yourself and introduce yourself, please.
Spanish Interpreter: [Introduces self in Spanish]
Chair: Thank you. And Portuguese?
Portuguese Interpreter: Good evening, my name is Thelma Leitão, I will be your Portuguese interpreter for tonight. To listen to this meeting, click on the globe on the bottom of your screen and select Portuguese. [Introduces self in Portuguese]
Chair: And Haitian Creole, please unmute yourself and introduce yourself.
Haitian Creole Interpreter: Good evening, everybody, my name is Angie Supree, I'll be your Haitian Creole interpreter for tonight. [Introduces self in Haitian Creole]
Chair: Great, thank you so much. Good evening, everyone, I'm going to take things slightly out of order and have a welcome of our new administrative staff, and then we'll come back and have public comment. Superintendent?
Superintendent Carmona: Good evening, thank you, Chair. I have asked the Chair to allow me to do a little change in the sequence of our presentation, so I wanted to welcome our new administrators, so thank you for that. And I am going to have our Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis introduce our new members.
Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis: Thank you to the Chair, so good evening, everyone, and we are really excited to welcome and re-welcome some admin back into new roles within our district. So as Superintendent Carmona mentioned in our last meeting, we welcomed more than 80 new educators into our district this school year, and we're thrilled that they are part of our SPS family. And this week, we wanted to introduce you to some new members of our administrative team. So I'm going to announce them, and I also want to recognize that they are joined here tonight by their supervisors. So when I announce them, I'm going to welcome both themselves and the supervisors up.
And first up from the Capuano team, we have Krishna Chevalier and the Principal Caraballo with her. Come on up, please.
So I am pleased to introduce -- well, good evening, everyone. I am pleased to introduce Krishna Chevalier as the new Assistant Principal at the Michael E. Capuano Early Childhood Center. Mrs. Chevalier brings over 20 years of experience in education with a background in early education, special education, and social work. She's fluent in French, Haitian Creole, and conversational Spanish. And also, she's a product of the Somerville Public Schools. Thank you. Welcome, Krishna, to the team. We're so excited to have you.
Next up from our Special Education Department, I'm going to introduce Iris Miller. And Ildefonso will come up with her and introduce her.
Ildefonso: Good evening, everyone. I would like to introduce Dr. Iris Miller, who is coming here to Somerville from Gloucester. She is our new Special Education Department Coordinator supporting both West and Argenziano. So welcome, Dr. Miller.
Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis: Thank you. Welcome, Dr. Miller. Ildefonso, you can stay. Another member to our Special Education Admin Team, Dorothy Scali. I think many people recognize the name Dorothy Scali. Dorothy has joined our administrative team as a Special Education Coordinator. And she will be supporting the Brown School and also our out-of-district students. So welcome, Dorothy.
Dorothy Scali: Thank you.
Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis: Welcome in the new role. OK. From Somerville High School, we're welcoming Lindsay Dobbins as our new Somerville High School Counseling Department Head. And she's joined by the principal, Alicia Kirsten.
Alicia Kirsten: Somerville High School is incredibly lucky to have Lindsay Dobbins join our team as the Department Chair for School Counseling. Lindsay comes to us after a long and distinguished tenure at Melrose High School, where she served as an English teacher, a guidance counselor, and the administrator for Counseling and School Services. She brings with her a history of productive collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, a relentlessly student-centered focus, and a wealth of expertise in a broad range of areas. She has a track record of and a deep commitment to removing the barriers that prevent many students from accessing resources and opportunities. In the few short months since she started, we have already benefited from Lindsay's exceptional skill with building efficient, data-driven, common sense systems that will help us improve our ability to ensure students are receiving the services they need to thrive. We have no doubt that Somerville High School and its students will benefit from her vision and her talents. Welcome, Lindsay. We're so glad to have you.
Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis: Next up, from the East Somerville Community School, Benjamin Perraud, joined by the principal, Berenice Mace-Diaz.
Berenice Mace-Diaz: Good evening. I am pleased to introduce Benjamin Perraud tonight. He joins our school community from Boston Private Schools. Along with an incredible sense of humor, Ben brings many different strengths to our school community, including being an educator for 12 years at the Hernandez Dual Language School in Boston. Welcome, Ben.
Benjamin Perraud: Thank you.
Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis: Welcome. So good to have you. Okay. And from our central office team, our data team, I'm really excited to introduce Arundhati Saral, and bringing up with her, our director for data, Samantha Elegene.
Samantha Elegene: Hello. Thank you. We're really excited to welcome Arundhati Saral on to the data team. She comes to us from Harvard Grad School of Education, where she was in the Human Development Education Department, and also brings her extreme enthusiasm and curiosity for data and program evaluation as well. So really excited to work with you.
Dr. Jessica Boston-Davis: So welcome to all of you. We also wanted to just do a welcome to Christopher Ames, who could not be here tonight, but his supervisor, Superintendent Carmona, will do an official welcome for him.
Superintendent Carmona: Yeah, I thought you were going to miss me there. So I have the pleasure to introduce to you Christopher Ames. Unfortunately, he is not here tonight, but I have a few highlights. I know I met him last year when he was an assistant principal. As I was coming in, he was actually taking a sabbatical. So his prior experience has been an assistant principal at the Winter Hill. He also worked as the director of academics in the summer school in SPS, and also he has been known to be a strong instructional coach in mathematics and SPS. He also is known for his bilingual strength. He worked as a teacher in New York, as a bilingual teacher, and also he just returned from a year of world schooling for his fifth and ninth grader children. They were traveling through Mexico and Europe. I am really, really excited to welcome him, as well as thank all the Brown community for having chosen him as the final choice for our district. So he is the new Brown principal. So let's welcome Mr. Ames.
We are really enthusiastic and excited to have all of our new members of our team, both our educators and our administrators who are joining us, and thank you for choosing Somerville. We are really, really glad to have you.
Chair: Yes, I will second that thank you from the school committee. And before we go back for public comment, Dr. Carmona wanted to say a few words and then we will have public comment.
Superintendent Carmona: Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your patience for those of you who signed up for public comment, as well as those who are at home, and a very heartfelt welcome to our newest member of our team. We have another important agenda tonight that will touch on a host of topics that underscore the importance of community and shared responsibility here in Somerville. In fact, so much amazing work and collaboration went into making sure our school's communities are ready to welcome all our students back to school. Myself and my executive team have been out at each school over the past few weeks greeting the staff, students, and families. It has been a high point to get back to the visits and to meet families back at their community schools. A huge thank you to all of the students, families, and staff that made our first week of school a high success.
Tonight in your packets, you will see reports from the City of Somerville Department of Public Works, the Department of Infrastructure and Asset Management that highlight the work they engaged in over the summer and beyond to prepare our facilities for the school year. The work of these teams have been extensive. A few highlights include renovations to the Winter Hill at Edgeley that has enabled our pre-K and kindergarten classes to join the rest of the grades at Edgeley, soundproofing and more. Additionally, all the schools across the district were deep cleaned, plasmas were painted, doors were repaired, and more. We are grateful to our city partners for their efforts in preparing our buildings for a successful year.
Still, it is important for me to note that even with all these efforts and improvements, we continue to have critical facility needs in our buildings, which we are monitoring very closely. I want to acknowledge that multiple things can be true at the same time. While a lot of investments have been made in our facilities, we still face significant challenges. Late last week, the elevator at the Edgeley went out of service. When this took place, we immediately reported the issue to DPW and elevator technicians who responded right away. The fire department was also called to the school to assist individuals who require the use of an elevator to access the classrooms. Over the weekend, DPW worked many hours to get the elevator back in service. While tests are still being done, the elevator is now working and available for use.
Can I guarantee you with 100 percent certainty that this is the final fix? No, I can't. Not yet. Can I guarantee you that the tile that fell from the high school is the first and last tile that will be falling off? No, not yet. Can I guarantee you that we will have no issues in terms of rat intrusions at some of the schools in our district? No, not yet. But what I can guarantee you is that I'll do my very best to be consistent about fighting for a system that prioritizes equity and access for all. Our desire as a district is to ensure a safe, accessible, and inclusive environment for all of our students and staff, while honoring and celebrating their unique strengths, needs, and backgrounds. Equity and access is a foundational value of the Summerville Public Schools, and I understand that the strength of our facilities should and must support this ideal.
With this in mind, we have enhanced our collaboration efforts with the City and have also asked the City to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of our elevators across the district to prevent future incidents, promote safety, and minimize disruptions. I want to close this by noting my deep appreciation for the Winter Hill community. This school has shown great resilience and has been able to thrive despite overcoming various moves and facility changes in the last few years. To all of the Winter Hill students, families, and staff, I have two simple words. Thank you.
Chair: I will now read our public comment instructions. Welcome and thank you to those who have signed up for public comment. Speakers will be allowed three minutes to present their material. However, the chair may limit comments to two minutes based on the number of individuals signed up to speak. I will be limited to two minutes given the number of public speakers. Speakers should begin their comments by stating their name and address or, in the case of district employees, their role within the district. The chair of the meeting, after a warning, reserves the right to terminate speech which is not constitutionally protected because it constitutes true threats that are likely to provoke a violent reaction and cause a breach of the peace or incitement to imminent lawless conduct or which contains obscenities.
Public comment is not a discussion, debate, or dialogue between the public and the committee. Members of the committee will not reply to public comment 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 role as superintendent. The public is encouraged to submit comments in writing for inclusion in the public record.
So with that, I will list three names just so you know who is next and I will invite you up to the podium. So first I have Shauna Powers, then Kate St. Laurent, and then Gwyneth Davis. Shauna?
Shauna Powers: Okay. So I'm Shauna Powers. I live at 218 School Street. I have a first grader and a third grader at the Winter Hill at Edgerly. I'm here tonight to express my support for Mr. Collins and his service dog, Bonnie. Mr. Collins is a dedicated educator at Winter Hill and has been unable to teach due to the inoperable and unreliable elevator at the Edgerly building. This is a situation that should have never been allowed to happen in the first place. For years, Winter Hill educators raised their voices, warning about the neglect and inaction at 115 Sycamore Street, yet their concerns were dismissed until it was too late. The collapse of the concrete was not just a structural failure, it was a failure of responsibility. Our students, staff, and families were put at risk because their needs were not prioritized.
While I acknowledge that there have been recent improvements to the Edgerly building, they do not erase the profound harm that has already been done. The city's inaction has hurt our community deeply and it's a wound that cannot be glossed over. There is clearly so much more to be done, ensuring ADA compliance is not just a legal requirement but a moral one. In solidarity with the Somerville Educators Union, I urge the action on the following, a formal public apology, and I just want to reiterate that a little bit, I've heard thank you a lot. I haven't heard I'm sorry. And some direct accountability from our mayor. Thank you.
Chair: Next I have Kate St. Laurent, Gwyneth Davies, and then Melissa Moore. Kate, the floor is yours.
Kate St. Laurent: Hi, Kate St. Laurent, 59 Albion Street resident and parent to a first and third grader as well. And I could not possibly follow that up with anything more eloquent than what Shawna just said. I agree wholeheartedly in everything she said. I appreciate the words you had, Dr. Carmona, today. But I would really like to hear something more from the mayor. Our wounds are deep right now and we shouldn't have to keep showing up here and not be with our kids at home when they need us right now. We need to be there for them. Thank you very much.
Chair: Next I have Gwyneth Davies, then Melissa Moore, and then Cynthia Devereaux. Gwyneth?
Gwyneth Davies: Hi, and thank you for having us speak tonight or allowing us to speak tonight. I'm sorry. I have to like take a breath. I have to admit that I'm feeling sort of short of words right now, which if you know me does not happen very often. I like words a lot, but I'm having a lot of big feelings as we say in second grade, which is what I teach at the Winter Hill, which is one of the great privileges of my life. If you are tired of hearing from us, I want you to imagine for a second how tired we are of having to keep showing up. It's not like a fun Monday night activity. I don't want to have to do this and I don't think anyone else does either.
So it wasn't okay before and it's still not okay, the inadequacies of the building. Personally, I have a broken window in my classroom that's been completely shattered since summer school, not of this year, but the previous year and still hasn't been fixed. And multiple teachers have been in that room and asked for it to be fixed. Now to the elevator, I want to thank Mr. Collins for having the bravery to be an advocate for himself and thereby for others. And I stand with him as well tonight and not just with him because it's not just about one person, it's about every single person who comes through our doors, deserving a place that is safe and welcoming and inclusive to all, inclusive. It's also, I don't want to hear, thank you, I want to hear, I'm sorry, from the city and I also don't want to hear that we can't make it better. Like it just has to get better and there just can't be another answer. So that's my time. Thank you.
Chair: Next, I have Melissa Moore, then Cynthia Devereux, and then Megan Foley. Melissa, the floor is yours.
Melissa Moore: Chair, before I start my time, there's a student here who showed up a little late. Am I allowed to cede my time to the student to allow them to speak?
Chair: Sure.
Melissa Moore: Okay. Thank you.
Kira: I am Kira. I am in sixth grade in Mr. Collins. I am sad that he can't be in class because the elevator is broken all the time. Help us fix our school.
Mr. Green: So we have a pretty, I'm going to say proud tradition of bending the rules for student voice. And so I would submit requests that I don't feel we need to have someone give up their time. I think that is a totally reasonable request. And so, Melissa, if you would also like to make your, I think it's totally reasonable, feel free.
Melissa Moore: Okay. Thank you. Hi. So my name is Melissa Moore. I am an educator and resident of Somerville at 14 Madison Street. I'm speaking tonight as all of us are here because we are angry. We keep showing up and I appreciate the words of kindness of talking about our resilience. And yeah, once again, like folks have said, we're kind of tired of being told we're resilient. We know we're a great community. We know we're strong and resilient. What we need is you all, especially you, Mayor, to step up and make sure our buildings are safe for everyone.
On the school committee website, it says we shall maintain a safe environment that nurtures the curiosity, dignity, and self-worth of each individual. And when schools are not ADA compliant and people cannot get to either their jobs or access their education, that is not maintaining the curiosity, dignity, and self-worth of all individuals. We need to make sure that we are respecting everyone who is walking through our doors and making sure they have access to where they need to be. It's sending a message that people do not belong here and it's up to the city to do what you need to do so that people can access their education and job to nurture dignity and self-worth like you say you would like to.
Public Speaker: So like others, I would like to call upon this body to apologize publicly to members of the Winter Hill community who are directly hurt and insulted by the handling of the broken elevator and to initiate an ADA compliance check across all school buildings to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Thank you all.
Chair: I have Cynthia Devereaux, Megan Foley, and then Maria. You're going to have to tell me how to pronounce your last name when you come up. Cynthia.
Cynthia Devereaux: Hi. I'm Cynthia Devereaux, 82 Highland Avenue, and I'm actually here for a different topic. About ten days ago, local residents received a letter, I live in this general area very close to the town hall, informing us that a homeless shelter would be established at the Cummings School on Prescott. This was presented pretty much as a done deal, and I didn't really see any other way to provide feedback. You know, it was quite challenging to find out about this meeting and find out there's a motion about this later today. I can express that I'm originally from the San Diego area, which has a huge problem with homelessness, and just a couple things that I want to point out that I would completely expect based on this experience. I'm told that people would be leaving the homeless shelter in the morning. I would expect them to spend all day at the library, which I hear already has problems dealing with people who are trying to use the library in the way that it's either designed or not designed to be used. In addition, my home is on the corner of Prescott and Highland. It has grass. I would completely expect it to become a defecation zone since it's on the way to the library. It also sounds like funds would need to be spent to bring the Cummings School up to code probably very quickly. I know from being a voter there that the bricks and things are crumbling. Perhaps these funds could be used to be spent on improving the Eggerly School. Thank you.
Chair: Next I have Megan Foley, Maria, and then Brendan Buckland. Megan?
Megan Foley: Good evening. My name is Megan Foley. I live at 34 Alpine Street in Somerville and have a child in fourth grade at the Kennedy School. I've watched from the sidelines as the Winter Hill community has dealt with a falling apart building at Sycamore Street for many years, and now they continue to deal with a subpar building at Eggerly. We have not even had a full week of school and already kids' education at Eggerly has been impacted by the state of the building. So I'm here tonight to lend support to the Winter Hill community because all children, but especially the children at Winter Hill and the staff and the educators there, deserve to have a functioning school building. Thank you.
Chair: Next I have Maria, and then Brendan Buckland, and then April Luna. Maria?
Maria: Hi. Good evening. I'm here not only to support that, but as well as convey how much the lack of use of the elevator has been not only to my students, but to myself as well as a result. I'm not able to go as quickly to see my students as a result of my disability and spinal issues, which makes me walk slower and have some coordination issues. So again, I wanted to convey how important the elevator is, not only to myself, but to my students. Thank you.
Chair: Next I have Brendan Buckland, then April Luna, and then Nancy McQueeny. Thank you. Brendan, the floor is yours.
Brendan Buckland: Hi. My name is Brendan Buckland. I'm from Walnut Street, a Somerville resident, Dean of Students at Winter Hill, and a building representative for the Somerville Educators Union for the Winter Hill. I'm here on behalf of the members of our building, and I'm here on behalf of our students. This is, I think, my fifth time in front of this body speaking. At this point I don't have remarks because I'm so comfortable up here in front of you all, and I've only worked with the Winter Hill since 2021. I was here in spring 2022 advocating for our students, bringing to your attention the conditions which we feared would be an impediment to their learning. And then since then we have been in a series of crises of which we'd have to come here to advocate on behalf of our students and our building members over and over. I really envy the many members of the Somerville district who do not have to use their time in advocating for their students in this way. I'm also a type 1 diabetic, and I have protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and I believe that it is a bare minimum that we provide those accommodations for people who would like to work and would like to teach their students. And so I think that this was a foreseeable crisis, as there have been many in our time at Winter Hill, that I am putting forward to you all as a body, as in your respective positions of power, to prevent in the future. I understand that there are failures of previous administrations, but at a certain point you have to take on the mantle to be the advocates of our students and Somerville students, and I put that forward to you all. Thank you.
Chair: I have April Luna, Nancy McLooney, and then Matt Collins. April, the floor is yours.
April Luna: Good evening. My name is April Luna, and I'm an educator at Winter Hill. I teach 6th grade math and science, and this is my 7th year on the 6th grade team with Matt Collins and Bonnie. I grew up in the city, and my parents, who are in the audience tonight, still live on the street that I grew up on in Ward 7. I'm speaking tonight to express my dismay over the state of Winter Hill and what happened with Matt and Bonnie last week. The broken elevator and the impact it's had is just beyond words. I've seen the struggles and challenges Matt has faced since we moved into the elderly, and I want you to know he is the last person to complain for the sake of complaining. That's just not Matt. He pushes through and makes things work regardless. He's a problem solver. That's what educators are. That's what we all are at Winter Hill. I saw the impact his absence had on Friday and know all he wanted to do was just come into the building and do his job. We're in the very beginning of the school year, and all of us know, educators know, if you work in a school, the first six weeks of school are key. You're building relationships, you're starting those routines, and I saw firsthand how things fell apart without Matt there, just for one day. One of the problems was I had no idea if I could tell the kids that he'd be back on Monday because no one knew if the elevator would be fixed. It's really unsettling as the adult in the room to not be able to give the kids a straight answer. Moving forward, there's definitely serious repairs, both personally and just to the building itself, infrastructure levels that need to be done. I'm calling upon this body to use the power that you have to make sure to advocate for us so we don't have to keep advocating for ourselves. I could go on and on about my thoughts and feelings about this, but I really hope you listen intently to what Matt has to say for himself. Thank you.
Chair: I have Nancy McQueeny, Matt Collins, and then Bev Feldman. Nancy, the floor is yours.
Nancy McQueeny: Good evening. My name is Nancy McQueeny. I have been a secretary in the city of Somerville for 25 years, the last 19 of which have been at the Winter Hill. I stand here before you tonight because everybody who knows me knows I don't like to speak in public, to speak for my friend and my colleague, Matt Collins. This past Thursday, Friday, and again today, three consecutive days in which our elevator has gone down. Thursday morning, it went down. Matt finds out it's down, anxiety all day long, "Is it going to be fixed while I get out of the building?" Kudos to our wonderful Somerville firefighters who assisted in getting Matt down at the end of the day. But then Matt was unable to access the school on Friday because the elevator was still not working. So again, just like April said, his students lost learning time, Matt lost time with his students. And I will tell you right now, in all the years that Matt Collins has taught in our school, less than five times on one hand, probably not even that, has Matt ever not been in. No matter what his struggles were that day, Matt shows up every single day for his students. So now, Friday afternoon, we're told the elevator's working. Everybody gets word the elevator's working. I'm there a little bit late. The custodian walks in to tell me that he had just been locked in the elevator again for 15 minutes after the elevator company had left probably less than an hour. So again, here it is. Left wondering all weekend, "Will it be working again? Will I be able to go in and teach on Monday?" Monday comes. They worked all day Saturday. Elevator company was out this morning. We're good to go until 11 o'clock, about 11 o'clock. It wasn't good to go again. The elevator was broken again, day three in a row of being in a school with a broken elevator. As of the end of the day, they were back out. Supposedly it's working. We can't continue to do this. People need to be able to access their classrooms, whether it be a teacher, a student, a visitor in our building. We need to work on this. Thank you very much.
Chair: I have Matt Collins, then Bev Feldman, then Dashaun Simmons. Matt, the floor is yours.
Matt Collins: Hello. My name is Matt Collins, 6th grade social studies and ELA teacher at the Winter Hill. Before I talk to you about the last five days of my life, I need to let you know two things about me. I am passionate about what I do, about the community that I am in, my students, and I want to show up. Second thing you need to know is I show up. Nancy, you were close. In 11 years, I have had one sick day. So I'm going to knock on wood. Besides the elevator going down, it's a hit not only to me, and I have to say it's a little disturbing when the fire department has to take you out of the building. They're amazing men, and I'm thankful for them. But the impact that I saw today were my students and my former students coming to my classroom to check to make sure I was okay. That is what the Winter Hill community is about. This is not an issue about an elevator. This is an issue about equity. We have to stop using the word and do something. We have to have actions behind it. I tell my kids all the time, you've got to stand up and fight for yourself. This is also an issue of discrimination. I was not allowed to do my job. So I implore you, you've got to stop harming the Winter Hill community. I understand things break, but not to this level. I will tell you, it takes me a lot, but at this moment, I am broken. Thank you for your time.
Chair: Next, I have Bev Feldman, then Deshawn Simmons, and then Megan Brady. Bev, the floor is yours.
Bev Feldman: Hello, my name is Bev Feldman. I'm at 60 Bartlett Street, and I'm a mom to a first and fifth grader at Winter Hill. First, I just want to thank you, Mr. Collins, for coming tonight, for all the staff and teachers at the Winter Hill, for having to come yet again to advocate for our school. Obviously we know things break. There's no guarantee that anything will continue to work, but I think it's just indicative of the largest systemic building issue within our city. It's certainly not the first time we've had elevator issues within our community, not the first time we've had major building issues, I think, in the city overall in the schools. And I just wish that our community didn't have to keep coming out to advocate for our students and the people working at the city. So I just really implore you to take better care of our building, our community, and really everything in our city, so that our students, our kids, can feel like they are being taken care of and that they are the future of our city, and we want to show that this is what it means to invest in our future. Thank you.
Chair: Next I have Deshawn Simmons and then Megan Brady. Deshawn, the floor is yours.
Deshawn Simmons: Thank you, Matt. That doesn't -- I -- thank you. My name is Deshawn Simmons, and I'm a resident of Ward 7 on Powder House Boulevard, a middle school educator, and the very proud president of the Somerville Educators Union. I'm also an educator with an autoimmune condition that oftentimes leaves me feeling weak and dependent on the elevator as I struggle to get through the day. In May 2023, before the falling of the concrete, former President Romney Ridge came to these chambers and expressed how outrageous it was that the city had allowed the building on Sycamore Street to fall in such disrepair. It was outrageous last year when educators continued flagging issues at the edge of the alley, only to be gaslit and told that the mice problems in the building was their fault for needing access to food during the workday. It's outrageous that our city leadership decided to blame the educators for the failing infrastructure of our city. It was outrageous when we learned last year that due to inadequate planning of the city, the Winter Hill community almost did not have their pre-K and K classes join them this year. It was only through the logistical gymnastics of the dynamite principal and assistant principal Courtney Gosling and Isabel Barrows that that community is whole today. Your wildcat family loves you very much. It is outrageous that our wonderful colleague and my good friend Matt Collins let his building administration know last year there are no rugs on the accessibility ramp once you enter the edge of the front of Bonaire Street, which made it a slipping hazard and the city's response was no response until Mr. Collins took a fall and slipped and got a black eye. Only then did the city decide to do something. It's outrageous that Matt almost lost his wonderful dog, Bonnie, when the doors to the elevator were not timed correctly. Matt had made complaints about the timing of the elevator doors way before that incident before the city decided to act. Lastly, there are simply no words for what Matt needed to describe about being taken down by firefighters to leave his workplace Thursday and not be able to come in on Friday. Perhaps most importantly, Madam Mayor, it's outrageous that you claim to be an investor in the youth when all we've ever seen you do is drop a check and run. Don't get me wrong, we will take your money every time, but that's not what it means to invest in the youth and to invest in our community. Investing in our youth, as all these educators can tell you, means showing up each and every single day, even when it's hard, even when you don't know why mice are running around the floor, even when you don't know why the Winter Hill doesn't have recess yards like other ones, even when you don't know why elevators break. You show up because showing up shows that you care. It shows that you are here to dig up your sleeves and help. It's not showing up to a school committee where you hold an important vote twice a year just to keep up with appearances. That's not what being the mayor of the city is about. I want to be clear, this is a failure of the city government at the highest level, and the buck stops with the mayor's office. Get our city departments to do their jobs to support our students. Settle these union contracts so folks can have a place they're proud to be for employment. Do your job.
Chair: I have Megan Brady.
Megan Brady: Good evening. My name is Megan Brady, and I am an educator at the Winter Hill. I have lost count of the number of times I have spoken publicly at school committee or city council meetings about the dire conditions of our school. The broken elevator and its devastating impact on our school community is the most recent example of the municipal government's ongoing neglect for our building and disregard for their responsibility to the Wildcats. To be clear as day, the last few days have felt like none of the other infrastructural failings that have made teaching and learning so hard. The anger and disgust colleagues have expressed to me is unparalleled to the other crises that have defined the last five years. I am wholly uninterested in listening to any blame games or finger pointing between various leadership positions in this city. Tomorrow, I teach Montesquieu in eighth grade civics. I brought a copy of the reading. I can pass it around. I will be telling students that separation of powers means that when one branch of government fails to protect the people, then other branches of government are supposed to step up and flex their checks. That same expectation holds for all of you. This is on all of you. We have presented to you what we need in this moment and you need to deliver on them. That includes ADA compliance checks in all SPS buildings and a presentation by the mayor herself on her office's efforts to ensure safe and healthy schools. From there, you need to decide if you want to join us in fighting for an accessible, inclusive, sustainable, and dignified Somerville public schools or if we will have to fight you on that. Speaking only for myself, when it comes to my students and colleagues' well-being and treatment, I am always down for a fight, I just need to know who I'm up against.
Chair: So we now have five public speakers on Zoom. I have Samuel Bloomberg, then Sean Beardsley, and then Tara Beardsley. Sam, if you want to unmute yourself. Yep, good to go. Go ahead.
Samuel Bloomberg: Hello, my name is Sam Bloomberg, I'm an MLA teacher at Somerville High. Matthew Collins was my mentor teacher six years ago and he immediately got me involved in building curriculum, forming relationships, and even leading the classroom if I might not have been ready. But that's just the kind of person he is, he invites all voices and encourages people to reach their full potential. The way he leads a classroom is exactly how Somerville Public Schools wants. He sets high expectations for his students, meets them where they're at, and teaches self-accountability. This is evident in the smiles on students' faces that hang out in his room during breakfast, lunch, before and after school, when he always shows up. Older students regularly visit him and mentor the younger ones, it's honestly a unique community you don't see everywhere. The high-needs students who break down in another class, they always have a safe space to cool down in Mr. Collins' classroom, they claim to want Bonnie, but you can tell it's Mr. Collins' warmth that helps comfort them. It's not just the students he strengthens, he makes other teachers around him happier as friends, better as educators, and if you ask him to cover your class or talk to a student you're struggling to form a bond with, he does it with a smile. His impact goes beyond him being present in the classroom. The Winter Hill teachers have been through a lot. I was there six years ago and there were complaints about mold, lead, lack of safe structures, the union's been asking for help about the building budget for years and nothing has changed. People have mentioned that he doesn't complain, he had to move up and down stairs in classrooms, he worked around things, worked with counselors, he knew it was in the name of equity so he never complained on any of these things. And sometimes we go to private establishments, we don't see adequate accommodations for a person with cerebral palsy, but you don't expect to see it out of a school, especially to one of its most valuable public servants. Regarding these critical facility needs, deadlines were mentioned about them being functional but as the plan is written, it only outlines November 29th and we heard that we can't even expect to hear any answers until the September 25th meeting, but this is an emergency and these timelines are not soon enough. So I urge you just like everyone else to do the right thing. Thank you.
Chair: Next I have Sean Beardsley, Tara Beardsley and Susan Lee. Sean, if you want to unmute yourself.
Tara Murphy Beardsley: Hi. It's Tara. I'm going to talk first and introduce Sean. Is that okay?
Chair: That's fine. Go ahead.
Tara Murphy Beardsley: All right. Good evening. My name is Tara Murphy Beardsley. I'm an educator at Winter Hill. I'm speaking tonight to share my outrage over the state of Winter Hill. The broken elevator and its impact is the latest inexcusable example of the municipal government's failures. There are too many stories to recount now of situations where the building has impacted my students' learning. Now my friend Matt and Bonnie have been put through an ordeal that is none other than shameful. I have observed the care and concern the students and staff have had for Matt and today they were thrown because of the uncertainty. They don't need this stress on top of the trauma many of them have expressed in their lives. There is serious repair work for you to do. I implore you to initiate ADA compliance checks across all school buildings and to report findings to the Somerville community. The mayor, who is a voting member of this body, needs to present her office's efforts to ensure a safe building. I'm now going to introduce my son who went to the Winter Hill for four years and one of the main reasons we switched was because of the disgusting building.
Sean Beardsley: My name is Shawn and I'm in fourth grade and I want to support this Winter Hill and Mr. Collins. He and Bonnie deserve a better building where they are safe and provided with help at all times. Thank you.
Chair: Next I have Susan Lee and then Josh Softy. Susan, do you want to unmute yourself? We will skip then to Josh Softy. Josh, do you want to unmute yourself?
Josh Softy: Hello. Can you hear me?
Chair: Yes. Go ahead.
Josh Softy: I'm going to assume that's a yes. Hi. My name is Josh Softy. I live at 145 Central Street in Somerville. I have a son who is a third grader at Winter Hill who has been there since kindergarten. I was a member of the Somerville Zoning Board of Appeals for 14 years from 2008 to 2022 so I understand how the public process works and how challenging these meetings can be. Last of all, I'm an architect and a specialist in accessibility. I have worked on dozens of MSBA projects, plenty of municipal buildings, making them more accessible. I've also worked as an expert witness in ADA lawsuits so I understand both the carrots and the sticks around the ADA. I'd like to underscore first of all the fact that this conversation really is about equity much more than it is about ADA compliance, but I think ADA compliance is an important place to start. I think that the suggestion to do a full review of public school buildings for ADA compliance is a good one, but I would point out to the mayor and the school committee that the city completed an ADA self-evaluation and transition plan in 2013 and '14 which included an exhaustive review of all the school buildings. That transition plan also included a three-year window under which accessibility improvements were to be made to all those schools, and I would be curious as a start to see what the issues were that were identified 10 years ago and which the city has fixed. The last thing I wanted to do tonight is just offer myself as a resource, both to the Winter Hill community and to the city. I feel like I have expertise that I could offer. I know it's not always easy to do, but I'm available. Thanks very much.
Chair: That concludes public comment. Mr. Green?
Mr. Green: Can we have a five-minute recess?
Chair: Yes, we can take a five-minute recess. We will reconvene in five minutes. Thank you.
[Recess]
Chair: And related to that, do we know when the school building committee will start meeting?
Mayor: Through you to the mayor?
Chair: We'll give her a minute. Oh, yes.
Kimberly Hutter: Hello, I am Kimberly Hutter, the legislative liaison in the mayor's office on the intergovernmental affairs team. Thank you, glad to be before you all for my inaugural council committee meeting. I wanted just to share in response to the question, Madam Chair, for when the MSBA building committee will begin, and that is estimated around November.
Chair: Okay. Thank you.
Council Member: The MSBA's legislative liaison has a follow-up to help me understand about the choice to do more needs assessment, given all the needs assessment that's been done about what families' preferences are, what students think, in terms of our school options.
Chair: It looks like the mayor would like to speak to it. Okay. Why don't we start with a repeat of the question, because it was actually -- it was a beginning of a question from before we did public comment. So why don't you go ahead and repeat the question.
Council Member: Thanks, through you, Chair. Just following up on the memo we got about the school building advisory committee, it says kind of the first step on what they're going to do is more needs assessment, given all the needs assessment the district did last year, the needs assessment the district and IAM did together, and the great work that our students did seems to me like we have a great foundation to build off of. So I'm interested to learn why we're doing it again.
Mayor: Can I invite Rich Raish up?
Chair: Sure.
Rich Raish: Through the Chair, the memo that was sent to you is outlining both the community process and the advisory board that will inform the decision on whether we take up the MSBA on the offer of combining the Brown with the Winter Hill. To be clear, the MSBA said they will fund a new building for the Winter Hill if we want to co-locate Brown students in that, they would fund that. That's an existential question, which is somewhat different from what we were looking at in terms of facilities, which I agree with you. We have a comprehensive understanding of those facilities. What this sort of needs assessment is contemplated to understand is more the community needs and what the individual desires of the Winter Hill and the Brown and the advisory board and the larger community at whole is, including younger families with kids coming into the system that are generally located in the central portion of the city, to help inform that particular question. It is not around the facilities or around enrollment or around educational program, all of which we have a solid understanding of. It's understanding what the community desires are around that point type question.
Council Member: I'm sorry, I don't mean to be obnoxious, but don't we know what the Brown families and the Winter Hill families and the Winter Hill students want at this point? And why aren't we starting with what we know and what they have told us about what they want?
Rich Raish: Through the chair, all of that has already been in consideration. All of that is very well known by the mayor, by the administration, and by the construction team. What we are attempting to do is a more robust community outreach and hear the voices that have not been heard. We have heard the voices of people who have stepped forward and spoken to us. And so the point of this is to reach out to those and hear the voices that haven't stepped forward. May it not bear fruit? It may not bear fruit, but that is the objective of this phase.
Chair: Mr. Green?
Mr. Green: I guess, building on that question, because, you know, I think especially our young people did an actually admirable job of hearing from people we don't normally hear from. So could you build on that by telling us who you don't think you've heard from enough and what questions you want to ask them?
Rich Raish: So through the chair, I am happily going to say that I am completely ignorant of that because I've been hearing all the same voices that everybody else has been hearing and personally don't know how to outreach to those communities that haven't had that voice.
Mayor: And so we've hired CBI, the Consensus Building Institute, to help us understand that larger, broader context and hear those voices.
Chair: Mr. Green, do you want to follow up?
Mr. Green: Having worked with CBI on, I want to say the Summer Vision for Learning, I think that's what it was. They do a lot of work with us, so possibly. Honestly, I'd rather work with the young people again. I think they did a better job of getting actual good, diverse voices than CBI ever did.
Chair: Was there some other question or comment? All right, seeing none. Well, Mr. Green.
Mr. Green: Sure. And I believe this is actually also for Mr. Ray, so I could be wrong. Last week, we were informed, as a surprise to I think the members of this horseshoe, that work done to improve ADA, to meet ADA requirements, doesn't count towards the ADA cutoff financially. But my understanding is that most of, if not all the work that was originally programmed for EDULY, for updates, would have been around ADA compliance. So I guess I'm now confused why that work would have triggered the lower threshold that made me have to cut back on our emissions. And so I guess I'm requesting a memo detailing all the originally planned improvements, which ones the city does not feel were about ADA compliance, and explains to me why it is that the ADA threshold was an issue, if so much of the work, to my understanding, shouldn't have counted.
Chair: Okay. I understand the question. Mr. Raich, did you want to respond, or would you like to follow up with that later? Are there other questions?
Mayor: Madam Mayor? On a comment. So just to expand a little bit on what Mr. Raich said earlier is, I met with eighth graders over at the Winter Hill at the EDULY back in May, and they asked to be a part of the planning of what the school is going to be. They said they know that they will not have the benefit, but they wanted to be able to pay it forward, so to speak, and also highlighted very strongly that second graders should very much be involved in the design, because they will most likely be closer to it. But very specifically, and I did commit to the eighth graders, that they could be part of making sure that their voice is heard.
Jackie: I did, actually, and one other thing that they said is -- I forgot -- is they said a larger school means that we can meet more kids. So they were -- their voice said it's sort of a cool idea combining the Brown and the Winter Hill together, and highlighted that hearing what second graders had to say was also really important.
Chair: So Ms. Peeks, you wanted to comment, and then Mr. Green.
Ms. Peeks: Through the Chair, just a point of -- not clarification, but to expand upon what the Mayor just mentioned about student voice. I know that CBI is very interested in pursuing -- I know they specifically said ninth grade students and above, so students who are no longer at the elementary level but who had attended both Winter Hill and Brown. So that's something, again, once we get past the first few weeks of school, that I'm going to be pretty involved in working with Courtney and Christopher and those communities to get students on the advisory committee itself. And as in the memo, I believe, is the start of the robust outreach plan that CBI is developing is going to spaces. So there will be that advisory group with specific members, but also going out into the communities and speaking directly with students as well as the broader community. So those will both be involved in the group's activities.
Chair: Thank you. Mr. Green, and then Madam Mayor.
Mr. Green: Just to remind the committee and the community that in early June, the Winter Hill community told us exactly what they wanted. They actually also left us with four specific requests. That major decision moments from the school bidding committee should involve the Wildcats. Then when it comes time to demolish 115 2nd Ward Street, they would like to participate. The younger and future Winter Hill Wildcats should not have to deal with the things they have to deal with, which speaks to our need to recommit to finding resolutions for the building. And when it is time to break ground on the new Winter Hill, which they estimated to be about four years away, and I really hope we can cut that down, they would like to be the ones to do the dirty work, cut the chandelier and ribbon or whatever we end up doing as a graduation gift in June 2028. I will be probably turning those four requests into a resolution at our next school committee meeting, perhaps along with an apology to the community. But I wanted to say all of this stuff and remind us all that there are very detailed pros and cons for all the options available to them, are available, at least on our website. If not, we should put it back up. And I want to make sure that we do a good job of distributing that information to all members of the building committee and all members of the community advisory group. And I do believe it still remains probably the best outreach work I've seen this city do, with the possible exception of our open by the school day fair. And so I want to make sure it gets the respect that it deserves from the consultants who are getting paid money to do what these students have already done.
Chair: And just quickly before we continue, I just wanted to let you know that I was talking to Miss Brady earlier, and she let me know that her eighth graders from last year are receiving accommodation from Senator Warren's office. So she thought that was exciting news, and I thought I would share that with you all, because I was excited to hear about that. I had the mayor, and then Miss Paton, and then Dr. Filch.
Mayor: You know, I just wanted to highlight the bigger messages. Nothing is being slowed down. We are in the MSBA process and the timeline as a request from the community through the acceptance of the SOIs. So statement of interest and having this advisory group gives us the opportunity to talk about other things that are before we even get through the eligibility but get to the feasibility. So nothing is being slowed down. I just think that's a really important message to make sure that people realize.
Chair: Thank you. Miss Paton, Dr. Phillips, and then Mr. Green. Miss Paton?
Miss Paton: Thank you to you, Chair Kruption. I appreciate this memo that was put out, and I understand what the mayor is sharing, that in the context of the overall timeline, that this work that will happen will not impede the timeline. That's the message we're getting. I also understand the community's frustration that it feels like this is going slower than they want to see it to go. So I think what I'm personally struggling with is just the level of information that's being shared about the process and what's going to happen over the next year. I think it's a year. And it's not to poke holes, but, you know, it's simplified as, you know, October/November to elicit interest values priorities, and then the evaluation won't happen until late spring or early summer. So I'm really just struggling with what this timeline is and how community voice, you know, obviously through representation is going to be part of it. But it just -- it's not the level of detail I think that I would like to see that would build confidence for me. Not to say -- I know this is -- I actually am aware of this organization. I know they do good work. I appreciate that the city has brought them forward. But it just seems like because everyone is so concerned about this, having a little more detail, knowing when the team is going to be put together, when they're going to start, are they going to meet monthly, twice a month, I don't know what's going to happen. And I would like to hear a little bit more. Is it possible, Madam Mayor, to get somebody from the CBI to come to our next meeting?
Mayor: I'll have to look into that. But as was said earlier, it was the understanding of this body that when we're talking about buildings, that it would be in the building committee. I don't -- the joint meeting of the school committee and the city council. So we -- there was the desire by this committee and also the city that we're not asking the same staff to show up at multiple meetings when they're working, you know, 10 to 12-hour days. So I think to that point, yeah, that would be something that we will try to look for in the 25th.
Chair: I have Dr. Phillips and then Mr. Green.
Dr. Phillips: Maybe this is out of order. The elevator issue at the Edgerly wasn't on the DPW work update or the summer IAM work update. I'm wondering if someone can clue me in on what exactly happened to that elevator, what was the root cause of that problem, and how do we know that it's not going to break down again tomorrow?
Chair: I really appreciate the assessment we're doing of all the elevators. That sounds great. But just to this one in particular. I'm guessing this is a question for Mr. Resch.
Mr. Resch: Probably. Thank you for the question, through the chair. It did take a few days to diagnose the problem. As was sort of enumerated, there were a number of days where it seemed as though the elevator was working and then it stopped working again. The final diagnosis of the actual problem came at about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. They were tracking it down. It seemed to be a fault with the power from the Eversource cabinet. So it happened to be that Suffolk was in the building doing some punch list items. We were able to contact our electrician that had done the work for IAM in the building that was described in the report. He drove down from New Hampshire. It took him about two and a half hours to demonstrate the commitment of not only the city workers but the contractors and our employee. So he got down here late afternoon. They were able to trace it back. The root cause of the problem was, in fact, the Eversource -- within the Eversource power cabinet in the current transformer. That is under an Eversource lock. You can't get into that. So we phoned an emergency line into Eversource. Eversource got there later in the evening, probably about 6:30 or so. They did not have the technician on hand at that point in time to actually remedy the situation. They did allow our electrician to connect a bridge, for lack of a better term, which is why the elevator appeared operational on Sunday into Monday morning. But that bridge was not a permanent fix. It went back down again this morning. We escalated because Jesse Moose and IAM have a very good relationship with Eversource. We escalated it very quickly to Eversource and said we need someone now, not tomorrow, not Thursday. It went right to the top. They sent over their correct technician, who was able to make the repair. That was completed at about 4 p.m. today. So as of right now, we believe that the root cause -- which, again, I don't want to cast blame on anyone else or minimize in any way the impact to Matt, Bonnie, and the entire Winter Hill community. But this was through no neglect of DPW or the city. It was not a failure of any equipment that DPW regularly maintains. It was a fault of Eversource. Now, that said, it has been corrected. Commissioner Lathan, before I came over here tonight at about 6.30, expressed those concerns. She understands them. She's directing her, DPW director, superintendent of buildings to have their elevator people come in and give a thorough rundown of all the mechanical equipment within the elevator to make sure that we don't have a burned-out motor or something else that is now going to trip. Frankly, we're also going to look at a bunch of other systems that are on the three-phase power, because the three-phase power is not the usual current that you plug your light bulbs into or anything. This is the stuff that operates the heavy equipment, like the air handling units, some equipment in the cafeteria, air handling in the elevator. So we're going to have to check all those things out. And honestly, we're probably also going to need to open a claim with Eversource, not only for the time that we incurred with our contractors to troubleshoot this, but if there's any equipment that has failed as a result of that. So I already gave the heads-up to our law office that we will likely be opening a claim for them.
Chair: Thank you for that. Are there any -- yep, Mr. Buiton and then Mr. Green.
Mr. Buiton: Thank you, Chair, through you, to Mr. Raish. Do you have any understanding about why this equipment failed, the Eversource equipment failed at this time? With respect to -- I mean, this building has been operating at this level of service for more than a year now. Was it possibly the result of work that happened over the summer? Could you expound on that at all?
Mr. Resch: Yeah, through the Chair, it was indeed work that happened over the summer, as you might recall in the report. One of the major things that we did in the building was to upgrade the electric service. We replaced all of the panels on our side, but that also entailed Eversource bringing in a new drop to the building and new meters and a new CT box. And that is where the failure occurred. So it was work done that we paid them for, by the way, because we don't get anything free from Eversource. We paid them to come in and do that work. So it was faulty work performed by an Eversource contractor over the summer.
Chair: Mr. Green.
Mr. Green: Thank you. Actually, I have a couple things. First, through you to the Mayor, respectfully, I want to remind people that it is good to hear that we're not -- that nothing is being slowed down. But that has not now or has ever been the community's request. The community is not requesting that things not be slowed down. They're requesting, whenever possible, for things to be sped up. And indeed, the whole thing about MSBA at all was we were going to pursue all options to do whatever got it done fastest. So if we are being slow -- if the process of MSBA is moving slower than we would be able to do without MSBA, that's something we should be considering at all times. As the goal should be to get our community into a functioning Winter Hill School as soon as humanly possible. That said, it is important to remember that while we are in Edgerly, there are going to be things that go wrong. If we thought Edgerly was a building worthy of holding a full-time school, given our massive building backlog, Edgerly would be a building holding a full-time school. So if we know that things are going to go wrong, we have to build in for that. And that's why things like giving people the wrong timeline on the ramps matters so much. We have to do whatever we can to be transparent, to give accurate timelines, to be thorough about things we can control, to build trust over the things we can't control. What we just heard tonight was a community that has no faith. That is not a technical fix. That is a leadership fix. That is our having to do the work of showing that we care, that we're going to do everything we can, that we have their backs, that anything we can stop from going wrong, we will. If we had done that, we would not have had an hour of public comment, people having justifiable anger. So I'm glad to know that we found a technical fix to the elevator thing. What I want to hear is what we're going to do for the structural leadership deficit that the people of Winter Hill are currently feeling.
Mayor: Leadership is investing $12 million into buildings in my first year before anybody asked for anything in anticipation of the problems that I heard first in 2020. Leadership is trying to move or moving successfully in 10 weeks a K through 8, excuse me, 420 parents first grade through eighth grade into the Edgerly and then being asked, "Can you unite our entire school?" This is the first time in the history of Somerville that when there have been failures in the buildings or fires in the buildings or the rebuilds and the reconstruction of schools where school communities have been separated into two or three schools, we have old buildings. There hasn't been investment in that. We've dedicated a lot of money and will continue to do it because our students and our kids deserve the best and the healthiest buildings possible. Uniting them, having my teams work long hours, overtime to make sure that we achieve the goals that the community has asked. Can we keep on doing more? Yes, we can. This has been a top priority. We've commandeered other departments to work on the Edgerly reprioritizing so that our kids have a whole community and the best and the safest schools building. I will continue to do that and all my teams know that and they're working diligently to make that happen and will continue to do it.
Chair: Ms. Patel.
Ms. Patel: Thank you, through you, Chair Kruption. Some things that have been coming up that the superintendent spoke to specifically districtwide was a review of elevators. So that's something that sounds like it has been initiated. We also heard from public comment that the community is advocating for more of a broader ADA review of our school buildings. And we also had someone from comment who had been involved with Mr. Softy who had been involved in the past and talked about an ADA self-assessment that was done in 2013-2014 in a transition plan and where we were with that. I'd love to hear the city's thoughts about doing a broader ADA review of all school buildings. And having some type of public report about a response of the original self-assessment that they did a decade ago.
Mayor: So, thank you. We invested in hiring in someone. They are starting an ADA -- the ADA coordinator is doing a citywide review of our buildings. So that's going to start in the fall.
Chair: Through you to Ms. Paton, I think as the only member who was around in 2014, did you ever see that assessment of the schools?
Ms. Paton: I don't remember seeing an assessment. Doesn't mean I didn't see it. I think I would remember it. I'm pretty confident when I joined in 2016, they gave me a lot of documents and that was not one of them.
Mayor: Yeah, it was the ADA transition plan. We can certainly dig --
Ms. Paton: Okay. Is that something that could be shared on the city or the school's website in some fashion so that the public could see it as well?
Mayor: I think the question is how relevant it is. But certainly if we have it, we can share it. If it is so outdated, meaning 10 years old, the one that we're working on now that are going to start working on this fall, I suppose we could do a checklist. I just have to check with our ADA coordinator.
Chair: Mr. Green and then Ms. Paton.
Mr. Green: I have a hunch that Ms. Paton and I wrote about the same thing, which is that it's incredibly relevant. You're right, it's 10 years old. But anything that was out of compliance 10 years ago, if nothing's been done, it's still out of compliance. So knowing what progress has been made and what goals still remain is I think still highly relevant to our joint responsibility to do better.
Ms. Paton: Through you, Mr. Chair, yes, absolutely, totally agree.
Chair: Ms. Paton.
Ms. Paton: Same comment as Mr. Green. It will be relevant and have it be part of the materials. But also understanding at some point what the mechanism is going to communicate back to the district in terms of status of the school buildings. Timing for that.
Mayor: We'll get that back to you. She's starting the fall and we'll get that back. It might be, again, the idea between these joint meetings between the school committee and the city council was to share a lot of information. That might be the right avenue. But I'll double check.
Chair: Thank you. Mr. Green.
Mr. Green: Thank you. Actually that reminded me that I would hope that CBI sees the school committee as a stakeholder in the decisions about the future of schools. So it does not strike me as unreasonable to expect them to have built into their plan meeting with us. So, like, if they haven't done that, then we should work with them to make sure that is part of the plan as we are the body by the state constitution and by state law that has to decide what we're going to do whatever building gets built through this process.
Mayor: Okay. Madam Chair, who -- is it school committee member Green who's on that committee? Who's on the -- yeah. Okay.
Chair: Okay. With that, I think we can move on to our next agenda item. So back again to the district report. I was right at the top. We were talking about the OST activities for Salem -- for Somerville High School students.
Superintendent: So I just wanted to share a couple of things. I know that that has been top of mind to many of you that I have e-mailed me or have asked or the community has actually asked for feedback as to what are some of the ways that we're engaging our high school students, especially in lieu of the temporarily amendment of the weekday operating hours for our high school students. And also in lieu of the temporary amendment of the weekday operating hours for the library. So while we very much recognize the challenges that the library staff have faced in recent months, we believe that creating and fostering safe spaces and interesting opportunities for students is essential. We worked with our city and community partners to identify solutions that could contribute to staff feeling safer while also providing this critically needed community spaces for youth and the broader community. Coming from an increase in calls for assistance to the central library in the latter part of the school year, my team and I met directly with both city and library staff to discuss possible solutions. The school staff also responded directly to the library on several occasions after school hours and off of a school property to help deescalate issues involving students. At the same time, we continue discussions with our city partners to identify solutions to support both library staff and community youth. We continue to partner to find acceptable solutions. Our suggested solutions to the issue at hand come separately from the many in-school and out-of-school time opportunities that we have established for older students in our district. Our commitment to our young people is well known, supporting the whole child by providing academic rigor, social emotional support, and opportunities for our out-of-school enrichment along with wraparound services. So I share with you some information in regards to all the efforts that out-of-school time as well as all the different teams that work in providing meaningful activities for our students is something that we have shared with you. So I just wanted to give you a quick update of where we are in terms of that. I know that the city is reaching out to find some ways to address the challenges that are of the closure of the library. So that was just a quick update on a challenging topic that has faced our district. And I just -- that was pretty much the topic itself.
Chair: All right. I have Dr. Ackman and then Mr. Butteau.
Dr. Ackman: Thank you. Through the chair, I will state that I was genuinely surprised and personally embarrassed that the way I found out about this was through a screenshot of text messages that I received from social media. I understand that the libraries are not in our purview, but they have been shuttered in a way that is actively discriminating against the students we are seeking to serve. And I don't know why this wasn't communicated to us. This is a problem. I feel terrible -- or I would like to extend deep appreciation to the staff both at the library and the schools. This was an issue we needed to allocate resources to and additional support. I'm truly embarrassed and shocked that this -- that the first I heard about it, again, was a screenshot of text message from social media. If I'm the only one, I'm happy to, you know, rescind my comments. But I think this was a true, like, failure of communication amongst leadership. And we -- I'll say -- or I as a school committee member, I'll speak for myself, feel like I have a substantial egg on my face and I'm embarrassed.
Superintendent: Yep. And then I had Mr. Paton. Yeah, that was actually -- the decision for the closure was two days before we started school. But it was my oversight not to communicate that to you when that was -- we were informed of the closure. I believe that we have a meeting on that day or that -- the Monday after that decision was made. So I think that I missed sharing that. That was on the day that was the conversation around my goals. So I totally -- there was so much on the plate and I -- that I missed communicating that information to you. I think the decision around that came very fast to us as well. But as far as that particular sharing with you, I take ownership on that particular issue.
Chair: I had Mr. Paton, then Dr. Phillips, and then Mr. Green.
Mr. Paton: Thank you, chair, through you. To the superintendent, thank you for taking responsibility for that communication issue. I want to just reinforce what member Ackman just said. I was shocked not at the lack of communication but at the decision, the decision to shutter the doors of our public library during the time when our students most need an open door. When our students most need to be able to find safety and refuge in terms of books, learning, socializing in a safe learning environment that is not inside school, that is unstructured but constructive and educational. Libraries are magical places and one thing I love about Somerville is its dedication to its civic spaces and I think what I'm seeing in the closure of the library during these two hours when our students need them most is a retreat from that dedication. And that is extremely depressing. We need to do more for our kids. We need to do more for our community. And whatever allyship we can offer as a school committee to the city to help engage our youth, I know that the school department had staff at the library at certain points to help ensure safety and provide services. We can step up. We are partners. Let's act in concert. Thank you.
Superintendent: Can I make a couple of corrections? So I do want to take ownership for not communicating with you on when that information was shared, but I don't want to take ownership for the fact that that decision really came two days before opening the school. I also want to correct the fact that we don't have staff working in the library. We have engaged with the library to address some of the challenges that they face, and they are real challenges, I have to say, but as far as being able to have a comprehensive solution, that has not been possible at this point yet. So I think we are trying to do -- we provide many options for students, but I understand the library is also a center, a piece of community gathering, if you will, of teenage students. So that's definitely a significant need that highlights the need for not only a space like that, but also a teen center, and that's also a challenge that we need to address.
Chair: Dr. Phillips and then Mr. Green.
Dr. Phillips: Thanks to you, chair. I opine about this a lot, but we are surrounded by some of the best out-of-school time networks in the country. Providence. Boston. Even Cambridge is doing really interesting things. They have all figured out how to create a citywide system that is not led by their public schools, and their public schools are not the only game in town. I really appreciate all the work that the district is doing to create phenomenal out-of-school time options for our kids, but that's not going to do it, right? It's clear with the library that's not enough. And so my question through you, chair, to the mayor is can you please share with us what's the plan to figure out how to get our libraries back open during these critical periods of the day?
Chair: Madam Mayor?
Mayor: So we're working really hard. I will say the conversations with the Somerville public school, the high school and the administration has been for at least six months intensely. It's not just been in the last week. We're working to reopen the library school at dismissal, so getting back to the normal hours. All library services in a safe area are still available at the high school. That was never closed down. They're open until 4 p.m. The east and the west are open. We believe that the library has to be safe and accessible for all our constituents. So we also believe that the librarians, just like teachers and school staff, deserve a safe working environment. We don't believe that these two things need to be at odds and we'll be working swiftly to resolve these issues. Some of the requests are cameras. They were installed on Friday. We're trying to make sure on the procurement process and the technology that's installed, you know, just all that detail to make sure they work. Additional teen spaces. So we have teen spaces. We're looking to expand that. We will convert usage of founders hall during the fall. That will open -- excuse me, founders rink, because you can use artificial turf that we have put in there to have the volleyball pieces. The edgerly is still used in the evening, though, for teens, as is the powder house school. What teens asked us, because they were involved in this idea of community and teen centers, was 15-minute walk teen centers. They didn't like the idea of one location. So that is why, you know, I rolled it out as a direct result from teens and high schoolers who worked with city school staff and educators from the design school at Harvard to come up with plans. And they polled the teens at the high school. The library social worker.
Mayor: We are currently in final rounds of interviews to hire a library social worker, because our librarians interact with the public all the time, sometimes in very challenging areas. The position will not only respond to the needs of youth in our libraries, but the community members who require assistance, like some of our unhoused or just people who are trying to learn about services that exist.
We are also, with the libraries and our parks and rec, creating additional programming time at dismissal time. The library leadership and our city and some of the school staff are adding programming to the central library, and this would be outside, too.
Big picture, we have a youth services team that has conducted a youth needs assessment with the schools, with city stakeholders and how the teams can best contribute to the work and also what are the higher level needs across the city. What already exists, what's ongoing needs, youth employment focus, youth safety, summer jobs.
This summer, we employed the most teens ever, almost a 20% increase than we have in past years, and as I have said many times publicly, if the kids are looking for work, they should have the opportunity to work with us, and we're expanding that where possible to year round.
We'll also be revamping the children's cabinet, funding for Somerville public school supports and in the city budgets made permanent all the ESSER funding positions, which I hope will continue the positive work that's happened on the schools.
We've added funding in terms of our parks and rec, and the Somerville positive forces, which is listed on SPS list, is run by HHS staff, teen empowerment programming is paid through HHS staff.
We're exploring design changes to location of doors, how to get in and out of the library, but also making sure that ADA compliance is there.
As we know, the values of this school committee is not to bring in police, to be monitoring our youth, and we have learned that the community engagement specialists who know the children better, so we don't require ID.
Many times when the students are over at the library, nobody knows who they are, or they might get the name or they don't. We have -- so there is who to contact and who is it that we're talking about, because we want to be able to work with Somerville public schools to provide those wraparound services.
We've heard that through Liz Doncaster, that there is an understanding of who the students are. We have -- we've been advised by our legal office of the privacy rights, both on the city side and the school side. We've brought our lawyers together to be part of discussions to make sure that the privacy rights on the school side are met, but to remember that we don't want to live it or create any barriers on the public library side.
So we're working on that process to say, okay, if you know who the students are, are there some prevention or wraparound services that can be provided when the students are in the school from 8 o'clock to 2:35 in the afternoon?
We're working on restorative justice. My understanding is the dean of students is reviewing if we can implement this so that it's productive without making students feel targeted.
Those are to mention a few things. One is we want to be able to do this as soon as possible. And as soon as possible is not months, but hopefully it's days it could be sooner. It could be next week.
Council Member: So just to clarify, the library social worker you mentioned is a new position that the city is hiring?
Mayor: It is a new position that I funded in part of being able to deal with other issues that librarians staff have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Chair: Go ahead, Ms. Parish.
Ms. Parish: Just to add my voice to those saying they were shocked, surprised by the news and the way it was communicated, I appreciate the superintendent taking responsibility for a small part of that. I am curious about the cameras that you mentioned, mayor. I know there have been issues in the past with cameras being installed in the city, and I think there are some members of city council who have been pretty strongly opposed to the use of cameras in other instances. I'm just wondering if city council has to approve this, and if there are any -- if you anticipate any barriers there.
Mayor: No. I mean, we do have cameras around in public buildings. It is going to be in adherence with everything or any ordinances that we have locally.
Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Green.
Mr. Green: Yeah, let me start with a personal note, which is to say that there is no universe where if it weren't for access to Lafayette Parish library system, after school, as an adolescent, I'd be standing before you now, and there are several outcomes where I don't make it to adulthood at all.
I think we have, from the beginning, framed this wrong. If the challenge is that we have too many disconnected young people going to the library after school, that is a problem most communities would kill for. The challenge normally with disconnected young people is getting somewhere where we can provide them the support, the services, the supervision they need. Our young people haven't done that. They are choosing to go to school. It's the place with the books and adults. If we aren't taking advantage of that fully, that's on us.
I'm glad -- first of all, I want to thank the mayor. I think I've been following this issue fairly closely now since I was blindsided Tuesday evening with a Facebook message. So 13 days now. And to the best of my ability, I think that was probably the first and certainly the most thorough response from the city we've heard on this issue since the announcement was made. So I thank you for all the information. I'll take some time to process it.
But it seems to me that obviously I'm going to state, and I think Dr. Phillips pointed correctly, the answer was frankly discriminatory. And I think frankly if someone hasn't filed a lawsuit yet, that's pure luck on our part. And I think it's literally the worst possible solution to a real problem.
To Dr. Ackman's point about egg on our face, I was talking with several colleagues from school communities the weekend prior about Brockton's decision to pressure the Starbucks across the street from their high school to do something very similar. And how offensive that was. And then to be blindsided by my own city doing hold my beer, it's maddening.
You know, I know, I went back and looked, that the library director first brought this to her trustees' attention in January of last year. I know that they're having conversations at a lower level between teachers and staffers about ways we can help for a while. And so it strikes me as a conversation we could be having as a community, again, for a year, where we could have found solutions where it didn't have to get to this point.
You know, Somerville is a passionate, committed city that loves to share its ideas. I think, and we've seen from the outpouring the last two weeks, how many people have come up with ideas and suggestions and willingness to volunteer and help our librarians. And I feel like we had the opportunity to have been addressing this as a community for a year, and we haven't.
So I'm hoping, in addition to opening the library ASAP, even with duct tape and hope, that we've learned from this and commit to doing a better job of actually working collaboratively to problem solve before things become crises.
And also, I would just say to Mr. Green's point, to the thorough presentation just now from the mayor, is that information anywhere on the city's website? Has that gone out anywhere so that members of the public truly understand what the city is trying to do to address this? And if not, I would recommend that the city do so.
Mayor: No, there's nothing on the website. We're deep in the trenches working on it. But we will shortly.
Chair: Okay. With no further comments, superintendent.
Superintendent: Thank you to the chair. I know it has been a long list of things that I wanted to share through my report. There's one more that I'm really excited and very passionate about. As you know, after many months of collaboration across the district, our five-year strategic plan is nearly complete. We have engaged with a graphic designer to bring this plan to life. It looks wonderful. You probably will have the benefit of seeing some of that design.
Tonight we want to provide another update to you and seek your feedback as we work toward finalizing the plan. Our goal is to have a final polished printed document ready to distribute district-wide around mid-October. This has been a truly collaborative effort. But I'm especially grateful to chief of staff and strategy, Amara Anosike, and director of data and assessment and accountability, Sam Elegin, who are here, for their efforts to get this plan to the finish line. And I'd like to ask Amara, as well as Sam, to share with you a brief presentation and data points for consideration as you review the plan draft.
Amara: Thank you, Dr. Carmona. We are very excited, as he said, to share an update on the strategic plan and just how much work went into this as a community. But before we get into that, I think we thought it made sense to talk about the why behind the plan.
First and foremost, the strategic plan allows the Somerville public schools to develop a road map for success. To provide clear and actionable path for achieving goals in a transparent and equitable manner. And ultimately, the why is student success. This is the first strategic plan for the district in over ten years, and it really reflects our commitment to meet current and future needs. It also allows us to have an accountability framework to make sure that we are focusing on what we said we would focus on to measure progress over time. And to come before folks like the school committee, but also parents, students, staff, to share out where we are.
This slide is a summary of the development process. As you'll remember, we spent all of last year getting data and feedback from the community in order to develop this plan. So we launched three separate surveys for students, families, and staff. We conducted focus groups across those stakeholders. We conducted root cause analysis sessions. And we also received multiple layers of feedback on the strategic plan from school district leaders and department leaders as well.
And so over the summer, based on all of that input, and we'll go through that for the remainder of the presentation, we finalized a draft plan. We explored key measures and targets with school principals. We made sure that we developed systems to have this plan and the school improvement plans be aligned. And today we're sharing that with you today, which is the draft plan. We also intend to launch a data dashboard in conjunction with the plan and monitor progress over time.
Sam: All right. So as Amara just said, it was quite a robust process in collecting feedback from different stakeholders in the community, that including students, staff, and families. We conducted over 40 focus groups, collected over 2,600 survey responses, and got responses representative across all of the schools in different languages as well.
Now, as we shared in our entry plans finding presentation on February 26th before the school committee, we analyzed the survey and focus group data. And we were able to identify key themes that emerged across all of the feedback that we had received. And these areas included academics with focuses around curriculum and instruction and tiered support. Wellness with focus around SEL curriculum and behavioral and mental health. Access specifically focused around facilities and special programs. And people focused around talent development, staff and student diversity, and family and community engagement.
Now, as a result of all this data that we reviewed, we were able to identify areas of strength and also areas for improvement. So some of the areas of strength that were highlighted was that there's a joy for learning and high quality educators in our school district. That there's strong mental and behavioral health supports and a desire for us to continue to invest in this. An appreciation for the OST programming, athletics, and CTE programs. Professional development, coaching, and leadership opportunities for our educators and robust translation services.
But some of the areas for improvement that were highlighted and reflected in the data included a need to review curriculum, instructional practices, and tiered supports. Facility updates specifically needed at the Winter Hill and the Brown schools. Staff diversification efforts. More middle school targeted OST programming. And better communication between the district and families.
This slide contains the components of a strategic plan, including the mission, the vision, the values, priorities and action steps and key measures. And in order to develop the strategic plan, we wanted to make sure that the vision was truly collaborative and engaged. And so what we did was we looked at all of the school improvement plans and we looked at what they said in their missions, visions, and values. And we also took from the school committee goals. We took from foundational documents across the district, including some of the stuff that Dr. Boston Davis is doing in the district ILT, to come up with a shared mission, vision, values, priorities, and action steps. And so that's why you see the logos from the different schools at the bottom of the slide.
So with that, I'm excited to read the mission that we've come up with. Our primary mission is to cultivate independent and inspired learners who are equipped to make a positive impact on the world. We achieve this by fostering rigorous and joyful learning environments where students, families, staff, and community partners collaborate with a shared commitment to academic excellence and well-being.
And for a vision, we envision a student-centered learning community where every student, honoring their unique strengths and background, is empowered to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally through tailored supports and equitable access to opportunity.
And this contains our core values, which include empowering every child to realize their potential to become leaders and achieve academic excellence. Cultivating robust partnerships and engagement with families and community stakeholders. Prioritizing the whole child, recognizing that their social, emotional, mental, developmental, and physical health are foundational pillars for academic success. Using data to drive decision-making. Embedding equity and access into every aspect of our school culture and community. Sharing responsibility across staff, students, families, and the community members.
So we are really excited to give a quick overview of the priority areas that we're going to discuss a little bit more in this presentation. But our main priority areas are focused around academic excellence, wellness and joy, equity and access, and family and community engagement.
So in regards to our priority area of academic excellence, our overarching goal is to really establish a shared instructional framework of academic achievement. And we plan to do this through implementation of high-quality, evidence-based, and culturally responsive pre-K through 12 curriculum. Through the promotion of instructional rigor, through educator development, and by cultivating a culture of educators as leaders. By identifying and implementing best practices for targeted supports to meet the academic and social emotional needs of all students. And creating a portrait of an SPS learner.
And some of the ways in which we'll monitor our progress is through reviewing our data to see an increase in students' academic growth on assessment measures such as MCAS. Which is given to students in grades 3 through 8 and also high school in the domains of ELA, math, and science. Access for our multilingual learners. iReady for math and reading students in grades 3 through 8. And DBLS, our early literacy assessment. We plan to work towards this academic growth in line with DESE accountability targets and assessment-specific growth targets.
In terms of our priority area of equity and access, our overarching goal is to expand equitable access to programming, supports, and structures in order to bridge opportunity gaps and foster belonging. And some of the ways in which we plan to do this is through the development of a comprehensive system to disrupt persistent disparities across various student populations. The strengthening of workforce diversity initiatives. Expansion of access and increased enrollment and out-of-school time programming. Expansion of access to CTE and scale. And ensuring access to safe and welcoming and inclusive facilities.
And some of the ways in which we plan to monitor progress in these areas is to review, again, our data, such as the data mentioned in the academic excellence section. And really ensure that we see a narrowing of opportunity gaps among subgroups of students. Increased enrollment in programs such as out-of-school time, CTE, and scale. And increased diversification of our workforce.
The next priority area is wellness and joy. And we plan to proactively invest in wellness and joy to support student and staff well-being. And we hope to achieve that by strengthening the implementation of evidence-based, culturally responsive, social, and emotional pre-K through 12 curriculum. We also plan to promote wellness, prevent crisis, and proactively respond to student needs through the leveraging of teams. We also hope to enhance student community building opportunities through the expansion of clubs, athletics, and other out-of-school time offerings. And finally, we hope to implement a system for acknowledging and showcasing educators and initiatives that demonstrate exceptional leadership.
We hope to monitor progress through a continued decline in chronic absenteeism, a consistent increase in graduation rates, an increase in students reporting feeling a sense of belonging and positive relationship with peers and staff as measured by the conditions for learning survey.
Our next priority area is family and community engagement. And our goal here is to strengthen family and community engagement to foster a collaborative system where families and community partners and schools work together to help students to thrive. We plan to achieve this by streamlining communication, leveraging families as partners in learning, and strengthening partnerships with local universities, businesses, and community members. And we intend to monitor progress by seeing an increase in families feeling well-informed and involved in their child's school and community as measured through the conditions for learning survey.
As Amara mentioned earlier in the presentation, with the launch of the official strategic plan, we also hope to launch a public data dashboard that will also allow the community to join us in tracking our progress towards the goals outlined in this plan. Here you can see a screen grab of that main page of this public-facing dashboard where the user can click into different areas and review some of our data. And on the right-hand side, you'll see a mock-up of a graph that will be included in this public dashboard, in this case, showing ELA MCAS data and comparing our performance of students meeting our senior expectations to the state, both for grades three through eight and for high school. And on the right-hand side, a filter which allows you to toggle to different student subgroup populations.
So as far as next steps, we are here to submit the draft for your approval. We also have a graphic designer who's finalizing visuals of the strategic plan, and you can see a little mock-up on this slide. We hope to then share the official strategic plan with the community at large in mid-October, and in conjunction with that, launch the public data dashboard. From there on, we'll be monitoring progress with the community and also aligning the strategic plan to our school-based improvement plans.
And I would like to thank everybody who participated in this process. As we mentioned, we engage in a really robust process with students, family, staff, department leaders, central office leaders, so thank you all who contributed to the development of this plan.
Chair: Thank you so much for that plan. I have Mr. Green.
Mr. Green: So thank you for this, and thank you for all your work. Having some kind of written strategic plan for the district has been a long-term wish of mine, so I'm glad to see this progress. That said, I would not want to vote on it until our next meeting. It's a short but dense document. I'd like more time to think about it. I'd like it to be in the public for two weeks, so public has questions for it. I think that's just a reasonable thing to give the community some time to also see it before you approve it. So my preference would be to approve it at our next meeting. Unless there's a request from the district for us to do it tonight, that's fine with me. Is there?
Superintendent: I'm curious as to what type of metric will you be using to gather that feedback?
Mr. Green: I'm not sure I will be. These are just myself. I would like time to really process it. And if there is something the community has to say about it, I'd like to at least have that opportunity, that window.
Superintendent: Just a question, because we know how complex this process is after a year of reaching out to so many stakeholders. And then going through a process of team editing with the entire community is complex. I don't want to create a false expectation that we are basically making a hundred adjustments based on public feedback. So I just want to make sure that we're clear about what we're asking the community to do.
Chair: And just to be clear, it is generally our policy to have two meetings before we vote on things generally. So I think that's more just in line with that, is Mr. Green's sort of point. And just for us to be able to process it more and perhaps ask more questions next time.
Superintendent: Good. Thank you for the clarification.
Chair: I had someone else's hand up. Dr. Phillips and then Ms. Paton.
Dr. Phillips: Thanks. Through you, Chair, this is awesome. So cool. And I see a lot that's in here that's kind of organizing the things that I think we are already doing and some new things that we've all been talking about for a long time. So that's really exciting. It really resonates with me.
One quick request. I couldn't get the links to the key measures here to work for me. So if it's possible to share those with me, I apologize for my tech problems. But my real question is I'd love to know what the school leaders and department heads that you've shared this with have been saying so far.
Amara: So, yeah, so the link to the key measures will likely be a link to the dashboard. So right now in this state, it's really kind of like a back-end document about where we get all of this assessment data and how we can track it, who the key players are in terms of measuring it. So that's why it's not working now.
I think that we've gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback. I think that it went through multiple iterations from leaders and staff. And so it's not the same document that they saw on day one. And so some of the early feedback I can remember was how can we get more specific on, say, tiered supports and language around that. And so we've been able to incorporate that.
In terms of looking at the whole child, how are we thinking about, yes, academics, yes, emotional well-being, but what about physical health? So you see that in there. So they really helped us to recognize some blind spots that we had in our mind but wanted to make sure it was written down on paper so everybody knew that we were going in the same direction, if that makes sense.
Chair: Ms. Bouton.
Ms. Bouton: Thank you. Through you, Chair, yeah, it's been a really impressive endeavor, and I really appreciate that you have kept the school committee abreast. So whatever feedback I'm going to be giving is probably not going to be, you know, asking you to overhaul the whole thing, but certain things that were of value or importance to me that I either see or don't see, so it's kind of about nuances.
And one of the things that I was thinking about is in the wellness data, and I'm just going to share a couple things, and I'll probably have some more. I'm just going to share it publicly here. There's nothing about the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. I find that that information is incredibly informative, particularly around trends of behaviors around wellness. So I hope that that type of data gets incorporated. It just wasn't listed. It doesn't mean you weren't going to include it.
Another piece you talked about in one of the sections about academic excellence, a portrait of an SPS learner, which is incredibly exciting. The team that gets to work on that, that's just, I'm sure, super fun to do that work. I do know that we've done something like that at the high school level. So that's called -- I forgot what it's called, but I even see the picture in my head of the city, and there's like these different sections.
Superintendent: Highlander Habits.
Ms. Bouton: Highlander Habits, thank you. So I hope that that is going to get folded into. I mean, obviously, if that has to be reworked from the high school's perspective, that's their prerogative, but hopefully building from that. So it just hadn't been referenced.
And then I imagine -- I was doing a little hand cheers in the back when I was reading about the data dashboard. That's something that I've been incredibly interested in for years and years and years, and I also understand how complicated it is.
I'm curious, is there going to be more scope to this than what's really included right now? Because right now I'm seeing the data that we actually mostly have access to already, and I'm really interested in different types of data, particularly equity data that we don't see that somehow, or data around -- I'm just going to use one example, our tiered systems of support. We've had that for a long time, but we've had a challenge with implementing it with fidelity and consistency across the district.
And this is from a school community member, not from a parent, so I might have a particular different level of detail or interest from a dashboard level, so I trust your judgment in terms of what people really want to see. But I would love to see or understand operationally how we're monitoring those types of things, because I want to make sure whatever we're investing in, we're ensuring that it is done as well as it can be and it continues to be done consistently. So thank you.
Sam: Thank you. Through the chair, thank you for your comments. I really appreciate that. And I definitely share in your enthusiasm around that data dashboard. Right now I kind of have a draft picture of what we hope to include in that, some of that that was presented in the presentation. I think it's tricky trying to find the right balance of maintaining privacy and reporting some data points versus transparency. But I definitely hear, you know, questions in what you're hoping to see in the dashboard, and we'll keep that in mind as we work towards finalizing that and sharing that with the community.
Chair: All right.
Superintendent: Could I elaborate?
Chair: Yeah, go ahead.
Superintendent: Just a quick elaboration. Two things. Great point around the dashboard and also the profile of the learner. The dashboard is pretty robust. It's been used in other places, and I am highly confident that it will provide not only a good understanding of where we are at any point in time, but also it will guide some of the assessments that we make internally of our own progress to see if we are meeting the mark in some of these goals that we're setting up.
The second question about the profile of the learner is something that I'm really passionate about. I know that the high school has spent several years just building the one that they had, but it somewhat lives in the high school. And for me, what does that mean for a middle school student? What does that mean for elementary, for kindergarten? So it has to be the backbone of who as a community do we think our kids should be walking out of our high school look like, building upon the Highlander habits. But I think it should be not just the Highlander habits, but it should be a pre-K through 12 document that helps us define that for us.
Chair: Thank you. Great. If there are no further questions and comments, Madam Mayor?
Mayor: Thank you. Through you, Madam Chair, I had stepped out for a bit, so I'm not sure if you've answered this. The wellness, the high level that I got on the wellness, I would encourage you to reach out to our HHS department to build on what school committee member Paton said about the YRBS.
I will say that a wellness report needs assessment was done by Cambridge Health Alliance back around 2014 or 2016. They did it by age group for the City of Somerville. They identified youth that were at risk. And the highest youth that were at risk were high school girls, Latinas, which, you know, if we do a rough sort of numbers-wise, it's almost a quarter of the population of our high school students.
And it's just coincidentally, last week, I had a conversation about where are we on the wellness? Have we actually made progress on this? And they said -- so one of my HHS staff said that they would look into it, but they could probably say there has not been progress made on this. And with a quarter of our population, I think we need to identify.
And the well-being, I think, was social, emotional, and what was the other category? There were two categories, but it wasn't about physical health, too. So I -- you know, what kind of -- what else did you look at to come up with only those two points that fell under that you posted on the wellness piece?
Sam: So this was just a small summary of the plan. It's longer than what we were able to fit on the slide.
Mayor: Okay. I would just say, though, there were two bullet points. It would seem that understanding the physical movement and education and the higher rates of obesity and things should also be looked at.
Chair: Thank you.
Mayor: And using the data point from the last one, and I'm sure our staff can also help you with any information that you need.
Chair: Thank you, Mayor. Okay. With that, this will be on our agenda for our next meeting. Superintendent, is there more to your report?
Superintendent: Yes. One final piece is the school readiness memo.
Chair: I believe that's also being led by Amara, or that was the memo that was sent through the city.
Member: Yep. Before public comment.
Chair: Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Member: Seems like a long time ago.
Chair: And then we have the construction advisory update as well.
Member: Which we also did.
Member: That was part of what we did earlier on.
Chair: So I am done with my report. All right. We have a few more things on our agenda. We'll do lightning round here. Field trips. I will entertain a motion. Field trips? Anyone?
Mr. Bittone: I will move to approve the following field trips. On September 24th, 2024, through September 25th, 2024, for 36 fifth grade students from the Brown School to visit nature's classroom in Groton, Massachusetts. Travel will be by bus. Student cost is $250. On October 4th, 2024, 15 students from Next Wave Full Circle will visit Mount Mananoc State Park in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Travel by van. No cost to students. And October 16th, 2024, through October 17th, 2024, eight students from Next Wave Full Circle will visit Hancock Campground located in Can Comagus Highway in Lincoln, New Hampshire. Travel by van. No cost to students.
Ms. Bittone: Second.
Chair: I have a motion by Mr. Bittone, seconded by Ms. Bittone. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All in favor?
Members: Aye.
Chair: All opposed? Motion carries. Have great trips. Going fun places. Okay. That brings us to the second reading of the resolution in support of question two. Mr. Green.
Mr. Green: Thank you. I want to apologize to my colleagues for not actually sending this to you physically, because I got the shot these past couple days. But the red text in the first draft where I was going to insert some of our data should be replaced with the following text. Statewide, including 24 high school students since 2017.
Chair: Okay. Thank you for that. I will entertain a motion.
Mr. Green: I guess I can move to approve.
Chair: I have a motion by Mr. Green, seconded by Dr. Phillips to approve this resolution. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All in favor?
Members: Aye.
Chair: All opposed? Motion carries. That brings us to the Cummings School renovation. Dr. Phillips, do you want to walk us through the new motion that we now have?
Dr. Phillips: Yes, but please add on what I am missing. So we took the motion where we ended it at the last meeting and sent it to our lawyers for review and addition. And then Ms. Paton kindly sent along a suggestion to also add in there information about making sure that the Cummings can hold students, should we need them to, and Ms. Paton, let me know if I'm missing anything. So the lawyers worked that all out. And that is what's in our packet. There is the motion without Ms. Paton's edits and the motion with Ms. Paton's edits in there.
Chair: Ms. Paton?
Ms. Paton: Thank you. Through you, Chair Kruption, the intention was asking the city to move forward planning work in the event that we would have to use this building in the future to house students in case of an emergency. And also to mitigate any continued deterioration of the building due to things like water. So the idea here is that we understand that there could be a circumstance where this building would have to be put into use for students. We hope it won't happen. But in the event that it happens, we really want the city to commit to making some plans so that we can react to it in a more thoughtful manner instead of being -- we understand it would always be an emergent manner, but to have some plans in place. And that if we're going to be using this as a warming station, this is a great opportunity to move some planning forward for emergency use. But I'm welcome to any language changes, whatever. It was just a suggestion.
Chair: Okay. With that, there is a motion in front of us. If somebody would like to move to approve it.
Member: I just want to clarify that it's with Ms. Paton's additional language is what's in front of us?
Chair: Yes.
Member: The city and school committee.
Dr. Phillips: I move to approve this motion.
Dr. Ackman: Second.
Chair: Motion by Dr. Phillips, seconded by Dr. Ackman. Is there any further discussion? Mr. Green and then --
Mr. Green: I just have a really quick question for the city. I want to thank them for the information memo. It answers most of the questions I had. I just have one last question. Will the center be staffed overnight? Will it just be people go in? Will there be any staff there? And if so, who is staffing it?
Mayor: So thank you. We have to put the RFP out first. So I can't tell you exactly who is going to win the contract. If we liken it to last year, it was housing families who managed it. They are there. They are there overnight. And they close up.
Chair: Mr. Green.
Mr. Green: If you don't have this number on top of your head, I totally understand that. I would just love to know, using housing families as an example, about how many staffers did they have overnight, mainly last year at Armory?
Mayor: I would have to ask the exact number, but I'd been over to the warming center a couple of times. There were -- we did have a security person there. And I think there were like three or four up until a certain period of time, like maybe it was 11 o'clock or something. And then I believe that there was a change in staff. There are also volunteers that they work with that are in addition to who are out of the goodness of making our community or just communities compassionate, these volunteers are just amazing. Some of them come with very specific skill sets, too. But I can -- we can get you the exact number on that, but I don't know. Or how the RFP is going to be crafted.
Chair: President Ewing-Kampen.
President Ewing-Kampen: Thank you. I'm strongly in support of this usage of the Cummings. I want to thank the administration for putting all this together, and to the school committee for all your work that's gone into the MOU. And just because I've been contacted by a number of constituents, there was a public communication sent out to neighbors of the Cummings school probably two weeks ago. So this -- kind of the neighborhood is learning about this in real time. And I just -- for folks who are paying attention to this meeting, I just wanted to share my support for this and also my commitment for there to be an informational community meeting with staff from the administration, for people who live nearby, to learn how this facility worked last year, how it's intended to work this year. For everyone who this is kind of news to, this is a facility to make sure that people don't freeze to death, which has happened in Somerville in recent memory. This is about keeping people alive. Last year it was located at the Armory. That was a success. There were also logistical issues because the Armory has basically nightly large events with many members of the public coming and going through the same entrance. It was kind of logistically challenging. I don't want to pretend there were no issues that came up with that, but I think that was the impetus for moving it. If there are any members of the public or, you know, colleagues here who would like more information about how it went last year, I'm totally happy to have a conversation. I can send all the information that I've sent to residents who have reached out. There is also a dedicated e-mail address that the administration has put together, which is warmingcenter@somervillema.gov, that anyone in the public can reach out to with questions. We are many months away from this actually being stood up, so there is plenty of time for people to get their questions asked, concerns addressed. And with that, thank you all.
Chair: Okay. If there is no further discussion, we have a motion in front of us made by Dr. Ackman and seconded by Dr. Phillips. Did I get that right? No. Yes. Okay. All right. All in favor?
Members: Aye.
Chair: All opposed? Motion carries. That brings us to two policy manuals for a second reading. I will entertain a motion.
Ms. Barish: I move to accept the changes to file EBCFA face coverings.
Dr. Phillips: Second.
Chair: I have a motion by Ms. Barish, seconded by Dr. Phillips. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All in favor?
Members: Aye.
Chair: All opposed? Motion carries. That brings us to another second reading.
Ms. Barish: I move to approve the removal of file JLCBE MDPH school immunization regulations from our policy manual.
Dr. Phillips: Second.
Chair: I have a motion by Ms. Barish, seconded by Dr. Phillips. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All in favor?
Members: Aye.
Chair: All opposed? Motion carries. That brings us to items from committee members. Does anyone have any items? Seeing none. That brings us to condolences. Dr. Phillips?
Dr. Phillips: We have one, but I'm locked out of my email. Do you want to read it or wait until next week?
Chair: I'm happy to read it. Okay. The Somerville School Committee extends our deepest condolences to the families of Joanna Smith-Brown, mother of Christopher Ames, principal at the Benjamin Brown School. And with that, we are adjourned. Have a good night, everyone.