School Committee - Regular Meeting

A call to order the meeting of the Salem School Committee of March 9th, 2026 at 7 p.m. This meeting is taking place in person in uh the school committee chambers at Collins Middle School and uh also available via Zoom using the link posted in the meeting agenda. The first item of business for our meeting is approval of the agenda. Motion to approve. I'll second.

Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Miranda. Uh under discussion, seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? The agenda is approved. Our next item is public comment. The Salem School Committee would like to hear from the public on issues that affect the school district and are within the scope of the committee's responsibilities. Spanish interpretation is available for anyone who needs it. The members of the school committee would like to remind the public that Salem public school students regularly attend school committee meetings. We encourage all meeting participants to model respectful and productive public discourse for our young learners. Is there any public comment in the chambers? If there's any public comment on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function.

Uh, nobody raised a hand, but we have a descendant of S Parker Ramon on the the chat, so allow them to speak. Wish to speak. They should be able to speak now. Hello. Hello. We can hear you.

Hello. Hello. Hi. We can hear you. Would you like to provide any public comment to the school committee? Can you hear me? I just wanted to make a comment on behalf of the family about how exciting this all is for us. You You are not You are responsible for getting rid of overdue acknowledgement for the Raymond family. That's it.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Any further comment online? Okay. Our next item of business is approval of the consent agenda. These are the minutes of the school committee meeting of February 9th and the special school committee meeting of February 9th. Approval of field trip to Canoby Lake Park for the Carlton fourth and fifth grade students and warrants of February 5th, February 12th, February 19th, and February 26th. Motion

to approve. Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Hoffman. Under discussion, seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? Vote is unanimous. Student representatives report. Do you have report?

Yeah. Uh, Miss Sula could not be here tonight. She is feeling ill. So, um, I just have a couple updates. We did meet with the student advisor. It was my last meeting with them. Um uh sadly because that's a group that I really uh value meeting with. Um we talked about a few different things. Um first they brought a special guest who was circulating a petition about changing the start time at Salem High School. They would like it to be start later. But there was a robust discussion about what's that?

No. Uh well yes, your child was um was interested in that. Um but there was there was a pretty robust discussion about the different uh the reason the pros and cons of it you know around sports and other activities uh even the music activities and late and they were concerned about everything starting later. Uh and so we had a good conversation. They seemed in the end to be pretty split as a group. This petition was brought by a ninth grader who was not part of the advisory group but was invited by her friends which we encourage that level of participation and um it was very thoughtful. I did encourage the student to um feel free to send it to the superintendent or the school committee to take a look at um but I do think there's a lot more discussion that would need to happen because of things like early college sports uh music and arts traffic is obviously in the uh in the equation as well. So that was discussed. We also um uh got some feedback about the dinner options after school and this we u male our food service director wanted to get more input from the students around the dinner options and what was working and what wasn't working. I think by and large the students love the dinner options. They just wanted to be able to select more that they they were only allowed one choice and they wanted all the choices. Um not just the smoothie but the smoothie and the food. I think you have to choose one or the other. So that came up. Um and then uh Miss Paulie presented uh the budget uh presentation that we've been giving to the public and got some feedback from the students um about the budget although I think a lot of it was um focused on you know I I they they did have a they did have a number of questions they they have they are very supportive of some of the transportation recommendations that we're making. So we heard from them about that. Again, we also talked about the superintendent transition. Uh uh deputy superintendent Carboni was there. Um assistant superintendent Paulie and we made the decision that um uh

assistant superintendent Paulie and Laura Assad would continue to work with the students because they have relationships. They um Elizabeth seems to find her way in front of those students all the time as do Laura. I think they love that part of their job and so they want to continue that. um but also because the focus on newcomers and welcoming newcomers is very much in line to the work that Laura is doing um across the district. So, we will continue to be meeting with the they will continue to be meeting with stu the students monthly um and they're already talking about um elections for next year and uh revising their bylaws for the future. So, that was the extent of the meeting and um we also talked about trying to bring the school committee together with them. Um I do think it would be great if school committee members could actually come to the meeting which are one it's one the I the superintendent meets with them once a month the first Monday of every month from 1 to 2:30. So that's really the best time and feel free to reach out to me or um to uh the interim superintendent about um the uh about if you if you'd like to participate in one of those sessions. All right. That is my update.

All right. Uh and now we have your update. Oh, not my real update. Okay. All right. So, there's a lot on this agenda tonight. Um I think uh if we could uh start with the uh the presentation there, Carlos, that would be great. Uh that has multiple parts. I don't know if there's a clicker, but what's that? No, no, my presentation. Uh well, no, actually uh which presentation. What do you have there first? Okay. Whatever Whatever you put up there, Carlos, first we'll we'll go with that.

Okay. I guess it's my my updates. Okay. So, I have a series of updates that I uh that I wanted to share with the school committee building on some conversations that we had at the last meeting. Um so, if we can go to the next slide. Oh, thank you. All right. So the first is about New Liberty and Salem Prep. So I am recommending formally now that Salem Prep and New Liberty move to the Carlton school building for the 2627 school year. So I just that is a formal recommendation. I know that that's probably not a secret to anybody and that we discussed this at the last school committee meeting. There were some questions about Salem Prep um and where we where Salem Prep should be moving to. Um but uh after discussion, we met um during uh February vacation and we had some discussions about um concerns about uh students uh if we moved Salem Prep to Salem High School. We didn't think it was necessarily an appropriate fit for many students who uh did not necessarily have the best experience at Salem High School and had concerns about the size of the school. Um, and so there was a discussion about maybe that wasn't the most appropriate fit, not for all students, but certainly a percentage of them. Um, there was uh some concerns regarding the quality of the space at Salem High School. It's not that the the space is really no different than any of the spaces at Salem High School, but uh the Carlton space is a better space than a building that's going to be coming down in the next few years hopefully. Um and you know they the idea that uh they would actually have a full um floor or a larger uh area to operate that was their own as opposed to just a smaller section of the building at Salem High School. I think we felt that it would communicate a little more respect uh to the students and to the school that they would have uh you know we think a higher quality space at Carlton. Uh and that there

might need to be some revisions to IEPs based on the way IEPs were written. um and um given that some students who were placed at Salem Prep again were leaving uh Salem High School. And so in conversations with our director of special education who's here um and with Lisa O'Neal who's the principal of the school in the end we felt that um the best option was to move to the Carlton building and I'll just uh share a little more. We toured the building last week. Uh a number of us who are on the uh on this dis here but also uh members from the two schools. We had our facilities team. We had our IT team there um just to look at the space to see where how we would uh you know we would um organize the two schools there. New Liberty we felt was better suited for the first floor. Uh they're the bigger school. um they would probably need to use the entire the entirety of the first floor. Um and uh they felt comfortable with um they were very excited about what that um space would offer them. The second floor we felt uh in talking with the principal that they really would only need about half of the second floor. They didn't want too much space because they don't really need that much, but they needed enough for meeting space, offices, classrooms, um and areas for them to convene. um we would need to put some uh dividers up so that the floor, you know, we wouldn't want them to access the whole floor or spaces that were not necessary to access. Um but the majority of the about half of the floor at Salem Prep would utilize. We would have a separate entrance for the school. And if you look at my photo and where the arrow is, um there would be a separate ent ent entrance on Burn Burnside Road. And that would be um an entrance where they would not actually have to cross into the new Liberty space. there could be a desk for the greet um the um they have a a

clerkish position that they utilize there and that uh they could greet people there and then the students could go right up the stairs uh without having to access the first floor. Um but at the same time there are shared spaces that both schools would use. Uh the gymnasium we'd want both schools to utilize that and we'd also want them to utilize the cafeteria space. They might want to do something with the uh media center potentially uh library, but uh certainly the gym and the cafeteria would be spaces that we would want uh both schools to to access. Um and so I think we left feeling really strongly about the uh the spaces for both schools. There would need to be a lot of work done. Um, I think Lisa was uh or I'm sorry, the new Liberty staff was interested in making sure the mirrors were the right height for students, but there does not need to be any toilet uh sh uh replacements when we looked at the toilets and the bathrooms. They're appropriate for the age and the size of the kids. Um, obviously the furniture would be coming from the current school, but there wouldn't need to be a lot of work. We would need some dividers on the second floor just to make sure that um and we could, you know, we might use some of it for storage up there, but um uh by and large there's not a lot of work that need would need to be done. We would also need to do work with the um uh just the entrance just to make sure that we have the same entrance uh hardware that we have for all the schools so that Salem Prep would have a separate entrance. Um, I don't know if there's anything you would want to add, Elizabeth or Kate, based on our visit. Um, but, um, I feel very strongly that this is a good move. Um, and, um, I'm asking for the school committee to vote on this this evening.

I don't know if there's anything. Okay. Any questions from members before we move on? Member Bayas.

So, is this going to be permanent, Drs. Reich, or do you think they'll be moving again? I think that's a that's a question for you all on the school committee. I think I'm making the recommendation for next school year. I think there is more discussion that would be needed uh long term. We we are obviously still talking to uh we as you know we have been talking to Salem State about at least New Liberty moving to Salem State. Uh we just don't have the resources to make that happen right now. Um but I think I'm recommending just for the upcoming school year and I think that's something the school committee will need to revisit. Obviously, uh we are saving quite a bit on the lease. Um as you know, it's $330,000. Um and to be able to utilize and be the landlord of our own space, I think is a huge step. I mean, we don't have to go in, you know, you all know what the challenges have been with the mall as well. I think we there was urgency at this point. I think I I feel like I've been hearing it every year for the last uh three or four years, rightfully so, that we needed to move and I'm I'm I'm pleased that we have a solution at least for next year. And you know, who knows? It could be longer depending on what the committee wants to do.

Any other questions? Yeah, member.

Thank you. Um question, my question was around the lease. I think there might have been conversations that I missed there, but so we are able to I I just more for budgetary questions. I know myself personally, I need to learn more about the prep and the new liberty and their models and I I would agree with your recommendation for the next year, but um also agree that a larger conversation needs to happen about the future of these two programs. For this coming year though, I'm assuming analysis has been done on cost savings for the lease compared to how much it would cost to like winterize mothball the school versus the upgrades that need to be done and adding the staff back into the school that we just remove. your notes. So, I'm curious if that analysis is on and it sounds like we're able to leave the lease at the mall or is that still a topic that's up? Um, to the first part of your question, we are anticipating a savings of about $330,000 from the rent at the mall. We are also anticipating being able to leave our lease um at the end of the school year. And so that is an ongoing uh conversation. So I think there is a if I would add to the superintendent's recommendation, I think there is a financial advantage to moving the schools out of the mall and I think there is also a programmatic advantage to moving them into the Carlton building which comes with a gym and a cafeteria uh and their own separate entrances. So I think the budget is a big reason but not the only reason.

I think it's a win on both fronts to your point. It's a it's a financial win and it's a as you say a programmatic win. Yeah.

One recommendation I would just make before we move from this topic is I do think and we've talked about this there needs to be a discussion uh throughout the course of next year about our alternative programs. I think um we have I think we have strong alternative programs but I think you know the needs of stu students have shifted and they continue to shift and we need to make sure our programs meet the needs of the children in the system um and since co there's been you know there's been a lot of uh changes um and I think it's a good moment to take a pause and talk about the different programs we offer including the fact that we don't have an alternative program at the middle school level and I do think that there you know now that we have one large middle school. I think it is worth having a conversation about um you know what our alternative programming looks like. I mean there's obviously a cost to running the schools. I think there's a lot of successes that both Salem Prep and New Liberty have had. Um, but I do think there's a mo this is a before we make any I know we talked about different scenarios about Salem Prep, whether we were going to sunset the program or not, but I think before any of that's done, we got to really do a deeper dive um around um around both that uh New Liberty and uh whether we want to extend programming to at least the middle school level um because I do think there's a need there and I worry about too many students that are excluded from the um from the regular program. And we're I'm grateful that we have high school models, but I think we should look at maybe um developing a middle school model because the large middle school doesn't necessarily work for everybody. And we talked about that last year when we talked about um closing the Carlton uh I mean the sorry closing Saltton stalls middle school. Um and so I think we need to um revisit just the different alternative programs we have. So,

any further questions on the new liberty sound prep? Seeing none.

Okay. Uh the next item is Essex Tech. And I did um I've been this is a presentation I've been willing uh wanting to give for years. Um but finally I was allowed to give this presentation. Um no, I'm just I'm just kidding. Um, so I I do think there's um an important Let me just um I think it's important for the school committee as especially as we head into budget season to think about the Essex Tech agreement that we have. Um and in your packet you have a copy of the regional agreement um that we have with Essex Tech. Uh and there's a long history with that relationship um and the terms of that agreement. Uh what I wanted to point out is that in um FY26, which is this current school year, we send um about $2.5 million in tuition to Essex Tech for for 136 students. Um that's this current school year. Um 83 out of those students are in programs that we offer at Salem High School. Um and so that represents approximately 1.24 million. I mean, the these are approximations. I did the math the best I could on this. Um, and you know, that's for pathways that we already invest in at Salem High School. And I think one of the things that I I I've you know, long felt is that we over over the last 5 years, we've worked hard and the high school and u principal Burns and Mr. Susa have worked hard to uh strengthen our CTE programs. Uh, and then obviously we're building a new high school where we are going to have what I hope to be this, you know, state-of-the-art facilities. Um, and our our kids are going to have the access to the spaces and the uh and the programming that has already improved quite a bit, but will even be stronger when the spaces match. Um, and so I have some questions about continued participation in the regional partnership. And I think that's something the school committee should discuss and reflect on um, as we move

forward. Um, according to the agreement, uh, you can only withdraw from the partnership with a vote from the city council. Um, and and the member is still liable for operating unpaid operating cost and then any portion of outstanding debt for for instance on the existing building. You know, the the um Essex Tech building is a newer project. So, Salem has some pay does pay u for some of those capital costs. Um and um but the ultimately the school committee would work with the city council and would uh notify the the department of education, the commissioner and request uh what's called the reorganization deeds conference, which I don't know anything about. I'm just uh I I've never seen that actually happen, but that's what they're asking. That's what the um the language states. and then ultimately the city council would have to vote to uh take Salem out of the regional agreement. Now, I I know there's probably there is a need for extensive discussion about this. I'm just merely pointing out that as we talk about dwindling resources, uh trying to make sure that our our schools get the supports that they need to thrive, right? This is a place where um you know I think as a city um there's a ch there's an opportunity to reinvest some of these dollars into the programming that we already have in the Salem public schools and to continue to strengthen those programs. Obviously the Essex Tech has a great reputation. There's families that have chosen that school for um over the years uh from Salem and from local communities, but there is a high demand in the Northshore for those programs. And we're very very fortunate. We're one of the few high schools in the Northshore that has uh career and technical programs, vocational programs. Even the ones that do don't have as many programs as we do. We would will have 10

in the new high school if it's built. Um which is way more than what Peabody and Gloucester have. And then the rest of the high schools don't have any don't have um the programming that we offer. And so we are we have the ability to offer quite a bit to our kids. twothirds of our students are taking CTE classes now. And so I don't think Salem students want for that access um like maybe they do in other communities. Um and so I just um I I wanted to share this information this evening so that the school committee could keep this on this their uh their agenda. Uh certainly as we move um it wouldn't be for this year's budget, but it could be for next year's uh budget as we think about how we use resources. I'll stop there. Any questions on this topic for the superintendent?

Yeah, member Cornell. Dr. Z, can you just explain the process by which Essex Tech sets targets for the various participating uh districts, student targets? Yeah. You you mean in terms of enrollment? Yes. Okay. So, that's new this year. Mayor, feel free to jump in because it's you were you know you know just as much as I do. Okay. Well, so the targets are set based on uh the number of total students that we have. Well, I'll let me back up for a second. Salem uh Essex Tech just moved to a lottery for the first time.

For the longest time, it wasn't a lottery. It was based on an application process, which I have long felt was inequitable. Um and so I'm happy that there was a move to a lottery. They chose to move to a nonweighted lottery. So, it's a lottery just like Salem um academy has, charter schools have for uh students. The number of seats that they target is linked to the percentage of um the enrollment of the district uh to to the overall district. So, Salem, sorry, Essex Tech is fed by 17 communities and I think our our number of seats was 52, I think, right? And I think our percentage of that overall was 10% roughly. Um, and so they set our number based on how large Salem is relative to the other 17 communities that feed into the tech. Um, and so that's where our number was set this year. there was just a straight lottery and um the first 52 names from Salem get um will get a get a seat there. If they decline, then they move to the other kids on the weight list from Salem. And they do that for each of the communities. There was a lot of um in in Salem's case, our number um has stayed pretty consistent all along. Communities like Danvers, Peodyy, and Beverly were very frustrated because the number of seats that they were the number of kids they were sending was much higher than their overall percentage in the the the sending communities. Our number has stayed pretty consistent. Um and actually we have seen a decline over time of kids going to Essex Tech. Um which isn't a bad thing. Um but um it's going to be interesting to see the dynamics after the this first time lottery um because

it was always a selective school. I mean it truly is a sele was a selective enrollment school and for the first time um any child who applied had just had the same chance as anybody else to get to get in. Um and so we'll see what that does for Salem's numbers. The demographics I think you I've I've shared at different times that the demographics of kids going to Essex Tech from Salem were not reflective of our overall population in terms of ML students, students with disabilities um and uh low-income students did not reflect the overall uh because frankly many of those students weren't getting in because it's hard to interview when that's English isn't your first language, you know, or if you had a lot of absences because you were homeless, you never had a chance to get in. So, a lot of inequities um and uh we'll we'll have to see what this shift to a lottery does for the tech uh moving forward.

The only thing I would add to that is that I think the the lottery number that 50 some odd seats is a minimum not a maximum. That's right. So, there is a scenario in which I it's not likely because as Dr. mentioned, you know, we are, I think, with our chapter 74 programs doing a good job of retaining our students who are interested in technical and vocational education in district, but it's not a cap, which makes it from a a planning standpoint really problematic because it's hard to know if next year it'll be 60 students or next year it'll be 50 students, and that affects our ability to financially forecast what the um the cost would be. Um, and that depends on the the students that are uh the seats that are filled in other uh from other communities in the district.

Yeah. And and just so the the school committee knows what happens in other um parts of the state as well is that if you're not part of a regional agreement, um students can only go to uh vocational schools in programs that you don't offer. So for instance, in the last district where I was superintendent, we had a vocational school and we were not part of a regional agreement. That's a little unusual that you have your like Salem has its own programs and is part of a regional agreement. the only students can always go to Essex Tech for agricult for what they call the A cluster which is uh the programs that we we um that there's Essex is the Northshore or is the northern part of the state's um school for agriculture. So kids um are automatically can be accepted for animal science, agriculture, horiculture, anything related to a a um the agriculture cluster is what they call it. But um otherwise in most communities you can only in a community that has its programs the school district has to sign off if you're going to attend a program uh that the district already offers. And so you can only really apply. So if you wanted to do cosmetology and you were um set on doing cosmetology, we don't offer cosmetology, right? Then a student could apply and as a district we would have to allow them to pursue that. um but not in the programs we already offer. And so um again, that's what's unique here is that we have our programs and students can go even if it's for programs we already offer. And so that's why I from the moment I got here, I was confused as to that why that was the case. But it's because we are part of this regional agreement that allows Salem residents to

attend regardless of what program they uh ultimately end up going to. Member Cornell. And if we, assuming our new high school is getting built, if we were to pull out of this agreement, we could add programs that if we wanted to.

Well, you'd have to apply to the state. There's a process for that. And if it's a program that Essex offers, you have to get their approval, which in fairness to Essex, they have been very gracious because we have applied in the past for programs they already have. But you have to get their approval and you have to get the Department of Eds. So, even if we're not if we're not in the agreement, we still need to get their approval for programs that they offer that they offer. If we were to duplicate something they offered, we would have to get their um their blessing to do that. If it was not um if it was a program that neither of us offered, then we would just apply to the Department of Education for chapter 70 for designation. Yeah. Um, can I

I I did at some point ask um Mario Souza to give me some data about which programs Salem students are in at Essex Tech. And I'm trying to find it in an email and I can't, but I think that would be really useful email information for all of the members to have so we can we can just sort of see it. Um, I certainly wouldn't want to limit our students ability to participate in something like, you know, their agriculture programs, which we're obviously not going to be developing, but if we have a new high school, some of, you know, we're going to have space. There might be opportunities that don't currently exist. Um, but I I would like to see where our students interests lie. From what I recall, um, most students were participating in areas of study that we already have. That's the number here. Uh, sorry to do mind if I speak. It's uh 60. What is it? 61%.

83 is 136. But I have the I can send the list to your I can send it to the committee so you can actually see the programs taking out the kids' names.

All right, let's move on.

All right. Um, and then finally, I did want to just share in my updates, we have some good news around our high school graduation and dropout rates. And I want to really um give a shout out to our high schools. Um, it's not just our high schools, but it's all our staff. Uh, and uh, this this uh, these this data is lags by a year. So, this is last year's graduation numbers and dropout numbers because obviously we're in the midst of this year right now. Um, so it comes out, um, it just came out last week. Um, and what's exciting, um, is we had the second highest rates in Salem public schools and Salem High School history. Um, and for Latino students, it was the second highest rate we've ever had. Um, and at New Liberty, it was their highest in history for graduation rates. Uh, which is a real credit to the work that that school is doing with kids. I mean, the numbers are astonishing. I mean they had at at one they've had graduation rates of 30 uh% and lower in the past and this year they were at 69.2% which is pretty is I don't think there's many alternative high schools in the state that have that data. Um and then we had record rates for multilingual learners and and when I say tied it was this tied for the highest for low-income students. uh in Salem public schools uh our students with uh our Latino students have a higher graduation rate than white students which I have never seen in my career. Um it's pretty remarkable and this community should be very proud of that. I mean, we want everybody to have high I don't care what their background is, but it is you uh it's and to have a graduation rate of 87% for multilingual learners is really remarkable and a credit to all our educators who build strong relationships with kids. Uh we do have work to do. I think our students with disabilities is our lowest um uh number. Um and it's something that we haven't seen the same level of increase uh for um our students with

disabilities. The other number that's not here, our homeless students have a low graduation rate and our foster students. The numbers aren't large, but still significant. And as you can imagine, those are, you know, a transient population that we we need to do better by. Um, and that data is available online um as well. I I couldn't there wasn't enough room to put all of it on here. Um, but I do want to shout out our um high school teams across the board, Salem Prep, New Liberty, and Salem High School, because it is really remarkable. And you could see the improvement year upon year. Um uh and you know I I do think they know the kids by name. They go to homes. They make calls. Uh they are pretty and very aggressive because you have until October 1st of the the year that of the after the summer in which they graduate to re-engage kids and to make sure that they uh get their diploma. Uh for dropout rates, it's the second lowest rates in Salem public schools and Salem high school history. Um, and New Liberty, it's their lowest in history. And actually, well, I won't get into it, but the data on New Liberty, the state doesn't have it accurate, but I'm not going to, it's still the lowest even with the inaccurate data. So, it's even better in real life. Um, but it is um again, you can see the improvements. Uh, we you can see that again, students with disabilities is where I would be concerned. We have a 4% uh dropout rate with students with disabilities, which means that the majority of the dropouts are students with IEPs. So even though the number has declined significantly, we have to look at um our students with disabilities as a concern and obvious and our our Latino Hispanic numbers are strong, but our multilingual learner and low-inccome dropout rate is higher than the um the district average. So just something for us to pay attention to. But you can see the decline uh over the last five years. Um, and I'm happy to report that just even looking at this

year, we're on pace to do even better than this. Um, because we we have a dashboard that looks at uh, individual kids. So, I can see in a moment's time who the dropouts are and we have an opportunity to re-engage them before October 1 of 2026. If we bring them back, they're they're not considered a dropout. And so it means that we, you know, there's work to do all year long to re-engage kids who may have dropped out. We do work with youth build. So some students do go to Youth Build. And so while they um a Youth Build student might is not considered a graduate, they are not considered a dropout. So, they don't graduate from high school because they get their um equivalency, but they are not considered a dropout because they uh they they were able to get their GED. And so, we work certain kids maybe high school isn't the right spot, but we want them to move forward, get their GED, and Youth Bill does an excellent job of um supporting young people and uh so we've been able to work with them on some students as well. That's also helped our drop dropout dropout rate as well. So, um, I'll stop there. These I think this is exciting data, but we'll take any questions that people have. Uh, before we transition to other speakers here tonight,

questions. Member Miranda.

I just wanted to ask if you can speak to um what you think has led to these significant shifts. I think we know the kids by name and we look I there we sit uh and talk about individual kids at different times of the year and now for instance when Glenn and Jamal t come to meet with me they they have their list of kids and we talk about okay what strategy have we used to re-engage this student um I think the work we've done as a district around um you know having alternative alternative or uh support programs like um the community school program that Salem High has that's provided after school support. We we've started a night school component at um at Salem High School too to help kids who are like, you know, juniors and seniors that are almost there, but they they're starting to disengage before they drop out. I mean, Eric Farley has done a great job uh at Salem High School with that. And then, you know, New Liberty and Salem Prep have really gotten focused also on um that you know, I think I don't I'm not saying that this I think before kids would go there and and and you know, it was almost like it wasn't surprising if a student then you know, they struggled at Salem High, they go to New Liberty and then they'd struggle and then they drop out. I think New Liberty has really taken it upon themselves to make sure that like it's a badge of honor like we're not going to let anybody drop out of here and they and they've also created I think more engaging programs. They have kids on internships there. They have kids who are taking early college classes. You know, kids respond when the opportunities are exciting in school. When school's boring, they leave. And I think some of the CTE programs have helped more advanced coursework. Having even more APs, kids taking more advanced classes sends a message like I can do this, right? As

opposed to, you know, like I they, you know, as opposed to this idea that like, yeah, they're in remediation or lower level classes. I think the mindset sh mindset and the culture have shifted around expectations for kids and the opportunities that they have. So I think it's been a whole mindset shift on the part of all those schools that has really led to to this. And you have to know kids by name. It's not that many kids, you know. So 30 we have every year we fluctuate between, you know, 15 to 30 kids who are back and forth. That's not a lot of kids to like actually go knock on doors. And that's what our staff has done and I give them a lot of credit for that. himself.

Other questions on the graduation drop out? No. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Um Carlos, you can take that down. All right. And before we get to the health grant update, which will be next, I did leave you the last part of my evaluation, which is the uh he's waving it off over here, but it is the last part of my um evaluation for last year, which is my goals um that I hadn't given you last time, so you have a copy of those. I will email them to you so you have them electronically as well. Um number I already sent them, I believe.

No, no, no. This is my uh this is my assessment of my goals. So, um, I will I will email them to everybody. Uh, and with that, I think Ellen Windgard is going to join us on stage here for the health grant. And I'll pass it over to Kate.

Just very quickly, we actually have, uh, three members of our team here tonight to, uh, give the committee an update on a slice of our comprehensive, um, health programming. We're going to give you a deep dive into one of the grants that is um supporting a variety of aspects of our overall health program. So, we're not giving you the big picture. If we were going to do that, we'd need more than 10 slides and probably um maybe a committee of the whole, right? Because there's a lot of information, but this is an interesting grant and we wanted to um provide some updates. So we have Ellen Wingard who is our executive director of student supports. We have uh Sonia Lowe who's our um executive director of academics. And over there um Alyssa

Irving Irving thank you Smith Irving. Irving um and she is a health teacher and our serving as our health coordinator. She does some of the professional development on our um on our uh PD days. And I will not steal any of their thunder and turn it over to Ellen. You stole a minute off of our 10 minutes, Kate. But there are only 10. Well, there's 13 slides, but there's some transitional slides, so they don't really don't cover. We take that very seriously. Steve, do you have the uh clicker? Oh, yes.

Great. Um, just go ahead and Thank you. Um, all right. Thank you so much. We're excited to be here and share some really cool things that are happening in the wellness world for our students and our um our families. And so, uh, this this icon you may have seen before if you've been with us. If you haven't, let me just orient you to it. Um, Salem Public Schools takes a whole child, whole community, whole school approach. Um, we're guided by the CDC's framework. Um, as well as the Massachusetts state standards for health and physical education. Um, and so if you look at the whole child approach, you see that, um, it really encompasses a lot of different things. Um, and you'll see also if you think about the different people and the different departments that touch this work, it's really multid-disciplinary. When we talk about holistic wellness, we're not talking about just the student supports or just what happens in health class or PE or what happens um in the community. It really is all together. And so it challenges us and we're lucky to have a small collegial district to be able to work together to really think about a comprehensive approach to wellness and health. Um, and it's really great that we like each other because we're working together all the time um, across department lines. So, this um, this grant that we're going to highlight tonight really gives us a slice a window into how we are able to work together to promote some of the really um, uh, exciting and impactful initiatives and practices that we've been able to really solidify with the funds from this grant. So over this grant is called promoting safe and healthy learning environments elevating student voice and well-being and that jams a bunch of educational jargon in one phrase but um overall it promotes um about five different buckets of work. Uh so our um 21st century community learning center high school

internships, our comprehensive health and physical education um work. Uh part of the grant supports our newcomer and homeless population. Um our service learning and social emotional learning academic integration and also our YPAR our youth participatory action research. So I'm uh in total over the last two years um we've been awarded $312,000 which has supported the work across the um across those goals. Um I'm going to invite Sonia up to kick off the next portion of uh a little bit of this grant. Great.

Thanks. All right. So, I just wanted to speak briefly about some of the goals for this grant. So, a key focus of the grant really has been providing access to highquality instructional materials around health education. So, that's been a huge focus that Alyssa is going to speak to what that work has looked like in the 6 through 12 uh landscape, particularly around vertical alignment. Um, another thing about the grant is that it does require grantees to select a professional development provider from um, providers that are recommended by DESIE. And so what you'll hear uh, from Alyssa is about some of the ways that we've engaged with that partner to really develop our um, educators and their uh, ideas about how to implement the um, the excuse me the um, health standards which were re rewritten recently. Um, so that's all I have to add for that. Uh, I will say that we do have a really uh nice structure in Salem where we have professional development four times a year for the health teachers that Alyssa as part of her role as the coordinator facilitates, but she's going to talk a lot more about what the details of that professional development have been as well as the process for selecting a curriculum.

Alyssa, you want to? Yeah.

Good evening. Thank you guys for letting me speak about health education, which I value so much. Um, so we we've had a lot to take on with this grant. I think, you know, starting three years ago, um, with kind of inconsistency in health education in middle school, um, you know, compared to the high school with very veteran teachers along with, you know, the new frameworks that is a very different structure than the, um, traditional frameworks, um, that, uh, Desi had. Um so kind of taking that shift in health education and then building what we had developing new and then moving forward was really important. Um and I think this grant provided the opportunity for the leadership in that um where the coordinator was able to really take all the tasks and the goals organize them and get them done. So I'm excited to share the the work that the health team has done in the past two years. Okay. So, our first kind of goal um was developing a scope and sequence um and then changing also our assessments to not just a knowledge base but a functional knowledge base um assessments where kids are developing skills. Right? There's seven main skills that are outlined in the new frameworks. How do we assess them? What do we look for during assessment? and is that aligned sixth through eighth I'm sorry sixth through high school. Um so we took a lot of time working on vertical alignment. Um this is just an example our decision making is the first skill that's outlined in the new frameworks. So taking what does it look like when we make a decision right? So by the end of 8th grade a goal right that end of grade outcome would be that they use a decision model um decide model which is a graphic organizer where they choose a

specific decision kind of go through options navigate positive and negatives and then um are able to um come up with a decision at the high school level and I kind of we talk about this in 8th grade we remove that kind of graphic organizer right their thoughts should be when I read a scenario am I able to work through the decide model. I can obviously make notes and you can write down those things, but we're looking at the this skill as something that is more independent and then really driving the reflection like why was this important to me? What values do I have that guide those decisions? Um so yeah a lot of the time was spent kind of breaking down each of the skills um and collaborating and creating vertical alignment from 6th through 8th grade which is really great and um we are able to develop you know skill-based assessments aligned with clear scoring criteria in jump rope which is not anything we had two years ago which is really really skill-based driven assessments which is really great. Oops. Um I just want to speak to our opportunity to work with Lighthouse. They are the best. They know a lot about um you know this new framework. Holly worked uh who works sorry Holly Hern is the person that works and owns Lighthouse. She worked with the Department of Education to develop the new frameworks. So when we went to professional development, we were talking to the person that really knew what to do when switching to this um new framework. Um so our PD sessions working with them, assessment and health education, humanizing pedigogy strategies and health education. Um dedicated consulting time, she really worked with us and looked at our scope and sequence and helped build out what it looked like. Um and then some of our you know

professional development that's coming in is trauma informed strategies in health education. I really want to shine a light the topics that we cover in health education are can be you know traumatic and triggering for students. So approaching those conversations with students provides them the opportunity to learn and also be feel safe while learning them. Um and then access to health education, designing health health education for students with disabilities. Um we've had an opportunity um specifically at Collins Middle School that we work with students in an adaptive health space. Um, and I think at this point we're going to take kind of what we've done with, you know, health education and adapt it and scaffold it to do um a vertical alignment with um students with disabilities, which I'm really excited about. This goes faster than me. Okay, so our curriculum selection, it took a while, we did it. Um we looked at uh Department of Education put out a curriculum guide um last year and then an update in July. Um and so in consideration a lot of the curriculum that was outlined in the guide was very organized and easy to read which took a good portion of our work out of kind of guessing who do we go with, right? So a lot of our um work that we did, our evaluation process included meeting with sales representatives. We did a lot of lesson comparisons. So we utilized um opportunities for like 90-day, you know, subscriptions and then really pinpointed, right, outlined two different lessons from each and then decided which would be best from a lens of um what we were looking for. reviewing each uh curriculum through a lens of equity, inclusion, and

sustainability financially um which is important. And then we decided on health smart um health we felt like it was best aligned with our priorities. Um it includes inclusive language, examples of a diverse relationships and lessons on respect um and identity to create health curriculum intent to support all students which is really really important to us. Um, I got you. Yeah. Okay, we'll go back. I'm going to come back, but we'll talk about our next Thank you.

Thank you. Actually, we're going to reverse a little bit and talk a little bit about supporting mental health. So, the grant also um helps to support our our mental health initiative through cartwheel. um for the last two years this grant has uh fully funded Salem public schools portion of our cartwwell contract. So for those for you who might be new that's our telebehavioral health partner who provides rapid access to um uh therapy and therapeutic services for students. Um they're able to provide those services in multilang languages um multi-race therapists. um they've been a great partner and so this grant has um funded uh sale public schools portion. What I want to highlight here is some really great emerging data coming out of our partnership with cartwheel and this is just sort of scratching the surface. We were able to work with our partners at Cartwheel to crunch the numbers and what we're seeing is some pretty significant numbers. reduction in chronic absenteeism for our students who um receive cartwheel services as well as a reduction in suspension. Um and so that this is really just initial findings. We're also working with the Brooklyn Center who co-unds the partnership. They um are working with the Department of Public Health on a giant um DPH grant to provide telebehavioral health services. They are also doing a multi-year study to be able to really look at impact. Um, and so we hope to come back at some point to talk to the committee about those studies when we have more information, but we're seeing some really exciting preliminary data. Youth Voice is um been supported through this grant as well, and I'm representing Taylor McDonald's work tonight. Um, we're really excited to have Taylor um her work has been moved into the student support department and so um I really see it as a nice fit um with the student supports um and the youth voice. Many of you have already heard about our um YPAR work, our youth voice participation

action research. And so um there are really three cycles. A lot of this work is happening during the out of school time. Um but students right now are in cycle two. Cycle one is where they establish trusting relationships. They really estab uh they they sort of find their community. Cycle two is where they are able to look at a problem of practice, something that's really impacting them, start doing the research and find the data, look at root cause, and then they get to take action. So many of you have been at our um youth summit, our student voice summit. Um this year it will be at Sultenall on May 21st. So you'll be hearing about that later on this spring, but we're excited to be able to hear um about what the research our kids have been doing. Um, many Taylor tells me many of the topics have been SEAL related. I think the kids at Collins are looking at how do we increase seat time for kids around academic learning. Um, couple of the schools are grappling with how do we help settle conflict on the playground. Um, New Liberty is continuing their work on homelessness in the community. So there's there's they're they're grappling with real things that and we need to start really listening to our kids and figuring out how we're going to incorporate that work during the school day into the structures. So expect an invite on the youth voice work. The inter the grant also provides funding support for our youth voice 21C internship. And so we have high school interns in our 21C programs. So, our afterchool programs um and they are acting as group leaders. Um Alyssa is our coordinator for our 21C high school interns and so she also provides mentorship um and guidance. We right now we have 12 high school students uh actually during the summer we had 12 high school students during the summer programs. Um they were they were able to

get some observation and coaching and feedback um as as well as had some time for post-secary planning and and networking opportunities. Right now we have 10 high school interns um in four of our out of schooltime programs and our third through eight grades three through eight. They get their monthly workshops, get coaching and feedback um and the post-secondary planning. And I think one of the biggest pieces of information that I want to share is that right now we have six alumni from this program currently employed in our afterchool programs as group leaders. So it's really pipeline work that we're talking about. Um, and we have one of our current interns who's been hired for the summer at the Y at the Y. So, when we talk about really going upstream and finding the kids who we want to be teaching our kids in the future, this is the kind of work that we need to be looking at and it's it's exciting. The last thing we want to share, I'm going to invite Alyssa back up um because she is leading a youth voice health academy coming up. Um I just want to share this really exciting opportunity. Um I don't think that this is often an opportunity for students. I think when we look at wellness, you know, many understand wellness and health, what comes at a cost with a gym membership in our adult life. So kind of transitioning wellness and having kids understand the spectrum and what it looks like and how to invest in a young age making this skill really important as into an adulthood. Um, so our goal, um, it's primarily a project-based learning kind of activity, um, support group where, um, we're going to have the ability to connect. Students will explore all areas of health, um, and learn how to strive for overall wellness. Um, so they'll participate in fitness classes, um, nutrition and cooking, strategies for emotional regulation, um, and connect

with peers to promote positive change and health and wellness. Our goal is for them to take the opportunity to really assess what they've learned, analyze what they learned, and then create um a survey for students to give feedback on how we can utilize more uh opportunities for wellness in their day. Um I think again I'm going to talk about Collins Middle School, I'm most familiar with, but um what does it look like? We have a fitness center. How can we utilize that more in our in our day? um how does health education is it just pigeon hole to health education or can we do more nutrition can we do more um opportunities for yoga right so there's a big spectrum there um and I think there's a lot of opportunity um and it's really important for students to experience this but then also get feedback and buyin from their community to build up wellness throughout the whole thing so I'm really excited for this um believe that's

questions any questions I will open it up to members. Any questions?

Member stop.

Thank you very much for the presentation. I um I hear a lot about these programs from my Collins Middle School student that I have, but it's great to see the data behind it as well and hear about the additional stuff that's being added. Um I had one question on the chart for the cartwheel update. Um just want to make sure like our contract usage how does that work because I see like 107 remaining. Is that like for a long term or are we just not having people utilize the service or so when I um did that slide it was be it was right before February break. So we already have had a month and I probably should have gotten the usage date but we've already um we're already we have 200 referrals by the end of June 30th. So we're actually right on track for our contract usage. Um, and I'm I'd be happy to get that to you by the end of the committee meeting. Um, in terms of how many we've used so far to date, I think when I did that slide, it was like February 12th.

Uh, I'm curious if I may ask like how are those is it facilitated like who gets to utilize one of those um I guess sessions, you know, like is it through a connects coordinator or a counselor, a referral situation, or can a parent or family or student ask?

I'm really glad you asked that actually. Um so it can be a couple of different ways. We originally started um and we provided the information to our school adjustment counselors and our city connects coordinators. So um primarily it's it's that that's that base. It's the it's a it's those folks who are identifying families and offering it to families. Starting last July June July was it Chris? Because Chris Chris helped me get it out there. We have a family interest form. So if a family wants to selfidentify, we have a way to do that. And so we have put that out and every time we put it out we get a surge of family to that says raises their hand and say we want we want in and so we help facilitate that for them as well. It's an insurance-based um service and so um but it's very convenient and it is very quick and we are able to find therapists for kids um who match the family's um sort of wishes pretty quickly. Um and so they also are insurance blind. Um if there are families that are underinsured or don't have insurance at all, uh we have proono cases based on our cartwheel contract. So um so families can raise their hand, students can raise their hand, although we don't have a form necessarily for students to use. Um but they're able to say, "Hey, I need some help." And cartwheel would be one of our first go-to if telebehavioral health is their thing. It's not everybody's thing. We have amazing partners in our community for inerson and we utilize them all the time, too. Um so um a couple of different ways.

Does that answer your question?

It does. If I may just one more follow up with that. So um great to hear that you know they could put their hand up. um curious of is it enough? Like if we were constantly kind of selling this program, making students aware of this program because I think doing that removes a lot of stigma around programs like this and we really should be advocating for it or making it um available and awareness of the program. Would we need more contractal contract seats for it or or licenses or however the contract usage works? Yeah, I I think we could look at it when we uh the first two years that we contracted uh we contracted for 250 and we just barely made that number and so I I wasn't willing to say let's we went down to 200 first of all because that's what we could afford but also because we weren't necessarily reaching the 250 mark um even with aggressive sort of recruitment for it. That was before we put out the family interest form before that was established. Um, so you know, it's it's as much as we can afford right now because it's grant funded. Um, I think we're going to have to get really creative if we want to extend the contract beyond um, June 30th. We're going to have to be seeking grants and and other places. So, we're keeping our ears out all the time. Um, Chris and I will connect and we'll, you know, our hope is that we're, you know, the first of the month we're putting that family interest form back on the socials and we're getting it out in newsletters and things like that and that that may, you know, we may be able to get more referrals that way, but I think we're probably on track to just meet our contract.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Member Miranda, thank you so much um for all that's gone into this work, the the whole team. Uh can you just speak a little bit about the funding uh aspect? I'm I'm a little bit confused because I'm hearing that they accept insurance, but then I'm also hearing that we're using the grant to kind of fund this. So, is there double dipping that's happening or or what's happening there?

No, the the contract is um with the contract, we have a a Salem specific team, a case manager who works with us to partner around um access and case management. it um it provides the rapid access to so it provides the extra funds that cartwheel needs to be able to recruit and pay I think therapists at a rate um probably differently than um other organizations who are just based on on insurance. So yes, it uses the family insurance um but our contract alongside um Brookline Center uh provides the professional development, the um parent workshops, the monthly if not bimonthly parent workshops. Um we have uh at our disposal um consultation around psychiatric issues. So if there's a case that comes to me that we're sort of worried about, not quite sure, I can call and have uh consultation immediately. So there's some extra things around it and not just the the therapy. Um I also think that the the model that they have especially for our youngest learners um around parent guidance they don't do individual telebehavioral health with kids under third grade with a few exceptions but but they do provide parent guidance um to parents to be able to help support parents in the process of parenting their child through social emotional you know issues. No m

um to that I guess I'm I'm curious and maybe for another time, but I'm curious about um what kind of like a autonomy or um ability we would have to kind of see what it is that the community is saying that they want and potentially have like parent um parent workshops here like in in the schools and things like that. So I'm just curious about that. Um, and then I'm also I have two more questions. Wondering if there's a list uh of providers in the area that we provide to families that are interested um in therapy. And then the second question is, are the interns in the 21C program being paid a stipend or anything like that through the grant?

Okay. So, I I'll take the first one and I think Alyssa can help me. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Um All right. So the first question was do we provide a list to families there? I I think that there is a list that I probably should look at um on our website. Um the approach that we take is that when families need something, we talk to them about what their needs are and help match them with the right organization. And that could be based on insurance. It could be be based on um availability of therapist. Um it really depends. We try and personalize that approach. Um, we, you know, I don't think we just say here family, here's a list of places. I think we know our community organizations pretty well. Um, and I happened to have visited a few recently to because I hadn't visited them before. Um, and to be able to say like this might be a good match for you. We know the organizations that take Mass Health and we know the organizations that don't take Mass Health. We know the organizations that have bilingual therapists and we know the organizations that don't. And so, you know, we we have to make sure that we can serve our kids. Um so, and you know, individualize that approach. So, does that make sense? And then I'm gonna back out and give the question.

That's a quick one. Yeah. Um the the uh interns are paid a stipent. Um that's true for lots of interns across our system and it's a $16 an hour wage, which is just slightly higher than minimum wage. So, yeah. Thank you. Member Hoffman. Yeah, I don't have a question. I just want to say thank you

because all the work that you do has helped my family and other families that I know and it has really taken down the stigma of mental health. Um, I see that talking to my son's friends, to other families in the community. It's just, it is so important and it's so valuable and I just appreciate you for taking this on because as a parent and when I needed cartwheel, you offered that. It was offered to me and it was a great help for us during a hard time. Um, and I think that families should be confident that they can call. And I know kids can also reach out, right? Isn't there a a number you have that they can or one of my friends kids would tell me about it. I don't know about it. So, this might be new to you, too. But apparently they texted or called and said that their friend was having trouble.

Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. somebody came important and it's something that right now um in society we need um because we need to rely in on community to help us through these hard times and starting at this young age of students to get them confident with you know this is just something you go through like it's okay we got your back like it's hugely important and it's it's a passion of mine and I hope we always find a way to fund this And it should just I don't know. You're doing a great job. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Well, it is a community effort. This isn't a this is this is a we have a committee full of people who are care about kids at their core. And so, um we're just trying to make it work. So, thank you. Member Crow. Um I echo everything that member Hoffman says. Thank you all so much for all the work you do. Um, I have just one question about data. Um, just when I'm thinking about which of our most vulnerable kids and families are accessing the services that we have. So, I'm just wondering if if Cartwheel can provide us some data about the demographics of folks who are using our the services that we're offering.

Yep. I can actually um I have that data at my fingertips. We have a dashboard where I'm able to break down the demographic data um pretty quickly. All right. I would love to see. Thank you. No problem. Can I ask about um Lighthouse? So, this was the the um came from the the list recommended by the state and like how did you select them to be Yeah, Lighthouse and I I also I kept bringing these guys up again. Lighthouse and then Walker School are the two vendors that the department um chose as vendors to help support the work. So, Walker is helping us support around newcomers and students with um experiencing homelessness. and lighthouse is help is supporting the comprehensive health and PE. Do you want to say anything else about that Walker? I mean

Lighthouse Lighthouse. Yeah, it was recommended through Department of I think that they they had a vendor process and pretty much chose it for us. Yeah. All right. Thank you all very much. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, team. Um, yeah. Well, um, I'll turn over to Elizabeth first and then I'll do Okay. Do you want to go? Uh, sure.

Um, good evening. I have two items tonight. The first is a budget transfer request, which there is a brief memo in your packet. Um, as you'll recall, this request of $3,594 is below the threshold of $15,000 where we can post the transfer um before coming to the school committee for approval. However, because this is moving funds from non-personnel to personnel, we always bring that to the committee. So, New Liberty has asked to move $3,594 from its contracted services to its stipen line to provide end ofear stipens for its staff. So, I offer that to you for consideration. That is the budget transfer memo. Um, I'm happy to take questions about that. or I can continue on with my

continue on.

Okay. Uh, also on the agenda, I wanted to share a brief update on our budget development process. Since our last meeting on February 9th as a full committee, we've had three um public budget forums. We had one on February 11th that was online and we had over 50 people um log on to participate. We had another on February 26th that was for staff of the Salem public schools and we had over 40 staff members participate and the most recent and final budget forum was held on Monday evening at the high school in person. Uh it was smaller um than the other two. We had about 10 to 12 people in attendance. Um, we did provide translation at all of these forums and for the in-person forum, we had child care available. We've also made presentations to the special ed parent advisory committee, the English language parent advisory committee, the superintendent's parent advisory committee, the student advisory committee, and the superintendent met with his teacher advisory committee on Thursday. So, this is all in service to ensuring a robust community engagement in the conversation about what we prioritize for next year's budget. We're in the process of compiling the questions that were posed at each of these forums, which we will respond to and then post um so that anyone who wasn't available to participate in the forums can at least read some of the questions that were asked. and we're still accepting questions, comments, and feedback at spbudgetsalemk12.org. So, uh, for just two more minutes, I'll share that we are now, in addition to compiling the questions and responses, we are preparing for a final round of

meetings. We have a finance subcommittee meeting scheduled for um the 18th, which is next week. We have a final conversation with um principles and department heads scheduled for the 19th to get even more uh input and conversation about what will be in next year's budget. We will present a proposal to you on April 6th at our regular meeting and we will hold our budget hearing um for the public on Monday, April 13th. And at that meeting, one of the questions that came up was, "What should the public expect at the budget hearing?" And so at that hearing, typically we make a very brief presentation responding to any questions that come up between the April 6th presentation and the 13th budget hearing. And then we leave the um podium open for public comment, questions, and feedback. So um that is my brief update. and both uh Deputy Superintendent Carboni, Superintendent Reich and I, we are all available for questions, conversations, and we do encourage um input again at SPS budgetsk.org. And that is my update. Thank you.

Any questions? Budget? No. No. Great.

Okay. um MSBA. Uh just just as a note to the committee, what what we've decided to do is alternate school committee meetings. One meeting a month would we'd have an update on the merger between Carlton and Salt and Stall and the other would be MSBA updates. Um I do just want to make a note about the the merger. I I have a meeting uh with Spanish-sp speakaking families at the two schools this Thursday to answer questions that uh the families may have. um Laura and her team have organized. So, it'll be a Spanish-sp speakaking meeting with families who may have outstanding questions about um all aspects related to the merger. Uh the MSBA update, I think the biggest thing to note is the mayor I uh has shared this in some of his communication that um on Wednesday, February 25th, the MSBA board voted to approve the Salem High School project to replace the existing high school. Um that's a big step in the process. Uh so all systems are go um with um the next step regarding is the debt exclusion vote to fund the project um and um which will is scheduled for May 5th, 2026. There is a U building committee meeting on March 19th from 6:00 to 8 in the school committee chambers and then the next one after that is April 16th. There's a lot of community dialogue and uh meetings that are upcoming um including uh design day. There'll be a big um uh team who will be talking about the new high school at design day, but then a series of other community events that the mayor and other members of the building committee will be uh present at to answer questions and share information about the new project. I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

That covers it.

Um I'll just roll into design day, which I want to remind folks that was cancelled due to snow. We are back on for this Saturday. Uh we're hoping everybody can be there from 11 to 2 at Collins Middle School. It's a very interactive day. We'll have child care. It is not a stand and deliver presentation, I can assure you. Very interactive, dynamic people moving from station to station, dropping ideas um that they have um about what the future of schools can be um for in the Salem public schools. We hope you can join us. Uh we really encourage students to come and if students come they will get a civic engagement certificate that they can put on their resume and they have to be here at least two hours to earn that. Um and but it's open to parents, staff and students and we hope to see we a we hope there's no snow.

Mayor, can you promise me that? Okay, we're all done. And then number two, um you know that uh that uh yeah it'll be uh again from 11 to one and we hope to see oh sorry 11 to two we hope to see everybody there this weekend and then hopefully Rudon Salem High School basketball in the championship of uh division 3 later that evening. So um I think you have a hand raised over there mayor a pinky raised over there. Yeah.

Dr. Strike isn't going to like this but I'm going to say it anyway. Um we are scheduling some um celebratory um farewell moments for our esteemed leader and we thought we've heard from so many committee uh community members u wanting to say farewell to Dr. Zurich and we thought that um the design day was a great opportunity for that. So we're going to have a big cake um with his photo on it. Um we're going to have a poster where um people can leave messages. they can come have a piece of cake, shake his hand, and say whatever uh parting words they would like to him, and then they can go in and they can enjoy

um they can enjoy design day. So, we thought I just wanted to say that to the community um who might be watching tonight. We did send out a notification on Parent Square about that today. Um and we'll be doing something different for staff. Um more to come on that. Um, but I did want to mention that uh to the community.

What if Nichols? I have no idea. I know me.

Yeah. Yeah. He's like angry. If cake will get people there, sure, there'll be cake there. Um, all right. Uh, last uh the last thing I want to share is um I do want to wish the Salem High School basketball team best of luck tomorrow night as they move on to the playoffs. And I also want to shout out to Alexia Coleman who was second in New England um in wrestling. Major major accomplishment. Um and uh maybe we could bring her to a future. She's already been to the school committee once this year, but um I do just want to uh shout out there isn't a a better representative of the Salem public schools. And um and I we also should uh also shout out Grant Dwire as well who um had all kinds of swimming accolades this uh this year as well. So we want to make sure we acknowledge our our students are doing great things both uh on the on the sports field but I and then of course our uh drama program is moving on in the competition in I think it's called the Massachusetts what is it called? The Massachusetts uh

M MSCF. Yes. It's a short play. I got a chance to see a sneak preview. It was fabulous. Um and uh they they uh were awarded or they're moving on in the competition which I think is this weekend as well. Am I right about that, Chris? Believe it's March 14. Yes, I think it's this weekend as well. They're moving on to the next round of the drama competition. So, um did I leave anything out? Okay. There's just too much to celebrate. Um so, with that, turn it back over to you, Mayor. Thanks. Um, next item on our agenda are subcommittee reports. Do we have any reports from subcommittees? Member Miranda.

I don't have a subcommittee report, but um, just in terms of the superintendent evaluation, are we skipping that? Oh, uh, I I just that's what I shared with you. This this document. Okay, got it. I don't know if there was going to be an update from the vice chair on that or if we're Sure. I've collected almost everyone's evaluations and um the plan is to present those at our at uh the superintendent's final meeting. Sorry. Thank you. You're welcome. So you can something to build on for your

any other subcommittee reports? Seeing none. All right. Uh we'll move to the next item on the agenda which is the superintendent search. Hope that there's a just a couple of quick slides for folks at home to see. So, I appreciate there's been a lot of interest in questions around what uh what the process is going to be moving forward. And there's a series of um steps that we're going to outline uh this evening for the community. Uh we will be um setting up a separate page on the website salemk12.org/arch org/arch uh where this information and links to information relevant to the search process will live so people will be able to identify it. Um I want to let folks know that we are planning to take advantage of the strength of the district. We've heard a lot about the celebrations, uh, the achievements, the the strong position that we're in to try to move, uh, in a relatively, um, quick fashion to be able to find the next leader for Salem Public Schools before the start of next school year. Um, so the search process outlined here um, takes us through the summer uh, with the goal of having a new superintendent in place for the start of the school year. Uh, briefly, I'll I'll run through this. So at tonight's meeting uh we are going to discuss the appointment of the interim superintendent and deputy superintendent, the formation of an ad hoc subcommittee of the school committee members to provide the support and logistical work for the process um and the establishment of a screening committee to evaluate the applicants um but not the appointment of members of that screening committee. And then we will also designate a search consultant. Um, the search consultant that's being proposed is the Collins Center for Public Management. They were the same search consultant that was used by the district in 2019. They're affiliated with UMass Boston. They have uh a history with the district and with the

position. Um, and they've provided a proposal and a scope of services that have been uh that are included in the packet of materials that were uh with the meeting agenda. Um throughout the month of March, the ad hoc uh subcommittee would finalize the constitution of the um of the screening committee uh and open up applications and review those applications. The school committee at our March 23rd meeting will approve the what's called the position profile of the job description. A copy of the 2019 job description is also in the materials. uh the ad hoc subcommittee will work with the with the uh search consultant to refine that uh in time for the committee to take a vote on it on the 23rd uh with the goal of posting the position by the end of March. The uh at the April 6th school committee meeting, the screening committee members would be appointed by the full school committee. Um the number of members on the screening committee is going to be um a topic of discussion for the ad hoc subcommittee. uh to help establish but the search consultant's recommendation is given the shorter nature of this search that it not be a very overly large uh screening committee uh a midappril application deadline for the position uh and then the screening committee will conduct its work midappril through midmay uh with midmay being the target for the recommendation of finalists and midmay through mid June the finalist forums and um community um meetings so that by the end of June the committee could select the next superintendent and proceed with onboarding and contract negotiations over the summer with a target started in August. Um the search consultants also proposed some preliminary um survey uh work early in the process to help the the screening committee evaluate the the applicants against both the feedback from the community from those uh that survey process and the uh pro position

profile approved by the school committee. So this is just a summary of the votes that are also appear in the agenda, but uh these are the actions for this evening's meeting and discussion, but I'm happy to go back to the overall calendar and timetable if if there's any questions or committee members want to discuss that. All right, member S.

Thanks. I I can't let it go without saying I I think this is a tight timeline. When I first saw it, I want to be transparent that I was concerned that this was quick. Um but I am confident that we'll be able to meet these dates. I just want to make sure that we are able to um be transparent with the public, make sure everyone is up to date. It's great to hear that there's going to be that website created. Um, and I know that everybody wants to hit the ground running with this. Um, and I think if we hit all of these dates and get qualified candidates and everything is perfect, that will be amazing. Um, but I know that it's going to be very difficult. So, I I guess I'm preemptively thanking everyone for their work that is going to be going into this search process because it is again a very aggressive timeline. And it's not that we don't have anything else going on here in the city. You know, we all have free time on our hands. Um, so I I just feel like it had to be said that it it is a a a quicker timeline than has been completed in the past, but I do think um it makes the most sense and I am hopeful that um we'll be able to hit it all.

Yeah, I I'll just respond by acknowledging it is a quick timeline. I think everyone recognizes it. Um, but I I do believe that, you know, we're in a position to be able to attract candidates now that will hopefully allow us to um have a successful search. It's worth um making the effort rather than waiting a full year and a half um and losing on that. I would also add, you know, we've, you know, there is a lot happening as you said, member Scott. We've got the high school project, the consolidation, the relocation of New Liberty School, the start of the new strategic plan, the expansion of dual language. I know, right? Everyone's freaking out now. Um, but it doesn't feel like work that really is should be the work of an interim superintendent. Like, that's something that we want someone to have ownership of for many years to come. So, um, my hope is that we're able to find that leader for the district to to build on the the strong foundation that Dr. Zich has left behind for us.

Member Cornell. And for community members who were not um part of the district or kids were young when um the search process was happening the last time for Dr. Reich um those of us who were pretty intimate, you know, following that process or intimately involved with that process. Um I think mo those of us who are part of it really know um how well the Collins instit institute center

center the Collins center manages these kinds of uh hiring uh processes and there's a lot of community engagement from a variety of stakeholders. Um and that's just part of why you have a search firm and to help you manage that. So that's not the the search itself is sort of guided by school committee but really owned by the search firm who helps to engage all community stakeholders uh so that the stakeholders can inform the school committee of uh you know what their values are and and who they like and um you know we get all that information uh via the search firm

and which um reminds me we do have Bill Lupini from the Colin Center is um in on Zoom with us I believe still. So, um, if there are questions about the scope or about the Collins Center, he's able to answer them tonight or if members want to reach out to him directly, I can provide your contact his contact information to you as well. Okay. Um, so we'll move on to section nine of the agenda, which is the motions and resolutions. Um in our our first kind of two steps in this process are the appointment of a interim superintendent for the remainder of this school year. And um I want to thank and and recognize our deputy superintendent Kate Carboni and Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Polly who have been um really critical parts of the uh leadership team for this district for so many years. Um and um I I I could not think of anybody um more ready to step up on such a short notice um and help us see see through the end of the school year uh than the deputy superintendent and assistant superintendent certainly. So, um I will entertain a motion to appoint uh the deputy superintendent as the interim superintendent and ratify um a contract amendment for the interim superintendent's position.

Are you going to read?

Yeah. Um, so the amendment to the contract agreement for the deputy superintendent to be the interim superintendent uh effective March 27th, 2026 through July 31st, 2026, at which point um, Miss Carboni shall return to the position of deputy superintendent unless the parties agree to an extension of the agreement. Um the Miss Carboni subject to the supervision and direction of the school committee shall perform faithfully to the best of her ability the duties of interim su superintendent for the term uh and shall receive an annual annualized salary of 245,000 prrated upon execution of the agreement um as of August 1st. Miss Carbon shall be paid in accordance with the terms of the original contract. So this is um the first two votes which is appointment of the interim superintendent and ratification of the contract and um I'll take motions and then open for discussion.

Uh motion to uh appoint deputy superintendent Kay Carboni uh as interim superintendent and to ratify uh the interim superintendent contract. I'll second. Thank you. Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Miranda. Under discussion, discussion.

Seeing no discussion. Uh, all in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. The matter carries unanimous. Congratulations. Well, thank you. Yeah. Well, good luck. Thank you.

You say thanks, Steve. just handed this to you. Um, our next uh two votes is an appointment of the interim deputy superintendent and ratification of the interim deputy superintendent's contract. Um, this uh contract is an amendment to the a memorandum agreement of amendment to the contract with Miss Elizabeth Py. Um the superintendent of schools and the school committee employee Elizabeth Polly is the interim dup deputy superintendent uh for a period of time from March 27th 2026 to July 31st 2026 as of August 1st 2026. Miss Polly shall return to the position of assistant superintendent for finance and operations unless the parties mutually agree to extend the amendment. Um, subject to the supervision and direction of the superintendent, Miss Polly shall faithfully to the best of her ability, uh, serve the duties of the interim deputy superintendent for the term of this agreement and shall receive an annualized salary of 205,000 prrated to the start date upon execution of the agreement.

So moved. Second. Motion by member Miranda, seconded by member Cornell. under discussion. Seeing no discussion, all in favor by show of hands. Any opposed? None opposed. The matter carries unanimously. Thank you, interim deputy superintendent. Thank you. Yes.

Can I just I I do just want to say that we are very much looking forward to serving in these roles. We've already started to transition. I want to thank, you know, Dr. is right because he leaves us in such an exceptional um position where you know things are um moving along and um he's really really leaves us on solid footing. Um and so um you know big shoes to follow for sure. Um but we will do this in uh collaboration as a team together with our principles um with department heads um both on the teaching and learning side and the operational side. And I really believe together as a team we can move this district forward. Um as um and our our number one goal and I just keep reminding myself of this is to ensure that all students and staff have a smooth, productive and joyful end of the school year. It's three months. We want to make sure that um those three things happen. And we're going to you know we know that there are some big projects that we have to manage during that time. the budget, the merger planning for the Sarah Parker Raman school. We have MCCAST coming up. We've got the dual language expansion. We're planning for um summits this summer with those teachers and then we have some negotiations coming up. But I do, you know, Drs. Wright kept us at the table. Um we've learned under his leadership and I feel like we are ready and up for the task. So I want to thank the committee for entrusting us um to do this work, this important work. Thank you.

Thank you. Um our next motion and resolution is on the formation of the ad hoc superintendent search subcommittee. So uh this would be a vote to form the committee and then the appointment is at the discretion of the chair. Is there a motion? Uh motion to approve.

Second. Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Miranda. Under discussion, seeing no discussion. All in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. The matter carries unanimously. Um, and I uh would like to appoint members Bias, Hoffman, and Miranda to the subcommittee if they're so willing to serve. Okay. Um our next item is a formation of the superintendent screening committee. Uh the specific number of screening committee members and the process for selecting them is um going to be at the recommendation of the ad hoc committee. But uh this is a vote to at least establish it and charge it with the with the responsibility of screening the applicants uh for the selection of finalists for the for the committee's consideration.

Motion to approve. I second. All right. Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Bias. Under discussion, seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? No. None opposed. The matter carries unanimously. Uh and the last item on motions and resolutions for the superintendent search for this evening is the retention of the Collins Center for Public Management as a search consultant. uh the scope and contract from the call center were provided to the committee members. Um so if there is a motion to approve that uh selection motion to approve. I'll second.

Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Miranda under discussion. Y I think they did a pretty good job last time considering so. Thank you. Seeing nothing else, no other comments or questions. All in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. The matter carries unanimously. The next item under motions and resolutions, the naming of the Salt and Stall Carlton building to the Sarah Parker Ramon Innovation School. Motion to approve.

Yeah. I wanted to ask if we could have a discussion before a motion, but I don't know if that's make a second and then we can go to discussion. So, what is the motion for? The motion is for third reading. Okay. And then during that we can discuss. Yeah. Okay. I'll second. Okay. Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Miranda. Under discussion.

Okay. Uh thank you. Um I just have a a brief um statement here. Um so I just wanted to start by saying that I appreciate that we've had three readings um to make this decision um and to reflect and adjust along the way. Uh during the second reading it was brought up that we should add innovation to the name um and I voted uh to do so but after taking some time thinking about it I've changed my view and so just wanted to identify for this body um two concerns. One is that I worry that adding innovation sends a signal that this school is somehow better than the others. As a district, we're piloting innovation across all of our schools. And we already see that work happening in Collins Middle School, Forest Man, other elementary schools that don't have innovation in the name. And um our innovation committee is doing work um uh to talk about innovation in the district. Uh so please come Saturday, March 14th, 11 to 2 at Collins um for design day. Um, the second concern that I have is I really truly believe that adding innovation takes away from the purpose of this renaming, which is to honor Sarah Parker Raymon. Um, over time, long names often get shortened. Uh, and I don't want the school to end up being called simply the innovation school. I feel strongly that innovation status is a governance structure. It doesn't require the word to be in the name and school models may evolve over time but Sarah Parker Ramon's legacy will remain meaningful for generations. For those reason reasons for the third reading uh I support naming the school simply the Sarah Parker Raymon School.

Okay.

Member Cornell. I was thinking about this when we did the second read as well. Um I think I think for me one thing that is significant is that innovation status is not a permanent status. We vote on that every few years. And so, um, despite the fact that we have three innovation schools and I don't think it makes sense to go back and change the names of, uh, New Liberty Innovation School or or Bentley, um, it may be the right time to stop institutionalizing the word innovation in a building name because it's not permanent. Um, and that's a designation that we vote on. um and we could, you know, perhaps we don't vote on that in the future or perhaps we decide we're just an innovative district and we're not going to rely on innovation status anymore. So, um sort of the more that I've thought about that, again, I don't think it's worth going back and renaming other schools, but going forward, I I don't necessarily think it makes a lot of governance sense to institutionalize the word innovation, even though it is in fact uh a a designated innovation school. It's just a particular status. So, um I sort of feel similarly and I would be um I'm interested to hear what other members think, but I um would be willing to make a friendly amendment back to the original um proposition that we had.

Any further discussion? Member Hoffman,

I just wanted to clarify one thing because the last meeting we talked about um school names getting shortened, but I wanted to like uh after thinking about it and when you're writing the name of a school and a proposer or like a letter to the school like it should be the full name of the school and then throughout the the written words you could use the abbreviations for. I just didn't want people to think they couldn't shorten. They had to write out for every school whatever. It was just brought to my attention that that was a lot for us to ask. So, I would like to clarify that that's not the intent is to always use it as the name head and then you can use the abbreviations as you continue to talk.

Make a motion to amend. Do do I guidance on how to do that? Just make a motion to amend the name. Okay. So, I'd like to make a motion that we amend uh to name the school the Sarah Parker Raymon School. I'll second. Okay. On the amendment to third reading under discussion. Motion was made by member Miranda, seconded by member Cornell. Member Sto. I just just a clarifying question because we third time the first time the word elementary was in there the second time the word innovation was in there so this time are we not having any word in there we're just having Sarah Parker school is that the motion yes okay

any further discussion on the amendment third reading okay this is on a vote on the amendment to strike the word innovation for the name all in favor favor. Any opposed? The motion on the amendment carries unanimously. Um on the motion to approve the name for third reading Sarah Parker Raymond School. All in favor? Any opposed? The matter carries unanimously. And I just want to thank and recognize the the members of the family who are also in attendance virtually uh for being with us this evening and for uh joining us on this journey. Uh next item on motions and resolutions is relocation of the new Liberty Innovation School. Uh is there a motion?

Motion to approve. This is a motion to relocate the new Liberty Innovation School for the 2026 2027 school year to the building at 10 Scary Street, the Carlton School Building. Is there a second? Okay. Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Hoffman. Under discussion? Seeing none. All in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. The matter carries unanimously. uh on the relocation of Salem Prep High School. Motion to approve. Uh second.

Right. A motion to relocate the Salem Prep High School for the 2026 2027 school year to 10th Scary Street, the Carlton School Building. Motion made by member Cornell. Seconded by member Hoffman. Under discussion. See? Oh yeah. Member Miranda. Just wanted to ask, do we have it on our calendar to discuss this at some point? discuss further or not. We do. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions or comments? Seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. The matter carries unanimously. Uh final motion resolution is the budget transfer request. Motion to approve.

Motion made by member Cornell, seconded by member Hoffman. Under discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. The matter carries unanimously. Um item on the agenda, newsletter items.

Uh I just wanted to propose from this meeting uh that we update the community about uh the third read on the Sarah Parker Raman school. uh update folks on the improvements to graduation and dropout rates, updates on the process and timeline for the interim superintendent, uh I'm sorry, for the superintendent, and an announcement about the interim superintendent and interim deputy superintendent. Uh if there's anything that folks think we should add for today. Yeah, Dr. Z. Yeah, I know it's on my newsletter, but I might suggest adding the new Liberty and Salem Prep information to that. I'm sorry, I did have that. I just skipped it. Yep. Thank you.

Anything else in the newsletter? All right. Uh announcements, member Miranda.

Uh thank you. I just wanted to highlight uh that I had the opportunity to attend a meeting with the administration and educator leaders about creating a school community safety team. as some other districts um either have already or are in the process of creating as well. And so I'll just briefly um explain what that means. Uh creating a school safety team is a first step to bringing more people into uh this collective work, which I'll dig into in a second. um and ensuring that our students and families feel supported. Uh when we're talking about some of uh the fear that people are living in each day, um students and families. Uh and so creating a safe school and learning environment is obviously critical and we're so lucky to have the educators that we have um that are interested in in um organizing around this effort. So, um, the school safety team's purpose is to educate ourselves about the challenges and opportunities in our community, prepare our communities to respond to federal agents um, agencies near our schools, provide support to families who have been impacted by surges, raids, detentions, deportation, and harmful actions in the community. And organize our school communities to defend ourselves in cases of future escalations by the federal government. Um and again this is uh happening uh schools um districts are doing this uh across the state and um so really glad um that our educators brought this to us and it's it's clear that they're committed to safety um not just for for our students but also for staff. U so just wanted to highlight that. Thank you

member stock. Thank you. Um I just would like to highlight one of our favorite topics on this balmy 60°ree day. Um snow. So I know we've struggled this season a lot with snow removal. And I'd like to um collectively volunteer myself for the school committee to submit any problem areas that you saw this year or concerns that were raised directly to you. Um hopefully the city council will be having kind of an ad hoc meeting when it warms up a little bit to review the priority routes and locations for snow removal. Um obviously we are um uh concerned about students safely getting to school in modes of transportation other than cars. Um but also making sure bus stops are cleared, pedestrian walkways and crossways are cleared so our students are safely getting to school. Um there were obviously some really highlighted known areas like um Highland AB, the drop off at the ECC, um the area behind the Salt and Saul school, but if there are other areas of concern, please send them directly to me. I will collectively collect them and report back to city council. Um of course, you're all welcome to reach out directly as well, but to kind of make it easier and um more concise for them, happy to do that and never say snow again. There are no further announcements. Is there another motion?

Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion made by member Hoffman, seconded by member Cornell. Under discussion, seeing none, all in favor? All opposed? The matter carries unanimously. We're adjourned. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for stepping up.