School Committee - Regular Meeting

open the regular meeting of the salem school committee notice is hereby given that sam school committee will hold a regular school committee meeting june 8th 2026 to 7 pm the meeting will take place in person at 29 highland avenue room 227 salem massachusetts you can also join via zoom using the link on the district website Summary of participation policy. 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 Schools students regularly attend school committee meetings. We encourage all meeting participants to model respectful and productive public discourse for our young learners. We'll start with public comment. Is there any public comment in the room?

Nice and tall, so I gotta get the mic up a little bit higher here. Good evening. My name is Lori Miranda, and I've been a proud Salem High School history educator for 20 years. I'm also a very proud Salem resident. Standing alongside me tonight are my incredible colleagues and friends from Salem High School. I am speaking on the behalf of them and 62 other educators who signed a letter sent to this committee on May 30, 2026, in support of Mr. Glenn Burns. Our letter outlined data showing that Salem High School has improved immensely under Mr. Burns' leadership. Whether looking at our AP scores, our MCAS data, college acceptance rates, or rising student enrollment, every metric demonstrates massive improvement. Being told that, and I quote, no one cares about the data except for him is a slap in the face. And I find it ironic that this is the same data that was mentioned numerous times at graduation on Friday evening, including our former superintendent and current Massachusetts Secretary of Education. If data doesn't matter, why mention it in speeches and press releases to the public? It dismisses his hard work and it devalues the dedication of every educator who works with our students daily to prepare them for the future. Prior to Mr. Burns' arrival, teacher morale was at the lowest point in my two decades at Salem High School. He immediately began the hard work of uniting our faculty and ensuring that we had the support needed to help our students to succeed. He provided professional development, overhauled failing programs, increased classroom rigor, and implemented grade-level techs. If we needed supplies to teach effectively, he found the funding. Most importantly, he treats us like the professionals that we are, something I can have rarely experienced during my tenure in this district. At the same time, Mr. Burns built deep roots with our students and their families. He met with every single student to build a positive relationship. I remember a time when students didn't even know what their principal looked like or even other administrators. Today, every student knows Mr. Burns. He attends nearly every SHS event, families and our students notice his presence. I, as a former boys volleyball coach, vividly remember a student telling his teammates during a timeout, Mr. Burns is here. We need to step up our game. It was a powerful acknowledgement that our leader supported them. I have personally witnessed Mr. Burns quietly and consistently give to our students. When a student couldn't afford a prom ticket, he paid for it out of his own pocket. When a student could not afford a class t-shirt at a football game, he bought it for them. He never wants to see our students, any of our students do without. And he doesn't do these things for recognition. He has the heart of gold and does this simply because he wants every one of our students to feel included in our community. Glenn Burns is fully invested in Salem. He and his wife bought a house here. His two daughters attend Horace Mann, and his wife Kate works currently at the SALT, which will soon to be called the Sarah Parker Raymond School. They are a Salem family. We are sharing this information because my colleagues and I are shocked by the decision to exclude Mr. Burns from the second round of interviews for the superintendent position. This is a leader who is deeply invested in Salem and has a proven track record of not only improving Salem High, but also Collins Middle School. And he possesses a very strong vision for the entire district. In my tenure here, I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in district leadership. I have also seen SHS thrive as a level one school, and I've seen it cycle through three principals in three years due to incompetent hiring. I have seen superintendents who lack investment in our community, and others who arranged back room deals to hire administrators. I truly believed that those days of the deals were over. I had faith that this hiring process would be fair, consistent, and focused entirely on what was best for our students and our community. Moving forward, the faculty and staff at SHS, we would like full transparency. A search committee was working with a consultant firm, and then suddenly that firm is no longer involved. What happened? We feel that decisions were made before this process even began, and our trust in this process is now severely damaged. As SHS educators, we will always continue to support our students, our families, and of course, our leader, Mr. Glenn Burns. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comment in the room? Any public comment online? seeing none we'll move on to approval of minutes of the regular school committee meeting held on may 25th 2026 and take a motion did i think we missed one agenda item approval of the i forgot the consent agenda thank you um i'll take a motion to approve the consult consent agenda So moved. Second?

Second.

All in favor? All in favor? Everyone yes. Seeing none, we'll move on. I'm going to entertain a motion to take the approval of the Sarah Parker-Ramon School Innovation Plan and the New Liberty Innovation Plan out of order.

Did the student report first?

I thought you wanted to do... yes but okay okay i would do that first and then i'm going to do this first because i asked for it okay so moved second second all in favor okay opposed seeing none uh i'll take a motion to approve the sarah parker-ramond school innovation plan motion to approve sarah parker-ramond innovation plan second second All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none, motion carries. I will take another motion to approve the new Liberty Innovation Plan renewal.

I'll make a motion for the new Liberty Innovation Plan renewal.

Seconded. All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none, both carry. Thank you. So all the folks from those two schools want to call it a day. Feel free. And now I will pass it to our new student representative for the student representative report.

And I am not the new student representative. However, I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce Mr. Finn Billings, who is a rising senior at Salem High School, who has been elected to be the new student representative here and the president or chair? The chair of the student advisory group for Salem High School, New Liberty, and Salem Prep. So Finn has an update to share with all of you, so I will turn the floor over to him.

All right. Hello, my name is Finn Billings and I was recently elected by my peers to replace Cindy as the superintendent's advisory chair for the 2026 to 2027 school year. I'm finishing up my junior year and will have been on the superintendent's council all four years at Salem High. I was also recently reelected as vice president of the class of 2027 and will have been an officer for all four years as well. Another one of my great interests is the Harvard Maldives UN where I recently ran an event for rising ninth graders as well as next year will be my fourth year of that. And I plan to serve as president of that next year as well. I was also chosen to represent Salem High as both its Hugh O'Brien leadership ambassador last year and its student government day at the state house in April this year. And I'm proud of the relationship I built with former superintendent and current commissioner of education, Dr. and has been fortunate to begin to foster a relationship with Senator Joanne Lovely. I also serve as a mentor, take part in the robotics club and am running for a leadership position in National Honor Society. I act in independent films. I work at the arcade down at the Salem Willows the last two years. Multiple years in involvement in athletics across four sports and a couple years in the music department as a percussionist in the band and as a pianist. I'm a proud unified partner in basketball and strength and conditioning. and recently advanced to round of 16 for the MIT Day of Climate Challenge. And with my partner, Ryland Workman, narrowly missing out on having our project funded by MIT. I'm currently taking six AP classes, took three last year and plan on taking another five next year. I also took part in the Harvard Leadership Program. and ski club this past winter. So I say all that to demonstrate my level of involvement in Salem High and give you a little bit of context on who I am. I look forward to contributing in any ways that I can next year with the Superintendent's Council in my other leadership roles and here at the committee meetings as well. I'm very thankful to have given this opportunity. As you can imagine, there's been a time of great transition on the superintendent's council with students graduating and with Dr. Drake moving on to the Department of Education. And of course, with interim superintendents Carbone stepping into the council. As much as we have not yet finalized our main objectives as a committee next year, as we are of the understanding that would be something to be formally discussed with the new superintendent and newly inducted members this fall. With this being said, we are currently working hard to put the word out and make sure that the Salem High community is aware of the historically large number of spots that will be open for new members next year. We have somewhere around 10 spots as opposed to the usual four or so positions in recent years. We also want to make sure it is a group that represents the diversity and dynamic programs of our school, especially in this time of great transition and with the new high school construction starting right around the corner. Along this line of thinking, we had speakers and visitors talk with us about ways to welcome new students to SHS, both in terms of ninth graders and transfers to Salem High School. I'm confident that we'll have a formal plan in place come September, but as someone that has been on the council for years, I can say that these are the rather unusual circumstances with Dr. Dreik leaving. Superintendent Carbone and Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Pauley is stepping in and then a new superintendent next year. The council members and I felt that it would be best if we made certain that whoever the new superintendent is, that he or she or they were involved in this direction. And the same goes for immediately empowering and involving new members to the council as well. Particularly since we feel strongly that having one area of focus and not trying to manage too many agendas at once is important to have success. and that the new superintendent, more likely than not, will have something particularly that they want to focus on as well. I do want to thank Superintendent Carbone and our Assistant Superintendent Pauley for their guidance these past few months. And I know I speak for all the council members when I say that you've made this transition as smooth as possible. We really appreciate your candor, commitment, and continued support of Salem High. I'm happy to answer any questions that any of you may have about the council or general thoughts. Thank you for your time.

Okay. Before I ask the rest of the members if they have questions, we need to take a short recess because the audio is not working. So, Mark, is five minutes enough, you think? Sure. Okay. I'll make a motion to have a five-minute recess. So moved. Seconds. All in favor? Yes. Opposed? None. Okay. Five-minute recess. I'll ask Laura.

Lars, yeah.

Yeah? Okay. I'm going to just redo the approval of the consent agenda. They can hear it now. They can hear it?

Awesome. Okay. Great.

Perfect. All right. We are back in session. Just as an update for everybody, we were having audio problems, so hopefully this will resolve it. And I get a do-over because I neglected to ask for approval of the agenda, so I'll take a motion. Okay. So moved. Second? Second. All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none, it carries. If there is public comment online, folks can put it in the chat. We'll give you a minute for that. Lori, do you want to do a do-over since it sounds like they can hear you?

and we're going to take public comment in the room yeah well if i pass out it'll be good well i hope you do i hope i don't either All right, round two. Good evening, members of the school committee. My name is Lori Miranda and I have been a proud Salem High School history educator for 20 years. I'm also a Salem resident. Standing alongside of me tonight are my incredible colleagues and friends from SHS. I am speaking on behalf of them and the 62 other educators who signed a letter sent to this committee on May 30th, 2026 in support of Mr. Glenn Burns. Our letter outlined data showing that Salem High School has improved immensely under Mr. Burns' leadership. Whether looking at our AP scores, MCAS data, college acceptance rates, or rising student enrollment, every metric demonstrates massive improvement. Being told that no one cares about the data except for him is a slap in the face. And I find it ironic that this is the same data that was mentioned numerous times at graduation on Friday evening, including our former superintendent and current Massachusetts Secretary of Education. If data doesn't matter, why mention it in speeches and press releases to the public? It dismisses his hard work and it devalues the dedication of every educator who works with our students daily to prepare them for the future. Prior to Mr. Burns' arrival, teacher morale was at the lowest point in my two decades at SHS. He immediately began the hard work of uniting our faculty and ensuring we had the support needed to help our students succeed. He provided professional development, overhauled failing programs, increased classroom rigor, and implemented grade-level texts. If we needed supplies to teach effectively, he found the funding. Most importantly, he treats us like the professionals we are, something I have rarely experienced during my career in this district. At this time, Mr. Burns built deep roots with our students and their families. He met with every single student to build a positive relationship. I remember a time when students did not even know what their principal looked like. Today, every student knows Mr. Burns. He attends nearly every SHS event. Families and students notice his presence. As a former boys volleyball coach, I vividly remember a student telling his teammates during a timeout, Mr. Burns is here. We need to step up our game. It was a powerful acknowledgement that our leader supported them. I have personally witnessed Mr. Burns give quietly and consistently to our students. When a student could not afford a prom ticket, he paid for it out of his own pocket. When a student could not afford a class t-shirt at a football game, Mr. Burns would would buy it for them. He never wants to see our students do without and he does not do these things for recognition. In fact, my guess is he probably doesn't even realize I've noticed that he does that, these type of things. He has a heart of gold and he does this simply because he wants every student to feel included in our community. He is fully invested in Salem. He and his wife bought a house here. His two daughters attend Horace Mann, and his wife Kate works at the current SALT and soon to be called the Sarah Parker Raymond School. They are a Salem family. The reason why we're sharing this tonight, this letter, is because my colleagues and I are shocked by the decision to exclude Mr. Burns from the second round of interviews for the superintendent position. This is a leader who is deeply invested in Salem, has a proven track record of improving Salem High School and Collins Middle School, and possesses a strong vision for the entire district. In my tenure, I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in district leadership. I have seen SHS thrive as a level one school, and I have seen it cycle through three principals in three years due to incompetent hiring. I have seen superintendents who lacked investment in our community and others who arranged backroom deals to hire administrators. I truly believe the days of those deals were over. I had faith that this hiring process would be fair, consistent, and focused entirely on what is best for our students and our community. Moving forward, we would like full transparency. A search committee was working with a consultant firm, and suddenly that firm is no longer involved. What happened? We feel that decisions were made before this process even began, and our trust in this process is severely damaged. As SHS educators, we will always continue to support our students, our families, and our leader, Mr. Burns. Thank you. Thank you.

And I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Again, motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second. All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none, the matter carries. I'll just update folks at home who couldn't hear that previously we voted to approve the innovation plans for Sarah Parker-Ramon and New Liberty Innovation School, but I will ask for that again anyway. So I'll take a motion to lump them together. I'll take a motion to approve both.

motion to approve both and the new liberty innovation plan and renewal plan

Second. All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none, the matter carries. We also heard from our new student representative, Finn Billings, who was great, really wonderful representative of Salem High School. And so we will have him back at a future meeting to hear about all the wonderful things that he is doing. And now I will turn it over to Interim Superintendent Carboni, who is going to give us the superintendent's report.

Great. So I'll start with if Finn were still here, they did their the student advisory group did their elections. And so he was, as he said, he was voted in as the chair. The vice chair is Liana Galvin. The secretary is Faustina Isaguzo. And communications rep is Annie Bednar. So it's been a delight working with these students and interim deputy superintendent Pauly over the past few months. Finn is, you know, he described all that he's doing in his free time. He's very involved at the high school and beyond. And so it will be really exciting. I think great for this committee to continue to have him represent the student body at these meetings. So just a couple of notes around, I think everyone knows we've had a flurry of activities the last couple of weeks. And continuing into this week and next, I wish I could go to every single event, but it's not possible given the sheer volume of events. But since our last meeting two weeks ago, I've had the honor and privilege of attending the following events. I attended the Senior Recognition Night at Salem High School, the Senior Solstice at Salem High School Student Advisory Council meeting. Recognition of our Marching and Jaspians, the mayor and member Cornell and I went to the high school to award those students who also were award-winning students the city seal, so that was really fun. attended the rolling rally, the unified track and field banquet, the new teacher university graduation. A highlight last week were the three high school graduations, which I know several members attended. They were heartfelt and really just beautiful celebrations of students and their their end of their journey here in the Salem Public Schools. That was Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. This past Saturday, we had the graduation of our two and three-year-olds who are participants in the Parachild Plus Home Program, and the Mayor and Senator Lovely and Member Hoffman were at that, and tonight celebrated several students who were inducted into the Collins Middle School Junior National Honor Society. Each of these celebrations, you know, it's just wonderful to see the students smiling. We wanted to end the year strong, and there's lots of evidence that that's happening. We have families and friends brimming with pride at these events, and these end-of-year traditions are true testaments to the creativity, the endurance, and the brilliance of our students. And we know their work is a reflection of all the amazing support and guidance that our educators throughout the year provides. So hats off to all of them. We've got two and a half weeks left. There's much more to come. So we're just going to lean in and enjoy every moment. I will turn it over to Deputy Superintendent Pauley to give an update. As I mentioned at the last meeting, the Sarah Parker-Ramond, the transition and is going as planned and we're in really good shape with that. What is of the moment is the packing and the plans to move both the Carlton over to Saltonstall and then the New Liberty and Salem Prep out of the mall. So I'll hand it over to you to provide some updates on that.

Great. Thank you so much. I'm sure you'll recall that the preparing for the physical moves started before April break. But during April break, after this committee declared some old and broken materials surplus, we were able to remove three dumpsters worth of paper, broken furniture, outdated materials. So we have been, as with any good move, trying to clear up space by disposing of things that are no longer needed. In May, we sent a lengthy memo to the staff at New Liberty, Salem Prep, Carlton, and Saltonstall, We, in that memo, we outlined that there would be 10 boxes provided per classroom and five per office. Our colleagues let us know that more boxes would be needed to move all the schools and to move classrooms within Saltonstall. And so we have since then, since late May, delivered more than 800 boxes to Carleton, Saltonstall, New Liberty, and Salem Prep. we hosted an online Q&A that you can watch if you have specific questions about the move but teachers and staff are busy packing they have received three paid hours or they will receive three paid hours of packing time their principals have also freed up at least three hours of packing time so they have time to take on this major undertaking. And the goal is that by next Thursday, June 18th, a week from Thursday, everyone who has a classroom or an office will have shared with the Buildings and Grounds Department a drawing of what they want their furniture to look like, where the boxes should go. They should be packed by the last day of school. Anything that is not labeled or packed we'll assume is no longer needed. And the move for New Liberty and Salem Prep will happen first. So we have to be out of the mall by June 30th. We are planning to do a walkthrough on June 30th just to confirm with our landlord that we have left it in good condition. So that means that the technology, so any computers, touch screens, any technology is being moved by professional movers on the June 24th and 25th. We have another set of professional movers coming to move the furniture and boxes on the 25th or the 26th. The furniture and classroom belongings will be moved to Carlton and it will be stored in a staging area, which will be the Carlton Gym, because the Carlton move won't be happening until later in the summer. So everything from Carlton will be moved to the new Sarah Parker Raymond during the first week in August. And the reason for that delay is we are doing significant work this summer in the Sarah Parker Raymond building, including we're painting the whole building, We're doing other interior upgrades, including most notably to the auditorium. And then we're doing extensive work outside, including new signage. We're moving the basketball court. We're relining the parking lots. So we want the school to be ready to receive all of the things that are coming to it in the first week. in August. Teachers will receive time from their principals for unpacking, so in addition to when they first come back to school, they'll have some time to get an additional couple of hours to unpack once they arrive. So I was at Carleton this morning. I think the teachers are making great progress with their packing. They're not done, but some of them are getting there. Our buildings and grounds crew is doing regular walkthroughs with the principals to make sure that everything is on track, that there is a space for what's being moved. And so I think at this point we are cautiously optimistic for a very smooth move from New Liberty and Salem Prep to Carleton and Carleton to Sarah Parker Raymond.

Thank you. All right. So we'll move on to our presentation. We have only one presentation tonight. So I'm going to call Dr. Jill Conrad, the director of our HR department, up to the podium. I'll just by way of introduction just say one of the most important responsibilities collectively that we have as leaders in the district is ensuring that our workforce reflects the strengths, experiences, cultures, cultures and aspirations of the students and families that we serve. Building a diverse and talented workforce doesn't happen by chance. It requires intentional recruitment, strong partnerships, thoughtful pipeline development, and just as importantly, creating the conditions that encourage great people to stay and grow within our organization. So tonight's presentation focuses on that important work that Dr. Conrad and her team and other members of the district leadership team have been working together on. And so I'm excited to turn the mic over to you and have you share what's been happening.

Thank you, thank you so much. Members of the committee, Interim Superintendent Carboni, Deputy Superintendent, Polly and audience, I am so excited to be here tonight to talk about this topic. This is something that I have become incredibly passionate about in the last couple of years and could not be more excited to work on on behalf of the district. I want to just take a moment and introduce the members of my team who are here, who all work in the Human Resources Office, starting with Nancy Weiss, who's our HR manager, Stephanie Santarpio, who is our new Salem Pathways to Teaching coordinator, and Kim Melionek, who's our administrative assistant. And we do work very collaboratively together as a team on this effort and many other things as well. So thank you for being here tonight. Oops, there we go. So this really, this work really grows out of the last strategic plan which I'm sure you're all very familiar with where we had priority number two, empower educators and this slide is bringing you back to the language that was there. As you may recall, there were some very high-level strategic talent goals built into that strategic plan, which really focused on increasing the percentage of teachers of color that we have working in our district. in order to ensure that our teacher workforce was as diverse as our student workforce or that we were getting closer to that. We also had a goal that was focused on retention of all teachers but also the teachers of color that we have working with us. So you can see that we have made good progress on that goal, but we still have a lot of work to do. But I'm very proud of the progress that we have made. We have, for example, gone from, in the last four years, 9%. teachers of color working in the district, and I'm talking about actually licensed teachers, not just staff members, but actually licensed teachers in our classrooms, to now about 15%. So that's a good progress, good trajectory. And then in terms of retention, we went from about 70.9% to 80%. I just want to make a note, too, as to why we care about this. I want to go back here. Why is this an important goal? And we did a lot of work when we were developing the last strategic plan to dig into this, because the research does show us that when students have the opportunity to learn from a teacher that they identify with, that they can relate to, who share a similar background to them, academic achievement actually improves. The sense of belonging improves. We see a shift in the culture within the school. And so we see many benefits that is really, it is there in the research, and I think we have seen it with our own eyes in many of our schools and classrooms where we have been able to achieve this. So it's a goal worth continuing to invest in, and we're continuing to work toward that. We've become so focused on this and done a lot of work to figure out the kinds of things we need to be doing that at this point in our trajectory, we're feeling a level of confidence to the point where we have as a team, and I should say that we have gathered, we kind of have a steering committee that's cross-functional that involves several partners now, and we're building steam to do even more work and contribute to the next round of strategic plan work. And this team, we have come to agree that we don't just want to see incremental improvements in this area, we want to put the stake in the ground for this bold vision, that we want to be among the best in terms of the districts who do this work well, building a pathway to teaching without leaky pipelines and all of that, if not the best. So we want to be the premier Massachusetts district building equitable high impact pathways that empower educators of color to enter and succeed as licensed teachers in Salem and beyond. So we're excited about this bold vision and we think that's something that we can all rally around and drive the next phase of work. as we go forward. The next slide digs into our past, so you can see where we've been in terms of the data around this. And you've seen this slide before, but I just want to bring you back to it, where we have a student body that has 60% students of color, and currently our teachers are around 14, almost to 15%. That's the red line at the bottom, whereas the student line is the orange one at the top. And then the other lines that we have there are all staff, which is the blue line, and our paraprofessionals, which is the green. line so i talked about the improvements we've made you can see it there that's all great we celebrate that improvement and we continue to work at it but we're beginning to think that we need to really invest in a longer term deeper strategy and let me just show you why So the next slide is looking at similar data, but splitting it across the schools. And what we do see here is that the distribution of while we've improved at a district-wide average in terms of recruiting and retaining teachers of color, it's not particularly even across all of our schools. And so I think this really represents the next phase of work that we need to be focused on. The strategies that we've put in place that I think have become almost routine, expanding our visibility. As you may have heard, we've engaged what we call talent finder fellows to help us with recruitment, kind of extend our abilities to recruit and actually screen candidates as they come in, supporting our schools with that process, conducting anti-biased hiring trainings. We have a toolkit available to our school leaders. We've increased the licensure supports for our educators who may be still working on licensure. We've done a lot of things to kind of get the basics underway. And again, these are the results we've had in the recruitment and retention. But one data point I want to point you to, which is that as we look at our actual applicants applying to our jobs, it's about an average of about 9% as teachers of color. So I think what this begins to tell us is that recruitment alone may not be enough to really get us to our goals. And I know there are many other districts across the region, certainly across the nation, who are striving to reach the same goals. And many have also reached this same conclusion. So if we want to take things to the next level, we're going to need to think a little bit differently about, I mean, I don't mean throw out the baby with the bathwater. We continue all these things, right? We keep those things in place, but I think we really need to invest in the pathways to teaching if we want to continue to have these strategic goals. We have an even greater sense of urgency that we're beginning to realize as we've begun to look at where we might be seeing some of our vacancies in the coming years. we we do anticipate a pretty large you know percentage of retirements coming up in the next couple of years just based on sort of the ages of our teacher workforce on the whole while we always have younger teachers who are coming in or newer teachers coming in this is sort of representing a little bit of a a bubble that will affect us if we don't start planning for it. And so as we think about our strategic talent goals, I've begun to think about how can we really plan ahead for this and leverage the opportunities that we have in order to not just fill the vacancies, but really develop through the pathways to teaching, through an intentional focused pipeline of thoughtfully developed educators to come into these roles as we have those vacancies. So we're now very focused on pathways to teaching. We've always been involved with Pathways to Teaching in Salem for many, many years. As many of you know, we've had a long-standing partnership with Salem State University. We host student teachers doing their practicum and observations from Salem State and other institutions and so on and so forth. We've developed other initiatives with fellowships, inspired tutors and other programs. And all of those things do still represent form of pathways but what what has happened sometimes the program sort of operates over here and then our schools are over here when it comes time for hiring there's maybe sometimes a little disconnect so what we really want to do is connect the dots a little more intentionally and be more strategic with how we are investing in some of these pathways programs and in anticipation of the vacancies coming coming ahead so we have as i mentioned a steering committee and we are fortunate to be doing all of these things because in the recent year or two we have been able to get some key grant money which you've probably heard about we are one of seven districts that have piloted the registered teacher apprenticeship program that program involves full-time apprentices in the classroom working under what they call a journey worker teacher. So these teachers are getting a very deeply job embedded professional learning experience while they are completing their bachelor's degree and getting support to become licensed teachers. And we've been able to position these in some of our harder to staff areas, specifically special education in this case. And we'll have an opportunity to continue that program next year and hopefully expand it a little bit on some level. We're still working out the details as to how much we'll be able to afford to expand. And we'll get back to you on that. But it's something that seems to be going very well, and I think we have a model that is stabilizing and looking like it's really working well. So we're very excited about that. We also have had a grant called the Transforming Diverse Educator Pathways Program. formerly the Teacher Diversification Grant, which we've had in previous years. And that grant this year has been not only focused on helping us improve our international recruitment that we've done with the recruiting teachers from the DR on J-1 visas for the Bentley School and others, but also to build out some of the system supports that we think we'll need to be able to do this work well. Mark and his team have been helping us with some data infrastructure, and we're really hoping to, by the fall, have what I'm calling a data dashboard just for the pipeline work, and I'll be excited to share all of that with you. As we look to the year ahead, we also have hired a consultant, Pamela Chang, who has been helping us to facilitate the steering committee meetings, and we're working up toward SUMMIT THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A CONVENING THIS SUMMER IN JUNE AND ANOTHER ONE LATER IN AUGUST, OUT OF WHICH WE WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO COME OR ANY OF YOU WHO WISH TO COME TO THE SUMMIT TO HELP US SHAPE WHAT THE SORT OF STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THIS WORK LOOKS LIKE. AND OF COURSE, WHOEVER THE NEW SUPERINTENDENT WOULD BE. We'd love for them to be involved so that we can start the year next year, hit the ground running, and have a clear plan. Our goal with this strategic planning work is really We've got a lot going on, and if you look at the, I'm just gonna jump two slides ahead for a second. If you look at, we did a SWOT analysis, which is in here. One of our strengths is that we have a lot going on. We have a lot of assets to work with in Salem, which is one of the things that makes it very exciting. But one of the things that makes it very challenging is that sometimes we're all working kind of very busily in our separate initiatives and we're not making the strategic connections and we're not maybe seeing it as a coherent plan. So that's what we're looking to achieve as we do this planning work in the next couple of months is a more coherent plan so that we can very intentionally think about where, you know, in Salem, we think we should have X number of whether it's apprentices that we call them or whatever in the pipeline that we are developing engaged to think about the schools that we know both maybe could use some increased percentages of staff of teachers of color and vacancies coming up things like that so how can we be more strategic at connecting all of those dots in addition I'll go backwards. Maybe I should have put these in a different order. This slide is looking at the entry points. So we, our goal really is to have a pathway system that's supported by the data infrastructure we talked about, but also has entry points for multiple entry points along the way. So that we have a mechanism to support, whether it's an existing staff member who decides they want to be a teacher, we can meet with them, support them, and guide them into one of the paths that makes sense. I'm excited to share that Stephanie has already begun to do that in her capacity. And people have found out where she is. She's very busy talking to lots of people. So it's exciting to know that there are people out there in our district who want to be part of this. And I invite anyone out there who's interested in being a teacher to contact us so that we can get you into a pathway potentially. And at times, it's a complex process to become a teacher. And there's a lot of rules and regulations and different things. So we want to be in a position, hopefully, that we can really support people and guide people so they're not wasting time. you know, doing things that won't help get them there, you know, if they want to do it in a quick way. We also have supports for leaders as well as if you look on the last slide, we're beginning to think about how can we develop more leaders and we have supported teacher leadership fellows at Salem State. We have some folks involved in the Lynch Leadership Academy and Influence 100 and things like that. So it's not quite as broad as the teacher work, but hopefully it will grow. so as we move ahead i invite you to take a look at this swat analysis in particular and one of the things of course that we'll need to really think about in earnest is how do we sustain this work right now it's really happening because of the grant money that we have and Fortunately, it's a multi-year grant. We'll have some more. But in a year or two, you know, that might run out. So we're going to start to really ramp up our sustainability planning for that. And I welcome an opportunity to talk with you all about some creative ways that we could start thinking about that. I think that's pretty much it. Any questions? Sorry my throat is dry.

Now we're hopping.

I just want to say thank you. This is really great. I love all the inclusion that you're working on. I would just add one thing maybe also to think about in the strategic plan is also how we can foster and grow our LBGTQ staff with inclusion and feeling accepted in the workforce as well. It's kind of multicultural. But I think that these are all great and I look forward to seeing you at the summit. Awesome. I remember Miranda.

Yeah, thank you so much for this presentation and all of the time that you and your team and others have put into this. This is obviously really important work and there are some numbers here that are, you know, where I think we're all kind of hoping for some improvement on. And it sounds like we're looking for a plan to get there. One of the things that I notice here on this chart is I'm seeing 0% of the central office as staff of color. And just wondering, I'm wondering who is factored into that. I was under the impression that Laura Saad, as an example, is a part of the central office.

She might be in the district. 0% of teachers.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's a 0% of teachers of color. Yeah, 0% of teachers. Okay.

I just saw the zero and was like, whoa, what's happening? The red one is teachers. So there's no red in that one. And so, yeah, there aren't any teachers in the central office. Got it. That clarifies a lot.

But the blue is staff of color. Okay. Amazing. Okay. and then just wanted to learn a little bit more about this SWAT analysis in terms of like can you just explain was there anything that was done to kind of assess culture amongst staff and anonymously hopefully

So this SWOT analysis really grew out of the steering committee's own brainstorming and the consultant's review of the different documents and initiatives that we have. So it wasn't, what do you mean exactly by assessing the culture?

Look, I think there's some really strong strengths here and paths forward. I appreciate one of the bullets here is programs operating in silos as a weakness and an area for growth. But I'm more so wondering about the interpersonal piece and if that's been assessed in any way.

so i know that we do assess through our annual surveys the sense of belonging and those kinds of things but in what you have here we didn't really look at that level of things it wasn't like a whole district study what we've been looking at as a steering committee so far is you know, the specific initiatives that we have that touch upon Pathways work and how we can bring it together to bring about this coherent plan. But that being said, some of our members in our last meeting, for example, did bring up that we need to bring that piece a little more into the conversation, not just, you know, the technical things about developing teachers, you know, licensure and things like that, right? So I think, you know, we heard that feedback and, you know, we're certainly aware of it. It's just we were not focused on it in that conversation. But I think when we get to the whole, you know, certainly at the summit conversation, it absolutely has to be part of the conversation.

Okay, amazing. And then just one other thing. So when it comes to and I'm looking at what page am I on here? Page 25, staff and teachers of color by school. Is there kind of a short explanation as to why some of these schools have like much lower percentages of teachers of color?

Well, I can share with you what I know has happened in the last three years, where we sort of gung-ho recruited a lot of teachers under emergency licensure, for example. some of them are still here and have become licensed, but not all of them have. So that's one. I don't know if it's any one thing, but I also know too that sometimes when we have a school that has, maybe it's a veteran staff or maybe it's just a cohesive staff where there's not a lot of vacancies. We do have a few schools, Witchcraft for example, that really hasn't had very many actual teacher vacancies, opening up you know in the elementary grades in special education yes in the paraprofessionals yes so we have to really think about this as a long-term type of goal for all those reasons right yeah

And I think to that question, it's a really good question. I think one of the things we have to look at is where have been the opportunities to hire and how many staff of color have been hired into those positions. So that helps with that question. So a place like Witchcraft may not have had many openings, so there aren't many opportunities to hire, but how many have they had and what's the ratio and then that across schools would help us better understand the numbers. So to Jill's point, we need better, deeper data and that's part of this effort is really understanding and diagnosing the problem so that we can work with school leaders and hiring teams to really confront the data and see where maybe opportunities haven't been capitalized on and how we need to do better going forward.

I think that's true for every department in schools it's not just the the schools but district-wide we we have you know I will point out we we did a lot in the last two years in particular to really shore up teacher retention in general not the least of which is our new teacher contract and paraprofessional contract right with the new salaries and incentives built into that and so that's Great, that was our goal, right? We did that on purpose. You did that on purpose, right? And that's great. And so the more we do have retention, though, the fewer opportunities there are for new hiring, although we're doing plenty of hiring. But as we look ahead, I think that's why if we continue to keep it as an annual cycle, I don't think we're gonna get this strategic result to really meet the talent goals. It's a multi-year planning effort because of the work that it takes to have people into the pipeline. And at the end of it, The R-TAP apprentices, for example, I'm sure we'll see, but I'm certain that when they're finished and they become teachers in our district, they are going to be so far better prepared than most others who are coming through the typical way of preparing to be a teacher. And so that's, in my opinion, that's a worthy investment.

Thank you very much, Jill.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, I hope that this is just the first of many conversations that we'll have about this work. And I know I have become extremely passionate about it. All the members of my team are. And everyone keeps showing up to these steering committee meetings, which is fabulous, because it shows that there's really interest in the work. So I could not be more pleased. And thank you all for doing that. Thank you.

Thank you.

The finance operations were.

Aside from the moving only note I would make is that superintendent carboni and I will be joined by member Hoffman to present our budget to the Salem City Council on Wednesday night, June 10th so that is the next and I believe last step in our 527 budget process.

Well, the council needs to vote on it, so that doesn't happen.

Not the last step.

Thursday will be the last step. I will be there as well.

And that's it.

Subcommittee reports. Any reports from subcommittees? None? Superintendent search update. Member Hoffman, we'll start with the presentation of the finalists.

Yes.

First, I would like to thank the screening committee, the superintendent screening committee. It was 15 diverse community members of our community. They donated their time. There was long hours. There was thoughtful conversation. The process was confidential, but I can tell you that we were super excited to send forward the three that we have chosen. I feel, well, the committee feels that they're going to make an impressive, an impression on the schools and help us move forward from pre-K all the way beyond. The first, and I also like to thank you two for helping with all of that and your support. It really meant a lot, and I'm really proud of the people that we had at the table and the voices that were heard. So the first one I have here is Dr. Jorge S. Allen. Dr. Allen has served as a director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for Wellesley Public Schools since 2022. Prior to that, he was a world language and English language learner coordinator for Andover Public Schools. Dr. Allen holds a Ph.D. in Spanish American Literature from Purdue University and M.A. in Latin American Studies from Purdue University and a B.A. in Education from Central D. Oh gosh, help me. You can say that. She's beautiful when she says that. The next candidate is Andrew Bott. Andrew Bott has been the head of schools for Brighton High School since 2020 and served as superintendent of Brookline Public Schools from 2016 to 2019. Earlier in his career, he had served as principal of the W.H. Lincoln School in Brookline and a principal of the Orchard Gardens K-8 School in Roxbury. The last candidate is Dr. Thomas M. Welch. Dr. Welch has been a regional school superintendent, associate superintendent for Boston Public Schools since 2015, and served as an academic superintendent for the district's alternative schools network from 2018 to 2019. Prior to that, he was the founding principal of the Nava College Preparatory High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. I look forward to all of you meeting them.

Looking forward to it as well. We want to talk about the timeline from here and the process with the finalists going forward. So Heidi Garino is supporting the committee in this work and is going to walk through the timeline for the next steps of the process.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. I had some slides. So there are some slides coming. So thank you for having me up here tonight. I wanted to walk through quickly the timeline that we've mapped out and also talk about the upcoming community forums or site visits, which will be next week. And then we can talk about some of the interview questions that have been developed for the interviews. So if you go to the next slide. So these are your finalists. And I will say I've spoken with all three of them and they're all very excited about this opportunity. They've been very responsive and all three of them are all in. There's been some scheduling challenges, as you'll see, but everyone is doing what they can to be available and to accommodate everybody's schedule so we can get this wrapped up by July. So on the next slide, you'll see the timeline. So, ooh, that's really small. So here's the timeline. This week is, the city is conducting reference checks on the three finalists. And tonight, or over the next day or so, we're going to finalize the interview questions, which I will say started with all of you. So I asked each of you to submit two or in, Mike's case, four questions. And so I've taken them all and consolidated them, and we'll talk through that in a few minutes. But so this week is really about sort of getting ready for the next step. Next week, we're locked in for site visits for all three candidates. We'll be here on Monday, Jorge Allen will be coming to Salem. On Tuesday, Andrew Bott will be here. And on Wednesday, Tommy Welch will be here. All three will have an identical schedule for the day that will start at 8 a.m. and go through a community forum that will wrap up at 7.30 p.m. So very long day, but they'll get a great taste of the city and have an opportunity to see lots of things. So we'll talk about that in a second. Due to scheduling, calendars, vacations, holidays, and things, it's looking like the school committee interviews will be happening probably the week of July 6th, so about a week or two after the original goal, but not too far off. This will allow the majority of the school committee to be physically present, so you don't have to have anyone doing the interviews over Zoom. So all three of the candidates have checked with all of their schedules and it looks like that should not be a problem. So we'll be able to wrap it up that week. From there, the rest of July will be after the interviews, the school committee will need to set a special meeting in July to have final deliberations and a vote. And then contract negotiations and the candidate will start the beginning of August in time for the new school year. Any questions on that timeline? It's aggressive, and this is an unusual time to be doing this kind of a search, but it seems like it will work out. I think the biggest challenge has been, well, the immediate goal was to make sure everyone could come before school closes. So we're really happy to get everybody here next week. On the next slide. So the site visits, as I said, will be a full day for each of them. And it's going to be broken up into really four parts. They're going to see Well, they'll see Collins, Bentley, the Early Childhood Center, and Salem High. At each of the schools, they'll have an opportunity to meet with the principal, do a tour, do some classroom observations, and really get a sense of the flavor of the school. They will have lunch with the mayor every day. So we're working out location for that. We're also scheduling focus groups each day so they'll have an opportunity to meet with students, principals, the executive team, and teachers and staff. So over the course of the day, they'll really get a good flavor of the community. And then after a well-deserved break, we'll have a community forum that will be broadcast over SATV from 6 to 7.30 each day. So that's the plan. It'll be, I think, due to scheduling the forum on Monday for Mr. Allen, we'll be at Witchcraft Heights. But the other two forums will both happen here in this room. So that's the plan. And let me just, I'm going to pause there before we get into the questions. Any questions? Where is the forum for Dr. Allen? So Dr. Allen's forum will be at Witchcraft Heights. because there's a conflict at Collins on Monday. Otherwise, the schedule will be the same. And actually, on the slides, do you all have the slides? Okay, so I linked at the top, you can see the site visit schedule. And this has also been shared with the three candidates so they know exactly where they're going and they can, you know, Google map everything and figure out distance. We are coordinating. Thanks to the district team, we're coordinating to have somebody with the candidate all day to just kind of drive them around and make sure they get places on time, they don't have to worry about parking, and to make sure that the day runs pretty smoothly and things stay on time. Other questions?

Member Miranda.

I'm curious. I know in some other districts and some other processes that school committee members are a part of the site visit. So just looking for some clarification around what is expected from school committee, if any type of commitment for the site visits. Do you want to respond?

I've been trying to help Kate and Heidi with some of the process, and I think Superintendent Carboni had some really good input about what would make the different constituents feel comfortable like in terms of answering questions honestly and having an open conversation. So the thinking around the forum, the focus groups was that school committee members would not be there. And this is certainly open for discussion. My instinct, my sort of initial thinking was I I personally would not like it if other people had more access to a candidate than I would. And I'm actually not here all next week. But what we were talking about was that we can all go to the community forums and any other sort of public event. But if anybody has better, you know, other thoughts on that, we can talk about it.

So then would we have a chance to hear from those stakeholders on like their thoughts that would come through the survey.

So what we, Heidi and I have discussed with the help of Kate who knows these processes better than I do is that each focus group would have a distinct feedback form that was specific to them. So like the students would have their own feedback form. Teachers and staff would have their own feedback form. The executive team would have a feedback form. And then the good thing about stretching the process out is that we'll have two weeks to sit with that data. So Heidi will collect it and put it together for us and then we'd all have it. So that's the process that we've come up with. But we haven't started on the forms yet.

The other thing I would add to that too is there would also be a forum for the people who participate in the community forum. So we can put up a QR code on the screen and people can respond in the moment. And also if they're watching on TV.

And Miranda.

Yeah, I don't feel strongly that I need to be there for any of that, but it does bring me comfort that we would at least be able to get some sense from stakeholders on how they felt the candidate was able to interact. And so that's great to hear.

Thank you. It feels pretty vital to us being able to make an informed decision is to hear from the stakeholders that will be meeting with them. Are there questions on the time on the plan for the site visits?

I don't have a question, but make sure you take him to coffee time so we can loop him in a sale.

Always. There's no time for that.

I actually have a question on the community forum. I know we'll have more details around the format for it. We'll have interpretation provided during the forums. Yep, Amber Stott.

Thanks. Just another question on the community forum. That was my first initial thought was Monday and the event that's going to be here Monday night. I need to be at that one. So that's why I knew I wouldn't be able to be at the forum. So glad to hear it's going to be at Horace Mann. But will we be able to here? It's fairly easy to have remote participation if needed. Are we be able to have very similar type meeting at Horace Mann with remote participation? Yeah.

I just got the nod from the VA. Yeah, sorry.

So it's at Witchcraft. Oh, sorry. But yeah, Mike over there has done this for us in the past. So when we were having community forums regarding the consolidation of Carleton and salts he we had those forums at salt install and so he can get us all mic'd up recorded and then those will be available on SATV also for the entire community so if you couldn't make it you could watch it and still provide feedback using the feedback form okay so YouTube hopefully right

We just need to make sure, we need to confirm that there's a strong internet connection at Witchcraft, and it'll be streamed on YouTube, on our education YouTube channel, which I'll give everyone the links for. And then Tuesday and Wednesday will be run just like... Not like tonight. Without any hiccups, we hope. We'll figure, me and Mark will figure that out, so...

Yeah, thank you. I guess that was my only concern is the remote at a school that we haven't done hybrid before at.

Just one thing on the forums. I think we will, we need to talk about this, but generally with something like that, questions are submitted in advance so that we have similar questions across the forums. So the one thing about remote, people dialing in remote is that they wouldn't really be able to submit questions.

Did you have something to add?

I was just going to say about the, we'll have interpreters both in the room at the forums and online. Thanks.

Member Baez?

I guess I'm just curious why witchcraft and not other school that's more accessible to families.

That's a good question.

That is a good question. May I? One of the things we were trying to control for was temperature. And, you know, they're going to be sweating anyway. So the first suggestion was the high school. And the high school, the library just bakes in the afternoon and would not be comfortable. So that's, you know, the coolness is there, but I think that's a factor, and perhaps you want to discuss that. I mean, we have done the forums at Saltonstall, and it is close to walking distance, and we know that it works. So we haven't put anything out, so that might be something you all want to discuss.

Miranda.

Yeah, I had sent an email about this to Heidi, but just wondering if there's any update on child care. I think if there's something for the community forums in the evening, it would be great if we had child care.

We can help with that.

Can I just add one thing?

Yeah. Member Cornell.

I just want to add one thing about the discussion that we had about getting public questions ahead of time. It was just sort of like standard operating procedure for interviews, but that way the candidates would have them ahead of time because it wouldn't be fair if the first candidate, Dr. Allen, didn't know what he was getting into and everybody else did. So they'd have, let's say if it's eight to 10 questions that we collect from the community, what we were talking about was like the most commonly asked questions, give them to each of the candidates, then open up the last half hour or so for spontaneous questions from people in attendance, either online or in person that Heidi would manage.

Member Stott.

Thank you. So then, I mean, just to go back to the location item, I would fully support salt and stall over that, especially if we do want to do a hybrid. If we're going to open it up to public, like, questions on the floor, we should open it up to questions on the floor equitably. And it's a very good point about child care. Yeah, I'm excited for these, for watching them later. And if I may, I just want to say thank you for helping figure out the schedule. I mean, I'm sure everybody's June is as fun as mine. So this timing is hard. So I appreciate figuring it out. And I think the gap between is really thoughtful, actually. I know it kind of happens with the schedules, but I think it's very thoughtful to allow us the time to digest the information from those really heavy, meaty site visits. Thank you.

Over by us is also want to thank Heidi and being a fan.

The comments or thoughts on the safe visits. So I'm hearing this is their preference for the salt and salt for the for the first form.

yeah based on what um member bias just said i think it makes sense to have all of the forums at that salton still rather than forcing everybody to come over here it's a little a bit more mike just closed his eyes over there but it's not you know it's a little harder for mike but we know we can do it it's an essentially located spot the only thing is parking but families figure it out So that would be my suggestion it cuts salt have anything going on they might have like graduation.

We don't know that yeah I can look it up.

We can check all right give me a minute air-conditioned. I think there's only 18 Yeah, we can fuck we can finalize them Anything else on the time on the site visits

No. Okay.

All right. So if you go to the next slide. So as I mentioned earlier, I reached out to all of you and invited you to come up with a couple of questions that you wanted to be considered for the school committee interviews. So now we do have a bit of time on this since the interviews won't be until early July. But I wanted to just share with you where the questions landed. And looking at them, I think there were 16 or 17 total. You can't ask 16 questions in an interview. It'll go on for a long time. So what I tried to do was roll them together, consolidate under some specific themes. think about who specifically should ask each question and in what order. So on the slide I have linked a document with the draft questions in the latest order and suggested assignment. I just wanted to share here just kind of the themes that we landed on really does seem to cover the you know, cover the major topics in the city and very intentionally thinking about starting with vision and ending with communication and trust. Really like landing on the importance of having, being an effective communicator and building trust with the community. So welcome your thoughts on that. I think all of the, one other thing I do want to mention, Yamile had the wonderful suggestion of asking her question in Spanish. So I think that's, you know, something just to factor in in terms of interpretation and things like that. But open it up to all of you for discussion.

Has everyone been able to open the linked document for the questions? Okay. Are we able to open the questions on the presentation?

Oh, I'm sorry. The document is linked on the slide. And actually, while he's opening it, I just want to, I should say, I did move the questions a bit just to starting with equity and opportunity instead of vision. We moved vision down a little bit. Do you want to go through them, or how would you like to proceed?

I think if members have questions or specific comments about these, I mean, they were provided to us, but if we want to have a discussion on any of these questions, I think they're great. I mean, I appreciate a lot of the perspectives that members provided in their questions. I think having a question in Spanish is a great idea as well. I do. Yeah. Member Cornell.

I think in terms of just what we what we're kind of legally responsible for with the open meeting process is that we've you know, is it kind of general agreement to these being, you know, the questions that we're asking. And then if folks have like, you know, I never want to look foolish, so I always like practice everything ahead of time. And so if the wording is tripping you up or there's something that like it doesn't entirely capture exactly what you wanted, but it's still sort of in this basic framework, Changing the language of it with Heidi is in bounds as long as the as long as the substance of the question doesn't change. So that's really what we're thinking about today is not like the wording of it necessarily, but the substance of the questions. So if we can kind of get out of this meeting and say, okay, this is this is what we this is these questions and the themes of these questions feel right.

I also want to make sure that in rolling your questions together, we didn't lose anything that you want to specifically state or name in the interviews. So as you read through it, just think about that.

Member Stott?

Will we as a body be able to see the questions that will be asked during the forum prior to the forums? Okay. Because I do feel like there were a few community partnership, I guess, that would fall in the communication category of questions. So I don't necessarily want to add to anything here, but I feel like. that topic of question I'd like to see more of, or a little differently. But I'm assuming the forum is probably going to cover a lot of those as well, so I don't want to necessarily add any duplication.

Yeah, Member Cronall.

You are able to ask a follow-up question, too, as it relates to the question you have in front of you. So if the candidate is sort of leading you in a particular way or mentions something and you're like, oh, I would like to know more about that, maybe somebody's done some work with a community partner somewhere. So we would want to limit it so we're not cutting into other people's question time. But that's totally inbounds if you want to get a little bit more detail out of people.

Can another member ask a follow-up question to another member's question? Or is it follow-up only your own?

That's a good question. We can find that out. Check with Colby. I also want to be just mindful of this will, oh, well, I guess the interviews will be in a few weeks. But for the community forum, your question about questions there, I think we want to be just conscious of the time and the length of the day.

And if a question is addressed in the community forum that is close to the one that the school committee intends to ask do we still want to keep it on the list we have to. We have to if we are asking every one of them of it. I'm sorry we we could make a decision to say we're going to cut that question. Member Miranda.

So then are we voting on these questions.

No this is not about just a discussion.

And then how would we determine if we wanted to cut a question between after the community forums and before the interview?

Well, the interview is a posted meeting, so we could decide at that time, I imagine.

Okay.

Never stop.

Well, we do have a meeting on the 22nd between the forums and that might be the best time to, I think, really finalize these questions to see what holes were. I know I will feel a little better to be like, yes, this is it.

We'll put this on the agenda for that meeting. That's a good point. Thank you. All right. I see no other questions about the questions. Yes.

Just one more. So when a question is asked in Spanish, which I might try to practice some Spanish and then ask mine in Spanish as well. When that happens, would we be in a position to allow the candidate to respond in Spanish as well?

I think that's the hope.

Okay, cool. So do you need translation?

We'll need interpretation, both English, Spanish, Spanish, English.

I think when we did the Spanish forum for the school consolidation, we all had the headphones. So I think that's great for candidates to see that that's something that we do in this district. So we just have to plan for that to have them.

Yeah, and then for the well for the public that's if they're in attendance I challenge.

No, because when we had consolidation meetings that were primarily in English, we had enough headphones for everybody. So I don't think it's that. I think we can give it to members of the community who are English-only speakers. It should be fine.

Member Hoffman.

I would just have a clarifying question. So if we cut one of our questions, are we going to add another question, or are we just going to cut that question?

I think it's up to the committee if they wanted to replace a question.

Are we replacing the question if someone asks it on the phone? Yeah. The discussion on the 22nd. We can decide. Okay.

All right. Very good. There's no vote here, so this is just a discussion. Thank you, Heidi. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

We do have under item 9, motions and resolutions, two votes this evening. You did it already?

We did it twice.

Job vice chair. Newsletter items.

Okay, so obviously I think updates on the questions for candidates, but they will be past the schedule of visits. That won't be in the newsletter. We can kind of do a reflection on those. And just now I have for important votes approval of Sarah Parker-Ramon and New Liberty Innovation School.

The other topics that folks would like to see added to the newsletter. Okay. Announcements. Yeah, Member Hoffman.

I would just like to invite the Salem Public Schools to march in the Pride Parade on Saturday, June 27th. We have a spot. We have a banner that we have every year, and we encourage you all to wear whatever you like. But if you want to wear your shirts for your schools, we march as one, so there's no differentiation between schools. It's just come out and march and learn a little history. Oh, and then the crosswalks everyone's asking me about. I'm still working with the city to figure that out. But I will, as soon as I find out, let people know. And if you are wanting to be a part of it, you can reach out to me on my school committee email, ahoffman at salok12.org. That's it. Thanks.

I meant to add under announcements, we've got the information about the search process, the visit dates, everything will be on the school committee website, on the school district website. We'll also share it out on the city's website and through those news channels as well. So SalemK12.org slash search. Yes, number...

I just wanted to add on on the city's website and on their Facebook page to celebrate Juneteenth which is June 19th the Juneteenth flag raising is at 1 p.m Riley Plaza June 15th and there's a party in the park 11 30 a.m to 4 p.m on June 19 at Charlotte Foreign Park So everybody is welcome. There's also, there's a bunch of, there's a performance, there's a movie on the Common, and I've attended the movie on the Common before and it's really fun. So that's all.

Is there a motion?

Motion adjourned.

Motion by Member Cornell, seconded by Member Baez. Under discussion, Hoffman, sorry. Seeing no discussion, all in favor, any opposed? We're adjourned, thank you everyone.