School Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. I call to order a meeting of the Salem School Committee, a special meeting of July 6, 2026 at 6 p.m. This meeting is taking place in person at 29 Highland Avenue, room 227 in Salem. In person shall be the primary method of public access for this meeting. A secondary method of access is provided technologically feasible through Salem Access Television and through the Zoom link posted in the meeting agenda. The only item on our agenda for today's meeting is an interview with our superintendent of schools finalist, Dr. Tommy Welch. The format for this evening's meeting and for all the interviews, the candidates, the finalists will be invited to give a brief two to three minute opening statement if they'd like. We have a series of questions from the school committee members. Committee members are welcome to ask follow-up questions. Please raise your hand so I can call on folks for follow-up questions. And in accordance with our norms and practices, please allow everybody the opportunity to ask a question before you ask your second follow-up question. And then at the conclusion of the questions, there'll be an opportunity for a closing statement of two to three minutes, if you'd like, Dr. Welch. So if there's no further questions on the agenda or the format for this evening, I will turn it over to you for your introductory statement.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Pangalo and members of the Salem School Committee. Thank you for this opportunity again for me to be here and for being considered to be the next superintendent of Salem Public Schools. Throughout this interview, I'm sure you'll get a lot of technical answers of how I align my resume and my experience aligns with the Salem Public Schools, the strategies, the future you want for your students. But I want to take just a couple of minutes to kind of tell you more about who I am. Over the last 27 years, I've worked in public education in Los Angeles and in Boston, and people who have worked with me when I was a teacher, when I was a principal, a systems-level leader, one of the words that comes up to describe me is all-in, all right? I am all-in 100%. with what I do, no matter if I'm in the classroom teaching, helping launch new schools in Los Angeles, serving as a principal. My network of 15 schools in East Boston, Charlestown, the North End, I'm always around. I'm always there. And that's something that people characterize me as. I'm always there for them. And I'm willing to do what it takes to get the job done. I've never approached my work in public education halfway or even three quarters or 90 percent or 99%. I believe our students' futures require this type of effort, this type of urgency. The excellence that we expect of our teachers, our educators, our principals, our families deserve. And the deep commitment is what rounds out the leadership that I want to bring to Salem. I primarily served schools that have a majority bilingual population, primarily Spanish speaking, and aside from all in, you'll hear students and families and teachers use this word more, we used it more in California, but they say I lead with ganas, and ganas roughly translates into like passion and determination, like the heart, the drive of the work that we'd expect somebody to do for their own children. And that type of approach to me is more than just motivation to do the work. It's the will to work hard, keep going no matter what the odds we're facing to get the job done. And I promise you, if I come to Salem, I will lead with Ganas every single day that I'm here. My experience, and you'll hear it from the interviews, questions, I'm assuming, align very closely to Salem's strategic vision, the key strategies that you guys have embraced over the last several years. I look forward to continuing that work as we move into the next chapter of Salem. But elevating learning is something that you can see from my track record with the schools, especially East Boston, Charleston, North End, with several schools going from that kind of low to mid performance level and accountability to high achieving with five schools in the last eight years being recognized by the city as the school on the move, as well as one school being nationally recognized as a distinguished school. The empowering educators is something I also bring every single, not every single day, but as much as I can. As a leader of a network of 720 teachers, you can regularly see me facilitating PD, participating in professional learning experiences, and investing in the capacity, building the capacity of our teachers. So why me? Why Salem? Why now? I don't know. I've always been selective and intentional throughout my career of where I go and where I take my leadership. I feel like my experiences have prepared me as a teacher, as a principal, a leader, but also a cabinet leader, a doctoral student, and several of the fellowships that I participated in. We share very similar goals, Salem as a district and myself, with viewing education as a transformative experience. And I look forward to sharing more of the story tonight as we look forward to a brighter future for Salem so the students can see themselves in the future of their education, the future of work, but also the future of Salem.

Thanks. So for our first question, I'll start. Equity often requires difficult choices. How do you approach decisions about allocating resources, opportunities, and supports across students, schools, and programs when needs exceed available resources?

So equity to me means moving beyond just equal distribution of funds. I believe that our budget planning process is a true reflection of our values. And so when we are faced with difficult decisions and decisions that impact programs, impact students, I believe that leading a district through a data-driven lens, understanding where our exact needs are, and investing in those needs to help out our students move forward. One thing that we have in place in Salem is a strategic plan. So if there's any question of what we're doing with our spending, we should go back to the values that we have as a district, and also the strategic plan that we've spent a lot of time establishing, which is serving as our beacon, our guiding light for our schools. In Boston, an example, through my leadership over the last 11 years, supporting a network of schools, I'm at the table during these difficult, complicated budget, staffing, planning sessions. We really look at the school-specific needs. It's not just one network of 15 in a one-size-fits-all approach. I could give an example of when funding was good, when we had that ESSER injection of funding. It was great. It was the first time we had this, like, three-year, once-in-a-lifetime injection of funds. But it wasn't all about spending, going to Spending Spring and buying what you need. stacking up as many positions as you needed. With my team, we really thought about three and five years out. Like, what can we do right now to get our students back on track? But what also do we need to do three years later when this funding cliff, this fiscal cliff is going to come? So being really thoughtful about the investments we make and also about how the future forecast of what our projections look like. Currently, you know, resources are scarce. It's a challenging time in education right now across all districts. My friends who work in other districts are facing similar challenges as me in Boston. But I think when this happens, we have to protect the core of our investments, which is looking at instructional quality for our students. It's looking after the students who need the most support. and also providing organizational coherence. It's not like we're making this decision on our own and everyone's trying to figure out. When these difficult budget decisions are made, a key part of it is being able to communicate how they're being made, why they're being made, so the whole organization sees the path forward. Another part of communicating is communicating early, as early as we can see as our schools and our departments are planning their budgets. Just to have a clear sense of what is possible and what is not possible will help people plan for the future.

Can we follow up questions from members of the committee? No?

I thought other people were going to have questions, so I thought I'd have a second to collect my thoughts. But I'm wondering, you did mention, you know, making sure that people who need the most get the most. So I'm wondering if you could give an example of where you had to make choices like that as a leader to say this community of students really needs X people.

Yeah. All right, so let's go back to ESSER when we had some extra funds around. As we came out of ESSER, we still had a little bit for our intervention programs. Our high schools typically do our interventions during Saturdays, but I have 13 elementaries in addition to my two high schools. And that year we came off of ESSER, there was still interest and a potential of having our We call them acceleration academies, February break and April break. The first year we had the money, it was like, let's see how many kids we could get in. And, you know, we're going to tie it to our panorama. We have student success plans and panorama. And we had a very high percentage compared to the rest of the district how many kids actually participated because a lot of teachers wanted to do it as well. But as funding got short, it moved from this two or three years of people saying, look, I'm going to sign up. It's going to be great. I get five extra days of education. of instruction during February break to asking our schools to be very thoughtful of how many students, which students are going to be filling those seats. And my region, especially East Boston, it's the highest percentage of multilingual learners in the city. With that comes students that have are learning English, but also with IEPs. So really prioritizing the students who would truly benefit from five extra days in February and in April. Another key part of that, too, was the communication. I said it wasn't always the homeroom teacher, but creating mechanisms in place so whatever happened during those five days could be shared with their homeroom teachers when they come back. So, yeah, I hope that was a good example.

Thank you.

But it was tough because everybody wanted to do it. Everyone got used to it. Never stop.

Thank you. One comment that you made about communication, you said it a few times, and the important part is to communicate how decisions are made. Could you provide a few examples of how you do that during the budgeting process, like who you communicate and how?

Yeah. I mean, ESSER is the easiest one. So I'll give a brief example with ESSER, but I'll kind of give a current example. And we knew this was a three-year injection of funds. And our principals are programmed to do these yearly budgets, right? Like, every May, they got to get their budget down to the penny, right? Because they got to spend it down. This is the first time we had this, like, multi-year approach. And so at 15 schools, 15 different approaches, and it's trying to help them understand, like, look, you could spend a lot on people up front, but be sure you have a plan for When these full-time positions are going to be cut at the end, is it going to be paraprofessionals that are going to be jumping up to teachers with teachers retiring? How are you going to fill the positions without letting five people go? The other part of it was we leaned on planning to build capacity through professional development, bringing in some of our curriculum experts to hold summer PDs. We did a summer conference for our teachers. But to get back to your question, Sorry, can you repeat the last part of your question again?

Really just ways that you communicate it.

Yeah, so this year was a good example with the pending shortfall coming with some of our schools all tied to enrollment. East Boston and parts of Charleston got hit really hard by enrollment for everything that happened in the winter and spring this year. And so we saw lighter enrollment come through the summer. So what was projected was like, oh, wow, it was a little bit lighter at two of our schools. But we decided to keep those personnel in place and kind of retool them and come up with a co-teaching situation. But as we led into our budget season starts as early as November, really, for the principals in December, being able to tell the stories, like, hey, we have extra staff right now. The enrollment is low right now. It's going to continue to be projected lower. So how are you going to restructure your school without having all these extra people, knowing that you're still going to have a core of 400 or 500 students? How are you going to be making the moves ahead of time? So depending on licensure, depending on the structure of your administration team, how are you going to proactively have these conversations and help folks who are not going to be here. Because some people, they didn't have the proper licensure, so it was finding them other spots within our region for positions that they would qualify for. But it's tough news when you're contracting as a district, but I think that if you could actually offer a list of positions that are helpful for the person that may be displaced within the region, I think that helps ease the blow of the tough news.

Any further follow-up questions? All right, second question, Member Cornell.

Thanks. Salem has worked hard to build a culture of high expectations for all students while also offering strong college and career pathways. How would you ensure students experience a coherent educational journey from elementary through high school and graduate prepared for success in college, career, and life?

Okay. To ensure that coherent journey that you're talking about, I think we need to really view the Salem portrait of a graduate not as a destination, but a roadmap as students and families progress from pre-kinder all the way to graduation, which is really our ultimate goal. We need to think, ask ourselves, how can members of the early education community, our middle schools, our elementary schools, our middle schools, how can they view themselves as part of this ultimate goal for our students? In my experience, I have 15 schools, and I'm the only region in Boston that has the K-12 experience. So I do have an early education. I have several elementaries, K-6K, dual language, Montessori, and two high schools. We have open enrollment high schools, so students can go to whatever high school they want. But in one of my high schools in East Boston, it's over 90% of the kids choose to stay in their neighborhood. That was a recent development. We dropped our high school 9-12 down to 7-12 in recent years, so it helped this kind of connective tissue between, actually Charlestown is also 7-12, but it helps the leaders within the schools see how they're truly connected and they're part of the transition and the handoff To create this system that you're talking about, I think that we take for granted to some degree the importance of the transitions that students go from elementary to middle and high school. When I was a high school principal, I think we went all out, like a two week boot camp for kids coming from middle school to high school. When I was a middle school principal, we'd go to the elementary schools and make our presence felt and we'd bring the dance team and the drum line and the stuff that wasn't really about school, but the things that got kids excited about coming. I think we really need to go back to the basics and say, OK, a transition for a fifth grader going to sixth grade, that's a really scary transition. And if you don't help the students understand ahead of time or the parents understand, you may lose them for their first month of middle school. And how hard will it be to get them back on track if you lose them? So I think that going to this whole continuum, this nice pipeline that we have in Salem with a nice set of elementary schools that all go to one middle school. You guys have such an advantage here because in Boston, after middle school, the kids go everywhere. My daughter's going to high school next year in a neighborhood like three and a half miles away. So these are things that we have to leverage as something, a structure that we can really use to our advantage to create that coherent system for our families and our kids. Because I tell you what, the transitions are tough, and you guys have done the hard work to make it pretty much two clear transitions, elementary, middle, high school.

Any follow-up questions? Okay.

member Cornell when you're thinking about those transitions I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about how as a superintendent you will work with teachers to a to assess effectiveness you know when we're thinking about how we're prepared how we're both preparing students to be that graduate but also to make those academic transitions not just not just the sort of social emotional transitions so so how you're going to work with teachers to to make sure that we're doing it well teachers specifically from elementary to middle middle to high school or teachers in general i think across the board

across the board. I think that a core value of mine is all decisions are data-based decisions. I would love to dig in to see how Salem looks at formative assessments, summative assessments, how we're getting the information not just to the students but the families and partnering with the families to understand. I think data fluency is a huge, huge, like, miss that a lot of districts and a lot of schools do. We just say, like, hey, here's your GPA or here's how you did on the test, but really understanding the difference between growth and achievement, really understanding all the assessment measures that we present to students. Our high number of multilingual learners, they take the access test. A lot of students just take the test to take the test without seeing like, okay, what does this really mean as I go on this five or six year journey of fluency. I think that bringing in parents to fully understand beyond just the surface, the DOK level one of this is my GPA, this is how I'm doing, to understand how the grading systems at the elementary level may differ from the high school, but to get the students and the teachers to push us, I think that's gonna keep us on our toes, which requires our teachers to be well aware. Also, our principals. The state formula's shifting. The way our accountability is gonna be determined, A lot of us as principals, we say, let's work really hard and get the highest accountability score as possible. But really, if you think about it, there's like 12 to 15 factors that go into it. And we can't just continue to work hard, hard, hard, hard all the time. It has to be very specific to what the goals are. We have to understand how we're being measured so we can push forward and actually meet the metrics that are put ahead of us. So data fluency.

All right for next question member by us.

So I'm going to be asking this question in Spanish and then we've been in English. I'm going to ask that you please answer in Spanish and then in brief in English. Salem ve la educación como una misión comunitaria. ¿Cómo construirás asociaciones sólidas con las familias, el personal, los líderes de la ciudad y las organizaciones comunitarias? ¿Y cómo te asegurarás de que las familias de todos los orígenes de Salem tengan oportunidades significativas para influir en las decisiones del distrito?

Thank you for your question. I deeply share the same vision, the community vision of the school district. Schools, directors, teachers can't do the work alone. They have to use the help of community organizations, the voices of the parents, and everyone who helps the schools, like the members of the committee and the mayor. But to build alliances, it starts with listening. Las esperanzas de la comunidad, las metas de la escuela, las necesidades que la comunidad necesita para mejorar. Ser un líder comunitario es esencial, no es una cosa extra. No se puede avanzar sin confianza, sin escuchar las voces de las familias que están ayudando. And I have to learn the needs of our community. In Boston, when I arrived in 2015, I don't know much about Boston. En mis primeros dos meses, yo recuerdo caminando por las calles, hablando con los dueños de restaurantes, iglesias, y preguntando si pueden usar su espacio para tener juntas comunitarias para escuchar. En las primeras juntas, yo invito más de 200, 300 voces para ayudarme en mis metas para mi primer año. It's an essential element of leadership. As a leader in Salem, I know the families, the partners, the associates of the community and all the people in the city. They have to be at the table to help formulate the goals for the school district. But that's the type of leadership, collaborative leadership that I use. And that's the type of collaboration that I'm going to... That's the type of leadership that our students and families need.

Gracias.

I basically said, what did I say? Listening, I think, is a very, very important part of leadership. It's not an extra thing that a leader needs to do, especially in a person's role like a superintendent or a principal. You can't just lead from your office and say, this is what we're going to do. I shared the example of I also said we need to listen, we also need to learn, and we need to act and reflect and share our progress, what we're doing. I shared an example when I first came to Boston and, you know, it was my wife and my 10-month-old daughter at the time. I knew maybe one other person, two other people came from L.A. But I landed in a neighborhood, East Boston, at the recommendation of one of my former teachers. And I remember not really knowing what to do. It was my first time ever in this role. I had been a principal before. And I'm like, OK, there's no real playbook, no onboarding. And so what I did is I just basically walked the streets. I met a couple of people around churches, people around restaurants, a community center, and I just asked them, like, hey, can I have, like, an early morning meeting or afternoon meeting and just invite people? And people came because they were curious, like, oh, wow, this guy wants to listen to me. But that helped. And we'll talk about it in another one of the questions coming up. But it helped me understand the needs of the community. I also shared that this is the type of leader you're going to get from me if I come to Salem. I will be in the streets. You'll see me around. I will listen. I will be accessible. i'm not going to formulate a plan all by myself it's going to be informed by the community and meeting those needs i think is one of the most important parts of the someone in the super tennessee thank you did i translate it okay thank you any follow-up questions from members of miranda

Thank you. Oh, sorry. Can't do that. Wish I could. Just in connection with this idea of, you know, listening to the community, our community really values stability and leadership. And so I'm wondering, like, how can you reassure students, families, staff that you see Salem as a place to invest in over the long term?

Yeah, I love that question. And I think I said it in the last community meeting. Like, I have a really boring resume. I said that just like kind of, you know, just without even thinking about it. But my wife and a couple of people are like, oh, yeah, we really like that because. It shows that you've spent 12 years, sorry, 16 years in Los Angeles, all in one little neighborhood. Like, I did a lot in that neighborhood from teacher, teacher leader, administrator, to open two schools in that little part of South Central Los Angeles. 11 years in East Boston. The team has done a remarkable work. But to reassure you, there's nothing I can promise you. This is what I'm saying. As a leader, I know you can't move a school forward as a principal if you're changing schools every two years. It's the same thing for a district. Your strategic plans are usually three to five years long. You have to be able to live out the plan to see. It's not just starting something. It's ending something. I think what we have here in Salem, if someone's going to say, oh, you're timing, how long are you going to be here? I'm excited about a five-year strategic plan or a four-year strategic plan. I'm excited about landing a five-year rebuild of the high school. Like, this is something I've done in a new school before, and it's something you can't just, like, hand off to someone. You want to pick the paint colors or, you know, be at the table. And it's not in me. Josiah said at the beginning, I'm all in. I'm not in it to... just go to the next level of whatever I'm going to do. I mean, I'm in it for the long run. And I mean, Salem is a place that I think I could see myself for a while. But actions speak louder than words, so I'll be here.

I'm going to ask this question in Spanish. So usted dijo que para poder traer a las familias, ¿cómo usted hará eso con familias que no hablen el idioma del inglés, no usan teléfono, comunicación? ¿Cómo usted ayudaría a esas familias a ser parte de la educación de esos niños?

In my experience in Spanish.

I was just going to translate in English. I just asked him how he would bring families who don't speak English, that are not good with technology, how would he bring them together to be part of their child's education.

In my experience, in my experience, in the past, When I was a director, for example, my school is a high school with more than 100 students, and it's impossible to talk to all the parents. . . La palabra, ellos están hablando, this is the word of mouth. I can't say the word of mouth in Spanish, but ellos hablan después de la junta. Hablan con sus amigos y otras familias. In East Boston, hay dos housing developments grandes. Yo soy en el mes ejecutivo de uno de los housing developments. Y cuando tenemos una junta en Maverick Landing, hay más de 600 departamentos en Maverick Landing. En mi junta hay solamente como 30, 40 personas, pero la palabra expande. Todos están hablando. Y si yo puedo ser disponible para los padres y pueden compartir mi mensaje con los voces de otros. Y si ellos tienen preguntas, yo siempre estoy en las escuelas y pueden preguntar cuando estamos antes o después de la escuela. Pero yo sé, todos nos usan de la misma manera. Con otro idioma, yo necesito ayuda, pero eso es otro cuento. So I basically said, as a principal, one of the strategies I used was we'd have house meetings where I'd identify a couple families and we'd have a house meeting and they'd invite, you know, 12 or so people. And even if all those people, you know, their neighbors want to come, the word of mouth kind of spread, like, okay, this is what they're doing, this is what we're... we're expecting from the school. In the context of my current job, I live in East Boston, there's two big housing developments, one that I'm on the board, Maverick Landing Community Services, we'll have meetings there from time to time, and of course there's like 600 housing units there, and not 600 people show up, but it's the same type of thing, like having the meeting, getting the word out, people tend to talk, even if it's through WhatsApp or whatever afterwards, but it's trying to be as available as possible, and I'm always on campuses, All the time, so I'm always available for parents to grab me and ask questions.

All right. Member Hoffman.

Tell us about your experience supporting students who face significant barriers to success, including students from marginalized communities and those at risk of disengagement. How would you ensure Salem's systems identify needs early and provide effective support?

Thank you for the question. In my 27 years, it's been largely with students who face the greatest barriers. In my part of South Central Los Angeles, where I spent those 16 years as a teacher and later a principal, middle school and high school principal, but then also bringing those experiences to Boston. One year of the 11, I actually worked on the high school team, working with alternative education. And so I saw how the system approaches re-engagement or disengagement. And so thinking about our students who we would consider as marginalized, right? And I'll make a connection to our youngest because we don't typically think of our youngest as alternative education or disengaged. But what I saw in that year working with our engagement center, which is an amazing team, is how they would go out and make those personal connections to see why they're not in school, why they're not attending school, dropout or attendance, why they're disengaged. Like what is the why? it goes another thing I really want to focus on was the communication a lot of times our kids go from school to school to school and there's no like warm handoff it's just like you know Mary Pangala is going to Beth Ann school and it's like okay there's a new kid here there's a story behind that mid semester transfer or that late enrollment and i think that communicating and finding who the adults who are working with the students all throughout their career is is is as important as welcoming welcoming students at that time i mentioned early education like i was a first grade teacher and i ended up working in an administrator's elementary school and i saw the same type of disengagement happening with our four and five-year-olds who are coming to us brand new maybe First time ever in school, but maybe first time ever in the country. And you're like, hey, welcome to school. And the kid just freezes up because they've never experienced another adult outside their family member in some cases. But it's the same type of stress or loneliness or inability to navigate. Just as a teenager might not be able to share exactly what they're going through, a four-year-old definitely can't do it. And yeah, some kids just go right in and do their thing, but every student is different and it goes back to understanding why is this kiddo upset? Why is the parent being like a helicopter mom. You know, there's reasons for all these things, right? But I think that as kids transition from early ed or elementary to middle school, high school, those are key points that we need to share. Like, hey, this is what gets this kiddo ticking. Hey, this is what we've been noticing. And I don't think that there's enough of that warm handoff. I experienced myself. I feel like it's just, I know we got an eight o'clock cutoff, but... I value the slogan that you guys have in the district where belonging leads to opportunity. That's kind of how I lead. And it goes back to my roots. I went to the Japanese Methodist Church in Sacramento and it was a church that my mom's family basically built, right? But it was a Japanese American Methodist Church and we'd do Sunday school and summer programs and I'd play church basketball. But my brother and I were literally the only two mixed-race kids in the whole thing, right? And I remember, like, it was weird because the kids I was at church with, they acted different than when I was at school. And I remember a time when it was Mother's Day and I had ceramics, and there was, like, a little bullying going on. They broke my mom's, like, ceramic project. And I told my mom, I'm not coming back to church ever again. And it broke her heart. I go to church now, right? But it broke her heart because it was like the church that her family was connected to. And my brother, of course, was like, yeah, I'm out of here too, right? But we stopped playing church basketball. We stopped going to Japanese summer school. We stopped going to summer school. It was just my mom and my sister after that. But I didn't realize how impactful that was until I was well into my teaching career. I was like, this is why people don't want to come to school. And if you could... get people to come to school, like want to be there, and feel like they're part of the school, no matter what community it is, a club, a sport, whatever it is, right? Their attendance improves, and if your attendance improves, your academics are gonna be a little bit better. So, long story to say, I think we really gotta get to know our kids, and so many of our kids fall through the cracks. We need to tighten up the systems for how the transitions happen.

Follow ups.

This is I'm going to not also I should say I do want to watch the World Cup game which I mentioned ahead of time but you're not on a timer we can take

I feel like we're ahead of schedule.

As long as you'd like. Yeah. Catch up. This is, I'm going to acknowledge, this is a structural, it's a national issue. But, you know, I think it's, I think I can speak for my colleagues when I say it's incredibly important for us to make sure that our EL students, our low-income students, our students of color are that they're improving academically. And we know that we're a little, we're having a hard time pushing that forward, even though we are, we're doing much better than we have in the past. So I'd just like to know, you know, sort of what your strategy is.

Mr. Yeah, I think it goes back to one of the core values I shared earlier, being a data-driven leader. Being able to use the data available to identify the pockets of our schools or even our grade levels or even our classrooms to say, look, these students are crying out for additional help. I think there are so many tools right now that will help us better identify, number one, the students who are falling behind, but also through MTSS, multiple student success, be able to design ways, small group interventions, what I need now, however you want to call it in the school system, to catch them up strategically instead of just throw them on a computer and give them more time. I think that the time we have in our school days are extremely valuable. I love seeing small group stations happening in the classrooms where they're led by a paraprofessional and a teacher, but I really want to make sure that what students are getting in their independent time is actually connected to what they need to be working on. The other thing is using the tools to catch students up. If we're behind in a pacing plan in a math unit or English unit, how could we strategically look at the needs that the formative assessments are telling us to work on those with the students, both during school time, after school time, but being able to pinpoint and target the exact needs of students, I think is going to be able to lift us up all together.

Thank you.

My next question is, school districts across Massachusetts face significant fiscal challenges. Tell us about your approach to budgeting and resource allocation and share an example of how you have navigated the period of financial constraint.

Yeah, so I think responsible stewardship and paying attention to the fiscal health, ensuring that the fiscal health serves our instructional goals is one of the top priorities of a superintendent. It also means using the resources allocated by the taxpayers wisely. When we have a gift like the vote that went favorably for the city on May 5th, We have to show the community that this was a big thing for us. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create an instructional program for our high school that's going to serve as the crown jewel of not only Salem, but the entire region. But we have to deliver within the constraints that we have. And I know this is a five-year project, and there's a lot of timelines that go into that. But being able to clearly demonstrate that we are being fiscally responsible with big projects like that, but also on a yearly basis. I discussed a little bit of the ESSER times versus the kind of day-to-day annual budget challenges that we're facing. I think that proactively being able to plan for the fiscal pressures that are coming ahead of us I think is really, really important. And I mentioned earlier, like a lot of us in education are programmed to think on an annual budget. In my region, we always think one, three, five years out. One is what we're doing right now, but three years is kind of like where we hope to go with the initiatives that we're doing, and five years is the ultimate goal. But if we see things like shrinking enrollment, which I know Salem is pretty stable compared to most of the districts around here, if we see a downtick in the population of students or uptick in the population of students, being able to plan for that and be able to communicate ahead of time to our school leaders and to our teachers, our teacher union, to understand what the needs will be, I think is going to be, is very important. I already shared a little bit about like planning a school through a very challenging time due to declining enrollment. I could think of another time where we were shifting an instructional program. One of our schools was going through a dual language rollout, I guess you could say. And with that came not only staffing changes, but we were shrinking the actual middle school. Because this school, as the school is growing, It was probably three classes per grade up until middle school, and then it became like seven or eight classes in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. But as that school grew to become a full bilingual school, dual language school, those sixth, seventh, and eighth grades started shrinking dramatically, and the seats moved somewhere else, right? But seeing that ahead of time is one of those things where teachers saw it coming, because we started the program at first grade, and then it was second grade, third grade. Right when it hit fifth, going to sixth grade, the teacher started saying, like, wow, this is, we're really transitioning to a bilingual program. It had to do with the program, but it was also about the budget. The same time we were converting my K-5 schools to K-6, So it created a place for people to go. And so it wasn't like adding a whole bunch of extra sixth grade capacity, it was shifting the sixth grade capacity to other schools. But my team was able to see that kind of like 30,000 foot view of the situation. A lot of teachers are focusing what's happening in front of them and principals are focusing year after year. But to be able to show a multi-year plan that was able to show how schools are growing and schools are contracting, but at the end of the day, the number of students, the number of teachers are gonna remain the same. Once you see that all mapped out, I think it takes the sting out of like, oh, my school's changing, I'm doing something different than I used to do for the last 10 years. So again, going back to communication.

Follow-up questions? Member Cornell.

A lot of follow-up questions, sorry. Your answer just made me think a little bit about our relationships with our three collective bargaining units. And I'm actually, I apologize, I'm not really sure what your role is in that in Boston. But I think we work really hard to maintain strong relationships with our three unions and probably especially our teachers union. And the superintendent is an important partner in that. So I'm wondering, just based on this sort of fiscal stewardship question, how you would envision your role there in helping to bridge those conversations between school committee and the Salem Teachers Union when we're talking about, I think collectively we're all worried about finances going forward. So what would your role be there in sort of helping to bridge communication about finances from school committee to Salem Teachers Union.

Yeah, I mean, I hope to be, what do you call it, a frequent caller, like on your frequent caller list. So we always would talk. We understand what's going on, the challenges that we face. I think that's something I could bring to the relationship that you're asking about right now is my experience working with superintendents and assistant superintendents all across the region. I think Some districts, like my district, it's hitting a little bit earlier than others. But being able to understand, okay, what contract stipulations actually had an impact? Because we may be like a year behind or two years behind another district that had fiscal challenges that dramatically impacted teaching and learning. What can we learn from some of the contracts that have already been out there? I mentioned over the last couple years I've developed a network of people who are now becoming superintendents, and this is superintendents, so I have this network of people to bounce ideas off of. Just to give maybe an example, hey, we're in a similar situation that this may be coming down the line. But open lines of communication, I welcome. You mentioned my experience. Back when I was an elementary teacher, I was the building rep for two years. So I saw that side of it and really understanding the contract. But at the end of the day, I think placing our students first, our students' success first, that's what's most important. And how we get there is how we get there. But if we always keep our students first, and I think that our current strategic plan, which just ended, I think it does a pretty good job of highlighting the importance of what we value as a district.

member miranda how do you balance supporting principals and school leaders with holding them accountable when student outcomes school climate or equity goals are not being consistently met

Yeah, so a balanced support and accountability, it's like, to me, it's the same, two sides of the same coin, right? Also know that all of our schools are different. All of our school leaders are facing different challenges. Accountability, people think of that one number that DESE puts out every single year, and it's more than just the number. you know as schools are moving towards turnaround or they're hitting their like you know stride um the goals kind of always change for what we expect and it's not just for the whole school it's looking at the different pockets of of students that we have um i think i mentioned data fluency and like that's something that's really important for me to make sure our our leaders understand these new rules that are coming out from DESE and these new guidelines and expectations for how we are working. So having our leadership team be very clearly able to articulate what we want for our students is important. What I see is, in addition to that bottom line, we have academic growth, we have our equity goals, our school climate. To me, it's really important, the school climate. All the little metrics underneath it that lead up to that one accountability number. With the network that we have in Salem, there's schools that can share their best practices that are literally a half mile, quarter mile away from each other, supporting the same populations of students. And even if it's something that works really well at a third grade class at Witchcraft, maybe we could apply it to Bentley. even though one's dual language and one's, you know, witchcraft elementary, there may be some best practices that we can share. And so part of me supporting leadership is sharing those best practices and helping people think differently about the results that they're getting. As far as working with school leaders or teachers or schools that aren't meeting their goals, I think the first thing to do is to diagnose what is actually happening. Is something instructionally happening that we need to fix? Is there something systemic? Is there something that we're doing to actually harm the schools? Because I see it all the time with my dual language school. I don't think we're measuring the right thing. It looks completely different than what we see in the accountability day because two-thirds of my students are learning English and Spanish at the same time. So I got to ask myself, what system level tweaks can we make to understand how schools are actually doing? And then when we understand what's working, we have a better understanding what challenges students are experiencing, how do we reflect and go back and say, what needs to be different? both system-wide, both within the school, sometimes it lies just within the grade level. Like maybe it's a grade level that's not approaching the work the same way that the two years before and the two years after are. So I think there's a lot of diagnosis, giving support, finding the right professional learning, not only for our teachers, but for our principals and for our team, our executive team. It's a tight team, but I think everybody needs to understand the value of professional learning and how we move forward because we are a growth-based organization. That's what we expect of our kiddos.

Any follow-up questions? Never stop.

Thank you. Salem has a strong foundation and ambitious future, including a transformative high school project that will impact the community for generations. What should Salem schools look like 10 years from now? And how can the superintendent ensure that long-term investments remain educationally sound, fiscally responsible, and responsive to community needs?

Thank you. Ten years from now, I want people to see Salem as the example of innovation, a district that leads with equity and has led with equity to gain the results that we've observed over the last ten years. I'm thinking 2036 now, right? Opportunities for students. based on the programming that we have. And we mentioned the high school. I mean, we're gonna be able to design a high school that the design is meeting the instructional needs or the programming needs. In 10 years from now, so fast forward, that's five years of the school being already open and in place, People will see this brand-new building, this half-billion-dollar building, as the center of our community, opening up for, like, the art center, sports, things like that. So it truly is a community center that's an exemplar that we can show other communities outside of the Salem area of how a city can completely embrace itself around a whole school system. Elementary students will see themselves at the high school. Middle school students will see themselves in the high school. Just a hub of activity. And I think that more than just the building, it's going to elevate the expectations we have for our kids, for our families, for our community partners. Ten years from now, the sense of Salem pride is going to be even higher than it is right now. People are going to be proud. that they went through the Salem Public Schools, and they'll be able to say, hey, I learned this in my elementary, or my middle, or my high school, and this is why I came back. There's so many teachers and staff members that I met on my tour two weeks ago, that were so proud to tell me, the first thing they told me was I was a Salem Public School student. And this was in, you know, they graduated from the old Salem, or the current Salem High School. I can't imagine what people are gonna say five, 10 years from now when they say, I graduated from that school and I'm giving back. So 10 years from now, I want students and families to have the sense of pride, to give them a reason to come back, to say that Salem was my origin story, and to be the best public school system in the entire state.

Any follow-up questions?

One piece of this is how can the superintendent ensure the long-term investments remain educationally sound and just in terms of like our kind of portfolio of schools that's something that we wrestle with a lot with declining student population even though we're doing pretty well in that department here what would your approach be to to sort of that piece of this question you know how do we ensure that the investments that we're making structurally for our students, whether that's making sure we're maintaining buildings that are really old, like Bentley needs a lot of attention. We merge two schools. What would your approach be to managing that part of the job?

Yeah, the district has done a lot of hard work, and I appreciate that. I mean, emerging a school, closing school several years ago, the big vote in the high school, that's like tremendous amount of work that's being done. But moving forward, I've seen what absolutely crushes school budgets, and this is when, in my portfolio, I have a bunch of two-strand or three-strand schools, like two classrooms per grade or three classrooms per grade. our schools that struggle the most is when we get declining enrollment in those two-strand schools and they go from like two full classes to one and a half classes it creates like a structural funding deficit in that school and it goes up as they go from first second third grade and so thinking about as we we have our enrollments uh process i think about our larger schools uh that have a little bit more flexibility with going from two to three to four to three to two like and protecting our smaller programs like Bentley, which is an amazing dual language program, our early ed center. How do we ensure that they're fiscally viable when we have larger schools that could get bigger and smaller without actually feeling the fiscal pinch that would hurt our student services that we're delivering. So I think having that goes back to that long-term vision, like, you know, working with our city team to understand the demographic flows, the birth rate that's coming. We have the birth rate data right now for zero, one, two, and three-year-olds, right? What does that historically look at as far as students that come into our system? How can we plan ahead for this? like i said i feel like the team has done tremendous amount of work already with this merger and the closure and in high school so i'm excited to see where we kind of stabilize and but always pay attention to the future look outlook of what the city's going to be facing no further follow-up questions remember miranda

Describe a time when feedback from families, staff, or community members caused you to rethink your initial approach to an issue. How did you communicate your decision, and what did the experience teach you about leadership?

Yeah, so some of one of my previous, I think my previous response to either one of you two will come up in this one. But leadership is not about having all the answers. It's about being able to listen, be able to think critically, and be able to course correct your plans, right? That level of flexibility I think is extremely important to have as a characteristic as an urban school leader. There's so many curveballs that get thrown at you. And you think you might have the greatest idea, but you need to go to the people you're serving. And the people we are serving are the students and the families, the teachers, the principals. We need to hear from them, and we need their input. Once decisions are made, another form of input or feedback is progress monitoring. Like, hey, we made this decision on merging a school. It just didn't happen. Let's see how it goes in a year. and year one and year two. So that feedback is equally important. The time when I was challenged, I could, I got a lot of examples. In 2015, I shared that one at first. I came in brand new, my first job outside the principal ship. I'm going to a new city. I'm like, let's do it, right? I'm going to be the best instructor. And my title back then wasn't regional superintendent. It was instructional superintendent. So I was like, let's go. I'm going to be the instructional guy this whole year. And when I did that initial listening campaign, like, no one was talking about instruction. They were talking about, look, we got, like, nine different configurations of schools in your little neighborhood. You got a K to first grade. You got a K-4, a K-5, a K-6. Middle school, it was, like, all over the place. So even my city council at the time would tell me, like, oh, yeah, I went to, like, five different schools from kindergarten to graduation. And the other state rep was saying, like, yeah, I couldn't figure it out for elementary, so I went private, Catholic, and then I came back for high school. But that type of confusion was, like, the biggest thing. So I was like, wait a second. Everyone's talking about just, like, the basics, like, predictability of the system. Like, this system here is very similar to my experience in L.A. Elementary, middle, high school. Like, 99% of the schools in L.A. are that way. Taking that feedback, working with our city leaders, our team, we were the first region to reconfigure to primarily K-6, 7-12 in alignment with our exam school. So we have three exam schools that are 7-12, but my two high schools, we dropped down to 7-12. That was the biggest, there was another issue too, was they really wanted, we had an advanced work class, like a gifted program at just one elementary. But all these parents are like, we want it too. And you can't fund it for everybody. But one of the moves we actually did was took it away from one school and basically lifted everything up for everybody. But that was a course correction idea. I was like, I'm going in all instruction, because I know this is the highest multilingual learner population. They told me otherwise. We still worked on instruction, but I was able to deliver on a couple of key things. In 2017, I don't know if you heard, but in Boston, we tried to change all the start times and all the bus routes. It was like the biggest fail ever. Like, literally. districts were learning from our mistakes and, like, doing better in years, subsequent years. But I remember I was on the, I was associate superintendent of the team, associate superintendent at the time, and we had these 10 community meetings all across the city. And it was just like, they were just letting us have it, right? Because it was an idea that came from some very smart people from MIT or a college in Boston and our team. And we just got torn up for it. But what I remember is we had an 11th meeting, and it wasn't geographic. It was geographically based, but we had an 11th meeting in Spanish only in East Boston. And so me and the superintendent at the time, his deputy, maybe two people from the city, we had this meeting at the East Boston Social Centers. And of course, we have food, we have music. And it was like, awesome. And we had about 60 people there. Not one person cared about start times or buses. The questions were, how are you going to make my kid learn English faster? How are you going to help his educational experience? So I took for that. I went back to me. This is 2017. I came back to my team in 2018. I was like, hey, guys, we've got to work on something else besides some technical issues. Let's work on this. And being in East Boston is one of my three neighborhoods, but we went all in on the four domains of language development, really leaning into... listening and reading as inputs, speaking and writing as outputs. But we created a framework for our schools to actually look at how we're supporting our students and families on the K-12 continuum. So that was like a reverse thing. I went in with a very technical problem. They're like, no, no, we want instruction. But I could come up with some ideas. I'm not afraid to say, hey, I was wrong. And that's why I surround myself with really smart people that are confident enough to tell me that. And we need to pause and think about it. So I hope that answers your question, but I think that not being set on a decision and really being able to listen to the people who you're ultimately impacting is one of the most important parts we could do as a superintendent.

Thank you.

Any follow up questions to the question? Amber Cronall.

The theme of this part is communication and trust and feedback from family, staff, community members is an important part of this. This would be a different role for you to have to deal with all this. And so I'm wondering how you plan to communicate with the school committee and how you envision your relationship with each of us individually and as a body?

Mr. Yeah. I've worked closely with my school committee in Boston for the majority of the years. When I was associate sub, I did a lot of school committee presentations and a lot of pre-work as far as informing folks that, hey, this is coming, this is what we're thinking. And, you know, of course, there's School committee members are interested in some things as opposed to others. So it's really like understanding, okay, I know these people are going to come up with some questions about this. Even to the point where I'd sit around myself with the team, like, hey, you ask Bethann's type of question and you ask Yonely's type of question, right? Because we're all playing, right? So we know what's coming to us. But I think part of that is knowing what gets you guys ticking and what's important for you, what your goals are for the district, what your goals are professionally as well, right? Some of the most effective moments I've had with school committee members, current and former, is like, hey, let's schedule a ride-along. I know some people's schedule can't afford it, but if there's a 20-minute conversation that we need to have about something that may be coming down the line a year or two from now, let's take two hours and go through schools. It gets you visible in schools, and yes, you're going to do your school thing in the classroom and give an award or whatever, but all the in-between times, We're talking. And I think being able to have open conversations like that, being accessible, to not be afraid to say, hey, hop in my car, let's go on a ride-along, or I'll go in your car. Let's just walk from one school to the next. I think that is something that I bring to the table. I hope that as we work throughout the years, that you'll be like, hey, I actually like having conversations with him, even if it's not about school stuff. But I think that Getting to know what gets me what I'm passionate about, my goals for the school system, immediate and long term. I think having that better understanding and being able to be like, you know what, let me just text him real quick or call him real quick. I'm on all the time. Even when I'm with my family, I can do a quick text and like, hey, I'll call you back in an hour. But I'm not afraid to shy away from any type of meeting with anybody because I know that it's going to build dividends later on as we work on some really hard things in the future. So I imagine the first several months, like, I... us going to schools and just getting to know each other, that type of professional sense, for me to understand exactly what each and every single one of you guys prioritize as we move forward and thinking of the district as a whole, but also what you each bring to the table as far as your professional and your passions as well to help me be a better leader for our students. Member Stott?

Thank you. Along those lines, I actually think six out of seven of us here are also SPS parents. So thinking through that lens as well, not just as a school committee member, but as a parent, and a lot of your examples about decisions that were made are almost at the end point of that decision, right? So you're going out and you're providing solutions. How is the communication before that, right? How do you communicate to families and parents and the community before you get to that end, which is I guess the regular communication process.

Yeah, all right, so I got a great example. This year, so I remember I signed in 2015 when I arrived in Boston. I was just like, let me just walk around the streets and talk to whoever would listen to me. This summer, we launched a more formal version of a listen and learn campaign. And the whole goal was, it was the end of my 10 years there, and it's like, okay, let's come up with our mini five-year plan. The district's currently in a strategic planning process. I was like, let's get one just for us. all the work that we've been doing but in the same thing instead of me saying this is what we're gonna do like we did it in Reverse the summer we we spoke with and I worked with the community partner was great just gave me some extra capacity to do this type of work to facilitate meetings but started with the people around during the summer the principals some of our community partners but when the school year started being able to engage with parent groups from every single community, teachers. Some schools wanted teacher groups, paraprofessional groups. Some were, like, formal meetings. Some were, like, let's just sit in the lunchroom and you can come by what you want, as you will. There were a couple of neighborhood-based community meetings. But the whole goal in my mind was to create this, like, five-year plan, right, was to ask just three simple questions, right? Like, I've been here for 10 years. Like, what's going well? Right? Some of you guys weren't even here in the school system, but what's going well now? You don't even know how complicated it was before. But what's going well for you and your student or your child in the school? What can we do better? And the third question was, what do we completely need to stop? And so it was probably like 2,200, 2,300 inputs that we got as a team. And this was over... probably July through December, really. But the big themes that came out of it were some of the things I expected, some of the things I didn't expect. But listening to the families, there were three big things that came out. One was the transition into BPS. It's like such a complicated system. And not only getting in registration, but like the different schools and that type of stuff. Also for the teachers, I threw in the teachers, like how are we treating kindergarten readiness from the educator side? So that's one big bucket of work that came out that we're working on with partnering now with Community Center in East Boston, East Boston Social Center, as well as the Kennedy Center in Charlestown as our kind of like pilot with two schools. The second one was now we got this sixth to seventh grade transition. It's like the Super Bowl transitions. If that's the one transition that my daughter's going through, it better be the... most well thought out program we've ever done. So just last week we had a kind of extra sixth grade field trip day for all the kids going to East Boston and Charlestown just to get them to know each other because they're coming from several schools. It wasn't everybody but all the kids in my neighborhood participated to be really thoughtful for how we know because that was the second big work. It was like how are you ensuring that our students are going to be ready for seventh grade. And the last one we haven't really worked on too much but it's the high school and beyond, like, how we're provided. It was really along the lines of mentorships. Like, you hear the Posse program and things like that, where they, like, take a kiddo and they, like, mentor him for six years. Like, how could we replicate something like that with the staff that we have and the partners that we have? So that was, like, a reverse version of what I did in 2015. And it took a lot more work and a lot more convincing to people because there was so many voices, but it's like, hey, here are the big, big themes. Like, I want to do everything. Some of it's, like, cost prohibitive. Some of it's policy we can't change. But these are the three big things that you guys told me that I think we could actually make a dent in. And I can share that work with you, too.

Any other follow-up questions? Do you remember Miranda?

I know school committee member Cornell had mentioned like how you would plan to communicate with school committee members and one of the things that I've heard time and time again is this like valuing accessibility when it comes to the superintendent with parents. What's kind of like your view on that?

Yeah, so I've seen several of your school committee meetings and participated in a lot of meetings in Boston. Public comment is a big thing in some districts. And because I'm so accessible, I'm always around. Like even when things like start time came up or when we changed the exam school policy, which was like crushing to two or three of my school committees, communities, being present, being around, A lot of the conversations that I get just being around are with, you know, people with their strollers in the street as I'm going. Because I would, in East Boston, Charleston, and the North End, I would literally park at like maybe four or five different places I'd park and I could walk to all the schools. And being able to engage with parents and people who know who I am, like I'm the school guy, right? And being that consistent presence for the last 11 years. going to the soccer fields, going to community events, going to festivals, things like that. People see me around. So they're able to air their grievances with me, not on video camera or on school committee camera. And it's one of those things. I pride myself. It's like a joke. It's like, oh, well, there's zero comments coming from Region 1. That's East Boston, Charlestown. Because they already know how and who to yell at. Like, they could... They could have a spirited conversation with me before school, after school, and I could provide them where we are in the process. And it goes to being able to communicate, being able to connect. I talked to my family. The first two, three years when I was in Boston, I was always doing stuff because I had to establish, I was the new guy. After 11 years, I'm one of the only people still on that executive team. But my wife and my kiddos, they know that you're going to be doing your thing to be able to save time later on. Once you get in and people know how to access you, it just makes the work a little bit more manageable.

Thank you. Any final follow-up questions? Yeah, Member Hoffman.

Recently, the LGBTQ community has been under attack with sports, trans youth, and non-binary.

How would you- Sorry, Member Hoffman? Yeah. Your microphone.

Is it working now? Sorry. With everything coming down with, sorry, the LGBTQ community and the non-binary and trans, especially in sports, how would you support them in Salem, and how could a parent that maybe was concerned but didn't have comfort in contacting the superintendent, how would you want them to reach out to you? What would you do to include them in the conversation?

I'm imagining if this is coming up, it's going to be something we work with our athletic director on to create the space for these conversations. I know it's a hot topic in a lot of the districts around here. If you heard my story throughout this entire evening and before, I'm all about inclusion and inclusivity and trying to figure out how we can make it work for our students. But to your point of... Like how do we reach out to the parent who doesn't want to reach out? I feel like the same thing was coming from your question, member Baez, BS. Being available, being multiple options for people to reach out, using people who students may trust like athletic director or a teacher to say like, hey, let's get the word out for these meetings because there's multiple opportunities to talk to someone like me about if I'm the superintendent. And then also take the concerns and really problem-solve, workshop it with my team. Because in the Boston context, it might be different than Salem, might be different in Los Angeles. How are we going to solve this challenge that we're facing for this one, two, three, five, 10 students? And how are we going to create a policy that supports all moving forward, right? I think people need to be heard. They need to have a platform to be heard. And once that first time happens, You just have to have the first one, because then you can continue the conversation. But you're right. A lot of families don't know where to start. And I can't tell people, like, start here. But having multiple places for them to start the conversation is something that I think is very, very important for a school district.

All right, if there are no further follow-up questions, Dr. Welch, the floor is yours for a closing statement, I feel like.

All right. I wrote a couple notes down. So as we conclude tonight, I want to return to Salem's motto, which I love. It's where belonging leads to opportunity. I hope that I've demonstrated that I'm not just a candidate with the right resume, but also the person with the right experience who will help a sense of belonging move from what's written on paper to reality for more than our nearly 4,000 students. The how of my leadership style, you've seen or you've heard how I pride myself on building strong relationships with all stakeholders. You heard how I'm a data-driven systems leader, like I want to make decisions based on what I see on paper in front of me. how we can move student progress forward. You've heard how I have helped schools accelerate the work moving forward by being thoughtful, working with our leaders, working with our teachers. And this is exemplified by, I mean, the School on the Move Prize is a big thing in Boston. It's like basically the school of the year that has demonstrated four or five years of growth. And to have a network of schools that has never even had a finalist to having five over the last five years and a national distinguished school, which was recognized for their growth in English learners and students with special needs. Like, that's something special. That just doesn't happen overnight. And it's happening within this cluster of leaders that I've been working with for the last several years. Leading with transparency is something that I hope you heard from me tonight. And then building trust with our families, our educators, with you as a governing body, our mayor, and our school, our educators, right? The why is even more important. I believe a school district should be the heartbeat of the community. It's a place where students should be known, educators are valued, everyone feels like they belong, families are respected, and students can see a future of full possibility as they progress through our school system. And 10 years from now, I mentioned the portrait of a graduate, but just ensure that that is a reality for all students. And I think that getting down in our elementary and middle school levels, I think, is a key part of that. And 10 years from now, I want to see educators that choose to stay here because they see a path forward for them. They can see they can grow within our system. And 10 years from now, I want to see families valuing and seeing themselves having a true partnership with our city and our school district. And then the new high school, 10 years from now. We talked about it earlier, but I want it to be a model for innovation, like a hub for this entire community that people look to, like, hey, this community invested the dollars to do this, and it lifted the school from here to here. What I bring to this role is a full range of experience. I mentioned I was a classroom teacher in elementary and high school. I was a national board certified teacher in elementary from 2004 to 14. So you get a superintendent that was a instructional recognized for my teaching. back in Los Angeles. But you'll get a principal who's led the opening of two schools, a middle school and a high school, systems-level leader with an excellent track record working with 15 schools. It was up to 21 at one point. They had different configurations, but 15 for the last several years. But you also get a community advocate, someone who advocates for our communities to make the entire community of Salem a better place. I would be honored to serve as the next superintendent of Salem Public Schools. I look forward to partnering with everyone I mentioned earlier, from our school committee members to our family students. And together, we can ensure that Salem is a city and a district that shines. Just one last thing. As I mentioned in the beginning, I'm deeply grateful for this opportunity. And given the opportunity to lead Salem Public Schools, I will not let you down. And we will build that trust demonstrated through the relationships I will build. What you'll see in my leadership is somebody who is all in someone who's fighting for our students every single day, someone who's fighting for our families, the partners who work with us in our schools, and educators who are leading our classrooms. You'll see a superintendent who leads with ganas, all right, determination, passion, heart, commitment, and you'll have a mission-driven partner who will work collaboratively, transparently, and relentlessly with members of this board. So my commitment is to help Salem Public Schools become one of the highest performing and most beloved districts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Welch.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, thanks. Is there a motion?

Motion to adjourn? Second.

Motion made by Member Stott, seconded by Member Miranda. Under discussion seeing none all in favor any opposed we're adjourned.