May 13, 2026 – School Committee – Video & Transcript
May 13, 2026 - School Committee
Welcome to the Whalen School Committee meeting on May 13th, 2026. We're calling the meeting to
order at 610 p.m. Uh, yeah, 610 p.m. Uh, we are being recorded by WayCam. We have Betsy Cullen,
Kate Sambuco, Erin Gibbons, Jessica, uh, what? Trawa. Trawa. Thank you. Okay, because I was
going with a G. Career Trawa, yeah. Okay, no, it's fine. Okay. Um, and we are, uh, Prashant will be
later, hopefully, and then we've got David Fleischman, Betsy Gavron, and Ronnie Kessler. Um,
we, I'm going to skip ahead to Administrative Matters A, and welcome our new school committee
member. Um, thank you for joining, and in your act of public service, we welcome you to our
happy table. Um, okay. So, no one's here for public comment, right? So, we can dive right
into Superintendent's Update, Spring 2026 Diversity Equity Belonging Update with Caroline Hahn.
Please join us, Caroline. And as Caroline is coming up to the table, Jackie, I thought I
would give a little bit of context setting. Um, this time of year, um, we start reporting
our important district goals, and certainly district goals are something that we're all
responsible for. You know, when I think about diversity, equity, and belonging, although it's
70% of Caroline's job, it's all of our jobs. And that's something I want to highlight in creating
a culture. Caroline comes up with a lot of ideas and is collaborative. Betsy, and I have
the privilege of meeting with Caroline every other Monday, where we talk about this very
important goal. And it's really important to have a meeting where we just think about diversity,
equity, and belonging across all of our schools. Um, and at the district level, and really
the community level. So tonight, Caroline is going to talk about various initiatives, some
of which are multi-year. Um, you're all familiar with, like, we're at year three of our hate
crimes grant. Um, that grant was in the House Governor's budget and the House budget, and
we're waiting to see where it ends up in the final Senate budget. Um, in terms of will we
get, will we get more funding? But we've certainly, uh, used the funding well. And last year, Caroline
introduced, um, the team she works with at the school level. We call them D-E-B-L-T's. We're
privileged to have one of our D-E-B-L-T's, Jackie, from, uh, Clay Pitt, who's here tonight. So
with that, I'll turn it over to Caroline, and then Betsy and I will jump in a little bit
on this presentation as well.
Fabulous. Thanks, David. Thank you for saying the piece about, I may have the title, but really,
the work is all of ours. And welcome, did you go by Jess? Jessica. Welcome, Jessica.
So I always, um, enjoy coming to the school committee to do these presentations. The slide deck
itself is not the most fun thing to do because I'm very particular. However, it is an opportunity
for me to take that sort of, as David would say, the balcony view and look at the work that
we have done collectively as a district. So without further ado, I'm going to try this,
Betsy, and see if that works, and it's not going to work. So why don't you turn it, please?
You're back up. Okay. So this is the agenda. I'm going to organize the work that we've done
around our district, district goals and the next slide. All right. So, so just to take even above
the vet balcony, like way up in the canopy, the work that we've done as a district in terms
of DEB click it. So the position was created in the summer of 2019. Then in January 2021,
the school committee unanimously approved an anti-racism resolution that actually originated
from a request from a middle school student. So Betsy and I kind of co-piloted that. And
then the admin council, um, helped us to draft it. And that was a pretty amazing evening when
it was, when it was approved. And that lives on our website. So all educators.
Educators. And in each of our schools. And in, yes, there's a, thanks to the school committee,
we have a big banner in every one of our schools and in central office.
Um, so this cultural proficiency requirement was negotiated into the contract prior to my
coming. And then what it said was that any educators hired after June 30th, 2021 would be
responsible for taking up to 12 hours of, um, coursework, workshops. Um, it could be attending
a conference around cultural proficient proficiency. So the three years sort of kicked in, in the spring
of 2024. And so since then we've been busy. Um, I oversee that piece. So, uh, making sure that people
have fulfilled it, approving requests, um, and hope, and this is also true, even if a teacher
is hired who has experience and they've done cultural proficiency work in their prior district, we
still require them to do it here. Okay. So then in 2022, 2023, as a result of a DESE grant
and our partnership with TNTP, which then was called the New Teacher Project. Um, one of
the lasting impacts of that collaboration was the implementation of anti-bias hiring trainings,
which have just continued to grow in our district. So we started with training, um, department heads,
principals, anyone who typically heads a committee. And then since then, um, we now offer trainings for
all building admin positions, all central office positions and principals at, um, I will offer one for
other committees at their request. So I've done two already at clay pit for teacher positions, but
that's at the principal's discretion. And then since 2024 to now, we are still work. I mean, so we implemented
and we are still, you know, these are still in existence, the, our discrimination response protocol,
the lead teacher program, which is what Jackie will speak to, and then our initiative around
restorative practice. And I intentionally say restorative practices instead of justice, because
practices are really what we're doing in schools, and justice has, um, more of a criminal justice,
uh, application. So that is intentional. Next slide. Okay. I don't know if you can read that, but
that was, that was, um, yeah, belonging and equity. Next slide. All right. All right. The district will
strive to foster an inclusive culture of belonging and opportunity where all students and staff feel
recognized, valued, and supported as integral members of the Whalen School community. So tons of research on belonging,
belonging, but even anyone who's worked in schools knows that students who feel a sense of belonging
and who are, who have a relationship with a trusted adult, who are involved in the school,
who feel good about going to school, they do better in school. They do better academically, socially,
and the same goes for staff. When staff feel seen, recognized, when they feel good about the colleagues
they work with, when they like and respect their principal, they stay. So I think that's one of the reasons
why Wayland has such a high number of teachers who have taught here for a very long time.
It's a testament to the district. Okay. And so those are the three areas we're going to focus on.
So let's go to the first one. So warm demanders. These two, I love these two quotes because one,
it's the students' voices and how they see teachers who would be described as warm demanders. So one is just this idea
that if a teacher believes a student is smart and it hasn't occurred to the student that they are,
then of course I am. And the power of a teacher's belief in a student to shape how they see themselves.
And this one was from a middle school student in a research study of middle school students in the Philadelphia area.
And the researchers were trying to identify what it was about what they would label warm demanders
that was different from teachers who were just strict and different from teachers who were just nice.
And so what, so the teachers who sort of embodied this warm demanders stance were teachers who were able to be both strict
and also communicate, I'm doing this with love. That is why I'm holding you to this standard.
The students in the research studies preferred next. That was their favorite. That was the teacher they most wanted to have.
The next one, though, was the teacher who was just really strict but taught them a lot.
Then, next, was the teachers who were just nice but really didn't teach them, like low standards.
And then at the bottom was the teachers who were mean and didn't teach them anything.
Okay, next. Please, thank you.
So there are these two pillars of warm demanders.
One is this just almost like you read in the Declaration of Independence, unalienable human rights.
It's just a given. You walk into my classroom. I care about you.
You have inherent dignity as a person. And nothing you do is going to change my opinion of you.
And the reason why this is so important for culturally and linguistically diverse students, students who struggle in school,
is because, depending on their age, they have had many experiences where they have made a mistake or struggled with something
or maybe pushed back on a teacher and have felt like the teacher doesn't like me because I'm difficult
or the teacher doesn't like me because I need directions repeated often.
And I've had, David and Betsy and Jackie, you can maybe confirm, so many students have said to me,
oh, the teachers, their favorite students are the ones who are the smartest, right?
They oftentimes think teachers like the smart students best.
So think about if you're a struggling learner, it's not true.
I've said to them, it is not true. But they don't believe me.
Okay, next. The other one is this belief in every student's potential.
So it is this unshakable belief that every student can learn and not just learn, but learn at a high level.
And that doesn't just happen. So I feel like Jackie is like a role model in terms of this.
She builds trust and relationships with students and communicates care and then leverages that to ask them to do this harder, higher work.
So the relationship in and of itself is great, but it's not, that needs to be used then to insist and to have the student trust you
in order to take that academic risk that they feel like, no, that's way too hard for me, right?
And I've seen it. I used to teach two sections of the lowest level U.S. history class.
And every student, almost every student in both sections were either on an IEP, 504 in a specialized program,
for Boston resident students, I mean, right, students who generally were not successful.
By the end of the year, so this is 10th grade here at Lincoln-Siberate, they would say,
Ms. Hahn, do you think I can do African history?
So African history was what would be the equivalent of an honors level here in Whalen High School.
So these are kids who were at the very bottom, who then were considering, maybe I can do this other, I can do this challenge.
So I know, I know, I really believe that this unshakable belief can, and follow, but it's a lot of work, right?
It is work, but that you can get kids to go to achieve things that they, and maybe even the teacher at the beginning of the year, would think were next to impossible.
We've seen it.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Let's go.
To the next.
So as you may recall, people who were on the school committee last year, we did Warm Demander PDs at the K-5 level last year.
So this year was kind of part two in doing a deeper dive.
So I sent out a form asking, so you know about this Warm Demander teacher stance.
What else do you want to know?
What are you struggling with?
What are you curious about?
And the thing that they said was, we want case studies.
We want to work in small groups.
We want to be given a problem or situation, and then be able to brainstorm and share our expertise, support each other.
So that is why the tables are set up the way they are.
One piece with adult learning that's really important is asking teachers, what is it that you want and need and would be helpful in the classroom?
So if you could go to the next slide.
So here, these are grounding principles that I actually presented with faculty, and that is to hopefully in a very short period of time create a space where they don't feel judged, they don't feel blamed, and where they can ask questions like, I don't know how to do this.
Or what do you do when a student just puts their head down and refuses?
So here's the first one.
We're all good teachers doing the best we can.
And some students may still need more from us.
Do you want to read the next slide?
This work asks us to grow in new ways.
Discomfort, failure is part of the process.
We're not learning if we're not, we're not learning if we're always comfortable.
And can I say something about that?
Please.
One of the trainings that Caroline did, one of the scenarios was a child falling asleep in class.
And this lovely, well-meaning teacher, a great teacher I was in the group with said, but they're tired, so I think it's a kind thing to, you know, and they're on the bus all this whole time, whatever.
And left that realizing that that wasn't the best thing that she was doing for the child.
So that was eye-opening, right?
And eye-opening for everybody.
Yeah.
This isn't about doing more necessarily.
It is about doing things differently.
So I used to say to my students, like especially before midterm exams, it's not how long you study, it's how you study.
And so I teach them how to study effectively.
So it's a similar principle, because teachers often hear, I'm asking you to do, or these are recommended strategies.
I'm already doing, I can't possibly add more.
It's about thinking about your work differently and thinking about how you use those minutes and moments with students.
When we are triggered, we are all learners.
That is so true.
In life, right?
When we are triggered, we're all learners.
And when we're triggered, that's information, right, for us.
If something's going on, it's potentially a learning edge for us.
So I wanted to share some exit tickets.
So I'm big into feedback forms, if you haven't noticed.
So at the end of the PD, before the teachers have left, I ask them very simple questions.
When I walked into this PD, I used to think warm demanders were X, okay?
Today I learned that warm demanders are blank, okay?
And then the part I didn't, and then there was another column.
So moving forward, I commit to trying this strategy, right?
And then they answered that.
Okay, so we're going to tag team.
So I'm going to read the white print, and if you could read the black print, that would be great.
So these are actual quotes from teachers.
I used to think you were either a warm demander or not.
Today I learned that it is constant and evolving.
I used to think that being a warm demander was just about relationships.
Today I learned that it is important to also have consistent high expectations.
I used to think that we all already were warm demanders.
Today I learned that we can still improve our practice.
I used to think that it's okay to keep students happy without holding high expectations.
Today I learned that that's not enough.
Holding high expectations is also important.
I have to find a way to do both.
And holding that both and is really hard in our, just in general, right?
Good, bad, right, wrong, right?
Think about, like, just polarization.
And I always encourage people to think in the gray.
Certainly belonging, the work I do is all in the gray.
Okay.
So then I got this unsolicited email from an elementary educator,
and I just saw her yesterday.
I asked her for her permission to include it in this presentation
because it just shows, like, the power of teachers when they apply what they're learning with a kid.
Like, what's better than that?
So do you want to start to read that?
Yeah.
Sure.
From an elementary educator,
I used a communicating care with high expectations approach with a kindergarten student
who frequently disrupted small group work.
I noticed she only acted out when I'm helping another student.
So I checked in to see whether she was struggling with the task
or she was missing one-on-one time with the teacher.
I told her that I noticed her strong work even when supporting others
and that she is smart and capable.
She visibly brightened and started completing tasks independently
because she wanted to show the teacher that she could do it.
And so this was way back in, I think, January.
So when I saw this teacher yesterday, I said,
and how's it going?
And she said there have been, like, dips,
but in general the behaviors that she was showing are, like,
so drastically minimized and her confidence has grown.
And the beauty of this also is that this isn't something that will just be true this year.
Hopefully this kid is going to carry that confidence and this view of herself.
Like, I'm smart. I can do this into next year.
So I really believe that anything we ask teachers to do, like, we should do too.
And I think David and Betsy and our admin team are in agreement.
So this summer we devoted one of our learning, what would you call it,
learning capsules or learning buckets around, okay,
so we've talked a lot about what it means to be a warm demander as a teacher.
What does it mean to be a warm demander leader?
Okay.
So we've also been doing restorative circles,
and in the same spirit of practicing what we preach,
we did a circle practice with the entire admin team,
and here were the rounds.
So anyone who's unfamiliar, so the first round, okay,
then everyone shares, no commenting, and then you do another.
And so those were the rounds.
Would you like me to read them out loud or can you just read them?
And while you're reading, the same struggles that teachers have,
I think we do as leaders as well.
We want to be kind, supportive, encouraging, right,
and build our teachers up.
And sometimes we have to set an expectation that's high that may be uncomfortable.
And no, this teacher may not be happy with me in the moment,
and this is what it means to show up as a warm demander leader.
Okay.
So this is an invitation for you all to reflect, not now, not to share out,
but just at some point it's an invitation.
What would it look like or what might it look like to show up as a warm demander
as a school committee member, right?
What would that look like?
What would that sound like?
What would you feel inside if you were showing up in that way, right?
And again, just to stress, some of the reasons why, like for your example,
the teacher lets the kid sleep is because it feels uncomfortable to wake them up.
So there's no way really to do warm demanding
and feel like really good about yourself all the time.
It's uncomfortable.
It's hard.
There's a tension there.
Okay, next slide.
So I just want to pause before we move to the next topic
to ask if you have any takeaways, comments, questions
about this section on warm demanders.
If you think about it, I'm good at wait time.
If you can have a moment to think if you want.
Curious, in addition, it's actually wonderful to see the PD exit
and feedback, which is sort of immediate.
I'm curious if you are having an opportunity,
because I know you're great about being in the schools.
Are you observing moments of change or impact from the PD work?
Well, one piece is that in some of the schools, the principals,
they've done follow-up warm demander work
where the teachers have shared out what have you tried,
how's it gone, et cetera.
And then there are teachers I know for, like I taught a strategy
called the two-by-ten, so for two minutes, and the two minutes
isn't as important as the ten, which is ten consecutive days,
obviously ten consecutive school days.
You connect with a kid that you just either feel like you don't know very well
or maybe challenging in some way.
And the key is not to talk about academics at all.
You kind of let them lead.
You could do it from preschool onward.
Two-by-ten, it could be one-by-ten.
And so for those teachers, I'd say what's happening, what's going on,
and then they'd report.
So it's anecdotal.
And so I just saw a teacher yesterday, and I was like,
it must be two-by-100 by now.
And she chuckled and said the student is doing much better.
In terms of just the attention-seeking, a lot of students,
they get a lot of negative feedback, and we're not even aware
how much of our talking to the kid is negative, turn around,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
And this is all positive, all positive.
And we learn a lot.
And that's building the relationship.
Thank you for that question.
And Devon Cooper is my co-dev LT person at Clayton.
And last year, right, we challenged the staff to see if you see
any examples of one demander.
And it could be anonymous.
And we had in the staff, in the office, forms that they could
fill out.
And then we had stickers, I'm a warmer demander.
And so we sort of, that was like our theme last year, right?
And so, so many people had this warm demander sticker on their
laptops or on their door.
They're, you know, someone noticed you being a warm demander.
And the logo was a fire pit, you know, for the warmth.
It was great.
That was all the one.
And the other piece is that then at every faculty member,
and every faculty, monthly faculty meeting, they wouldn't share the
teacher's name or whatever, but they would share the thing that
they did, the warm demander move.
And so it was shared with the whole faculty.
So like it becomes a habit as opposed to something extra.
Great question.
We've talked about it so much around this table that especially
this year in curriculum night and teacher conferences and meetings
that I've had, I'm tickled every time I hear it come up.
And it's come up multiple times in terms of conversations about how
students and teachers are interacting, even personally.
So it's trickling down and it's nice to see that.
That is fabulous.
Like that is the best evidence that something is going right when
I'm not in the building and you're just doing your thing.
And you hear the phrase warm demander.
David, I know, mentioned it in the opening speech.
And I can't remember which two of you, but afterwards you're like,
Hey, he mentioned warm demander, right?
So it shows like our work is resonating.
Hi, nice to meet you.
Any other comments, questions, takeaways?
Let's move.
Let's talk about restorative practices, shall we?
So there are these three tiers of training and the first tier,
the numbers in parentheses are how many staff have been trained in each.
Okay.
So the reason why so many are in tier one is because tier one is the
foundational piece, which is community building.
So restorative, obviously restore.
You're trying to return to something.
That something is the community.
So if there is no community, what are you returning to?
So tier one is all about, and it could be staff and staff, staff and students,
a student circle.
But it's all about building a sense of community in many different pockets in a school.
Right?
So we have 90 staff across the district trained or to be trained.
Actually, I can't remember if I included the ones that are going to be coming up in June, but 90.
And then tier two is addressing conflict and harm.
Not the big incidents, but more a conflict between a couple of people or interpersonally.
And then tier three is the one that districts usually like, go to tier three immediately.
Right?
And center for restorative justice said that's a big mistake.
Because if you go right towards to the repairing of harm and the discipline piece,
and you don't work on the community building, and you don't have staff and building leaders
really comfortable and facile with tier one, that tier three, it doesn't work.
Kids don't want to hear about it, or staff don't want to hear about it,
when in response to something happening.
Right?
Just wanted to share some pictures from last summer.
Tier one is in the upper left.
Tier two, bottom right.
And just know how happy people look.
Relax.
Happy.
The response, because of course there are feedback forms from center for restorative justice.
The feedback from staff is very positive.
And one of the most, so this year, in one of the trainings, 17 out of the 20 participants
were all from the middle school, which the Prince Deborah Romeo did intentionally.
And teachers would, when I went to the middle school, they'd say,
I'm like, yeah, I loved what we learned.
But what I also loved was, like, the community of middle school teachers,
the opportunity for us to spend two, however many, six and a half hour days,
and I learned things about people I've worked with for 25 years that I never knew.
So that, again, is tier one, the community building.
All right.
Let's go on.
So here are just a few examples of how it's showing up in the schools.
Community building circles.
So they're happening at morning meetings at the elementary level, middle school tag.
You all know what tags are?
Okay.
Middle school administrators this year have volunteered to go to tags,
to be the circle keeper, the circle facilitator, to model it for any homeroom teachers
who want their students to experience it, but haven't done the training yet.
So the three building admin have been doing this all year.
So this past January, we ran two sessions, and the three grade five teachers at Happy Hollow
all took the training, and so I saw one at Happy Hollow a couple months ago,
and she was so excited to tell me that they started, because they all did the training,
they have a practice where they're doing two circles a week.
And so I happened to see these kids, they were going to the cafeteria,
and I said, can I ask them a few questions about it?
So I introduced myself, and I said, you know that thing you're doing circles?
What do you think of it? Do you like it?
And they were like, we like it. We love it.
And so I said, why?
And one kid said, because we don't talk about the things we talk about in circle anywhere else.
That was one thing.
The other one said, because I'm not interrupted, because they have the talking piece.
I was like, I wonder how long that kid holds that talking piece.
Then they said also they don't feel judged, right?
And then another kid said that they feel like they're getting to know their classmates better.
So if you were to pull out what the Center for Restorative Justice says is the purpose of circles,
it would be in the ballpark of those four things.
And this was a two-minute conversation as they're going to lunch.
And I'm sure lunch was a bigger draw than this conversation with me, and they were still talking.
Okay. There are these, I'm going to show you the restorative questions later.
So I made little sticker badges things for all the people who do the training that they can put inside their ID or tape onto the back of their ID with these restorative questions.
And so I use my reading glasses, but sometimes I'm talking to students like, so tell me, what happened?
So I'm going through them, but they're really helpful.
So it's a way to, it's a non-judgmental, very open way to get kids to talk about their perception of what happened,
as opposed to, why did you do that immediately?
Even just saying it, I feel like, on the defensive, right?
Okay. And circles, we're circling up all over the place.
We're circling up in admin meetings.
We're circling up in parent-caregiver meetings.
We're circling up in TAG, homework, I mean like all over the place.
So, and what the people at the Center for restorative justice said is the impulse for teachers is always, let's do this for the students.
We, right, we're so, like, let's help the students, let's not think about ourselves.
But she said, really pay attention to doing it with your faculty, right?
It's really, really important.
Okay, let's move on.
Restorative practice in the comments, takeaways, discussions.
Is there an age that you find this the most successful?
So I can see like elementary, yes, give me this talking stick, like we're all going to share and it sounds great.
I'm thinking, what is it like in the middle school?
What is the, what is that age's feedback?
And we may have talked about this last year when we talked about this.
But I'm curious how you see it shift just as ages change.
So one thing that the middle school has shared with me is it's been the hardest doing it in eighth grade,
with the eighth grade group, and easiest with the sixth grade, okay?
Because some sixth graders did it in elementary school, that's one.
But also they're new to the middle school, so they have no ingrained, like that's not what we do.
So some students in eighth grade are like, during tag we go outside, or during tag we play games.
Like so it's like almost in some cases seen as like a punishment.
Like why do we sit around in a circle and talk?
So it's the hardest.
So as a, as a group Deborah and I have been talking about with the DEBAC, how do we, if we like possibly identifying a grade level and it would probably be six,
to really do a deep dive with circles and implement it as a practice, because they're new to the school.
However, not in Whalen, but there are videos that we've seen as part of our training of middle and high school students in circles.
You'd be blown away, how seriously they take it, how the kids are the circle keepers, and the adults are the participants.
So if you're interested, I could find those links and share them.
I could add them to the slide deck so they're part of your record.
They're great to see, and they're so inspiring.
Like they're better than I am at this.
They're great.
They're phenomenal.
And maybe as these sixth graders, it's normalized for the younger as they move older.
Yeah.
It's just normalized for them.
Yeah, I think that makes sense, because the eighth graders were introduced to this as seventh graders when Deborah started bringing it in, you know, into the school environment.
So they weren't, they didn't have it as part of their transition into the community.
And, you know, sometimes it's, so circles can be, there's a time issue, right?
So sometimes when I problem solve with middle school teachers, they left out pieces of the process to save time.
But in doing so, they realized, like, I think that was part of the, it was in the design as well.
So I worked with two homeroom teachers this year, eighth grade, who felt like, and one of them has been trained in tier one and tier two,
and is totally, like, really skilled as a teacher and facilitator.
And they both felt like this isn't going well, like, the kids are pulling teeth.
And so we just broke down, like, how were they assigning the groups, because I split them up right into two smaller groups of 10 or 12.
And then we just talked about the questions they were asking, and then the teacher was saying,
oh my gosh, I didn't do any of, like, where circles come from.
It's just like, we have a talking piece, let's go.
And so they did it again.
And so I checked in with him.
This was a few months ago.
And both teachers said, so much better.
So much better.
And part of it was they gave students some degree of choice around which group they went into, instead of just splitting them.
So that choice piece.
So I do think they can be, the design is really important.
Any other questions?
I have a question.
So am I right that, because this is still, I mean, for this kind of, like, community cultural change and evolution, it takes time.
And I think we have some early successes.
And I remember the opening day two years ago, where you actually had a group demonstrate some restorative circle practice work, which was for everyone.
Some of this, in terms of professional development, we've been able to prioritize because of the Hate Crimes Prevention Grant.
So help us as a committee understand, like, how do we not lose the traction we've gained?
So what does this look like in terms of, this has been an investment on tier one, two, and three this summer.
Are we now able to self-sustain through sharing?
Is this a professional development that is going to require a certain amount of continued funding and investment for at least a subset in order to keep it going and build?
Like, what's your five-year vision?
So as we may wrap up the last year of the grant funding, how do we think about prioritizing that?
Good strategic planning question.
And Betsy and David, please feel free to chime in.
I will say this, so this year I'm being trained, I'm going, like, I'm being trained as someone who can lead the tier one.
So it was always the intention to build the internal capacity so that we wouldn't have to hire outside facilitators.
Having said that, there's a beauty in having someone you don't know facilitate.
There's just something about it.
They never have to see this person again, et cetera.
Having said that, though, there's a financial implication.
So that's one piece.
The other piece is that we certainly don't have a critical mass of people trained in every building to do anything that would be, you know, sort of a building initiative.
We do at the middle school.
But so there are a lot more people that need to be trained.
And so you're absolutely right.
We need to think about how, I mean, I'm one person, but how can we not lose this momentum?
Because we do see the benefits and we do believe in this practice.
And it's not a replacement for accountability.
It's not a replacement for traditional consequences.
Sometimes people make that error thinking this is replacing something.
It's not a replacement.
It's a shift in mindset around how we view conflict and what we're centering in our approach.
Right.
David and Betsy, do you want to add?
I think you got it.
Internal capacity, you're going to have, especially, particularly around the tier one,
where, you know, most folks will do tier one and be able to implement something.
Jump in.
I would say there's also a tension.
You know, one of the founding tenets of circle practice is sort of volition.
And you enter into it as your own choice.
The right to pass.
So there's something that's kind of a conflict saying, like, this is now required for teachers
to leave.
So I think we've really tried to sort of wrestle with that.
Because I think if you told somebody they have to do it, and you don't have the buy-in
in quite the same way as to why it's important, which is the reason for doing so much of the
work with the adults, too, just for them to sort of see the potential potential that
they'd have with students.
So I know that's something that I kind of internally wrestle with.
Like, do we require this of everybody at some point?
Or model it and hopefully crowdsource the sort of representation or understanding of its benefits.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Discrimination response protocol.
I believe David is going to take it away.
Yes.
So those folks who have been around the table for a little while are aware.
Those of you who are new, I'll give a little bit of context.
We've been working over the last few years on implementing a discrimination response protocol.
Which is really important in any kind of organization, particularly school districts.
We know when we're working with students that they're going to make mistakes.
And sometimes they're really unfortunate.
And the question is, how do we respond?
And we respond in a number of ways.
But something that's really important is that we respond in a legal framework.
And so the training that we've had, part of the training is working with one of our lawyers on how to respond.
And I should say something that's been complex over the last couple of years as we change presidential administrations is that some of the laws change.
Title VI and Title IX in particular have changed.
This not only affects K-12, it affects college campuses on how they respond.
So it's really important that we're up to date on the laws around reporting, taking action, documentation.
And certainly there's different kinds.
We think about student to student discrimination.
But obviously we work with adults as well.
And part of our discrimination response protocol, there's a legal aspect.
And then there's the response around not only accountability, which is really important,
but also learning and healing in all three and how we do all of those.
And so that's really important.
It's also something that requires ongoing training because of the changes in the laws.
But also it's something that we always need to get better at because it's some of the hardest work that school districts do and communities do and community issues in how to respond.
And they have a significant impact, of course, on belonging.
And that's very much true as we think up here, our values.
So it's something just a couple of weeks ago, as a matter of fact, around this very table, we spent time with our administrative council group thinking about what issues, what questions you have.
Now we've been doing this a couple of years.
What support do you need moving forward?
People always have questions and ask for certain supports because this is just so hard to do.
And then the other thing we do is look at data, which is a good segue to where we're going to next.
This is just a slide to say that it's on our website.
That's all right.
And just a shout out to Jen and her team for this beautiful new website.
So just wanted to share really quickly how it, so at the middle school and high school, students are old enough to learn about this incident reporting form.
At the middle school especially, one sign of a strong culture is they're going to adults, whether it be the building admin or teachers and reporting it.
Right?
And then the teacher and or, I mean teacher or principal can submit it.
But anyway, so what they did at both the middle school and the high school is each year they're teaching the kids, making them aware of this thing, this incident reporting form.
How to access it, where it lives, what it means when you submit it, what kinds of things you might submit it for, understanding that you can submit something and it doesn't mean that someone's going to come and grab that kid and yank them and put them in handcuffs.
Like they're worried about, they have worries, right?
They're also worried that something they submit might not really be something that's bias or discrimination, so should I bother?
And so all these kinds of questions we can answer, they're six, I mean they're little, right?
And they do have a sense of like, that didn't feel right or I saw that and that was wrong, but I didn't know what to say and like they're not going to be my, I'm going to get kicked out of that friend group.
So these assemblies not only gave out information, but the school collected their questions, all the kids' questions and sorted them by grade level and they had phenomenal questions that they were then able to respond to.
So that was great. In the high school, they introduced the non-discrimination or discrimination response protocol through advisories and they did scenarios.
So how might you respond if you were in the hallway and you heard a student say blank, right?
And the kids would talk about how might I respond in that situation and they'd give a variety of scenarios.
And then of course they talked to the same thing, here's where the forms are, here's how to access them, this is what, and then at a higher level this is what the legal definition of discrimination is, et cetera, et cetera.
Okay. In addition, so this is part of the proactive work, right? So you can respond obviously.
So if you could go back one slide, Betsy, real quick.
So this year for spirit, you know, the middle school, they have these spirit theme weeks.
So sometimes homerooms choose themes that may be culturally insensitive or challenging in some way.
So this year the Deb LT, Jada Williams and I co-wrote spirit theme day guidelines that didn't exist before, right?
And so now there's, I don't know when they, how often they do them, but now the principal is sharing them in advance of the guidelines.
And what I love is the middle school faculty is receptive to them.
They're not like, this is constraining. This is taking all the fun out of, not at all.
They're like, these are great. These are super helpful.
Then also at the middle school and high school, I, I created a resource two page doc for different ways teachers can respond in the moment to what I called everyday bias, prejudice, and stereotypes.
So for example, you hear something offensive, start by introducing yourself if you don't know the kid.
Hi, I'm Miss Han. Blah, blah, blah. What's your name? Da, da, da, da, da.
And then do that just because it's better, like don't say that. That's a, you know, introduce yourself.
And also to memorize or have on the ready phrases so you're not caught in the moment.
So it could be something like, one teacher came up with, wow, that's bold at the high school level, right?
Wow, that's pretty bold. Another could be, I don't like that.
Another could be, one thing I do is I repeat what I just heard. It's, right, you just said blank.
And then usually they're like, ah, right? Because when they hear it, they immediately know.
So I share these different ways that teachers, because what's hard is in the moment, it's hard to know and think clearly about how to respond.
You know it's, you know you have to do something, but then all of a sudden you're like going to class because you have class in two minutes.
So it's really important to interrupt and stop it because, as I said, kids are watching us all the time.
So if we, for whatever good reason, don't stop it, the kids see us not stopping it, so they're like, if they're not going to stop it, I'm not going to stop it.
Okay, let's move on. Betsy.
So one of the things that at Carolina and I get to do is kind of take the bird's eye view, or the balcony view, we've talked a lot about the balcony lately,
around sort of what's going on district-wide, and what kind of incidents are we hearing about, seeing about, through our discrimination response protocol.
So we kind of break them down by categories, the ones that have come in.
So you can see race and ethnicity is the greatest area of sort of offenses.
And the anti-black racism, racial slurs, as well as anti-Asian kind of stood out.
So we pulled those out of the data for people to see.
And you can see the other categories and protected classes that different offenses occur around.
The numbers of, so we chose that time frame because it mirrors last year's data, that time frame.
They are almost identical, the number of submissions, which is pretty incredible, right?
And I'm wondering if anyone, before we move to the next slide, had any questions or noticings or wonderings about those numbers.
This is from Waylon?
Yes.
And this is submitted through the website?
Sorry.
Yes.
It could be through...
Yeah, they can be also teacher submissions, the principal submissions.
Yeah.
A student might report something to a principal who then...
Yeah.
Or a teacher.
So middle school and high school?
No, it's K through 12.
Really?
Looks low.
Self-submission is...
Mm-hmm.
I'm a researcher, so a data collection, right?
Carbage in, garbage out.
Yeah.
It's also only a partial year.
Not a whole year.
It's only a partial year.
Yes.
Almost a little more than half a year, right?
Yeah.
That's what it is.
I just want to name the tension, right, of like, this is the type of data we actually...
We don't want to see the numbers go up, but the numbers going up means that the process
is being utilized more and it's working.
Mm-hmm.
And so I think sometimes, like, the general public could look at this data and say, we have
a really big problem.
And yes, we do.
And it also means that the response protocol is starting to take root and that people are
utilizing and trusting the processes that we have in place.
We train students.
We train students.
For example, middle school students had not been trained before in something like that,
in the high school students.
So you're right.
If that's going to happen, we may see an increase.
Yep.
Which is why it's also looking over multiple years, as Caroline just alluded to.
Go ahead, Betty.
I was just going to note that in the next slide, you'll see that there were 49 submissions
during that time and, you know, 35 of them were substantiated.
You'll notice that does not match the 36 that you see there, but as it notes, one of them
had more than one category.
Oh, so the slide we're looking at with the 36 is actually capturing substantiated incidents,
not reported incidents.
Correct.
We had 49 reported incidents in the first half of the year.
No, no.
That's fine.
That's just actually helpful.
The 36 is actually substantiated and after following the protocol, the finding was this
occurred.
Okay.
I think families are still, families are still learning that this exists, right?
Because perhaps I'm a parent and I hear something and, oh, I didn't know that I could, I can
do this too.
You know, this is still fresh from last year.
Totally.
You know, I wouldn't know if I could or I should.
It lives on each school's website, which is great, and what is happening now, so parents
are, especially at the elementary level where the kids, you know, they're young, so they
tell their parents when they go home, they're safe adults, and then the parents are doing what
they did pre-discrimination response protocol.
They're emailing or calling the principal, and that's totally fine.
It doesn't have to be the parent doing the form, and what we're trying to do is make the
bar as low as possible, so that whether it's this, filling out a form is easier, or emailing
or calling, whatever it is, it doesn't matter how they, the entry point, the key is like,
we take this seriously, we have a district-wide response that's consistent across schools,
right?
That's what we're shooting for, and for parents to feel, for all community members to feel
like, you want the district values, like we say in our belonging and equity, all students
and staff to feel a sense of belonging, and this is like one of the research-backed ways
to do that.
Betsy, your computer says low battery, I'm just worried.
I know, I have it plugged in.
It doesn't seem to be charging.
Here, let me give you mine.
Do you want me to switch with you?
We can, if, no, I have a plug.
It's plugged in.
I think it's the, I can't plug in to both.
Oh.
Do you want me to put my computer in there?
Oh, but my thing is gone.
I mean, my, um, this little, oh, I see.
I'm using both ports as a problem.
So, let's see how long it lasts, and I may have to switch up computers with you.
I can, I can put mine in first.
If you, do you, what casts it to that?
Yes.
Okay.
So, what's in your other port?
I have a Mac, if you want to use mine.
I have it up on mine.
I do, too.
I can.
In the meantime, Kate, were you going to ask a question while we're dealing with it?
So, that was leading into my next question of, is there, um, an age group that is a heavier
concentration?
Is it, there are more at the elementary level because the principals are doing it when a
parent calls them, or, um, are you seeing a concentration in an age range?
Betsy, what would, I would say middle school?
Middle school?
Yeah.
Middle school, probably.
You know, brain development, it's, it's right in there, trying to figure out how to use,
um, use and have power and, and be funny.
Um, a lot of kids make mistakes when they're trying to be funny, um, and, and, you know,
they're trying to be edgy, they're trying to bump up against particular little lines.
Um, there's quite a few at the elementary school, too, where some, where kids will say something
hurtful, not from, and, and then you get into the intent impact kind of pieces of things,
like, I don't like you because fill in something that is really, um, hits at somebody's protective
class around a particular area.
So, you know, that's why you have accountability, learning, and healing, and while we want consistency
across the district in the ways in which we're using this, um, response protocol, we also are
very mindful of the developmental, you know, what makes sense, and Caroline's going to speak
to that shortly.
Yeah.
I'm going to give some examples.
Yes.
Okay.
Let's move.
So here it is.
You've heard it, but now you can see it.
These are, this is our, it doesn't necessarily go in that order, right?
But these are the, when the response protocol framework is working at its best, all three
are operating, or in operation, like all three are happening.
Okay.
Let's move on.
So I'm just going to give some different ways that accountability.
Accountability, and this is like a sliver of, so please don't say, well, what about
that?
Yes, that too.
So phone call home for some elementary students.
That's it.
That's the accountability right there.
Next.
Detention, suspension, a keep away plan, community service, a loss of a privilege.
So I was trying to find one where sometimes they lose recess, or they lose cafeteria, like
they can't eat with their, in the cafeteria for a period of time.
So that was the best I could do to capture that.
And again, these are just a few.
And I want to underscore that restorative practices does not mean that accountability doesn't happen.
Okay.
So let me talk a little bit about when, so I love going to the classrooms and never more
than when a student said something and I get to go in and talk to them about it.
I just want to very quickly talk about what my approach is, especially at the elementary
school level.
So I always go in, and I've said before, be curious, not furious.
So sometimes as adults, a kid will say something and we respond as an adult.
Like that is a horrible thing to say.
How could you say that, right?
But we're coming from it from our adult moral development, like all the things we've learned,
and they're, they're like seven years old, right?
And they're just noticing like skin color, right?
They don't really, it was hard, it did hurt a kid's feelings.
So I always go in curious.
The other thing is just to remember their kids.
And that I really believe that kids, they want to learn, they want to know better.
I think they do.
I really do.
They want to know better.
And oftentimes more than the exception.
I think that when they know better, they do better.
They do.
So I just want to give an example.
So at an elementary school in Whaling, right?
So somehow these early elementary students at a lunch table were wondering like what's the N-word?
So that was the topic.
What's the N-word?
What does it mean?
I've heard it's a bad word.
What is it?
What is it?
Okay?
This is going on.
So a kid knows it's bad, goes up to whoever's like a cafeteria supervisor, says these kids
are asking about the N-word.
The person goes over and says, stop talking about that.
That's not a word we use in school.
Stop it.
So that only piques their curiosity.
Right?
So one student who overhears this knows what it is and tells them what it is.
So that's what the N-word is.
So now everyone at this table is saying the word.
Right?
Okay.
And then there's like 20 minutes left before dismissal.
And I get a phone call from the principal.
Hey!
Listen!
This thing is happening.
I feel like the kids need to be talked to.
I'm going to have to write to the families and let them know about what happened.
What should we do?
And so I said, do you want me to come and talk to this class?
So they said, great.
So I go to the class.
That's not this classroom, by the way.
But I talk to them.
And so this is what I do.
I usually like just very briefly say, so this is what I heard.
And then they'll say, yeah, that's what happened.
Right?
And then I'll say, so, you know, I'm here.
Like I introduce myself.
And I say, because miss or mister asked me to come to have this conversation.
And I love having these conversations.
Like this is part of my job.
Right?
And so they're looking at me like, okay.
And so like in this case, I said, do you know what it means if someone says that's a
bad word?
And they're like, and I said, do you know any adults who say bad words?
And they're like, my mom or my dad.
And I was like, don't tell me what it is.
But so they kept it.
Right?
And so then Jackie was actually there.
The DEBLT was there.
The lead teacher.
The principal was there.
And so I talked to them about like, do you know what a bad word is?
Right?
And I said, so this N word, that's a bad word, but it's like a really bad word.
And here's why it's a bad word.
So I said, it's a bad word that is about black people.
Right?
So I just named it.
Right?
And it's, and so I just kept it really simple.
So the other DEB lead teacher is the MECO academic liaison.
And so just coincidentally, he shared, when he hears the N word, what it does for him.
He didn't say it, but he just talked about it from, as a black man.
And the kids, dead silent, just taking it in.
Also because they know him.
And they like him.
And they don't want him to be hurt.
Right?
I couldn't deliver that message, but he can.
So then the principal wrote the parents, several parents wrote back, I'm so glad, thank you so much, et cetera, et cetera.
And then that was it.
The next day they didn't keep saying a word.
Now it's not always that neat.
But that is the approach, like to not avoid the conversation or tell kids like, that's a bad word, don't say it.
And then they're like, what is it?
What is it?
Okay.
Don't shut it down.
No.
Okay.
So sometimes the learning can be a history lesson, and that can happen in a small group setting,
maybe with an AP or me and a student or students, or it can happen in a big class.
So I'm going to share a story about some work I did at the high school with the N word.
And I worked with some students, three sessions, okay, one hour each, and talked about the history of the N word.
They saw some video clips of people, black or African American people, talking about what the harm and the history of the harm when they hear that word.
So I gave them homework, and the homework was just filling out a survey.
What's something that you learned today?
What's a question that you have?
What do you want to talk about next time?
Right?
And then at the end, I asked the students, because I said, you may never see me again.
This is a benefit, right?
So they don't have to be ashamed.
I said, you may not see me again, but if you do, please say hi.
And I said, so I really want you to be honest.
You served your consequence, whatever the suspension was.
And I said, what if that had been it, right?
And you didn't have to spend these three hours learning all this stuff.
What do you think?
And one of the kids said, you know, I was just kind of angry because when I got the suspension, because I got really behind in my score.
And it just felt like stupid, because it's in the policy book, and it says that, whatever.
He said, but now that I've learned about the hurt that that word causes black people, I don't want to say it.
He said, so the learning part is really important.
So that pretty much sustains me when I think about it.
The learning is so, so important.
And the kids may be taller than a lot of us, maybe not taller than David, but they're tall.
They look almost like adults, but they're still kids, and they're still learning.
And so it's just really, really important.
Okay, let's go to the next one, capturing.
So here, before you click on this, so let me just give you some context.
So at the end, it always is like with two weeks left in the school year, there was a problem in the fifth grade with the monkey.
Monkey references.
Apes, monkeys, bananas, you're from Africa, across.
And it had been happening for a while, and the fifth grade team did not feel like their one-on-one conversations or one-on-four were working, right?
So they said, Caroline, I know it's really hot and school's ending tomorrow or whatever, but would you please come in and do something for every one of the fifth grade classes so they don't go to sixth grade not knowing what they're saying.
Do you want to say more?
Yeah, it was.
They weren't really understanding it.
Also because, I don't know if we had four fifth grades or five that year, I can't remember, but we were all sort of approaching it differently.
And we, even though we were sort of giving the same message, we really wanted to get the same message.
That the history of, what is the history of monkeys and apes and sort of the connection with these people calling black kids this, or you look like a monkey, or this monkey looks like you, and really get the history of it.
So that's why we call it on Caroline.
Yeah.
Love it.
Love it.
Bring it on.
Bring it on.
So here's a little video I made.
Okay, so what that ad I showed, the one right there, is pictures, that sweatshirt of the young black kid, says coolest monkey in the something, I don't remember.
But it's like an ad for H&M, right?
And so the kids were like, that's horrible.
So in the abstract, they know it.
And the piece with the comparison of the World War I propaganda, and then that's LeBron James and Giselle Bündchen.
And so the kids were able to identify how they parallel, like the color of the dress, the pose of LeBron, all of that.
And they know LeBron.
They don't know what Giselle is much, but LeBron is like an institute.
So that like hooked them, right?
And I don't, I mean, they were very attentive.
And I hope they learn something from it.
We wanted them to go to the middle school not continuing this.
They were old enough.
Yeah.
You know, they were weeks from heading to middle school.
And it was important for us to address it.
And the title of my slide deck was, or slideshow was, Words You May Not Know Have Racist Origins.
That's what I titled it.
And I emphasized that words are not neutral.
Words can cause harm.
So I was trying to emphasize, like, the words you use really matter.
And I think they got that point.
Yes.
Okay.
I agree.
So I've been talking about these restorative questions that some people have on the flip side of their ID badge.
That are really helpful.
And I just wanted to say that another response as part of the learning is when students are the harm doers, if you will.
Engaging them in a restorative way of self-reflection.
So the restorative questions are from Suffolk University.
And many principals are used and APs are using them.
Teachers are using them.
I have found them helpful.
When a teacher comes to me with an interpersonal conflict with a colleague, and I'll provide that and say, what about using this model?
And this is a sample from Clay Pit, but all elementary schools have a version of this, which is too small to, like, read.
But it's just asking kids to think through.
It's giving them a scaffold to break down a way of thinking about what they did, what the impact of their actions were, and what they might want to do to repair if they're ready.
Okay?
And we can leave that on there longer if you'd like.
Can we move on?
Okay?
All right, let's move on.
It could look like a circle practice.
Let's move on.
So it can also look like a restorative conversation.
So restorative work isn't just in a circle.
It can happen between two people.
So recently I helped two elementary students where the kid who was harmed didn't want to talk about it at all.
And the kid who did the harm really wanted to talk about it.
Right?
So there was this tension.
Right?
You want to center the kid who was harmed.
And this other kid who was a harm doer was very upset.
So I brought them together.
And the goal wasn't, I didn't have a specific goal.
I want this kid to do this.
I want that.
I just wanted to bring them into the space.
Went through those questions.
And by the end, both kids felt better.
And I checked in with the parents.
And the kid who really wanted to do the talking actually finally felt better about the incident, which is important.
Sometimes it can look like writing a letter.
I always say, like, don't force a kid to apologize.
You have to say you're sorry.
His kids have said as early as second grade.
They apologized, but they were forced to.
They didn't mean it.
It doesn't make the kid who was harmed feeling better to get a fake or forced apology.
And then sometimes it looks like support.
It may not be counseling support.
It can be other kinds of support.
It can be support from a trusted adult, et cetera.
But that's, you know, we just can't underestimate the harm that the target can feel even when something was said unintentionally.
Right?
Because every person has their own experience, their own, you know, sense.
Everyone's wired differently.
So sometimes the impact, you know, you can't judge an impact.
It is what it is.
Let's move on.
Let's move on.
And just a reminder that, like, so not only is it different because we're dealing with different age levels.
Like, I think even K through five, like, think about how, I mean, you're not going to do it for kindergarteners what you do.
Right?
So there's so, developmentally, principals and teachers are constantly navigating, like, doing the developmentally appropriate response.
And then also each individual situation is different, right, based on the kids involved.
Do you want to add anything about that in your, okay.
No.
David, Betsy, I hope I'm moving at a decent clip.
Questions, comments, discussion?
A couple times, Carolyn, you know, each situation is different and context matters and the individuals involved matters.
I agree with that.
There's also a tension, though, in schools that, you know, when I was in schools used to say kids can spot or perceive unfairness
or inconsistency faster than any adult.
How do you, from an accountability perspective, how do you balance circumstance and specifics with fairness
and the need to be consistent and then add to that the complexity of different teachers, different administrators, different buildings?
That's a really good question.
That is one of the hardest parts, I would say, about the accountability in schools in general, and I think it goes beyond this.
In different circumstances, you know, depending on a student, the accountability, you know, why is that student back in school sometimes?
And you can't share confidential information about what happened or perhaps a penalty of keeping, you know, a middle school student home for three days.
We won't get some of the learning that Caroline was talking about.
But that's really, really hard, even, you know, in the same school with different circumstances.
And that's hard across the board.
And it's also hard because sometimes from the family perspective, because of confidentiality, we can't be transparent because we violate the laws I was talking about earlier.
You want to add to that?
You've been in plenty of these situations.
Does that make sense?
I have.
And so I think your point is really just spot on, right?
Because you do want some consistency and, you know, to handle things in a consistent fashion.
And there are sometimes extenuating circumstances.
You know, this might be the first time somebody did something, and it's like the 12th time somebody else did.
And so there's a number of factors that play into things.
Very good question.
Some of it's spelled out in the handbooks.
So that was my next question, is are we giving enough guidance in terms of what factors would play into?
It is in the protocol.
Yeah.
The other thing I want to add is that if you think about equal and equitable, right, I think that applies here as well.
And we have to remember that, for example, we have students who are on IEPs.
We have students who have difficult outside of school life circumstances.
There are many, many factors.
And I think that, I think now that I'm, so I've never been a principal, but doing the, being part of the learning and healing piece.
One thing that I have learned is that the students who have caused the harm can experience just as much pain and challenges moving on as the kid they harmed.
And I think that's just, like I just look at all the kids with such a, with humanity, right, like they make mistakes and sometimes really bad ones and really harmful ones.
And even if they're not facing a school consequence, there are other consequences and ways that they are being held accountable for what they've done.
And I'm not thinking of any one specific incident.
I'm thinking about the scope of some of the situations I've been in.
And I've been surprised by that.
And I think the learning and healing looks different for different students.
Absolutely.
What, you know, was really not so impactful for one student can be completely impactful that they're not even wanting to come to school, right?
So I think the, you need to sort of meet students' needs where they're at as well.
Betsy, that's probably an unsatisfying answer in many ways, but, and it's the reality.
It's like that tension, the both and.
So this is our fifth goal area.
Ensure communication is timely, responsive, collaborative, inclusive, engaged families and staff to increase access, involvement, connect, and trust.
And I just want to talk about two areas, community engagement and student engagement.
Community engagement.
So there have been a lot of, lots of great examples.
So Wayland Human Rights Day, hosted by the Human Rights Diversity Equity, Human Rights Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee.
Betsy, Allison, and I attended, and I can't remember if Allison and I both read parts of it.
I think, well, anyway, we participated in the ceremony of reading clause.
Please click.
Jameel Adams was our guest speaker.
We talked a bit about the Freedom Team.
Another example of community engagement is a series that just ended last night with Jameel.
You're going to hear Jameel's name a lot in the next series of slides.
He has been a gift to Wayland.
I so enjoyed partnering with him and collaborating with him.
His message of love, inclusion, and trust is a message that I think we really needed this year.
So anyway, the HRDEIC reached out to me, and so we partnered to present a grant proposal to the Lydia and Maria Child Fund at First Parish, which was approved.
And the idea was to help Wayland residents learn how to talk across differences and stay connected with each other, even when we're on different sides of an issue.
And this really came out of, I'm not part of it, but some online exchanges that were very vitriolic and not productive.
And so the idea was, what if we could get people in a room together to learn some of these tools?
And so there was a series of four we ended last night.
And the power of bringing people together in person is pretty amazing and getting off the computer.
So that is just what the goals of the series were.
You won't be surprised.
There is a Google feedback form.
Wait, go back one second. The number in the corner is how many people participated across the four. Individual people, not someone who showed up four times counted as four. These are 53 different people who showed up to one or more. Thank you. There's also a relatively new Wayland Freedom team that has Wayland Public School representation. I used to serve on it. I had to step down because the district is keeping me so busy. But they've asked me to find someone or connect them with someone because they want someone from the district representing and serving. So this is a non-governmental body. It's a body of volunteers. They exist in other towns, these freedom teams. And they're just a resource for anyone who's experienced or witnessed biased incidents. And so they might provide resources, they might offer mediation, etc. So it is different from the HRDEIC, which has a formal role. This is more a group of volunteers who are committed to creating a community of belonging for residents of Wayland. And also people who work in Wayland. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. And they came by invitation using, we funded this through the Hate Crime Prevention Grant to do some work, a few sessions with the high school football team to, and what ended up, what they produced was this creed, what they called an accountability creed. And I actually, because you can't really read it well, I have it here, I can read it. It says, we are warriors. Football is family. Every warrior is my family and Wayland is our house. We protect and honor each other. We protect and honor our house. We respond to injustice, hate, and anything not love with intention and accountability. When the team is disconnected, unfocused, unhappy, and unmotivated, we do not fold. We uplift the fallen, honor our creed, atone, and emerge better. We are warriors. So in March, Jamil presented at two all-school assemblies that involved meeting with students who were interested, a small committee of students beforehand. So they co-designed, co-collaborated, in the design and actually in the performance of the assembly. So we had kids reading these incredible testimonials about what love, inclusion, and trust looks like, feels like, sounds like for them. One, we had a current Boston resident student, who's a senior, talk about the history of Metco and her death to the founding mothers of Metco for making it possible for her as a Vietnamese American child and immigrant family to be the first in her family to go to college. Just so powerful. There was a band who performed. There were artists who, during the assembly, were painting, and then at the end of the assembly, they showed their artwork that was sort of organic based on what they were hearing and feeling and experiencing. I've talked to students and staff who really responded so positively to this powerful message of, we can do better. We can be better. This is our house. Right. Okay, so this is that student committee I was telling you about. They created a creed, not based off of the football one, but you'll see similarities. So I was there for this process, and it was just a beautiful thing. So they all agreed on this. Would you like to read it? I certainly would read it. We are Wayland High School, warriors of love, inclusion, and trust. We lift each other up. Everyone has an equal chance to succeed together, through education and initiating vulnerable topics, with a willingness to talk about things others won't. We will lead by example. I will pick you up when you are down and together we will fly. You know what that pause button means. Do your thing. Jamil is also, through the hate crime prevention grant, he's coming to the high school two days a week for half a day and is available for teachers and students. There were a group of students playing hacky sack last week and they know him already and they're like, Jamil, come play hacky sack with us. Right? So, his energy is creating a really positive vibe around something that is kind of hard sometimes. Like, kids don't necessarily want to lean into belonging. He has a way of making it seem cool and fun and like kids. And there's real substance to it. And I really appreciate the partnership with him, Allison, and me in trying to bring something to the high school for the students that feels affirming. And like that they are something in their sphere of control they can do. Any, any questions? Lead teachers. Jackie. We're up. You're up. This is two years old. That's our team. Yeah. So, our team has changed a little bit. But, yeah, that's our team. We're a great team. We meet monthly with Caroline and we also meet monthly in our schools with our deaf committees in each school. Each school has a deaf committee. We have a pretty strong committee at Claypit. I can talk to Claypit about Claypit's committee. But, that's what we do. And I think the next slide is sort of, I'm going to talk about this, that what we, our mission statement and what we do. Our monthly staff meetings. When this first started, was last year? First year. Last year was our first year. Boy, it feels like it's a long, because I've been here for a hundred years. We did this in different, it was never called this, but we did this, you know, way back. I bet she knows. We did this a long time ago, but just not formally. Anyway. So, we have monthly staff meetings, our advisory councils, culture and heritage and history months. So, a couple things I want to talk to you about that is, so, it seems like our committee was saying, it feels like that's so basic. Like doing the heritage month, it seems like we're way past that. And, we, in every school, we sort of have bulletin, I don't know about the middle school, but I know that elementary schools have, we recognize the history and the cultural months. And, I brought back to my committee because I had a staff member of color, as I was putting up the bulletin board for that particular month, came up and said, I just want to tell you how much I appreciate that you are taking the time to honor my culture on this month. And, it just, so, I went back to our committee and I said, you know what, we might, this might be sort of basic, but it makes a difference. So, you know, that old makes a difference to this one, the starfish or whatever that poem is. So, it made a difference. And, I didn't capture it, but on women's history month, I was putting finishing touches on it and a boy came out, a boy came out of the cafeteria to go to the bathroom and then he came back and he was studying, reading. And, I really wanted to take a picture that, you know, this young boy, like second grade, third grade, was reading about these women that we just put up. So, it does make a difference, those things do make a difference. And, then the next, the glimmers and glows, so we're always looking for glimmers and glows and we share them with Caroline. And, what are glimmers and glows? So, the great things that are happening in our schools because of our dead LTU mission statement. Things like the last meeting we had, there's a teacher told me that she purchased a book for a girl in her class who wears a hijab. And, the girl said, oh my gosh, that girl looks like me in that book. And, just those little things make, it seems like it's such a small thing, but it really makes a huge difference. And, the intention behind glimmers and glows is DEB work is not always like 5,000 successes in one disappointment. Right? You have to have a lot of stamina, patience, and it's easy to miss the little tiny glimmer, right? The little tiny sign, the littlest thing that shows like, I made a difference, or this thing made a difference for this one kid. Or, maybe 10 people didn't sign up, but we got 4 who wouldn't have otherwise. So, you've got to look at them, especially at a time when there's a lot that's diminishing the work of diversity, equity, and belonging. It's important. Okay, so let's take a look. Oh, yeah. And, so people, people come to Devon and me about the discrimination response protocol frequently. Do you think we should fill out the form? Do you think, you know, things like that, they feel comfortable coming to us? And, I actually recently, a staff member said to me, something happened at the beginning of the year, and they asked me, should I fill out the form? We talked it through, and yes, this year should fill out the form. And, later they came to me and said, I've been here this many years, and this may have happened 10 years ago. And, I would have gone home and thought about it, thought about it, and had no place to put it. And, I really like that we now have a place to deal with something like that. So, I thought that was really great. It is important. That work is important. What else about our year two? The advisory councils have really taken off in a lot of our schools. I've noticed that principals are using the dev advisory councils for council. Different spelling, right? These are all teachers who volunteer to serve because they're committed to and want to be involved in this work. Do you want to speak to something? That is true. So, we do a lot of things when we meet. Several things we've done. Like, for example, many of the schools have flags in the cafeterias. And, we wanted to make sure that all the flags were represented. One of our custodians, I know, said, you know, his flag wasn't up there. We made sure we ordered the flag. And, our team spent time labeling the flags. Because, even though we have all these flags, we need to have some way of knowing which flag goes, you know, the kids to learn about it. Having Black Lives Matter flags in all the schools. Having Pride flags in all the schools. Those little things that we do, but they do make a big difference. And, we do look at that, the data that Caroline shares. The non-determination protocol. And, talk about it. And, have discussions. And, they're responsible for presenting it. In their buildings. Yep. Yep. That's in middle school. Yeah, I just want to say this thing. So, this year in every building, they've distributed staff belonging surveys. And, because all the research has shown that the health of the culture of the adults in your building directly affects them the health of the student culture. And, so, it's been a while since we've, you know, taken a look at how do our staff experience the building. And, what is, what is interesting and I think was revelatory for some of the DEVACs was that some of the assumptions of veteran faculty like, we're family, or we've always done things this way, or this is the Wayland way. They are not experienced that way. But, it's not a universal, especially if they are newer. They may be newer, like newer in the last 15 years. That's how long some teachers have been here. But, like newer in the last 10. And, to remember that when we speak in the we, right, the we is, you could be talking in a meeting and saying, well, we know that that's the whatever. And, that is an immediate othering move for someone who says, well, I have a difference of opinion and I can't even say it. Because, if I do, I'm going to be seen as not a team player. So, people surf and share those. And so, once it's in print like that, it's really sobering and also it's work for us still, right? We want a place where every staff member feels like they belong and it's just clear that not everyone does. Of course not everyone does, right? No one does in any organization and there's work. Was that at all six buildings or just the middle school this year? That was in every building, not in the children's way, but the other schools. That's at the high school, celebrating student reflection on school values. Oh, I can do that. So, just so you know, the middle school team spent a lot of time developing this phenomenal faculty meeting. A lot of credit to the deaf AC where they had, they pulled out themes from the staff belonging surveys and they had them on these poster boards and then they randomly assigned people to the small groups so you weren't with just the people you always sit with. And they went around and talked about, they had thought reflection questions and they went around to these five or six themes and had a conversation. At the high school, the deaf AC created, I feel like, you know, we're talking about forms so much you must be like chomping at the bit to like get in there and look at that data, right? So, they created the reflections, the Google Forms surveys for students following these values exercises in the late fall, early winter. What do you aspire the high school to be? What is getting in the way, right? So, the dev advisory councils have done a tremendous job this year. I just wanted to give them a shout out. Strengthening content and consistency to increase awareness during cultural heritage and history month, which I've talked about. Yep. So, these are just like a small sampling. We collect them in a Google Doc. So, just a few things. The upper left is at the high school, a sewing club. And so, they have their bags of textiles that they picked out. I love that it is a group of, it's a very diverse group of students. The advisors, Sarah Langeleer, and Mark Lydell also went and they had a blast. And they sew every Friday. In the top center, the Boston, what do you call it? It's Boston Friends. Boston Friends. Yeah. Where they're assigned, they have a mentor. Mentor. And this was an after school activity playing, I guess that's Twister? And then, you know, I'm not going to go through the Heritage Month, those are just some of the displays. The flag, when a student notices that their flag is not there and then the school gets the flag, it is huge. Huge. So, this is two Taiwanese students, so proud. And then, in the bottom, directly below that is a letter written by a student to a principal asking for the flag of Turkey. Right? I mean, just the fact that a kid feels like they can write and ask a principal. Like, I matter, I want to be seen. To me, that's phenomenal. And then, in the center are some students teaching their class about Diwali. And in the bottom row, I feel like this is Brady Bunch, right? So, the bottom row in the center, this is a father and a Chinese student and they read to the class in Mandarin. Right? Beautiful. And then, far right, they have an exchange student in one of the classes from Germany. So, she was talking about, like, just what Germany is like and where Germany is on a map. And so, this is all our glimmers and glows. I love this picture. This is Women's History Month. I just, it's so powerful. I know. Okay, this is just step along. We just went over that. Let's move on. And questions, comments, and discussion. And then, a well-earned strategy. So, I heard you say a couple of ways that sounded like you used the data, but it was more for sort of, like, continuing to crunch it and talk about it. Are there other ways that you've used the data to drive things that you've done in the schools? I would just say, Aaron, you know, you look at that data, what you saw around race and discrimination, and then, you know, at the federal level, you basically have a federal government that's saying, don't teach about racism. And so, we're very fortunate to be in Massachusetts where we follow our state frameworks, which is really, really important, and encouraging teachers to keep teaching what you're teaching at a time where there's some fear around content in certain areas. And that does come up, you know, some of our teachers at various levels. A lot. A lot. So, I think a lot. And this is, you know, plenty of conversations with our secondary social studies department heads, and encouraging them not only to keep teaching, but think about how to do it in different ways. And I think this is a reminder why we need to do it. But you've heard, you know, the history that you were talking about, Jackie, that needs to take place at all levels, because whether we like it or not, that's our history. The question is, how do we get better and learn from our history so this doesn't happen again. So, that's something I think is just a stark reminder when I look at it. In our new social studies curriculum, investigating history, I just can't speak to the fifth grade. It's phenomenal. And it deals with the hard history. And it's done in a very, just an amazing way. And I know that it's trickling down to the other grades, but right now, the fifth grade, I mean, I'm kind of sad that I'm retiring soon, because I want to keep teaching. It's amazing, especially the curriculum. It's something that we've been lacking in many years. There's a quote that I think is partially responsive to your question, which I, the former, a former NCTM, National Council of Teacher of Mathematics, Robert Q. Berry, said, which is, we are truly wonderful in getting better all the time. And so, I think for faculty around staff belonging, we are, the staff in our building are truly wonderful. And we can be getting better all the time. And so, the openness to learning, right, the willingness to be uncomfortable and leaning into it in all sorts of ways, right. So, even with the warm, going back full circle, like, there's an inherent tension between saying, we have high expectations. Like, we are, this is Whalen High School. We have high standards, blah, blah, blah. Like, all those things, right. And at the same time, we're trying to say, we believe in every student's potential, right. So, there's a natural tension there, because the kids know that there's sort of, like, there's a natural tension there. So, how can we do both those things? So, the same thing with staff belonging. Yes, there are many ways. I mean, I see it in all the schools where staff, either they themselves create these opportunities, like the middle school, they have a cookie bake-off and things like that. Or they have, like, at the high school, they have a prom for the adults. Like, there are all these ways that they do that. And there are these everyday ways that can chip away at someone's sense of belonging if they are not, if they don't feel on the inside or in that inner circle. And just to be aware of that. Right. Real quick mindset. Yes. So, thank you all so much. And I'm happy to answer any more questions. And you all have been, like, so, I mean, we've been talking almost two hours. And I feel like, not a yawn. Nothing. I just appreciate it. One question? Yes. One question. So, knowing the data that we have and knowing the struggles that we have in the middle school, where there's a concentration there. The lesson that you gave in the fifth grade. You see fifth graders at this time of year, they are too old to be in middle school. They're starting to transition. Could we institute that lesson across all fifth grade at the end of the year to prepare them in middle school? Because, you know, that it could be very valuable. They are ready. They are mature. They are done with elementary. But they really could all use that universal lesson. Could we think about doing that? Yeah. I mean, I was just saying to Betsy, like, if someone asks me to do something, I rarely say no. Like, so I'm listening to you and I'm thinking, that's a great idea. And share that with parents, too, so we can have those parallel conversations. Totally. And the thing is, when I tell them, you know, I was a high school history teacher for 27 years. All of a sudden, fifth graders are like, oh, I'm like learning from a professor. Right? So like, whoa! True. And I do, the learning and the teaching and the learning is really, really, really important. And that is the proactive way of hoping to prevent something from happening instead of being in the responsive mode, which is important, too. Yeah. Thank you. I lost one of my questions. Sorry. But I gained another one. Is there any thought, or maybe this is just a suggestion and maybe it exists and I don't know about it, but making some sort of small, like, PDF-like flyer that basically says, like, here's the protocol. It can be anonymous. You don't have, like, five quick hitting points that can get shared out to parents or to community, just to kind of flag it for folks that it exists. Are you thinking, like, at the back, like, at the kickoff of the school year? Yeah. Or just, you know, like, yeah. There's so many different ways to do it, right? Like, there's so many different ways. Like I said, I never say never. Yeah. You did the video when we first did it and sent that out to families, but a flyer, a reminder kind of for families who are new to the district. It's one of those things, Erin, I think your feedback is helpful, that we always have new people. Yes. We have new staff and we have new students and we did a big startup with the video, but it's a reminder in something like this that we always have new folks. So that's super helpful. Different things are top of mind for people at different moments. And our principal suggested that to us. That was one of the things that came out of our admin council. Could you do a refresher for my staff? Right? So your suggestion is in that same vein. I remembered my other one, but I have another one. So, okay. So on that same thought, I think sometimes what holds people back from submitting it, right? And asking the question, which is great that people feel comfortable to come to you and Devon to ask the questions. But if they don't have that person, just understanding that this isn't going to ruin someone's life necessarily. Yeah. Like this is just, and maybe what you felt doesn't rise to some level, but like let it out there. It also gives that outlet of someone to just put it out there. Like the person who, something happened at the beginning of the year. I've been thinking about this. I've been, you know, saddled with it and now I can let it out and somebody can look into it. Those kinds of things I think are also, and it's a tough thing to put into like five bullets, just, it's a piece to put out there. The only other question that I have was, is, do you have any thoughts, Caroline, and in working with the DEB lead teachers and the advisory councils, of kind of evolving the requirement that was put in place in 2021 for those first year, couple, first couple of your teachers and evolving that to carry through teachers that stay here and are here longer? That's a wish. I mean, I have talked to David and Betsy about that there are teachers who haven't taken anything or haven't done what was then EMI, that that was the last training that they took. And I think this work around, you know, this idea we teach who we are, but also looking at our own identities and how they show up in the classroom. And then there's so much more research now that unless you're reading like I am, you wouldn't know about like, unless you, it's just a hobby. Right. But it's my job. Like there's so much around, like I just did this executive functioning class that Ronnie was able to get. Thank you, Ronnie, through landmark. It, I learned so much and it does intersect with equity. It does intersect with belonging. Right. And that's not my field at all. And I learned so much that I know I'm going to apply in my work with teachers and with MECO academic liaisons, et cetera. So like we're always learning. So yes, I do think there is an incredible value to it because it also goes back to what I said earlier. Like we have, we, we, this is a lifelong journey, right? Being an anti-racist educator, being an educator's culturally responsive, being an educator that creates a sense of belonging for your colleagues and like, it's just, so, so just because you have professional status, like, that doesn't mean like it's over. Like, so it's, it's an evolving ongoing process. So I think it is really important. And in fact, when I've taught culturally responsive teaching in the brain to the new hires who need to take it, it's one of the free options. Yeah. They say things like, I thought that this was required of all teachers and I found out that it's not. Why is it only teachers who were hired in the last three years? I think everyone should take. I mean, everyone can't take my class necessarily, but it is really important. Because our classrooms look different than they did 20 years ago. There are veteran teachers who elect to take it. Totally. There are others who ask, can we have the, can we have like a round two to go deeper as well? So, yes. Which is great. And the district has supported that. So, enough teachers, veteran teachers have said, can we have a culturally responsive teaching in the brain too? So, I'm offering one this summer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. For coming and for sharing all your work. Right? Isn't it, wasn't it? Yes, it's in the budget part of the members. This was paid for a grant last year. Yeah. Yeah. That's too important. You know how much you value it. I don't know who to thank, but thank you for that. It's an investment for staff because the whole point, when I envisioned it, it was to help build the capacity of teachers in the buildings because I'm spread out across a bunch of schools and often times they trust, they know and trust their colleagues in the buildings and they're always there. So. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Nice to see you. Thank you very much. Jackie, you're going to have to build like a playbook to leave behind if you're planning on leaving us. You know, Robin Rossi created a playbook back in 1986 or whatever when she first started here that I fed off of. And that was before anything was required in a union contract. Right? We just, Betsy knows, you just came in and you took EMI. I took it with you. Yup. You just took it within the first so many years. Okay. I do. Right? So anyway. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll get it. I'll get it.
Jackie, Miles is going to be psyched that I get to see you. No, I was going to say. No, I was going to say. If you were Miles and Miles, they didn't want to interrupt the committee. We're great. He's going in tonight. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Thank you. I just didn't want to, you know. I should just send him down to the school one day. Catch you. Yeah. I did have a couple of seniors come to me last year. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, I'd love to see him. You would not. Well, you wouldn't recognize him. He's like 5'9 and $1.70 now, so. Once again, yeah. After like 7th, 8th grade, I can't remember him anymore. Tell him I should hide that. I will. To me, it was always a facial there when they'd show him the whole beard and be like, Did you recognize me? You didn't have a beard in 6th grade. Oh, you're so cold in here. Do you cherish him? No, no, no. No, no, no. I'll be cherishing it in about like two weeks when it's still hot in here. I know. That's why I'm just going to be fine. So there are some things on here that you may not really cover in depth, but I just kind of wanted to touch on given the time of year, new members. And so for Sean, I did kind of pulled the welcome to the beginning. But welcome. You're still welcome. That was not to call you. Thank you. Welcome. Yeah. We're thrilled to have you. It's on the calendar now, 6pm. It'll be on Wednesday, so yeah. Thank you. No worries. No worries. So I think these are two things that I just want to like plant the seed. One is discussion of the roles within the committee for the next year. There's the chair and the vice chair role. There is the policy subcommittee that currently we do have. We also have the finance subcommittee that hasn't been. We revised the charter of that to like do as needed. Yeah. We haven't needed to. Some of the things we've looked at around like sponsorship or I talked about like the fund for trips and like fundraising. Those were things we might choose. Yeah. So I think there's maybe some lighter lift areas that we could leverage that over the next fiscal year. But certainly I would love. I think there's some updates to generally from mask that will need to happen for the policy or policy manual. And there is a policy that will be coming for proposal related to changes really more just evolving in the space of nicotine, ensuring that that's included as not being allowed on property. Because it's tobacco that's currently excluded and it needs to sort of just evolve. So the wellness committee worked on that. So that'll be coming. So those are kind of the different things that I can think of right now. Another thing we do need to talk about are different appointee spots. So appointing people that are outside of the committee to sit on youth advisory. Which I'm not sure that all of these that I'm just going to rattle off are actually up. I can probably tell you right now. Oh, because they have a certain term. Like I said, got it. Yes. So the housing partnership, Jackie Espiritu Santa Vega. I probably got that wrong. But she was sitting in the role. And I think she would be interested to continue to serve, but I haven't heard back from her. So we have a couple of questions that are open. So the women housing partnership, the... So both the youth advisory committee seats need to be, those are up. And we may need to think about our seat on the CIPC, just based on Brian's more than willing to do it, but just some different things that are going on. And so we may need to look at that as well. So we can talk about that. So I don't know if people just kind of want me to send around some information about the different things between now and our next meeting, and we can revisit. I don't know if people have strong feelings one way or the other. If there is info, it's good. I actually think both of those appointments happened prior to anyone but you being on the committee, in terms of housing and the two youth advisories. I think they're coming up on that. Oh, really? Yeah. Because the housing one had happened just before. Oh, no. That one I know is up. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. But I don't think we... That had just happened prior to Kate and I joining the committee. Okay. Those all happened at the same time. CIPC, I should correct. CIPC happened while we were on the committee. Because that was just last year. Yep. So I can send around like a little snippet of what they are and kind of what those roles are. And I will also follow up with Pam Cern, who is one of the youth advisory. And then it's, their last name is Ellis and I cannot think of their first name. It is Heidi Ellis. So those, all three of those expire on June 30, 2026. So I'll follow up with Jackie and Heidi and Pam and see if they're willing to re-up. But I'll also just circulate what the description is to us and so that you guys can see it. Um, does anyone want to be the chair? Hearing none. Okay. Does anyone want to be the vice chair? I can be the vice chair. Unless someone else wants it. Badly. I know. You stole the thunder of us like supporting your continued... Ah! ...assumption of the chairs. I still, I still would like to know that people want me to be in it. I don't have... That moves. So, next time, but, um, so I'll send her on a little thing. Um, so that's that piece. Um, yeah, missing on that? No, right? There's some other ones that had cycle in and out. Well, I shouldn't say cycle in and out. So, like, there's the liaison things that have come and gone. The William Park School Foundation has continued, although we have tried to, um, we've kind of divide and Betsy very kindly goes. I have been a few times. We can certainly talk more about that. There's a list. There is a list. Diane just didn't give me the list for this meeting. So, I can also circulate that in advance for the next one. Um, I think, yeah. And then there are the things that continue. So, there's currently a long-term facilities working group. Kate has been serving in that capacity. We are still in our collective bargaining. There is members that serve in that capacity. So, and then, you know, two years ago, there was the cell phone working group committee. So, things come up that committee members should be delegated. But those were actually David's working groups. Correct. Not ours. Because we're very careful not to create additional subcommittees. Without a vote. And there can only be two of us on a subcommittee because you can't have a quorum. So, because we only have five members, we only have two. Um, the other thing I will do is there's some, like, guides to being part of the school committee. I'll send that to the two of you. Jen's working on getting you guys set up with your emails and your accounts to be able to access. She was at, was she at Maspo too? Or was she at a different conference? Different conference. Okay. So, hopefully, you went and took your own, right? I did. Okay. I knew you were going, but then Trudy never, like, confirmed. So... Okay. Great. So, yeah. Jen will get you set up. Hopefully, by the end of the week, you guys should be good to go. Um, and then what you'll find is, like, we have, um, different folders within Google Drive. That's typically how we access documents. I did have, for the warrants, accounts payable and warrants, I had Diane print you each a copy so you could see them tonight. Um, and then I knew that that presentation was going to kind of be the focus and it was up there for you guys. Um, so I will also plan, at least this is kind of how it was done for the, um, well before me, but just sit down and do a one-on-one with you guys just to kind of, like, familiarize you more with the process and all that good jazz. Um, and we can set that up just one off outside of this. Okay. Um, unless someone else wants to do that. It's fine. No. It's not happening. Happy to chat. Happy to chat. Um, I will set up a group text for the five of us. I'm pretty sure I have both here. I know I have your number and I have yours, too. I just have to pull it out of my email. And I'll set up a chat. So, we're calling it the superheroes, school superheroes this time. Oh. It was girl power, just so you know, that there were five women. I messed it up. Um. That's okay. We accept you and we love you as you are. We've got a DB position. Yeah. Very belonging focused. Um, I do have on here, which I did briefly discuss with David, um, that because he's been, he's not a new superintendent. So, typically, um, we are required to evaluate the superintendent each year and follow a certain process with the state of Massachusetts and DESE. Um, last year we did the whole process. We went through, um, different members were assigned different people. We interviewed them on an anonymous basis. We incorporated that into our feedback to David. Um, that being said, it's a big lift. David got an exceed. Um, yes. I mean, this is, we can share. Yeah, we can show it to you. Um, David also went to the effort of putting a self review together, which is part of one of the components. So, it was very thorough. Yes. Um, and it involves interviewing anywhere from 10 to 15 stakeholders across the district, which committee members divide. Yes. Um, and so, that's kind of like standard process. And because David is not a new superintendent, he's been around for a hundred years. Um, that was just my little dig aim. I'll take it. Um, we, he, he can kind of give us a waiver and we can give him a waiver since he was like meeting all expectations and exceeding expectations last year to do another full evaluation next year and take the year off. With that said, I think it would still be important and it would be your hope and wish that we would kind of informally just check in with admin council, um, principals, different, um, people within the district that sort of directly interact with him every day if you wanted to check in. And just informally to kind of ensure that we are still on the right track. Um, and so that's what, um, candidly, Betsy had realized we could do. And we thought it might be a good idea just with a lot going on to new members and things are certainly in a good place, at least from our perspective. Um, so we could just have some informal check ins report back on that. And so I can actually, do you want to share that with them? The, the compilation from last year? Yeah, absolutely. Um, absolutely. No, and I also, the only other thing I would mention is a number of the goals. So the goal setting process happens over the summer. We have district goals. One of the district goals, one of the background of tonight's presentation is at this time of year, we start to get a report as a committee on the various district goals and the progress towards them. A number of the goals in our district goals this year, and I think also that align with your individual goals, are really multi-year goals. And so that was another factor that we're sort of looking at this and saying, like, we're kind of midstream anyway, and we have change in the committee. So at the time of year, this time next year, we will be closer to, I think, uh, assessment point on where we are with those goals. Which really just means we need to start it earlier next year because if Betsy thinks she's going to roll off the committee, we're going to make her participate. So I'm just going to put that in now. How frequently are we going to hear those comments? Well, I digress. Okay. All right. So we can do that and we can revisit that one. You'll send it to them. I'll send it to them. And then do we have to take a, do you know, do we have to take a vote on electing to do that? I will look into that for next. I tried actually to try to efficient and I was not able to find it. Okay. I'll find out. And then, um, do you want, I'm happy to volunteer to come up with a little informal plan if you want, and to just have the number if it's the admin council folks, unless you already have an idea. Like, do you want people to volunteer to do that or do you want to do that? I'm happy to do it. I, I was thinking more of literally like just kind of chatting with the community. Sure. An intentional effort to do that. Yeah. Okay. And, and feeling like reporting back by, you know, toward the end of the year, like end of June or last meeting, maybe, or something like that, just to say, you know, that we had done it. And what was my thought? Is that good? Are you okay with that? If we move, you know, if we decide we're going to move forward to that. Okay. Um, okay. So, the 426 minutes are not in here. I didn't get them into the format, so I will bring those for our next meeting. Oh, that was our special meeting? Yes. Got it. Um, so those are not part of the consent agenda. Okay. I didn't give you copies of the minutes because I figured neither of you were there and you wouldn't want to vote anyway. So, the three of us can vote and put the majority in that, and the two of you can just vote. Um, in the future, just for a process point, um, you can always vote even if you weren't there to make a quorum to vote, but you can also abstain if we don't need it for something that you weren't there for. Wait and take a vote another time. Okay. I also wanted to announce that we officially have, um, no open meeting law complaints because Mr. Harris withdrew his last complaint that had been sitting with the AG's office since August of last year. Okay. Anybody have any questions on the payables, payroll, warrant, anything on the consent agenda, minus May 4, 2020. Give them a second. Okay. Give me one second. Please. And then I would be... Sorry. Do you want to be the meeting? Just accuracy. The budget is one of our major... Right. So just accuracy, questions, um, I guess in kind of like bigger context, the town is required to have their budget approved at line item level. For the schools, we get approved at just an operating budget level. Mm-hm. And so we are permitted to move things around but only pursuant to our approval. In terms of, you know, your own monitoring the budget, our third quarter budget report will be at our next meeting where you'll get all the data in terms of how we're doing on expenses versus projected budget. And then at the end of the school year, you know, at the end of the summer, we have our final budget, uh, to see how we do. And Kirstein's at her, at her conference for business. She'll be here next time and that, that'll be on our agenda. And if there's things as you get familiar with them that you just have questions about what is this, what is this expenditure, like, Kirstein knows you can bring it up at the table or send her an email ahead of a meeting. So, you know, I remember when I first started looking, I was like, what is this? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Right. Absolutely. We'll do a budget overview as part of your orientation. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. I don't have to do that part, right? We're going to take planning, don't we? I love it. I love it. We'll also say, we'll do an overview for the two of you, where we are in terms of facilities planning. Yeah. That would be good as well. Yep. At our meeting in early June, we're going to have the HMS. And so that would be important to have a background ahead of time, because that's a very important district goal as well. So just for, typically for the consent agenda, we'll make one motion approved in a bucket. So if there's like an issue, we'll try and talk about it ahead of time, and then make motion and approve the consent agenda. I would entertain a motion. Sure. Now you want to. Just kidding. I moved. I moved to approve. Oh, it's 8.30. I have to get flipped at 8.30. I'm on at time. I moved to approve the consent agenda with the omission of the May 4th, 2026 minutes as originally posted on the agenda. Do we have a second? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. So that is for the recording for Diane. Did you vote? I'm abstaining. You're abstaining. You're abstaining. Okay. So we have four in favor, zero opposed, one abstention being Jessica. Um. Signatures. I think there were five. Four. Were there four? Okay. It's more than one. There's always seven. I moved to enter executive session for the purposes of discussing strategy related to bargaining with the Wayland Educational Association WEA Unit A as permitted by MGL Chapter 30A Section 21A3 and for viewing and approving executive session minutes with the intent to redact and release that minutes as permitted by MGL Chapter 30A Section 22 for April 29, 2026. The school committee will be joined by David Fleischman, Superintendent, and Betsy Gavron, Assistant Superintendent. Ronnie Kessler, you can go home. The school committee will adjourn an executive session and will not reconvene an open session. Do I have a second? Second. Uh, Betsy? Yes. Kate? Yes. Erin? Yes. Jessica? Yes.
Wait, go back one second. The number in the corner is how many people participated across the four. Individual people, not someone who showed up four times counted as four. These are 53 different people who showed up to one or more. Thank you. There's also a relatively new Wayland Freedom team that has Wayland Public School representation. I used to serve on it. I had to step down because the district is keeping me so busy. But they've asked me to find someone or connect them with someone because they want someone from the district representing and serving. So this is a non-governmental body. It's a body of volunteers. They exist in other towns, these freedom teams. And they're just a resource for anyone who's experienced or witnessed biased incidents. And so they might provide resources, they might offer mediation, etc. So it is different from the HRDEIC, which has a formal role. This is more a group of volunteers who are committed to creating a community of belonging for residents of Wayland. And also people who work in Wayland. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. Student engagement. And they came by invitation using, we funded this through the Hate Crime Prevention Grant to do some work, a few sessions with the high school football team to, and what ended up, what they produced was this creed, what they called an accountability creed. And I actually, because you can't really read it well, I have it here, I can read it. It says, we are warriors. Football is family. Every warrior is my family and Wayland is our house. We protect and honor each other. We protect and honor our house. We respond to injustice, hate, and anything not love with intention and accountability. When the team is disconnected, unfocused, unhappy, and unmotivated, we do not fold. We uplift the fallen, honor our creed, atone, and emerge better. We are warriors. So in March, Jamil presented at two all-school assemblies that involved meeting with students who were interested, a small committee of students beforehand. So they co-designed, co-collaborated, in the design and actually in the performance of the assembly. So we had kids reading these incredible testimonials about what love, inclusion, and trust looks like, feels like, sounds like for them. One, we had a current Boston resident student, who's a senior, talk about the history of Metco and her death to the founding mothers of Metco for making it possible for her as a Vietnamese American child and immigrant family to be the first in her family to go to college. Just so powerful. There was a band who performed. There were artists who, during the assembly, were painting, and then at the end of the assembly, they showed their artwork that was sort of organic based on what they were hearing and feeling and experiencing. I've talked to students and staff who really responded so positively to this powerful message of, we can do better. We can be better. This is our house. Right. Okay, so this is that student committee I was telling you about. They created a creed, not based off of the football one, but you'll see similarities. So I was there for this process, and it was just a beautiful thing. So they all agreed on this. Would you like to read it? I certainly would read it. We are Wayland High School, warriors of love, inclusion, and trust. We lift each other up. Everyone has an equal chance to succeed together, through education and initiating vulnerable topics, with a willingness to talk about things others won't. We will lead by example. I will pick you up when you are down and together we will fly. You know what that pause button means. Do your thing. Jamil is also, through the hate crime prevention grant, he's coming to the high school two days a week for half a day and is available for teachers and students. There were a group of students playing hacky sack last week and they know him already and they're like, Jamil, come play hacky sack with us. Right? So, his energy is creating a really positive vibe around something that is kind of hard sometimes. Like, kids don't necessarily want to lean into belonging. He has a way of making it seem cool and fun and like kids. And there's real substance to it. And I really appreciate the partnership with him, Allison, and me in trying to bring something to the high school for the students that feels affirming. And like that they are something in their sphere of control they can do. Any, any questions? Lead teachers. Jackie. We're up. You're up. This is two years old. That's our team. Yeah. So, our team has changed a little bit. But, yeah, that's our team. We're a great team. We meet monthly with Caroline and we also meet monthly in our schools with our deaf committees in each school. Each school has a deaf committee. We have a pretty strong committee at Claypit. I can talk to Claypit about Claypit's committee. But, that's what we do. And I think the next slide is sort of, I'm going to talk about this, that what we, our mission statement and what we do. Our monthly staff meetings. When this first started, was last year? First year. Last year was our first year. Boy, it feels like it's a long, because I've been here for a hundred years. We did this in different, it was never called this, but we did this, you know, way back. I bet she knows. We did this a long time ago, but just not formally. Anyway. So, we have monthly staff meetings, our advisory councils, culture and heritage and history months. So, a couple things I want to talk to you about that is, so, it seems like our committee was saying, it feels like that's so basic. Like doing the heritage month, it seems like we're way past that. And, we, in every school, we sort of have bulletin, I don't know about the middle school, but I know that elementary schools have, we recognize the history and the cultural months. And, I brought back to my committee because I had a staff member of color, as I was putting up the bulletin board for that particular month, came up and said, I just want to tell you how much I appreciate that you are taking the time to honor my culture on this month. And, it just, so, I went back to our committee and I said, you know what, we might, this might be sort of basic, but it makes a difference. So, you know, that old makes a difference to this one, the starfish or whatever that poem is. So, it made a difference. And, I didn't capture it, but on women's history month, I was putting finishing touches on it and a boy came out, a boy came out of the cafeteria to go to the bathroom and then he came back and he was studying, reading. And, I really wanted to take a picture that, you know, this young boy, like second grade, third grade, was reading about these women that we just put up. So, it does make a difference, those things do make a difference. And, then the next, the glimmers and glows, so we're always looking for glimmers and glows and we share them with Caroline. And, what are glimmers and glows? So, the great things that are happening in our schools because of our dead LTU mission statement. Things like the last meeting we had, there's a teacher told me that she purchased a book for a girl in her class who wears a hijab. And, the girl said, oh my gosh, that girl looks like me in that book. And, just those little things make, it seems like it's such a small thing, but it really makes a huge difference. And, the intention behind glimmers and glows is DEB work is not always like 5,000 successes in one disappointment. Right? You have to have a lot of stamina, patience, and it's easy to miss the little tiny glimmer, right? The little tiny sign, the littlest thing that shows like, I made a difference, or this thing made a difference for this one kid. Or, maybe 10 people didn't sign up, but we got 4 who wouldn't have otherwise. So, you've got to look at them, especially at a time when there's a lot that's diminishing the work of diversity, equity, and belonging. It's important. Okay, so let's take a look. Oh, yeah. And, so people, people come to Devon and me about the discrimination response protocol frequently. Do you think we should fill out the form? Do you think, you know, things like that, they feel comfortable coming to us? And, I actually recently, a staff member said to me, something happened at the beginning of the year, and they asked me, should I fill out the form? We talked it through, and yes, this year should fill out the form. And, later they came to me and said, I've been here this many years, and this may have happened 10 years ago. And, I would have gone home and thought about it, thought about it, and had no place to put it. And, I really like that we now have a place to deal with something like that. So, I thought that was really great. It is important. That work is important. What else about our year two? The advisory councils have really taken off in a lot of our schools. I've noticed that principals are using the dev advisory councils for council. Different spelling, right? These are all teachers who volunteer to serve because they're committed to and want to be involved in this work. Do you want to speak to something? That is true. So, we do a lot of things when we meet. Several things we've done. Like, for example, many of the schools have flags in the cafeterias. And, we wanted to make sure that all the flags were represented. One of our custodians, I know, said, you know, his flag wasn't up there. We made sure we ordered the flag. And, our team spent time labeling the flags. Because, even though we have all these flags, we need to have some way of knowing which flag goes, you know, the kids to learn about it. Having Black Lives Matter flags in all the schools. Having Pride flags in all the schools. Those little things that we do, but they do make a big difference. And, we do look at that, the data that Caroline shares. The non-determination protocol. And, talk about it. And, have discussions. And, they're responsible for presenting it. In their buildings. Yep. Yep. That's in middle school. Yeah, I just want to say this thing. So, this year in every building, they've distributed staff belonging surveys. And, because all the research has shown that the health of the culture of the adults in your building directly affects them the health of the student culture. And, so, it's been a while since we've, you know, taken a look at how do our staff experience the building. And, what is, what is interesting and I think was revelatory for some of the DEVACs was that some of the assumptions of veteran faculty like, we're family, or we've always done things this way, or this is the Wayland way. They are not experienced that way. But, it's not a universal, especially if they are newer. They may be newer, like newer in the last 15 years. That's how long some teachers have been here. But, like newer in the last 10. And, to remember that when we speak in the we, right, the we is, you could be talking in a meeting and saying, well, we know that that's the whatever. And, that is an immediate othering move for someone who says, well, I have a difference of opinion and I can't even say it. Because, if I do, I'm going to be seen as not a team player. So, people surf and share those. And so, once it's in print like that, it's really sobering and also it's work for us still, right? We want a place where every staff member feels like they belong and it's just clear that not everyone does. Of course not everyone does, right? No one does in any organization and there's work. Was that at all six buildings or just the middle school this year? That was in every building, not in the children's way, but the other schools. That's at the high school, celebrating student reflection on school values. Oh, I can do that. So, just so you know, the middle school team spent a lot of time developing this phenomenal faculty meeting. A lot of credit to the deaf AC where they had, they pulled out themes from the staff belonging surveys and they had them on these poster boards and then they randomly assigned people to the small groups so you weren't with just the people you always sit with. And they went around and talked about, they had thought reflection questions and they went around to these five or six themes and had a conversation. At the high school, the deaf AC created, I feel like, you know, we're talking about forms so much you must be like chomping at the bit to like get in there and look at that data, right? So, they created the reflections, the Google Forms surveys for students following these values exercises in the late fall, early winter. What do you aspire the high school to be? What is getting in the way, right? So, the dev advisory councils have done a tremendous job this year. I just wanted to give them a shout out. Strengthening content and consistency to increase awareness during cultural heritage and history month, which I've talked about. Yep. So, these are just like a small sampling. We collect them in a Google Doc. So, just a few things. The upper left is at the high school, a sewing club. And so, they have their bags of textiles that they picked out. I love that it is a group of, it's a very diverse group of students. The advisors, Sarah Langeleer, and Mark Lydell also went and they had a blast. And they sew every Friday. In the top center, the Boston, what do you call it? It's Boston Friends. Boston Friends. Yeah. Where they're assigned, they have a mentor. Mentor. And this was an after school activity playing, I guess that's Twister? And then, you know, I'm not going to go through the Heritage Month, those are just some of the displays. The flag, when a student notices that their flag is not there and then the school gets the flag, it is huge. Huge. So, this is two Taiwanese students, so proud. And then, in the bottom, directly below that is a letter written by a student to a principal asking for the flag of Turkey. Right? I mean, just the fact that a kid feels like they can write and ask a principal. Like, I matter, I want to be seen. To me, that's phenomenal. And then, in the center are some students teaching their class about Diwali. And in the bottom row, I feel like this is Brady Bunch, right? So, the bottom row in the center, this is a father and a Chinese student and they read to the class in Mandarin. Right? Beautiful. And then, far right, they have an exchange student in one of the classes from Germany. So, she was talking about, like, just what Germany is like and where Germany is on a map. And so, this is all our glimmers and glows. I love this picture. This is Women's History Month. I just, it's so powerful. I know. Okay, this is just step along. We just went over that. Let's move on. And questions, comments, and discussion. And then, a well-earned strategy. So, I heard you say a couple of ways that sounded like you used the data, but it was more for sort of, like, continuing to crunch it and talk about it. Are there other ways that you've used the data to drive things that you've done in the schools? I would just say, Aaron, you know, you look at that data, what you saw around race and discrimination, and then, you know, at the federal level, you basically have a federal government that's saying, don't teach about racism. And so, we're very fortunate to be in Massachusetts where we follow our state frameworks, which is really, really important, and encouraging teachers to keep teaching what you're teaching at a time where there's some fear around content in certain areas. And that does come up, you know, some of our teachers at various levels. A lot. A lot. So, I think a lot. And this is, you know, plenty of conversations with our secondary social studies department heads, and encouraging them not only to keep teaching, but think about how to do it in different ways. And I think this is a reminder why we need to do it. But you've heard, you know, the history that you were talking about, Jackie, that needs to take place at all levels, because whether we like it or not, that's our history. The question is, how do we get better and learn from our history so this doesn't happen again. So, that's something I think is just a stark reminder when I look at it. In our new social studies curriculum, investigating history, I just can't speak to the fifth grade. It's phenomenal. And it deals with the hard history. And it's done in a very, just an amazing way. And I know that it's trickling down to the other grades, but right now, the fifth grade, I mean, I'm kind of sad that I'm retiring soon, because I want to keep teaching. It's amazing, especially the curriculum. It's something that we've been lacking in many years. There's a quote that I think is partially responsive to your question, which I, the former, a former NCTM, National Council of Teacher of Mathematics, Robert Q. Berry, said, which is, we are truly wonderful in getting better all the time. And so, I think for faculty around staff belonging, we are, the staff in our building are truly wonderful. And we can be getting better all the time. And so, the openness to learning, right, the willingness to be uncomfortable and leaning into it in all sorts of ways, right. So, even with the warm, going back full circle, like, there's an inherent tension between saying, we have high expectations. Like, we are, this is Whalen High School. We have high standards, blah, blah, blah. Like, all those things, right. And at the same time, we're trying to say, we believe in every student's potential, right. So, there's a natural tension there, because the kids know that there's sort of, like, there's a natural tension there. So, how can we do both those things? So, the same thing with staff belonging. Yes, there are many ways. I mean, I see it in all the schools where staff, either they themselves create these opportunities, like the middle school, they have a cookie bake-off and things like that. Or they have, like, at the high school, they have a prom for the adults. Like, there are all these ways that they do that. And there are these everyday ways that can chip away at someone's sense of belonging if they are not, if they don't feel on the inside or in that inner circle. And just to be aware of that. Right. Real quick mindset. Yes. So, thank you all so much. And I'm happy to answer any more questions. And you all have been, like, so, I mean, we've been talking almost two hours. And I feel like, not a yawn. Nothing. I just appreciate it. One question? Yes. One question. So, knowing the data that we have and knowing the struggles that we have in the middle school, where there's a concentration there. The lesson that you gave in the fifth grade. You see fifth graders at this time of year, they are too old to be in middle school. They're starting to transition. Could we institute that lesson across all fifth grade at the end of the year to prepare them in middle school? Because, you know, that it could be very valuable. They are ready. They are mature. They are done with elementary. But they really could all use that universal lesson. Could we think about doing that? Yeah. I mean, I was just saying to Betsy, like, if someone asks me to do something, I rarely say no. Like, so I'm listening to you and I'm thinking, that's a great idea. And share that with parents, too, so we can have those parallel conversations. Totally. And the thing is, when I tell them, you know, I was a high school history teacher for 27 years. All of a sudden, fifth graders are like, oh, I'm like learning from a professor. Right? So like, whoa! True. And I do, the learning and the teaching and the learning is really, really, really important. And that is the proactive way of hoping to prevent something from happening instead of being in the responsive mode, which is important, too. Yeah. Thank you. I lost one of my questions. Sorry. But I gained another one. Is there any thought, or maybe this is just a suggestion and maybe it exists and I don't know about it, but making some sort of small, like, PDF-like flyer that basically says, like, here's the protocol. It can be anonymous. You don't have, like, five quick hitting points that can get shared out to parents or to community, just to kind of flag it for folks that it exists. Are you thinking, like, at the back, like, at the kickoff of the school year? Yeah. Or just, you know, like, yeah. There's so many different ways to do it, right? Like, there's so many different ways. Like I said, I never say never. Yeah. You did the video when we first did it and sent that out to families, but a flyer, a reminder kind of for families who are new to the district. It's one of those things, Erin, I think your feedback is helpful, that we always have new people. Yes. We have new staff and we have new students and we did a big startup with the video, but it's a reminder in something like this that we always have new folks. So that's super helpful. Different things are top of mind for people at different moments. And our principal suggested that to us. That was one of the things that came out of our admin council. Could you do a refresher for my staff? Right? So your suggestion is in that same vein. I remembered my other one, but I have another one. So, okay. So on that same thought, I think sometimes what holds people back from submitting it, right? And asking the question, which is great that people feel comfortable to come to you and Devon to ask the questions. But if they don't have that person, just understanding that this isn't going to ruin someone's life necessarily. Yeah. Like this is just, and maybe what you felt doesn't rise to some level, but like let it out there. It also gives that outlet of someone to just put it out there. Like the person who, something happened at the beginning of the year. I've been thinking about this. I've been, you know, saddled with it and now I can let it out and somebody can look into it. Those kinds of things I think are also, and it's a tough thing to put into like five bullets, just, it's a piece to put out there. The only other question that I have was, is, do you have any thoughts, Caroline, and in working with the DEB lead teachers and the advisory councils, of kind of evolving the requirement that was put in place in 2021 for those first year, couple, first couple of your teachers and evolving that to carry through teachers that stay here and are here longer? That's a wish. I mean, I have talked to David and Betsy about that there are teachers who haven't taken anything or haven't done what was then EMI, that that was the last training that they took. And I think this work around, you know, this idea we teach who we are, but also looking at our own identities and how they show up in the classroom. And then there's so much more research now that unless you're reading like I am, you wouldn't know about like, unless you, it's just a hobby. Right. But it's my job. Like there's so much around, like I just did this executive functioning class that Ronnie was able to get. Thank you, Ronnie, through landmark. It, I learned so much and it does intersect with equity. It does intersect with belonging. Right. And that's not my field at all. And I learned so much that I know I'm going to apply in my work with teachers and with MECO academic liaisons, et cetera. So like we're always learning. So yes, I do think there is an incredible value to it because it also goes back to what I said earlier. Like we have, we, we, this is a lifelong journey, right? Being an anti-racist educator, being an educator's culturally responsive, being an educator that creates a sense of belonging for your colleagues and like, it's just, so, so just because you have professional status, like, that doesn't mean like it's over. Like, so it's, it's an evolving ongoing process. So I think it is really important. And in fact, when I've taught culturally responsive teaching in the brain to the new hires who need to take it, it's one of the free options. Yeah. They say things like, I thought that this was required of all teachers and I found out that it's not. Why is it only teachers who were hired in the last three years? I think everyone should take. I mean, everyone can't take my class necessarily, but it is really important. Because our classrooms look different than they did 20 years ago. There are veteran teachers who elect to take it. Totally. There are others who ask, can we have the, can we have like a round two to go deeper as well? So, yes. Which is great. And the district has supported that. So, enough teachers, veteran teachers have said, can we have a culturally responsive teaching in the brain too? So, I'm offering one this summer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. For coming and for sharing all your work. Right? Isn't it, wasn't it? Yes, it's in the budget part of the members. This was paid for a grant last year. Yeah. Yeah. That's too important. You know how much you value it. I don't know who to thank, but thank you for that. It's an investment for staff because the whole point, when I envisioned it, it was to help build the capacity of teachers in the buildings because I'm spread out across a bunch of schools and often times they trust, they know and trust their colleagues in the buildings and they're always there. So. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Nice to see you. Thank you very much. Jackie, you're going to have to build like a playbook to leave behind if you're planning on leaving us. You know, Robin Rossi created a playbook back in 1986 or whatever when she first started here that I fed off of. And that was before anything was required in a union contract. Right? We just, Betsy knows, you just came in and you took EMI. I took it with you. Yup. You just took it within the first so many years. Okay. I do. Right? So anyway. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll get it. I'll get it.
Jackie, Miles is going to be psyched that I get to see you. No, I was going to say. No, I was going to say. If you were Miles and Miles, they didn't want to interrupt the committee. We're great. He's going in tonight. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Thank you. I just didn't want to, you know. I should just send him down to the school one day. Catch you. Yeah. I did have a couple of seniors come to me last year. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, I'd love to see him. You would not. Well, you wouldn't recognize him. He's like 5'9 and $1.70 now, so. Once again, yeah. After like 7th, 8th grade, I can't remember him anymore. Tell him I should hide that. I will. To me, it was always a facial there when they'd show him the whole beard and be like, Did you recognize me? You didn't have a beard in 6th grade. Oh, you're so cold in here. Do you cherish him? No, no, no. No, no, no. I'll be cherishing it in about like two weeks when it's still hot in here. I know. That's why I'm just going to be fine. So there are some things on here that you may not really cover in depth, but I just kind of wanted to touch on given the time of year, new members. And so for Sean, I did kind of pulled the welcome to the beginning. But welcome. You're still welcome. That was not to call you. Thank you. Welcome. Yeah. We're thrilled to have you. It's on the calendar now, 6pm. It'll be on Wednesday, so yeah. Thank you. No worries. No worries. So I think these are two things that I just want to like plant the seed. One is discussion of the roles within the committee for the next year. There's the chair and the vice chair role. There is the policy subcommittee that currently we do have. We also have the finance subcommittee that hasn't been. We revised the charter of that to like do as needed. Yeah. We haven't needed to. Some of the things we've looked at around like sponsorship or I talked about like the fund for trips and like fundraising. Those were things we might choose. Yeah. So I think there's maybe some lighter lift areas that we could leverage that over the next fiscal year. But certainly I would love. I think there's some updates to generally from mask that will need to happen for the policy or policy manual. And there is a policy that will be coming for proposal related to changes really more just evolving in the space of nicotine, ensuring that that's included as not being allowed on property. Because it's tobacco that's currently excluded and it needs to sort of just evolve. So the wellness committee worked on that. So that'll be coming. So those are kind of the different things that I can think of right now. Another thing we do need to talk about are different appointee spots. So appointing people that are outside of the committee to sit on youth advisory. Which I'm not sure that all of these that I'm just going to rattle off are actually up. I can probably tell you right now. Oh, because they have a certain term. Like I said, got it. Yes. So the housing partnership, Jackie Espiritu Santa Vega. I probably got that wrong. But she was sitting in the role. And I think she would be interested to continue to serve, but I haven't heard back from her. So we have a couple of questions that are open. So the women housing partnership, the... So both the youth advisory committee seats need to be, those are up. And we may need to think about our seat on the CIPC, just based on Brian's more than willing to do it, but just some different things that are going on. And so we may need to look at that as well. So we can talk about that. So I don't know if people just kind of want me to send around some information about the different things between now and our next meeting, and we can revisit. I don't know if people have strong feelings one way or the other. If there is info, it's good. I actually think both of those appointments happened prior to anyone but you being on the committee, in terms of housing and the two youth advisories. I think they're coming up on that. Oh, really? Yeah. Because the housing one had happened just before. Oh, no. That one I know is up. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. But I don't think we... That had just happened prior to Kate and I joining the committee. Okay. Those all happened at the same time. CIPC, I should correct. CIPC happened while we were on the committee. Because that was just last year. Yep. So I can send around like a little snippet of what they are and kind of what those roles are. And I will also follow up with Pam Cern, who is one of the youth advisory. And then it's, their last name is Ellis and I cannot think of their first name. It is Heidi Ellis. So those, all three of those expire on June 30, 2026. So I'll follow up with Jackie and Heidi and Pam and see if they're willing to re-up. But I'll also just circulate what the description is to us and so that you guys can see it. Um, does anyone want to be the chair? Hearing none. Okay. Does anyone want to be the vice chair? I can be the vice chair. Unless someone else wants it. Badly. I know. You stole the thunder of us like supporting your continued... Ah! ...assumption of the chairs. I still, I still would like to know that people want me to be in it. I don't have... That moves. So, next time, but, um, so I'll send her on a little thing. Um, so that's that piece. Um, yeah, missing on that? No, right? There's some other ones that had cycle in and out. Well, I shouldn't say cycle in and out. So, like, there's the liaison things that have come and gone. The William Park School Foundation has continued, although we have tried to, um, we've kind of divide and Betsy very kindly goes. I have been a few times. We can certainly talk more about that. There's a list. There is a list. Diane just didn't give me the list for this meeting. So, I can also circulate that in advance for the next one. Um, I think, yeah. And then there are the things that continue. So, there's currently a long-term facilities working group. Kate has been serving in that capacity. We are still in our collective bargaining. There is members that serve in that capacity. So, and then, you know, two years ago, there was the cell phone working group committee. So, things come up that committee members should be delegated. But those were actually David's working groups. Correct. Not ours. Because we're very careful not to create additional subcommittees. Without a vote. And there can only be two of us on a subcommittee because you can't have a quorum. So, because we only have five members, we only have two. Um, the other thing I will do is there's some, like, guides to being part of the school committee. I'll send that to the two of you. Jen's working on getting you guys set up with your emails and your accounts to be able to access. She was at, was she at Maspo too? Or was she at a different conference? Different conference. Okay. So, hopefully, you went and took your own, right? I did. Okay. I knew you were going, but then Trudy never, like, confirmed. So... Okay. Great. So, yeah. Jen will get you set up. Hopefully, by the end of the week, you guys should be good to go. Um, and then what you'll find is, like, we have, um, different folders within Google Drive. That's typically how we access documents. I did have, for the warrants, accounts payable and warrants, I had Diane print you each a copy so you could see them tonight. Um, and then I knew that that presentation was going to kind of be the focus and it was up there for you guys. Um, so I will also plan, at least this is kind of how it was done for the, um, well before me, but just sit down and do a one-on-one with you guys just to kind of, like, familiarize you more with the process and all that good jazz. Um, and we can set that up just one off outside of this. Okay. Um, unless someone else wants to do that. It's fine. No. It's not happening. Happy to chat. Happy to chat. Um, I will set up a group text for the five of us. I'm pretty sure I have both here. I know I have your number and I have yours, too. I just have to pull it out of my email. And I'll set up a chat. So, we're calling it the superheroes, school superheroes this time. Oh. It was girl power, just so you know, that there were five women. I messed it up. Um. That's okay. We accept you and we love you as you are. We've got a DB position. Yeah. Very belonging focused. Um, I do have on here, which I did briefly discuss with David, um, that because he's been, he's not a new superintendent. So, typically, um, we are required to evaluate the superintendent each year and follow a certain process with the state of Massachusetts and DESE. Um, last year we did the whole process. We went through, um, different members were assigned different people. We interviewed them on an anonymous basis. We incorporated that into our feedback to David. Um, that being said, it's a big lift. David got an exceed. Um, yes. I mean, this is, we can share. Yeah, we can show it to you. Um, David also went to the effort of putting a self review together, which is part of one of the components. So, it was very thorough. Yes. Um, and it involves interviewing anywhere from 10 to 15 stakeholders across the district, which committee members divide. Yes. Um, and so, that's kind of like standard process. And because David is not a new superintendent, he's been around for a hundred years. Um, that was just my little dig aim. I'll take it. Um, we, he, he can kind of give us a waiver and we can give him a waiver since he was like meeting all expectations and exceeding expectations last year to do another full evaluation next year and take the year off. With that said, I think it would still be important and it would be your hope and wish that we would kind of informally just check in with admin council, um, principals, different, um, people within the district that sort of directly interact with him every day if you wanted to check in. And just informally to kind of ensure that we are still on the right track. Um, and so that's what, um, candidly, Betsy had realized we could do. And we thought it might be a good idea just with a lot going on to new members and things are certainly in a good place, at least from our perspective. Um, so we could just have some informal check ins report back on that. And so I can actually, do you want to share that with them? The, the compilation from last year? Yeah, absolutely. Um, absolutely. No, and I also, the only other thing I would mention is a number of the goals. So the goal setting process happens over the summer. We have district goals. One of the district goals, one of the background of tonight's presentation is at this time of year, we start to get a report as a committee on the various district goals and the progress towards them. A number of the goals in our district goals this year, and I think also that align with your individual goals, are really multi-year goals. And so that was another factor that we're sort of looking at this and saying, like, we're kind of midstream anyway, and we have change in the committee. So at the time of year, this time next year, we will be closer to, I think, uh, assessment point on where we are with those goals. Which really just means we need to start it earlier next year because if Betsy thinks she's going to roll off the committee, we're going to make her participate. So I'm just going to put that in now. How frequently are we going to hear those comments? Well, I digress. Okay. All right. So we can do that and we can revisit that one. You'll send it to them. I'll send it to them. And then do we have to take a, do you know, do we have to take a vote on electing to do that? I will look into that for next. I tried actually to try to efficient and I was not able to find it. Okay. I'll find out. And then, um, do you want, I'm happy to volunteer to come up with a little informal plan if you want, and to just have the number if it's the admin council folks, unless you already have an idea. Like, do you want people to volunteer to do that or do you want to do that? I'm happy to do it. I, I was thinking more of literally like just kind of chatting with the community. Sure. An intentional effort to do that. Yeah. Okay. And, and feeling like reporting back by, you know, toward the end of the year, like end of June or last meeting, maybe, or something like that, just to say, you know, that we had done it. And what was my thought? Is that good? Are you okay with that? If we move, you know, if we decide we're going to move forward to that. Okay. Um, okay. So, the 426 minutes are not in here. I didn't get them into the format, so I will bring those for our next meeting. Oh, that was our special meeting? Yes. Got it. Um, so those are not part of the consent agenda. Okay. I didn't give you copies of the minutes because I figured neither of you were there and you wouldn't want to vote anyway. So, the three of us can vote and put the majority in that, and the two of you can just vote. Um, in the future, just for a process point, um, you can always vote even if you weren't there to make a quorum to vote, but you can also abstain if we don't need it for something that you weren't there for. Wait and take a vote another time. Okay. I also wanted to announce that we officially have, um, no open meeting law complaints because Mr. Harris withdrew his last complaint that had been sitting with the AG's office since August of last year. Okay. Anybody have any questions on the payables, payroll, warrant, anything on the consent agenda, minus May 4, 2020. Give them a second. Okay. Give me one second. Please. And then I would be... Sorry. Do you want to be the meeting? Just accuracy. The budget is one of our major... Right. So just accuracy, questions, um, I guess in kind of like bigger context, the town is required to have their budget approved at line item level. For the schools, we get approved at just an operating budget level. Mm-hm. And so we are permitted to move things around but only pursuant to our approval. In terms of, you know, your own monitoring the budget, our third quarter budget report will be at our next meeting where you'll get all the data in terms of how we're doing on expenses versus projected budget. And then at the end of the school year, you know, at the end of the summer, we have our final budget, uh, to see how we do. And Kirstein's at her, at her conference for business. She'll be here next time and that, that'll be on our agenda. And if there's things as you get familiar with them that you just have questions about what is this, what is this expenditure, like, Kirstein knows you can bring it up at the table or send her an email ahead of a meeting. So, you know, I remember when I first started looking, I was like, what is this? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Right. Absolutely. We'll do a budget overview as part of your orientation. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. I don't have to do that part, right? We're going to take planning, don't we? I love it. I love it. We'll also say, we'll do an overview for the two of you, where we are in terms of facilities planning. Yeah. That would be good as well. Yep. At our meeting in early June, we're going to have the HMS. And so that would be important to have a background ahead of time, because that's a very important district goal as well. So just for, typically for the consent agenda, we'll make one motion approved in a bucket. So if there's like an issue, we'll try and talk about it ahead of time, and then make motion and approve the consent agenda. I would entertain a motion. Sure. Now you want to. Just kidding. I moved. I moved to approve. Oh, it's 8.30. I have to get flipped at 8.30. I'm on at time. I moved to approve the consent agenda with the omission of the May 4th, 2026 minutes as originally posted on the agenda. Do we have a second? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. So that is for the recording for Diane. Did you vote? I'm abstaining. You're abstaining. You're abstaining. Okay. So we have four in favor, zero opposed, one abstention being Jessica. Um. Signatures. I think there were five. Four. Were there four? Okay. It's more than one. There's always seven. I moved to enter executive session for the purposes of discussing strategy related to bargaining with the Wayland Educational Association WEA Unit A as permitted by MGL Chapter 30A Section 21A3 and for viewing and approving executive session minutes with the intent to redact and release that minutes as permitted by MGL Chapter 30A Section 22 for April 29, 2026. The school committee will be joined by David Fleischman, Superintendent, and Betsy Gavron, Assistant Superintendent. Ronnie Kessler, you can go home. The school committee will adjourn an executive session and will not reconvene an open session. Do I have a second? Second. Uh, Betsy? Yes. Kate? Yes. Erin? Yes. Jessica? Yes.