Loading...
20230322 Joint City Council and School Committee Meeting Minutes r( f tip .a 'li-.., ,✓ BEVERLY SCHOOL COMMITTEE / BEVERLY CITY COUNCIL Joint Council Meeting Wednesday, March 22, 2023 A meeting of the Committee of the Whole was held on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, following the guidance from Governor Baker's Office that public access can be made using technology. Ms. Flowers announced that BevCam would be streaming the meeting and broadcasting live on Channel 99. Members Participating: City Councilors: Julie R. Flowers, Council President Brendan S. Sweeney- Councilor at Large Todd C. Rotondo, Council Vice President Ward 1 Estelle Rand -Ward 2 Councilor Steven M. Crowley-Ward 3 Councilor Scott Houseman -Ward 4 Councilor Kathleen M. Feldman Ward 5 Councilor Matt St. Hilaire -Ward 6 Councilor School Committee members: Rachael Abell, President Lorinda Visnick, Vice President Kaarin Robinson, Secretary Mayor Michael Cahill Kimberley Coelho Dr. Jeffrey Silva Dr. Kenann McKenzie Absent Members: Hannah L. Bowen - Councilor at Large Also Participating: Superintendent, Dr. Suzanne Charochak; Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Dorothy Flaherty; Director of Finance and Operations, Jean Sherburne; Director of Human Resources and Information, Erin Brown; Director of Special Education and PPS, Bethany Splansky; Director of Access, Opportunity and Equity, Dr. Andre Morgan; Program Manager City Connects: Megan Sudak; Recording Secretary, Elizabeth Wilson Call to Order: Ms. Flowers and Ms. Abell called the meeting to order at 7:35 pm. Pledge of Allegiance Councilor Estelle Rand led members assembled in the pledge of allegiance. Beverly School's District Goals Overview, Dr. Suzanne Charochak, with Dr. Dorothy Flaherty, Dr. Andre Morgan, Ms. Erin Brown, Ms. Megan Sudak Dr. Charochak began by reflecting on the Equity Audit performed two years ago in March 2021. She reviewed the district's goal areas including: creating conditions that promote equity, rigorous and consistent curriculum, innovative practices, and operations & management practices. Specific focus areas are created annually. The focus areas for 2022-2023 are fostering a positive school community, ensuring a whole child approach to success, advanced coursework, climate action planning, and hiring & retention planning. With Dr. Morgan and Dr. Charochak's past experiences with equity audits, they were able to create ten areas of focus. For each of the focus areas, Dr. Charochak and Dr. Morgan shared findings, recommendations and accomplishments. Ms. Megan Sudak gave a year one (1) update on the new program, City Connects. This year is a building year to launch the program, as it is implemented through professional development. Ms. Sudak explained the implementations and activities of the program in the first 100 days of school. The process included observations in classrooms, cafeterias and recess. Whole class reviews were performed in K-5th, 7th, and 10th grades, reaching 2800 students. Following the whole class review (WCR), the students are tiered into groups based on the level of support needed. Mr. Sweeney thanked Ms. Sudak for the City Connects presentation and her hard work. He asked for clarification if City Connects is additional support or restructuring of current supports. Is this pandemic driven? Dr. Charochak explained that this conversation began before the pandemic but the pandemic exacerbated the need for City Connects. This program helps us organize and provide a connection to every child's needs. Dr. Charochak referenced the "chaos" slide. Mr. Houseman shared his interest in the increase of economically disadvantaged students. Are there any insights for the increase? He would also like to hear more about the homeless students. Dr. Charochak can't give a reason for the increase, but she can collect the data. She explained that the state would have more information about the threshold of economic status that is collected. Dr. Charochak referred to the homeless liaison, Ellen Faulkner, and City Connects work to connect families to wrap-around services, bootstraps and other sources. Ms. Coelho commented on the WCR and how the process was intensive, is there a need to review the students again. Ms. Sudak explained in the upcoming weeks the coordinators will be meeting with teachers again to re-tier students depending on improvements or need for additional services. Ms. Feldman commented on the chaos slide from the previous meeting last year. She appreciated the slide and information about BPS and community support. She appreciated the quantifiable figures that can be used to measure our progress. The presentation really assisted in answering questions from last year. Dr. McKenzie had a curiosity about students with an amplified voice vs students who are reserved to join the Superintendent's Student Ambassador Cabinet. Dr. Charochak explained that they worked really hard to make voices very representative. This group is different from groups before. Dr. Charochak acknowledges that there is a subset of students that they need to hear more voices from. Mr. St. Hilaire commented that City Connects will become more valuable over time with the addition of more data. Dr. Charochak explained that it is a standardized approach. Beverly Public Schools has made a three year commitment to Boston college. During this time, she is looking to see how they can access the most from the program and also how to adapt it to BPS needs. Mr. St. Hillaire asked who has access to the data. Dr. Charochak explained that Ms. Sudak has access to all data; the coordinators and school principals all have access. Boston College will perform a needs assessment at the end of the year to provide data to Beverly with our performance through the implementation of City Connects. Dr. Silva asked about taking City Connects and morphing it into some analytics that Beverly needs. He would like to know if Beverly can create their own dashboards to extract data. Ms. Sudak explained they are able to extract as much data as needed. Dr. Charochak shared any follow-up questions to have any members email her. Preliminary FY24 Budget Considerations & Opportunities. Dr. Suzanne Charochak with Jean Sherburne, Director of Finance and Facilities Dr. Charochak gave an overview of the FY24 Budget Process. She shared the factors impacting the budget: contractual obligations, enrollment, resourcing for high quality curriculum materials, department funding requests, and special education increases. She provided an explanation of Operational Service Division (OSD) tuition increase of 14%. This additional funding is needed due to inflation on the cost of living to counter staffing shortages. The district has 40-45 students across 25 private schools placements which will cost $775,000 due to the 14% increase. The FY24 Draft Budget is $72,854,310, an increase of$2,124,336. Dr. Charochak explained the hard work of the MASS Mayors and Superintendents groups to discuss the OSD increase and the need for relief funding from a state level. This is a one year problem, as the circuit breaker will take care of the additional costs the year after moving forward. There is a waiting period to determine how the relief funds will be dispersed to communities. Ms. Abell explained since there are so many unknowns, perhaps we save questions for the April meeting. Mayor Cahill explained that language needs to be changed on a legislative level to understand the relief funding. Adjournments by School Committee and City Council Presidents Julie Flowers & Rachael Abell A motion was made by Ms. Visnick to adjourn the joint meeting of the City Council and School Committee at Ms. Coelho. The motion was seconded by Dr. Silva. The motion passed by a vote of 6:0. A motion was made by Ms. Flowers to adjourn the joint meeting of the City Council and School Committee at 8:50 pm. The motion passed by a vote of 8:0. Respectfully submitted, Kaarin Robinson, Secretary Beverly School Committee