Meeting Summaries

Hello all. We had a special meeting last night to, among other things, pass the $77.75 million dollar budget presented to us by the district leadership team (spoiler alert: it passed). Read on for details: 1. Coming out of executive session, we ratified agreements with two bargaining units—custodians and administrative assistance. Thanks to everyone who worked on these and congratulations to everyone who can sleep easier knowing these are in place for the next three years. 2

Short meeting this week, but not the last. We’re still trying to find a day for that final budget vote, some time between city council approval of the budget and the end of the fiscal year. To schedule that, we need a quorum of school committee members, enough time after the city council’s vote for the administration to definitively prepare the detailed budget for the approved amount, and a long enough lead time to post the agenda in compliance with open meeting law. But on t

Mini recap of last night’s regular school committee meeting below. As always, opinions and observations are my own. Agenda here. Recording (time stamped to start post-executive session) here. 1. Consent agenda (past meeting minutes, spending reports, etc.) approved as-is. 2. Report of subcommittees - Strategic & Capital Planning (related resolution expected in a future meeting) + Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment & Accountability (this was a foundational meeting looking ahe

So…what happened at last night’s 5+ hour meeting? The top story is that the committee voted 6/0/1 (the Mayor abstained) to ask the city for $79.4 million to fund our schools in the 2024-25 fiscal year. This is $8.2 million more than what the district received this year, $5 million more than the number initially provided to the district from the city, and $2.7 more than the number that we received at the May 6 meeting (which included $2.3 million worth of cuts to close the gap

Morning, Medford. Can’t say it’s a good one given the budget proposal we saw last night, but here’s a short recap of last night’s meetings. We spent nearly four hours discussing and hearing public comment on this budget proposal presentation. There were no votes taken (nor should there have been). Here’s the link to the video. The meeting starts with the presentation. School committee’s questions and comments start at 0:43. Public comment begins at 2:31. Closing thoughts/com

Hello everyone, and welcome to new followers. Since November, I’ve been trying to provide short recaps of our regular meetings. Below is a top level summary of what I consider the key takeaways from the April 29 meeting. My personal commentary is offered in square brackets but nothing in this post represents any official position of the school committee or district. You can view the meeting agenda here and the recording (timestamped to start after our executive session) here.

This will be a relatively quick update, but you can watch the video here (time stamped to start post-executive session) here. As always, views are my own and do not represent any official opinions of the Medford School Committee. 1. Superintendent update - Including autism acceptance, Arab heritage month, occupational therapy month, school breaks, Passover, performing arts [well done orchestras and color guard!], middle school lottery, transportation survey, and Dr. Galusi’s