Meeting Recap: 6/8/26

Penultimate meeting of the school year! 

Agenda | Video

1. Mustang Moments - arts recognition (Christine and the rest of the DesAutels family for their stewardship of the annual Medford Children’s Art Show at Meadow Glen/River’s Edge), e-sports (three time MarioKart champions!), and student achievement in the humanities (Geography Bee, Teen Perspectives on Immigration, Scholastic Writing Awards, Mock Trial, Ethics Bowl, and Model UN)

2. Appreciation for outgoing SEPAC board members - citing 10 years of service that included connections, support, advocacy, leadership, and new programs including Best Buddies and adaptive sports, this presentation highlighted the work of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council

3. Honoring MPS retirees and employee milestones - I didn’t capture every name, but congratulations and thank you to the teachers and staff members wrapping up their MPS careers and everyone celebrating 25, 30, and 40 years of service! (This segment begins just before the 2 hour mark in the recording.)

4. Celebration of Ms. Marie, aka Marie Cassidy of the Medford Family Network, and a donation of $50,000 in her honor from Tufts University. [Combined with the $100,000 allocation by the MA state legislature that was announced at last week’s Teddy Bear Picnic, progress is being made to support MFN in this transition period following the loss of their $240,000 recurring Children’s Trust grant. But if you know of any organizations who would like to help sustain early childhood and family support through one of Medford’s most successful (and least complained about!) community programs, I’m sure the Friends of MFN would love to hear from you!]

5. Approval of a new school calendar for 2026-27 - This is largely the same as what was approved back in January, with two changes—the return of Good Friday as a no-school day for students and staff, and the elimination of the March 2 professional development day (students will now attend school on this day, and teachers will extend their other PD days to 4pm to make up those hours). Start and end day, as well as half-days before breaks remain the same. Member Graham emphasized that this year is an exception to the policy, and I made a statement urging the district and the community to acknowledge the significance of Eid al-Adha, which has not been restored as a no-school day, contrary to MPS policy.

6. Presentation of new handbook content identified at our last meeting, namely adjustments to ensure consistency around school committee information, recess policy, bus expectations, and attendance. These were once again tabled to the next meeting to give the district one more week to make final adjustments (adding a recess values statement, fixing a bit of redundancy, clarifying the composition of the Academic Honesty Panel, and adding a line to the AI guidelines around grading (namely, don’t do it with AI). 

7. First reading of an updated field trip approval policy to create a mechanism for approving trips that need school committee sign-off between school committee meetings - passed with the instruction to confirm a piece of the email protocol with the schools’ attorney

8. Resolution to establish a special education reserve fund - Member Parks has been working on this since she joined the committee and you can read the full text in the agenda. With one friendly amendment specifying that this fund is meant for one-time expenses rather than operating costs, this was approved and will be officially requested as part of the June 23 City Council meeting.

9. Condolences and adjournment

Our next meeting is next week, and there’s a school building committee vote tomorrow (Wednesday) night on the design approach for a new high school. Member Parks put together some unofficial but helpful graphics with side-by-side comparisons of the six options that the community will be choosing between. That's available on Facebook here.