Skip to main content

Monday 4/26 School Committee Meeting

 On Monday April 26th, the Natick School Committee continues with its regular business meeting.  Agenda here.  

We will be hearing about Natick's Open Space and Recreation Plan.  

When I read the plan, as a school committee member, my mind goes to enrollment and what it will  look like for Natick in the future.... The Open Space report is an amazing amount of work done by our town leaders and citizen volunteers dedicated to maintaining open space. In the summary, the report reads, "Natick, like many eastern Massachusetts communities, is being faced with population growth, which results in demands for increased local recreational services."   

Minutes of the 3/23 Space Study Committee Meeting details a downward trend in elementary enrollment. 

We're going to need to reconcile these reports and understand better the enrollment* and therefore budget & space needs for NPS in the coming decade. 

Dr. Nolin's Space Study Committee will be presenting in June to the School Committee so stay tuned. 

*NPS commissioned an official enrollment study with the architectural firm who completed the space study below. The firm in turn sub-contracted an enrollment study but the projections were rejected by the firm, Dr. Nolin, Dr. Gray and the School Committee, in part, because the sub-contracted company would not share the methodology used to arrive at the enrollment projections. Thus the need to better understand what is happening with any population growth in Natick and what that means for the schools.  

Find the initial Space Study Document here
 (If you are interested in learning more or getting involved in the space study, reach out to your School Council member who is on the space study committee. Members can be reached via the principal or on the website of your child's school. The May School council meetings will center on this space study.)

Back to Monday night...  the School Committee will also hear reports on virtual school options for the 2021-2022 school year, contracts in food services and transportation for next year, return to school updates for the end of this year and the continued efforts to increase pool testing in Natick.  

And.. if you're like me - you are anxiously awaiting the end of this very long year! We will be voting on the end of the school year, Friday, June 18th (because of the 2 snow days we took during the year.) 

As for Member Concerns:  

Budget 

I will continue to share information on how I think our budget process could be improved. I found some great resources created through the Franklin School Budget Sub Committee here.  

Communication

I recently learned that emails sent to the schoolcommittee@natickps.org are also distributed to the school's administrative team. I've requested that our committee discuss the benefits to having an email address that is separate or rename the account so it is clear to anyone sending an email who is receiving the message. (Emails sent to individual school committee members go only to that member although its important to note that any email sent or received via natickps.org is a public document.) 


*****

Chat with Catherine - please join me!

Thursday, April 29th
Noon and 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

Zoom link here.

Meeting ID: 811 1234 7515

Passcode: expgA1






Popular posts from this blog

Statement on Recusal

Here are the remarks I gave last night when letting my committee know my decision to recuse:  After the School Committee meeting on October 15th, several individuals wrote into the SpeakUp Natick portal requesting that I recuse myself from voting on the possible closure of Johnson.  The substance of these messages, sent to the full committee, carried a familiar refrain. The messages - often using the same language – said some version of the following:  Catherine Brunell should recuse herself from deliberating and voting on the closure of Johnson because she lacks objectivity, as her children go to school there and she is from that neighborhood. I asked myself the question if there was any merit to the request for me to recuse myself and started to do some research about why people recuse  From what I can tell from the minutes, in Natick, It’s never happened before - not with the Kennedy, Wilson or the High School - not even for members whose children were to attend t...
Read more

Let’s Have a Vision for Elementary Schools.

Faced with some monumental school facility and space decisions, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the quote that Dr. Nolin has below the signature line in her email:       The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on                building the new.     The emphasis in the quote is on what can come next. It is not about holding on tightly to what was, nor looking at an issue through only a technical, logistical lens but on moving forward with vision .  The administration, under advisement of the School Committee, is charged with setting that vision. The School Committee is charged with protecting that vision using the three roles within our domain - budget, policy and supervision of the Superintendent. All of us are working for the kids that are here today and those who will be here in the future.   Thankfully this time, as our School Committee grapp...
Read more

Vaccines

  The School Committee agenda for Monday, September 20th can be seen here .  (separate blog coming about the rest of the agenda...)  Mandates for student vaccinations for students participating in extracurricular activities, school and club sponsored events and athletics will be discussed and possibly voted on.   I have asked that the documents be linked asap so you can read it yourself but until then... The Quick Summary:  The draft policy is a mandate for students who are age-eligible through FDA approved vaccinations. In the case of a student who age eligible and is not vaccinated, a weekly PCR test is required. How many of our students are vaccinated? Department of Health (DPH) -   Vaccine tracker    - click on weekly municipal report to see chart below and compare. columns are: county, town, age range, # of people in that group, % that is that age, # of age group partially vaxed, proportion of full town partially vaxed, fully ...
Read more