Also on tonight's agenda... the Strategic Plan

Our Committee will hear the Strategic Plan tonight at the School Committee meeting - in person and on zoom.

As is our protocol, I will save my debate for the meeting.

What is the Strategic Plan?

It is a foundational document housed on our transparency center on the NPS website: click here to see it in detail. The slides for tonight's meeting are here.

It is Natick Public School's articulation of the guiding principles for our students. It is the statement of goals by which we want to reach those principles and the strategic action steps that the administration will use to do so.

There are 5 areas with roughly 67 items of importance in the document.

Once approved, the Strategic Plan is the document by which the budget is built around and about which the policies for our district are set.

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 the future rebuilt s

Questions that I am asking or have received...

Serving in this role, I hold a seat that gives me the ability to ask my questions and yours to our administration with the hope that the questions reinforce our strategic goals. I've long relied on the value that, "two heads are better than one." So here are some of the questions that the School Committee has been asked this week by parents and constituents: Cameron Middle School in Framingham 1) Will outdoor structures be used in the fall to allow for outdoor mask breaks when the weather is poor or lunch in a safer setting? While this falls into an operational issue at the school and is not typically in the purview of the School Committee, because of COVID we have an interim COVID policy (page 120) where it is stated that the school committee establishes an emergency, interim policy to promote public safety and safety of students and faculty. Perhaps one example of the use of the application of this policy could be seen in the March 15th School Committee meeting

In other news... (With correction about the Special Election)

If you voted yesterday in the State primaries... you might have been surprised like me - I thought I would also be casting a vote for the Natick Select Board seat that sits open... But, because of laws beyond anyone's control - Natick has to hold another election next week for an uncontested race on Tuesday September 13th. Voting information here. I'm told that years ago Natick had to hold PRIMARIES because there were often so many people who wanted to run in the elections. Sigh. I'm always grateful to anyone who will run and am happy to cast a vote next Tuesday - but I'd like to hope we have some contested races in March. Correction: After publishing the blog, thanks to my readers, I learned that the above is incorrect: The Select Board, by town charter, can have a vacancy until the next election (March 2023), they may call for a special election themselves or be required to call for a special election if 200 people sign a petition calling for one. The speci

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