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.

Natick's Strategic Plan

Over the next several meetings the School Committee will focus much of its time on the progress being made in our district goals. For example, tonight Goal #2 will be discussed. These goals are an essential anchor for my work on this board with the hope that they always reflect deep listening to our students & families and our professionals. As we go through these goals, I am looking for the SMARRT objective under each of the 4 main goals and interested in how a district adapts a 5 year plan in the middle of the course. As a new member, I have some basic questions to understand the document and how to best serve it: Who helped take the plan from yearly district goals to our multi-year strategic plan ? What's the process like to form these goals? What is the process like to evaluate them? Has the change from yearly goals to a multi-year strategic plan helped us be more prepared financially for things coming down the line? What is the proces...

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...

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...

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