The Policy Subcommittee* Update:

Our committee met yesterday. We drafted this vaccine policy for staff (to be negotiated with the union), contractors and vendors. It will be presented to the entire board on Monday night for a vote.

The next policy Subcommittee meeting is Tuesday, September 14th at 1:15 p.m. (in person)

Topics coming up - Student vaccinations and policy subcommittee goals for the year.

*Subcommittees are a 2-3 member groups working with administration on specific topics. It's a way to workshop ideas and draft documents during a public meeting - anyone can attend our subcommittee groups. The full board always reserves the right to amend, send something back to subcommittee, pass or strike something down that comes out of the subcommittees.

Have questions about COVID and Return to School? Testing, Athletics and Negotiations...

Board of Health Meeting, Monday 9/13 at 5:00 p.m. Agenda and link here.

School Committee Meeting*, Monday at 9/13 6:30 p.m. Agenda and link here.

(*Our first hybrid meeting! In person and on zoom! Big thank you to Randy Brewer at Natick Pegasus and Rose Mc Dermot, Executive Assistant to the Superintendent for making our meetings even more accessible to the public.)

Just as a quick review on some of our standing agenda items:

Consent item: What are they generally?

Action Items are items we will discuss and eventually vote upon.

Examples: Appointments, Votes on budgets, grants, or policy items that we have usually seen at previous meetings.

Superintendent's Report - updates and presentations of school information from the School's Administration.

As an example of what these can look like:

Celebrations! Jake Blatnica - Special Olympic Athlete of the Year. Click here for a video about Jake!

Hearing about specific programs (for example dyslexia intervention and Special Education) and about current topics (for example, and unfortunately, COVID.)

Have a great weekend! Thanks for being engaged!

Photo source:

https://printmeposter.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/A-Back-to-School-Poster.jpg

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...

FY22 Natick Public Schools Appropriation $75, 063, 994

Approved 4/15/2021 by Town Meeting - 126 - 1 - 1 Want to know what Town Meeting is and why it matter's to the budgets? Check out this video. Quick Overview of the current budget process... School Administration presents a budget to the School Committee at a series of meetings School Committee considers the budget, ask questions and then votes on the budget Town Administrator (hired position) also creates a budget for all of the departments in the town, including the schools. All of the budgets go through the Finance Committee - (15 person appointed board) - to be vetted and then voted on in sub committees and the full committee. Finance Committee Website - Great resource if you'd like to see all of the budgets. School Committee and TA can make adjustments throughout the spring based on conversations at the Finance Committee. This year for example, the School Committee voted on the budget 3 separate times to land o...

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...

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