Skip to main content

This Week in Natick Politics

Yesterday, Wednesday, December 1st 

Nomination papers became available for town-wide elected positions for the 2022 election at the Town Clerks office in Town Hall. Signatures from people who will support you are due, January 11th.  

(Town Meeting Members *voted on by residents in their precinct* have until 2/1 if returning member and 2/8 if seeking new election. Clerk notes that the precincts have changed due to the census and new maps will be forthcoming.) 

Today, Thursday December 2nd, 

Policy Sub Committee meets. The agenda is here.

Today and next week we have guest speakers coming to consult with us on the Religious Holiday Homework Calendar proposal - a recommendation from the Superintendent to ensure that our homework expectations (and test dates) consider important holidays for the religions of our Natick students and staff.  

We will also continue to work on an Anti Hate and Bias Policy. "Working on" this right now means hearing from the Superintendent about the need that she sees in the district, working on a strategy to research policies that exist in other districts, getting feedback from our community about draft policies for Natick and eventually bringing a recommendation for the full committee to consider.  As you can see, this will *and has* taken months. We are making progress though and appreciate you being involved!  

What's a Sub Committee and why do you have so many meetings?

As a reminder, subcommittees are tool that School Committees all across the country use to divide the work of the committee. They enable a small number of members to meet, often more regularly to do a deep dive into one area of the committee's purview.  

Natick has 2 subcommittee's that meet in open session:  the Policy Review committee and Kennedy Building Committee.  Members of those committees are: 


  

Why are you meeting on a Thursday during the day?

A few people have asked me this - typically the Business meetings of the school committee are held in the evenings and they are recorded to ensure maximum ability for access to these meetings.  Sub Committee meetings are honestly, more relaxed, more conversational and less procedural. (It's why we can get the work done within them that we do!) They are always open to the public and our minutes are available for review.  We've been meeting on Thursdays this year because we are meeting almost every week and it was the only standing time that all of the members of the committee could be there at this frequency.  It's trade off - I understand - because we are meeting when many of you are at work and cannot attend.  Please always feel free to reach out if you have input or questions about our work!

Have a great Thursday! 









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 the future rebuilt s
Read more

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  
Read more

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
Read more