Skip to main content

Quick Summary of Key things for the Natick School Committee this week

 Quick Links for current items:

  1. Natick School Committee begins Coffee Hours - Take a moment to speak to one of your elected officials about the district’s strategic plan in the coming months!  

  2. Policy Questions?  Click here to see the Natick School Committee Policy Manual. 

    • Every year it is accepted by the Natick School Committee as our guiding principles for our work. It sets expectations for communication, procedures and processes for most everything related to our schools. 

    • While specific policies are updated every year, the last major revision/ reconsideration of policies was in the early 2000’s.  

    • One goal of the current policy subcommittee is to begin to look at each section of our policy manual once a year for a more sustainable updating of these key policies.  

    • Policy Subcommittee’s next meeting is Thursday, Feb 17th from 1- 3 p.m. on the 3rd floor of the Natick Town Hall.  

  3. Budget Season! Not a financial person? Read it as a roadmap for our Strategic Plan and understand where and how we put our resources in achieving it.  

  4. MSBA Proposal - The MSBA is the State Agency to which Municipalities and Districts jointly apply (Select Board & School Committee in our case) to receive state funding for major building projects. Our committee discussed the Memorial School proposed Resolution curing our February 7th. Please see the discussion here. Minute 2:20.  

  5. Principal Searches - Details in the links below 

    • High School  - Please note application to be on the interviewing committee is this Thursday, 2/17

    • Memorial - Huge thank you to the parents and staff that served on the interview committee - 7 hours of virtual interviews is no small task! Click on the link to read about the finalist stage. 

  6. Masks ... The State has provided a path to remove masks as of 3/1. Local policy makers now weigh in on when and how this policy will be considered in Natick. First step:

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

Natick's Beloved Audit

The Natick Public Schools recently received the final report from the  Beloved Audit-  a resource made available to us in 2020 because of our participation in the METCO Program (THANK YOU METCO and ALL of the administrators who helped complete the audit!).  It was developed and run by  The Beloved Community .   Descriptions from the Report: What is it?   The Equity Audit is designed to provide comprehensive feedback on Natick Public Schools’ capacity for diversity, equity, and inclusion with all stakeholder groups. How was it developed:   A group of key leaders at Natick Public Schools spent hours completing this self-study and identifying relevant data sets for each area. The Equity Audit is designed with 14 sub-standards and 180+ indicators about nearly every facet of organizational work life. Some concrete suggestions that I read in the report: /Diversity - Ask questions like who is participating and why? / Inclusion - Some are bett...
Read more

School Committee Re-Org

Next week, you will see us working on the organization of the Natick School Committee! You elected us, now we elect and appoint one another.   We will select a chair and will determine the make up of the rest of the committee using or re-vising our policies. The Natick School Committee Policy Manual can be found here .  (See pages 43-45 for re-organization.)  The policy subcommittee met yesterday to consider revisions of the current policy including eliminating the Vice Chair of Finance position and allowing for an extension of the 2 year limit of the chair. The agenda from that meeting can be found  here .  The last major revision of this policy, discussed in April of 2020 , resulted in adding the Vice Chair of Finance to the committee.  What makes an effective board?   That's a question I've been asking others for months. Obviously there is no one answer, but here's a screen shot from a publication by the National School Board Association. ...
Read more