Skip to main content

Social Emotional Health - Grants - Financial Predictions for Natick as a Whole

 School Committee Meeting tonight.  Link to the agenda and zoom link are here. 


Key Topics:

  • Preview of the Operational Override by the Town Administrator (the CEO of our Town) 

  • Update on the Social/Emotional health of students & staff via internal and external surveys.

  • Grant updates on FY22 and positions for FY23

  • School Committee re-organization continues for subcommittees assignments

  • Approval of the last day of school - 

    • SPOILER Alert Tuesday, June 21st for most students, 

    • Wednesday, June 22nd for Lilja b/c of COVID shutdown in January

  • Approval of the calendar of the 2022-2023 School Year. 

    • SPOILER alert - proposal is to accept feedback from the teachers and begin school on Wednesday, August 31st.  

    • Labor day weekend will NOT be a 4 day weekend as originally proposed.

  • Update on Kennedy Middle School Project Completion



A picture from our Strategic Plan on what we are aiming for with Social Emotional Health


In order to save debate for our meeting, I will update my blog later this week after our meeting.

Town Meeting starts tomorrow, Tuesday, 4/26.  Thank you to all of you for following and for those that serve our town in so many different ways! 

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

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...
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...
Read more