Ep. 75, Last Night @ School Committee: 12/7 Meeting Recap

Last night’s meeting was five hours long, beginning with the Superintendent’s Report, the majority of which celebrated the district’s Educator of the Year award recipients.  The first Committee report last night was on union contracts for food service workers, police patrolmen, and custodians. All three contracts were approved. The second report was a presentation on school and spaces renaming projects, including the renaming of the McKinley School to the Melvin H. King South End Academy. The third and final report of the evening was an annual presentation from the Office of Equity, which focused primarily on significant increases in bullying and sexual misconduct complaints. While there was information in the report about proactive trainings held this year, the report did not go into detail on what steps are being taken to address the concerning rise in misconduct. Several key topics in the news and on parents’ minds were not discussed at last night’s meeting, including continued issues with on-time arrival of school buses, steep declines in enrollment, insufficient support systems for addressing the impacts of the pandemic on student learning, and continued teacher staffing shortages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices