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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-01-28-SC-min (Budget Hearing #2 6PM)LEXINGTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING Tuesday, January 28, 2024 Meeting Minutes BUDGET HEARING #2 CALL TO ORDER AND WELCOME: 6:02 PM SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT Eileen Jay, Chairperson Deepika Sawhney, Vice -Chair Sara Cuthbertson, Clerk Kathleen Lenihan Larry Freeman did not attend the meeting. SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS PRESENT Dr. Julie Hackett, Superintendent and David Coelho, Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations. The minutes were taken by Julie Kaye, School Committee Meeting Recording Secretary. The School Committee convened remotely. Members of the public can view and participate in person or in the meeting webinar from their computer or tablet by clicking on the link provided with the meeting agenda. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that attendees are participating by video conference. F026 BUDGET PRESENTATION Mr. Coelho went through the slideshow. PUBLIC COMMENT Jessie Steigerwald: "I'm speaking as a resident who's also a Town Meeting member in Precinct 8. 1 had the great pleasure and honor of being on the School Committee for nine years. I'm here tonight because I'm deeply concerned about the line item that speaks about consolidating administrative jobs to free up two FTEs, saving $220,000 in a budget that proposes about $127 million for staff, when those jobs appear to be the school counselor position. I understand that Val Viscosi is retiring and that there is a proposal to not fill that job and perhaps roll it into a Special Education director job. It's not really clear to the public exactly what the proposal is. I'm encouraging everyone on the School Committee to take the same care that Mr. Coelho just did. He just went through five staff people, plus art students, plus the print shop, and what it takes to put together a budget. I want to make sure that my friends on the School Committee now have that level of granular understanding about what the school counselor director's job does. If the math director or department chair were retiring, would we roll that over into the science department or the social studies department? We certainly wouldn't. It's, again, not clear to me exactly what that proposal is, but what we're looking at with the school counselor is something that the prior School Committee had to look at very closely because we argued and lobbied to create that position. We were concerned about students' mental health. We were concerned about the YRBS, which still is concerning. We were concerned about suicide ideation, the number of children in our schools who deal with trauma, even in an affluent town We have children dealing with divorce, death of parents, major health issues for themselves, loss of jobs to their parents, and loss of siblings. There are children who simply have challenges controlling their own behavior. We have school counselors help make sure that restraint training happens, or at least they have in the past. They certainly step in when teachers, especially newer teachers, are having classroom challenges managing friendships or behaviors that don't yet necessarily meet the threshold for an IEP or a 504 plan, but school counselors are called on all the time. I know this because Dr. Ash made sure we went through many, many, many hours of community members asking for this position to be created. We don't want to have things where individual schools or grade -level leaders are sort of setting standards. We want to be remaining. We want to be a school system, and that means having someone at the center who has expertise in this area. I know it's three minutes. I'm very frustrated that this hearing was listed to start at six and you had 30 minutes of presentation time when there's much more that needs to be said. Please, School Committee members either set up meetings with Julie or with someone else to understand what this job is. Do not let this job get erased, after what it took to get this job there, to save $220,000 out of $127 million I also hear a lawyer that Colby Brunt perhaps, said it was okay, maybe okay because you won't get sued, but it's not okay if you're going to open us up to liability. Is it down? Finally, it does not reflect our community values. Mental health is a top core community value, and you do not get to your aspirational goals until you make sure that every child has access to school counselors when they need them, and that those school counselors and classroom teachers are fully supported by an expert. I'm sorry to sound angry, but this is something we fought very hard for, and I hope you will not let this go." • Ms. Jay stated that we are always concerned about the mental health of our students. Dr. Hackett added that she "does not take this lightly" and that our Attorney, Colby Brunt, said that we can do this. She also stated that this is something that we are going to have to get used to talking about, more cuts are expected in future years. She explained that we are trying to manage how we go through attrition to save people's jobs. Dr. Hackett is confident that we will come up with and develop a plan that addresses the mental health concerns. Andi Cerio: "I'm a school social worker over at Hastings, and I'm going to read to you a statement that was written by my colleague, Karrie Donnelly, who is a social worker at Harrington. She couldn't be here tonight because she's celebrating her birthday with her family. Dear members of the School Committee, I am writing to you as a concerned member of the counseling department regarding the proposed budget for the upcoming school year. Specifically, I want to emphasize the critical importance of maintaining the position of Director of Counseling within the budget. As you know, the role of school counselors is vital in supporting the academic, social and emotional well-being of all students. The Director of Counseling is not only responsible for overseeing the counseling department but also for ensuring that the needs of students are met through comprehensive social -emotional programs, crisis intervention, mental health support, and college and career readiness initiatives. This position plays a significant role in shaping the culture of care, inclusivity and support that we strive to create within our schools. Over the past few years, we have seen the increasing demands on school counselors, especially in light of the challenging the challenges students face with mental health issues, academic pressures and navigating personal and family struggles. Our current director of counseling, Val Viscosi, has been an invaluable asset to the Lexington Public Schools for the past 13 years, she has ensured that our counseling department is properly supported trained, and that we have the resources we need to effectively serve our students. Her position also helps to ensure that our counseling programs are aligned with best practices and that they are evolving to meet the ever changing needs of our student body. Val provides valuable and crucial feedback during case consultations. I have found this to be even more vital over the past few years, as the emotional needs of our students have increased, Val has also played a critical role during crises after school hours. She oversees our suicidal ideation, self injury response protocol and provides crisis intervention planning in conjunction with our school-based teams. LPS has always emphasized the importance of social emotional learning. However, by cutting the Director of Counseling position, the district is making a bold, contradictory statement that the emotional needs of our students do not come first. I firmly believe that this is a position that directly impacts students, success, safety and well being. Removing or reducing this role will have long-term negative effects on our students, particularly those who are most vulnerable and in need of consistent counseling and support. This decision also negatively impacts families and LPS staff. I urge you to consider the lasting value that the Director of School Counseling position brings to our schools and to our community. By investing in this role, we are investing in the future of our students, ensuring that they have the support and resources that they need to succeed, both academically and personally. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. I am confident that you will recognize the importance of maintaining this critical position within the school budget. Sincerely, Karrie Donnelly." Krystal Velazquez: "I'm the school social worker at Estabrook elementary school. I'd like to speak to the critical need and importance of having a pre K to 12 Director of Counseling who oversees and supports the over 50 school counselors and social workers in our department. The Pre K to 12 Director of Counseling position and the administrative assistant position for our department have been eliminated for the proposed FY 26 budget. At a time when mental health challenges among students are more prevalent than ever, it's even more essential that we have a credentialed, experienced leader who can provide ongoing support, clinical expertise and supervision to ensure the well being of the students in Lexington, the Director of Counseling plays a key leadership role in an educational setting, overseeing the clinical work of both school counselors and social workers. This role is much more than administrative. It's clinical, supervisory and strategic in nature. A Director of Counseling ensures that the mental health professionals in our schools are not only meeting all students' social, emotional, behavioral and academic needs, but that they are doing so in a way that adheres to strict ethical guidelines and best practices. Providing clinical supervision to counselors and social workers is one of the most vital aspects of this role. School counselors and social workers work with students facing complex social, emotional and behavioral challenges, the director brings specialized knowledge training and expertise in mental health and clinical practice, ensuring that the counseling services provided are effective and ethically sound. In collaboration with the Assistant Director of Counseling, the director oversees the development and implementation of a comprehensive school counseling and mental health program. They ensure that counseling services throughout the district are horizontally and vertically aligned with evidence -based practices. This helps maintain a consistent, cohesive approach to mental health support and services, allowing students to receive reliable counseling, support and care no matter which school they attend in Lexington. In short, a Director of Counseling is not just a luxury, it's a necessity to continue the continuity of consistent services for the well-being of our students. Without such leadership, we risk compromising the quality of mental health services, creating inefficiencies, and, most importantly, failing to meet the complex needs of our student population. I strongly urge the Lexington School Committee to reconsider eliminating the pre K to 12 Director of Counseling and administrative positions, administrative assistant positions from the FY 26 budget and beyond, ensuring our counselors and social workers have the support and clinical expertise they need continues to be one of the most important investments we can make in our students now and in the future. Thank you." [Ms. Lenihan left the meeting at 6:50 PM] Heather Kinney: "I am the elementary school counselor at Bridge School. The pandemic changed everything when it comes to mental health in schools, and we continue to have unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression and other serious mental health diagnoses in our student populations. According to the recent YRBS, the last one done, 15% of our LPS middle school students and 15.6% of our LHS students reported seriously committing suicide. Many of our students seeking affordable counseling spots are on community mental health provider wait list for six to 12 months or even longer now, more than ever. Do we need leadership that has the clinical training to guide K to 12 counselors and social workers to provide the high level of mental health care that our student population requires. One important aspect of the K-12 counseling director position involves a clinical supervision that occurs for our most challenging cases and most vulnerable students. Supervision is an art form which involves a more experienced mental health professional evaluating the counselors and social workers. Supervision helps protect student health and well being, respond to student mental health crises and critical incidents, safeguard the welfare of our students and provide appropriate training. Clinical supervisions help school counselors ensure they are following all legal and ethical obligations. It is necessary to have clinical in-house supervision. What I'm saying by that is we need someone on the ground in our building that knows our community providers, knows our families, knows our building cultures, our teachers, our administrators, knows the strength of our mental health staff, and most importantly, they know the needs of our student and the mental health trends of the district. This type of supervision needed simply cannot be outsourced. Social workers and counselors provide direct services and indirect services. Direct services may include classroom instruction, small groups and individual sessions, Individual Student Planning and crisis intervention. Just to name a few examples of indirect student services include referrals to community mental health agencies, consultation and collaboration with families and staff and crafting and implementing protocols such as the SIRP which is the stand for the base. It's basically the protocol for students who are expressing suicidal thought or self harm in the district. These are just a brief snippets of some of the things that counselors and social workers do well under the direction and guidance of the Director of Counseling. Cutting this position appears to be a situation that is a cut now and plan later. If this truly had been in the works for a month, a plan would have been communicated with staff prior to sneaking the significant mental health budget cut into the budget without notice, where the current LIPS emphasis on social, emotional student supports to cut one of the leadership positions is unconscionable. I ask School Committee members to consider the impacts that passing a budget that cuts this position may have. How can Lexington continue to improve social emotional program supports for all students if we don't have a clinical supervisor guiding the elementary and middle school level counseling departments? I understand the School Committee and Dr Hackett challenge of creating this budget, and I sympathize with this huge task. However, we urge you to carefully listen to Jessie's comments as mentioned earlier, and not cut this position. Thank you." Matthew Small: "This is from a colleague who wishes to remain anonymous: I'm writing to express my concern for the proposed plan to eliminate our current counseling director position. I wonder what liability this decision exposes the district to if we do not have a licensed mental health provider overseeing the exceedingly complex student needs that our school mental health providers are managing. As a counseling staff member, I often seek our director's guidance and support to manage complex clinical needs of students. She plays an active role in clinical decisions, interventions and community-based supports for students and families, and based on the district's proposed plan, there is concern that a licensed mental health provider would not be overseeing these clinical needs for staff as we support our students and families These complex needs include the assessment of suicidal ideation, self injury and follow up recommendations, and so far this year, 51 students were already supported with these particular needs at school by counseling staff. Our current director oversees this School Committee -approved protocol, trains all counselors, social workers, psychologists, nurses, etc, who will train clinicians in the district on implementing this protocol in the future. The leader of our department was also recently tasked with reviewing risk protocols and procedures related to violent threats made by students at school. A counseling director that has the capacity and background to oversee these protocols that often involve serious evaluations with school safety implications is critical in the same van our counseling and social work professional development is key to continue to adapt our increasingly acute student needs. It is not clear how our special education department can meet that need. While I understand that budgets are limited, the critical role of counseling director is not the place to cut the budget. We need a counseling director to help our district meet the complex mental health needs of our diverse student population. Thank you from a counseling team member." Robin Strizak, LEA president: "I'm speaking on behalf of an anonymous teacher from Fiske. Every day when I arrive at Fiske, the site I see makes me grateful to be an LPS employee and proud of our system, seeing our unit C members, SSIs, waiting patiently in both the cold and the hot weather for our most vulnerable students, as the vans pull up one by one, is a daily reminder that we have people in the building who truly are irreplaceable and who make education accessible for many students. I have worked closely with many of our SSIs as they facilitate learning for our most vulnerable students. They are dedicated and skilled. Every day I see them, I think how lucky we are to have them in the building. I am dismayed that these dedicated workers are here without fair pay for parents and colleagues. I am in distress. What do these people leave us for a system that pays better? How can we keep hiring qualified staff for this important job if word gets out that Lexingtpn does not pay a decent wage? Please pay our SSIs a living wage. Thank you" Melissa Soule: "So I'm here also speaking on behalf of unit C. I'm the unit C co -captain, and very glad to represent an amazing team of folks who are working really hard to support the bargaining team. Unit C is working under an expired contract, and while we've heard many times in the past couple of weeks the details of the budget freeze, the necessity and the strain that is being put on the budget. I do feel that it's really critically important for school committee and the larger community to be aware that unit C, who work with our most vulnerable students, who make my job as a general educator possible in the classroom. They are the secret sauce that isabsolutely necessary for the bonds of school and learning to happen. They are not being paid in a way where we can attract new talent, retain people, year over year, and that ultimately factors into these budgetary costs. You know, Dave spoke to the necessity of hiring up to 12 positions next fall. We won't be able to fill those positions if we do not remain competitive with like districts, and we are nowhere near there with unit C's current salary. There's also a question here of humane treatment of these employees and the necessity of a living wage for people who are working tremendously hard, who truly feel that a supporting role directly for students, is a valuable and enriching and critical role within the classroom. So simply because they are not unit A members does not mean that they are not essential educators, and in fact, doing a lot of the day to day work of working with our students. So this is another appeal from myself as an LEA member, as an E board member, and as someone who is helping unit C with their bargaining process. Please pay unit C fairly. Please come back to the bargaining table and offer them absolutely the best that we can manage with the current budgetary process. Thank you. Abby Coyne: "I am an English teacher at the LHS, and today I'm here to speak on behalf of unit C, who still don't have a contract, as Melissa mentioned, and I've been out on maternity leave this year. I just got back, you know, two weeks ago, and I couldn't believe my disappointment when I came back to see that unit C's contract had still not been settled, and that some of the most valuable people working in our schools day-to-day are still without a reliable living wage and protection. It's unbelievable to me that these people who are again vital to the operation of our school day-to-day, are being sidelined due to a foreseeable budgetary constraint. And so I'm here to ask and to kind of plea with School Committee and this budgeting team. We need to pay unit C a living wage. We need to protect these people who are so important to the operation of our schools, working with our most vulnerable students. And so I can't believe that we're here still fighting for this after all of this time, but I can't imagine my classroom without unit C. I can't imagine our hallways without unit C. And our students in Lexington Public Schools cannot succeed without these people. Something that I think is really important to understand about unit C at the moment is that right now, we are woefully out of step with our like districts in terms of the way that we pay and protect these people, and so we are losing out on qualified, strong candidates and people who can stay and make a make a life here and a career here in Lexington because of the way that we pay these people and the way that we disrespect them. And frankly, currently, we're paying a premium for contracted workers who don't have longevity and can't develop experience because they're not being hired year after year. And so I just I'm so disappointed, and I'm so upset at the state of this contract negotiations. I understand that you're still at the table, but I can't express how disappointing it is to hear that unit C is being told basically that, you know, well, we're in a ... we're in a tight bind with the budget, and so you know, you're going to have to take a back seat when these are people who, you know, make our our schools run day to day. Lexington Public Schools is better than this. This is not in our values. And I just I need, I need folks to hear and understand how vital it is to settle this unit C contract without this cloud of this budgetary, you know, problem that you know we all could see coming, this school district could absolutely see coming. These people don't deserve to be sidelined because of this. Thank you so much." Lisa Sullivan: "I am an Intensive Learning Program teacher at Fiske Elementary School, and in the past two years, we've lost over a dozen talented staff who left the district for better paying jobs. Every single time one of these staff left, my students lost out. Our students lost out on talented educators, teachers, not stepping stones to teachers. They are teachers. They deliver educational instruction every day, all day long, and they come from an hour away. They come in broken cars. They are struggling to afford daycare. They need a living wage. I know there's budget problems, but Lexington can do better for these employees. We can meet their needs. I'm begging you to please be creative, be open and please support our unit, C members, thank you." Lara Desousa: "I'm a parent of two children at Fiske, including a first grader, and the decision was made last year to eliminate a teacher from that grade. So we've already felt firsthand the impact that it can make in the educational quality and classroom environment, having a larger amount of students in the classroom with the teacher reduction and many of the students have diverse language educational needs. So my hope was that once we as parents had saw and vocalized how we saw this was affecting our kids and their education, that we would be adding a teacher back to the grade, and now that we're seeing the proposed budget cuts, it just makes me feel saddened that this isn't going to happen, and what that can mean for our students moving forward. So I'm just asking that you don't just look at the head count when it comes and say it's, you know, within acceptable limits, but actually evaluate the diverse needs of the classroom. And I just ask you guys to really reconsider the reduction in teachers moving forward." Brielle: "I'm a high school counselor and I just wanted to read a statement that was written together by all of the high school counselors really quickly: So as a 9-12 counseling department, we are gravely concerned with the proposed cuts to our department leadership, which will undoubtedly have a significant and lasting impact on our students and families. The proposed elimination of a K-12 counseling director is not only egregious, but dangerous to our population. Student safety concerns have risen dramatically in this post-COVID era, and as a result, our department has continually responded to these rising needs while still working to balance the academic and post -secondary demands of our population. If the director position were to be eliminated, this would also directly impact the director of 9-12 counseling, and also known as the Assistant K-12 Director of Counseling, significantly, potentially pulling her away from the needs of the high school, which are dynamic, ongoing and often directly related to the imminent safety risks we see. Changing the scope of her responsibility to cover a larger set of roles will have a direct impact on current practices at the high school level. Not changing the scope of her responsibilities, however, would leave the elementary and middle schools willfully under supported by a clinical supervisor. The impact on the day-to-day functioning, on the height of the high school will be profound, and we generally are concerned that critical and time -sensitive clinical decisions will be left to be made individually when best practice calls for consultation supervision by directors who have the clinical experience and professional licensure required to address the high-level needs we respond to every day. Additionally, the proposed change has sent a clear message that emotional health and safety is seen as lesser than our academic counterparts. The budget cuts have seemingly not proposed to eliminate adjacent K-12 positions and other departments, but is being directed at proposing to take away a vital support and structure of the comprehensive counseling program during a time when mental health needs are simultaneously rising. Typically, when mental health needs are rising, resources should not be taken away. The concern of this feels especially acute as the elimination of the role of the current counseling director plays will significantly impact programming, from the alignment of counselors from K-12 to the suicidal ideation self -injury response protocol. With the proposed change, there will be weaker district -wide annually reviewed protocols for responding to crises, and therefore counselors will be filling the gaps on safety planning and will be more and will be acting more responsibly in a preventative and proactive system, rather than a responsive counseling system, is something we have spent years moving towards. Preventative systems enable us to more broadly support more students with a higher level of impact and to better health, better help identify student needs before they hit critical levels. Additionally, the community has provided feedback to the counseling system at the high school that the counselors appear to be less available, which is due to all the increase in demand for our services from the rising mental health needs. Yet the proposed cut will only exacerbate our ability to respond quickly to less urgent issues. Skip to the bottom, we are strongly asking that this part of the budget proposal will be revisited, as we are extremely concerned with the impact it would have to our students." Nathaniel Dvorkin: "I'm a Lexington Public Schools alum from the class of 2023. I'm speaking today in support of Lexington Education Association, specifically unit C, as they fight for a fair contract. I spent all 13 years of my primary and secondary education at LPs, and I can honestly say that I would not have been able to succeed without the incredibly hard-working, invaluable professional staff making up unit C to keep our classrooms running. With that in mind, I urge the School Committee and administration to stop treating members of unit C like they are disposable in contract negotiations. I urge the School Committee and administration to adhere to the demands of unit C and bargaining meetings to provide the necessary support needed for their jobs to be sustainable. And I remind the School Committee that if unit Cis not paid the living wage they deserve, they will leave, and students will lose the support that they deserve. I stress as a former student that this would be detrimental to the functioning of LPS, our classrooms, our hallways of student life as a whole, and student success all around for all students of LPS, and it cannot take place. Thank you." KJ Jobst: "I'm a new hire on January 13 to the high school counseling department. I am the interim 504 coordinator, and I just wanted to say that I was attracted to the position because even down to little lines in the description of the position, I could tell how thoughtful the counseling department is in Lexington. I could tell that it adheres to best practices and set standards, and everything that I learned in graduate school at Lexington Public Schools was excelling at. So I'm just concerned as a new employee that why would you ever want to do anything that could potentially weaken such a strong department, especially after all the comments you've received here. And then I just wondered, if anyone can speak to why the proposal to not fill this retiring position, why doesn't it include any details? Why would you propose to cut a position before knowing what you're going to do after the position is gone. Thank you" Ms. Sawhney asked if Dr. Hackett and Mr. Coelho could share what the new org structure will look like with the consolidation of counseling positions. Ms. Jay replied that Dr. Hackett said earlier that she would report back with that once the plan is in place. Dr. Hackett added that the School Committee will vote on the budget on February 4. She spoke about the difficulty of presenting a budget where the allocation increase isn't what we need to move the budget forward. She also wanted to underscore that reductions are going to be more of the "norm than the exception" but also that Lexington will "continue to be excellent, and we are going to go through some hard times, but we'll get through it." ADJOURNMENT Ms. Cuthbertson made a motion to adjourn at 7:20 PM, Ms. Sawhney seconded. Ms. Jay took a roll call vote, passed 3-0.