Hey, good evening and welcome to the March 19th, 2025 School Committee meeting.

This open meeting is being conducted remotely, consistent with an act relative to extending certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed into law on June 16th, 2021, as amended and extended through March of 2025.

These provisions allow public bodies to meet remotely as long as reasonable public access is afforded so the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting.

We have provided Zoom information for members of the public and we will be taking all votes by roll call.

Again, we request that if you are speaking in our public comment portion, we would request that you turn on your camera and make sure that you have your first and last name so we can record it for the minutes.

So with that being said, Adam, do you mind keeping time?

I can't see you.

Oh, thanks. Okay.

So right now we have a comment from Derek Ryan.

You got it?

Yep.

Just turning on the camera.

Thank you.

All right. Hi, everybody.

My name is Derek Ryan. I am the 6 to 12 World Language Coordinator for Sharon Public Schools. And I'm here tonight for World Language Week, which is this week in Sharon Public Schools.

And I want to share some of the exciting updates that are World Languages program.

So as many of you may know, Sharon is one of the top performing world language programs in the state.

Sharon consistently ranks among the top 10 of 245 districts for students earning the Massachusetts State Seal of Biliteracy, a testament to our very dedicated team.

This year, students have earned the seal not only in French, Chinese, Latin, and Spanish, but also in Hebrew, Russian, Hungarian, Italian, German, and Turkish, reflecting our rich global community. This year, students have traveled or will travel to Montreal, France, Italy with a trip to Spain planned for February, 2026.

A huge thank you to Kathy Turner, Jen McAuliffe, Abby Thurbridge, and Leah Salippo for making these life-changing experiences possible.

All right. On March 25th at 7 p.m., we will induct around 100 students into the National World Language Honor Society, recognizing their commitment to language proficiency.

A special thank you to Chris Berlant for organizing all of this. Also, a big thank you to Catherine May for organizing our first ever language and culture fair at Sharon High School.

We're all really excited for it.

I also wanted to recognize all of our French teachers in grades 6 to 12 for leading Mané Musical, which is similar to March Madness, but with a lot of culture and music.

A special shout-out to Michelle Kint, Catherine Monson, and Jessica Eichelberg for leading this in both Sharon Middle and high schools. Lastly, I would like to invite everybody here tonight to our first annual International Heritage Night on April 3rd from 6 to 8 p.m. at Sharon High School.

Join us for amazing food, cultural performances, and a celebration of Sharon's rich cultural mosaic.

We're looking forward to seeing you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Ryan.

I saw it's kind of all out of place right now, so I'm just going to call in the order that I see.

Sarah Karamita?

I'm sorry if I said your name wrong.

Am I on the alpha mute?

You're good.

All right. Thank you.

All right. Great. So, again, my name is Sarah Karamita.

Thanks for the opportunity to provide you with this feedback.

I have two kids in Sharon Public Schools.

I'm speaking tonight to express my strong concerns with the policy, at least I've been able to read it online, of the proposed change governing student searches, seizures, and interrogation.

The language appears to permit questioning and mirandizing of minors without the presence of the parent or guardian in the absence of exigent circumstances.

So, first, I'd like to point out that the language appears to assert that the schools have legal custody of students during the school day. I'd love to hear a clarification.

My understanding is that Massachusetts parents and legal guardians retain full custodial rights over their children even while they're in school. And while schools have a responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of students in their care, they do not have custody.

This seems to be an overreach of power.

I'm noticing I'm running out of time. But my read of the policy is that while I think my understanding is it's seeking to allow for exigent circumstances for questioning of minors 14 to 17 with reasonable efforts, it doesn't seem to read that way. So, my concern and recommendation is that if that is the intent, it needs to clearly state that if we're going to be jeopardizing our students' rights and constitutional protections.

If this is the intent, the language needs to clearly state without any ambiguity, it's the policy of the Sharon schools, that there should be no mirandizing and no questioning of students without a parent or guardian present. Then there shall be an expectation that all non, this shall be the expectation in all non-exigent circumstances.

If there is no emergency, I firmly believe questioning can wait until a parent or guardian arrives.

Then in the limited case and defined case of an exigent circumstances, the school shall make a reasonable effort to contact the parent or guardian.

These safeguards, I believe, are vital. Youth are not expected to understand the grave consequence of speaking to a public police officer as part of an union organization.

And I strongly encourage you and urge you to reject this policy as drafted.

Thank you.

Thank you there.

Okay.

And Ms.

Fuller.

Good evening.

Thank you very much for allowing me to speak today. I would like to take some, an opportunity to congratulate three educators in the Sharon public school system.

The Norfolk County Teachers Association awards an honor award, a service award, and a new educator award.

And this year's honor award is an educator at East Elementary School, Katie O'Neill.

She has been an IA at the Learning Center at East for the last nine years.

She demonstrates unwavering dedication and commitment in supporting students with learning differences.

And her role is crucial in fostering an inclusion and supportive learning environment as her skillful teachers teaches and support students both in the classroom and in small groups.

Katie adapts her approach to meet the unique needs of each learner, showcasing her remarkable patience and kindness.

She consistently provides a safe space where students feel valued and understood, which has led her to build strong and supportive relationships with students she works with, encouraging them to thrive academically and personally.

Additionally, Katie is a reliable and hardworking professional who collaborates regularly with her colleagues, sharing insights and strategies that enhance collective efforts to support students effectively.

Her ability to work as part of a team coupled with her proactive nature has made her an invaluable asset to our learning center.

For these reasons, Katie is a strong nomination for this honor award for her dedication and caring nature.

At the high school, the new educator award goes to Jillian Paliuca.

It's her first year as an EL teacher at Sharon High School. She has consistently gone above and beyond to build community, engage beyond.

May I continue reading the citation?

Just finish.

Finish. Okay, thank you.

And meet her students' needs no matter how varied they may be. She is consistently collaborating with regular education teachers to support students across curriculums, often going above and beyond to achieve that goal.

She stays late after school, meeting with students to work and prepare her upcoming lessons. Teachers at the high school have been extremely impressed with her dedication and ability to step into such a multifaceted role seamlessly.

Outside of her classroom, she is a lifelong learner.

She will shortly complete her master's and is already looking at other classes to continue developing her pedagogy.

Everyone at the high school benefits from Jillian's positivity.

We also are awarding Rick Ripley at the middle school with a service award.

So thank you very much for giving me the time to share that information.

We are very proud of our educators and want to highlight their accomplishments.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fuller.

And I think I got Katie O'Neill at East and Jillian Pagliucha, I believe.

I don't know if I spelled it wrong.

And at the high school, congratulations.

And Rick Ripley.

Am I good?

Okay. So many congratulations to all of them.

Okay.

Next, Ms. Fuller.

Hi.

Yes. Congratulations to those teachers. I have two things I wanted to say quickly.

One is I wanted to thank Hina Trivedi for all of the work she has done in working as a DEI coordinator, director.

And I am terribly saddened that the position will not be continued.

But to fight another day, perhaps it will happen again. We'll have her back or somebody in that position in the future.

That's the first thing. So thank you, Hina. The second thing I wanted to say was I wanted to thank the teachers, particularly at the high school that I know my daughter has, my other daughter had. Who continue to fight the fight, follow the curriculum frameworks, teach children about diversity, equity, inclusion, even though it's become a dirty word in some circles.

But that the teachers follow through with the curriculum frameworks, the DESI mandate to teach and talk about race, religion, gender, identity, sexuality, et cetera.

And I'm appreciative, so appreciative of the amazing teachers that both my daughters have had. So thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Murray.

Hi. Hi. My name is Heather Murray, and I spoke at the last school committee meeting to give an overview on the ongoing IA contract negotiations, and in particular, the negotiation meeting that took place on February 27th.

Some of my statements were refuted by a member of the school committee, and I would like to, once again, set the record straight.

There were 11 silent representatives, the negotiations team, and our MTA rep in attendance in our room.

Every single one of us heard the same information as it was relayed to us by the state-appointed mediator.

First, we were not told that there was a hard stop before the session on the 27th started or when it began.

In fact, we were not told until after one of the school committee members had already left.

We were there and prioritized the goal of setting a fair contract for that meeting.

Why is this an issue to point out? We were told by the mediator at our first session back on January 30th that both parties are required to notify the mediator if there's going to be a hard stop prior to the start of that meeting.

That did not happen, and the community deserves to know the truth.

Secondly, we were told the remaining school committee member was not authorized to make any decision or further negotiate in order to settle a fair contract.

Negotiations at that point could not continue if the parties authorized to negotiate were not present.

We gave our response and submitted another counter at the conclusion of the session.

By the way, you got our response and counter.

We have still yet to receive information we requested during the session or any responses to our counter.

Lastly, why would a responsible school committee conduct contract negotiations without any school committee members present?

It was stated that the school committee was told that no member needed to be present for negotiations.

On the contrary, the school committee is the authorized bargaining point.

Enough.

Okay. I'm sorry, Ms. Murray, but you're going over time. Okay.

Tobin Asklar.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Tobin Asklar.

I'm the parent of three children in the Sharon Public Schools' former school candidate.

And I wanted to first show appreciation and echo Sarah Kermiatis' statement about policy JIH. I think we should not pass this as written.

I think that our students deserve to have a parent present when they are questioned by law enforcement.

And that should not change.

I also want to echo Lori Filer's support and appreciation of Ina Trivedi, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Director.

The other thing that I wanted to do was just read the Sharon Public Schools' district plan 2023-2020 to 2028 mission statement and vision.

The Sharon Public Schools strives to provide an educational community that nurtures each student on their unique journey to be lifelong learners and caring and engaged citizens of the world. The vision statement is the Sharon Public Schools is committed to providing an inclusive, safe, and healthy learning environment for all. Our district is dedicated to developing an educational foundation that fosters academics, model citizenship, and cultural diversity in collaboration with all stakeholders.

We maintain the vision that all students will apply their skills and knowledge to inspire our global society.

Our core values are acceptance, equity, honesty, integrity, respect, kindness, and teamwork.

The theory in action is if we make strategic decisions, allocate resources thoughtfully, and consistently practice our core values in the classroom and community at large, then each student will have a safe and enriching experience and grow to be a lifelong learner and caring, engaged citizen.

I want to thank the school committee and superintendent for engaging with those goals and continuing to focus on those.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. SPEAKER_UNKNOWN: Thank you, Tobin. Thank you, Tobin. Thanks. Thanks. So first, I want to ask that all school committee members, barring some kind of emergency, should be required to keep their cameras on for the duration of the meeting.

It just is a bad look when you turn them off or have them off from the outset, like Shauna does.

Regarding the club fees that you voted at your last meeting, I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know if all of you have read the talent article, but they surveyed 140 kids, and 96% said those fees would be likely to impact their participation in clubs.

More importantly, there's massive confusion because a committee and a superintendent that should be making data-driven decisions decided on those fees with literally no data to hand.

You did not have a complete list of the clubs.

You did not have a list of the cost of each club, what each person who advises costs.

Many have no cost for the advisor, their volunteer.

You did not have a list of how many members are in each club.

You did, shall I go on, all the data you did not have.

And when people from the talent reached out to administration to ask for that data, they were hilariously told that administration does not have it. You have no business voting on a fee without data.

Next, bus fees.

At the March 10th meeting of Finance Committee, Dr. Botello conceded on tape that you charge bus fees in excess of what it actually costs to transport pay-to-ride riders, and you use them to help subsidize your legally required busing.

I point all of you to Mass General Law, Chapter 71, Section 68, what you're doing is illegal.

Please fix it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

And now, Jeff Mahoney.

Hi, everyone.

I am thrilled and excited to invite everyone to the Cottage Street School Fun Fair on Sunday, March 23rd.

I won't be able to make the end of the meeting tonight for announcements, so I figured I'd jump in with the most people online right now.

Our fun fair has carnival games, amazing raffles, face painting, glitter tattoos, music, a critter room, which has lots of different animals, snakes, fun stuff, henna tattoos, food, cakes to win, and more.

As everyone knows, PTO-run events need participation, so that would be amazing if everyone in town could show up.

Mark your calendars, March 23rd from 11 to 4.

Hope to see everyone there.

Thank you. Thanks, Mr.

Mahoney.

And I will say that Cottage Street Fun Fair is a definitely must-do, especially for the younger ones.

Okay. Our last person tonight is P. Golding.

Could you please give us your first name so that we can put you in the minutes? I'm P.

Golding.

I work at Cottage Street School.

I'm just going to follow up on Heather Murray's comments.

She didn't get to finish.

In addition to not being told there was a hard stop, I was there.

I've been a silent rep. I'm putting time and effort into this. And it's kind of disconcerting when these things happen.

She mentioned there was no hard stop. She mentioned that there was a school committee member that left. And we were told that the remaining school committee member could not make a decision without the other school committee member there.

And then we were told another point that was refuted was that the school committee was told that they did not have to be present for negotiations.

That's crazy.

School committee is the authorizing bargaining agent, not the attorney.

Ignoring the school committee's obligation to bargain is a complete waste of both time and money, not to mention that it does seem unlawful.

It's your job to negotiate with your IAs and make an agreement with us. And we have been doing this in good faith for a very long time. And it's certainly a very small amount of money right now that we're dealing with.

Saying you respect IAs is not the same as showing you respect the IAs with your actions.

It really does matter.

Show up.

Do the job you're elected to do.

Stop wasting the taxpayers' money.

And settle a fair contract for the IAs now.

Enough is enough.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

And that's it for public comment.

And we are now going to go to Shauna.

Are you?

I'm here.

Are you able to do our correspondence this evening?

I am. Thanks. So the school committee has received 70 pieces of correspondence between March 5th, 2025 at 9 a.m. and March 19th, 2025 at 9 a.m.

Community members continue to share their feedback on the FY26 operating budget.

Themes of the feedback include concerns about cuts made to elementary positions at East and the impact those reductions will have on class sizes.

Disappointment in the decision to eliminate the FLES program at the elementary level and to possibly reduce an SHS Spanish position and the impact that these cuts may have on class size and the language opportunities for students.

Suggestions to reduce several database subscriptions at Sharon High School in order to save money.

Importance of protecting gym and library at the elementary levels and suggesting that those specials are more important to preserve than the FLES program.

Questions about the implementation of the new club slash activity fees at SMS and SHS. Questions about the new club slash activity fees at SMS and SHS.

Questions about who has helped to solve our dét ense and Building ig Consultant projects by andш ا� เง cons forth this negotiation cycle a parent wrote to follow up with information related to a recent incident that occurred on a van we received several letters from the Sharon pluralism network with reminders about upcoming events related to community coordination and actions to capture and coordinate community-wide events an SHS student wrote to share their concerns regarding the lack of basic supplies at Sharon high school a parent wrote to require about the policy related to flags and banners displayed on school grounds in school common areas and in classrooms a student wrote to request additional information regarding the national honor society application process the cottage street school funfair co-chairs wrote to the school committee to invite parents and community members to volunteer to support the upcoming funfair event scheduled for sunday march 23rd 2025. finally finally we received information from congressman jake aukum sloss one day i'll get it right regarding the upcoming deadline for community project funding submissions which are due by april 1st 2025.

and that is it um not that i have to say anything but just in response to the community members concern uh expressed over my video being off i'm sick so along with my school committee members i felt that it was best for me to keep my video off but still be participatory in the meeting so my apologies to the community members if in fact i have offended you by not having my video on i just think it's better for the entire community if you don't see me right now but you can hear me all right so thank you uh thanks a lot shauna appreciate that um and now it is time for our um school representative update and i see omar so i'm gonna unmute you take it away uh hello everyone uh my name is omar kanechenkadi and today i'll be your uh school student representative um so it is an exciting month for sharon high school um right now is spring sports season has just started um tryouts are this time it is one of my favorite times of the year um spring sports have just become underway at equal nation with prouts and practices in full swing this week the weather this week has been fantastic for outdoor activity today was an amazing day and uh to follow the rest of our sports action please check out the school website and please please please try to come to as many of our games as possible i have a feeling this year is going to be a great great great spring season um student council hosted a go green spirit day on monday welcoming students with green necklaces and sweet treats if they were clad in green we are getting ready for our spring sports rally on thursday april 17th which we hope to be a fantastic spring sports rally to celebrate all of our student athletes and all of our students at the high school um sharon high school hosted the sem spa festival last friday and saturday during which students from other schools performed in the various performing spaces around the school it was a delightful treat for all of us to hear and see this joyful collaboration and on the topic of music next week is sharon high school musicianship week the tri-em music honor society is hosting musicianship musicianship week that has sessions open to all members of the sharon high school community this is really the perfect opportunity for students to improve any skills and to learn more about music of all kinds whether it be film music uh film composition whether it be recording your own music it is an exciting next week and students can learn more about this on the music website or they can contact miss glenister the sharon web development club and girls who code clubs are hosting a hackathon for middle and high school students this will take place on the half day on the 25th and will give students an exciting opportunity to collaborate on teams with technology to win cool prizes and meet to meet amazing sharon alum who will be judging please check out the school to learn more um our speech and debate team is continuing their march madness tour to state finals with more huge wins this past weekend um we wanted to give a special congratulations to senior naseeb alikulova who won first place in impromptu and third place in informational the eagles will be soaring into lincoln sudbury this weekend before heading to states the following weekend at boss in latin for debate and walpole high school for speech the debate team is also offering an introductory free workshop for middle school students the team is really excited to continue building our award-winning team so interested participants can find more information at our instagram sharon.hi.eagles

and the information has also been posted through the middle school communication as well as in the high school newsletter please contact miss jolliker at the high school for more information um prom season is underway so tickets are on sale for both senior and junior proms student leaders are really really excited to finalize their menu plans for their peers and seniors are currently in the middle of organizing senior week activities um not to spoil anything but we have a feeling it's going to be the best senior week that sharon's seen um but that's just my opinion and finally world language national honor society will be inducting its new members this coming Tuesday march 25th the seniors really are super excited to invite the new members to join them in their volunteering efforts linguistic endeavors and wlnhs events planned for the rest of the year such as the upcoming culture night on the 3rd of april april please make sure to clear your schedule for a night of diverse and exciting fun and with that i also have one statement to make on club fees as i'm sure everyone knows club fees has been one of the most discussed topics in sharing these past two weeks and we as students and student leaders believe that it is important to provide the student perspective on the proposed system and to also provide an update from a recent meeting uh a meeting that student council had yesterday with miss keenan and mr vetty to help clarify many of our questions last week students were deeply concerned with the proposed plan as the increased financial burden on every student especially those deeply ingrained in the club system at sharon high school made every student that was passionate about the work that they were in their clubs anxious for the future of their clubs uh because clubs really are one of the most defining characteristics of sharon high school and in my opinion it is the beating heart of the student experience in sharon as such the fees that were proposed were deeply distressing to many of the students at the high school and we received a lot of concern feedback from fellow students thankfully the student council met with miss keenan and mr vetty yesterday the 18th of march after school where they clarified many of our concerns and explained where the money collected from the fees would be directed to it was only after these informed clarifications and the assurance that student voices would be represented in making these policies that students became more open-minded to club fees emphasizing the necessity for transparent well-communicated decision making we'd just like to emphasize that what the students would like moving forward is a plan with greater clarity a plan that takes into account the the rather incredible financial burden on individual students to participate in many of the clubs currently at the high school and a plan that takes into account detailed consideration of alternative funding solutions we are deeply thankful for everyone who has been working on creating the budget for next year and we are hopeful to see um what the budget looks like for next year and to see how clubs sports um and everything will be looking going into next year and if it would not be too bold um we as student leaders would like student leaders at the high school who are really the people that are the most involved in the club system to be involved in the process outside of open forum and to provide input during these discussions and with that i thank you for your time and i am excited for the next coming month and thank you one more time have a great day thank you very much for that okay um so i'm going to say thank you very much for that update and congratulations to um all of our students um especially in speech and debate i think that's awesome so we will now turn it over to peter for the general updates superintendent updates great thank you um yeah for someone i build upon um omar's uh awesome um detailed comments i i think yes the high school students are doing awesome things and i think our student representatives this year are doing an incredible job omar included in highlighting them so we appreciate that and certainly as we get more details i know ms keenan and uh ms whittemore are working on kind of details aligned to the the framework that was um approved um we will definitely look to get student feedback on that to make sure it's as smooth and as um you know and it doesn't have unintended consequences that we're trying to avoid so i appreciate that omar we got some early release dates coming up march 20th elementary conferences the 25th we continue with those conferences as well as some professional development at the middle school and the high school um and then on the 31st continued with some more professional development uh we'll be doing some work around our new literacy materials at the elementary as well as work at the middle school and high school around common assessments and differentiation for a device diverse learners mcas is um will be beginning in in late march and extend through april um so be looking for those dates uh we also have our eighth graders uh are really engaging these awesome civic action projects um i've already had some people uh reaching out to set up interviews with me because uh there's a lot they're often around kind of impacting the school community and i really enjoy that opportunity so look out for their final projects and then we have an uh district wide international night on april 3rd at sharon high school so we invite everyone to attend that um we also working with the um social social socialytics k12 so this is the group that i mentioned previously that is helping to develop a survey that we can use on a yearly basis that really allows us to um break it down in sophisticated ways as well as look at our results relative to others in the region so um we're working with them to finalize that and and um have that survey that survey implemented prior to april vacation and then um the student opportunity act um is something that we um is a is an act made by the the state uh legislature um in which we um report back about our progress on um really promoting uh elementary um literacy as well as um secondary mathematics and the our use of data to analyze uh student needs as well as our services for uh english learners uh and others so we'll be reporting back it's it's a it's an unfunded mandate but it's still an important one for us to share um and all of the goals around the student opportunity acts for us um are deeply connected to our uh district plan and that is it for me i also want to mention that i'm i know some of us uh attended cinderella at the middle school and and they did an incredible job uh uh there was a tremendous amount of kids our the leads were incredible but also so many kids involved both uh in the ensemble as well as in the production behind the scenes and uh it was just an awesome show uh in their packed houses three nights in a row sold out so it was great to see that as well that's that's awesome to hear and i just want to do a quick shout out to um back to the civic action i received a great letter today from hannah rocker and her team um in miss cornell's eighth grade civics class they want to start a book buddies reading club um for middle school students with the ecc so i'm excited to see where that goes um and just it's great it's great the enthusiasm um all right so the next item on the agenda is um the policy jih so i'm going to turn this over to dan um here you go thank you julie hi everyone we appreciate time on the agenda tonight we reviewed jih in february it is our questioning and searches policy and this review is part of our policies cleanup that we've talked about before during subcommittee updates so uh school committee has replaced dozens of policies this year that either had wrong information in them or were otherwise out of date and i have to plug policy subcommittee for just a second we're here to help the school committee that's our only purpose get work done prepare things to come to the full committee so if anyone on school committee or even anyone from the public has a policy need something you want to explore you can task us to work on it and uh actually if we reach consensus on jih tonight then we'll have made it through all the policies we flagged as needing updates so uh that's a lot so otherwise uh i'm happy to report our district policies are in excellent what i believe are excellent shape now so we have a really good policy manual that we can um really leverage uh thanks to all the good work of the committee so uh some quick background on jih we might have people joining tonight who either don't remember our last read or weren't here last time uh count our school district council a law firm we engage provided some advice to us earlier this year that we should update policy jih jih is one of the oldest policies in our handbook it's about 15 years old now but being an older policy doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad uh however in this instance council had two specific concerns with it so the first concern council told us was that the policy didn't go far enough in certain respects so it didn't have anything about miranda rights of students it didn't protect students who might be over age 18 and it didn't uh reference our memorandum of understanding that we've signed with sharon's police department about the roles of the schools versus the police which uh that memorandum includes some important protocols uh which i know our schools and our police department follow so we want to reference that uh the other issue council identified was the policy was overbroad in certain other respects so uh sharon's existing jih policy is i think it's fair to say unusual uh because it doesn't allow for uh emergency situations where police might have to act right away even if the parents aren't present so every other school district in massachusetts has some allowance for those types of situations uh perhaps implicitly but council's opinion was that that particularity of sharon's existing policy does infringe upon law enforcement and that we should make some sort of an update to it to recognize that at a minimum emergency situations exist where the schools really have to let law enforcement act so the draft we read last month was council's draft that they prepared for us it was meant to address those issues i just talked about so uh we received feedback from some parents since our last read uh really good feedback uh the parents that wrote wrote in and that i spoke to um by and large wanted assurance that they could be present if police needed to question their child uh we heard some of that in the public comment tonight echoed i also heard that sentiment clearly from our superintendent and from i think some of the school committee members during our last review of the policy uh so that was clear enough to me so what's happened since that last read we took that good feedback that we got from everybody and we brought it back to council and we asked them to update the language of the policy so that we could have a version that hopefully everybody could support and the community could see their feedback reflected in the final policy so our superintendent has been a partner in this whole process i'm really grateful to dr botello and to jane martin for helping and working with us and with council directly to create this version we'll be reviewing tonight the principals of our schools i understand and the cabinet staff also reviewed this policy since last time and we incorporated some of their feedback about the final warning as well so um after coming to agreement we all agreed it was ready for the full committee to discuss tonight uh the version we reviewed tonight should look mostly familiar um do we want to pull up the version now is that possible there it is thanks so much um so this version i was saying should look mostly familiar to you so most of the language is what you reviewed in february the parts about searches and miranda rights and so on so those portions may or may not weren't reviewing again unless we really want to uh the key difference in this version that you'll see uh is at the bottom of the policy so uh we can we can read the full thing uh it's been it's been in the drive so i hope you had a chance to read it before the meeting but um that paragraph that says therefore and it has a one next to it um that is a revised paragraph and it now reads when law enforcement officials find it necessary to question students during the school day or extracurricular activities no questioning shall occur in the absence of a parent guardian present unless exigent circumstances exist and then it says with a parent or guardian present law enforcement officials shall inform the students of their miranda rights before questioning so none of that was explicit before so now it's explicit that a parent needs to be present unless there's some sort of emergency where everybody would agree law enforcement needs to act uh it then goes on in that paragraph to say consistent with massachusetts law the determination whether the student in consultation with the parent guardian has knowingly rave waived that right uh waived that right shall be made by law enforcement officials in accordance with the applicable legal standards so um those are three instances where we change the policy to make that parent present requirement by our schools explicit and clear so uh under this policy um there would just be an exception for those types of of emergency situations uh those would be situations where i think any court would agree law enforcement needs to handle like one example our council gave was if the school received a bomb threat or something and they had to respond or like a student was carrying some kind of explosive device sorry it's a graphic example but it that was the example council gave uh those are the types of things it's meant to address uh and uh our council i i did ask our council asked us not to try to list out what those situations might be or to try to define them because um then we're risking limiting law enforcement again and they're they're just a fact specific and unpredictable by their nature so but um that's what exigent means it's a it's a synonym for an emergency in which law enforcement would need to respond immediately and and if it's not that kind of a situation then parents would need to be present uh so the last version had some language in these paragraphs about age brackets so it listed what students rights were at 18 years or older between 14 and 18 and so on so what those were were references to massachusetts case law uh there there was feedback we got from the administration that was similar to what a parent mentioned earlier um and i think at least one or two other parents wrote in that the age brackets were confusing they weren't as clear as they could be they might be implying that some students had reduced rights so um they seem to be causing some consternation in the community even though that wasn't the intent of them but we agreed that we could take them out in favor of a plain language policy you see here um for a parent to be present for any student regardless of age uh so some other uh community feedback we got was some parents were asking about uh law enforcement other than sharon's police department so uh specifically a lot of parents were asking about immigration enforcement ice and and how this would interface with them so that question is understandable it's been in the headlines this policy would govern how we relate to law enforcement broadly so it's not just limited to sharon police uh but and all the due process requirements in the policy would apply regardless of law enforcement we're dealing with now if it is sharon police we have a member memorandum of understanding with them so the policy references that uh but they're you know i'm not uh the district's council so i i won't try to speak for the intricacies of the law here or what our schools would do but uh there was a statement put out by the attorney general of massachusetts uh just a few weeks ago in guidance that i'm comfortable reading because it comes from the top law enforcement officer of the state it says schools cannot provide ice access to your child while in school without a judicial warrant a judicial warrant is different from an administrative warrant a judicial warrant must be signed by a judge or a court magistrate so my reading of that is in the absence of a judicial warrant our schools would not provide a federal agency like ice access to students uh there was a question we got earlier today about custody so my custody does not refer to parental custody so the schools are not a student's parents um what what i understand that to mean is physical custody during the day so um when students are in school um the courts have said that the schools are acting in local parenta so it's not that they're the parents but they're acting on your behalf while students are in school so um they the schools have physical custody of your students during the day that's to what custody refers and uh those are the updates i have so um we can open the floor to discussion now if anybody has questions i'd love to um to talk about them and uh we have the option of on the agenda of a vote tonight we don't have to vote um these sort of updates that we're talking about tonight um were i think anticipated by our last discussion so i think it would be fine if we wanted to vote because the public had notice of what they might be but uh we also have the option of deferring it another week if if we found that necessary so i'll turn it back to julie thanks dan and uh thanks for um you know being so attentive to people's concerns i'm going to throw the door open to school committee members if anyone wants to start alan yeah i appreciate all the work that dan has just indicated all the individuals have done to engage in this process but i i do disagree with the idea that this level of change was known and foreseeable to our community i don't think that's the case at all um i think it would behoove us to irrespective of any discussion we might have tonight to uh let this uh sit for a week let the community have a chance to review it more closely through this meeting and then come back next week uh and make a decision on it uh thank you thanks alan avi um i think i feel similarly to what to alan there i i want to say first of all um thank you dan for hearing not only the public's uh feedback but also some members certainly myself at the table um i think that this version comes a lot closer to being something i could support um i appreciate the explicit um aspects of the policy that state that parents would have to be contacted unless there were exigent circumstances i'm comfortable not having those exigent circumstances listed out because i did look into the definition of exigent circumstances which obviously a legal standard and is pretty explicit about um i mean it it applies directly to warrants and so i think that that that pretty directly applies here as mentioned by a member of the public here tonight um who sounded like they were very knowledgeable uh the legal custody part is is somewhat problematic for me and i would want to be able to look into that because a i was able to just shoot a quick message to um the attorney that that i deal with closest um of our of our council that's available to us for the district and their actual initial response and they're pretty knowledgeable was they're not they're not sure that that language is accurate but but they're not the council that dealt directly with with you and i will say not that google is the best source here but google also agrees with um the member of the public that was pretty explicit in the state of massachusetts legal custody is not held by the by the school district so to me if if perhaps maybe the i don't know i'm not a lawyer and i'm not our district's lawyer perhaps if it's physical custody maybe it should say physical custody it says legal custody and that that's concerning to me only because again it just very simply if you google that it specifically says no in the state of massachusetts legal custody is never held by the district um that it to the very point of why this uh policy was undertaken we don't want a policy that's in direct conflict with the law even even just in in some wording um that may true may may prove to be pretty important uh again the spirit of this policy is a lot closer to a policy i would agree with than previously i think it's really important that we as a board protect parents rights to make decisions for their children and i feel like this policy comes a lot closer to that than the version we looked at before so i i think we're we're much closer than we were before for me i would love another week to just get clarification on that those pieces of the policy that that still will probably make me a no right now thanks avi adam thank you and thanks dan for i clearly a lot of work that's gone into putting this policy together um i think i agree with a lot of the sentiment that um avi and alan shared um i just said in one question because i know this is an older policy um but it is one that we are kind of looking to change and and i understand why kind of parents have concerns over the course of the last 15 years while this policy existed do we know how many times um kind of there there were exigent circumstances or or instances where police were trying to um kind of question students but were unable to due to the existence of this policy i don't know if there were emergency circumstances um that existed i i do know a lot of our older policies that are out of date um tend to just um get ignored i'm not faulting anyone from the administration for this and actually i think it's the job of school committee to keep our policies up to date so that they're enforceable and usable um so i i i don't want to speak for the schools but um in those kinds of cases i think people just naturally revert to what um common understanding is about roles and responsibilities and you know what what what um appropriate roles of the schools and the police should be and perhaps reference our mou instead with the police department which is certainly appropriate um so i don't know the extent to which our schools may or may not have been following this policy at the expense of you know legal standards or the mou um i i can you know i could turn it over to dr patello and he can give him his impression but i don't know how often there are emergency circumstances i think the goal is to allow that there could be circumstances like this and have a policy that will not um hinder law enforcement um yeah i i can tell you that administration felt strongly that the only way this should occur is exigent circumstances so their their view was not to try to make it more open for um we we have great respect for our law enforcement partners but it's not their role to question kids in schools without parents so we we agree with that so i cannot recollect the instance where there was formal questioning by law enforcement um without you know parents uh and where exigent circumstances did exist we certainly again in the case of something being so gravely dangerous that it needed to happen we recognize that that that that should be uh available but only in those circumstances okay thank you thank you um so i'm i'm hearing from three members already that uh they would like a little time to um to think about this and discuss this um jeremy shauna do you want to weigh in shauna um i i have to agree with alan um i think that there has been a lot of talk about this on social media and granted that's not the best um measure of community involvement i think it is one that i want to make sure that we listen to um and i want to respect that maybe we need a little bit more time so that the community can weigh in uh i want to make sure that if this is any way that this is voted that this is a policy that we all feel good about um and so um i'd like to i'd like to kind of kick it down the road for another week at least as long as there's no imminent need sorry i'll just put that it doesn't seem like there's an imminent need seeing that this is 15-ish years old um you know i think that dan dan you did a wonderful job thank you for your thoroughness um but i don't think right now we have we have the appetite for this change and so if if we have to make one i'd rather i'd rather wait and make sure that we get it right thank you thanks shauna and jeremy i agree with waiting um just so that we have it publicly posted here people can look at it publicly comment next time okay well um i actually feel the same way so look at our consensus that's great um so i think what we'll do is we will schedule further discussion and vote to um the next meeting which is april is it april 5th no wait whatever whatever the meeting in april is yeah dan were you done with your comment julie yes oh okay yeah uh i have uh no objection whatsoever about that so that's that totally works for me too and i understand completely uh there was one outstanding question that i heard raised today about the word custody um so this was prepared by our um very knowledgeable counsel but um you know i'm i i like everybody else want to get this right and if that word is um subject to interpretation or causing concern with people uh we i'm open to just deleting that sentence if it doesn't add anything or we can modify it a bit um so uh i i really firmly do believe that custody in this instance refers to physical custody um it just it just means that the schools are responsible for your kids during the day it doesn't mean anything more than that but that's just my interpretation of it and if there's any question i you know we can try to nail that down before next meeting okay thanks avi yeah dan i just want to be clear that um i have i have this like you i have tremendous amount of respect for our council if um you've been privy to the conversations because you've worked on this with the specific council whose expertise this is and who's wording this i i just like i i would want these answers i also don't want to change the wording from our council i would love if the committee if the committee um could receive a um a very brief you know as brief as possible explanation from council obviously the committee as a whole can't discuss it or respond but certainly council can provide that legal advice to all of us as a group and i've done this in the past actually when working with with council dan maybe you can even ask this particular attorney um if they can if they can word something that would be permissible to share with the public i think i think the public would like would love and and for me if we have wording from our council explaining why this is acceptable i'd be much i'd be comfortable voting to approve what our council recommends with an explanation that our public is able to hear and understand yep that makes sense to me and uh maybe we can ask him for an explanation and uh if he's open to deleting or deleting it or clarifying it in the same email yeah perfect thank you great great and adam yeah thanks dan i was reading over the sentence personally i the sentence i don't think actually adds a tremendous amount of value to the policy right the sentence just reads the schools have legal custody of students during the school day and during hours of approved extracurricular activities i think we can delete that sentence completely um and then the paragraph just starts the responsibility of the school administration to make an effort to protect each student's rights with respect to questioning by law enforcement officials um so i'm not sure kind of why whatever custody kind of we do or don't have so to speak will exist um but i don't know that we need to kind of state it in the policy um so if it is in the interest of the committee and kind of not needing to go to council um and ask for kind of additional uh clarification and preparation of recommendations um i would support just removing that uh complaint of eight dollars or uh and adding master 보� I can vedic government lost by myself and then i was thinking that you wouldn't encouragement to tackle the following on campus so i wanted to drop in the ileard漫ond to Purnell общ 이ない Asset dollars are great you very much i'll just want to know installer by hearing this screen okay it's not evidence um you know what if that's really good if that's really great Oh, yeah. So maybe what we can do is we can bracket it when we put it out for comment and just say this is the part we think we should.