Return To Annual Superintendent Reviews. I very much disagree with the decision last year to move to a semi-annual review for the Superintendent. Annual reviews are one of the few fundamental tasks of the School Committee. These reviews also are critical to sharing both constructive feedback as well as positive reinforcement with our superintendent. I believe moving to a semi-annual review created distrust, confusion, and even resentment in the community and, ultimately, does not serve the Superintendent, the School Committee, or the community well.

Faster School Committee Meeting Minutes. This is a small but important example of things the School Committee can do to improve efficiency, transparency, and accountability. Today, it takes far too long to post the meeting minutes from the School Committee. Quickly, posting minutes and clear summaries would be a benefit to the community. We have so many new tools that are available to listen and summarize meetings today. AI is integrated into Zoom and online meeting services. Recordings can be instantly turned into transpcripts and be summarized in an unbiased manner, etc. We should be embracing these tools to provide faster, clearer, and unbiased services to our community. I recognize there may be legal limits of what we can do here, but as a member of the School Committee, I would investigate it.

Return To In Person School Committee Meetings. While the flexibility of Zoom is great, I believe the productivity, collaboration, and decorum would all be imporved if we returned to in-person School Committee meetings. We should keep an online option for our community members as I feel like many community members would welcome the opportunity to communicate and interact in person with our School Committee members. We should also keep the option open for School Committee members who have a conflict to attend via Zoom for special circumstances, but moving back to in-person as the standard is the right thing to do.