Hello, friend,

There’s a lot going on today in town, so I’ll get right in there.

School Committee

I wasn’t able to attend School Committee last night, but thanks to shadow notetaker, Becky, I have a lot of notes for you!

Public Participation:

• A number of students, prior students and community members advocated to keep Italian program at the middle school.  There appears to have been a misunderstanding that it was being replaced by Mandarin; Dr. Conti clarified that there are no plans to add Mandarin at middle school although he would love to offer as many languages as were sustainable in Burlington.
• Sean Musselman advocated for the School Committee to endorse the Massachusetts Fair Share Amendment. If you didn’t attend the info session several weeks ago, here’s more info.

General Meeting:

• Tenacity Challenge. Judy Crossman (English teacher, BHS) spoke about the Tenacity Challenge – its an academic scholarship opportunity for students of Black and Latino heritage. Hopefully I’ll have a bigger story for you about this in the near future!

• Student Advocacy Room. This program is a virtual webinar/workshop targeted at middle and high school students. A diverse group of 18 BHS students participated in information sessions and problem solving work to identify target areas for change at BHS. They came up with 3, and created working groups to create recommendations.

  • curriculum

  • school culture & community

  • classroom culture & norms

  They also identified some next steps, including getting more students involved and interweaving this work with DEI work which is ongoing.

• Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey was discussed, including a lot of areas such as students who lost a family member or close person during the pandemic, student perceptions of their mental health, and the number of BPS students who have attempted suicide. I recommend watching to get the full picture of this information, as a summary will not do it justice.

• Dr. Conti announced that Christina Cicolini will be taking the permanent role of Director of Special Education for Burlington.  Ms. Cicolini has been serving as the interim director for the last year.

That’s as far as we got – you’ll have to watch the replay for the rest!

Today in Burlington

Today is the last day to order discounted rain barrels! You can get them here.

• 1:00 PM – Planning Board will be interviewing candidates for the job of Assistant Planner. This was a position granted by Town Meeting during the May annual budget meeting.
• 4:00 PM – Council on Aging meets to finalize a logo, hear from some guests from Minuteman Senior Services, and more. (P.S. Check out my information-gathering poll on the Buzz’s Facebook Community.) (Join via Webex)
• 6:00 PM – Conservation – Public Listening Session – for Vine Brook Watershed via Zoom. I’ve had some feedback that flooding in Burlington is due to changes in building practices. Seems plausible that is a factor. But the fact is that flooding is here, and this group seems to have some ideas for how to curtail it or minimize its impact, regardless of the source. (Though, “Don’t build as much” might very well be one of them! ) We’ll see tonight. I hope many of you join.
• 6:00 PM – Recreation Commission meets and will discuss Parks & Recreation Month recognition and vote on something to do with reserve fund expenditures, among other items.
• 7:00 PM – Fox Hill School Building Committee has been meeting a lot lately. They’ll provide some news and updates and working on the objectives for the Request For Services (RFS) o be approved by DESE so we can hire a project manager (OPM) to run the project. (Join via Webex)
• 7:00 PM – Historical Commission meets to talk about the shed for which they were granted funding by Town Meeting, as well as the upcoming Select Board Meeting and the Town’s 225th celebration, among other things.
• 7:00 PM – Police Department Info Sessions on Police Preparedness – read more from Rich at BCAT.

Alright, that’s it for today. I’ll catch y’all tomorrow!

Nicci