The Melrose Messenger

School Committee Approves Changes to Non-Discrimination Policies

On August 27th, the School Committee reviewed and approved proposed changes to School Committee and Elementary and Secondary Handbook policies on non-discrimination in response to changes to the federal Title IX law earlier this year. These policies address the specific types of discrimination and harassment that are prohibited in Melrose Public Schools (MPS), and how the district will deal with alleged violations.

The federal Department of Education (DOE) released a new rule in April of this year expanding protections against sex-based harassment, prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals and pregnant individuals, and altering the grievance process with the goal of making it fairer, more transparent, and more flexible for school districts.

MPS has been under scrutiny recently following two complaints that were filed with DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) last spring alleging racial discrimination against students. Back in 2016, OCR had previously found that an MPS student had experienced a racially hostile environment and the school district was responsible for creating appropriate policies and training programs to comply with federal discrimination laws.

The proposed policies were presented at the School Committee meeting by Abra Francois, a lawyer who specializes in civil rights law and previously worked at OCR. The City of Melrose contracted with Francois this summer to improve MPS’ policies and provide recommendations to improve the culture within MPS and prevent future incidents of discrimination.

Francois explained that language in the new policy might sound overly complex or “legal” because the policy must include specific language about sex in order to satisfy federal Title IX requirements and also include language about gender in order to meet Massachusetts state requirements, creating “a little weirdness trying to align federal and state law.” “It’s challenging,” she explained, “because what it looks like is three lines of protected statuses, and that doesn’t read in an accessible way.”

The new policy also changes the procedure for dealing with a discrimination or harassment complaint within MPS. When a complaint is made, the principal of the relevant school will perform an investigation. The principal’s report will go to the Title IX Coordinator (Cari Berman, the Assistant Superintendent for Pupil and Personnel Services), who will make a finding. Francois explained that the investigator and Title IX Coordinator are intentionally separate roles, and the Title IX Coordinator will receive “high quality training” in order to “understand the law and the compliance issues” in determining the outcome of the investigation and what, if any, actions will be taken in response. Finally, an appeal will go to the Superintendent, in order to include him in the process as well and ensure that he’s aware of complaints within the district.

While School Committee members were appreciative of the work that had been done, not all of them were satisfied with the end result. Jennifer Razi-Thomas was concerned that the language was “still clunky and inconsistent.” The School Committee did unanimously approve the policy, and also voted to review it again before the end of 2024, with the goal of making further improvements once the policy could be seen in action.

School Committee members also seemed to appreciate that new policies alone would not change the culture in MPS. “Everyone should realize they impact how kids are getting educated,” Matthew Hartman said. “The way people treat each other in our community feeds into our schools.” Razi-Thomas agreed, saying, “we’re going to really need to work with parents around social media and the use of phones, and how phones can be used to harass and harm people…that’s a huge community issue.”

In addition to approving the new policies, the School Committee discussed the donation by the Horace Mann School Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) of four window unit air conditioners for the second floor of the building. Last year, an excessively hot day resulted in school cancellation due to the fact that several MPS buildings do not have air conditioning. Kenneth Kelley, the Director of Finance and Operations, pointed out that because buildings like the Horace Mann School weren’t designed to have air conditioning, adding it will be “a significant undertaking.” The air conditioners are expected to be operational by March or April.

“I don’t know how many districts are put in this kind of position,” said Hartman, “where PTOs are doing, frankly, what they shouldn’t have to do.” The failure of the tax override vote in June means that there is less money available in the school budget for capital improvements like installing air conditioning. “I’m grateful that we have some opportunity here to cool down some of our kids, but hopefully some day our district is able to pay for this sort of thing.”

Finally, Mayor Jen Grigoraitis shared that she plans to reconstitute the School Building Master Plan Committee for the first time since 2019. The purpose of this internal working group, which will include members of the School Committee and staff from MPS and the Department of Public Works, is to “assess the functionality of all school buildings,” talk with community members “about what those buildings need in order to be usable,” and finally come up with a plan. Mayor Grigoraitis emphasized that she expected this to be a long-term process, although it will eventually “come with some very big dollar amounts attached to it.”

“What we’ve been operating in for far too long,” she added, “is a lack of concrete information, which means that we’ve got a lot of opinions.” In 2023 the City Council appropriated funds for a consultant to work with the School Building Master Plan Committee, which will allow the committee to “get up and running” immediately.

Posted September 5th, 2024