The Saugus Union School District has decided to postpone the special meeting that was originally scheduled for June 11 to have a second discussion on student behavior in the district.
At the board meeting on May 20, the governing board and Superintendent Colleen Hawkins had a discussion about how the meeting would not be as beneficial as they would like it to be because of the timing of the end of the school year and the behavior council had no new updates from the last time they updated the board on May 6.
“All of our special meetings, so the one we had in January there was one that was canceled in March and the one that we had in June, were all designed as part of our work with closing achievement gap and addressing student behavior,” said Hawkins in a phone interview on Monday. “They were calendared in December of last year. That was before the behavior council was created, that they were just standard meetings that we would have to be able to focus on specific things with the board that we’re working on as a district.”
Hawkins said that, from the last update that the representatives from the behavior council gave to the board during the May 6 board meeting, they have been completing a lot more training and there’s currently no formal information to be shared with the public or with the board.
“So, while we had planned a meeting six months ago, we didn’t have a set of information that was new and relevant to share that already hadn’t been shared with the board,” said Hawkins.
She added that part of the discussion was also alerting the board that the behavior council had to cancel its May 9 training because of end-of-the-year activities and testing but will have a training session on Thursday.
This was a reason why she and board President Patti Garibay proposed that the meeting be postponed because there would be no time in between for the council to meet again and discuss what they would share and discuss at the special meeting.
Another reason was that, because the meeting was scheduled for the last week of school, Hawkins said it was thought that it would not be as impactful and effective for families, teachers involved, or school social workers because of the school year ending.
The date for a future meeting to discuss behaviors has not yet been determined at this time, said Hawkins. She added that the goal is for the behavior council to determine recommendations for the school sites after they have completed all their training.
