Schools

Meeting Notes: School Committee Reviews Interim Concussion Policy

The Medfield School Committee reviewed the draft of an interim concussion policy and received an update on the FY13 budget at Monday's meeting.

Bob Maguire, Medfield’s Superintendent of Schools, discussed the need for the School Committee to adopt an interim policy on concussions by Jan. 1 and a final policy in March during Monday’s meeting.

"There really are good procedures that are in place [in the Medfield School District]," said Maguire. "The thing that we weren’t as clear on in understanding is that there needs to be a School Committee policy in place. We are not the only ones in that position. The Department of Public Health actually has put out some clarifications for what is actually required of school committees to be done."

Maguire said there have been "several" school districts across the Commonwealth that currently do not have a School Committee policy on concussions and the Department of Public Health recognized the breakdown in communication. As a result, Maguire said the deadlines for creating policies has been extended.

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"What [the Department of Public Health has] done is indicated if a school committee has an interim policy in place by Jan. 1, then that’s acceptable," Maguire said. "They’ve extended the deadline through March for final adoption of a final policy to accommodate what’s been confusing on this issue."

Medfield already had several concussion policies in place prior to the start of the 2011-2012 school year, according to Maguire and that has provided a strong foundation to create an interim and final policy for the School Committee.

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"The good news is our folks have actually been pretty aggressive in this area, even before some of the mandated requirements occurred," Maguire said. "Our athletic trainer actually is someone that has a great deal of interest and expertise in all of this and she has been doing a lot of work on it with the athletic department."

Maguire presented the committee with information on concussions from the Department of Public Health Regulations and a draft of the policy was distributed to committee members to review and facilitate discussion.

"I’m hoping this will be very close to the final format," Maguire said of the draft presented to the School Committee at Monday's meeting. "[Maguire's administration has] done some very good work on it and I think this might be very close to what the actual policy is. Beyond that, there actually are procedures that tie into it."

Maguire said those procedures were in place at the start of the school year.

"It’s mentioned in student handbooks, there’s been training going on with coaches and athletes," Maguire said. "There are procedures for what has to happen if someone sustains a head injury in terms of getting signed off by the athletic trainer in terms of medical personnel."

Concussions and head injuries have been a hot topic around sports, both professionally and at the youth and school levels over the last year and districts across the Commonwealth and the country are addressing the issue.

"The state passed new regulations fairly quickly last year,” Maguire said. “There’s been a rising interest in the issue of head injury around sports. There were some regulations that were passed [statewide] in a fairly speedy manner that required implementation of procedures for the current school year."

The goal, according to Maguire, is to have the School Committee review the draft and be prepared to vote to adopt it as its interim policy at the Dec. 19 meeting.

"My folks have been working as a committee on what we hold as policies," Maguire said. "The athletic director, trainer, school nurse and principal have been involved in printing out what they are doing this year. They have an outline of this but when we found out we needed a policy from [the school] committee [so] we formulated [the interim policy] draft."

FY13 Budget Recommendation Expected to be Presented Dec. 19:

Maguire said he was “cautiously optimistic” in the early stages of drafting a budget recommendation to the School Committee because of some positive trends he and his administrative team have seen.

“In the big picture, some of the trends that we have seen are more positive than over the last few years and I’m hopeful that we will have something that will meet the needs of the system moving forward, advance what we think are some important priorities in the school system and hopefully also something that works financially,” Maguire said.

The superintendent said the plan is to meet with the town’s Warrant Committee in the “next week or so” and be ready to present a budget recommendation to the school committee at the Dec. 19 meeting.

“Still working away at it,” Maguire said of the FY13 budget recommendation. “We are scheduling a meeting with the Warrant Committee.”

Action Items:

  • The School Committee voted to approve the Blake Middle School trip to Washington D.C. Committee chair Susan Ruzzo said the trip is "similar to that of the last several years" and Maguire added: "[the middle school staff has] worked hard to litigate cost and provided a schedule of the trip."
  • The School Committee agreed to "table" the meeting minutes for Sept. 19 because they did not have enough members present to vote.

 Maguire Presents Updated List of School Committee Subcommittees:

Maguire presented an updated version of the subcommittees to members Monday. Updates include adding the liasons to the Warrant Committee, removing Susan Cotter's name from the subcommittees and school committee lists and updating expiration dates to contracts.

"There’s been some shifting as to who’s on the School Committee," Maguire said. "I just wanted to circulate the list. We don’t need to make any decisions [Monday. This is just for your information."

School Committee member Debbie Noschese was absent from Monday's meeting.


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