Brookline committee formalizes Steps to Success partnership, expands service grades and adds year‑round school access

The Brookline School Committee approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Steps to Success (STS Inc.) that formalizes an existing partnership, expands the grade range served and adds operational detail for program access to school facilities.

Bella (S4) presented the MOU and said its purpose is to affirm mutual commitment and coordination between PSB and STS Inc. to work strategically toward closing achievement gaps and fostering educational equity for students from low‑income families. The MOU’s notable changes include expanding the program’s served grades from grades 4–8 to grades 3–8 and adding explicit language that PSB will provide after‑school academic support for SDS elementary and middle school students — a practice the parties said is already in place.

Operational changes in the MOU include a provision that PSB will provide STS with dedicated desk/office space for executive staff and program staff and that STS staff will receive ID badges to allow appropriate year‑round access to buildings used for programming, including summer operations. Committee members and presenters said these are practical additions to reflect current practice and to remove ad hoc dependence on building staff or security for entry.

Members probed legal and procurement questions and whether the MOU required bidding; the committee concluded the document clarifies a unique shared staffing and program relationship and is not a procurement requiring bid processes. The transcript records a question about whether Steps historically charged for specific offerings (AHU) and discussion confirmed some features previously had fees but that the current arrangement for the described services was presented as free in this context.

Because the MOU references a related data‑sharing agreement — which the committee found contains an automatic renewal clause — members asked staff to align the renewal language so the agreements are consistent. Staff also corrected the named PSB data contact in the data‑sharing agreement: the originally cited 'senior director of data and strategy' position does not exist, so the deputy superintendent for the office of teaching and learning (and, through that office, a new director of data and information systems when hired) will be the designated contact.

Vote and next steps
The committee voted to approve the MOU and related documents as amended. Staff was asked to return with aligned language for automatic renewal and to implement the operational accommodations (ID badges and workspace) for STS staff.

Provenance: Presentation and debate on the MOU appear in transcript passages from SEG 188 through SEG 369 and the motion and vote are recorded in SEG 434 through SEG 721.