10.16.2023 Fall River School Committee

um I'd like to call to order the Monday October 16th regular meeting of the Fara school committee um Deb would you please call the rooll Mr ago here Mr B here here M jart here miss larav here M Perera here M Rodricks here mayor Coogan here I'd also like to announce that um school committee man agar is joining us remotely salute to the flag please pledge allegiance to the flag of the

United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God IND indivisible with liberty and justice for all pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medum attendees are therefore advis that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by

those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible um we have no we have no citizens input tonight no we don't um recognition Awards we have two tonight so we'll go down and join them at the microphone

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good evening everyone tonight I have the distinct pleasure of um honoring two Scholars dery Scholars uh we have another one next month who is not able to be with us today but we have two Scholars who will uh are we are being joined by and they will be uh honored by the Association Mass Association of school superintendant they will be receiving a certificate of academic Excellence so the first scholar to be

awarded um is to be honored is Fahim azimi fahem is extremely bright and hardworking student who was ranked number two in his class he is very polite kind and unassuming Fahim has never settled for what is easy but all sought out opportunities to challenge himself he will have taken 11 AP courses by the end of this school year he has taken nine AP exams and scored five on on all but two exams he also earned a

perfect score on the math section of the SAT Fahim is a questbridge prep scholar and last year received the ren slair book award and was recognized as an AP scholar with distinction fim's hard work and dedication to his academics dery high school and the fall Riv Community extends beyond the classroom Fahim is a volunteer in our learn to serve program and a volunteer with scientific minds of America

through which he tutors students in grades 6 through 12 in math and science he started the computer science club and is a member of the astronomy club this past summer farim commuted to Boston five days a week to attend a summer Scholars Program at the broad Institute of MIT and Harvard there he did Cutting Edge research in the field of computational biology under the mentorship of broad scientists Fahim is

going places Fahim is an exceptional motivated young man who works hard for everything that he achieves and takes nothing for granted he hopes to attend MIT and major in either computer science or aerospace engineering congratulations

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agree if you can just wait right over there so we can take a picture okay thank you our next um recipient is Emma McDonald Emma is number one uh she's an exceptional student and is number one of the class of 2024 Emma has ranked number one in her class since she was a freshman she's goal oriented and has the motivation and focus needed to accomplish anything she sets her mind to

Emma will have taken six AP classes and accumulated 30 college credits by the time she graduates she has earned all A's or higher in all of those classes Emma was the recipient of the Harvard book award as a junior Emma approaches every situation with an open mind she is kind and has a welcoming nature to her other students gravitate towards her because of her positivity she is

dedicated to changing the culture of our school and the community Emma is part of our uh a group of students looking to change the S stigma around mental health she has compassionate and helped establish the Kyle cares dery cares Foundation a club where she serves as president and volunteers to give back to those in need Emma encourages her classmates and teammates with her positive presence she's a team captain

on her soccer team and takes on leadership roles throughout her High School career she is always willing to step up to help staff and students she sat on a panel in front of hundreds of students to talk about her experience in AP courses she has given tours to incoming freshmen she has also written thoughtful letters to teachers and students because kindness matters Emma plans to pursue business as

her major in college she hopes to attend a college in a warm sunny state where she can fully immerse herself in the college environment congratulations Emma

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where's the agenda I left it up there my agenda okay um subcommittee reports we have one tonight uh special education alternative education subcommittee uh Mr agar please so uh excuse me we had a meeting on Friday night uh it was attended by Miss Pereira and Miss Roger and myself we vetted several proposals that are on the agenda today and we vetted those positively one for People Incorporated

and one for Youth Court in addition we got an update from assistant superintendent for special education Mrs obenchain related to a special ed curri ulum that we might have two different ones going on but she's going to be working with uh all the stakeholders to come up with the best plan for the curriculum uh for the following year in our district we did have a few items table that we will be meeting again on

October 30th before the next school committee meeting and uh I do appreciate everyone taking the time out of their day on a Friday night to attend thank you Mr agar um before I do the superintendent's report I do want want to introduce uh two people joining us tonight our student delegates um Faith cadiro representing dery and Amalise akondo from RPA thank you guys for joining us they

have something to report out each one oh why don't you guys go go ahead first uh amise you have you have anything to report out I'm sorry you all set yeah go ahead okay so I'm on Myas I'm from RPA and I'm going to be reporting that we're doing Spirit Week this month and it starts next week on the 23rd um we're also doing ribbons orange ribbons that represent um gun violence

and we're going to be handing them out on Wednesday so hopefully everybody participates in that and then in Miss banders we're doing um A school-based coping skills group so she picked the top eight girls top best eight girls to do it to kind of represent in a way to show students how to manage their anger and stuff in a more calmer and healthier way and that's what we're doing for this month thank

you very nice um uh next up we have faith uh cadero from dery go ahead Faith all right hi everybody I'm the student body president from dery and I would like to report that we recently had a CL fair that introduced The Freshman to all the clubs that dery offers um also our dery CT program where passion meets purpose has already opened up the Granite Grill and elevation Salon to the

public and the Early Learning Center which I'm a student in has hit Max Capacity in all three rooms infants Toddlers and preschool there's also a new Criminal Justice class that they hope to make a CTE program for students interested and the unified basketball um started on October 12th with a win against against new Beford and for sports senior nights are October 16th for golf October 19th for girls soccer

October 20th for field hockey October 25th for volleyball and October 26th for unified basketball very nice I want to thank both of them I did take them out of order we did item six so um that's my fault um but I will right now go back to item number five which is um the superintendent report thank you so um first off for our hiring update since our September school committee meeting

we have hired um 108 staff 24 of those are teachers eight administrators 56 par professionals six education support staff and 14 operation support staff we have also had 26 resignations um 10 teachers two administrators 11 par of professionals um uh two educational support and one um operations uh support staff our current openings currently reflect that we have three psychologist positions one special

ed supervisor four ad admin positions um available we also have six teach 60 teaching teaching positions some of uh are coaches or intervent interventionists but of those we have um a need for ESL staff um we have three Early Childhood uh prek uh positions available two Elementary uh some math positions science uh special education positions and uh Speech uh and language uh pathology positions and in addition

we have two Tech positions available so um We are continuing with the work of hiring um we have been uh very active with um recruitment um uh and uh Mr Coogan is actually reaching out to uh our neighboring uh colleges to actually try to get in there um prior to the December graduations to try to do some recruiting also as for the enrollment update um I can uh say that we have uh to date today

we have 10,638 students and that's an increase from last year we had 10,447 last year at this time um our uh we have our El students we we have 2396 and that's 22.5% and that's also an increase from last year we had 21.3% or 2,222 um our uh specialed um students we have uh 2,65 or 24.6% and that's an increase from last year at this time where we had 21.7% or 2,268 um student registrations are still

going strong it's a year-long process um we want parents to know that if they have to register a child please remember that you need to go to our parents and Community engagement Center on Race streets not at individual schools sometimes uh parents think they just go to the nearest school and that's a given we have to it's a numbers um thing we have to figure out and we have to get

all the documents necessary to place the child so we encourage our parents to pre-register online um which will shorten the process and then some from Pace will call folks to come in to finalize registration and to place the child in the school and that's all I I do have one question how we with those uh numbers jumping up a couple hundred how are we doing for space um well um

space is all it depends on the grade level right but we are um I would say it's pretty uh we our schools are pretty maxed out okay well more work I'm going to ask for a motion in a second on approve approval of minutes item number 7 from 9123 motion to approve second I have a motion to Second any discussion on those minutes hearing none Deb please call the

RO Mr agel yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Miss lar yes Miss Pereira yes Miss Rodricks yes mayor Coogan yes item number eight is the approval of travel requests um do I have any discussion on any of the travel requests motion to approve second chairman um Mr agar just uh came up on one of our uh meetings relative to this that I thought the policy would be to allow like a

coach or a team to travel and I don't think that it was clear to the superintendent so I think we should right clear that up while we have the full body okay U Madam superintendent if I can clarify you're right Mr uh agar I think that what we said was um we had a situation at dery where um a last minute uh offered for to take a team for scrimmage in Rhode

Island in Portsmouth uh which is nearby and usually our policy is that you have to go before the school committee to any out of state requests this particular first request was it was a field trip um on a Saturday they were going to watch a college game so I know the committee uh intended for us to be able to take G um kids to games within the area we didn't want to assume that that included just

because it was a team outing that we could do that if that's the will of the committee then certainly we can do that but we W that's why I had reached out to all of you just to make sure that we were following process yeah it' be my opinion that it should it's the coach is watching the kids so I take that as part of the team so I for one would say that it's a lot

smoother if we don't have all of these things added but I'll let whatever happens with the committee I would be in favor of including it as a a team event since it was the supervisor was the coach and it seems like it's part of coaching a team so what would you add into what we've already approved Mr agar athletic uh events like so I don't consider it a field trip for school I

would consider this part of the sports program where I think we said Rhode Island and right I'm not sure where we we had made a policy that included for games scrimmage games and the like I would also consider this to be part of a an activity for the cours so I I I I support Mr agar's uh amendment to our existing policy I just don't know we have to vote on it but we can do that

right now and make sure we're done with it once and for all um I I will second Mr agar's um motion to amend it for field trips for sporting events for kids any discussion on that Deb could you call the role Please Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart m l yes Miss Pereira yes M Rodricks yes mayor Coogan yes now back to the rest of the travel requests any further discussion on

those um do we have a motion a second Deb motion okay uh hearing none Deb please call the role Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr har M larv yes M Perera yes M rodri yes mayor Coogan yes um donations I skipped over that I got contracts I jumped a couple guys item number nine is the acceptance of donations um we have a number of them anybody have any discussion on any of

those donation items before we have the superintendent read them we'll take a motion in a second first motion to accept donations motion second I have a motion to Second uh any discussion on the donations Deb call the role Please Mr yeah yes Mr Bailey yes Mr har Miss larv yes M Perera yes M Rodricks yes mayor Coogan yes uh superintendent Pont okay from the University of Connecticut to follow Republic schools $ 22428

45 uh from Bristol County Savings Bank to dery high school and our Pace um Center on behalf of Mr dearis and Miss Kudo we accept $20,000 donation and from various donors to the athletic department dery girls soccer program uh Mr Brad buston accepts $732 to be used for t-shirts bench coats um sweatshirts um and practice gearar and from the Faller Lodge of Elks to the fall of public schools Dr br johard uh

assistant superintendent accepts $500 donation um towards the annual back to school block party and from United um Union United Methodist Church to Green Elementary School Dr Liz Dunn accepts uh donation of homework bags thank you everyone thank you Mr chairman Mr agar just uh as I was just listening to this I don't know if it's there but in the past we've had uh a policy that you

need to say where the donation from and the one from dery just I don't know if it's a a mistake but it says donated by an it doesn't say who and in the past the committee has uh wanted to know what where that's from I don't know if anybody has it's Bristol County Savings my my agenda has Bristol County Savings Mr agar okay I got that I got that for the

20,000 yeah they yeah they divot it up third one it says on behalf of athletic director Brad buston request 7,312 donated by a it doesn't say anything oh is it the same thing list was provided which was attached as back says various donors right and the list was provided as backup the the list of donors was provided in the backup if three pages I believe of donors okay that's fine just it doesn't

say it on the agenda and I'm that's what I'm looking at thank you thank you Mr agar number 10 is the approval of contracts uh we have on two pages we have a number of contracts anybody have any issues on any of our contracts hearing none Mr agar are we doing just the new ones first the first couple yeah oh yeah the first two of the new ones evolve and John Deere we we hold on

there's six of them yes oh amals has to be taken but M Mr Mayor can we take out I I would like to the committee to pull evolve out because that's an um an executive session item and we can come back and take a vote on that all right so all the contracts listed except for the first one involved Mr agar John de and Carnegie warning you want to take out John Deere and what's

the other one I'm sorry Carnegie carneg learning Carnegie Learning I have two holds on John Deere and Carnegie Learning Miss R Miss Rod can we pull out St Vincent Services Under the continuations I just St Vincent Services okay so we have three holds right now anything else all right I'll accept a motion and a second on the others motion to approve second I have a motion to Second uh Deb would you please

call the role Mr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M lar yes Miss Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor kouan yes yeah I just want to make people aware Paul Hart had an uh unexpected emergency he ran out he may rejoin us we'll see if he comes back but with that being said the first one pulled Mr agar John dear yeah I would just like an explanation on this uh it looked like it

was for turf fields and I'm when I read it I'm not sure if that's what it was oh um can we do that he's doing there's also the CPA meeting for um he's doing it Zoom next door so can you do the others and we can come back all right Mr a we're going to come back to John di because Mr Pico had to go next door for something else for a couple of

minutes so let's go to the can I just ask the superintendent it might be a simple question this is it said it was for the Fields is this the piece of equipment that takes the little rubber things out and and moves them or is it I I not know that I I don't know Mr AAR I I want to be honest I don't know so I I I'd like to wait for Mr

P thank you okay so the next one that was a hold was Carnegie Learning yep so I think is is this anywhere else in the agenda is there is there anywhere else it's it's not a discussion it's not a discussion item if that's what you're asking right it's a contract we've already we've done Carnegie discussion items but this is an additional contract to support um the math instruction at um

resiliency yeah and I just if we're looking at systems and protocols on I think they should be at a subcommittee or at some committee before it comes to the meeting we're going to spend $75,000 and we would have just roted it on a yes on a one pager with no information and then down below even more we're going to spend 411,000 more for carige learning for also for online um tutoring that I think needs to be

vetted before we determine it so I don't think we should be just sitting on a contract this this a lot of money and never mind the one for RPA that begs a lot of questions yeah I would say that the one for RPA is the one that is time all of it is time sensitive but um as you know that we are struggling uh with Math teachers and this will allow students to receive

instruction from Folks at Carnegie so if if you want us to we actually have an instructional subcommittee meeting scheduled certain U on Monday so if if you want us to do that we can give you but we will have to wait until um next month to bring the Contra contract forth well I'm not trying to stop it what it is it's just that we're saying we're going to work out systems and yep

you know I have questions on why do we need this do we not have featers uh the other part of it is what happened all across the district what was the data on how much success or not have we had with this like it it this doesn't seem like a very simple oh we're going to go once once a day and the kids are going to go and they're going to learn math from a tutor

and if you read the materials it says they need to have a work with an experienced teacher or a a teacher in the classroom that's going to be able to help facilitate this this isn't just an automatic uh all of a sudden we're going to spend 75 grand and then everybody's going to learn math what do we do with uity what are the numbers for uity classes that we're already paying for are all the

kids in math taking AG genuity classes so certainly um Dr Curley and Miss Patterson are here here they could answer questions or as I said if you want to you can refer it to the subcommittee um but it it is live teaching virtual live teaching for um the uh math instruction do do you want those two to address it Mr agar are they're at the podium I don't know if you can see them

I can't see them but if we're not going to address it then make a motion to table that's all well let's see what this not something that should be just thrown on us at at a meeting right let let's let's see what um Dr Curley and Mrs Patterson say sure thank you I will uh I'll address the clear math um first that actually that is the most immediate need um the backup that went um that was

provided to school committee just um explained that RPA does not have any licensed Math teachers on staff at this point we do have um the need for there are four open positions so we have had an ongoing contract for professional development with Carnegie for the roll out of our Carnegie math solution in grades 6 through 12 but this is a separate contract and it's actually to provide instruction to teachers because

there aren't any Math teachers at RPA and so the roll out would include live instruction for students four days a week in a blended environment where half the class is receiving that live instruction while the other half of the class is engaging in um work on the computer through Maia under um the supervision and facilitated by a staff member from RPA in the absence of the live teaching

that would happen um in the virtual model through clear math that instruction would be provided by a par professional in the room we have invested quite a bit of money in the district for our secondary implementation of Carnegie and for the most part that's been training Math teachers um at the middle and high school level over the past couple of years um there is kind of live coaching happening in classrooms there's

professional development there's planning going on with teachers at RPA that has taken the form of planning with par professionals and we are trying to put live licensed teachers in front of students supported by par par professionals instead of their providing the instruction this is actually a 9-week contract um and we're looking at it to do two things I mean we're looking at hopefully um buy some time so that we

can find licensed teachers for the students at RPA um as well as it is a actually a support to the par professionals that are there because they'll see the modeling of that live teaching on a daily basis uh I I I have a um I have a question I was just asking the superintendent how long is this contract for it 411 how long is it nine weeks the focus of the contract is for

um the like the the core math classes in the early grades especially in preparation for those um you know the the middle in algebra and geometry classes um in those tested grades at RPA trying to prepare students for access to core Cor ulum and eventually taking that 10th grade math test mcast Mr AG you want to what's your position on this so so you're telling me that we have no

certified Math teachers at RPA and it's six weeks into the school year correct correct we've said this all along Mr AAR we have we have a math teacher shortage some some at dery also so I guess my question is why is this coming to us now if we knew we haven't had Math teachers since the start of the if it was if it was such an opportunity why is it just coming to us now last

year we had the same thing happen with special education we were told by this principal of that school not a different principal oh we don't have any special ed teachers at the school and there was the first the school committee hears of it is when this happens now I haven't seen anything I didn't read anywhere in here that there's about the seven weeks or nine weeks and so this 75 grand that

we're going to spend how is that going to help us if we still don't have any Math teachers well we are still trying to recruit and and interviewing we're still doing our due diligence we certainly didn't intend to start the year without teachers we always want a certified qualified person in front of our students we know that there is no program there's nothing that can replace that and we are continuing to try to

recruit um folks for there and all the open positions that we have so when we still I mean and Mr Riley's been uh interviewing when we found that we still are not getting the qualified people candidates that we need to we need to have a short-term plan and still continue to try to hire and recruit um some people for those positions it was never Our intention to have a complete you know virtual math

program we have reached out and we're struggling like many other districts so separate from this have they been do utilizing uity for their all their math classes in full no no we are our our plan I mean what we're trying to do is support students to access the same curriculum that's available to students um in our other middle and high schools and so that that's the Carnegie curriculum so for the last six weeks

we've had no teachers no math certified Math teachers and you guys are here today to say we need this to move forward but we have it's still not going to duplicate a teacher but we have a uity which we pay for and you're telling me that all of these students that have math classes are not utilizing Edgenuity at a minimum which is not as good as a real teacher but it's certainly better than

nothing now all a sudden we're going to pay these people after six weeks for nine weeks that we're not going to have any money later is this what the math like the plan was for the year I know it's can't be the plan was to be able to hire licensed teachers to deliver the curriculum that we've purchased and to be supported by the professional development for which we've contracted

but in the absence of that as I started with we have been actually working with par professionals at RPA because just like at other schools we have par professionals who are substit teaching as as teachers and we've tried to support them in the same way that we've been supporting teachers throughout the district but you know as time goes on and we realize it is a heavy lift to provide that daily instruction um even

given some very very intense professional development we are looking at other options and this is the best short-term option that we have as we look for licensed teachers can I hear from Miss Patterson she's the director of math correct yes yes hello so hi as Dr Curly's mentioned I've been working with the individuals who were in place we had an instructional support liaison and we

also had someone who was licensed but not licensed in math they were working with me through PLC so the Hope was to continue to grow their capacity through the nine weeks and within the nine weeks we were also hopeful that we would have applicants in the best case scenario those applicants would come in and work with the virtual teacher they'd be able to see the structure of Carnegie the

rituals and routines and then it would be an easier transition for them to implement the curriculum this would be in place in hopes that we would retain these teachers because they would have this additional support in the building so for the first 6 weeks of school there was just professional development I guess that's what the answer is like is that all it was for that school to in

math is uity is does uity have a math class does I don't yes it's not aligned to carnegi but they have a math class we were trying to keep our kids aligned and have the kids RPA have the same access that the kids at dery have we certainly the kids are getting instructed but uh and Mrs Patterson's been working with the folks that are there but we know that we

need to have a short-term plan and a long-term plan we are struggling to hire certainly was not intended to have kids in front of a computer but as you know um we've made no secret about the fact that we are struggling to hire special ed teachers and Math teachers and it was an are you going are you going to uh transfer anyone to RPA then to teach math from other schools we

don't we don't have people to transfer to RPA to teach math because we have shortages as I said in other places also I wish we had you're absolutely right I wish we did but you understand my point is that if you're saying we need equality then at least we should be saying we're going to at least give them something whether it's these people are going to teach 30 minutes a week for

$76,000 or 30 minutes a day by what I read or an hour a day to teach for $76,000 why don't we pay somebody that's working for us some of that money to to come down and teach for an hour or one period or two periods or whatever it is I just think we're jump into this because we don't know what else to do and the uity is not perfect but when I

hear that we haven't used that genuity to even try to get them continuing our math it just tells me this was just uh not a good situation so I'm not going to vote for this because of that reason and I yield any further discussion on Carnegie I have a question oh God sorry go ahead sh Miss perea Miss Pro sorry um okay nine weeks starting when ending when you said nine weeks right

was that correct yes so if it were approved we could have it as early as the end of this week to roll out and then it would be nine weeks n weeks from the start date does that not count holidays that doesn't bring us to Christmas does it we're getting we're getting every dime for this because this is not cheap obviously you know that so he's Kevin U Mr agar had mentioned one hour of

instruction a day is that like how many classes in other words in a day is this going to so this would this would cover all of the geometry sections there's three there's two Algebra 2 you have two eighth grade sections a seventh and a seventh grade section eth and seventh so about seven or eish math classes this is going to help classes and this would be two instructors from within the building

that would be trained on it because one of the instructional support Liaisons who's been working with me to understand Carnegie how to plan a lesson she would be covering two of the three geometry and the algebra too the other would go to um a par professional who's in the building okay and what would happen is this would happen as as Dr Curley said four days a week it would be 30 minute

rotations so so in a class of 14 you would have eight in front of virtual six on matthia then they would do a rotation within 30 minutes okay um what was the other question I had I know where I know we haven't had a math teacher there you know we're struggling getting Math teachers so the question of why we couldn't grab a qualified you know a licensed math teacher from dery and hop over

is that an issue with Staffing and dery is it a is it a contractual issue yes that is an issue we actually have if you recall we actually have some teachers at dery that we are um that are we are buying their prep and they're taking on an extra section because we're short people there too they picked up extra classes yes right but they have at least one math teacher how many RPA doesn't have any

right right okay so I'm just I don't disagree with what Mr agar is saying in terms of if we let's put it this way we have five qualified great Math teachers but we're going to put them all at dery that I have an issue with so I don't know if it's a contract thing with teachers in the union like if you get a job at dery you stay there or what the

deal is or if we can share but I I don't disagree with that but that's not the point right now because the point right now is this is the situation we're in I'm all about dealing with the situation at hand situation at hand is we have a school that doesn't have a math teacher and every day those kids are falling a little bit more and more behind and what

they need to learn to pass you know the mcast or whatever test they need to do to graduate to go on and to succeed today a young lady was just sitting here who intends to go to college to get a business degree with a cosmetology degree pretty sure she should be getting some good math instruction at the RPA so although it is very unfortunate that we don't have Math teachers certainly

that's it's not your fault it's not my fault there's teacher shortage there's a math teacher shortage we have a lot of issues to get more teachers to want to come here for sure and it's definitely something we need to be doing because that is option one this is option two but I also understand that yes we're six weeks in and you tried to manage it a certain way and we haven't

hired teachers so now you have all these balls in the air and we're trying to figure it out as best we can for these kids so sometimes this is the best situation so I see no issue moving forward I don't want to see this tabled we need to get this going um and then we really really need to somehow come up with some sort of recruiting system because we need teachers desperately

this needs to be top priority I don't I don't know what we got to do but we got to do something um I have nothing else with that I yield okay um Mr Rogers so most of my questions were answered but in terms of the $75,000 contract um I do want to just reiterate though I think with what Mr AR was trying to say and please correct me if I'm wrong that

it's just a little bit frustrating that it's time sensitive and we knew that we didn't have Math teachers at the beginning of the year like when August came we knew we didn't have Math teachers so it's just a little bit frustrating that it comes before us in October six weeks into the year when we knew it before and why this couldn't have been an option for the September meeting because we knew going into the

school year that we didn't have math teach so it didn't come as a surprise no am I correct in saying that that's the frustration Mr agar yes absolutely and it's also for grade seven and eight it's not only for the high school which I just read yes I can't hear them at all I'm sorry Kevin I couldn't hear you at all it's also for grades seven and eight he was saying okay it's not just the high

school so I I yield on that um I agree that our kids need to have um they need to have some kind of instruction but again I go back to you like we knew this in August and so why why did we wait until October to bring this forward well obviously I think the Hope was they would hire hopeful that we would have I get that but we've been without Math teachers for quite some

time this isn't a new problem I agree any further discussion motion to approve chairman hold on I have a motion to approve do I have a second then Mr I have a motion to approved by Shelly everybody second nobody give me a second all right I can second it I'll second it go ahead m r uh Mr agar go ahead so uh through this conversation we pay for a program I'm

not sure if the members of the committee are aware of this called uity and it's basically an online class where the students can go on the computer and they watch a a teacher teach the lesson they can work on things on the on their own with the teacher with a par professional or whoever and they can actually start to work through some math lessons granted a professional teacher certified teacher would be

better but we currently pay for this program for all of the students at the RPA school it's what we use for summer school and all the like it defies any logic at all how we not at least using this program to have the kids exposed to some sort of math where they can do something on TV on the computer with a teacher gred it's not perfect I just want to clarify AG genuity does not have live

teaching they're not going to get live teaching virtual live teaching okay so uity is not worth anything they're not I'm not saying that all I'm saying is it's it's not the same thing they're not going to get live teaching from a teacher it's they're not going to be in front of the computer and get instruction that's all I I agree with superintendent this has nothing to do with the current wanting to go to this

program for nine weeks at $150 an hour what I'm talking about is since the summer when we knew we didn't have teachers you go on Edgenuity and they're not a live teacher but they're actually a video of them teaching a lesson related to whatever the topic is so that kids could at least see that the teacher can see that or the par professional can see that and try to work with kids to

get them through these modules to move somewhere we currently pay for the service and we're not using it and that defies any logic whatsoever that's all I'm saying we're not using it and we're paying for it if other committee members think that that's okay then vote for it but we we're paying for something that we're not using and it six weeks in and now we're hearing about it today it's just not

okay CL uh Trac can I just make a statement I I don't want anyone to think that students in grades um in the seventh 8th grade algebra 1 geometry Algebra 2 classes at RPA have not been receiving math instruction they have the instructional support liaison and instructional support liaison and Par professionals and the licensed special educator who was teaching math um those people were all being supported and

continue to be supported to deliver the curriculum that we that we have throughout the rest of the district so that like our aim has been to provide high quality instructional materials to all of our students in the district regardless of their school and we have been supporting people at RPA to use those high quality instructional materials I 100% believe that those materials delivered by a supported

paraprofessional or instructional support liaison at RPA is more effective than uity when we're talking about students trying to access grade level material for the first time I think uity is something that can be used for credit recovery when some students have had exposure to grade level work but it is not a high quality instructional resource that we want to put in front of masses of kids for firsttime instruction

I I I can't endorse it Mr agar can I just add in that there's a component of Carnegie called matthia which is digital so the students have been engaging in that where there are videos it takes them through a step-by-step process the hope would be that this would just be an additional support where now the people in the room would have support with the textbook and that component of it okay one second Mr

Miss Pera yeah I just wanted again I'm sorry I guess you kind of just clarified this but that was my question I guess before you spoke I want to make sure that it's real clear because I know there was math classes going on there I know some of the people who was teaching the math classes there so I know was happening so I don't want people to get the impression that we weren't providing

math but we weren't providing math to the Quality that those children deserved because we do not have the appropriate teachers and at this point you were hoping praying that the school would give you teachers and we didn't not me personally but you know what I mean teachers weren't hired you hoped and they didn't show up so now this is Plan B this is Plan B but these students were getting math yes before okay yes all

right and now this would put a certified math teacher not necessarily from this state but they are certified in curriculum they're trained by Carnegie they also give feedback and there's a component where they would interact with parents yeah and the principal in the and this other um Ingenuity that uh Mr agya had brought up we are still using that but you're saying it's it's better used for program recovery or for

tutoring or for after you've already been exposed to a math concept and you've you know got that sort of uh instructional piece then you can go use this to revisit and and sort of like solidify your skills is that what you're saying so are we still using that cuz we like to use the things that we spend money on yeah so it is being used it's just not it's not being us for this okay

cuz it's not what you feel would be the best to think okay thank you Mr agar yeah so if I was watching this presentation I would say the presentation started that what we're doing isn't working and we don't have any certified teachers so we need to do something drastic like hire somebody at $150 an hour $75,000 for 9 weeks then then I start asking a few questions and then it comes into no it's actually been

working really well that we've been doing this and we've been training Paris and we've been doing all this stuff so the kids are getting quality instruction even though I just said 10 minutes ago that we're not then I look at the document that came out from the administration it says the school is unable to provide and support students access to grade level work in Core Mathematics courses this comes from the

same Administration who's just saying how we're we're still doing it we're providing all this stuff with the combination of a couple people or one special ed teacher and it doesn't the things are not adding up the way that I'm reading this that we waited this long and we're just not I just don't understand how we can and we were going to put this on without discussion can you imagine that I I just to me that me

was just unacceptable from me from my stance the more as often as we keep hearing about high quality instructional materials that are going to solve the all the problems in in Fall River Public Schools our score should be to the roof because we've been talking about this like it's going to be a savior so I'm just getting a little aggravated with the same discussion all the time and this one here should have came to a

subcommittee before we should have brought this up ahead of time not the day before the two days before a meeting with that idea I don't disagree really with with any of that I do think it deserved a larger um and a more in-depth discussion without a doubt um um the what I would say is I really equate this to when we contract out work when we're bringing in when we contract with

outside agencies to bring in special Educators to bring in par professionals and we know that we technically overpay we're we are spending more money on those contracts than we spend for our follower Public Schools Employees that's what we're asking to do we're asking to subcontract out the work to Carnegie to provide the instruction to students while we continue to look for staff members

that that is it I'm not going to I'm I'm not going to say that we've been providing the highest quality instruction that we would want to for our students um at RPA but we have a director here who has been spending a lot of time over at RPA and supporting we've been contracting with Carnegie to provide support to that support staff so that they could support students around the curriculum and it is not a long-term

solution the next step for us is to contract out the work to provide the instruction again a short-term solution while we continue to look for additional staff and see what we can do to provide it inhouse so in nine weeks we're not going to be back here again I'm sorry is that you're saying in nine weeks we're not going to be back here for an extension of this I hope we will not but I can't

say for sure y I understand any anybody have any further discussion on this item um we have I I mean it's a it's a rock in a hard place and I don't want those kids to get completely short changed uh get any supports you can into that school as far as I'm concerned so that's why it makes sense to me I kind of agree with Mr agar although this is

only our second meeting I know the goal in September was to get teachers in but Matt has just been brutal across the state and I've talked to other people that are in the same boat so we have a motion a second Deb we do huh we do um would you please call the RO Mr ago no Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Miss larv abstain Miss Pereira yes M rodri

yes mayor kouan yes the next whole um Mr uh Mr agar uh Mr Pico's rejoined us I know you can't see him um Mr Pico we had a hold on the first batch of contracts one was John Deere Mr aga's question was simply what's this machine do so it's uh it's a multi-purpose machine um that we will be using for snow removal uh at dery high school um uh ice prep for uh

sidewalks but it also will be used on the uh Playing Fields so we purchased about $100,000 worth of equipment um as part of the contract to take care of the turf fields and this is the unit that we'll will um these attachments will connect to so we have one unit already um this would give us a second unit to um stay primarily at dery while we will move the others around by trailer to

help with snow removal at the schools Mr Agia so the thing with uh the proper maintenance of the tur Fields this you bought some other equipment so it was part we we haven't bought it but it was part of the project so we had added all of the grooming equipment that we needed as part of the project we kept this piece out because it's not just for the fields and we're using it as a

supplementary piece to assist the second unit uh on the fields so we could basically groom all of the fields at dery um with these two pieces of equipment and then in the winter time use both pieces of equipment to do snow removal both at dery and probably Spencer Bardon and tany but the turf the um I don't know that it's like a vacuum or whatever to redistribute the rubber pellets that

they say is very important yeah so that's that already or we haven't yeah we have those we have those pieces of equipment so all the equipment we need all the equipment all the equipment we need for the turf we've purchased already yes already yes we have those on site that was my only question to say that we weren't buying something that we couldn't use so that makes sense and we have to maintain

those on a regular basis so thank you sir you're welcome any further discussion on the John Deere piece okay I'm looking for a motion in a second to approve motion to approve second Deb could you please call the rooll Mr Haya yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart m l yes Miss Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor cougan yes and the last hold was on St Vincent Services I believe that

was Miss Rogers I thought we had the other Carnegie Learning one first there were two Carnegie Learning we held both carnegies yeah okay I'm sorry the top one then is U Miss Rogers just pointed out the $411,000 okay so I have a question on that one um we we've contracted with them before we did that all of last year correct and so what I'm wondering is where is the data from what we received from from

them before we look at expanding into the elementary

schools so I'm not I actually I need to ask can we talk about this now can this get approved now before the grants okay this actually might be something that gets held until after approval of Grants because this is a grant funded program through the through the department of Ed so I I could have sworn I saw it under contracts it is because but the donations come after and not the donations the grants come um

after and this is a continuation Grant from last year okay so it was under contracts but we'll hold it until grants um my St Vincent's question I'm actually going to withdraw that because I misread something in there and I initially read it as we were um we were paying them for a life skills coach for us and I completely misinterpreted what I had read so I I'm withdrawing that question so then we'll go back to the

last hold which was St Vincent services that was the one that I just said that I'm with the question on that one so we now we'll take um so do we need a motion a second on can we just get an answer on what that is Mr chairman I'm sorry Mr Agia can we get an answer on what the St Vincent Services is um Mr uh Alid is coming up right now so

the St Vincent Services contract is the same same contract we have every year it's part of the title one allocation it's for the neglected and delinquent sites um and it's for services they provide for the students over there so it's it's one of those it's like a at their place it's not for us it's yeah yes it's showing up like it's for us but it's not necessarily for us it's it's

for them as part of the allocation in title one that's how I misread it yes right yeah just I don't see all of those come through here like this that's why you know if we pay is that because it's title one is that what the difference is well it's because I haven't seen a lot of these uh services like this don't they usually contract with the person and then we just pay the bill so we have

two so we have the for of a deist one and we have the St Vincent's one and because this one's over 25,000 that's why it's in front of you tonight I see thank you sir you're welcome anything further on St Vincent do I have a motion a second on that one no can I get a motion a second motion approve second I have a motion a second and Deb could you please call the

rooll Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Miss ly yes M Carrera yes M rodri yes mayor KGAN yes approval of Grants we have a number of Grants tonight uh one specifically was pointed out for Carnegie uh is any questions on any of the grants Mr chairman Mr AIA Title One and whatever one is uh is it the high quality instructional materials we just talked about okay so we have the title one the top

one I think it's the sixth one down high quality instructional materials any hold holds on any others I'm looking for a motion in a second to approve the others second I have a motion a second Deb could you please call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr jart Miss lar yes M Pereira yes M Rodricks yes mayor kouan yes okay so the first hold was on title one uh Mr Agia

yes so I'm just curious what the total is relative to what we budgeted and um can get a list of the whether it's more or less and where the other money's coming from while going Mr rer so the title one Grant increase from last year um the positions as far as the salaries and benefits go uh were just over $5 million um we have um funds that are allocated to the Catholic schools as

part of uh the funding in title one we have funds that go to St Vincent and to for of deaconness as we discussed uh but we do have some funding here in title one that we can use for profession professional development and other needs do we know how much that is I don't have the exact number Mr Agia but I can uh get that for you for the end of the week

yeah the only I asked this question of you at the budget when we said how do we know which positions yep and I believe you said that they were listed in the budget so that's only a followup to my other question so let's just suppose that there's $500,000 additional money that we got from Title One systems wise I don't see why when we get this allotment here we shouldn't get and this is not a

reflection on you Mr Al it's just a general comment Y that the whole committee would get something to say by the way we got title one and we had $500,000 more so this is $500,000 additional that we can allocate to something else that's why I was asking that maybe these other ones have the same type of uh situation sometimes they go up sometimes they go down but I think it would be a worthwhile one pager to

get so we can know as a committee what we have to spend otherwise so okay thank you sir thank you motion to approve title one second second I have motion to second on Title One any further discussion Deb would you please call the role Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M lar yes M Perera yes M Rodricks yes mayor cougan yes the next hold was on high quality instructional materials

um who who's going to talk first about that continu I'd like Mrs Roger questions answered personally um one of the we got Miss Curley we have um Dr Curley and Miss Patterson at the mic they're going to talk right now Mr AGA go ahead did you have a question or you want me to give you an overview of that wasn't my question my question was on Carnegie this is the high quality this

is the carneg that was separate okay sorry because it was under contracts that has me all that had me confused about where it was going got it the funding's coming from there so again my question is about what data do we have from when we've used this when we've already implemented this to support bringing this now into the elementary schools so at the secondary level um in terms of mcast data Dr Curley will talk

a little bit about that what I can say is the teachers that were supported consistently with the Carnegie coaches we have been able to retain and they've been able to provide onetoone support with those teachers where they're going in and they're coaching they're modeling and they're planning with them I don't have specific numbers about the retention rate but I do know the teachers that they've been coaching at

the secondary level um in high school I personally would like that information before I could vote on something for $400,000 because it is a pretty significant amount of money before we're going to bring that into the elementary schools I'd like to see what happens what has happened at the secondary schools just I just wanted to add the decision around adding this um for the next step this isn't a continuation

Grant or in the first part of the grant we had to provide an implementation plan to desie and just think through the steps that we would provide at the elementary level just in previous years we've usually been able to retain teachers so when you did have one or two teachers coming into any level Elementary or secondary you would have coaches work with them department heads work with them to build capacity over

the past two to three years with the change in the number of teachers that are coming in even though we do have department heads and some coaches in some places to provide the Diversified professional development that you need for all the teachers that are coming in this was the natural next step to supp our schools my yes I my point is just that I would like to see the thread of

how we get here from where we were before but we're approving the grant right so the the first piece here um we we had to hold the contract for Carnegie so that we could talk about the grant so as um Mrs Patterson was saying this is a continuation Grant from work that we did last year so um throughout the spring we met with teachers leaders did observations in classrooms focus group

surveys U to put together together an implementation plan for supporting the curriculum which which has been in place um the illustrative math curriculum at the elementary level and So based on feedback from all the stakeholders there were um you know at teacher surveys as I mentioned focus groups things like that based on their feedback we we contracted with Carnegie to actually support

implementation of Wonders uh I'm sorry of um illustrative math at the elementary level so your I I just want to be really clear about your question your question is what data did we have to support a continued to write a grant that would help us continue a partnership with Carnegie no my question was whether or not this was successful at the at the secondary levels because what the way

this was written was just that we were continuing this at the elementary school because we've partnered with them at the middle school and the price tag on it was for $111,000 so I wanted to know what data did we have to support that before we did that because that's how it's written I understand that you're saying it's it's um it's a continuation but where it's saying new contractual

Services that's how I'm reading it so I'm not trying to give you a hard time I'm telling you the way that it's written says that this is new contractual services and the cost is $411,000 so that's why I was asking the question okay okay that makes sense so I think for the the the first piece around the grant itself 483,000 in change that is a a grant that we received to support

the work that we're looking to do with Carnegie and so I I do understand what you're saying and so in terms of um in terms of the data to support it I mean we use the feedback from teachers and leaders in the spring to kind of develop the plan for what we would do and then we selected the vendor based on our previous experience right and I'm not trying to give you a hard

time about it it's it quite black and white says current partner but new contractual services so when I look at that I see we're paying now this is a new piece to this and we are now expected to Shell out 411,000 but there was no information attached to this aside from it's going to cost this much so that's why I'm asking the question and the invoice is attached I think the I think the additional information

potentially is in the grant like maybe the grant materials that are also attached but they come out of order and we didn't reference them yes so my question is clarified I appreciate that anything further the chairman Mr EG yeah so we had said this we had used the this grant last year for the middle and high school is that what happened already the original Grant was for written for the

elementary schools for the next steps with illustrative mathematics only at elementary this particular Grant yes the one we got last year the one that we was that for the one that we had last year was just for elementary so we had n none of this or we got a different grant for the high school it's different it's a different to cover the high school yes I'm Sorry Miss A you referring to RPA

or no when it's is saying it's just a continuation Grant so the continuation Grant 4,000 is continuing the same thing so the continuation Grant was at the elementary level for the implementation of ustr mathematics we had to write a continuation for this year we were bringing in Carnegie to support the next step of implementation with illustrative mathematics the only piece that they

would be supporting for this 401 they have professionals that are trained in illustrative mathematics we're really Contracting the service not the curriculum so they're going to be supporting teachers in onetoone support and planning but with the same resources they've been using for the past two to three years how much was the original grant that this is a continuation of roughly 300 it was a little over

300,000 for the elementary schools for the elementary schools and that was to provide professional development and to pay stiens for teachers when they attended and for any additional materials that we needed that aligned with illustrative mathematics so it paid for actually consumable supplies it paid for some consumables we had to order additional unit planning guides it paid for that

and then some additional resources in terms of books and when Miss Rodricks asked the question of how successful this was we don't have any data on that for the we spent $300 and some thousand and we don't have any data to say whether it's successful or not well we have our mcast data where you can see that there are Pockets AC across the district where they we've had success um again that's

dependent on licensed teachers and the support that they received what I have seen is at the secondary level with the coaching piece the teachers that have been providing consistent coaching from Carnegie we're more likely to retain those teachers so when when I look at this grant that we're in front of us one of the things the principles have to agree to says I agree to provide all necessary

data to support evaluation activities what does that mean if that's on the document that we have here signed by the principles they're signing off saying I agreed to provide all necessary data to support evaluation activities related to this grant partnership we've done observational walks I think it's it's cumulative so they're talking about observational data they're talking about data in terms of

checkpoints through IM they're talking about AET assessments so our observational data when we do walks with the leadership team we're able to see the work that the coaches are doing are having an impact I can provide you with a report that shows you all of the observations that were done by the leadership team with the Carnegie coaches and that leadership team and the growth from the beginning of the year

until the end of the year they provide me with a report at the be beginning middle and end so I can provide that to the committee I firmly understand what is happening we got a grant and we're going to use it for try to pay for this service and I understand that I can just tell you it's very frustrating when we are spending $400,000 and we're told we don't have any data to support the

positive nature of what it is I don't know is if could we have spent this money on anything else are we choosing to spend it only on this these are questions that I think should be answered and most times they should be answered at a subcommittee so that we don't have to get into these questions but I think everybody should be concerned about our math scores for sure and I'm not trying to say that we

we should add this 400,000 as long as it's being um positively impacted on the teachers and students I'm all for it it just that the way it gets presented sometimes begs a lot of questions so I'm not giving you a hot time I'm just explaining that it's frustrating so I am going to vote for this um in the future I'd like to just get more information ahead of time thank you do I have a do I

have a motion a second on this motion second have motion any further discussion Deb please call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M lar yes M Carrera yes M rodri yes m yes Committee of the whole item number one is a presid go back oh I'm sorry and vote for the correct contract I pulled that so the item we had held on Carnegie learning for

$411,000 is back in front of us now from contracts could I get a motion in a second on that now that we funded it motion to approve second I have a motion to Second any further discussion Tad please call the role Mr AGA yes 483,000 the am the amount that was the grant that was the grant Uh Kevin the uh the con L's Coston 411 this is the contract the contract this is the

contract okay thank you yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Miss lar yes M Pereira yes M Rogers yes mayor cougan yes Committee of the whole presentation and discussion on Youth Court as presented by Dr Amy bronhard assistant superintendent of student services and strategic

integration hello everybody so I believe you should notice um a write up that was proposed the proposal for the sy24 Youth Court came to um my attention after the August school committee meeting where we had already preapproved 45,000 for the Youth Court contract um I did share some statistical data of the numbers of students that have been served both within the for of public schools but also within the Fall River

Community at large if you notice um the original cost back in 2009 2010 when we first began Contracting with youth court the cost per student was roughly $1,200 as we have now grown into 23 24 school year the cost per student has risen to roughly $800 per student as we look at a 4month consultation and program that students need to go through um over the course of weekends participating in

community service the whole youth court process um and as we look at minimum wage increases for Youth Court particularly the state funding that they received from other agencies they have not been able to receive increased funding to support the cost for Bristol County students at large um and so they had proposed to us originally that a contract for 108,000 and as we look at the number of

students that youth caught Services as well as the additional programming that they continue to develop to meet the needs of our students and schools as well as to meet the demands of the new state law that really puts pressure on schools to eliminate and as we know we don't want our kids suspended from school schools so what are the ways that we can mitigate suspension uh youth court has been a central partner of

ours so in addition to The Brighter Futures program that works with our upper elementary students we do have the formalized Youth Court program for middle school students and high school students and they are additionally developing a vaping cessation program that we will be looking to take advantage of again to mitigate suspensions and really educate our kids about the dangers of vaping um and

increase use of ecigarettes so as we look at just the broad spectrum of programs that Youth Corps continues to offer our district I am requesting that we revisit the contract to be able to provide to them the $18,000 for this year and then look to see that their services continue to meet the needs of our district knowing that this contract is an annual commitment it's not an automatic guarantee so you're you're

looking for an additional 63,000 correct okay thank you for doing the ma for me Miss larvey I Dr bronhard just a quick question when it says uh total F frps students served is that counting the high school students that are involved in the program or are these just the students that are you know going in front of these high school students no the this is all students who are served and complete the full program so I

appreciate that question too recognizing we don't have a 100% success rate with our referrals um so Youth Court takes on a number of students in referrals that in some cases the students may not be successful but the numbers that they're reporting here are the cases really from elementary school through high school for all students served in Fall River Public Schools thank you I yield anything further Mr rodri just a

comment um we had talked before about part of this uh the part of the stipulation of continuing that was that they would service all of our students yes because in the past they did not service our students from RPA or from Stone I believe and it was actually written in to their contract so that has since been fixed I just want to clarify that for for everybody yes thank you I

was going to say that and the question got me sidetracked but in addition to that um I think you know there was an expectation that students in our more hard to serve schools would have already utilized the program previous um to finding enrollment in those schools and so we are going to work with youth court to ensure that every student um who is eligible and able to participate is

given that opportunity no matter what location they they go to school so that has also been clarified with the organization students location shouldn't determine whether or not they're able to receive Services that's not it's discriminatory we can't do that I Yi um so I I guess from what I see is I'm looking for a motion to amend the original contract although it just says presentation discussion but ifus right

it's not a vote do we want to amend the do we want to amend the contract it should have been this one yeah it's it's an amendment to give Youth Court the additional 63,000 so motion to amend to give Youth Court $63,000 $63,000 second so that will take them to their full uh 108 I have a motion to amend the original contract to add the 63,000 any further discussion um May Mr

agar so at the subcommittee we had asked uh the question about where the money was going to come from and I was expecting to get something from the administration on that Mr alme is coming up right now Mr a yeah he is Mr agad the um we have the the quarterly report on the agenda tonight and you will see that there are there's plenty of funding in the quarterly report to make this

happen can you speak to that a little what does that mean that means that um we in what line item I'm sorry in what line item is it coming from so I'm going to have to transfer money from the contingency account to fund the $63,000 but there is uh plenty of money in the overall budget to fund it and we'll we'll get those that info later yes the only other

um thing we discussed was it came out a little late because we had done the reports earlier or the uh amounts that this letter came in in August and I voed my frustration with it own moving forward I'm hoping that when we do these type of situations we we actually do it our due diligence and know exactly what they're requesting and if they're not providing the service then they need to

be reduced or eliminated and I think that we all agreed at that meeting to do that so I will be voting yes thank you all right I have a motion a second to amend it um Deb please call the role who made the second who made the second uh Miss Carrera I made the motion made the second yep who made a second okay motion Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M

lar yes M Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor cougan yes um item 122 is the presentation discussion people incorporate is presented by Megan sterk president and CEO People Inc that one also needs to be a vote that also needs to be a vote right well let's hear the presentation first so I'll can I ask to point a parliamentary inquiry Please Mr agar I'm not opposed to it but um I recall in the past where something might

have said discussion and it doesn't say a vote there was protests when we tried to do that so the only thing I would ask is if we're going to do this this that we do it fairly across the board not just when we like what being presented because technically it says presentation and discussion not a vote now I think the value of these programs is such that we should take a vote and

we should be allowed to but in the past I've been asking some questions and they were shut down saying by the chairman to say no we can't do this because it doesn't say that so if we're going to Pro proceed I would just like to proceed Fair In fairness across the board uh that was an error on the agenda when it was written Mr agar but again I guess I

would say you're 100% right I just think sometimes we have to make an amendment but as um the superintendent informed me there was an error on the typing of the agenda but we will make it as an amendment and again sorry sorry for the confusion Mr St I'm going to take the lead if you don't mind I'm sorry go ahead we're going to do this in Partners your name here Budd doesn't that's okay

we're going to do this in Partnership um because I think you know that's really an emphasis on what we're attempting to accomplish down at RPA this year um is really looking at the Partnerships that we have been most successful with how do we continue to support our kids as we return back um from what as you know the math conversation earlier as we know um there are some gaps in needs down at RPA

and we are working diligently with the leadership team um but getting started in August and getting the school year off the ground and then being prepared to meet the needs the contract coming up is a little bit later than we would have expected um and I can also say that as we move forward and plan forward for the next budget budget season at RPA as we continue to have conversations with all

of our Community Partners what parts of the work can we take on within the operating budget to be able to be more um sustainable in our model of programming and then where do we need the supports for our Community Partners in the places that we cannot accomplish independently because we can't do it all alone that we know so that being said as we look at the needs as we look at where

we've been most successful and I I'm only going this based on my own historical um really investigation because I I I've not worked at RPA I have not been part of the work at RPA but in being more connected to the work the programs of people link have been highly referenced all you know to the later part of the summer and certainly throughout the fall when we speak with teachers who have been there and when we

speak about the points in the school that were the most joyous and most positively seeking outcomes for kids um people link has has been a partner at RPA since 2015 U Meg will speak to the range of programs that were offered preco where we have been postco and hopefully where we look want to look to move more immediately and then into the future so I'll I'll let Meg speak to where we've been and then we'll speak

about the contract that's up for vote today good evening thank you so in years prior to the pandemic we had quite a successful program it was the math and Ela tutoring uh coupled with some sort of Workforce track so it was culinary it was direct support professional training uh CNA courses and to continue that forward for this year we're obviously going to be taking you know a study or a

survey of what the students are interested in because obviously the intent is to make them excited to come to learn a trade so as of right now we are we are basically diving in to see what the students want but thinking that we'd be bringing back the direct support professionals track that we have done we did it last year we do that coupled with funding from the Department of Developmental services and then what's

in front of you tonight is the additional funding for potentially CNA track and culinary um but obviously we are willing to change and pivot as needed but that's the tracks that we're proposing for the school year um any discussions on the program at RPA M Rodricks so just to clarify for folks that weren't at that meeting we had a very lengthy discussion about this and I I do think it's important just to

reiterate some of this because it is a big jump in cost right so whenever doing that I feel like people deserve an explanation um some of these things are things that we can't currently provide and so we're relying on um our Community Partners to be able to do that for us with the goal of eventually us being able to do that I think including some of our C programs but we're not able to

do that right now and then um to put some checks and balances in place to see where we're at we did agree to um a midyear checkin so come January we'll meet again just to confirm that we do have the kids enrolled that we are getting the services that we asked for um which I I feel more comfortable with now moving forward I think everyone at that table felt more comfortable just

hearing what we were doing and what our plans were for the future so I feel pretty positive about this um again I just wanted to clarify that for folks because it is a big jump when you originally see 70,000 last year and 150 1,000 think people need to know where their money is going and I yeld and if I can also just add an additional piece you know part of our efforts also at RPA

are to be are to be bringing back um for what was the Twilight program sort of this extended day model the tutors that we are looking to bring on board you know just so that folks are aware we're not just looking for tutors to be traditional mcast Tutors or or core academic tutors but also supporting the kids with completing the work that's connected to the Workforce Development

program that they are in um and you know one of the mo more attractive parts of people link being one of our partners is that centrally located at RPA the employment opportunities are very much within the circumference of our building we feel as though if we can leverage all other school department resources to get the kids to school then from that location there is truly an extension to

many opportunities in the downtown area for Workforce Development through people link um and we were at RP I was at RPA today working with the guidance counselors to begin identifying student surveys and the students who would be eligible for the program assuming you know we will hop him for a positive win tonight um but then also thinking about the kids that don't want to participate

in those career Pathways and how do we leverage the youth Connections Office and some of the programming that kids might be eligible for as older youth in our community um in addition to that just so you know you know we're connecting with the outreach program through Community Development really putting supports in place and mentors in place who can help our kids be successful in achieving these outcomes

um so you know to Mrs rodri Dr rodri point you know a mid-year checkup in January is really important to us because program outcomes are a necessity for us because that's going to help our kids get closer to graduation because we will be coming back uh with a program of study to really think about how we're going to give kids not just work experience but also credits towards graduation to support them in their

quest for a high school diploma so it will you know become a wraparound program for all things getting them across the stage and helping certify their diplomas at the end um but with a little bit of skill and Workforce Development built in along Ong the way any further discussion Sor um M perea no I was going to make a motion a motion do I have a second second second I have a motion second any further

discussion on this so then we need um Mr Agia so we also discussed at the meeting two um other uh issues one of which I was expecting to see some information from the administration on where this funding was coming from as well as how much money is in the budget for after school extended hours at the RPA I don't recall getting that can I please get that so the money uh for the additional money for this

contract will come from the RPA cost center and the RPA has $20,000 that's set aside for after school kind of stuff that you were looking for Mr a and when you say it's coming from the is that the salary because they got vacancies or what yes yes sir and we can pay that in a salary line it's not going to be paid in a salary line it'll be paid in another line in a

contracted Services line but it'll be paid from the money have money in there correct correct whatever this amounts to 60,000 or yes sir thank you the other piece that I wanted to commend Dr bronhard on was that we also received a spreadsheet that's very was very detailed relative to where the money's coming from uh both between us and the partner so so I think that made it very clear about what what

we're getting for the services and then if halfway through the year we don't feel like we're getting them then we're going to just stop the program so I do think that's a uh a much better way to go about all of these contracts is getting all the data up front and um with that I want to be supporting it thank you okay what we're going to do is um I'll accept an amendment for

81,50 and then we'll vote on it would someone make a motion with that in it,50 we didn't vote we took a we took a a motion a second but I want people to know we're voting on we're voting on increasing their contract by $81,500 okay so motion to amend increasing the People Incorporated contract by 81,50 previous contract do I have a second oh second I have a motion a second to bring RPA up to 15150

on Deb would you please call the role Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey yes Mr har Miss larvey Miss Perera yes Miss rodri yes may yes item 123 is a discussion and vote to approve an itinerate band and Orchestra teacher as presented by Jackie Francisco director of fine and Performing Arts

good evening everyone I'm happy to say that we have increased our numbers for band and Orchestra this year uh we've had um lots of kids interested we had a huge turnout at the instrument rental night last month and so we have just under 150 additional students this year from grades four through 12 across our schools so I am coming to you this evening to propose a ninth uh band Orchestra itinerant to

serve our students across the schools any discussion on this addition hearing none can I get a motion in a second motion to approve second I have a motion a second hearing no discussion chairman Mr agar can I just get a clarification on where this person is going to be working I know what itinerant means but sure this person would be working at Four elementary schools and one middle and how do how does how does that

work with so the as the students say I you know I'd like to partake in band or orchestra we build those sections out by pulling those students in grades four and five from their music or art class we then build that schedule for each of the itinerants and then as they are available we push those teachers into those buildings so with the nine elementary schools we take the four band

and the four Orchestra teachers and we say okay you can go to green Tuesdays at 9:30 and serve the fourth grade you can go to lero Fridays at you know 8:45 and serve this group and so we build each teacher schedule and right now um they are very full and some are over capacity so that's why we have this need right now and when they go you said they get

pulled out of the other so you you only have a choice of this or the other uh our music right so what happens is in fourth and fifth grade we we do demonstrations for kids and so we show them the instrument families and then we ask students to take permission slips and information home we share a Google site with parents in multiple languages that explains the process and if kids

say yes I would love to be in this Bando Orchestra program we come together and build those schedules out so we'll say okay we have 15 kids at at tany let's say that are in fourth grade in this class that want band and so that band teacher will go there pull those students out of General music or out of it's usually General music but could be out of Art and will serve the students

in that art Arts realm which is like a part of the mass curriculum standards for art but specifically to band or orchestra yeah I would just in the lot schools I don't think everybody has it at the same time that's why I was wondering that would work because the numbers are going to be low probably yeah it is it's it's um it's definitely a master schedule skill that you have to have

when you have to consider okay so when is the fourth and fifth grade available at the elementaries for pull out and then when at the middles are these teachers pre-scheduled for band and Orchestra because each itinerant teacher owns a middle school um Ensemble and then one of them owns the the high school Ensemble each for band and Orchestra and so each teacher's schedule is made up of their service time with

their middle school and then their elementaries and then there are two teachers one for band and one for orchestra respectively that come here to dery and service our kids here yeah I support it 100% but I just was asking because it might look like you need more than just the one but you know the numbers and maybe you could just get us some of the numbers to see but it seems like one is going to help

but I'm not sure it's going to create the most optimal situation thank you I appreciate that do do I have a motion in a sec oh I'm sorry Miss rodri yeah I just just was thinking about that for a second so you're saying the fourth and fifth graders are part of a b are are included in bands or they're getting instrument instruction I'm not sure I understand your question when I hear band right and

this is me who is the wife of a music you know all things musical um but I am clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff just confirm like they're not participating in a marching band or in like an onstage Ensemble or anything like they're just getting instruction at fourth and fifth grade no they're actually partaking in concerts yes so fourth and fifth grade those students will participate potentially depending

on the school in a school concert or at what we call All City band and All City Orchestra which happens here in March during music and schools month so we'll have all of those elementary students come together and the stage is filled to capacity with those kids participating in a districtwide performance okay yeah I know that sounded like an ignorant question like how is this it's not it's

it's not but I hear bands and I'm hearing like we're trying to you know provide some feeders for our high school band right and that's different than our fourth and fifth graders that are playing the record right and it's and it you're right in a sense they they are part of an ensemble so they have to learn individually how to play their instrument but then they have to participate in like symphonic learning

right so it's how to be together in an ensemble and perform as one and so that that's the work we've been doing specifically at Doran and Henry Lord because those groups are smaller because the cohorts there are only two for each grade right so what we've done is try to pull Doran and Henry Lord together to make one Community School Ensemble so those kids come together and learn how

to play with each other and they meet new friends at Henry Lord and Doran to build up so that those kids have an equal opportunity so they feel good about it and then can come up here and go yeah I want to be in band at dery okay right one other question about that and I know we're talking about adding one other um instructor but I've heard from a lot of the little guys at the

elementary level if there's any discussion about moving that grade level beginning from fourth grade to maybe third grade so I've heard that a lot that everything cool sort of starts at the fourth grade and the kids don't they're excited but they don't get that opportunity until they're there and then they only have two years with their group yeah it's it's funny that you bring that up because I did do the for

read across our schools month I was at Doran talking about um with third grade talking about um an instrumentalist that we read a book about and the kids were so excited and they were like miss miss how I want to do Orchestra so I did bring that back to the team so we're going to look at what other districts do um and and how to start kids in third um

but you know it's also we want to balance it so that it's a like a manageable skill for kids and I don't want kids to shut down I miss I tried that it was too hard you know motor skill wise I understand the little guys it's more difficult we would love to do sort of like a pilot program with some younger kids that are interested yeah I volunteer my daughter okay great I Y

anything further can I get a motion a second then there is a motion there is a motion a second Deb please call the role Mr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M lar yes M Perera yes M Roger yes yes item 12.4 is discussion and vote to approve the selection and appointment of Caitlyn Moser and Aaron canus nurses for the for public schools is presented by Mary gustoff director of

nursing motion approve I have a motion I have a motion to any discussion on this item hearing none Deb please call the role Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr har Miss lar yes M Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor cougan yes on item 125 is the first read of the staff handbook is presented by Tom kran Director of Human Resources good evening uh this is really more of a four-year information type sharing um we

currently have a staff handbook at dery it's a faculty handbook um this would be more of a staff handbook which addresses all of our staff over 2,000 people that work for us what we're really trying to do with this um handbook is create a a resource that um is broken down to several sections um these are the early stages of this we've shared this out with principles looking for feedback we're in

the uh feedback collection stage right now um the first part of this is uh really some howto and uh procedural and listic items um things like snow cancellations Etc U as a resource for all our staff the second part is a compend of some policies so that people have a resource to look at um District policies that have already been approved there's no new policy happening uh right

now with this particular um handbook uh third part would be for health information and forms um as a resource for staff for that um and then there's some other procedural type items um for instance field trip procedures Etc but the goal of the handbook would be for it to be available to all staff not just instructional faculty or um teachers uh the next step for us after sharing it with principles and getting some

feedback from them would be to uh um share it with the eboards of the nine bargaining units we have and see if there's any other material that they would like included um and then once we've done that we'll bring it back to you for a second read and if there's any suggestions from the committee we certainly would welcome that input as well any questions it's just the first read of the staff

handbook hearing none we'll move on to 126 which is discussion and vote to approve the updated policies as referred by the policy subcommittee and presented by Thomas Coogan Director of Human Resources so uh at the meeting in August when we um waited through a significant number of policies there were a number of policies that were um set aside for further review by the committee um tonight there's a um a

handful of policies that um we've provided to the committee with a a a format that uh was suggested by the committee these committee U these policies have been reviewed at the uh policy subcommittee and um what I would like to do is take the um existing policies that are up for revision first and then we can discuss um there are one or two new policies that are here that I can give the committee an update on

um so the first policy um is the employment of principles and this really uh this is an update of some language as well as um uh some parameters around how the contracts are handled for principles both new contracts as well as um revision years uh or or succeeder years uh in in a in principal contract one of the suggestions that came out of the subcommittee was the way the committee instructs the superintendent to

negotiate with principles uh for those contracts so as the committee might be aware there's a matrix that sort of sets the parameters for original numbers for contracts with committee uh with principles and then in succeeding years like years two and three in a three-year contract the committee then gives uh the the superintendent guidance on what that looks like my suggestion to the

committee would be that we include some language that is uh I believe on the second page that the school committee Shall Set guidelines for the superintendent for successor contracts or for succeeding years in existing contracts the committee May modify or establish those parameters and uh they they will be communicated to the superintendent prior to beginning any uh negotiations with the principles the

superintendent May appeal to the committee if the superintendent wishes to request to exceed any of the parameters established by the committee so one of the suggestions that came out of the subcommittee discussion was whether the school committee would give the superintendent say a lump sum of funding to say here you decide how you want to break this up among your your your principal core um or a a guidance

like you can go up to so much percent or whatever those those guidelines are but what I wouldn't recommend is to put a specific amount or uh uh dictate a certain policy of that U structure into the policy just that this language allows the committee uh for example say in April to give the superintendent guidance about what could do with successor contract years or uh succeeding contracts and then the

superintendent could go out and work those uh work those negotiations and then come back to the committee um other than that the only other changes were some minor uh language changes switching uh genders on pronouns Etc um I'll take any questions from the committee on that particular policy if there are any any questions any questions no okay um Mr chairman uh Mr Agia on the first uh line of the agenda

it says fraternization policy and I don't see anything in my notes on this so the fraternization policy was one of the new policies one of two one on crowdfunding and one on fraternization um there's no material in there because um we are currently still receiving some um legal feedback back which has been collected from several sources uh we spoken to two attorneys as well as the mass Association School

committees and I'd like to um um have a chance for um attorney Assad uh as well as the committee to have a look at that guidance before we really delve into doing anything with that particular policy but I do look forward to giving the committee an update on on the progress that uh that we've received uh the feedback that we so so on Friday this agenda Thursday this agenda got done with that policy on there

Mr policies are listed right on here we've talked about this for several months um the basic nature of it is to to tell staff members you can't have relations with your subordinates I don't why we got to wait four months for this and I don't know why it's on this agenda somebody that looks at the agenda can you please tell me how this got on the agenda it it got on the agenda th this

was the group that was brought to the subcommittee that as you know at the subcommittee meeting we told you that the fraternization policy was um being reviewed by legal um and when all of these uh policies were um added to the agenda this one was added in Era because it was not ready but it's clearly that it's not ready based on that explanation but the meeting that I'm referring to was several months

ago and the nature of the reason why we got to put this is things that happened 6 eight months ago and we're still here October 16th and we don't have a policy that's this clear we were said three months ago we were going to bring it to Legal I don't understand why it takes so long do we need to get sued again in order for us to to figure out how to get

some policies in place it shouldn't be on here there's no excuse for it this is gets looked at by how many people apparently it's not getting looked at strong enough I yel so M Miss Pera so then with that being said we can't approve this if it's here so we got to amend this to approve this one the fraiz policy we're going to ask to hold on that one um as

you move on the others okay so would we make a motion to or no to if you were Mak this is a vote to approve these policies correct but we can't approve that but that one is the exception of that one with the exception of that one cuz we don't have it right so do we need to make a motion to remove that or is that's what I'm asking yes

okay so let's start with making a motion to remove the fraiz policy okay second I have a motion to second on holding the fractionization policy any further discussion question Mr question when is this going to come before us in 2024 when is what if we remove this today coming on our agenda next month because I think without us as a committee dictating to this Administration sometimes that we need to

put a a date certain things go on here for months upon months upon months who's going to answer that he's asking when can we expect to have an update on that FR policy it is our hope that next month it will be we will have our guidance ready so that we can we'll let you know one way or another but we're waiting for legal counsel to advise us on that we've got

feedback so it needs to be reviewed can we ask attorney Assad what his opinion is when did he first get the copy when did you start on the fraternization policy and when will it be ready I can't hear that's what Mr Agia wants to know when did you first get the fr the policy to review with respect to the fraiz policy uh sag I have been notified about it I know it has been reviewed my

request was to have U the administration check with the MSA to see if there were policies number one that were Model policies that they had in addition to which to check with other uh School districts to see if in fact uh there were such policies and if so what the wording were was and what the success has been with respect to it uh that information uh has been looked at by the administration they are presenting they

are putting it together and presenting it uh to me uh for review and I would expect that that would certainly be done by November so when we met several months ago were you would you made aware of this just recently sh it again were you just recently made aware of this I think it would might have been a month month and a half ago I just hope it can get back out soon

we were told at the time we already reviewed it with other agencies we looked at it all just it's unbelievable are you I don't know what that is so are be voting on holding the fraiz policy so I have a motion a second dad would you call the role Mr aam yes Mr Bailey yes Mr har m l yes M Perera yes M Roger yes mayor kran abstain to approve now a vote to approve

the additional uh policies any further discussion on any of them do I have a motion a second motion to approve second I have a motion a second Deb call the rooll please Mr agam yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M ly yes M Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor couger stain Mr Mr Mayor I had one question I apologize may I ask it go right ahead related to the student fees in the student fee um information

we talk about fees if you break a Chrome book and the like I asked at the last meeting for how many of the signatures are in we said it was going to be in by October 1 I asked again on October 10th and now it's October 16th I still haven't received the information but I figured now is a good time to ask hang on I'm getting M Mr Cal he's oh he's going to bring it up

we'll give it to you in a second we'll go to the next agenda item but he'll give you an update on that right now he's just bringing it up on his computer Mr agar item we'll do it at the end of 12.7 which is discussion and vote to approve increase to the substitute teachers rate of pay presented by Thomas kougan so our current rate of pay for substitute teachers is at a 125 per day

uh rate U we bumped it up about two or three years ago um the current um crop of uh schools that I was able to sub uh get the substitute rates from online uh through websites through contact to other hii directors um most of them are somewhere between 120 to 135 per day Subs are particularly difficult to get um these days and haven't have been for the last two years

what I would uh suggest to the committee and recommend to the committee is that we do a tiered approach um one of the things that we try to do is when we bring new Subs in is to retain them so that we can continue to get them to respond to our need for services in the district so um my suggestion and the recommendation uh was to go up slightly

on the rate to 135 a day uh and I gave some uh rates on on what that would look like as both a per DM as well as an hourly rate and then to potentially raise it another $10 after somebody has served 25 days in the district with no issues and has become a reliable and consistent performer I think that puts us just slightly ahead of most of the districts in the area and hopefully

would allow us to uh recruit and retain some uh a better crop of substitute teachers than we currently have meaning a deeper pool not necessarily you know any discussion on this item I just have a question Mr Bailey um if we looked at a tier system what what would that look like and my only concern is if we're having an issue securing them securing Subs if we just went um

you know to one level or however much it is just to stay competitive I would rather just get people in the building and figure out a way to um retain them so my suggestion is to go from 125 to 135 which puts us on the higher end of what the districts in the area are currently paying for substitute teachers and then if somebody is a reliable performer consistent shows up when they're supposed to takes assignments on

a regular basis that after 25 days of service in the district we would go up to 145 a day and hopefully that would be enough to attract people to come in and reach that 25 day Mark and stay with us and this is this is just shooting would you think it would be better to bring them in at a higher rate and just give bonuses or something like that I don't

know if we can do that but just to make sure we're competitive um my biggest concern is is just you know if we're looking around and we're comparing to other districts if we get people in the building and they let's say get a job offer somewhere else making a few more dollars an hour I just don't want to be you know put in a position where we we have someone for a month and just because

they're working with us for 30 days they take a job somewhere else I understand your the logic behind it um you know I certainly think hanging that carrot out in front of them you know may attract more to come in the door um I also think there's needs to be a little bit of a retention strategy behind it as well as you know having them sort of earn that right to get to

the second stage and uh and then being able to retain them from there once they've done the 25 days we can continue to pay them at that rate right out through the rest of the year and stuff once we know we have a reliable performer um but I'll take the guidance of the committee on on if they wish to make some sort of an amendment on the proposed or recommended

rate Mr per and what did you say I'm sorry the the average rate you said throughout the era is you were looking at places like bought new bedf Brock in just the the initial bed pay in their subs 125 to most of them have some sort of a tiered approach depending on what the person's educational background is um you know what you know how long they've been with the district there's a

number of different strategies out there some are based on education so in other words if somebody has a bachelor's degree we'll pay them x per day uh some of them are based on longevity in terms of service in other words if you come in and do 30 days we'll pay you X Y you know rate um so but most of them are somewhere in the 125 to 150 range 125 to

150 yes now certified teachers are a different sort of uh you know kettle of fish to to work with and in our case once somebody if somebody is certified once they've completed 30 days in instruction we pay them at the base one teacher rate so at the base teacher rate of step one which is significantly higher so you don't need a bachelor's to sub no 60 credits I'm sorry 60 60 credits so that particular person will

get paid a certain amount and then if you have a bad bachelor's degree you're getting paid more here uh that's not within this proposal those people that are doing bachelor's degrees right now most of them are applying from like emergency type licenses which puts them in the certified category which is better than than doing that but I wouldn't be opposed to entertaining a motion to to do that as well I just not

recomend wait a minute let me see though let me clarify that they have a bachelor's degree they're looking for emergency license what if their bachelor's degree is in music and not in education are they still able to get this emergency license correct possession of a bachelor's degree the the the department of Ed has moved the goalpost on certification um quite liberally the last couple of years

because this is I mean I know I'm I'm not a spring chicken it was a while since I was in college but I remember it being if you want to change your major if you had a bachelor's in math you had to go back and get one in education as well and then go so you're saying we anticipate that that desie will return to that type of structure but currently they're very uh liberal in the way

they're granted the emergency licenses the emergency licenses will stop in November by the way new emergency licenses we have a number of people that are on extensions I guess my my point is I would like to see I think education paying that makes sense I like the tiered approach we certainly need to pay our subs more um certainly at least competitive with um you know places like

New Bedford um you think 135 is where we should start I think 135 as a floor limit is is a is a little bit better than the area aages and I think the ability for them to move up and the ability for them to go to the 145 which is at the topper I would say that that it's not typical that people with Bachelors want to do the subw work they're usually looking for something

usually to teach yeah okay all right um yeah I have no more questions thank you anybody have anything else M rodri chairman uh hang Mr agum um m rodri is going then you please um just a quick question on this so Swansea taon Dartmouth and ROM are are all asteris is there something different about those four particular towns that they have uh stepped processes and there's a number of

different options depending on either longevity uh level of Education 90 credits 120 credits Etc so that's I just I I just put that in to call out the attention that there are some different um wrinkles in the way they pay it's not always just a straight per DM rate for one thing and then so they they have stepped processes or tiered processes okay I didn't see that indicated anyway

so I didn't know if there was something just inherently apologize for not making that better I'll take and then is there a um a top range for Taunton because Taunton New Bedford Brockton you know like M PR was saying are all pretty similar to us so if I'm a substitute teacher and I'm going to get paid pretty much the same for teaching in Somerset or Westport or one of our surrounding

towns versus in Fall River where things might be a little bit bigger well they are a little bit bigger I'm more likely to go to one of the surrounding towns than I am here so I'm just wondering what the top end for Taunton is well Taunton had a couple different options so it was difficult to say just one top end but if I had to say it would probably be in the 145 to 150 range

okay because I also would agree that we should probably be a little bit more competitive because again if our folks have options for going other places where you know it's maybe they're not struggling as much to find teachers or they're going to be in there less time then I'm probably going to go with a surrounding Town versus you know Fall River and New Bedford um that's just my opinion there which doesn't sound

like that's an unpopular one I have a quick question what does diamond Subs get paid 140 I believe 140 140 I believe 140 so like we should be starting our teachers at 145 1 15 our subs I mean we have sub teaching in a vocational school over here that that at and we expect to get subs at dery I just changed my mind we need I just changed my mind we can't startop

them at 135 that doesn't make sense to me you have Subs making almost 150 a day at Diamond and we we want people to come into dery and to sub here there's no Inc it's in the same town me what that doesn't even make any sense who would do that why would why would I you know I'm sitting here and you know Mr Bailey pulls out his calculator and I look over

and I'm like holy cow 125 our subs are making what my daughter makes working at Dunkin' Donuts that's not cool I don't know I think we should go to 14550 start that's my opinion I don't know what anyone else think people are freaking out of here cuz it's money but money is money they deserve they deserve to get paid we need them we're having a hard time getting Subs we're having a

hard time getting teachers this is why if somebody said shell you can can be a subit diamond and make 150 a day or 140 a day or you can subit dery and make 125 it's a no-brainer I'm going to go where there's more money plain and simple and now we look at the challenges that we have at a bigger school there are more challenges we know just that's what it

is we need to pay for that that's the only way we're going to get people to work here I don't know that's my opinion I don't know with that I yield Mr agar so I just had a question how many uh building Subs do we have in the district building Subs meaning Subs that report to the same building every day and work there five days consistently yes uh I would say there's probably between 18 and 20

currently and what do they make they make the daily rate times five the difference being they're not on a non-all basis they're guaranteed the 5 days of work and they're working uh steady at one location they report to the same location every day and receive receive an assignment there the other the other substitutes are on call they can take various assignments based on whatever the need is for the day so I

think that's if we have them all are they all filled Subs no no the permanent Subs the one in each building no uh no and and I would say that that um that's a a moving number because some of those people then take on assignments in the district if they're able to get certified they may take on an assignment if they were able to get like a a an emergency license and

do that or they may take on a position uh in the district um or elsewhere if they're able to find you know something that's right so you look at a a a teacher assistant how much do they get per you now AA probably would make somewhere in the vicinity of 28 to 30 depending on their assignment right and we're we're we're thinking that we can get a a building sub which requires is a bachelor's

degree which is more of an education than you need to have to be a teacher assistant and we're going to pay them 22,000 uh a building sub add the 125 times 180 is 22,000 a building sub a building sub is still just a sub it's not required they're not required to have a bachelor's ideally we'd like them to have one but that's not the case I thought somebody just asked you

that question and you said you need a bachelor's degree no 60 credits 60 credits said 60 credits okay so how many credits you need to get a 120 usually teacher assistant is 60 credits as well or a power proo test in a high school diploma right correct they don't necessarily might that building have more credits potentially than a teacher Aid and I'm not comparing the two at all

problem paying our permanent Subs enough so therefore we're not paying our daily weight Subs so I think this is I for us but it's it's not going to help we go $5 whatever 20 The 25 Days pay them extra and then what happens when they don't show back I really think we should look at the sub in addition to this pay them 3,000 so that if you commit to us with

180 days you're going to get the equivalent of 30,000 whatever that comes out because Weck those in secondary daily rate I don't

think but I don't think this is I'd make a motion we Kevin we can't we can't hear you try it again you're breaking up a little bit Kevin you're breaking up yeah what what was your motion to go to Kevin Mo to go to $145 a day for daily and that would that yeah that would includ that includes building Subs too correct wa sorry well because the building sub is just a sub is there

every day so they get the same rate okay one second just so to clarify Kevin's motion was a motion to move 145 to move the sub rate to 145 for daily correct the daily sub rate for our regular subs not our permanent Subs correct I thought it was everybody Kev is it everybody you're looking for you can't you're gone

Kev Subs Kevin you're really breaking up uh we can't hear you at all your motion is to go to 145 for everybody yes okay do I have a second second oh you have a question hold on we we'll go to the question I got a motion a second second yes Miss lar so are we still going to stay on the 25 days of service no it won't matter he's saying he's saying 145 I think

across right but are these continuous um Subs going to have an opportunity to make more after the 145 well the original proposal was to go to 145 after the 25 days of service if you'd like to sweeten the deal we can certainly add that you know that bump on there as well the original bump was $10 after 25 days of service um you're talking the with the move to 145 you

would put them more up in that 28 to $30,000 range as far as an annual salary if they were to teach every day um um so so we're not we're not going to add that in just because we're going to be at the 145 so anybody who is dedicated and showing up every day whatever we call them and they're a continuous sub we're not going to add the 25 so typically in

that scenario Miss lar what what will happen is that person ends up becoming uh a building sub and then they're assigned to that one building and they show up at the same spot every day as opposed to that um itinerant model where I'm I'm over talit for two days this week and then I was at Morton for a day or whatever what we're looking for is those people that are reliable and stand

up and show up those positions those are the kind of people that move into those ISL positions or take a position as a power within the school where they can then get benefits in a regular um employment situation but um at 145 a day that's that's more than we had originally requested okay I Y okay hold on I just want to go ahead sorry I just want to clarify this in my head now do

you think that the building Subs the permanent building Subs that are reporting to the same place every day do you think they should be paid the same as the subs that are on call I'm asking it it's just an opinion a sub is a sub okay so yes the answer is yes now you think the incentive to the increase of that $10 should only be to the subs that

are on call or do you think that should be for all subs all subs I would say if you're going to put that incentive in there which is the retention piece right I would say that it would apply to any sub yes now in the motion that Kevin just made moving that to 145 that did not include that piece you want to amended yes yeah so could I make a motion to am

I saying this right a motion to amend Kevin's motion that we move the salary starting at 145 and then an increase of 10 145 a day and an increase of $10 after the 30 25 days of service now we're $5 more than diamond and that's competitive we're not though 150 Diamond's at 150 right 150 so after will be at 155 plus the 10 25 30 days then they'll get more than Diamond 2 I would go 150

160 I would too yeah that's competitive it's me I mean we do I I don't disagree all right can I do this again all hold on hold wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait we have a motion from Kevin to go to 145 Mr chairman yes Mr yeah my motion for 145 was because we're getting a presentation that was supposed to try to fix the problem and it is not going to

fix the problem because it's not done properly it's not vetted thoroughly enough and we're not going to deal with the issue of the subs so the administration needs to come with real proposals that are going to address the issue instead of whatever this confusion is so that's really the problem with we're still not getting to the point of the permanent Subs are not even filled and how much do they

get the administration needs to come with proposals that are actually thoroughly Mr agraw my motion Mr AER I would say I would say that the permanent sub position is filled on a steady basis but not necessarily continuously for the whole year because as I've pointed out some of those people move into other positions either for benefit reasons or for um a more stable position that that

is a little bit better guarantee in terms of their earning capacity but those positions are filled most of your building positions are filled either through the ISL program or through the building sub program this is to try to attract more of those perdum subs that we're currently really starving for and I think the committee's generous offer to go up higher on the on the rate will

certainly help us recruit more subs to the pool but um I I I dispute that uh you know I was trying to be conservative with the offer here um just because we've been at this one rate for the last two years and the rate I proposed was similar to the rates in the the rest of the area with a little sweetener if we if we got them to stick around for a

little while um that is the proposal that I brought to the committee I do appreciate that the committee is trying to uh sweeten the deal by bringing the the offer up a little bit but that's uh that's the nature of the uh proposal that was brought before you tonight so you guys in executive leadership talked about this already yes how often you talk about this and this is what we up

with well let's let's go wait wait wait wait wait what are we what are we going to settle on for a number Miss uh per I think we said 150 Kevin did you take your motion off I withdrew my motion because I'm frustrated all right so then I'm going to make a motion to startop the subs at 150 with an increase of $10 after 25 days of service do I have a second can you

repeat that I'm having a hard time 160 after 25 days what I said before do I have a second I second I have a motion a second any further discussion on the subs Miss Roger 25 at the 25 can we just clarify that I appreciate the I'm trying to be conservative but I don't think it's sweetening the deal I think it's just trying to bring something up to a competitive rate so we can actually get

people through the door because if we can't get people through the through the door then we're going to be in an even more difficult situation if I can go to Diamond and get paid 150 I'm going to go to Diamond and get paid 150 so I think if we're at least comparable then we have a good place to start so I appreciate the conservativeness but at the same time we need people through the

door we ready to go on that road right now that's what I mean okay we got a motion a second any any F discussion Mr R yeah so under the current proposal person signs up to be a permanent sub I'm going to come in every day from tomorrow on I'm committing to to the whole year but I'm going to wait 25 days to get the extra money this is my

point when we sign somebody up to say commit for the year they should be getting more money because they're Ultra committed under this proposal the 25 day thing makes no sense because they're going to get less than somebody who isn't committed to the whole year I I I I I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you there Mr agar I worked in this school for years where people

would come in and commit to the year and they were gone in a week or two and I'm not just saying that they really have TP typically very difficult duties and giving someone a trial run with an significant raise that we're already thrown into the Hat I think is good to try to keep them let's let's see how they work out and go forward from there but I do know plenty of people that took

teaching jobs and commit to the year for a heck of a lot more money than this and they don't make it very long I I have no problem with giving people test run to make sure they like the environment and they like the kids that's not what we do for teachers just so you know well I know but teachers don't stay 25 days too and it's a hell of a lot more Mone still the

higher rate I agree they're certified I hope we have a motion and a second on 150 to 160 Deb could you call the role Mr ago yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M ly yes M Pereira yes m project yes mayor C yes 128 is a discussion and vote to approve a chapter 34 a code review at the Robert madus resiliency Prep Academy is presented by Ken Pico Chief Operating Officer so the uh proposal before you

today is um to do a a a code review of the uh 290 Rock Street in in the back of um or attached to the document is the one we did for the Nagel Auditorium and it basically highlights all the deficiencies throughout the building uh and the steps in which uh you need to take before uh the building will be up to code um RPA um has been the recipient of two

Lodge um msba grants to close to $15 million um and unfortunately that's a drop in the bucket for the overall project um but it's a great start what it is is is it's um sealing the building little by little so we we we we try and make sure that the envelope is tight before we spend money on the inside that could be just uh wasting our time and money um so this review um will will get

us started in the right direction we will be able to highlight the things that we have to do in order to do further work on the project once you bring the building up to accessibility uh level then it doesn't matter how much you spend on it right right now we're limited to 30% of the value of the building as much as we could send so even if we wanted to today to just say

we're going to put this the fire suppression system in it might bump us into that next level where you're going to put the sprinkler system in you're going to make the handicap bathrooms accessible you're going to fix the elevator that's a whole bunch of things together this is going to highlight what we can and can't do how we can lay it out in phases as we did with the um the

old Nel and um give us a better handle as to what we're doing the city um went out to bid so to speak put an RFQ for qualifications for opms and for Architects so we don't have to go through the bid process there are already five selected firms designer firms that are ready to look at the project so what we'll do is we will look at one of those firms those designer

firms negotiate a contract ra for this particular um study and um which will save us a lot of time they could basically get started within a week or two and um give us a document hopefully um within the next um I guess 60 days would be uh a tight but let's say 60 to 90 days we would have a document um like the one in the back of this uh attached

so that we would know where we stand any discussion I'm looking for oh I'm sorry Mr rri how much of that building right now is currently usable four floors usable as in the kids have access to all of it kids don't have access to everything they have access to the well they wouldn't have access because the the second floor is um used for um back office District back office okay but

staff have access to everything and and there's nothing that is of concern in terms of safety or like I understand the windows don't quite open and you know one of our biggest drivers of attendance is having a building that is accessible for kids that kids can feel proud of and so this has been a a concern for a long time um how long would this take for this building to kind of be brought up to

code so um it's a tricky question so I'm going to answer it um with my best guess that in order to finish this building um and not and not with things that wouldn't be nice to have but things that we have to have Neary you're probably looking at$ 35 to $40 million of an investment um the fire suppression system would be number one along with um the elevator which would need a new Carriage new mechanisms

um to make all of the floors accessible um you'd also have to um make handicap accessible bathrooms on every floor the gang bathrooms along with the single stall bathrooms um so those three items would have to be done before any cosmetic work could be done and then you would start on on the Cosmetic work the upgrade um a new elevator may require us to put an electrical service in so in

that number that I just gave you that's partially in there the auditorium is a two $2.5 million renovation to bring the auditorium up to not this standard but a standard that would suit that particular area for the amount of seats that are in it so there there as I said some of the nice things to have the auditorium I'm not saying is a nice thing to have they should have an area for Gathering um but

we we can get them there by doing some smaller repairs and make that particular area accessible so that's that's the base number I I look at this as a probably uh from you know beginning to end complete about $60 million so what what would you think conservatively that time frame would look like um so since that money is not our money like we wouldn't be able to spend that kind of money but having done this

for a long time right having done it um if if there was a bond if if we would bond that money then that project could start and be a a steady progression to completion um bonding that kind of money um may not be in the cards with and I'm not going to speak on the city's behalf all I'm going to say is Diamond is in the in the making at $6 million a year

and expenses this would probably take um another $3 million um or $2 and A5 million dollar a year on top of that so that's a a lot of money that the city currently isn't paying right now so this is a much bigger discussion but that is a lot of work for this particular building and we had moved kids out of that building because that building was not appropriate for the needs of the of that

population at that time so I've always had concerns that we put kids back in that building after we moved kids out right because it wasn't appropriate so this isn't coming down on anyone but are there other spaces that are more appropriate for our kids where they would have more access this building is the best building of what we have in our stock oh lord it's the best building what we have as far as having swing

space it's the only building big enough so there's a lot of classrooms in that building a lot of area and to be totally honest the money that that the msba has invested in this property already um it I think it behooves the district to continue the work um we've spent you know 10 or 12 million at Watson 7 or 8 million at Stone the Watson project that school will last

another 100 years um the same thing with stone a little more work there and and those buildings are another Century worth I I do believe that that this building is worth saving it's obviously it's historic um we're going to um have those windows installed within the next probably 18 months complete um and that finishes one of the biggest pieces you know there'll be a little bit of of uh

uh brick work to do on the outside some some pointing some some other masonary work um but that will be a one sound building that we can build from okay and I'm not suggesting we demolish it I'm thinking temporarily if there was another space that we could access for these kids because again if we're looking at attendance and we're looking at pride in in who they are and where they are then the building needs to

reflect that right and I'm not saying they have to have all the bells and whistles you know T tany is not doesn't have all the bells and whistles but it's safe it's you know it's um accessible for the most part and it has what it needs and that's what I think these kids I don't think anyone would disagree that that's what these kids deserve so I've had concerns about it from the get-go I just

am wondering how long that could take so we can get some of that up to speed so our kids can have access I I don't I think that there's possibility that we will be able to invest some dollars um Within we have on smaller items I'm not quite sure which one of those would be targeted and and again these are my best guesses so with this document in hand um we're going to have

a a road map as to where we want to go and then we just have to figure out how we're going to get there okay I Y anything further I'm looking for a motion motion to approve I have a motion I have a motion in second Mr chairman Mr Agia yes so so I think uh I'm in favor of this just because as Mr Pico said we need a road map but my concern is that

we had a road map in June of 2020 for the uh dery Auditorium and we're still in a mess up there so when I look at the 2020 it says the roof was beyond its useful life then and my question is what are we doing about it and is the pay center still the roof still leaking or is that new no it's still leaking we do repairs on it regularly but it's still leaking it is

yes so I'm in favor of putting this part forward but I would like on the next agenda in November that we have a real plan for what we're going to do up at the other school we just invested I don't know a million dollars of our own money or more in the pay center and the roof still leaking how how ridiculous is that we need to either invest some money in

there or do something about it but we've been talking about it since this document that you attached came from June of 2020 but this is just what happens you know it's 2020 we need to get real about what we're going to do up there and it's going to cost a lot of money so if we can get that on the next agenda for a full plan of what's going to happen up

there I'd appreciate it thank you I yield we have a motion second Deb call the roll Please Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart ly yes M Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor cgan yes discussion and vote to approve the first quarter revolving fund report is presented by Kevin almeer the Chief Financial Officer so in front of you you have the 13 revolving funds um each fund is showing a positive

balance uh in total the revolving funds are just over just over 12.6 million uh the largest balance is the school lch account 65 million uh with this uh approval potential approval the uh use of schools the outside uh overtime totals 14,39 and with your approval I'd be making that transfer bringing that balance down to 5221 16188 uh I'm recommending approval of the first quarter of

motion to approve second I motion to Second any discussion on the quarterly budget Deb please call the role Mr draga Mr chairman sorry Mr chairman Mr Agia this include the healthcare one or is that in the next report it's the next one Mr Agia thank you yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M ly yes M Carrera yes m yes mayor kouan yes next item is 1210 discussion and vote to approve the

quarterly budget update as presented by Kevin Aly the Chief Financial Officer so in the next item I've provided you with the first quarter um operating budget um this is the this is an update as to where we stand as of uh September 30th um I've also provided the best case projection at this time as you can see there's a large potential balance uh mostly due to salary savings particularly in uh teachers teacher

salaries and other salary accounts um and with that uh I've provided the administrative support document that I typically provide on a quarterly basis I provided you with an update of where we stand with the eer grants so um as of September 30th with the esa grants um we've fully spent eer 1 and eer 2 and we are in process of spending eer 3 we've uh spent or you know encumbered a pretty

good portion of that Grant already totaling about 24.5 million with uh just under 15 million left to spend most of that will be going to salaries and other expenses that that are in there um and finally the uh final piece is the uh insurance and what where we Ended as of June 30th and so the insurance was just over $4 million um but I'll note that I'm working on the end of the a report

as we speak and I'll have a further update to you on where we stand with the end of the year report and I plan on bringing that forward to you in November so with that I'm that's the quarterly report any questions on the quarterly report yes Mr Agia so in the $4 million that you referred to Mr almea is that are you not thinking that's a solid number no I do think it's

a solid number Mr agar I just don't know where everything else is going to shake out when it's all said and done so you know I it's it's going to be you know in the neighborhood somewhere I would imagine so um I can understand that just uh obviously you want to get that to us as soon as possible absolutely so we can spend the money if they owe it and

when I look at this report the the FY 24 yes sir total is it did it go up by 10 or like how much percent did we go up from the actuals when you look at the 23 million in FY 23 actuals yep so the new budget went up by all of our new people plus a percentage so I'm sorry Mr AGA where what are you referring to at the moment

I'm just I'm trying to pick it up on the docum in the current year this is basically from last year yes in the year we're currently in yep was our budget based on a um higher projection so if so healthare so I provided a a budget with a slight increase based on where we were um around February of this P of this past year so I want to say it was probably

around 25 or so million dollar I believe and it's not so it's not based on the higher number of the budget no which is 276 yep yeah just I I just think it's we probably over uh overp put in that into that line but that's going to mean the city's going to owe us a a few million dollars so with that I Y thank you sir thank you I'm so I'm waiting for a motion a

second motion to approve second I have a I have a motion to second please call Mr agam yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M larvey yes M Pereira yes Mr Rodricks mayor Coogan yes so I have a number of items for your information retirements resignations appointments can I get a motion can I get a motion to second on all of them motion to approve second Deb call the rooll

please yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart ly yes M perrera yes M Rodricks Mayan yes uh new business any new business to come before the Committee hearing none Mr Assad do you have a reason that we should go into executive session there would be um if you want I can read yeah you can read first Master on Law chapter 38 section 21 A7 to review and approve the executive session minutes for September

11th 2023 regular school committee meeting M general laws chapter 38 section 21 A4 to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect thet ma General Law chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to litigations the chair has declared that an open set meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the school committee M General Law chapter 38

section 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation negotiations with non-union personnel and order to conduct contract negotiations with non-union Personnel including Maria bourges assistant director of custodial Services John Cloud director of C custodial Services Jose Roso superviser of nutrition utility worker Services Diane carea cafeteria Field Supervisor Nancy Cardoza cafeteria Field Supervisor

we would reconvene there may may not be statements at that time I I need a motion in a second to go into executive session motion to enter into executive session I got a motion in a second please call the RO Mr suffering yes Mr Bailey yes Mr har M lar yes M Perera yes M rodri yes mayor cgan yes we'll take be back dump you Bobby back in order

um Deb please call the role Mr here Mr Bailey here Mr har M larv yes here Perera yes M rodri here mayor kouan here anything further to come before the committee yes Mr Mayor Miss larvey I'd like to make a motion to approve uh the executive session minutes for September 11th 2023 second I have a motion a second any discussion Deb please call the rooll Mr yes Mr Bailey yes mrar M

lar yes M Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor cougan yes anything further yes Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the contracts uh for Maria bores assistant director of custodial Services John clo director of custodial oh each one individual so I'd like to uh make a motion to approve the contract for Maria bores assistant director of custodial Services as negotiated second I have a motion to Second any

discussion Deb please call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr har M ly yes M Pereira yes M Rodricks yes mayor KGAN yes Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the contract of John clo director of custodial Services as negotiated I have a motion do I have a second second a motion a second uh discussion Deb please call the roll Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M ly yes M

Pereira yes M rodri yes mayor kouan yes anything further yes Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the contract for Jose Roso supervisor of nutrition utility worker Services as negotiated I have a motion do I have a second I have a second Mr Rodricks any discussion on that item Dad please call the rooll Mr ago yes M Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M larvey yes M Pereira yes Mr

Rodricks yes mayor Coogan Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion uh to approve the contract for Nancy Cardoza cafeteria Field Supervisor as negotiated second I have a motion a second any discussion Deb please call the rooll M drag yeah yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart M larvey yes Miss Pereira yes M Rodricks yes mayor Coogan yes M lvy and finally Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the contract for Diane carer

cafeteria Field Supervisor as negotiated I get a second second I have a motion a second any discussion dead please call the r Mr a no Mr Bailey yes Mr har Miss laravie yes Miss Pereira yes Miss Rogers yes mayor cougan yes anything further come before the committee evolve contract the Evolve the evolved contract I'll detain a motion I make a motion to approve evolve second I have a motion and a second any

discussion on evolve Deb please call the role Mr AEL yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Mr laravie yes Miss Pereira yes M Rodricks yes mayor Coogan yes I'll entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second I have a motion a second then please call the rooll Mr agan yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Miss lar yes Miss Pereira yes M Rodricks yes mayor Coogan yes and