12.8.2025 Fall River School Committee

I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the far school committee for December 8th. Could you please call the role?

Mr. A here.

Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Das here.

Mr. Cory here.

Mr. Laravey. M. Pereira here.

Mary Kuban here. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, 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 medium.

Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Recognition awards.

Uh I'm going to turn this over to uh Mr.

Aguiar uh to acknowledge some people that have served us well. Mr.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, uh for today, we're just going to stay right at our seats here, but I um wanted to say give our thanks to the three members of the school committee who have served uh over the last several years. Uh two of them are not no not able to be here today, Bobby Bailey and Mimi Laravey.

But serving on the school committee or in any elected official as an elected official is no easy task. We want to say thank you to the outgoing school committee members. Thank you for your service and we look forward to working with you as uh in the future both to Bobby Bailey and Mimi Laravey and also who's with us today is Shelley Pereira.

So if Shelley could come down right to the front, we're going to give her a little plaque right here and you can come right down. Let's get a round of applause for Shelley Pereira, please.

Yeah.

Sorry, guys.

Sorry, man.

Thank you.

Thank you, Shel.

Thank you.

It's been a pleasure, Bruce.

Thank you. If we could just get one more round of applause for Shelley, Bobby, and Mimi. Thank you.

Uh we we do have our student delegate with us tonight. Um Jack Rio, do you have anything you want to fill us in on?

Get this nice and close. Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

All right. So, um, first off, uh, students in our, uh, engineering over at Dery, uh, I should probably start off.

I'm from Dery. Um, so students in the engineering CTE program at Dery High School are, uh, they're putting their skills to work and it's paying off. Uh, one of our teams recently are in second place in the WBL. No, that doesn't sound right. Hold on. Oh, yeah, we're good.

All right. Uh, in the WBLA sustainable energy challenge. So, congratulations to them. Um, Dery students had a great time celebrating the 45th annual homecoming dance. Every year the dance is sponsored by the Dery Performing Association and this year's theme was Viva Las Vegas.

Students enjoyed a memorable night of the music dancing uh at Whites of Westports. Uh, a huge thank you to the chaperons who helped make the night fun and memorable for students.

Uh, congratulations to our freshman football team for completing an undefeated 2025 season. Uh the future is looking bright for Derby football. Uh here we have the winter musical uh Into the Woods. It will take place on Friday, December 12th, uh Saturday, December 13th, and Sunday, December 14th. Also, the winter concert will take place on Tuesday, December 16th at 6 p.m. So come

on out to Dery and support our students as they put their skills on display and put on an amazing performance. Um here we have about two weeks ago, right? Dery had a very fun week with our spirit week. Uh spirits were encouraged to dress up with uh certain themes in mind.

We had a uh wacky hair day, class seasons day, twin day, country versus country club day, meme day, and finally our black and red day. This day lines up with our pep rally. Now, our pep rally this year was absolutely amazing. I'd like to say thanks to my fellow folks in the Dery student government along with many other students who helped make this or make their class skits wonderful. Um,

lastly, yeah, um, a bit over a month ago, uh, student government hosted Dery's first ever Halloween hallways event. Uh, we invited elementary students from, uh, across Fall River to come trick-or-treat safely inside Dery on Thursday, October 30th from 4 to 6:00 p.m. And needless to say, everything went incredibly well and smoothly. Uh, the hallways were decorated spooky and the costumes were great, and it was just

overall a great time. Uh, I'd like to thank the people who were able to donate candy for this great event. We really, we did need that. We need a lot of candy. Um, I'd also like to thank the students who helped set up the wonderful event just decorating everything. It was great. And, uh, I really hope Dery does it again. And that's all I've got.

Thanks, Jack. Mr. Cy, um I just want to uh take a moment, Jack, to congratulate you for taking the lead on on on Halloween week and setting up a safe environment for kids to go and and really enjoy Halloween. Thanks largely to your leadership efforts and of course the whole crew of other students that helped you. It's laudable.

and uh to the uh to the general public, this is the kind of good works that's going on all the time within our school department and and especially Dery High School where these kids are really coming into their own. They're coming into great awareness about serving the community for the benefit of the community. And Jack, I want to thank you again for your efforts. Thank you. I yield.

Okay, we have a number of people tonight. It's uh three minutes each for u citizens input. I'm going to start first with um Keith Michonne from Tyrone Avenue in East Province.

Good evening. My name is Keith Michon, president of the Forever Educators Association. Tonight, as this committee completes its term, I want to begin with gratitude to Mr. Bailey, Miss Pereira, and Miss Laravey. Thank you for your service on this committee. I appla I appreciate your commitment and I wish you the very best in your next uh pursuits uh which I know will continue to serve our community in meaningful

ways. I also extend many thanks to the returning members of the committee as well as the newly elected members. This work is not easy and whether we agree or disagree at any moment, I value each of you and I and the democratic process that brings us together. I wrote down that I was going to talk about mold and I will. But something I heard this weekend stayed with me and I'd like to share that first.

I came across a clip of Herby Hancock talking about his mentor Miles Davis.

I'm not a huge consumer of jazz, but for some reason I stopped to listen. Herby described how Miles had an incredible ability to make music out of mistakes.

He shared the lesson he learned from him in both music and life. take whatever situation you have and make something constructive happen with it. That message resonated with me because my focus in my work and in my life has always been on growth. Reflecting on that brought me back to a remarkable woman that I had the privilege of meeting a couple years ago, Loretta Ross. I brought her book with me tonight

calling in How to Make Change with People You'd Rather.

I'm going to leave it with one of you tonight and I hope you pass it along. In her book, she writes, "Calling in is an accountability process to help others and ourselves grow by engaging in constructive rather than destructive conversation."

I think even that description the importance that she of what she's advocating for. Calling in isn't just a process. It's a cultural shift. It's one that our community needs now as much as ever. Now, briefly to the issue of mold on Friday, mold was reported in two of our buildings.

I'm pretty much out of time, so I'll be concise. The issue is not as extensive as it was perceived to be. Of course, we do not accept any contaminants in our schools. I'm encouraged that we continue to work collaboratively to address what we will which will always be a persistent challenge. We all agree our educators and our students deserve environments that support their health and their success. Thank you.

Thank you.

Um next up we'll go to um Sarah Cavalo, June Street, Forever.

Good evening. My name is Sarah Cavalo.

Uh, this is my first time at a school committee meeting. You're welcome.

Thank you. I've watched on Facebook and it's been a circus.

That's the way I feel. It's been a circus.

But hopefully with the new members of this committee, things will get better because our children deserve better in this city. And I'm here to talk about the mold, too. Mold does affect children with respiratory symptoms, asthma. My granddaughter goes to West School. Okay, we know there's also asbestous in those windows, but the mold, I don't get it. Wasn't that school inspected before they opened up? I I I

don't understand. I don't understand.

And another thing with schools, the flooding that happened here uh that happened at Dery, you're building a new building. You have to keep maintenance on the building. Not years later tell us, "Oh, there's nothing we can do. We need to build a new school." And it goes on the taxpayers. No, it shouldn't be like that.

You build a new building, keep up with the maintenance.

because everything falls on the taxpayers. I'm tired. I'm tired.

Okay, like I said, it's a circus because I've seen the meetings and this is my first time here. It's a circus. It's It's like mindblowing what I what what I listen and arguing and blah blah blah. Like I said, our children deserve better.

I hope something is being done about the mold because I I am part of Westall PTO.

I will be going there. As a matter of fact, a couple of months ago, I met with Ken Pacho at the school pertaining to the windows because it gets very hot in there too in the summertime. No proper ventilation.

One AC per class doesn't do it.

Teachers are sweating, kids are sweating, they need proper ventilation. And I wanted to like I would like to know what what is the deadline for this mold thing in the in these schools? Do they have a deadline to fix this mold problem?

No. No deadline, right? Figures.

Figures. So, uh, well, I'll be going to school and find out what, uh, what's going on, Mr. Mr.

I did call you and leave you a message.

That's That's three minutes, Miss Kavalo. Thank you very much. No, I control the time, but I got more to say.

I know, but that's your three minutes.

We have another We should be able to to say more. I mean, there should be three. Let me tell you something. It should. It's my constitutional right to speak. Okay. Do not interrupt me. Three minutes. Give me at least five minutes.

Three minutes.

Okay, Mr. Chair.

Next up, Mr. Chair, I had my hand raised. I'm seeking I control the time.

I wasn't Mr. Chair, I wasn't even asking about a time extension. I was asking, Miss Carbalo brought up some valid concerns and I was just asking if the administration can respond about the the mitigation or whatever we're doing at those two schools.

I'm sure I'm sure we'll address that, Mr. Das. I'm I'm very confident. Next up, Taylor Perry. Deb, could you please?

Well, if nothing's done, I'll call on Channel 12 News in 10.

Thank you, Miss Kaval.

Dear Superintendent Tracy and members of the Fall River School Committee, I am submitting this citizen's input as a deeply concerned parent of children attending LNO Elementary School. The most recent environmental testing has once again identified mold and moisture related contaminants inside the building and my children who already struggle with upper respiratory issues have now been exposed. Again,

these findings confirm that lateral families have faced for for years a repeated pattern of environmental problems that directly affect the health and safety of our children. The reports funded by the Massachusetts Teachers Association after the district declined to pay documented mold, spores, moisture related bacteria, and endotoxins present throughout the school. While some levels

were described as normal to slightly elevated, the detailed analysis clearly states these levels can trigger reactions in sensitive or immunompromised individuals, including children like mine. To a parent, slightly elevated is not reassuring. It is alarming.

Environmental professionals recommended a deep cleaning and improved moisture control. Yet, families have not yet been told when this cleaning will happen or whether certified specialists will be performing it. Meanwhile, our children continue to attend school in conditions that will not be acceptable in most workplaces. Lorreno has a long history with mold issues. This is not an

isolated situation. It is a reoccurring problem that has never been fully resolved. Temporary band-aid solutions are simply not enough, and the lack of clear communication leaves parents feeling unheard and unprotected. Our children deserve a school environment that safeguards their health every single day, not just after a report surfaces. As a parent, it is heartbreaking to watch these problems

continue year after year. Families should have not should have to advocate this hard for basic environmental safety inside an elementary school.

My children love their school. They love their teachers, their friends, and their routines they have built. But they should never have to sacrifice their health to get an education. Every day they walk into a building with known mold concerns. I worry about another night of coughing, another day of breathing difficulties and impacts that they have that could have been prevented. No child have to learn an

environment that puts their health at risk. my children and every child at Laterno deserves better than reoccurring mold exposure exposure and uncertainty.

Thank you for your attention in this urgent matter.

Thank you, Deb. Next up is Junia Lee Johnson Street.

Good evening, Mayor Krugan, Superintendent Curley, and members of the school committee. In response to recent Herald News article dated December 5th, my dear, can you can you just put the microphone closer?

Sure. I will start over.

Thank you.

Sure, Mr. Kan. Three minutes.

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.

I apologize. You are correct.

Thank you.

Go right ahead.

Good evening, Mayor Coogan, Superintendent Dr. Curley, and members of the school committee. In response to recent Herod News article dated December 5th addressing recent um concerns about the building conditions at Laterno and West Hall Elementary School, the FREA Health and Safety Committee would like to publicly reaffirming our ongoing commitment to working closely with the district. While the article raises

important issues related to indoor air quality and safety, we feel it is important to emphasize our dedication to fairness and accuracy. We fully tr uh support transparency and keeping the public informed. However, the article and Facebook posts unfortunately used alarmist and clickbait language that distorts the true context and scope of the findings beyond what has been reported, ultimately misleading the community

rather than informing it.

We encourage community members, including those in the school committee who have have or have any questions, concerns regarding this issue to reach out directly to the FRA health and safety committee. We are committed to open and transparent communication and welcome the opportunity to share accurate information and provide support, especially since the recent air quality reports does not reflect the

extensive work that has already been done and continues to be done. And although the work continues, we commend the administration team, namely Josh Fardo, director of maintenance, and John Cloud, director of custodial staff, and their team for the proactive and cons and constructive measures taken so far to address immediate concerns. For example, custodial staff at Laterno Elementary School dedicated their time

this past weekend to deep clean and sanitize areas requiring urgent attention, choosing to work during during what should have been their personal time with their family. An effort and sacrifice that was never mentioned in any of these articles.

Additionally, the FRA health and safety committee compiled by volunteer educators. We have met several times with Dr. Curley and her leadership team, and we have just proposed an MOA designed to strengthen our joint efforts to ensure all schools remain clean, sanitized, and safe for both students and staff. This MOA aims to establish clear protocols for ongoing monitoring, communication, and long-term

improvement, fostering safe and healthy learning and working conditions for both staff and educators. This also was never mentioned in the article.

Our goal is to support and in a transparent solution focused process that that prioritizes excuse me, lost it.

I apologize. Our goal is to maintain a open communication with Dr.

Curley and her team to improve and foster safe and healthy learning environment for all members of our school community. Our goal is to support and trans a transparent solution focused process that prioritize a well-being of well-being of students and staff and families. We remain dedicated in collaborating with the school committee and district leadership to address these issues be and building concerns.

That's three minutes.

I'm going to finish real quick because this is going to wave the rules.

We're not waving any rules. Go ahead.

Finish up quick.

So, thank you for your continued attention to this um critical matter. We look forward to ongoing partnership progress. We understand the importance of it, but we also expect transparency and accuracy. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Next up, Kelly Gabbert.

Mr. Chair, if I can just quickly ask, um, I know we got we the committee received a copy of the draft MOA. I don't see it on the agenda tonight. Is that going to be at the January meeting or Okay. Thank you.

You want it? We'll get it to you.

We'll get it to you. Yep. Kelly Gambert, three minutes, please. Kelly, thank you.

Thank you. Hi. I don't have anything prepared. Um, but I've been really I talked with my fantastic director back there and um, I've really been struggling with consolidating. I am beyond blessed and grateful that we will finally have all early childhood educators under one building. However, uh, putting on my health and safety hat, the second floor of Conley is not s it it's it's it's disgusting.

Um, the ceiling is sagging and it's a beautiful color of brown. Um, being that I just had my whole classroom demolished last year, I really don't look forward to going back through to through a mold situation or any kind I felt like I was in a horror show. So, as we go forward, I'm really hoping that you we include the health and safety team in this decision that the health and safety team

does get to walk when you walk. Bishop Connley. Um, these are our little littlests, right? I mean, the little littlest are on the first floor will be on the second floor. But once again, I feel like they often stepchild of the district. You my my colleague came up here crying and I'm about to cry asking when PACE will be done and when we will move there. And now we don't get a new building. Why? Why?

Why can't you spend the extra money on prek? because that's where their learning starts. That's where they they love to learn and that's where they grow. Many of you have been Mr. Corey has been in my classroom. He knows what the work that we do there with those little ones. But yet we are the often children.

We don't get Tany. We don't get a build because it was a few thousand extra when we wanted to do it at uh Stone Stones late there over there on Globe Street, right? Because it was a couple of hundred,000 later. about how much money have we wasted?

How much money have we wasted? You could have put up little modells and we would have all been happy. All services would have been there. We could have been I I know when we get together, this this early childhood department is going to rock the whole Commonwealth because we have some superior teachers who all we care about are those little ones. Our Christmas money doesn't go to our

pockets. Our Christmas money goes to our kids. There's a tree up in my room right now. Y'all didn't pay for it. You're not going to pay for the monora I got to go buy, right? Or the theraputy I need to buy. Put the money where we need it with our early childhood. Stop treating us like often stepchildren. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, um, Mimi Laravey.

I believe that's a letter. Deb, three minutes please.

I'm here tonight as a citizen of Fall River who has spent her entire professional life working with children and teens through years of service.

Student safety was not just part of my job. It was my core value. It has come to my attention a current member of this school committee who was an elementary school principal in another district was placed on administrative leave and then resigned after concerns were raised about how a child abuse allegation was handled. I am not here to make legal conclusions, but I am here to state the

simple truth and this situation demands far more seriousness and urgency than it has received. The minute a school leader becomes connected to allegations of mishandling child abuse, every alarm in this community should be going off. This is an extremely serious situation and when someone in a position of authority over children is connected to allegations of falling a failing to report, properly address or cover up

child abuse, that is not a small issue.

That is not something we can shrug off.

It strikes at the very core of what our schools are supposed to stand for, protecting children. Not not no matter what. We are not talking about a paperwork mistake. We are not talking about a minor judgment call. We are talking about the possibility that a child may have may not have been protected. While I understand that everyone is entitled to due process, the nature of these allegations directly

undermines the trust that I have for Mr.

AGA to oversee our school policies, leadership, and the safety of our children. When someone responsible for protecting students is accused of failing to report, properly address, or cover up child abuse, it raises serious questions about judgment, accountability, and moral responsibility.

Our school committee members should be individuals who exemplify integrity, transparency, and commitment to students safety above all else. Even the appearance of failing to protect children is incap in incompatible with the expectations we have for everyone serving in a position that shapes the education environment of our community.

A school committee member must be someone we can rely on without hesitation and who does not compromise student safety under any circumstances.

If there is even a shadow of a doubt about someone's willingness or ability to protect children, then that person should not be helping govern our school system. We deserve leadership that treats the safety of our ch of our students as non-negotiable and we need to we need the newly elected school committee school committee to handle this matter with the seriousness it warrants. Finally, Fall River deserves

leaders who meet the absolute highest standards of child protection, transparency, and integrity. And if a school committee member cannot meet those standards, then they should just step aside. Period.

Thank you. Next up, Reena Brown, Bank Street.

Three minutes, please. Reena.

My name is Reena Brown. I'm a business owner, a taxpayer, a mom, and a grandmother of children that attend Fall River schools.

A month ago, I forwarded a freedom of information request for communications between a school two school committee members and Carla Cruz. I requested those communications from school committee member Kevin Aguar and Colin Das. I received information from the city that Mr. Aguia said none existed and Mr. Das didn't respond. I've now learned that there are over 70 communications between a woman who is

suing the city of Fall River, the school department, and other named individuals, and Mr. Aguar prior to the filing of her litigation. Is that transparent? I say not. Is it truthful? Probably not. And is it criminal? I don't know. if collusion or allegations of it exist, but I can tell you that there's an appearance of impropriy that certainly needs to be addressed. I would refer the

school committee members to Mass General Law 268A section 23 which addresses the conflict of interest and things like appearances of impropriy because that's what it appears to be. However, most recently, school committee member Aguia resigned from his position in the Westport school department. And as a parent and taxpayer of young children that attend Fall River City Schools, all

I hear are allegations and rumors. And the rumors that are out there is that Mr. Aguar observed a disabled child being abused by an employee under his watch. The other rumors are that he tampered with evidence. There's allegations that Mr. Aguiar uh did not immediately report to DCF or Westport School Department that he observed or had knowledge firsthand of abuse of a disabled child.

DCF is allegedly involved as is the Westport Police Department, but the citizens of Fall River wouldn't know that because we're not told anything. My issue or more importantly my request is to Mr. Das the big proponent of transparency in the city of Fall River in the school department and to Mr.

Aguia that immediately an investigation take place regarding these allegations.

Parents of children that attend Fall River schools count on school committee members to assure us that our children are safe. And you're sitting in a position where you make decisions regarding the safety of our children.

and we got to go on Facebook and read the Herald news about allegations of abuse in another town and nobody tells the parents in Fall River what's going on with the school committee. I would suggest that an immediate investigation into these allegations proceed right now. DCF is the first agency that any principal of an elementary school should call regarding abuse of a disabled parent. The second phone call that

should be made by that mandated reporter is the Westport Police Department. What I want to know is where those two phone calls made.

That's three minutes, Miss Brown. Mr.

Chair, is that two or three?

Three.

Okay. I would ask this committee to seriously consider launching an investigation. Mr. Das has an investigation regarding leaky faucets.

I've asked him to investigate these allegations as well. In the spirit of transparency, of course. Manny Monus spruce street.

Mr. Chair, I was mentioned usually protocol that members who are not discuss we're not discussions back and forth on these issues. Mr. Monus, your next three minutes, please.

I have a letter from Oh, you have a letter. Okay.

Dear members of the school committee, I hope you are all doing well. I am writing to respectfully request that the current school committee refrain from taking action on or approving any raises or other long-term financial commitments at this time. It has been a common practice in many districts that outgoing committees typically do not take votes on matters that would bind or significantly impact the incoming

committee. Deferring these decisions ensures transparency, continuity, and the opportunity for newly newly elected members to fully participate in discussions that will shape the budget and long-term planning. I appreciate your consideration of this request and your continued service to our community.

Thank you. Next up, uh Tom Corey, Sherman Street, Farover.

Three minutes, Tom.

I'm writing this input out of great concern for the integrity of the Fall River School Committee. My colleague, Mr. Ragiar's recent resignation from the Westport schools, while being on paid administrative leave gives an appearance of impropriety.

For the sake of the city of Fall River, the school committee, the students, parents, and teachers of the Fall River public schools, I would like an explanation and the truth. Mr. Agasha should evaluate his position and make a qualified decision on his service to this school board. As a colleague, I will abide by his decision in the best interests of moving our business forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, Shelley Pereira, Ogden Street, Forever.

Hello. Um, so this is actually with a heavy heart that I even have to say this. Um, and honestly, if I was going to remain on the school committee, I'd handle this a different way. Um, but due to the seriousness and the amount of calls I got this weekend, I feel it is something I have to I have to address as long as I do have a seat here. With that being said,

everyone has the right to defend themselves.

And honestly, if you're out there getting all your information on Facebook, then you're doing a disservice to yourself.

Okay? If you're going to sit there and engage in Facebook rhetoric, then you're doing a disservice to your community.

And I have to start with that because everybody has a right to defend themselves and some of the things that's going on in social media right now is not fair and individuals have families. So let's be respectful.

Okay. With that being said, this is the appropriate place for that conversation to take place because when you're elected, you're expected to meet standards both at work and in the community. And these standards allow voters to have faith in your service.

When elected to a school committee, that certainly means following laws and guidelines that protect children.

Although we do not have all the facts, I do believe there's enough information to look into the complaints and the reason for Mr. Aggie are resigning in the middle of a school year. If these allegations were not centered around abuse and neglect of a special needs student, my opinion may very well be different. But when we're speaking about child abuse and neglect, I think all the gentlemen on this stage know how

passionate I am about that. You see, a few months ago, I did not support a grievance because I have zero tolerance for the thought of child abuse or neglect. I learned at that time that many people up here have a different opinion or view of that and I I can understand. However, I don't think our standards of child abuse and neglect should be based on personal or past experience. They should be rooted in law.

Um, I have a concern regarding these allegations because of that experience.

This is a new situation, but I'm interested in seeing how the head of our school committee and our superintendent is going to respond. Mr. Aguaya was duly elected, and nobody, in my opinion, should undermine the rule of the people.

However, I would urge Mr. Aguia to put the district first and do what's right.

I would encourage him not to block an investigation and if the investigations lead to a guilty charge of child negligence then I would urge him to step down as his service then would undermine the work of the committee and certainly shatter public confidence. Um, we have a new committee coming up and I am most certain um that they will follow through and make sure and the reason I had to speak

today is because I think it's important for parents to know that your kids are safe here. We are going to investigate it. I'm certain the new committee will.

I'm certain Mr. Aguia will follow and everything will be resolved and maybe we can have a little more confidence here in the district. Thank you.

Thank you. Obviously, this is something that we'll work out as a committee and we hope to get to the bottom of this.

With that being said, um subcommittee updates. We have one tonight. Um the special ed alternative edge and early childhood subcommittee, Mr. Agi, our chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, we had a a nice subcommittee meeting. Uh after our special meeting, there was three items on the agenda. one of which uh is going to be before us today. Director Obenchain talked about the need uh for additional positions. This was based on the needs that our students are presenting, both new students uh as well as current students. So, we need some additional positions in order to give

them the proper services that they need.

So, I think it was5 or $600,000 in positions been recommended to the full committee and I urge our full support for that. We also discussed the Walker report. The Walker company is a company that's a consultant group that's going to be assisting this district with making sure our special education services are delivered in the most appropriate fashion. Uh moving forward, uh there's plans in place for um

uh capital plans making sure that uh strategic plans rather for special education and the Walker group is instrumental in those uh their findings are going to be instrumental in decisions moving forward. The last item which we had continued from a month prior was the prek plan for next year.

As you know, we've been talking about this for several years, trying to make sure that we uh have the proper place for our prek students as well as increasing, which we have increased our prek plans and uh slots for students. It was agreed that all prek classrooms will be at the Bishop Connley site starting with the 2026 2027 school year. Uh we made this decision so that they can have

plenty of time, Mr. Pacico and his crew can have plenty of time to make sure that the Bishop Connley site is in their proper condition along with purchasing the um desks and chairs and whatever else is needed to make sure that that's a very appropriate site for all of our prek. This is going to free up some classrooms across the district which will work in conjunction with the redistricting plans to make sure that

all of our class sizes are leveled off the best they can. So, I think it was a good thing to have this at the subcommittee. It was encouraged that we move quickly on the plans for um redistricting so that parents have plenty of uh notice if their students are going to be moving from one uh neighborhood school to another. Uh the meeting adjourned and all were in favor of all three of those items. Thank you.

I yield.

Thank you. Item number six is the superintendent report. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Curley.

Thank you.

Um so uh first I'll do the um update on holiday activities. Um as many of you know this past Saturday was the children's holiday parade in Fall River.

Um travel down South Main Street for the 51st year. Um most of our schools were represented again this year and so I'm really grateful for that especially considering um the weather um pouring rain. Uh but there the streets were still lined with people and it was um a really great experience I know for me and others that I spoke to to just bring some holiday cheer to the community

despite the weather. So I just want to thank everybody who was in attendance.

Um Jack referenced earlier um the fact that Dery has a a concert coming up and a show and I just wanted to reference some other things that are coming up um this holiday season. Um first is um Christmas in Fall River concert going to be held at Dery here again on December 19th back for year seven. Um this is this year the concert will include season 26 contestant Mary Makavoy and will feature America's Got Talent

finalist Sons of Sons of Serendip. Our own Dery Chorus will open the show at 6:30 in here in um not here um but over in the Nagel Auditorium at Dery High School. Tickets are only $10. um is really a relatively inexpensive night out thanks to sponsorship from um Bristol County Savings Bank and the proceeds once again uh benefit our city's children student and students um through the law enforcement assisting

families annual toy drive. We do have school concerts outside of Derphy's um coming up. Um we've got a con the concert schedule really over the next um week or so. More in winter concert is tomorrow at six o'clock. We have Talbot and Henry Lord on Wednesday at six o'clock. Cus on Thursday uh um sorry on the 11th um on Thursday. Dury's as Jack said is on the 16th and then Doran on the 17th. Um if

people can't make it there in person, they are um we are recording the concerts. They'll be available to walk on watch on Facebook and YouTube.

The next update that I wanted to give was around the water damage um at Dery.

Um, as the community is aware, we discovered um on Monday, December 1st that three office spaces um on the first floor of Dery High School had been flooded over the Thanksgiving break.

Water entered the rooms from a second floor custodial closet where a shut off valve had been used to turn off the water instead of the faucet handles themselves. And when that valve failed, the water flowed um from a sink basin um and down to the first floor. It's not clear really how long the water had been running um before it was discovered on Monday, but once it was discovered, the

area was immediately assessed for damage and the abatement work began. Um as I said, this affected three rooms located in the northeast um corner of the first floor. Um that abatement work is now complete. It basically included removing carpeting in two rooms. um 24 inch um wall cuts of sheetrock in a couple of the rooms and the full rem removal of one short wall of sheetrock um from

floor to ceiling. 12 ceiling tiles were replaced. A fire alarm fixture, LED drop-in lights, 10 square feet of air handling, duct insulation was also replaced because it got wet. Uh restoration work began on December 8th.

It started with duct wrapping and related electrical work. The sheetrock installation is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, tomorrow, followed by taping and finishing the wall board. Painting is planned to begin Monday, December 15th, and flooring will be the final step. So, the schedule is tentative at this place u based on um availability um labor availability and um the availability of product as well. But

we're we've started the restoration and it should be completed um within the next um week or two.

Next piece is um hiring update. We've had 20 new hires since the last meeting, including eight teachers and four pair of professionals and then various other positions. In that time, we've also had one rehire, six transfers within the district, 16 resignations, two retirements, and six terminations.

I know that Mr. Aguiar gave um a little bit of um information about early childhood uh but we were asked at that meeting to give an update. So, I just wanted to share a few things. Um, so we following the lease u the approval of the lease extension at Bishop Connley, we did decide to move all of the pre-K classes in other school buildings to that site for the um 2627 school year.

That includes four classrooms from Sylvia, two from Spencer Bordon, um Green and Doran, two each from each of those schools. Um and we're also going to move the five F River Learning Center classrooms that are currently housed at 251 South Main Street to that site. And this will bring us to um 33 classrooms and more than 500 students. the site itself and the classrooms themselves have a capacity of um up to 630

students.

As you know, once we're looking at that pre-k consolidation, Mr. Aguar referenced the fact that uh in doing so, we will free up 10 classrooms across the um across our elementary schools. It is going to have impact um on some of our plans for redistricting.

Four of the room four of the 10 rooms that we're freeing up have already been identified uh for special education programming and the remaining six we expect will be used to support class size reductions in the addition um with the there's the possibility with those six um the possibility of um adding a basically the equivalent of a one unit K to 5 school in the district. So when we

looked at district-wide averages um class sizes look like they're consistent. we see, you know, on average at each of the grade levels um 25 26 in K through five. But when you look closer, I think the bigger problem comes in in terms of the ranges. So at any particular grade level, it could have an average of 25 students, but the you could range from, you know, 18 I think

was the widest range like 18 to 28 or something like that. 17 to 28 in grade two in the district. And it really plays a role in depending on which school you go to, which neighborhood you live in.

You could be um you could be in a class of 17, you could be in a class across the city in a class of 28. So while the it's it's like we have enough enough seats, right? But what we don't have is an equitable distribution of students.

So we it could be the kind of thing where we move classrooms um from, you know, from one school to another. It could be an increase in classrooms, but the idea will be that we're leveling out the numbers across the district and we're not going to see such a wide range of enrollment from classroom to classroom. So, those are the, you know, some of the redistricting goals that we're looking at. So, when we get back

after the December break, um we're going to take some opportunities, additional opportunities for some um community feedback as we start sharing out some of our tenative plans. We do expect that we'll be looking at some new classrooms.

We'll be looking at some reconfig um reconfiguring of grade levels. Really taking a look at that opportunity to add a K to8 school and some other grade um reconfigurations in the district. Um all the while we're really looking to prioritize um safe and welcoming schools, reasonable class sizes um and most importantly a strong um instruction and support for adults as well in our schools. So more to come on that piece.

Thank you Dr. Curley.

Mr. Chair.

Uh, Mr. Dus, thank you. Just on um I was going to talk about redistricting survey. Do we um I know we got back I think two surveys over the weekend. I think one was about the budget update for the um redistricting survey. Did that also go out? So that went out to all families, went out to all parents. Did that also go specifically to like school councils and like PE people?

I don't believe it did. No. Um and on the um the water damage update, just I I know some of my colleagues asked some questions and emails. So I don't know if we can just get a response basically or at least a response for the whole committee around um the policies that are in place around um if security or custodians who are running those shifts are supposed to you

know sweep the floors or or we have more of a update as to um what the source was if we know who did it. I'm not asking for names but if we So, first the building was closed. So, there were no personnel in the building for a few days um because of the holiday. So, we didn't have security walking or we didn't have any custodians in the building other than for the football game on Thursday.

So, you think it happened Thursday?

No. What I'm saying is is that we did have a custodian in the building on Thursday, but they weren't anywhere near this particular end of the building.

they were in a locker room area to allow the uh the football teams to use the uh the uh fieldhouse. So, there wouldn't have been anybody in there into the building. So, we've determined um we are determining the time between when the last person went into the room and also when we first uh noticed water um in that lower level uh through the cameras um that we do have. So, that work is

still ongoing. Um and I we haven't narrowed it down to a few people um going into the room. So, we we got a pretty good idea. We just don't know the time frame as to when it actually happened. So, that's still ongoing.

So, you think this happened? This could have happened before the the game you're thinking it could have happened anytime between 10:00 on Wednesday and 6:30 on Monday morning.

Okay. And do we have an update on specifically I know I know we had a conversation about this about the walls that there could be some damage to the walls. Um like in terms of like water.

So the abatement the abatement is completely finished. That particular piece was all done. There was no damage inside the walls. Um all of that stuff checked out like we thought it would.

Right.

Testing has already been done on uh the preliminary piece and then we will move forward with the um restoration and then we'll be testing before um we occupy.

Okay. And I guess my last question for now is um just moving forward. I know you debriefed the committee and I and I thought it was a good debriefing, but going forward is there just going to be additional training? What do we or just reminders to staff in terms of the like turning off the faucet? We do have a few things that we do have a few things checklists that'll be put up inside the

doors of these on the inside of the doors in all of these rooms so that people are checking in and out um to be sure that we have a time a timeline and that these things these particular pieces are uh not going to repeat themselves.

And last question, are we considering adding um cameras to like because I know the the room where the leak happened from there was um no surveillance. We don't have any surveillances and closets um in some areas in the building. Um it wouldn't have helped us because we wouldn't have seen it anyway. Uh the cameras weren't monitored because no one was in the building. So um we would have

just been able to pinpoint the time and I'm not quite sure if that's a good use of um funds when we have a few places that we would really like to put cameras in uh for student safety.

Right. I mean, I I I would I would imagine, and I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the the cost of putting a camera in the in the closet versus $40,000, give or take, in a leakage, I think I'd rather take the camera. But, um, I'm not saying that that's the case.

What I'm saying is is that right now we don't have cameras. I have hundreds of closets across the district um that are in the same situation as this one is. So that would be the case. Picking and choosing where to put them um becomes that kind of situation. So I'm I don't discount that. As of right now, that isn't part of the plan. The plan is right now is the education piece with

the individuals who use these closets and moving forward that's how we'll handle it.

Sure. Um I I I could go on with a few more questions, but for the sake of time, I'll um I'll yield. Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman.

Mr. Hagio.

Yeah, I just want to clarify uh one of the things I think would be important to clarify for the public is uh Mr. Pico gave me a tour of the facility that was um the three rooms and the closet. I think one of the things that is out there in the public is they see that Dery High School is relatively new and that the school's already leaking. And I

think that we need to be very clear that this particular situation had nothing to do with workmanship for the school or that it's a new building. This was human error of shutting off a valve instead of at the top. You shut it off in one of those little things like you would use for a hose. Uh it's a a mistake obviously, but it wasn't something that the building is the workmanship in the

building wasn't subpar. And I think that needs to be said for uh the public's edification that this was a human error.

you're addressing it. I'm convinced that you're going to address it. At the end of the day, it wasn't that the building wasn't built properly. I mean, there's plenty of things you could argue about with that. This particular one is not.

From what I saw, and when I did go in, you showed me the room, everything was cut out by an outside agency service master, I believe it was.

It looked clean. They're going to do the work in house. So, as much as it it's not a good situation to lose $40,000, I wanted to give credit that from what I saw, it looked like it's been handled handled appropriately and it wasn't a major piece of the building. It was a human error. With that, I yield. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, next up is item seven. I have five sets of minutes. Can I get a motion?

Motion to approve all minutes. Second.

I have a motion. Second. Any discussion on the minutes? Uh, Deb, call the role and then I'll read them.

Oh, let me read them first. Excuse me.

Um, it's the policy subcommittee committee meeting from 11:3. It's the instructional subcommittee meeting from 11:5. It's the minutes from the finance meeting on 11:10.

It's a special meeting of the school committee we had on 11:18. And it's the special education alternative education early childhood subcommittee meeting from 11:18. Deb, would you please call the role?

Mr. Agu.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Corey.

Yes.

Miss Laravey. Miss Pereira.

Yes.

Mayor Kuban.

Yes. Item number eight is travel requests. We have a number of travel requests. Would anyone like to put a hold on any travel request?

The first one, Mr. Das. The first one.

General question.

Mr. Aguiar.

Just uh uh when I'm looking at these, I think that uh we had a policy at some point that um a field trip doesn't need to go on. So I think maybe somebody should just review it to be sure. One of these is a field. It looks like a field trip to East Providence.

And I thought that we tried to make a policy that allows the schools to do those without being out of state travel uh per se. I don't um know the details of it, but I just raised it so that someone can let the principles know if they like the one that said to save us on East Providence. It looks like they're going for a field trip of of some type.

I agree. And to be honest, somebody did ask me about this maybe on Friday. I couldn't recall whether we had I remembered something like that coming up. I wasn't sure if it had just been for athletics or if it was for field trips and I couldn't find I mean I'm in favor of it. I just think it would make sense to look and if it's a field trip I would have liked to

include it as well so that you don't have uh a burdensome piece. The second piece of it is um when you look at funding sources uh through I don't think there's consistency on what it shows. So that's just another okay small request it would be to say even if it's funded through a u one of them is funded through the Navy or through something else or through a Perkins bus or whatever there's a cost associated

with it so that we can just you know when you look at the next one it says the cost actually is something so it says Perkins in here a couple times I know that means it's the Perkins grant funding it but technically we should have it as total.

Thank you. I yield Mr. Chair.

So um Mr. Uh Corey, I as far as the travel requests are concerned, I'd just like to personally uh personally uh compliment uh one of the travel requests uh from uh our teacher at Dery, Elizabeth Pixoto, who's a registered nurse, and she's going to be bringing the students in her health assisting grade 11 class um to New New England Institute of Technology, and they're they're going to have an

in-depth tour of the um physical therapy, occupational therapy, and RN programming. And when I look at the needs that we have out of the Walker report for our special education, I noticed that we're always looking for physical therapists and occupational therapists. And so to see that we have programs within our school, you know, to train kids in this field just makes me really happy to see as a career

educator. So, I just want to loud uh Miss Pexodto. I think this is a great trip and and I hope these kids learn a wealth of knowledge from a trip like this. Thank you. I yield.

Okay. So, do I have a motion, a second on all I'm sorry. Motion to approve the others.

Everyone but the first one. Mr. Das wanted to hold on. I have a motion to second. Deb, call the role on everything but the first one, please.

Mr.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Corin. Yep.

Miss Larry. Miss Pereira.

Yes.

Mayor Kan.

Yes. Mr. Das.

Yes. Very brief. Um, two questions, I guess, concerns. Um, first, and someone correct me on this. I believe we addressed this policy and the super um, the administration was going to develop procedures. It's my understanding, a part of those procedures that there would be a cap on meals, which would be I I could have sworn $40 a day. If I'm wrong, let me know. Um my opinion is I think there needs to be

a certain cap on um meals if we're doing we can reimburse up to a certain amount.

Um that's my position and the hotel cost. I know sometimes um I've asked these questions in the past and I'm told that they're um just an estimate, but this looks like a specific number which makes me believe that they received a quote and I could see if it was Miami, if it was New York City or Las Vegas, I could see that number being um AC, not accurate, but good. But I think um for Tampa,

Florida, I think just I' I'd like to see the the hotel beforehand.

Mr. Das, the um the meals are paid for by the big three. That's why you're not seeing your cap, I think. see what it says on the funding source and big three account for meals.

Does if there's a cap, did that only go that only count for um district for operational budget if someone else is paying?

It is it is the cap that we've been that we've put on what we would reimburse um as a district. But if the person is seeking reimbursement from another organization and I'm just going to assume it's the same for the hotels. Not it says the funding source is Mass Secondary Schools Athletic Directors Association. Um and then big three account for meals. Yep.

All right. I Mr. Chairman.

Okay. I'm going to go to Miss Pereira then Mr. Agak.

I do have to point out I understand some things sound expensive. I do. I get it.

But when you do the math, that hotel room is about 350 a night. Tampa is actually a nice area.

Depending on when you're visiting, 350 a night can very much be the going rate of what you're gonna get for a hotel room.

So unless we want our staff to go sleep at a super eight somewhere and and put their suitcase up on a chair, I'm just saying even if we were paying for it, I don't want exorbitant. You anybody who knows me or see me in the back room knows that I'm cheap, but you need people to stay at a safe place. So I just think like sometimes do the math.

Four nights, $350. that probably includes tax and everything else.

So, it's reasonable. We're not paying for it anyway, but if we were, I'd be okay with that.

Okay. Mr. Angia, just uh on that same issue, what can somebody explain to me what the big three account for meals is?

Or the big three account is.

What is that?

My guess is is it uh there's a fund for the big three conference which used to exist where they set aside money for meals. That would be my guess.

I'm just curious, Mr. valid question that Mr.

It is. It is a valid question.

I I honestly don't even know. It must be something that they have through with the athletic directors across the state.

Right. So, I'm not opposed to it. I don't think it's exorbitant money. But what's right is right. We have a a policy in the district that says it's $40, $50, whatever the superintendent said. We didn't uh micromanage that. We allowed the administration to say what is a reasonable amount. So we shouldn't be having one person based on wherever fund that is gets a certain thing and

somebody else just like if somebody goes away and it's a paid for by a special education grant that they f follow the policies that we have. It doesn't matter where the money is coming from. So it should be just followed along. But this just begs the question of one is what is the big three account? So I'd ask that you get us what that is. Where does the money come from? Is that money come from

tickets? I don't know all those answers but at the end of the day we have to be careful to be treating people fairly with what you know whatever our policy is should be across the board and I think that um this is happening soon like next week. So I'm I'm not I want to vote for it so that it goes through but I encourage the superintendent and ma to

get to the bottom of it. Thank you. Are you Jeb? Do I have a motion to second? Oh I'm sorry Miss Pera.

I just want to clarify because I was under the impression we weren't paying that $75. That was coming from some other entity. Is that accurate? That's what it says.

Okay. So, we I what what I believe we said is that we're willing if it's coming from our budget, we will pay up to $40 a day. That doesn't mean you're only allowed to eat $40 a day. You can go have lobster in in the evening. I don't care, but you're paying for it yourself. That's what we agreed to. I don't think there's an issue at all. If somebody's involved in an athletic

program or we have a nurse that's going to a conference that's sponsored by the nurses association and the you know the they're paying for the nurse to go and and get some PD and they're also providing $100 a day in meals. I don't have a problem with that. That's part of another association. That's not that's not us. We're not spending that money. I think we're being I just don't want to give employees the

the thought that we're not being equitable because we are. when we're paying for it, we reimburse up to $40, right? That's across the board. But if it's another association, I don't see how we can navigate that. We're going to call them and say, "No, no, no. You can give everybody else $70 to eat, but the people from Fall River, they're going to get 40. That doesn't make any sense to me."

Anyway, that Okay, Mr. Chair, just very quickly, Mr. Das. Um just very quickly going forward I think it's just important just um maybe on funding source if we can list if it's grant specifically or if it's something um that's like in the operational budget like looking at like big three account I would think that's like an indistrict account like for at first glance. So I think just having

that itemized a a little bit more clearly would help. I yield deb do I have a motion a second?

Mr. Chairman I do. Mr. Aguia just want to clarify. So, I'm not sure that it was not clear, but the big three account very well could be money that comes from the school department because we're part of the big three. So, if we have to pay dues to the big three or something, there's there's definitely some questions of where this money comes from to get into the big three account.

You, Mr. Delmeter or anybody here cannot tell us how much money is coming out of the $2,000 for this 4-day trip is going coming from the mass ADA or the big three account because it's not itemized here. So my only comment was was to look at it to say where is the money going to get into those um we're actually paying dues to these membership for this. So it's it can be an endound. And all I'm

asking for is some clarity. And um my colleague all the way to the right doesn't apparently understand the fact that this could be coming from us. So we're going to get the answer right.

Whether it's where there is coming from.

That's the only thing I've been I'm trying to make a point here that we need to know where all these accounts are coming from and how is the money getting into those accounts. And I think that's a fair question. I yield.

All right.

Mayor not done.

Go ahead, Mr. Per.

Thank you for mansplaining. But I actually do understand what you're saying. I understand that we could be paying fees that then in turn are used to provide this service. What I am saying is that if this association is providing $75 a day to the directors in Fall River, Somerset, Dartmouth, wherever that's what they're that's what regardless if we paid into it or not into fees, we're paying into that

association. I think it makes zero. I understand that you need to understand where the money's coming from, where the funding source, that's fine. Those are great questions. But then at the end of the day, I don't really necessarily care if it's out of dues we've paid because I think an educator from Fall River who's going to a conference should get the same amount reimbured for food as an

educator who's going to that conference from Somerset or Dartmouth or Timbuktu.

That's all I'm saying is that I just don't really, you know, as if we're if the money is coming directly from the school department, it's a $40 cap. If it's coming from an association in which we pay dues to and every single educator from here to Timbuktu is getting $75 a day, then heck yeah, I think the educators from Fall River should get the $75 a day, too. That's all I'm saying. I

understood. I just disagree, sir.

Okay, that's the only difference.

Deb, call the role, please.

I need a motion.

Motion to approve. Second.

Mr. Aam.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Cory.

Yep.

Mr. Larvey. Miss Pereira.

Yes.

Mayor Cub.

Yes. I have five sets of donations. Can I get a motion and a second?

Motion to approve with a question.

Second.

I have a motion, a second. Mr. D, a question.

Thank you. Just a Well, general Yeah, general question on all these. Um, I'm going to vote to approve all of these.

Um I just have asked at the last meeting and I think it's a really pertinent question just to make sure we are receiving all the donations because the advice I received from the MASC which I for the record disagree with most of their policym but I thought they gave good advice on this is that there is legal requirements as to accepting donations and I'm very happy to see for the most part we receive um green

elementary when Dr. Dunn sends them down. as what we should be promoting in the district. If it's I think we should reach out to MASC or um get legal advice as to whether we need to re as to whether we need to receive and approve the donations and if we do I'm sure there's plenty more donations across the district that we don't receive and we should be approving those just because

again it's a donation it could be seen as a gift. Um, so again, happy that the the individuals that are bringing down the donations are bringing them down.

That's what we should be doing, but I just want to make sure it's being done um uniformally across the district.

Thank you, Mr. Jimmy.

Mr. Dag. Yeah, just on the first one, it says the Tansey School is getting thousands from the Feinstein Foundation. Is that a new thing that they're Are they a Feinstein school?

They did apply to become a Feinstein School. Yes.

And they received it?

Yes. because I don't recall ever seeing anything from maybe I missed it but thought Friday a weekly memo but I'll go back and check I think either way it just I think it's a good thing that they were in it but I just didn't know that they were part of it.

Thank you. I yield.

Deb, can you call the role?

Mr. A.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Corey.

Yes.

M. Laravey. Miss Pereira.

Yes.

May.

Yes. Item number 10 to acknowledge.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Uh Dr. C. So, um, to acknowledge, um, each of these donations, on behalf of Tany Elementary School, um, and principal Stephanie Brown, we acknowledge a $1,000 donation from the Feinstein Foundation. The don the donation will be used, um, to find meaningful ways to help meet the basic needs of our students and families. On behalf of the fine performing arts

director, Joseph Fontina, we acknowledge a donation of $1,000 from the Michael Troy Memorial Music Foundation. This donation will be used for purchasing music musical instruments at Dery High School. On behalf of Watson Elementary School in Principal Karen Wood, we acknowledge um the donation of 10 laundry gift cards, a value of $25 to $30 from the Follower Laundry Company.

The donation will be used to ensure that students can wear clean uniforms to school. On behalf of Green Elementary School and Dr. Liz Dunn, we acknowledge seven the donation of seven Thanksgiving baskets, meals for Green families, and a donation from the Union Methodist Church. This donation will be used to provide Thanksgiving meals has been used um to provide Thanksgiving meals for

Green School families. And on behalf of Watson Elementary School and Principal Karen Wood, we acknowledge the donation of 310 stuffed animals um a donation from PetSmart. It will these will be distributed to students before the winter break.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Mr.

Um, just just to backpedal on uh the donation from the Michael Troy Memorial Music Foundation, I just want to uh publicly u compliment uh the Michael Troy Foundation because beside the $1,000 donation they gave to Dery to um to include more musical instruments, they also included two young students with scholarships. Uh there was a concert in the middle of November at the Narrows in which several of um our

people from Dery um performed on behalf of the Michael Troy Foundation and it raised uh a real lot of a real good amount of money and I'm just really really proud that they consider donating to Dery as their main priority uh as a musical foundation and Michael Troy is is the late great folk songwriter singer but also a 1970 graduate of Dery High School. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Corey. Item number 11 is the approval of contracts. It just says continuations on the bottom, but when you flip the page, Mr. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm really losing it by the minute here, guys. The first one is number 10, the grants 18 foundation one grant. I need a motion.

Second.

I have a motion to second. Discussion on that grant.

Deb, call the role, please.

Mr. Ael, yes.

Mr. Bailey, Mr. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Cory.

Yep.

Mr. Larvey. M. Pereira.

Yes.

Mayor Kouan.

Yes. Item 11 is approval of contracts.

Um, if you look miscellaneous contracts, we take these in segments. There's four.

Is there anybody with any concerns on any of those four contracts?

No, just a comment. Mr. Chair, go ahead, Mr. Corey.

I'm uh really exciting to see this Senco contract. Uh, exciting curriculara here.

Can someone expound on on on the Senco and what their mission is because to me it represents real growth.

Is there anybody in in in uh Central that can talk about Senco?

It's very exciting to see a grant like this, a contract like this.

Hi, good evening. Um so this uh these are the um science kits um for the elementary school. So we're um using open SIAD units now in in K to 5 and so previously we had focused in 6 to 12 and so we're really um starting to embed some science instruction not that we haven't been doing it but utilizing the same resource now in K to 5 and so we have a team of teachers who've been

trained as sort of facilitators and um these are many of the kits that we'll utilize um in K to 5.

I was very happy to see that. I mean, it's it's it's even affecting K students and grade one students and grade two students. And I could see that there's a succession with the design of the curriculum, you know, sunlight and weather, waves, light waves, sound waves, earth and land changes in structures, properties in matter, uh forces and interactions of weather and hazards. And as the the grades get

older, grade four, they're learning about energy transfer. And in grade five, they're learning about ecosystems.

I mean, um I want the public to know just how exciting all of this sounds.

And and if we don't talk about it here, then nobody really knows. It becomes invisible. But but this curriculum that's going on in these early grades, I I never had this type of curriculum when I was a student. So I'm I'm glad to see that it's raising awareness. I just wanted to call light to it. Thank you. I yield.

Absolutely.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Das.

Um I'm just going to ask a quick question on on the Cisco brothers the culinary.

Okay. Go ahead.

Um going to support it. Just one question and I went didn't go through every single different quote, but I saw some and I believe I saw one and correct me if I'm wrong from New Bever. They put in a bid to Am I looking at the looking at the backup?

Newbford Vulk never put in a I saw Hi, Mr. Das. Uh, no, New Bedford Voke didn't put in a bid. They're just a comparison because they use Cisco.

Okay. And um there were few different um so this was the um the best out of all the quotes and you're happy with the service and everything?

I'm very very happy.

Okay. The majority of vocational schools use Cisco. Um it ones that have restaurants.

Sure. Okay. That's all I need to know.

Thank you.

Can I get a motion? A second chairman.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Agu. Yeah, then Mr.

Cory again.

Just uh on the SMCO, this is not new, right?

I mean, I think we've been doing science kits, science kits for years. I read it just said that just kind of morphing them a little bit, but yeah, open sad in the lower grades is new, though. Um we've been using it in 6 to 12. We've had other types of science kits in the lower grades, but um the open sed kits, that's what I'm saying. But we have it's not something that's coming out of

No, no, it's just going to now align our curriculum so that it's K to 12 um with the same uh resource.

Yep. And u Mr. Chairman, I want to put a hold on South Coast Hospitals Group, but make a motion to approve the others.

Second.

I have a motion. Second, Mr.

Yeah. Just have a question on the uh the FM systems uh the Tracy Veil motion.

Um doing that.

I don't think that's Oh, we're just doing the miscellaneous.

All right. Okay. So, uh I also want to put a hold on the South Coast group. So, I yield.

We got a hold on that already. Mr. Ko, let's vote on E+, Senco, and Cisco Brothers. Deb, can you call the role on those three, please?

Mr. Aar.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey, Mr. Das, yes.

Mr. Cory, yes.

M Larby, Miss Carrera, yes. Mayor Coug, yes. Mr. Aguar on South Coast Hospitals.

Yeah. Just uh I had a couple of technical questions. Was this the first time that this is before us for this year?

Yes.

So one of the concerns that I have is every year I say the same exact thing related to this contract that we get the contract before us after it already started and we don't have a chance to say whether we're going to do it or we're not going to do it or whether we're going to go out for bid and do other things. So all I'm seeing is what we got today. It says employee

assistance program October 1 to September 30th. Um don't know if we don't really have anything. We got a contract from 2010 that gets carried over. Um we don't have any quarterly statistical reports that are listed. I just don't understand why how this happens year after year that we we don't do this ahead of time.

We have talked about this internally and we do plan to I know that Mr. Lai has already started to um look into other companies and already has some quotes and some u more information about the services that they render um in comparison to South Coast. We did find ourselves um in a situation as we have with other contracts and I know that I agree with you this has happened before um with an automatic rollover um and

they're requiring 90day advance notice.

So, we have to let signal to them by June of 2026 um that we would not be renewing the contract for um the next school year.

And so, we are um we you know, we're in the process of doing that, gathering some information so we would be able to um give them Yeah. I mean, I appreciate you being honest about it, just that we had the same exact conversation with the same people here last year. Like I just don't get how we can do this year after year after year.

And I'm not even saying I'm opposed to the South Coast group.

What I asked for in the past and other members of this said the same thing. How what is the utilization? The original contract is listed. It says 2010.

So they just keep on rolling over the same contract. If you read that contract, it says there will be quarterly statistical reports given to the to us. We receive nothing all year.

not looking at the details, you know, it just it is really disheartening, but it tells speaks of a systematic problem with how we are just not ahead of the game and what we do to this committee is just tie our hands and let's vote on something that's already done. I want to stress I'm not opposed to South Coast.

It's just I I I appreciate your honesty, but it it really just is tiring when it's the same thing over and over. I yield.

Mr. Corey, yeah, I have the very same concerns. I see that it's a rollover. The contract in front of me says 9:15 2010 and here we are in 25. So uh an automatic rollover just doesn't look right to me and um I don't see any itemization for the money that we're putting into this program. Um are we bound by this contract now because of the language? And do we have to let them

know by June about next year's status or are we bound to this contract now? Can we table it?

I I don't Mr. Cory, I don't think you can stop the car in the middle of the race.

I just think they're already seeing people. I agree that we should be more diligent next year and making sure we get the quotes before June so that it won't lapse again. But they probably already have clients, I'm assuming, in the far of a school system, and we're not going to drop them the week before Christmas.

Okay. So, I want I want to request that uh Mr. Lai give his uh a heads up uh before this contract is even considered for the next cycle. Uh looking for next year, I'm looking for a heads up on it so we can give a proper determination as to what this contract is.

Mr. Lai.

Yeah. Yeah, what I'm planning on doing, I've met with a few different uh EAP providers over the last couple months um just to get an idea of what services they provide and also get some quotes.

I'd like to present those. I think we have uh three three other providers in addition to South Coast. Um my goal is to be able to present those to you uh either in you know January or February.

Um so we can make a decision for July 1.

and that'll give us enough time if we decide to um cancel with South Coast or or go with a different provider, we'd have that 90-day window to be able to start by July 1.

Thank you. I yield, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Mr. Aaron, that answer just begs the question. So, here we are at the December meeting. Mr.

Lai just told us and the public that for several months now he's been looking at other vendors and the like. To me, that would say Mr.

looked at the contract that said it was ending and didn't like if that didn't happen. If that didn't happen because you're shaking your head, no, it didn't happen. I It just begs the question of how did you not look at the contract if you're looking at saying whether we should consider somewhere else or we looking for other places. You didn't even look at the contract that was due on whatever date it was, October.

Like I I just don't get it. just just to clarify. So, I think because of the long-standing relationship that we've had with South Coast and I believe it's a citywide um program and we are one of the departments in the city. So, we don't necessar like we got a bill basically. So, there's not this contract renewal. So, if we and to be honest with you, it was the first time I had seen

the contract. I asked very specifically when we got the bill, is this some like are we tied to them? Um, can we, you know, can we start looking into other people? I want to make sure we bring some things forward. And when we looked at the contract, we learned that it's just been rolling over for 15 years and there's never been a signal to them by July 1 that we're not renewing. And so

here we are again. So, but we know that now and we moving forward are preparing for the a July 1, you know, if we want to, you know, if if the information that's been collected by Mr. Lai leads us to away from South Coast, then we know that we need to do that by July 1.

We are also very cognizant even you know as we started this conversation um you know it before we knew about the the rollover piece um if we wanted to cancel the contract what would that look like for our members our our staff who are already using the services. So wanting to make sure that we gave them ample time um you know even prior to July 1, but to give them a heads up that

you know as of July one we won't be partnering with them anymore and that you know you would need to seek um services through a new vendor and so on and so on. So trying to be cognizant of that. Yes, a mistake was made. Um but it was the first it wasn't we weren't examining the contract and realize it.

We got a bill and went back to the contract. I all I would ask is that the superintendent go back and research the minutes of the prior meetings because this is definitely a problem because what we've talked about in the prior meetings was looking at the information looking at the finance team to make sure that they knew before this actually comes up to talk to us everything you're saying

you're going to do now we actually set as a body with all of the people that are still sitting here in the audience and here that were working here at the time Mr. Dalai is probably the only one if he was just started in July, but everyone that's been here knew this was going on. So now we're going to go back and do something that this committee already told everyone what we needed to

do. That's the problem that I have with it. I yield.

Okay, De, call the RO, please.

I need a motion.

Oh, I need a motion. Second.

Motion to approve.

Second.

A motion. Second on South Coast.

Mr. A.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Cory.

Yep.

Miss Larby. Miss Pereira.

Yes.

Yes.

Hold on. Um I'm sorry.

We have four uh special ed contracts.

Who wants to hold one? Mr. Das.

Hold on. Soleian health and Tracy Val.

Like to put a hold on Tracy Vale.

All right. We got a hold on that one already.

Can I get a motion?

Motion to approve the other two. Second.

Lifespan and Southshore Educational Collaborative. I have a motion to second. Deb, can you call the role on those two contracts, please?

Mr. Agaff.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Cy.

Yes. Miss Laravey, Miss Per, yes.

Mayor Cougar, yes. Mr. Das, Solanian Health.

Yeah, just more um a technical question similar to the ones we just had. Um so I see for Solen it is um we're just rolling over the contract from last year.

I'm sorry. It's actually an additional we're looking to contract for an additional staff member with them.

Right. Yeah.

So currently we have one contracted provider from Salantiant and therefore the contract needs more funding in order to be able to hire a second contracted provider from this particular agency.

The backup that I'm looking at currently it both backups. So, we have the contract and like a email memo and the email memo states that we're um attaching a signed contract by Brian Lai and that signed contract is from 82724.

Yes. So, we did have an initial contract with Salant in the summertime. That contract was only for one staff member.

So this isn't a new contract. It's additional funding to get right Kevin a second person from salient but usually there would be backup as to um there would be like some sort of contract in the backup which we don't have.

I was looking at this as this was a rollover because I said I didn't see anything about additional funding. I just read the contract.

Hold on. You done, Mr. D? Hold on.

No, I just want to make a point. That's my concern.

Sure. I understand.

I I yield.

Mr. Aguia.

Yeah. The only thing I wanted to say was on the backup for this particular item on Solient. It says an additional contract for contracted speech people to cover special education vacancies for the remainder of the year, both SLP and SLPA.

And Mr. Lai just has the signed agreement. So I believe this is just a financial piece that we're increasing in order to get the services, right?

At the same time, the actual salary line is going to be reduced by those positions. So it's really not an additional funding and I think it's sometimes confusing, but um we need more speech people and more speech people assistance than ever. So I just wanted to clarify that that's in the email that um I saw. I yield.

Okay. Mr. Das, anything else? Yeah, just um on my colleague's point, I usually thought there was still like I see the what where Mr. Aguar is reading, but usually there's like a um sort of like like a denim, which I I just did not see, but um again, I'm not opposed to the services either. So, I'll make a motion to approve.

I have a motion.

I have a motion to second on Solient.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Right. Yeah.

On the same issue, uh, as I just stated, I think we need more speech teachers and speech uh, assistants. Have we lost any staff members that are potentials because of the timing that it takes to get through HR?

Sometimes, yes. Um, and I don't know that it's necessarily an H function of our HR department. It's a matter of I know sometimes fingerprints take a long time to come back for us. Um I know sometimes it's a reference check piece but yes we have people who have called us after initially accepting and then declined the position not an exorbitant amount but enough um that because the delay in onboarding.

Yeah. U if I could just ask the superintendent to create a one pager on any staff that were lost under those conditions. And the other reason why I was asking that was if this came up uh I think what we have to do is eliminate this process of having to come before the committee once a month to increase this. So if let's say 3 weeks ago you knew that this money needed to get moved

and it's like I just said we're taking it from here and putting it there like why can't we just give a blanket to the superintendent to say when we need a speech language assistant or a speech you these hard to fill positions why can't we just give a blanket and say this is it's not a new expense like we're going to take it from their other piece we need to streamline it so that

you can actually get the people when they're like strike when the iron's hot is the way I see And um that's one piece. The second piece of urgency for hirings for special ed is that we also need to have some flexibility for the superintendent and the director to be able to offer people that are ready to work for River the right amount of money that's needed. if you if there's things that

are binding your hands or her hands to say, well, we would like to hire this gentleman or this woman for this position, but because of the contract, I really this is a world right now where we have to give the best to options to everyone. So, I think we need to look moving forward if it's not already done that we offer flexibility. I believe it says in the contracts that the teach uh

superintendent can give credit for whatever needs to happen, but if that's not happening, I would say bring it to us ahead of time. Uh, we need to streamline. We can't afford to lose. We need too many people to lose them. I yield. Thank you.

Call the role, please, on Soyant.

Mr. Aar.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Dus.

Yes.

Mr. Cory.

Yes.

M. Laravey. Mr. Pereira.

Yes.

May.

Yes. Mr. Das on Tracy Vale.

Thank you. So, going through when I went through the backup, I'm assuming you I'm sure you'll explain this like the headphones sometimes through this warehouse helps with like sensory. Um no actually Tracy Vale is a speech and language pathologist who is also a trained audio verbal therapist. She is has um a special training where she is able to work with students who are deaf and heart of hearing and she oversees

the FM systems that attach to their hearing aids so that they can um participate fully in the classroom environment. So right now now we have about 47 FM systems that need to be updated or maintained. Then if a student's hearing aids get adjusted, it needs to be recalibrated, all of those pieces. So she does that for us on a part-time basis as a contracted provider as well as um she provides direct

services to a few students who attend um Catholic schools in the city.

I guess my my really biggest not concern but question would be around um because we have like um a consultant agreement I see and it's not going to say it's vague but it it is a little vague specifically um going through some of the bullet points maintaining student files um could you explain a little bit of what that looks like? means it's all about related to their hearing, right? So, if

a student comes in with a new aiology report from their um aiologist and it's straightforward. We don't need to consult with our aiologist to give us input. Tracy can look at that report based on their recommendations. She can either make adjustments to the hearing to the um FM system or she helps us get uh the FM system that is recommended by the aiologist. So I think when she means

those files, it's files related to that to their FM system to their um hearing needs.

Sure. Um and last question, last two questions. One is around liability.

Usually you see in the contracts um some sort of identification.

Um I'm not sure if there's ever something that breaks down with the FM systems. I mean who would be like responsible on a legal sense? So, we are responsible for the students devices.

They're bought they're funded through Fall River Public Schools just like you would fund an iPad for a student who had trouble communicating. It's considered assist of technology is what is considered. Is she just basically mainly maintenance and like looking at reports of the So, and then when a student brings a new like they need a device and need an FM system, if we have one in our um stock

that is compatible again, she will use that. But if not, or if they need something very specific, then she will make that recommendation to me and then we will have to order that for the student depending on what um the student needs.

Okay. And my last question is more of a technical because we brought the the similar concerns up before. Um the contract looks like it begins in September.

Um so I'm assuming the services have been started in September.

Yes. And honestly I can find out but I'm not exactly sure because Tracy Vale has worked in this district for a very long time. So I'm not sure why it's just coming here now um versus earlier on.

Right. because it's signed on the first and again I'm not really going to like nitpick at it but of course that's something we want as a committee.

Fair question for sure.

That's it. Motion to approve.

I have a motion. Do I have a second?

Mr. Chair, do I have a second first? And I had my hand up.

Second.

I have a motion. Second, Mr. Cory.

So, Miss Obenchain, I'm I'm thoroughly going to support this measure. That's that's not my concern. My concern is with the overall specialized equipment that's within your realm in special needs and the inventory of all of that equipment and uh the use and abuse. Um uh are we getting efficient use out of our equipment? Uh are they are we able to use it year after year? Are they

properly maintained? uh students abusing the stuff that they're able to take home or or use on on you know that's our property that kind of that's what I'm concerned with because there's a real lot of equipment. Do you have any specialized person in your department overseeing just the equipment?

So we have a few actually in collaboration with our own tech team. Um like I said Tracy oversees she does all the inventory in the beginning of the year. She at the end of the year does the inventory. If something is out for maintenance, she's the one that tracks all of that. If it was um something related to physical therapy equipment, we have Julie Almea. Again, the same thing. If there's things that are

broken, um they certainly bring that to my attention just so that I know. Was it broken accidentally? Was it broken, you know, because of a student has a disability? And sometimes um the behavior lends itself to to breaking something. Sure.

Um you know we do our iPad same thing with the tech team that we have with our AT team looks at how many repairs. We do try to work with families about the purpose of these this equipment. Um my office is already talking about how to streamline things a little bit better because again it's all over the district. So, it's very hard to kind of um you know, we do what I think is a

good job of tracking all of that and and maintaining it. I don't think that there's um an excessive amount of like abuse happening with our technology from the reports that come to me and from the repairs that we need to do. Um I think the the biggest concerns we have is overall is our iPad screens um because they break easily. Um, but Tech has a already has a contract with someone to

like repair those pretty quickly. Um, yeah, that was my concern because I know there's a a real lot of equipment that you're responsible for to, you know, just wanted to make sure that there's some efficiency, some oversight and reuse just just to help us out budgetarily.

Thank you. I yield.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Aguar following up on my colleague's concern around the date. So I think we have a system problem across our system, not necessarily just for special education, but I'd like to get an answer from the superintendent at some point on how do we have a contract? How do we pay people without a contract in this district? I asked it at the last meeting that we pay sometimes we pay contractors for work

before the actually work comes to us and things like that. By just looking at this here, 121 is the actual email that came from the person in in house. The letter says 121. The services were since uh the summer or whatever the dates were. Like we have a systems problem here. And that's part of the reason why when we have the uh Collins Center report that came out, this is an example

of it. I just don't understand how year upon year we can just keep doing the same thing. And it's not I'm not looking for an answer or anything. It just it begs the question. It says 121 and the person's been getting paid since the start of the year.

That is a systems problem and it needs to be corrected. I yield. Thank you.

Have a call the role, please.

Mr. Agata.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Ders.

Yes.

Mr. Cory.

Yes.

Miss Larry.

Miss Pera.

Yes.

Mayor Kan.

Yes. Item 12 is the committee of the whole. 121 is a discussion and vote to approve the CTE advisory committee board members as presented by Cynthia Sylvia, CTE director.

Motion to approve with a question.

I have a motion and a second with a question, but I assume we're going to let Miss Sylvia tell her piece first.

Well, the the advisory committee is approved by the school committee every year. So um you have a list of who we have for our advisory and we have different categories in our advisory that we try our best to fulfill every single year and I think we're getting a more robust advisory year after year after year. If you look over the course of time, at least since I've been here, you've seen an improvement through all

10 programs with advisory council advisory council members that are really truly interested and active in what we do here and how they can help our kids because it's not all one way. Advisory works both ways. So whether it be a judge coming in to sit on a criminal justice case from our advisory board or it be uh to look at curriculum and to make sure we're using all this all the

industry level equipment that we should be using. Our advisory board is really um important to us for that matter. But it goes both ways. Uh, and I think it's great to see more collaboration this year than ever before of our advisory board taking active interest in what our kids are doing and how they can best help from their vantage point. So, I think that that's pretty good.

Okay, Mr. Das, thank you. I went through the list and I think it's very extensive and I think it covers um a lot of different organizations and I think it'll be very beneficial. My question is more in terms of the board itself. Is this we is an advisory board and I think this is might be the first time this has come before me since I've joined the committee that at least I can remember. So the advis

the advisory committee advises would you say it advises yourself advises superintendent or so no it it's program advisory committee so it advises it advises each program.

So each program has their own advisory committee. So when you're looking at this list, that's why it says construction, why it says cosmetology because those are the people that are on their advisory board.

So it's for each different advisory correct specifically.

Um and they Okay. So they spec they specifically advise the the program.

Um that's fine. The only um and I'm going to vote to approve it. I don't see why not. Um the only question I would have and I'm gonna whenever I see some sort of committee be formed come before this committee. I'm going to be very um equal in my questions. I just like to get an opinion as to whether because this is being approved by the school committee is it subjects these advisory committees

to the open meeting law. I just like to get an opinion at that at some point because um but that's really all I have.

Thank you.

By the way, all our meetings are open meetings.

So, we're posted. We tell everybody where it is and and all of our meetings are open.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Corey, and so I was I was pleased to see um even though I needed my glasses to read this list.

Me, too.

Because it was that was micro small.

However, it's much easier online.

We have a number of parents and students on this list as well.

Absolutely. And so I'm curious as to know what some of the feedback from the students are.

So these are stakeholders and one of the things I like to see in most of our programs is we have we have to have a current student which we have but also former students coming back who are probably in the industry for which they left our program which is nice too and our parents. So those are our stakeholders now. They're looking at they're they're not just looking at oh this is really good. Oh a poster. Uh-uh.

They're really looking at what are our kids doing? Is it industry standard?

They're listening to the people in industry who sit on that committee as well. And they're really helping us as stakeholders make the decisions that really guide at least the decision making of both the program and me for the program. So all of our stakeholders are vital to make sure that our programs operate the best they can possibly operate.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Mr. Jim, Mr. Aguia, thank you. I am going to be voting to approve this. I liken liken this advisory to a school council within the school where you know you should have representative uh parents.

The state the state kind of tells us who that school council should be made up of though.

Yeah. And in the district we I think we need to do a better job with the school council. I've asked the superintendent for a list of which I'm still waiting for, but ultimately all the schools should have school councils that meet regularly and open meeting all just like you just said. But we I think we need to do more of this, not less. So I'm going to be supportive.

Thank you.

All right, Deb, you want to call the role please?

Mr. AA, yes.

Mr. Bailey, Mr. Dios, yes.

Mr. Corey, yes.

Miss Laravey, Miss Carrera, yes.

Mayor Coogan, yes. 122.

Thank you. is a discussion and vote to approve the revised dery CTE policy for 2627 as presented by Cynthia Sylvia CTE director.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Oh, do I get to intervene?

Yeah, you can start now.

Well, sure. It's just that so it's already been approved.

Yes. So the approved at the last meeting I was I was not able to be here and it was approved and there's just a couple of things I would you're the board that approves the policy. I understand that but there are a few things that as the CT director I feel like if I don't bring to the forefront I would be doing a disservice to both our programs and and

what I what I see. So, I've written the program. I've written the policy year after year after year, so I'm pretty familiar with it. But this year, with it going to a lottery system, um I had to rewrite it and really complied to the rules and regulations that the that the state put me under.

Mr. Chairman, can I just interrupt for one second?

Hold on.

The document that we have, is it listed anywhere? Any changes from the prior as from last year?

No, the one that last meeting. That's why the one that we already approved.

The one that was approved is what is in the binder.

Is there changes to that? Just as you're talking, we can I have not changed it.

Okay.

No, I've not changed it. Although I am going to recommend that it be changed because um first and foremost, my concern is to have two lotteryies, one for special ed and one for regular ed um is a huge concern for me. one because it's a violation of the law really is what it comes down to. You can't have a special population. You can't discriminate against other populations. And so when you be when you

put in a discriminatory process and that's what it comes down to when you have a specialed special lottery that's a discriminatory process. So our other marginalized groups like socioeconomic group, why don't they have their own lottery? And our MLL students, why can't they have their own lottery? And furthermore, from a special ed perspective, not every parent really wants their child singled out without

their without them doing it. in the policy that was what was previously written before the two policy came into play here. Um the special education parents of a special education student had the right to disclose. They didn't have to. But this is now taking if you have a 504 and you have an IEP, you're in this lottery.

A lot of parents are not going to be happy with that. Furthermore, I just also would like to say for the record, I don't foresee us ever having to do a lottery because usually we take every kid into Dery Discovery. That's the greatest thing about Dery Discovery is that we do take our kids. We take all our kids. And it was just brought to my attention that without organically we

seem to mir as a miracle have the same exact numbers as our as the population of Dery High School. Our numbers this year I just found out we have 5% more special ed students than we have special ed students at Dery High School. So we take more not less. The reason for the lottery was primarily for regional vocational students who didn't take everybody, who cherrypick their students. We don't do that here at at

Dery High School. We don't cherrypick our students. We have it offered to all students and it it's been offered to all students since the day I got here. I can't speak to prior to that, but we have taken every kid who wanted Dery Discovery that wanted it in the time frame for them to apply. And most of the time even it's beyond the time frame for them to apply because we have rolling

admissions. So we've taken our kids. So I just feel like if I you guys make the policy and whatever the policy you've voted on I will appear I will adhere to following. That's my job. But I would be remiss if I did not say that I think at some point that it is a violation of the law because it does say that we will take all kids regardless of race, ethnicity, special education being one

of those things that they say that we will not discriminate against. And so I just feel like that part of the law I can't say what's going to happen because when we approve you approved it approved it and we submitted it to the department of ed whatever happens there happens there. I can't say they might be sleeping and nothing happened. I don't know but I read the law and I know that

that's how you're supposed to do it. So I just wanted you guys as a CT director wanted you to hear my side.

Mr. Corey then Miss Pereira.

Um I I completely agree with you. Um you sound um as if your method is far more egalitarian than the method proposed to us via lottery. I have uh strong questions around the lottery myself. um mandated by by the Department of Education. And I'm just wondering how could we you I well it seems like your your method is is skirting the policy because you're accepting all anyway.

So the lottery only happens if we have more people like if we have 300 kids who want to be in Dury Discovery and we have 350 seats there's no lottery.

You're not you're probably not.

Yeah. They're all going to get in anyway.

They're all going to come by and that's the law. If you have fewer seats than you have applicants, then you're going to just accept them all. You don't have to you're not going to do a lottery.

And your program uh the whole program, all of the departments in your program are flourishing and and doing very very well.

Absolutely.

Well, so I wanted to ask a question out of the box. I'm thinking out of the box on my next That's what makes our program so special is that we take everybody. So, we just heard our special ed director talk about, you know, um, pathology. Okay. The speech and language pathologists and the need for more.

Sure.

And and I know that and I'm just wondering, you just began an EMT program within your within your department.

No, we don't have an EMA.

EMS, I meant, right?

No, we have No, we just have a CNA program.

CNA. Yes.

Is there a prop a proposal for an EMS program coming up?

Not to the best of my knowledge.

I I I thought there might have been.

We're looking into how we can build it into the frameworks, but it's a little within the criminal just Oh, you're looking looking to see how you can build it within the criminal justice program.

There it is. That that was my clarification down the road. But my out of my out of the box question is is there any chance to develop a program to develop speech and language pathology or occupational therapy within the confines of your CTE programming?

I don't think that there's one from the state yet, but if there was, we jump on it because I mean there's going to be such a need, you know, for the demographics in the population that we're serving that it would just make great sense to have something like that. and train kids like you're training the CNAs, you know.

And I was just at the nursing home yesterday and I know that any nursing home in the uh all the hospitals can use any CNA candidate that they can get their hands on and that all of our kids are working.

So that's really really good. Well, I just wanted to throw that out there and keep your eye on that on that prize and and a prize us if something like that, you know, comes available. I'd like to know more.

Would we would jump on it.

Okay. Thank you. Are you Miss Pereira? So clearly you didn't write the policy. Do you know who did?

I wrote the majority of the policy, but it was changed by you guys.

When did at the last meeting we we brought a policy and it was amended at like at I I I was under the impression that came from from you, but it I'm hearing the policy that was submitted came from me. The policy that was submitted and not the amended portion. So can somebody provide me with the rationale for why?

And what do we have before us?

What you have is the amended version that was approved.

We have the we have the version that's approved. But what the what the director of CT is saying is that that's not what she thinks we should have.

Where is that? We brought so what I brought forward at our last meeting was what was recommended by the CT director initially. Yes.

During the meeting um it was changed.

Yes. So remind me what the rationale for that was. the um as I was describing the lottery process um and at one point um the conversation came to um you know the demographics in the program and I shared that right now the program is actually representative of what the dery demographics look like and it was recommended that that be written in um which we did state at that time that that and a question came up around

legality so I mentioned at the time that I didn't feel as though that was aligned to what was outlined in the law because we had two options either a weighted lottery or an unweed lottery. The director was proposing the unweighted lottery um which basically is every child gets a ball right an equal opportunity. Um but then it was recommended here that um we shift it so that we do um an unweighted lottery but

make sure that the total number of enrollment is representative and you really can't have both, right? We can't say it's unweed and then also say you must have 25% students with disabilities as an example, right? Or 20% students with disabilities.

Yeah, of course. On the weight on the weighted lottery, there's only one weighted lottery put forth by the state.

And the weighted lottery has to do with attendance, conduct, academic standing, and a counselor recommendation. And they get rid of the counselor recommendation.

So the weighted lottery, you get an extra ball if you have only 27 absences out of 270. You get an extra ball. This is the state. This is not me. I'm not making it up. You get an extra ball if you have fewer than X number of suspensions. You get an extra ball if you have a certain GPA. You get an extra ball. So, it gives like that advantage to those kids that are doing it right.

That's what happens. That's why I did not want it. I wanted an unweighted lottery. So, everybody gets one ball.

Everybody gets one ball and we see how we do because I felt like all of our kids deserve a shot. All of our kids.

our special education kids, our MLL kids, our our economically disadvantaged kids, and are really kids who are doing it right. They all deserved one ball.

That's what I that's what I wrote into the policy. So, the weight how you weight it is not really up to somebody. That's the weighted lottery. So, you either have a weighted lottery or you don't have a weighted lottery. And what it was proposed back to me was that we have two lotteryies, one for special ed and one for regular ed. And to me, I don't think that's the way to go.

All right. So, Miss Hold on. Mr. Agar was the one I believe made the original amendment. Mr.

Agiar, Miss Pereira still has the floor.

Oh, I'm sorry. Miss Burns have the floor. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

That's okay. So, unfortunate you weren't here.

I'm very sorry.

Right. So when you hear one argument for a cause and it makes sense and you it's nice to have both sides of it. It's okay if you had somewhere to be. I'm not at all criticizing you for not being here.

But it's unfortunate because you know that now this got passed. But like everything here things can change. So I would suggest it sounds like you're passionate about this. That's what I'm getting from you. So, if I were you, I would again rewrite the policy to the way you see fit because it should be, I think, representative of of a department you're you're hoping um you're leading.

And then I think this is something that goes back to the policy subcommittee and maybe you sit there and it's vetted out better and you can um give a better explanation to why it should be um unweighted.

And then I think this is something in other words that can be changed. To be to be honest with you, I really don't think we're I think that we're gonna have some time on this. This is how I really think about it.

I think because the policy is not going to be in force other than the rest of like it's going to be for next year and then the following year is going to be a new policy that's going to come before the board. It is my guess is we're not going to really need it because I don't think we're going to have a lottery.

Well, it's up to So if we go a year without having a lottery, then we can kind of take that time to put together what what we think it should look like.

But I I thought the original policy is what I thought it should look like. But again, remember, we can almost have a reverse lottery if you think about it because we're really not going to, if we have a lottery, it's going to be a handful of kids that we won't take.

we're gonna take 300 400 kids, you know.

So really this lottery system was really truly designed for the regional vocational schools that did not take all kids, you know, and so we are also a comprehensive school who has CTE. So we have to fall into this to this law.

I think the intention was to be equitable and to have an equitable population of students. Um I this tonight's my last night well my last regular meeting. Um but I would encourage you from my of course from my experience I wouldn't wait till something happens. If you feel this policy is not representative of the CTE program and what it should be offering then I encourage you to do it sooner

than later because time goes fast and things change quick here. Um thank you for your work.

Thank you and without a yield.

Mr. Aguier, just a couple of comments. So, what we were presented with, if I recall, was a timeline, uh, a deadline, and we needed to vote on this. Hence the reason why we didn't say, "Let's just wait until she comes."

Yep.

Now, you're suggesting that this isn't really going to take effect till next year anyway.

Correct. That was the Just putting it in perspective of where I was sitting was we were under a deadline. So, we had to There is a deadline. We had to submit to the state.

There is a deadline.

That was part of the impetus. The second part of it was I believe we were told at the time that students we had over some kids didn't get in. I think that was what was told to us.

Some kids don't get confused. Some kids don't get into cosmetology. Some kids don't get into engineering. But every kid last year was offered a CTE program, right? But every kid got into Dery Discovery. So, we um I speak for myself, that's where I was looking at and we should have a representative uh program for students with various all of the things you talked about. So, I don't disagree with what you're saying.

I couldn't agree with you more.

But the question I'm having for the superintendent or Mr. Repose or whoever's presenting this, we voted on something last month. What we have before us is a new I don't know, it's 20 pages with nothing in it that says what is the change that you're recommending.

So, when I was asking you what what are we looking at because there's nothing in here. I have a whole another document.

We don't have a one pager that says, "Oh, I'd like to change on paragraph 3 uh these this language to reflect what you said." So, I don't know what the heck we're voting on.

Okay. But with all due respect, when an amendment was made here at the last meeting, it w it was done right here at the table. So, I apologize because I didn't realize that both versions weren't weren't sent. But we had a discussion here about whether or not the the suggested amendment was illegal, whether it was lawful or not. The the statement that was made and it was made by you, Mr. Aguar, was like, I don't

think it's illegal, and if the commissioner wants to come down here and tell us it's that we can't do this for our students with disabilities, bring it on. So, it wasn't like we didn't already have this discussion. The only thing that um Miss Sil Mr. Silia is here saying tonight is that piece that we added that said let's do two lotteryies instead of the unweed lottery. That needs to go.

It's in and it's in section seven. So but where is it? So don't it's in section seven.

So don't come at me trying to say well we didn't know what but we didn't do it here.

It's not highlighted.

So saying is section seven. So we made a decision and yes I will say the same thing. If if you're going to get in trouble for trying to help special education students, then bring it. But we're trying our best. Now, if you suggest that, oh, we can't do it, so be it. But all I'm trying to figure out now is this is before us for a vote and approve. So, if we look at it and say,

you raised valid points. We want to approve what you want. I'm telling you, ma'am, I don't have in front of me anything that says this is the recommended language that's going to change. That's all I'm looking for. So I can make the motion and we'll change it.

The original policy The original policy is not in the binder. Only the revised policy is.

Okay.

Mr. Reposa was saying something about page seven uh section seven. Can you just take us through that?

Absolutely. Yeah. So the what what Miss Sylvia brought forward today is the policy as it was revised at the last meeting. So in section seven um which I don't have a page as it was or was not as it so after it was revised at the last meeting Miss Sylvia redid the policy with the committee's input okay from what was voted on. So the change is in section seven under selection

criteria. So you can see under lottery system part a subsection a purpose of the lottery those first couple of bullets describe um this idea of two parallel lotteryies. one for students with disabilities, one for all other applicants, and then some rationale around you. Just slow down and tell me where that is because Sorry. Yes, I wish there were page numbers, but I'm on section seven says selection criteria.

Yes. So then right under that it says lottery system in all caps. Yep.

And then um se subsection A, purpose of the lottery. Right. Those two bullets at the bottom of the page. Okay.

Um start to describe the lottery process as it was proposed by the committee at the last meeting. That's where she made the changes and submitted it tonight.

So, all Miss Sylvia did was take the input from the last meeting, incorporate that into the policy, change it, and it's outlined in that section right there.

I don't recall ever even discussing parallel lotteryies at the last meeting.

I know we made a motion and I just don't recall ever hearing anything about parallel lotteryies. I also don't recall hearing anyone say that what Miss Sylvia said that we take all the students we have uh 50 extra whatever like we didn't get that either. So I don't know where yes I at the last meeting I did um and I know there was a misconception that Mr.

Woodward and I um addressed one between getting into Dery Discovery and then getting into a program, right? And so it is possible as Miss Sylvia mentioned that a student might not get into let's say cosmetology, but the lottery process only applies to admission into Dery Discovery. So far, we have not had a situation where we would have had to actually use the lottery yet because we've been able to take every single

child into Dery Discovery in grade nine.

Wait, I have a question. I guess I guess the other question that I have is um when you talked about the other you know uh I guess it's the sophomores or you know the program program what are the dyn what does the demographics of those programs look like related to is it the same you'd have to look at each program specifically but they're across the board we have well I I don't know what

it is exactly per program but I guess it would probably mirror what our I would ask that I would ask that we get that data because we're using it in the first logic to say it's representative of but one really is going to be mutually exclusive of the other to be honest with you I understand it's two different things the question I'm asking though is in each program so in each program

what was the dynam uh demographics for the program that's all it's we can find that out so what do you maybe Mr. Mr. proposal because he wrote this I guess or what are you actually looking for us to vote because if we just voted like I made the motion to approve as here that's actually what you don't want. So what I'm trying to get is somebody please tell me what you want.

Yeah.

And I think Miss Sylvia was operating under the presumption that because it was approve amended by the committee she was following the will of the committee and came forward with the revised policy. I know what Miss Sylvia would prefer is the original policy as it was written before the last meeting for section seven only which would basically be exactly just a straight unweed lottery is what she was proposing.

That's all I was looking for. I make a motion to go back to the original section seven selection criteria.

Second.

Second with a question.

Okay, Miss Miss Pereira.

So, I just got a little confused here because we were talking about when we need the lottery system. So let's say you have 10 spots in cosmetology.

The lottery system doesn't apply to any programming.

So the question is you have 10 spots in cosmetology. 15 people sign up that they want to be in cosmetology. How do you decide which 10 get the spot?

Because it goes by attendance, it goes by conduct. It goes by recommendation and it goes by um grades only in Dery Discovery.

So there is sort of a weighted system when it comes to getting into programs.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. just to be clear.

Um, and I I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that. Um, but it does I think it's just a point to be mentioned because when you first had said everybody gets in, it it gave me the impression, well, every student I'm going to just tell you real quick how that goes. So, every student was offered a Dery Discovery. Every kid, every student from Dery Discovery was offered a position in CTE. Mhm.

Now, if they if they only wanted cosmetology and they didn't get the top 10 and the their second choice was visual design, maybe they're in visual design, but they really wanted cosmetology.

If that student goes, I only want cosmetology or nothing. Well, then they didn't get anything if they didn't get into cosmetology. But every student was offered a CTE program. Now at like a diamond if they didn't get cosmetology which they don't have by the way but if they didn't get their first choice and they didn't get their second choice and they didn't get their third choice they

were put in whatever choice was left for them and they have no choice here at Dery if they wanted cosmetology or they didn't want anything else in CTE that's the beauty of a comprehensive high school they don't get stuck in a CTE program they're not interested in if they're only hope was construction and they didn't get into construction. They were offered um environmental. Well, they don't want environmental or they

say, "Yeah, I'll try environmental."

No, I don't disagree. Which is why I asked how that plays out because I was under the impression it was a lottery system through and through. So, if we have 10 cosmetology spots and 20 people, those 20 people go into a lottery, we have an equal shot of getting it. But you're saying it is in fact initially weighted and it does go by attend weighted by attendance and academic achievement and and um conduct I think

you said yes was one and then beyond that it's so it's almost like the lottery system part of it well part of it you need to have that for instance you have to have a thousand hours in cosmetology if you have 75 no I don't disagree I'm not disagreeing with you with the weighted process I'm not disagreeing with with allowing kids um who are really trying and being successful, giving them those

opportunities to explore things outside of what traditional college may look like for them after. So, I just was not agreeing or disagreeing, just rationalizing in my head.

We get about 85% to 90% kids in their first choice.

And just so you know, you can always like email and and if we do something wrong or that you don't agree with because you can't make it to a meeting, you know, believe me, I wish I was at that meeting. I mean, I certainly try to listen, but if you're not here, you know. So, anyway, we have a motion. I think with that, I yield.

Motion a second. Deb call the go back to the original plan, please.

Mr. Chair, I did have my hand up before Mr. fine, but are you going to vote against this?

Yes, I am actually.

Okay. Well, go ahead. Ask.

So, I like to give my ration. No, I just want to give my rationale quickly. Um, at the last meeting, I voted no.

Actually, I did vote for the policy because we um Mr. Stagar brought up a great point in including more special education. I am against a unweighted lottery and I believe we should include interest specifically and I I know this is kind of a moot point because as you just said the lottery may not even ever come into fruition anyway. However, if it ever did, if we're going to a lottery

system for those remaining students, I think I believe interest should play a role as they're showing um a want to be in the program and showing the effort to be in that program. But that's not to say I I agree with my colleagues point, your points against um having a place of belonging. if there's um issues with um attendance or behavior, this could be a place that for them to be turned around.

However, um for that reason, I'm just respectfully voting against it. But again, I agree with 90% of the policy.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Das, just so you know that the only three ways that we can weight that lottery is going to be on attendance, is going to be on academics, and it's going to be on conduct, not interest.

We we this um you weren't here, Miss Sylvia. However, the committee was told there was a at the subcommittee and at the full committee that there were four different criteria and that fourth one being interest. That that's actually inaccurate because we had a very long discussion. Um and I both I I think both you and Mr. Corey made a case for if a student is high interest, if they have family who um you

know is in cosmetology or you know a dad who does construction, shouldn't those students get preference? And we had a very lengthy conversation about it at subcommittee.

We were specifically told by Andrew Woodward that there would be a fourth that included interest that we could use that for weighted. I remember that clear as day.

Mr. Chairman, I hold on Mr. Chairman.

Yes, I yield.

Mr. Rag, just based on the the comments that we're all making as well as Mr. Silia is saying that this is not an urgent matter right now. I make a motion that we table this so that the new committee can take it up when we get some chance to digest to make sure it's right. This is not going to affect us right now anyway. So let's just take Wait, doesn't it a timeline or

something? It is going to Yeah, we go ahead.

So we had to submit by December 1st. the I'll be honest and say that the parts of that submission were to be were supposed to include um the policy itself as well as um like I had to attest that we were putting forth a policy that was lawful and I did not sign the attestation. I just submitted the policy. We are expecting um we're expecting that the organization that is reviewing them I

think AIRIR is reviewing we're expecting that we will get feedback and we can wait on the feedback.

So you did not sign because you don't know 100% if it's legal.

It's we got feedback from the department of ed that said it wasn't that it wasn't. Okay. Correct. So why don't we common sense vote now? Vote right now. bring it back to the policy.

It was the legal policy it was. And then if you guys want to take it up with the new committee, then do that, too. Bring it back to policy, debate it, have a whole thing. But we might as well get this settled today so that we're in line with the law.

I'm fine.

That's what I would say.

I have a motion to table and a second.

Um, and we also have a prior motion to uh amend the policy to the original policy. On the motion to table, Deb, call the role.

Mr. Yes, Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes, Mr. Cory.

Yep.

Mr. Larvey. M. Pereira.

No.

No. No. Tabled. Item 123.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Any discussion? Deb, call the role on 123.

Mr. A.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Dus.

Yes.

Mr. Cor.

Yes.

M. Lowery. Miss Carrera.

Yes.

Mayan. Yes. 124 motion to approve.

Second.

A motion to second. Discussion hearing none. De call the role.

Mr. Aam.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Cory.

Yes.

Miss Larby. Miss. Perr.

Yes. Mayor K.

Yes. 125. Discussion and first read of superintendent recommended FY2027 budget priorities is presented by Dr. Tracy Curley, superintendent of schools.

Thank you. I offered um as part of the backup um the information that was gathered through our survey, we had about 1330 people who responded and um that included I think 81 students and then we had um members of the community, you know, parents and guardians as well as um as well as staff members. So, I shared um all of the backup with with everyone and based on um the information that I

shared and feedback from um the team came up with um the budget priorities for school year 27. Um what you have before you um for the first read um the first statement says the most impactful investment we can make is in the people who work directly with our students every day ensuring every child learns in a safe welcoming environment with strong instruction meaningful support for

well-being and the adult guidance needed for inclusion seal and rigorous learning so each student can find their path. So, um, we established some budget principles to include, um, ensuring equitable access to high-quality instruction, aligning investments with district instructional priorities, preserving and improving core staffing ratios, maintaining safe safe, healthy learning environments, and investing in

strategies that drive both engagement and outcomes. And from there, set the budget priorities. Um they're listed here as strong teaching and learning, safe, healthy schools, recruitment and retention, and supporting students with disabilities and multilingual learners.

Um the intent is that these are, you know, four areas that we will prioritize as we uh move forward through the budget process.

Uh this is discussion and first read.

Anybody have any questions?

Hearing none.

Motion to approve as a first read to next meeting.

I don't think there's a motion on the first read, is there? says it's not vote to approve.

No 125 discussion and first read. Okay.

Thanks, Mr. Dyson. 126 is another discussion and first read.

The proposed budget calendar is presented by Kevin Almea, chief financial officer.

So, what we've done for you is provide you with um a budget calendar that aligns with last year. it um provides you with the dates from now until June and all the different um aspects of the the budget process. Um and so you can see from the calendar um you can see where we line up or what the proposed calendar looks like lined up to to this past year. And so with this

calendar that's in front of you, it um aligns with the city charter and it meets all the timelines that are required with the budget and this is a first read and any question I'm open open for any questions.

Any questions on the budget timeline?

Again, it's a discussion and first read.

Thank you, Mr. Alita.

One question.

Oh, you have a Mr. It's uh related to the current budget which will drive some of the question for the next budget.

We're getting quarterlys now from uh the full committee.

Yes.

So in J is it in January that we get a quarterly. So just want to clarify that that's going to actually show the actuals for all of the movement of like the incident we talked about earlier today where we approved 135,000 for the special ed that's going to be reduced from the other. So, just to clarify, in January, we're going to get every single um projected out cost centers balance so we

can see exactly where we're at in January.

Thank you.

127 is a discussion with the Collins Center review as presented by Dr. Tracy Kurley, superintendent of schools.

Um, so I I guess there's a question of whether or not I'm supposed to go there.

Um because it is going to be presented here um there or people would prefer I do it from here.

Yeah, fine sitting here.

Okay. Okay. There are going to be two um Mr. Pico is also going to speak and so is Mr. Lai. They'll come up to the podium.

Okay.

Can I ask a procedural question?

Mr. Das, can uh members of the like who are watching on Facebook see that? Are they going to be able to see that? Okay, I see the thumbs up. I got the thumbs up.

Yeah. and members of the public or I mean who are here I'm assuming can just watch on the Facebook feed I guess that does it okay oh I can do it is there a clicker you want to run it for I mean someone else can click something from my team or okay so um so thank you um um we're taking the opportunity tonight to present the findings from in the Collins Center organizational study um for HR

and facilities. Um I'm going to provide a brief summary of the study's findings um in terms of what they mean for us.

We'll talk about some next steps. Um basically we're we'll take a look here um the purpose of the study and and why um the methodology that was used provided an executive summary. We'll talk about districtwide themes, the findings um in each of the departments, priority actions that were established by the Collins Center. We'll take a look at progress and next steps across departments and then um a little bit

about oversight and accountability moving forward. So um the purpose of the review was really to um modernize foundational systems to support you know every school every department in the district. You can see here um there's specific information around modernizing the HR and facilities operations clarifying roles. These are themes that will come up um throughout. So it was the general purpose of the study in the

first place. Um and then you see that the very reasons we we knew we needed to do it come up as themes across the board. I know that initially um I think the the request was to do actually an audit of the departments and um what the superintendent at the time agreed to do was this review and um that's what is before us today.

So the next piece um This why now piece is really about why it's important to us now. Um we know that the district has grown in size and complexity over time. Um and we there are certainly more compliance expectations than ever before, but our systems generally haven't kept pace with the demands. And so for us right now, we know that, you know, as we have we may have some consistencies if we're um

experience inconsistencies across departments, um it really puts us at a risk um especially as we think about some of the compliance um expectations at this point in our venture.

The Collins Center review team came in and they used u mixed methods to do their um to do their study. There were um 28 interviews um that included 43 participants. There were responsibility surveys across departments. Um there was also a um a document review. They reviewed job descriptions and they also did some workflow and document analysis um for the departments.

Overall um we were in receipt of 27 findings and 35 recommendations. They were grouped into general administration, human resources and facilities. Um the general administration findings and recommendations really stemmed from the fact that as they interviewed people across the two departments um that represented even a wider number of departments and schools across the district district there were general

themes that showed up that seemed indicative not just of the two departments but um across departments including um our central team.

The key insight that they offered us was that there's a strong effort here, but there are inconsistent systems. And I think that people know that to be true.

Um, and we'll get into some more um, specific. So, the district-wide themes um were around inconsistent communication and follow-through, siloed operations and gaps in responsibility, manual processes limited to the use of technology systems, and the absence of consistent protocols. So here it was really t you know really about um communication looking different um depending on the department and that

because it looked so different um from department to department um it wasn't really clear for people what they could expect depending on um who they were who they were corresponding with and who they were seeking information from. the silent operations and gaps and responsibility really stemmed from um kind of across the board not being able to identify a go-to person like if I

need something in this department who is the person people couldn't readily identify that uh manual processes and limited use of technology systems really refers to this idea that you know we've been doing I said like our systems haven't kept up there are a lot of things that we do manually that can be more automated and that came out during the study and then the absence of consistent protocols similar to the um

the communication piece that it looks different from the department to department and expectations aren't clear. So the general administration findings um and and this is where we see this again communication systems are inconsistent. Departments operate in silos. The district doesn't maintain current organizational charts. Um that was a finding at the time and we do have organizational charts but at when they

came in to do the study we might not have had everything they were looking for. Critical business functions last lack standardization and oversight and technology solutions are underutilized.

So the district-wide themes really come out here again um with a little bit more specificity in terms of the general administration findings.

HR findings included role clarity and organizational structure uh being insufficient, HR processes and procedures inconsistent or underdeveloped. Support training and communication not adequate HR investigations, mentoring and retention need improvement.

Um for Can I just ask a question on that?

Sure. Go ahead.

So on the um in the actual document it indicates from their findings. The first one says the district is in the process of transition within the human resource department. Can you just explain what that means?

Yeah, I think that they came in um in March and we were still in uh Mr. Lai's first year. We had two of the like six staff members in HR. Two of them were new last year. So I think that's what they were referring to.

Just staff new staff not necess when I read that to say that the department is in a process of transition. I would just it begs the question of how we've had the directors been here for how long?

How long was M in March? Um he had been here since July. So I guess about nine months, right? And which now is like a Yeah.

By the time this is out now, we're a year and a half in.

Well, he Right. So this was issued in late October. Yes. But the findings were from March. They just it took them six months to get I guess I'm just asking. So, if we're here over a year, the director's been here for over a year. Are we still considering that to be a transition? The process of transition. Is that what I'm seeing?

No, but I didn't I didn't refer to that in terms of one of the findings for Oh, it's right here listed on page 198 because that is a report based on last March.

So, you are you saying we're still in transition or we're not?

I said that I don't think that we're necessarily in transition. No, not not based on the fact that we have a director who's been here for over a year. Yes, we're not in transition.

Thank you.

Oh my goodness. Thank you.

Yes. No. All right. Can I have a question? If I have a question, if you had a chance, Mr. M.

Maybe it's a clarifying point.

It's a clarifying point.

Sure.

What the superintendent is saying is that at the time that the human resource department was evaluated, we were in a transition period and Mr. Lai had been working with us for less than a year.

She's not saying we're still in a transition period. She's saying when people came down and looked at that department and made their findings, that was when he had been with us for less than a year and was still getting his grounding. That's what she was saying. I think that was I think she explained that very clearly. I really do. And I'm not sure why that why that back and forth even had to happen. This is the

kind of thing that makes her job difficult. She explained it very clearly and I want everybody out there to understand this is important and we need to fix the human resource department.

But let's throw blame where blame's supposed to be thrown. And what she was saying again is when this report when the people first came down to look at the human resource department at that time at that time in March we were in a transitional period.

So yes that fact does have to do with the results of this report and things have changed since March.

That doesn't mean this this isn't correct. That doesn't mean we have to we don't have to look at all these issues.

That doesn't mean the school department doesn't have to resolve them. But that was just a very condescending question and answer and I can't be the only one that noticed it and that's the reason we don't move forward.

With that I yield so that they can have the last word because I don't mind giving it.

Mr. Chair, thank you. I I just had questions on the report. I wasn't trying to Thank you, sir. Um so just um on the bottom it says HR investigations mentoring retention need improvement.

The language in the report itself concerns exists around component components of the investigations of complaints mentoring and staff retention. Can you I mean I can already imagine what the concerns are. I I we've received concerns and I brought some of them to your attention around staff members or former staff members who have been the subjects of complaints who don't never get a close date on those

complaints. So they either have to leave the district or they they don't really have much um clarity. So I'm assuming that's one issue.

um are all I guess the question I would have and again I think a the reason why we have these questions is I my opinion there needs to be more collaboration and communication between the administration and the school committee as to the disposition of matters and I think it would solve half the issues. However, are all invest complaints that are made investigated?

Okay. All right. I appreciate questions, but I was supposed to be given an opportunity to present the findings and so I'd like to do that and then we'll reserve questions for the end for the end. Okay, that's fine.

Go ahead, Mr. K.

Okay.

Um, so yes, the HR findings included that last bullet, HR investigations, mentoring and retention need improvement in FNO. Um findings included that systems reporting and data um use lack consistency, staffing, supervision and operational capacity are not sufficient, communication and customer service vary widely across the departments within facilities and operations and that professional growth and talent practices

need strengthening.

So we really do see this as um an opportunity for us. We recognize there really wasn't anything in the report that we questioned in a way to say no way not accurate. Um I think that we all experience um some of the things that were um referenced in the findings um to some extent you know regularly and so it was not um in in many of the things were things that we were already working on

and continue to um since since the report but we really do see it as an opportunity for all of us um to get a better understanding in terms of responsibilities and for everybody to take ownership um of the things to which they are assigned and that they are responsible in the district. Um we know that we need to standardize our hiring and onboarding processes and that's something that we're working at

currently. Um also creating formal investigation protocols because we understand that it is something that um does hinder progress when we have too many um investigations that are happening at the same time. there is a large volume unfortunately um that standardization of those of those practices needs to happen. There have been really great improvements in that area since um you know since Mr. Lai

came on board. Um I understand the timing piece. I understand that people um are not satisfied all the time with the length um it of time it takes to complete an investigation but the investigations do get completed and there is a report filed um following every investigation and there is documentation in our files after every investigation um but the right kind of process takes a

very long time and and I'll rest on that um there are also other pieces around the technology specifically munis came up brightly Ely came up. I know that Mr.

Lai is already working on the mun piece and brightly um in terms of FNO there's a piece around training supervisors and leaders. I think that fully understanding um in getting feedback from you know across the departments gives us an opportunity around where that um training is necessary professional development across both of those departments. And then finally um uh there's an opportunity to align our

facilities with longer term planning as we go through some of the smaller steps we can um and really kind of taking care of the things that we need to do now so that we can really start planning forward. So, um the committee uh the the the team that came in um and wrote the report um from the Collins Center, they did identify four priority action areas for us. Um those include facilitation efforts. Um specifically

they suggested to get um external facilitation to come in and set some norms for the school committee and superintendent as well as um district leadership teams.

They reference professional development specifically HR training for hiring managers, evaluation calibration for supervisors and customer service training for support staff.

communications in the form of um hiring an external firm to develop um collaborate with us to develop a communications plan first to address internal communications and then expanding to excl um include external communications and then finally around the talent management piece standardizing the hiring practice um developing a who to call HR flowchart and expand the use of HR technology. So

those were the four priority um action areas. We are um we're looking at this through a phased approach and you know started to take a look at what we can do in the next year um beginning in December 2025 um through December of 2026 and we do have a list here um some of it's it's very much focused on the four priority areas that the Colin Center laid out for us and then in phase

two um just to take a closer look at making more targeted structural investments if we need them to. The idea is like once we get things up and running and we can better assess the needs then that in some cases that would be the time to um you know realign some of the staffing needs maybe do some hiring and things like that. Um that's where the align staffing to process clarity once we have

that comes in and then finally um engage in continuous pro improvement cycles so that we don't keep doing the same thing for a really long time realize it's not the best and then have to do a full-blown um reset. So what I'd like to do is invite um Mr. Lai up um so he can talk a little bit about the steps that have already been taken in the human resources department, the progress

that's been made as well as immediate next steps. and then I'm gonna have um Mr. Pico come up to do the same for FNL.

Thank you, Dr. Curley. Uh so when I first met with the Collins Center, um they started back in I believe it was October of 2024 um when they conducted initial interviews and at that time I'd uh been here for about 3 months. Um the HR uh manager in my office was hired in March of 2024. So she was about 6 to 7 months in. Um and we actually didn't have a position filled uh for the HR

coordinator position. Uh so at that time as I sort of you know continued to develop my understanding of the department of the district as a whole um I certainly identified you know plenty of areas where I felt uh the HR department needed to make improvements.

Um and it was interesting getting you know this report about a year later uh you know October November of 2025 because as I was reading through and looking at uh the areas where they felt that we could improve um a lot of them were were things that we've already identified um you know over the past uh year plus um and within that year uh what we've been doing and these first

two slides uh that I'm going to present on will highlight that are areas where uh we've made progress on some of the points that the Collins Center uh report identified. as um areas of improvement.

Uh so the first one is some of those gap areas where whether it was in interviews or surveys um people felt like there was a a lacking primary uh a person primarily responsible for for some of these uh areas. One thing that uh was hugely helpful uh with that was we actually were able to hire an HR coordinator. Um that actually says March of 2024. That is a typo. That should be

March of 2025. Um so we were able to fill that position just this past March.

um was actually an internal hire from a a previous position in in Fall River. Um and uh the person in that uh role has been doing a fantastic job. Um some of the responsibilities that role really focuses on and again it's really helped us sort of identify um you know who to reach out to and who people can contact.

Um managing uh the employee evaluation system and an employee evaluation tracking uh for for all positions districtwide. Um, also, uh, and you'll see this on our our next slide as we talk about sort of our personnel forms and increase in our technology usage, but we've, um, rolled out an employee records, uh, and forms management system, uh, over this past spring and summer of 2025. So, that is, uh,

digitizing all of our, uh, personnel forms and records. Um, it helps with better lensure tracking. There's actually features within that program uh where we can directly send messages out to uh employees um without manual input just you know as a lensure is coming up on on expiration we can notify them and make sure that they're taking all the necessary steps uh to make sure that they get that renewed. Um also our

absence management system um this position has um kind of focused on on working within that system and making sure that that aligns to the information that we have in our new employee records and forms management. Uh so again being able to sort of identify uh people that are responsible for some of those roles that um I think were a little bit more nebulous in the past uh has been extremely helpful in kind of

streamlining a lot of our processes. The other thing uh that I highlight here is you know we have two admin assistants uh in in our department um and they work extremely hard at everything that they do. When I started um the the breakdown of those admin assistants is they each have schools that they're responsible for. So, uh, you know, if you attend FONSA, uh, you might reach out to one of

the admin assistants for sort of all your general HR needs. If you, uh, work at Dery, you might reach out to the other one. Um, it's a pretty even split between the schools. Um, but what we are in the process of doing and have been doing for the last several months, uh, is continuing to sort of, uh, make sure that all of the different processes are sort of under each umbrella. Um, so some

of that includes making sure that uh depending on what school they're responsible for, they take care of all the onboarding. That goes from um the time that we post a job all the way through the hiring process and we actually bring a person on board. Um, again, part of that, and you'll see in our next slide, is uh our new applicant tracking system has kind of streamlined that process a little bit and at least

uh digitized some of our uh you know, previous um paper methods of uh of onboarding and getting new hires in. Um other examples of of sort of that you know shared responsibility between our admin assistants FMLA and leave requests uh lensure tracking um and also our workers compensation unemployment. I think when I started here at times, um, we did have an admin assistant who had

been working for a number of years and, uh, I think just, you know, through attrition of employees and and just kind of the way things go in school departments took on a lot, um, and just sort of, you know, did things so people recognized her as someone that they could reach out to. Um, we're we're trying to sort of, you know, make sure that that workload uh, balance is uh, a little more equitable for everyone uh,

in my department and also making sure that people know who to reach out to. Um on that note, uh the next highlight, uh that whom to call flowchart that was identified as uh something that would be beneficial to develop and share. Um we that is something that we still need to sort of um continue to work on in terms of sharing that districtwide and also out to the general public. Uh but a few

steps that we we did take care of this year. Uh we created a duties and responsibilities chart that was shared with uh principles and district leaders at our uh opening school meeting in August of 2025. Um, I found when I was here that even internally people really weren't sure maybe who to contact in my office for for various requests. Um, so I can imagine how difficult that would

be for new hires or even the general public who might be looking for information from HR. Um, so our first step was making sure that we sort of shared, you know, everyone in my department a general list of their duties and responsibilities, kind of overarching themes of things that they're responsible for and making sure that our principles and district leaders uh understood who was responsible for

each of those so they could uh contact the right person. I I think part of that also goes to um, you know, streamlining our communication and our ability to get back to people in a timely fashion. if uh you know someone reaches out to someone in my department that isn't responsible for that task, you know, it it sort of becomes a email chain of forwarding and and responding um you

know it's a lot easier if you go right to the source of information uh for whatever task or question that you might have and uh that's something that we continue to try to work on. Um, oh, can you go back a slide actually?

Sorry. Uh, and also, um, the, uh, I've been working with it and, uh, this is not up and running yet, but, I expect it to be, uh, just after the new year. Uh, creating a general human resources email address. Um, one thing that I found is, uh, you know, email is obviously, uh, used everywhere. It's, uh, efficient, it's timely, it's, uh, digital. But um I think one thing that we can all sort of

relate to is our inboxes kind of become overflowed and uh a little bit burdensome to be able to track. Um so I'm looking to create sort of a a general HR email to kind of receive basic inquiries. Um and again help with managing those timelines of responses.

Um if if our inboxes are sort of getting bogged down with requests and inquiries that might not necessarily pertain to us, uh it it just doesn't help anyone with our uh inability to sort of respond to those in a timely manner. So sort of filtering out sort of general requests that would go to an HR email versus uh direct requests that might come to me and uh my staff.

Other areas where uh we have and continue to make proc uh progress and I would note that you know all of these are are you know continuing works in progress um continually evolving. I think even if we put systems into place that we feel pretty good about right now. Um part of this Collins Center uh report I think is identified that we got to continue to um you know analyze and

evaluate you know how things are working over the coming 12 18 24 months and uh you know continue to make changes where where they need to be. Um the expanded use of HR technology that was certainly identified in the report and something I I think I identified um you know as soon as I started here. Um some aspects of our operations are uh you know for lack of a better term pretty archaic. Um you

know we still have some personnel files and just you know um locked uh um file cabinet drawers. Um so working to sort of you know digitize as as best we can and and kind of uh move forward with some of our technology uh certainly helped us. So to that uh some things that we have done recently we had a new applicant tracking system that we rolled out this past spring and summer of 2025.

Um this has really helped really internally with our hiring process um for not only HR but HR managers. Um we're sort of able to easily kind of track applicants um and uh with that uh organize interviews districtwide. Um one thing and you'll see this on the next page where we talk about uh areas where we still need to improve and we still have work to do is really um focusing on the kind of schooltoschool or

departmentto department interview protocols. So, while the applicant tracking system is fantastic for just that, tracking our applicants and and getting people onboarded from the time that they apply to when we're ready to bring them in, um I still think that there's some work to be done in training our hiring managers and our district leaders um and kind of standardizing that practice. Um

I I mentioned it a little bit, but uh an improved onboarding process for our new hires. Uh previously, you know, we were sending sort of either paper and pencil packets uh for our our new hire paperwork or sending them a PDF through email. Um this new applicant tracking system has digitized our new hire paperwork completely. What's nice is it uh is within the same platform as our uh

employee records and uh forms management system. So, as new hires are uh completing their applications, completing their new hireer paperwork, all of that is being seamlessly transitioned into um that records retention management software um which ideally is going to sort of replace our our um file cabinets that are filled with our personnel files. Um speaking of personnel files, that's somewhere uh

another area that we continue to make improvements. Uh we have um the um excuse me the records and forms management system has helped to uh secure our digital storage for exited employee personnel files. Um the other thing that we're doing as well is we are uh creating a secure server uh with our IT department. That was actually done over this summer. Um so as we exit employees um rather than keeping hard

copies we do scan everything in and we keep it on a secure server. Um this has really um helped us with adherence to record retention regulations. I think there was some confusion uh over the last you know six months uh where we really started to look at records retention as to what needed to be kept and for how long. Um so being able to sort of digitize those files and keep

them in a secure location uh just helps us to make sure that we are following all of those uh regulations and laws.

Um, and as I mentioned, the uh employee records and forms management system that was also rolled out sort of simultaneously uh this past spring and summer and um our HR uh coordinator is kind of managing that system currently.

Um last uh area that I wanted to highlight for progress that we've made uh is some of our evaluation calibration. That was an area identified. Uh we certainly have more work to do on this. Um but with regards to our evaluation timelines, um we were working with all all of our evaluators to make sure that there's stricter adherence to our evaluation timelines for this school year. I think that was

one um sort of eye openening thing that I saw last year where timelines necessarily weren't always met or weren't always kept. Um variety of reasons for that and sometimes, you know, completely understandable and completely natural. People go out on leaves of absence, people are hired late. Um but I I think um for the people that we have in front of us, for the employees um you know that need to be

evaluated each year uh making sure that we are following those timelines and sort of hitting all the appropriate dates um and uh we've been working with our HR manager and all of our um hiring uh excuse me all of our evaluators to make sure that that's happening this year. Uh, another thing, and this has sort of, you know, been helpful with our, um, uh, assistant superintendent is

sort of sending reminders about where you are in the, uh, hiring, um, evaluation process and making sure, um, you know, you're kind of, uh, knowing what's what's behind and what's upcoming, uh, in terms of timeline dates.

Along with that evaluation calibration, uh, within our evaluation system and also just sort of our tracking data, um, we had to do a lot of data cleanup over the summer. Um so that was a lot of work that we did with our HR manager and also our admin assistants to sort of confirm that people that are evaluated specifically some of our uh FREA members um they're on the appropriate timelines.

Um previous evaluations are uh accounted for and and collected. Um not all that information was um accurate or even up to date in some of our systems. So we did a lot of work on sort of that data cleanup over the past year. Um, and then also, uh, we met some, uh, sometimes over the summer and then I think we had a couple meetings this fall. We do have another meeting scheduled for January,

but this is with our FREA evaluation committee. Um, and I think everyone on that committee, it's a sort of a joint effort between administration um, and FREA members and the union leadership.

We all recognize that uh, we do need to kind of uh, overhaul the evaluation system or at least update it a little bit. I think uh when I started here, it's been a number of years since that overall system has been uh reviewed and um kind of looked at. So uh going through that process and and figuring out what needs to change, what needs to be updated. Um that's certainly helping

with sort of that evaluation calibration that was identified in the Colin Center report.

So this next slide, uh next steps. So these are areas where uh like I said I I think all of the progress that we've made. It's sort of a work in progress.

It's a you know continuation and um we have to continue to sort of uh review and revise our our processes and protocols. But these are certainly areas where um you know I I think that within the next 12 months uh in that timeline that Dr. Carly sh uh shared December of 25 to December of 26. We we do need to do some um you know hard work and focus on one of those being hiring practices.

Uh as I mentioned we we certainly need to review all of our hiring protocols and create a more standardized process for all of our hiring managers. I think that uh starts with, you know, from um you know, how we run our our interviews sort of at the the ground level, whether it's a a building based position or a district level position, uh all the way up to sort of, you know, when a

candidate is offered a position, um what that process looks like and sort of who's making that call. Um I think that's still a little bit inconsistent across the district. So, we have more work to do there. Uh investigations is another one. Um I think uh we need to update our investigation protocol to ensure standardization. Uh definitely streamline communication between all parties involved in investigations and

also timeliness of investigations. Uh I think anyone involved in an investigation no matter what side you're on. Um you obviously looking for it to be done as quickly as you can or you know kind of get through the process. Um I I understand that and and I would feel the same way if I was involved in investigation. But we also have to balance that with uh doing a thorough job making sure that we um complete them

in a a manner that you know is respectful to all parties and um kind of follows our policies and laws. Uh one thing that Dr. Curley and I uh actually spoke about recently and we're looking to sort of target this at our uh February professional development day is training for principles and district leaders on conducting internal investigations and uh you know sort of doing some of the leg work um on uh you

know initial information gathering um clarifying information sort of before we determine you know if it's going to be an investigation taken on by the HR department or even an outside party. Um so that hopefully will be uh put together for our February PD PD day for our principles and leaders. Uh HR data is another area where um it was identified within the report and we definitely have more work to do. Um one

area that they identified was sort of utilizing our Munis uh financial system and kind of expanding that to uh help with some of our HR data. Um we are looking at you know the possibility of uh exploring position control features in Munis that would help to standardize position tracking and also get a better sense of who's filling what positions where positions sort of move from year

to year um and also easily identify our vacancies which can be a challenging part um currently.

Uh the other thing too is continuing to develop our human resources standard operating procedures. uh that I think has been a work in progress for years and you know when I talked to my staff who have been here prior to me starting um you know they they said that was something that uh was always kind of on the the forefront at the start of the year and then as you get into the the

grind of of a school year um you know kind of falls by the wayside a little bit. So bringing that up front and making sure that you know as we work through the school year as we change processes and protocols making sure that that sort of has a a living document in our uh SOP manual and uh making sure that we're updating that accordingly.

Professional development I think um the Collins Center report sort of identified professional development needs for for districtwide. Um from an HR lens I really want to identify PD areas, topics and opportunities for for myself and my staff. I think um you know we do a lot of work obviously with PD with our teachers and our school-based staff kind of our our studentf facing um positions

um we do a lot less with sort of uh you know whether it's my position whether it's you know our payroll and finance departments um you know people that don't necessarily work day-to-day with our students I think um we don't always get the necessary professional development that we need or you know could utilize um to sort of better our positions and our capacity. So that's something I I hope to work on more with

uh my my team. Um and then also that communication to staff. I did mention, you know, that whom to call reference guide is not something that we've developed yet, but I think that's a fantastic idea. Um you know, I I look at utilizing that sort of information chart that I shared with principles and district leaders in August and kind of expanding that um you know, to share with the uh school district as a whole.

um not only our staff but you know like I said also posting it on the website, sharing it with community members. Um obviously the the majority of people contacting us are people that are working for us. Um but we have plenty of prospective employees or people just looking for information and they're not quite sure who to reach out to. Uh so I think it's very important that we get

that um you know kind of up and posted uh visible to the public so so people know who to call for what issues and how to reach us.

And next up is Mr. Pato with facilities.

Thanks Dr.

Um so just to recap a little bit. Um I am not a newbie. Nine years in counting.

Um and to those who came before me the the job is daunting. um the 398 employees and and all of the facilities uh and and its makeup are enormous. Um and as I said, um there were 33 buildings back one day. Um and we're down to 18, but um the the work is is uh hard and the um department is a bear to manage. Um but um we are making progress. So in the findings systems

reporting data use lack consistency staffing supervision operational capacity not sufficient communication and customer service vary widely across the department and professional growth and talent practice needs strengthening.

So, with that being said, um one of the one of the better items that we've uh been able to work on was the data the um Brightly work order database. Um a lot of progress in that particular area.

It's a lot of information um that is housed and it's valuable to um to the entire group uh facilities group.

However, the use of of the um database has been underutilized over the years, and what we're trying to do is is move that into a um a situation where everyone's comfortable with it. Um our frontline employees getting comfortable with it. uh so that the information um and everything that they're seeing on a daily basis is entered into the database so that the next time they visit or

someone else visits that particular site um that pieces is is um already sitting there waiting waiting for them to um to be able to answer the next question. Um the staff needs training, um further training, updated training, and there's a lot of features in the new system that um we're just beginning to um to open up to and um they're all going to be very important uh on the uh in the future.

The uh functionality um is being tested.

So the system itself is a little clunky at times because we don't want it. we know how we want something done, but not necessarily going to answer all of those questions and being able to put that into perspective. Um the system, however, um has been um upgraded. Um it's it's it's a very modern modern system that allows us to put much more information into the system um for our future use.

Prioritizing the the asset management system implementation um and inventory.

So, uh, currently we are working, um, on an old inventory system that is true and tested and our schools are comfortable with that, our custodial staff, all of our staff is comfortable with that system. However, um, it is not part of um, the new Brightley side. So, we're waiting for um, that particular module to uh, come into effect. But with that being said, the um, the asset manager

side um is something that we've started to enter data into. So, um putting in particular equipment, new equipment, uh equipment that's existing that's going to have a decent life expectancy that's being entered in and all of that um piece um is making what what we do better and not making um a system where one person is the only person who knows about that particular building. because

of the fact that we have um 18 buildings and um 14 uh facility um people in the maintenance department, it makes it very difficult um when one person is out or two people are out and not being able to access the information. Uh this system has allowed us to do that. So the person who normally doesn't take care of a particular building is now able to take care of those buildings as part of um

the this particular piece. um the facilities and operation procedural manuals. So about uh two months ago um we we as a department um in our regular uh weekly meetings um have decided to move forward um full speed to develop you know procedural manuals within each of the disciplines. Um they're all working on it. We uh set a basic uh template and um had having them run with it until about February uh where we will uh

hopefully um put that all together um find out where we're with what information we're missing and and um put that together so that anyone in the department is going to um have all of these procedures obviously and everyone will know what our procedures are in handling uh each and every piece that is um that comes before us. Um the um this the procurement practices uh I I can tell you that um we are

not as good as we need to be. Um and we are um doing everything we can to improve uh those pieces whether it be through blanket purchase orders and other uh different methods. A lot more procurement. um we have 10 or 15 pieces of procurement ready to go out um to open bid um to for the remainder of this year and next year. Those items um have been overlooked in that particular

method. However, um it's hurt us in in our ability to move quickly on projects.

Um and so we're going to streamline that particular piece. And um we've had a lot of help with um with that work uh along with the city. Uh the purchasing agent has met with us. Our own um um bookkeeping department. Our our financial department has been fabulous um with uh having patience so to speak with everyone and um guiding us through.

We are using state procurement where possible from the different uh organizations that provide us combis and and mass higher ed uh consortium and others. So all of that work is is helping us out. Um maintenance contracts um we are addressing a whole bunch of main building systems um that need to be addressed. um fire um both uh fire suppression and fire alarm um burglar alarm uh different operating systems

whether it be HVAC, plumbing um and um and the like electrical system. So all of those items now um will be put on maintenance schedules um yearly maintenance schedules but some of that work is already happening but it will be happening on a particular schedule. now um so that we can have a better uh control of it and um we're going to try and do as many one-year contracts as we

can. However, multiple year contracts um could save the district some funds. So, we will uh as we normally do, we do three-year contracts each year. Um we come before the committee for renewals on the facilities next steps. Um professional development is is a major uh piece that we need to work on. Um customer service training for the director's administrative assistance. Um provide opportunities for um leadership

training um at different events um that are happening throughout the state. Uh assist the directors with the evaluation process. So 398 employees, 398 evaluations done um by our directors and um some more than others. However, um those evaluations um we were lacking in the past and um bringing all of those up to where they need to be uh along with our three year three month six month evaluations and um

coaching the directors on the interview process. So, everyone has a different idea as to how to interview uh different style, but uh we do need to come up with uh something that's uh a little more uniform um to allow us to um to do to do a better job on our interviews and um just collaborating with the senior staff members, proper paths, direction for district contribution distribution. Um,

a lot of times the assumption is always that they know what we want to say when they haven't and we haven't said it yet.

And what we want to do is u be sure that the communication to the principles um I know the building is part of their everyday but they don't need it to be a burden. And by us um not communicating well um it becomes a burden for them or surprise visits from someone they're not expecting in their building no matter who it is. um it it's not a way we should handle things. So, moving

forward, we'd like to um to improve on that piece.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Can can we ask questions now?

Yeah, sure. I'll just finish up. So, you know, what I'd like to um you know, offer moving forward um is just to do some quarterly updates in terms of progress on all of the um all of the um suggested next steps. Um and we will be monitoring the progress internally.

Um we expect that we might just need to make some adjustments. We we're well shared timelines, but some of those things might be adjusted over time. um and that we think that you know there could be um some budget impacts in terms of um the next fiscal year. So we'll see what that looks like during the budget process.

Okay, Mr. Das, thank you. Um so I have questions for both HR and facilities. I'll start with HR. Mr. Valley. Um going into this report, it there was some findings around um like like conflict in roles like duties and responsibilities. So I'm going to start with this. If an employee is terminated um depending on where it is or if it's they're put on leave, they're terminated or they're terminated. I'm assuming

usually they're not terminated right on the spot or or they terminate themselves. What's the process if they have a maybe belongings? If they have an email, um how does that specifically the email? How does that specifically get the how's the email get turned turned off and things like that? What do we what do we do for that?

For email specifically and and really sort of any of their accounts, um it's it's generally tied to their separation date. So I I mean you you use the term termination but I mean that could be a a termination from from our end it could be a resignation retirement um yeah so any separation of employment um whatever the termination or whatever the the separation date is uh it's typically

within 24 hours that um accounts are shut off we do have instances where employees have reached out to us to say um you know for example I'm resigning on this date um you know I have documents and you know things in my Google Drive that I'd like uh to um collect but I I just I can't get it done by that date and we'll work with them to to make sure

that you know they get everything they need.

Thank you for that. Specifically on the roles and responsibilities whose duty is that would that come from your office um your department to notify technology?

Hey, turn off um turn off the email, turn off this account, this account.

So that happens within our um our you know personnel system right now. So, we have to put an exit date for employment and once that exit date gets entered into the system, that's my department.

Um, it will then make the necessary adjustments on their end based on that exit date.

Okay. I I'm just trying to the reason I bring it up and and I I brought up with the administration in the past, I saw a communication between the um assistant superintendent and the superintendent around um turning off of an employes email. So I was just trying to understand is that something that needs to be tightened up in terms of there are instances and I referenced this in the email that I sent that um it

some of it comes under the direction of the superintendent. So there are times when we have an employee who is resigning um or we give a termination date but depending on the circumstances we might feel the need to um shut down their communications earlier than the date or if or someone might give a ter give a separation date maybe they're resigning but they're not coming back to

work they're they they literally do not need any access because they're taking I don't know sick time or whatever until their termination date, till their separation date. And so at that point, we would just shut off there. We we could just shut off immediately and that would take something some discussion with me before that happens.

Right. I I agree. I agree with the process. I just I guess I would question whether that should come from you or that should come directly from HR. You understand where I'm So you're suggest I No, I don't understand where you're coming from. You said sometimes you you or your you or your office might interject and direct someone to turn off an email.

Yeah, that's generally based on a conversation with HR or with one of the assistants um who might have some, you know, hey, there's a concern here. They bring it to me and I say, "Yep, we should we should shut it off." But yes, so it there's an autom automaticity to it. under normal like under typical circumstances separation date becomes the date it just it gets shut off by technology it could come from some

direction that I give. Thank you. Um so going to the findings in the column center the report um letter I employee discipline is inconsistent and untimely.

Could you and I believe the superintendent said that the administration agrees with most of the findings here. So could you give some examples as to where there could be inconsistency? I understand some of the untimeliness. We, as I've discussed before, we've received reports as a committee of individuals not receiving a close date or they're placed under investigation for months and months and

months on end without any findings. So I understand that part. However, the employee discipline is inconsistent.

Do you believe where do you think that comes from? Why do you think they made that finding?

specifically. I I'm not sure, you know, I I'd be interested in seeing, I guess, you know, and I don't think we have access to sort of the direct data that they collected in terms of um you know, interviews or surveys. Um so, yeah, I in terms of being inconsistent, I'm not quite sure. Um untimely, I I would say that, you know, there's a variety of factors for, you know, whether or not uh a discipline

decision is sort of made, you know, immediately or, you know, when an investigation is completed. Um, and that's something that, you know, we recognize and and we want to try to streamline as best as possible. Um, but in terms of the inconsistent in ter for employee discipline, I'm not quite sure what that's referring to. I I do feel like since I've been here, um, you know, if if there is a need for for discipline

or, you know, moving through the disciplinary process. Um, we've we've done that consistently, you know, anytime we get information or or get a complaint that might warrant employee discipline. Um I you know I don't think that we look at individual employees and say we're not going to discipline them over someone else. You know it's sort of you know we follow the the the policy and and contract.

So you would disagree since you've been you would disagree with the with the finding there of inconsistency.

I I just don't know what it's referring to other than you know employee discipline is inconsistent if if there was more information.

It could be inconsistent in terms of um the process. It could be it could be inconsistencies that um result in what they talked about in terms of the timelines. I think I mean I had a a grievance hearing with someone the other day who said my I'm getting disciplined for this but I know that my um I have co-workers who have done the same thing. So I think that that's a a typical kind of thing that

people say like not everybody is treated the same. But there isn't any when you go to the piece in the report here, it doesn't reference what they mean exactly by inconsistencies. So I chocked it up to all of the other elements of inconsistencies in in in the timeline, inconsistencies in the process and things like that.

So I don't think we're disagreeing. I think we're just saying that it might not we might not have every piece of information. And I think and I'm just speculating here, but that could come down to individual school for school and reporting um anything misconduct or just inconsistencies in following the rules.

So I think that needs to potentially be something that needs to be worked on at professional development level at the school level if it's something that's not at the top.

Um last one I'm going to ask on um HR for now is um the human resources office operates in a silo. my understanding I and going in some of the um the the discussion about it it was around um HR feels I believe cold was the word I don't want to but is it is customer are we are we promoting customer service to our our um HR employees oh yeah of course and and I I would

agree with that finding in terms of um operating in a silo that was something I identified pretty early on when I started and you know I think something that we're we're working on, you know, with Dr. Curley being the superintendent over the last year, year and a half. Um, sort of having more direct communication and sort of collaboration um between departments. I think especially from an

HR standpoint, um, you know, that involves, you know, working very closely with, you know, finance and payroll for certain issues, working with our legal council. um you know so not not necessarily making decisions on our own which um I think might have happened in the past where um I you know me stepping into this role I I certainly want a lot more discussion collaboration kind of backup before we do make final

decisions.

Sure. And the last thing I will um end with on HR before I go to facilities, something I will be pushing for strongly with the next school committee is the um communication between superintendent and in the school committee around HR decision the superintendent makes. I believe it's within our purview if the superintendent makes that role. And I think knowing that information I think

would lead to uh a lot less questions.

And of course I've brought up um concerns I brought up in meetings and with um citizens input concerns I have that have been made in the past that the vice chair who's not here today has brought up to the administration in the past as well that definitely needs to be looked into.

Um but we'll approach that bridge at future soon to be future date. Um but thank you Mr. HR director. I'm looking forward to the quarterly meetings. um like to just ask a few questions for facilities. Now I just want to be really clear that it won't be a quarterly meeting, but I we would give an update at one of the regular meetings.

That's what I meant. Okay. Yeah.

Um just want to start with finding E fi um finding and number E on the findings. Um and I brought up this concern before is um around the procurement authority of the district.

Um, I don't know if we need to collaborate. I don't know if it's a city issue or if it's something that's more in house. Um, what procurement issues are we running into? Are we running into um, let's just say some contract. I believe we have had contracts that were held up on the city side at one point, at least one that I'm aware of. I I if I could I don't think that the procurement issues

that we're having is um is this one one side or the other um issues. I think the nature of of facilities is a lot different than most procurements because it's every day. There's there's something going on every day. So the smaller procurements are more difficult to get our arms around and the larger procurements. The other piece is is separating my I don't have the ability to declare

an emergency. Okay, that's a state thing under 30B. And basically we we prepare a document that gives us a reason why we're calling something an emergency.

And once we do that, then it goes to um the city side, which is a procurement officer. The procurement officer would now take it um and send it to DAM. they would look at it and see if it fits the the process as an emergency. So there's not we wouldn't we we don't use that term loosely. So emergency is is literally going to be something someone else is going to decide whether it's an

emergency even though we may look at a window blown out in a school as an emergency. The state may not look at it that way.

So did we not to cut you off but didn't we just have that discussion about the tab doors?

Right. So that that's the why I'm saying this because that's the step-by-step piece that we go through to do this stuff. So what what I'm what I'm driving at with that is that the procurement issues that we have um is trying to figure out how we function at a high level when we don't have an inventory sometimes to pull from. Um and that the in the the reason for the lack of

inventory and and and I can tell you from the city side and also on this side is that inventories are expensive to keep in um the items change often. So building an inventory in a warehouse um for facilities is an issue. the day-to-day stuff we can always have on on hand, but having a a supply of items um that would be nice to have um is just not it's just not doable. So, the

procurement piece um as I as I was saying earlier, the procurement piece, we are taking a different approach to it, doing more blanket um purchase orders and doing more um bidding process. So putting putting stuff out for different items. Do you believe it would be helpful for you if we did procurement within the district? I think it would be helpful for all departments. I think um I think

we need to look at our um I don't know if it's an ordinance. I believe it's an ordinance, but I think we need to when we have our joint meeting with the city in January that we discuss potentially just doing procurement inhouse without having to go through the extra burden, the extra hurdles. And I think that would also help the city side as well, not having to worry about half their time being

around the school department, which I'm assuming 50% of the bills that come through or school department related.

So, I think it would help the city. Um, we do have we do have people certified on this side, the same as they are on the other side. We have plenty plenty of people in the district that are MCPPO, right? Right. But the certified but the process I'm I'm talking about the pro the policies around sending all of our procurement over to the city.

Not everything goes over there. Only the stuff that we have to literally put out to bid and once we draw the documents on this sides. What I'm what I'm saying to you is the what we're doing that we're changing with the guidance of the city. We're changing what we how we handle some of these procurements. And what it will do is give us a lot more procurements that will say uh this contract will not

exceed $50,000. We may not spend $50,000. We may spend $20,000 and then that'll just roll back in um if it's unspent. So my my ultimate goal is so that we eliminate this process of needing something today and going through this this process of trying to get three prices. Okay. Okay, we're going to use best business practices up to $10,000 and then moving forward from $10,000 to $100,000 is what limit is. We

will be going out to getting formal bids and um following that process. I what I would like us to do is to have the opportunity to put this into place and move forward for the next six months until a new fiscal year.

The um and that's the state law which you were quoting. I believe we also have a procurement ordinance within the city.

We do that we have to f Isn't that more stringent in terms of I think the only difference between the state and what we do is the fact that it comes here for approval at a certain dollar amount but we're all following math law mass the $500 limit is is not technically it's it's from $1 to $10,000 where to use sound business practice.

Okay. Um, we can All right. I I I do know that we do have a um and I heard the city council talk about about us having an ordinance and there's like more stringent rules. I didn't know that applied, but we can definitely look into that. Um going to at last ask about section finding G and I'm also going to ask actually ask about C quickly. Um the supervisory support is um

I'm assuming they just need more people.

Is that what the ninth the night supervisor position has been in the budget um for a few years? Um I'm I'm looking to have it a truly second shift if it's going to be implemented. So what it's unfilled.

It's unfilled. It's unfilled. The position has been manipulated back and forth with us. Not anybody, not the school committee, but we've talked about two days running at 11 to um 2 to 11 running at some days at different hours and and taking that that particular job and doing different things with it. The ultimate goal is is that if we're going to add a position that's going to be night supervisor, it's going to work

night shift. Okay, it's not as attractive, but the shift would go would coincide to all of the night custodians.

Um, and then the other option is is to move our senior custodians to second shift where most of the personnel is and eliminate that need for having that second person.

The night shift position um is I'm assuming it's been posted. They've been having it it's never been po It's been posted a long time ago. We never filled it. And it was part of the fact that when um our second shift person, we had a second shift person moved up to be um acting director for a short period of time. So that's when that position uh became vacant, but it was filled at some point.

Okay. And um section G asset management lacks data integrity or is that just more of like we're not um keeping record of what we're bringing in?

We just didn't utilize the system to its full extent. So that would that is changing now.

Okay. Um personal vehicles are used to conduct district business. What would people use personal vehicles for?

Every day they use a personal vehicle.

The maintenance department of 14 people drive their own vehicles. They get gas allowance and they go to jobs using their own vehicles.

Do we have the report is saying that we shouldn't be doing that and we should be providing them vehicles that the district would own. I'm assuming I'm I don't want to speak for the columnist, but I'm assuming because it's a liability.

Exactly. Do we have a liability any agreements?

We haven't had any issues um up to now. Um but what I would like to say, I mean, that's a major expense on the district. It's buying 12 to 14 vehicles.

Are we registering vehicles and also providing fuel for those vehicles currently? And now it's all built into the the vehicle allowance that each employee has.

Sure. Are we either negotiate or we try and work on just getting into some sort of agreements. So if you use your personal vehicle, we you won't sue us sort of. I mean we would have Yeah, I don't I I think that the issue would be um we have the right to put the vehicles in place now even with the collective bargaining agreement. It would be done by seniority and the only

person that couldn't refuse is the lowest seniority person who would automatically get the vehicle. I don't think we'd be purchasing 14 vehicles in one year. So, it would be a gradual roll in and then in the meantime, we'll have a negotiating session in the next year and a half that we can start all over again with this particular piece.

Um, it only affects it only affects that one group, the maintenance group. Um last line of questioning is um actually around vehicles as well and um we we don't have we don't have GPS on the vehicles.

We do not um how do we keep adequate records to make sure district vehicles are being used for that purpose being so currently we only have district vehicles in certain departments right?

Um so we have our delivery trucks in our nutrition department. We have our um pickup dump trucks in our campus side and we have uh two or three vehicles in our um custodial side currently but will be moved to maintenance.

Right. The question was how do we make sure those when those vehicles are used and I'm sure it's far and few between and it's very rare. However, how do we know how do we keep 100% that those vehicles are being used for their intended purpose?

To be totally honest, I couldn't give you an answer of saying 100%. I know they're using constantly. I know they may be going to lunch, driving through a Burger King. Um, that could all happen.

I think it happens generally with all departments. I don't as far as leaving the city doing stuff they shouldn't be doing with the the um I haven't had complaints that those vehicles have left the city for a non um school department purpose.

No marijuana shops or anything?

Marijuana shops?

Yes.

Not that I know of. Not that I know of.

I'm not going to go into detail, but we Well, I mean I mean there's no My my my position is I I think we should consider utilizing GPS just to to I'm sure that's a negotiated item. I would refer to Yeah, we we uh we're in negotiations.

Yeah, we would have to negotiate.

We are currently in negotiation.

No, no, we would have to the city. Oh, okay.

Um you'll Thank you.

Anybody got anything for Mr. Go ahead.

So uh just a general statement is uh I have a tremendous amount uh we have a tremendous amount of work to do with uh these two departments uh the report is very concerning in my opinion. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail but I just had a couple of comments to make.

Uh Mr. Pico we talked about in here brightly. Um we dealt with this at a subcommittee a long long time ago. So, I was a little uh at that meeting, if I recall, um in a rush, I guess is the best way to say it, that we need to get this implemented. And it seemed to me that it just kept on going on and on and on. So, if we could just get an update

on where we're at with it. Uh we voted for the money and then there was a time, but if you could just get us a one page on when it started, where we're at.

Yeah, I can. I just on that particular piece brightly has been um it wasn't an easy flip. um the the data went to where it needed to go. Um but it doesn't it wasn't it didn't fit in with the upgrade um as we wanted it to. So we made some changes to the data and also to the way the system accepted it. Um I can we can give

you a one pager on on where we're at. We are fully implemented um on one side and and threequarters of the way on the opposite which is the uh usage. And I I don't think you would disagree with my statement that at the time we were pushing it pushing it and it took a long time to get started. We had to pay I think a gentleman from uh technology to actually implement most of it some of

it. Then at one point we had a meeting where Jose which is the guy from facilities was doing it. So if you can include all that in the one page of who who got paid what what was the difficulties. Um, on page 28, it talks about the while the reorganization of the department is still relatively new, a district administration is encouraged to review the division level job responsibilities and workloads to assess

if a six division model is necessary and appropriate. I shared those concerns before we started it. I understand that the date on this document says the fall of 2025. I'm being told today, well, the findings might not be accurate because it was in March. That's a whole another discussion of why are we even talking about it now, but that still remains a concern for me. I just wanted to is, you

know, lay that out there. I do think the leads need a review. I've said that over in the past. We offer leads in departments with no uh job description that says that the person can actually lead. It went by seniority and civil service or whatever the answer was.

That's not the way we should, in my opinion, be doing it to make sure that we're getting the proper people there.

Um I think all the job descriptions uh need a review. And u just following up on Mr. um DAS's comment about the maintenance vehicles. If a department has vehicles or people jump in like like the groundskeepers or whatever if they who gets the money and who doesn't?

They're not getting any. So it's department if a city vehicle if a city a school department vehicle is used by a department there is no no um uh there is no uh fuel allowance or vehicle allowance. The only people that have vehicle allowances are the maintenance crew who are using their own personal vehicles to go from school to school.

I guess that was my only question was going to be if you could get us a list of what those are.

Like it's it's very small list. 14 people that's it.

Yeah no problem. And like I said, I think we have some concerns. Uh obviously I think you have concerns. I think everyone has concerns with what we've uh what we've seen here. I think we just got we have a lot of work to do as far as human resources. Um Mr. Lai answered that they don't know the background or or the data of how did we get to a question or somebody said that things weren't

working. Have we asked for the data and the surveys and uh if not why not?

So we they they they don't as a matter of practice give us survey results in that way. We knew that going in. Um that was that particular statement wasn't one that stood out like oh what could they possibly mean? I think that I internalized it in the way I said. I thought I think it is I think it is inconsistent in some ways um or would take on the appearance of being inconsistent. So, it wasn't something

that stood out and it wasn't something that I thought I needed the um the backup for. But I know that um they they don't they collect the data and they offer it in the aggregate. They don't offer individual um individual data.

Yeah. So I I guess I just have a difference of opinion on if people were interviewed, we had x amount of people interviewed, I was interviewed, other people were interviewed, why would we not ask for that information so that we can know if somebody said, "Oh, I work in X department or I'm a teacher or teacher assistant, you know, like why would we not ask for any of the backup

that they threw in findings and then we now are looking at it eight months later and saying, well, really maybe it's not a finding, but it existed eight months ago.

I I I guess that's just I'm having a hard time saying why would we not ask to get the more details.

I Okay, maybe it's not clear to me what you think we should have asked for. I I think that maybe isn't clear.

So, I'm basing it on what Mr. Lai answered a question to I think Mr. Das and the question was something along the lines of a lot of people have said something was uh not consistent or whatever it was. I think there's value in asking the question where did you get that finding from so that we can we can you know drill down to say it was in this or that I think there's value in

asking that question and so I mean I would I think that when 43 people have participated in interviews I I know what they did I mean they talk about it um in the report they talked about it when they met with us in terms of they're looking for they're looking for themes. So, it's not going to be about what a person said or even two people said. They're looking for

something that comes out as a theme from the surveys, from the interviews, the focus groups. Maybe there's maybe it's indicative um maybe they've seen something in the document review and it all points to like, yeah, it doesn't look like they they they do this in the same way every single time they put it as a finding. Okay. So, yeah, I guess I I would just differ in Okay. I I differ in the actual what we were

promised that we were going to do with the survey which I've already explained to you and to others. Uh the value in getting information asking questions is to address the issues that are present.

This is more like an overview. Uh let's just uh not address the issue. Let's just say it's like me. It's clear as mud as far as I'm concerned with what we have and what for 40,000 or whatever we paid. I think we should have got some better information. But with that being said, the issue of the timing where the findings were in March and then now the things listed it says fall of 2025. The

administration had a chance to review the document and make recommendations, changes that needed to be made. Was there any changes made to this based on the administration looking at it?

No, we met with them. Um, we looked at all the different pieces. We were given t after meeting with them, we were given time to review. There wasn't I I mean I there really wasn't anything that stood out. Um, we asked a question I asked a question about the section just called general administration looking for some idea of why the separate section. They said they that that's fairly common that when they

go in and they're looking at more than one department or just through interviews with people, even if something wasn't part of the prescribed look for this, look for that, they will they will capture those emerging themes and put them in a separate section, which is what they did there. Um, no, I there was no fact there wasn't anything in here that we looked at and said this needs to go.

It didn't make I mean I guess it's one of these things where if you trust the process, if we trust in them that they didn't put something into a report that wasn't a theme coming from multiple sources, then we wouldn't have commissioned them to do the report. So yeah, we trust in their findings that this was what they heard. Um and we went from there. I don't think I think what this does for

us in terms of the prescribed um recommendations is it allows us to put all of these things on a timeline um under particular umbrellas so that we can mark progress um we have an opportunity to reach out to you know reach out to our staff um so that we can get feedback on where in you know progress is being made or not. Um I think it's more for me I think is more

impactful that is is not about an individual response. I do I do like when I look at different research and they will like elevate a particular quote that captures what what people were saying. I do think that that could be helpful. That wasn't necessarily, you know, one of the things that they did here. Um but I think it's more impactful that they offered us something that wasn't

just what one person said. um if I tried to address individual complaints of people on a daily basis, it I we would never be able to, you know, crack any of the larger issues because we could I could just answer people's individual complaints all day. So So, uh based on the timeline, I'd also like to re recommend that we get a a timeline for each recommendation. So very strictly, not just in the fall or

in the spring. So the number of recommendations that are here, we can put a timeline together to say this is expected by X date or time. I think it appeared in a few slides but not in all of them. And um that would be one of the uh my concerns as an example of what I was talking about. So I think it was Mr. Lai who said they had a finding that said we

don't have job description uh or charts and we do have org charts. So my point is that when we got to look at it, one of the first things when I looked through this, which I thought we should all have a chance, I was told no, that's not what they do, so we never got a chance to look at it. One of the first, most obvious things to me that was not

accurate, was that we don't have org charts because they're in our budget, they're in each department, but we allowed it to just sit in here so that the public can see it and people can be like, "Oh, they don't have org charts."

that's unnecessarily making it look like we're not doing something as basic as ARG charts. That's what I was referring to when I said what did we use to say no that finding is not accurate. And if when they gave it to us in September, October and if this was really done in March when Mr.

said it was new. That part that I was talking about for being new or under construction, whatever it was, when we got it to get back to us in October, I think it was when it came in, why would we not gone back and said, "Hey, those findings have already been addressed."

So that we So I I guess that was what I was looking for is either they're going to do it timely or they're going to just tell us it's eight months ago and now we got to try to diss disseminate which one is which. Uh, I think we should have pushed back on some of these things to um do, but ultimately I'll stand by my statement that this these concernings are very um

the findings are very concerning to me and I hope that we can do a better job moving forward. I yield.

Yeah, if I could just in closing, I mean just one thing to address some of that.

So we under we generally speaking when we have um the department of ed come in when air comes in everything that we do um in terms of school reviews district reviews we understand them to be a snapshot in time so there wasn't anything that stood out like oh we already did this they need to take it out of the report because we understand that by the time we got it we were it was six months after

um after their after their work had begun So it it wasn't something that stood out because we understood like that was from last spring and this is great. We've already addressed some of these things.

Um and it might very well have been that they didn't see org charts that they wanted to see that they were that they asked us. I know for a fact they asked us for some documents that we were not able to produce. We we we we didn't have them. And at that time it was a are we going to rush to get it done or are we going to just say this is who we are in

this moment knowing that it was in and knowing that they were looking for them it was something that we could then start capturing um start creating just to get the work started. So okay yeah snapshot in time.

All right let's go guys. 128 discussion and vote to approve the National Grid Daily Dispatch Program as presented by Ken Pacho, chief operating officer. Obviously, there's a lot of work to do on the common center report and I uh we'll get through it. Mr. Pico, hold on one second. Just got to get ready. There you are. Okay. So, um this is something that we the city city both city and school department have had for

quite some time.

Miss Pico sorry um it's it's a it's a a program that the city has been a part of for quite some time along with the school department and basically um it's called demand response. We we need to um curtail the electricity use on certain days to avoid brownouts uh issues with the power um with the grid in general. So they implement programs and the they incentivize the programs and pay us if

we do a good job. With this program, with the old program, they give you can you be ready in two hours. The problem with getting ready in two hours is some of our systems need more time to react to to the equipment changes that we need to do. So, we did get some uh money from uh National Grid for the work that we did do on on this particular program, but they developed a better program and

basically it's a 24-hour notice. So, now we can prepare for these rolling shutdowns. Um and it's a short period of time. We're already most of our buildings are closed. um and it's only in um June, July, and August as opposed to any other way. So, the potential savings for the district um is considerable. It's $394,000 um dollars that they would we would be um getting back basically just for

saying that we will allow them to put the equipment to monitor our system that we're doing what we want, what we say we're doing. And then in return, we would receive those funds um at different points in the course of the uh summer for doing what they asked us to do. We've did it before for much less money. Uh this program is much more robust. Um and Dery High School is a

major contributor to uh these numbers.

Any questions under this program?

Mr.

You're saying we're going to save $390,000 over three years.

Over three years.

Yes.

So moved.

There's a motion. Do I have a second?

I'll second it. Go ahead, Mr. Aguero.

the um I don't think this is what this is but when we talk about shutting off um utilities during uh heat waves or you know, I point back to Yeah.

several years ago, person who's no longer here chose to shut off the air conditioning in schools, which is stupid.

Y and I I I have no other way to say it, but it's stupid. So this obviously is not going to put us in a bind where we're going to have now moisture in the building like No. So this is the system is shut down for three hours. Three hours only. It shut down um in the hours of 3 to six.

It will happen 60 times in the course of three months.

And we overload at the beginning. So we overcompensate the system by a couple of degrees before we do the shutdown and then when we turn it on it's almost giving it 14 hours 17 hours to recoup before the next day. So it it will have no effect on our buildings. Um this doesn't work in any building that does not have the BMS systems that they can tap into to see if we're doing the work.

Um it so it's none of the um it's none of the regular buildings that we wouldn't be able to control this with.

It's in all of the modern buildings that have the uh operating systems.

And by modern you mean meaning having a a building maintenance system like for instance not LNO.

So LNO we could do it in LNO because we have the operating system. So, what we would do at Laterno, for instance, if the normal setting every day, which the new normal setting is about 72 degrees in the summer months, um we would up up that to 70° 3 hours before the event, have the event, which will drop it right off the grid to run it on unoccupied mode for

three hours, and then jump it back on to fully operational, and then it would have the rest of the data to accumulate.

I understand just you know you couldn't understand my concern. Absolutely.

Latero was the school that the gentleman shut it off but they were shutting it off all the time.

I get it. I just you know what I'm saying. This is why that's why I'm cautious because we've had a mess over there and we shouldn't be shutting off the electric in the middle of a heat wave.

I understand what you're saying.

It's just operating systems and obviously it's it's not we're not talking about lighting. We're not talking about making the building unsafe for people to get around in. None of that stuff.

I just wanted to make sure said it so that we're not going to get caught in the bind. I thank you. I yield.

Okay, let's vote on that one.

Deb, call the role.

Mr. Aam, yes.

Mr. Bailey, Mr. Dus, yes.

Mr. Cory, yes.

Miss Laravey, Miss Carrera, yes.

Mayor Kubin, yes.

Yes. Uh 129 is a discussion and vote to approve the superintendent's evaluation as presented by school committee woman Shelley Pereira. So we So we completed the superintendent's evaluation um using both assessing progress toward her goals and assessing performance on the listed standards. These will all be available for public consumption. So I'm going to go through go through it quickly. Um so on our standards

standard one instructional leadership um point of information is a composite.

Yes.

Okay.

Um I'm sorry. So standard one instructional leadership the superintendent received um a score of needs improvement and those were based on um curriculum instruction assessment evaluation data informed decision making and student learning.

Um, in standard two, management and operations, the superintendent received a needs improvement score. Um, standard two involved things like environment developing effective plans procedures routines human resource management and development, um, scheduling and management of information systems, law, ethics, policy as well as fiscal systems.

On standard three, family and community engagement, the superintendent scored a needs improvement and those standards reflected engagement with families in the community, classroom, school communities, sharing responsibilities, um communication, um family concerns, addressing family concerns equitably.

And lastly, standard four, profession or culture. The um superintendent received a score of needs improvement. Um this was basically commitment to high standards, cultural profic proficiency, communication both um written and interpersonal and verbal communication, continuous learning, shared vision and management of con uh conflict. Um obviously the super the superintendent currently receiving a uh a score of

needs improvement.

Um, one statement, excuse me, one statement from a member. Um, let's see. This overall needs improvement rating is based on the analysis of Superintendent Curley's performance grounded in the Desi rubric for superintendent evaluation utilizing the guidelines above.

Superintendent Curley did not meet two out of the three goals listed on this evaluation. four out of six with all the goals included. Some goals um were not even started in the identified timeline.

Our overall achievement levels across the board need improvement and this is universally understood by all including the super including uh Dr. Curley.

Throughout the evaluation cycle, it has become quite clear to this evaluator that the district needs to one ramp up the level of accountability and expectations across the district and all departments.

two, implement a solid strategy plan that can guide the department and three, make bold changes to our systems and decision- making in order um to be considered a high functioning district.

Um another member and to summarize in order to see an increase of score in his next evaluation, the LVT uh um should work um Dr. Curley should work toward expanding communication with the entire school committee. She should work on strengthening interperson interpersonal leadership qualities.

Um she should hold subordinates accountable, create a strategic plan and increase fiscal controls.

And that evaluate uh evaluator recommended um a check-in within six months of performance goals. Um, I do, um, agree with some of the first comments I'd made from a colleague. Um, however, I'm going to add something that I think needs to be, it's important that it's recognized. We understand our district needs improvement. The superintendent um, has listed ways that she knows she needs to improve and strategies,

but I I have to address this now.

This is the best way I think I can explain the way I feel uh to the people at home regarding this evaluation.

Um let me explain it like this.

If we have I'm not a firefighter but I know a little bit about fires and she kind of came into a dumpster fire.

Now, something about fighting fires is when a fire happens, if you have the right crew, you have somebody, you know, like the floor of a fire department with all their stuff together, they function as a team.

It's important to function as a team to get things done. So, if you have a fire department that's functioning as a team and they show up to a fire and the fire hydrant is accessible and the waters are flowing and everybody's helping hold the hose because I'm pretty sure they're having need more than one person.

We're lucky and it's raining, that fire is going to go out pretty quick. That's going to be pretty easy.

We're going to think that fire chief just did a killer job because the fire went out quick.

what the superintendent showed up to, the fire she showed up to, she had a group of firefighters who wanted this place to burn.

In my opinion, she was met with members who wanted to add fans to the fire.

Members who instead of picking up the hose were stepping on it, preventing water from coming out.

And this was from the first day I'll take you guys back. The first day she was appointed, we were all sitting up here, minus my colleague to the left.

And because certain people just didn't get their way, we literally had a breakdown and somebody quit on stage.

They were so upset she got her job that they literally quit on stage and walked off.

They're going to say it's cuz I made a comment, but whatever.

If you're going to throw heat eventually, you have to be able to take it. If you're going to sit there when colleagues insult and bully and you're not going to say anything, then be prepared for it eventually to come your way because that's the culture you're creating.

Mr. Chairman, she you can point of order.

I'm talking about the evaluation. I'm getting to So my point You're not going to There's no point.

Let talk. Let talk.

She's not off topic.

I'm not off topic.

My question is, is this the comments in the composite? because I don't see any comments at all on the composite. No, these are my comments. I didn't have to write them in the composite cuz I didn't give a needs improvement. The only people that needed to write them down were the people who gave her a needs improvement score. So, I read yours and I read Collins and I'm stating mine cuz I wasn't going to say

anything. But after hearing the way you spoke to her earlier, I think this is important to know that yes, she does needs improvement, but it's important to know what she worked up against.

Stick to the evaluation and why I vote why I evaluated her the way I did.

because you're going to look at my scores and you're going to say, "Why did you do proficient? Why did you do?" So, I'm giving my explanation.

You don't have to deal with me after today. So, just let me have my peace.

But that's the reality of it. She started the job literally that day with that kind of thing going above her.

Anybody started a job that way? The next day, she was all over the news, all over social media, colleagues saying she's not qualified. Not qualified. This woman worked in our district for years. has never had a problem. This woman had a higher level of education or the same as anyone else that applied. To say she wasn't qualified is hilarious.

If you didn't want her to be appointed, that's fine. We can disagree.

But she was. And from the very beginning, in my opinion, she was harassed and bullied by members of this committee while trying to put out dumpster fires.

She did all of that. And this last year, the little that she did improve, she did while she was literally ducking bullets from people who wanted her out. And I don't know about you, but I don't think that's a way to work. I know this is the worst position I've ever had. And I can't believe she's still sitting here, God bless her, the strength. So, I did give her proficient on a lot of areas

where maybe if we're looking at the statistics, but I need you to see that there was more than that. The only person in this room that is an employee of us is her.

Nobody sitting here is my employee.

Although some people would like to think you are. You're not. You're hers. You're her employee. She's Oz. And I have never in my life I have been a supervisor in many different circumstances. And never in my life have I spoken to an employee the way this woman has been spoken to over the last year. Never in my life.

And I know I'm not the only one that thinks it. I'm just the one that's going to say it. And that's fine. I'm cool with that. But the bullying and harassing behavior, in my opinion, that she's had to deal with, it's amazed she's got anything done. So I would say going forward, I would beg the three wonderful people in the back to not let this continue. To be the voice

that does not allow this to continue. be the team that doesn't step on the hose but stands behind her and picks it up to get the fire out because we're supposed to be a team. And that doesn't mean we don't call each other out. That doesn't mean we don't hold each other to high standards, but it means we don't try to break each break each other down. And that's what's happened to this woman.

And I don't think I don't expect her to speak to this, but I don't think she disagree. And I think every single person out there, including people on the stage, know that to be true. She should have started this position with positivity and support from this committee. And she never received it, not once.

So yes, she needs improvement, but so does this committee and it needs to be an effort where people work together. So I think many people could read that book and I'm so glad you brought it because it makes a lot of sense. If we work together as a team, we get things done.

But if we're continuing playing political games and banging each other on the head, the only people that suffer in this community are our children.

Because a superintendent will have this job, we'll have another job. So will everybody here. The only person that's going to suffer is the kids in our community. So I gave her proficient because I think she went above and beyond considering what she was up against.

With that, I yield. Now everybody can say as they like.

Okay.

I I believe I gave it proficient too. Um I think she's done a great job. I didn't write a bunch of comments on there. I've been with her since she started because I had the good fortune to work with her for a long time at Turfy and I know what she's capable of and I I I needs improvement. I mean that's just marks on a paper. I know what she does every day

and I know how she handles herself and we we guidance of the Collins Center and as a committee have to do better going forward. Um, and I I I pray that that's the truth. Does anybody else have any other comments? Mr. Aguia?

Yeah, just uh I'm trying to figure out and this probably be a question for you, Mr. Chairman. So, we approve this document. In the document, it it says comments and analysis are recommended for any rating, but are required for an overall summitive rating of exemplary, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory.

And if the overall is needs improvement, there's no comments on this composite at all, which is going to go out to the public. I believe this is an incomplete composite just for that reason.

The chairman of the evaluation committee just read several comments weren't the only comments that were made, but in this document, there's no comments listed, which makes it look like as if whoever filled out the forms that said needs improvement, they should have had Excuse me.

Do you want Do you want to say something or Excuse me. Yeah.

There's really no reason to be holding your hands up in the air while I'm trying to say my hand. My hands.

Yes. And you're huffing and puffing.

Okay. Okay. My hand, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, guys.

So, this question is to you, sir.

Okay.

We are going We have a composite that is not complete. What do we do now?

I have the answer. If I mean, I'm the chair of the committee. If it's okay if I answer that. So, I had spoke to Deb.

The reason those composits on is because the only people that left comments were the people the needs improvement section and those weren't listed on there because they were yours and they was and they were Collins. I was under the impression when I discussed with Deb today when we went over the composite and what was to be put on there, we had a discussion and I asked her specifically, are all these evaluations,

every single individual evaluation open to the public? She talked to Bruce and Bruce said, "Yes, all of our evaluations, correct Bruce, are open to the public?" Which means they can easily go on and see who who put needs improvement and they can read the comments. Nobody's hiding comments. Once again, you're making a mountain out of a molehill. You're insinuating that we're not being transparent. Everything's

there. It's all It's all public knowledge. If you want me to take a pen and paper and write your comments down on a separate sheet with Collins to make you feel better, I can do that. I have no problem. But all the information is there.

Mr. Chairman, so my only comment is that we've done evaluations here for a long time.

Miss Cabraw is the secretary of this committee. Miss Cabraw is not the resident expert on what we need to do on an evaluation. We have had comments on all of the evaluations, a summary of the comments. If people are not doing that and mocking it needs improvement, then that means they didn't fill it out properly. So that's all I'm suggesting is that when we have a composite which

is the composite of all the comments as well as there's not even um check marks under unsatisfactory needs improvement proficient for each indicator. Some of them would have been I gave some that were proficient and some that were needs improvement. We don't even have a composite of that. So all I'm suggesting Mr. Chairman is that this is not done properly. It's it's incomplete. And yes,

I can look at the evaluations that that are public document. Those same documents that I asked for at least five days ago to have sent to me. And then the secretary sends me a note saying that she can't do it. She has to check with attorney Assad. And then I forwarded the email from January of 2025 when we actually got all of those. And still to this day, we still haven't

received them. So, I've tried to, you know, ask the questions ahead of time and get the information, but by no mistake, this is not an accurate fully completed composite. I yield.

Anybody else have anything else on this evaluation?

I think uh if you want to see all the evaluations, go um go on. They'll be online, I'm assuming. Um and that's what we can do. I mean again there's such a divergent group on this stage that um some people are very comfortable with the superintendent, some aren't. Some have some see her strengths, some see her weaknesses, but I I I I know what we got and I'm very pleased.

Let's go to fouryear information.

Oh yeah, we have to vote to approve it.

Can I get a motion?

So moved.

Do I get a second?

Second. I have a motion to second on approving the valuation. Deb, call the role.

Mr.

No.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

No.

Mr. Cory.

Yes.

Mr. Larby. Mr.

Carrera.

Yes.

Mayor K.

Yes.

Item 13. For your information, we have a number of retirements.

Motion to accept and place on file all resignations, rehires, um, appointments, retirements.

Thank you, Mr. Das. U, I'll second it.

Um, all in favor?

I opposed. Unanimous.

Um, any uh new business to come before the committee.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Das, I received some phone calls over the weekend um regarding Westall School and the changes in um um traffic. And I understand the city put out a press release today. My only question would be, and I asked this so we can improve going forward, when there's changes to traffic roads, either the made oneways or anything changed on them around school areas, has that in the past been

trans transmitted over to the school department?

Yeah, we worked with the school department on it.

So the west the changes to Westall, we communicated that to the school department.

Yes.

Okay. Okay. So, with that being said, I saw some complaints from parents that stated that they didn't there wasn't enough um notice given to the changes.

So, I think that's something we need to improve on going forward. Thank you.

Do we have I think Mr. Pico was going to answer the question I was going to ask.

First of all, the the reason why the changes were made because of the school department, not because of the city. We requested changes like we requested changes at LNO to make the traffic situation safer. Everything we do with the traffic patterns around schools is to make it safer.

I don't disagree with the traffic patterns. It was the communication.

The communication was there. The communication was there and the opportunity for everyone to weigh in on this was at a public meeting at the traffic department twice.

Theers were notified.

Everyone was notified. That's the process. So I I understand that there may be one, two, five people who may not, but 300 students are in that school and we didn't get 300 angry parents who called because they wanted these changes. They wanted people going in one direction so that they don't have to watch their kids have to jump in between cars because no one pays attention to what they're doing.

I I support that. I asked the question because I really didn't know the answer and I received the call. So that's why we asked the question was definitely vetted and it was done appropriately as every change of traffic pattern is done whether it's school department or not but these are carefully watched.

I accept your answer. I accept your answer. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr.

Can we just please get a a one pager on so we can have a response or the response of what was done like the I'm sure the principal must have reached out via his uh systems and stuff to let parents know. Um, I'm sure that a lot of those things happened, but if we don't know those, we can't either relay those and alleviate some of the fears that people have had. So, if we get a one

pager, I'd appreciate it.

I would also appreciate it moving forward, and I know I've made the request via email that you ask people to contact the school for the information, contact my office for the information.

It seems counterproductive sometimes when you get like an anonymous call or whatever it is, and then you're you become like a middle person. people could contact us directly and I think that would be more helpful and it would be more it's just more efficient if I get three phone calls in the same day about something. I know that there's an issue if we don't get those calls because they get sometimes emailed to a

school committee member who you know lets us know a week or two later. It it just is counterproductive. So Mr. Chairman, just one followup. The other thing I think would that would be helpful, we didn't know anything about this that the change was happening. So, if we did know that something was happening, it wouldn't have been a surprise like what is going on here. I think that would help as well.

Thank you. I yield.

Item 15 is a request for executive session.

Um, Mr. um Mr. Assad, do you want to read the reasons to go into executive session?

National Law Chapter 38 section 21A7 to review and approve executive session minutes from November 10, 2025 regular school committee meeting. National Laws Chapter 38 Section 21A7 to review and approve executive session minutes for November 18, 2025. Special meeting of the school committee. National Laws Chapter 38 section 21A6 to consider the purchase or value of real property as

the jurors determined that no possession may have a detrimental impact in effect on the negotiating position of the school committee. Mass General Laws chapter 3A section 21A1 to review the open meeting law complaint dated November 25th 2025 filed by Colin Das regarding the November 10, 2025 school committee meeting. complaint alleges that the committee voted in executive session and open session to release portions

of the minutes from the n from the 2025 meetings of January 2nd and 13, March 10, April 17 and 29, May 12th, June 9, August 18, September 8th, July 29, February 19th, and June 23rd. The complaint further alleges that the committee did not appropriately release any of the minutes from the meetings as they were all overred redacted. Um, National Law, Chapter 38, Section 21A1 to review the open meeting law complaint

dated November 25th, 2025, filed by Coland alleging that the For School uh public schools redistricting working group is a de facto advisory committee to the for school committee and that the Forra public schools redistricting working group held unposted secretive meetings on the following dates in 2025, August 4 and 13, September 3 and 24, October 8 and 15 and November 12 and 19.

Mass General Laws chapter 38 section 21 A4 to discuss the deployment of security personnel or devices or strategies with resp uh respect there too. Um, national law chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation regarding college app cruise ris public school department current employees and former employees superior court docket number 2573 CV 00790 and litigation regarding Steuart Primus

versus the city of Fall River Court docket number 2073 CV 00699 and imminent uh litigation with respect to mass Massachusetts Commission against discrimination as determined that open session may have a detrimental impact on the litigating position of the motion enter executive session.

Hold on. He's got he's not done reading it.

Second.

He's not done reading.

I'm not done. I'm not done. Master Law chapter 30 is as the minor determined open may have a detrimental impact on the litigation position of the committee. National Law Chapter 38 section 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiation with non-union personnel and/or to conduct contract negotiations with non-union personnel including all for educational and for government TV cable

grant positions eight and number all non union central office administrators nine in number all administrative assistants 12 and number all school-based athletic program uh support positions all facil ities and operations supervisory positions seven and number. All computer technical and uh support information management systems support positions 18 and

we're back. We're back in We're back in regular session. Deb, call the role, please.

Mr. A here.

Mr. Bailey, Mr. Das, here.

Mr. Corey, here.

Miss Laravey, Miss Pereira, here.

Mayor Coogan here. Um, before we go into anything further uh to discuss tonight, I want to congratulate Shelley Pereira uh being someone we worked with on the school committee. She's done uh she's done a great job and we wish her well for the next 30 adventures she has. So, good luck. Shell, what do we have to come before the committee?

Thank you. Uh, MLG chapter 3A section 21 to review and approve executive session minutes for November 10th, 2025 regular school committee.

Motion to approve.

Sec.

Motion and second.

Second.

Deb. Any discussion? De call the role, please.

Mr. A.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Yes.

Mr. Corey.

Yep.

Miss Laravey. Miss Pereira.

Yes.

Mayor Coogan.

Yep.

Anything further? MLG chapter 30A section 217 to review and approve executive session minutes for November 18th 2025 special meeting of the school committee motion approve second motion is second discussion hearing none Deb call the role please Mr. A yes Mr. Bailey Mr. Das yes Mr. Cory.

Okay.

Larvy. Pereira.

Yes.

Mayor Kan.

Yep.

Anything further?

Chapter 3A, section 21 uh to refer to the city council the purchase of Bishop Connley High School.

Approval.

Approval. For approval.

We need the amount.

Dollar.

Very exciting.

Second.

I have a motion to second.

Uh any discussion?

Deb call the role. Mr. Hag.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey, Mr. Das, yes.

Mr. Cory, yes.

Mr. Laravey, Miss Pereira, yes.

Mary Kougan, yep.

Anything further?

MLG chapter 30A section 21 to review open meeting law complaint dated November 25th, 2025 filed by Colin Das regarding the November 10th 2025 school committee meeting.

Uh the complaint alleges that after the committee voted in executive session and open session to release a portion of the minutes from the 2025 meeting of January 2nd and 13th, March 10th, April 17th and 29th, May 12th, June 9th, August 18th, September 8th, July 29th, February 19th, and June 23rd. The complaint further alleges that the committee did not appropriately release any of the minutes

from the meetings as they were all overred redacted.

Um, we're voting to allow attorney Assad to look in and take care of that.

Second discussion. Deb, call the role, please.

Mr.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey. Mr. Das.

Mr. Cory.

Oh, yeah.

M. Laravey. Mr. Per.

Yes.

Mayor Kogan.

Yep.

Motion to adjurnn.

Second.

You got two open meeting laws.

I do. You told me those were all of them.

There was two open.

Oh. Chapter 30, section 21 to review the open meeting law complaint dated November 25th, 2025 filed by Colin Das alleging that the fora public schools redistricting workshop group is a de facto advisory committee to the for school committee and that the fora public schools redistric redistricting working group held unposted secretive meetings on the following dates in 2025.

August 4th and 13th, September 3rd and 24th, October 9th and 15th, November 12th and 18th. Again, voting to have attorney Assad look in and take care of these.

Second discussion. De call the role, please.

Mr. Aar.

Yes.

Mr. Bailey, Mr. Dasain.

Mr. Corey.

Okay.

Miss Laravey, Miss Pereira.

Yes.

Mayor Coogan.

Yep.

Now, can I do it?

Yes.

Motion to adjurnn.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Really? The est nons as negotiated as second page.

I don't believe this is needed.

Attorney Assad, do we need to do this?

Circling the right things here. All right.

MGL chapter 30.

Mr. Chairman, as negotiations, we've never voted on as negotiated.

Mr. Chairman.

Yes.

We've never voted in open session for the same.

He said he said we do.

Don't do it.

Okay. He said don't do it. You're right.

Motion to adjurnn.

Second.

All in favor?

I.

Unanimous.