2.10.2025 Fall River School Committee

did you talk to Bobby because I didn't yeah he's coming okay um I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the far of a school committee for February 10th uh Deb would you please call the role Mr AGA here Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory here miss laravie here miss Pereira mayor Coogan here uh Miss larav is joining us tonight virtual I just want everybody aware of it um salute to the flag

please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which 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 unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and

permissible um we are going to first do our mcass academic Excellence award Wards we going down the front for this or yes okay we we'll go down the front for this part of it you going to you list I'll actually talk from up here and then go down you guys can okay okay so this evening we have the pleasure of honoring 10 students who earned perfect scores on one or more of the spring um 2024 mcast

test these students represent school year 24 fourth fifth eth and 10th grades from tany and Sylvia elementary schools Henry Lord Community School Doran community school talet and cus middle schools and BMC dery High School um we have here with us tonight the principes of those schools to honor the students who tested at their respective schools and I would ask them to join at the

podium hey buddy are good how are you doing great

starting with um dery High School uh in recognition of a perfect score on the spring 2024 mathematics mcast Nicholas van

also Nicholas with a perfect score on the science mcast as well in recognition of a perfect score on the spring 202 2024 science mcast Micah

Ross and also from dery high school in recognition of a perfect score on the 2024 Ela mcast Sarah Ciro from tany in recognition of a perfect score on the spring 2024 mathematics mcast as well as the 2024 Ela mcast Rory Edwards

also from tany in recognition of a perfect score in the spring 2024 mathematics mcass Arya soy

from the Doran School in recognition of a perfect score on the 2024 Ela mcast Orion wit

camper from talit in recognition of a perfect score on the 2024 Ela mcast Eva bis congrats

from cus Middle School in recognition of a perfect score on the 2024 Ela mcast zenab Sheik

from the Sylvia School in recognition of a perfect score on the 2024 Ela mcast Aaliyah Pico deont come on

and last but not least from Henry Lord Community School in recognition of a perfect score on the 2024 Ela mcast Camila Silva sor

my brother

uh item number three all right everybody is settled I'd just like to say on behalf of the school committee I proud We Are you kids give those kids another big hand okay item number three student comment with us tonight is uh Brooke tekas from dery last week we had Student Government officers from each grade who went around every day during um during counsel appreciation week and showed our

appreciation to our counselors with little gifts we also got dery High School's new program in partnership with Fall River Public Schools in the support of one South Coast Chamber of Commerce this fashion this is the fashion design Workforce pipeline program and advanced textiles um manufacturing program which aims to help our dery seniors Kickstart their careers while supporting local

manufacturers in Fall River who are looking to fill entry level positions we should expect career Explorations guiding 40 seniors through a career exploration in leadership development program which includes site visits to local manufacturers Workforce Development experiences after completing the training program students can apply for one of 10 paid positions at partner manufacturers these rules will offer

about 8 to 15 hours of work per week from March through June and specifically we looking for students who plan to enter the workforce right after graduation um coming up on March 5th we have our dodgeball for mental health awareness and dery's Kyle Car Student Chapter for mental health awareness and dery's SLT are collaborating again to host the second annual student staff dodgeball tournament it was an awesome

event last year and we are looking forward to similarly great participation this year we also have our Valentine day advisory challenge which has been brought back by popular demand where all students are invited to participate in our Hill topper love notes contest which is sponsored by dery's SLT students submit a Google form entry for the staff member of their choosing during advisory

and multiple entries are encouraged and any advisory that gets 100% participation from all their students submitting at least one entry will be entered into a raffle to win a Granite Grill lunch students willite write three to five sentences explaining why they love having this staff member as an educator and then we also have elective week coming up where students will pick their favorite electives for um to

take thank you book appreciate it okay next item on the agenda is item number four uh citizens input we have a number of people tonight we're going to ask everybody please restrict it to three minutes or if not we'll finish it up at the end of the meeting we have cap. citizen input at a half an hour so please keep it to 3 minutes I'll keep the timer right here if you don't mind

um first person to speak Maria Matos woodl Street forever good evening my name is Maria Matos and I am honored to be a graduate of dery high school I have also dedicated the last 25 years working within the Far River school department and have always called Far River my home my two children have also attended far schools and are proud graduates of dery currently pursuing their college

education as a veteran staff member I have had the opportunity to work with outstanding professionals unfortunately I've also witnessed many of these talented individuals leave for other districts in search of better pay and working conditions to attract and retain qualified professionals it is essential to implement equitable salary increases since 2022 school year 73 members of fra

have either resigned or retired which represents approximately 33% of our marketing unit many of these individuals were known to me personally and their departures have significantly impacted the Far River schools they left primarily for higher salaries reduced case loads and shorter work days our current working hours exceeded the standard 8 hour day the rigid arrival and departure times limit are

flexibility and often do not allow for lunch breaks I can count on one hand the number of times I have had an uninterrupted lunch in my 25 years our current working hours in addition to our regular responsibilities we also fac with increased state Federal and school mandates which include but are not limited to bowling title 9 504 plans I compliance implementation of light speed H Duty responsibilities advisory roles

daily attendance calls and now the management of the under pouches in addition the growing number of English language Learners has further strain those of us who speak a second language I was pleased to see our teachers receive the raises they rightfully deserve especially considering the daily challenges they encounter however members of the Far River administrators Association face similar challenges and

need appropriate compensation F members support both teachers and students addressing issues that classroom teachers may not be able to manage within their roles thank you for considering these critical issues as you prepare to return to the negotiation meeting table have a great evening and thank you thank

you uh next up Kate McGraw Sherwood Road Middletown uh three minutes please Kate short thing hi everyone my name is Kate McGrath I'm the ELA department head at the Henry Lord Community School this is my third year in this role and my 13th with the public schools here in Fall River I'm here today to speak on behalf of the approximately 18 to 20 other academic department heads here in our elementary and secondary

schools department heads are supervisory administrators can I ask you to step closer to the microphone closer sure thank you great uh we're supervisory administrators at the elementary and middle school levels we work in concert with with principles and vice principles to continuously improve learning outcomes for students our work touches four major areas we build teacher capacity in tier one through direct

coaching co-planning and facilitating PLC we create and manage tiered systems of support for instruction at tier two and tier three we organize assessments and we analyze student data in advance of and during PLC to support teachers in responding to student strengths and areas for growth we also provide professional development both in our buildings and at the district level a three minute

statement is not long enough to for me to discuss with you our leadership and contribution to the schools and so I'm here tonight to request that as you review contract proposals for the department head position you take some time to consult with our principes and the office of instruction find out the number of teachers we provide direct support to and the number of students whose instruction we

influence find out about the size of our workload on a day-to-day week to week and term to term basis find out about the perceived value the academic department head role adds to buildings and student learning and then compare what you learn to the other supervisory admin roles in our buildings with whom we work the same number of days and hours our position is that our current compensation at level 2A is not

commensurate with our workload value days and hours our roles in our buildings are important and on par with our vice principal and Dean counterparts yet we are compensated three levels lower than they are on the salary schedule with a significant daily and annual income disparity and while I'm here to Advocate on the behalf of department heads and our specific proposal I'm also here to

represent the f as a whole I've spoken to many of our members since the teachers reached their contract agreement and we all agree that the teachers deserve the salary increases that they negotiated we applaud you for recognizing the value that teachers bring to our schools at the start of the 2627 school year the per DM rate of a teacher on step 12 will be higher than the vast majority of guidance counselors

well i' like to make a the rules Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to wave the rules for an additional one minute second uh let's see sorry thank you um the per DM rate of a teacher on step 12 will be higher than the vast majority of guidance counselors School adjustment counselor school psychologists and nearly all department heads on steps one two and three this will leave our

schools in a challenging position when trying to fill department head vacancies we're asking that you settle the F contract with without further delay sending a message that you value all school department employees equally thanks so much for your time thank uh next up Lisa Lisa Quintel Christy Drive

Westport sorry I'm short hello my name is Lisa Quintel and I have worked in for River Public Schools for more than 20 years I am also a BMC dery high school graduate I worked as a teacher a Special Education team chair a vice principal an intake coordinator at RPA and I am currently a guidance counsel at RPA since I have held many positions I have a good understanding of the challenges each

department faes when I was a teacher I had two preps a day and a lunch since becoming an administrator I do not have any preps and have not had a free unencumbered lunch since I started in order for teachers to take their lunch I have to monitor students in the cafeteria as an fra member I work a longer school day and a longer school year because I do not have a set

schedule like teachers do I have been required to teach classes be an attendance Monitor and call parents when students are not present because I have free time I now have to um be online two periods per day to take attendance for the virtual school with all of the extra duties it does not leave me much time in a day to do the most important aspects of my job which are to meet with

students review their credits and plan for their future therefore I have to come in early and stay late every day in order to keep up with the never-ending increased demands of my school I agree that teachers deserve the increase that they are receiving but I also believe that fra members deserve the same increase in compensation for the incredibly challenging work that we do when a teacher is unable to manage a

student or needs assistance who do they call an administrator administrators deal with students parents emergencies and anything that may arise during before and many times after the school day is all over if you do not give the fra members a fair and equal contract you will create a hostile work environment causing an us against them mentality and animosity amongst the unions F Raa members will not want to

come in early or stay late in addition fra members may go back to being teachers or leave for of public schools altogether and find a job in another District that treats them fairly since the 2021 2022 school year 73 fra members have resigned or retired which is 33% of our bargaining unit if more of our members resign or go back into teaching how will our schools run effectively or

efficiently in closing I would like to say that we are one frea one fra and one school committee working together with one goal in mind to serve the students of fora public schools and enhance their lives I applaud you for coming to a fair agreement with the frea and hope that you can come to the same fair and Equitable agreement with the fra and the other school department unions that have

been working without a contract since the start of the school year thank you for your time and consideration in this

matter uh next up Gretchen crey Washington Street brain tree three minutes please Gretch thanks hi my name is Gretchen crey this is my 21st year as a school adjustment counselor in the district I had the pleasure of working with many of you through the years in your various administrative roles so I know that you are all aware that we do this work because we love what we do and the

difference we can make in the lives of students and families when we are called We rise to the occasion and provide whatever support is needed in many capacities we wear many hats whether or not they are included in our job description we do our best to support each other through challenging situations nothing can be accomplished without the support of a team each team member has incredible value and should

be acknowledged for what they are able to bring to the table and compensated as such we support our teachers in all their hard work they deserve everything that they were able to achieve in their contract they work in an urban setting which brings its own challenges not similar to surrounding districts fra members face those same challenges as F members we are expected to manage students issues that teachers are not

able to address within their roles we are asking to be valued in the same manner as administrators we are contracted to work a longer school day and a longer school year we regularly find ourselves working beyond our contracted workday and are called upon outside work hours if there is a crisis that the district becomes aware of yearly there are additional expectations put upon us without a change in

compensation with what you are offering you are expecting us to work at a lesser prum rate than the teachers with their new contract I can only speak as an adjust counselor but I know some of these expectations pertain to others in our Union over the past few years School adjustment counselors have been assigned additional responsibilities some of these include Yonder pouch Duty administrating Satchel attendance

monitoring addressing light speed concerns and creating and maintaining 504s all the while we continue to support bullying investigations perform our Hall lunch duties attend IEP meetings provide IEP 504 Sac Services required by law participate in mcast proctoring and attend to mental health crisises for both student and adults we are expected to know the students in our buildings whether they have Services

attached to them or not oftentimes our students without special needs or 504 Services require more mental health support than others each day we come to the building with a to-do list oftentimes we cannot even complete our first task because something of more imminent concern presents itself a lunch break is never in the cards as the year progresses new initiatives are added and we are expected to support the effort

and at times lead the charge it is concerning that the district that shares the message that social and emotional well-being is critical to Student Success is not recognizing that they are taking the staff with the clinical skills to support these students from providing crucial Services now the district is also showing that the expertise we can provide is not valuable enough for Equitable compensation fra

has given you an equitable proposal to settle this contract Fair as Fair thank you for listening thanks

pitch next up Jordan Silva hi L Avenue forer three minutes please Jordan yep uh good evening everybody um I'm here to discuss I was I attended that meeting last week about the dery curriculum wanted to give some of my thoughts on that um and then I learned since then um you guys are debating today on the cap of online charter schools which my kids attend I'm very uh very uh Pro online Charter School uh and

again I just learned in a coup matter of a couple days you guys are trying to limit the um amount of kids who can attend those schools um I didn't realize it was basically illegal for every kid in Fall River 98% of the kids of Fall River can't even go to that school I just had my kids a 10 there I didn't know that was even a cap but um now I'm hearing that you're

trying to reduce it to the one or potentially reduce it to 1% I believe that's what's on the agenda for tonight right so um I know everybody here talks about education and and loves kids and I don't understand why there would be well I have my thoughts on why people want to limit kids from not being part of the FL of public schools in some of the back and forth emails I've seen internally

that they're talking about um Revenue bringing more Revenue into the district like my children's education isn't like a revenue Source right like their well-being and what happens with them um I these people that just spoke they were very polite but I just sat through about a year of watching the meetings with teachers saying that they were poisoned in your schools in your buildings and

that your their own employees were poisoned um and it was covered up and no one did anything right about it the kid kids were getting sick and now I'm being you know there's there's a action tonight to potentially try to drag more kids that are choosing to not send their kids to your schools for Obviously good reason um and you're trying to keep more kids going to these schools for

specifically for money is the only I I'd like to hear any thoughts on why anyone would want to force parents to not allow them to send them to the school their kids already attend um it's it's you know it's very concerning to me it's hear a lot about pro-choice it's this is an anti-choice anti-American thing education is important I believe it's extremely important more than probably

most people actually um nobody here elected is qualified to say like what how my kids should be brought up whether you're PhD educated or you know in any effect right like they're not your children um sometimes I feel like the government thinks that they our kids belong to you somehow in in the educational process that's not the case just like without money politicians can never you know be better stewards of our

money as I am right cuz it actually impacts me like my kids you know no one's no one on this board is going to care more about my kids than I do um I can guarantee that no matter how educated you think you are um so again tonight when this matter comes up I I don't want to come to meetings I don't want to you know what I mean have this

adversarial relationship I I do want to like improve my own family standing in life and do important things rules that's okay I don't need the extra time one one point I do want to make though Mr Das um he's not highly educated he's a young guy he doesn't have kids I think he'll vote in the in the affirmative which you know what I mean that's I think that speaks volumes right where people have phds and whatnot

everybody is these educational professionals with with decades worth of experience and this this gentleman will kind of see it my way you know what I mean thank you next up Jeffrey goodro uh Palmer Street Fall River uh three minutes please uh Deb's going to read that one it's a letter good afternoon school committee members I want to go on on the record in support of Colin D's request and

discussion to have a government efficiency Zar for the follower of public schools and to have boomman amiral support the everyday Educators and wants to help the committee look for ways we can make this government more efficient it seems to be Kevin Agia and Colin Das and Bobby Bailey who seem to support good and efficient government and the rest don't seem to care I know mayor and the

superintendent don't we need four members of the committee to make change the same two or three members trying to do the right thing won't work because four is a majority that's why we need Boomer Amaral or someone else the committee of four must be removed from office and we need to elect a majority school committee to undo the mess that has been done why did we go over budget of

$600,000 on playgrounds in violation of a policy why did Tracy Curley spend $6,000 of our taxpayer money on a dinosaur costume there is no accountability responsibility and no transparency in this District again I am ask asking for you to give this a chance and not look at it in at the other way thank you uh the superintendent did want to make a comment addressing specifics of one of the

comments um so I did I wanted to um just respond to the individual who spoke about the 1% cap because I think there was some misrepresentation um I did email with um the individual today and explained I'll actually read allowed um the email please don't mistake the agenda item as a move to limit enrollment using the 1% cap placing the item on the agenda was a move to offer the committee some

information regarding our district status and make them aware of their right to cap I will not be making a presentation advocating for a 1% cap and the school committee can actually vote to cap enrollment at a percentage higher than the 2% um Statewide the vote to approve a cap of any kind is the right and responsibility of the committee not mine but I'm sure I will be called upon

to give some input I do believe families should have choice and at this time we do not have a mechanism for providing virtual learning for students K to 12 this is the first year our enrollment has climbed above 1% so it is the first time we have been engaged in this process by the state and then I went on to share an excerpt from the letter that we were sent um by the state so I just

thought it was important to State publicly that um the intent this evening has never been to um present an advocate for a 1% cap the and and that individual was aware of um kind of the sentiment of um of the agenda item before coming to the podium tonight there was also a reference made I responded to an email um from Mr dis which apparently was shared publicly and um I did outline

it's my responsibility to show people um kind of two sides of the coin and that um make sure that the committee is aware of any kind of um Arguments for and against capping either in this District um or you know in any district and I did mention to Mr Das that one of the considerations that the committee should make I mean if if they're going to look at all sides of it is that for every

student who enrolls in an online school that is not provided by the fall of our Public Schools it does mean that we are um you know we're losing students where our enrollment is lowered and um it does mean it does make a difference in terms of our October one numbers and our um funding through the state I think that's a responsible piece of information to show it was not an argument um that I

was making about why we should cap and I just want to be very clear about that thank you superintendent Mr Das and Mr H thank you uh I'm just struggling right now and I'm going to say most of my questions for when this item was um comes up on the agenda but I'm just really struggling currently as to what the administration's position is on this because I've seen multiple emails with

this item on the agenda that we could potentially cap at 1% but the emails however the emails I received recently show that the administration's position has kind of changed on the matter now now at even that insinuating that the committee could even raise the cap so I really am struggling to understand where we're at I'll say as for one member I support parent choice this in this these

institutions the one that Mr Sylvia is a part of has his kids a part of tekka and the other one as well a lot of parents like to send their kids there and they there's a lot of programs in there that the fers public schools doesn't currently have and I do not support placing a cap on on that matter and if that affects the money coming in into the district I'm okay with that I

yield Mr I have a couple things but uh speaking on this one I I'm not sure I kind of agree with Mr Das what is the position of the administration so somehow this got on the agenda yeah why why don't we talk about comes up I'm going to talk about it now because it was already raised by the superintendent yeah but we're going to debate it again I understand so I'm

just trying to get clarity it's going to come why do we have to talk I know so just wait wait till we get on it going to be on a minute what was your Mr chairman yes Mr chairman the superintendent chose to respond to a gentleman who came before citizen input time to discuss the 1% cap so it's imperative now that we just get clarity on what is the administration's policy or recommendation on this because it

showed up on the agenda for some reason so you and your team must have a position what is that position Mr AG why don't we just why don't you make a motion to take the item up right now and we'll get it done right now that's a fair way to let every have a correct the fairest way to do it is to just answer a simple question but I'll move on okay I

understand I'll second so the second thing is no we don't need to change it not I'm not making a motion I thought you said I'll move on it no I said the simplest thing would be the superintendent just to answer the question but separate from that you can divert it she'll answer later I guess the issue that I have relative to Citizen input time I think we got to be

careful of as a as a school committee so we made a motion and and a rule that said we're not not going to go over 3 minutes and we're going to go 30 minutes we have to either stay we're going to have rules and follow them or we're not going to so if someone comes up whether you like their comments or not we should not be saying let's wave the rules

willy-nilly and not take a vote so somebody has a right to say which Mr Das did and said i w a motion to wave the rules I think somebody else said they wanted to Second it at that point we need to take a vote as a committee to determine whether we're going to or not because I'll say publicly I'm going to vote no on every one of those to stay consistent with the policy now the uh

lady who was before us had 30 people behind her so she could have very easily given the last whatever minutes to another person but if we start to do this willy-nilly it's going to be what if one person's up and we want to let them listen Mr Sylvia came up and said he wasn't going to need the time and then he started to keep on going on we need to be consistent in my opinion just

take votes yes or no as a whole I support Mr Agia thank you the question I just have we did the same thing with the um Union I'd like to get some some clarity from the superintendent on a few issues that were brought up today one of the things that I think people brought up was that they work more than eight hours a day by contract I think that's something that we need to

address that they work in the contract it says you work eight hours a day yes so why did somebody come up before us and say that they are contracted to work more than eight hours a day right off the bat is that accurate or is that not accurate I don't think that's accurate I I think that the my um interpretation of the statement was like maybe just misspeaking that our contract says we

work eight hours a day but people are giving us so much work that we end up having to work Beyond eight hours that's how I interpreted it I know those were not the words that were used but that's how I interpreted the um the statement yep the other one that bothered me was nobody gets a lunch duty a lunch and I think that's a problem for administration to figure out I don't

think it's yours only but you're the superintendent and you can issue to the your administrators to say that everyone deserves a lunch break if they choose to work through it so be it some people do by choice some people don't but at the end of the day everyone has a lunch break I believe the language is equivalent to the time of the student they should get an uninterrupted lunch that should be the case right off the

bat I think somebody start kept on saying something that's really bothered me for years is that we have professionals licensed professionals doing lunch duty for hours on end I've Been Told prior superintendent not So Much by you Dr curlyy that that has stopped then I hear well it's in Pockets it we have to get it right it's either going to happen or it's not and it's frustrating to me to hear people come up

and keep on uh saying that the additional duties we've never heard of these things the why do the councilors have to deal with yand pouches I'm I'm in favor of the yand pouches I'm in favor of that whole thing somebody come up and say that the counselors are doing this the other we got to try to get some clarity on some of these and I'm not looking for answers necessarily now but these are things

that people throw out we need to get uh answers on those additional duties um the only question I would have is on um people came up and and talked about different pockets of workers we had 20 department heads come in we know that the union has various pockets of people so what I took from the comments that were made here was that we have to look at how much each of those different

Pockets make and if we only have a pot of money that's this big then we need to stop making the minations on maybe some divisions are going to get more percent and some are going to get less percent and that can get dicey but what I heard people saying here today was they want us to take a hard look at it which might actually take us to say somebody gets more percent somebody might get less

percent because we only have a pil that so big that's personally what I took from this and um the last thing is uh I've said this for the administrative Union for a long time that quarterly in the contract you can come before us I encourage you to use that every single quarter all year throughout the so that you can actually talk to us someone came up here and said you never talk to us

you never listen to us you never do anything there's a mechanism in the contract to do it so it's happening today but I would encourage you to do it every quarter have one of your units come before us and have a dialogue with the school committee that's my feeling thank you iel uh Miss per yeah just I really brief I just wanted to um say that I agree with Mr Agia in regards to

Citizens input and I have his back on that 100% um and I just thought it was a good time for me to also say no matter who standing there I'm going to say no so I don't want it ever to be considered I don't care or it it's it's whoever's there we made rules and we need to stand by them and I promise you I'm going to vote no every time anybody wants to

extend time I don't care if my mother's standing there I'll say sorry Mom no with that I yield Mr Das thank you and um and I have complete respect and understanding from my colleague's point on this I'll always make the motion if some these extra time especially if it's just like another 10 20 minutes some people speak in a slower dialect than others minutes seconds seconds seconds

thank you no um but um just going back to um some comments that our made in citizens inut I'd have to go back and hear it so I don't want to um misinterpret but with the cafeteria time um I thought I thought I heard that um they're also covering substitute if there's like indiv like if there's like no class and they they're in the classroom I thought we put an end to

that if we can just get an update on that as well I might have Miss misheard that maybe we're just referring just to um lunchtime but however I know that was also mentioned um when some f members came up as well I just want to make sure we're on top of that I next item subcommittee updates um the report is from the instructional subcommittee uh Mimi has lost their voice so Deb uh our secretary is going

to read the report instructional subcomm committee meeting took place on February 5th 2025 at the cus Middle School at 4:15 on the agenda we had an update for early college and discussions to vote to refer dery course um of studies a steam job description and the competency determination for candidates before 2005 Mr Woodward and his team and Tracy almeer from UMass Dartmouth provided an

early college uh program update in the spring of 2025 there will be approximately 233 students um in the 11th and 12th grade enrolled in Early College taking courses from UMass Dartmouth Bridgewater State University and Bristol Community College we spoke about if it would be possible to partner with tech schools as well Mr Woodward said he would look into it 10th grade students are introduced to Early College

by participating in a one-term elective option students can earn up to credit college credits before high school graduation early college program targets recruitment for the under represented subgroups like elll first generation and economically disadvantaged students early college is free for students including the comprehensive support by the early college team enrollment is continuously increasing and there is a

22 student weight list at this time Dr Stevens and her team presented an executive summary of the dery program of studies which was based on strengthening a student achievement and high quality instruction materials broadening course options to better serve diverse Learners increasing access to Advanced cour work for underserved population and strengthening senior year experience for seniors there are several changes

deletions and additions to the course program of studies there was a conversation about off offering more CTE programs um Hands-On learning opportunities at the lower grades Dr Stevens mentioned we have limited space in the court program of studies at this time but agreed with the committee it's something she envisions should happen in the future the subcommittee voted to refer the dery program of studies to the full

committee Dr Curley presented a steam job description describing the responsibilities and requirements of the position the sub committee voted to refer the steam job description to the full committee Dr Curley also presented the competency determination proposal draft for addressing students who did not receive a high school diploma prior to 2005 due to the mcast requirement students of the Fall River

School System who have not yet earned their competency determination through previous mcast administrations can meet the requirements in three ways earn a passing grade in English 10 or an equivalent course earn a passing grade in both Algebra 1 and geometry courses or equivalent courses earn a passing grade in the equivalent of biology chemistry or physics courses the subcommittee voted to refer the

competency determination to the full committee the meeting adjourned approximately 6 o'clock thank you chairman Mr AGA the the program of studies uh the vote to refer that was for the first read or I've always recalled I believe but that the program of studies comes in first read and then second read but I don't see it on the agenda as such referred that way so it wasn't referred that way Mr a it was just vote to

refer but it's on the agenda as not so do we don't we always do a first read of the program studies and then before the full committee you remember BR I don't remember I don't remember either discussion vote to approve dery program of studies referred by the instructional subcommittee um anybody yeah I know anybody last um last year's it goes both ways Dr Stevens yeah M Mr Das um if I if I can ask um to

my my colleagues Point um is there a if this what if we treated this at the first we at first read and uh we approved it at our March meeting would that affect anything going into would that would that have a negative impact on the program of studies not sure Mr agar um Deb said last year it was listed as same the same as it is now was not a first read last

year I don't know if other years it was I don't remember it's not it's I'm only asking it because of the minutes not what she just read which was the equivalent of minutes so if it's not I'm just curious as before we get to this particular item is it going to be a first read or is it not I always thought it was good to do a first read so that we can get a little

presentation and then come back over the next month I don't being February I don't think March is a big deal op about elction yeah it would just um it's not a big deal but it would just move course the course selection process back by about two to three weeks into the spring has it ever been a first read you've been here for number of years yeah I believe some years there's been a

first read and a second read and other years it's gone from the instructional subcommittee directly to the full committee for it's hard to be not this not meant to you it's just hard to be consistent I guess but like this comment about citizen input time we got to follow some rules procedures and do the do the things so I would recommend that we do it as a uh first read but when

when that time comes up okay I was just trying to prepare for the meeting thank you okay um next item on the agenda is a superintendent report Dr curly so I will start with a hiring update I'm pleased to report that since our last meeting we've had 23 new hires including um seven teachers one seaon one speech language pathologist assistant a computer tech an ISL one occupational therapist eight par

professionals one part-time custodian one provisional custodian and one part-time utility worker during that same time we have had fif uh 15 resignations and four retirements um next just want to um just give an update on Friday's professional development day on Friday we hosted our second full professional development day of the year we hold two every year one in November and the other around midy

year Friday sessions numbered around 200 um between the morning and afternoon and we're facilitated by our teachers school and District administrators and partners um all of the sessions were aligned with District priorities for academic and social emotional learning and um we use these days as an extension of our ongoing PD and will'll continue to engage in developing skills over the

course of the school year and into the summer months um next I want to just make sure the community knows about our naming and renaming procedures which will be posted to our facilities web page um by tomorrow uh we there was criteria EST established for the naming and renaming of assets those were approved in August of 2023 along with members of a committee in the last month we've developed a process for the

submission of proposals and we've already received three proposals two are submitted using the developed forms and met the criteria and have been forwarded to the naming and renaming committee for review and one was um returned so that it could be recorded on the developed forms for resubmission I expect that that committee will meet in the next month or two so that decisions will be rendered at that time um and by

decisions I mean the naming renaming committee will make uh recommendations for school committee consideration and approval and then the um the last piece is the radio show so following a three-month Hiatus uh good news and positive uh views radio has uh returned to the Airways on WS we kicked off last Friday and I was lucky to be joined by Dr bronhard and two of our principles Mr

lhan from westall elementary and Dr St from dery we discussed multiple programs initiated and supported by Dr Bron hard's team um in the just the first show back we did Cover a lot of ground we um which included student attendance initiatives and outcomes the new mobile Health van for high school students positive alternatives to the student suspension program the Pass Program Healthy Smiles program that will serve

three of our elementary schools and the virtual pathway pilot at RPA Friday's show um was true to its name in terms of sharing good news and positive views from the fall of public schools and it was a great way to um Kick things off and get back into the swing of things over the next few months I'll host conversations with all of our building leaders as well as departmental leads um

all of our senior staff and um I would be happy to host members of the school committee if anyone's out to it I'd love to hear from the community um on any guests or topics you'd like to see us host and so I want to share my email address T curly at follow schools.org I would love to hear from you with any ideas that's all yes Mr dnus thank you

just a few points um first of all I just want to go on a record and state that Dr fraen deserves to have something named in his honor may that be Stone may that be the administration building the prek center or if his name's placed on a q going forward um secondly I I do have a a question um regarding this process um particularly the committee that is doing a recommendation we don't have anyone

from the historical Commission on that committee um I I don't recall I I I don't I don't remember I do have a list um the the one that was approved in in 2023 but I don't I don't have it handy and I'm not sure right I I just want to say I think we should um something that should be revamped and again I I full support of having an advisory um um

either committee to look into this however I think we need more um input from the historical commission that's how they do it on the city Side I believe the city's um a policy or ordinance is any naming renaming would go before um the historical commission that's something I think we should um interpret here because they're the experts when it comes to history and I also want to go

on a record and state I I did do some of my own research I did put in a request for some information on the past few renamings um didn't get anything back yet but doing my own research I just want to say before my time on the committee city council should have had absolutely no say on what we rename on renaming a a baseball playground we should have been more proactive in

defending because we're all here by from the people as well and they put us in this position to make those choices city council shouldn't have done that and also the other renamings as well we need a clear Pro process that needs to be followed and we as a committee need to follow that process as well going forward not saying this committee because I know this was a few years ago

however we need to be consistent a thank you um so I have a number of minute oh I'm sorry Mr AA just to follow up so uh Dr kly mentioned we hired some people do we know how many vacancies we still have I don't have that with me today but I can I'm just curious to Senator because sure we can add 10 lose 30 in down 130 so uh the naming and renaming uh

procedure and process I think we we had to come up with something because of uh a situation that shouldn't have happened I I was against it uh we didn't follow procedures we didn't follow protocols and we ended up I think putting ourselves in a bad position we as a body need to be very careful when we're naming things for any individuals because it starts to get into a comparison of why this person versus

that person and it's a very slippery slope as far as I'm concerned that being said we have we created a policy and to Mr das's point and I concur with him I think we need to get the facts how did we not follow this exact protocol that we have with the L renaming has nothing to do with the people that are having names after them uh we just got to try to be consistent

and I guess that's the word for the day is consistency is is hard but we have to get consistent uh as far as renaming I don't believe that anything that's currently named after an individual based on anything like the stone schools named after first principal of the high school that I read that should not be before any renaming committee at all because the purpose of how we created it

was so that the superintendent has a say not a politician doesn't get involved in any other the politics should never have gone to the renaming committee because I'm not voting for it I can tell you that and I'm not sure I I know anybody that said it's a good idea to rename something like that uh does does Dr fratkin need something sure I I I wouldn't I would concur I actually brought that up when

we named uh one of the schools after a custodian but at the at the end of the day the full committee voted to do that and you all whoever voted for that set up a precedent here that at the time oh don't worry about it we'll change it later well look where we are now so I think we have to be very careful with asking the public or anybody to say

let's just throw out names of who thinks something should be named for and I would encourage a superintendent to be a little more forceful with the vetting and not just push everything through uh to the committee uh for their deliberation they're not the school committee they they would only get something if it's something that's totally open ready to be named I don't know what the second one is I know I

received something on the first haven't received anything on a second maybe I missed it uh or a third uh we just got to be very careful when we're looking at the renaming and naming um the radio show is a three-month Hiatus I was that due to funding what was the issue it wasn't due to funding um I think that when I came on board we we I continued with the radio show um and it

was to be honest with you it was a little bit cumbersome it was a little bit overwhelming to be booking guests every um every week um and we had some scheduling difficulties I asked to hit the pause button uh the um WS was able to secure a sponsor and we started back up um last Friday so WS pays for this uh they got a sponsor for it yes the um last one is on the op

kitchen you know this is something that has been very uh aggravating to me I guess is the easiest way way to say it it's gone on way way too long um I was there at the date that I said in public that I was going to be there took a half of a personal day from my job to go thinking that it was going to be done once again

it wasn't done uh there's a lot of work still needs to be done I understand Mr Pico is working on it I understand we we're getting closer thank God we're getting closer but it's a damn shame that it's February 10th and we've been talking about this since before the first day of school and not one student at RPA has cooked in that kitchen that we created at that time it's a damn

shame and I know it's getting closer I appreciate it getting closer but for whatever reason I don't really care what the reason is things like this can't happen because they start to get people to lose trust and lose faith that we're actually doing something when we're told something and it doesn't happen for months on end that just can't happen moving forward I'm thankful that we're getting closer but

just because we're going to have a an inspection next week and the kids might be able to cook in there we're still a long way to having the public come in and be able to buy their goods other workers so there's other pieces that got to go into it but what I ask for when I keep on saying this over and over is for you madam superintendent to jump in and

say how is this happening and maybe you're doing it maybe you're not I don't know you're into in their conversations but I think anybody would agree from the first day of school in September till now that shouldn't happen are you I I do want to say one thing to address this issue um as as everyone or I think everyone knows Dr fredkin's name is on the green uh at the entrance to ellby

Street in President Avenue that's the fratkin green and we've also named the uh the library at cus the fratkin library so so we did uh we did name a couple of things after him uh as Mr Das said he wasn't sure I just wanted to fill him in on that Mr Das thank you I actually wasn't um aware of that Mr Mayor just to quickly to that point I think there

should be a building named after him but we'll let the process play along just um one question um recently came across um the um the the the batches that we get um a $1,600 bill from the month month of January for um $1,600 for um snow removal um do we have our own um snow plows that we manage where where do where was that bill from Mr the

Das I I I don't have it in front of me we we can follow but I see Mr Pico's coming up believe from Bishop connley so it is from Bishop Conley so uh the facility is not our facility um we do have um eight employees employes who work on snow removal we also rotate through a couple of other employees so any storm um we normally would have 10 to 12 people working on snow

removal depending on the storm and depending on how much work it it requires um we do have to use private contractors from time to time the the last event we use private contractors again my plan is to use private contractors at the um Bishop Conley facility since I don't own the facility and the liability there is pretty high that is also a residence um that the um the dases uses which requires a little

more attention than some of our schools um timing wise to be sure that the residents of that facility can get in and out not only our our educational side but on their side so the my decision was that um I have a contractor who's doing that work um and um I don't have to worry about that particular piece so if I have a piece of equipment that is not available to me on of my own

equipment I'm not worried about trying to get Bishop Conley done and putting Bishop Conley ahead of our own facilities um that's the reason why and that you will see on every invoice and on every Bill schedule if we have a snowstorm great no I understand uh thank you for that um I guess um just to followup questions I just didn't remember any was it was it something from late January that was I just didn't

remember any snow but maybe probably was a week ago the uh first the first snow that we had a week maybe two weeks ago okay and um that's we rent that out is that through the city that so that wouldn't be something the city is responsible it's a rental that we have uh with the dasis for the uh prek classrooms right so it's not under the city of farer it's under the farer

Public Schools it's a farer Public Schools Bill yes okay I Y thank you okay Mr AGA just a question on that so when we have the least we don't have a lease that says they're going to be responsible so we're paying them not for the snow removal who does their work if there's a on that facility nobody we we do the snow plowing on that facility completely it's two more extra roads it's front

entrance back entrance of Conley it is the um the circle in the back of the building where we drop off prek it's the front of the building where prek parks and Par drop off so it it just completes the loop of the building and it's a it's much easier for us to control that system than it is to have two separate contractors there the dases uh sub some of that work out over the years my guess

um they didn't have that equipment available to them um but as part of our lease agreement and the price that we pay um we negotiated that piece in so it's in the lease that says we do the it's an agreement that we had made with the di so I would just recommend as we're looking at a new lease it should articulate that we're going to pay for the snow plowing so that we're not doing

but for us being there they would still have to plow the place out because they have a residence there they'd have they wouldn't be plowing what we plow they'd be at least some right you know so absolutely I think being good partners but I think putting it in a lease ahead of time would make sense to say give us a couple bucks off the lease because we're going to pay you know for the for

if there's 10 storms I can get you know 10 $15,000 before you know it um so I just think we should put that in the leas in uh if you can get us anything on any privates that were used uh across any of the storms because I do think uh we increase the number of people and you know this from our meetings that we've had with facilities my personal belief

is that all the directors that we hired should be all behind a truck with a plow or something like that that you can disagree or whatever that's not this is what my opinion would be is that we have all of our directors also doing that work when I asked at one of the meetings do we have a plow one of the guys started jumping up like oh I didn't do

it it's not why I was asking it if we have people that are out there checking as as department heads basically like a a a foreman there's no reason why they can't have a plow and assist us as well my own personal opinion so for what it's worth thank you I yeld thank you next item up on the agenda is item number seven approval of minutes um and if there's any questions

on approve moot as a bundle I have a motion second I have a motion to second um I want to read them first seven item 71 is the minutes of the facilities and operation subcommittee meeting from 12:4 72 is the approval of the minutes from the special meeting of the school committee 129 73 is the approval of the minutes of the regular school committee 129 74 approval of the minutes of the

sped alternative Ed Early Childhood subcommittee from 1211 and 75 is the approval of the minutes from the instructional subcommittee on 17 S I have a motion a second Deb would you please call the rooll Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kouan yes item number eight is the approval of travel requests motion to approve second second uh approving

them all I have a motion and a second discussion Deb please call the role on travel Mr chairman um I'm sorry Mr AGA just the question so I know uh Dr C and I've had conversations offline on this but we in the district need a policy on what we pay for reimbursements for um when people go travel and we know that it's an issue and we still don't have a

policy before us on what it is so I'd like to make a motion that we authorize a superintendent to create a policy that indicates what we do whether it's a prum amount or something so that we're not looking at bills that say why are we paying for a 9:00 at night somebody to to get an $8 Starbucks that went on a Deca conference we shouldn't have to be looking at stuff like that it should be

some sort of set amount some there's no regulations on what kind of restaurant they can go to what they reimburse for we need some clarity we've been saying this for a a couple years so I want to make that in a form of a motion to have this committee authorize her to create a policy and implement it second second all right I have a motion a second um but I also had a motion a

second on the travel request well let's vote on Mr ago's Amendment first T could you please call sorry the only reason why I say that now why I'm doing that now is there's these things that are coming up so the vote motion is to not only to have her create one but to implement it immediately so when the person goes they're going to get set you know this is what you can do this is

what you can't do so I'm not looking for it to come back to the committee so that these PE some people that are traveling next week can have a different role just so I want to make sure everybody's clear vote is to create it and implement it okay Deb please call the role on the amendment Mr agar Mr I have a question yes Miss larvey so sorry um Mr Mr agar I

do agree with you but um shouldn't it go to if it's going to be a policy should it be going to the uh policy committee before we have Dr Curley Implement anything you want me to respond Mr yeah please so the reason why I'm saying that is because we've known this for two years or three years known this we've known this for months and I'm sick and tired of it already and we have things

on the agenda such as somebody's traveling February 27th to March 1st so I I have no problem if there was not anything before the next meeting where we could do but we are under the constraints of the first one's going to get no policy the rest of them are going to get a policy so I think for consistency is why I would like her to implement and I trust the administration

and her team to come up with a plan to say 18 you know per DM or whatever it's got to be but we we just keep talking about things and we never Implement them right I I don't disagree I just don't I I think we just have to give him some time and probably put it through the policy subcommittee but um if if we're just going to give leeway to the um to the

superintendent just to come up with a uh with a plan for now I'm fine with that as well but let's definitely vet it through the subcommittee uh I don't know if we can do both if we vote on it tonight it's going to be go into effect Miss larvi I think we should just implement it whatever she wants and then after that she wants to bring it to the policy

if we change it itang TW yeah if it needs to tweaking or something I have all the confidence in the world in the superintendent and the administration coming up with a policy about how much it is that you get per day and this and that it's not I have no doubt that they were going to come up with something that makes sense but we have had this the conversation months ago we've been

talking about this for years and it sets us all up when one person goes up out and makes a stupid decision to say somebody there's a policy about no alcohol for instance years ago we got in a big mess somebody bought alcohol somebody bought a tip somebody has a wife that goes out with them and then they say well we'll pay for half this and half it is messy let's make it clear

and if we policy afterwards and change it so be it thank you are y anything further okay so this is going to be on the oh I'm sorry I'm Miss PR I agree with what both my colleagues are saying but I I understand what what Miss lar Lar coming from even if we say to her hey we're going to see we're going to see it at a subcommittee I'm assuming the superintendent is going to show

therefore up at the subcommittee with that policy in place for us then to refer it to the full Committee just like we do with any other policy so I don't know I'm tending to lean toward what Mrs Lar Miss larv saying just based on consistency and how we kind of handle things usually goes to a subcommittee first but with that being said you know we also have a lot of budget meetings

coming up and I can understand if maybe that might be considered a waste of people's time too so I guess I'll go either way on this one but I I do part of me tends to agree with with where uh Miss larv is coming from that's all thank you Mr chairman Mr Cory yeah I I agree with that I I mean it's a good idea uh it's a good idea to have

something like that in policy I think it just should go to the subcommittee first um Mr chairman yeah Mr Mr I can't see anybody cuz uh you keep leaning forward on me Dr curly you killing me Mr agar so the first item on the agenda says destination Boston conference and Exhibition Center Deca State career conference depart 9:00 a.m. on February 27th return at 3:00 March 1 it says nowhere in here says cost per student

$545 student paid in fundraising nowhere in here does it say anything about anybody getting uh reimbursement for anything but typically we get these and they don't say anything about that and then we see if if this is a big if in this committee it's a big if if you actually look at the detail of the bills you s you start to see that there's reimbursements that come in so nowhere in here does it say whether they're

going to get reimbursed or not and we don't have a policy to say whether they do or they do not quite frankly we have a if we have a staff member that's going to go supervise children for a couple of days or whatever they should have some sort of pum so that they're not take money out of their pocket they're doing a duty you know there should be some procedures in place so if we're going to

say this person here in February they're not going to use it they I guess they just lose out because if we have pum agreed to after which the next one is in April and then another one in May the reason why I'm trying to do it now is because we have a trip coming up before our next meeting um and superintendent can weigh in if she'd like we had this conversation over a month ago related to

the need for a policy and it still hasn't been presented so I'm not lying I don't want the public to think that I'm saying something that's not true we had the conversation you agree that we need a policy you've agreed that we needed a policy for a long time Now's the Time so I think laying some of the fears of the committee would be maybe you just have to explain to them that yes this is a

thing and this is not just Kevin being and Kevin so that we can actually figure it out I I think that I I I do think that we can do both I think that we can put a procedure into place I think we can outline some expectations set some ground rules for people before they take these trips um it would be a we we'll see how it works and then I think we

could bring it to a subcommittee a policy subcommittee and make it official but I do think that we could put something into action before it becomes an official policy because the truth is in the absence of a policy we we do make decisions sometimes about what will get reimbursed and what won't I think it would be beneficial to all of our staff if they knew the ground rules before

they went so if they know that we're not going to reimburse a $90 steak dinner before they eat it um and they make that decision anyway and they only get reimbursed for $25 of it at least they know that those were the rules before they left so I have no problem putting something into practice and then bringing it in policy form to the subcommittee thank you all right oh Mr Das thank you actually the

superintendent just took the words that what I was just going to say I think a compromise here would be to make a motion to instruct the superintendent to put in place maybe like a 2 to three month procedure which she can do without policy subcommittee and then the committee policy subcommittee meet to maybe Implement that procedure in some sort of formal policy so I'll make that in the form of an amendment who whoa

whoa we already have an amendment in front of us Mr agars we're gonna vote on that one first I think that one kind of says the same thing you just said Mr Das so why don't we vote on Mr agar's amendment that motion was first um Deb please call the roll Mr dragan yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvey yes M Perera yes mayy Coogan yes now on the Travel

requests de call the RO please may M I'm sorry I just wanted to quickly um just um say safe travel so everyone traveling how you Mr yeah didn't hear that hold on we need a motion a second we do oh we have it no I didn't hear Mr D said State travel is safe travel no I stfe travel all we he is it sounded like State travel is State travel that's all I there

thank go ahead de Mr ago yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep Miss larar yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes uh acceptance of donations we have two donations tonight um can I get a motion a second motion so mot I have a motion a second Deb call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory Miss lari yes Miss Perera yes M Coogan

yes uh Dr Curley Dr Dunn on behalf of Green Elementary School accepts the donation of five $10 gift cards from Market Basket and a $100 gift card from Stop and Shop um to be used for their attendance initiatives for parent and also for snacks um for snack academics on January well it passed January 15th of 25 um also um principal Cobb from the fansa elementary school um accepting 18

pairs of sneakers a donation from the Rotary Club of Fall River happy feat this donation will be used for fansa students thank you thank you Mr chairman Mr Agia can I ask the that the superintendent send to the committee a um any kind of uh documents that she has related to GoFundMe or those type of programs and what the uh directives are to the administration of each of the buildings as I continually say it and I

continually see things on GoFundMe that we should be paying for as a school district and not individual schools so I'm hoping that something's gone out whether it's with you or prior administrations to know what are the principles directors of program is being told related to GoFundMe thank you okay I mean mean I I will just um respond and say that um we do have a procedure in place and that people are supposed to um

seek approval from the superintendent before soliciting donations so I will send out a reminder to schools thank you item number 10 is the approval of Grants um we have three grants listed tonight as anybody have any concerns on any first one uh Mr ago is going to hold the first one uh do I have any other motion to approve the bottom two all right I have a motion uh can I get a second on

the bottom two second I have a motion to second on the bottom two Deb could you call the role Please Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes Mr agar on English learner education support So part of this is just English language learner question is the last year around this time in February we had meetings relative to uh prek spots classrooms

coming going moving around and it was mentioned at that time that we were behind the schedule when we started to look at all of the classes and schools all over the district around this February timeline that we were and at that time last year we were told we were behind schedule as far as how many classes are going to be MLL how many were special ed how many were this how

many were that we were behind schedule last year so my question is currently are we on schedule for all of the uh MLL English language learner classes are we knowing where the classs are going to be placed uh decisions been made across the district on any moves that are going to happen and this has been an ongoing issue for me that I've been waiting a year for and just curious where we're at with that

so think the director's on here if she wants to in yeah so I mean I can answer and um Miss agella could offer addition information we have um been taking a look at the numbers of students that we have um in the program and as we're going through the budget meetings we are um continuing to collect um some information and make decisions around some information in terms of the programming and the Staffing that will

be required um in terms of any kind of pro programmatic changes um I don't think that we're behind schedule um I think that we're on schedule and the work is ongoing um and that is you know that's related to English Learners as well as our special ed programs I do think that we'll see some movement for next year and um as we're moving into the budget process we'll have some some

definitive answers and then we do know it's just how it works there are going to be some changes um that still need to be made because as students go through their lat process in the spring um some students exit the program some students leave foundational classrooms and are mainstreamed it is going to um change some of those numbers but our Department are for English language Learners they

are making those projections now and that's what we're working with so my question I guess is more targe it towards M zagarella to um because I believe that she was in this position last year and when I used the thing behind schedule it wasn't my that's not my Woods that was the administration's woods so what is the drop dead time when we have to do this ml can't be a silo of

itself special ed can't be a silo of itself and all the schools can't be a silo of themselves and we in my opinion and you know this Dr Curley I think we have a crisis on our hands as far as class size and we've gotten reports last year that we were we did a study in August that of two years ago that we did nothing at all with we were told we were

going to do a comprehensive review change everything what's going to happen if we keep this going is the same thing that happened last year is that MLL is going to get involved say well we need this many seats we got that many seats Special Ed gets involved all of a sudden our class sizes are through the roof and we have a mess on our hands and then we say well we're going to deal with it in

the next year so part of my frustration is here we are another $200,000 Grant we don't know that we're on track what is the drop dead date for everyone across the district to know what we're going to need and if it says the budget process well we're not going to make a decision on this until April we need to make decisions separate from the budget so we can't wait for the budget to get make sure

that uh one school might need x amount of seats so if there's only four second grades let's say and one of those has to become ell section guess what happens to the other kids now the kids that are in first grade that's four of them can't get into there because that's an issue so then it goes to somewhere else it creates a big mess that's what happened last year yeah I mean I think that the

at every year the best that we can do is try to anticipate how many students were going to have out even outside of the L process that I that I um mentioned we're we we have to make some projections the unfortunate part is that as of late the projections haven't been um terribly accurate we we did the demographic study in what was it 20123 those numbers didn't really pan out for

us um coming into these last couple of years and then I think we saw enrollment shifts that weren't as a result they weren't anticipated and so we're working with what we have and we're we're trying to make some um projections in terms of where we'll be next year some of that has to do with who shows up and some of that has to do with um the ways we are supporting students in their exiting

programs and things like that so it there is still a little bit of a moving Target I don't think that we are behind schedule because I don't think we would have we'd be in any better position in terms of um having hard numbers if we had I mean I won't even say if we started in November we have been talking about this since fall so I I mean it's

just a little bit of a moving Target I hear you I just think that we are currently in a not ideal situation I I I don't disagree that's what I think and we have been in a not ideal situation since the summer since we started school and I think we were behind doing some of the work we needed to do so that we could avoid some of these naturally if

the numbers get a lot worse than what we think you can't do anything about it but I don't want to be again saying the same thing we be behind and we didn't make this decision so based on the best information that we know now what is the drop dead date when we're going to know is it next month so the drop dead date when we're going to know how many kids

we have enrolled will be September 1st I mean the biggest challenge with what you're speaking about Mr agar is projecting how many newcomers we're going to get so anybody who's currently enrolled in the Fall River Public Schools right now we're ahead of where we were last year I'm happy to report so I gave uh Dr curlyy a report of how many students have failed have exited out over the past four years it's been

between 5 and 7% with last year being the highest at 7% we're making gradual gains in that area more students are exiting so that's good we try to project what's going who's going to exit we know that's between 5 and 7% we also know that our numbers have been steadily climbing I check every week at this time last week we had 3,131 multilingual Learners enrolled today we have 3,126 multilingual Learners enrolled it

is the first time since I've taken this job where I've seen that number go lower I can make some guesses as to what we can attribute that to I don't so I don't know what's going to happen in terms of I I am speaking with other districts we're carefully watching our enrollment carefully watching who shows up we are I have a list of every single student who's currently enrolled we are

making a projection as to what program we think every single one of those kids will be in even before we get the access data to make our absolute best projections we are actively trying to enroll kids in our dual language program to maximize those seats so I would say Dr Carly can I mean you can agree or disagree I'd say we're a little ahead of where we were at this point last year so

I think we're in better shape we're also facing an unprecedented um time where our numbers are falling for the first time am I concerned about five fewer students in a week no but I also know that this could go in either direction right now and we have nothing to base it upon so are we in a comfortable place that where we have plenty of space in all of our classrooms and everything's hunky dory to you know

across the district related to all our class sizes and MLL classes and the like are we in a good place I don't think we're in a bad place um at all I I think that numbers fluctuate numbers change so if all of a sudden every kid exits I'm going to throw a party but then our numbers will shift right um I don't think every we you know 7% normally exit

if a lot of our kids move from foundational to mainstream that also would be a huge win we can only project those numbers within reason so as of right now yes we're in a good place until if something shifts what do what do your numbers how do they reflect on the the non- MLL students across the district do they have any impact at all or they just operate on their

own what do you mean by impact the other numbers in the district so how we deal with the increas in numbers that you've been talking about does that have an effect on class sizes in non- MLL classes across the district yes because there really is almost no such thing as a non- MLL class right most of our classes are inclusive of MLL students so there's where they go for their ES L services and then there's

where they go when they're not getting their ESL Services which is so you're saying it has no bearing on class size no it absolutely does so if we get 500 more MLS like we did last year then of course that's going to affect our class sizes I guess the question is how how how's that going so we got 500 more like you said last year how's that going across the schools and is it having an

effect on our class sizes because I see the class sizes as at crisis mode I would say yes it affects our class sizes of course it's 500 more kids so they go they go to a class I think I think if we can maybe put this on as an agenda item and maybe you get some information to us it it definitely affects it I'll speak for myself class sizes is at a

crisis absolutely kids are needy and we have a crisis class sizewise and if anybody wants to disagree with me feel free but we are at crisis mode across this District on class size thank you for your information I yield Mr Corey yeah I just wanted to know percentage wise what's what's the overall percentage of of the El students still hovering right around 25% 25% of our entire student

population largest it's ever been percentage wise are they um are the all the support services surrounding them adequate so we're meeting our compliance the one place where we're where we need to expand is in our prek because desie has given us new regulations this year around identifying students in prek which is not something we've had to do in the past so that's that's new that's

one thing that we're going to need to add so as far as you're concerned just with your your own point of view uh as as you took the program on as to where you are are at right now has the program grown and deepened since in your time of leadership so yes we are the grant that is in front of you actually doesn't have have a lot to do it has most to do with

curriculum so we have been working on um aligning TOA 2020 and adjusting our curriculum um as the state of Massachusetts um is directing us to that the grant is based on systemic functional Linguistics which um includes training for teachers as well as further development of our curriculum to move toward the newer um the newer standards and the new research in the field which suggests how students learn language and

it's a little differently than we have done in the past so we're moving away from the textbook kind of worksheet method to a really integrated um use of language so a lot of growing to do the other directors the principles have been wonderful in terms of really embracing the work that needs to be done lots of people digging into the work of course it's a work in progress It's it's not we're not going to suddenly have

curriculum all set in in a week or two weeks but we are definitely deepening the work and continuing and that's what this grant is going to allow us to do is the Dual language program centered in your overall programming is it centered it's one of our it's one of our options yes and we're growing that program as well we know there are some things that we need to address um that program has

gone through a few changes in leadership um since its Inception and two of the people that were really spearheading it are not with the district anymore but we've really um been building on the Legacy that they left and are working to grow that program as well so my biggest concern with that program is exactly what you just said the um the revolving door policy of our own staff members in

and out of the district because a program like that does require you know some consistent leadership and and direction in order for it to flourish you know so I thought that right from the Inception of the Dual language program there would be some really strict challenges you know facing it and I think you just answered that for me but I think you got your work cut out for you 25% of our overall student

population that's it's a big cut so I wish you well and you know please just uh let us know whatever it is that you need please just let us know so we can help you I appreciate that and I do have a wonderful team behind me so I'm feeling good about Mr Mr Agia just to follow up on my question so I don't know exactly where the students would come but if we get a

student from outside the country non-english speaking which we're getting more and more of them to come in what are they what classrooms are they going into and where are those classrooms generally speaking are they in a regular school and then when I say the non-m class like you said they're there for a couple periods or they get their services where do they actually go to their full day classes if they never

they don't know how to speak English and they're coming from another country how where do they go in the class so if they are at one of our secondary schools they go into a newcomer program where they are with other multilingual Learners um that is considered in SEI program so they travel with other multilingual Learners their subject areas and their ESL are all done together in a cohort if

they're at the elementary level they either go into an inclusive class a dual language program or a foundational classroom and the parents have um there all of those options are explained to them they also can opt their kid out of services entirely if they choose to so there are options for our families in Fall River so if in September we came we knew the numbers at the time we have X

amount of newcomer classes I'm assuming if you get an A large increase over this year of students that fit that criteria what classes they so have you have we opened a lot of new classroom space based on those numbers no so at dery they I believe and I believe the ladies are behind me that can tell me this we have opened new newcomer actions at dery this year because there's been some

flexibility to do that that has not come up at the middle school level where there are there is has been space and at the elementary level we've had first grade has um we've had a wait list for first grade for there are about three students on that weight list right now they go to their mainstream classroom when a spot opens in a foundational classroom the family is called and they

can choose to opt into a foundational classroom or they can choose to stay in their neighborhood School in a in a general classroom they still get ESL Services either way and how how many roughly how many students have come in that meet for that criteria this year since the start of the school year how many brand new newcomers that to foundational I don't I can get you that number I don't have that number off I

don't even want to make a guess I don't have that number off the top of my head I would say dery has seen close to that number alone but I can't yeah I would rather verify so my concern is just that we've had a lot and if we haven't opened classrooms and we did the numbers based on what we knew at the time and the number that of increases is tremendous guess what

that's what we call crisis mode in my mind because we have a tremendous amount of students if there's a lot of kids we have a crisis on where are they going to go because if we did the classrooms to fill up in September by what we knew and theoretic theoretically we added 500 students that where are those 500 students that means we had 500 vacant seats in all those programs go ahead

Brian because that's not I'm just going to jump in so some sometimes what happens is the it's a moving Target so you know putting on my principal hat for a moment I've had classes where in September there could be eight students let's say in a sixth grade foundational but by the end of the year that could be 24 students or 25 students right so I think it depends on the grade level I

think as Lisa mentioned um you know first grade seems to be this year this year this this seems to be you know a a grade level that has a lot of students coming in but it really depends on grade level so we may have a class but the CL the number of students in that class for that specific newcomer program could be small because we know that it is a it's a moving Target really that grows

throughout the year or sometimes you lose students you know as the year goes on so it is something that can be a challenge to plan for at times as a principal um I've had to even make adjud adjustments maybe halfway through the year as I'm looking at you know what's happening with my class size for that particular had a lot of capacity is what you're saying originally that's how we

were able to absorb a lot of kids or our classes are over oversized it's got to be one of the two right all all of those 500 kids are not newcomers though so that so we haven't had 500 newcomers this year we have I don't believe we had have had 5 we can get for you get you that exact number but it would be rare for all of our incoming kids to be newcomers we get a

lot of transfers from other districts and newcomers you mean can you explain what a newcomer is to you because maybe I'm using a different terminology sure um students who enter who have not been in school in the United States prior to coming to us that's a newcomer thank you yeah I look forward to getting it I I think it's valid for us to see I'm still concerned I still think it's a crisis thank

you Mr Das thank you and if I can ask the administration um I I know superintendent and myself had a conversation in depth about this today but what are we doing as an Administration across the district to address the dip in ATT attendance for MML MLL students currently Amy do you want to speak to that in terms of what you want just yeah just doesn't matter I can the same procedure that we've been

we are continuing to work with families uh whether it's an MLL student who is navigating a challenging time right now or any other student across our community I would say the EB and flow of need is real uh we're under a precedented Time obviously right now across communities so we are working with our families and reaching out to those families having very direct conversations about how school is a safe place

reinforcing Our obligation to keep their kids and their personal information safe um and really leaning into those conversations on an individual basis across all of our schools thank you for that yep okay so uh can I get a motion in a second on the motion approve second second um any further discussion Deb please call the role on English learner education support Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey

yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larav yes Miss Pereira yes mayy cin yes item number 11 is the approval of Grants again if anybody has any comments we'll do the we'll do the new at the top first that's what we've been doing on the new there's one two three grants anybody have any questions Mr Das I would like to place a hold on Wall-E Computer Associates that's the second one Mr

Das motion to approve the others motion to approve the other two Deb could you call the rooll on the other two Mr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss ly yes yes Miss Pereira yes mayor C yes okay the contract for Wally Computer Associates Mr Das thank you so a few questions um I'll start off by asking so we went up for went out for

an RFP on this and the 752 that was the uh most inexpensive out of the proposals we received yes correct thank you and so moving on to the proposal itself um how many so with the earphones so it looks like we're going we're looking to purchase 6,000 of them 3,000 Chromebooks um and how many earphones do do we currently what what what kind of earphones do we currently furnish to students right

now um basic headphone that are easily breakable um but that's what's in budget and middle school and high school level we give out earbuds so the earbuds that we put out now we we couldn't um those wouldn't be compatible with the Chromebook 11s um no so what we're seeing um historically with headphones the little connector break off in the Chromebook and then the motherboard becomes no good

um so many districts and the Chromebook manufacturers are recommending using a USB style headphone um these are the headphones that are um they're basically indestructible they can be washed and used by um different students the ones that we have now are the foam one student uses it and they put it in their Plastics at block baggie and that's their headphone for the year these um we'll have a little bit more

flexibility I appreciate that Mr cabal so um following up so it looks like in this contract we're um purchasing some insurance yes so all um anything that we do we have a warranty that's what's helped us uh with repairs and to keep repair costs down over the years um the warranty um most of them are second day a we have techs that go out on their way home and and stop at a place in Swansea

on 103 and drop off um some days 20 some days 100 and we use looners until they come back from warranty repair okay so if a student breaks either a Chromebook or um something else I don't know what's funny I think it's a fair question $700,000 contract um so if so if a student breaks the Chromebook or something like that it it's covered fully under the warranty so it depends if it's malicious damage um which we've

been in the Chromebook business now since Co um so it's very easy to tell if a student has maliciously damaged the Chromebook Andor if it's just normal wear and tear um if it is something that's malicious the student is then charged and that does not go out to repair that has to be repaired inhouse because the company will not repair malicious damage um but if it is a failure on a piece of the equipment it

would go out in the student would not be charged because it would just be a general failure on the equipment thank you for that um my final um question is so if a student loses their equipment and they're and they claim they're not at fault it's still on the students responsibility we don't have any procedure in place to switch either liability or responsibility to another party if um say for example another

student breaks the Chromebook it's not the student's fault um it's is still that student who owns or possesses the Chromebooks they're still liable for that superintendent um actually no in our digital device policy um there have been instances where another student has broken someone else's Chromebook I do not get into student discipline however the school principal would call over to

my office um we would then facilitate a plan and they would either go after the family that broke the Chromebook or there would be some type of resolution and the students Chromebook would be repaired at no cost to the student because they didn't make the damage thank you I appreciate that last question what is the lifespan on these Chromebook 11 um so typically um with Google they're four to five years um and

that's not based off of just normal wear and tear it's based off of um they're only allowed to be updated so much um so right now uh four to five years I do think in the next 18 to 24 months you're going to see Chromebook Styles change batteries will change and we'll be able to increase that to seven eight years which is hopeful right there some research I did into the Chromebook 11

says that um the like you said the the update lifespan could be up to 10 years I don't know if you concur with that uh I think 10 years in a um college level yes 10 years in a K to 12 probably not because just the age of the students no fair enough I I guess the point I was trying trying to make since we're approving a $700,000 contract I I

don't I don't want to see this be every 3 years this should be something where we should be on top of Maintenance but I do appreciate and and I I know from you answering these questions it appears that you are on top of that which I really do appreciate um I have no further question so I'll make a motion to approve second I have a motion second Mr Agia I just had a question on the

policy that we implemented a few years ago related to uh paying for the damages and the like so that came was born out of the fact that during co uh in my opinion and the subcommittee Ved this and you know you you came up with a policy was that we would just hand them Chromebooks out break them do whatever you got to do with them and no one is held accountable and that's just not

okay so we created and it was voted on to to do that so what I would like to get is some sort of update relative to what have we collected and what other policies are in place at each School school in order to make sure that they're taking care of the equipment and too if they break it that there's a ramification to that I want to say there

was some sort of uh uh like if they owed money you break a screen and it cost you $60 to replace it they either pay the $60 or they don't do certain things like go to play sports or go to whatever some buildings have if they can't afford the $60 they do community service um I also get very heavily involved in some of the devices is because we're seeing some failures in some of the older

Chromebooks so I won't charge a student if it's a failure of the Chromebook itself um we really right now are only going after the Heavy Hitters the kids that have broken two or three in the last three months um and the rest of the kids have been excellent I will say that with the addition of the hard Otter Box style cases that we've been putting on the Chromebooks we've seen um the

screens themselves and the keyboards last years longer than they have in the past yeah I think that was a smart decision it costs money but I think that's a smart decision but to get back to what I'm referring to is we need some kind of data to show what is happening are we collecting them kid loses it for instance whatever somehow we got to go after the families and it has to be

backup to that such that they don't play sports are using that an example go to extracurricular activities uh this same thing applies to uniforms if we have kids that get a uniform handed to them in Middle School they expected to give it back if they don't give it back what do we just keep buying new ones we there has to be a system in place to say the administration at each school has to

hold the kid accountable and they're not doing something and it's going to carry with them as long as they go into schools I I don't know that it's not happening I know that we have a policy all I'm asking for is some kind of proof that it's happening and it's being monitored yep I can provide that for you guys in the Friday email thank you very much I yield okay I have a motion a

second on um wall Computer Associates Deb would you please call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep Miss lar yes Miss Perera yes mayor kougan yes under a continuation of an existing contract we have two um motion to approve second I have a motion a second any discussion on these items DB would you please call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yeah

Miss lar yes Miss Perera yes may kouan yes 12 Committee of the whole 121 is a discussion and vote to approve the selection and appointment of beachers Fado districtwide nurse for the for public schools is present moved I have a motion to second on beatus any discussion Deb call the rooll M Dr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes M Pereira yes mayor cougan yes

uh this was something that came up earlier discussion and vote to approve the dery program of studies um we got some information since then specific to Mr agard's Question we haven't done a um a uh first a first vote and a second vote since 2020 make a motion to approve as a first read second okay so is that going to give you you guys enough time that's my concern is the kids not

the not the vote yeah I'm just worried given the complexity of master schedule and course selections and numbers if it if it'd be possible for us to move forward um in any capacity because it does it it will have an impact Mr chairman I make a motion that we move forward to follow her request all right we have a motion from Mr AG let's vote on this Motion in second let's vote on

Mr agar's motion again we have done this since 2020 Mr mag's motion is that this becomes the first reading we have a motion and second um so Deb would you call Mr chairman so I understand he's asking if so here's here's part of the Dilemma is I was under the impression we were going to do it as a first read whether it's my error or not at the end of the day this is a complex document

with a whole pages upon pages of changes so now I have a choice to make do I make it a first read so that I'll have more time to be able to look at it ask questions between the meetings or do we sit here tonight and I go line by line and have you all report on every single line because I wasn't at the subcommittee and have you say what

why the rationale is for every one of these that's the my options so I yield M par so I guess that's what we're going to have to do huh that's unfortunate yeah I I wasn't at the meeting I'm talking right now I wasn't at the meeting because I was very sick but I did watch the meeting so I won't sit here and ask you line by line questions CU I would already know

them CU I did them my homework and I read the agenda and it didn't say first reading so I didn't think it was a first reading if you all got up here and said yeah we got time first reading no problem I'd say okay cool let's do that but if you're coming to me telling me we don't have time we need this done now then I think it's ridiculous that you're

you know that we just can't do that I'm sorry you weren't aware that it wasn't a first meeting I'm sorry you didn't have time to catch up on the subcommittee meeting I understand we all have busy lives I get it there's times I don't but I don't think that means these people are our students weight or you threaten us with that I'm going to go line by line then go line by line I got all

night without i y okay so we have a motion by Mr agar that we call this the first reading um any further discussion on his motion Mr chairman Mr so relative to the uh uh class uh you just talked about the M schedule what's the deadline for a m schedule to be done since 2020 can you tell me when the master schedules have been done at all the schools since 2020 since we're going

back 3 four years to use the first read argument have all the master schedules been done on time before they leave for the summer yeah uh have the master schedules been done by the end of the school year was that the question yeah uh no they have not there's been changes throughout the summer based on Staffing and other needs we typically start the process in November with the program of studies and

that goes through the end of the year uh some of the pieces are uh teacher recommendations for core academic courses uh students uh choose electives uh we do section counts um uh based on the student requests those all go throughout the spring and then the final schedules are created so I might did I miss that is going to go on till the end of the year to get the final students you know

that into their sixth period uh schedule yes that takes to the end of the school year and Beyond sometimes so in March you're going to identify kids that are going in all these classes in March typically it's the section counts uh from the teachers who make recommendations uh for core academic subjects then the students have opportunities to meet with their counselors and select their electives

and then we create the teacher schedules based on those um and you're saying all going to be done before March 10th no the process starts um and is ongoing throughout the spring is it possible to and and maybe not but I'm just asking is it possible to potentially move forward with it at large and then if there are issues and things need to be removed then we can do that and adjust those as they arise or

is that not an option no that's an option it's an option that's what I want hold on Mr I think the issue the issue that I just have is that it's a complex document and at the end of the day there's some things in here that maybe there's some questions on most times there's not uh in the past I've been on the instructional subcommittee so it wasn't as big of an issue because I was there

to hear as you know and sometimes I was very vocal against certain things and they got implemented anyway but I think it's a valid concern to say that we should look at this but my problem is is when we just blanketly be told oh we have to get this done right now because this this and this and it's all going to be done that's why I want to bring out

the facts that okay we can say that but the truth of the matter is is we don't get all the schedules done on time before we leave for the year like we don't do that so that's why I raised that you're a new principal has you were the associate so I guess you were there part of it but at the end of the day I don't want anybody thinking oh I'm

trying to give you a hard time over the schedule what I'm saying is that I don't believe for a second that all of this is going to be done between now and March 10th and that's my point it's not going to hurt anybody to to carry this forward as a first read and go for the second read you absolutely in my opinion could go and change whatever you want and then

after we vote in March figure it out it's not that big a deal we just heard oh we have to get it done but then Mr Woodward just said we're not going to have all that done by March 10th so it it it just frustrates me that we're having both things over a simple issue of first read I don't want to sit here all night and go over all the questions

with you quite honestly I'm not going to do that and I got members of this committee who their biggest concern is trying to rush home that's not me but we have some members that they're worried about going home that's not me right now what I'm saying to you is I'm not going to ask you all these questions but I think if what you're asking for is a fair compromise and I don't see any

reason why you can't do that anyway you could have a a draft master schedule done right now you're probably going to carry over last year and add some changes to what you have and then kind of go from there I I think I'm just hopeful that we honor both things that we can honor that there's you know that we there's a benefit to get En rolling and to making sure that we can make

progress relative to the schedule but there's also benefit to being collaborative and honoring if issues arise and I'm I'm hopeful that we can accomplish both things if that's possible okay and I'm I'm just hopeful that all the schedules at every school are done before June before the students leave that's what I'm hoping for and it hasn't happened over the years thank you Cory so Mr chairman uh I'm not in a rush

to go home to the uh voting public out there to the public for your edification I'm not in any rush to go home all I know is that I placed my trust in this leadership team at dery because the program of studies is involving document it's a document that's evolved over the past several years according to the social needs of our community courses are added courses are dropped they have

a fine tooth comb when they present their program of studies in subcommittee and when they made their presentation last week in subcommittee it made eminent sense and I just want to honor their request in order to get the ball rolling because there are so many complexities to the high school schedule in place I've made my statement I stand on that I yield anything further so we have oh Mr Das thank you and the reason

I second the motion is just to the fact that when we do have complex documents like this I believe we should go back to that precedent of first reads second reads again I was at the subcommittee and uh Dr Stevens you gave a great explanation your team did as well and I'm going to vote to support it however again for the public at large and for members that aren't on the committee I

believe that's a good process to go back to um question I I did have um one comment on the curriculum itself and that mentioned that the subcommittee is going forward into the next fiscal year I think it's important that we really dial down on WE dial down on when we have when we talk about the community and we talk about kids learning life skills I think that's really important to um drill at

again not just the senior year but the junior year as well and to again not just make that a um an elective course but really drilling that down to be a requirement something that we teach our students um but again we we talked about that hopefully that's something that could be implemented into the next year um just one question you said um Dr Steve it would impact students what types what what what kind of impact

would you see if we um make this the first read and approve and potentially approve this at our March meeting I just think it's a matter of us being able to make progress so it's not it wouldn't never be done in a month from now but it's convoluted the process so it takes time and so the goal is always to have it as put together by the end of the year as possible if not completely done

and so the four weeks make an impact in that way of course and and I agree with you um when would um students start selecting their schedules for next year so the the current timeline is that students would start um meeting with their counselors and choosing their electives the first week the first week of March into the second week of March and that process would continue throughout the month of March and when's

our school committee meeting on in March the 10th the 10th that's the second week yes okay so um if we approve this potentially on the 10th you're seeing maybe a few days of potential impact at most it would um forgive me it would impact the teacher part as well we'll have the teachers make some recommendations for the sections next year that they feel are most appropriate and so we were hopeful that um if things

were to be able to move forward we could move forward with the teachers first sort of get their input on what recommendations make sense and then have the counselors meet with the students and start their process as well I wonder if it could be something that we could build into the timeline for the next time around that we have the first read if that's the the wishes of the committee and with just your blessing we

didn't know that in advance given that the last three years and more that we've kind of operated in this way I wonder if there's a compromise there could we move forward with this tonight as is just to sort of support our efforts help us take the next step forward with the understanding that we understand your perspective and we could build in a different timeline next year sure and I

and I agree with that is it possible that dery's administrative team can go out with a draft and because I I don't expect that we're going to be make major changes anyway if any however in keeping with um a good precedent of first read and second read can we approve this in first read and dery's administrative team can again just show potential um classes subject to change but there might not be any change anyway

is that is that possible I think we we vote on the motion let's vote on the motion if you want to do that Mr Mr Das I like I'd like to make an amendment to the motion and the amendment yeah hold on we have a motion on the table to change the agenda to first read that's what we haven't voted on yet right mayor and I'm making an amendment to that motion I'm not making

a second motion I'm making an amendment that we authorize dery's team to present the program of studies subject to potential change they they do that anyway yeah that's what they do every year then I I don't I don't see the issue with again then I would just say I don't see the issue with um Mr agar's motion well then that's when let's get the vote you well said Mr chairman I'm I'm

still confused as to the what the mo can I can I can I I asked to talk before you're right I for so just to be clear Kevin's making a motion that this is a first draft they will have to come back to us you vote no then we can go back to voting for these people to move forward okay clear all right without I dab on on Mr aga's

Amendment Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory no Miss larvey no m Herrera no mayor Coogan no uh so on the motion a discussion to vote to approve the selection appointment I'm sorry the dery program of studies discussion Mr Cory so moved I have a motion do I have a second second I have a motion a second Mr agio can someone uh up there explain

to me Mr Cory just said this is a document that costes about social emotional learning can somebody make that connection for me I did not say that this a what I did not say that I said this is an question was to the lady at the at the but don't put words in my mouth Mr Cory said something along the lines of that this is an evolving process over several years that takes

into consideration the needs of the social emotional needs of the students at the high school something I so I'm asking you what hold on let's get the let's get the quote right though Mr what did you say words in my mouth I did not say that so I can yeah you didn't mention social emotional learning as no I didn't no I didn't out there hear him say social emotional learning part this if I may I

could clarify it for you if you give me a chance I I said it's an evolving document that takes shape over years it's a moving Target and they have to make changes as to the needs of the incoming students and I put my trust in the leadership team and I think they presented a fantastic program of studies okay okay Mr agar M Miss Stevens wants to say something I just don't know what the question was

that I just wanted to say can there be clarification as to what it was because I didn't hear I was listening to Mr Cory and when he said something about social emotional need not say social I wanted to know how that reflects on this I must may can you hit the gav please I know please let's just I have a question ask a question please yes I have a question for them go ahead

I'm not talking about Mr Cory qu you're asking them to explain what somebody else thinkes most ridiculous question find F just ask a question I don't find anything funny so the graduation changes that are in here yeah are those part of what Mr um Roso reported out on last year for 2025 no those would be part of the proposed graduation requirement changes for next year so the you're talking

about the 15 credit minimum I'm talking about anywhere in this uh executive summary it says graduation changes yeah then we also have programmer studies meaning cost changes those to me are two different things those to me would be two different votes on the graduation changes like the requirements to graduate is one vote and a program of studies is the classes that are going to make up what you do relative

to selecting courses that I see those as two separate uh things so when I'm looking through the executive summary trying to you know understand what is in this document those graduation changes I think should been separated so that we now know what does it mean to what is the requirement to graduate my personal opinion when but when you look at some of the um classes like in the past several

years ago we had changes that were we took all the classes for instance we had um Community Based classrooms and the like and we put all those into the same name we changed the names to make them all EX exactly the same what ramification are we going to have now with that relative to the next discussion over the graduation requirements for MC is there any thoughts to changing some of the decisions that were made in

the past relative to everyone gets a diploma now when we changed all the classes alternative wise whether it was Community Based whatever the terminology was and if you need clarification I'm sure the superintendent and I have had a private conversation she knows exactly what I'm referring to what changes are we now making relative to that issue in this program of studies do you know yeah I can clarify

so I think um there's some concern over the fact that um we have students potentially say in community- based classrooms who might have a class listed on their um transcript that would appear that they have um fully participated in say algebra one or US History one or or something like that in that with um mcast no longer being a requirement for graduation does that mean that based

on some changes that were made a few years back where algebra is algebra is algebra in English one is English one is English one um that every student would be eligible for a diploma and and I think the question is whether or not there are any changes in this program of studies that would address those concerns well I think part of the challenge is that given the fluidity right now relative to graduation

requirements and competency determination there is there are kind of limited conclusive stances that we can take without more guidance from desie that I know is slated for the fall or winter period so while I understand the point I think it is a hard time to um I think it is a hard time to take a conclusive stance in those in those ways okay I mean the one thing I would say to

that is that there is a um what we do have is language from the Department of Ed that requires the the work to be the grade level work associated with that course so that we couldn't just call anything um English one it would actually have to be what we know to be um like we' have to subscribe to that curriculum in the learning expectations for nth grade English and that we'd want

that we can't assign that particular um you know we can't assign that course name to just any course that a nth grader is taken anything further so in in the English one for instance you're saying that every student that attends dery High School fulfills all the exact same requirements completing all that course workor at the at the standard level or Algebra 2 for the same or do we have situations where we

we now have over the years have changed all every name to say you're in second grade algebra you're in Algebra 2 and they they don't necessarily have the same uh competence and uh Mastery of the of the material we don't have any situations like that I think we understand the intent behind your question and we look forward to collaborating with central office with school committee around these issues so

that we can do the students of dery the best service we can um I do agree with Dr Stevens that given the timeline we're in a position right now where we're sort of waiting for more guidance or more language around what makes sense we've been meeting with um other folks from Central we've had a meeting with um Miss Oben chain we've been talking to um other folks from like people on the uh task force for our

school we have a graduation requirements task force that just came together to talk about ideas knowing that we'd be landing in a place where more information needed we learned that the governor has a task for us as well so we're sort of just waiting to hear more about what makes sense um but we invite collaboration we invite input on that regard we don't want to come across as the experts on this right now we're

still very much in a learning mode around what makes sense given that the change is so new and should we need to make a change we know that the process would entail us coming back up here and saying here's exactly what we're asking for um but at this time we just feel like the program of studies as is would give us if you were to vote and and take it tonight we could move forward with

the master schedule and the ways that would just help us get the dominoes set up in the best way possible to get even the hope of a June schedule together if that makes sense the um yes the um Mr woodw do you have any idea what I'm talking about relative to the meetings we had a couple years ago with the changes um yes currently uh our community based uh students um do take do have an alternate

curriculum and uh do not take English one per se or algebra per se um but all other students who are on a diploma track would take that those Baseline courses and what would their what would their class be called and what would it show up on their transcript so on their transcript on the community based side it'll just say English it won't say English one or English two or English

three it just says English um on the math side it'll say math on science on the science side it'll say science but it won't be the particular specific in here so what you just referred to is math it says math is that in the program of study somewhere that particular class you just mentioned I don't believe so

no so that yes it it is it is in there sorry page 46 and what I what does it say just math four years of math math one math two math three math four just

math are you asking for the uh description of the math course yeah you said is it one that says math yes is that multiple years or is it just one it's just uh one that students um take each year there in high school it says the course will address functional numerical calculations and calculator skills necessary for further conceptual development in mathematics as well as how those concepts are necessary for everyday

life got it so the uh at the end of the day I don't question what you trying to do I think you're trying to do the best you can I still think we should have done it a different way the graduation piece is something that I think we should still bring back as a separate whether it's in here or not as a separate discussion because we should have a say we're going to have a say

later on about what do we do for um the Mastery for you know competency for 10 but we don't get a chance to say what we think we should last month we talked about changing the graduation requirement in a separate vote for RPA for instance different School different type of situation we voted for that separate but here we're just lumping it all together so personally I think we should vote

separate for those changes but that's going to run into conf conflict with what you want to do here because you're trying to present these classes based on that information so it's almost like a an assumption that based on this document we're going to throw a few graduation changes in don't vote for those just vote for the mass the whole one and call it a day and that's not something I can support but God bless

thank you anything further Mr Das thank you um so I just one um item we also discussed in um the subcommittee I just wanted to quickly bring up here was the history of far which again which is um a great concept a great class um I know we had some discussion over some wording in the curriculum regarding teaching current events in Fall River and I just want to ask again on the record so

that's something that's not currently being taught no I did want to say that based on the feedback from the subcommittee there were just a couple additional changes and one was to remove that sentence from the description of the course so um just for context sake for everybody regarding the history of Fall River Course the last sentence of the description says lastly students will look at Fall River today and we do

agree to remove it thank you you're welcome the second is um regarding adulting 101 that based on the feedback from the subcommittee we are going to offer adulting 101 to Juniors and seniors rather than just seniors very nice I'm really happy to hear that thank you and then lastly this is just a little bit of a separate element but I want to share that based on former feedback we are going to run a small

pilot of ninth graders um given some contingencies and definitely at least after a half a year if you will but in evolve Academy so I wanted to share that as well thank you anything further uh Deb call the rooll on agenda item number 12 point2 discussion and vote to approve the dery program of studies Mr AGA no Mr Bailey yes Mr Das no Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes Miss Perera yes mayor cougan

yes 123 is a discussion and vote to approve the steam job description as referred by the instructional subcommittee and presented by Brian Roser assistant superintendent Chief academic officer can do I have a motion a second on this presentation I have a I have a motion and a second Mr Mr agar can we get a presentation on this Mr reposa please who made the motion huh who made the motion Mr Das

who seconded it um who seconded it Mr Cory okay might have been need go ahead uh Mr Mr reposa on the position so we currently have um stem positions in the fall of public schools and this would really be U modification um but you know to get this approved as a job description which would um basically replace the the stem position posting um and really because we do have a couple of positions where um folks

have been doing uh art technology G um and so this is just an opportunity to um broaden um the the job description and offer um someone who might be focusing on the on the art technology realm um and incorporate them as a as a stem a steam teacher rather than a stem teacher and all the other 11 are the same excuse me the 11 uh pieces are the same I think most of the information we

worked uh from the stem job description and adjusted it um so I think most most of it's the same one of the things with these positions is that in terms of um requirements for the teaching license folks could have um you know a license in any of those areas um to be able to work in this position um I think one question came up at subcommittee around the number posted we have one posted

position right now I believe that was a question that was raised around if there were any current um vacancies or postings there's one position posted currently as a stem teacher not as a steam teacher yet so part of my concern is that and I don't disagree with the theory I think it makes sense to have more flexibility just understanding what's been going on is we've had multiple

requests from principles to get rid of the stem teacher because they can't find one and create something else and history being uh clear and I have a memory of this what we do here in Fall River sometimes is well we we can't find one of those so let's create one of these then when we create one of those now we say well I still need one of those next year comes to the budget they

get one of those so I think it's just to me it's uh yeah I think one of the challenges um potentially was that it was really around uh probably the curriculum piece and so I think this flexibility here with the steam we have um some different types you know we could deliver for instance Project Lead the Way but there are other uh curriculum that we could deliver I know that I think you know in the past

there's been some challenges particularly around let's say someone's vision for the position was solely they were going to deliver Project Lead the Way as a curriculum um that's a major investment right in terms of training and that sort of thing and so I think um the position right now in our meeting so far with principles there are some schools that have them I think as long as we can offer some flexibility around

like what's being uh taught there uh curriculum wise I think you know it'll be easier to um you know fill the roles and keep people in them yeah I think when I guess some of my problems with it is that when when we do convert a position it's not very clear that the person asking for the version has been told you are not going to get another one of those or something else so then

it just becomes a budget issue that they get more than another school and I've been asking for this Equity across the schools we shouldn't have let's just say middle schools and I don't even know if this is true if we got three middle schools they should all have a steam class a stem class whatever you call it if one principal feels like well I don't can't find a person or I want to create

something because I got a good person that might teach this and they create that it because becomes a problem and that's really the intention here is to be be more consistent to be perfectly transparent with you across you know we don't want to have islands of different types of positions so really the reason I'm bringing this forward is so that we can have some consistency and say that

the this position is called a steam uh position rather than having someone do something that's you know a little bit different y the only thing I would ask is that budget time you re when you rewind if a if a school doesn't have it and they converted well sorry you got to get to this that means you lose another position not just add one right thank you are you abely anything further do I

have a motion a second on that you do uh Deb would you please call the role Mr AR yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larv yes M Perera yes mayor kouan yes 124 is a discussion and vote to approve competency determination for candidates in classes prior to 2025 as referred by the instructional subcommittee and presented by Brian Raposa assistant superintendent Mr reposer sure so this is really um

sort of a look back or retroactive um competency determination up through 2024 um and so as you can see um you know what we're proposing is that if students have previously earned ACC comp competency determination through a regular or retest administration of mcast um or through a Desi appeal process then they've earned their competency determination and then what we're also proposing is we could

essentially do um you know a transcript review and um if um the individual has earned a passing grade in English 10 or an equivalent course earned a passing grade in both Algebra 1 and geometry courses or equivalent courses or earned a passing grade in the equivalent of a biology chemistry or Physics course then we would um say that they met the competency determination um Mr Das thank you I I

support this um were we able to get a number on how many U people this could affect I don't have that exact number in front of me but I remember you you did pass that so I will yeah look it's fine just out of curiosity but I do support this um it was a great explanation I'll make a motion to approve second I have a motion second I I have one quick

question you're done Mr Das I um this determination is it going to roll with the standards through the years like if we added something in yeah I think that's the intention which is why it gets a little bit tricky you'd have to look at what the requirement was that at that time got I have a motion a second any further discuss Mr Agia can you just describe what you mean by equivalent

cost and I apologize if I miss I I think the intention there is let's say that uh for instance courses were chunked together you know so that so someone potentially could have taken like two math classes that were the equivalent of taking an algebra one course for instance um and I think that speaks to the point made that you know as we look at the requirements they could have been

different you know in from one year to the next in terms of what was offered um so I think we would just have to be able to say that maybe this person took these two m math courses and that's the equivalent of taking for instance an algebra one and the same with geometry there was at some point there was division of that there there I think there potentially could have been I

don't know exactly but yeah and I think it's also to accommodate students potentially who came from other districts who might have taken integrated math which we know to be integrated you know algebra and geometry standards over a number of years and so someone could have taken integrated one two and three that would signal that they have fulfilled Algebra 1 and geometry requirements yeah I think it it

basically they voted for everyone gets a diploma for the most part uh I voted against that personally but I think that they passed the vote now we got to follow it I do think we're going to run into a quagmire with a few of the changes that I just talked about where you're going to have some difficult decisions to make uh related to what is something called and was that really the

you know if you look back to the program of studies that we just refer to the classes that were in there were probably not there a couple years ago I don't know I haven't looked at it but the um corrected version you know from was the name of it saying like I haven't looked at the history you guys can look at the history but at some point that didn't happen and that's where you're going to

run into a quagmire and my opinion but thank you I yeld anything further Ted please call the rooll Mr I yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M ly Miss Larie yes yes yes M Perera yes mayor cougan yes 125 is a discussion and vote to approve the revised FY 26 budget calendar is presented by Dr Tracy Curley superintendent of schools sure um back in I think December we brought um forth a budget calendar

for approval I think maybe that was the first read and then it got approved and since then we've discussed um here and we're bringing back for consideration a revised um budget calendar uh it basically offers our um Team an opportunity to continue working on the budget meeting with schools in finalizing plans um through February for a um a proposal I'm sorry a presentation the week of March 3rd to the committee

and then fitting in all of the um otherwise schedule meetings um subsequent to that March 3D meeting instead of what was supposed to be today the kickoff of it at the February 10th meeting and so it means um in particularly in the week of um March 17th a c um the scheduling of two meetings and that would um help us stay on track so that we that we're able to

by March 24th be ready for um the public hearing motion to approve second advertisement of the public hearing sorry I have a motion a second any further discussion Deb call the role Please Mr Das and M PR may we just reference the dates that were atted to I'm sorry on the sorry on the um on the third page of of the backup there are proposed dates um which I believe people

have seen but um those have those were included in this um proposal for the calendar change de please call the all Mr ago yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr yes Miss L yes Miss Perera yes mayor Coogan yes Mr chairman Mr AGA I'm based on the second page here with the yellow I think that's what superint was talking about it has a date in here of March 12th as a special

meeting and I've already said that I can't make that so I'm not sure why it's here but motion to reconsider mistake I thought Mar 12 was our regular meeting oh no that's the 10th right that's the 10 is that a mistake 12th special meeting under the highlighted ones on the 10th and 11th yeah it's not highlighted it's not highlighted so we can the 10th and the 11th are the two that are we have now in

the 12th the others were all proposed okay the 12th the 12th would be Mr aia's concern correct do you have a calendar in front of you we could Mr AG you got a date that you are available I already shared with this uh secretary the issue is we have the 10th of a meeting we have the 11th of of the finance committee right and people have families and they

got to do deal with stuff I don't think we need to do three meetings in the same week I've said that already and I don't think it should even be on here as such but come up with a date that works but all right so we'll three meetings back to back make we'll take the 12th out sure and we'll go with another date we'll run by everybody all right so those are just propos

um did we vote that nope okay can I get a vote please I need a motion I need a motion motion uh point point of order we did we did approve this we made a motion and I second we made ation we second made a motion I second that but we already voted I thought we voted yeah we voted so we got to fix the 12th we'll fix the 12th date Mr a here sorry guys

okay 12 six is a discussion I vote to approve a 1% cap on Commonwealth of Massachusetts virtual schools as presented by Dr Tracy Curley so I shared with the committee um some background information on um uh that was shared with us by the Department of Education around um capping our enrollment at the Commonwealth of Massachusetts virtual schools this was the first year that the that fall Public Schools Enrollment in

those virtual schools was over 1% that triggered communication to us that if we wanted to we could limit enrollment moving forward so we could potentially cap um enrollment at those schools anywhere um from 1% or grade there's a cap on enrollment in the state at 2% but districts can actually cap higher than that um and certainly not every school in the in the Commonwealth could cap it

um over 2% because that would take the Commonwealth over 2% but you can do it and um as long as there's room at these virtual schools you can um you know any number of students that you decide to cap could enroll so I offered the um the committee some background information in terms of how many of our students have enrolled um beginning in the 201819 school year that year we had 28 students

enrolled it grew to 49 in the in school year 2020 53 in 2022 114 in 2023 86 we had it dropped off in school year 24 and we are up to 143 students enrolled in one of the two to um cmvs programs so we are you know we're at 1.29% as I said that triggered uh communication that we could um as a district cap enrollment and um so moving basically today I'm bringing this to you because

it's recommended um that a committee vote on it every year once you're over that 1% that's the recommendation so I'm sharing that information um and you know I can answer some questions as I understand them I think the the the two pieces that people um consider you know generally speaking is whether or not um for us I'll tell you what we considered and I know that U Mr agar asked for my position on this we

certainly looked at the this idea of 143 students um being enrolled in a school outside of our district and kind of what the impact is on us now I personally do not believe that if we told families that their students um there wouldn't we couldn't enroll any more students in the Commonwealth um meses virtual schools that they would return to the follower for public schools I believe those same

families would homeschool their children and so I don't know that there's any immediate um benefit at all to limiting if we had a virtual school option K to 12 for families and we could in good faith say sure we're going to limit it because we can offer you that same opportunity right here in the fall Public Schools I would feel comfortable capping I don't feel comfortable capping because we don't

have that opportunity right now for families so um so in my opinion I don't think um a cap on it makes sense I think it is something that if we're able to build something out in a year from now we're coming back saying look we can offer a robust um opportunity to families and we can actually meet the needs then I think we could consider a cap right now capping it would only mean

that we'd have more students who are potentially homeschooled and the like in my opinion okay Miss PR than Mr D so basically you're saying you'd prefer in your opinion we should be voting no on this because we currently don't have a cap except for what the state puts on us is that accurate all right great do we have a motion already we'll make one and then we'll get Mr Das to talk motion to

approve mot have motion to approve I have motion to Second Mr Das thank you if we approve this we are placing a 1% cap which I believe is what the superintendent does not does not want to do yeah okay um I was going to just make a motion to withdraw from the agenda but we that that works possible Mr AA so page the first page of the overview yeah

bullet B the way I'm looking at it says the percentage cap can be one to 2% like is that meaning us so I actually so I'll I'll be I'll be honest with you um This was um drafted um by someone not me and I did not catch the fact that it says percentage can be 1% up to 2% it actually could be greater than 2% the State caps overall at 2% % but a

particular District could I mean we it might even be here you can see I don't know if any of those schools were included there are schools that cap at 4% above the the state cap so I'm not missing it does this is oppos yeah no it does say that but that that be there is a typo there um it can be it basically can be no less than 1% yeah I understand

so y for one I think we should have been knowing what it is annually relative when it says they would only notify us after to 1% I think is bogus so we should get something or somebody should be paying attention to it to say how many what is the percent so this wouldn't be coming up to us as we're over the 1% cap for the first time that's what I read was just because

that's when they notify you so that tells me that we weren't paying attention to what the amount is but it's considerable when you look at the uh amount of students this I don't believe deals with our own virtual students it's only those two schools correct yes yes so what I'm seeing is that the state says we can cap at 2% but you can't cap at 2% is what I'm saying we we could cap at

2% what I'm saying they by Statute cap at 2% so the legislature cap them at 2% and we are the legislative body for the current School District we can't just do what they do so if as far as I'm concerned I don't want to take away Choice from anybody but we're we're providing a good education for in my opinion we're going to provide opportunities that so we're not taking anything back but why would we not do

what the state does if the state can say they can cap and based on the legislature at 2% why don't we cap at 2% and that gives us another 140 kids is not it's not going to affect anything right now but it's going to allow for some more growth of these two Commonwealth schools but we're going to cap it at 2% why would we just punt because we just don't want to take a

stand I think we should take a stand and say if the state and the legislature says 2% why can't we do 2% I I think the committee I think the committee can and I don't and personally I don't think we would reach that 2% but it would I don't think we'd reach the 2% um I I well it says we're just barely over 1% over look I yeah we're at like 1.29%

it wasn't like we were at 1 89 there' be consider you know so right now if we don't take a cap and we have 71 of the amount whatever that comes out to another hund and something students that's the max what we would do we would be controlling our liability of how much do we determine on we just made decisions based on funding on Chapter 70 the teachers union came up before us

across the whole state arguing about how much money that we are getting for each student and all this stuff so we made a decision based on getting x amount of dollars for the kids now if we took 120 more of those and just said well we're going to go to Commonwealth uh virtual school we just lost not lost but we would have a less lesser amount of big

money so we took a vote on one thing now we're we're not going to say we have a a to just do what they do at 2% 2% at least controls there's some growth but it's also controlling what we do and I think logically if the state legislature says it it's part of the law why the hell can't we do it here there's also an element to so we're at 1.29% even if the

cap was at 1.29% there's going to be some attrition not everybody will stay in the virtual school for next year and there are 12 students uh nine students in grade 12 who technically should be graduating so even if we capped it at the 1.29% we'd still be there will still be seats so we have 20 some odd students on um that are on the waiting list it says somewhere in

here but we um but seats will open up you could C at the 1.29 seats will still open up they'll still be choice for some families and things like that um I just I just wanted to make a statement I don't I don't think capping at 1% is I don't want to say like a fair thing to do to families because if they are looking for something that we literally can't provide um and we're talking about

students potentially who suffer from anxiety and um a whole host of other issues that would make coming into school very difficult then I think that I just want to make sure that we do offer some choice and I want to build it ourselves so that we can welcome students back into the fall of Republic School so what I'm seeing on the agenda is 11 12.6 yeah discussion and vote to approve a 1% cap on Commonwealth

Massachusetts vegetable schools as presented by Dr Tracy kurur that to me to the public to anybody y i says that we are coming here today to vote to approve your recommendation of a 1% cap on Commonwealth virtual schools that's what I think the public sees that's what I saw when I looked at this and what I'm hearing now is that's not what we're here for what I would look for is some opinions from your leadership team

Finance people somebody to say what is the recommendation from it after looking at this and my own determination is the recommendation should be the equivalent of what the legislature said is the law and what the state does at 2% so a different line item could have been discussion and vote to approve it recommended a cap of 2% to equal what the state does and so just a different uh sure presentation of 2% allows for

some growth but it's also going to control at least some sort of cap I think that's the point of why they wanted it that way y so and so to that I mean I understand what you're saying I should be you know you want um I think everybody wants me to make some recommendations around things which I can absolutely do in my um you know as I looked at this and as we discussed like

what we put there for me it was a discussion of the 1% cap and all of the backup that I sent and that there'd be vote to approve something I thought that the um discussion here would generate a motion from one or more of the um members of the committee but I can see where the the way that it's worded on the agenda without a doubt and that's that's on me it takes on the appearance

that I wanted you guys to vote on a 1% cap and that that was I think that my last comment on it is just that you know my everybody knows my stance on agenda setting and how this is going and and I don't think we do it right I don't think we do it well and I don't think we dot our eyes and cross our te's and I've thought that for several years that has

to change in my opinion but with that being said I'll make a motion that we cap it at 2% with the equal to what the state does if the state raises their cap we will go accordingly Mr Cory um that's a motion that's a motion do I have a second second no second do I have a second I second I have a motion second have a question may' M larvey hold on Mr Cory first then

you uh so Madam superintendant just a question uh for my own clarification uh is this the item that Mr Sylvia referred to in citizen input yes earlier is is it something that he um is are his children affected by this I think he mentioned his own children I I have we don't know I don't know who is enrolled we have I have the numbers but I don't know who is so so in

in regard to a 1% cap Would we not be able to service his request is that what he was alluding to uh during citizen input because I think maybe if we raise it to a 2% cap maybe it makes more sense overall if if if if he were thinking about getting his kids in this program as well as some other people as well so anybody that's on if there's anybody from fallover who's on a waiting list

right now they're not on a waiting list because of Any cap we have it's because they're trying to get into one of the schools that's already filled or something like that if we if this committee voted for a 1% cap every student from Fall River who's already enrolled in one of these two schools gets to stay they just wouldn't be enrolling any new so if there's anybody on a waiting list anybody who moves into

Fall River who wants to be part of the virtual programming they wouldn't be able to because we we put a cap on it sure if we left it you know any other number above 1.29 or even at 1.29 um as seats free up kids graduate those seats will then open up for more students from Fall River what Mr agar is proposing at 2% I think basically it would allow if

if there's room at the schools and we have students here who are looking for a virtual option that we don't provide students would be able to um students would be able to attend thank you I okay M PR um I'm not going to claim to understand what Jordan was saying but I think what he was talking about essentially was access right and and choice um so with that I I know that my

my colleague to to the left's going to have a lot to say and other people have too so I'll just be brief I I'm not comfortable with um approving any cap right now when we can't provide those services to our students as the superintendent just said we do not have the ability to provide these services and I'm not comfortable with doing any cap right now um for those reasons so with that I yield and the one

thing I will say is that we do have a pilot right now at high school that I do feel like we can build out for next year and we could offer that opportunity to a wider range of students but it's that K to 12 that K that Elementary mid those Elementary Middle grades um I don't foresee our being able to build something out um that we'd be able to Market to families

um for for the fall okay Mr Das thank you i' like to ask that in the fut in the near future that we can maybe potentially survey these parents that aren't enrolling their students into the for public schools for example I know Mr syia Sylvia has been vocal it's because of a Mis mistrust of the district I don't know if that's something that's carried across the entire District however I did speak to experts in the

field that would agree that Tekk or the other Commonwealth school as well might um to m m pera's point might offer some services that um for public schools might not currently offer so but also to your point as well superintendent I'm going to vote no on this motion but like you said I don't believe we would even reach that number as well so it's kind of a move Point anyway however um I

think it would be best that we potentially survey these parents to understand why they don't want to enroll their students into the for public schools directly right now and do we have any I don't know if like your leadership team has any like maybe um expert knowledge on what are the differences between like maybe some of the programs that maybe Tekk might offer that we don't I don't know if we can

speak to that right now or we'd have to research that further I don't think so I mean we did research last year when we were looking to open um virtual programming and we looked at some other districts that were offering it and at that time we did reach out to our families who were being of of students who were homeschooled to find out um you know to gather information from them

around whether or not they would be interested in this option and we do there was an interest for families because otherwise maybe they're you know they're Contracting out um with some kind of other service even outside those two virtual Schools they're paying for some kind of on online platform they're becoming they're they're a part of some wider Network and we did hear from parents saying if you could build this

out we'd come so we're piloting it with um you know a group of high school students now and it's a you know a specialized population with an eye on building it out and I think that over over time we will be able to build it out to meet you know K to2 needs and I also think that there's a possibility we've talked about the idea that there are there are teachers who would be

attracted to that as well um who are attracted to the online piece and that would be another you know another kind of pool we could use um you know from which we could recruit teachers so no I don't disagree but I guess I would just reiterate I think it's really important that we find out the reasons why some parents right now do not um to your points well I know we we we talked to

some of them but just to get more of a broad spectrum but I you so we have a motion there was actually two motions two motions Mr M sh made shell had originally made a motion Mr Cory had seconded it and then Mr agar made another motion to cap at 2% okay Mr Bailey seconded that motion could you re which is an amendment basically it's an amendment could you re reiterate the

first motion Mr it was to approve though to approve so the the uh issue like I said I think that uh I think that the issue is we how this was presented I think is part of the problem so when we we look at it as the 1% as we just talked about I think coming from the administration there was an intent in my opinion and I haven't spoken to anybody

out there I've only spoken to you today about this there was an intention from the district by placing this here that the overall sentiment amongst the administration that your leadership team finance and the like that we should put a cap on my opinion haven't talked to them I have members of my team who think we should put a cap on it sure and we haven't heard from those folks I would

invite anybody up I really would I I I don't I'm not opposed to having that conversation yeah so I just think that just my gut tells me that that's what happened so when I'm looking at the information here but that's I I want to be really clear that's not why it it looks like this on the agenda it it really isn't that it's it's just not no I get it but all I'm saying is that when

we got it presented on the agenda if there was some members of your leadership team Finance team that said you know this is valid in order for us to have some liability here to control our liability we really should cap it because whatever the rationale was I happen to know what how not know what they thought but people think like I do in some ways and we should cap it we probably would have got a different

recommendation how this was packaged to us might have affected some of the members here in my opinion that's my stance the second one is on the last page about 2.0 percentage of students from at two so if we cap it at two here's the communities that are currently at two or above North Adams low North Brookfield Provincetown Warwick and seavoy those are the 3 six 7 that at 2%

so by capping it at 2% we are doing nothing at all to affect choice for parents and families but what we are doing is saying that we're going to say public education in the classroom in a school is something that we value and that we want to make sure that we're capping it so that we give some choice but at the same time we have to say there should be a

number that's the point of why this is and as I said before the union had came before us all of these unions came before US based on chapter 70 money how much we're going to get for our enrollment for us to now say we're going to have voted on raises and increases based on something but we're going to just leave this wide open I think it's fiscally irresponsible at

2% we still have a a number of students that can enter But we would control what it is once we get to that point if it's the person at the seams then we could revisit it the next year but this has to be done before March 1st and I don't believe that we've heard a good presentation from the administration overall or yourself relative to what you really stand you're the only one that

weighed in okay and and I think that where if we vote not to do anything we are having liability may I ask Mr almeer a question at the 2% are we controlling our liability which is one of the standards of being a fiscal manager yes and if we happen to go to 4% you know over the next whatever if the number was 400 students instead of 180 or whatever it is what is the

financial implication of that to this District it's about $20,000 a student is roughly what it works out to be um so $220,000 per student about 20,000 per student we lose 200 students is what does that add up to $4 million that would what would that mean 4 million I'm sorry sorry what what does that 4 million mean we would get 4 million less than anti we get 4 million less than we

anticipate yes and in all of the negotiations and all of the uh budget forecasts have you included the opportunity that that could happen if we don't place a cap or are you counting on that that's not going to happen I'm counting that's not going to happen and if it did we'd have to cut 4 million potentially yes and um I guess I I know this answer but would you recommend a 2% cap as the

fiscal manager of the school district I would I would recommend a 1% cap but I am in agreement to give Parents Choice and I fail 2% since it's the recommendation of the state is a good place to be yes thank you I yeld so on Mr agar's amendment to change the 1% to a 2% that would you call it's not to change it we have none well no you're

going to take get rid of the one that we didn't vote on yet he's saying to cap it at 2% to cap at two Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das no Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes Miss Perera mayor Coogan no no so now it's a discussion and vote to approve a 2% cap on the Commonwealth as on the agenda um I get a motion a second on that the amended so

moved it's basically the same vote right yeah same vote second GB call it Mr IA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das no Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes M Pereira mayor kouan uh no it motion passes it's now a 2% cap on Comm schools 12.7 is a discussion and vote to approve the revision of policy D3 purchasing to add the following sentence the far of public schools shall not enter into any

contract or Commerce or engag in any business either any board commission or other multi-member body that does not allow for adequate citizens input Mr Das thank you Mr Mayor um and I came up with this proposal and which I think it's strong in nature however um we disapproved a contract the fer Redevelopment Authority and again being a steward of the tax dollars of the fer Public Schools I'm going to speak as one

member for redevelopment authorities working on many projects that are going to affect the greater good of the city of Fall River they're the only board within the city that doesn't have a Citizens input policy which I believe is unacceptable and there one member who signs off on contracts and has a vote on where fall Republic schools dollars goes towards I feel it's within the best interest that we

include this language and any board or commission that wants to do business with the fall Public Schools should have a Citizens input policy I would also like to ask the city to also step in as well and let's work together to make sure they have a citizens in put policies within the best interest of the city and I like to make a motion to approve this policy change second I have

a motion a second um who going to regulate this you're asking me Mr who's going to regulate it who is in I mean Super excuse me Kev he's talking I I'm just trying to help the chief procurement officer that's who does procurements in no see okay oh you didn't like that answer no I didn't like the answer because you interrupted you haven't talked enough tonight so let someone else have a

comment so you don't have to jump in know sorry Mr DUS thank you Mr Mayor I feel like you had a comment yourself no I didn't I said I said who's going to regulate it oh I mean the superintendent is in charge of the district U Mr agar brought the point of the chief procurement officer um I believe that answer the question I just don't I I'm not in favor of this I don't

know if we should be policing other boards um I I think the prudent thing would be to you know if you had talk to me and said let's talk to RDA about having citizens input I probably would have helped you but what other boards are you talking about again I I don't want to um no I'm just saying when you said this you had RDA in mind I agree with you who else oh

no one else Mr Mayor and I want to make sure the language didn't just say in an official um school committee policy the Redevelopment Authority it should be for any Board of commission going now going 200 years from now um I believe it's just something that would be covered across the board I believe it's the right thing to do and and the the RDA told you they don't have public

input they do uh Mr merid do not have a uh citizen input policy and I I've actually known that for many years it's common knowledge I oh I don't I don't know if this is a big thing or not but we got a motion a second any further discussion Mr so my concern in this isn't should we have citizens input of course I want input from citizens when we make any

decisions which is why we have citizens input at our meetings and all our subcommittee meetings those subcommittee meetings include meetings that we discuss contracts and such with the RDA so we do have an ability for people to come in and have some conversations with us regarding um contracts we're signing and things we're doing our contracts are literally listed on all of our agendas

every meeting we literally spent about a half hour talking about contracts today so citizens can certainly come here and express their opinion this to me and I could be wrong don't you know it seems a little bully is to me like we're not going to play with you if you don't follow our rules and I feel like I don't know if that's going to work because I feel like besides the RDA I know you're

talk about the RDA but other other other contracts or engaging in any business with boards or commissions or multi-member bodies that do not provide citizens input I don't think we can tell other people how they need to do business I certainly think if we're working with the Redevelopment Authority and there can be a conversation with the mayor you know and and Redevelopment Authority saying hey this is an issue

when you're doing business with the school committee we would like citizens to be able to you know input maybe that's something they can discuss but I'm not comfortable with telling other bodies how to function I'm comfortable with deciding how this body functions and we provide citizens input and I think we provide plenty of time whether it's these meetings or subcommittee meetings or our emails that

we all get that citizens have the complete ability to communicate with us in in what they think I don't think it's our job here as a board to say we're not going to do business with these places anymore because last time I check the last business we did with the RDA was pretty helpful to us yeah it's called that really nice building that we have on right so I mean I don't want to not

do business with people who are actually helping us get things done I don't think that's I know some people like to work like ah but I say like I don't know let's use a little more honey um so I'm I'm sorry sorry but I'm not going to be voting in favor of this and just with that I yeld just cuz those are my concerns with that I yeld you

want me to go with him you go Mr AA next so the uh I seconded this motion because I think it just makes sense for the most part the RDA is a board that the mayor appoints every member to or the governor or something the mayor appoints the majority of members to it's a Quai City agency and they can say that they're not but it is uh I think this just shines

the light on the fact that if they don't allow citizen input time they're basically a public entity like a planning board a in my opinion that's what they are and it should they should be open to uh citizen input time just like any other agency that uh is in the city I think mostly all of them actually do have citizen input time so if they don't May should look at it and say why

don't you offer citizen input time what the hell is it going to hurt if they have citizen input time before some of the multi-million dollar decisions that they make as far as what I know what they do the city takes all of the money for instance of the biop park gives hundreds of millions of dollars to an RDA which is sort of a end around to government and transparency and then all

of a sudden they don't do citizen input time it's kind of outrageous if you ask me so I think there's something more to look at in this case but I don't believe this has gone to the policy subcommittee so i' make a motion to refer to policy subcommittee to get more info and at that point if the mayor gets them to approve maybe this this is a moot point but motion to refer to policy

subcommittee second Mr Mayor I I okay Miss larvey I have a motion a second on referral to the policy subcommittee but I have a question go ahead I I didn't think the RDA I thought they were a standalone entity I didn't think fora had any say in their operations no no no we do we as Mr agie informed you the governor appoints one of the members of the board I think I

appoint the other four but they do they a quasi public agency they are yep okay all right thank you I Y uh um so on Mr agar's motion to refer to policy subcommittee uh I have a motion to Second de call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory no Miss larav no Miss Pereira yes mayor C yes we'll deal with it on the policy subcommittee next 128 is discussion and

vote to approve to direct the superintendent to create Professional Standards department and to create an anonymous tip line to report violations if they were to exist of policy procedure wasted fraud and those shared with and those be shared with the school committee as presented by Colin Das thank you and I am willing to um narrow this in scope a little bit the the reason I brought this forward um I do

speak to um many in the district to um you know sometimes feel a little bit hesitant about sharing information because they are afraid of repercussions and it's a fair statement however to narrow this in in scope so it's not clear I want to make a motion to instruct the superintendent to review all of our human resource policies and um make any proposed recommendations back to the committee to review make

that in form of a motion I believe that's so are you withdra in 128 I I'm narrowing the scope of of 128 um but you changed the whole thing I believe I changed the you said do a human resources audit and report back to the committee yes I is that not an acceptable uh a motion for this item um that's not what it says what was can you repeat the motion because I was uh

thank you so you're making an amendment to it is what I think I am yes um I'm amending this item well it's not not a motion yet we have to make a motion first however looking back at this to again give the superintendent more leeway and not have specific um requests maybe the superintendent might have something different in looking at you know a tip line report violation policy procedure waste fraud um most of

those are within HR um we should and has to do with policies of HR of reporting violations of wrongdoing I'm making an amendment or a motion that the superintendent review all of our human resource policies and report back to the committee next month with any proposed um changes that she may make next month yeah not enough time no no no I make a motion to refer this uh whole topic to policy subcommittee 128 to policy

subcommittee I have a motion can I can I just comment on that please sure go ahead Mr so the reason why I say that is uh I think Mr D has uh what he's trying to do is to create an opportunity for somebody if they felt that there was some things that Wen happening correctly or whatever we get a lot of complaints from people all that stuff we have in

the past prior to Mr Das getting on the board under policy subcommittee we've created some policies for how do does a person uh file a comp complaint at that point once they file a complaint there's procedures in those policies that say it has to be investigated how it can be investigated and the process so I think some of those things that he's pointing to here exist in existing policy so why

I made a motion to refer to policy was the topic can be human resource policies in general and then you can hag haggle with what is it what's not if we need a tip line you can recommend that to the full committee but I think it's getting to the point of we do have a lot of things in place based on some of the nonsense that happened under the prior

superintendent that we had to get rid of so we created policies that I think have moved us in a better way the new HR Director should get involved to know whether those policies are make sense or not and are they being followed I question whether the current policies we have are actually being followed by our current HR department so I think it's a valid point to have so that's why I want

to refer thank you are okay so I have a motion a second to refer to policy subcommittee Deb call the role Please Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory okay Miss larav yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes I have a number of retirements resignations appointments motion to accept and place on file I have a motion to second on all the information Deb would you please

call the roll Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yeah M larvi yes M Pera yes Coogan yes on the new business anything to come forward Mr Das Mr Mayor um we have received a complaint from a member of our bar Public Schools alleging again impropriety which includes fraud and we have not heard back on this matter and I believe very you you have another allegation of

fraud we have received a complaint the entire committee on February 5th which was also followed up today that alleges um impropriety which also includes fraud yes in the complaint well that doesn't come in front of this board we don't do Personnel uh it was a complaint that was given to this committee we do have a policy that says we must investigate all complaints that are given to this

committee so I like to make a motion that we hire an outside investigator to investigate the complaints that were given to this committee on February 5th and February 10th I make that in the form of motion okay M attorney yeah any type of a personal matter uh would originally would initially be uh looked at by the HR department uh for any type of investigation uh Personnel matters uh

are not within the jurisdiction of the uh the school committee but are certainly within the jurisdiction of the administration itself uh with respect to any allegations that are made if an individual makes an allegation it is reviewed um there's an an investigation that is done if the individual believes they've been wronged and that the investigation was improper they can file a grievance they file a grievance at

some uh stage depending on which Union it is could be step three or step four it would come before the school committee and at that point in time the school committee would have uh input and a determination with respect to any grievance that came before but with respect to anyone making an allegation of wrongdoing or or something that was inappropriate to them uh the the uh first course of action is through

the administration itself Mr chairman uh I you for my colle Mr AA so I think what Mr Das was getting at was the issue of uh this board when we received the complaint on citizen input time against one of us uh this board voted to actually hire an outside attorney to investigate that situation and at the time we were told that we must do that which I'm totally in favor

of but as I said today's the model of today's lesson of today's uh meeting is consistency we're not being consistent because we have complaints against one member they get investigated with an outside attorney we get complaints of other members they don't get investigated by outside attorneys we get complaints from the from the public from staff members that are not necessarily investigated I agree it's not part of

our purview but at the the same time it's hypocritical for us to be eval uh doing it cacious and arbitrarily saying this person gets eval investigated by an outside Agency on some nonsense and then real stuff that they're complaining about doesn't so I think there's something to be said for looking at those HR policies and holding a superintendent accountable to investigate fully all the issues that

come before us on Personnel Personnel is under her not under us but at the end of the day when a Personnel files a complaint with this school department it needs to be addressed and I agree with Mr Das we need to put some money aside to do outside investigations that's all thank you I yield Mr Pera so when that came before us um where we were asked to to get the outside investigator where did that stop

did that stop with an email to me or did that start with HR the it would probably have started with HR came to me uh the reason why in that particular case I'm not going to go into any detail on this as we should the uh but the only reason why that was to outside uh Council to investigate was because the allegations are made concerning a school Committee Member and if it's made concerning a

school Committee Member it's inappropriate for the HR Director who reports to the superintendent and is overseen by the the policies and procedures of overseen by the school committee itself to have done that investigation and that's the Reas only reason why it went to an outside Council otherwise it would have be it would have been with respect to the investigation would have been conducted by in-house uh

investigator which would been the HR Director that complaint did not come to me initially it went to HR right so basically what I'm saying is complaints of inv whether it's work environments what have you I'm under the impression as somebody who's taken harassment training and what have you that that is a complaint that either starts with management or HR is that pretty accurate that's correct correct

um so if there is no management then it would be HR so basically now what I'm asking is because I'm on this committee and I'm literally confused about this conversation just so everybody knows I don't even know half of what we're talking about here but what I'm gathering I think I got part of it um so the complaint that we're discussing right here that you're obviously alluding to Mr Das has that complaint to

your knowledge to your knowledge has that person who's issuing the complaint have they reached out to Human Resources I wouldn't know that okay all right but I think that's where they should start right and then we it comes to us and then we make a determination of does this need outside investigation or is it something that we can do in house right if it's a school Committee Member and

has to be outside I understand that that's fine um if it's something that uh HR can you know can look at in house that's fine um I don't have an issue with that with that either but I'm very confused about what you're asking for right now honestly okay with that I he Mr Das no that's a valid question U Mr pror and um I just to summarize it um attorney that policy or that um

precedence that we always that we should hire an outside investigator if a complaints filed against a school Committee Member throughout the entire years at least have you been here has that always been followed I'm not aware of U any uh allegation being made other than the one that we have right now against a U school Committee Member I could be wrong uh but my memory I don't have a a memory of of anyone on the

board uh being investigated could be wrong so it would be your recommendation whenever a complaint is filed it should always go to an outside investigator I didn't say that I've never said that the uh it should do is go to HR if in fact it such as if it was a complaint against the superintendent of schools it would be inappropriate for the HR Director uh and it be somewhat of a conflict for the

HR Director to perform that uh investigation therefore you would have I would recommend outside councel to the committee I've only done that on two occasions uh in the that in the years that I've been here uh one with respect to a superintendent one with respect to a school committee person and the reason for that is the not only does the individual who's making a complaint have rights so does the person they're

accusing have rights and they're entitled to have a fair determination made during the investigation and that's why it went out to outside Council it's my opinion without going into further detail that we're not following that precedent however all right so I'd like to make a motion that we discussed in executive session any and all complaints that ever been filed against the school committee memb second

I I have no idea where this is going I don't have a clue I mean are we talking the 50s the 60s the 70s the 80s are we I don't know what you're talking about June of 2024 June of 2024 so this is something that was filed cuz I would like I like doing what are we doing no we're just rambling I would can I say something please go ahead hold on one at

time go feel like what's happening is we're accusing the human resource department of getting complaints that they didn't act on is that what's going on you're saying that people have filed complaint with the human resource department that they brushed under the table absolutely okay and that's what we need to look into for sure Mr chairman Mr agag so just to to wrap up I think what Mr Di's motion was is basically

what the precedent is so Tony Assad had said six or so months ago that if a person comes up to citizen input time and files a complaint which is how this happened they come up and file a complaint against the school committee member we have to investigate that with an outside attorney because we had uh a conflict makes sense the question at the time was are we going to do this only in

this case or are we going to do all cases the answer the attorney Assad said was yes to Mr das's Point there's been several complaints Over The Last 5 Years against school committee members that have not followed that same procedure that's what we're asking for so I think that should be brought up at some point on the agenda because that's how it went up in the first time the second one is

if we have a conflict we have to go for an outside attorney in the case that we're talking about that we received an email from a constituent the issue is is that she made a complaint against a bunch of people and a lot of stuff in the school department and there was no conflict on sir not the conflict was not the conflict was that the HR Director at the time was the brother of the mayor

that's where we got into this problem Kevin this really yeah Kevin please stop so at the end of the day end of the day I think we need to we need to look at it I'm going to withdraw my second on attorney on Mr das's motion which is on the table right now and in the hopes that we follow the procedures equally on this board yeah we do not get involved with Personnel this is a school

committee issue um since you withdrew the second hearing none anything further to come Mr Assad do we have a reason to go into executive session there would be mayor could you want to give us sure fill in please sure May uh first would be M general laws chapter 38 section 21 A7 to review and approve executive session minutes of for January 13 2025 regular school committee meeting M

general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining uh agreement including hearing grievances relative to All Professional teaching employees of the forward School System including coaches Title One teachers nurses occupational physical therapist and specialist in the teaching profession represented by the fora Educators Association Mass general laws chapter 3A

section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to Collective Bing relative to the all administrators and employees represented by the for administrators Association as the chair has determined an open session may have a detrimental impact on a bargaining position of the committee as well as with what I just mentioned before with respect to the teachers uh that the chair determined that an open session may have a

detrimental impact on a bargaining position of the of the uh committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to Collective bodying relative to all safety security employees the forward school system represented by the American Federation of state county and Municipal Employees Council 93 local 1118 as a as a chair is determined an open session may have a detrimental

impact on a bargaining position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to collect the baring relative to all civil clerical employees forward school system represented by the forward Department of Civil Service clerical employees Association as the chair has determined that open session may have a detrimental impact on Bing position of the

committee M laws chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with the respect to collect the body agreement uh including hearing grievances relative to all par professional employees of foror school system represented by the foror Federation of par professionals that CH deter the no concession may have a detrimental impact on Bing position of the committee M Law chapter 38 section

2183 and section 2187 to discuss pending settlement agreement and or in in order to discuss strategy with respect to litigation and comply with Student Records law as the chers determined an open session may have a detrimental impact on the litigating position of the committee we would reconvene there may and may not be statements at that time can I get a motion a second to go into executive session moved second that

please call the rooll Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory y Miss lry yes Miss Pereira yes mayor cougan yes executive

session Bailey here Mr di here Mr Cory presid larvey M Pereira here mayor Coogan yes anything further to come before the committee we do Mr Mayor I like make a motion to approve the executive session minutes for the January 13 2025 regular school committee meeting second any discussion Deb please call the rooll Mr a yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes m larvey m Perera yes mayor

Coogan yes anything further yes Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the fer educator Association contract Unit A as negotiated motion approv second any discussion hearing none Deb please call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr di yes Mr Cory congratulations larv Perera yes mayor kouan yes motion to adjourn second Deb call the rooll on the adjourn Please Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss

larv Herrera yes Mary Coogan yes thank you you should