2.24.2024 Fall River School Committee

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I'd like to call to order the Monday February 26 special meeting of the Bara school committee uh de would you please call the role Mr Agia Mr Bailey Mr Cory here M lar here M perrera here M Rodricks here mayor mayor C here I'd also like to announce that um Miss Rodricks is joining us via Zoom um 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 salute to the flag please I to the FL flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with

liberty and justice for all Deb do we have any citizens input we do not

mayam Committee of the whole 3.1 is a discussion of the Fara Public Schools fiscal year 2025 budget I'll turn it over to the SE superintendent for opening comments thank you Mr Mayor um good afternoon everyone at our February 12th meeting um Mr almea and I presented the draft budget to all of you this budget was a result of uh principal and department heads being surveyed priorities being

identified as a result of the survey individual meetings with each principal and each department head to discuss the needs and their asks a review of the positions currently on Esser budget the draft of the budget and then the review of the draft with principles prior to the school committee meeting on February 12th and finally the presentation of the budget I hope everyone has had an

opportunity to review School budgets like last year the hearing process um has been modified um instead of having hearings where each individual principal and department head presented requests on behalf of their School dep and Department um they've done that with us uh with the leadership team they are here and they are available to answer any questions regarding to their schools

and positions in their building I will add that principal Cobb is out on bereavement due to a death in the family and principal Simpson is out sick both will be available next week if needed um uh this was a different budget as I've said before with the Esser funds um due to expire it was critical that we prepare a budget that is fiscally responsible and sustainable this committee has invested

heavily in providing our schools with layers of support and uh that allow for solid infrastructure we have invested in systems and we have invested heavily on Staffing I've been clear from the beginning with our leaders that our new positions would be enrollment based they would be compliance-based and they would dri they would be driven driven by the absorption of the positions that

currently sit on the Esser um budget uh those are the new positions that are being added uh to um this budget we we have some unknowns that we need to make sure that we are responsible and and that we are thinking of as we plan forward so um the budget is I would say a pretty level funded um and uh uh really uh has been intentional we have added supports we want to make sure that

we build a budget where we are able to sustain those supports that we created it would be a shame to add more positions and have to take away other positions right so we are at we're lucky we are Staffing our buildings better than we ever have before and we need to make sure we continue to do so so that we have supports boots on the ground to support our students and our teachers

and that's what this budget um uh reflects and with that I will turn it over for to the committee and our folks our principles are here this week and department heads will be available next week to answer any questions in regards to their um budgets well I will go by the list that you gave us in the budget book um to go down for any schools and as you told us already principal cob

from fanska is not here today so we'll postpone that one uh first school up is um Mr ragia can I just ask a before we get to them going in order of the book I had a question on the opening page for Mr elme superintendent is that okay sure okay I was going to do the schools first but we don't that's not a big deal go ahead Mr related to the school so on the page

where it says uh breakdown by cost centers my question was just basically is that include grants is that the total expenditure for each school no that's just the operating budget do we have anywhere in here that would show us as I was going through each school I'm trying to figure out what is the um to compare one school versus the next and and when I looked at this it there

was a few schools that didn't make sense to me because I said oh there's definitely more money at school a versus School B so I'm trying to figure out where we can find that info and then at some point in the next I think page talked about Title One um absorbing some of the Esser my other question across all of the schools is how do we distribute the title one yep so as far

as what the Grant budgets are and the grant positions they're all in the individual tabs and they're all included there um if if you'd like I could for the next meeting include a separate column and give you modified these page this page here modified so you could have a breakdown of what is in the operating budget and what is in the grant for a total so you can compare

each that way if you'd like I could put it on one summary page like this well I think it that's what I'm I'd be looking for maybe may just amending the page whatever it shows with the breakdown by C Center sure if you make a column that says uh additional Grant funds and I'd also like to I mentioned the superintendent earlier the full-time equivalent employees at each of the schools so when you're comparing one

school to the next of some schools might have all TOP Step teachers some schools might have younger ones so if we don't see an FTE comparison it it kind of makes it look a little different different I can have the FTS for for next week yep I appre appreciate it thank you you all set Mr agier yes thank you all right so if we're going to go looking at the schools that are here

tonight why don't we open up with the Green Elementary School um we just need to ask if there are any questions for the school because the principls are not going to come up and make a presentation that's what we AG does anybody have any questions about the school known as the Green Elementary School off Cambridge Street F she announced the principal wasn't here yeah next meeting next any questions on the Green

Elementary I had a question Mr Mr Agia I see that um on one of the slides it talked about uh additions to the to the school so my question is on somewhere in here it talks about a adding a vice principal and there really isn't a rationale I'm sure there is a rationale just on the sheet where it shows the additions it doesn't have in the comments what would the rational B

and I think that's one of the more uh higher end positions that are added so if we could get the principal to kind of weigh in and of

course good good evening everyone so that was my um that was an initial request we have uh 792 students currently and we have two Vice principales so we are almost equivalent to we're actually we have more students than the middle schools and they have three Vice principles so we were just hoping to have a little bit more Equity as far as um the number of students that our vice principles are serving

and the other aspects of your um Administration is that similar to others other schools what do you mean do you mean our like our organizational chart yeah um I I believe so I don't I mean I haven't compared myself to others I just know that we have we've had we've been fluctuating around 800 students um all year we're down to 792 today we've had a few students leave over February

vacation but it's a we're we're a busy school because we have so many more students I think when I arrived at Green two years two and a half years ago I think we were about 660 and now we're 792 yeah so maybe this is a superintendent question but I say this every year about trying to B sort of figure out where each school is and their a chart so we do have a charts in

here which I appreciate that getting this year when I look at like ver Vera versus the Green they're similar in some ways and then not similar in other ways and are you aware of those discrepancies and what um what process went through to say to the principal at school a did they see what the other schools get so I how does that I wouldn't call it discrepancy what I would say is

principles have a right to staff their buildings according to what they think their needs are so um every I I I think we've had this conversation before I I'm a firm believer that fair is not equal um I going to trust that our principles are advocating based on the needs of their school so principal Dunn is asking for a third VP I I mean fansa added a third VP so I'm assuming uh you know

some of that has to do with creating an equity structure um I would caution us to say that now we're going to have the exact same number of Administrators in every single building I'm not sure that in one building you may need more um School adjustment counselors in another building you might need an additional VP in another building you might need both so I I would like to think that our

principles are being intentional I believe they are they're being intentional and they're advocating based on the needs and what they're seeing day in and day out in their building so you're right they're not all the same they're not all the same but that's those decisions were based on what the principal advocated for in the structure of their building and in your Administration and Central admin your Central Senior

leadership what I why I'm asking that it's more of your question versus the principal's question because I would assume that in your discussions you're looking at these or charts to figure out yeah it kind of makes sense that this so it doesn't have to come from a principle my concern is that over the years that I've been here the principles don't get a Fair um not saying Fair meaning that

you're being unfair but if we don't know what everybody's looking at then somebody might ask for this came up last year when somebody asked for a position that's never been in an elementary school like where did that go from and the person said oh it's because dery had one or something okay so we want one and then everybody started to be like oh yeah we'll pop up one of those too

that's what happens but I don't think that that's how it should go personally so like for instance I just brought up the Vera school so I would assume if the logic is that when a school has 700 kids or 750 whatever the number is they have a lot of needs they have all the stuff and we're going to give a third vice principal to the green school which I happen to agree with because of that

issue what I do have a problem is when I pull up vas's chart and greens chart Ras has two Vice principles and not adding a third here and then I look and say well maybe they have some other stuff like the coaches and everything and then I look they have a department head of each Ela and math they have two interventionists the other school has two inter inventionist they have an MLL

coach and then you know so three School adjustment counselors like everything looks equal here except for where's vas's request for a uh an additional vice principal now I've gotten the calls just like everybody else does that we have that school has tremendous needs as well why would they not have one and I think it's a it's not okay to just say well the principal never ask for it because in my mind the principal

shouldn't have to ask for it because if it's the right thing for green to say we got 750 kids and three Vice principals just like we've done now with counselors if a school has a 250 to one case load that's what it kind of should be this is a glaring um and nobody from the Vera school has reached out to me regarding this this is strictly me just trying to

take the names out it doesn't matter who it is what's right is right in my opinion and if we're going to add a third VP here we should have a third VP at the other one and I don't think it should be on the principal to be able to say oh I want to add a third VP I haven't gone through to look if they the in the denied um request if that was

denied but I just think it's when I look at it glaring um a glaring uh difference in those two schools so I do support a third VP I think it makes sense um I think we have to be careful when we have Vice principles are all um created equal as far as what their roles out what their pay is and and um what they are responsible for that we have to

be careful when we have three we should have them all doing the same thing and this happened in a different school um not your school it was another school where I asked one time maybe eight years ago or 10 years ago what is VP oh he doesn't do any evaluations we handle everything else they handle the discipline and whatever and I'm like this doesn't make sense because they're all they all should have to be able to

know how to uh evaluate in the staff so all I would caution is as we add them we need to make sure they all get doing equal equal work but I do support it thanks for the logic thanks I yield anything further for green Mr Cory yes principal Dunn I totally support your request um I have a history at Green I used to be an adjustment counselor there still have very fond memories of that

school my my question not only to you but to all the principles in the room is um the fact that we've gone through the covid era and this is the postco era I'm noticing a societal Trend um in discipline in public schools Across the Nation and I'm noticing um a further lack of regard toward Authority from the children to either the school teacher or the administrative staff so my my question to you and it's going to

be to all the principles is how would you see the restorative practices uh being carried out at green or do do you feel that there's a need for further you know concrete consequences imp place for disciplinary action so I I think it depends right I mean we have um we're doing a pilot right now of a uh anal curriculum called Satchel pulse we're doing it with two grade levels we're

about to start that roll out in the next two weeks so we've done some of the pre-work where we're um assessing the students and putting those practices into place so that we can teach those replacement behaviors so I I mean I do think that we have tried some restorative practices sometimes they're successful and sometimes they're not but we do we just we have gained so many students

over the last year and a half that we just we need the extra support so that's really why we requested that third vice principal um that Society has changed society's changed a lot but yeah I I mean I I don't think that there's a a one answer to that question certainly not uh with the extra VP in place do you think that maybe consequences could become somewhat more concrete if a child

transgresses you know the law the rule of the school uh and and what might the parents reaction I'm not asking you to answer all of that right now but that's these are the issues that I'm going to be looking at moving forward for our Public Schools I would hate to see anything happen in our schools like some of the news I'm hearing about in other schools across the country that's why I

ask these questions thank you well I just ask you to keep a real solid hold on um consequential action and to suspend if necessary you know if the action is a logical is it if it logically calls for consequence then give it and when when it where it calls for kindness then do out kindness thank you I yield okay anything further for green what a question go ahead Mr the um I finally found the

uh page that I was looking for is are you getting a new ESL mainstream teacher or is that on the I am so that's the other position um we are currently I I look today we because we had an influx over the last two weeks I at 336 students that are um MLL students it's about 42% of our um student population so we do need another MLL teacher so that we have one at every grade level

and Mr elme I'm I'm missing the the principal one that is that just in a different it doesn't go by school I guess this is the CU it's at the end the vice which one the vi the vice going to be paid on a grant I see it now yep the um and your numbers are obviously sustaining that uh level of of need and are you going to have anybody focused on

that do you have any Administration for ESL is I guess is that so we don't have any Administration for ESL we have I have an MLL coach that was a new position this year so I have an MLL coach and I currently have um four MLL inclusion teachers we just actually were able to hire someone in January for that fourth position we hadn't been a we were not successful in finding that person

but we do have that person in place now but unfortunately because uh we only have four we went from two to four we have um two teachers that are split so I have a a teacher that's doing third and sum of fourth grade and another teacher that's doing fourth sum of fourth and fifth grade right now now so ideally it would be great to have one teacher at every grade level so that

they are working closely with all of the classrooms that have those mainstream students but but that population continues to grow and out of that one that you split the numbers uh the same so roughly yes so roughly third grade you sounds like you have a person dedicated no third I have a person in third grade and they do two fourth grade groups and then I have someone that does all of fifth grade and

they do another fourth grade group and how about second grade second grade is the new teacher she's doing all of second grade um that's actually my largest population I have 72 MLL students at second grade and next year theoretically those students that larest population would go to third some of those students are 28 of them are foundational students so they have a foundational teacher I have that

foundational strand at my school so 20 of those students are in the foundational class but like what has what has classically happened is some of those students will um exit the foundational classroom because that's the goal and go into the mainstream classroom so that's why we have so many students right now at second grade 72 students but most of them are main our mainstream students so yes so that third

grade um cohort the kids going into third grade next year that will be a large cohort and do you know and if you don't know superintendent I'm sure I can get it how your ESL numbers per teacher comp compared to other places um I don't know that off of the top of my head now I I will say Mr agar that for the specialed positions and the elll positions um what we've told principles

were was that um Miss zagarella has been uh combing through numbers looking at placements and making sure that we have appropriate staff to support students needs based on the levels they're at same thing with Miss Oben chain so those are what I call compliance positions we're not going to say no to a position if it's a compliance position right but it's also going to be based on case load

yes an ideal situation it would be great to have a special ed person at every grade level or a at uh an ESL person at every grade level but the case load needs to Warrant that full-time position and who is going to recommend that Mella Miss zagarella yes so so she miss um Dr Dunn has already that's requested the numbers warrant that and that's already in your budget but additional positions

if Miss mag uh zagarella uh needs positions or Miss soan chain needs positions so that we can serve as kids we're going to do it it's and I don't disagree with that but that theory of how that is going to proceed is how I was asking that the whole thing succeed so you and your your uh senior leadership would look at it and say no we need a a proper amount of VPS at each

school because the numbers basic so so we can't go back and forth in my opinion between one time it's going to be up or the principal has to request it the next time it's going to be a director's going to request it all I'm trying to do is say what the kids need they should get I don't really care who who uh presents it but that's I I agree with that just I

want to try to M maintain consistency with it it's got to come from multiple places I would guess I agree it's just those are district placements that's why yeah um so the district leaders uh Dr Dunn had her V p in the budget it's just being covered through title one so I just want to make that clear yep the uh community facilitat in Esser is says 86 Mr elmeer and I think you it just just

to use up that money is that the so we we have the S funds through June I'm sorry June September 30th so that is going to cover the month of September of the salary so it's covering like I'm not so sure like it says 86 Esser and then it's it should be 086 for the operating budget and then we so you're saying that you it's on SR last year now correct so

the position is an Esser funded position in f125 we're going to cover the salary for September out of Esser and the remainder will come out of the operating next year you're going to continue to fund 100% so when we add all these up you're going to at some point tell us we don't have a structural deficit because we have money yet correct um yeah I I I support it I think it's a good conversation to have

with uh I personally think based on what the conversation we just had about the El ESL that it warrants another teacher that's just my opinion I'm sure you'll get back to us on it thank you I yield nothing further okay thank you Dr dun uh as superintendent announced turn principal is not here tonight so we'll go to Sylvia does anybody have any questions for Sylvia School anybody have any questions for

Sylvia hearing none thank you next school up is Spencer bordon Spencer bordon any of the members of the committee have questions for Spencer bordon yeah I do oh Mr AGA just talking about the um what I see here on the program improvements I guess it's the same question but if I'm looking at new positions slash program improvements I don't see any anything from Spencer Borton am I missing

something you don't see any additional requests I don't see any requests and then I'm trying to get to the page where there comes principal Bradley Mr AA um so Spen Spencer bordon is getting a ESL position we are moving the ESL position from tany over to Spencer bordon so it's a conversion so it should be part of the conversions page El so when you go when you go through yes El yep so when you go

to and they are they moving kids is too is that the rationale for that is Lisa here Lisa I'm saying so you don't need it at T anymore is that why better if you talk about

it

thanks hi everybody so there are a minimal amount of students who live in the tany neighborhood um who are multilingual Learners the plan is to offer those students a seat at Spencer bordon because that is the closest school realistically there are some shifts that I had to make districtwide that we cannot afford an FTE for six seven kids um and it makes sense to put a critical mass at a different

school so if you look at the numbers at tany for the current because I'm assuming this position was all year how many students were they servicing at tany currently there are 15 not all of whom belong to tany okay so they're moving voluntarily we have to speak to the families well we're pulling the service out that position has been unfilled all year so there is no currently there is no service at

tany and who who legally Services them kids don't we aren't we obligated to provide services we will owe them compensatory Services we are out of compliance and we have nowhere in the whole District that could service those kids that no I have empty positions across the district still that's not good news not for lack of trying I assure you yeah no just just not being critical just that's not good news um and then

Spencer bordon I guess did they not have a person or is this going to be an additional person based on the numbers this will be their third person which will allow them a little more flexibility to service they have a large substantially separate population as well who need services so it will give us a little more flexibility in how to schedule those teachers if there are three of them to be able to meet the

needs of all the students that Spencer boarding currently has yeah I I I guess it makes sense just not necessarily not ideal not ideal so um I had to make a few not ideal decis I understand totally the uh other than that spener bordon didn't request anything no that was our our main request was for that additional L teacher and does that mean that you flush is that why or what's the so we do

still have a couple open positions that we've been trying to fill all year one is a special ed inclusion position similar to L very challenging positions to fill this year um so those will remain open and we'll continue to try and fill those but in terms of any new positions or any conversions it's just the L teacher and when you say didn't that was not filled all year either not

fill Lo of try I'm assuming but the the L teacher would be new that would be new to us no the one that you just mentioned the special inclusion yes Y and so we've had nobody in that all year is it a substitute like how does that work uh no we've been kind of split up the case loads amongst the other inclusion teachers we've sort of pinched it together and made it work for this year

but um we're going to do everything we can to fill it how many students are at the Spencer board uh as of today we have 581 right so um when I look at the case loads for counseling it looks like you have three counselors which you might have one of the lowest case loads in the city MH in the school system and um speaking of the same sort of equality

piece um I mean it's a luxury to have an extra person but if you don't have any other needs needs you know you're not going to say please cut one obviously um when it comes to a teacher like that I and I mentioned this at the special ed subcommittee meeting we should look at hiring a teacher not necessarily if you hold out all year for a special ed certified person to service kids and get

nobody those kids are getting servic by their mainstream teacher we should just be advertising and looking to hire it with a teacher and get that person either a wave or certified or something but a person that's a certified teacher makes more sense and I'm going to hear this all night we had vacancies oh we had a position it was vacant it was vacant it was vacant I'm going to go nuts but at

the end of the day those kids didn't get serviced you just split it up and so well they did they have received all their full Services uh so all that were're in compliance with all the students we've just spread it differently amongst the existing teachers that we have right but if I if that logic holds then I would say then we don't need to position because you just said you had it all service we go

down to you get what I'm saying so we want it to be an ideal situation where you have the right amount and we're not just doing the bare minimum we want to do extra so not giving you a hard time it's just that this is this is what it does when it come times to budget so if you didn't ask for anything and great I yield thank you okay anything further

the spensive Ard yes Mr Cory yes Mr Bradley uh so with three three uh School adjustment counselors um to follow up on Mr agar's Point are there any classrooms um that uh um have too many kids in them or you know as far as um classroom size any classrooms that spike out at Spencer board and that may need readjusting no we're uh we work closely with the PACE Center for placements um and we're

within the ranges that are set by the school district at this time okay so that's good so I mean are the counseling case loads there full each week or can we afford to maybe shift a counselor to another school that has a a lot case load sure um our case loads are full one of the um you know unique things about uh spener bordon is our high number of students with special education services

so we have 204 of our 581 students have special education services and so a large number of those students have social skills groups and Sac services on their IEPs um so we want to make sure we're always doing everything we can to meet those minutes every week as well as 504s and other social skills groups that are Council run um so yes they're well utilized every day that's all I need to

know I yield thank you thank you m per um thank you for that so you said how many um students 200 with IEPs yeah uh 204 yes and how many students total in your school 581 so that's quite a bit of students I think we have to be really careful when and I understand what my colleagues are saying but I think we have to be really careful when we say 500 students divided

by this so it's not a math equation you could have a school with 500 students that may require more services than a school with 700 students right all our Scholars are unique and require different services and things so I think we have to really be careful and remember that Equity is different than equal Equity just means we're giving everybody what they need to suceed that may look different in every school um

and I certainly want to have faith in the principles that the superintendent manages um in that they're asking for what the scholars in that building need which may be very different from the next um so it seems to me that you need those those three and just thank you for your time I thank you thank you Mr Agia yeah just um you have in the budget it looks like two open special education

one to one Paris correct can you take us through how that's possible um so we uh one of those students came to us uh within the last month from the uh Early Childhood Center so that student um transferred over to us and the one to one that was with him I believe stayed at the center so he's come to us at Spencer bordon um he is fully covered

with the one to one right now um he is being covered by the class Pera um so he's in a place where he's getting all the required services and we're looking to fill that one as quick as we can we are um working with um an agency so when it gets to a point where we can't find someone uh necessarily you know through the regular procedures we usually work with an agency is still keep the

position posted but try and fill uh to make sure we have that service in place and the other one is so the second one we're in the midst of sort of converting that so we have a a a woman who's been working with the the one to one who that individual is preparing to move out of the city soon the student is and so we're looking to transfer her over to

that open position so that will that'll be filled soon so temporarily vacant it looks like correct the um this came up uh last year and we have uh situations where we have a onetoone uh Power professional working with a student mhm for a year they familiar with the kid they student they know whatever that student leaves and goes from school a to school b or whatever it is and stays

that person is still working for the district I if my memory serves me correct I was told that we keep that student with that person until such time as they so that they're not without because they've had a consistent person is that the case here or is this a new person um and why would they not why would that person not go with the oneto one and then we backfill that other

position because a Ono one's meant to build relationships as you know and all that stuff yeah yeah so with this this particular student uh without going into details um they are new to the city so they were very briefly at the Early Childhood Center before coming to us as Spencer bordon so they hadn't I don't believe I can't speak to their Staffing but I don't a long term right correct

otherwise it would have that's my understanding yeah with them so um my last comment is just about the case load so I don't say what I say lightly about case loads and and the like you have 581 students M you have three School adjustment counselors and you have an liaison mhm for 581 students now I would say the same thing to every one of the principles out there that's the numbers what are your

numbers if if it's good enough for Spence subord and I'm not picking on you sir but if those numbers are what we need in order to have our children be successful and you have some of the best score in the city if that's the numbers that require us to get the kids serviced properly I question everybody sitting out there what are your numbers compared to that because I check it out but I don't want

to be the only one trying to say this it is it isn't about well some kids are going to need more if that was the case you'd say I need more because my children are from the toughest part of the city they have X Y and Z we have these that's what the comment sections for on the budget but I don't see that so I just see okay you got three plus

Anais on MH if that's the ideal number then we should be doing that at every school that's just my stance on it with that I heal thank you thank you thank you uh Mr Bradberry thank you U Mr Bradley sorry uh tany elementary school do we have any questions for the tany elementary school I do hearing none I do oh I'm sorry Mr AGA go ahead

good evening good evening my question was around the same um how many students are at the school and we have 304 students currently and um I would say the same issue relative to school adjustment councel you have two so I told the last gentleman I think he might have had the best numbers but now I know that's not the case because I know how to add um can you articulate what um 150 person

case load at tany for school adjustment counselors is doing for your school that if you had one for the 300 what would the difference be in services to kids with to try to justify the 300 number so being a a k to 5 School we have them uh separated so that we have uh one school adjustment councel focused on k12 and the second focused on three four and five and they are busy there areal

needs they are running groups they're running small groups they're running um incentives going on I'm not quite sure well if you had only one it one it wouldn't be unmanageable it would be it wouldn't be it would be unmanageable so two years ago when we had as many kids or more we only had one it was unmanageable at that time is that what they told you before you came on it

wasn't there I'm not sure what it was like before I got there the only I just look at it when we have small numbers that what is the difference and I think it's a valid question on um on what can we do with 150 different than if it was a 250300 case load so you articulated that they rent some groups and they do some things I'm assuming that somebody in the district when we go

to departments can tell us how all School adjustment councilors are working on groups and this and that and we can have more of a discussion so was really not an issue for you sir just I wanted to clarify of what that was thank you I yield thank you uh Miss perea yeah I just had made last year we had talked about school adjustment councilors being two and one of the colleagues questioned

why you didn't have three you said at that time you didn't need it you've had now a year with two and I ju I just made a note uh do you still feel that's sufficient so last year um when we were going through the budget I didn't really know what the um's on were M um so not understanding the position fully I didn't ask for it I asked for um a special ed teacher

instead I could see if there is money at the end of this if there's a possibility of getting some Seasons into my building that that would be helpful for my building but at this moment I'm happy with my current status and you know it's only one of those things if there was you're happy well you have to ask for it you don't if you don't ask you rece yeah yeah all right and I've had those

discussions okay good yes and then the other question I had every student getting art and music I know you you have part-time so I just I don't know how that works yeah they get 90 days of Art and they get 90 days of music okay all right thank you that I thank you uh next school up vus anybody have any questions to the principal of vus sure M Mr Mr first then I'll go to Mr

AGA go ahead I'm just curious um Mr chairman as to how the language program is going at a virus how it's developing since it was first started and and see if it's working efficiently I'm I'm curious ask how the funding's going for a Tom I went to a lot of meetings for that previously so I'm just curious okay hi Mr Cory what would you like to know I just want to know how that program is

unfolding you know since we uh had its Inception a few years ago how's it looking to you um it's unfolding uh of course we have those challenges as we have in the mainstream classrooms with Staffing and um well mainly with Staffing but it it's doing well we're going into our we'll be rolling into the third grade next year so we'll have four um eight classrooms total of dual language at the vas next year no that's

it's it's very exciting the fact that it is unfolding and of course there are going to be challenges uh and it's um in its early days uh when people were still meeting at the ad building to try to form this program uh there was an outside consultant from the Midwest have you guys still been involved in outside consultations um not directly with FIS I'm not um Miss agella might be able to

speak to with the l department um we have a lot of dealing with we had um it's a different curriculum than they're using in the mainstream so we've had a lot of professional development and meetings with the curriculum company the curriculum people um training our staff in that curriculum how's the staff holding up okay uh yeah we have one open position that is you know not filled that we really would

like to get filled but other than that uh we have our visiting teachers from Spain and they're going in this is their second year with us and it's going quite well with them very well that's it I yield thank you thank you m Mr Agia the uh wait Trish oh I'm sorry hang on I believe last year the um you had a whole year without a counselor a bilingual counselor is that now filled like how is

no she was with us last year might have been the year before Mr AGA or maybe yeah your counselors are all filled all my counselors are filled yes and then I see you have a social worker for selfcontained classes can you talk about how many classes that is and there's four classrooms who have um their just social emotional disabilities so their IEPs are quite extensive with Sac pullout and um Sac Services uh if you

will in the secret so she Services those um students as well as uh forms relationships with families and helps tremendously with the success of that program is just School the uh designated um school for that or is there other program similar to those myself and Doran and Doran has a similar um social social emotional and the social worker service is basically that well that that

strand yes y the um question of the day I guess is I brought up the issue of a vice principal do you not need a third vice principal um of course it would always be nice but um no I mean the two Vice principles that we have now one Services K to2 and one Services 3 to 5 um I feel like we're we're running well uh we have a good system and structure

in place um I offered to be a school for perhaps an admin intern next year which would be wonderful uh and as far as like uh behaviors discipline and the like you got everything under control yeah we're having the same difficulties as everyone I mean it's always a challenge but I feel like um we have a lot of good systems in place virus yeah the um if I can Mr Cory talked about the what is the

consequences or whatever like how we're dealing with that I think it would be good for us to get a a print out of um discipline across all the schools sent to us because I think that's going to tell us a picture of where things are at with um child does a they get whatever you know so we can kind of get a feel for we don't get any of that data so I

don't know how many discipline referrals you had at your school or the next school I don't get any of that so it has really nothing to do with you but um I do appreciate it and thank you I thank you thank you next school up is uh Watson Elementary does anybody have any questions for the Watson Elementary School I do M Mr

Ary hi so first again congratulations I'm being out of uh you know the level four but um I see that your next year's projection is to go from 19% uh reduce the rate of chronic a absenteeism from uh 20 uh 36% to 19% how about want to just discuss a a few of the uh systems in place to what are they now and how do you foresee getting there sure um so we've been

struggling this year with attendance um in general um mostly since December and January we noticed a huge spike in absence students due to illness and whatnot and weather because most of our families do walk to school um we've been really utilizing the attendance car over at talbat we have a really good relationship with with the secretary over there we call she says it's there it's free we go use it we go pick up

kids um so we've been doing that a lot however we just instituted probably the week before vacation sort of what we're calling our for lack of a better word it's kind of an older education term sort of our bubble kids kids that could become chronic but aren't yet chronic so we have um and we're doing that K to 5 regardless of whether they're in kindergarten they're not quite six or

what have you with it counting or not counting because we feel strongly that that builds um habits with our kindergarteners so with that intervention we're we're calling it an attendance intervention we have many incentives um going on with those kids daily contacts um with the case loads that the um that the counselors have and the vice principal and I are involved as well so we um we know we want to hit

that Target Miss larvey we we knew we took a dip but it literally was authentic sickness illness and weather that was keeping people home and sometimes we'd call and um very honestly the families would say you know we know you can come pick them up but they're not ready or they're at V's house right now or something like that so that's the situation we're finding ourself in however it is on our board it is a

target we have a a step back a data meeting um on Friday and that's one of the sources of data that we're going to be looking at um it you know although it's not quote unquote academic if the students aren't in school we can't teach them so we do consider it like critical data that we are examining on a daily basis we do attendance calls every day uh we have case loads with our

counselors that call um and most it's really nice when we start out at 9:30 with the calls because the calls are made between 9:30 and 10:30 and we see those students walking in the door uh or where one of us is going over to grab the car from um talbet to go pick up a bunch of kids so and you think you have enough staff to support that work we do

when we do have um meetings in the morning so say this on Mondays we typically have all our um students with disabilities meetings with District staff if our councils need to be pulled in for a special case we we have sort of a second layer that have some relationships so that those calls can be made right yeah I like where you are now I don't want to see no you know I'll be

honest we don't like where we are now right now we lik where we were in November um but we we knew there was a dip but literally I mean when you have the councils coming in knowing XYZ what's going on in the homes so about the illness this in front of us is just uh we have the term one y you know numbers so we're not really sure where

today we had 92.9 I think it was and we started out with 91 when we started making the calls so we went up so we're happy with that we want to hit 94 but um we have a 94 Club every Thursday um and we were hitting it consistently through November um but then we you know for me being at Watson the last five years and seeing 88% on a daily basis um you know I think

you can tell we were we were struggling like what else are we doing but we have an attendance officer we meet with her weekly on Wednesday she's at our school every Wednesday today just for an example just to say just to show the response we had a kindergartener we didn't see her the Friday before vacation we didn't see her today so it's kind of a red flag we got the community facilitator involved she splits her time

at tany so she has a relationship with the family because she also has us a mini case load um because of some linguistic abilities that she has she was able to make the call but in the interim the attendance officer was on that email she said I can go out this afternoon at 1:30 so even though it's not her Watson day she's willing to go do that so it's a real team effort thank

you I appreciate the information yeah no problem Mr Agia by attendance incentives you mean what you said you get you do incentives y can you describe what those are sure um we have um we have weekly attendance incentives because um we got some feedback from our teachers that our monthly attend attendance incentives um sort of wasn't wasn't immediate enough so if you come to school every day um for one week

you'll get a dress down pass and those go a long way it's to and you get a special lanyard to wear that says I'm an attendant Superstar and um so when we see those children teachers alike see those children in the hallways we comment in front of the line lines that we may be walking to lunch or coming back from Recess or what have you so kids are really striving to have those um weekly attendance

incentives we also do um monthly perfect attendance Awards we also do what's called showup buckets um and um we if you've been in school that whole month you get some tickets you put them in the bucket and then tickets are drawn so and our PA system just got instituted so we're B to do that sort of more of a global basis so that when the tickets are drawn it's immediately known who wins and who

doesn't win well who wins so that impli you never had a PA system all year um it was um it was in the midst of getting um installed because of construction and how well last year last year we had one um that um wasn't up to the best um audio pieces but now we have stateof the atart good I'm sure we'll talk about that with that department the um same

question I had before so you have 271 students here today we have 266 yeah and then you have two adjustment counselors and twoa on we do um I just I'm not sure what um I asked the gentleman from tany the same thing like what with that case load what extra are your people doing that other schools can't because they don't have a case load of 135 or 130 to one plus uh an assistant basically you know

the there's a lot of staff for a short number of kids what what are they doing extra to you can you articulate that what sure sure um our adjusting counselors or our counselors um run a series of weekly um social skills groups um and also lunch bunches we sort of dis descrip discriminatees or distinguish between what students need what type of um sort of group intervention and those

um group interventions although they're not explicitly known to the students that they're there for X Y and Z they're there to build rapport to build relationships with students to make sure that behaviors amongst students don't show up in the classroom so that learning can take place I mean that's great case loads I I think there's a lot of uh support for a short number of students and superintendent

and I have had that conversation before but on the main page it just shows at the top and I maybe this is the way uh it says special education no elll no but there's teachers in there for both so I think that's probably a mistake on the cover page or is that just misreading so we don't have ell foundational classrooms we just have um um we just have um multilingual Learners at our

school who require um to be taught so many hours a week by ESL teachers and we don't have a maybe this means that we don't have a specialized specialed program but we do have students with disabilities at our school who require g c yes so and I is that in all the schools is that just a mistake or is that on the cover sheet here is that meant for only self-contained special

education or elll Foundation only but I think that's the program so if there's a that automatically uh she does not have it automatically fills in I guess is what I'm saying so other schools might have that same discrepancy if they don't have a specialized U special education program it's going to say no even though they have inclusion classes correct so I'm guessing that's what that is thank

you very much how you if I can just add Mr agar it's a good point but it's a perfect example Watson school has been a level four school for 10 years um yes you're right the case load is different it looks different they service some of the highest need School uh children in our district and they need some extensive supportal support and that's why that school has two sacks and twole

eais on to support those students I I agree with you and that's a perfect example of fair as an equal I mean there the population they serve requires that and and then some at times but it's warranted yeah in the day and age of we used to have limited budgets and we're going to have limited budgets going forward you have to balance between how much support can we provide a school with 270 students when other student

schools have 700 kids with similar needs like you're not going to tell me that students at the Watson have um this issues that other schools aren't facing they're all facing very similar issues in my opinion not to say yours aren't needed there's those kind of issues that you're having at your school that all those principles are having a their but I just have a problem every year saying

the same thing that school has been underperforming for 10 years and thankfully this year we moved out of it but that's a long long way to go and 10 years is a long long time to spend a lot of money and resources to see where are we that's my only concern and I think it's just a fair question to ask something that you need to tackle with your your leadership team to figure out

what do you what do you want to do that's all I agree worth every single penny every child is thank you anything further thank you Miss H uh can I just ask sure superintendent uh you know principal hog just mentioned an attendance incentive are are these across the board uh in all schools are they on their own structures I think they vary um I think uh schoolto School uh Dr bronhard has worked with

the attendance teams this year there's a uh a much different um uh push on attendance um as well as uh incentivizing we certainly know that kids have to develop good habits again um I think that school uh attendance teams create their own incentives based on kids and what they think that they will respond to so they have uh incentives but they look different from place to place are the incentives supported

financially or is it by school are there fundraisers do we put that stuff in the budget just some questions about that just quickly I mean I don't want to get too deep but just want to know about incentives so principles have their budgets and supplies line items within their budget so if they choose to use some of those funds um to financially invest in attendance incentives we've given given

people the green light for that in addition to that Student Activities accounts um that help create and generate money so that Folks at the building level can make decisions on where they want to invest their funds and in addition to that there's a lot of things our kids will work for that don't necessarily cost money so we've been also looking at and supporting buildings um with a variety of motivators I think

incentives is is a good word but really it's about motivating kids to come to school to set short-term goals and be successful in reaching their short-term goals um we've begun to roll out an attendance monitor protocol we've been working with buildings to really create manageable case loads so that the folks that are monitoring attendance building to building can get to know their kids get

to know the families and really begin to break down the barriers when they begin to show up as it relates to attendance we all know September to June is a long haul for families so one family that might struggle in the fall might be in the clear come the winter and in the spring and vice versa a family that's been able able to get their children to school all year and has a family mishap

in the middle of the winter that might change so when the attendance monitor is connected to those families beginning to engage in those conversations open up the opportunity to also Infuse Community Resources to our families you know we're a very special district I believe in the sense that we have a robust Community partner Network and so whether it's mass in motion for helmets for incentives or

bikes for incentives um working with United Neighbors and a host of resources that they also are able to provide um we have a wide range of folks that are willing to step up and support and so we're working with the attendance officers very consistently who are working with attendance monitors and working with principles and building leadership to really streamline those processes so it's really you know for

some folks this was a major shift going into this year for other schools it wasn't as much of a shift um but we are continuing at the attendance officer level to continue to build some documents and trainings and supports so that this can become the way of business um I I think it's also important to note today that we were able to take a look at some Sims data particularly looking

at the year-to-date improvements and overwhelmingly we are seeing double digits of improvement from last year to this year as it relates to Chronic absenteeism um I was way overwhelmed to be honest because as Mrs hog had mentioned our daily attendance rates have not been as strong as they were September October and November but when we look at Chronic absenteeism that's a different rate that is the rate that we

are assessed by for accountability and that is when individual students Miss more than 18 total Days by the end of year and so what we are seeing is that when we get our interventions in place and we really work with the student and the family those students are able to change their course that may not necessarily mean that we're up to 95% daily attendance which is really where we want to be but we're not seeing the

same kids absent as as regularly as we had in the past yeah and that definitely dictates what we have in front of us as well I mean we see did you get that chart from today no no I mean I by school by school when you like I just wrote down school by school and what The Chronic was versus the you know the daily absenteeism and it does show that chronic is a lot better than what

actually the regular attendant is show it's actually jaw dropping to be honest so we'll make sure that that gets shared in the Friday email we'll be sharing it in our um connection which is the weekly memo that goes out from the office of instruction and and my office as well um just to make sure that Vice principles guidance counsil is support staff are all equally informed because we are

seeing traction um and we are seeing our numbers go in the right direction which means when our kids are in school our opportunity to educate them only Rises right right um so it is ranging from school to school the autonomy of the principle the capacity of the staff the understanding of the staff to the model so we're working to really professionally develop everybody depending upon where they're at and

understanding the expectations and you think this this uh fy2 budget will show that that the support is there and you have enough support to reach the numbers you ultimately want to get to you think this budget okay thank you yes absolutely thank you thank you there Dr B next school up is the Doran community school do we have any questions for Doran Community School M are attendance

but I'll leave alone hearing none next school up is Henry Lord I just was trying to find my paper I have a question for Dorne Doran go ahead

Mr did um my question is basically on if you am I missing that you didn't ask for anything or am I just not seeing it no so um what I asked for was an additional MLL teacher and a conversion of the math coach to a stem coach so the only the only real new position per se is the third MLL teacher but I believe Mr Amaral can speak to that so there's so there's two

conversions uh here uh one was the conversion of the uh math interventionist to a stem interventionist and the other is a conversion for the ESL um the elll mainstream teacher and it should be all those conversions should be included on that same page that I referenced before Mr yeah just it is a little confusing I'm trying to do it on the Fly y u but the conversion of can you tell me the

difference between a math intervention and a stem is it just for certification or something no so actually because of the grade spans right the so our our department heads I have a uh an Ela department head as well as a literacy coach the math department head does nine plc's so supports nine grade levels right in math but also has to run um a 56 and a 78 science plc recently we've also started putting heavy

opsed uh curriculum into the lower grades as well so the coach would be a support staff to help run plc's in the science department as well as to uh provide feedback and it's vacant now is that so the math coach yes must be V otherwise you're going to lose an it it's been vacant all year I when when I came on there was no one there um we've interviewed there's been no one that's a

good fit so the the stem position is what I think is the next best step for us and you think you could fill it even though we haven't had success I would certainly hope it at least opens it broadens the Avenue of applicants right tying in science and technology as well seems logical the um and the conversion of the are you getting more support or you losing support I'm gaining an MLL

t-shirt where's that coming from it's through a conversion of the ESL coach trans that cus and the cus isn't losing anything like they the data shows that they're a cuss isn't here right yet but that would be my question when that comes up so thank you I appreciate it I yield anything further Mr Cory I'm just curious as to how um you have two adjustment counselors and two seaons uh how's that working out do you

need any more uh so I inherited the two Liaisons there working really well so what we do is we have them broken up in grade span teams right so I had my I have my vice principal my sac and an seal liaison working K to3 and the same system set up 4 to8 so the liazon push in like on a tier one level supporting the classrooms as needed and then the sacks obviously are doing uh

their work it's it's worked really well very well I hearing nothing further for Mr Agia Mr Corey just asked a question and it made me look at this a again so it looks like you have two sacks plus a student support coordinator and a guidance counselor yes so the school counselor is for middle school and a social worker correct and twoa so the social worker as principal witty uh referenced works with

our substantially separate classrooms which we have three of otherwise you have you have 511 students mhm and and six folks mhm so the again the liaison are are doing like tier one level they're also calling for attendance and things of that sort can anas on do a Lunch Bunch uh Yes actually they do uh so these uh so Miley aison push in they do attendance calls they also do lunch

uh groups as well as the sacks do um at times my vice principles do uh lunch groups I do lunch group groups absolutely yeah it's not reflection on you at all no no I'm just saying absolutely do is On's a new position mm the theory at the time was to create a position of sort of a mini counselor so the counselors would do the heavy lifts per se and then I've heard several times

people come up and say well I can justify having a lower sack case load because they're doing lunch bunches and if you don't work in a school and you you don't don't understand what that means but they should be doing the heavy lifts and the other ones can do the lunch bunches so you have great numbers God bless you uh as far as the uh councilors I'm not being critical it's just that

you do have a lot of support and when we get into like um us student support covid andat I personally think there is school judment councel they should all be the same I don't agree with them being different so this should really show uh three sacks thank you I yield nothing further thank you Mr thank you Henry Lord Community School Henry Lord community school do we have any questions for Henry Lord Community

School hearing none stone school K to 12 any questions for stone school K to 12 I have one Mr

agar

do you do you have any new positions um no did you lose any positions we have converted um our open math Coach position to a math department head that will be split between um RPA and stone and we have taken our full-time uh elll teacher we'll be splitting between Stone and RPA so you lost half of each basically you lost a couple positions yes and well one I would say one and you didn't ask

for anything else no thank you I yeld anything further thanks mayor thanks mayor um cus Middle School anybody have any questions for cus Middle School going once I do Mr

AAR so if we can just highlight that um are you adding any positions in rationale not adding positions um they're there are a couple conversions um so I'm looking to uh convert uh our uh Tech Coach position um instructional technology position into a science Coach position um to support our work in science um and the work of uh our new teachers in science in particular all of our teachers but

particularly our new teachers and then um two conversions of paraprofessional positions that have been in my budget to instructional support Liaisons um which just uh you know would give us um the ability to have an ISL at every grade level to do the work that our one ISL right now is doing focused primarily on eighth graders with our students that have traditionally struggled um academically with passing

their classes um we've seen um some good results with that this year in eth grade with the support to those students and we want to be able to offer that in sixth grade and seventh grade as well so no new positions but a few conversions and the um your school has how many students about 715 and I think you have a a little bit of a different um I'm looking at you it looks like you

have five School adjustment counselors we do now yes um because we took in um an additional um sub separate special education strand this year we took in um social another uh we took in a social emotional program that's two classes of students um that their IEPs are all social emotional um and so we do have a school adjustment counselor focused on that strand um and then we also have um a school adjustment

counselor that uh is focused on all of our other um special education sub separate classes uh we do have three strands at cus we have social emotional community-based uh and within Community Based we have uh medically fragile and we have a language-based strand and you have fouras on so according to this chart and you have we have one seelas on per grade level and then one that um supports all of our um

sub separate programs and two guidance counselors I'm just looking at the when I look at the chart here it looks like you have a lot of uh support as well as Administration and um sometimes we get complaints about schools and I try to balance that with maybe we not Staffing the place properly you know just in my own head thinking that but when I look at this it seems like um we've supported this school with

plenty of Staff yep that uh I think our expectations need to be higher as far as what we get out of absolutely the you know the school you know staff so I think you were here once and recently it's talked about having no special ed certified people is that am I missing that last year and now are you fully staffed in special ed or how does that work we we are fully staffed with the

exception of one um inclusion position math at the seventh grade level um we do have uh a vacancy there that we've had throughout this year I hope that will not be the case next year um we have been able to support those students this year um with some teachers who have been willing to take on um some additional classes um and support in seventh grade thank you I yield anything further for cuss thank you thank

you Morton Middle School any questions for Morton Middle School hearing none talber Middle School sir you do Miss larvey T talet we no no no short and quick I promise how you doing good how are you well I just want to uh talk about the uh convergence what's going on in your your school your brain so we have um let me just those

up so we have a dis we had the vill's Coach position um I was also in need of an additional ESL teacher at talit just to serveice students we have both foundational as well as students s Service in the mainstream setting and so um we're able to gain that ESL teacher through the conversion of a uh the vill's Coach position um and then our ESL Coach position uh is filled

at talbat this year um I think in working with u Miss zagarella and the other Middle School principles um that position would become a district DSL coach to support the three middle schools um um with their foundational with with their ESL teachers that each to the schools so do we currently have a vill's uh facilitator uh it's it's vacant it's vacant right so it says in here so has been vacant all all schools

uh the so the the person that was previously in the position moved into a different role and so it's been vacant since that person moved uh almost all year and you don't feel the need to I think right now so when we received the vill's grant a few years back we went on to one with devices um that at that particular time we spent a lot of time building teacher capacity a lot of

training and professional development around the technology integration um I think at this time we've um done that work to the extent that um you know we can really absorb that coaching and support with the rest of our administrative staff and instructional coaches at the building so I don't think we need a dedicated role for that right now okay thank you I yield sure anything else for talit Mr agar the speaking of

the vills wasn't uh am I wrong that those were all Grant positions didn't Verizon pay for those so so originally they were it was a partially funded position so it was never fully funded through Verizon but it was partially funded uh for the first two years I believe it was fully funded and then it fade and we've taken them on since but wouldn't we change the name then from vills isn't Verizon in the in

the reason why we call it vills is because it's Verizon yes so if now we're taking them on I personally wouldn't see that as a as a um conversion I would just say that's a new position which totally fine with but I I had that question a couple times in here with bills like what is what are we doing with this I've said this at the technology meetings for two years what

are we doing with uh when this is over what are we going to do for the school so um it's hard to figure out when it's grants not Grant it's this it's that but I think last year they were on the operating budget okay as even last year they were on the operating budget yeah I also and this is can be brought up in the Departments but the technology folks

should be working under Mr cabal and Mr faras in reporting to him in my opinion I think we changed a little that in the AR chots but it it would help us to compare all different schools so if Mr reposa says know you know my staff was trained with do whatever that answer was sounded good so they're good well another place says no we need a vill's type of person right we can't compare

we're trying to figure out what is this it should go all under Mr cabal he has to answer to how are all of the schools getting it versus um I know some people disagree and say well it's not equal and all that stuff it's just confusing it's not truth and advertising to say it's a conversion if it's not um do you have any other new positions that are you asked for that are not being funded or

I'm trying to look quick but uh no that that's it for my school and you feel like you have all the staff in place to make the gains that you need to make uh I do yep I think we're well resourced at talat we've you know over the last several years we've added um we've done a lot of work particularly with creating student support teams at each grade withle ason isls um and so I think that

structure has served us well over the last few years and I think it'll it position us to make the gains that we need to make and somewhere in here I read about a social studies coach is that going to be the only social studies coach in the whole District um I'm not a I'm not sure if the others if any other school is requesting that I'm not sure

it's a pilot it's a pilot I had this is this year I have it currently I have currently a social studies and a science coach and we piloted new curriculum this year at talit so we we are piloting new social studies curriculum 6 through 8 um as well at as at our school M tell me did you know is that in that Essa thing is that what I'm seeing it's going to be

paid for a title one is that why yes it's not like a new position cor he's saying correct um I still have a concern about how we're going to pay for all these things moving forward in title one which is a totally another subject so I yield thank you sir any further questions thank you Mr proposer next up is the resiliency Preparatory Academy any questions for the resiliency Preparatory K Miss Pereira come on up Mr

Riley hi principal Riley thanks for coming I have two questions one is I noticed a culinary teacher on here and I'm confused maybe you can clarify I thought that we were working with a partner to Institute uh culinary there is that a duplication like is that the same position or is this an additional teacher culinary teacher I think in our conversations during um budget time with the central

Administration team it was mentioned that if that was going to be a pathway that it should be included within the budget um so it is the same position it's just uh in the budget as opposed to a contracted service okay so it's the same position we're talking about they just look put it in the budget correct and then maybe I didn't see here but I didn't notice a music or art teacher that's still happening there correct

it's still happening that yes okay I just didn't see both music and art I'm sorry both music and art I think they're listed just as a classroom teacher there it doesn't say the subject but they're on my budget page that's just what I wanted to clarify okay thank you anything further for resiliency Mr a yeah you I would defer Mr Cory Mr Cory he deferred to you yes principal Riley so

um could you explain how the uh the new kitchen is coming along and and and how we're going to staff it The Culinary Kitchen yes uh construction has not started yet and uh so it is on your wish list absolutely is and we um I know there's been some movement on that Mr Pico can probably answer that better than I can but uh I know they have a contractor they've been working with and plans have

been set so it just hasn't broken ground yet that's okay I mean is it is it is it a plan that's moving forward I I believe so um on my end it is um it's just uh more about the construction piece I think right now that we're waiting for if if we're talk about getting the best bang for our buck for a school like yours then uh a chapter 74 program such

as culinary is so helpful and so constructive and so handson for those kids I see it to be a vital addition to the repertoire of courses that you have there at RPA um so I understand that uh people in Incorporated has been involved in the negotiations for this position and so how do we Rectify People Incorporated in our budget how's that supposed to work out that's probably not a com uh question

for me how to rectify um in the budget so it's on your wish list this is for next year next link has a person for this year it'll be for next year Madam superintendent is for next year so full-time person in on staff for next year is what the plan so Madam superintendent you're telling me as far as next year is concerned there will be a culinary program at RPA there there's

going to be culinary this year as soon as that kitchen is complete okay but it's going to be in in uh an abbreviated form the hope is that next year there will be a full-time person and that's going to be able to it will be incorporated in kids schedules and we will have be able to provide access to more students because it'll be all day long as options I think to you have a point too

Mr Cory I I worked in an alternative school that had a culinary Department in New Bedford and it was fantastic that the kids get the Hands-On learning uh they're able to have social skills by dealing with um orders that come in they work cooperatively with each other that develops social skills absolutely Mr can I please also join in if you don't mind because I was Central to that people in contract to support

ABS as also as part of our budget discussion we talked about building sustainable programs at RPA and as it was just noted the only program that is at RPA is a non-program we have an art class and we have a music class I think people link is an amazing partner and has been an amazing partner the culinary program based on a historical experience with people link has proven that when it

is is up and running in that building it gives our kids tangible skills that they can take into the workplace and initiate immediately as we also rolled out a few interest forms with our kids who attend RPA we also identified a range of programs that kid would have kids would have the potential to be interested in so I think it is explicitly important as we sit here now to just recognize that

our partnership with people link certainly has a place in the work that we are doing and I see people Inc as being a valuable partner to help us at additional programs but when we're talking about putting a program in a building we need to start somewhere to build sustainable programming so that as we recommend the smaller setting and the alternative option of RPA our kids and families across the community can know

and be confident that we are investing in RPA in particular programs if we want to move forward as a district and invest in a chapter 74 program I think that's the next best way to go but to be prepared to put that down for today I don't think we were ready to make that particular move but I do see a range of wide range of other programs um that based on student interest data our kids

were very explicit about a range of different careers and whether it's the Human Service field that they don't know they could be interested in yet whether that was in some cases a cosmetology interest in some cases there were also pet care and Animal Care and safety dog care animals trainings and so we've been looking at a range of opportunities that we believe people Inc has a place

currently at the table with us but also a future with us if the school committee chooses to agree to continue to partner with people link as that consultant but in no means and I just think it's important for the community to know in no means are we saying at RPA there's no place for you here if anything it's because of the work that people link started in partnership with RPA that we as the district leadership in

partnership with Mr Riley as the building princi principle we need to have some sust some Su sustainable programming excuse me that we can all commit to and no will be there for future budgets and isn't relying upon a contract with an agency outside of the school department particularly so I just want to be very clear I I I know that question came up a little bit once the budget went public I have not had a

chance to speak to that and because I was centrally connected in mobilizing that contract back in the fall I felt as though it was really important to have that public be put on the table today as well okay thank you yield Mr Agia Mr Cory mentioned that we've negotiated with people link for this position can anybody explain what that means it did I don't know I didn't know what that

mean we negotiated with them I'm not going to Mr Cory just said that that's why I'm asking so maybe no I I think you just miss used to miss words I didn't I I didn't imply that okay I think he was talking about what I would was thinking was I remember being in that meeting cuz I'm on the alternative committee and I was like wait I thought they were doing

this so in my mind why was it on this budget is the way I was processing it totally but then he clarified well no it's still one position and then the follow-up questions I just didn't want them to leave a hanging angle that like people link is no longer a partner next year at RPA that is not the intentions if anything the work that people link has done throughout their work at um RPA

this year has certainly informed us to recognize where our kids interests are particularly as it relates to job embedded opportunities and the Workforce Development components particularly what I think I'm hearing now is you're saying this culinary program was one of the more populars we're building a kitchen we're going to take on that program ourselves essentially so that we have

that uh sustainable for years to come I'm that's what I'm hearing from you okay and I still believe that there has a potential to be in need for additional programming because we all know not every student at RPA wants to be heavily involved in the culinary I hate I get it I feel with that I Y I just need some clarity um it's my understanding that Pi has uh people link has already hired

somebody about a month ago or so so is there any Clarity on that uh people links went through a um interview process hired somebody got them on board with the hopes that the contract the um construction would be done um for the semester so we'd have someone in place um to start with the Serve Safe and those kind of things early on in the program okay okay wait I have another

question I'm sorry so do we did we already hire somebody I'm confused we have somebody already working just feels no we do not feels murky we are not hiring we contracted we did not we are not hiring that person we contracted with people link and they are taking care of the two tutors okay and The Culinary staff okay for the contract and the Workforce Development work okay we are responsible

for getting the kitchen up and running I can't speak to where that part's at however we did talk about the classroom elements of The Culinary work learning how to read kitchen utensils learning how to cut the Serve Safe Serve Safe pieces however we all know we can only do so much until the kitchen's there so so my question is the culinary teacher that was hired is there a culinary

teacher right now in the school there is not I think she was hired and then um when there wasn't classes she decided to decline the office okay she was hired but then we didn't have a kitchen so that makes it difficult to be a culinary teacher so we don't have one now what I'm what I'm saying is if people Inc hires a culinary teacher I would hope we don't fire that one and hire a different

one does that make sense sense I think that's what the well everyone has an opportunity to apply for the positions within the for of public schools and then as always we will always seek for the best candidate for our kids um I would assume if that person wants that work and and they're in line they will absolutely would be principal Riley's decision all right thank you and I also

wouldn't want to minimize the other work that people's inc's doing there they're tutoring five days a week in our building um doing mcast prep doing quite a bit of work it's not just about the culinary piece okay thanks um Mr Agia thank you so I was just quoting what I heard that's the only thing um I think that as far as my analyzing it is you we don't have a position in our budget

currently for The Culinary so you can't be hiring any body in the district otherwise this wouldn't be a new position this would be a filling of a of a vacancy or something like that so I do think you need to have it as part of the school Community Partners are valuable in certain ways but there's nothing like having a program working with you uh I worked in the same school as Mr Riley

with the culinary and it worked because the teacher was a newbedford teacher they actually run the program they work for the principal they're able to serve as kids in a variety of different ways with various options so that's the way to go 100% to build capacity within my question is is why do we not have the kitchen so we we've been talking about we had a last subcommittee meeting

several months ago we got another one coming up but I guess maybe the superintendent can get us some answers on that offline but we have the money as far as I'm concerned I thought it was coming out of the nutrition account is from what I thought I recall but we just have to get it whether and I really care where the person gets hired from and what I would say based on this conversation is if we

can get the kitchen up and running and there's 5 months of school left we should advertise for a for this position is for next year but I've said this in other departments we have the money why are we not filling positions now with us so now he gets the person so the person wouldn't say I applied for that program and then I didn't get just come up with the extra money right now which we have

fund fund it let's say it's in April for three four months hire the person in April why wait till July we have a contract with we have a contract with people link so as soon as we have the facility that is ready to support the program people link is ready to support us with the person because that was part of our contractual oblig that was the part of the contract that we signed with

them um I think we're at a place right now just because we don't have the physical plant set up at RPA um and originally our intentions were have to have this set up late January early February at the latest so we are certainly behind the aall that piece of it um so it's not it's not a budget it's not a budgeted piece issue right now but why would we hire why would we allow

people link to hire somebody their contract ends in June 30th already paid the money for that contract that would be paying that salary so we're not otherwise people link would we would have just what do you mean we paid what what does that mean it was part of the contract that is part of the contract contct right so we paid we were going to pay for a person that's going to work for people link and

instead of saying okay we didn't have the kitchen so therefore we are going to claw back that money and pay a person to work for the school system because that's what we're going to be going with moving forward I think it makes more sense to do it that way than to say oh we gave them a contract for unless I don't know it's to so lucrative when I was at the meeting people link was

putting you know money into the game so if that's the case I don't know then we paid them ahead of time so we pay for services that we don't have so right now if there's no kitchen if the kitchen can't get done until July 1 sorry we just lost all that money is that what we're going to do technically speaking if we already paid them for the position the kitchen's

not open are we just going to lose that money no 20 grand 30 grand I think we need to go back to the table first of all this a communication piece that needs to happen we need to sit with people link and look at what our options are certainly um we didn't intend not to have the kitchen ready we thought it was going to be ready in January then it was February it's still not ready that's

impacted hiring that person that's not a people link issue that's our own internal issue that needs to be rectified and if you you are correct if they're not able if we're not able to get that up and running and to fulfill that piece of the contract we can sit down and figure out how can we repurpose or what are we going to do but that will require us sitting at the table with

people link Mr Riley and figure out what our next step should be it sounds logical to me I mean that just as we're talking it just makes sense to not just go down that road because we have a contract that we can't fulfill with without a a place but yeah I don't think I was prepared to have that level of the conversation in this moment also not even not realizing coming back from

break that the kitchen still wasn't done because I think there was also conversation of whether over break that was going to happen so I think you're on the right track personally I think you know what you need to do and I think you're on the right track for that so Mr Riley the only question I had was and the at the subcommittee meeting we talked about a clerk or some position is

that reflected here is that you're you're good right now or is that still up in the air no we had talked about a Sam position I don't think there's a need for that after um really the school getting to a better place than it was uh this committee and um central office team supported an additional VP an additional seal an additional sack it put us in a much better position um to deal with the day-to-day minor

infractions that were happening uh included with the major infractions happening so I feel like we're in a pretty good place for that right now thanks the only uh thought on that was I think at the committee meeting a couple months ago we were going to look back and see if we had either an attendance office par at all schools where I think we were talking about that if he only

has one person there we really need a second office person the only thing I would ask you is to go back and see if that's a need because no matter what school it is you need a backup or you know so he can't be having to answer the phon if he doesn't have a second person so uh if you look at that but I do think you're on the right track with it and um

how about the gym there was some issues with the you were going to get a a workout room in with a universal I haven't had a chance to get down there but is that all up and running yeah so some of the construction work has started um both with the gym there's the I know you know it but to describe to everyone else there's a gym basketball court behind that there's a separate

room that's a little smaller than this room that has um uh potential for weightlifting or or things like that um we started to look at the room next to it which is the teachers room for fizzed and making that a cardio room bringing weights that are formally dery um into the room uh that are stored at RPA right now to build a a good workout center so the kids that aren't playing basketball

or badminton can have a rotation around and fizzed and and be healthy um walk on treadmills uh and there was room to move the teachers to another room down in the the gym area so that's that's going going and we also have construction going in our old CC which we we'd like to call a student Commons now and really invest into kids in that room with a school store a bathroom uh have some of

our meetings in there our staff meetings our professional development so the community engagement Center is no longer it's in another classroom there wasn't a need to be in that big of a room uh we talked with people Inc they agreed um so we're trying to make it a uh as you probably know from that building there's not a lot of good meeting space for large num uh and so we trying to create that in

that room thank you very much I yield anything further for RPA thank you thank you uh last the last school we're going to do tonight is uh dery High School does anybody have any questions for dery high school yes Mr Agia say yes yeah I I see uh I guess this is more of a Mr almeer question but there's a lot of s that 088 thing and um i' just be

curious as to how that um sustains long term y this just shows that I'm assuming that those were Equitable across the district for paying the percentage out of the SF so as I'm looking at that number dery has a quite an extensive list of those so correct just makes me concerned that we can sustain it going forward the denial I guess denial or the requests that were denied it seemed like it was heavy on

elll uh at the high school is can you comment on that or is that sure um it's more about the ELA delivery to ESL students as they emerge at of foundation and begin to bring in more support Beyond language acquisition so that this is curriculum this is Ela curriculum getting students ready for mcass and Beyond so uh a co- teing model that we have in some aspects of the ESL world was spotlighted by a desie visit

as something to build on and with more students we've grown to almost 600 ESL students this year um the needs there so um we're looking internally in the budget for the on the nose to say okay uh as we go through the um programming meetings coming up for Section counts when it gets down to NY gritty how many algebra classes are there going to be how many geometry classes Etc as you

know we do have open positions um in the budget um and we' be looking at potential conversions to uh fill those needs I don't have it I for some reason can't find it am I wrong that there was a tremendous amount of positions that were in that uh area that are were not funded I'm just trying to get a a paper that shows with um how many but y I'll I'll tell you in a

s so positions that were not funded for dery were one ESL s teacher three der ESL mainstream teachers three e parl teachers two isls for SLI a adjustment counselor for sped a counselor adjustment for revolve a Sam um a cbte environmental teacher and a cbte construction craft labor teacher those are the positions that were requested that are on the wish list yeah I I mean we've supported dery

with budget like I've never seen over the years and it just was glaring to me that there's obviously a need if you're presenting this as an option that you need and I would assume that the ELO director would agree because I don't think he would probably just make that decision without her but um I'm concerned about it because I just think that it it looks like as if we're we're not funding something that is a

glaring need if if it was one position I would probably say ah you know when you see all those positions there's something more to that issue there 100% is um so yes that the uh desie did come and they saw some things that they liked at dery conversely conversations that Mr DeMar is not privy to at all times we are sort of in a position with desie talking about um sorry sorry notes um

ESL Service delivery models and the budget represents ESL teachers delivering strictly ESL instruction so Kota Ela is a great model to have and desie loves that however it does not count as ESL instruction so as a district we're operating under the aices that ESL teachers are going to deliver ESL instruction and that we are not funding anywhere necessarily A co-taught Ela a co-taught

math a co-taught social studies in an ideal model we could have an ESL teacher follow students all day we don't have that ideal model that would require making the majority of our classes in Fall River Co talk classes so at this time we're not I'm not able to say that that we can do that lots of schools have requested having an ESL teacher in math have you know and those conversations were just we can't fund an

ESL teacher being with our ESL students all day long but dery has the eight positions 10 positions whatever it was I haven't seen that same problem for all the teach other so other principles haven't presented that they have that similar problem that you had without the need and maybe it's is verbal that they're telling you or you're right so I've had conversations with other principles prior to these meetings and I

can tell you other principles have asked I Dr beton Court was one that said you know I've spoken to other people it would be great if we could have a co-taught model across all classrooms it would be great if we could have a co-taught model co-taught requires that a teacher be with the students and be responsible for the ESL students and the ELA students they'd be responsible for all the students in class

um and that would not count as their ESL instruction so that teacher would need to be on delivering ESL instruction and pushing in and deliver and co- teing an Ela class and you're saying right now we don't have any co-taught English classes of dery we do so why can't you do why can't you just take one of those classes and put an ESL teacher in there and and get the bank for that buck for the same

position I don't understand so if you have an English class that has a English teacher co- teing which is the preferred model and you're saying if they had a ESL teacher in there instead of that person it would count towards the um no no doesn't count it's not their ESL that's their Ela class and we're saying we're going to also put an ESL teacher in the room it'd be nice to have but

it's not part of the required services that kids need so if it's required that the ESL student gets serviced by an ESL teacher in English then are we not compliant well no they need to get ESL services in addition to getting services in English so if I if I'm a ninth grade student I need to have my Ela class and if I'm an ESL student that requires Services I also need to get ESL services in

addition to and so what desie has changed within the past year or so is that they are recognizing ES L as a separate content area so a student who is designated as an English learner would need to have science math social studies Ela and ESL so saying the ESL teacher is in ela unless that teacher is delivering an ESL curriculum in the ELA classroom the students not getting ESL they're getting

Ela right right so you have right now they're getting the service outside I assume because otherwise we'd be out of compliance again there are instances where we are currently out of compliance because desie is currently shifting their models so what do you need in order to be in compliance and give the students the best opportunity to succeed they all need to have ESL class so how many

teachers does that mean that you need is that the three was it three teachers that he asked for we're asking for three for mainstream and would that service that would that cover your needs that would be in addition to covering the needs so in a level funded budget in a in a budget where we're not looking to add positions that are nice to have I did not advocate for adding CAU Ela positions or caught math

positions you didn't but he did principal did mhm so how does that work so this becomes one of those things Mr agar where if the principal wants it I guess I guess it becomes a question of do we offer that to all schools because I flat out said to to principles no we're we can't fund ESL teachers to co- te classes especially because we do we have a shortage of ESL teachers so I

absolutely need right now I have open positions for teachers who need to teach ESL and those are not filled so I could add lots of positions and would offer our students a better education and those positions will be open because I I don't know where I'm going to manufacture all these additional ESL teachers from I I understand but the problem is is that if we're going to claim to be using

data and information to make our budgets the data that I you're saying and he's saying even though it seems like you disagree but it sounds to me like you both agree that you need a lot more services up there for those children to me the data indicates we need to add positions whether you fill them or not or can fill them or not isn't our issue here but what I'm hearing pretty clearly

is that it's it's not what we need to do up there because we have the need so we have a need across all of our schools right but if you're not in compliance you just told me twice tonight yet we're not in compliance with ESL correct if we're not in compliance then you through the superintendent need to come to us and say we're not in compliance so in order for us to be in compliance we need

positions a b and c that's just my feeling very basic after the discussions we've had I don't believe that with the current budget as the way it is that we're compliant we're doing what we need to do to make compliance whether we can't fill a position or not isn't the issue the budget positions it appears to me that we're not in compliance with ESL that's what I feel like and as Mr dearis

was discuss like inclusion isn't done right at in Fall River I've said that at a meeting so if we need more inclusion teachers then we should be putting them this should be much bigger because we got millions of dollars that we should be spending and I think we forget H we just there be some winners in the budget some loses in the budget and to me me we need to either be serious about

inclusion if we're going to be serious about ESL you tell us what you need and we have to put the positions um so I'm prioritizing this year Mr agar I'm prioritizing ESL instruction in the ESL budget if we want to grow beyond that and we feel that we have qualified teachers to deliver ESL instruction in an inclusion setting in addition to delivering ESL instruction I absolutely would be all for for that in the future

but right now I don't even I can't we don't have the ESL teachers delivering ESL which is the number one thing that I have that is the compliance anything beyond that is a nice to have and it would be wonderful to have but I've got to get ESL teachers in ESL teaching positions before I put them in co- teing math co- teing Ela C- teing social studies I get it but I was only

responding to when you said that the high school wasn't in compliance with with the way the desie is talking about it or something like that I was responding as if you had said to us the high school's not currently in compliance because of the way they're counting the teachers correct so what we're saying is that ESL delivered in ela is not the model that desie is looking for us to continue with unless

it's in addition to ESL deliv like there needs to be an ESL class and then there can be a co-taught Ela class in addition but we've got to get them their ESL Services first and you're saying we have all the ESL services at the high school are being serviced except for SLI which is why right now we have funded one SLI teacher and we're keeping the second one on the wish list pending we are not sure

how many kids we're going to identify as life we have not currently had a robust process as none of the state of Massachusetts has a robust process for identifying our s students the state of Massachusetts has changed their guidance on what we need to do to identify s students and based upon the new guidance we anticipate that we're going to identify many many more right now as of last count it was nine

at dery um and so our s program is something that we need to build out we're part of this life community of practice we're trying to learn what other you said 90 or nine nine nine students and then you're anticipating it going to we don't know there's it's very difficult to gauge interrupted education in other countries yeah I just listening to what we get on a daily basis superintendent

sends us notices of children coming in nobody going to tell me that we don't need more ESL teachers and ESL support so I think you agree with that all I'm saying is that let's put some positions in the budget so that when you go out to be looking now is the time to try to find those folks so if we can't fill them we can't fill them you know you

can't get blood from a stone but right now I don't think that we've got all the positions that we would need to service our population and I'll say the same thing to special ed when when they get up here so make the positions in the budget so we can at least try to fill them that's my only thing so um Mr Demaris my last question was on the the counselors I know we talk about this

you've increased a lot as well yes um there's no I think there was a request there for one more or something like that is that um two more yeah one for evolve and one with a specialed focused case load do we have did we ever have one for evolve or was that there is one so you want two mhm profile the student in the v program there's a lot of Demand

on that one sack all day day long yep and there's 100 kids in there 100 no next year you're going to have 150 I don't know about 150 I don't have a space for 150 where it is that's the first time I heard that number that we're going to be at 150 next the to grow to 150 would be ideal but we're the dery high school now has 2500 students we have 400 more than just

a few years ago uh the school was designed for 2570 that's what msba gave us not the same we can't fit 26 2700 kids but space is an issue yep I was basing it on subcommittee meetings where I've been given documents that indicate that we're going to go to 150 or at least improve off the 100 so that's where I got it from you should surprised but that's where it was it's not I'm not

making it up it's no no that's a number that's out there but I think it was with with on the bar track in terms of their expected growth right I think that's that was the bar um they wanted us to expand to that we knew that if they were going to be at dery high school we would not be able to um uh fulfill that that requirement because we don't have the

space we actually moved evolve from one area last year and expanded to 100 to uh move the health uh swapped out the health Wing to make space to add additional classroom space but um currently we don't have additional space to go up to 150 we would have to make some decisions as to what that would require yeah I think that time is now personally because it's getting late and

maybe we can add that to the agenda next month for the subcommittee U but I do think that it's uh we do we have increased a lot of counselors up there um I've told you this before I think results are the most important pie to me and I'm hoping that the results are going to be there with that iel thank you anything further okay um uh I want to thank all the principles tonight I appreciate you

coming out and answering the questions I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so MO toj second D call the rooll please M Dro yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Cory yes Miss L yes Herrera yes M rodri yes Mary Coogan yes

so