3.10.2025 Fall River School Committee

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I'd like to call to order the Monday March 10th regular meeting of the forest school committee uh Deb would you please call the role Mr agel Mr Bailey Mr Das Mr Cory here miss laravie here miss Pereira May hugan here salute to the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for

all pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made with a perceived are unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible we have no we have no recognition Awards tonight but we do

have our two student delegates here first up um the dery student delegate Brook tekas Kyle cares hosted a student staff dodgeball tournament which was extremely successful in a fun time for all we had an athletic we had the Athletics youth Summit that was hosted at dery for the big three um conference consisting of dery New Bedford and Brockton on March 4th where over 80 student athletes were

hosted and we had we sent over 30 students to compete at the state Deca competition which was in Boston which is also a few weeks ago and at the end of this week we have our ual Juniors versus seniors Powderpuff football game where girls play flag football and boys put on a halftime performance and congratulations to the dery marching band where us bands congratulates The BMC dery High School Marching Band on

their outstanding recent success us band serves as a National Organization for Scholastic music performance with over 600 high schools participating and hosting 140 events nationally each year we are pleased to share with you that the BMC dery marching band has been promoted to the Open Class of competition representing the top Marching In ensembles throughout the country for the 2025 season

congratulations again to the staff and student performers on a fantastic accomplishment very nice thanks book and next from um chairman one comment please according to her comments I'd like everybody to give the dery marching ban a huge Applause for their incredible Year good job thumbs up thank you Mr chairman uh Robert madus prep academy uh Navea akondo hi everyone we have some great

things going on at RPA at out of the CC we have a licensed Barber coming for our speaker series tomorrow and we also have a resume writing Workshop Thursday with Emily in the CC so for student council we also have the Katie Brown project um coming in basically this week we'll have a present a from the Katy Brown project which will cover important topics um that are relevant to our

community and lastly we have a Community Partnership with First Congregational Church um March 19th we are partnering with the church to help prepare for food for their members that go to the church so it's awesome way for RPA students to give back to their community and we also have the culinary our culinary running up it's like up and ready now so yeah thank you for your your attention we're

excited about these things so thank you good job um we have a number of people signed up for Citizens input as you know there's a half hour cap on it and till you can finish at the end of the meeting but uh if everybody does the three minutes we're going to be fine first up is Denise migga Sandra Court Bristol three minutes please T good evening distinguished members of the school committee and those that are

in attendance at tonight's meeting thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of the Fall River administrators Association 23 years ago I made the best decision of my life to complete my Master's guidance internship at dery which ultimately led to the best job that I can imagine being a dery GU counselor frps students are truly the best and the people I work with are also the best and have become my extended

family there are current members of the school committee that I had the honor of working with earlier in my guidance career they know the incredible amount of work that any administrator has to accomplish during their workday which often flows into hours after school this is needed to make sure that all students will have everything that they need to be successful if those school committee

members can take a moment to think back to the day-to-day demands within their positions how much Blood Sweat and Tears went into trying to make the biggest difference they could in the lives of their students now imagine that you have what feels like five times more work and responsibilities and you will understand how the job has changed since you retired or left your positions Fall

River administrators are some of the most dedicated caring passionate and enthusiastic people that I have had the pleasure to work with we want to do everything that we can to offer the programs and services that meet students where they are at currently and help them to make Leaps and Bounds to what even they do not yet realize they can become fra staff are integral to the day-to-day operations of forever schools

and are fully deserving of the same compensation increases as any other unit within Fall River schools I am here to ask today that the bargaining team for the district should continue negotiations with the Executive Board of the fra it has been over a year since we entered negotiations and we would like to finalize a fair contract for our members by the end of the school year I can think of nothing that we would

deserve more at this time thank you thank you Denise next up uh Libby faen old Williams Road

dayon good evening esteemed members Libby can you move the mic closer to you okay good evening esteemed members of the school committee teachers staff and everyone in attendance my name is Libby faen and I stand before you not only as an employee who has dedicated 18 years of service to the school ISM but also as someone who was once an immigrant coming to this country at a young age with hopes and dreams of a

better future I grew up in Fr River walked through the Halls as a student and years later I returned to serve the community that helped shape me I've had the privilege of working with students teachers parents and community community members supporting them in every way I can I am passionate about the work I do and I am committed to supporting them in every way I can um I am committed to the success of

every child who walks through our doors it has been my honor to contribute to this system even in my if my role isn't always at the for spotlight I'm here today to speak on behalf of the Union administrators whose vital work often goes unnoticed I want to remind you of the critical role we play in making sure that our schools run smoothly as administrators we work not just within the confines of our contracts we are

often here before school begins and stay dayong hours after it ends and sacrifice our weekends to ensure that everything is in order for our students teachers and families we put in countless extra hours because we are committed to this community I can say with certainty certainty that we work more hours more days and often under more pressure than many realize and yet despite the demands

of our job there remains a significant Gap when it comes to Fair compensation that's why I urge you to support the ongoing NE negotiations for a fair way AG increase for Union administrators these are people who are often the unsung heroes working tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure everything functions at its best a fair wage increase is not just about financial fairness it's a recognition of the work

the dedication and the commitment that goes into ensuring the success of this District I spent 18 years pouring my heart and soul into the school system and though I am approaching retirement I will always carry with me the Deep pride of serving this community but I believe that in order to continue attracting and retaining talented administrators who are committed to this work we must offer

compensation that reflects their contributions it is more than just a matter of pay it's about recognizing the value of the work we do the time we invest and the positive impact we have on the lives of our students teachers and parents it's about showing respect for those who support the fabric of our community day in and day out as we move forward with these negoti iations I ask

you to think of the long-term benefits of ensuring that Union administrators are treated fairly you want to continue to give our all but that commitment needs to be met with support a fair a fair wage increase is an investment not just in the administrators but in the future of our students and the strength of this community thank you for your time and consideration thank

you next uh I think it's Michelle hunt nanet Boulevard um Cranston

Scott uh three minutes please Michelle thank you good afternoon hello allow to intro introduce myself I'm Michelle hunt as you just said I just repeated myself it's like being with the fifth graders I've been employed as a fifth grade Alara supporting the lerno school administrators teachers and the amazing gen Ed and special ed students my passion is an educator with over two decades of early childhood

education experience my superpower is the genuine connections that I make through positive enthusiasm and energy towards my beautiful School Community however my concerns are for the student and staff safety last year of April I experienced a life change in work rated injury primarily due to staff ratio the pay should be as such that I'm not resolved to other means of supplemental income and

exhaustion my physical abilities are performing specific daily tasks I will close with I do take pride in the Far River School District and would like to seek what's in best interest of everyone thank you

next up is Keith Michonne trian Avenue East

Providence good evening I'm Keith michon president of the Fall River Educators Association and here we are again continuing to advocate for fair contracts bargaining can be difficult for both sides but one of the great things that comes out of this for me and I hope for you as well is a growing appreciation for the workers ERS as I hear the stories and work to address their needs Fall River has an incredible

group of Educators administrators and support staff these contracts are long overdue and need to be settled so we can grow and retain these great groups in the budget presentation it was shared that $500,000 has been left unassigned at the moment and $1.2 million wish list was shared as well that include 16 positions as well as some contracted Services I'm actually surprised the wish list wasn't more my

wish list would likely be much greater but I wouldn't think of addressing a wish list until our labor contracts have been settled bargaining has been a challenge this cycle because Over The Last 5 Years the district's wish list has been prioritized over labor contracts as much as I want to see the items on the wish list and much much more our contracts need to be adequately addressed tonight Mr Das is putting two

bills forward for your consideration for endorsement I certainly support a bill to address indoor air quality and would likely support an msba Bill if it were to include prek buildings in addition to these bills I'd like to bring to your attention the 22 bills which MTA has been advocating for these bills have prioritized by MTA to address the main drivers of public school fiscal crisis

that are undermining our capacity to deliver highquality public education to all students take additional steps towards realizing a true highquality debt-free public higher education system that that meets the needs of students faculty and staff protect and strengthen the retirement benefits for educators and other public employees and offer comprehensive platform for public schools that prepare all students for

Success throughout their lives and recognize the work of Educators I specifically want to name a few bills which would greatly help us in Far River Bill HD 2334 an act to fix the Chapter 70 inflation adjustment HD 913 and act ensuring full reimbursement for IND District school transportation costs HD 3759 and act relative to the long-term fiscal health and sustainability for special education in the Commonwealth

I'd love to talk more about these and the other 19 bills but for now I ask you to take a look at these and settle all of our labor contracts thank you thank you

um next up is uh margarite Benton Court raino Street

for dear members of for River Public School school school committee I am writing to as a community facilitator at Doran and westol school within the Four River Public Schools and as this year marks a renegotiation period for our contracts I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the critical role of community facilitators and share my personal experiences and contributions to our school Community

having migrated to this country at the age of two I learned English as a second language and faced numerous challenges growing up despite these obstacles I developed a deep passion for working with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds my adaptability and commitment to learning enabled me to teach myself Spanish while working in Miami a Melting Pot of cultures and ethnicities my journey as a dedication

dedicated advocate for families began when I worked as a family partner at a nonprofit organization called family service in this role I supported families with children who had disabilities and me mental health issues through the CSA wraparound model I became their voice in meetings psychological appointments hospitalization meetings DCF meetings mobile crisis interventions and appointments and more I Empower these

families with the tools that they needed to navigate these complex systems ensuring their voices were heard and their needs met as a community facilitator at Doran westall schools I continue to bring my life and work experience to the table I make referrals for services help students access Community Resources and engage families to participate in meetings and special events I am fluent in Portuguese and

speak conversational Spanish which allows me to connect with and support a diverse range of families effectively I am passionate empathetic and understand the significant role that culture plays in the lives of children and their families my dedication to supporting families is unwavering and I am willing to do whatever it takes to assist a family or child in need our roles as Community facilitators are crucial

because we understand family Dynamics and recognize the unique stories of each family we serve we ensure that their voices are heard and that they feel valued I I firmly believe that our positions are vital to the success and well-being to the family of the families in our communities as we enter the renegotiation period I urge the school committee to recognize the importance of

our work and to continue supporting the invaluable role that Community facilitators play in the for River Public Schools thank you for your time and consideration Margarita back what is that name ten Rod what is it ten Rod tenan Rodricks Jackson Street Taunton I have a letter uh bet Deb's going to read a letter good evening everybody my name is tanan Rodricks and I serve as a community facilitator for

two elementary schools here in Fall River Sylvia and Watson I've been with the Sylvia elementary school for three years and Watson Elementary School since the beginning of 2025 our role as Community facilitator serves as a bridge between the F schools and families fostering Communication in col collaboration we can help strengthen relationships among students parents teachers and community members creating

a more cohesive environment that helps Student Success in a diverse Community like ours here in Fall River where many families speak different languages this position is essential in ensuring that all parents can engage meaningfully with the educational process by providing support in their native language us as a Comm Community facilitator can help to eliminate barriers to understanding school

policies programs and resources I came to America when I was only 12 years old without knowing any English so having experienced the challenges of being part of a bilingual family myself I understand firsthand the critical role that a community facility can play in bridging gaps and fostering inclusivity for our bilingual families the community facilitator is not just alazon we are a trusted Advocate who

understands their unique challenges and perspectives this position empowers families by providing them with the necessary tools and information to support their children's education a community facilitator can also organize workshops Community meetings cultural events that celebrate our diversity and enhance the sense of belonging among families moreover the role contributes significantly to the

overall success of our our schools when families are engaged and feel included students are more likely to thrive academically and socially the community facilitator can help cultivate an inclusive School environment where every student regardless of their background feels valued and supported in conclusion I urge the school committee to recognize the vital role that a community facilitator plays in our community our

work is not only benefit our work is it does not only benefit bilingual families but enriches our entire School Community by investing in this position we are investing in the future of our children and the strength of our community thank you um Rachel goisman Davis Road Westport I have a letter uh Deb will also read the letter I am writing on behalf of all clerks in the district when the weather

is unsafe for staff and students to report to work a day off is granted although all 12 Monon employees have to report to work under the same conditions we have felt that this has been a norm because of City Hall is open we have to report to work it is understandable that 12-month employees like custodians have to report because their job scope includes cleaning up snow many clerks have wanted to speak up

but didn't think that they would be heard I figured it would be worth sharing with the school committee and the superintendent to have this looked into respectfully racial thanks Deb number five subcomittee updates first up is Mr Mr chairman Mr couple comments got a couple comments go ahead so the just that last one that is the issue with the clerks if we could get a report from the superintendent on her

feelings on that the facts the figures to what the speaker just uh mentioned doesn't have to be today but if you know great but I I don't have um any data on it but it but what um was expressed um is true that 12-month employees do report on um on days when we have no school because of weather or you know something like that and that we do that people who want to stay home if

you're a 12-month employee then people take vacation days or personal days on those days if they're if they're not coming into work and that's probably EMB bogging like it's in the contract so my understanding has always been that um that's the practice or maybe it's a policy or something that if the city hall is open then schools are open and if you're a 12-month employee then you're expected to come to work yep if

you could just get us something on whether it's inequitable or something that needs to be changed if you look at the back the facts please okay the um the other one was on what Mr mishan uh mentioned uh related to bills in the legislature and I know Mr Das as the committee's legislative uh representative has been advocating for bills as well uh I do think that and I've said this several years now that

our school administration needs to convene local meetings with our delegation relative to State uh bills that are present or ones that we would need to be created and that hasn't happened for years so I implore you and your team to meet with the legislators like every other department in the state has legislative meetings where they can go over this stuff and recommend things we can definitely take votes like we're

going to do at some point tonight up or down but I think the missing link is is the communication with the local delegation so once and for all please it should be an annual event but the legislators need to hear from us what's happening too many times they pass bills in Boston that they have no idea what they're talking about relative to what's the reality on the ground in a school

and I sat there myself and had to do the same thing so I do think it's an issue that needs to be addressed and uh we can definitely advocate so whatever you can do we do have I I believe the date hasn't been set yet but there's a request uh to have the local delegates come to our next subcommittee meeting for the um Community parent and Community engagement meeting so that we

can engage with our local delegates around some of the bills that they're endorsing and some things that we want to bring forward great yep I I think private between you and them not in a public meeting might be better as well in addition to it would be my recommendation and the request the other request some one of the people mentioned uh last month we had asked for uh specific

comparison salaries from other uh unions is there any information I haven't seen it I haven't received anything that we requested over a month ago can you be specific which which one I can't be specific because it's part of bargaining but certain members uh certain unions you can ask that for but if we ask one meeting for comparison data we should get that data before we have to hear

people come up and say well anything Rel related to the contract so if over 30 days ago this committee asked for more information that information should be forthcoming and I'm not saying it has to come from you it can also come from the unions so if this committee asked the unions for something and they haven't provided it in 30 days that's what I'm asking and I don't I hav haven't seen it so I'm not sure why

we're we should just stop negotiating until we get it is that what we should do what is that a question for no anybody or is that what are you talking about what I'm talking about is if no I don't I don't I don't I don't find anything funny about what I'm saying I'm not laughing go ahead if 30 days ago we sat with with units in bargaining and in that bargaining this committee asked for

information relative to what are the salaries of the people in Fall River versus other folks in other communities and we asked for that information I'm asking did anyone anyone on either side get that information and I'm hearing now the answer is no I find that unacceptable because you're not going to get to the end of the we can't move on if we don't get the information so Mr Mr chairman all I'd ask is that

somebody on this bargaining team which is not me because it's not us either gives an answer to say we didn't get it we're going to get it I I I just need some somebody to respond that's on the bargaining team yes or no are we going to get the information we asked for to try to move forward yes or no anybody on our bargaining team want to answer that question we are we have requested the

information we have uh received much of that information we will have it completed hopefully by the end of this week in the beginning of next week and the it will be presented at the negotiating table and will be presented also to the committee members please as soon as you get it please send it to the committee thank you I next up is the subcommittee reports um parent and community outreach subcommittee Colin

Das motion to move that until Mr Das shows up Mr Das is going to be late today okay that's fine um Voice vote all in favor yes yes next up facilities and operations subcommittee Mimi larvie motion passes thank you uh the facilities and operation subcommittee was held uh this past Thursday at 4:15 on Rock Street the administration building uh there were four discussions on the agenda bus contracts a lease agreement

between the former public schools and the Roman Catholic bishop uh regarding Bishop Conley a renewal lease agreement with for of soccer youth soccer and an update on Brightly uh software uh Mr Pico presented a three-year contract for yellow bus mckin vento and the athletic field trip services uh for a public school bid packages was submitted to 76 uh people representing 64 potential biders uh

there were seven companies that attended the biders conference in January trembley's bus company whing City Fisher bus RG Services Amaral bus and Fisher bus um RG bus uh company had to be rejected due to not being responsive uh the committee voted to refer the administration's recommendation to enter into three-year contracts with Trembley for regular school School transportation mckin vento

and Fisher bus uh for athletics and field trips um Mr Pacho presented uh also presented the uh First Amendment to a lease agreement between the for public schools and the Roman Catholic bishop in regards to uh the bishop Conley High School rental uh lease uh the monthly lease has not increased from our fy2 agreement it will remain uh the same at 11,000 a month the FY 226 lease agreement is for 14 months from January

1st to 2025 uh through August 1st 2026 uh the subcommittee voted to refer to the full committee tonight uh Mr Pico oh sorry almost deleted everything Mr Pico uh Mr Pico presented a proposal uh to change from a one-year agreement for uh the use of Sylvia school grounds and enter into a three-year uh agreement with for of Youth Soccer Mr Pico said they do a great job maintaining and and

the cleanliness of the field uh the subcommittee voted to refer a full committee Mr Pico was asked to provide an update on brightle Software System that tracks all workflow and accountability of all maintenance tasks throughout the district Jose raposo the supervisor of uh brightly Global admin administrator the Nutrition department of for public school gave a detailed presentation on how the system works who

is using the system and how the training prop uh portion is uh of the system is going uh meeting adjourned at 5:30 thank you Mr harvi Mr chairman Mr a I was at that meeting and the only thing I think is missing was we had a a robust discussion related to Transportation issues in the school department including the distance of uh one and a half one mile two miles and uh I

requested that that be listed as an agenda item I don't see it here I'm assuming the minutes will reflect that but that was said and it's not on the agenda thank you are you thank you next is the instructional subcommittee Mimi lar chair uh it was back to back on Thursday so our instructional uh meeting was at 530 uh there were three on Thursday sorry March 6th there were three items on the agenda

uh a discussion and vote to refer the international teaching partnership a discussion and vote to refer grades 3 through 5ifth Health curriculum pilot and an update on the 5ifth through eth social studies curriculum uh Dr curle and her admin team presented information on International teaching partnership through Global education Solutions this partnership could send qualified teachers from multiple regions around

the world uh Global assists with Visa uh with their visas uh flights and transportation to the US Social Security uh requirements housing and more our district would benefit from the opportunity to have an international teachers in our schools especially our dual language education program uh held at vas Elementary uh the total for this program is $50,000 the subcommittee voted to refer to full committee tonight

Mr Fitzgerald presented information on a pilot of catch uh Ed Journeys Health curriculum for third to fifth grade um there are several Massachusetts uh districts that use this curriculum the cost of catched is $349 per School rather than per user as the current uh curricular curriculum bin skills botvin still uses a workbook based curriculum that creates several limitations like outdated materials and

ongoing subscription costs Mr Fitzgerald said he would like to Pilot the catch head program in Spring of 2025 uh the subcommittee voted to refer to the full committee uh tonight for approval tonight not done uh Mr dearis provided an update on the on grades 5 through 8th social studies curriculum he stated desie envisioned students in all classrooms using the investigating history's curriculum they want students

engaged in answering authentic interesting questions that drive towards deeper understanding of past and future uh in mass in the past in Massachusetts history and social study teachers have not been provided with easy access to Quality curricula investigating history is now available at the fifth through seventh grade level Mr dearis also presented information about uh our students in the in the eth grade

participating in a year participating sorry in a year-long e8th grade civics engagement in our democracy curriculum it helps students identify what the what they value deepen what they understand and develop what they can do to be self-caring and self-confident change makers uh meeting adjourns at approximately 6:30 thank you mayor thank you Mr larvey um next up is the superintendent's report Dr Curley

um so I'm going to start with the hiring report um since our last meeting we've had 10 new hires including two Community facilitators four par professionals one family support specialist part-time one security officer one teacher and one team chair we've also had nine resignations and three retirements the number of vacancies still hovers around 133 in the district um um the other another thing I

wanted to update on was our um budget process so on March 3rd we um offered the budget presentation and then there are two subsequent meetings planned um one is on March 18th that will include the discussion of budgets for secondary schools and departments in the district and then on March 19th a discussion of budgets for elementary and K to8 schools followed by um a special school committee meeting it's all going to

happen in the same meeting for the purposes of public release and um preparation for the public hearing so that's where we would look for a vote um to move the for the move the budget forward to the public hearing um Mr agar did reference the fact that we discussed Transportation at the subcommittee meeting and I did want to give an update to the community on that um so I referenced Transportation as a something

that would needed to be discussed moving forward at last week's budget meeting and then at the facility subcommittee meeting because we are looking at um the potential to change a potential change to an existing policy for transportation based on distance from assigned schools so right now students in K to5 qualify for transportation if the student lives one mile or more from their neighborhood

school or the school to which they're assigned and students in grades 6 through eight qualify for transportation if they live 1.5 miles or more from their neighborhood school or the school to which they're assigned um these measures assume a distance um that we have been measuring as the crow flies so just a one mile radius around the school or a 1.5 mile radius around the school it doesn't account for

walking or driving distance just a straight line so when we measure the distance it could be potentially this is not the case for all but that a student has has to walk like across a park um cut through Woods people's backyards whatever it is but we've measured as the Pro flies for a number of years that's the measurement that's built into our policy that's how we've um enacted the

policy in the district and we've been able to do this uh because we actually transport more students than what is required by law so the fact that we were measuring distance that way didn't seem um didn't seem exactly relevant because it was a standard distance that we were using we have been um told by the state that we can't continue to measure distance that way moving forward that

even though we transport more than what the law requires we have to use the same measure of distance the same um method of measuring distance that the state uses which means we have to use walking distance um and driving distance and not just um not as the crow flies so we are the concern for us isn't the number of students that are currently transported the concern for us is that if the

measure of one mile for K to and the measure of 1.5 miles for grades 6 through 8 remains in our policy then we would be um on the hook I guess is the term for transporting more students than we currently transfer uh transport um right now I I just wanted to share it because it's going to be an important um discussion moving forward at this point in grades K through five alone if we

don't change the number that's in the policy then we there'll be um nearly 400 more students eligible for transportation than are eligible right now and so we're not looking to change the policy in a way necessarily that has to impact any students who currently have transportation but we would need to change the numbers so that we aren't adding to the number of students we transport moving forward um right now we

have 135 students in grades K through five that if we change the policy tomor tomorrow and just said this is it there are 135 students who have transportation now that would lose it we're not looking to have any current students lose transportation we are looking to come you know alter the policy in a way that wouldn't make more students eligible for transportation so that's I know there's

been a little bit of discussion um kind of out there and I just wanted to be able to say you know offer all of that information to the public so that as the discussion continues and we eventually bring this to a policy subcommittee and then to the full committee that um more people are in the no so we'll be talking about it as many times as possible another um thing that I wanted

to update people on is our enrollment we've had a lot of discussions around enrollment and um the growing enrollment over time so right now the current enrollment in our schools including we have 147 students who are out of District um current enrollment is 11,480 and that is 391 students more than what we had on October 1 um when you know that that for that Foundation um enrollment so not okay I don't want

to say Foundation enrollment because there's actually more in Foundation than than those two groups of students but that comparable number of students sitting in our seats and in out of District placements has grown by 391 students since October 1st but an interesting piece of data that where that is kind of holding things up in terms of some of our decision making is that when we look um at right now how

enrollment is comparing to what it was last year in terms of month by month February of 2024 2024 was the first month in the last 20 months where we saw more students withdraw than enroll so for 20 months we've seen enrollment increase every single month this past month was the first time we've seen more students withdraw than enter so we got 85 new students but we had 110 students

withdraw and so we had a net decrease in our enrollment in the in the month of February so um but and this time last year in February we had 176 new students 46 withdrawals so where we decreased by um 25 over um the over this February last February we increased by 130 so we're seeing a lot of shifts that we haven't seen in the past and that is um you know we're still planning

forward in terms of making some adjustments um based on enrollment but we're a little more cautious because we're not seeing the same Trend that we've been seeing so that was another piece of information I wanted to be able to share um the last piece is around mcass so there's a lot of discussion you know in our community and across the state I hear it you know in my own town

like well now that we don't have mcass anymore and so on and so on I want to just stress for people mcast is still a required test in the state of Massachusetts it just isn't used as a graduation requirement in terms of the competency determination so it is important that all students and families still prepare to take mcast as we have in the past testing begins this month at the high school high school Ela is March

25th and 26th and the math is the 20th and 21st science is in June June 4th 4th and fifth grades 3 through 8 will complete Ela testing before April vacation and math science and Civics that's just uh the science and Civics Sciences uh five and eight Civics just in grade eight they'll all be after April vacation so we're encouraging All Families to please check uh your child's School website for the exact testing

dates by you know for that school and by grade and just to remind people that mcast continues to be one measure of academic progress and it identifies areas where students might need additional support at the high school level as we move forward with graduation requirements they will be twofold where students must show Mastery of standards-based um Mastery of St of Standards based

assessments um that have generally been assessed by mcass we're going to have to show in some way that students have mastered um the content in addition to course completion that's information that we won't be finalized by the state until May um when the Board of Education meets but it's something to keep in mind that we are looking for there is going to be an additional measure so in addition to

course completion the state will be looking for some other measure to show that students have um have shown Mastery and so even though mcast isn't a graduation requirement students are still required to participate the results will still be used to identify additional courses that a student may need um in order to obtain that standards Mastery thank you superintendent Miss larvie Dr Curley thank you I just have a

question about the uh the state and all these people that come to us and they want to participate in whatever decisions we make on this or the state makes financially who's taking care of this you know because there is going to have to be some work involved on our end I mean the the there's going to have to be some cost to this I'm just wondering what the the state if the state has

mentioned anything if there's been any conversations about what they're thinking this cost is going to be nothing yet nothing yet we haven't heard anything wait to hear it okay we're look we're it's hard to anticipate what the decision will be um in May when the Board of Education meets around this um but we are understanding that there there is going to be some decision made um for class as soon as class of 2026 so

our current Juniors um there's going they're looking to put something into place in terms of a requirement for that class we weren't anticipating anything until class of 2027 at the earliest but they're hoping to actually put something into place for 2026 and we won't know what that is until May and we have not heard anything about any additional funding um to make that happen Okay

thank you Mr AGA Dr K I thought I heard you say that they was 30 191 out of District students addition um I don't if that was a mistake or we don't I don't 147 out of District students is that are you talking about the um enrollment you were saying the enrollment went up by whatever it was and then you said it was out of District students and I'm saying

I don't think we have that many oh we have 147 students out of District we've had an increase in enrollment of 391 since October 1 that includes students in our seats and students who are out of District and out of District you mean not out of District placements out of District out of District placements so we went up by 200 students and out of District placements in special education in this year

no so C what I said is that our current enrollment in our schools which includes 147 outof District students so total enrollment in our seats and out of District that total number has increased by 391 since October 1st it could have been 10 students out of district and 381 in our seats total of 391 so we're not adding we didn't add 147 out of districts no that's just the total the um I said I've said this

multiple times by email I've said it in public meetings you add up the 391 that we have additional this year you add the 600 that we took last year additional prior to that our schools were crowded uh our class sizes are too high and we are at a class size crisis me speaking that's the facts I've emailed you multiple times your team I just don't understand when we're going to actually

do something related to the class siiz crisis that we have and I I know I keep on telling you that we're going to go over last March we talked about it last March we were going to re refigure reconfigure the district we talked about this at the subcommittee and I just don't understand why we can just keep on kicking this can down the road but our class sizes are way too high and we have

to do something about it and every month that we keep kicking this can down the road we're going to get into oh we can't make those determinations because it's too late and we haven't notified the parents so just a fact not looking for an answer because I've already asked multiple times and I don't get the answer the back bottom line is we have a classroom crisis here class siiz crisis

in Fall River I don't care what anybody says in my opinion okay I just want to say I do think it's unfair to say we haven't done anything because we opened a school at the start of this school year we added westall to our list of schools and so that was a first step in terms of making making changes in the district and addressing the increase in the number of students we did we no longer

have a crisis I didn't say that so the the thing that I'm concerned about is the first step was opening a school in June and July of this past year yes so your team the team that met met at the Spencer Barden school that you were on that your team was on met to discuss what are we going to do so in in that time we decided to open up a new school

yes that is a good point but in that same meeting it was said we were going to do the rest of the district to continue this process and that's where I say we haven't done enough because that's not affecting the the the class sizes across the district are too high we knew it back then when we were talking about uh the tany school the prek and all that we've been over this

it's just ing that we don't get to the bottom line and actually do something about it so I'm speaking for myself the rest of the committee can chime in anything they want but I would encourage people to go back and watch the meetings look at the minutes and see what it was said we were promised that we were going to do a class A reog across the district we haven't done it that's the end of the

story as far as I'm concerned the transportation piece I asked it to be on this agenda because we need to address it if we're going to change rules we're going to change policies whatever it's going to be why are we going to wait another whole month so that we're another month closer to try to do this was said at the subcommittee meeting put it on the agenda so we can vote on it we

can't vote on anything that doesn't get presented to us here and I I heard different information today at the end of the day if you you were ready to tell us tell us Transportation needs if we're going to make a change let's take a vote let the school committee weigh in we're going to wait a whole another month and we still haven't seen the transportation coordinator at any meeting to answer any

of the questions we had a facilities meeting where all Transportation issues have always come no Transportation coordinated there we're talking about contracts those contracts were based on uh the number of roots that we had that's going to change up or down potentially based on what you just said we let's just kick it to the let's just wait till next month that's why I'm asking for it to be on the agenda I

don't understand what what the Dilemma is but time is of the essence as far as I'm concerned and I I for one I'm not voting to take Transportation away from any student that already has it and I told you that at the subcommittee and I would encourage my colleagues to do the same but when I asked you to CH change schools and move lines you say you can't do it because it's too late in the year

we can't do that to parents so if we're going to be consistent let's just be consistent but I'm not voting for anything related to not putting a student that has a bus or if based on what you just said today so I could live on one side of the street that person lives on the other side of the street I get Transportation cuz I'm grandfathered in but we Chang the rule and that poor

person gets nothing there it's a effect and I think that could happen and that's definitely going to be something where people whether it's in the neighborhood community one side by side they are going to get something less than their neighbor when it's convenient we say it's Equitable and then all of a sudden we're going to make it inequitable I don't even know what's the proposal because it's not on the damn agenda

that's the problem I yield let's go okay Mr Tom Mr Cory um for the public to understand I'm on that Comm committee as well we have been having active discussions on transportation and it's a very very very difficult procedure to nail down I can assure you it's in the works right now was it was a major discussion just a few days ago I did not hear my colleague raising his level of anxxiety on this

issue in the subcommittee as he just did here just now that's number one one number two as far as a class size crisis I can assure you we're looking into it deeply and we've been confronted with the early with the growth of Early Education in our district and we have been making major strides to adapt and grow into that program as feasibly as we can we are opening new facilities we

opened up a new Elementary School this year to take off some pressure off of the fonsica school which was clearly overcrowded and so now we're making improvements it cannot be onef swoop but I could assure you all of these issues are extremely important to this school board we will continue to examine and look at them accordingly I yield Mr Mr Ager go ahead yeah just well my colleague to my right wanted to indicate

what was said and what wasn't said at the subcommittee so I want to just make sure everyone to knows and you can clarify it at the meeting we had discussion relative to this issue it it was requested by to the superintendent by me the chair and Mr Cory did not say anything otherwise that we said for the benefit of time let's put it on the agenda so the committee

can take a vote that was stated at the meeting so therefore I didn't need to get into any kind of discussion related to that I simply asked the superintendent to put it on the agenda and that's the problem so when it doesn't get on the agenda at the subcommittee I said said what are we going to wait for one more month let's just put it on the agenda and let the

school committee take a vote a vote whether you want to take a vote now you want to take a vote then show of hands anybody want to get rid of transportation for certain people that had it anybody please raise your hand if you want to do that Kevin Kevin go ahead but but at the end of the day at excuse me at the end of the day that was what was determined that we wanted

it on the agenda and that was the purpose of putting it on the agenda so that we could actually take a vote if I voted against it so be it whatever the majority is but we don't even have it on the agenda to vote for even after it was asked and to me that is the problem I yelled okay I got two uh regular questions are we doing anything for the

kids um that did not pass the mcast but are now eligible for diplomas do we got something going on Dr Curley yes so we have um just we have put it out publicly it was on we actually I as of today I want to say 110 requests we went from them like trickling in some people had emailed we set up a portal so that people could request a transcript review

that got posted online at the end of last week or over the weekend and we've had 110 requests okay so I I hope that we do something for them you know some kind of a ceremony something so yeah I think we're trying to figure out what that could look like for folks and one other simple question of the transfers that left us which more than our new enrol lease those are transfers they're

not dropouts we don't know where those kids went we have a handle on those 100 whatever you the 100 I don't have that data in front of me but that 110 withdrawals would include transfers to other districts um there could be some students in there who have dropped out I could get that information okay thank you anything further next up number seven we have two sets oh Mr Das are you ready to go with the um

parent and community outreach subcommittee report moment Mr Mayor I'll do one other thing first and I'll come back to you can I get the um item number seven can I get a motion to approve motion to approve um two sets of minutes I have a motion and second so we're going to ask them to vote on the regular school committee from 113 and the instructional subcommittee from 25 any discussion Deb could you

call the rooll on that Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yeah Miss larv yes M Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes Mr Das thank you parent and community outreach subcommittee thank you um thank you Mr Mayor and um I apologize for my tardiness so the parent and community outreach subcommittee met on February 6 26 I was president with Mr Bailey Mr Corey was abson and M Miss Pereira

filled in for him we had some very good discussion and idea shared the committee voted to refer multiple items to the committee for discussion implementation regarding parent engagement and transparency with the community the committee unfortunately did not vote to refer the government efficiencies our position or the appointment of Boomer AMOM the committee also did not vote to

refer the item in regards to instructing the administration to post the financial batches the school committee signs off on and the report thank you thank you Mr Das next item up is number eight approval of trans travel requests we have a number of them uh I'd like to take them as a bundle if any a motion to approve second I have a motion to Second any discussion on these travel

items hearing Mr a is there any update on the uh policy I don't know if any of these are uh relative to last month's conversation related to reimbursements and stuff is any uh uh we haven't changed the policy no I'm saying on here like I think we left it in your hands to address like that one remember there was a one uh one particular one I don't know if any of these is anybody getting reimburse or

anything and any of these are dist strictly students there are there are adults included as that what you're asking yes yes so I think that if you look at the meal and incidental ES subit per person it reflects a change in practice I call it that you're you're implementing until such time as a policy so it's not the policy itself doesn't speak to the concerns that were raised but we have a practice

in place that is reflected in the meal and incidental estimate which is new yes thank you D could you call the Mr D one question on um one of the travel requests I just want to um get a reason as to why maybe the cost of travel has gone up but I see here per person to go to Denver Colorado is $900 is that the cheapest option we have I think that it reflects the yes

the going rate for those dates yes so that's not first class that's that's oh it is not first class it would be considerably more money if it were First Class M Miss Pera um when when doing mileage do we use like the federal mileage rate when you're giving mileage back I believe it's a yeah it's not a local one is it Federal no so right now it went up to 7

we're still we're still at 67 at least the ones I just signed I noticed it was it maybe because I just want to make sure three censes three cents and now if the travel the travel happened before December 31st would I didn't think it did but maybe it did I can go back and double check cuz I did look at that to see so you're going by December 31st anything anything after December should

should be seven cents okay thank you Deb could you call the role on travel Mr Dr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep M larv yes M Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes item number nine is the acceptance of donations we have two tonight um I'm looking for a motion in a second motion to approve second second I have a motion to Second uh Deb would you call the role on the two donations then

Dr curly explain them to us Mr drag yeah yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss ly yes Miss Pereira yes Mar hugan yes Dr Curley Daniel Fitzgerald on behalf of the health and physical education department accepts a donation of $1,500 from B Coast Bank the donation will be used for the Middle School adaptive ASD physical education field trip sha Daniels principal of Henry Lord

Community School accepts the donation of 10 laptops from the Angola project this donation will be used in building Community within the high school uh the hlcs staff promoting attendance for staff in monthly drawings for staff during professional development thank you uh item number 10 is the approval of Grants I have two um uh Miss larvey has two grants you want to hold which ones you got uh

supporting students behavioral mental health and Bristol County Commissioners opioid Bristol County Comm ml ml okay any others Project Lead the Way Mr um Project Lead the Way Mr a Das uh the federal IEP Grant the federal IED Grant which one is approve all others second I the second one okay what is it oh okay IEP Grant Colin D okay so the to approve the other um the other three I have a motion to I have a

second I I second second thank you Mr Das Deb could you call the role Please Mr yeah yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes M Perera yes mayor kran yes uh first one up is the IEP Grant Mr Das thank you um I just have one question for Mr obain and the reason I'm bringing this up because I've received a couple of um questions from

parents on the IEP process what and specifically asking where the money goes from from this that we get from again from Grants and whatnot and what we use for that for I AP what and I I did briefly go through the contract but if you can explain to the public what what 80,000 going to be used for sure so there are um really three main special education we grants that we receive

they're all entitlement grants so we don't have to apply for them they're based on the number of special education students that we have here in the district the one that's on the agenda tonight is the 274 grant that one is specifically for professional development of staff so it cannot be used for any Direct Services for kids for any salaries for any materials for students it's strictly professional

development and this we used to always have this Grant and then a couple years ago the grant went away since the uh launch of the new IEP document we have received funding again from this particular Grant and it really is supposed to be um working on the new IEP implementation of the new IEP and what we are looking for to use this particular um set of funding for is to

bring back Deb Harris who has been a consultant in the district before um and staff have reported to me that they've had good outcomes with her to look and at our um inclusion support we are trying to really um support our teachers in including students with our most significant disabilities in the general education classroom as much as possible to meet their needs needs um we need to be able to provide professional

development along the lines of differentiation co- teing um and other resources for teachers that's what we're looking to do with this particular Grant the other two grants I mentioned the 240 and the 262 Grant they're not on this um agenda because they come out in the beginning of the year but those um the 262 is specifically for Early Childhood so it is really only up until the age of five

again that can be used for Staffing that can be used for materials for students um it can be used to contract with agencies and the sister Grant to that is the two is the 240 Grant which covers kindergarten through um the age of 22 so again the same thing it can be used for salaries it can be used for contracted providers assessment materials supplies for the classroom those types of things

okay I thank thank you for that so this um Grant specifically doesn't cover um any legal expenses that's all covered out of um another right we do not pay our legal expenses out of any of the grants you have to write the grant you have to specifically allocate funding um to specific items based on the categories they give you and then it has to be approved good thank you motion to

approve second I have a motion of second further discussion Deb call the role on the IEP Grant Please Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes M Perera yes mayor kouan yes next item up is supporting students behavioral and mental health and wellness Mimi larvey yes um I just have questions um on the grant is anybody here for this hi hi so it it's detailed explanation it's it's about community

right so we're trying to enhance our relationship in the community extracurricular activities that's a piece of it y piece of it right so what kind of work is going to be happening in in schools so we've pondered in the past with gnome surf supporting our neurodiverse population by bringing in a community partner we have in the past worked with Jessica Howard through the Heron Foundation to be able to bring in

um mediation uh excuse me meditation um and yoga into our classrooms we also put out minig grants to our schools because some schools work with different Community Partners around creating after school enrichment experiences for our students so also trying to be school responsive that if schools have certain projects and programs that they don't have funding for this grant gives those

schools an opportunity to continue programming right how did this is part of the the original opioid Grant or am I no it is not so this is something completely different this is new this is not new no this has been a standing grant that we've received over the last few years although the funds have slowly reduced themselves over the years uh so we come back to the drawing board every

year it is a competitive Grant so we were um grateful to be awarded the grant this year it is a little late Upon Us receiving it if you notice it was awarded back in November but we didn't receive the official award from the state until now um so we will be looking to really beef up supports and services this spring um and then also looking to provide some professional development for staff as well Dr pronard who

determines and what's the system like on on what schools get chosen for certain you know services and programs that come out of this grant like how does that get determined because I I I I see there are some schools that would definitely benefit from some Mental Health social emotional say programs and groupings and and stuff like that who determines we work with principles and the support

staff in the building um and really looking to use a subset of the money through an RFP process for schools to be able to apply for funds again to be able to extend what they've got going on already or to add and supplement new services and supports and then my team working directly um out in the field to be able to make recommendations to buildings as we're looking at different

data across the district um to be able to work with principles to make sure that it can be dispersed um equitably across the district but also really meeting the needs of the different schools which which vary across schools okay I yield for now thank you okay anything further on the uh supporting students uh Mr agier thank you for the comment about the that was one of my questions is how this came out was

signed by the superintendent in November are they expecting you to spend all this money in three months hopefully not we're going to look to write some amendments um to the grant but this is the quick this is the first that we've had the ability to bring it forth to the committee to be approved um so we'll be working with our state Partners to see what flexibility we do have when did was the that

um they said when specifically do you know when they told us we were getting it I think we heard back in noish and then it we only just received word within the last two weeks to be able to bring it forth to the school committee because local policy requires us to bring the grant before the school committee to be approved before we can begin spending it down um and so I do

believe that was also part of it so they told us in November we were getting the grant they gave us the money they didn't give us the money we didn't officially receive the money back so this one was a uh a funky Grant so nor so normally once normally we bring the grants forward to you once the state has officially approved the Grant and in this case it program programmatically was improved but the

funding was not approved and we waited until the fun funding was officially approved which was two weeks ago by the state to bring it forward to you and this is to the MDC yes so that that would be my question to them is why are you why are you sending us something to say that we had a grant for mental health and all to me it looks like very worthwhile things but training events

for the Stu student staff all the stuff and then you give us the money in the middle of February I I just don't understand how that even gets done for one and two to not tell you whether you can automatically carry over or extend it till next year it just it blows my mind I guess is is part of the problem the school committee policy I believe is that we're not supposed to

apply for any grants until the school committee knows is the way I see it I think that might be some um we might not be following that like to a te in my mind but um I don't think it's a hold upon on our side for us holding up anything so um with grants so this the school committee was notified prior to applying that's what I'm saying like so we knew this was

happening I guess we thought if it was me I would think we'd implement it in November when it got signed to say that we or whatever the date was not three months later four months later yeah so to so I'll be honest with you with this grant this is the the first time that this has happened with the state and so because they didn't release because they didn't say the budget was FIS you know approved we

didn't move forward with it I didn't want to be in a situation where with everything going on that the money was not going to be approved and we were going to be on the hook to cover what whatever was that makes that makes total sense the question I had on the grant though was the stiens and all is that going to be after hours so when it said we were going to train people they were

going to do activities with the students uh all various things that's after school right it's not for what they get paid for their regular our staff would only be stipended after school but in some cases particularly in servicing some of our substantially separate classrooms and special populations we are embedding Services into the school day for students so those organizations

will be compensated but our staff would not be doubly compensated if that's what you're yeah yeah if the staff's going to get after trained in mediation or whatever it was they wouldn't do that during the school day that they're already getting paid for it either the training is outside of school or when they perform the task like an after school program or something else that nobody's getting twice paid no one's

getting twice paid thank you very much I Y motion to approve I have a motion a second Deb would you please call the role on supporting uh supporting students Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes m l yes M Pereira yes M kouan yes uh next up is Project Lead the Way Mr agar just when I looked at the stuff I looked like three $110,000 um stien so just looking for

what that is Dr uh Li Liberties can also speak to this but um with Project Lead the Way the $10,000 um the money is really used uh for teachers to be able to participate in the cour work in order to be able to provide the programming this locked Martin Grant okay from Project Lead the Way the way the Project Lead the Way Grants work in Massachusetts is applications go into Project Lead theway Massachusetts National

funders see them at various times in the year so this was put forward earlier in the year we didn't didn't know that we would get this grant funded by Lockheed Martin um their National competitive grants that the Fall River schools the three big middle schools were granted Ed $10,000 each they're from Lockheed Martin a one-year Grant they cover materials they cover training they cover

they're pretty they're pretty flexible in how their their um these funds can be used so they're they will allow us to revive courses in Project Lead the Way at the three middle schools that have kind of died down since covid and we're trying to bring back if that's helpful yeah just it it was a said other charges didn't say exactly what it was I think it sounds like it's legitimate uh if

they're doing cost workor they're in training that's also after school it's not while they're getting paid to teach I would assume yeah it would cover it would cover tuition fees not teacher per hour you can't do that while they're in front of students you have to do it at your in your own time correct if it were summer training or after after hours training then there would be the the

stien that's in the contract would apply and funds could come from this for that but it's not a double payment makes total sense to me thank you thank you are you anything for I have a motion to second on Project Lead the Way uh Deb please call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yeah M larv yes M Perera yes mayor Coogan yes uh Bristol County Commissioners opioid

funding Miss larvey yeah I just have one question you could probably stay right there is this for the past program Dr bronhard yes this is specifically for the transportation for the past program because we were able to secure a second opioid Grant um to be able to provide transportation for our pilot year okay that's all I just want to know if it was just a breakdown for pass thank you

motion to approve second I have a motion a second Deb please call the rooll Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yeah ly yes Mr Perera yes mayor kouan yes Mr chairman I just a point of just clarification M on the sheet that we received it said other not Transportation but it would just help to beg the question if we get it more specific thanks a item number 11 is we

have a contract to approve motion to approve I have a motion second I have a motion to Second de any discussion please call the role please Deb Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes yes Mr di yes Mr Cory yeah M lar yes M Perera yes Mary kouan yes Committee of the whole item 12.1 is a discussion and vote to approve the usage make a motion with a question please I have a motion and a second

um um anybody miss pansley you want to come down please I didn't even see her back there she signed the letter she good evening everyone how are you so I think I just want some details on the event um especially as it pertains to security and insurance if you get you have any answers about um I'll try to give you a general overview Kristen's here with me Kristen Goin and as some of you may remember

four years ago she organized an event and this will be much like that event um at that time it wasn't really a fundraise it was just a a get together for people that want to come see the um old school the middle old school um before a great event before it was closed down so um the idea is modeled after that it would be like a you know cocktail uh type of event with

appetizers and and a a reunion of sorts for anyone that would want to attend um so we would do we know we would need security through the schools as as I said in the letter I don't know exactly what's required but we will do whatever is required for US security all janitor I know as one member uh I would like for of a police department to be um the you know the security you

hopefully retain um but um just we want to be I want to be updated on on security and insurance if somebody gets hurt who does that fall under is it the for OFA Public Schools is it is it the city is it so it's just I guess insurance and security again I would want for of a police department details um I don't know how anybody else feels and just maybe a little something about

um insurance if something does happen okay so um to have the invent at the school obviously our security would need to be here but any um one-day liquor license requires um police details right so as far as insurance I understand the liquor license and I know I I believe you went through Primo last time right they had the one- day liquor they're insured but I I'm pretty sure they're

not insured for anything that happens in the school as far as damages somebody gets hurt right they did bring their insurance policy but they don't do the details the details have to come through us when we apply for the liquor license that has to come through US y okay but I understand your question you're you're saying if somebody Falls correct whoever the Tater is and whoever's holding the

liquor license isn't going to be responsible for that and you want to make sure that we have coverage for something like that so that yeah I understand the question I mean I'm going to approve it but I just want to with that being stated that we need to provide that right I get it you know so I mean I'm definitely going to support it I think it's great for the community

I think it's great for the dery uh alumni but um I just had those questions just to to make sure so if you can provide uh the committee with that information I I'm sure I will be on board but okay thank you I will I can definitely follow up through the superintendent to get that information out to you once thank you yes want to call the oh m m Pera the Mr I mean is

there somebody here that has the answer to that question I feel like there should be right we've had events at the school before I would assume it would go based on any event that we have here where somebody's coming in and hosting something who's liable what's the deal Kenny Ken what's the deal Kenny so they would get a a policy based on the event um just a one- day writer so the

organization the organ get a one day wrer based on whatever the event is and now do we do you know um if we require that yes for so if if I say I want to rent out this Auditorium here for whatever Play Me and Bobby are putting up it's part of the process we have to get liability insurance for the day that we're we're doing it okay thanks anything for oh Mr Das few

questions is the dery Alumni Association nonprofit yes like a 503 nonprofit okay and um do you plan on going through the Board of Health since I believe in our policy here um any organization or group using the school facility will be responsible for notifying any public health agencies prior to any event involving the preparation sale of food and our beverages so you plan on going through the Board of Health for the

liquor so that would be in with the liquor license and the questions that they ask whether we're serving food whether we have entertainment and um the liquor okay do you have those yet those certified but we have to be approved to bring it to the um to get the license okay I you anything further Mr AGA yeah some valid valid questions for my colleagues uh the I guess the answer to this question

would be or the question I have is are you going to follow you want to rent a facility so are you going to follow all the policies of the for of a school committee of course of course so I think in our policies it articulates what is the require requirement in order to rent a facility anyway yourselves your nonprofit or for-profit no matter what it is anyone that uses our facilities needs to follow

the school committee policies so I am fully in support of this because I know you follow the policies in the past and I know you'll follow the policies in the future my concern is that we have to be consistent with renting or allowing people to use our facilities and we have to have everyone following the same policies relative to liability the valid question whoever asked it what if somebody R it

and they fall you need the first step would be to come before us and have a vote according to the policy which you do but we're not doing that consistently across uh all situations in the school department and to me that's my only concern has nothing necessarily to do with you know you young ladies but it also says in here you're going to pay for the custodian you're going to pay

the fees for the security like if we needed our our own security guard that has to be articulated somehow by a an administrator in the school department to determine what those fees are and I think that's probably what you did four years ago Mr Pico or superintendent or somebody said here's what it cost us and you have to reimburse us once again I don't know that that's happening across

all rentals so I just hope that superintendent can look into that or whoever to say are we following the policy the same one that you have to follow everyone has to follow has to come before us and we need to follow our own school committee policies so I'm definitely in support of it and uh good luck thank you ield you okay can we call the r dep on this

one sure Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lovy yes M Pereira yes mayor KGAN yes thank you congratulations discussion um 122 is a discussion and vote to approve the usage of the dery high school parking lot to hold a barbecue cook off at the request from the veterans association of Bristol County so mve I have a motion to Second any discussion on that one Mr AGA just related to

uh I know that obviously we have a policy on how much liability or whatever for a gener a general thing when you look at a barbecue competition you're going to have a lot more um cooking apparatus whatever the terminology would be so does it change anything relative to the amount of liability uh for having an event like this versus just uh a movie night for say so so the liability piece will be

based on the event it always is based on the event the amount of people it'll show up it's also outside an outside venue the city will will have their policies um also bought of help um fire department all the different permits for propane on site um so that it it is a different um event but there are policies in place both on the school side and on the city Side to handle

those situations and I read it it said it's in the lower North Park lot it's a north parking lot this parking lot that we park in for the meeting right the main parking lot the main parking lot yes and that's um are you guys all right with that like I I just I I mean in the area I'm just saying I don't I've never seen an event like this but is it going to the

parcking lot somewhere where we need so we have an event is it uh obviously you don't want them to leave it a mess but it's it's all going to be part of the conversation so again the approval is here um after the approv we'll sit down with the group and uh come up with all of the pieces that we need and then they can discuss so you and the superintendent will make sure

that we're absolutely yes I just think it's a it's a definitely a worthwhile event I want to help the veterans with the fundraiser or whatever this is but just you want to protect our interest too we don't want everything getting be mess and then all a sudden now you're cleaning it up before school starts absolutely thank you are yeld Mr Das thank you I almost think and maybe this

can be a future conversation that so I believe all these organizations get the approval for from us first to use the facilities then they go out and get their whatever permit they need am I am I correct in saying that because some of it requires they be here first yes so would be to go through all the rest of it and then come here and get a no it

doesn't make a lot of sense so if if we can't come to an agreement after we leave here if there's some things that they can't do or or can't get permission to do then the event doesn't happen anyway so this should be the first step however there are I I don't want to put a number on it but I'm going to tell you that we rent a lot of buildings to a lot of

organizations they wouldn't all come here some of these rentals wouldn't come here they just wouldn't no so I'm saying like events like this here are totally different this is a one-off event it's happening for the first time on our property and we're looking to be sure that the school committee is comfortable with this kind of event in the parking lot right and and for other reasons I I

brought the policy today which like deals with what we're talking about and and just just going through it I know um this and I know you said receive I know Mr agar brought up liability insurance and coverage and I know you mentioned um depends on the event and just from you saying that and just reading the policy here it almost seems in the policy itself it requires it almost for every

event and it says and I agree with the policy I believe that's protecting us that any organization using utilizing school facilities shall agree to hold a school committee harmless from any liability which may acre to the school committee as a result of the use and provide a $1 million liability insurance coverage and um execute an Indemnity agreement as prescribed by the superintendent um I should ask that to

the last group as well is so with that being said do we plan on following that policy with this group and the same with the last group absolutely okay um I appreciate that even even those that are not paying any fee to us still have to provide the liability good so for instance we have at Henry Lord a group that pays us zero um but they still have to have the

policy in place sure I appreciate that and and that's um going to bring it up a new business but Jake aen Claus did he provide liability we're talking about a barbecue yeah a barbecue is right let's we'll talk that later we we'll talk after Mr you sure can we vote on the barbecue Deb please call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes M Pereira yes

mayor Coogan yes this is discussion and vote to approve the for of Youth Soccer Association motion to approve so this is a three-year lease any discussion Deb give it a call Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes 124 is a discussion to vote to approve grades 3 to five Health curriculum pilot as referred by the instructional

sub committee second any discussion on this guys Mr Agia yeah just uh a quick question to the superintendent on it I don't think there's anything controversial here from the subcommittee or anything was kind of straightforward and we're going to implement something that's not controversial non it's not controversial thank you I yield Deb give it a call please Mr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes

Miss larv yes Miss Perera yes mayor Coogan yes 125 is a discussion and vote to approve International teacher partnership as referred by the instructional subcommittee and presented by Brian Raposa assistant superintend second I have a motion to second on our International teacher partnership uh any questions for Mr Rosa on this one guys hearing none Deb call the rooll Please Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr di yes

Mr Cory yes Miss lvy yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes 126 is a discussion and vote to approve the school committee meeting calendar for school year 2526 so moved second I have a motion to second on the school year calendar anybody have any questions Deb give it a call please Mr chairman I'm sorry Mr Ang quick question I didn't get a chance to look at it in detail but is there anything related to

the U vacation I know some school systems had two weeks off for Christmas vacation is it uh oh that's the academic one this is just the school committee calendar thank you I think that's it's a separate agenda item thank you that's the next one Mr agar um Deb would you call the role Please Mr agar yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M ly yes M Perera yes

mayor cougan yes 127 is the discussion in the first read of the 2526 School academic calendar as presented by Dr Tracy K second I have a motion second questions on that need a motion it's a first read it's a first read any more discussion on the first read hearing none go Point Department inquiry go ahead it's um it does this is a first read it states on the agenda is the

discussion vote to approved so I think the proper motion would be uh to approve as the first read number seven M says discussion discussion in first read 127 127 call my mistake my mistake um 128 is a discussion and vote to approve the past position conver conversion instructional support Le aison to a par professional as presented by Dr Amy bronhard assistance any discussion hearing none Deb would you

please give it a call Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M ly yes M Pereira yes mayor cougan yes 129 has discussion and vote to approve a three-year contract for yellow bus McKinny vento athletic activity trip services as referred so moved second by the facilities and operations subcommittee any discussion Mr chairman Mr Agia just a technical uh I don't know if that this matters but it

says we're voting on a three-year contract but the um other documents talk about a um option of two additional years I just for the edification of the public I don't know if that's important to state or does it not matter so it's so the two-year option is our option only obviously if the district doesn't want to extend the contract for a variety of reasons they could not it's three we're

look looking for a three-year contract the two-year options we will vote each individual year after that yeah I just want to make sure that we can still do it without looking like we didn't do one year like for the anybody that bid we have the right to give them five years basically yes or four or five thank you I anything further on 129 Deb would you please call

the role Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss ly yes Miss Perera yes mayor yes 121 10 I'm sorry is discussion and vote to approve the the First Amendment to the lease agreement between the Roman Catholic bishop of Fall River and the for public schools as referred by the facilities and operations subcommittee and presented by question I have a motion a second um Mr Das thank you so

this is for Bishop connley yes um did we straighten out the issue of having snow removal built into that contract so it was actually in the other one it was in the original so this is an amendment to the original so because it's an amendment it stays in the contract right I appreciate that I anything further DB would you please call the roll on 1210 Mr chairman I'm sorry Mr

AGA I think just the for the edification of the public I want to give credit to uh Mr Pico superintendent curly for the conversion we talked about at the subcommittee this actually gives us for the same amount of money uh six more classrooms almost double the classrooms we're going to be able to reduce the nor Eastern Avenue which was a net $600,000 loss per year so I I just think when we push these things through

sometimes people don't realize that some good work has happened so I certainly appreciate it and I look forward to uh whatever is going to happen with prek but this is a good first step thank you ield thank you um Deb would you please call the RO Mr AIA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M Lar yes M Perera yes may Coogan yes 1211 is a discussion and vote to

refer a policy bde to the policy subcommittee for further vetting and review as presented by Mimi larvie Vice chairman thank you mayor um this past week we had we happen to have two back-to-back uh subcommittees uh facility and instruction uh with that being said we had a crossover of of school committee members sitting in on the subcommittee member uh subcommittee meeting the first one which was facilitating

operations uh so I immediately uh went into recess and we discussed uh a few things so we came back in and I just want to discuss with the full committee uh the policy if this should ever happen again uh my concerns are um I mean I can get into the policy and uh Mr Das was kind enough to send an email to the rest of us on a ruling from I

believe in 2011 or something like that uh that stated that the school Committee Member could stay at the meeting um and engage in conversation where our policy that was um clarification 2018 sorry 2018 our policy of 2011 I knew something was 2011 my apologies our policy um one of the the sentences that that reads um basically says um the committee of the whole voted on June 13 2011 to

add um the following language to the file bde any school committee person not appointed to a respective subcommittee May May attend and participate in all discussions however the nons subcommittee member may not make motions or vote on any issue before the subcommittee so my concern is I think we're heading into a Direction Where We may have some school committee members that want to

sit on uh subcommittee uh meetings and and have say I have a big concern with that um I have no problem zero problem um having school committee members sit in on the meeting but this I think this needs to be sent back to uh the policy subcommittee uh to discuss in length um I just don't know uh why somebody would want to participate and not have the trust in the three um appointed subcommittee

members on that specific subcommittee um unfortunately I don't have a lot of confidence that this wouldn't turn into uh somebody just uh being an obstructionist and it turning into a a complete filibuster uh and it just concerns me um I would like this to be sent back to or two to the policy committee to review and have discussions on how it reads and how we should proceed in the

future Mr May are you done M I am done sorry I motion to Grant leave to withdraw second what did he say um I don't I didn't hear what he said a motion to Grant leave to withdraw okay so we have one motion I don't believe we had a motion Mr Mayor did you didn't you make a motion motion to refer the BD policy to to the policy subcommittee we we yeah we have Mr das's

motion first on that motion go ahead Mr so basically he had a motion first Mr PR okay yes a second goe my only thing is uh I'm not sure why we're making an issue with this so I was not aware I was on that subcommittee I wasn't aware that they had a we had a policy the state has a regulations on open meeting law the chairman of the chairman or chairwoman

of the committee is in charge of the meeting why anyone would be opposed to having any member I thought it was great so if any member of the committee wants to go to I serve on technology I have serve on special education you have something to add come on down I'd love to have those questions asking questions at a meeting is not a bad thing and I think we need to stop getting away from

the fact that if someone asks a question it becomes a bad thing it's not a bad thing so anybody can go to any meeting that they would like and participate attorney Assad indicated in the affirmative attorney Macy a couple years ago answer in the affirmative so why would we not want to do that the purpose of subcommittee meetings is to get to the facts ask the questions do the due

diligence so that when we got to the full committee we might have already answered a question or the superintendent or her team can answer a question I don't understand why we're even debating it at the end of the day show up if you'd like if you wouldn't like to show up then don't but at the end of the day it's all good it's going to get us more information the meetings

are televised we can see what people ask questions and we can give some direction to the superintendent I have no idea why we would worry about this unless we were just trying to stifle debate and not have anybody participate and ask questions if that's the goal then I would say that you vote for keep this if the goal is to just ask questions and do you due diligence as a school Committee

Member I would say leave to a dra as Mr D said Thank You AEL Excuse Me Miss Miss per I'm kind of confused obviously something went down that I wasn't aware of shocker um it sounds to me like we already have a policy in place now I voted I I made a motion to refer this to the policy subcommittee because it seemed to me that there's a conversation that wants

to be had on this stage and I prefer it take place there before we see it again if we even do um but if everybody up here thinks the policy is good right I'm I'm not I'm not sure if Miss larv is looking to change it or not but the reality is if I have a colleague up here who wants to talk about or discuss or change a policy whether I agree with it

or not I will say they have a right to do that so I don't think that there's a problem I mean we talk about enjoying conversation and good discussion I think that's that's all she's asking for and if it goes to that subcommittee and everybody says okay no this is great we already have a policy we don't need to change anything there's no reason to change anything this is working great

then they can do that I I I don't see I think that's stifling conversation just she's asking to talk about something at a policy meeting that's a policy seems pretty appropriate whether that yields anything or not who knows the discussion has to be had with that being said I don't think that it is a it is a situation where well we want less people to talk we want less opinions we no I want good good

conversation but a lot of times what happens is instead of one person saying there opinion and voting and then another person saying an opinion what happens is we have this is my opinion and if you disagree these are the names I'm going to call you and then I'm going to say something but you're going to say something back and then I got to go again and then it becomes a meeting that

is chaotic and is not getting work done my personal opinion show up at all the subcommittee meetings I don't care I don't like to leave my house if I don't have to I can watch them on YouTube however sometimes they do pop up late we're going to address that pretty soon okay so if you want to go to a subcommittee meeting and listen and and all that that's all well and good but

adding another Committee Member um to a subcommittee uh to a subcommittee meeting with rights of voting and things like that it takes it it's no longer a subcommittee it's just minus a couple of people on the full committee so the obviously there there needs to be a conversation because I'm getting the vibe that not everybody is in agreement on that so I say bring it back to the policy subcommittee have a nice Lively

discussion everybody can go and um and then it can come back here if it if it seems necessary but I'm going to make a motion to refer the BD policy to the policy subcommittee we're going to vote on the first one leave to withraw first vot on the first one yet no we didn't vote on the first one yet so um Mr Cory then Mr Bailey what's the first one

believe can we just vote on it and move on you want to do that so I all right Mr Cory I'm sorry and so as I was looking over this policy in the Mass general laws um it really it really asks that subcommittees be very focused in their scope to keep the subject matter clear and to bring it to full committee so I agree with the nature of this question uh proposed by

the Vice chairwoman that we uh we bring it to the policy subcommittee to revisit this I was always under the impression that if I'm not on a subcommittee then I should not have a voice in the matters crossing the table of a subcommittee that's always been my impression with that I yield anything for Mr agar so just to clarify uh one of Miss perera's questions was about voting this is clear

that it's not a voting member it would be strictly if you're asking a question like if you watch the City Council meetings for instance in Fall River sometimes there's three members or four members they sit at that middle table to discuss the issues and then somebody's from their seat can actually ask some questions and participate this is no different than that particular uh policy

that's why I seconded the motion to leave to withdraw because all that it's doing is uh prolonging something attorney Assad has weighed in multiple uh ways that this is legal it doesn't violate open meeting law so really there's no point in US sending it to policy subcommittee if this vote fails I'll be happy to vote to go there but I just think it's a waste of time and at

the end of the day you can't vote all you can do is participate you can ask a question you can you know give your your thoughts but you do not have a vote on the subcommittee are you thank you Mr agar can't some people sway a vote by their conversations at a subcommittee I don't know I I would say that anytime anybody talks of course if they raise a valid question that could

sway it but that's not a factor in the open meeting law as attorney Assad has already indicated as attorney Macy has indicated it's legal otherwise it would be illegal I I agree with you by the book like I would even say the same thing you know I thought after the meeting if this policy is what it is then all of the committee members could have went to all of the executive sessions for the superintendent

interview process and not have violated the open meeting law the way that this policy reads now we were told oh you can't you only can have two people on it the whole committee could have went and seen those interviews and executive session I was always told that the three people there were the only ones that could go I didn't I I thought you could go I remember I went with Eddie CA once

and we were told not to go any longer I I I understand I think we're saying the same thing but the fact that the matter is now that we've gotten legal opinions that say we could have you know we can go to anything so to me it just it makes sense it's it's not a bad thing but it maybe it needs a little more study and

so we have Mr D oh hold on then you m m ly go ahead so just to respond um I I I think my feeling I believe my feeling is we have subcommittee for a reason I think what we're lacking on this stage and on this committee is trust in each other okay trust that the work is going to get done amongst the three people that were um selected by the chair to serve

as a subcommittee member of that um basically subcommittee I don't find a reason I know I would never have a reason to go to a subcommittee meeting of three and sit there and ask questions and I I just think I would be there to basically display my lack of trust for the three people that are supposed to get the work done everything they refer to the commit everything that gets voted and referred

to the the full committee we can discuss here so so I'm really not sure um why somebody or if anybody elects moving forward to go to subcommittee meetings participate and um I mean basically that's all I have on that I I just don't agree with it I don't understand and I like the mayor was um totally under the impression I'll take the I'll take the hit for that um I I thought it was the

policy probably should have read it cuz I didn't think I was ever um allowed there you know at at different subcommittee meetings so I mean I was wrong I should have uh read the committee I mean the uh policy a little better but I think it needs to be looked at and I think this this committee needs to have a little more trust in their colleagues to move forward that's all I'll say Mr Das thank

you just a few things to one I agree wholeheartedly with everything Mr agar just said and just to bring it into perspective I don't believe a school Committee Member wanting to attend another subcommittee meeting has anything to do with lack of trust I mean I just don't understand how those two go in together um and just to bring it to perspective to the public the reason this is on the

agenda today I informed the committee via email I sent an email to the committee stating I was going to um Implement a right under our policies to attend the facilities and operation subcommittee meeting I did attend um when I when I arrived miss Mr lby who was the chair of that subcommittee um put the the committee into adjournment um for a recess and had we had some discussion on whether it violated the

open meeting a while to not risk it I I decided just to not to engage in any discussion deliberation at that time after that meeting I provided a determination by the division of oah government which related to the fall over city council I believe the um the individual who was attending the um subcommittee meetings on the city council I believe was um Linda Pera I could be mistaken and there was a

determination made that no open meeting law was violated I thought that would be a done issue however a revised agenda went out with this being on the agenda for discussion I really don't see the point has nothing to do with lack of trust or anything and it really has I and I agree with Mr agar I don't really don't see a point in this whatsoever that this is even here we should be focused on other

things and so I'd be voting yes to take this off the table I you anything further on the leave to withdraw a motion by Mr Das Mr Bailey had his hand up Mr baile you have hand up so let me get this straight this is a motion to wave to to B motion to withdraw to take to withdraw y so I'm making sure of yes okay so a no vote we continue yes vote

leave to withdraw um Deb please call the RO Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory no Miss lar no Miss Pereira no mayor Coogan no motion to refer the bed policy to the policy subcommittee second a motion and second on referring it back to the subcommittee Deb would you please call oh Mr Das thank you I the reason um I knew this vote would come up I wanted to um keep

my comments particular to the motion I spoke previously to why I believe it should be withdrawn now I'll speak to why this shouldn't be approved um if I can ask a question um either to the vice chair to miss cabraal the this item what what time was the facilities and operation subcommittee meeting it was at 4:15 do you remember roughly the time that we um took that um

recess no not off the top no I don't not my well I have a concern because this item was added to a revised agenda it was added to revised agenda after the the original agenda went out I believe this was an item that was um prior to 48 hours of the meeting I believe just having this item on the agenda alone violates the open meeting law and pursuant to Robert's Rules I wish to um

register a formal objection to the consideration of this motion and we need and we were required to take a vote on the objection m per you know why this is ridiculous I'm going to tell you why because we don't play like a team here because this gentleman had this agenda well in advance of sitting down here today but this was so important we did we we did something bad it was so

important but he waited he waited to sit here in front of the camera in front of you all to make some like look I'm making a big point I'm sick of seeing this happen we're supposed to be a team so I will ask Deb or the superintendent very clearly you know when this went on the agenda was it 48 hours prior or not I I I don't know I have to be honest

with who has that answer I don't know what time I didn't look at it again until way later so I would have to look I mean because it depends on what when we got the email okay anything further I'm not done I'm not done I'm going to wait until maybe we get an answer because then we can vote and move on I'm not sure we already have have a policy all I see here is one

of my colleagues wanting to discuss a policy which they're allowed to do some people think it's a waste of time okay fine I think there are several things I think are a waste of time something later tonight's going to be a waste of my time but I'm still going to give my colleagues the time not okay all she's asking this we have to talk about this for 20 minutes sent an email all she's asking is to

discuss something in a subcommittee meeting not we're not voting on a policy we're not cutting anything this is not any crazy vote this is Shenanigans constant Shenanigans she's voting to discuss something in a subcommittee this is a pretty much no-brainer easy vote why it has to be controversial and we have to be throwing people under the bus cuz it's fun instead of acting like a team

and bringing that stuff up ahead of time because if you knew that was on the agenda wrong and you knew we were violating open meeting law then why the heck didn't do something about it instead you wait here so there's actually a violation well maybe if you would have fixed it oh no we don't want you to help us we want you to find ways to stick Us in the back cuz that's how we move

forward I do I have an answer yet to the agenda question she working she working on because obviously if it wasn't on 48 hours in advance it's a no-brain out we take it off with that I yield we're looking right now agenda got it hold on Mr ragy had his hand up first yeah just uh I think the meeting was on Wednesday it is Friday Thursday Thursday so I believe the does

the weekend count for for your hours or is it is it a weekday does the weekend count I think that's the real issue is whether it's a weekday or is it a weekend because the agenda I have says the 7th at 212 p.m. which I believe was Friday at 2:12 the agenda that I have here from the the binder correct there was an agenda um that was posted on Thursday I had to meet 48

Hours yep and then the amendment is have to meet the same threshold revised on Friday morning but does that threshold mean the same because I think it's a point that isn't necessarily about this particular issue I think attorney Assad should either weigh in or have to weigh in quite frankly I think they should be uh sent over anyway regardless because the policy subcommittee can actually

take this up with without a vote of the committee but the I think the point is just we have to be very clear about what we post when we post it and just stay within the regulation I'd like to hear from attorney aside attorney aside he's asking yeah I got it um look it's a question of math right the depending on when that when on the agenda if uh the 48 hours weekends do

not count uh so you have uh whatever period of time you you would have had left on Friday which I understand is about 7 hours is that about right seven or eight Thursday it was Thursday night was Thursday night it was on yes and we 5:30 okay and it went on the agenda no no we went on the agenda Friday at 5 it went on the agenda on Friday okay isn't that the

question right okay so the question is it went on the agenda on Friday correct because there was discussion during recess Miss larvie was the chair soon as Mr Das joined the meeting Miss lvy called a recess during that recess Miss larv expressed her concerns that there was an additional member there and so forth all members I believe weigh in Mr agya weigh in and said to his knowledge that any

member could attend they just could not participate um in conversation um committee had discussion back and forth and to my knowledge I felt it was agreed that they bring it forth to the full committee to have further discussion refer it to the policy subcommittee it so if the policy needed to be amended or changed that would be the place to be I felt that that's where everybody was in agreement with that and

that's why it was on the agenda on the revised agenda on Friday soen the email went out at 5:04 on Friday March 7th okay um Mr Agia just the purpose of the uh timeline is for when the agenda gets posted to the public doesn't matter when the email went out it's when it got posted to the public my concern is that if there wasn't a different I believe after the subcommittee meeting on

Thursday we added several things including the contracts and everything else all in one there wasn't multiple uh pieces so this isn't only about that one issue the issue is if we didn't follow the 48 hour policy we have to take everything that could added on that day if it wasn't within 48 hours off in my opinion has nothing to do with the policy I think it should go to policy

now talk about it but anything that was added without the 48 hours I think we have to revisit it and take the things off technically speaking we just gave a $5 million contract to people that was illegally done if it was if this is true not illegally but you know what I mean like without the protocol of 48 hours so we would have to pull it and have a a meeting where it's posted properly

anything that was was added after that subcommittee meeting if the only time was March 7th at 21:12 that's not 48 hours notice by what attorney aside said and that stuff should be off the items same thing I gu see what those revised I so so Mr D had that whole bunch of them make a motion for a five minute recess to get this straightened out I agree I got to go bathroom five minute

recess well we have

pose

unanimous

e

e

e

e

e

e

e

e

e

e

e e

in session Deb please call the roll Mr AG here Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory here miss lar here miss Pera May Coogan here um we had a timing issue with some of the agenda items so we're going to resend some votes I'd ask for a motion to resend on 12.3 so moved second uh for of use soccer don't worry this will be coming back next week so we're just doing some

housekeeping all in favor I I opposed unanimous 124 is a discussion and vote to approve motion to approve oh it's resend it's motion to resend I'm sorry the U second vote for item 12.4 the health curriculum I have a motion second all in favor I opposed unanimous 125 it's discussion and vote to approve the international teacher partnership motion to resend second thanks motion to resend

I have a motion to resend and a second all in favor I I opposed unanimous 129 is a motion to resend I'm looking for I have a motion to have a second second all in favor I unanimous 1210 is discussion and motion to resend second I have a motion in second all in favor I I opposed unanimous 1211 is a discussion and motion to resend um looking for a

motion I have a motion to Second all in favor I unanimous so we'll be taking those up next week um thanks everybody for their patience Mr D can just make a quick comment on on all this quickly um because my colleague to my right um seems to insinuate that I was um this was some big scheme I did my prep for this meeting early this morning and that was the first time I even saw this item

on the agenda I when I saw the revise go out I knew there was some recommendations that were made within the subcommittee I didn't know that had to do with the the that open meeting law issue and that's what it was originally an open meeting law issue not what we're having a discussion about what we had a discussion about today was a discussion just to change the policy outside the open meeting law to stop school

committee members so yes there there is a 48 hours notice and for the vice chair during recess to say that I'm instructionist is reprehensible we're not all right that's obstructionist well okay point of order the vice chair just called me an obstructionist again there needs to be the Quorum okay let's stay on Focus here please everybody chairman Mr AG next up is item number 12.13 I would like to make a motion that

we refer that to the technology subcommittee to discuss the administration and live streaming subcommittee meetings second okay but you went you skipped 12.12 oh sorry I jumped that sorry 1212 is a discussion and vote to approve the creation of a public moved refer to the parent and Community out we subcommittee hold on these oh sorry this was already there sorry I thought it was not there

yet I apologize I can you just repeat okay we're up to 1212 Mr agar has made a motion I I made that an error Mr Mayor so 1212 has already been referred I thought it hadn't been so and vote to approve the creation of a far public school policy of parent advisory Council Representatives as referred by the parent and community engagement subcommitte Outreach subcommittee and presented by Colin Das thank you uh Mr

Mayor when we um referred this item to the full committee we did so actually to potentially refer this item back to policy subcommittee I believe we had a great discussion with the superintendent on this policy itself and instead of it having ad hoc members of the um from these um different parent councils joined us on stage we're having a better discussion about at inquiring them into

the subcommittees and then um we had a discussion that maybe this this policy could be amended within policy subcommittee to meet that threshold uh I believe that was the sort of the consensus so I like to make a motion that this be referred to policy subcommittee so the administration can look into amending this I have a motion to second on referring back to the policy subcommittee I mean to the policy

subcommittee from the parent subcommittee uh Deb would you please call the role Mr is it going back to the same committee policy no it's going to that's what the request was that's what he said yes baile Mr Bailey yes Mr D yes Mr Cory yesy yes M yes yes 1213 is a discussion refer to the technology subcommittee second you want this refer to the technology subcommittee vote to discuss

live streaming I have a motion a second to send to the tech committee oh yeah we have it that please call the role Mr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yeah M lar yes M Parera yes may yes 124 is the discussion to have the superintendent look into ways to advertise and increase participation from parents in our advisory committees is presented by Colin Das school committee man thank you yeah this is

just a discussion item so the committee can you know discuss some ways that we can again like it says increase parent participation within the process we're doing one thing right now by referring that policy to the subcommittee um like can just for discussion purposes just ask the superintendent I know we discussed this within the subc committ itself but just we can let the community knows which ways parents or other

community members can get involved either that be through parent councils or things like that sure um right now every school um has a school council up and running um it was something that uh was part of the goal setting process for all of our principles and so that is that is probably a committee um a council that has been established um it has been communicated to parents um over the course of the year and

participation has been solicited and those councils have been established every school has a PTO we um met with PTO at the beginning of the school year and at the parent and Community um Outreach subcommittee meeting we know that we have an established elpac in the district as well as CPAC and a lot of it um I would say outside of that is very school specific and I would certainly encourage all of

our parents who are interested in getting involved I mean they can reach out to anyone in the school using parents Square um and also look into the um you know look at the school's websites I know that you know dery has the dery parent advisory Council which is different from school council and it's different from PTO there are boosters organizations at the high school as well and so I would encourage

everybody um to look in at their school websites if they're not aware of any of those um opportunities because they certainly exist at every school thank you and if the only and I am happy with the progress we are making and hopefully we continue to make to incorporate parents throughout the district into the school system I can just give one um an idea again we have I believe the one advisory committee that

we do have set up right now is around naming renaming and the process on how to join that specific advisory committee I don't believe they're really it's set in stone or or if it's clear that's one thing I'm just requesting Administration could possibly look into to possibly get again more parents or community members involved I think that's um again one more step in the right direction but I

yield my time anything further on this discussion hearing none so what's so is there a motion no no motion discussion time okay so can I weigh in on comment yeah go ahead so um I'm a member of that subcommittee as well although I wasn't at the last subcommittee meeting um this motion is not as clear to me because I was not in attendance at that meeting but what I'm what I'm going to propose is I think

it's great to hear parents' voices and I know that each school has pto's and parent advisory councils and I hope everybody continues to weigh in I know what the U last subcommittee meeting that groups like CPAC presented which is incredibly important we always want to know know what their point of view is especially uh in regard to their child's needs uh in the special education curriculums I think it's excellent I

think that maybe uh it would be great if parents could uh form their own advisory committee within that subcommittee and appoint a lead spokesperson to um reflect the ideas that come out of the great apparent group meetings so that it doesn't you know bog down our process here on stage in school committee and yet we still have a way to hear parents' voices you know if they could funnel it to a lead

spokesperson that would then report out to the subcommittee now we're hearing the concerns of many parents across the district and we could weigh those concerns out in that manner that that's my proposal okay Mr chair Mr D sorry just one last question um I I do know a few months ago or maybe it was just a couple weeks ago now I'm very bad with time sometimes but um I know the

superintendent had a plan of um meeting with um different Community groups I know there's some meetings I don't know if you have an update on how those meetings are going so the last two meetings that were put on my calendar actually ran at the same time as so there were two different neighborhood associations that I plan to visit um um one was um Cory row and the other was um flint and they both coincided with um

these meetings either subcommittee meetings or school committee meeetings um and so I wasn't able to make either one of those because I had other I had other meetings to go to but um I have spoken with you numerous times about leveraging the um parent and Community um Outreach subcommittee for that purpose and I would would like to continue to have people come in um representative of those different groups

I think that is a great idea um and if not all you know I know at the beginning of the year we had all of the pto's report out I think we could get um a calendar together of events plan out over the course of a year or you know a half year Whatever It Is by quarter so that we can meet regularly with groups I think it's a great way to engage me

along with um subcommittee members to do that and I think that we just need to put together a like an annual plan of like we're going to have four meetings and these are the you know these are the different groups that we'll meet with so I mean at this point that is the plan because I think when we have meetings that are you know I'm trying to show up in the community when their meetings

exist when we end up having meetings that are happening at the same time it becomes a problem um but if we can include people in those meetings I think it would be helpful thank you so I and I thank you for that I understand you were at those meetings but I'm assuming some of your staff were have you heard any feedback from them th those um neighborhood meetings no not the neighborhood meetings the um the parent

meetings the ones you said you couldn't attend because they those were the two that I was talking about they were neighborhood association meetings how how did you like those meetings I wasn't able to attend because we had meetings on the same nights like I had other events the same nights so even though they're calendared if we then have a subcommittee meeting on the same night or a school committee meeting

on the same night I'm not able to attend right so the sub your the parent meeting conflicted with the neighborhood meeting sub some kind of subcommittee meeting or school committee meeting conflicted with us neighborhood meetings yes okay I you okay 12:15 discussion and vote to instruct the superintendent to retain the services of an audit auditing firm or conduct a review and bring proposals

before the committee as presented by Colin Das School committeeman Mr Das thank you just a question um when are we supposed to have um because I know we took a vote which we approved as a committee believe unanimously during our financial um that we have our financial subcommittee and we would have quarterly efficiency reports um when are those coming up um hopefully have the budget yeah I

mean at the next I mean we have we already have two meetings of the whole committee the finance subcommittee is the whole committee so when we can get one of those calendared um following these next two meetings then we can report out don't I think we get a financial update monthly at every meeting don't we come on where we standar quar I'm sorry quarterly at these meetings we have we do that right

but I do know at one of these meetings that we took a vote that we specifically task our um our finance subcommittee to have quarter I believe quarterly efficiency reports I believe my colleague to my um at the end has his hands up because I I remember he made the motion still out you're going to recognize him thanks col thank you you Mr AAR yeah I think the uh short answer

to the question is there's 12 months in a year and if it's quarterly that's every three months so from the date of the vote the meeting should be held three months after that I yield so it's a probably already two months so as long as it's every quar if it's quarterly and the committee voted we should be having one soon that's what I would say I do the math thanks anything further on that one right I'll

just request that per purum to the vote that we had that we hold a financial just again even if I believe we said something about 30 minutes just to go over things that we've done in the district to make it more efficient um I'll make a motion to Grant leave to withdraw for this um item second this item want withdrawn right now pending the reports we getting quarterly chairman yes there's a motion

to refer to a a committee uh take precedence over a motion to leave with withdraw I don't know Mr uh Assad I I does a motion un leave to withdraw or take precedence or does a motion to refer to a committee well is is it the order they came in or if factually if in fact uh there is a motion to withdraw uh that would uh uh that would uh negate the second motion

which would be the motion to refer to a committee okay if if you had the the motion to refer to committee first it negates any need for a second motion you wouldn't be able to to address it you got that Mr a the only reason why I asked is I think this is a valid question on what we should do relative to this contract so regardless of where this goes at the quarterly meeting

relative to efficiency we should have uh Michael Joyce's contract or the attorney's contract on that agenda that's all I yield thank you that this was 15 16 is Mr Joyce all right so Mr Das made a motion on leave to withdraw on item 12.15 uh do I have a second that you do okay please call the role so Mr chairman is that to withdraw it from the agenda right new yeah Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes

Mr D yes Mr Cory yes M ly yes M Pera mayor Coogan yes 1216 is discussion and vote to instruct the superintendent to pause any future engagements with attorney Michael Joyce motion approve motion of send to the efficiency Finance subcommittee which subcommittee 12.16 which quarterly uh Finance meeting relative to efficiency okay do I have a second do I have a second on that one second I have a motion second to refer

to the finance committee I'm assuming I want want more information though yeah I want to know I want to know Mr Mr a what committee are you sending this one to please so we had talked about having a quarterly meeting that's related to the efficiency for the superintendent to report out to us or have a discussion relative to ways that we would save money and make sure we're being more efficient

it's my premise that when we have an attorney making $300,000 a year that looking at a retainer that could control some of those costs would be an efficiency meet so I would just ask that this go before the full committee to talk about it and uh okay that's all we got a motion a second m per I'm sorry I'm just kind of confused because I thought we were in front of the full

committee right now and we were going to talk about it I don't understand we're going to refer it back to all of us Mr I'm kind of confused just they said I mean they no this is talking about this says discussion and vote to instruct the superintendent to pause any future engagements with attorney Michael Joyce and seek Services of an outside attorney on a retainer in order to save money as

presented by Colin Das so this is on the agenda now we're at a full committee meeting let's talk about it I don't understand like if there was a subcommittee you're going to refer this to then I'd get it then I would get it I would say okay there's a motion a second right now let's just vote on whether we're I understand but I I can still talk when there's a motion that's been seconded so

I'm going to just say that I don't I'm about to have to vote on it and I'm telling you I'm confused I'm going to have to vote no cuz I don't understand why we wouldn't just talk about it today it's right here okay and we're all here me too I don't know thank you um I was going to to my to my colleague to my R point I was going to ask some

questions on this as well if um if I get asked Mr Alita um how much so Mr M my colleague said around 300,000 um what do we have the exact do we have an exact dollar figure how much Mr Mr Das do you want to take a vote on the motion if it gets referred we can have all of those discussions in that committee if it stays we'll discuss it right now that's what I'm

saying I I I agree and then give the administration time to prepare okay I I I withdraw my question okay so let's let's go Mr a here is the superintendent the director of special education the finance director ready and have all the information relative to Michael Joyce any independent contracts all that stuff you are you prepared tonight to present all of that information no superintendent are you no that's why I

refer it okay because if you're not it's on the agenda and you're not ready to deal with this is a complicated issue we have an attorney that does special education work we don't know exactly where he I know he gets paid a hell of a lot of money and I know there's no limit on it but there's some rationale for it I I just don't think you're prepared to

present tonight so if it's on Mr D puts it on the agenda and you're ready to present I'd agree with Miss perero let's talk about it tonight I don't think you're ready at this point we should refer and give you some more time to come up with answers okay right Miss PR I didn't realize you weren't prepared obviously if you're not then we can refer back to us at a later time I would

ask though please please if something's on the agenda we should all be ready to talk about it and if we're not let's not put it there because when I look at Agenda that is 20 things and I prepare myself to talk about all those and then I come here and I don't you know just if we could do a maybe I'm not trying to be a jerk here but you prepare for things that are on

the agenda and when I come here and it's getting withdrawn because I'm being told we're not ready to talk about it it's confusing to me because it's on the agenda so if we could maybe just be honest be like I don't have all the answers or whatever but that I I will be honest superintendent I mean I think the I don't know a point of discussion here is that we didn't request this as an

agenda item it was requested by Mr Das right so when I looked at the agenda and the backup for it there was nothing there so it's hard to prepare for something when I mean it's to instruct well then to instruct the superintendent to pause any future engagements with attorney Michael Joyce it's I mean I feel like there should have been some backup provided in the same way that my team provides backup

when we want to put something on the agenda I would say then I would say no matter who makes a request something doesn't go on the agenda unless they're providing enough information that we can sit here and have a a discussion about it okay you know and I I'm fine with you saying and guess what no I'm not putting on the agenda right now because we need

a b or c but I'll happily do it when you gather all those things that's fine okay I I totally agree with that let take a vote agree I'm with I'm let's take a mo vote on the motion to refer to the efficiency finance committee do I have a motion a second that you do give it a call please Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Corey

okay Miss lar no Miss Pereira yes may I just speak yes I'm sorry so we want to refer this 12. 15 discussion well I'm sorry 1216 to instruct the superintendent to pause any I don't even know what I'm voting on like there's no backup to say whether or not I want this to go to the full committee or whether I want to squash it right away yes it just doesn't make sense to

me and this is what happens when somebody on this committee has hisy fits and wants something on an agenda all the time I want on the agenda I want on agenda and then comes unprepared this is what happens we all look unprepared I will change my vote to yes let's hear about it at the the next committee when we're all together this is this is absolutely mindblowing okay Mr Corey then Mr absolutely mindblowing this is

so uh it's like they're reaching for reasons to dig deeper into the financial operations of the school department when that's what we were elected for in the first place and up to this minute I'm in my third term on the school board I've never seen a motion like this and it's never come up for discussion because we've had many de dealings with attorney Joyce over the years and to my

recollection those those deliberations have always been thoroughly professional and handled with a plone I don't understand this Doge effect that this question is hinting at when you have a school board already elected to oversee the financial well-being of our city with that I yield thank you okay Mr hold on guys Mr Agia please so school committee members have a fiduciary responsibility to look at all

the info budgets and everything that's one of the most major issues that we have as a school committee so I disagree with my colleague to my right I don't think this is a frivolous situation we have a fiduciary responsibility to vote on budgets and to question things and I like all the people that we work here I like the finance people I ask a lot questions because that's what our job is

so I'm not going to stop asking the questions that I have to ask when it looks to to Mr Joyce and his contract I have personally emailed the prior superintendent Mrs Pon the current superintendent Dr Curley and several other folks and asked the question can you please show me the contract that we signed with Michael Joyce I've asked that for over four years I'm sorry I'm sorry my apologies and I don't have a

contract correct so the answer that I get trying to do my job as a fiduciary responsible person on the school committee is what is the contract with this gentleman we have none and we've asked that four times five times over four or five years and this person makes $300,000 I'm up or down maybe I'm not exactly right around $300,000 a year well I think we have a right to say is

that the best use of our funds can we do it on a retain but we certainly need a contract with any individual that's going to make that much money and work for the school district now I've asked that for years in a row Mr Das has asked the same thing multiple times so this isn't just frivolous talk this is actually something that we should look at now I would expect when we put something on

the agenda whether it's a person like Mr dis or myself or anybody that ask for something that the answer is going to be something not this this is what we got right here right here two Yellow Pages nothing in the middle so what I would say is if Mr Das asked for this to be on there we should get a one pager and say the contract calls for this I believe

this whatever it is some opinion from Dr Curley or her team so all I'm saying is when when nothing's there it don't blame the Committee Member we need to get something so when you refer this I think it's the right thing to do in the right time so I okay hold on go ahead M Dr Curley okay so I just want to be really clear about this if you look at the difference between 1216 and

1217 1216 says it's a vote to instruct the superintendent to me that there's a very clear role there in terms of preparedness of the Committee Member who is bringing this to the committee right someone at this table is just going to tell me what to do fine we didn't Supply any backup if we look at 1217 where the words are a review of how much money the district spends on outof District

conferences travel reimbursements vote to refer the we actually we provided the backup because that signaled to us that there was going to be some kind of discussion that included me and that included members of my team 126 says nothing like that it is a discussion I'm assuming among the members and a vote to instruct the superintendent they read very differently I and my team responded

very differently so if we wanted to review the costs of our agreements with Michael Joyce and what we've done with him in the past year over the past five years whatever it is we would have been prepared just like we prepared for 1217 when it says a review of how much the district spends we could have supplied that I think it really needs to be clear in terms of the item itself because we

will prepare when it appears that we are actually going to be part of a discussion all I'm saying is that we can have a one page that articulates that message that's all and we'll be prepared for the next I think we already voted so okay all right so now let's go to 1217 discussion and vote a review of how much the district spends on outof District conferences travel reimbursements and vote to refer the

matter to the policy subcommittee to create a policy which will will require out of districts travel that surpasses one night to require school committee approval is presented by col D motion to refer to policy subcommitte second second so we're referring this to the policy subcommittee is that your motion Mr AGA yep I have a motion and a second to refer it to the policy subcommittee Mr

Corey Mr chairman so many of the items that we've been discussing over the past couple of meetings I've never seen in my three terms the amount of discussions referred to the policy subcommittee as I have in the last two or three meetings it's like the policies that we have in existence to this minute aren't good enough when they've served our school district very well over time and all of a sudden there

seems to be a complete revision of the policies by certain members of this committee it it it just seems seems untenable to me and so now the agenda for the next policy subcommittee would probably contain I don't know 10 11 12 13 items up for discussion and revision that's an that's untenable to me and it's against the Mass general laws when it proposes that school committee school

council meetings and school committee meetings should have focused agendas and focused discussions around a focused agenda with that I yield thank you Mr Corey Mr uh Das this is yours you want to send it to the policy subcommittee also yeah I know I'm in full support of that and I think we just had the conversation earli and the reason I added this on the agenda and it took my exact request which I which I

appreciate but I do agree with the superintendent there should be we we could definitely have more conversations on on clarification but this was something we've discussed over the last few meetings that's why I put it on the agenda about exactly how these reimbursements happen I don't think it's um worth the discussion I will say this I I don't agree that with the general purpose that all of our policies have

been beneficial toward us in the last few years not one bit and we we are a policymaking body that's should be that that's the majority of our job creating policy making policy and that's something that should be cherished the if I if I can ask if anyone has the answer when was the last policy subcommittee um I believe we should be meeting more since we have all these items on we haven't met in forever and I

think it's important that we have more meetings of the policy subcommittee I've called for it week after week in emails that we should the policy subcommittee should be convening I I don't understand why it's not I uh Dr Curley um I don't I don't disagree I think that that our policies in their um entirety should be Revisited I think that it is it's making it difficult I'll say for me right it

makes it difficult when it's like a policy here and a policy there I think that we would be very well served if we were able to set up a policy subc committing like set up a plan that says here's how we're going to review all of the policies put it on a timeline because if we're jumping from section to section and we're doing one policy at a time I think we run the risk of making a

change in one policy that actually has some crossover into another policy and I think they have to be looked at like in batches so that you know we're looking at you know AB C and ab and ab like I think they we have to go at it that way otherwise we're all over the place there's no particular Focus it's hard to take a rational approach to recommending any policy changes because we're talking

about one kind of policy one week another kind of policy another week and I think when you take a halfhazard approach like that you you run the risk of making some errors so I would just like to propose that as we move forward we do it you know that we put a plan in motion and that it doesn't feel like um Tommy like it's on a whim this policy that policy that's my only that's my

only suggestion I think that we will be like in a better position um coming out of any of those policy revisions if we look at them you know by like if we look at them thematically thank you um Mr Corey then Mr Agia Mr chairman on this item 1217 I'm going to vote no on it because it really seems like U um the district spends in a on how much the district

spends on AO District conferences travel reimburse reimbursements and um it seems like it micromanages the professional development that needs to go on for all of our school leaders and teachers when there's an available conference to attend out of district and for the school committee to micromanage their travel requests in such a way I would I would ask Mr almeer if I could just ask you to come to the podium sir

Sir Mr alme over the past several years uh as you maintain the finances uh has there ever been a question of Fara District travel conferences and some conferences are all over the country to the West Coast down south everything but us our school leaders and our teachers and many of our students as well have to attend these conferen out of district has there ever been uh a problem with us maintaining them

financially no no I've never known of any myself so thank you you answered my question appreciate that Mr I yield Mr AG I haven't spoke yet maybe so um do you does anybody know what the policy is now if like okay cuzz um my colleague wants to change it to needing um super um I'm sorry super uh school committee approval if um the travel is going to surpass one night

what is the policy now what do they need approval for now does anybody know that out of state out of state so all they need approval for now is if they're out of state okay but you could be in Massachusetts and need to spend the night somewhere right if it's farther away so is there any policy right now that determines if they're in Massachusetts like like is there a I don't believe so no you're not 100%

Colin do you know no oh okay I thought you'd know the policy since you put it on the agenda to change it my bad all right yeah let's just refer another thing back to something else that was on the agenda tonight thank you okay oh I'm sorry Mr AG yeah so uh I don't think anyone has ever denied a um out of District travel for a professional development since I've been

here and I've been here almost 20 years so I haven't seen anybody get denied but once again asking a question is not a problem every time somebody asks a question it becomes a a look like if oh wow they're asking questions that must mean they're targeting somebody that must mean they're giving the superintendent a hard time or anything Dr Curley and I for instance on this issue have had a quality conversation

related to the reimbursements that we get for meals and the like quality conversation Dr Curley told me Point Blank that she shares the concern that we haven't had a policy on what does it look like and I want to say the the conversation went correct me if I'm wrong was there's nothing in place to say we're going to reimburse somebody x amount of dollars for a dinner so that means they don't go to a mid-range

restaurant they could go to the Capital Grill and there's nothing in the policy that says they can't get a $85 stake and we would reimburse them so that's the need for a policy revision so I think we had a quality conversation you've acknowledged the fact that that's an issue I think it's just clarifying and clearing up some policies doesn't have to be looked at as a a negative thing or

anybody that goes on a trip is on a junk it or anything like that I know people go to very far away places or in California or wherever to conferences and I support that most of them are paid for by grants as indicated but there has to be some parameters and fiscal internal controls relative to what they get paid I brought one up one time to and thing that somebody at 9:00 at night

bought a $8 or $9 Starbucks or something ridiculous why are we reimbursing somebody that's on a thing for that you want to know why was because we can because there was no policy so I think this is a valid uh you know policy that we should just look at it this is not a big deal the policy subcommittee somebody asked the question when was the last policy subcommittee meeting when was it October October October of 2024

2024 corrected to Res ual conflicts with um committee members the dates that I had I was never able to get another one and then we started our budget season understand but it wasn't it wasn't in 2022 no it was not it was October I served on it the last time on those agendas just because we have 10 things referred right now on the agenda that I sat through the last time two years ago

I think there was 37 or 58 items on the agenda because when we do it in a batch you put about 100 policies and say we're we're going to vote on all these that to me is more cumbersome sometimes I'm not suggesting that what you suggested when you're sitting there and they have like uh Tom kougan was here at the time and he went over a million policies and we

had to try to like pick through them so to Mr das's Point policy is something that we should do I don't think we should make a big deal if we ask questions all I want to do is try to move this thing forward but at the end of the day it's not a bad thing so I I would just say that I don't think it's a bad thing either I have had discussions

about a change to this policy I think the potential not an issue but the question is around this isn't just a vote this isn't a review of a particular um existing policy what how this reads is it's a vote to refer the M policy sub committee to create a policy which will require out of District travel that surpasses one night require it's something so specific that it takes on the appearance that that in and of

itself is some kind of like problem that we have in the district that we have so many people who are going away from multiple nights and the school committee doesn't get a say in it when that thing in particular isn't necessarily the issue because we are funded most often that kind of trip is funded through a grant and not just in a way that we can you know we've got free reign and we

decide that we're going to send someone out to California for 5 days it's usually built into the grant that you going to get this Grant and included is you're going to send people out to Denver for professional development we don't choose to spend the money that way it's actually built into the grant itself so that's if if we need to clarify some of that information I would love to this just seems so specific that

it implies that we're having a real problem with paying for outof district travel and then it sends a message to our larger Community who's paying attention to an agenda item that we're misspending somehow we're spending a ton of District money on like these lavish hotel rooms and these big trips cross country that's not what's happening so it's like the specificity of this I think is misleading that's all I

understand so what I what I'm I still got the floor so what I was suggesting though is when we get something like this this got referred this got presented to multiple people from yourself the mayor the vice chair K attorney Assad anybody that was in the agenda G setting uh realm at that time when some any member myself included if I submit something for an agenda item that is contrary to what reality is in

our current policies that's when we would have the conversation to say you we're not going to put this out there because this is not the right language so communicating with them having an agenda piece could could have clarified this piece about outof District travel surpasses one night we do I believe have to approve that I thought it was out of state that had to be approved I I'll

take a look but I did think that it was out of state but all my point is is just that there's a time during the process of the the draft agenda goes out on Wednesday policy says mayor miss larvi yourself turn your side sit and go over it at that time on Wednesday is when you push back and say this doesn't make any sense but this would make better sense

and then by the time on Friday when it gets official so I think you have the right to weigh in is all I'm saying that's what I was looking for in here thank you are you Mr chairman Mr chairman okay I'm sorry Mr Das then you Mr Cory thank you so to to the superintendent's point and credit the Mr agar's Point as well and I can definitely come at this as well I

think there needs to be on my end I seem to to have the issue of um asking for an item then giving my opinion my personal opinion after the item and they take all that and they place that as an agenda item maybe going forward if I'm requesting an item to go on the agenda I'm going to be exactly clear of what it is what I wanted to say on the agenda I

guess I left Faith to the administration to do that for me that's my mistake going forward to I actually you need to just clarify that when you say I had faith in the administ in administration and that is my mistake I just want you to be really specific about it being here okay because it is not a mistake to have any kind of faith in me and my Administration I should have said the

school committee leadership I was trying not to use names I was going to say whoever puts the item on the agenda I was trying to be polite not mention anyone's names going to Mr agar's point there needs to I would love if there was some sort of communication we did have an agenda setting meeting which I was invited to we discussed other other items I wish this was brought up as well

so I believe communication from all of us can be better now this in general I believe having the discussion the superintendent just said herself there has been some preliminary discussions of making some amendments to this policy absolutely nothing wrong with that and it should be something that should be easily fixed we have the the procedural way of doing that is referring it to policy subcommittee again that I I

understand procedures could take a while procedural votes can be cumbersome but again that that's part of our job I yield I believe it's time we vote Mr chairman yeah Mr C the way this motion reads to me smacks of micromanagement I yield okay let's vote to send it to the policy subcommittee as we said uh Deb please call the rooll Mr agan yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr

Cory no Miss larv no Miss Perera yes mayor Coogan yes uh 12 18 is a discussion and first read first read I'm sorry motion to pass through first read I have a motion on first read I have a second second Dev call the rooll Please Mr may I can I talk about the items um yeah go ahead thank you so um those two bills that you have listed there D

okay thank you um so these are bills I believe would move the fall Public Schools forward I'm looking for your permission to advocate for these bills on behalf of the school committee I will be bringing more in the future I did just meet with the um president of the F we discussed some potential bills to help move the district forward as well um I am in disagreement that this was

brought on as a first read this isn't a policy I'd like some clarification in the future what should be a first read and what shouldn't be because I believe with over the last few months it's been all over over the place um I also would like and we can just since it's a first read uh we could discuss it at the next meeting I would also like the committee's um approval

that the msba bill that's included also that we also advocate for his amendment to include preschool so the msba bill that's attached today has to do with msba school funding it's mainly focused around vocational however I believe we should also focus on preschool with well and hopefully get some of those msba funds to come in the district so if we have something like the PACE Center or

another prek project in the future we can get funding for that and help the district but I it's a first read um def read it over and we'll discuss it at the next meeting i y de call on Mr ago I would just like to formally ask attorney Assad to weigh in on what Mr Das mentioned relative to the first read issue I had a a similar concern last meeting so between now and the next

meeting if we can get something on what exact languages first read and which ones are not thank you okay I'd be glad to uh take a look at that and report back to the committee thank you sir Deb call the RO Please Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvey yes M Perera yes mic hugan yes uh 13 we have our retirements our res ations um our

transfers our rehires um motion to accept and place on file second I got a motion a second Mr D Mr a yeah Dr Curley so on 13.3 appointments I mentioned this at the last meeting relative to the contract being retroactive to July 1 so on the one two three fourth one down says this individual is going to get step one and it says

we've never seen The Matrix that's why I'm asking that's what I'm looking for like the new one but basically the gist of the question is I think somebody should know what the starting Step One is but maybe I'm wrong not and I don't and I'm not referring to you Dr Curley somebody should out know out there like human resources or Finance what it is but at 528 86 if that's step one we

agreed at the contract that retroactively to July 1 step two was going to be the starting salary for individual in the FRP so all I'm asking is for is have we gone back and made sure everyone gets the proper steps so that now they'd be getting higher and then next year they would be on the equivalent of step three because we we agreed that it was going to be step

two that's basically the gist of it I asked last meeting if we've done that and created the budget that indicated as such and I was told yes uh I'm just checking again because this happened to be staring me in the face that step one at 528864806

so I guess the I don't know anybody bachelor's plus 30 is more than Masters but you see the on the agenda it's yeah three and four Masters says Step One is 50,7 the next one says Bachelor step one 52 886 I don't know if that's because of the I'm just thinking what this is in my opinion but I don't work like I think that's because of the sub separate bump

so 52 886 is bachelor's plus 30 54 to 53 is Masters so on step one this person is getting says 5074 per year master's degree step one as a teacher is that a mistake that's the old rate that's the old rate the 50704 is the bachelor's plus 60 old rate are you saying old grade or something the old rate the old rate old rate prior to the contract okay but it's on the agenda

today so it's a mistake yes because everybody should be on step two that's all I'm trying to get to when you look at a a sub separate teacher we voted in the contract rightfully so retroactively to pay them $4,000 extra so the person who's there in a sub separate room should be getting 4,000 added to their bachelor's plus3 and I don't know if that includes it I raised the issue I

know you're a thorough guy I know you're going to check it I asked last month the same thing but this is the reason why we ask questions to make sure it's right please go back and check everything so that everybody's retroactive thank you are you can I have a there's a motion in the second motion second on uh information dad would you please call the rooll M Dr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory

Miss larv yes Miss Carrera yes mayor K yes item 14 new business um Mr Das thank you Mr may I have I have a few um I'll start with um an item that I requested come on the agenda that did not which I believe would be worth a good discussion um I requested that the committee go ah that the committee discussed filing unfunded mandate petitions so we potentially look into

saving money um the item was um denied to be placed on the agenda I believe it's worth having the discussion look into the idea broadly have an attorney aside looking into it see if it's something that's feasible see if that's something that we can explore to save um again to save money and to potentially advocate for more funding from the state house so I would like to make a motion

that that item be added to the next agenda for discussion second I have a motion a second I have no idea Mr uh Das unfunded mandates from the legislature you're the uh legislative liaison and you said you were going to have a discussion with them wouldn't you bring it up with them first with the representatives and the legislators what I was exploring Mr Mayor um and just to explain the process

I I did meet with the vice chair and superintendent we had a conversation on this so if there are certain items that are mandates from the state government that are unfunded or underfunded could be considered unfunded um you you have the ability to petition the state auditor to request a a determination on that and you can use that determination to either go to court and um be um found and not have to

follow the Mandate or you can requ request like you just mentioned go through the state house um however we get putting the cart we can't put the cart before the horse so I believe it's worth just having discussion even in executive session I did lay it out in an email and it have a speak attorney aside see if it's something that's viable or if we can even meet offline we can meet

wherever um and just have the conversation but I believe it's something that's definitely worth exploring and I just want to have it for a conversation anything further on that one Mr chairman Mr heier I do think it's valid a valid concern and I think just having this Administration come up with any unfund unfunded mandates at a future meeting would make sense so that we can talk about it and I'll give you a case

in point and this affects the city getting reimbursed from mckin vento transportation in approximately 2009 the auditor at the time made a ruling at the State House that said mckin vento transportation is a mandate it is not something that they can determine we're going to fund it at 50% or 60% or 70% you had to fund it at 100% between that time and now everybody asks we always keep asking the city's

worried about how much money they get for transportation it hasn't been 100% funded so to Mrs das's point is that is an unfunded mandate that the legislature has to pay and the same thing with uh when you look at special education we fund circuit breaker uh only a certain percentage of the actual amount valid question Mr Das in my opinion and I think it should be on a future agenda I yield thank

you I mean that's fine with me I we give it a call that M Dr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv Miss Pera mayor Coogan yes what else you got Mr Das um so over the weekend and I I'm I'm not going to beat this issue um I don't know how the phrase goes to a horse or whatever um if I could just quickly ask Mr bigo the event

that took place over the weekend was there insurance or provided or liability waiver sign by Mr a Claus's team absolutely there was yes okay and is who covered um the Staffing over the weekend the Staffing was here for other events so the event did not cost us anything extra we were covering the building for a longer period of time we had SATs in the morning we had a game outside in the afternoon and we had

people in the building Beyond those times so the building didn't not require extra help there was there was sporting events here also yes okay so the building was open not for that event so there was no extra staff that was needed thank you and if I can just ask in the future I I do consider his team who set up the event to be an organization that's required under this policy to get

school committee approval if going forward if we can have that and and just so I'm clear because I honestly do not know the answer and I'm not necessarily saying this is this the event over the weekend was a political event but do we allow political events on school um Department property or is there a ban against that I don't believe there's a ban against it okay and I again I personally I'm not

it's not the first political event that's happened at any of our schools I mean we can we have we have people who go to Neighborhood meetings speak at a neighborhood meeting that's a political event turns into it if a politician speaking right so I'm not saying I'm not trying to argue with you but I'm saying that we're talking about a fine line you know when we walk down these well that's my point Mr Das I

know you had your neighborhood meetings here did you file a liability bond No that's what I'm saying I think we we're very generous with people trying to get them here but I do know that there was a federal Bond filed for this event because I know you were concerned but Niagara fansa with Flint we want people to come into the schools we we want to make them community centers so I I think

that was a community rally um I believe you know he was answering questions to the public and uh I was thankful it didn't cost us a penny extra CU I was here there was a couple of baseball games I knew there were people all over the building so it wasn't like we opened up specifically for that so uh it was a good day for the city and the school

very well and I just like to uh there's a distinction between 10 and again I was in a school committee I remember at the time I had these I had no idea of this policy but there's a different difference between 10 individuals or 20 or even 30 attending a neighborhood meeting and 300 again if someone but I'm Happ you answered my question there there's a liab if you signed a liability

waiver that's good I just want to make sure in the future if again that that comes before the committee like I believe it's supposed to under the policy I have no further question um Mr chairman I'm sorry Mr Coy on on on on the point just discussed this is a case in point where the question was asked but I don't know if it really needed to be asked we're talking about our US Congress person

coming to Fall River and holding a community event which is in which really benefits our community directly and shows our strong partnership with Opening Our public high school to become the center for that Community event and to share concerns up to the federal level there's nothing wrong with that and of course I have full faith and trust in in understanding that if an event like that was to take place here

at dery high school then all the necessary precautions and sign offs would be handled by the people running the school such as Mr pachico and the liability and all of that that's been been in question this is just a case in point of another question that really in my opinion did did not need to be asked I yield I do want to say something if there was a cost involved then um

knowing as I know you know your your concern there is completely valid I agree with you I believe that the congressman would cover that in a minute if we said it was X number of dollars for security or whatever but if that's what it ends up being I I know him he will pay his bill Mr D and this not to belabor the point but the reason I'm asking now I asked the exact same

question question s throughout the week and I never got an answer as to whether he signed a liability waiver he um you offered not to keep the community liable and then th those um situ the the cost was already paid for for the staff if that was just answered in an email that wouldn't even be brought up right now I think it's worth the question we have the right to ask questions um don't think

that's I know but I think Mr D I think what the if you had called me or you can ask a question but it seems like you think that someone's doing something wrong when I don't think that at all I I don't I don't look at the negative I think that was if you had come you would have sat in the front with us it was a good event it was a little rock and roll

there was some people there with some different questions I loved it but it wasn't a bad thing it was good for the city it was good for the school yeah I'm not question the event itself again it was a the question I did ask the question I just wish it was answered prior to the meeting and that's it I Yi I have no further new business I I have something I'd like to talk about just

for a second and I would like the superintendent if possible to schedule an hour a month with any member of the committee that wants to sit down with her with their concerns and limit I don't want to say this because it sounds like I'm trying to do this the number of emails messages and things that she's getting if you can hold them just like we do here with this agenda and write them

down schedule your time sit down and get your answers because you know last week there was an issue with the false alarm in the school and there was a message sent out within minutes is this what's going on the problem is to cure and find out if there is a if there is a legitimate concern or a false alarm time's taken up with the next message with the next message you have to trust

the people in charge just like you did with Mr Pico there um Mr Das and all of us myself included I mean I try to stay away from the superintendent as much as I can during the week because I know she's got a full plate and and I want her doing what's best for the kids in the district I don't want it worried about Paul Cogan's concerns unless I

have to contact her and I'm not going to bother her but if she has an hour that she's willing to give any of us all seven of us to sit down and go over the things that Mr Das just brought up or something else I think that would be a better way to handle it and let people have an opportunity to sit with her and schedule something and go over six or

eight questions or maybe more if they can get their answers then and I don't I think that that should be the policy and and email um or or messaging coming on of Facebook is is not the way to go because I don't believe that that's an accurate media venue I think they'll say anything over there I think they'll write anything and if you try to weave through that um

you're really going to end up in a world of trouble I think you have to wait and she does notify us every day it's if something happened in a school or someone was sick or someone broke their leg we get the notifications so it it may may take a little patience for some of us but I believe that a face-to-face talk with her is a better way to handle it does anybody agree with disagreement

d i i don't disagree with you Mr Mayor the only thing I would mention was um the the the idea that you mentioned about the The False Alarm I don't the again the issue with the false alarm I was receiving there was um someone here for a parent for a meeting with in dery that had no idea what's going on that emailed me right away um there was a parent that messaged me right away whose

daughter attends the school and what what I'm telling you Mr D you're you're correct I'm not disagreeing with you you're correct but you can't respond to everything you have to trust the people running dery the superintendent Mr Pico they're not if you know about it 90% of the time they know about it and you let them do their job and and if I mean I remember one time we had a false alarm and someone

went out the front door I don't know if Amy was here then and um the parents rushed into the building and we couldn't get them out of the building they wanted their kid now and it turned into a real negative event for the day in the school that we finally got under control so responding immediately is not always the best way to go I'd rather see him think out the plan and go forward with there

but again carve out the time necessary for any member of the committee without the you know if you're going to send an email you're going to send a message write them down I'm going to see a Wednesday at 10: I'm going to see it Thursday at 4: and schedule a time and go in with your list of things you want to do to make the schools better I'm not against that a

bit I I don't I don't disagree with the with the the idea I'm not trying to put anybody on the spot I really think we have to minimize her disruptions to a day I mean God knows I'm hoping she's uh you know tied up more with helping the kids than with helping us that's how I look at it but that's just an idea and maybe we'll have a policy or get it to

the policy subcommittee for the next meeting anything further on the new business hearing none do we have a request for executive session yes I would be M the re for executive session would be M laws chapter 38 section 2187 to review and approve the executive session minutes for February 10 2025 regular school committee meeting M general laws chapter 38 section 21 A1 to discuss complaints brought against a school

Committee Member as the chair is determined that an open session may have a detrimental impact on the litigating position of the committee M Law chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with the respect to collective bargaining uh including hearing grievance is relative to All Professional teaching employees of the forward School System including coaches Title One teachers nurses occupational

and physical therapists and specialists in the teaching profession represented by the for educators Association as the chair has determined that an open session may have a detrimental impact on a bing position of the committee Master Law chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collec the bargaining relative to all administrators and employees represented by the for administ administrators

Association as the chairs determined that open session may have a detrimental impact act on a bargaining position of the committee the asme unions that are listed here would not be called for executive session as the information has not been completed m m not done yet not done yet sorry Dr just a little bit more that's M La chapter 38 section 2183 discuss strategy with respect to colle Bing

relative to all clerical civil clerical employees of the forward school system represented by the farad Department of Civil Service clerical employees Association as the chair is deter the Open Session may have a detrimental impact on Bing position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with the respect to collector bargaining uh agreement

including hearing grievances relative to all par professionals employees of the forward school system represented by the for Federation of par professionals as chair is ATT an open session may have a detrimental impact on the Bing position of the committee National Law chapter 38 section 21 A2 to conduct a strategy session in preparation for negotiations with non-union person know specifically

say she gayan Financial Manager we would reconvene there may or may not be statements at that time now you're now I'm up can I get a motion in a second motion with a question motion I got a motion I got a second Mr Dias quick question um attorney aside you said we wouldn't be convening for the ask me I didn't understand cor the the uh matter has not been ratified yet by the ASE unions okay

you um Deb would you please call the RO to go into ex session Mr aam yes Mr Bailey excuse Mr Das yes Mr Cory M larv yes Perera yes mayor Coogan

yes we're back in executive session de call the rooll your agenda Please Mr AGA here Mr Bailey here Mr Dy here Mr Cory here M larv here M Pereira here mayor kouan here is there anything further to come before the committee there is Mayor I'd like to make a motion uh to approve the executive session minutes for February 10th of the uh 2025 of the regular school committee meeting can I get a

second please second I have a motion to Second discussion Deb please call the rooll Mr Dr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory y m lar yes M Pera yes hugan yes can I get a motion to adjourn motion toj second second Deb would you please call the role Mr agan yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory y m lar yes Mr Pera yes may kouan yes ajed