The Fall River Public Schools Facilities and Operations Subcommittee convened on Thursday, March 6th, at 417 Rock Street. The meeting commenced with a roll call, pledge, and open meeting law declaration. The subcommittee first addressed the Youth Soccer Association lease renewal, with Mr. Pico recommending a three-year lease, citing the association's excellent record and adherence to terms. Following a discussion on field upkeep and liability, a motion to approve the three-year lease, with a stipulation to add language regarding non-performance, passed unanimously 3-0.
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hello everybody uh today's Thursday March 6th uh is the facilities and operations subcommittee uh we are at 417 Rock Street uh can I get a roll please Mr AA here Mr Cory here miss lar here uh 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 liberty and justice for all thank you open meeting uh
0:401.3 uh open meeting law 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 transmission Transmissions may be uh being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible okay citizens input de do we have any
1:09today no we do not thank you uh we will start discussion portion uh I'd like to entertain a motion to uh go out of order and uh ask yes good I'm going to ask um youth youth soccer sure going to go so we're going to go to uh 33 discussion and vote to refer uh for the Youth Soccer Association uh lease renewal uh we'll start with you if that's okay sure thank
1:42you can I get a a roll call though oh I'm sorry a roll call on that please Mr AG yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Mr Pico so um we have our yearly um request for a renewal um we have had had um a Very Good Year with uh forever Youth Soccer no issues whatsoever uh the building looks great for always cleaning up after themselves uh they do everything they're
2:11supposed to do um and um we are in a in a good streak right now um with that rental um my suggestion um and I I've attached a uh a form my suggestion would be that we go to a three-year lease at this point um they're um as as we see every year um they do step up to what what uh they say they're going to do um all the time and um of
2:42all of our rental groups um they are the uh easiest to deal with so right if uh if that's the will of uh you know I have some questions but Mr I just want to make a comment I just I I I happen to go through the minutes of the last year's meeting yes that we had on this very same subject Y and I had asked questions about you know field upkeep and
3:06liability and uh they were all answered you know very well uh I know that the league works hard to keep the fields up um CU I'm just worried about extra expenses for our school department you know with with all that usage but uh no I mean it it opens the gate up for all of these young children to play soccer I think it's a great thing so I just wanted to make that comment and was I
3:30last year I was worried about liability but uh that's on their insurance and not ours has nothing to do with our school department right yes that's it thank you I you right if there do you have anything before I go okay if there is any instance I don't know if this should go you and up but um if there's in the three-year term and the youth soccer has to back out what yeah so we would they
3:56would just come to us and say that they you know even no longer can all right and their there telling them to pay for a threee there's no's no actually there's no fee okay so it would be it would be that kind of thing and and if there is if there's a situation that arises I'm sure that we'll be able to work it out um that it really won't affect the ter remind me about the the
4:19grass cutting again is that that's us right C we cut the grass they feed the grass basically kind of you know we we uh keep the the field in shape with the irrigation system um they do all of the um feeding of it they do all the fertilization and we just did the we do the seating the control yeah that's great that's great the only question I would have is similar to that
4:46is U I'm assuming everything stays the same but knowing organizations that you know people change and leave what happens if they don't perform so like if everything's going smooth great what if they don't do the pieces like where is a language in here that says we have a right to call them in and say either you do it or you end like well we we do it a
5:06lock on the gate so I mean I I I don't think it's that kind of thing if it was if this was Financial then I would say we go year to year um because we would always look at our cost and everything else but they're doing we're going to cut that grass whether they're renting it or not whether they're using it or not it's going to be our grass to cut
5:23we're going to water that grass cuz those fields Were Meant and built for this so I don't think that there's any cost that incurring and I don't think we're at risk by giving them a three-year contract I don't think so either all I'm saying is I think there should be a clause somewhere in it to just say that if the leag let's say falls on different people or you know
5:42what I mean I trust the people that are hear you I think you're doing a great job but what if they change and then all of a sudden somebody doesn't put the grass now you got weeds all over the place you got so I think there needs to be some sort of clausing that to say that if we start to see that they're not doing their piece which is only about the fertilization and all the things
5:59that um they're supposed to do that we have reserve the right to call them in and say it's got to be done by X date otherwise it'll be null and void or something like that I can't anticipate it happening sure but you know what things happen and all of a sudden so would would it be okay then if we put that language in right absolutely I'm also agreeable to we're in the middle of
6:21getting the three quotes for our um for our years um uh I can't think of the word all all the things that we have done field and I'm agreable to give you a copy of our contract um sure I I think we'll I think what we'll do is because it does keep referring back to the original document so this is referring back to the other document and the other document where it
6:45says exactly what they're supposed to do um so if if it's the will of the committee to approve it with the stipulation that we put that language in then we will take this to we can have that Lang in for Monday yeah I just think it makes sense for both sides and it also will let them verify and you know sort of look good with where we've been doing all these things that's that's not free either
7:10somebody's either paying they're raising money to pay or they're donating it so I make a motion to approve with that condition yeah it's a vote to refer so vote to refer with that condition thank you second oh you need a second second second Mr AA yes Mr Cory yes m l yes we will start next with the a discussion and vote to refer uh three-year contract the yellow bus mckin vento and athletic
7:39activity trip thank you coming uh Services uh Mr Cho so um we put the um we put the RFP out give you a gate we went a committee um for permission to put it out on the 9th it um needed to be returned by January 30th we extended that date uh with a few uh questions on the ifb um that came in we had uh I want to say exactly six
8:21addendums we handed out bid packages to 76 different companies M um and representing I'm sorry 64 potential bid is 76 people received it and um we uh received the bids um bids were opened on February 13th and the uh winning bids are so the low bidder um was not the one that was chosen the low bidder um was disqualified for missing a few to be totally honest missing um I'll tell you how many of the
9:07items the disqualification if you look on page two it lists the low bidder and um we rejected as non-responsive non uh nonresponsible and all of those items the same know all of the things that they didn't do um that was part of the bit and all of them we don't need all of those to to disqualify but we wanted to list each and every one yes yeah so the bids respectively went Amaral trembl and
9:53Fisher um Amal for yellow bus service Tren leas from mckenny vento and um Fisher was for um the uh Sports and activities so these are a what I'm asking for is a three-year contract and then we have an option for two years additional we have it they don't they don't so it's a 5-year contract on their side that they signed up for we're only asking for three so we
10:27can look at what it looks like in three years in regard to uh constantly Rising Transportation costs with a three-year plan like you suggest does that lock in a rate so it's all locked in for the three years but there's there's um there's a considerable uptick mhm in the price um unfortunately we've we've seen better years but um we've looked at all of the cont contracts that have been discussed at
11:01other districts and um these responses are much better than those so uh we have some districts that are in the 177% increase 16% increase a lot of it's got to do with the fact that they can't um they can't keep the help they It's just tough to get drivers tough to get monitors we use more monitors than most districts um and um we a lot of buses so I mean we this
11:30is a big ask for some companies to be able to provide the amount of buses that we uh that we need to do our work we also have long-standing contracts with these companies so uh so some of these companies have been with us 30 years yeah so I mean um there is a there is a a piece there again that you know a lot of things were soured during Co with the bus companies not not
11:57because of us but in I'm not going to say that not because of us I'm saying a lot of things were soured during Co and um but they stuck with us obviously and um but the pricing could have been worse especially when we didn't have other biders none of the big companies came to Fall River the bid the the super big companies um that have been taking over a lot of the
12:23smaller districts uh and um that's a good thing for us I think because we have relationships with all of these companies and it was much easier it's much easier to deal with that piece um than not to so yeah so I had the questions but more a lot of my questions are more on the uh transportation in general yes which that's like how did we come up with the
12:51bid like what was the spec I know how you get it you know you kind of show them how many roots you have and all that stuff but as far as these here like these bids I think we should just accept them because they a decent price All Things Considered but um there's a typo on page five about mckin vento because I think that last one is Athletics you shouldn't say for those mckin vento
13:12routes identified but I don't think that's that's just in the paperwork to us yes so i' make a motion to approve these uh for these bids yes so the bid the bid documents all have the roots built in so this is the package that they all received that they they have had everything they needed to write down to the monitor yeah I have a question on that but I want to try to pass yeah yeah
13:35okay Mr one more question just out of my own curiosity yes in regard to the mcken vento contract um Madam superintendent we get we get Grant monies from the Kinny vento in the overall budget we do get some reimbursement yes is some is some of those are some of those Grant monies allocated for for the bus transportation or is that coming from us we get we do we get we do get some money for transportation fromo
14:08transportation and then the other part of Transportation we're responsible for the city is responsible yeah the city is yeah I just want to know how much was coming off of the city's back in regard to that because I know that they have a lot of money that they Grant you know to run the mckin Venture program I was just curious thanks 1.
14:29it's 1.3 it's been coming from yeah I thought it was 1.3 well naturally this so naturally the city gets let's say now it's 1.3 in the next budget so that's what we call a reimbursement from the government that says they reimburse for the expense of transportation and it goes towards Transportation yes you know so the 1.3 even it even if it costs more that's all they can get similarly at the last
14:55meeting I talked about the Medicaid reimbursement which they do get reimbursed similarly but we get zero so just pointing that out again because we need to get real if we going to be advocating for the schools or we're going to advocate for the city we got to pick and choose which side we're on the administration and the school committee so I've always fought for if they get a reimbursement of if we say
15:16last year I think it was a million dollars they had only put in our budget 800 or 700 or something so if you got the money sitting in the account that's the amount that they should use so I just think we need to be careful when we said saying what did they get what they don't get because we don't always get real numbers or true numbers but there's it I don't know it's policy I think
15:37there's a policy that says I'm assuming either on our side or the city side that there's a threshold that they are reimbursed the first whatever it is $2 million and then we they give us anything that they recoup really over the $2 million there's some threshold I'm saying and Medicaid but that we've never gotten that point we' never got basically say if I hit the lottery I'll give you half of it you know so that's
16:03really not what you know in my mind when we look at the reimbursements we because they have to pay the bill right and we have to make the decisions once again it's a backwards process so I'm going to make my decisions based on the schools and the kids not worrying about whether we have Diamond to pay for or anything else to pay for but the mayor would like us all to get involved and worrying
16:23about his side all we got to worry about is transportation is an expense on the city Side so if it if if it is 13 or whatever you know this contract here is I think you had multiple you have the bids plus I think you have Vans like you have right basically might add up to 1.3 if that's what the reimbursement is the other piece of this and like I said it's
16:46not our issue but the legislature needs to fund it so if the expenses for homeless transportation of the state law and we spend 2 million they need to fund the 2 million so somebody needs to get real and have a meeting with the legislators to say this is a mandate that you are saying this is the law you are should be paying it 100% it shouldn't have to come from the school
17:08committee who isn't paying the bill that should be coming from the city but then we I'm sick and tired of hearing the city coming to us saying we need to kick in money for the transportation when they won't actually have a conversation with the government and say you not you're not funding us that piece it should be a wash because it's the law right and it was in 2009 or 12 order to bump gave it
17:30right out I was in the legislature at that time and said it's a mandate you have to pay it so we paid it for one year or two years and then all of a sudden now it's 50% so I'm getting tired of having to defend them and we're not even the ones paying the bill but that's neither here there I think we should approve this and then I do have
17:45questions on the sure yep thank you we just h a second time second we call please to Mr trag yes Mr Cory yes M Lan yes okay on to 32 just Sor relative to the transportation I just to get through so my concern is the transportation in general you know where we're at and you all know that I've had a real problem with the way that we haven't dealt with the um reconfiguring
18:13the district since last year all that stuff but with the transportation piece something's going on I don't know what but something's going on when it went up by x amount of dollars uh did anything else change the laws change any kind of regulations changed that we don't know about as school committee because something's going on in transportation to have this sort of um the increase and
18:38then the concern of the city like I just feel like I'm missing as a Committee Member something that's going on with a transportation so I think I mean I expressed concern when we talked about the budget just in general that we're expect that if we said if we maintain what we're doing right now we're going to see this huge increase so on Monday as part of the um just to kind of give
18:59an overview of of a piece of that that we're that we're trying to explore right now um that I think will end up being on the i' look to get it onto an April um committee agenda is this idea that we have for a long time in Fall River as far as I ever knew we measure distances as the crow flies and we had a very we had a recent
19:24decision um at the state level that that is not how you measure distance for students students as a potential walking distance to school driving distance to school and so when we look at what one mile looks like as the crow flies versus what it looks like if we're actually using city blocks and taking into account um you know that you can't walk over water and and things like that you
19:48at that one mile is is a huge constraint when in like in the real world one mile as the crow flies can be 1.2 miles could be 1.5 miles so so we I'm going to I'm going to talk about this on Monday maybe not much more than I'm saying right now but I'm going to put it in part of the superintendent updates that we are looking to explore the idea of what that
20:11looks like if we if we changed our distance say for elementary schools so that we are transporting outside 1.5 miles because that one mile if we're not using as the crow flies anymore one mile using city blocks is much closer to a school and um I think we need to look more at like a 1.5 mile radius around the schools so that's something that we're exploring and you said there's a
20:38decision I a PRS like a PRS complaint was filed about whether or not we were transporting whether my we live you know whatever 1.3 miles from school and they're saying I have to transport my child we say yeah look as the crow flies you are within a one mile radius and there was a decision that came down from the state saying nope which is I guess what kind of decision is it so it came
21:06down from the from Desi basically saying that the crow flies has never been a way to measure Transportation you can't I guess you get you're getting my my question I know you're saying that's not the law has always been the law has always been there so the state is saying you're not using our RS so if you're not going to use our RS then your RS have to be le legal
21:29because we're not using State RS State RS are two miles so if we were using the state rig then we wouldn't have as the pro flies a problem because everybody we transporting today wouldn't get Transportation most of them a whole bunch of them wouldn't we're not transporting live two miles we' lived within two miles right so this what the state said was if you're going to measure if you're saying that you're
21:55going to transport a mile and a mile and a half mile for elementary mile and a half for secondary then it has to be a measured walking mile not a straight line from point A to point B that's not how you would measure walking distance so it's walking distance it's walking distance right cuz if you're right you walk but even if even if you were even if you were right you can walk
22:19down one way so it's a little different right it's a little difference on that point but in theory it's not cutting across Ruggles Park even though the kids would they're looking at the distance that it would actually take so they're measuring sidewalk distance right I guess I'm having a hard time understanding then why for all these years have we done it cuz no one complained no one took it to the state
22:42level so now we had a state level person we had a person who we denied transportation to who took it to the state it's not only prob is this a pressent setting across the state it's happening every yeah I mean there's a whole bunch of districts that were doing what we were doing but they're not they're not getting caught we got caught and we had it on our web page that
23:03said one mile distance is the crow flies but I'm saying desie is going to implement this across the whole it's not implemented it's already in the law it's nothing's changed the only thing that's changed is we got called and I think that for us we're not admitting that we were violating the regulation no all we're saying is is that right interestingly we're not violating the regulation we're doing
23:26more for students than and then is required by law and then what is done in in many other districts but because our measurements didn't match the way the state measures so how do they measure the two miles same way sidewalks sidewalk so we would not do c as the crow flies no we weren't doing as as the crow flies we don't 1.5 was the most exactly right it's just very odd um but
23:53my concern is that we the problem in transportation like so if we're going to get this regulation now we got to figure this out going to have meetings we're going to have everybody scramble and try to figure this out at some point somebody's going to if we say you know we're going to go back and do it a different way we're going to have somebody being told they're getting transported now they're not going to get
24:12it because if we go to the 1.5 then we're following our regulations we're still better than the state's RS so no I get what you're saying my only point is that we're going to so we're going to eliminate a lot of kids we're going to eliminate kids and and when I've asked for at least the last six months but probably the last year because I'm going back to the Spenser Borden meeting about
24:32the tany school in March of 2024 we were told this committee was told over and over that we were going to reconfigure the whole District because of Transportation elll class sizes the whole bit prek all that stuff was going to be fixed at that point so I'm frustrated because we're not doing that and I'm being told by the superintendent and anybody else on her team that we can't do it now because it's too late
24:56because we we need time it's a big thing and we can't you know put this out in 2 months or whatever we need to give people more time so if my vote's going to be then we need more time and if it cost the city more money cost the city more money that's my personal feeling because I'm not going to say well because of this I'm going to vote because it's going to be transportation
25:18and it's a way to save the city's money but then you can't use that excuse then we can't do something drastic like tell a student you have to go to you have to redraw the line or whatever the configurations are because it's too late and we've been told that I've been told that myself I've been asking for this for a year so as far as the transportation goes we need to have a a reconfiguration
25:41of the district both between the page Center Transportation I'm regurgitating everything I said last year that everything the team whoever was on that team all said Brian Michael AAC was at Spencer board and he had all these charts and graphs and pictures and we're going to move this line that line it's like okay great we had the um survey that we paid 15 grand for that we didn't do and this committee met for
26:04I think 8 minutes on on it and that summer we said oh no we're going to take that into consideration we're going to do all this we're going to reconfigure everything this is what we did so for me for one I'm not voting for anything to try to take if I can and and the excuses are by the Dozen but all I'm saying is that that task is monumental
26:29and I don't know the last time that the the city the school department read District because I haven't been here long enough to know that but I'm going to say that sitting in a room with Brian and all the rest of us trying to figure out one piece of all of that is three and four and 5 hours worth of sitting there and there's so much more that's involved than just drawing
26:52lines who's Brian Bri there's so much more than just drawing the lines because it's not that simp simple because it's programming it's it's not as simple as the lines and then the bus transportation is not as simple as that and the start and end times get involved because that's all a part of all of this because we're our transportation costs so where they are and not higher because
27:16we tear buses we're already we we did this exercise and all of that not too long ago when we teer took all of the school start and end times changed the element elies to a later start so we could have the secondary picked up first elementaries after use utilizing the buses so it's a it's an enormous task to to do that and it is a Year's worth of work I'm not
27:43suggesting no I know that I know you're saying I think you're right it's a Monumental task my only frustration is that I sat with my colleagues that spent s Bo in school when we were getting our heads bashed in over the tany school issue the prek issue and all this other stuff we took the hits and at that time it was promised by this not Dr kly but everybody was on the team
28:03at some point that we were going to fix this and it was going to be a task that's going to take a long time but between March and this March is one full year and from everything that I've seen we haven't done very much about that particular piece and I just quite honestly don't have a reason to think why we can't do any of it I'm not suggesting we would have done 100% of it
28:23but if we were doing what we should have been doing and not dropping the ball we would have had 50% of it third of it some something like at some point we have to do something somebody here has to be able to say we're making a decision on this issue because the transportation is going to keep going up every time I ask you you go as many tearers as you have every meeting I'm
28:42going to say it on Monday night I'm going to ask you the same thing have we teared every single possible way we can restart time I want say the same thing right now we have we're doing everything we can but but don't all I'm saying is we need a something a reconfiguration of something we have had 600 kids to the school district that was already crowded and we didn't do basically much
29:05so like at a a facilities meeting in the future I think it should be about buildings where are we going what are we going to rent can we rent something else can we build something can we because we can't keep it's like uh can't fit everybody so I don't want to believe it a point all I'm saying is I'm not happy as one member that we haven't done it so
29:24I you thank you okay in in in the spirit of my colleagues argument I I have to agree in spirit that you know we need to try to set up some new redistricting but my question and and and out of my own naive I have to ask I was looking over the brightly uh proposals and stuff and seeing how well that that program works is there something like a brightly Ken
29:52that can you know you can enter parameters for the district and and something like a brightly program could spit out some like I I gotta say results Brian Michael is saw brightly when it comes to that stuff because he does provides us with a lot of information and Brian's been here long enough to know the intricacies of the city yeah of of the times of the the areas of you know so and the neighborhoods cuz you
30:23got to know the neighborhoods cuz it's not just redistricting so I it's a matter of it it's it's just a I can't say it's big because big is not the right word because it's an enormous task to do I can tell and I and I I I understand I know how the district looks I I can just imagine the enormity of the task itself but I would I would wonder if um Mr Michael AAC could get
30:48together with Mr L Mr lbre presented to us several years ago about trying to consolidate bus routes and stuff like that you know and it's not an easy thing I realize but um if if anything like that could be achieved over the next year or so I'm I'm not putting a time frame on it because it's a very stressful project but if there's any any motions that can be made toward that
31:13direction that would be appreciative we could save some money doing that but right now we got to do what we got to do and so I'm going to approve this contract so what Mr car is talking about I think we we don't we have that traverser or whatever we paid so traversa does the roots so the bus routs PA a coup hundred thousand for that yeah the bus roots are not the issue the
31:37issue is is the other it's the bigger picture of the the quantity of rooms in the school so obviously capacity in each school and then dividing up the districts as we just did with the West the West do district is 12 or 1300 students and at the time we only had a school holding 700 so 650 so we had a an issue of short one school the um the addition of West all has helped but we
32:04are we are a district that doesn't have building space either there's no swing space sitting available for us you know to just jump into and and and add another school here yeah that's a complex isue it's just a little bigger than that I mean we've been fortunate with the rental the the Conley rental and stuff like because without that we'd be in trouble you know absolutely um where so you can squeeze only so much
32:27out of that piece but to Mr cor's point the real issue here is how are we going to deal with the issue which is exactly what I've been asking for is that the reason why we have problems in transportation and we class size is because we don't know where the children are going to come in from so uh schools on the south end of the city correct me if I'm wrong and
32:45they happen to fill up all the grades and then we get five kids in grade two that can't attend that school we have to find space in another school for them that space that's available is more than 2 mi from their house or 1.5 whatever the number is it could be 6 miles from their house when we do and assign that child to that school they we have to transport those kids from that school
33:06all the way across the neighborhood and the vice versa is happening at that school on a different grade so the the parent Center has to try to they're really the ones that should be driving this whole thing because they're the ones that see where they're going and we need to empower them to but that's they're at the table when I keep saying like this is why we're going like we're
33:24paying so they have they're adding buses and seats on buses because we we got kids in different places so I think we need to look at our policies how much do we fill up do we give that we keep vacancies that like so that we can allow for there's other things that can happen doesn't have to be this Monumental we District I just think we haven't seen at least I can
33:46speak for myself I haven't seen the urgency to do things so there's still time hopefully the message gets sent and I thank you yeah and and I would just add I think that um folks would maybe perceive urgency as like a sweeping change and what we're trying to do is make the moves that we can sometimes it's programmatic right we're looking at schools and take a school that mayy you know has 650 kids
34:15in it and looking at it and saying wow only 40% of the kids who attend that school actually live in that neighborhood why is that some of it special programs and is it possible that there are our kids from that neighborhood Who end up getting busted somewhere else not because we're just opening the doors to anyone but because a program in a school maybe has gotten larger over time and required more rooms
34:39and space and things so it's a moving Target so it some sometimes so we're just looking now at even programmatically like are there programs classroom um classrooms that are part of programs where we're going to bus students to that program regardless of where it is and should do we need to move some programs out of a school School some classrooms out of the school because we can put more neighborhood
35:01kids in the school open up more second grade third grade whatever classrooms keep more neighborhood kids in the school now that we we won't be busing students to that school and busing kids from that school to some other so those are the kinds of changes that we're looking at making in addition to some small tweaks to the um to the boundaries which my understanding is that we do
35:25that every year you know we've I've been part of the conversations for this year but my understanding is that every year there are some tweaks to that um because we notice certain patterns of schools filling up and then these kids here are end up you know they get busted somewhere else or they're at another school and by moving the boundaries a little bit we're including them in a
35:47different neighborhood school so those are um yeah those are some of the things that we're doing but I think the idea is to make an impactful change without it being this sweeping change that is going to impact so many families and upset so many people and have us in some kind of reactionary mode um truly The Way We Were I think last year with tany not fully anticipating the um response that
36:16we were going to get and then pivoting in a way that actually really was fabulous I mean I think that the move that we made in terms of West doall has been very impactful um Mr Mao mentioned I mean impactful in terms of the transportation piece um a look at those fanska numbers and things like that but we're looking to make substantial changes that don't feel in the larger community that we've done something so
36:45horrible to kids and families and and things like that but we we know we're I mean we're in a place we have to make some of these shifts because the um the enrollment demands it sure um Mr Cory I understand by your explanation the complexities of such a move and and I absolutely am willing to be patient through all of that you know to see some desired results I hope we
37:13can see some desired results maybe in the end process at the end game maybe something could happen you know yeah if if if we all just keep our eye on that ball because Transportation costs are crazy across the board for everybody yep so it would be it would be great with that I yield yeah and and the one thing I would just add is that you know a year
37:38and a half out from now um but with plenty of discussion and feedback from families and trying to kind of build out the model there will be changes so I mean I want I want the community to understand that as well I mean we're really looking closely at you know the impact that we have with K to8 schools um what what happening in the Middle School model in here in Fall River you
38:00know and even in Trends across the state what the outcomes are from middle school programs versus K to8 schools and so we're just trying to explore the options because the last thing we want to do is make a sweeping change and then a year later have to change you know make what we think is that we don't want to make any sweeping temporary changes because I do think looking a year two years out we will be
38:24making fairly substantial changes right okay do we bust any prek kids yes many based on IPS or just uh does these distances um both do they apply like oh is it just for IP pures yeah the the distance pieces is trickier with prek in the neighborhood School piece because we don't have a neighborhood School model in prek it's more programmatic so most of our preschoolers with disabilities
38:54are transport are transported um which is a higher percent yeah the lottery um Community kiddos that are in preschool do not receive Transportation that's part of entering the lottery is if you are entering the preschool Lottery you understand that you are providing trans I mentioned this last year and I would say the same thing I don't understand why we have pre care all over the place if we can consolidate
39:19them into one spot it makes sense in the building but it also would assist with freeing up space in the schools so when we move the prek classrooms if we have and I know we have some out of the traditional school if we have two prek out of any given school take them out you have two classrooms we were going to do that if the recommendations for tany would have went through or whatever was
39:42like to stagger people up uh so number of classrooms I think is is the challenge right now we have 20 preschool classrooms in our yeah I think we're going to conversation next anyway but that was one but my other point is just I think we should recommend to the superintendent that on Monday night we bring forward a vote of the committee to give guidance on what we're going to do with this issue that we talked about
40:07with the two miles not just a superintendent report uh presentation we need to lay it out put it on an agenda item and have us take a vote because I'm telling you right now I am voting to not take Transportation away from somebody at this last minute so if that's what the will of the committee is and if the will of the committee is no to take that let's have that vote Monday night and at
40:28that point we will at least get guidance on what the expense is going to be what the because now we just approved these contracts but if now we're going to add more kids than what those uh specs called for you need time to fiddle those so sooner than later why why push it down to April or May let's just make the decision now if the committee's will is they want to take away transportation
40:49from people that already have it we take that vote if the committee says no we'll go with your recommend whatever your recommendation is give it I'm just telling you how I'm going to vote I'd rather vote on it now up or down give guidance to everybody including the city and then they pay the bill I think that makes sense doesn't it why would what what would the benefit of waiting be well I don't think I don't
41:08think we had a lot of intent to do anything right now anyway because she's holding status quo when not getting yeah the not that the idea is that my understanding and I will get this clarified is that in moving the boundary to that 1.5 that would mean maintaining exactly what we're doing right now right everyone who's getting a ride right now would continue to get a ride it wouldn't be canceling anybody
41:36out because the only that's Chang as the crow flies it gets to that area it gets to that 1.5 on on most of understand but some people were going to if if you were getting it based on the one mile like and then if we were using the one mile and we bumped it up to the5 for everybody somebody's going to get out there's going to be some there will be
41:58some getting out and there will be some getting in which is why we're saying it's a status quo thing I'm I'm talking about each individual person is I guess what I was saying I wasn't talking about the money only so like if you were transporting x amount of kids and we take 50 out and put 50 in we're still at the same number but those 50 that are out is where I'm
42:17saying I'm not voting voting for that so at that point is just take the decision I've won votes and I've lost votes but I'd rather have it on March 10th then on April whatever the date is because you the transportation coordinator the bus company everybody needs to start working on how to figure it out right maybe it's going to just say oh we vote and then she says I got it all covered I want to
42:42take the vote Monday thank you welcome uh before we vote um can I entertain a motion to recess for a minute yes so moved second uh roll call please did we vote I think we already vot on I was talking about this he just second I think no know but I vot we voted already second Mr car do you second that yes I second they both did but you can Mr air
43:14yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes uh 32 oh we are back in session can I get a a motion so uh I make a motion that we back in session second sorry yes Mr yes Mr Cory yes Miss L yes uh we're going to move on to 32 discussion and vote to refer uh the First Amendment a lease agreement between uh the RO Roman Catholic bishop and four of the public schools Mr Pacho so
43:53um in in light of fact that we are going to need um space for prek again um I had a conversation um an earlier conversation with the powers to be at um at the dases and um we looked at the building that we're in the bishop Colony building there are some spaces that we couldn't utilize um due to some uh bulky furniture placement some stationary furniture that we will have to remove and um some electrical
44:38and and gas work within those rooms uh to do this so we we approach them and um ask them that if we took care of those issues would they rent these additional spaces to us which would allow us to um accommodate all of our classrooms from 300 Northeastern Avenue into the bishop Conley um footprint it also is a is um there's a few other things within the this agreement that we didn't have an indoor play area
45:18um it'll be mobile but it will be an indoor play area that the students will be able to be in in an area where they won't be able to travel too far far um but it'll be something that if Conley if the dases needs that spot it won't be anything permanent so it's all going to be temporary um walls barriers um it also gives us uh an extra room um on the
45:44opposite side of of the cafeteria for another space um that we didn't currently have so we're all in all um we're asking for an addition of 14 months of classroom space at Conley including some extra rooms um the dasis is maintaining the price so they're not charging us extra for the additional rooms because of the work that we're doing mhm um and the only extra cost that will be from last year's lease
46:17agreement will be the additional months because we're asking for more month so what will happen is um esy will happen at this building um because now we have the summer two summers in order to conduct the asy in so it allows us to not move out of there move furniture try and set up another area for our esy program for the early CH questions no um I I just want to clarify so um 300 Northeastern Avenue
46:51would uh the end of that that operation would be at the end of our school year yes so would um we I think we may have the building until not sure if we have it until June 3 yet so we will move everything out make sure we clean it up and and um uh the maning has been very kind uh a very kind host and very good to us um in everything that we've asked for over
47:20there and I think that that um the parish um is eager to move on to the next uh piece of their of their operation to so for for for their sake and for ours the site was very useful we needed it when we needed it um and then since then we've grown quite a bit uh in that age group and need um and Conley fortunately was available for us to uh to move into
47:48and it was in movein condition what we have to do is some small work that we will try and do as much as we possibly can inh housee with our people um to get that building ready um and um we will work as soon as the lease is signed they've allowed us they saying that we know they they know it's going to take effect the new part of the lease
48:09is going to take effect um at the end of June beginning of July they're going to allow us to do the work now and then have esy over the summer which we wouldn't have had and then um continue right in so we'll be ready to start um the new year the new school year there but we will stop um esy from this year also that these new spaces all going to
48:33be eec they don't have to be they don't have to be no because we are the preschools are part of the public schools and so we follow public school right we do not follow e guidelines for child care um because we fall under desie okay how many so how many classes is it now and how is it going to be we add currently it's no currently it's seven that seven preschool classrooms
49:03are there there are other spaces we use for therapies and whatnot we currently have seven preschool classrooms there six at Eastern Avenue so next year there'll be 13 classrooms there so you're going to not only that you're going to increase the numbers because now you're class correct so we're under capacity at Eastern Avenue by 24 and so we'll add an additional 24 students next year are going making
49:27those six rooms up to capacity and they bigger classrooms cuz they're larger size classrooms yeah they're full size classrooms so if I could just ask that on make a motion to approve second just one more comment so if on Monday you can come up with a uh a rough cost benefit analysis of now basically like we did it and when we asked for that at Eastern Avenue it was telling when it came out
49:53that we lose $600,000 on $500,000 I'm assuming that this is not not that we have much of a choice either way but I can't I can imagine that it's going to be a better it's about $190,000 assum to the grp that's what I'm saying I think it's going to make our numbers better like to say if we have this because it's also going to explain what's going to happen if we ever get a
50:14place with 13 classrooms in one place so we're not getting into a sort of a bad situation and one of the other items that you brought up about the snow removal it is in the was in the original contract also I just didn't remember it was in there so they they that's in part of the lease that we take care of the uh the small sounds good thank you roll please step Mr again yes Mr Court
50:37yes yes okay on to uh 34 rightly software update Mr Pico so um we put together a a two page document here um but we do um I'm not sure if everyone knows Jose Roso who is hi Jose hello um part of our nutrition um supervision group but um has also taken on a major role in the brightly um roll out um and um we can show you a quick um a quick tour of of
51:17what brightley what brightley has uh to offer and um and then we can talk to what's there
51:52anybody know oh sorry you look like you did you went you went up with a lot of confidence
52:06Jose I'm not that this should be one that gives you inputs hit that button your head again tra hit HDMI that's what it was oh so it's plugged into somebody's computer then it's pluged into this one yeah it's pluged into this one Trac that's what we need to log him off yeah Brian L yeah step to your left Tracy I can't see no this is we have to get out of
52:39here that's because I have I put it on HDMI right so the HDMI is running to this SC interesting because that must be picking up yes so I yes let's try that all the internet goes down in the dis it's that's it one plug lights go off everything wor chy Chase
53:26yeah this is brightly asset Essentials this software helps us track and maintain all the work orders and uh and ongoing projects that are going on in the district I wrote down in that memo there that currently we're utilizing about 90% of the software the 10% that we aren't utilizing are the pieces that are used for inventory tracking and management uh the reason we're not currently using
53:52those is because it's when I say inventory tracking management it's related only to raw material materials for construction projects or or things of that nature it's not actual inventory items that we use as a district uh software is fantastic the reason that my panels are all blank is since I'm not actually assigning work orders to anyone I don't have any of that information we can run reports on anything we need
54:16though completion of work orders on time how long an average work order takes to complete uh average time that it takes someone to complete a work order which is really why we love the software it allows us to get into the really granular aspects of the things that we were looking to do that um school do just did not have the capability to do it's pretty self-explanatory as far as
54:40workflow right here you come in that's your loading page your home page what everyone sees when they log in and this is how you would put a new work order in
55:00sorry it's a little weird to this is a weird angle
55:38that's it you fill out your location you put what the issue is you select what priority is if it's a leak or or something really serious you put critical you come down here you expand upon what you put in the short category there you know the faucets leaking out of the back end
56:12so what's fantastic about the software again when I select carpentry what's going to happen is it's going to allocate that work order to the corresponding director right so if I put custodial John CLA get an email saying there's a work order that's been put in with the details then John would go in there and he would assign it to his worker as soon as the work order is enter entered it starts the tracking
56:36process and then it tracks and notifies from each step of the work on process do we have any questions go ahead my question was more on the thank you for this uh how do we look at reports and how when we first looked at this in this time last year um one of my concerns was uh preventive maintenance as well as like how do we get schedules of everybody the uh grounde Keepers for
57:05instance was one that always stuck with me like we should be able to know how do they they do cuss on Monday they do this on you know so we were that's what I'm curious about of how uh that would roll and do principles have access to see everything in it so as a principal I believe I should be able to see the work orders anything that says my school yeah
57:28I should be able to have a system where I click on a button and I know everything that's happening not just the work order that me or somebody else put in like that so it should be everybody should be able to see it absolutely so that capability is absolutely in here you can get as granular or as broad as you want as far as who's able to touch and and see the information principles
57:48will have access to all of this we have to go and train them all individually um which won't take much time like I said it's a pretty quick process to pick up um as far as reports go like we saw your report yes from here but like for instance if you pull up uh grounds Keepers what do they show please go well the report would be for work ordered so this is not this is not
58:20showing routine so what we need to do with grounds is we would look in more PM so the ground work the grounds Works would be all PM except for a down tree that needs to be cut up or um maybe um a a a parking lot drain that's overflowing holding water so that would be right so incidents would be separate but it would still be assigned to so you're looking for a daily schedule yeah because that's
58:50what we were told a year ago we were going to get and I think that the yes when I I read when he was clicking around on the buttons it says what's active and not or booked what's not booked you know it seems like the system actually can show you a lot of things it can relative to what's going on but that's also a management tool of how much work we're getting done when are we
59:09doing this like that so that report that you had was so it's 500 and Josh generated this report the maintenance director so he came on in December one so he's cleaned up 521 job orders that came through in that par particular time um what we did was he went backwards to clean up the stuff in um in school dude half of what we imported was done way long ago some of that stuff was
59:42early early years of of uh SCH of uh School du some of it was um active but it wasn't it was completed and then those small ones that were not done were already re-entered again which made them more c yeah I just wanted I mean I only wanted a little flavor of what's happening but if we could get a report on the other departments just to see where they're at
1:00:07you know my feelings on I think we need to clearly have a schedule if somebody calls one of us and says my school hasn't been cut in 3 weeks and they send me a picture and the grass is this High yep there's no excuse for that you should be able to say well the schedule for that school is Wednesdays now the director's going to figure out whatever and then I'm sure you're going to call
1:00:27them in and say how is that happening so I'm not emailing Dr kly and say why is the grass this High she's not you know so that's what I'm trying to get at and it should be like that in all uh of the areas I guess that fits it so that's all I'm looking for is something like that absolutely so what the goal is is quarterly so we'd like to bring to
1:00:45committee a quarterly report from all of the divisions that you'd have you know time to look at um as just an update um but the goal the ultimate goal is is exactly what you just said so for grounds Keepers as we were doing it this summer again when we had came down here looking for the um Bright View contract and we said we would give it a year we're not need we don't need Bright View
1:01:11so we're not we're not looking for that what we discovered was that it's a seven to 8 Day schedule and not a 5-day schedule in order to fit everything in and have a little bit of play for rain days and and and bad weather um it's a s to it's a it's a 5 to 7 Day schedule the 7 Day allows us for that leeway so as we work the system now um even in the
1:01:37winter time we're using that when we go and pick papers for instance Henry Lord out in the football field um when we cut brush now so we're cutting brush on the opposite side of fence of the winter time before Poison Ivy and zomac and all that stuff comes in they're going over the fences and cutting all that stuff back away from all of our fences so that when that when those Vines and and and
1:02:02those things grow back it's not where kids can get at the poison ivy and especially in the back of Henry Lord for instance where the buses come back got a lot of kids back there all day long but during bus you know pick up and drop off there's that those Vines are over that fence all the time so that's part of it so it's it's a winter it's a winter and summer it's a full season schedule
1:02:26obviously the winter is is not as routine other than picking papers you got a crew that's going to go out and do that kind of work all the time and then the other crews are either doing cutting um cleaning as far as uh we do have one day a week in the winter time that they're taking equipment apart so the lawnmowers the leaf blowers all of that stuff is being maintained in the shop
1:02:49two people in the shop doing that work so all of that stuff will be on there and it's going to fit into pm which is the only real good place that fits with the grounds Keepers what everybody else they have three or four categories as as all I was asking is I think we need to finally get it you know timing is everything scory keeps saying he wants to be patient I like to be patient too
1:03:11but you know this is a full year y when we were told you know was going to run in and this gentleman nicely just said that it was really not that big a deal to train somebody well well it wasn't but we I'm going to say to I get it well beond that we had a the roll out was extremely difficult yes so when we sat here we were we had all of our scheduled
1:03:32meetings with with um brightley and um what we found was um we had a different individual every time we talked so every time we came to a meeting there was a new face in front of us running the meeting for brightly and it wasn't that they didn't know what they were doing but they work in silos so we don't so we're we're going over the something today it's that particular person's expertise
1:03:59tomorrow we may not have already got what we needed out of that person we got a new person tomorrow some of the some of the ways that we do things here is not the way that they do them they call things different names they fit into different Pockets so the roll out was anything but smooth yeah and it took longer than and it took a lot we were told it was going to take which
1:04:21obviously that's when we get to be like when when are we going to get this you know we're told February it's going to be by this spr you know so it just you can't take it back but thank you for your presentation of course Mr ch's point to yeah I may have misspoke a little bit when I say it's easy I mean the interface is pretty easy to kind of
1:04:38plug someone in and they can they can kind of fool around and and get it yeah um but the roll out was the roll out was difficult and I've been part of large Tech roll outs for other companies So when you say the principles for instance yes take show them how to just check a couple things it's not going to take you long no so I would recommend you that yesterday yeah CU I think principes
1:04:57should have it and sooner that gets done the better and some access you know the seniors would were all taught so the seniors had a class yeah so the principl getting the principles to get access it's not a big deal even if they just had access to see it and click around a few things and look on it over the topa and the seniors can help them with it but we shouldn't have sen principal is
1:05:17not get access Mr speak to your point as well currently right now any work orders that I'm putting in or or we're putting in at building level trying to notify the principles as well just automatically now so they have it's on their radar they know that we're attending to it it's not stound good thank you as yeah well as far as who puts in the orders is would it be the lead custodian lead lead grounds person
1:05:43everybody has access lead custodians that put them in because of the building access okay the grounds keeper is not inputting other than what they're doing okay right so the the principal still would do I've got a tree down in my pocket a lot I've got a drain that's overflowing I've got you know leaves that need to be picked up M I know it's rain 3 days in a row but we need to get
1:06:03the grass cut it's really high or we're getting a phone call from um the soccer league you know we got games this weekend and we know it's rained but can you come down and give it a half cut you know so that it grass will be a little high but it won't necessarily be where we want it and we couldn't get it that low just because of the amount of water
1:06:23uh in those fields so that that kind of stuff we are getting right from from the principes and from the El leads in the schools the seniors in the schools are the best method of entering everything okay just because of the the nature of what they do when they go into the buildings in the morning they're doing that walk through of the buildings trained every single one of them all of
1:06:43the seniors yes so next will be principles so the principles will be so and and Jose will be the one that'll be going door to door just to show them what what their capability and then there's going to be there are those people who want a certain level and there are those who want more and and I don't have a problem sharing any of the information because it's not secret information the input stuff and the and
1:07:07the notices is what's important to us I want the principal to know when it's done I also want the principal to know that we're nudging the system nudges us if it's not being activated right so that's what we wanted we wanted that little alert like hey this has been sitting here for 5 days you know so now it's I think it's a 3 day you got an opportunity it comes in today you've got
1:07:28tomorrow the third day you're getting a notice that it hasn't moved from Step One the step two so all right so there's reminders obviously right we actually had it set I remember something like that 3 hours so anyone who entered in order anyone who entered a work order if it hadn't been touched in 3 hours it would start sending out email notifications to all right thank you Mr Cory yeah so a couple of things um
1:07:56thank you thank you for this report this updated report it's uh and I appreciate the honesty as far as you know facing challenges and resolutions you know that uh you've had to amend over the course of the year um those things have been worked out you know as far as redundancy over communication through training everybody's well trained in the aspects of this program yeah everyone who's
1:08:20currently using the program is well trained and knows how to use the program uh the slight like those minor hiccups the redundancy issues as far as notifications going off too often we've repaired all those and and fixed them and they no longer have them so right and as far as Kenny uh the master is there like a master schedule for for grounds keeping you know what I mean like like you mentioned we're going
1:08:45around the fence right now to make sure that the poison ivy doesn't grow is there a massive schedule in place for all of this with brightly so each year the principles of those build buildings know that this is coming up now things have to get done around the grounds so it's it's not at the principal level yet um as we were instructed as and as we said we would do
1:09:11we did an audit and we're doing the timing of every one of the buildings how much work it how long it takes us for us to cut the grass at that particular building how long does it take for us to pick you can enter all of that stuff it all can be entered and then it just becomes part of the preventive maintenance check basically they're going to go there they're going to do the the
1:09:29routine the 3our routine 4 hours whatever it is and then once that box is closed if a principal says I got more leaves here than I had before you started and or something crazy but so we got to check it and find out why you know did that box get checked and it wasn't didn't happen or whatever and and that you know it's going to be that this is our first year with it and
1:09:56as I said the program itself was a be to get in place it has all the bells and whistles as advertised it's just getting it all in sync um and now getting our people to it seems like you guys are getting it in sync you know it seems like the the program is growing and and developing as it should you know and that you guys are having a handle on the
1:10:20software to be able to like properly run this program and disseminate it throughout this District so I think it's a good thing I I think it's a good thing because Personnel changes happen all the time especially with your people Kenny and your department uh first of all I want to praise you because your department is it's immense in its complexities you know and and in problems that arise at a moment's notice
1:10:44that you have to handle right away but you know buildings and grounds is a complex issue you know so I hope that this continues to grow and evolve and and help us keep maintain our beautiful grounds because I I think our schools our schools truly look beautiful I think our new high school every time I drive by it on Ellsbury street I'm Blown Away by how beautiful those grounds look you
1:11:08know very very good so thank you I I want say a motion motion motion to AG second well we oh this was just discussion disc motion on this yep motion toour second yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes thank you thank you everybody