The Fall River School Committee's Facilities & Operations Subcommittee met to discuss several operational matters. Key discussions included addressing traffic concerns at Laterno Elementary School, updating facility use fees, creating a new labor position, forming a naming/renaming committee, approving a carnival at Laterno Elementary, reviewing the FY2023 transportation budget, and soliciting bids for food service and HVAC maintenance contracts. The subcommittee also heard a request from Fall River Youth Soccer regarding field maintenance. All agenda items requiring a vote were unanimously referred to either the full School Committee, the Finance Committee, or the City Council for further action. Notably, the proposal to make Anthony Street a one-way street during morning drop-off at Laterno Elementary was referred to the full committee to be sent to the traffic board. The committee also approved soliciting five-year contracts for both school food services and HVAC maintenance, with a structure of one-year contracts renewable for four additional years. Fall River Youth Soccer requested the school department resume grass-cutting services for their fields for one year, citing increased costs and their significant investment of over $41,000 in field improvements; this request was also referred for further discussion. Additionally, a new entry-level labor position was proposed, intended to potentially integrate with the Durfee CTE program, offering students co-op or full-time employment opportunities. A naming/renaming committee was approved to address requests for naming school facilities. A constituent, Mr. Doran, offered his parking lot for teacher use at Doran School, which was noted for future consideration.
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the facilities and operations now come to order roll call mr harp here ms laravey yes ms pereira here salute to the flag the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all pursuant to the open meeting law any person or may make a audio or video record of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium
0:35attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible uh is there any no citizen's input no there is no okay so what we'll do is we'll just take the uh agenda out of order a little bit and we'll have um okay we'll go to 3.06 right now for the discussion vote to refer traffic
1:03concerns at lateral elementary school and we have the principal and the sro here so feel free to start us off
1:17good afternoon sean sips in the principal of the lateral elementary school so working with family stakeholders particularly president of the pto uh crossing guard sro vice principals we have noticed that drop-off is a little bit challenging in the warning village elementary school due to some traffic concerns so with collaboration we wanted to propose and we have knowledge base that this has
1:52been effective at different locations throughout the city uh potentially shifting anthony street to a one-way uh for the morning for an hour um obviously we would want to consult you know traffic experts to try and figure out what makes most sense um but you know goal obviously is number one uh safety of the students and then obviously secondly we want to try and have uh the traffic flow uh to be convenient for our
2:21families and support an effective drop off of the morning so this has been my second year there um you're one with the weight of the structure of school it was a little bit easier this year you know all the students are here over 600 students multiple buses with about six to ten buses that come in the morning and you know roughly about 200 vehicles that come in in a very short
2:50amount of time um coming in on anthony street so you know the proposal that we're uh thinking is the making it one way from landfor street which is towards the end to um stafford road so uh and it would be uh for a certain time period based on our uh arrival uh start and end times you're seeing this this so this from stafford road to landford heading west heading towards stafford one way or
3:24heading towards that correct okay so if i'm taking the turn from is it that's plymouth right oh i'm sorry right okay so i'm taking a turn on there and then landford is about maybe 100 yards on the left no it's actually way up top so it's closer to if landfall is closer to school then to plummet that you've got a long way to come up from that and plenty of opportunities
3:52to change your your mind if you're not coming to return and then that short distance up to uh it's just one block yeah it's actually about two blocks but it's only one intersection okay um all right now oh are you coming out to us with this proposal uh obviously this has to be talked about this the city uh so if you look at the letter the traffic this would go to traffic board
4:19they would initially look at it and then the traffic board would make a decision to move it to a hearing and then they would do the mailing to all of the neighbors who are going to be affected by this but we wanted to be sure it got to facilities first looking for a referral to full committee so that they can vote to send this to trump okay you slaughtered it yes thank you mr
4:46simpson i just what's the difference uh between morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up why is the problem that much different in the morning you know yeah so the in the afternoon uh we have a there's just less vehicles involved the buses are already in the uh parking lot so they're already there and then there's less vehicles that come in our crossing guard when she's positioned prevents cars from coming in so it's
5:18much safer a drop off because we can escort the students to the buses and then the students then walk out of the building with their families i've picked up that laterno a couple times this year already in last year and have seen a lot of frustration with the parents and the uh people because it is two ways yeah um on whatever the street is off staffing group so you take a right step
5:44anthony that's anthony correct so it's it sort of is a frustration in the afternoon too because the traffic's going both ways very close there they're parking blocking driveways i mean it's just my i've seen it yeah uh but i i think it's an issue like both times but if this is what you think is going to uh you know accommodate one safety i mean i'm all for it but i think you know
6:12for me it's um working with experts around the traffic flow patterns obviously uh sergeant galdea as well i move into different types of you know there's i think there's different solutions to this problem from one way to only one side parking to there's i think there's many ways to solve it and so i'm open to all those uh solutions this is a stop because obviously it is an issue correct i mean i've seen it
6:40with my own eyes this is an issue this is a great start okay so thank you for that i just want to piggyback on that and indicate that i've had my sros um kind of evaluate that that area for traffic congestion and it's definitely a problem on staff at road uh it gets backed up at the intersection of stafford road progress staffing road uh industry so anything to alleviate that is definitely going to help out
7:07the neighbors in that area the businesses and in general thank you but you think it's only needed at drop off you're not concerned about the situation you know honestly you know in the proposal that's the the most pressing time of the day but again i think the stakeholders um myself teachers and the parents that i'm working with would definitely be open to expanding these options um i think you know that's where
7:38obviously collaborating with all the stakeholders come in but yeah i mean if it was a situation where it was morning and drop-off i know that i think the stakeholders will be open to that uh just knowing that it's you know it's an ask on the city the residents which is very important these are our partners that our community um just want to be conscientious of
8:11have the uh have the neighbors in the in that uh on that street anthony have they been contacted yet not yet mike mike kind of might want to maybe contact him soon because we've had this meeting if they just watch the meeting that yeah so maybe i would maybe hope maybe try to contact them starting tomorrow so the the traffic court's responsibility in this would be that they have to all the stakeholders would get a
8:39notification i understand that for a full public hearing right um that they're going to have their say and then that committee will vote on that at a particular time um i'm sure that we could get a um get a listing of all the neighbors through the assessor's office or through engineering um that we could mail in a letter stating what our request is and that they will be contacted yeah i think that would probably be a
9:06good first step um because they're gonna you might watch it here on the uh on the tv we're already discussing it so all right is there a motion is made in second roll call mr harp yes ms larabee yes ms pereira yes thank you thank you very much so we'll go to um we can't go to 3.01 right now those folks on here so we'll go to 3.02 discussion and vote to refer facility school use ken
9:39sure so this has been at this committee quite a while ago almost six months maybe um we part of this was addressed in policy so um in the uh when we voted at the last school committee meeting a policy was amended um that stated at my request that we have a minimum charge for any of our artificial turf fields um so that we couldn't wave that particular piece we want that to be in place
10:22because of the expense of replacing carpet on those surfaces it would work out much better for us if that was in place so that was one of the pieces that was not listed in that policy before so the percentage here the percentage increase from what we currently have is 25 increase from 2010 when it was last updated and this lists almost all of our um uh pieces with the exception of the new derpy
10:57and any of the new dirty fields so those numbers we're working on as we speak and they'll come through as a separate item to this committee the fields when they are available for rental and the interior of the building when we figure out our capacities in each of those news so that we know what our rental fees will be so it's pretty cut and dry all of the items that are listed on here
11:23were always available to be rented and some of them like the theater at cuss at the theater at morton are quite regularly used is there any questions yes so kenny you said these numbers from uh the new high school will be coming to us but they're not these right here so they some of this stuff isn't listed like the baseball field is not listed down there the new baseball field the new soccer
11:54field is not listed um the new carpet the new right stadium and practice field softball field and not listed because they're not built yet but these are the current prices so we would fly with these right now um on the uh on both the stadium and the practice they're the only things that attract right now and i know there was uh always discussion about the uh the nonprofits yes youth organization we did uh make some
12:25leeway with that correct we did yeah we did so again in the in the um in the policy the superintendent is that person who you know be able to make those determinations if if the case was made you know for a hardship and then we would we would ask that the hardship piece be looked at pretty closely when it comes to return field because we don't have any issue the grass scales for instance this field
13:00here we don't charge for we're not charging for henry lord for those field usage um but we do unfortunately have a major expense every time one of these turf fields come up on the placement right so correct me if i'm wrong i think last time we spoke i think it was mentioned that nobody would ever have access except durfee sports pictures for concession yes and that's right across the board that's
13:26right right i just want to make that known so there's no confusion i mean however we will what we will do so i don't want to love that whole building so we will open for instance uh popcorn or has had some um playoffs or or uh a long day like a saturday or sunday on those fields so we will um allow the use of the consent the bathrooms so we'll open those bathrooms
13:53up as opposed to having the porta joints on those space um that that's so i didn't want it to get confused that the whole building wouldn't be accessible but the the concession stand side uh won't be accessible and we may or may not be able to give them access with a small piece of storage in that building so they don't have to lug stuff back and forth if they so choose to rent
14:15the uh the turf okay thank you any other questions is there a motion a second second yes 3.03 discussion vote to refer labor job description mr chico so the labor position is it's not a it's a new position to our new position to the union that we're using or the division of the union that we're using so the maintenance division has never had a labor of position in it the labor description um is a
15:08description that's been around for a while on the city side we have added a few chores into that particular piece some job duties and this is a entry-level position so we're looking to have a person who will work with the licensed trades people um the the uh craftsman whether that level one or two to have a set of hands so to speak we're also looking to possibly tie this position into the construction craft labor
15:43program at durfee the cte program and hire a student whether it be on a co-op situation or whether it be a full-time position when they graduate and um that's the intent this position is a 15 to 17 17 hour positions this is not um a high price position but it is a great entry level position for someone who's looking to get into this kind of business any questions motions
16:26yes that's correct yes go to 3.04 discussion both to refer the naming renaming committee members mr chico so um this committee had asked that we take a look at this i worked with flaherty and a few others i listed the committee members has potential because i was waiting to hear you know from a couple but um there are seven people here on this committee and i'm looking to have this committee approved
17:06and referred to the committee as a whole so that we could start looking at some of the requests we have for naming okay is there any questions are you okay with this list i'm sorry yes are you okay with this list kenny yes very much superintendent much better i think it's much better second second roll call mr harp yes ms larabee yes ms pereira yes uh 3.05 discussion both to refer laterno
17:41elementary school carnival mr pachico so i had a request from the pto at the turnout to have a carnival uh not a typical ride carnival but uh more or less games for the students um it'll be an outside event but we will be allowing access to the building for the use of restrooms and they uh this will be a pto function and what will uh what will it look like
18:12out in the parking lot it'll be in the parking parking lot um and we're going to notify the the neighbors right it'll be on a weekend it'll be uh if it's actually on june 4. okay 10 to 4. okay any other questions yes just one i believe what about the safety aspect of it is it security guard so we'll have a security person and we will have a custodian okay both so that's the security yeah
18:38there's pto pay for that uh we're not with it's a school
18:48yeah just like we do at spencer yeah okay thank you
19:07discussion and vote refer transportation uh fy 2023 i think we kind of talked about this and i think mr chico is going to have something to say about it sure so um the cover letter explains basically what we're running for buses 167 school buses 12 srta triple buses and four department-owned 7d bands we approximately transport 5000 students a day and the sheet that that accompanies it that's
19:41in a little point of confusion what the school committee policy is is that we transport k-5 one one mile or more and in six through eight we transport 1.5 and the high school is exactly the same so what we've done is on this sheet these are the bus routes that would i would say we call non-essential or non-statutory so there's no law that's forcing us to provide these buses we're doing it based on our policy
20:23and not by state mandate the state mandate is two miles um this is all within that um one mile and a half but there are some here that exceed that for instance uh on that sheet you'll see the silvia copper cup bus it's a single run we obviously know the kids are not walking from copaca no matter what it's well over two miles but as that bus comes into the city there are students
20:48that we can pick up on the way that are within our mileage that may not necessarily be beyond the two miles but they are within our mileage of covering so a student may live an elementary school student may live 1.2 miles 1.3 1.5 so they're going to ride on that bus so if we if we go strictly by the two mile we're eliminating a lot of students from getting a ride
21:12and we don't save anything by cutting it out because we still have to transport the copper cut students so it comes up a couple of times and then again you'd see the gate run so gate bus is is going to a particular site it's a program that students are put into but it's not um a compulsory program so these we would pay for so this entire page is items that we would pay for
21:43above and beyond that that mileage which is roughly 2.1 miles we pay for the srt bus charlie cards so those students issue that card by the month and that allows them the access on the weekends and allows them access after school to go to work so the charlie card is all inclusive unlike the old you know bus passes and then the last item on the bottom is just a list of the stuff that we have to
22:15do which amounts to a little under nine million dollars worth of transportation and that is a special education door-to-door students 789 of them transported by bus special education door-to-door students 136 transported by van 62 of 136 out of district um and then mckinney those 79 students transported by van and 85 students transported by um bus so that particular piece on the bottom is just for your
22:49information but that makes up close to 9 million of our 11 million dollar transportation so the only thing in question is is roughly 2.1 million dollars and those are the items listed up top so i i would ask that you refer this to finance finance as a whole so that this can be properly vetted and any recommendations from that committee could be voted on at that time is there a motion
23:25of the finance committee the second second second mr heart yes mrs laravey yes mr pereira yes 3.08 discussion and vote to refer allow administration to solicit bid for a five-year contract for the operation and management of the school food service program so we're in the final year of a three-year contract for our food service vendor and um we would like to put out an rfp for that particular operation
24:00what i'd like to do is put out a one-year contract with four one year renewals as opposed to just another three the contract um we will go out for a full rfp so that there will be other vendors that work on this but the one-year renewal contract gives us plenty of time that if we're not satisfied with a particular company we don't have to renew so we're only stuck with someone for one need
24:30but it also allows us the freedom of not having to go out a bit if we're satisfied and it just gives us a little more time um i think that you'll have vendors um who feel a lot comfortable with a five-year contract one year renewals but a five-year contract as opposed to three it's a lot of investment um in time and money to um to basically run an operation the size
24:58you know of you know 10 12 000 students it's a it's a it's a big operation that does too and we do above and beyond uh what is required of us when it comes to food service so um this would the process would be that if this is referred to full council we would be looking for a vote from the full council to go to a five-year contract to go out to bid to begin with
25:24but a five-year contract the very next day it would go to city council because we can't do a five-year contract without city council so we would go to city council one state would approve it then we would go out with the rfp for a solicitation yes um kenny have you ever operated like this with the aspect of five years is this the first time it's the first time for five but we did
25:49three the same way so every year currently with whitson's there's a renewal process and it goes through the state we send the process in they send us the approval to stop the next so this would be exactly the same with any company it would be a one year when it gets close to the end of the term that we would send into the state let them know what we intend on doing and
26:15get the approval so if i go in five years just to make it easier exactly we would bring that so we would bring that contract to the committee each year your arrival as a contract but it just stops us from doing the rfp process okay and we do have the album we always have the out because it's a one-year renewal right it's not a guarantee right right yeah no i get that yeah who is it right
26:38now the venue it's a whitsons business food service yes are we happy with them right now i'm very happy with them uh to tell you they're very uh conscientious group and they've they've done very well by us both financially and operationally they run a touch do the kids like the food um all depends on who you ask because we have i mean so the issue is simple it's very difficult for little ones to
27:05make up their mind as to what they want so you give them three or four options the middle school they get four or five options at the high school they got 10 to 12 to 14.
27:15and we don't have any complaints there if we have complaints um it's at the elementary and um again it's trying to change up the variety and also meet all of the uh all of the requirements of what we're serving of course it's not still mashed potatoes nice salsa steak and corn anymore right it's wheat this week that of course so so i'm saying is that the they're doing what exactly what they
27:41need to do um we're usually pretty good on all of our audience you know i think we've had a lot of issues over the years so they've done a good job of managing they do have quite a few companies sorry school districts that they are supplying this service to we supply our own um you know personnel that's the only difference okay i yield thank you any other questions i just have
28:13something i might throw out because two constituents called me last month about non-lactose milk at sylvia school yes um i don't know if they've recovered or getting it back but i guess the child hasn't been getting it he has been eating her cereal dry um this is the first time hearing of it yeah so first of all no just well i'm thinking no no no i'm thinking that maybe they could be running low on it maybe
28:39there's a shortage it's not as easy not as easy yes not as easily at hand now but i have you know what maybe if that is the situation what could they do to remedy it simple tasks should be i know that in the past uh um in the past bob cutting has purchased at a grocery store right to be sure that some schools competed so i will um i will find out
29:11is there a motion on the table do you refer motion to refer second second roll call devin that's jahar yes ms laravey yes mrs pereira yes uh item 3.09 discussion and vote to refer allow administration to solicit for a five-year contract for the hvac maintenance and control support services mr chico so um this is for all of our hvac maintenance and control services throughout the district
29:42all but three schools are involved in this particular contract and they will soon be uh in one of these years that we're asking for the contract is currently held by e e services uh they've been with us quite some time and um they have a proprietary control on the uh on the equipment but it also allows us to have complete access to all the controls in all of the buildings so
30:11a lot of what we do is done remotely um and we have that access to most of this equipment durfee is is a step above everything else that we have so durfy's um if you almost read your mind that's how advanced it is but this the e e system is in all the schools so in the specifications that particular unit that module that e e has proprietary ownership of they that would be bid into anybody else's
30:45contract so this bid is not exclusive to e and e they can bid on it and others can too they would just need to bid that particular document into their price so it would be the same process as we just were talking about i'm looking right now we've done three-year contracts with e e i'd like to do a one-year contract with four renewals it's the process of the the procurement that that's lending and
31:14there's a lot of walk-throughs with this one um the uh nutrition not as much but this one here we'd be walking through every building with each vendor who wants to bid on this and process takes a while and then sometimes you're doing it for nothing because they don't get anything so we're trying to do is is we'll go off of this bit it will take us some time to get it done
31:36um but in the future if we're satisfied with e and e and they're winning better then we would just renew one year at a time if someone beats e and e's bid then that person or persons or company would go through the same um scooby that we do with the a right now and we are satisfied however it doesn't mean that we're not going to cure and hope for something else any questions motion to refer
32:10motion to your fire second
32:19yes okay now for going back to the first item at 3.01 vote to uh refer we have the representatives from the florida youth side welcome hi hello go right ahead um so we're coming to the table before um as you guys know we've been doing the fields it's like school for over 20 years um and the last time we met which was three years and a half ago we had agreed um we would putting some
32:53significant money into the field to get grass back and um also with the benefit of the school be able to use it and do everything with it and we're going to be doing the trimming then covet head we've sustained as long as we can succeed as a non-profit league at this point in time but um we can't continue to do the cost of the mowing along with what we're paying for just our normal maintenance chemicals
33:17that we normally do because it has to be the licensed person that has the school license and all that um just to give an example on cost the original cost for us to just maintain the weeds and stuff that we did have was roughly six thousand dollars we're back to the point that we can just do that typical maintenance that same exact cost now is twelve thousand dollars um we bid it we've shopped it the prices
33:40on these chemicals is on the on all the fertilizer and everything is extremely high um i we called other vendors to see if it was just you know this guy that we had a commitment with it was across the board that price is extremely high since the time that we've met with you last we put on we have all the receipts for we've done about forty one thousand dollars that we put into the fields to
34:02get them to the point that they are now where they even they're level they're playable it's real grass but we're just asking that we could at least be able to put back on the table for the school department to do the um mowing when needed and to be honest we don't need it at the excess like we don't want it to be scalped and lose all that we put into it
34:24um so it's the schedule really is not rigorous like it was before we let it grow for a while um in between as they instruct us so that's kind of what we're looking for at this point in time um just so we can find some larger sponsors like we used to have because a few of our large responses have gone out of business as well and everything so it's been a hard impact um you know
34:46we're staying above water but we want to maintain that as well with the number of children we have playing in the league which is running between both seasons um a little over 800 kids so it's significant to the city and the impact it has on the youth
35:11the rate that we got last year um was a friend of the board member uh he was charged us three hundred dollars every time he cut when he comes along um so we did it about i did some quick math it cost us about nine thousand last year just in the moment that was over about a seven month seven months from april through i want to say end of october maybe the first week of
35:33november i think we'll do the last cup how many how many times a week once a week i think he was coming like thursday friday so right right before the games i played on saturdays and sundays and he would cut around that time and he was pretty pretty regularly once a week with the with the fertilization that we have and the watering that we're doing the grass is growing beautifully right so requires
35:56constant cutting so i'd say maybe once or twice we might have skipped but generally in the growing season it requires everything and we kept it a little bit longer than we've had in the past just to keep the water a little bit longer less watering hopefully uh and it's been able to kind of crowd out some of the weeds that we had there it was dirt fields when we started and we had some great great
36:20pictures to show what it was when we started the process and what it is today
36:33you said that you paid 42 000 just recently
36:48since the last time we met yeah november of 2020 is basically our first invoice all the way through our most recent invoice which was 11 10 20 21 so basically a year a year and it was it was about 31 000 well exactly 31 and 117.65 cents in just fertilization and seed and then another about 9 000 and just cut it first and i mean the superintendent just
37:18and that was all kept up to cover i mean obviously yeah and again the one that we did that when we had to shut down the field we took the opportunity during the covet right we weren't going to be able to have the kids play and we finally decided to shut it and do that final part that was going to require that extended time yeah as that hope it was it allowed us
37:37to rest the field and let the glass grow it allowed everybody to get a little yard work done yeah yeah we had a lot of yard work yeah right how i mean how long do you think you would need the school department to provide these services um to be completely honest with you i i don't know the correct answer to me i think it's a year to year right now that
37:59we're trying to just assess so if we sit here today and say okay we can refer maybe one year to the full community i don't know i would i would think that would be at least fair to come back to the table and see where we're going i think that's fair i mean as i'm looking at this letter the way it reads it made me i'm mistaken but it basically is stating
38:22that we don't charge any fees to the soccer program in return you do maintenance and grass cutting what you're coming to the table with now is saying because of covid the grass cutting is is an extra if you can't afford right now could you take that over for the time being is that accurate which is how it was two times prior to the two weeks this letter if i could interject for one second this letter
38:47was never executed because of cold okay got you so this was the plan that we had come up with but to be totally honest it never happened so you've been taking here in the field and not even making use of it for over two years basically 42 years well we've got to get those the eight weeks that we had gotten this year we did get in september october yes this this fall
39:08well thank you for all your hard work is there any chance they can send uh either mr chico or screw tenant ponce just some of your financials like what when it goes to full committee they're going to address it they're going to want it yeah so they might as well get it that's yours we'll give it us back and i have i'll get the i can get it more specific on the grass cutting
39:28because that's just all the lawn fertilization okay but i can i just put some quick math on the back here and then there's an estimate for this now this spring there's an additional 12 000 to stop the new program again do we have the capacity in the workforce to be able to do this without i'm going to say yes without telling anybody that we're going to take this back over okay the
39:52four the four-person crew that's cutting that grass obviously it's got about 120 acres of college so throughout the district okay and what that has also done is allowed us to do a little bit more in some of the areas that we would leave up to custodians so we will pull back and go back to pre you know covert days when custodians took care of most of the work outside their buildings with the exception of
40:17the bigger schools you know and then we'll go back to doing you know this cutting here i mean it's it's a lot of grass to cut but it's just it's it's wide open yeah you know it's not as time consuming as it could be it's a you know a half a day's worth of work because we're going up there anyway to do other cutting and to do the software right okay sounds good all right
40:41we're going to make a motion to refer to the full committee for a one-year discussion to i guess taking services of grass-connected grass cutting motion is made in second row yes since laravel yes
41:18i guess there has been issues with some lack of parking and making it difficult to educate us to park while there he has i guess a parking lot adjacent to dorne school and told me that he would offer it for the city to use it for teachers to park i don't know what this means in terms of terms of if it snows or liability or what have you but i just wanted to throw that out
41:40there and maybe pass his information sure and you can contact him and help that stuff out but i thought it was nice of him to offer something probably not to be started this year because we're already covered in the summer thank god um but maybe next year it could help teachers you know not have to walk a bunch of blocks let me have people already talking on that so just
42:14to yes thank you everyone thank you