4.28.2026 Fall River School Committee - Evaluation Subcommittee

Sure.

I'm just following the agenda.

Mr. A here.

Mr. Corey here.

Mr. Riley here. Okay. Please join me in saluting the flag.

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.

Evening everyone for this meeting of the evaluation subcommittee. Uh pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Would any of our citizens like to make any input? No.

Thank you. We didn't have anybody.

I didn't know if either of these two folks would like to say that.

I've never been to an evaluation uh meeting at all.

Really?

I've just been on other subcommittees.

I've never done evaluation.

So, this um I'm I had this meeting put together as a followup to one of our policy subcommittee meetings. So, at policy subcommittee, we reviewed uh policy BAA, which is evaluation of school committee operational procedures policy. and it refers to us um doing a self-evaluation. And so I inquired we don't have one and so I just pulled a sample and this is a generic sample. So certainly we can make it our own um but

I thought to help guide us I printed the um section called operating protocol meeting conduct and then um a sample rubric. So, this is something that's really just for us to kind of remind ourselves of what we want to accomplish, what we should be doing. Some of this speaks to the strategic plan, which we don't have in place yet, but then can help guide us. And the recommendation is

that we would do this twice a year, once midyear. Um, and then I would put together kind of a summary of our selfs to share out amongst the school committee. And I would imagine that would be up to the committee if we want to do that in public or if you want me to just email them.

Can I can I ask a question? So on the self valu we determine what it looks like or are we going to work off of a rubric like this?

I think we should have a rubric. This is a sample one that we can tweak to make our own.

Yeah. Um but literally it is this is something to help us remind ourselves of of how we should um run our meetings and what we want to accomplish and how close we are at getting to those goals. So just like we expect everyone else to do evaluations of their staff. This is simply for us. How can we help ourselves get better? What are the places where we think where we all agree we're strong

and what are the places where we think okay we could get better at this and maybe we reach out for support from either MASC or or or just work together on whatever that topic is.

Um so it's broken out into these five indicators. I have an extra copy guys share I think Deb copy.

I can make another copy.

you guys can share, I think. There's a copy. You're welcome. Um, so it's broken out into preparation and agendas, communication and interaction, public participation, confidentiality and executive session, and then um effective governance, and then there are indicators on um in the sample rubric for each one of these. So, if you want to just look quickly at the preparation and agendas, this is really like

one of these things, and we've talked about this before, is that board packet in advance and really um asking the district to be conscientious about getting us all of the materials in advance so that when we go to a meeting, we've had time to read through, prepare.

Sometimes we get so much backup material that if we don't get a few days to look at that, it makes it really difficult for us to be at a meeting and be prepared. So, that one um I think the district's piece of it is to make sure we have everything ahead of time, but our piece of it is to make sure you read through it and that you're prepared for the meeting with any questions.

Well, Mr. Ragio has pushed for that point for a long time now.

Yeah. And I know I I think you said um Liz is going to join us because we want to make sure she's going to be she said she was going to be a little bit late because she was attending the forum.

Okay, perfect. Um and then um this one is one that I have been wondering about and I'm wondering Kevin, you've probably been here the longest. Have you ever run an agenda with a consent agenda?

No.

Because there are some things that we review that we always just approve or or we ascent to. for example, when we get that list of um a bunch of stuff, scholarships and all those things to approve the travel, like a consent agenda can always be pulled from. So, if there was something on that agenda that there was an item where, you know, Colin really wanted to ask a question, he could before the

chair asks for an approval of the consent agenda, he would say, "Is there any item on the consent agenda that a member wants to pull?" And someone might say, "I'd like to pull item C, the contract for blah blah blah." and that would move down to the action items and you would discuss it. Otherwise, there's no discussion of the rest of them, we just move to approve them all in one big

chunk. I just think since sometimes we have so much stuff on our agenda. And Kevin, I think the problem is that we we we technically don't have the word consent agenda, but we do technically at the beginning. Yeah.

So, it's basically like the committee of the whole is how it gets read for the action items. So technically we could put the word consent agenda on the first three and really not change very much.

Yeah.

Um do you think that's something that you could discuss when you do the agenda preparation?

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

There was some miscommunication so I didn't make it this so I'll be having a conversation about that but Okay.

I think definitely it can help to streamline.

Yeah. Um, some of what we've tried to do since January was make sure we knew what the agenda items were and that there was proper backup and proper questions answered so that that could make it go smoother, right?

And as you've seen since the start of the January, we've gotten through 19 items in two and a half hours, you know. So, I think we're doing I think much better with u getting through the items. Um, but we also meet once a month and there's a lot of action. So, you're right. I I think expecting that we're going to have a meeting in a couple of hours once a month is a little unrealistic. So, I

think we're doing better, but I do think that we have to spend the requisite time to do them, but I don't think a consent agenda would be like I think it's just changing the words in the blocks.

Yeah. And allowing us to do it all in one motion instead of making individual motions. So, I think we're doing that already kind of like when when all the travel requests come on and we've had a chance to go through all of those at home and and generally there could be some questions generally there aren't very many questions around that particular item. So, we basically do a foul swoop and just, you know, pass the

whole thing.

Is that kind of what you're Yeah. We're doing the same thing with donations and we're doing the same thing with there's one other um trying to think there's one other set of actions where we kind of take them all contract approvals and all that. I'm just saying put those all in one and if under a consent agenda you would have maybe three headings you would have contracts um h not hirings contracts we would have

what did you just say appointments grants yeah just like everything allin one and it's one big vote unless somebody wants to pull a specific item. Yeah, we've all had questions on the contracts and and the grants depending on what they look like.

I I'm just trying to help follow some of the guidelines for efficient meetings.

So, this is just something that this is something that'll quicken the meeting somewhat. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, I have a consent agenda on my agenda and this is really the only stuff that goes in it is the is the minutes, homeschool approvals, like things that we really nothing that requires a roll call.

Correct. Correct. So, just an idea anyway. And like I said, Kevin, since you're also the vice chair, having that conversation, maybe when we do the when you have your meeting, um, communication and interaction, um, civility and professionalism, another place where I think the committee continues to move in the right direction of, you know, remembering that we represent the district and the

students and so being professional, I think, is important. The no surprises rule. I feel like this one is tied to getting all the backup ahead of time.

Like I want to ask all my questions ahead of time. I know all of you would rather have your your questions asked ahead of time, but if we don't have all the backup in time for the meeting, sometimes it's hard to to ask those questions ahead of time. And there's always going to be some question that you might want to ask in public for the edification of the public. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't do that. I'm

just saying. So I know for example I might read a grant and I might have a question about well how is this grant going to operate with something that's a question that doesn't have to be asked in public. I could just call the superintendent and say can you just explain this to me so that I can have a good understanding before I just vote yes on something. So so questions like

that I do think um sometimes there are questions we have that the public also has and those are still important to ask in you know at the meeting. But I guess I I just want to throw this idea about of the no surprises of giving this even when we know we're going to ask the question out loud at the meeting giving the superintendent heads up like can you please let me know like um when we

redistrict how many students will be impacted in zone two or whatever it is and the superintendent and and letting the superintendent know, okay, I'm going to ask that question in public because lots of parents have been asking about it and emailing me about it and I want to make sure folks have the answer in public. So, I think this serves at two purposes. One is then the superintendent's prepared to answer your

question. She's not, you know, responding with um I'll have to get back to you on that or I'll send you an email about that. They're ready. They have the answer and so we're getting the answer, but so is the public and any other school committee member who might have it. So, that's just I think one that the district appreciates being prepared.

Nobody wants to go up there and not be able to answer our questions. So if you have one asking it ahead of time I think is helpful.

Okay. So let let's say we got a meeting on Wednesdays right and the agenda comes out Thursday or Friday before we go over it on the weekend.

Maybe by Monday are you suggesting that we communicate with each other or so we can't communicate with each other but you can communicate with the superintendent. My suggestion is you email the superintendent say I have a question on items 1 4 and 17. Here's my questions. can you call me or email me?

And then when you get those answers, that might be all you want. Or you might say, okay, I'm gonna ask question number four out loud because I think lots of people are going to be sure.

So I think it's you reaching out to the district to the superintendent, not to us because otherwise then we might get in a back and forth and that's for that's for the meeting.

All right.

And then this I'm sorry.

So I think uh I don't have a problem with that. But I think it's just a two-way street and I know deputy's not here but we have to have the cooperation of the administration as well.

And then the frustration bills that we can't give you you can't give me an answer, then you're going to answer it on Monday in the in the meeting. I've had that conversation with a prior administration and I'm hoping that this administration doesn't do that because I said you want to roll the dice.

If I ask you a question ahead of time out of courtesy and you refuse to give the answer because you either don't like the answer that you have to give or that you're covering for the administration, the city administration or something else and you just as a superintendent refuse to answer a question.

So some of these protocols just need to it's a two-way street. They you have to have the answer.

We ask a question if you I don't like the answer. So be it, but you give me one. What we've gotten is dead silence and avoid and ignore. And that's a message from the chair to the prior administration was just don't answer and it'll go away. That was the message. So I wanted the new people to understand that's not a good way to have collegiality. And I've have proof

to back that up that I've given heads up and said, "Okay, I'm going to ask this.

People want to know what's this, what's that?" And oh no, we just don't even get an answer. Totally disregard. or say, "I'll get you the answer." And then at 5:30 come up and be handed it to us at a meeting, which is part of the other part. We can't have that happen either.

So, long as it's a two-way street, I Yeah. And that's why I we'll go over this. If Liz doesn't make it here for our meeting, I'll follow up with her and go through these because I agree with you. That's how it works. If I can't if I don't answer your question ahead of time, if I'm your superintendent, I ask and I don't answer the question, I better expect that you're going to ask

me in public because you already asked me and I didn't answer you. And sometimes it's just a level of frustration that people, you know, on the committee don't see or the public doesn't see that if I've asked you a question as the superintendent five times and you kept telling me I'll get you the answer and you never get it to me. Then I show up at the meeting, of course I'm going to

be aggravated like anybody else that wants to do a good job should be aggravated. So hopefully that changes.

I I agree. I hope it changes also. Um and then one voice, of course, we're seven people. We're not always going to agree on everything, but once we vote and a vote passes, then it becomes our that that's that's the vote and that's our policy. So, this just says that once the decision is made, we support it.

Yep.

So, redistricting, for example, we vote to approve redistricting, maybe somebody says, "Nope, I don't like this. It's going to affect my neighborhood. I don't want to vote yes on it." Once we vote yes, that's what we all agree to. So now it's in each of our best interest to help make it successful instead of continuing to fight the battle against it.

So with this one, I have uh I don't have a problem with it. I have a problem with how it's been implemented because this is common sense.

Totally common sense. But what we have on this committee is we have a chairman who doesn't recogate under a contract and say we're going to vote to uh implement a clause in the contract. Our chairman actually thought it was okay to write a letter of complaint against the DA DESC against the school committee with the DEESC begging them please don't let this school committee follow their duties and

rights to not terminate a superintendent is what his letter said begging them to come to a meeting that is totally flies in the face of this so before I agree to this the chairman better come clean and say I agree to it too and all the members need to do it because we the chair and other members saying the same thing, going out disagreeing and vehemently trying to make, you know, embarrassing statements and false

statements about other committee members. That's unacceptable. So, one voice is one voice. We want to agree to it. Everybody better agree to it.

And and truly, that's why this is on here. It no one expects everybody to be perfect. There's no way we're we're going to go through this list and then expect that we're going to fill out a rubric and go, "Yes, we are excellent at everything." because we're humans and it's going to take a while for us to get to that ex you know if you look at the rubric there there's emergency meaning

we probably need a protocol or a procedure or policy to get there there's proficient which means most of the time we're doing these things and then exemplary so I don't expect that we're going to be exemplary because no one starts out exemplary you got to work your way towards it so I do think there are going to be some bumps but if once we agree at subcommittee on what we want

to use for a tool and what we're going to use as un measure then I do think we bring it to the full committee for a vote and if we all agree then we all have to be invested in moving towards that exemplary right we don't none of us are here to be emergent I I think Kevin you said we we need to be better I think we can be better we should try to be

better every single time to work our way towards that that exemplary so can you um illustrate what this process might look like down if if we haven't really engaged in this process up to this point but now we want to try to adopt some of these ideas moving forward. So with the one voice, it's like I think what's determined in subcommittee is is a very important step because then if we can concur in

subcommittee then maybe bringing it to the full committee there should be you know maybe more cooperation.

Yep. Yeah.

Is that so?

Yeah. I I agree that we have a lot of subcommittees so there's an opportunity for a lot of good discuss a lot of the digging work that's where a lot of conversation happens and my experience has been that it's never just the subcommittee there always seem to be more of us at those meetings which is helpful because then you're also listening to that discussion so by the time it gets to full committee

we should be ready to be one voice but again I don't think that means that we should be unanimous every time there's always going to be disagreement what one voice is is once we vote vote even if you still disagree moving forward you'll follow the protocol you'll agree this is what we all voted on absolutely so so that that's that's what we would be rating ourselves on when we were when we were looking at

that that clarifies it like for instance we voted at the meeting to raise the um budget by $2 million y we voted as a committee the mayor is going to go against it and he's going to come down and say he's cutting us he's not going to give us that 2 million vote was the one voice for that vote is we all unanimously other than him six of us said we deserve

to have 101% of net school spending right so to me I'm seeing this one voice as we all concur that we need the one voice so it's not okay what the mayor says he can do what he's got to do but then he's cutting not us that's where I think the like the the formal vote cuz we could have had a subcommittee where three members voted for something and four

members of the full yet this is a relation of once the actual the full vote comes when the full Yeah. So, because I've voted on some things in subcommittee that I've changed my vote between now and the full committee. So, you know, like it's sort of uh I mean, we did vote. You're right. That that's an example. We were six to one.

We all voted for the extra 1%. And I I get why the mayor disagreed. He's seeing the budget from a different perspective, but now once we voted it, he really should be on board with them. This is what we asked for as a school committee and that's what he's not here. So, it's hard to have that conversation, but I think he had he made his statement. He said, "I can't support this. I don't

think the city can afford it. That's it." But we all but we it passed six to1. So, I think you're right. Moving after that, that should be our voice.

I think that was an example of a really that was a really good example of one voice, right?

Uh that vote on the 101%, you know, because I think we all stood unanimous on that. And I appreciate the vice chairman's efforts to try to drive it to that point, you know, and I think that the joint meeting helped to open the door on that because then uh that question was posed and then we were challenged well then asked for it and the vice chairman followed up and asked for it.

Now let's see and even better well even better at the joint meeting since you mentioned it.

I happen to be sitting right here. The mayor was sitting on my left when that discussion came up. I we were going back and forth. The mayor told me right to my face right here sitting right here. Whatever you guys vote for, I'm going to support. You know, I always support the schools. Quote from Mayor Coogan to me right here to right here in city hall. Within a week, he's now

turned to, oh, you can't do it. I'm going to cut it.

There's probably other channels he has to worry about that. That's the tricky part of having a mayor be the chair of the school committee. He's got priorities. I just want to state it for the record. That's what he told me.

Yeah.

Sure.

So, when that happened and then I said, "Okay, so if he says he's going to do it and we got a presentation that said they got $24 million in stabilization funds and they have money to do all this other stuff," I said, "Well, of course he said he's going to support it. Everybody on the committee thinks we should support it. The kids need it. Let's do it." And now all of a sudden he's backtracking.

Backtracking.

Not surprised.

I'm going to move us on to the to our next item here. Public participation. Um designated public comment. This is and and this is something I think that we are good at. I think it's the second part where we're not so good. So the open meetings act says that we'll listen but generally not respond or engage in dialogue during that meeting unless the topic is on the agenda for discussion.

And I know that this is a hard one because sometimes folks come to the public comment with some really like heart-wrenching comments or heart the followup if it's not on the agenda should not come from the committee at the meeting. That's not to say that we don't ask the superintendent afterwards to please follow up. So, someone comes to the podium and they tell us about something that happened at their child's

school that they weren't happy with. It was there was something that happened that wasn't safe or and they've reported it to us. Now, it's on the administration to go and do that, but it's not something that we should engage in unless it's on the agenda. So, an example of on the agenda is someone comes up and says, um, when we close the, um, dual language program, my child's going to miss out because

whatever, and then dual language is on our agenda, then we can respond and say like we heard in public comment, nobody wants to get rid of the dual language program. We agree, we support it. But if it's something about, let's say, um, I went to my child's school and I saw the door propped open, which we know is a big no no, and they want to report it.

Thank you. But we don't interact.

Although it's tempting to be like that shouldn't have happened. Tell us what school where were you. That's not the place to interact. What we should do in followup is all the folks who sign up for public comment have to list their their names. The superintendent, the admin can follow up with them and find out what was the circumstance, what was the school, how did that happen, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Yes.

If I may, I think just going back to my colleague's point, that's also a two-way street. In the past, we've had members of the public state, they haven't received an email from a prior administration to certain things. So, if we're going to follow that concept, it's just important that the administration follows up with those individuals when they bring up a concern. Agree. Just one

one point on that. If I have a as one member, if someone gives it an input and I'm a little confused as to something they're saying, I don't think that should prohibit the committee for asking a clarifying question if we're not giving like a H you're not supposed to ask even a clarifying question, but I'm thinking about how you would get an answer to that. Maybe that's just something that you share with us the

administration to follow up on. Like was that person did that person mean the front door was open? Was the back door open? Like I didn't understand what they were trying to tell us. Like I think maybe that's something again and I think the other thing that you've the members who are already on the committee have clearly had different experiences because you know Chanel, Manny and myself are new to the committee. So I

see all I'm I'm going through all of these things not having experience with you experience. So, I I appreciate what you're sharing with us, but I hope that moving forward, we can have the administration also agree that in order for us to do our job, they have to do their side of this job, which are all the things that you're talking about like responding to those and following

up. And sometimes, because believe me, I know this has happened to me. Someone's sharing something a public comment I already know about, but that's one side of the story. And we have to trust that the administration is going to follow up with us and be like, "Here's the whole story. the door was propped open because um someone was standing at the door.

They were holding the door while somebody delivered something and then they closed it immediately out. There's always two sides to every story and and maybe something bad did happen. We need to find out what that is. But remembering to trust the admin that they're going to find out for us and then share back so that we don't have to be the ones following up with a parent or the public to figure out what that

answer is. But they do have to be our partners in this because we don't work here from 9:00 to 5:00 or 8:00 to 4:00 or whatever it is. But they do and so they have the time to dig into these pieces.

I think also they have to the administration has to sometimes answer.

So it certainly time public participation is not for come and beat people up and talk nonsense about people. So we have to look at I think as a policy to hold that whole piece but without going into that detail. Yeah, we have that one on our the issue is sometimes somebody comes up including the union or whoever saying nonsense or something really right on point.

Yeah.

And the administration says nothing. So at some point whether it's I hear what you're saying, I will get back to you with, you know, some sort of uh recognition that I hear you and I will acknowledge it. Sometimes it doesn't happen and sometimes what they're saying is the same thing three meetings in a row right?

So after a little while, then we just say, "Hey, you know what? I need you to clarify and I've done this myself and asked the superintendent, can you clarify uh what was the case? Like this was big in negotiations. They came up with all kinds of things in negotiations that weren't accurate to to make it look like as if the schools were either unsafe or whatever it is.

Yeah.

I think the superintendent sometimes has to at least acknowledge some things like, okay, I'll get back to you on that today. Thank you. And I think that'll help us to not have to We've had to respond in my I'll speak for myself.

I've had to respond to things that probably I'd rather not, but if nobody else is going to respond.

Yeah.

And nobody else is responding for months, I'll ask that question in the meeting and say, "No, can you answer that question now?"

So, I I think it can get better, but there's a reason why it's gotten to the point where we have to ask.

But we are and also, you're right, that is on our policy agenda. We're going to look at that because no one should just be able to come up and say anything. It feels like there are no rules. It's a no holes barred on our public comment right now, but even our current policy does have rules in it.

So, we have to figure out a way to enforce those rules at our meeting.

All right. Uh confidentiality.

Is that before when is your meeting? Is it before?

13th. No, it's after meeting. Yeah.

14th 13th.

It's the 13th. Yeah. Then we have um confidentiality and executive session. I mean, this one is the law. It's also something we need to abide by and it's something that we've recently discussed but we have to maintain confidentiality of everything that happens in um executive session. Um and then executive session minutes are sealed formally during our meeting. So we don't usually

seal the minutes at our meeting but that is something we should do in terms of procedure. So when after we go to executive session and approve the approve those executive session minutes when we come out in public we should seal the minutes um until the matter is resolved.

What does that mean? So sealing I've never heard sorry.

Yeah. So it's funny because it's very typical. It's the process that happens in almost every district. It's not unique to my district. It's it's a typical fashion. So what happens is most of the things you're discussing in executive session are either legal issues or um ongoing hearings or something of that sort. So those matters are those minutes are protected by law until that matter is settled. So if we

have um a hearing or a lawsuit or something that's ongoing, it's ongoing for a year, but we talk about it at five executive sessions, those minutes cannot should not be released. They should be held until the matter is resolved. And that's allowable by law.

I think the and I think Mr. Aar can speak to this. I think what happens now is we just delegate that authority to our attorney and he deals it with that issue. I think the issue that we run into is when these issues are over, are we overredacting?

Are we redacting things that we don't have to by law? Um I brought up this issue in the past like before um the new committee arrived. So I think um having a process in place as to the committee can review the redactions before it comes out I think would be extremely helpful.

I think it's just assumed by what we've done traditionally is that they're automatically sealed. So I don't know if so like it's by us just by I think it's the mass law that says they're automatically sealed. We don't necessarily take a vote to seal. I've never I'm not opposed to it because it's I think it's doing the same thing. But traditionally, we're already sealing them in theory but automatically just by

approving them because they can't get released until they're done. What Mr.

Das is talking about is we don't have a process for releasing them once it's no longer. So, we're going we have a backlog of years and years of these.

So, that's some of the problem that we we don't unseal them or whatever the wedding would be.

And we don't do that.

Yeah. And we haven't done that other than in case some and let somebody ask us, right?

So if they ask, we unseal and redact, but there's not a a process. So maybe that's like a policy.

That's Yeah. And that's probably a legal question because some some some will never be released. Like some personnel matters can never be released even when the matter is resolved. Um so we we probably that's probably a legal opinion. But there there are definitely any personnel matter that happens in executive session is I mean the only time those minutes would be unsealed would be at the person's death. Like you

wouldn't you wouldn't be unsealing them randomly. Um but we can we can ask some questions about procedure. Welcome Liz. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

I'm just talking about sealing the minutes. That's one of the things that's in this uh protocol and I've never not seen a committee seal the minutes. We don't do that here. Is that I've seen them seal it? Yeah, especially on personnel.

Yeah, but I've never, you know, I've had people I've seen it. I've watched it, you know, someone foil something and then they, you know, redaction, redaction, redaction, the attorneys do that.

Um, but then I've never seen personnel get out of there, though. I mean, yeah, that's what I was saying. I've never seen personel session.

Not a hearing for sure.

No.

Yeah, I've never seen that.

But the word seal is what I was saying.

So, we technically don't take two votes.

one to approve the minutes and then another vote to seal them.

Okay.

By our making a motion to approve the minutes. It's I think it's just un uh understood that they have sealed.

Okay.

We're talking here whether we have to take two votes.

So I've always taken in public session a seal the minutes vote, but maybe that's not a Massachusetts thing. So that might be Massachusetts.

So perfect. We'll take a look. We'll have attorney says we don't have to do that. It's automatically sealed.

They do that. We I've never done that in Massachusetts.

Get your state straight, will you?

Listen, some rules are the same. Some I have to tell you, Rhode Island adopted a lot of the Massachusetts laws, which makes it easier for me. Most of them are the same, but it's the interpretation of that law that's we have the same law on the books, but the way Rhode Island interprets it versus the how Massachusetts interprets it is not always the same. So, that's the nuance is it's the same law. I mean, word for

word, except instead of Massachusetts, it says Rhode Island, but it's interpreted differently in both states.

That's the magic of lawyers. Um, yeah.

So, and the last thing is effective governance, which is probably the hardest one on this whole um list. Uh, because it's really our work and all work takes um time and effort and trial and error. Um, and we have a big role in policy and oversight. Um, and really being in support of the superintendent and what they need accomplished. And this is where I'd say a strategic plan will be kind of our guiding force for

this because it'll be our job to make sure the superintendent is working on the strategic plan, actively making sure we're getting to those benchmarks and what's on there, but also providing the supports that the the superintendent and the district might need to accomplish the goals that are in the strategic plan. Um, and I hope once we have one in place, we'll see that link right in our agendas that that

what's on the agenda is completely attached to our strategic plan. Um, and so that will help us focus on that management that's that we need to do to make sure the district can be successful and meet those goals. And again, this is like really like for us as a tool for continuous improvement to make sure we're we're being the best committee that we can be. Kevin, I'm going to say

do better. We're going to keep saying to ourselves, we can do better than this.

We can do better than this. And hopefully in a short time, we can see ourselves really modeling that exemplary column most of the time. Um, are there any things you want to add or change in here? Go ahead.

Just on that. So yeah, sometimes um committee members have different views on what is their role relative to we know what the law says the policy oversight and stuff but for instance I wrote a note here. So sometimes we need information to evaluate said policy and I think um depends on what administration I'm hoping this administration is cooperative with that that we can't evaluate a policy whether

a policy needs changing if we don't know whether it's being implemented with fidelity properly inappropriately. So there is some questions that don't just say the committee's role is to approve a budget once a year, then just show up at the meeting and nod their head yes and don't ask any questions. That is not the role of the school committee in my opinion even by law.

That would imagine there would be a perfect district, which nobody has, Kevin. So you're right. We definitely have to ask. We've had situations here in the past where there's members that actually think that's their role is to do nothing other than show up at the meeting, nod your head yes to whatever the mayor says or whatever the administration says and move on. That's not the role. So when people ask

questions, clarifying questions or emails to the superintendent saying what's about this, what's about that, that isn't automatically, hey, you're not following the policy rules like you're out of your lane or you're doing the day-to-day stuff. So I think there has to be a a collaboration cooperation amongst the administration related to that issue and I think we have a different committee

this uh term that wants to be more engaged and do but that means you're going to ask some more questions and deputy superintendent has been very responsive with answering those questions and get back to us. So I don't really see that being an issue for a lot of policy work to do to be honest.

I mean, we started I I started putting them into so I did share with Deb a spreadsheet today with all of them kind of by date other than the ones I think.

So, we have some policies that are old that need to be reviewed. We have some that are um I would say depersonalized because they're just MASC's policy which we might want to take a look at and say does this work for us and again I think our strategic plan without a strategic plan it's really hard to set goals and say this is what we're going to work towards and as a school committee we're going to ask

about this and support this because that strategic plan is supposed to be like your north star. So I think once we have one that will also help guide questions like I mean, one of the examples on here is meetings are bogged down in minutia like bus routes and craft classroom level issues. Well, we just talked about like why we've been down in the minutia is because we've people have come to us

with the same problem over and over and over again and we don't see resolution.

So, hopefully we see a change in that and we're not bogged down in all those like little details and we can focus on the big things. What's a policy that will make us successful? what's a what's in the strategic plan that we're working towards that we need to make sure is getting accomplished. You know, one of the things um that I imagine would be in our strategic plan is really looking at

the new graduation requirements. I mean, really there's been a massive shift away from the MCCAST being the decider to the district having to come up with the new graduation policy. And as a new member, I haven't heard much about that at all.

But yet that's one of the biggest topics that we should be discussing. But I feel like without a strategic plan that's driving us towards asking those kind of questions like it's probably happening I hope here in the district and they're working towards it. But we haven't had any discussion about it and we vote on graduation policy. That's our responsibility but I don't think we've

had any public discussions about what those going to be. We as a committee it was before the new committee arrived we did approve a competency determination um not sure we that I think that's separate from a graduation policy y or like the um guidelines but I think that's something that's that is within policy that we can always take a second look if the new committee wants to um

well because I think the state is still working on some of that so there's no way we could be done because the state hasn't finished setting those guidelines but that's big work of the committee.

Once the state finishes saying, "Okay, here are the kind of guard rails, then we have to have some discussions around what's going to justify a diploma for our students because right now it's everybody gets a diploma."

That's what it is right now after the the law change and all that.

So, let's call it let's just call like it is. I think that's work to do.

Sadly, that's what we've come to. And I don't personally I don't agree with it.

I was one of the only ones that voted to keep MCCAST because there is no standards whatsoever and when we start to ask questions about like this is a perfect example of the policy. So when I would try to figure out should we change a policy or something I have to ask the administration how many kids are just getting passed through without their grades. Well uh every nobody can get

lower than a 55. Uh nobody can get lower than a 60. Like these schools create policies that we don't necessarily know about.

they're buried within something. So now it's like, how do you know that they're even passing to get the diploma? And those are questions where some people would say, "You're asking too many questions or you're getting in the minutia."

That is our perview, the graduation.

I'm just saying like examples. Another one is conduct. So we do the conduct policy for the district.

Well, if we never get any data on the conduct, is it working? All we all we hear is complaints from people, teachers, staff, parents, grandparents, whoever that this policy is not being followed, that one's not being followed, one school's having the one thing, one side another, how do we get that information?

Yeah.

Without passing it to the superintendent's office to have them look at it and then if that doesn't come forward with information, now what do we do?

Yeah.

So then they're speaking in one voice.

Yeah. I'll go to the meeting on a Monday and say I want to ask you this question in public so everybody knows that I am asking the question.

Yeah.

Get to a chair across the room. This is a couple years ago. And what was the policy in the handbook and what was followed? And the answer I got was policies followed. What does that mean?

So I look in the policy. The policy says a kid gets suspended automatically.

Well, what did the kid end up getting?

Oh, I can't tell you that. So those are the runarounds that we get from and I'm only saying this because it's not a simple Yeah. Uh let's just Oh, it's not. Yeah, it's it's not two way street. It's like you got to have to be the administration has to cooperate with us and when we ask something that's not legitimately in the then they just say I can't tell you that

and I understand that. But when you can link it back to policy and those things it should be a willingness to say no, we need to evaluate this. Uh and that's behavior is a perfect example because that's a policy that should be looked at regularly. So we have a policy that says something specific like that.

Then we get information from the administration that says, well agenda, this actually isn't stopping fights.

We've had x number of fights at this school or that school. So this policy isn't working. We'd like to tweak it and do x, y, and z. So we need to hear that data in order to make changes that make sense for the district because we we want them to work. We don't want to make a policy that doesn't work. But sorry, Tom, go ahead.

No, no. I just wanted to know uh from the uh as far as a strategic plan is concerned. Yeah, being that we haven't had one and I haven't been in in governance, you know, since.

So, we've been working with the previous model, clearly we need to move into a strategic plan. I'm in full agreement of that.

What drives the strategic plan? Is it the policies that are formulated? Does the plan come off of the policy or does the policy go to the plan?

So, policies help support the governance of the district period. So in theory they should support the strategic plan but the strategic plan are agreed upon goals that really should come out of the community meetings that we're going to have. So the group that we picked great schools has some planned community convenings. They're going to reach out to staff, students, parents. They're

going to meet with school committee members. So that when we're done with a strategic plan, we should have three to five highlevel goals that we all agree we want for our district. And and everyone should know what they are. And that's what we should be working towards. So if we have a policy that's preventing us from being successful in a particular goal, and I mean since I've I'm been operating when

I'm actually in the last year of my current strategic plan, one of our goals was to um expand and improve our CTE programming. We didn't offer a ton of programming. When I started in the district, we had two. We now have like nine approved programs. We continue to grow it. Um that's in our strategic plan. So I need to make sure when my school committee is working on policies that govern CTE that we're making sure

they're it's making CTE accessible to students that I have the ability to provide transportation that they can meet their 80 hours of work that has to be completed. So policies support the goal. So sometimes there's a policy you have to tweak. Most of the time our good policy should be right in alignment with those strategic. So, so you guys devise a strategic plan possibly first and then

the policies are designed to support that plan.

Well, some some policies have to exist based on the governance model of school.

So, we have the basic general. Yeah. So, then there are others that we would want to support. Another one of the goals of my district is to expand prek. So, we want to make sure we have policies that support the expansion of prek. So, there are always going to be things we might have to tweak and look at. Yeah.

Depending on what we pick as our goals.

I'm proud to say in Fore River, we're already doing all of that. We're we're doing a lot of stuff. Absolutely.

We're expanding CT.

I don't know what our goals are going to be. We're going to find out when we all do it. I would imagine my number one goal is to improve student proficiency.

And I'm going to imagine when we finish our strategic plan, one of our goals is going to be to improve student proficiency. I think that's you can probably pick out of a hat every school district in the country and one of their strategic plan goals is improving student proficiency. So that will be that's a very high level goal that only gets tactical at the school level. So our job is to make sure just that

schools get what they need which one of the big things we do is through the budget process. You know if a school is making gains and they've put in something in place that's really successful. Okay. How do we take that and make it a policy and maybe have every school do it because it's really something that could improve everyone's outcomes. I don't want to belver the point just just very briefly but as far

as policy is concerned and the attendance policy was brought up as an example I think it looks different uh from elementary level from the prim to the secondary level you know I think it looks different in terms of demographics in terms of expectations all of that kind of thing Dery has an attendance in a grading policy you know and I know it might not be part of an overall strategic plan and they Maybe I think

what uh Mr. Agiel was alluding to is maybe different schools have different policies in place. Maybe we can make that more somewhat more uniform. Is that the idea?

Yeah, attendance is actually probably one that will probably show up somewhere in our strategic plan whether it's part of a bigger goal or a goal in and of itself that would be determined by the needs of the district. What does our chronic absenteeism numbers look like?

But I agree with you, those have to be differentiated. When you're talking about elementary kids, it's typically not the students who are making themselves late to school. So those policies have to look different from high school students who can have an impact sometimes on their own attendance and tardiness and whatever it is. So you're right, a policy should be broad enough or have broken out pieces, but we

should have a uniform policy for all elementary schools when it comes to chronic absenteeism. It shouldn't be um allocart where one school has this policy and another school has this. Same thing with um if we're talking about a code of conduct for students. It should be elementary across the board, but elementary probably doesn't look like a high school code of conduct. So we may have we have that.

Yeah. So we may have levels of things.

So it should be uniform for the district but not necessarily uniform K12.

Right.

That makes sense.

Oh, that's Thank you. You answered it perfectly. Okay.

If I may, there's two questions on this last part. Yeah.

Um are I I think concerns and again one sticking within our lane. Um something that more or less has been an issue in the past which I hope is not an issue going forward but I don't know um what we're going to do is the committee does have a role in collective bargaining.

And you ask me collective bargaining is both union collective bargaining and non-union collective bargaining. The administration's purview is to hire and um deal with that those personnel of individuals. So hiring, firing, discipline within their purview. This committee's purview, if you're asking me, is again budgetary. We set the salary ranges for positions, but we if they're non, we approve the

contracts. We um set the vacation time and things of that sort. So I just hope that is something that continues. Um and secondly, and I've raised this issue um since I've joined the committee, is the warrants.

My understanding is the warrants here are broken up. They're given to different members. I think it would be easier for both the administration and the school committee if we just have the warrants in one document. It can be on the consent agenda. We can ask questions beforehand. And these are already expenditures that are we're spending, but we're just signing off of them afterwards. Just put them all in one

document per month, bring them before the committee. We're going to approve it. I think it would just um save times because members currently sign off on the documents.

everyone knows I ask of them many questions on on the warrants themselves and um I think and I know there's members that are hesitant to sign off on the warrants because just the way the process has been over the years and I think just having it on the agenda one document the way it's supposed to be and the way MASC actually recommends that we approve them in a monthly meeting I

think it's actually the law I think would be very helpful in terms of and I know I bring that up because that's um within effective government. So I think that's something we should take a look at. I yield. Thank you.

Just on that, I think it would be difficult uh there is a problem with the warrants how they're done, but I think we have a new administration that's going to hold better accountability to what is approved and not approved before it gets to the point of a warrant. If we did it monthly, like I said before, we meet once a month.

They need to pay bills sort of quickly.

So that would be a detriment to that information. But we got to clarify what is the purpose of signing off. I've personally haven't signed off in 3 years because I wasn't happy with the way it was going because people were signing things like directors. There should be a system in place. Somebody signs and say, "Yeah, I checked this. It's good. It goes to the next person. They check it

said it's good." So when I see two people like the director and the sup superintendent sign something, I should have confidence that there's nothing in there that is going to be, you know, somebody signing off on their own reimbursement or somebody signing off on something that was violation of 30B or, you know, I haven't had that confidence in the past. So therefore, I said I'm not signing, but I'd be happy to sign

once we work out a system to say it's checks, it's balanced, and this is what's going to happen. Once we see that, I don't think we'll have the issues that Mr. says, but I do concur with what he's saying. There has been tremendous issues with sign offs. We've had people sign off in 125 pages of documents in 17 seconds. That's unacceptable. If that's the case, don't sign because that's what are we signing?

I take it when I used to sign, I'd look at them all. Boom, boom, boom. You know, it would take you some time to go through it. You can't signund and something pages in 17 seconds. I don't care you, even if you're a speedreader.

So at the at the end of the day, we got to figure out what is it that we're signing and then some people would get mad saying Mr. Dia stopped us from signing something and we can't that's why we're not paying bills which is a maloy but at the end of the day he's got a right to say that but if he questions something as one committee member they would just take it and give it to

another committee member to sign. So then what's the point of him questioning something if it So we've had some internal systems which I'm sure you're aware of and hopefully uh in the future it'll be better.

Yeah, I I mean, yeah, there's clearly like you missed some other items, Liz, where we said we need to do this in partnership with the admin. So, I'll be happy to give you some to review some of these with you as we go forward.

And I think that the communication piece, yeah, that I think that that's what I keep hearing. The commun communication piece for me is critical. I've always been like, call me, I'll get try to get back to her. I'll try to find the answer or I'll go and do what I got to do and then I'll get back to you. Um, but I definitely think that that's something that we this this this side of the table

has to work on within the district of course of the communication so that we can get back to you really.

Is this policy? Yeah. And is this policy working especially in the behavior part you just brought up? I was I had a conversation about it this afternoon like you know just the data that I'm getting is is It's pretty crazy.

So, we have to look at it clearly.

That's But it's a systems thing and that's something that, you know, I think this I'm hearing it from like everybody at the table. It's like it's a systems thing and we've got to figure out how to Yeah. get all on the same page.

Yeah.

So then just the last the wrap up on on this rubric. So we probably wouldn't be looking at at doing a self. So I think we're going to have a retreat. So maybe we start our retreat by just saying this is where we are today. And in some of the places it sounds like we're not in a good place, you know, based on what you've shared and what Colin shared from

you're not in a place yet where you would say I feel comfortable doing this 100% yet. So maybe we do a baseline at our retreat kind of go through this and rate ourselves as of today and then the next time we would do it would be December and not just one to five but if you look at the discussion for for once we fill it. So we would do the ratings

but you would want to make notes for yourself so that we can look at it and for example I mean if the committee was comfortable as the evaluation chair I would just put our averages together and say whoa we all rated ourselves really low on uh public interaction. So how are we going to improve that moving forward?

Do we need to make a policy change? Do we need to look at whatever it might be?

So that would be a common thread that we all thought was was poor. Um the disparities is a different conversation.

So if some people are saying we're a one on this and some people are like we're a five on this like this is great. That's a really deeper conversation because why is it that some people feel like we're doing really well at this but other people feel like it's really bad? That's something that could take some time to kind of dig out and figure out what is it that makes you feel like we're a five

and what is it that makes you feel like we're a one? Because we got to find a way to get on the same page. that would be something that told us we would if we have work to do in that area. So, I'm just suggesting that when we do our retreat, if we like this tool, fine. If you want me to go back and dig up some more, there's plenty of them out there.

I can find some different ones if you'd like. Um, this one just seemed pretty straightforward. Some of them are like 50 questions.

We should bring it to the full committee Monday okay Wednesday, and then go from there. like if there's anything that from this meeting we needed to tweak between now and Wednesday but I don't see anything as a problem and then that'll allow us to at least have it as a first goal and then at that point we have the retreat it worked it didn't work we can tweak it after that but I don't think we should

we want to add more meat to it we could do it at the retreat and make it again this is our document so it's not it's not set in stone we can add to it self evaluation tool so I make a motion we approve the protocol and the school committee to unlock rubric second All in favor?

I was to approve. Don't want to refer it.

Yeah. Refer it to the full committee.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you want me to do a roll call?

Sure. Okay.

Mr. Dragon.

Yes.

Mr. Court.

Yes.

Mr. Riley.

Yes.

New business.

New business. Just a question. So the uh summary of what the evaluation subcommittee does, I know we talked about it at policy for I don't know what the um I don't think there if there wasn't one for uh the other committee, I'm not sure it is, but I think we should clarify what is the role of the evaluation subcommittee.

Okay. Like I think it would be beneficial probably to have we has we have quarterly meetings mandated to have the administration report data on evaluations even though it's not not the individual evaluations but summary data aggregate data uh quarterly will help I think to also um keep everybody on track build trust.

Yeah. So I don't know if that's within the purview. I don't think there is a written preview of what devaluation subcommittee is.

Y but I'd like to ask that for one of the future I'll be happy to talk with the superintendent about that. We can put that on an agenda to think about.

Um so one of the ways we could do that is when we do evaluation subcommittee we can have an executive session if we want to do even an aggregate of yeah if it's within the rules the snods. Yeah you can because it it's about someone's evaluation. Even if we're talking about an aggregate, I would recommend because I'm sure not everyone's going to be perfect. As I just said, we're all humans. Those

probably should be an executive session, but that would fall under the policy on evaluations. Common sense policy is everyone's supposed to be evaluated every year for an admin. Yeah, I'm just saying for anybody basically.

So, well, teachers must have a cycle, right?

they have cycled but I'm just saying as far as an employee there's really no highly functioning organization that doesn't do evaluations of this that right but we don't necessarily do that here so like as far as evaluation and policy should be everyone gets evaluated here's the expectation for when an SNOM gets evaluated who's going to like we don't get that sort of information and that is a policy that

I believe we maybe we don't have it but policy should be everybody gets evaluated annually. Um, if it's not the case, I know in practice that's not the case. So hopefully the measure of that is data that we could take at a at a evaluation subcommittee. You know, are we on target for all staff custodial evaluations, teacher evaluations, that's what I'm referring to. Yeah. Kind of have a a

schedule and just a check-in. And there are reasons why some might not be done.

So you might say we're at 80% completion on the custodial evals because we have you know 10% of our out on workers comp right now. This you know there might there might be reasons why we're not at 100% but just getting that report out I think just helps to build trust and confidence and also important for us to know when we are going into negotiations that the work has been done ahead of

time so that if issues come up we they can be addressed. The other question I had was on the interim superintendent and interim deputy superintendent's evaluations. So I think for the future we just got to figure out what Yeah.

You know what I mean? How we're going to I have that on my list to talk to Kathy about to see what she'd like to do about that. A recommendation on on how we can Yeah. Whatever. Like we have the form that we've used.

Probably needs to be overhauled a little bit because it was for a short term for sure.

Yeah. on the superintendent eval there.

Um, we used a company uh called Super Eval.

I don't know if you've seen that. Um, I I think it's really it's probably one of the best things I've seen come out because it's so it it helps you and it they they work with the committee.

They'll do the PD for you. They and it's it's it's I think it's about $2,500 for the PD and to get the document and it's all electronic, too. So, everything's electronic and then you pick and then you say, "How do we where where does the goal fit in?" And they help you um put it with the Desi framework because the the Desi really is not a great tool to use.

It's not user friendly.

And that's the one we use and it's not even good to see.

No, it's not. And there's words in there like if you give needs improvement or proficient you have to put comments but nobody puts comments in some of them it's like and they follow the rules like it doesn't uh so I I will be my job I will be the police I need a comment here I think it's difficult it's difficult I think that one the desi model is just I think they took the teachers and they

expanded it but the the superintendants or principal's job it's it's so vast you really got to be what are we looking for this year what's the goals of this we'll see.

Yeah. So, I just wanted to throw it out there on put it on the radar. I like it.

Um the next meeting probably quarterly or whatever they I just think that that model was good that what they came up with that super eval and it's cheap.

Yeah.

So, I'd like to make a motion that we authorize the chair to make decisions related to the uh evaluation tools so that we wouldn't necessarily have to have a meeting that could go right to the full committee.

Second.

All in favor? Hi.

And I don't know what the superintendent I don't know what Kathy has used in her.

Yes. I'll check I can check in with her.

Okay. I'll make a motion to adjurnn.

Thank you. Second. All in favor? All right.

I thank you. Thank you.

Have a great night.