5.12.2025 Fall River School Committee

I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the former school committee for Monday, May 12th. Uh Deb, would you please call the role? Mr. Aguia here.

Mr. Bailey here. Mr. Das here. Mr. Corey here. Miss Laravey here. Mr. Pereira.

Mayor Kan here.

Let's salute to the flag.

I pledge algiance 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.

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. Uh citizens input. First up, Keith Michon, East Providence.

All right. Right. I'm Keith Michon, president of the former educators association. And today I testified before the joint committee on education in support of House Bill 678 and Senate Bill 338, an act to fix the Chapter 70 inflation adjustment. I spoke along with many students, parents, educators, school committee members, and other elected officials, all whom spoke in support of addressing the chapter 70

formula to address the inflation glitch.

It's estimated that without the inflation cap, the budget you are voting on tonight would be about $6 million greater. That wouldn't solve all of our problems, but it would certainly help grapple as especially as we grapple with the uncertainty of federal funding. I hope you will support this bill along with the other bills on the agenda tonight. This year, Mr. Das was appointed by the committee to be the

liaison to the legislature. This is a step that I'm glad to see the committee take. After attending a few advocacy days at the state house today and today participating remotely, I was thoroughly impressed with the commi communities that advocated together. Today, multiple communities had a combination of their mayor, school committee members, parents, students, and educators advocating for these bills. We can't sit

around and wait for the state to tell us what to do and take the take what they give. Together, we have the capacity to lead and advocate for what our community needs.

With that, I'd like to take the opportunity to promote a forum on graduation readiness. In a couple weekends on May 24th at 12 p.m., a group of us are meeting at Keith Middle School in New Bedford to discuss the graduation requirements coming out of the Yesan 2 victory. This is a child-friendly multilingual space open to the community. Check out our FREA page for details, Facebook page for details, and

I hope to see some of you there. Thank you. Thanks, Keith. Um, we have no we have no recognition awards tonight and our student delegates are probably wrapping up the end of the year. Uh, citizens input obviously that was Keith.

Next up is uh a letter couple of letters we have here. Gabriel Amaril um Fall River Transportation.

Good afternoon.

My name is Gabriel Boomer Amarell. I'm writing as a taxpayer, a father of six with five children in five different schools, four of which are within the Fall River public school system. I am a community advocate and I am very concerned about the proposed changes to the transportation policy. If this transportation policy is approved by the school committee, we all know less kids

will be eligible for transportation and how that works out for attendance issues.

Disadvantaged parents who do not have their own transportation will not be able to drive their kids to school. This policy would lead to more children walking to school. This is not the 70s or the 80s where we had local schools and the biggest threats of gang violence were the jets and the sharks. Fall River is not a safe city. Despite what Chairman Kougan says, there are stabbing, shooting, drug dealings every

single day. The month of April alone had 299 car accidents. Now, let's put more kids on the streets and see how many get hurt or killed by the unsafe drivers that have gone that have also grown exponentially since the times of some of those voting. Children are going to be harmed from this. Did we also factor in in climate weather? Did we factor in days with excessive heat or cold

weather? Does the superintendent care about the students in this district?

This district, this district has a tendency of placing children in harm's way. Why would the district take this position? I believe the mayor's office, Chairman Coogan, should look for cuts in his own budget that is now over half a million dollars just on the city side.

No cuts to education. Our teachers go without while we fluff up administration jobs. And once again, we let the teachers, kids, and the taxpayers struggle. Transportation needs to be reformed, but not in a way that harms children. I believe there is already an effort made by a school committee member to address the unfunded mandates from transportation and to bring in money to the city to help with transportation

costs. This money that should go right back to the taxpayers. We know the city probably won't use the money to help the taxpayers anyway, but it's there to do so. Let's see what the unfunded mandate petition brings us. When did the administration plan to collect parent input on this proposed policy? The other week, when transportation changes were discussed, school committee member Das

asked the superintendent what was being planned. The superintendent said she wasn't prepared to say. I think the superintendent didn't want to tell us or she is waiting for her orders from above. Either way, I hope the school committee votes to protect the children.

Bottom line is not one of these members voting to endanger our children and create a harder path to an already failing education system have children than the systems they pretend to know about. Not one of the sitting members has raised a child in the school systems of today, and I don't believe some have in the last three to five decades. How can you tell us parents what's best for

our children when you raise not a single one in the system you've created or at all? Thank you uh Deb. Next up, Jeffrey Gudro. Uh Jeffrey Gudro, Palmer Street for River.

Hello members of the school committee. I am writing today to submit testimony on my thoughts and opinions on the proposed transportation policy. I wish to start my testimony with parting language to the school to the to to the song.

Another brick on the wall. We don't need cuts to transportation. We don't need no mayor control. Attendance will drop in the classroom. Tracy, leave transportation alone. Hey, Tracy, leave them kids alone. Thank you for listening to my song. Now, on a serious note, this transportation policy is simple. It means less students will be eligible for transportation. Can somebody tell the

public how this policy will benefit students? And please do not say we're looking out for the taxpayers because if we were, we wouldn't be wasting money on $6,000 dinosaur costumes, paying for items such as SRO, which the city should be paying for, or the waste that is in facilities and operations. This policy will mean more children will be walking in our unsafe city. More children will be walking in

sweatering heat, frigid cold. This is New England for crying out loud. With this policy, less students will be going to school. Do we think about parents who do not have their own vehicle? How about the Tividan exclave for Fall River? I will end this. The public knows that they're not happy for what is happening in the school system and the city itself. And I hope more parents and guardians are

going to pay very close attention to this issue. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Deb.

Finally, Kevin um Kevin Ayar, Crestwood Street.

Dear Superintendent Curley and school committee, I would like to bring an important matter to the committee's attention. Once again, it has come to my attention that a former school resource officer had allegedly that former administrators at Dery High School covered up sexually inappropriate situations with students as discussed publicly with high ranking members of the Fall River Police Department. I

previously shared additional details with Superintendent Curley and the entire committee. I am now formally requesting that an independent investigation be initiated to ensure that all matters involving sexual harassment, both past and present, are handled appropriately and transparently.

These allegations are serious and warrant thorough examination as outlined in policy K of the school department policy manual. Complaints involving school personnel must be investigated fully and fairly. Additionally, policy GB mandates that all personnel support and enforce committee policies prioritize student safety and uphold the school committee school systems legal responsibilities. I urge the committee

to take swift action to guarantee accountability and uphold the integrity of our schools. Thank you, Kevin Aguar.

Uh Mr. Raguar is obviously a mandated reporter, so I know he did report this to the appropriate authorities in the police department and DCF. I know he doesn't want to jeopardize anything in his future. So, I'm assuming he did that and we'll look for the follow-up report because we are all mandated reporters.

Mr. Mr. Iger, since you want to make this a debate, I'm happy to No, I wasn't making a debate. I'm just I'm I'm applauding your efforts to report the uh thing. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your your comments. If you would understand what a mandated reporter is, you have to have an individual person that you're reporting that on. What I'm reporting here is a statement that happened by a

former school resource officer that she indicated to other high-ranking police officers that something inappropriate was being covered up at Dery High School. I received that information.

That's not a specific case. So you can try to divert the attention away from the real issue all you want, but the issue here is it should be investigated and looked into. If the comments were made by somebody that's a high ranking police official and former SRO, it should be investigated. Has nothing to do with being a mandated reporter.

Thank you. Well, again, those those comments were made to the chief, former chief of police, and I know you appreciate his efforts. So, I'm assuming he was the mandated reporter that followed up right away and called people in during the investigation. You know what? I Mr. Mayor, I'm assuming that's what you handle, what you applauding. Here's the here's how you handle a situation like we're going to

be talking about next is if there's an issue, somebody raises an issue, this school committee can vote to have an independent outside person do the investigation like you and the rest of the committee did, which we're going to be talking about. If we can spend $20,000 to investigate a situation when I called into question an illegal garage and illegal overtime being given out, if

we can spend $20,000 on that to keep the protection of the workers and the students in this district, I think it's worthy of the $20,000. So, let's do an outside investigation if nobody has anything to hide. I have nothing to hide. But I do I do want to make people clear about what school committee manager is trying to do to the far of public schools. It's an absolute travesty and it's hurtful to the parents

and the students in this building. He's not talking about some nefarious thing in the wind. He's very specific. He sent this letter to the attorney and we have copies of it from his report.

It has been stated in various documents that former uh current police chief Kelly Fitado in the past told multiple people in a public setting, I don't know anything about this, that Paul Coogan was covering up. Now listen to this, two rapes per week while he was assistant principal at Dery. So that's 70 rapes a week that Mr. Aguar is alleging. 70 rapes a year, I'm sorry. 70 rapes a year

that Mr. Aguia is alleging went on in Dery High School. It's outrageous. He's slandering all the teachers. He's slandering all the staff and the parents and the students. No one. No one. And when he gets his report that he wants after he goes to the police department and makes his claims or DCF, he will find out that none of this is true. He heard this secondhand. I have the police

report where it was come up. My name's not even in it. And Mr. Ragar has decided that he is going to slander people and liel them. And I'm glad he did it in a public setting. I want I want this all out in the public. There were no I want the parents to know and the children to know. There were no two rapes a week at Dery High School. It's outrageous that he would make comments

like this and he as he said on multiple occasions. So we will do an investigation with either the state or the for police. And I know as again Mr.

Aguar wrote two rapes a week. That's where he's a mandated reporter. If he knows the parents and he knows the people, he should definitely be filling this up out with the proper authorities.

We'll we'll do whatever is necessary to keep the name of Dery High School clean.

But this is out an outrageous slander.

And I'm sure Mr. Aguar will be comfortable when he's finished his mandated reporting. And I want to I want to I just want to say it's disgusting to me and I'm sorry that we're at this kind of level. It's the kind of things we go through many times on this committee and it's making us all look bad, but for him smashing the heck out of a high school and its students and its parents is just

another day at work. We'll get on with the agenda now. Yes, you can you can keep trying to divert it. This has nothing to do with the students or anyone at Dery High School. Who's being raped? Excuse me. Who's being raped? the person that you just named, which is the police chief, the interim police chief, stated to other members of the police department in a public setting that Mr.

Coogan and the administration and the administration was covering things up at Dery High School. That should not be okay for you, me, or anyone here or out there. That's what I'm saying. No. What you saying? We're talking a very very different situation here. You are trying to divert, sir. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. So, enough already. Mr. Mayor, 70 rapes. You know what's absurd? No, I do

not. I do not believe that you wrote it.

I think that's absolutely absurd. You wrote it. It's absolutely absurd that a police SRO actually stated that to other members to the chief. Yeah. And the other and both deputy chiefs at the same time. Deputies did nothing and and all of them tried to do something about it.

your investigation can let them go on.

The bottom line is if anyone's getting sexually harassed or treated, mistreated, whether it's a student or an adult, needs to be addressed and too much of that stuff has gone on and it's g it's gone on long enough. So do an outside investigation and it can't be done by the follower of a police department, but do an investigation because it's not right. It is totally not right. Try and divert all you want,

Mr. It's not right. You alleged that they were covering up two rapes per week while I was the assistant principal at Dery High School. That's a quote. There's no quotes on that. Okay.

No quotes on that. Mr. Ke diverting, Mr.

Mayor. No, I'm not diverting anything.

You You're offended that you would accuse the students and staff at Derby High School of 70 rapes a year being covered up. That's That's what the statement was by Miss Ficado.

The school resource officer is the one who stated it. That's what I'm talking about. Let's do the investigation and see how it plays out. Go to the police department. This is rape you're talking about, Mr. Aguar. Don't wash it with threat. Keep trying to divert, Mr.

Mayor. You can divert all you want. Face the facts. I'm not diverting anything.

Mr. Cory, we're done. Mr. Cory, um, Mr. Chairman, um, this is really the first that I'm hearing about this. I heard some whispers, but I have no idea what the details look like, except that when you were vice principal at Dery High School, Mr. Chairman, I was one of the adjustment counselors on staff and I worked closely with you personally on many cases that actually saved kids,

helped kids, kids that were in crisis, kids that were poor. We worked, we helped so many kids, it wasn't even funny. And if I'm in the role of a school adjustment counselor, then I should be able to hear about any situations that rise to the level of rape inside the school building that I'm counseling at. And I heard absolutely nothing, sir. With that, I yield. Can I get something, please? Mr. Laravey. So,

I'm going to be quick, but um I think the issue I have with this I as well as Mr. Corey, um I've heard nothing of this.

Um what I am concerned with is we're using kids and rumors for porns in a political disgusting game.

So, I don't want to be a part of it.

I'm going I'm going to go back years and years. I've been working with kids, teenagers, for years, and I've never heard of anything. And I used to hear when kids were doing this in the bathroom and that in the bathroom. I've never heard of anything. One question I have right now is how many years ago is are we talking?

I mean, you you were vice principal when I retired in 2015. So 10 years we're saying an SRO made a statement. There was no SRO that went to the police department. The chief of police at the time was aware of this and there was no investigation on the police side. I'm very very confused. So I'm going to yield. I I don't know what's going on right now, but this is gross. It is. I yield Mr. Das

the only things I I just want to say Mr.

Aguar never directly alleged that he was quoting a statement and I believe Mr.

Mayor, you are entitled to due process and you are ent when something is alleged that is very serious and it should be looked at. I don't agree it should be looked at the fall of the police department. It should be looked at at the outside and looked and make sure that did not happen. I'm not going to make that allegation whether that did or not. However, that should be looked

at when it's said. However, I believe um attorney aside which should weigh in if I can if I Hold on, Mr. Bailey. Yeah, cuz I raised my hand. Um few things. Uh first off, I I did work at Dery High School for a short stint for about uh 3 to four years with you Aspire as well.

Um and I didn't hear anything, but um I also think and and this is why I tapped and said, "Attorney Assange weigh on this, we really have to take a look on what our protocols are and our policies on when things happen and when an allegation is made." Um and whether it's true or not, whether who investigates it or not, it's just a consistency piece.

Um, now I can go off on record and say that I worked there. I didn't hear anything, but we still have to, and obviously the mayor is due his due process, but we still have to uh, you know, take every single in every single um, incident the same, right? And we have to be consistent across the board.

Um, regardless who does the investigation, um, I mean, I'm just hearing of this, so um, you know, it's it's for me it's it's a little bit concerning that like how things are being played out, but um, I think attorney Assad should really weigh on weigh in on this and and it like I said, if an allegation is made, what is the protocol or what is how do we handle things as a school committee? And

attorney Assad, if you can speak on that. Um, because obviously I know we have something coming in front of us with Mr. Aguiar. Um, and like I said, I just want to make sure we're consistent.

I want to make sure things get resolved the best way because I don't want to, you know, sit here and and argue about this for hours.

Yeah, go ahead.

First of all, the I haven't seen the letter, but uh hearing the letter, it obviously appears that there's some issues or some allegations about criminal uh misconduct. If that is the case, then the obligation of anybody on this stage or anywhere else, especially a mandated reporter, has an absolute obligation to report any credible evidence of any type of a criminal event at this school with the appropriate

authorities, whether that be the police, the state police, or the district attorney. The forest school committee is not empowered to conduct criminal investigations. We don't have any subpoena power. You can't seize records.

That's the duty and responsibility of the police or other law enforcement body including sheriff's departments as well as the DA. So if in fact anyone has any in any any information concerning any type of illegal act here at the at the forest school department, it should be reported immediately to an appropriate law enforcement agency. Again, we're not going to go on.

I just want to make sure that people understand this is not um two kids in the hall. This is an allegation of rape. This is a felony.

This does not belong on this stage. This belongs with the proper authorities and as um Attorney Assad said that's where this should go and I welcome it. I welcome any investigation because I know that this is just made up for someone to try to hurt people. Um with that, I'd like to get on with the agenda. Mr.

Chairman, Mr. Agaron, I want to call to the record the citizen input time that I just had the clerk read. It reads, "I would like to bring an important matter to the committee's attention. Once again, it has come to my attention that a former school resource officer has alleged that former administrators at Dery High School covered up sexually inappropriate situations with students

as discussed publicly with high-ranking members of the police department.

Nowhere in there at this citizen input time did I indicate the individual's names. You chose to do that based on an email that I sent to the committee. The intent of that email that I sent to the entire committee several weeks ago was to ask to put this on an agenda so that we can address it like we typically would in executive session related to any of these comments. You chose to

bring out the people's names. You chose to keep trying to talk about whether it's two rapes or 70 rapes. Nobody's accusing anybody of that. But on the record here in my citizen input time, it states once again that there was in sexually inappropriate situations with students as discussed publicly with high ranking members of the police department. Has nothing to do with rapes. Don't try to divert it. And I'm

glad that you agreed to have an investigation so we can get by this so it's not keep going back and forth saying the she said this, he said that.

Do the investigation. I yield. No, I'm I'm the investigation will be conducted by the for police department. You made an allegation of rape. It's written right here by you. That is not sexual harassment or inappropriate stuff. That is a violent felony that you're taring the school with. And you specifically write two rapes per week. That's what was stated by police. My my position is

stated by your My position is you should be willing to come forward with the names of those 70 people and their children and bring some fresh air to this. This writing a letter and then giving a letter like that is just so so sad that you demean the whole city of Fall River. Mr. sad. Mr. Mayor, yes, I did put the names in. The names are listed right there. No, the 70. Police

Chief Kelly Fata, when she was a school resource officer, went to former Chief Paul Garvin, Deputy Chief Bardon Castro, Deputy Chief JT in a public setting. That young lady at the time was badmouthing you, sir, as the as the administrator at the high school. She used that word to say two rapes a day, week or some kind of nonsense, absurdity to those individuals. That's what this is all about. This isn't about

not saying who it was and people I do not know any of the individuals, but there was situations that shouldn't have happened. I'm sure we're going to get to the bottom of it, but those are the four names I know. You don't need to do an investigation. I just told you who it was. Yeah. Kelly Fittado told Paul Garvin, Roden Castro, and JT that you and other people at the high school

were covering up rapes at Dery High School. Mr. Mr. I got no other information. I have I have Mr. Garvin's notes right here. I'm not even mentioned in anywhere in that report. My name is not here. And this is from Paul Garvin.

So, you dragged me into this for some reason that you think is funny. I have Kelly's statement right here. She was making a joke about locked bathrooms. My point is, Garvin, none of them took it serious enough to say, "We got to get to the high school. We got to help those kids. Let's start an investigation." So, you can tar and feather the whole police department and the whole school system to try to make a

point. My position is this never went on. It never happened. The only one writing about it is you. Now, his comments were from 2018, Mr. Aguar, and those were Mr. Garvin's comments. My name is not in them anywhere. I'm glad you're going to do the investigation.

No, you're going to be as a mandated reporter. I'm sure you'll be filing.

Let's get on with the agenda.

Subcommittee updates. I'm I got to apologize people, but I am not going to let people rip this school to shreds to hell with them.

I got to get back to work. The parent and community outreach meeting conducted by Chairman Dus. Thank you. Um Mr.

Mayor, before I begin, um there were two items that were referred to from the subcommittee, three to nothing that they'll be on the next agenda that was supposed to be on this one. Okay. Thank you. Um moving on to my subcommittee report. The parent and community outreach subcommittee held a meeting on May 5th at FOSA with all members present. The committee met with the administration, Mr. Mishine of the FREA,

the Far Harbor Scholarship Association, and the Pace Center. We were able to discuss eight items in just two hours with meaningful discussions and referrals to this committee. Overall, believe it was a good subcommittee meeting with great participation from our membership and the invitees. Discussions were based around many topics. Um, we had a discussion with the FEA president around input at

meetings from from staff within this district. Um, the conversation shifted to a discussion around exchanges at school committee meetings and allowing for more dialogue with the public. The subcommittee voted to refer the full committee a review of the citizens input policy and hopefully it'll be on the agenda for next meeting. We also spoke with the Miss Far River Scholarship Association and discussed her initiative

of working with children in the classroom and how that program can be extended to other schools in the district. The mayor's off the mayor's office finally allowed and agreed to add the school committee to the list of community events. I'd like to thank the administration for putting that on. I've noticed um I've personally noticed an increase in the invites to community events, so I'll be sure to attend more

in my free time.

Um the sub the subcommittee also reviewed the legislative liaison policy and one voted three nothing to refer the previously rejected bills back to this committee for endorsement because they helped far public schools and the committee also requested discussion after this report on the logistics of what our yearly meeting with the state delegation would look like. The subcommittee also discussed HR

recruitment and community outreach.

However, the HR director left as the meeting was being called up. I was not aware the director had a prior commitment until five minutes before the meeting started and was unsure of what time he had to leave. However, we did have a good discussion with the superintendent and we referred a discussion item to the full committee around the logistics of referral bonuses. Meaning, anyone here that works

for the Far Public Schools, if you refer someone to work in the district, you can get a bonus.

and um and possible relocation report for new hires. Again, this is just looking at the logistics of this. Um and finally, we re we reconvene with the pace center and pace on the go um bus is finally under repair after many months. And um we also had discussion around enhanced citizens input and records request has however has been tabled pending review um from attorneys or other council. Um that is

the end of my report. However, I as I just stated um I just like to open up the floor to anyone um if we can discuss logistics of our yearly meeting that was voted unanimous by this committee to support. Does anyone wish to take the floor?

If anybody has any opinions of what they should do, you can always email Mr. Das also follow-up questions or concerns about where we should have it. Thank you. I guess I if I just have a question of my own. Um I don't know if it would be you, Mr. Chair. Um if you would send out the invitations as the head of the school committee or it would be um this

or the superintendent as the head of the far public schools and where this would be hosted. when it comes to logistics, is it something you would be able to put together superintendent?

No. No. Yeah. I mean, I think I had a question at the meeting itself when we started to talk about this and had just suggested that um in general as the committee um takes votes on things whether it be you know a letter to to be sent out on behalf of the committee or um communication such as this to invite people in or to throw out some dates or what that I thought

there should be a clear plan coming out of a vote as to who would do it. Um, and so I don't know if that's something that would come in the form of, you know, some kind of policy and we needed to talk about it um within a policy subcommittee or something like that, but I just had suggested a clear plan coming out of any um vote like that in this

situation. I I don't think that I would be the person to invite the delegation um on behalf of the committee, but if somebody if you know it's one of those if it's the will of the committee, then then I would do that. Yeah. Just real quick, Mr. Bailey, um I I I I think the appropriate measure to do and we should have this in the near term is the chair send out a formal date and invitation

and you set up the logistics of like where we're going to have the meeting um and things like that. Um I yield to see other colleagues. No, I was just going to uh comment on that and because something that um I discussed too is is a collaborative approach and as a committee um you know requesting the chair to send it out um and then just help having you help with the logistics

um because I think it's important and I think at the committee it's something we need to discuss um moving forward um so you know at the uh at the meeting that's something that all three of us discussed that would be a great idea. So maybe um I don't know if it has to be a conversation on the agenda or conversation in executive session, whatever it may be. Um just figuring out

how that goes and and just get getting something in the books.

I yield. Mr. D, you done? I I yield.

Yes, Mr. Corey. Policy. Okay. So on Wednesday, excuse me. Question on that, Mr. Mr. So, I've been saying this for a long time that the administration should be hosting meetings without the school committee, with the delegation to talk about all things education, uh, litigation, things like that, separate from, I think, what the vote was for us to all meet. So, I think the superintendent should be able to when

she meets with her team and those folks determine what's the best month for that. They they have a busy schedule when it might make more sense to do before legislation has to be filed.

Certainly not during budget time. But I do think that separate from waiting for all of us to get together, the administration does need to meet with them individually to go over their needs and wants and asks uh sooner than later in my opinion. Thank you. I yield. Mr.

Corey, the policy um chair of the uh policy subcommittee. And so last Wednesday, May 7th, we had a subcommittee meeting on policy. It was a short meeting. We only had two agenda items. The first item was a discussion of vote to refer a revised walkers and writers policy which I know has been u uh a topic of interest for the entire community. Um there's just new language that we were going over and uh there

seems to be a feeling like we're going to cheat kids but we're not going to be and it's on tonight's agenda. When it gets there we'll have further discussion on that particular item. The second item we discussed was a vote to refer a draft work from home policy and uh this was basically an icebreaker moment for this particular idea. Uh the committee uh decided to table the issue just so that

for further discussion as I said it was an icebreaker issue and it was intriguing and we'd like to learn a little bit more before we put it on the full committee agenda. So, we'll be discussing that a little further on down the road before we come up with an agenda item on that. Thank you. I yield.

Item number six, Mr. So, uh, I did not see the meeting, uh, but I have been in communication with Dr. Kurley for several months now on this exact issue. The problem that I have is that we do not have a work from home policy, but there's been situations, mostly I think for the right reasons, where the superintendent has to allow for people to work from home, but there's no policy in place that allows

that. And that's a very uh dangerous, you know, arbitrary things like that. So, I think the urgency of getting a policy like this is something that is well overdue. Uh, I brought up at a meeting here that we had a person working living in Portugal actually getting paid like they were working in the HR department for months. We had another person that lived in Florida that was working. So those things come

to the committee. We have to address them. My way of addressing it was I talked to Dr. Curley about I think she's in agreement that we need a policy which I think that's what she put forward. So I'm not sure of why the um tableabling of it but all I would encourage you is to get it done sooner than later. So we there's strict parameters on who can and cannot. It's really not fair to have

arbitrarily decide that employee can work from home but this employee can't work from home. It's we need to clarify it. So I yield. Thank you Mr. Chair. Mr.

Das. Thank you. And just wanted to give since it's not on the agenda, I wanted to give my comments on on the tableing of that policy and some things um that I wish to see in that policy. one and again I look at policies not just for today but going 5 10 years in the future. The policy does not address whether if the superintendent wishes to go on um on this leave or from work from

home. There's no nothing in there.

There's no parameters whether it be the committee approve it or whatnot. So there's vague language in there that I would like to see added into there. I think we're all in agreement with that more or less. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but what there was some disagreement with in my just my opinion, we should be notified when individuals are being placed on this on this leave on this not leave

but what we on on this leave. Um so for far too long we've hear things and we need to be notified as a committee when it happens.

So for example, the Portugal incident, we did not know much about that and I think we could have had a lot take like we could have had a lot clarified if the committee was just kept in the loop and there's a big difference between looking into personnel f and the reason there was some push back was the word personnel and the personnel only covers if we're hire we're not no one's suggesting that we hire fire or

discipline anyone. However, we have a right to be notified as a school committee when things happen and to be kept in a loop just so we can verify and oversee the superintendent that we hire.

That's something that should be supported throughout the district and I'm looking for that in a new policy.

Are you can I say something? M Dr.

Curley. Yeah. I just I do want to clarify and I did at the subcommittee meeting um around this idea that we were letting someone like work from home in Portugal. And what I explained was that this wasn't a person working for us um as a like a full-time contracted employee that we were letting work from home despite the fact that the person lived or moved to Portugal. Um that person's that person's um employment was

was terminated. the person resigned, but we needed work done and so we contracted with that individual kind of outside of a a regular like SNO contract or something like that. We we we paid the person to do some work in the interim until we got the per the um the position filled. And so that that wasn't a work from home situation. That was just there was somebody outside our general

vicinity. Obviously, it was, you know, thousands of miles away. Um, but there was someone outside of Fall River who could get work done that we needed done and so we contracted with that person to get the work done. It wasn't continued employment in a work from home situation. I don't I can't speak I I honestly don't know. I can't speak to the the I know there was reference to somebody in Florida. I don't know the

details about that, but I knew the details about this one. Mr. Louden.

Yeah. I just uh like to revisit this when it comes up on the agenda when they bring us back the policy for review.

Okay. So we don't waste any more time.

Thank you.

Mr. Das, can we move on? I just want to quickly respond if I may to what the superintendent said. I don't disagree with anything you have said, superintendent or even with that process necessarily as it explained. It's just more of communication with the committee. It's absolutely nothing wrong with notifying the committee and I think transparency not goes a long way with with many different things. And I'll

just leave it at that. I Mr. Chair, super Mr.

I'm sorry. I'll be brief. Um, as far as not notifying the committee on every move you make, madame superintendent, I find to be unnecessary. When we appointed you superintendent of this district, we placed our trust in your judgment to do the very best you can for our district. I trust you on that merit.

And I don't need to know about every move you make. As far as I'm concerned, that sounds like micromanagement to me.

I yield.

Okay, let's go to the superintendent's report and see if we can move along a little bit. Um Dr. Curley, you have uh the first one is the hiring update.

Sure. So, we met a couple of weeks ago, so there hasn't been um as much movement for between meetings, but since our last meeting, we've had five new hires, a coach, a nurse, a teacher, a paraprofessional, and a security officer. During that time, we've also had 11 resignations and one retirement.

And so I wanted to um give an update um with respect to the um the job fair. So generally speaking, the event was very well attended. Um I mentioned to uh the school committee that channel 10 was on site to do a story which was I thought, you know, I thought that was pretty fantastic. Um we've already conducted some interviews with folks coming um out of that. There were actually some

interviews that took place on site kind of on demand that day. And um I believe we've had some candidates recommended for hire. So overall, we had 42 people who attended and filled out a Google form. Um I do think there were more than 42 people in attendance. We had 25 um waiting to come in the door when we opened at 9:00. Um but 42 people did complete um an online form for us so

that we could, you know, we could be in contact with them if we thought anything popped up that might be of interest um and things like that.

So those people as part of that forum also expressed interest and so I I just wanted to give some numbers. Um people selected positions in which they might be interested and we had two people select um like a clerk secretary position, five custodial, nine elementary teachers, seven um said they were interested in high school teaching, eight in middle school teaching, 12 in nutrition, 15 par profofessionals, 18

for maintenance, and eight for security.

So, uh, we left, um, that day. It was like a very high energy, um, two hours that we spent at Dery that morning. Um, and it was just really well attended and we left with, uh, you know, feeling very positive about, uh, some of the hiring we can do coming out of an event like that. And I would just, it was much, um, much better attended than it has been in

the past. So, really good sign. Um, the next piece is around Skills USA. And I think people probably saw um online if if people follow our um page, but I just wanted to say um and offer congratulations very publicly to students from Dery High School who went to com um compete in Skills USA. We had um 43 students who went to the who went to the conference. We had 10 people who

placed and six of those people placed first and will be going on to a national competition in Georgia, which is really exciting. there are um people competing as well as their models I believe for um aesthetics and and something else um for nail care. So really exciting for our for our students. I just wanted to mention some names. Ava Pereira um for cosmetology, Casey Carvalo for

aesthetics, um Miranda Mores for nail care and um Avery Lane for natural hair care and braiding. And then there were two models going along with them down to Georgia.

So excited. Yeah.

Um, next I wanted to be able to give um a kindergarten enrollment update. Uh, really big numbers for this time in the year. We're at 410 um, K registrations.

We're continuing to offer um the K registration on the go. Even though the um the RV isn't ready, the they we are on location at various schools and places throughout the city. And so I would um just encourage people to be um on the lookout for that um attending, you know, we're going out to schools, daycarees, and things like that. And the registrations are much higher than they have been in the past. And I really I

don't necessarily think it ne means that we're going to hit, you know, a thousandk registrations, but I think we've gotten um ahead of it. It gets better for us every year. And we're just seeing an an increase in those early registrations, which is um is really good for us in terms of planning. Um, aligned with that, I wanted to give a dual language update. I think the last, um, you know, two weeks ago, I said we

had 18 registrations. We're up to, um, 30 families who are interested now in the dual, um, uh, sorry, the dual language um, education. And there is another meeting for parents who might be interested on May 21st um, at four o'clock at Vava. So if anybody out there is interested in learning more about the dual language program, I would encourage you to go. Um I would say that you know we have been

very focused on those K registrations but there are are opportunities for students to join the dual language program um you know after kindergarten.

So if there are older students, um we're K to four in the coming year and so if there are students even outside of kindergarten, I think it's worth it to attend um and ask some questions about whether your student could be a good fit for that program. Um the next piece is around endofear activities. So tis the season, you know, in Fall River and everywhere in terms of awards ceremonies, recognition ceremonies, um

step up ceremonies and things. We have asked our school leaders to schedule these kinds of events in the um in the afternoons because we do often see parents who want to dismiss their children from these events and we love having parents come, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, as many as we can support um in terms of attending these events. Um but what we are seeing is that you know the whole family's

there and we want to have a big celebration. So we're going to leave and take the student out to lunch or whatever it is. Recognizing that that has happened in the past, we are asking schools to hold those events in the afternoon while while simultaneously asking parents not to dismiss your children because through the end of the school year, even those last two half days, we are very focused on attendance

and making sure students are um in their seats and they're still continuing to participate in all of our activities.

So, um I'd ask parents to attend but not take your children with you when you leave.

And I think that was my last thing.

That's it. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Das.

Thank you. Um, on the on the RV, are we how how long do we expect for that RV to be out of commission? Because I know we purchased this in in January and we're now in May and it's still not up and running. Do we have um a timeline? I I think that u what Miss um Kudo had reported at the meeting that we had last week was that there was um there was a

part or something that had been on back order. That was the delay in in getting things fixed. But I'm pretty sure what I heard her say was that um the part was in or coming in and we expected to have access this week. And then we just have to um it has to be wrapped. We have to um wrap it in a Fall River logo. that was one of the um stipulations to our um

taking on this donation. And so we have to get it wrapped so that we're covering up um the you know previous organization that um had ownership of it. Okay. But I don't have I don't remember if she said on that date and I can't recall if there's um like a hard date where it's going to be up and running. I just know that we were waiting on repairs and um

the part came in and we were expecting I think this week to get to get it back so that we could take it to get it wrapped.

Okay. Um if maybe in the Friday memo we can get a more definitive date just because I know there's grants involved with this as well and I just want to make sure we don't run out on the grant that I believe we Yes. Yeah. They're paying for all those improvements on um the hiring update. Do we have um a number on the Well, I guess it'll be later in the agenda. I was going to ask

the for the resignations um on the agenda later on for resignations.

Is that what what what day what day does that fall under when we put the resignations on the agenda or out to the committee? Is that like up till today or up till when we put the agenda together?

I'm just I'm just trying to get a number on how many res. So, you want to know if if 10 people literally resigned in the last two weeks and they're gone or did they put in their resignation and they're not leaving until the end of the school year or something like that? I I was just trying to get a figure on um if we how many resignations we've had. um

in this hire like we we just reported out on on hiring. I just want to see how many res she just told us 11 11 I I missed the res. She when she read a report she said 11 resignations. Thank you. I missed that part. Um I would love to know um if um either Mr. meter or someone to come down. When we're talking about hiring and recruiting individuals to come into this district, what would

be the cost for let's just say a $100 referral for every person we get into the fall public schools or an employee does. What is that looking for a total number?

So I mean right now we had let's say it's 130 vacancies. That was a number that has been out there. So say 130 vacancies. So, if you're looking at um if each one of those vacancies was filled by a referral, just make it Yeah. $13,000. 13 grand. I'd like to make a motion that the superintendent put together a plan to offer a $100 bonus for any employee that hires an individual within this district for the vacancies.

Second. I have a second question. Mr.

Did this come up at the subcommittee?

Correct.

Was there any thought from the administr? I I seconded it so we could have discussion, but I think u $100 is nothing. Uh but I do think that it is merit to such a policy. But I think I'd like the administration to come back with a real pro program that's actually going to in talking with your HR department, your assistant superintendent, what's really going to matter. $100 isn't necessarily going to

it's better than nothing, I guess. But I I think as part of a recruitment strategy and one aspect of it, so I do think we should do it, but I think we should do it a little more with some idea that from the people on the ground that are doing the recruitment, is it really going to matter? That's what I would like to do if I'd bring that in.

I'd bring that in based on hiring. You know, you could walk five friends through for 500 bucks, but that not a one of them really wants a job, but they come in as a referral. So, I would base I would base it on if someone took a job. If if Colin Das asked Mimi Laravey to teach English at Derby, she came over, we might work out something for that. But that's what I was referring

to. Oh, that's what I was referring to.

Exactly that. Okay. Okay. Um if if I if I may if um the administr since this the mayor said this will be on the agenda for the next meeting. If the administration can come back with some proposals I'll withdraw my motion. Okay.

You withdrew your motion. I agree with that. Mr. Bailey. No, I was just going to say that's something we discussed at the subcommittee meeting is something we discussed as a subcommittee subcommittee meeting as well. Um, and if we could just look at some, you know, other districts and some policies that they have cuz, um, I do think it's worth it.

And, and when we talk about recruiting, we do need to figure that out. Um, because I, we're still kind of waiting on some updates on how that's going. But that's that's all I had to add. I yield.

Okay. Anything further? Hearing none.

Item number seven is the approval of minutes. I have three sets there. I'm sorry, four. One's on the other page. I have the approval of from the special meeting on 3325, approval of facilities and operations subcommittee from 3625 and the approval of the instructional subcommittee from 3525 and the approval of the minutes from the regular school committee meeting on 31025. Motion to

approval. I have a motion second and I have a motion to second. Any discussion on those four sets of minutes? Mr.

going to vote no on that motion because the three 10 minutes weren't in the board docs and I'm not going to vote to approve minutes I never looked at. So, um I I'll be voting no. However, um just have a general question on all the minutes. Are we up to date when it with the open meeting law when it comes to the approval of our minutes?

I'll be up to date on the minutes. What is Are we up to date on our minutes at the next meeting? All all remaining minutes will be on the next agenda and the next agenda will contain all minutes. Mr.

We'll be caught up then. Okay. Again, I and I expressed this to the committee. I I do have a concern that um with the three and we had a lot of meetings within the month month of March. I don't believe personally that were up to date in my own opinion. Um however, I going to urge my colleagues to vote no on the motion because we can't approve minutes that we never looked at. I usually take

the time to go through all the minutes to look at them. I did not see the 310 dot, so I'll be voting no. I yield. 310.

May I go ahead, Miss 310 is on board docks. Yeah. Did not see that on board docks. It's there. I'm staring at it.

When was when was that placed on the When was that placed?

I looked at it maybe two hours before the meeting. No, it was placed this morning. Placed this morning.

All right. Can we get a vote, Mr. Uh, we have we have Mr. AA, I have a motion and second on approving the Mr. on the motion. I'm going to go to vote to support it. But uh I do think that my colleague raises a point that when we're setting agendas, please be careful. We have a system in place, chair, vice chair, attorney, superintendent to look at the agendas. Please do not put things

on the agenda that are not ready because it makes us look like we're just approving things that we're not looking at. This has gone on five, six times over the last six months. Please don't put things on the agenda if we're not ready to discuss them or they're not done properly. That's the point of drafts and meetings before. Thank you.

Do I yield? Okay. Can we get a roll call, Deb? Mr. Mayor. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr.

Bailey. No, I was just going to add I'm going to end the vote no. And the reason why I'm going to vote no because I did not look at the minutes and nor did I have time and I did not attend that meeting. Um, so that's why I'll be voting no. Just Mr. AO, yes. Mr. Bailey, no. Mr. D, no. Mr. Cory, yes. Miss Laravey, yes. Miss Per, yes. Mayor Ken,

yes. Item number eight is the approval of travel requests. Uh, it's end of the year. We only have a couple and I have an addendum on another one for FIA to go to Roger Williams Zoo. Um I guess this is from Katie.

So we have three al together Dery. Um Ken Pico and uh Fza. Do I have a motion?

I have a motion. I have a motion to second. Mr. Corey and then Mr. Aar.

I think Mr. Cory. Mr. A. Oh okay. Mr.

Aar. Just a a quick question on not only related to these but just in general is attendance of the employee taken into consideration when we look at uh conferences trips or anything as a supervisor or director um when it is I I don't know what happens I don't mean in this I'm saying generally speaking I would say I would say yes yeah I think that I yes so if somebody's out a lot it's just and then

they want to go on trips right could be stopped by the director Yes. Thank you.

I yield. Mr. Chair, Mr. Das, is this a motion on the attaching or approving?

Approving approving the three. Okay. So, I just have um one question um on on the the bottom one just because this is coming this usually these come out of grant funding and not usually out of the operating budget. Is this something that's built into to the to the contract of the person that's going? I do not believe I don't. No, I don't think this trip is is built in.

Okay. Um can we speak a little bit then to um the need for not the need but what's what's the purpose? What do we accomplish out of the trip?

Um so my understanding is that um the individual will be um actually presenting at this conference as well as participating and um it's the this is for the director of school safety and this is the school safety advocacy council. Um it's the national school safety conference and exposition.

So I um I would defer to the um backup that was provided.

Sorry. Okay.

I did review the backup. It didn't really speak to um the need or the the purpose of it. And usually I wouldn't if it's if it's usually if it's something that's paid out of a grant, there's usually a grant to back this. And that usually explains the purpose for for for trips like this. Um I'm just trying to I just didn't really when I looked review this I didn't really see what the need

was. Like what are we gaining out of this trip? I think it's a valid question. Yeah. I'm not saying it's not valid. Okay. Can I if I could when I read through it I assume trying to obtain was uh increased safety. Is that correct? You can probably speak. like like most opportunities um PD, which is what we would use this as, um it is to increase our ability to do the best

we possibly can in our buildings for safety and security. The safety and security director is right here. That he would be able to give you any further information you need. I do know he's a presenter because of the conversations he had last year with most of the people who are in this organization. Um quite a few former police officers are in this group. So um if you have any other questions I'm sure

um Mr. Ventur will be able to answer that. You can just nod your head. Yes.

There is um you believe there's valuable experiences from going to this.

Okay. That's all I need to know. I yield. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that was in the backup is that um Mr.

Ventura would be participating in the investigative threat assessment process certification course. Okay. And it seems like that was something that, you know, would speak to me as just professional development for our director of um safety and security. Okay. I'm I'm satisfied. I yield. Okay. Thanks. You want to call the role De? Oh, Mr. A.

Sorry. Yeah. just uh I I think it's just that when you look at the amount like I'm right there trying to figure how much do we pay for professional development for the uh men and women that do the security work and it's $2,300 is $2,300. So it's not a small amount and typically what to Mr. Dasis's point, we would say, "Oh, it's paid for by the grant." In the grant application, it says to, you know, professional

development, that type of thing. This has nothing to do with it. It's not in the individual's contract, like in your contract, it might say you get to go to the national superintendent's conference or something like that. When we do individual contracts with people, we either give them that right to do that or we list it and say they're entitled to go to X-conference at our expense.

Things like that. This is not like that.

So, this is coming out of the field as far as budgets and as we sit here and say, "Well, are we going to scrutinize?

Are we going to spend $2,300 on this or something else?" That's what I think makes this situation different than the typical ones that just uh No, I I understand and I know that we do have um sometimes through grant funding, we either say, "Don't worry, it's not costing us anything. It's grant funded and it aligns with whatever that particular work is." So, I I definitely understand that there is um I believe

Miss Mr. Ventur participated last year in this conference. It is an annual conference. I think it can be you know up for discussion in terms of what the um you know what what we get coming out of it. Without a doubt um my assumption is that when we have any of our administrators go to professional development there is an expectation that upon their return there is some there's something to show for it. whether it's

in the training that we provide or in any materials that are developed coming out of a training and that would be um that would be the expectation. I I think I would agree with what you're saying.

Did we pay for this last year too? I don't know. I wasn't paying as close attention. Um so I'm not sure how it it was funded. I think it was funded through the operating budget because I don't necessarily know. So if it's professional development, I mean we have grants throughout title grants and stuff that we might be able to look at. Uh the hard part for me is just looking at how

much money we're spending across in the operating budget that we cannot spend this $2,300. So that's the part for me and even the outcome. If it was last year, what was the outcome, right?

Because that should be, you know, in the backup saying last year this is what happened and this was the result. So now this year I want to go again and this is what the hope is to get a result. I mean it just can't be conferences just because. So, I'm not I'm going to vote for this because we haven't necessarily um gone over the whole process, but I think my advice would be to try to look

at it before it comes forward with what is out and maybe that we have to create a policy that says anyone that goes away has to do a couple of slides or something that relative to what is the benefit of it. So, if somebody in the public says what did Mr. Ventura get out of $2,300 in Vegas at a conference, I don't know what to tell him. I'll say I'll ask you and then you'll tell him,

but maybe we should just get it. I yield. Thank you. All right, Deb, want to call the role, please? On Bernice. On travel. Mr. Agel, yes. Mr. Bailey, yes.

Mr. Das, yes. Mr. Cory, yes. Miss Laravey, yes. Miss Perrero, yes. Mayor Coogan, yes. Number nine is the acceptance of donations. Motion to accept. Second. We have two donations that the superintendent will read right after we vote. Deb, would you call the role on those, please? Mr. A. Yes. Mr.

Bailey, yes. Mr. Das, yes. Mr. Cory, yes. Miss Laravey. Yes. Miss Pereira.

Yes. Mayor, yes. Miss uh Superintendent Curley. On behalf of the Health and Physical Education Director Dan Fitzgerald, we accept um a donation of $500 from Gold Medal Bakery. The donation will be used to offset the cost of t-shirts for athletes um competing in Special Olympics. And on behalf of Spencer Bordon, elementary school principal Eric Bradley, and the MLL department, uh we accept a donation of

$1,158 from the Mass Agriculture in the classroom. This donation will be used to create a pollinator garden in the upper courtyard at Spencer Bordon. Oh, nice.

Thank you. And thank you to the contributors. Number 10 is the approval of grants.

Motion to accept. We have one tonight. I have a motion, a second. Discussion on the one grant hearing. None. Deb, would you call the role, please? Mr. Hig? Yes.

Mr. Bailey? Yes. Mr. Das? Yes. Mr. Cory?

Yes. Miss Laravey? Yes. Miss Pereira?

Yes. Mayor Coogan?

Yes. Approval of contracts. Uh, we have none. Uh, we only have one. Make a motion to accept. I I wish to hold it.

It's the only one, Mr. Das. There's only one. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, let I have a motion question. I have a second, Mr.

guys. Thank you. Um, so I did read the report on on this. Um, and I and I do support it. However, I didn't know there's anyone in the audience today after what we just went through over the last month. If we can just talk about how this will help publicly with um future cyber at cyber incidents in in the community in this district.

I don't see anyone um out in the audience, but I'd be happy to read u the justification and the rationale that was provided by our CIO, Mr. Cabraw.

So, the upgrade would include replacement and reconfiguration of existing server farm clusters, installation of updated CPU firmware to address known security vulnerabilities, and an upgrade of security firmware across all services, servers, and cluster management interfaces. the reallocation and rebalancing of virtual machines to ensure redundancy and optimal load distribution. Um as well as

the implementation of hardened baseline configurations to reduce future attack vectors. So um we're looking to increase system resilience and uptime, improve cyber security defenses in alignment with best practices, optimize virtual machine performance and load balancing, and allow for easier recovery in the event of future incidents.

Thank you. And just a general comment. I think it's and and I said this privately, I just want to say it publicly. I think it's really important that we be as transparent as we can with the community as to what happened over the last month. I've received many calls placing blame on the district when I from the information I know, I believe it's otherwise. So, I think it's important that we tell the community

exactly what happened and how this will not happen again, how we're going to get to to the bottom of this. I yield. Okay.

I have a motion to second that would call the role on the contract. Mr. Yes.

Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Das, yes. Mr.

Corey, yes. Mr. Yes. M. Perr. Yes. Mayor Kouan. Yes. Um now with to the committee of the whole 121 discussion and vote of the investigation outcome of complaints directed by school committee member again divi directed to I'm sorry school committee member Kevin Aguia as presented by attorney Assad school committee legal council Mr. Assad. Thank you. This concerns complaints of harassment and bullying filed by two

employees of the district alleging violations of district policies by Kevin Agiar, a member of the for school committee. This matter was investigated by the law firm of Valerio Domino and Hillman. Attorney Robert Hillman uh conducted the investigation and is here today at the podium to present his uh his findings. But first, the mayor has a statement to make. It's it's uh something very important. At the onset,

we are only here to discuss complaints against Kevin Aguar. No other individuals have been noticed of any potential discussion about them, nor have any agenda been posted for such discussion. Any statements or comments related to complaints charges against other public employees are therefore out of order and the chair will order those comments to cease. Under the open meeting law, where

the committee discusses the reputation or character of any person or complaints are charges against any person, that person has certain specific procedural rights. Member Aguar, who is the subject of the allegations that resulted in the investigation, has been given those rights and has asked that the matter be addressed in open session. I am instructing the committee and the public

that there are no discussions about the actions or conduct of any other person tonight. Any such person has the same rights and must be given notice of those rights in writing at least 48 hours before the meeting. Accordingly, any such discussion tonight would violate the open meeting law. As chair, it is my duty to conduct the meeting in accordance with the law. Mr. Mayor Lar.

Uh, thank you. I make a motion that go I know he had his hand up. I'd like to make she was she had her hand up first.

Okay. I'm sorry. No, he presented. He's done. I'm done. No, no, no. After uh Mr.

Hill. Oh. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Thank you.

Um Mr. Mayor, I just like to make a statement um regarding your ruling. I did reach out to the division of open government regarding um the instances that you just made which refute what you just said about the notification. The notification requirements you just mentioned only apply. And I have the a letter or email right here and I'll send this over to you. Only apply to executive session. And regarding the

agenda, it says investigation outcome of complaints directed to school committee member Kevin Aguiar. It's my opinion that this and as rightfully should should be up for open discussion. Um I again I respectfully refute your interpretation of the open meeting law.

I'd like to make a motion to appeal the ruling of the chair.

second.

Uh, obviously I was advised of this by legal counsel. Correct. Um, I'm not sure what um what Mr. DAS is talking about but I would strongly urge that any intentional activation or bringing up of someone else's name during this portion of it while still respecting committeeman Aguar's rights would not be prudent and could lead to intentional problems for this committee. I'm just airing on the side of caution. M um

there will be opportunity in the future to give people appropriate notice to come forward if that's what the committee decides. Mr. Chair, Mr. Assad, hold on. Mr. Assad, can I ask for a two-minute recess so attorney can at least read the paper? You got it right here. Go ahead. I got it. Thank you. You good?

All right. The uh with respect to the open meeting law, there is a provision in the open meeting law that's it's actually u uh section section one that indicates about notice to an individual and that notice does direct to a an executive session. And there is wording in the actual statute itself that indicates that uh an individual can opt out of executive session and actually have it in open session. And there's a

question as to whether or not the protections under executive session would apply to the the open session meetings. the language in the uh statute itself state does not state that they do have that type of of protection.

However, that does not make any sense uh that you would have a litany of protections for an individual in executive session and not open session.

Uh Mr. uh Das brings up a a very valid point, a point that we've had also. Uh however there are many times during the law and in the law in interpreting statutes where words don't mean what they mean and I and I mean that uh uh uh as as something that as an attorney that has seen that happen over and over again. There are certain uh things that are allowed in the statute, certain

things that are not. Um I've had discussions with this with other council. I've tried to have uh a discussion with the uh the uh attorney general's office. Uh one of the things that we are going to do is we're going to request an advisory opinion from them because we can find no real case that actually interprets it uh that is on file right now that would have any persuasive value whatsoever. That being

said, it doesn't matter for our particular purposes here tonight because the the individual that is on the agenda is Mr. Aguar. There is no notice about any other individual being discussed and therefore in accordance even with the open meeting law if it's not on the agenda it cannot be discussed. So anything that that's brought up concerning any other individual other than Mr. AGAR is inappropriate and

should be ruled out of order. I caution everyone that if in fact that is not done, there could be potential liability uh and consequences for not only the district but also the individual and and uh that to adhere to what the restrictions are is not only the safest but it's the appropriate thing to do. uh certainly because of the open meeting law and also uh potentially and probably

once the AG has a chance to weigh in on it would would find that uh you don't lose your protections during an open session. I don't know what the answer is going to be to that and neither does anybody else in this room. Uh but we do know that it's not appropriate to discuss other individuals since they are not on the agenda. And Mr. Hillman.

Attorney Hillman, uh, if you want to weigh in on that, please, please do so.

Uh, on the issue of the, uh, open meeting law, um, obviously I was retained as, uh, to investigate this matter rather than to give general legal advice. But the investigation is and the presentation of the investigation is guided by the open meeting law. Uh purpose one of the open meeting law protects uh the privacy interests of uh persons who employees public employees um including uh in this case Mr. Aguar

who exercised his right um to wave uh executive session discussion in which certain rights are guaranteed by the statute. um and this I'll make this presentation and and and with that uh waiver in mind. However, to the extent that the uh persons who asserted the complaints um if there's any interest in discussing them or their job performance or any other issues concerning them, those

purpose one rights attached to them.

They have not been noticed for this meeting. they have not been offered those protections. They have not been given the opportunity to uh to wave uh purpose one uh and therefore uh the any actions by any persons other than Mr.

Aguar um cannot be uh discussed in this meeting and I will not discuss them. Uh I am not going to participate uh in a violation of the open meeting law. And in addition, uh, attorney um, Assad mentioned, um, consequences. You should bear in mind that these complainants engaged in protected activity. Uh, I assume that you have some familiarity with what that is. I'm not going to stand here and and give a

a long string of advice about that. But to the extent that there's a potential violation of the open meeting law uh directed at someone who engaged in protected activity, um Mr. I would second uh Mr. Assad's cautions about uh liability uh for retaliation or invasion of privacy and that is both for the district that you serve and potentially as individuals. So, um, you asked me to comment, Mr. That's what I've got.

Anything further on, um, the ruling shot.

What is the motion? I read it again.

Deb, please appeal your ruling that we cannot speak on other subjects. Again, I would follow the legal advice. Deb, call the role. Mr. AA, yes. Mr. Bailey, no.

Mr. Dice, yes. Mr. Cory, I'm sorry. I don't understand motion. Motion is to doubt the ruling of the chair. To doubt the ruling of the chair. Yep. No. Yeah.

No. Yeah. So, no.

Miss Laravey. No. Miss Pereira.

No. Mayor Kan. No. Go ahead with yours.

So, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that this Mr. present. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman.

Oh, are you presenting, Mr. Chairman?

Okay, Mr. Chairman, hold up. Mr. Agu, can I ask a pointed question to who? To you. Who is actually running this situation? Because the vice chair continually wants to say something, but she's only saying it because attorney Assad is telling her to say it. And now twice now, listen, hold on. And twice now, you've had to interrupt her because she's not even paying attention to what is supposed to be happening. Who is

actually running the meeting? Is it going to turn you side? run in a legal sense because this stuff is fraught with dangers for the entire com uh committee.

We there is no reason that your rights can't be protected along with the rights of every member up here and all we're doing is trying to make sure we're following a legal path. It's this is a treacherous legal slope we're on. You asked for a public meeting. We're giving you exactly what you want. This is my only question. I keep interrupting, but that's okay. This is my only comment.

No, you keep Can you do me a favor? Yep.

And please let Miss Laravey know when she can speak because you guys obviously orchestrated this. Just let her know to let this gentleman present. Stop interrupting you and let this gentleman present. Then she can make the scripted motion that the three of you met to talk about to make sure you're protected. Mr.

Aguia. Yep. Okay. Let the gentleman present, please. Yeah. Mr. Hillman, you're up. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. My name is Robert Hillman. I am an attorney with the firm of Valerio Dominelloo and Hillman. Um, our firm was retained by Sorry to interrupt. Well, here we Sorry to interrupt. I apologize.

I apologize. Sorry to interrupt. You can't help. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, but the vice chair is telling me that I'm a bully across the stage right while you're there and making faces and everything. All right, get some water, please. Let's go, Mr. Hillman.

Point of clarification there. Why not?

Why not? Thank you. Um, yeah. Can we I'll let Mr. Bailey. Yeah. I was just asking um when we just took that vote, we're talking about um pretty much redacting everyone's names that was involved. That's not the discussion that we have on the agenda. We're taking a vote not to do. Correct. What?

Because it says a discussion and vote.

So after he presents after he presents.

Correct. After he presents. Yeah. Okay.

All right. That was just Well, go ahead, Mr. Helman. I wasn't. Thank you. Um my firm was um retained by the uh Fall River Public Schools to investigate uh two uh complaints uh or rather complaints filed by two employees of the Fall River Public Schools. Um each uh complaint really constituting two complaints. Um I was asked to attend this meeting to present the outcome of the investigation of the complaints uh

which were directed to school committee member Kevin Aguar. Uh my pres presentation will be succinct and will address only the topics on the posted agenda which are the outcome of that investigation. The outcome, as you are aware, is that the facts developed during the investigation did not support a finding of a violation um of the of school committee policies by uh member Aguar u as alleged in those complaints.

The basis of the outcome is as follows.

Two employees submitted complaints on district complaint forms. Both complained that Mr. Aguar had uh violated district policies primarily by statements that he made in school committee meetings uh but in both cases with some ancillary complaints uh of potential alleged conduct outside of those meetings. The statements had issued the public statements particularly related to the departments

in which these employees worked and were critical of the performance of those uh those departments. neither named the employees uh u neither used the employees names. Both complainants inserted asserted um that there were the conduct alleged violated two school committee policies, the uh anti-harassment policy and the anti-bullying policy. The investigation included uh an interview of the

complaintants, review of the complaint documents and other relevant documents, uh interviews with district witnesses in an interview with Mr. Aguar. With respect to the complaints, first did Mr.

Auar violate the anti-bullying policy?

The answer is no because the district's anti-bullying policy as it's presently constituted applies only to students. Uh these two employees were not students.

Therefore, the um anti-bullying policy wasn't implicated. The second um uh policy that both employees uh complained uh were violated was the district's anti-harassment policies. Uh the district's anti-harassment policies is district is directed to harassment based on a protected characteristic.

uh this includes race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and approximately 10 other enumerated categories. These are often referred to as protected classes or protected categories. Uh harassment would be uh conduct directed to an individual because of their membership in in such a group or the uh or having such a characteristic. Um the uh investigation led to the conclusion that even if any

of the statements could generally be uh characterized as harassment, they were not directed to any protected uh car characteristic of the two complaintants.

Therefore, there should could be no violation of the school committee's anti-harassment policy as it is written.

Uh the outcome of the investigation is to recommend the school committee adopt the conclusion that no uh violation of a district policy was demonstrated concerning uh Mr. Auar to take no further action on the complaints other than to direct uh uh school committee council to issue notices of outcome on the complaints to the complainants and to Mr. Auar. Um and that is the uh the the agenda item was

to report on the outcome. The outcome and recommendation is just that. Mr. Chairman, any questions?

Okay, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Good. Thank you, Mr. Hillman.

So I move that the school committee adopt the conclusion of the investigation and therefore take no action based on the allegations that led to the investigation other than direct to direct counsel to issue notices of outcome as to the subject and to the complaintant.

Second have a motion and second Mr.

Bailey. Um there was just some questions and it's not directed um because the claims were found untrue. Um, and because they were found untrue, a question I always ask, when an allegation is made and it's find untrue, then what? Oh, sorry. When an allegation is made and they're found untrue, then what? Um, so if I'm Mr. Aguar and the allegation is made of some type of harassment or something, um, then what?

For me, right? Um, then secondly, if um, we're looking at this, uh, case, was there ever an investigation conducted on Mr. Aguio's complaints? if they're not found and what does that look like? Um, so it's a two-part question. I don't know if I should ask that later or now.

Um, but I do think they're valid questions.

Bobby, I think, but unless I'm wrong, I think I think this was the investigation. Yeah, but I'm I'm talking about an investigation. I'm not talking about the investigation on Mr. Aguia.

I'm talking about investigation on some of the things that Mr. Aguia has been saying. And that's something we could talk about if we have to talk about it later. Yeah, that's okay. It can't be talked about tonight. Yeah. Why is that?

Because there are no other individuals on on listed on the agenda. We just we just went over that. Okay, Mr. Chair. Mr. Das, not going to support this mo. Who Who's on the records for seconding that motion? You were you.

Thank you. I The reason I did that was to um withdraw it when I I see fit.

However, the issue that I have with all this, Mr. Bailey just brought up some great points. We don't need to mention anyone's names to talk about the substance in the report. This agenda says investigation outcome of complaints directed to committee member Aguar.

Investigation outcome of complaints. And we're being told today we can't discuss the outcome of the complaints. I have some very serious questions on the on on the substance of the report. And in my opinion, there's other sections of the open meeting law which state when an item is presented. Actually, let me read the exact um the exact language of the open meeting law. Notwithstanding this paragraph, the following

materials a little bit up more. The open meeting law states, and this comes right from the attorney general's office, so I believe we already have an advisory opinion, states that the minutes of any open session, the notes, recording, or other materials used in the preparation of such minutes and all documents and exhibits used at the session shall be public records in their entirety and not exempt from

disclosure pursuant to any of the exemptions under clause 26 of section 7 of chapter 4. Notwithstanding this paragraph, the following materials shall be exempt from disclosure to the public as personnel information. One, materials used in a performance evaluation of an individual bearing on his professional competence provided they were not created by the members of the body for

the purposes of the evaluation. and two materials used in deliberations about employment or appointment of individuals including applications and supporting materials provided however that any resume submitted by an applicant should not be exempt. None of this applies here. In my opinion, the entire document is a public record pursuant to the open meeting law. I I'm just saying I don't

see anything that prohibits any member from disseminating that report. With that being said, m we we just discussed that there are individual rights and if the rights aren't in the in purpose one, they're implied to be within open session. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, the attorneys on the stage. So with that being said, we didn't give any opportunity for Mr. Aguar to give any comment. We just jumped right to a

motion to try and bury this thing and bury the substance in this material which we as a committee have received no confirmations on. That's unacceptable.

It's unbelievable. I'm withdrawing my second. I'd like to make a motion that we file an outside investigation into the I withdraw my second I withdrew my second. So someone else can now second the motion if they want to. I still we still have her motion. You withdrew but it's withdrew the second. So the motion's dead. The motion is dead. Your motion is gone. Sorry, Mr. Laravey. And

I am making a motion that we launch an outside a second outside investigation into the substance of this report. Do I have a Do we Do we do Do we hear a second?

Is there a second motion? On which motion? On Mr. Das's motion. So mine doesn't get a second. You're going to go again. You're I'm not really sure what just happened. I know. Chairman, I'm sorry. Can I talk for one second? Miss Pereira, hold on. Miss Pereira has got the floor.

Thank you. There was no second on Mr.

Das's motion. There was on Miss Larley.

I do. I have the floor or not? Yes. I don't want to speak out. Okay. Um trying really hard not to speak out of turn.

It's something I've been working on. Um I'm very confused for a few reasons.

First of all, I I thought this was on the agenda so that this attorney, this kind man, could come forward and let us know that these allegations, which he alluded to, um he did the investigation, my colleague was found not harassing or I guess bullying, we don't have a policy, but not harassing anyone. I'm not quite sure what more needs to be discussed about it. Um, when this was in

an executive session, my colleague had an opportunity to speak and he did and we listened and we voted for it to be investigated. Um, knowing full well that probably was going to be found innocent.

Um, but I or whatever. I don't know if innocence is the word, but I I I look more at it as I think that we have to be really careful with the tone that we're using here because it appears that and I could be wrong, but it appears that we're making assumptions or allegations that maybe the people who made complaints shouldn't have or what have you. I don't know.

But what I want to make sure doesn't happen, I don't want any employee of the for school department to ever feel they can't come forth if they feel harassed or bullied. I think it's really important that that should totally be open. Um, now whether it comes to fruition that that's true, sometimes it's not. Sometimes people just aren't nice. That doesn't mean they're harassing. Unfortunately, that's the way

the world works. But I certainly don't want any employee of the for school department to feel that they can't in any way if they feel cuz those are real feelings harassed or bullied that they can't come forth and talk about it. It doesn't mean that it's going to be found to have have happened as in this case.

Um so other than my colleague I feel sort of getting some validation here right that he wasn't harassing which I think is a positive thing. I as far as the committee goes I I I'd like to be happy that my fellow colleagues weren't harassing people. So I'm very happy with this. Um I don't see the issue in adopting it. I I do think maybe we should um you know because we we we love

policy meetings. I think we definitely should um look at um obviously implementing a bully bullying policy. I thought one was already implemented previously, but apparently I was mistaken. It's not the time to talk about it, but certainly should be at a policy subcommittee meeting. Um with that being said, what I'm really confused about now is my colleague Miss Laravey made a motion. You second it.

You removed your second, but does that mean the motion's off the table? My opinion. Well, I'm not asking your opinion. Somebody else. You didn't even know you made the second. You jumped up and screamed yesterday. Hold on. Hold on. Time says Whoa. Miss Laravey has the floor. Go ahead. Make I'm I'm asking a question. Did you make it again? It's still on the floor. Second. Okay. So, we

have a motion. Second. With that, I yield. Mr. D. Thank you. I'd like to make an amendment to the motion that we instruct outside legal counsel to look into the substant nature of this complaint and the issues that were raised by Mr. Aguar.

Do I have a second on the amendment?

hearing none. Deb, can we vote on Miss Laravey's motion? Mr. Aguia, just a few things. So, uh, thank you, sir, for presenting. One thing you did mention that, um, you had two issues. One was that to make a vote to say that we're accepting the conclusions, but you you said something interesting relative to notice of complaintants. Can you please articulate what that is? And in any

invest No, it's a good question. In any investigation, at the conclusion of the investigation, the complainants and the subject or target of the con uh of the investigation get a notice that says an investigation happened. And in your case, there was an outcome and it was, you know, the case not proved. It's a short document that simply advises the uh the um the participants that the

investigation occurred. sort of put an ACL closure to it, I guess, is the way that it goes. So, every um professional development, anything that I've ever been to relative to complaintants like that, what you said is exactly what they any presenter says, any quality HR department, any person that hasn't any clue about doing an investigation, that what you just put is absolutely true. But the pro the part

that gets me is this school department and the HR departments that we've had for the last several years has not has not still to this day when Matt Malone was investigated and there was findings the complaintants in that issue still to this day years later and Matt Malone did a heck of a lot worse than anybody's talking about here never got a complaint notice. So what you're saying, sir, is that I think

is the law and the way you're supposed to do it. I would encourage the superintendent to look back to all investigations or to attorneys or whoever in HR because those people haven't gotten those same rights and that's not that's just not right. I asked for this to be an open session because quite frankly uh it should be an open session.

There's several um citizen input times which you did not reference as part of this as sort of this is now a close like you can't mention the names of the people that filed the complaint but those same individuals filed a citizen input time in public with their name on it which was making some accusations relative to several events that happened so-called alleged events.

The part that I'm missing is I don't know why you cannot speak to those events as part of this report because I asked right from the get-go to my all of my colleagues that said if these accusations that they want to put on a citizen input time, I said two things.

One is I have no problem investigating it with an outside person. Secondly, if that's going to be the case for this complaint on citizen input time against this member, then we need to do that for all members consistently across the board. And we continue to not do that.

That's that's for another day and that's for this committee to decide. But there's plenty of accusations that were public based on their citizen input time, which was the impetus for this particular investigation. And you were not telling us in the public that you can comment on any of those. And I think that's what Mr. Bailey was talking about. They threw a bunch of stuff out and you you gave the opinion after doing

an investigation. You went and checked emails. You checked my emails versus the superintendents or whatever. You did your due diligence. I give you credit for that. That's what an investigation is. But now the investigation outcome comes and you blacked out all of the information relative to any of the situations that the gentleman put in their citizen input time which is a public document. So I believe firmly

that this is going to be a public document. Anybody can request it and I think that you redacted way too much in my opinion. Um but I appreciate what you what you presented. The last statement and I will read this because I think it is very important to what happens. If Aguia is transmitting information concerning employee conduct to the district administration that is within the scope of his representing uh

responsibilities as a school committee member. That's your quote in this document right at the end. That's the last sentence. Is that true? Has nobody else's name in it. says my name and I'm giving there's there's there's context but if those words sound like uh they those words sound right you wrote it right from the report so but there there's there was that was in your colleagues have seen the report as well

I don't need to explain what was written you've seen it those words are there absolutely so basically school committees have a responsibility when they find out there's misconduct in one way or another potentially to pass that information on to the administration I consider that administration to be superintendent or the mayor and in these cases I I did just that. You've said that basically

that's part of our responsibilities. I would encourage that we move on from this but at the same time this report is going to be public so people can get it and read it and and see what they your findings detailed everything that those gentlemen accused the in citizen input time of and your you wrote in there relative to why and how that also has implications for Dr. Curley as superintendent to now read this report

and determine if there's anything in this report like any other report that requires her to do something as superintendent. Not me as a school committee member, not any member here.

So now that the report is out, the unredacted report is in her hands and our hands. I think we should move on, but also look at it and if there's things that need to be corrected and addressed, please address them. I yield.

Deb, please call the role.

M. Mr. Chair, Mr. Das, I I'll be quick.

um appreciate my colleagues remarks and I am happy he is exonerated. This has been happening um I'm sure I can say this this has been happening since I joined the committee and it's raked up quite a bill on the taxpayers. Um if I can ask one question if you have the answer attorney when an an a complaint is filed against an elected official when when what's the criteria or the threshold

that that should be referred to an outside agency?

What do you mean by outside agency?

You're such as yourself. So, okay. I'm not an agency. I'm a private lawyer who was hired to be an outside investigator.

Um, the criteria is essentially when the board determines that it's appropriately investigated by somebody outside of the school district, the school administration or the city.

Um, there may be um circumstances in which Mr. Assad is the appropriate investigator. I think he concluded um that this was not one of them. Um and people hire outside investigators. Uh school districts that my firm is school counsel for occasionally when um matters come up that seem appropriately investigated by somebody who doesn't have an ongoing work relationship or a professional relationship with the

district. If the board decides that it's appropriate to bring in an outside investigator, they do it. Attorneys, can I ask you has that threshold been been used just for Mr. Agar? That's what was the threshold for referring Mr. Agar's complaint to an outside agency for investigation.

There were there were complaints that were made uh against a school committee, elected school committee official. uh there is no one in the department who would not be somewhat conflicted to be able to do an investigation and that is the reason why an outside investigator was recommended and hired.

Thank you. Again, I'm not um blaming yourself, Mr. Assad. I'm not blaming anyone specifically here. However, I don't believe that threshold has been applied equally across this committee. I yield. Deb, please call the role.

Mr. Yes, Mr. Bailey. Yes, Mr. Das. Yes, Mr. Corey. Yes, Miss Laravey. Yes, Miss Perr. Yes, Mayor Ken. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

I have questions. Go ahead, Mr. Attorney Hillman. So, uh the redacting portion of the uh report. Uh was that in your original uh I guess contract or scope of work was what? Redacting the report.

Yeah I mean producing a document that would comply with the public records law and the open meeting law was something I was that that we were asked to perform. So I would say yes it was.

Even though we wasn't asked at the time, I I'm just trying to figure out what you hide for and I'm not it's it's c it's customarily something that one does in connection with reports and and with public with any engagement that relates to the open meeting law or the public records law. You know, redaction isn't broken out as a uh hold on, you know, as a as a different service. It's it's part

of the legal services of providing I understand the need. I'm trying to figure out from our perspective. Uh, Mr.

Chairman, somebody quickly, can I get an answer on who is actually responsible in the district for redacting reports from our district? I would say that would have to go through legal counsel to give us the best advice so that we don't do something.

What? Redacting the report. That report that you have? Y that was um uh done by Mr. Helman.

No, I'm I mean any any reports that need to get redacted, any redactions? Does that fall under attorney Assad? Does that fall under the superintendent's office? Uh I'm just trying to figure out who is responsible to redact the uh the it depend actually depends on what the situation is. For instance, with respect to uh executive session minutes, it first goes to the uh superintendent

and chair and then they seek advice from the from the attorney. Uh in the past, I have redacted uh the minutes of the uh uh executive session minutes before they are made public. So, I just think we need to get some clarity on that. Uh, I was asking you that, sir, because when I find found out today that the bill for your services was over $21,000, I got to be honest, it has

nothing to do with you. I'm not sure even the school committee knew that we were going to spend $20,000 on this because this is a waste of money and $21,000 is a lot of money. Matt Malone did a lot worse than I think we paid 25 grand. So, the committee voted for this.

I get it. But $21,000 is a little But now you're going to add a bill for redacting. I'm assuming it's going that 21,000 is going to go up. I would assume because I just got that from the superintendent today.

I and we got this report Sunday. So I'm assuming you didn't bill ahead of time, right? And you got to get billing ahead of billing ahead of time would be very problematic. So yeah, I think you can take that a little bit. There's going to be a little extra. Yeah. Yes. Thank you, sir. I yield.

122. Vote to approve school choice for out of district students. I wasn't allowed to ask a question as well. Mr.

Das, can we get on with the agenda, please? We voted no. We're moving on.

Mr. Hillman presented it. What do we vote no on? We vote I'm sorry. Voted yes to accept the report. We're done. I just had one question. One question, if I may. Um, who in Could you tell us who asked you to um redact the report and what date that was?

I my point of contact with the committee has been through attorney Assad and I don't recall what the date was. It was okay that's fine. I yield recently 122 is a vote to approve school choice to honor district students in grades 6 to 12 and non-resident students in grade K to 5 for the for public school employees consistent with the collective bargaining agreement for the 2526 school

year as presented by Tracy Curley.

Motion to approve. I have a motion to approve. I have a second. Any discussion on that hearing? Mr. Das going to vote to approve it. However, I did not see I I personally didn't see in the backup the um updated collective bargaining language that relates that pertains to this. I don't know if there's been any changes from the last one. I was wondering if the committee could be forwarded that that language.

Yes. Thank you. I yield. Deb, call the role, please. Chairman. Oh, Mr. Hegy.

I'm sorry. If Dr. Kurley can explain the I'm trying to read through the uh no need for we've always had a public hearing on school choice just to for the edification of the public or I'm not sure yes why we wouldn't have it but you must have a reason. Yeah. So it basically it came to um I know that last year we ended up we did not make the June 1st deadline but it did not

um we didn't make the June 1 deadline because we actually voted on school choice at the June meeting um this year not knowing where the vote would fall um I didn't know if there were going to be you know questions about you know enrollment or concerns over school choice and things like that I wanted to make sure and I will say it didn't matter that we did it in June last year

because you actually don't even have to take the vote and report out unless you're going to change um your status.

Um and as we looked at the putting it on the May agenda and actually needed to move that public hearing to May, we would have ended up with two separate public hearings. I happened I just I looked up the um requirements for that public hearing and realized that we the public hearing wasn't necessary. It wasn't a requirement. Um, the language says the hearing in the school committee's vote

can occur at the same meeting and may occur at a scheduled school committee meeting provided there is notice to the public that this item will be discussed and that members of the public are off afforded an opportunity to participate and make their positions known to the school committee prior to the vote. A separate meeting is not required for the purpose. So, the only problem I have and

I I'm guessing you're recommending no changes, right? But the line that I think is a pro is problematic says a receiving district can withdraw from school choice only if a school committee holds a public hearing on the issue and then votes to withdraw. Right. But the next sentence says the hearing in the school committee's vote can occur at the same meeting and may occur at a scheduled. So it says you you have to

hold a public hearing but for the purposes of this having it on the agenda and having this is equivalent to a public hearing is what you're saying.

This is not It's conflicting a little bit, but yeah, I hear what you're saying. The recommendation is basically no changes, right? In general. Mhm. And did you look at any thought in withdrawing like did did your team or anybody look at Yeah, we did. I mean, I think our primary concerns around enrollment are at the elementary level.

Um and our policy has only ever included uh secondary. So, we felt pretty um confident in that way. the um in for the current year we only had um 35 um total students who um enrolled and and 23 of those were secondary. I think six of those 23 are students of our um of our staff at the secondary level. And so we um we we felt um comfortable with um that kind of number around 23 students

this year um moving forward that we would be able to accommodate that. If we were not a district um of choice, we um would be uh we if we're not enrolled in if we don't have school choice, then any of the students coming into the district who are the the students of our staff members, we wouldn't be able to participate in school choice and and get that reimbursement, right? And that's just the reimbursement

is not good. No. So for 35 students that is $5,000 we get 150,000 whereas we're educating students and our amount is over 20some thousand. Right? That is that's a big difference. That's a half a million dollars difference in what we would get from the state from taking kids in to now we take 35 students and we're only getting $5,000 each when we have overcrowding. We have other issues.

So I think it's just something to look at moving forward. We don't on the on the 12 who come in K through five came in K through five this year. We're that that is something that we that we're we have a contractual obligation to our staff members. And then when we look at the 6 through 12, the additional 23 students, as I said, the the concerns aren't as great when we look at 23 um 23

students spread across three of our traditional middle schools plus our you know the K to8 um schools and then another um 17 at the high school. And I'm not privy to the to look at it, but we need I think when we look at what are those 12 look like, what students that are choosing to come here some other places, what are their demographics, what is it their behavior, you know,

like what else is happening? Because I think it might get we've heard that the middle schools are are crowded, the high school's crowded, and what are we by allowing it, are we making a detriment to our own students potentially because what I don't know. You would have to figure that out. But I'm going to vote for this because there's no change. But I think for next year we have to we

should look at whether we've withdraw all public. Mr. Cory, Madame Superintendent, with with a motion like this and you just recently held a job fair. Do these questions come up at the job fair? Like if I choose to work in your district, can I bring my child along with me? I don't know if any came up at this job, but we do get those in kinds of inquiries. That's what I'm saying. Those types of inquiries come

along. So, a motion like this would put you in a position to help recruit teachers from other districts into ours.

Is that is that correct? Yes. That's so so reimbursement aside, I look at this as a recruitment plus to try to help our district and shore up our own shortages, you know. So, that's one of the reasons why I'm voting yes on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Yeah, just to follow up the um middle school enrollments, are we having any issues with the enrollment or are we do we have plenty of space in the middle schools to be taking students in? So, I think what we find is that um the enrollment across middle schools is not um is not equal, right? And some of that has to do with the fact that we do, you

know, we do over the summer we um we we we're collecting uh requests from families to go to other middle schools. So we are reviewing all of that right now um because we do have some um overcrowding in middle schools that we believe is a result of or at least one of the contributing factors is the number of uh families who choose into the school in district and um it's something that we

need to really keep an eye on moving into next year and already know that um there might be at some schools some grade levels that we already know we cannot take any additional students um who you from parents who want to choice into a particular middle school, then they just get denied.

Um like they you they would have to shift to the others or how would Yeah.

Well, I'm talking about someone who might live, you know, they live in one middle school neighborhood and they they put in um an application so that their student could go to a different middle school. And so we really need to be cognizant of the fact that at some grade levels we're already reaching um a level of we know already that we might need to say no. What happens in terms of um

school choice is that we also wouldn't let students choose into that grade level if they were coming from out of district either. So any of the students that are in middle school now that are on choice are going to get pushed to the other school. Um, no. I believe the practice has been, and we actually started talking about it this week, we believe that the practice has been that if once you choose into a school that

you are, that you can remain. And I will tell you that that does become problematic in our um enrollment from year to year because that's your decision. Um, that has been the practice, but you're the superintendent now. And you can change it. Yep. And and I and I know and I'm not you know I understand that difficult decisions will have to be made but I also know that in

doing that if I said to you or anybody else right now we have I know like 50 students at Morton who choice in and we really need them to go back to their middle schools my guess is that there will be 50 phone calls um to me to the committee and I will immediately start getting emails about how it's unfair that we let someone start sixth grade at a middle school and and that we're not

allowing them to continue or someone was has been there in sixth and seventh grade and now they're in eighth grade and why would we ever send them to another middle school in eighth grade.

So, um that is some of the um those are some of the kind of easy what should be kind of easy moves that we should be able to make um that I do think we'll be a little bit like tied up with when we look to make those if we can take another look at it. The documentation for a school choice student should say you're not guaranteed to this enrollment. I I would agree with you. I

would agree. If we take in school cho I just want to say um the the statute requires us if we do take in a student um school choice they do get to remain with us like literally from out of district if we take in someone from you know Somerset or Berkeley or whatever.

Um but in terms of our practice in district we we I think what we need to do is uh make a a decision. At the very least, I can tell you that moving forward, when someone says, "I want to send my child to, you know, this school," it will come with a letter that says, "If there's no room next year, your students going to have to go back to their neighborhood school." There's a

question of what to do with the students who are potentially overcrowding some of our schools right now who were not given that notice. That's the other discussion. The only last point I make is on school choice. If a student's expelled from a school anywhere, can we say that they cannot come to school under school choice? I no, I don't believe so. And that becomes a problem because if we have to start accepting

students that have been expelled from other places, they're going to be sitting next to our own students and we can do nothing at all about them. So, I think it's something to look out for next year. I yield. Did uh superintendent, did that change?

I don't at one point s uh expelled students couldn't enroll in any uh I believe that they can I will I will clarify I'll send the language but okay it might have changed the way things are changing but I did know at one time they couldn't so okay Mr. dies. Yeah. Just on that last point and it's going to determine how I vote. Do we have a number of how many students have been

expelled under the I do not. Would you imagine it's over 10? I would say zero.

I don't think we have anybody who's been expelled from another district. I don't think so. I will absolutely um take a look. Okay. Deb, can you call the role please? On 122. Mr. A. Yes. Mr. Bailey.

Yes. Mr. Das. Yes. Mr. Corey. Yes. Miss Lar? Yes, Miss Pereira. Yes, Mayor Coogan. Yes. 123 is a discussion and vote to approve the start and end times for school year 2526 as presented by Dr. Tracy Curley.

Moved second. I have a motion second.

Any discussion on the start and end times? Chair, Mr. uh Miss Pereira. No, it wasn't. Oh, yeah. Oh, Mr. D. Thank you. Um again I'm not necessarily this is my first time um with this before me as a member and I just general questions have we had have had because I get many throughout this year I've received many different inquiries and I guess complaints from parents about either the

start time or the end time of their perspective child's school. Have we've had any surveys, discussions or anything with parents regarding start and end times, any sort of collaboration with parents? I haven't so I I I haven't had any of those inquiries forwarded to me. So, I'm not sure where like I'm not sure where the complaints are coming from, like what the what the barrier is. What I can say

is that when we receive the requests to go to a different school, sometimes what is cited is I'd like to go to this school because they have an earlier drop off and I need to drop my kid and get to get to work or I need to go to a different school otherwise my child is coming home at 2:30 in the afternoon and I I'm not going to be home until 3:30

kind of thing. So, I know that that is one of the um you know, those are some of the reasons that people cite when they're requesting other schools, but I haven't received um any inquiries myself and I'd be you know, if if you have more information, I would sure appreciate it's just more not even necessarily them looking for me to um it's just more general comments that I just have

received throughout the year. Um I would say most most of them have been directed by the middle schools, parents from the middle schools because of the early start. I I believe so. Again, this is going back over a year. I haven't have received any recently. However, I just wanted to make mention of it as it comes up. I'll support this today. However, I I would like to see some sort of survey

go out to parents on to give open feedback on the start and end times of their perspective school, what school their child might be attending next year, and just take that into account going forward. Again, not saying we're not doing anything different go like from the past years into this year. I'm just saying I think we should just try something new going forward. I yield.

Okay. Deb, call the role, please.

Chairman. Oh, Mr. A. Yeah. Just uh is there any changes to these start times?

End times. I don't believe so. No. So, in the past, we've asked why do we change the start times and I it all reflects around busing, which is a future agenda item. Um I had emailed you know Friday about things about tearing buses and I haven't received a response yet, but I asked the question. Uh I know in the past Mr. Pico said we've we've tiered everything we can. We have no

more tearing to go to save money. Y and then I my second question was do we have I would assume by that that we don't have single bus routes. Is that true or not true? Meaning that the bus that goes and is not tiered, right? Because we pay for the bus by the day, right? So we're not getting a good bank for our buck if uh I I believe they're tiered. They're all

tiered, but there might be some outliers if we had an odd number of schools or something. I I don't believe we have many schools that are not tiered, and we do pay um for the tiers. So, it's not like it's a oneshot deal. So, all of our doortodoor buses are currently tiered.

Um we have, I believe, six single routes on the bus stop buses.

And why would those not be tiered? Is it not possible? The timing doesn't work out. Um, originally the Talbit and Lno buses had always been tiered um because Talbet had a um I'm sorry, LNO had a later uh end time. So, we were able to tier those two. When we when one of the schools changed their end time, those can no longer be tiered. So, we have the four LNO buses and two Tala

buses that are untiered. And do we have how much do you pay for those? What is the rate? Mr. Pico just mentioned you pay more for the upcoming for the upcoming school year. I believe it's five roughly. I'd have to grab my paperwork roughly. If it's $500 for one tier or no tier for an untiered bus. Untiered bus.

And how much is it for three tiers? So I know for the year. So an untiered bus for the year um bus stop is 100,000. A tiered bus is I believe 128,000.

So it's a considerable savings to tier.

Absolutely. Um but if I tier those buses on the bus stop side, then I wouldn't have if I change the times to match the bus stop buses, it wouldn't match up on the door to door buses because we don't have equal number of buses at schools.

So, but we control the start and end times. Correct. So, I I'm not sure how I'm So, a school like Sylvia, for example, has four doorto-door buses.

Those buses, which are generally more expensive, um are tiered four Sylvia buses with four Spencer Bordon buses.

Sylvia on the bus stop um buses has seven bus stop buses and I don't have seven at Spencer Bordon. So, now I go pulling from our second tier schools to match up. So, one person is getting whatever it's $100,000 to do three different schools and bus routes.

Another one is 120 or you know the opposite. I just think we should be tearing across the board as much as possible because and also and you've no one has said this, we need to change the lines so that you're not transporting kids all over the place. But this particular vote is the time to say are we tearing or we not tearing. So there should be absolutely no way that anyone

can say why don't we tear this particular bus if we change the start time by 10 or 15 minutes at a school and we can save money. There's no potential way that that can be possible. There isn't because if I change the time so that we can now tear all of the bus stop buses. I wouldn't be able to tear all of the door to door buses and the doorto-d dooror buses are more expensive than the

bus stop buses. I was just referring to one uh you know one only one one so no there's no way that anybody can say I don't know why this bus can't go there and and save any money I do not and you said it's six total I believe six district and which vendor is this Emerald and how about the uh Agassy transportation and do we transport to the other charter school uh only special

ed for Atlantis and we transport special ed and regular ed or RBC and those are all included in in the route. So, let's suppose those buses need to have times changed. Do they cooperate or are we locked in? Honestly, I've never really reached out to them as far as their times. We used to tier their middle and high school um but they did do um a time change I believe two years

ago. So, those are no longer tiered. And did they have to approve that? get that approved by the us or the city to make their time change.

That would be a cost detriment, right?

So, we we've never um had the conversation with them about not tearing or tearing. When it works, it works. And when it doesn't, it doesn't. As the schools grow and change, so does their transportation needs. So if what she just mentioned was that we used to have a tiered system with one of the schools and we don't Are you disagreeing that that happened?

A disagreement? No. Are you disagreeing with what you just said that? No. No. I agree. I agree. So if that was going to be changed, why don't we just have them change the start times or work with our people to change the start times so that that can be a a tiered route because they're not far off of our start times.

There is no wiggle room. We we've done everything we possibly can to make all of these times work, but there's just no wiggle room to make that work.

As as I said, as Argusy has changed and grown, their needs have grown.

Also, we don't have the wiggle room now to just adjust 15 minutes or 20 minutes here. We don't have that. If we have to take votes that are to change times in order to tear our buses, they should have to do the same thing. That's my only opinion because we're not we're not changing times. We're not changing any times. What we have right now is as good as we can make it to be totally honest.

We've we wiped out quite a few buses when we started tearing a lot actually.

Yeah. So I I guess where we are I guess I would agree with you what it cost you do the best you can to transport as many kids as you possibly can and that's what the bill is and then we got to pay the bill. That's basically what you're saying for Agassi or I don't know what else to say to that Mia. We are doing the very best we can with what we have to work

with and the times right and obviously if we have an issue with parents and times everything is on the table. So we're trying to figure out what the best method is to get students to and from school while trying to be cognizant of parents having to I thought make choices. I believe we should transport as many kids as possible quite frankly and not look at the dollar figure and I think that's what you're saying is to

just Here's what the best we could do.

We need to transport them. Here's here's the bill. I just was asking those questions because if we're voting on this now, we can't change the times again. Next month, if something comes up, correct? If we change lines, if we change the uh where students go to school, we can't change these times after the fact. We're changing them now for the year. Yes. Thank you. I yield.

9:30. Well, we'll see. Okay. Deb, can you call? Mr. Dia. Yes, Mr. Bailey. Yes, Mr. D. Yes, Mr. Corey. Yep, Miss Laravey. Yes, M. Pereira. Yes, Mayor Coogan. Yes. Okay. I'm going to ask the committee's indulgence. I'm I'd like to move up two items, 128 and 129 because all our principles are here and they got to work tomorrow and they were staying for those two. So, um we'll go to 128

first. 11. Take a vote. 10 and 112.

Right. Can I get a motion to second on those two? Motion. Second Deb, call the role on move. I'm sorry. I apologize.

What are we moving? Just uh 128 129 and was 12 and 11. 12 10 11. We'll take that whole group out of order. 129 1210 11.

We have a second. I have a motion. No, I have I second it. Yep. Huh. Bobby 128 129 1210 11. She said 12. Okay. I got a motion saying Deb called the roll.

She totally told me. No, it's fine.

We're just moving these up because those two the next couple are quick. We don't want to just get rid of them. Go ahead.

If you want to get rid of them, get rid of them. I like to request unanimous consent that the committee endorse all bills for um 12 124 and 125. Well, 124 and 125. I'll go with you. The others I'm not though.

124 and 125. Second. Can we call the roll on those 124 and 125 for approval?

Deb, you want to call? Mr. Yes. Mr.

Bailey. Yes. Mr. Das. Yes. Mr. Corey.

Yes. M. Larvey. Yes. M. Per. Yes. Mayor Krug. Yes. Okay. So, now can we get 128 next please?

So, I'm just have the motion. I have I need a roll call on moving up the last.

Mr. AP. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Das.

Yes. Mr. Cory. Yep. Miss Laravey. Yes.

Miss Pereira. Yes. Mayor Kogan. Yes. 128 is a discussion and vote to approve a revised Walker and Writers policies as referred by the policy subcommittee and presented by Dr. Tracy Curley.

Go ahead there, Dr. Curley. So, we brought um to policy subcommittee after we had um referenced it here a couple of times uh with the full committee um some proposed changes to the walkers and riders policy. And um basically we had a policy um that looked to trans that allowed for the transportation of students if they lived one or more miles from their elementary school or one and a half or more miles

um from their um um grades six through eight schools. The um we're proposing a policy change. I I want to be really clear with um folks because I know um we've had some public discussion about this. There was certainly some um public input that was shared this evening. This is not a policy that would that looks to decrease the number of students that were transporting. We are presenting um uh word changes in the

policy that would allow us to conduct business as usual.

If we don't change the words, we will be changing the policy. I think that's the important thing to remember. If we don't change the one to 1.5 in grades K to 5 and we don't change the um two to a 1.5 for uh the 1.5 to two for grades 6 through 8, we will actually transport more students than what was intended by the policy. And that's because on the back end we got

some guidance from the department of ed um around how we calculate our distances. And historically we have calculated the distance as the crow flies. That's how it's been interpreted since the start of the policy. We're no longer able to measure distance as the crow flies. We have to think about what it actually means to walk to school. Not cutting through backyards or swimming, cutting through the woods, whatever it

is. students are required to use city blocks and in doing that it actually increases the wa the walking distance is actually longer than the way a crow would fly from home to school.

So the idea is if we don't change the words, we will be changing the policy and we will be actually increasing the number of students that we are currently transporting um which was not the intent. It's not the intent of the policy. The intent was as the crow flies now that we have to measure differently. We need to get the words to match um what's being required in terms of the measurements.

Uh let's go with Mr. Aguar first. Just uh so I'm looking at the policy EA and I think that it looks like this is the policy where the red lines are just the changes. Is that correct? Right.

What is um when we when we're changing the one or more miles to the more than 1.5 miles, that is our attempt to change the numbers that are in the policy so that we can still capture the same students and transport the same students. But the all the stuff that's in black ink is the policy that we can follow it. Y So when I'm just simply reading it, I don't see anywhere in here

where it says as the crow flies. What I do see is quite clear language that states students in grades K to five qualify for transportation if they live you're trying to change it to 1.5 where it says one mile walking distance from either their neighborhood school or from a school which they are assigned.

So how it was interpreted isn't necessarily to me as important as I want to transport as many kids as we can because of the needs of the kids. Not necessarily switching or I don't really care about the crowfly things because that was we probably should have not been doing it that way for how many years more than we can even account for.

Mhm.

So walking distance in my mind, a mile and a half is a long time to for first grader to walk to school.

And that's what you're recommending that we move it to. Just want to be clear, when we had the language that said living one or more miles away that student might have lived 1.3 miles from school. and we had a policy that didn't transport that student. Now, we're going to change the words and we're still going to have a policy that doesn't transport the student because it could have been that they on

paper it looks like or if if you draw a onem radius around a school and and they are living inside that radius, we would not have transported them. It didn't matter if the student couldn't cut through the woods in the backyards and over a stream and to get to that school.

It didn't matter because they lived within that one mile radius. Now we're recognizing the fact that that student maybe still is not getting transported because maybe they don't live 1.5 miles away. Maybe now they only live 1.3 miles away if they walk down the streets and go around the corner and they're not cutting through parking lots and things like that. And all we are all this policy change does

is say makes it crystal clear to families um and so that when people go onto Google Maps and we get these calls all the time people go on to Google Maps and they say wait um I you know this says I live 1.5 miles and we say we measure as the crow flies. But I think the point is we've done this. This is how it's always been done. And so if and

there wasn't anybody on this committee who said we need a policy change because we want to transport more students.

Everybody was happy with what we're doing. And if people are happy with what we're doing, then we need to change the words to match what we've been doing.

That's all we're asking. If the committee says, you know, to tell you the truth, I don't think this has been working very well for us um all these years, we want to change the policy and we want to transport more students, then um then that's the will of the committee. I I don't know, right? And I think I that's where my point is. We've been talking about attendance being an

issue and a barrier to kids getting to school. I think that we need to look at it to say we should be transporting more students, not less students. And I know you're going to grandfather the kids in and you know if you're already in transportation doesn't take into consideration other people that live in the same house or tenement or relatives or kids that are in prek. You know at

the end of the day I don't see the need in this day and age with what we have going on that we should be just based on money just based on money because in my opinion this is a straight money grab from the city saying that they don't want to pay the 750,000. We didn't even So, at this point, that's what I'm thinking. I I I And I just But we need

to transport more kids based on the attendance, not less. And you're going to say, "Oh, well, they're going to grandfather them in." But I think we should be looking at how do we either redraw the lines, which I've been saying for a long time. Yes. So, that will eliminate some of the needs of this.

We're taking all of this urgency towards we have to do something here because of the $750,000 increase that we it would come to the city versus I would like to have that same urgency a year ago with change the lines make sure the students are moving closer stop this transportation from one side to the other pro put programs in the places where that make more sense but the urgency of this in my

mind is due to money not necessarily the best interest of kids that's in my opinion and I yield Okay. So, it it's this keeps coming up this idea that I was somehow like um like my arm got twisted by the um by the mayor or other people on the city side or something and that this was like a hey, you better change this policy because we don't want to spend an extra

$750,000. It's not it. But we just finished a conversation about tearing.

So it's on the heels of I have a committee member who says have you asked parents how they feel about the school start times and then the next discussion we have is have you thought about changing the start times so that we can be more efficient in tiering of the buses. If we're going to be more efficient in tiering of the buses it is it it doesn't necessarily take anybody's um you like what parents want into

consideration. It's literally a how can we save money on buses. So now and that doesn't change what I'm proposing doesn't change the stu doesn't change the student or family experience and what it does is just maintains what we're doing and it doesn't increase bus costs. I like I I honestly I so I'm upset because the narrative Yeah. is that I we're we're not taking kids I'm I'm looking to harm kids. Um, I'm not

taking the best interest of students in mind. If we didn't want to take the best interest of students in mind, I would come here and I would say, look, the state says we don't have to transport inside two miles. Let's not do that. And we'd do it we wouldn't do it as the crow flies. We would be doing it walking distance. And that would that would could that be in the best interest of

kids? Maybe or maybe not. Because when we look at our data of our typical students who are transported versus not transported, we're not we're not doing better with the transported students, it actually isn't the data isn't better.

They're chronically absent at a higher rate now. And and that was a you know, that was a question that came up at at the subcommittee. Um we said, "No, we really don't think it's better." We didn't think it was going to be worse.

It is worse. The flip side of that is that people could say, "Okay, but if you transport less of them, it will get it could get worse, but we're not asking to transport less kids. We're asking to transport the students that we've been transporting and not sub like substantively, we're not looking to change the policy. If we don't change the words, there will be a substantive change to the way we do

business and that will cost more money.

I I don't know how else to say it. What if what if a student is in a tenement house? Yeah. And they're grandfathered in on the first floor and their cousins live on the second and third floor. Are they grandfathered in? No. So we'll have one person getting transported from the same address because they're grandfathered. That happens already with hardships. Right. Right. We already do

that for a number of families who for one reason or another they they just can't get their students to school. And it doesn't matter if on the, you know, second and third floor we are saying no to parents, we might be saying yes to the person on the first floor because they tell us, you know, a story. They let us know of their circumstances and we will make arrangements to pick up

that child. So we already do that, you know, across the city in different ways.

And we're not this that's a hardship and I understand hardships. This a policy change is going to affect everybody in the house and that's going to be more than hardships because people live together and live you know their neighbors. So the neighbor gets picked up for six seven years because of the way we're doing it. So it's not we're not going to we're going to grandfather in the current people but we're not

going to grandfather in the same neighborhood the same place with other people with transportation. That's my and I did so just so you know in terms of like kind of neighborhoods and people losing schools I did uh losing transportation. And I asked this question about kind of what are we doing here over time? Like how many kids how many like what does it look like after people get grandfathered out, right? My

understanding is that over the ne if we if we think about a school like Henry Lord, a K to8 school, nine grades, student gets grandfathered in in kindergarten and now we've got eight more years.

As people age out in the next eight years, it looks like we will be saving a bus. A bus. This is like I can't stress this enough. This is not about making some long-term change that we're hoping is going to be our ticket to lowering transportation costs for the city. This is an attempt at maintaining our current practice because if we don't, we're going to actually transport more students to the tune of

$750,000. And on the flip side, the equivalent of of one bus could be, you know, 50 students that we as we phase out over the next eight years, we we we might be able to save a bus. it. This is not aimed at at um hurting families, not aimed at hurting students. Um we don't anticipate that it's going to have a detrimental effect on our um attendance based on the data that we're looking at

in the rates of chronic absenteeism of students that we do transport um already. So my last question to comment on that, I haven't seen the data. You just say it tonight. You didn't share with us. So I Yeah, I didn't we actually I didn't see it until today. I get it.

Yep. Uh, what I would like to see the data is students chronically absent and we're transporting them all the way across the city. Please tell me the amount of time, Hold on. Please tell me the amount of times that a superintendent cuz you're you're you're new or a uh transportation coordinator or anybody in there that's actually told a student, "We're transporting you all the way over there and you're not

showing up to school. You're going to the school you had to be at." Please tell us as a committee how many times that's happened over the last 5 years. I know you don't have that number, but I'm sure they can. Thank you. I yield. Uh m Mr. uh let me go to Mr. Bailey first and Mr. Das. Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Bailey. I just had some comments with this and and

Dr. Curley, this isn't a slight anyone.

So, I just want you to say that I do understand your frustration um and I'm on the same page, but I can talk on my own personal experiences living in 40 Street walking to Morton um and then across the street other students receiving rides um on a bus and just from that um and I didn't have an opportunity to look at the data and it might not necess necessarily um impact absenteeism, but I can tell you

certainly it did impact the tardiness when we came to seasonality in those long winter months when you're walking um to school. Um, but also and I don't think anyone has any type of uh malice intent um on this board when it comes to this and and when we're making these votes and I'm probably going to vote no because I can remember remember my experiences and what that did and I think a extra half a mile would

definitely impact that. Um there's no easy answer to this. Um and the first thing I think of is what is my role? um and it's to make sure the kids get to school and make sure we protect the school uh the kids um while they're at school. So, um for me, I think that half a mile tacking on that half a mile and I know how uh costly it could be. Um but I

I just couldn't picture my kid walking an addition an additional half a mile in the middle of the wintertime. Um whether it's the 1.3 miles or 1.5 miles, that's still a lot on families. Um whether they're grandfathered in or not. Um, I just think it's tough and like I said, I can remember my own experiences. I would like to see the data. Um, and it's it's a very tough position to be in, right?

Because we're looking at the the money side, but we're also want to make sure we're fiscally responsible and and able to provide families um what they need.

So, I yield.

Oh, Kyle, next prayer. Thank you.

So, I guess I'll start with my comments.

I mean, you know, I'll say I've been personally told by either some members on the committee or otherwise we should be if I talk about either a different policy or or whatnot and it's not directly related to students, I've been told we're here for the best interest of the students. And this policy, I don't think anyone could say this helps farmer students. It just doesn't. It's just the facts.

Um, one question on the comment on the hardship. I did not know there were um, hardship waiverss. I'm not even familiar with that. It's not mentioned in the policy, which is something I believe it should be mentioned. The policy hardships for transportation should be in this transportation policy. Just makes sense. Um, I'm not fully and I and I appreciate the the efforts to explain

where it's no longer the has the grow flies, the circumference, the radius, it's now the actual distance. However, the half mile offsets um half mile deductions in this policy or or increases in this policy, I don't believe would offset the number. So I I personally believe with the way the city is structured it would still in end up individuals losing students losing transportation. So I can't support that.

And also I believe the father public schools should make every strive possible to increase transportation for students. And I believe what I'm about to say is relevant to this policy. There is a cost with transportation. And a big reason is because the state doesn't fully fund transportation. And underfunded transportation is by the law an unfunded trans um not transport unfunded underfunded mandate is by law an

unfunded mandate. And that's something this committee took a unanimous vote to support funding an unfunded mandate petition. The city council will be taking it up tomorrow and hopefully that leads to more money coming in the district. There is um a bill that this committee just voted to endorse the that in regard to transportation that's been supported by the MTA believe it might

even be supported by the MASC that will bring that will fund that that unfunded mandate from the governor's budget to bring more money into the city because the city does pay for transportation to bring more money into the city to help taxpayers. this policy going back to it just doesn't help the students of Far River and that so that's why I can't support it. I do have a few questions um

not related to the um distances.

However, the special programs we're adding um students assigned to special programs may we're adding the word may qualify for transportation if the student is if transport they are we're doing a lot of different um things with this policy attending a program which meets walking distance criteria and there's also some changes to um special education transportation as well. Um I was wondering if um Mr. No chain if

someone can speak to how or if anyone who has the answer can explain how this policy will change when it comes to special education transportation if we approve it.

I'm not sure. Can you just read me the piece that you're referring to so I can speak on it? Sure. I I'll read the um the proposed updated language. Um, students, special education students may be eligible for transportation based on state regulations which are not addressed by this trans by this policy.

The accommodations may I'm sorry, I'm reading the the crossed out version.

Such transportations accommodations are determined as part of the team process.

What's crossed out of here is the accommodation made for transportation for a student on an IEP would take precedence. So the way I read this policy, students with with who are on an IEP are no longer going to take precedence in this policy is going to be a part of the team process. And I'm just wondering who would determine that. So I don't believe that that was the intention of what was crossed out

because the specialized transportation that is part of a child's IEP that is part of the discussion through the team process takes precedent over everything.

It currently does that now. So that is first. However, there's the other opportunity for kids to receive transportation if they attend a program that is outside of whatever the district's policy is on regular transportation. So, for an for example, if I lived um outside of say the Spencer Bordon neighborhood, but my program was at Spencer Bordon, I would get transportation to that program as if

that's still considered regular transportation because my program is outside. What this new the changes are saying is that if the program that your child's the school your child's program in is in is within that 1.5 they may or may not get the specialized transportation. For example, if a child is in a wheelchair and requires a specialized vehicle and they're still within that 1.5 miles, of

course they're going to get that.

Otherwise, they attend a specialized program. Maybe, I don't know, um, Tanz is their neighborhood school. Spencer Bordon is still within the walking time.

They can still they could still be required to get to to walk to school like a typical student at Spencer Bordon. Does that make sense? It did. I I mean, at the beginning, I support what So a student who's on an IEP, that will take precedence is what you're saying. Yes, that is what's crushed out of this policy that I I agree with what you're saying. But I think that when we

discussed it, um, Miss Obenchain and I I mean, she was part of the discussion.

Yeah. The the fact that it takes precedence is it's it's the law. So, it seemed like it was like more words than needed because it's we we know that to be true. Parents know that to be true. If it's in the student's IEP, specialized transportation provided by um as an accommodation in the IEP, it stands. It doesn't matter if you live two blocks away, you will still get that transportation. It takes precedence over

the policy. You can never deny that.

That's the law. No, I appreciate that. I just think that's something that should be stated within policy because laws can change. I think that's also important to note as well.

Um again, for the other reason, but that's just Thank you, Miss Oain. So that's just that was just thank you for clarifying that. So but for the other reasons involved I I can't support this policy. So I like to make a motion to grant lead to withdraw.

So um so I think let me just I want to clarify superintendent just to make sure I'm correct. When you talk about the crowfly or whatever, we're talking about if this is Dery, we used to make a big circle around the school and if you lived within a mile and a half of that school in this circle you were in. But clearly you did you would not get transportation if you lived that's what I mean. You

would not get transportation in this area. But what we're doing is basically using more of a Google maps with walking where we know that just because I may live at the end of the circle, I may have to go all the way here to get to there. Um, I want to transport as many students as possible. I'm not somebody who cares how much necessarily cares how much we spend on transportation,

honestly, if it's getting our if it's getting our our scholars to school. I think it's very interesting the point you raised with the report um that it's not showing that. I know. Um so I'm going to ask I I know you've already said it, but I just want to make sure I heard you clear to clarify. Um every student that is being transported to school now, if this policy changes will still be transported to school now.

I will say this. Unless they move. Well, no. I mean, obviously where they're living. Yeah. Right. But but there's I Yes. Unless they move. I mean, that's what's written in the policy. Um students who qualified for transportation in school year 25 remain housed at the same address and remain in the same school or program will continue to be eligible for transportation. How about the

students next year? our new students.

So, in other words, what I'm what I'm getting what the point I'm getting at is I know we're saying that we can grandfather the people in that are there now. What I want to make sure is that we're not eliminating people who would have been transported the other the other way using different numbers. If that's what we're doing, then that's not something I can support. So that that was the

um that was the that was the piece where where I was explaining that because if you are a if you have always been kind of a straight shot to school and your walking distance and the crow flies is going to be the same thing. So we have uh a corridor um in terms of the way uh say the Henry Lord Community School is um where that neighborhood is. there's a just a

straight shot. And so if we went a mile um out as the crow flies, that ends up being a like a mile walking distance, give or take a little if someone has to walk the straight shot and go around the block.

the policy impacts that could imp impact that particular neighborhood in a way that that's the piece that I was saying over the next eight years as students aren't grandfathered in in new kindergarten kids there is a a piece of the Henry Lord neighborhood that would be cut out from the transportation and that's where the equivalent of about one bus of students that over the next eight years would would not be getting

transportation At the end of the day, it sounds to me like we're going to be transporting less students, and that's not something I'm comfortable with. So, with that, I yielded.

I don't think we need to close the motion to do. I think we vote on the motion. We don't always have to do something different. We have a motion on the table. Let's vote on it. Yeah. I haven't spoken yet. I Yeah, but I mean, we don't have to do whatever he's saying. We can allow people to vote on the motion. Yeah. With that, I yield, Mr. Clark.

And so, um, at the policy subcommittee meeting, I mean, the language here clearly is is is a little bit, you know, back and forth. And, um, I don't believe there's one school board member up here that wants to take away any services from any student, period. Uh, I certainly don't. Um, that being said, um, the reason why we forwarded this was for a greater discussion for the full

board to be able to weigh in on. And I know that, uh, it was stated to me that the current practice says that no student currently transported will not be affected, which means that we will maintain the same level of service.

believe that a lot of this issue is rising to a head because MSBA back in the '9s stipulated that we build all these schools. If MSBA stipulated that way back then and now here we are today in 2025 uh with such a broad district and if you look at Fall River on the map, it looks like a it looks like a very slim triangle. really the north south points are quite far away from each other. The

east west points are not that far away from each other and so it's created a certain issue in our transportation costs and our transportation costs year to year to year continually rise. It's consistent and a way to rein that in and I do believe that what Mr. Das said before is is is is a good idea. I think we need to engage in conversation with the state delegation uh in accordance to some of the concerns

raised by the city council as well so that we can just try to have some type of conferencing or some type of new modern direction over the cost of school transportation because I don't believe we're the only city affected by it. I think cities throughout the Commonwealth are affected by the rising costs of transportation. So, we absolutely need to move in this direction to have a broader discussion with those at the

state delegation to see what we can do for the to pressure the MSBA because that's where I think it sits. We need to pressure the MSBA to kick in and to help us out with our costs because they're very, very high. And there's no way that we want to take away or strip any services from students in any way, shape, or form. But I know that in this policy regarding policy

122, 128, excuse me, uh that the current practice states that no student currently transported will not be affected by this policy. they will all still continue to ride the bus to school as they are now. Now, I know that there's some grandfathering in in some modifications. My statements right now pointed at the MSBA want to address what does the future look like as we grandfather students in and will more

students be hurt by this or helped by this? What will the MSBA tell us? Thank you. Do I yield?

Yeah. I I got to say something. I haven't talked.

Um I have had extensive conversations with our um state delegation. And one of the first things they always ask me is Fall River, you know, I keep telling them we're getting killed with the um transportation budget and they say, "Well, Fall River uh trans transports more kids than they have to." And I keep telling them, "You can't have I remember when they gave me that fansa design.

they were going to have kids walking from Dery Street to Fza and I just remember that I thought that's absolutely nuts. That's halfway across the city. Um I believe relief was on the way. I was talking last week with Adam Chapterlane about it again. I I'm hearing that at the state house it's kind of risen to the top school transportation. And I want people to know that the problem we're having is

because the kids in Fall River only, not the out of town kids in Westport, Somerset, the kids in Fall River that are selected to go to Diamond have 95% of their transportation picked up this year. The kids in Dery that enroll in our school get zero. I think the state is starting to focus on it with a laser beam. I'm really not opposed if we withdraw this. Um I I really don't know

how I got characterized as fighting over $750,000. It really never came up that way. Um we can wait. I do believe there's some relief coming in the budget right now. But let's uh I'm not panicking about this. It's, you know, it's obviously a lot of hard work these guys are doing to get as many kids to school. I am. The most upsetting thing I heard tonight was that the kids with transporting are coming to school no

better than the kids that are walking.

That bothers me a little bit and we got to find out what that's about. But I'm not worried about that. We can take a vote on the leave to withdraw as far as I'm concerned and go to the next one. Is that okay? Yeah. One comment. Go ahead, Mr. I would agree with the mayor on the uh Dery issue. I think we have to look long and hard. I've driven behind the

cert buses. It's just an equity thing.

It's not fair. It's not right. Uh sometimes those buses are packed.

They're unsafe. I don't believe that we should be doing We need to do look into transporting some of the children at Dery as well with buses. And it shouldn't be that if you go to Diamond, you get the yellow bus to go pick you up and then you have to pack yourself into a cert bus. I just think we need to look at the whole picture. So, I'm in favor

of studying it a little more. But the only question is if this passed, I think we would need to look at the bottom where it says students who qualified. I think you'd have to put families in there so that we if we would capture, you know, younger non school age children get at least to withdraw. I guess it's But if it if that fails, I think we should address the families.

All right.

Let's hold on. Withdraw it. Yeah, we we So Mr. A made the motion. No, Mr. Das did. Mr. A second. Mr. Das made So we're going to sit on this a little while, but if I have to talk to Kenny, I will. Is it seconded? Yes. By Mr. Paga. Okay.

What do we believe? Leave to withdraw.

Go ahead, Mr. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr.

Das. Yes. Mr. Cory. Yes. Miss Laravey.

Yes. Miss uh Miss Pereira. Yes. Mayor Cooper. Yes. Uh 129 is a discussion and vote to approve the proposed fiscal year 26 annual operating budget for the forost schools as presented by Dr. Tracy Curley.

So, we are recommending a vote to approve the proposed fiscal year 2026 annual budget of the fallover public schools totaling 198,837,210. This budget represents the operating budget for the fallover public schools and does not include transportation. Motion to approve.

Second with a comment motion. We have the motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second with a com. I have a second. Mr. Das, thank you. um wish to per our last conversations I'm going to bring these back up and potentially make amendments. Um first is on the SRO program and I did go through the indirect costs and the summary in my opinion doesn't really match the language. So in the summary, the school

resource officers are paid through the school operating budget. However, I just my opinion, my my my legal ease is that this should be something that's paid for through the city. And I I'm also curious as to whether that would cover potential overtime. Um, the SRO's recently received, and I'm not questioning the validity of it or questioning whether it was um, deserved or not, but they just

received a reclassification for detectives that would give them a 5% I believe a 5% increase in their pay, which is something I don't even believe is covered within our budget, unless um, you tell me otherwise. And I believe that's something that should just be that's something that took place through a collective bargaining agreement between the city and the police department that had absolutely no

representation from the for public schools. We should have a say in where our dollars go. I like to hear from your your opinion on that, Mr. Almita. I right now I have $800,000 budgeted for SRO's for next year. Uh this year they're going to sp the with everything looking moving forward it's going to spend we're going to spend about 785,000 for this year. So it will be very tight within the 800,000 for next

year. Okay. Um and you're familiar with this indirect cost agreement? Yes. Okay.

And this is from FY207. And I don't know who would be able to chime in on this. However, this dispute resolution I'm I believe as one member the city should be paying for this and just reading the language in regards to the dispute resolution.

Should disagreement exist between the city and school officials on any provision within this agreement, the dispute shall be presented to the superintendent of schools and the city administrator to determine the appropriate allocation meth methodology. Should the city superintendent and city administrator not reach agreement, they shall so notify and seek the assistance of the department of education and department

of revenue in accordance with Commonwealth of Massachusetts regulations? Mayor, I'm not um I'm genuinely curious um who would if we if the school committee voted to dispute language in here, who on the city side is the acting city administrator? I'm not trying to trying to catch you off guard. I don't have one right now. I'd probably have to do it myself. Okay.

Um, I would like to make a motion we instruct the superintendent to engage in deliberations with the city administrator pursuant to section 12 of the indirect cost agreement to potentially save money on the SRO program and and to move that program to the city.

Second. I have a motion to second.

Comment, Mr. AA. So, uh, I think it's it's a valid discussion to have, you know, relative to the SRO's. I think it's important that we have school resource officers. Uh, I've always advocated for that where I think we're not as um intentional with how how it's paid, where it's paid, and the overtime.

As I emailed earlier, you know, I believe several years ago, we were just told, we were thrown a bill and said when we had no money, oh, we got $23,000 in overtime prior to Dr. Clearly, we amended the contract and the agreement to say the superintendent has to approve all overtime. That's not happening right now. So, we got people come up to the podium last week and saying, "Oh, yes,

it is. I've asked six times already.

It's not happening." So, that part of the policy is not happening. But the piece of how much money we're paying needs to be addressed, Mr. Almea, because as Mr. Das just mentioned these are contractual obligations or whatever they gave you a number for the current the current year they must have given you a number where you came up with the I don't know what I have in front of me this

800,000 you know is that the number for the current year or is this the it's a placeholder for next year for next year so looking at that same theory in the current year you were given numbers from the police department at the start of the year since then there's been contractual increases which I would have hope was included but then there's also from what we're understanding is that they got

promoted to detectives which is another percentage but that affects how much money you have correct and nothing in here says that we're going to pay whatever they decide to just keep giving raises so that's where I think some scrutiny needs to happen from you and Dr. purely to say what that is. The overtime, I've asked for breakdown of the overtime along with the signed copies of or approvals. What is that

for? I don't know. But it's $100,000. It's not just a blank ticket to say we're paying for SRO's. They tell us what it is and we just pay the bill.

We have to push back a little bit. Uh I think the piece of this motion is the mayor and the city are only paying 100% of that school spending. And whether we pay it or they pay it, I you know, I think if the city had to pay it, they're going to use that as part of net school spending. Correct. And they're rightfully so to do that, it's basically a wash if we really scrutinize the

numbers to make sure that we're not just paying outside of the agreement. U so I I don't think we necessarily need to go down the road of pushing this in, but the gentleman's point is well taken.

He's reading from a report from 2017.

The agreement between us and the city is 2017. Three superintendents ago, I've been asking at this meeting to have meetings to say, please review the end of the year. Correct. Yeah. No, we haven't said it. It's about time we read and go over the indirect cost agreement to make sure things are uh being done appropriately, fairly, and the like. So, I'm going to withdraw my second on this,

but please consider Dr. Curley having that indirect cost agreement discussion once and for all. Thank you. I yield. So where where? Oh, so there's no second to this motion to withdraw the money. My motion. I'm sorry.

Oh, now you withdrawing. Okay, next thing. Mr. D, go ahead. Give it a ride, buddy. Thank you. Doing a hell of a job.

Appreciate it. Um, so Michael Joyce, this um taking in some of the comments um from my colleagues at the last meeting. I'm just going to make a motion that this administration pursue a retainer contract for Michael Joyce and his and his law firm and report back on the findings. We're spending $200,000 mostly just to one individual.

We should have a contract in writing as Mr. Aguar pointed before what's the direct expenses per attorney and potentially put them on a retainer. I think um that would help alleviate the cost and not um disrupt any of the services.

Second question. Here we go. Go ahead, Kevin. So, one of the Mr. general comments to to uh the budget is I think it's premature to pass the budget tonight and the reason is Mr. D just asked a question related to a contract.

Since we had our budget hearing, we as school committee, the public, teachers, staff have asked questions relative to whatever the discussion was at our budget hearing. I don't believe that we've sufficiently received information back that we've requested or recommended changes to the actual budget from the administration. So, I think it's premature to do this now and ask these questions before we get the information

to this point he just made about Michael Joyce. I asked at the last meeting for information relative to whether we're paying Michael Joyce the same fee as we're paying a new attorney that comes in as an example. Wasn't a major thing.

You could have found that out in 10-minute conversation. This committee never received any information at all related to that particular item. So therefore, it's still an issue. I have a whole slew of other issues that I have that I would want to ask questions for.

But I think it's prudent to have this table till the next meeting and have the superintendent issue any kind of uh moves that staff wanted to make, she wanted to make relative to questions we had or things that the principles had.

We had principles sit up here that didn't even know whether what they got was approved or not approved. They might have made a different decision in the budget. So before we approve all these line items, I think we should take a pause, table this till the next meeting so we're not sitting here asking the similar questions. The number is the number. We're not getting any different.

So there's no change in the number. I don't think it it does anybody any um problem to table this to the next meeting where we can get some answers to the questions any changes that are going to be made. So when we approve it, we're approving it with all those changes in it. Motion table um 12, 9, 10, and 11.

Huh? There is a motion already. It was I believe a motion at the table would take precedent. There's already a motion.

Somebody wants to take the session. We have Yeah, I second. Okay, hold on. Hold on. What's the first motion you? There was a mo first motion was vote to approve. Seconded. So, we have a motion to approve. Shel Shel made the motion and Mr. D seconded that. Okay. And Mr. D seconded the motion. Okay. Mr. Das made a recent motion to u put Michael Joyce on a retainer and Mr. Aar seconded that one.

table. A motion on table. Yes, motion table. Okay, so let's vote on the motion to table. I mean, I don't think we should be tableabling this. We've already done parliamentary inquiry. I believe a motion to table we can have discussion.

Okay. Go ahead, Deb. Call the roll.

I'm sorry. Did you second? Kevin seconded it. That's the Mr. A. Yes. Mr. Bailey.

Yeah. Go ahead. Mr. Das, yes. Mr. Cory, no. Miss Laravey, no. Miss Pereira, no.

Mary Pugan. No. Mr. Chairman, motion.

Now, let's go to the motion to approve De Mr.

I'm not sure what the We approving a budget. I think we can ask questions. I know, but No, I just understand. I just was wondering why you have to say about it. I just so the qu can someone please answer the question Mr. Das asked about Michael Joyce in the contract what's in the budget is the contract in the budget do we have any of the information that was requested we we have the ability to we

we definitely have $200,000 in the budget to pay for next year if it so requires and the amount may be less. It all depends on the cases and and items that come up on a yearly basis. Well, how about the breakdown that was requested?

The breakdown was how many uh for you know roughly for special education, how many were paid to him directly to other lawyer? You know, there's in so denying that this question was asked right at the budget hearing when the uh yes the question the question was asked. I I haven't had a chance to get it to you.

The No, I understand. I'm just trying to make a point because let's let's be let's be clear.

We've had an internet issue. We've had a technology issue for the last month and I I we have not been able I have not not had full access to the system as I normally do. So there are things that I have not been able to get to in the past. I totally understand. I made a motion to table. So you'd have now that the internet's up another month to deal

with it and it's not going to change the number. But everybody wants to just rush this through. So if we're going to rush it through, I have a legitimate question. What is the situation?

I don't have that on me. Dr. Curly, do you have what is the situation with we have a line item that says we're going to pay Michael Joyce only. There's been suggestions to say, well, how is that what what is the current amount? Is it how much is being paid? How much is not to him? Various things because we heard somebody came up to the podium the other day and said we have uh multiple

attorneys that come up right that it's what is the contract that we have with a person making that much money for how much each individual gets. What does the contract say?

I have not seen a contract with Michael Joyce or like with that law firm. Right.

And you've said that before and we've said we need a contract. But now we're sp we're going to pass a budget that's approving a major expense to an attorney without a contract. That doesn't make any sense. Is is I don't have the budget book in front of me. Is that law firm named in our budget? No. No. it is for legal expenses and not for a particular contract. So I think this offers this if

we understand how much we've been paying for our legal expenses, I think we responsibly budget for that and then we can pursue a contract um with Michael Joyce and or other firms. Um we can make the request that we put him on retainer and and move forward from there. But I don't think that we have to hold up the budget because we don't have a copy of a contract that actually isn't itemized in

the budget. So when we are going to take a vote, usually you need information to do that. One of those times is to ask questions at the budget presentation. I understand. When we ask those questions was to try to determine whether that number is sufficient or appropriate. If that number is we're paying every attorney the top rate that he was getting three $400 an hour, it would it

would tell us that we should be able to lower it. But if we ask for the information and then we don't get the information, which I understand Mr.

Elme's point about the internet, but now we're passing an actual budget where these things are going to get solidified. All I'm suggesting is that we instead of doing that, we can take a month, get some questions answered, get some requests that we've asked for submitted rather than have to go through this budget and do our due diligence as school committee members to ask these questions. I I understand that. I just

think that there are this is one line item. There are other places in the budget where based on past experience, we identify and we put a placeholder in for how much money we think that particular service or something is going to cost. Um whether it shows up in some places as just contracted services and things like that and we base that on experience. We not everything in the contract, not everything in the budget

is based on a particular contract with an individual or an organization or company or whatever it is. We It's the same thing that we do with um say staffing agencies. We don't name the staffing agencies. We know based on our past experiences how much money we might need to put aside for them, but they're but they're not attached to a person or a contract. And we're not holding it. I guess my

confusion is holding up our budget because we don't we haven't seen Michael Joyce's contract versus we're not holding it up for other contracted services. We're not holding it up for curriculum materials and things like that um or or professional development even though we're still we're just we built it based on past practice and some of the costs that we know are actual costs and that we have contracted but

some of it is just it's out there as I I don't I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying on Michael Joyce's contract. What I'm just making a point is we've asked for information on many line items not just this. I understand even the principles if they were being honest. I think the principles were honest. I do think they were honest. But I said now if they were being honest again I think they might want to change

some of what they presented to us based on the PowerPoint presentations that I was reading. I don't know because I don't get a chance to talk to them. But that was by the choice of this committee to not have people do presentations. No, I'm talking about the presentation that was here. Okay. So I read them. I read all the presentations. Mhm. What I'm trying to say is that this is there's

more questions than just Michael Joyce in the why the reason why I think we should move it. But the committee is going to vote and if people on the committee don't want to scrutinize the budget and line items, that's up to them. But part of what my job is is to ask these questions. So I'll move on to the next question. Can you tell me in the budget how many leads? Mr. Mishan

mentioned this earlier today. How many leads and what are the leads? And I asked for this information over the weekend or whatever in preparation for this. How many leads do we actually have in the school system in total? Yeah. Uh we have uh 72 educational leads.

Um we have three uh leads in facilities and then we have our senior custodians as well.

And no other leads in the whole department? No.

Do you concur with that, Dr. Tilly? No, I bet. Yeah. So, uh, we've said in the past that we were going to reduce the leads based on the budget, and I want to make a motion that we reduce all leads in the budget, which is what we all agreed to in the past. So, the motion is to reduce all leads from the budget.

Do I hear a second?

Second comment.

Mh. You still have the floor? Sure. So, the reason why I'm saying that is we voted everyone agreed to cut the educational leads as Mr. Mishan just mentioned. So, we're going to cut the leads in the school department that are related to education and uh the education of the students, but we're going to leave other leads to supervise two or three people to organize some work or whatever it is. It just doesn't

make sense at all in any way, shape, or form to do that. That we're going to cut all the instructional leads, but we're going to leave other leads in the department. Just doesn't make any sense.

We said this before. We were all in, I believe, agreement on it. Now everybody's starting to question. This motion is to remove all leads based on the budget uh from this this particular budget.

Are you done? Yes, I yield. Uh Mr. Cory.

Um, madame superintendent, are you comfortable with that request in the way that you've structured, you know, our instructional setup for this for the uh entire system?

So, I think that the the motion goes beyond the instructional pieces um and still within FREA includes um lead service providers and things like that. Um, I I'll say I'm not we hadn't um I know about what what the discussions look like. I know that the vote the the vote that was taken, the discussion that was had was specific to instructional leads. I would need a little bit more time to think about what

that looks like um in terms of those other lead positions, lead service providers um and leads in other departments as well. So, I realize that this request was was brought up in the past, but at this juncture, you're still not comfortable with settling on that idea yet. Is that correct? Um, no. No, I don't think No, I'm not. Not today. Um, Mr. Almea, as far as the budget is concerned, you've been able to meet your

end of the year reports dutifully each year. Is that so? Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, it's and Before I before I close my argument on the the lead's position because it morphed into that, I want to go back to Attorney Joyce. Uh in the last meeting we had last month um in the special meeting we had uh I remember that Miss Obenchain, who is an expert in special ed law, came up to the podium to

explain just how powerful and potent uh Mr. Joyce has been for our school department over many years and and that his judgments have even though he's an expensive lawyer, his judgments have saved us and saved our backs on so many cases in the past and there was one case I was intimately involved in uh on behalf and I was very impressed in in the manner that his law firm handled our

legal issue at that point. So, I don't understand why Mr. Joyce's name is being brought up here to scrutinize the budget in in educational leads right now. Our superintendent, who's an instructional leader, is uncomfortable with that request right now. So, I'm going to trust my superintendent and my special ed director and I'm gonna say that I approve of whatever it is Mr. Joyce is in our line item in the budget. I'm

going to approve that and I'm gonna approve what Madame Superintendent says about our instructional leads at this juncture. If that's a case for scrutiny moving forward in the future, I say we have high level discussions before we just give a an umbrella vote on leads right here in front of the public. With that, I yield. Mr. Bailey. Um, all right. So, a few things. If we all voted um to get rid of the leads, I think

that's something we should really take a um strong look at. Um if the superintendent is not comfortable with it and she's saying she needs more time, I also think we should offer her more time um to look at these things. Yes, she is a professional, but if we made a decision, I think we really need to take a look at that as well and see what it looks like. And yes, she is a

professional at what she does. Um, so I I would like to offer her some more time and maybe put this on the next agenda, next month's agenda for some discussion that we can um, you know, talk about this a little bit further. Um, because I don't think she agreed to to keep them on or not, but I did feel like there was a little bit confusion on her side on on

whether she should look at it. So motion table.

I'll second that. But let's get a motion on the table. I don't know what wait.

What are we tableing? I I withdraw my motion. I withdraw my motion. Mr.

Chairman, what? Mr. Aguia. Yeah, just to clarify on the lead. So, this isn't a controversial piece between superintendent and I. I want to be make sure that's very clear to everyone. So, we as a body have already determined that we are cutting the instructional leads. We've already determined that as a body unanimous teacher leaders over the next teacher leaders over the next two years because it said they were in

there and there was some language. We already decided to cut all of them. Mr.

Mishan's comment was I don't think anybody told them or whatever but they don't necessarily need to but that's a different story. But I want the committee to understand that we have already decided to cut instructional leads out of the budget given in two years. Half of them already gone. The rest are going to go next time at the same time as in this budget that we're approving. For instance, I think you

said we had where where were the other leads 72?

No, no. Where where else besides we already those 72 are correct? We have leads based on we have leads and facilities as well. We have leads and facilities as well. How many? We have three uh three leads in facilities and we have our seniors too. So we have three leads in this in the maintenance department. We are cutting and we already voted to cut all the instructional leads, but we're not going

to cut the three leads in the maintenance department. And that's not consistent. That's the point I'm making here. And this is a budgetary issue.

That's why I'm saying the superintendent mentioned lead service providers, which is sort of a different category in my mind. So I think we need to clarify for her so that it makes sense to what is the will of the committee when we decided to cut instructional leads wasn't to leave only target the FREA and instruction because that would not make any sense whatsoever. So what I'm

suggesting is we cut the other leads not the lead service providers which is a bigger position. This is a a small stipen that basically is just given to people to lead in a small way. So I if it's are you saying it's only maintenance? So does it include the does it include senior custodians in their buildings who No, that's part of the contract. One other person. No, the senior custodians is a different that's

not a lead. This is a lead like you're going to if I'm an electrician and there's three people working under me.

I'm the lead. I do a little stuff, you know, but we have layers of administration over them that also do that. So, why are we going to say we can have an electrician, and I don't even know what the amount is, make five or $6,000 more to lead two other people and get their work orders out, but meanwhile, we're cutting 72 instructional leads when instruction should be the main focus of the

district. In our infinite wisdom, we all said, "Let's cut the 72 leads because we don't have the money to do all of these things." All I'm saying is we need to cut the other ones. I think it makes sense. So, I'll make the motion that we cut the three leads. And is there any others other than that? No. The three leads in maintenance. So that's much more clear what exactly that we're

cutting. Second, Mr. Larry. Yeah. Just quickly, so I I think when we discuss I agree. We cut the 72. We were all in agreement, but I I think we're speaking apples and oranges right now. We're talking instructional positions and we're talking maintenance positions. Um, I I think if the superintendent um didn't bring forth, hey, we're going to cut all leads, there was probably a reason. So, I guess my ask is, is there

a reason why we didn't include all leads? I don't know if Mr. Pico wants to come up and and discuss anything, but is there a reason why we didn't make them um pull them in all together? all leads alto together facilities operations maintenance whatever it may be is there reason superintendent and she's asking anybody did we not why didn't we bundle them all why didn't we bundle the it came up

during you know our discussions around um it came up in discussions specific to FREA negotiations I mean that's that's how it came up and then Um I don't know how much I'm supposed to say about executive session. So that's where the vote was that that um the vote we there was a vote to um cut instructional leads with the provision that it would happen over two years.

Okay, Mr. Chim, can I just ask the superintendent what is your in what we just presented? So we voted to cut the 72 leads. Everyone knows it. In fact, everybody including you and your administration said it.

Yeah. What is your feeling on keeping consistent so that we don't just cut and target the instructional people are cut that we cut the three maintenance individuals? So I think I think that I and members of my team came forward um in those discussions and we were able to discuss that because there are like multiple people on our um team who have you know kind of firsthand knowledge who

have experience um working you know with the leads through the leads and felt very comfortable talking about like how we would um what we would do to support teachers in schools outside of those um stipended instructional lead positions using coaching, using the department chairs, etc., etc., and felt like that was a way to um so that we wouldn't be in a position to, you know, make um cuts of

full full-time positions. That was a way that we could offer something to all of the, you know, unit A people, you know, in terms of negotiated cola and stuff like that.

We didn't we didn't have there wasn't a discussion about what that would look like on um you know that and it that was specific to unit A when we were having that discussion it afterwards came up and there have been some questions you know in the last few weeks like hey does that mean does that mean related service providers we've talked about the fact that you know should it be um in you

know some of the facilities departments but it wasn't a We didn't have a discussion like we are right now that says like hey we have all of these leads across the district district and we said yeah let's just cut the instructional ones. We just we we didn't have we haven't had a deep look a deep discussion. I will be honest in saying I'm not I don't know what the the backup

plan is. We knew what the backup plan was in terms of those instructional leads. I don't know what the backup plan would be in terms of if we cut you know three maintenance leads then who else would do the thing that they do? I'm not sure. So that's right. So we're having that discussion now. That's why I Yeah.

So if someone wants to uh at the end of the day we just have to make a value judgment and but it's not a value judgment because like I'll say this like I've had the conversation about the related service providers. I've met with the lead related service providers. I've met with uh Miss Obenchain. We've talked about what that would look like, could look like. So, we have a better handle

on that. We haven't had the discussion about who does what if we don't have leads and maintenance. So, that's that that feels very different, right? But so, but it's not a value thing. It's not like No, when I'm saying value means I'm just using a comparison. I guess maybe value is okay. Not a good word. If we as administration, you included, all voted to remove the in instructional leads at

the same time the discussion was had in executive session that says all lead, we're going to be consistent. If we're going to do this to you know the instructional leads, we have to do it with all. Now, we didn't take a vote or anything like that. The time to take that vote is now based on the budget.

So, in my opinion, I'm just asking if you're are you comfortable with saying we cut 72 instructional leads, but we're going to leave three maintenance leads.

If that's what you're saying, I would I would appreciate a similar discussion as we had around the leads because we did we did discuss what that would look like and how what does it look like in a school if we don't have the leads and who would do what. I don't remember having that same conversation about the other leads. I I do remember a are we really going to cut the instructional

leads and leave the other leads? I think we should cut them all. I just didn't remember like the conversation. So that's I understand. I'm just trying to say that because it's the time now in the budget at the end of the day you can get to the late lead job descriptions.

You can see what it is. I can send you plenty of information from the prior superintendent when these were created relative to what they actually do and how they've selected and all this other stuff. But at the end of the day, I just feel like we should be consistent. We cut the instructional leads. We shouldn't leave any equivalent type of leads in the district whether it's maintenance or any other department. I

yield. I I I I have to say something.

Kenny, are these guys are these are these leads in the contract? They are.

They are in the contract. Okay. So, I I mean I my two cents worth just plain and simple. The conversations we're having here, we had behind closed doors. So, I'm not sure where I'm going to stop, right?

So somebody stop me if I go too deep into something because this is behind the closed doors items. These were all talked about behind closed doors and I mentioned behind closed doors that if you're going to cut then cut it all. Cut the seniors. Cut everybody. If we're not going to have any layers between the director If you're not going to have any layers between a director and your rank and file, then

you're not going to have any. But you shouldn't be targeting one group over another cuz that's all this is. Okay?

Plain and simple. That's my two cents.

All right. So, we have a vote to eliminate uh those three. We have a motion, a second on the elimination of those three. I made the motion. I don't know who second. Mr. Mr. Das. Yeah. Uh I like I said, I'm not I'm not supporting that. We have contractual obligations.

We're going to fulfill them. Mr. um I'm sorry, Mr. M. Miss M. Cabal, please call the role. Mr. Drag, yes. Mr. Bailey, no.

Mr. Das, yes. Mr. Corey, no. Miss Larvey, no. Miss Pereira, no. Mary Cougan, no. No. Mr.

Chair, help. Mr. Das, are you um can we still have discussion on the overall budget? I still had more questions.

the comments.

Okay. Usually if this was a city c if this was a city council meeting, the council president would allow any individual ask all the questions they want. That's why we had the budget hearings, but that's okay. Go again. We had we had all those budget hearings and that's when you're supposed to ask them.

But now when Oh, I asked plenty. I have plenty. I know, but we're at final approval now and you're going to bring up everything under the sun. That's why I told you. I I I didn't Are we Are we on a time constraint? Is there a time constraint? I'm leaving at 10. I don't know how long you're going to stay tonight. So, okay, let's go. Thank you.

So, so everybody knows that. Just so everybody knows, if I may speak uninterrupted, if you don't mind. So, next item I wish to bring up is the MASC. This organization, in my opinion, does not support the authority of the school committee as it relates to oversight. Their suggested policies offer, in my opinion, misguidance. I think it's just a waste of money in a budget just to even be a part of them.

we can make our own policies. So, I make a motion we withdraw from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. Mr. Hold on. Do we do we have a second on that? Second. Okay. I have a motion in a second, Mr. Corey.

Mr. Chairman, even even to entertain a motion like that is just it's it's just I don't know. It just came from left field. Yeah. No, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mr.

H. Yeah. Yeah. The reason why I second it is I do think we need to take a hard look at some of the things that we're paying money for. Even if it's, you know, 10,000 here, 15,000 there. It is very important to look at each of those line items. I was disappointed in AMSC how they represented us or tried to represent us. I don't think they were transparent with the processes that we

hired them for. Uh definitely something that we need to look at. I've said the same thing about board docs, which is also an MASC funded uh system that we spent $15,000 for. That is not suitable for what we need. We could be doing that for zero. So, I do think that we need to look at all of these particular items.

I'm going to withdraw my second from this, but we do need to actually look at these things as a body to determine where we're going to go. So when the contracts come up as you've promised or told us a month or two before they're going to get presented to us. So before we just pay a bill I've asked before just come before us so we can have a discussion at the proper time when the

contracts are up. Thank you. I withdraw my motion. My second Mr. Das second.

Thank you. Mr. Corey had his hand up first so he had it up before me. If you want to recognize him first, Mr. Mayor, I want to be polite. I don't really care. Mr. Corey. Yeah. So Mr. Chairman, uh why don't we just uh throw out the regulations and and let them rewrite it.

I yield. Okay. All right. Mr. Chair, thank you. Just two more items I wanted to bring up. Um first, what I have one idea when it comes to facilities that we could potentially rate in spending and I think I mentioned this at an earlier meeting, we do spend a lot on outsourcing vehicles for repair. Why don't we just do it in house? How much money how how much money have we saved

in the past when we had an in-house garage to um to now when we outsource the vehicles. Do we have an estimate?

I couldn't tell you. Mr. D, just an idea. Um last thing I want to mention and the last time I brought this up, I believe um everyone thought I was making a joke when I mentioned it.

However, I believe as a school committee, we should be leading by example. When we go into our closed door meetings, we have these a package these big sandwiches, gourmet sandwiches, and half of them go to waste. And we should not be spending money on those items.

Okay. I told if if I could continue, I believe a colleague of mine asked for this to be can can be asked for this to be on the agenda for a future meeting.

So, I like to make a motion we cut the sandwiches out of the budget.

Do I have a second on that? The the gourmet sandwich removal for 40 bucks amendment. Do we have a motion? A second. I'm sorry. Do we have a second comment? What are we doing? I know. I know. It's 9:00.

Okay. 9:00. Just a comment, Mr. We're talking about the sandwich. Just a comment, Mr. Chair. I don't believe that's even a budget line item. So, whoever orders them internally, we can just say we're not doing Let's spend another half hour on that.

Are you done that? You said two items.

You're done. No. Yeah, I guess there's no second. However, it is it is a an item line item in the budget. I believe it's under um correct me if I'm wrong.

It's under school committees. It's under school committees. There is a line item in the budget for the sandwiches. Again, we need to be leading by example as a committee. If we're going to be cutting things, we should be leading by example as well. We should not be spending money on silly sandwiches. We should bring our own lunches. Just my opinion is more members. Stop. Stop. Stop. That's

enough. I can't get it. Okay, we're done. We're done. We have a motion in a second on approving the budget. Do we have anything else? Mr. Aguia, I have one question. Mr. uh I think you mentioned this before that there is no dollars in the current budget for prepaid tuitions or anything like that.

No. And in this budget is that every line item that everything the contractual everything is all included in this document here. To my to my knowledge. Yes. We know without any prepaid tuitions or anything like that.

Yes. Thank you. I yield. Deb, call the role, please, on um voting to approve the budget. Yes. Mr. A. No. Mr. Bailey.

Yes. Mr. Das. Object.

No. No. No. No.

Just said no. Yes. Miss Laravey. Yes.

Miss Pereira. Yes. Mayor Kogan. Yes.

Item number I think it's 1210. Mr. Chairman.

Yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve the proposed transportation line item with the addition of $750,000.

Second.

750,000. Yep.

That's based on that's based on I thought we were going to wait on that and Well, I think we see what we got for money. The problem is is that under the current situation, we don't we'd be o over budget by 750,000 basically. So I think at this point we should make that motion if between now and whenever that transportation um system can absorb y the savings. I I just think truth and

advertising we need to add I'll give you truth and advert I don't want to go over 100% again this year though Mr. Mr.

Almeter on that. Okay like we did a couple years ago. We'll go back and talk to you about, but I'm not going to if we can pull this out where I think where I think we might get it. Okay. Say that again. I don't want to go over 100%.

Okay. I understand. Go ahead. Call the role. No, hold on. I'm still asking the question. Oh, okay. What the heck is he talking about? I just don't want to get Mr. Almea, please. I think we have money coming from another source is what I'm saying. No, I get it. I understand. I was waiting for that, but that's okay.

The thing is we can't and I believe you would agree, Mr. Almea. If the current projected amount based on the situation that we have for transportation is $750,000 less than the number that's here, we should approve $750,000 more.

Otherwise, we're approving a deficit budget for what we know at the moment.

Yes. Right. Go ahead. So, what we know at the moment, what is this thing about 100 not going over 100%. I don't know what that means. I want to stay.

Transportation has nothing to do with 100% in school spending. Correct. Mr.

Almea. Correct. I know it doesn't ma that is correct. So the city expense. So when the mayor's telling you something about 100%. Is there some sort of sign a side deal or something he's talking about? That's what it is. What is it?

Can we let our do you understand what I'm asking? I do. And does what he said about 100% of transportation make any sense at all? No. No. We need the 700 with what we know right now. Call the call the role. Mr. A. Yes.

was please to approve the transportation budget with 700 with an addition putting the extra 750 in transportation.

Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Dice, yes. Mr.

Corey, yes. Miss Laravey, yes. Miss Pereira, yes. Mayor Coogan, yes. 1211.

Vote to refer the fiscal year annual budget of the for public schools to the mayor for approval. Motion. Second. I have a motion to second. Any discussion on that one? Deb, give it a call. Mia, no. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Das, no. Mr.

Cory, yes. Miss Laravey, yes. Miss Pereira, yes. Mayor Cougan, yes. Might as well stay at 1212 at discussion and vote to approve the request for usage of the Morton Middle School for the South Coast Rail as presented by Ken Pico. So moved. Second with the questions.

Go ahead. Thank you. So I I'm not sure if you saw my email, Mr. Pico.

However, I'm not I don't have the I know we discussed this policy at a previous meeting. I don't have it in front of me today. However, we are approving the request for South Coast Rail to come to Morton Middle School, which I fully support. Plenty of issues with the MBTA that need to be discussed by the community. Fully support doing that.

However, they already have, if we're voting to approve it, how would the MBTA already have the date out for they asked for a date and again, this is the closest meeting since they've asked. So, this is the only meeting that I had an option to do it in. So, they they never received approval. So, they're okay. So, they're putting out a date. They never received approval for they MBTA

shouldn't be doing that. They should be waiting till we get approval of this committee. But, thank If if the vote is no, then I'll give them that answer tomorrow morning. Sure. No, I'll be voting yes. That's very important.

However, I already I don't understand what's funny. So, MBTA put out trying to get people to go. You've been talking all night about getting more people to go. They wanted to start it earlier. If it's no, they cancel. No big deal. You're voting yes. How you Mr.

Chairman, Mr. Aaron? Mr. I I'm in favor of this for sure, but the I think there's a second page that talks about indemnity or whatever. Does this what aligns with our policy? Because there was an issue before about the policy. Is just a letter enough to suffice from agencies such as ourself?

That's all we give. So when someone asks us for that letter, that's what we give them, a letter. We're self-insured. So the government is the same way. It's what we got from the congressman. It's the exact same letter that we would get from the state for anything they would do for us. I don't I don't disagree. I just think that we should look at the policy the way it's worded. I think it

makes it look like it's a policy, you know, like they're going to get one from outside. Sure. Which is sort of going to prohibit us from having those things, but it's the policy doesn't say this is what I'm saying. We do have agencies that use our buildings that don't have policies. Agree. I'm just saying I think we should clarify. I'm in favor. Thank you. Mr. Corey, I just have a comment. I

I just want to I want I think it's great that we could show partnership with the MBTA on this, especially for for Miss Fox who's a director for public engagement to know that they just moved into Fall River and they have a a partner in the Fall River public schools. That to me is good enough. I yield. All right, let's call the role on that one, please. Mr. Aon, yes. Mr.

Bailey, yes. Mr. Das, yes. Mr. Corey, yep. Miss Laravey, yes. Miss Pereira, yes. Mayor Coug, yes. Okay. So, we have two that we didn't clean up on the front. 126 uh discussion and vote to refer the school committee policy.

Formal objection to the policy subcommittee is presented by Colin Das, school committeeman. Mr. Das. Yes. I um we didn't have full membership and um I gave my comments from the last meeting.

So, just to reiterate if um if I can just talk about the two together, that's no no objection to that. Um the objection policy is just codifying the city charter language which applies to the city council. Just basically codifying that language into a policy that could be equally appi applied for the school committee. What's good for the goose is good for the gander in my opinion. City council can have that

policy. So could we. So it also clarifies Robert's rules as well. Um the access the information policy I think something that we should all just get behind. I don't even think it's controversial whatsoever. And I think it's also some sort of um compromise policy to differing opinions. So the policy would give codify an individual member's right to request information.

We we've had disputes over information request being too voluous um can and or not necessary and it provides due process. that allows the superintendent to come before the committee with a request for information if the superintendent believe it's not within the purview of a school committee member. That's all the policy and it also codifies the superintendent's um wanting of a specific form to request information

on. I I don't see anything controversial with this whatsoever. So, um I don't know what my colleagues think about this. This was um on the agenda for the last meeting and it was in the board docs and it's also on this meeting as well. Um I'd like to make a motion that we refer to policy subcommittee the formal objection policy for further review. However, for 127 I'd like to in

the same motion I'd like to make a motion to approve through all readings.

Um on 12 let's go back to 126 Mr. Das.

Fine. I'll make a motion um to re um to refer it to policy subcommittee for discussion. Second.

Well, I'm not going to support it probably when it comes out of there, but I don't care if you want to send it back to policy subcommittee. Deb, you want to call the role? Mr. Dragam, yes. Mr.

Bailey, yes. Mr. Das, yes. Mr. Cory, yes. Miss Larry, yes. Mr. Perrero, no.

Mayor Kan, uh, no.

127 for vote to approve the col the school committee policy access to information. Motion to pass through all readings.

Do I have a second? Second. I have I have a motion to second Miss Laravey. So the first part of the school committee policy as access to information it reads investigations by the school committee.

So the school committee it reads school committee may make investigations into the affairs of school district and into the conduct and performance of school department its programs and other matters. The school committee may not discipline a per or any personnel not appointed by the school committee.

occur. So I don't know what Mr. Das means by the school committee may make investigations. We are we already have the authority to approve investigations as we all saw tonight that already falls under our purview. So I'm not sure what you mean by this Mr. Das if you could explain. Sure. I I think it's codifi just codifying that language what you just said it's an authority the school

committee already has and just putting it in into policy as you just said is something that's already there. I didn't think that part of it um would be but I I I understand your question but that that's my answer that that clarifies it's just to go to the school uh uh policy. No no he's trying to move it through so I can pass it. I think I have a question. Go ahead.

It has to do with the um the words. It says the school committee may make investigations into the affairs of the school district and into the conduct and pro. So it the way it's worded it makes it sound like we're doing the school committee will investigate and I don't understand what that would entail.

Request information. I think that's in itself an investig asking for information doesn't all if um if I still have the floor if there is some appetite to look into this further and some of the the language I'll withdraw my motion to approve it I'll make a motion to refer to policy subcommittee second want to send it over there yeah we'll send it back okay De call the role please Mr. yes Mr. Bailey yes Mr.

Mr. Das. Yes. Mr. Cory. No. Miss Laravey. No. Miss Pereira. No. Mayor Kan. No. You back. You back up, Colin.

Sorry.

Do you not is the All right. Next. No.

No. He's okay. Oh, seven. I like to um 127.

That was Do I still have the floor? Yeah, you still have the floor. Actually, on 127 got referred back to No, we both did not.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to request unanimous consent that this item be referred to policy subcommittee. I'm sorry. Doesn't it? No, they're not. You're not getting unanimous consent. Come on. No. And people just voted. No, they're not going to vote. Change it now.

Um, listen, I as one member, I just want to implore the committee to make it a motion to approve and we get your vote and go. Motion to move the question, please. Do I still have the floor? Yeah.

though the motion it's not recognized.

Okay. Um I I just want to hear to the superintendent. Is there anything wrong with having a process codified in policy so there's not the disputes on requesting information. You you got to forget it just not the individuals here.

We approve policy that is supposed to last for 5 to 10 years down the road. in my opinion as one member I think it's the prudent thing to do is having a policy on requesting information so it's not up in the air I I think the difficulty Mr.

is that so I asked a question about the first part investigations by the school committee. What would what would that look like for the um for the school committee to investigate? You said it would be you know like asking for information. Well, asking for information is covered by number two requests for information. So that signals to me that it's not just about the kinds of emails I already get asking

for information. You're looking for an you you're looking for the the the right or I don't know the permission to conduct your own investigations and I think it's not a function of the committee. That's why I asked the question, but when you clarified, you talked about number two.

Do I think that this committee needs do I need um some clarity on what my responsibilities are in terms of responding to requests for information?

When I think about the the number of requests, the fact that on any single day I could get five emails from a person and five requests for information in a spreadsheet. Yep. I I I don't understand. We're going to use it some days. We're not.

So in when I think about in the spirit of it, do we need something? Yes. I don't think this is it. Yeah. And and to the your point to the vice chair, I I clarify that I don't believe any individual school committee members should be making broad inquiries and however requesting information to make an informed decision on a question or if a policy or or if um a subcommittee has an item before them and they're

requesting more information to make a informed referral, I I fully support that right. I I fully support that right and that that was the intent behind it.

So when I saw when I and I understand the questions from the vice chair and yourself when I clarified that so I made the motion to refer it to policy subcommittee just so that language should be clarified and I believe there's some things in there that could be supported by everyone. Um but it got voted down. I guess I was just confused as to why it was voted down when um it

would just make things a lot easier for everyone. I'm not sure. No, I don't think so. All right. You all done? I I yield. So we have nothing on that one.

But Mr. I just have one. Mr. Chairman, can I make comment? Yeah. So um that's your interpretation, Mr. Das, but I don't interpret it the same way I yield.

Okay. All right. So what what are you doing with this? You making a vote to It's dead. Let's go to the next one. I think that's it. There's no next. Yeah. No, there is. For your information 13. Are we done with that?

Okay. 13. For your information, we have some retirements, resignations, appointments and regretfully, there's only one person that passed away. Can I uh get a motion, a second? So moved.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Chairman, may I make May I make a comment? Yeah, I have a motion to second. Go ahead. And then you, Mr.

Das next.

Am I up? Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to congratulate uh uh the recent retiree here listed uh as I used to he used to be a work colleague and he performed his duties with with real fidelity throughout the years. He he was a great gift to our school department and his services will be missed. I just wanted to say that. Thank you, Mr. Das. Yeah, just um I think we should get in the

habit of having a when we have the unfortunate deaths, we should get in the habit of having a one moment um of silence for those individuals. So, I just like to to do that now.

Thank you. And I um hope we can do that in the future. That's that's all I have.

New business.

Oh, I'm sorry. We need a roll call. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Mr. Das.

Yes. Mr. Cory. Yep. Mr. Larby. Yep.

Miss Per. Yes. Mayor Kougall. Yes. Any anything to come for us? New business.

Miss Per. So, I need to I need to have a discussion about this because I don't want to lose my gourmet sandwiches. Now, I'm going to preface that sometimes people here like to make a show or exaggerate or whatever. I don't know where the cameras are, but if you can zoom in, I want to make sure we get a good look at my gourmet sandwich. It is a wrap. I have the floor. It is a wrap

with wilted lettuce and Caesar dressing.

I'll be happy to pass it around. Now, I'm not complaining about the lettuce being wilted. It's been sitting there a while. I'm happy to eat it because unlike maybe other people, I work a job at 8:00 in the morning. When I'm running in here, I'm literally running. When I sit down and say I'm leaving at 10:00, it's because I've been having meetings 6:12. What I didn't vote for was an

$8,000 raise. I do watch your dollars.

Please, please, taxpayers, let me keep my gourmet sandwich. With that, I yield.

Are you doing that? Are you make Laravey? So, Mr. Mayor, I I think we've come to the part in this meeting where two weeks ago we had a school committee meeting and we left to go into executive session right about this time and we were here till about midnight.

sitting in that room in executive session, we are responsible for making some very important decisions in executive uh session. Decisions that could disrupt the district, could do something great for the district.

But hand in hand, they are decisions that directly impact the district. at midnight where most of us on this stage have been working since 7 am 8 am not going home coming here having a gourmet sandwich and and having to think and make decisions that directly impact the kids the staff in this district I am nervous about it again going into this at 9:30 9:15, 9:30. We have a very hefty hefty executive session tonight.

And this is why some of us are very, very upset. It's not cuz we want to get out of here. It's not cuz we want to go home. It's because we want to get through business like adults. We just tonight we have discussed things five times already and they still came to this this this committee tonight. We have to be better at taking care of business. We have to, mayor. So, with

that being said, I'm I would like to make a motion that we end this meeting tonight at 10:30 p.m. regardless of what we get through. And and that's it. That's it. I yield. Second.

I have a motion, a second on a 10:30 exit. Any further discussion? Deb, call the role. Mr. Mr. Aar. Yeah, just Bobby had something. Oh, Bobby has Bobby M. I didn't see Mr. A.

I'll defer to you, sir. So, a few things. Uh, for me, um, I agree with that. I mean, when we're going to work at 7 a.m. and we're being here and making decisions at 12:30 at night, um, I can tell you You know, half the time when we're going through things, you know, things could be either misinterpreted, and I'm speaking for myself.

Um, one thing I do agree with is we have to get better on this stage. Um, I mean, it's not just whether we're talking about things or not, it's how we're handling things. When I look out in a crowd and we're supposed to be leading a group of educators and you got people laughing in a crowd because of our behavior and I'm sitting here, I'm going to be quite honest.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed because we're supposed to be making decisions for the district and instead of making decisions for the district, we're up here taking shots at each other. And quite honestly, there's times I'm like, I don't want to be a part of that. And I start dreading these meetings because sometimes we're not getting anything done. And so we're taking five hours and we're just talking in circles.

So, and I know I'm one committee member, but we needed to get it together. I mean, realistically, we shouldn't have to sit in meetings till 12:30 at night because if we're getting stuff done and we're being progressive and we're talking about things and we're talking about business, I don't give a damn if we sit here till 2:30, 3:00 in the morning. When I ran for school committee, I ran because I believed in

the district. I believe in helping our kids. I believe in helping our educators. But there's sometimes I come to these meetings and I feel like only thing we do is clown around. I got a daughter at home. So, and I know some of you got kids, but this time I don't go to sleep and I got to go back into work.

So, it pisses me off the fact that we come up here and we play games and I got to be up at 2:30, 3:00, 4:00, 5 in the morning and then I got to go in and do my job that I get paid for and I'm jeopardizing paying for my household because we decide to sit up here and joke.

So that's just my opinion. So whether we get out here at 10:30, I don't give a damn what time we get out of here as long as we're getting work done. But I'm going to be completely honest. I'm not going to keep sitting up here wasting my time, wasting my wife time and wasting my daughter's time. Cuz if for me, the only thing I care about is my family first and I care about these kids and

people in this district. But I'm going to be honest, it is a embarrassment when we sit up there and principles and stuff are laughing at us because we're taking shots. That is not why I'm part of this committee. And I'm telling everyone on this stage now, if it continues, I'm going to resign.

I yield.

So, oh, who? Mr. Aya. Yeah, just uh I'd have to disagree with some of the comments. I mean, people do take shots.

Um and I think sometimes it's selective on who gets, you know, oh, we don't yell and this and that, but at the end of the day, we have a job to do and we have to ask questions. That's part of the job and that's part of the due diligence for the job. One thing that would improve and I think it'll improve if we get the information that we requested and granted it's a lot of information. I'm

not saying it's it's not but more of the background of looking into things. How much scrutiny we look at our finances to make sure that we're we're not having situations where we have egg on our face when we've either spent money on things we shouldn't have done. We have contracts that aren't followed. We have different situations that have so I think we can do a better job of that as

well. But in essence, we meet once per month here as a body and we have a lot of negotiations that have been taken for a long time and we the reason why we have so many is I I don't think we've scattered them out and planned accordingly. So I think we have to do a better job with our agenda setting, but I think I'm going to vote against this because there is business to be done and

it may not be done by 10:30 tonight, but I'm going to vote against it. I yield.

Okay. Shall we get the vote? Oh, Shel, you were next. I'm sorry, Shel. Okay, I'm going to be very brief. Um, I do have a problem with being at 2 in the morning at any point in time. What I don't have a problem with is scheduling more than one meeting. But what I am not going to do any longer, I'm already not running. What I will not do any longer is put the school

department or the city above my health.

And that's what it's come to. So, I appreciate the 10:30, but again, I'll be leaving at 10:00 and maybe we can schedule two meetings or organize them more effectively so we're not discussing things that we could have discussed during budget time or taken time to talk about sandwiches. So, I will leave at 10. With that, I yield. Mr. Das on the sandwich. I I spent about one minute

discussing that. I have the right to my minutes up. Um on the motion itself, we do and I again I do respect all the comments from my colleagues and there is a lot we can take in from it with this executive session today. We do have um a large executive session. I don't disagree with my colleague to my right.

I believe with the agendas that we receive um I don't think monthly meetings can cut it anymore. I think we should consider having bi-weekly meetings or special meetings to discuss more issues. If not, I I don't want to rush. The reason I'm voting no, I don't want to rush through very important items, items that have to do with the cyber attack in our district and very important matters with there to lit to um

negotiations to um approving minutes and looking at other matters. That's some things we should not and putting a 10:30 time limit would make us rush and and I I'd be worried we wouldn't be taking informed votes or would be voting to table more items at 10:30 to be rushed I mean to be discussed at a future meeting. I do understand the frustration of my colleagues. Um, however, I believe we

should vote no on this motion so we're not in a predicament to um go through these items at at with haste. All right, Mr.

Mr. Corey, I'll be brief. the uh the example of the sandwiches uh that my colleague raised, it's absolutely ridiculous, but it's it's part and parcel to the whole line of questions that come down across this school board that have elongated these meetings to ridiculous lengths. In my first turn of my meetings were never this long. All of a sudden, now they're this long with a litany of questions

that sometimes do not need to be asked.

So when they say we're asking the questions, so a lot of times those same questions do not need to be asked because they've already been answered.

This school board does its due diligence and it's led by a very strong team, a very strong locally based team that I honor and I just wonder if this is a matter of trust. I place my trust in the team that drives this school department because we have some very highly talented administrators. That's where I place my trust. And I can't help but think that the litany of questions is because of an

adversarial distrust toward the administration. With that, I yield.

Okay. Okay.

Okay. Um, roll call. Give it a call. Mr.

Aia, no. Mr. Bailey, no. Well, you don't have it anyway. Mr. Das, no. Mr. Corey, yes. Miss Laravey, yes. Miss Pereira, yes. Mayor Coogan, uh, yes. Request for executive session number 15. Oh, Bobby, go ahead.

Now, talking about um and just following up with some of the things, although I voted no, I do think it's important if we have, you know, executive sessions as long as we have tonight, it is important to break this into two sessions so we can make sound decisions.

Um I although I did vote for vote no for tonight, I do think moving forward we need to really explore um breaking it into two different meetings because let's be real making these decisions at 12:00 12:30 at night after a 7:00 a.m.

day is is in my opinion and like I said I'm one person I don't think it's the best decision. With that I yield.

We still can we just get to executive session? Yes. I I did have some items I wanted to bring up before I came into the meeting. I mean, so there were these people are waiting all night for a contract vote. Why am I being interrupted, Mr. Mayor? Why are you rushing me? Why are you rushing me?

I don't I think everybody's voting to move along, but go ahead. I thank you.

So, I'm not even going to make a vote on this. Um, so there were two policies that I requested. I just want to get confirmation because we had a member of the public reach out for it on just one of them. So is there's guarantees that there will be a policy subcommittee meeting in regard to a headlight policy.

Yes or no?

Yes. Okay. And I reached out to the parent and she understands where the confusion was. It is going to be on one of the agendas um that it's one of the next two policy subcommittee agenda meetings. Thank you. And the last item, I'd like to make a motion that whatever we don't get to today, we have a special meeting next week.

Have a second.

Sure. Second.

Have to finish it.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Just uh I think we should be careful with out of respect for everyone's schedules, we shouldn't be dictating when we're going to have a meeting. Should be courteous to all members to make sure that they can make it at a certain time. I don't think we need to um dictate what week we're going to have a meeting because when the majority members can't make it and one

can't, we always defer to them to say, "No, we're not going to have that meeting." I don't think we should be putting timelines on meetings. Um, Miss Pra, um, I think next week leaves it pretty open. If it wasn't for the fact that we have contracts we need to to finish for our employees, then I would agree. But I think if if next week doesn't happen to work, then we can talk

about that. But I think, yeah, let's have Deb reach out and let's see if we can get this done next week. I don't see why that should be a problem. And if we can't, then we can't. But if we can, we should. Are you asking me? No. I'm getting That wasn't It wasn't a question.

Well, I was looking at you cuz you were the one that just said we shouldn't wait. All I said was we should see here if it doesn't work out, but we voted.

Yes, I wasn't asking you a question, but I was looking at you because my response was going back to what you had said. So, I do think we should do make our best effort to get it done next week. We're going to get it done tonight. Request for executive session. Can I get a motion a second to go into executive session tonight? Motion. Hold on. I'm sorry. There was a motion made by Mr.

Das and seconded by Miss Pereira, if we don't get through all of executive session tonight to have a special meeting next week. We got to do that vote then. That was a motion. I mean is withdrawing that after discussion or are we doing I I would just like to ask um through the chair through to Miss Cabraw um or not even through M just through the chair don't if let's try and get

unanimous consent of the entire committee let's try and work around Mr.

Jagar brings up a good point. Let's um maybe Miss Caball could send out an email and everyone can give their availability. There's certain charts and forms that can be made that people can give their avail availability for the next week and then we could plan a meeting through there. That's all Mr.

Mayor Mr. Chairman Mr. A I don't think we need to over over simple uh make a big issue out of this. The current policy is the mayor calls a special meeting. We get when people can make it as soon as possible call it a day. I don't know why we even need to have this. Are you withdrawing your motion?

Just withdraw it. It's easy. You made the motion. You withdraw. No, you made with Id. Miss Pereira seconded it. I withdrew it. All right. Withdrew it. Can I get a request to go into executive session now? So moved. Second. Deb, call the role, please.

Mr. Isn't attorney Assad going to read?

No. Attorney Assad's going to read. Why?

Oh, I thought we were going to vote first, but go ahead and read away.

about to read.

National Law Chapter 38, section 21A7 to review and approve the executive session minutes for April 17, 2025 special meeting of the school committee.

National Law Chapter 38 section 21A7 to review and approve the executive session minutes for Jan April 29th, 2025 regular school committee meeting. National Law Chapter 38 section 21A1 to review the uh open meeting law complaint.

Yeah, I don't think they want to hear me anyhow, but dated May 5th, 2025 filed by Colin Das regarding the April 25, 2025 request to the former superintendent of schools search committee chairperson Mimi Laravey for all open session executive session minutes in the forum of public schools superintendent of schools search committee for from 2024. The complaint alleges that after 10 days he did not

receive any response to his request.

National Laws Chapter 38 section 21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining uh agreement including all hearing grievances relative to all professional teaching employees of the former school system including coaches title one teachers, nurses, occupational physical therapists and specialists in the teaching profession represented by the for educators association. And the chair has

determined the no session may have a detrimental impact on a bargaining position of the committee. Master general laws chapter 38 section 213 to discuss strategy with the set to collect a body relative to all administrators and employees represented by the for educators association as the chair has determined that open session may have a detrimental impact on a bargaining position of the committee national law

chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining relative to all maintenance employees of the for school system represented by the American federation of state county and mis employees.

Council 93 local 1118 as the chair has determined that open session may have a detrimental impact on a body position of the committee master journal laws chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bing relative to all custodial employees of the forever school system represented by the American federation of state county and municipal employees council 93 local 118

is the chair at the termed and open session may have a detrimental impact on a bargaining position of the committee national law chapter 3A section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bonding relative to all safety security employees for our school system represented by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Local council 93 local 118 is the chair determined that

open session may have a detrimental impact on the body and position of the committee. Match law chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with the threat to collect the body relative to all civil clerical employees. is the forward school system represented by the forward department of civil service clerical employees association chairs determined an open session may have a detrimental

impact on a biding position of comm 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with the threat to collect the bing agreement including hearing grievances relative to all par profofessionals employees of the floor of a school system represented by the for federation of par profofessionals as the chair has determined that no possession may have a detrimental impact on a bargaining position of the

committee mentioned law chapter 38 A section 21A1 to discuss complaints brought by a school committee by school committee members national law chapter 38 section 21 A3 to and section 21 A7 to discuss pending settlement agreement in an order to discuss strategy with respect to litigation and comply with student records law as the chairs determined the position may have a detrimental impact litigating position

of the committee national laws chapter 38 section 215 to investigate charges of criminal misconduct or to consider the filing of criminal Complaints regarding a cyber security breach records breach affecting the forward public schools as your chair is determined no position may have a detriment on the position of the city school committee rather national law chapter 38 section 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in

preparation for negotiation with non-un personnel and or to conduct contract negotiations with non-union personnel including all school principles 18 and number all for river educational for government TV cable grant positions nine in number all non-union central administration support staff 13 in number all administrative assistants 10 in number all school-based community support specialists six in number all

schoolbased athletic program support positions all facilities and operations supervisory positions eight in number all computer technical and student information management system support positions 19 and number all special education support positions two and number All early education support positions two and number. Allison Los, redesign coach. James Sullivan, chief officer of special education compliance.

Stacy Gayan, financial manager.

Christine Abdo, procurement specialist.

Sandra Silva, payroll manager. Melissa St.

Pierre, CTE, cooperative education uh coordinator. Kendra Oper, post-secondary career pathway specialist, administrative intern William Squires, National Navy Defense Cadet Corp, and Derek Randall, National Navy Defense Cadet Corp. We will reconvene. There may or may not be statements at that time.

Can we take two votes so I can abstain from the open meeting law complaint? Say again. Can we just take two I'm just asking quickly. Just take two votes so I can abstain from the open meeting law complaint. Just an extra second. Okay. Just just call the role de uh Miss Dragio. Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes.

Mr. Das. Dave.

Mr. Cory. Yes. Miss Laravey. Yes. Miss Pereira. Yes. Mayor Coogan. Yes. Going into executive session.

We're back in session. Anything? Uh I Deb, please call the role. I almost forgot. Mr. Drag, yes. Mr. Bailey, yes.

Mr. Das, here. Mr. Corey, present. Miss Laravey, here. M. Pereira. Mayor Coogan.

Here. Anything further to come before the committee? Uh, yes. Uh, Mr. Mayor, if I can make a motion to approve the executive session meeting for April 17, 2025, special meeting of the school committee. Second. Any discussion? Just have one question. Can um on the um distribution to the public? Attorney is your opinion that the item has concluded that the the purpose of that executive session has

concluded. I I have not uh reviewed that yet or research yet. Okay, fair enough.

I yield. Deb, please call the role. Mr.

Aia, yes. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. Das, yes.

Mr. Corey, yes. Miss Laravey, yes. Miss Pereira.

Mayor Coogan. Yes. Anything further? Uh, yes. Mr. Mayor, if we can make a motion to review and approve the executive session minutes for April 29, 2025 of the regular school committee meeting.

Second. Anything further?

De, please call the RO. Mr. A. Yes. Mr.

Bailey. Yes. Mr. Das. Yes. Mr. Cory.

Yep. Miss Larvey. Yes. Miss Perr. Mayor Coogan. Yes. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. No. Wait. We got one more. Mr.

Mayor. Oh, I'm sorry. Wait, wait, wait.

We got one more. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. I'm sorry. I just like to make a motion to respond to the open meeting law complaint dated on May 5th, 2025 filed by uh school committee meeting.

Mr. School Committee uh member member Mr. Das, sorry about that. Regarding the April 25th, 2025 request of the for superintendent of school search committee chairperson uh Mimi Larby for all open sessions and executive session minutes in the forever public school superintendent of school search committee from 2024. The complaint alleges that after 10 days he did not receive any response to his

request. I need a second. Second discussion de call the role please. Mr.

Yes. Mr. Bailey. Yes. Mr. Das abstain.

Mr. Cory, no. Miss Laravey, abstain.

Miss um Miss Pereira. Mayor Kogan. Yes.

Alex, point of parliamentary inquiry. Um how how many votes were that was that for? Yes. Three. Three. I is okay.

That's okay. Okay.

Huh. That's great. I thought if it's under a quum. Okay.

Motion to That's what I'm waiting for.

Second. Second Deb, please call the role on adjournment. Mr. Aguia, yes. Mr. Bailey, yes. Mr. D. Yes. Mr. Cory, right on.

Larvey. Yes. M Pereira Coogan. Yes.

Ajourn.