5.29.2025 Fall River School Committee - Special Ed, Alternative Ed & Early Childhood Subcommittee

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We have any citizens in no citizen input time. The um I want to see if we can take the um Oh, class size is a second day. Does anybody have to leave early at uh not the third family? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Do you have family academy? So, I think it's second. So, as long as the autism level up doesn't go too long, which I hope it doesn't, we

should be good. So, we're going to take theint autism level up contract first.

Yep. So, um I shared with the committee we have had autism level up in the district this entire year. um our partnership with them was recommended they were recommended to me to become a partner with um through from a family um and the purpose of our partnership was to really build our inclusive educational practices especially for students with high needs. So we were very fortunate. We had a subset of our

of our um prek population that would have normally gone into substantially separate classrooms. We had about 28 students participate in what we call grow getting ready our own way through the support of autism level up building administration special education administration. We were able to um have the students participate in the general ed setting with their typical peers.

started off um you know with like a morning meeting time or one academic time and then has slowly grown over the course of the the year where now at the end of the year 22 out of the 28 students are going to either go into full inclusion with support or they're going to continue in a partial inclusion model again we want to continue to build inclusive practices so what I shared

with the subcommittee um is a couple of um statements from the two principles that work with autism level up this year at Sylvia and Green that really supported the partnership and we're looking to expand into next year going to Henry Lord. Um Henry Lord has been very active in um including students with disabilities in the general education setting. So we want to provide them some support. The way the support

works from autism level up is they not only do some professional development with staff over the summer. They um really get to know the students, they'll come and do observations and visit the classrooms. Then they provide ongoing they are here monthly multiple times um typically twice a month to go and visit the classrooms, work with the teachers.

Then they provide feedback right after they do their observations to teachers and they give teachers access to them 247 through emails or um um different um communication. So we really want to recommend continuing the partnership. It will be grant funded again this coming year if supported by the committee. So I just wanted to answer any questions or one cost the cost the backup in there is 99,200.

Sorry. Yep. And we'll talk about how many classrooms at Sylvia at Green and then at Henry Lord. Any questions?

Just one. Um and from the research that I did in the presentation that you gave um I heard nothing but great reviews on this program. I'm happy district's um continuing this program. Just one quick question. Just looking um for further expansion. Understand this is grant funded so we're limited on what we can use this program for. Is there any appetite to expand this program to what's this say stone or So um if the

need is there and if we want to um expand it absolutely what autism level up asks us to do is to grow but grow slowly. Right. So, they want to be able to provide the teachers what they need.

And with 11 substantially separate classrooms at Henry Lord um community school next year in addition to what they're already supporting at Sylvia in Green, that's um where I would like to go for next year, right? But moving forward, should we want to include um the stone school, we could certainly do that. The SC stone school though is all substantially separate classrooms. So, they don't have the opportunity to for

inclusion. However, if there were kids transitioning out of Stone back into an inclusion setting, we certainly could utilize them in that way, too. Sure. And this um last question I was going to ask um if there was ever an appetite to expand this to other um elementary schools or other schools across the district. And I'm just going to say as one member, I'm open to even having this

in the operating budget if the um the grant funding isn't there for other schools. If that's something you'd like to see in other um elementary schools or middle schools throughout the district, I'm open to that. But just sticking um to what we have right here, I'm in full support of it. So I'll make a motion to refer to full committee. Motion made second. Do you have any questions on

that? No, I just a comment. It's great that we're expanding this and how many kids together you think are served? If you talk about students, did you give that number to us? Okay. So in initially we had about 28 this year. Now, we're going to expand from those 28 to Henry Lord's 11 classrooms. Now, again, every classroom at Henry Lord has anywhere between 10 and 12 students, but not all

of those students are ready yet for the inclusion. So, I'm not sure off the top of my head exactly um how many, but yeah, question I had was on similar to what Mr. I said this is for um classes with children with autism only. Is that why it's called? Is it just the name of the function? So yeah, it's neuro they really go with a neurodeiversity. Um so they call themselves autism level up, but they're

willing to work with more students with complex need. It doesn't have to be autism per se, but not just your typical learning disability students, right? But they've worked they've given us some feedback on kids with um you know dysregulation not related to necessarily autism or communication needs not necessarily related to autism. So there's that whole piece of it. Yeah. So that my so my question was not so much

on this. I think this is great. um what are we doing across all of the classes in all of the schools like when I was reading this about how the kindergarten students would be integrated through morning meeting and various things for um with other classes in my mind I'm thinking that already happens in all of the schools so what what what is this how is this different how yes and I

don't know if it's not happening am I wrong to say that it's not happening like so how are we including this theory across all schools yes so this is our highest need kids who would have been in substantially separate classrooms. These are the students that would have had less opportunity, especially in the younger grades like kindergarten, right, to go into inclusion. As kids get older,

there's the one-offs, right? Right now, right, like we're able to include students from substantially separate classrooms in a math class or in an ELA class or during um unified arts like gym and art. But there's not been this move towards more inclusive education across the board. So when autism level up their partnership really looks at the students and the unique needs of the students and

as we're doing this assessment with um Deb Harris and bridge every gap that um partnership that looks to provide teachers the professional development needed to be able to meet the needs of the students who are coming into their classroom. So I'm hoping to do twofold.

Mr. Agar, if that answers your question.

We are looking towards more inclusive opportunities across the board for all of our students. Um we're the most significant students. We're really needing guidance from some experts on again how to help them with regulation, how to help them with communication.

These are kids that don't have typical language skills. So more complex needs.

And when they go in this model to the at these two schools, who what support services go with them? the power professionals go with them in the beginning if not all the students can go but in the end like by the end of this year both teachers both special education teachers in the substantially separate classrooms are now going in and working on co-eing with the general ed because all the kids are going there in

some capacity so the paras take a group into say two different classrooms one parah has one group another parah has another group and the special education teacher will will push into one or both of those classrooms depending they run I've in the classroom where they're running a small group with the um students in our grow program as well as the typical students in the classroom those types of things. I think it's

great. I would ask that you at some point provide us with other than these two schools or whatever schools here what is happening at all the other schools quick synopsis similar to what you just said. Sure. Because I do think that it's should be just a way of us providing education seamlessly without an issue. But if we get a report that says, "Well, only these four schools have it, that's going to be a problem

because every school has if you have a substantially separate classroom, you should have inclusion opportunities for those kids." And I'm not sure that that's happening and it's nobody's fault. It just if it's not, we need to spend some money to either train those folks as well or work with the next people. So, uh, roll call, please. Mr.

Yes. Mr. Guys, yes. Miss Per, yes. Okay, thank you. Next up, we have a discussion on class size across the district and I just got something handed to us that said updated. So, something else you have already.

Yes, I have left it on the table. I'm just going to put it over there. So, superintendent.

Yeah. So, um the I we're I think today what we're going to focus on, you know, kind of thematically in terms of the fact that this is a um a subcommittee for special ed alternative ed um is really taking a look at class sizes uh with an eye on how our inclusive practices are impacting class sizes across the district. that has been um biggest focus of our work this year is really taking a

look at um the special ed inclusion numbers um the push-in numbers from those substantially separate classrooms um and then also the numbers um from our um multilingual learner program um and the number of students who are being mainstreamed and joining their um more typical peers in those general classrooms and so we're we're going to focus there. So, what you have um in terms of

the I don't know what everyone has in front of them on top, but um yeah, if we can take a look.

Yes. Yeah. So, this this that Brian actually just updated is um gives kind of overall information in terms of enrollment so that we can see what the numbers have looked like um over time um since the 2022 203 school year. Um it offers some of the um overall numbers in terms of our some of our subgroups, our our ELLL foundational students and then the um ELLL transitional and dual language. So you

can see what those numbers look like as part of the um the total number of students and and all those ELLL trends.

And then on the um on the back side you see all of the new registration trends as well as students with disabilities. So, it offers the overall subgroup information, you know, taking a look at those um numbers and how they've increased over the past few years. Point clarification when you say um students with disabilities, I see here, so students that are on an IEP or I also see a number students with new

English language services.

It's going to be registration. I think this referred new registrations um these are the trends and so if we look at over the you know January February March April May you can see the um number of students um percentages of students um that we've enrolled over time and what percentage um fell into particular category point of clarification I think he was just wondering because you had said in

students with disabilities we look at a particular column but I think they're all this is the total they're just all separated so some have IPs some are from other countries. Some are English language learners. Yeah. A lot of kind of different groups of students whose needs impacted general enrollment. Y so we can obviously see this but yeah your team's looked at this. Yeah. So then a summary. Yep. Um, so I'll I'll

give it overall and then I'll just open it um for both um Cynthia and Brian who have been really instrumental in um gathering this information, flagging students who are in particular groups and the like. But um basically the way you know for the past few years um and probably longer, but I've seen it over the past few years uh we we keep a running enrollment across the district to monitor class sizes. Um it's it's a

system that's been improved over time.

Um as we recognize, you know, we start to recognize that we do have more and more students who push in from substantially separate classes. Um, and we're able to plan for it better because rec knowing in advance how many students we can expect to do that. We can build class sizes around that so that we know that if a class looks like it only has 20 students in it, there might be five

students pushing in from assist sub assistance assistance um class and we know now that that class actually has 25 students in it and not just 20. So that these these are kind of enhancements of more basic charts that that we've used over the years and now that we're able to and we're purposefully flagging students who are in specific groups um that we know are going to push in for

part of the day um you know one period part of the day whatever it is um we're able to better track and better able to um anticipate class sizes going into next year. So that's what um that's what we see here. So do you want to just give um I don't know it might be helpful if we just take a look at um a school and maybe it's a school that is um

particularly challenging and just kind of give an overview of what those numbers are telling us right now.

Sure. And I should probably talk to projection or permanent projection. Um what what what we have are net school.

So they are the projections. Yep. Okay.

Yeah. So, like for example, um let's go with Spencer Bordon, right? So, obviously I don't have next year's K numbers yet for Spencer, but like their first grade, um their average class size is 23. Um which is really good. Um because that 23 also includes the partial inclusion students. However, when we get to second grade, they're going to be at 28 average class size again because that also includes partial

inclusion.

Um the other grades are about the same between 25 27.

Um, so what we do is when we have students that are in subs separate, we code and they're being pushed in, we code them so that when we look at the classrooms, it's going to count them in the regular class and then also in the subs separate so that I don't go over that 28. Um, so we can include and the goal is to have a lot less than 28 so that there's room for those that

eventually throughout the school year will then get pushed in. So we really want to build that capacity so we have that space. Um, can you what we're looking at the graph here where do I find the 28 where you said the class size would be 28 next year. Am I missing something or was on this is like I had Cindy has her version I have spread right there um is slightly different than mine because I

had the schools do some updates today for things that were missing from the news registrations and stuff like that.

So mine may be slightly off because I have basically on the same thing around 25 class size at Gordon. Um biggest thing we have trouble doing and one thing we've done better this year better than any other year is that law people team do things one way Tindy's doing her thing and I do my thing just based on the past we've all gotten on the same page this year much more than ever

before. So now we're all coming things are the same way which is slightly not happening you know to this level we wanted past years as we look back. So we're in constant contact now we actually were meeting today over this and we're getting much better. The the hard part is that when we say pushing in, think of kids that are pushing in, but all kids that are also getting ELL services that, you know, it's hard to

classify a kid as, you know, one thing.

You attach it as one thing only. Someone counted in two or three different buckets. And so be slightly off, but on some of these, but we're trying to get as close as possible to being perfect.

And I think Sydney, what Sydney has done is definitely on the right track. and our class sizes. She knows what schools on the top grade levels of each school that we're trying to accommodate, you know, and make um recommendations for whether it's adding additional classes, moving classes, collapsing or whatever.

So, um so to simplify that, uh an example of the special ed disconnect. So if the student is flagged as push in, right, there's he now created a um check box where where the supervisor in Aspen will check off that box. So when I run my numbers, I'm going to know that student is not only subspar but is being pushed in where in the past I was looking at the numbers um through Google

Docs that they had or spreadsheets that they had. So, we were counting those through the spreadsheet. But if a student was pushed in on Monday and they didn't uh get into that spreadsheet till Friday, then so much could happen in that classroom. So, my numbers would be off for like five days. And that's not a huge deal during the school year, but in the summer, you know, as that happens,

you know, it it becomes an issue. Um, and it could be when we're working with like really tight numbers in some classrooms where I'm already at 28, that one extra student is now going to bring us contractually over um the class size.

So um yeah, what I what I think would be helpful is to add a column to this, you know, this sheet where you say what the projection is based on whatever it is 2825 so that we can see clearly like I see the typical woman 25 or whatever. I don't understand that. Yeah.

Yeah. So, this is I think what you're looking for. Yeah. No, that's fine. And I think you can get it to us. This one like doesn't say this is a three unit school. So, this is my working document that I work with with my staff on a daily basis. And then we run this.

I think you're on the right track. I think it sounds like we're getting everybody on the same page, which is important from a school committee perspective. We just need the top like at Spencer Border, all the classes are going to be at 28. We get calls to say Spencer Bordon has a cap that nobody else has in kindergarten. I've gotten those calls. I've passed them on to the superintendents, maybe not Dr. Curley,

but in the past. So, is that I don't know if we don't know that number. So, if I look across the district and we say, "Oh, Spencer Bordon kindergartens are all capped at 23 because of some past unwritten protocol that somebody may pulled out of the sky," we would be able to go to it and say, "No, this isn't the case." Yeah. or so I think what you have there would be great for

the whole committee to get yeah to see and I think some of that I would I would assume that some of that it would have been based on the fact that let's just say Spencer Warden is a school that historically would have a lot of kids pushing in that they might cap those at the beginning of the year anticipating numbers of kids being pushed in. Then if for some reason the classes, you know,

the how they're comprised or whatever, don't have that number, don't have a large number of kids pushing in, well then now they might still only have 23 24 kids while other classrooms in the district are up at 28. Um, and that could happen at say like a Watson or a Westall where they don't have um any substantially separate classrooms. So theirs is just like a flat number. It's a two-unit school. We're anticipating,

you know, 50 to 56 students at each grade level. Those are really easy. We never have to account for it. Now, with the new system, every school we can look at the same way because we can look at average class size of and say like average class size is 25. That includes all of the students who are pushing in and it's just coming out as a flat number the same way it does at Westall,

Watson, Tany, and like that. Excuse me.

Why um excuse me sorry you had said um more students it's been intend to get pushed in that's why they kind of keep that kindergarten number why is that I'm just saying that because of their um specialized classrooms so at at a westall say that doesn't have those specialized classroom child there but because they have specialized classrooms that's where a child may need to be placed so they're kind of given a hold

of it and before we started double counting students and knowing right now when we're planning this number of kids is going to push in, so we're going to include them in the general classroom numbers. They would have had to just hold seats anticipating potentially that the kids from the special programs would push in. Um, but and now we have special programs across so many schools that we would look to do

that in a bunch of different schools, but then not know until September. Maybe we didn't save enough seats or maybe we save too many. Or maybe if we have specialized classrooms in other schools, we should be doing the same thing in every school. Yeah. Yeah. I think from here that's what we're doing. This this S has cushion has really made a huge difference because Cindy's team and then

my team, we're always looking at those spreadsheets. We're always saying like, "Oh, this seems a little off. Can we check this again?" You know, and then we're more able to catch it and be better prepared. So, this new system is giving us our data in real time. where it was more of like you know who had time to update the spreadsheet so that there's not a computer and the thing is we have such a transient community.

Yeah. No, you know if it wasn't transient then it'd be fine but it's so transient. No, absolutely. Yeah. So I think you could potentially incorporate those numbers in that sheet as well. So we have three separate iteration of this but it didn't get included. So if you're saving three seats in first grade at a certain school for inclusion and opportunities or whatever push in there

can be a column that says three seats.

So you just add the two numbers together and say this is um because I think we don't understand it as not being in there every day. So the more you can show it to us then we can sort of oversee it a little bit like oh yeah that doesn't make sense or but we definitely have a class size issue. I've said it over and over. Um my question is what is being done and what action steps

have been taken decisions made to either address some things minimize things or when we find things to make an action because I think you should if you're making decisions solid decisions we should get notified of that so we can get credit for that.

Yeah. The flip side of that is if you make no decisions we should know that too so then we can say why are we not making decisions. So I mean I um and it's probably uh it's something that has to come before the committee but it's something that we need to inform the committee. We can inform them at any time right that it will come before. So we do anticipate um the need to open four additional

classrooms at the elementary level. Um grade 1 2 3 4.

Um space is an issue. We know that. And so we are presently um waiting some details awaiting some details around what we can do to move some pre-K classrooms out of our um general you know out of our elementary schools. We need to move um probably four somewhere between four to six out some because um of the general classroom needs and some because of special education needs and an increase in the number of um

substantially separate classrooms that we have for this year.

And the is there any going the other way? But is there any substantially separate classrooms that are going to close? No. You know, like we're adding, but like when we say we've been doing too much like so now we say these kids that we sort of put in as we make better decisions and work with people to we should be clo either closing a classroom or repurposing that classroom with the

new kids. Right now you're saying we need to add, right? So I think that in some cases and Laura can say more about this, but in some cases it is about that where we have we might have classrooms um that we realize we can collapse because of the anticipated numbers for next year in a particular program but in another program we're having to open. Um and a lot of that just has to do with

even in the last couple of weeks the number of students um who require a substantially separate setting new to district. new to district who require substantially separate setting.

Um that number has been in and of itself if they were all going into one particular program it we would have needed more like we probably would have needed two classrooms worth just because of the numbers in the last I don't know month or so. Yeah. In May alone we had 18 new enrollments only four of which um are full inclusion IEPs. They came in with active IEPs, only four of which

could go into a general education classroom with support. The other ones were either substantially separate, a therapeutic day like a stone or an out of district. And I think April was just like that. It was a high number of enrollment. But to your point, Mr. Agar, we are looking to not necessarily collapse the programs yet or the classrooms yet in the buildings, but as we're moving to more inclusive

opportunities, kids are going to be be spending less time outside of the general ed setting. And as we get more um kind of capacity in the general education setting, then we will reduce the number needed for current kids. But to Dr. Carly's point, when these new students come in and some of our substantially separate programs, especially our high needs autism classrooms, they are already full. So,

you get two more kids, that already puts you over the number. So, you need another classroom, right? And that's what we're seeing is a high need of um high needs autism coming from autism centers or just coming from um you know, preschool programs or some of them coming from out of the country with never any education. um or students with significant emotional or mental health challenges that are requiring a

therapeutic day, an out of district or a substantially separate classroom. Those are the two buckets. So I think that as you progress I think telling us that like not just adding you say we're adding but you know what I mean there I think giving us the true picture. Yeah.

Uh because if you're saying we need four open we have to move four kindergart preks out that implies that we need four regular teachers uh special teachers or regular teachers or something for class size right so when is that going to happen when is what that those new people get hired we have to have a space you know before we can do that um but I'm hoping that is going to happen within you know the next

weekvious because I want to be able to bring it to the committee because it obviouslyvious obviously is something that's going to cost money as we secure the space. It's not going it isn't possible um within our current physical space in our schools.

Mr. Dice, thank you. Um so not on what you just said, a little backtracking a little bit to sub separate classrooms.

Um Westall School, I think this was a school that was um refernished or repurposed right before just as I I was joining the committee. I understand um the barriers in Westall that took away from Tany. What other schools did that take away from didn't it was FA primarily and I just note the reason I asked that I just want to see the FOSA. So um I believe FOCA has one um subsearate cushion. Um no

you said no. There's no there may be a kid miscoded there.

That's something that u look at the kid that's coded that way should be no some type of west tanzy lot or fans right sometimes they pull the data there could be a kid that was he transferred recently so he might be thinking looking at um l foundation that says subsearate because that's no it says ss push ss push in one transfer that we didn't catch they didn't catch that transfer to

another school all All right. No, I appreciate that. Thank new line of questioning. Um, as we talked about getting more classroom sizes, um, the pay center, I know, um, there's some work being done there to, um, re renovate some classrooms, correct? Um, what's the timeline look on that?

I know that the work um, I think the next phase of the work has started, but I don't have a definitive timeline. I know that our goal obviously is that we'll have classrooms in place there for the 2026 27 school year. Okay. Um and that's coming through ARPER dollars. I think you might have asked that via email and I don't have the um I don't have that answer for you, but I can get

the answer yet in terms of exactly um where all the funding is coming from.

Okay. The reason I bring it up because I was able to watch the city council meeting um believe it was yesterday or the day before. They had a few all week.

I understand the opera director made a comment in regards to um work that's being done inside the pay center with opera dollars and um I was a little bit concerned because there was also some language, some statements that were made that that might not be fully come to fruition. So I think it's important that we get on the same page with the city so we're not blindsided with any issues

when it comes to class size pay. So uh on that exact issue I think some of the um some of my disappointment with how this whole prek thing went down with the money is internal the school department but in addition to the city side. So we as a school committee don't get any information from the chairman, from the mayor, the vice chair or anyone relative to this. So we have to find information

and Mr. Das does this quite well looking at documents that go to the city council and and scratching and clawing to try to find information from places where we should get the information. Mhm. So, if the mayor put $750,000 of opera funds on the city into a fund for the pay center for our school, why do we not know it?

Not looking for an answer. I'm just said that's the question to ask. So, there's a document out there that says there's $750,000 of Aqua funds being paid for.

So, the city council gets this information. The school committee doesn't. It's it's absurd. So when you ask that would be the question to ask because I've seen the document because this gentleman researched it found it gave it to me and said what is this are we spending money on this and I said no because we were told we didn't have the money we were told at school committee we don't have the money I gave you hell

about it because I thought we should have had the money right but but at the same time the mayor's given 750,000 of opera funds that you don't even know about as superintendent so it's disrespectful to all of you all of us uh you know at the end of the day we appreciate if any help that they're going to give. But that would mean if we had that money in opera, why didn't we

start spending it a year ago when we knew we were trying to do it. Then we all get told we don't have any money for for the pay center. We were told that by you, by everybody. We don't have any money. Then last month we find out that lo and behold, we got $2 million of un unexpended funds in the school department. How do you think that made me feel that we were told the reason why

we couldn't go forward with the thing was the Dery project then the roof and then this and that but we didn't have the money it was spent. We get started yelling and screaming about we're spending money on playgrounds instead and they overspent the money. Fast forward three months, five months, we got $2 million left over. So I think we need a sort of a everybody to be on the

same page with. We want it to happen uh for the pay center but I understand you can't do it like that and So 2026 is I think the the earliest that we would move for I just I agree with what my colleagues are saying but um just one question. Um we're talking about extra space for classrooms which for classrooms you said which and you said about a week you'd have that

information. So is this going to be are you going to do you have a scheduled and would that be like um facilities come in? Yeah. And I'm not sure I'm not positive if we I don't know if we have one scheduled. We do. We do not. Right. Okay. It's the only So I feel like um I think we should just do it quick or whatever. I agree. So I think when we know whether it's it

affects this because it's a class size special education, you know, moving class sizes and all that stuff. So we can make a motion to say we authorize the full committee to vote on four additional classrooms. Now I just explained that we have $2 million in in money. So we know where we can get the money. I think we should look for a motion here to say if it's four, is it

more is it more than four? So, I think it's up to six. Four for general classrooms, but we do need additional classroom space for special education.

So, I think we could need up to six spaces, which would mean moving six preK classrooms out of our buildings and into another. So, I think the six moving the classes out is your decision as the direct as the superintendent. Odd thing is budgetary, right? So, you need six teachers, six additional teachers under what you know as of today. six additional teachers and maybe something need to be done in the classroom. Six

additional teachers and pair of professionals to complement. So the first grade would need a pair of professional make that motion. So you're saying instead of going to the other subcommittee will just refer to the and we're going to hear it Monday at the special meeting. We make a motion to up to six teachers and we make the compliment.

Yeah. Make a motion to approve up to six teachers and up to six paras needed by the superintendent.

That's a referral to the full referral to the full committee. Second. Uh the only thing I would say is it needs to be on Monday's agenda. Can we do that?

Special. Oh no, we can do that. We can do it. Okay. So, we'll open with it before we go into Well, is she going to even know? Well, how is she going to nominate? I'll have to check. Doesn't she need to know? She knows up to six.

No, she knows. Oh, we can just approve up to six. No, you said he's just announcing it. So now up to six. We just have to check with Bruce because we don't want to run into an issue with it being revised and not having the time.

Point of clarification. So this is information that was just shared in regards to class sizes that wasn't known to the to the chair, the mayor at the time. No, it was not. Okay. So I think this would be something that could be.

It's definitely doable and I would also classify it as an emergency because timing and filling a class is important because it's June. So I would say it's both. not anticipated by the chair or the chair of the school committee as well as an emergency. Yeah. And those are two reasons why we could do it on the Monday's agenda. Okay.

So, roll call, please.

Mr. Yes. Mr. D. Yes. M. Per. Yes.

Mr. Yeah. On a second point, Mr. chair, just to what um you were talking about in regards to getting on the same page with the city in terms of um those expenditures, not for the special meeting, but I would like to see because this is something that should be an update from the city, not not necessarily superintendent. It could come from the superintendent, but however, I would like to see this as its

own line item. So, I'd like to make a motion that we refer to the full committee for the regular meeting and update from the city on the opera allocation for the pay center. Sounds good. Second. Second. All in favor? I I post. So voted. The um on the class size. I uh I'm concerned about the uh whatever we're calling it now, the dual language ELLL like stuff. So, I know

that um I've asked in the past about the I think it's very costly and I'm not so sure that I feel confident that the um we're not getting a a data uh benefit necessarily from all of those programs.

Okay, it's including the the dual language program, but there is a detriment to the class sizes and the stopping of moving in all this other stuff from that. So, I asked for the, you know, finance. I'm still waiting on that. But separate from that, I think it for this discussion, we have to really get a hard solid look at those programs to see where are we going with them.

What does the data show? If the data doesn't show that they're doing any better, staying in those programs that cost a fortune, we should be just like inclusion of special education kids.

Look, we I I think we're we're creating a whole uh a lot of money and programs and salaries and everything for short numbers of students and then the 10,000 other kids or whatever 11,000. How are they benefiting from us spending all this money on a program that we don't even know? I'm just saying in my opinion, I've heard plenty of stories of not success stories of the way we're doing things. So I

think at some point we need to have a meeting at a subcommittee to say what are we doing with this? Where are all the classes? Where's the class sizes?

Because like dual language shouldn't have the lowest class sizes right in the thing that that's making even more costly. Mhm. In the budget, we just paid on top of a $140,000 director, another $100,000 director to run this program with 100 kids. Where how can we justify to the rest of the district that we're doing all of this and it doesn't necessarily yield great results. So, I don't need to I'm just throwing it on

the table. I think it should be come up to the full committee or a subcommittee whether it's this one or instruction. I don't it will come through instructional subcommittee. I think I will say I think the difficulty um is that I don't know that anyone expected to reap the benefits initially. It is something that reaps benefit over times based on research that we can expect to reap

benefits from a program like this one.

Um, I think that we it definitely had a rough start in terms of marketing, recruiting students, families, helping people understand what it was all about.

Um, as the program is growing, it does feel like it's, you know, this year getting some traction, much more active in terms of, um, participation that we've had with families and getting families in um, communication with folks who are registering it. We have more people registering, you know, at this point than we have in the past. much more interest in the program and I think that I credit that to people who are

doing a lot more education around it in getting people to understand what this could possibly offer. We have, you know, members of our our our school community who are looking to enroll their own students as they learn more about the value of it. So, I I completely understand what you're saying that right now it doesn't look like we're reaping benefits. It looks like it costs more money to do it and that we're not

getting anything for it. But we really do expect the program to pay dividends in many ways in terms of student achievement as well as um just really enhancing you know the school environment and things like that. So we have work to do. I understand I just think any any information you looked at the river school the school is tough enrollment wise. Uh we're talking transportation. I think these other the

dual language kids get transported. They do. Yeah. You know, so that's an when you do a costbenefit analysis. Yeah.

Which is why I asked for that info, it it's going to tell us, do we really have the money? Like it's a nice thing. The director said one time at a public meeting that I might be wrong a little bit on this of uh having some kind of foundational extra person is a luxury.

It's not necessarily needed as part of the budget. And my answer to that was well do language as a whole is a luxury and not necessarily something that we can offer everybody. And is it really?

So for that same reason, how are we going to how are we gonna balancing this out? It's a costbenefit analysis. Sure, we're having so much more. We have students that have the needs, but is this the best way to do it now? We're getting a good bang for our buck. So I think anything you can give us on that.

Well, the last thing on the the class sizes and moves and action steps is anything being done on either redrawing any lines, moving programs, moving anything because there's a lot of talk out I've heard it from a school, you know, principal asking people about, well, they want to move this program here and then I'm like, what are you talking about? And then it was come out to Buffalo and then it was like, oh,

well, did this happen? Is that doable?

Is it feasible? Is it not? We're hearing things from I even say I'm hearing things from all over the place that things are being discussed. One place is going to close, this one's going to close next year, that you know. So I hear it all. Yeah. From a variety of sources. But if we can just say like is there anything happening that is going to you know for the coming year for

right now like in what we know now. So based on what we know now, I think what the the most immediate kind of thing that we can do is adjust some line. I mentioned at a meeting I don't remember might have been the city council meeting I don't know mentioned at a meeting that you know we have identified places in terms of where lines are drawn for neighborhoods where you know an example

is we have a little bit of a neighborhood where students neighborhood school is more in but they are in with within walking distance of Talbot go what like why would that be kind of thing so um there are opportunities like that one what we're trying to do is make sure that if we are going to make any of those moves now that they are moves that will stick a year from now. don't want

to move, you know, a student to Talbot, you know, sixth grade at Morin, seventh grade at Talbet, redraw some lines there at some other school. So, we're trying to make sure that we make some decisions that are going to stick. It also makes sure that we're making decisions that will actually have some kind of um benefit other than just the fact that, hey, these kids could walk to Talet,

let's send them to Talet. Is there a benefit along the way of having students go to Talbet? I know that even though that does make sense that they live closer to Talbad and they're within walking distance, I also know that I will hear from whether it's families, members of the community, members of the committee who will say, um, no, I mean, you're going to move a kid just because

they live closer. So, there has to be a benefit to it. And that's really what we're trying to examine right now. Um, so that, you know, that's it. I mean, I think and and a lot of it to be I mean, I'll be honest, a lot of it there's a lot of second-guing maybe I'll say for me. Yeah. Because I think that when we were trying to do some um when we were

trying to look at the benefit of um kind of changing the language for the our transportation policy, there was this element like for the most part like no harm, no foul. We change some words, we maintain current practice. we don't change the words, we're transporting more kids. So, but like we made a decision to transport more kids. So, then I become very reluctant to make any even small tweaks because if it impacts

a single student or a single block of students, I would anticipate push back.

And so then it's it's not let's not have the public argument for what would appear to be a short-term fix and save a little bit of money.

because a year from now we will make widespread changes and and we'll be ready for that. Yeah, I think those are two different scenarios.

The middle school with transportation aids done in middle school, you know, like I think there's two I hate your point, but I think they're totally two different things. But Mr. D, very quickly on redistricting because it definitely affects class sizes in the district. Um and I know we're not a long way away but we're in the beginning stage year away. So I think it's some important just um I just want to give my

feedback as one member if um so we don't avoid issues and you know um chaos or just um a lot of concerned parents in going a year from now is maybe um I think it's really important that we engage with parents. I know you mentioned at the at the city council being engaging with parents, getting parent communication um and I think um sending out drafts. I think the committee should receive a

draft on what on like what the lines are going to look like well beforehand so we can understand and what so parents can understand as well and plan going forward. I think um I think we have adequate adequate planning for this redistricting. I think we'll not have as many issues when um it's presented to parents. I think that'll go a long way.

Mr. So um you had said, you know, we need to make sure obviously nobody I agree with you. You don't want to make a change right now that's then going to change again in a year. You want to be thoughtful about it, but quick.

Thoughtful and quick. There's going to be push back. Yeah. You live in a community where there's push back on everything. How we throw things up, how we drive, there's always going to be push back. We have to do what's best for the majority of people, which also includes our taxpayers who are here, right, who are paying for transportation. Now, I did vote to, you know, um, keep we like to tell that we

transport more kids than we're, you know, mandated to, right? And I think that's great, but I also think it's what we should be doing because we live in a community that quite frankly requires it. Um, all the studies I've read in the last at least 30 years of my life have always shown and I would love to know if if I'm wrong and show me something shows different, but everything I've read has

showed that transportation has a direct link to attendance. Now, I know you had said we didn't necessarily see that here. I would like to know why because I have a hard time rationalizing that in my head without seeing seeing it actually seeing the numbers, right?

um because I would imagine that if we transported less students, we would have more difficult time getting students to school. So that's why basically I wanted us to do what we said we were doing. So we said we're transport more than necessary, but the way we're calculating it, you know, so I want to do what we said we were going to do, which is we're going to transport children. We live in

a community that it is difficult. We have many families who do not. That is literally a barrier. you know, with this weather and I got to walk a mile, you know, everybody it's all, "Oh, just walk. Just walk." It's easy to say when you're under six months old and it's raining and you're walking down the street. With that being said, I do want to cut the transportation budget. What I

want to do is not be driving kids from one end of the city to the other. I'd like to work on that. I mean, I would think, and I again, I could be wrong because this isn't my expertise, but I would think if we're putting kids who live closer to Tanzy and they can now walk to Tanzy, then we wouldn't have to transport them. I would think that would be a savings.

We can't. So, I would not. So, we have schools that are walking schools. We don't send any buses. And so in even a school like Tanzy, Tanzy's neighborhood is not big enough to support for students in walking distance of Tanzy.

We can't fill the school. Did I say Tany? I'm going to say Talbet. Did I say T? Yeah, you said T. Talbet. Sorry. Yeah. But so we do have situations like that. Whether it's Tany or Lerna or plenty of our other schools, their neighborhoods do not support the size of the school, right?

So, if we're going to fill the school, we're going to fill it with parents who raise their hand from the other side of the city and say, "I'll send my student there, but I'll transport." I mean, that could be true, but I also know that there's a large population around Talbet that doesn't want to go to Talbot and just refuses to go there. And we don't transport them anywhere else. You don't

transport them, but a parent can drop them off or whatever. They can't. So, I think which then which then which then causes us to transport the other kid to Talb. Exactly. So it is a cost thing more and fills up. I don't understand the logic. If a parent needs to have their child in another school because their child, their other child's there or after school grandmother lives next

door or for reasons of needs, classroom needs, hardships, things like that. I don't see that. I've been here for three and a half years. Nobody talks to me like they talk to him, but I'm not blind and I see. And that's not what's going on. We tried to turn Tany into a preschool and everybody was screaming and yelling and everybody got what they wanted and now we're in a worse situation. I don't see that's the way

it's happening. It should be the way it's happening. And people can say it's unfair, but who's it unfair to? The the 10% or the the other 90% of of the city.

So, you do have to make hard choices.

You're going to have parents upset. It's going to happen. No doubt. But the longer we wait, I'm also not someone who believes in like ripping off a band-aid.

There's a reason you take it all slot, right? We don't want to cause more damage or any kind of emotional damage to any of the kids we're moving. That's for sure. That's my main concern. Okay.

Um everything else we have to work through. But I think ultimately when you say we need to make sure there's a reason why we'd be changing lines. I think unless I'm wrong, I would think the reason would be transportation.

Otherwise, class size. Otherwise, why don't just leave it the way it is. Yeah.

I mean, those are our two problems, right? So although I did vote to keep transportation the way it is because I still firmly believe that we need to transport more kids than less.

So that's what I'm going to do unless I'm shown some evidence that tells me otherwise and I can totally change my opinion. No problem. But that's the opinion I have. But even though I think we should transport more students, it doesn't mean I think we shouldn't be proactive at why we're transporting from across the city as opposed to two miles away. Do you know what I mean? Mhm. But

anyway, with that, I yield. I agree with my colleague that um I think we we missed the opportunity to give plenty of notice from last year. Sure. And I think going forward, I think we can make decisions even if they're going to be said as of the following year that we're going to make this decision now. You have a year and a half notice. Something like lowhanging fruit and things like

that. I think that's fine, too. But at least shows that we're making an action step. And I think I'm looking for action steps. And we as a committee have to understand you all get paid to make decisions based on information, data, and the like. When something comes out that you all or the majority of you all think this makes sense for us whole. I really don't care what anybody else says, whether it's the unions, uh,

parents, it really doesn't matter to me because you are making it with that in mind. I don't think you're making decisions. Oh, I want to hurt this student. So, if we want to say that, we can say, yeah, make a decision. Now if I get a call after that I'm going to say they had to make a decision and it was done with intensity thought experts you know so don't be shy about in my opinion

about making a decision and if we do things it doesn't it I just think we need some action and we missed the we can't go back for the tanzi thing and all that for the year let's not make the same mistake again my two cents Mr. No I agree with you Mr. share on that part.

Um just one one question on with with the what we just talked about with transportation. Um when did we switch over when did you when did Desi give that um new opinion with the switching from the crow flies to mileage?

Um, honestly, I don't know. I I mean, it happened because it first happened, I think some there was like a PRS complaint, so it made a complaint. Um, and there was a ruling, I believe, on that complaint where they were like, "No, you have to transport the child."

And it might have happened like a couple of times and then they with the district the public and so I think that that's what happened. And then coming out of that, but I honestly can't remember the date if it was around mid year or or something like that. Copy, right? I'm sorry. We can get a copy of the complaint and whatever that Yeah.

anything like a one pager for us. I'll ask um I'll ask Miss Cavar if she could get me um just get me the dates and what that correspondence looked like. Yeah.

So So the PRS complaint ended up leading to um a change in um a doctrine by Desi basically for transportation. I I think it was I I I'd have to I didn't receive the communication. It was just communicated to me. We received communication that said we couldn't interpret the mileage that way. Kids don't fly. You have to use walking distance. Okay. No, the the reason I bring that that's fine. The reason I'm

bringing it up now, so as of right now, we are under the new the new doctrine of um walking distance. Not the we're not we're no longer under the crowies. We have not we we did not reach out to families and say, "Hey, new interpretation. and we can start transporting you now. We did not increase transportation this year. We we maintain the status quo with as the like whoever we offered transport whoever was

eligible for transportation back in September has continued their transportation. If we reached out to people with Desi's new guidelines, we would offer transportation to the $750,000 that is going to increase for now. it would have increased. Right now to my knowledge, we have not done that. If parents, I think, have reached out or I think we I think we're we're working with those families,

but we did not extend an invitation to additional buses.

I think that's um that could be an issue, especially since there was a complaint and Destiny made a ruling on that. So if they change the ruling that we can no longer go by the crow flies and we have to go per mileage and that's what we're mandated to do right now we then there are plenty more students out there that are eligible for transportation that don't know it am I

wrong we've never seen the document but I would assume that when Desi did it they didn't say it has to be immediate so I think what they probably did but the documents would show but I would assume I will say that it didn't say immediately you better offer because now you guys are all out of compliance.

We're out of compliance with Desi typically would say the corrective action is start the next school year. So I I think this is what I believe. Again, I didn't see that thing. I because like we're not violating any Desi regulations, you know what I mean?

Because we do transport more students than we have to legally, right?

For that reason, they are we're not there's no regulatory issue. There isn't the mandate. I believe what they've said is if you're going to put it out there in this fashion, make sure that it it matches what people's general understanding would be. And that was like a moving forward kind of thing. That's why we came to the committee to make a change for next year. Um but we're not breaking

the law in any way because we have um you know we are transporting more students than is required by law. Yeah.

Right. No. Yeah. Thank you for that and thank you for your clarification. I think um like Mr. Agard just said if we receive that information just to clarify. So but there something that takes place next year. So bless you.

So, over the summer, we're going to be sending out um notifications to more to more students because we didn't How do I I'll be honest with you. How do we let people know they're eligible for transportation? Oh, that comes from the trans transportation. I'd have to check to see how that is communicated.

Um yeah, I'd have to check on that.

Right. And the reason I actually brought this up is because when we're going through redistricting, there's going to be more students now that are going to be eligible for transportation. So, I think that's going to um lessen the frustration on parents. I'm hoping maybe I'm being too hopeful, but I think this you're going to see less parents angry as if we voted to do what we were what

the administration wanted to with the policy originally. Now there's more parents that are going to be eligible for this for I mean more students are gonna be eligible for transportation. So like so bottom line I think we're going to see less parents that are angry when we go through transportation. Maybe I'm hopefully I don't know that's me being hopeful but how you Mr. Chair. Thank

you. We like you being hopeful. So we'll move on to the uh next item is the hybrid program. just want to say that um I'm looking at this information and it seems pretty um well put together and informative, but I don't necessarily think we need to address all of those issues today. If we could just stay more focused on the options for the hybrid uh piece and um I do think that we need to

have a conversation at future meetings about alternative education as a whole, including evolve. So, I don't want to get too far down that rabbit hole, but um I was just reading some of the stuff and it was interesting, but it has nothing to do with the hybrid, if you know what I mean. Thank you. Sure. So, um this year we were able to pilot a hybrid um pathway. We called it Flex. Um

for 16 students in Evolve and um of the 16 kids, we had um six that were students from Evolve the previous year who had dropped out. We re-engaged them.

Um, we had three students who we brought in from Tekk that were new to district and we also had three homeschool students that also were new to district.

Um, along with three other students that were currently involved students that were really struggling with attendance.

So out of those 16 students, we gave them different options in this flex pathway that we piloted. One option is that it's asynchronous virtual. So they're off on their own completing our normal um TLE's our curriculum that's project based and competency based.

They're completing that at home on their own with touch points daily with staff.

That's one option. The other option was hybrid. So they were taking some courses in person, some courses virtual. Again, it was just our traditional curriculum but adapt it for a virtual modality. And then the third option was after dark. So we had um two teachers and a special educator after school from 3:00 to 5:00 Monday through Thursday. Also to provide support both in person and through

Google Meets. So they had Google Meets going for that just checking in, stopping in for questions um and the kids in person. So those were the three um pieces of our flex option. Um it was revenue positive for the district um based on our enrollment um about $210,000 we were calculating based on the average price per student. So um we also had really great outcomes from that flex pathway. Um five out of our six

re-engaged dropouts are graduating this year. That's awesome. Mhm. Mhm. Um and again this wasn't we came up with this opportunity because we're like if only we had this option for those kids they would make it. Um so we're very fortunate u working with Dr. V. She was saying giving us a blessing to say yeah let's try to pilot this um and we were able to re-engage those students. Um so

12 out of the 16 are really having high success with credit accumulation. We have four that are still accumulating credits but it's at a very slow rate. Um so overall um three of the students also who were going to drop out that were currently involved in Evolve that we um gave this an option. Now those students are going to graduate as well. Um so we have eight graduates out of the 16 which

is really great. Um on average they each earned about 15 credits by the end of term three. And all of the students we had um they were current evolved students. So it's not like we just took new students and put them in this pathway. They were students that we really had a relationship with. Um they were all about the average age was 17 and a half, so a little older. Um and

all the students had some type of documented physical or mental health challenge or they were working full-time and had already dropped out that we were re-engaging. Um so it was a very successful pathway and um right now in order to move it forward we're looking um for the committee's blessing to refer this to the larger committee to see if this is something we can grow. Um it would require a student learning time

waiver that we would submit with the department of ed. Um we are meeting with them just to get some information about what the student learning time waiver would entail and what the application is like. Um, so we're looking to submit an application within the next few weeks um for a student learning time waiver and we have a three-year strategic growth plan that we came up with. Um, we would

hope to move to 50 students in a flex pathway for next year. Sorry, 50. 50.

Yep. So, this year we have um 16 kids, but we're doing that internally. Um so we're looking to um on board 50 students in the flex pathway for next year growing to 75 and then 100 flex students. Um and the reason we have this is that we just have these students that we know are out there. Attendance is the biggest barrier. They're working.

They're older. They've we can get a lot of kids coming back into school and also engaged kids from Tekk that we're losing. Um, as you saw on this, there's a couple of slides about the data of the kids we're losing to homeschool and TEKA. Um, so this would be a really great opportunity to re-engage some of those kids in a way that the curriculum's project based and competency based. So, it's a little

different than what you would see in like an egeneuity platform. Um, so that's really um our ask. Also, uh we found out today that we were just awarded $150,000 um for a sustainability grant with Bar Foundation from Evolve. Um and that grant is going to provide us some additional professional development um stipens for teachers to develop more competency based TLE curriculum. And

that curriculum also could be modified and adapted um for our flex pathway, but also for 9th grade um because we're looking to expand for 9th graders as well and make this opportunity available to more kids because we know they're out there. Um we have the data about kids that are off track and Dury um we've had 176 applications this year alone to evolve. So it's it's pretty awesome that

um the need is out there but also that we are asking to expand so we can meet those needs.

Questions first. Thank you. Um and apologize if if you addressed this and I missed it at the beginning. Um what's the eligibility for a student to um be eligible for this program? So to be eligible you need to be a year and a half off track in credits. Currently currently because moving forward for nth grade that wouldn't be a requirement.

Yes. So it would just be for a student who feels disengaged from a traditional setting would not think that they want to go to a larger comprehensive high school, wants a smaller setting and also just wants a different way of learning.

Um that is competence based in and really project based um kids that just may have struggled in the traditional setting and we kind of know by eighth grade some of those kids that would be moving to nth grade, right? It's both okay if so on paper it's just um if you're if you're struggling with credit so there's no eligibility based off of someone's IEP or things like that or um factors. Okay.

Um two um in regards to and I did see the slides on Tekk and um the parents that I speak to and I actually know a lot of parents that love Tekk. They love that program and um they speak to it and they and they just say great things about I think as a committee and something I could even focus on with the uh state delegation is focusing on some of the technicalities when it comes to

the funding because I understand the district loses out on funding when a student goes through TEKA. It's just um addressing some of those barriers I think is um would help the district go a long way. I think um I believe it's important and um I'm going to ask this as a question. What do you do in terms of um parental outreach for your program? So um right now we're a pathway

of Derby High School. A lot of our referrals or a lot of the conversations are really coming from VPs, counselors, guidance counselors and sachs. Um they're very aware of the pathway. So really they're targeting kids that are really struggling, kids they see in their office a lot. Um, and a lot of it is just kind of, hey, we know about this program. Um, but there really hasn't been any like open no open houses. Um,

no. Other than when we have students, other than when we have Dury High School open houses. Yeah. I mean, I would recommend reaching out on parents square, putting your information out there, having some open open houses, and communicating with parents because um again, I maybe it's a minority, but parents that I speak to some are, you know, they look at this and they're a little bit hesitant. However, I believe

it's important that they understand what what is here because when I when I look through the program, what I hear, this is a really good program and I'm supportive of it.

However, I think it's important that the entire community understands all their options for for the students.

Definitely. And we talked about like updating the Dery High School website so it's not just a little tiny button under student life that we maybe have our own website so we can um make it more available and more known as an option.

And that's a lot of the feedback we got from guardians as well. They would like it to be a more known option in the district.

Um, before I understand when you first started the numbers were low because I think I had asked that and they said, "Well, you know, we're not just kind of putting it out there for people to sign up because we don't have enough spots.

So, we're being strategic and going to asking counselors and VPs and whatever."

And I think you said something important. You said go where they want, which is fine, but really it's what they need, right? So even sometimes when we think about a kid with an IEP or um you know a learning challenges doesn't necessarily mean that kid should be in the the hybrid right it could be that that child actually um is getting more benefit in showing up every day because

they need that eye contact that physical engagement whatever it may be um so I think this is definitely like a need-based thing. I'm a huge fan. I was a fan when it started. I wish it could have been bigger then. I'm all for it. I think you're saving lives. This is like where lives are being saved. And I'm not saying that as a joke or I'm not I don't even think I'm exaggerating. I've worked

with way too many young adults who just went down the wrong path and it changes the trajectory of your entire life. So, it's so important. Um, but anyway, that's all. I don't really have any questions. Yeah, space. I know space has always been an issue at Dery. What is the plan to increase enrollment and where is the space going to be? So right now we have five classrooms and we have

112 students. Um of the 112 16 are hybrid. So right now with a class size of 20 that we want to stay under right now we have enough space. If we grow to be bigger which we would love to do um because we know there's the need and the applications keep coming in. Um we would need to look at other space and we were looking possibly at some of the space on

the second floor um near the team room.

I mean, space is just an issue districtwide. So, and we've had conversations about, hey, we would like more space. Can we explore those? Yes, we we have reached out to um Bristol Community College because that is a campus that does have space right now because they have a number of students who are hybrid or whatever hybrid doing fully online. Um and so we did I am awaiting a response from them around the

possibility of um eight eight classrooms at um at First Community College. That would be really nice because then they're in a college a community college they're talking and they're it like wakes you up sometimes. That would be so perfect. So we have, you know, we've talked that through in terms of access to kind of that the early college pathway, you know, increased access um for the students being on that campus.

And so we are um yeah, just awaiting response there. Oh, that'd be great. So I think that it sounds like everybody's in favor, which I am as well. I just think we need to look at it in the bigger picture of what we have because we can say we're going to cherrypick these kids and I'm not saying that in a bad way just it's the fact. So what are

we going to do for the kids that don't necessarily choose this then you know we've had the conversation about RPA what we they're throwing a lot of different things in there thinking it's going to just change and it's not going to change no matter what happens until we do something drastically different.

So, I think this should go forward to the committee, but also with a a solid plan for just like you said, we wouldn't tell a parent something that's going to change. I don't want to keep them at Dery High School when that you can't do the 150 kids. We need this option. This is better than Tekker. I'll say that right off the bat. Tekker is not the panacea that everybody says it is. I'll

say it publicly. It's an alternative to just your kids go online and they don't have to go to school. There ain't no way that our staff isn't better than the staff at Tekk. I've seen it with my own two eyes. So TEK is not the be all and end all for parents, but we don't provide an opportunity. So we should do it here. We should have done virtual school to the beginning of the year. We

should have like we have systems in place that to go. We should be doing it automatically. And I don't know about the waiver thing like why we need a waiver because I think people are doing stuff like this all over the place and I'm not sure they all get a waiver. on.

So I I separate discussion, but I think that some schools just do things and get away with it and other ones going to go and we got to beg for uh an approval. Uh I do feel confident in this though, right? I don't I completely do not disagree with you, but after navigating the last two years in my position specifically, I don't we don't want anybody knocking on the door to say that

we're not doing things by the book because they will come to Fall River and they will knock on our doors. And so as we look at the seat time waiver pieces of it, um we are directly in line to be able to put that proposal together and be successful in securing the proper permission so that no one comes in and rips it out underneath us because we didn't follow and play by the rules. Um

but we are looking across the district at that discussion around the se the seat time waiver and really the alternative pathways and making alternative pathways acceptable in this community. um that this, you know, alternative pathways are not to deplete Dery High School. They're not to add to Dery High School. It has nothing to do with derby, but how do we create options for kids that are going to meet the wide

range of needs as we continue to see the increased numbers at the secondary level specifically and increased need for those alternative pathways because the traditional, as you know, 8 to three school day by be by the bell um doesn't work for all of our kids, especially as they get older and start to find nonsuccess in those early high school age.

I think I agree with you. The the evolved program, how many kids in there have had felonies? Uh, roughly. I mean, is any Oh, yes. Charges like Yes. There are definitely students who felonies and behavior issues like when you look at the to Mr. D's point about the entry like what does it look like if a student that's been out 75% of the days has been suspended uh I don't know 27 times a

year for you know eighth and ninth grade are they eligible they are eligible and actually there are several yes and there are several kids that have been already referred to RPA and we've intervened and said wait a minute maybe they didn't know this was an option have them apply let's get them in and those students are very successful uccessful. Dr. Beacon attests to several of those kids that

were like in this process of appealing going to RPA and we're like, "Hey, we're here. Come come come with us and we're taking students that were referred but they don't follow through with the referral. Instead, they're they're coming to evolve." This is a very quick point of point information on that point and um I I don't have any answer. So, when it comes to like our district policies or state law, um, and I don't

know where Evolve is technically a part of the fall for public schools, is there what's the the laws around students with violent felonies? And I'm not giving my opinion one way or another of where they should be. I'm just understanding what the law is on that. It it is very clear, just so you know, across the state of Massachusetts, we are eligible to suspend students long term if they are

convicted with a felony. And so being able to remove students who demonstrate unsafe behavior happens at any of our schools, whether it is RPA, actually any of our schools, period, um when those felonies are lifted and students are cleared of those charges, they are allowed to go back to the previous setting and or elect into a different setting if they are at a different place

in their life. Um, I guess the the point the reason I made the point of information, so if um a student has an active um violent felony, they're not are they eligible for this program?

Active. Okay, that's what that's where I thought you were, but that wouldn't be at any school. It's not just this program. They wouldn't we wouldn't have them in any of our schools necessarily.

You could you could keep them up. You could It's up to the superintendent based on if the kid is totally dangerous. Uh they'd have to make that determination. But this school is part of Dery High School which is part of this school. So we have to follow they have to follow the same rules that every where I was getting confused is because your line of questioning. I thought you were saying that there were students

currently with active felonies. Not active. There are have been students who have had felonies. Oh that's what you're saying. Okay. But I do think just to add one point though and I'm glad you brought it up in that manner. If a student has a felony we will absolutely be able to support them in the flex pathway because they're not physically coming on campus to be a kid. Right. So

we with the flex pathway, we would not have to move kids out of the evolved pathway. They just wouldn't be allowed to physically come in the building. It would all be through the virtual component of that pathway. So I feel like this does open up more opportunities for kids that if that if they do find themselves in a sticky situation, charged with a felony, their educational program doesn't have to be

disrupted if we have the flex pathway.

Without the formal flex pathway, they wouldn't be allowed to come in the building. Does that make sense? Yeah.

And I would just say I want to be really clear that we go through a hearing process. So when we're made aware that a student has some felony charges, there is a hearing at the school um to make some kind of determination about the suspension. Parents have an opportunity to appeal that. We hear that here in this office. So there there is a there's a due process afforded all of the

students. There is this element though, like there are felonies that a student could have a felony charge, but if they're not a detriment to the school, they might not be out long term. Do you know what I mean? You give me um I agree. I understand what you're saying.

I would say something like, I don't know, grand lararseny is a felony, right? Over 250 bucks. That's a great example. We might not dangerous to the school. You know what I mean? It there are certain law tells you it's not automatic just because you automatic. the second tier of you also have to be a dangerous danger violent crime, right? And so it could it could be that, you know, we're

talking about potentially some students who have felonies that did not mean they were like a detriment to the school environment or anything.

It could also be that there had been a felony charge and maybe a student has we could have students who are incarcerated and then come back to school kind of thing as well, but there's due process involved. I think what gets um gets it feels a little different because you use you use words like application right because there are more students who would like to be part of the program and then there is this

element of like are you a good fit we'll always keep having the conversation and we have to make some moves around what if someone doesn't want to be in the evolved program full-time they're a Darfy student we I want to make sure that we give them access to those same kinds of learning experience experiences maybe that kind of learning experience in a math class for algebra 1 credit

could it happen through one of the tle do you have to be part of the evolve program to have access to that kind of instruction those are the kinds of things on which we have to expand because even a student might not just be a student to spend their entire day in that program but we want them to have access to that that kind of programming so that makes sense it was just a point

of information I didn't want no I get it so I I think that um I've been uh here for a while and the history of Evolve was from the RPA. Uh we've gotten many thousands of dollars of grants. You know, it basically is telling you these are the ways that you would want to educate children in an alternative type of fashion. Now, it's been shown that it's been successful. We also have the

alternative school that has not been shown to have that same type of success.

other issues, whatever it is, how many kids go in, whatever. But if this model is working, I think we really should just look at taking this exact model and moving it down there and find us another place for the smaller number of people because what she just said would be most of those kids that are at that school that are there because they need a smaller environment, more intimate

thing, the TLE's instead of a community.

If that is what is working for this kid or 250 off track students at Derby High School, I don't think we should wait till three years to get this 250. I say take the 250 and if you have more, so be it with the model, move it over there.

Take the kids that don't fit that this model for whatever reason and then find a place for them because we have a a building that can fit 300 kids, 400 kids, and we have 140, 160 kids in it.

So, I think we need to put it on the agenda for the full meeting because I think we could do this sooner than later. And I think that we need to look at it because I don't want to have anybody not apply and not get in when we know there's a need here. It doesn't need to be under Dery High School.

Really should have never, in my opinion, should have never automatically went there. It's so I think it should be a separate school where we say we're taking all the kids that want to meet this criteria and let's figure out the ones that are not being successful. That might mean we got to take the middle school out of there and put them somewhere else. Like there's 40 kids in the middle school like whatever it is.

It's not like we're talking major, you know, go back to the old ways where we had classrooms at uh other schools at the middle school. So I think we should motion to refer the expansion of the hybrid evolve program. I second just had a question followup question. Um no, I'll be quick. Um just because I know you brought up the the issue with space and um just want to see how we can help

with that. Um and I actually know a city councelor brought this up to you superintendent about space. Um the WY school or maybe it wasn't brought up but I know it was brought up. It was at the city council meeting about how we were using the WY school. Is that what can we get um some sort of estimate how much that would be to refurbish and get some of the class? I know it will cost

millions. I mean I've asked double digit as yeah it is it is a lot. How long has that been since it's been? It is a lot.

It's a one unit school. Um so there are only to me that means that I went there as a child but I think there's six classrooms. There's a third floor that has like an we use that for maintenance currently. It is used for storage. Yes.

And I do think a lot of things have been moved out of there. There's been some discussion around shutting it down. The next step in terms of releasing it.

Yeah. Okay. um figured I'd try um so um just very quickly um just because it was brought up on versus Tekk I I don't have like an opinion either way um on which one I'm just letting you know as what I hear from parents um and just lastly as we're you know discussing you know the the future of alternative education and not going to go into detail but we have some decisions the

committee has to make going forward coming up very soon at Monday's meeting.

Um, is it even I mean next 5 years does it look like we would even have an RPA building as we know it that yeah the structure that's something that's too Yeah, we're spending millions of dollar so much money. So there's there's plans in place to repair the roof which is I think already done the walls, the windows. So in essence it's almost like this is too obvious. I would

say it's like uh to use a sports analogy, it's like the Red Sox talking about why they're not bringing up that young guy from TripleA. It's a no-brainer. This is the same. We got a building that we're spending millions of dollars in that can fit three 400 kids and we have a successful program and one that some would consider it successful, but it's probably more difficult than what this would be. So, we have a

building there. It's like it's a no-brainer. We have a building. We don't need to rent anywhere. I like BCC's option for whatever, but we don't need to rent it if we have our own building.

So I think it's a no-brainer to WY school is over 10 million. It was 15 years ago was more than $10 million. So for a one unit school it's not cost. So that's that pro property should go back to the city in my opinion and the storage. They took all the pipes out of it. They you know so basically that should be back to the city. Put it back on their hands and let them do it.

Somebody wants to knock it down and build a couple houses or whatever. But it's just a waste of a resource. Uh, but I really think we need to move forward with a solid plan to improve. And if you told me that you could fit 250 kids at Dery because we didn't have enough kids at Dery, I'd probably be saying, "Okay, let's do that." We don't have it. Let's just be honest. Dery is overcrowded and

it wasn't built for nobody's fault, but it wasn't built for the number of kids that have in that building. So, you take 250 kids when she says in here that there's kids that are needing a program like this. You put 250 kids at a 2,500 person school. Ask anybody that's ever tried running something like that. That 250 become a very difficult thing for everybody. Guidance counselors, you

know. So, we have 250 kids here. We have another I don't even know what couple hundred that are in there that would like to go and do a shop like a diamond that don't get in, you know. So, let's just make a bold move and be done with it would be my so local. Can I just um I said motion to refer the expansion of the hybrid evolve program. Okay. Sorry.

Mr. Yes. Mr. D. Yes. Mr. Yes. And I think that covers us to also have that discussion about what are we going to do? Is it 250 now? Is it 200 now? Is it I I do think I don't disagree with your line of thinking in certain ways, but I do caution us to grow too fast. Um I think it's really important to recognize that it to just hire a teacher off the

street to come in to evolve is not the approach because of the different teaching style and curriculum modalities. Um, and so I think looking at growth over time and even if it's a two-year plan versus a three-year plan, um, I think we can bite off some of those components. But I I do think that element of it is real for us to make sure we continue to keep the positive trajectory and not derail our

trajectory. Derail it. Yeah. Right.

Thank you. Last up, I think it's last up is the out of district team chair.

So because we were having this meeting, we just wanted to inform this committee um of what we are working on. We have a current situation where our out of district team chair position um really needs to be looked at very closely because although the responsibilities of an out of district team chair are similar to our current team chairs. There's skills um just responsibilities and even just the work

year that needs to look different in order to meet the needs of our students.

We have over almost 150 students now out of district and those are students with the most significant needs because we have a lot of great in district programs. So these students have we have tried to meet their needs but the needs are so great they're outside of what we can do along with the typical roles of a team chair as far as IEPs and meetings and um communication with families.

There's a lot of oversight and um involvement with courts and DCF and transportation needs um that involve that are involved with this position. We've over the past couple years I've been working very closely with the current team chair who has done this role for several several years and just taking it upon herself to do all these responsibilities knowing that it was outside of the um typical role. And

now that she's retiring, I really wanted to have the conversation of what is what are the needs of this current position and how do we make a job description specific to the um skills responsibilities needed so that when we're out there, you know, um posting a position, people know what they're applying for and we are transparent and we're meeting the needs of these 150 students um that are out of Fall River

Public Schools. So what you have as backup, you have the current team chair um job description and you have just the draft job description that um Dr. Curley and I have proposed to FRAA um and a few different as a few different options.

Um, we're still involved in those discussions at this time, but because we're in hiring season and because, you know, June 30th when this person retires, I really want to be able to move forward when the description is ready and we're ready with the um with the union to be able to bring it forward. So, I wanted to get bring it forward now for discussion.

Questions? Sure. Um, one first a clarifying question. So, this is the current everyone. So she the current out of district team chair falls under.

There's nothing unique to her position that needed to be. So this is what it falls under. This is the current this is the draft just for the just for the out of district team chair. The rest of the team chairs still operate under the old one. Um how has the um reception been with the union?

Um there's a lot of questions, a lot of concerns.

Um again I think when someone does a role for a very long time and takes on a lot of additional responsibilities it can feel like now this person is leaving and now we're making the changes and that was never the intention. I have been offering her support for a couple years again. She's great at what she does. She'd prefer to do it on her own. So, so this individual was safe to say she was taking on

responsibilities outside of her responsibilities that outline in the current job description. Yes, I would say yes. And so you want to basically shift those into a new position. I want if this is a existing position right now, I want you mean not a new position.

I apologize.

a new job description because this role is unique and I want to make sure when people apply for it, they know that what they're applying for. They know the expectations. We are very transparent because it involves a lot of moving pieces. Um, but you have to have knowledge of out of district programming. You have to have knowledge of what it means when students are in DY lockup and what they're entitled to. Um,

and what does it mean when you know, um, you have different, um, school calendars and transportation because they have different half days and ESY that is spread across the state of Massachusetts and even into Rhode Island really. So again, it it needs to be in the summertime. Right now, she doesn't work any days in the summer. So if meetings happens, guess what? Fall River Public Schools doesn't have reput

representation at those meetings. Would she be in a different I mean, not she, I'm sorry. individual, new individual be placed in a different step. They're going to be paid the same as the proposal was to um pay either have some flexible days um that they would work in the summer and be able to take off during the school year. That's not typical in FRA. That has been done in FRAA before. Um and then or compensated

for the additional days outside of the traditional team share year the 10 additional days in the summer. However we do that, whether it's compensation monetarily, compensation with flex time and monetarily, those pieces, but but her yearly, but that person's yearly salary is not going to change with it.

No, it's a teacher live on FRA unit a teacher salary and then however, we're giving them new responsibil I'm just trying to I just want I would like to see as one member comparing it to other districts if there's this something you believe is going to be easy to fill.

So this is very common an out of district. It doesn't typically live in a team share role. It typically will live in something like a coordinator role because of the additional responsibilities. But this position especially in a district that has a significant number of students out of district. This position lives frequently in other in other um districts as well.

I guess um last question I'll turn it over to my colleagues. I know you mentioned that you wanted to get this individual help before you wanted to get them like maybe I didn't know if you were looking maybe in a system position for this. No, I was saying let me take some things off of your role and put it on, you know, give assign it to different something different. For example, transportation. Like typically

a supervisor does transportation in our district. So a special education supervisor would handle the transportation for a student that's at Spencer Bordon. Let's just say in this role because there's so many moving parts, the team chair had done it all.

Had done all the transportation for all the out of district students.

I'm sorry. Volunt everything was voluntarily. I mean, she helped me create this because that's how unique her role was, right? And um I'm just going through it quickly. So those like those transportation like responsibilities those are in here.

Yeah. Or so when did you want to just pass on some of these responsibilities other other people?

So no, because this is one person needs to understand all the moving parts and be able to coordinate all the moving parts. Being a supervisor at a school, I'm coordinating all those moving parts. Being the team chair for out of district, they should be coordinating all those moving parts.

I I think that Oh, yeah. I I would just say that I do think that so this is meant to be an accurate reflection of the job that's currently being done. I think what Minstein talked about is that over time, you know, a position, there's one person doing it and it changes a little bit incrementally. It changes until you get to the end of a person's career. She's been doing this a long

time and it's like, oh, that looks really different from where it started.

But when we're starting up with a new person, we need to be able to accurately describe what the job is. And so, you know, Miss Obenshane saying that she, you know, over time it was like, well, you're doing this thing that's different from other ETCs. You want some help with it? No, I got it. No, I can do this. And so, certainly giving the um impression.

I mean, we believe it's a one person job. It's different from the other team chair, the job of the other team chairs.

It's so one of the things that um we have been talking about is this idea that like potentially maybe it should not be called a team chair because I don't think that it should be I don't want to be confused. I don't want other team chairs to say oh this person does these things but I have to do this or this person getting hired realizing that the indist counterparts have a much

different job description and then maybe feeling like I do more than that. Well, it might not be more. It's just different. So, we might be it might be beneficial to not call it not a district team chair, but to call it something else within that bargaining unit. Right.

I guess the point I was just trying to make is um with all the additional responsibilities and you have someone that was in there for many years, you think this is going to be a position that's going to be easy to fill with the new position with the new responsibilities.

I I miss Openane would say could say more. The thing that we've talked about is that it will likely take hiring someone who has that outofdist experience experience. Someone who spent time in those out of district placements and has an understanding of what those operations look like to come into Fall River and take on the You think that'll be easy to fill with with the salary? You'll never know

until I think it's going to come through like more questions. So that's So I think basically what what they're doing is they had a bunch of team chairs. one happened to be working out of district.

Because of that, your students are at different places. Often those students are at different places for reasons like they're involved with DCF or things like that. So, it requires maybe going to DCF meetings, maybe going to foster care, maybe going to a placement meeting. It's not necessarily that the work is more than what they're doing in the school.

It's just a little different. And this lovely lady, like many people here, has just kind of been taking on the volunteer work because it's not in the job description. But now we're at a point where we're hire for this job. if we show them the job description that's not theirs, then rehire them. They're going to be like, "Hey, wait a minute.

This isn't what you told me I'd be doing." So, she just wants to write the job description so it matches the job. I don't think you necessarily have to change the name unless you feel it makes sense, too. But, I mean, I think that anybody operating in that scope of work probably understands. Maybe somebody like us wouldn't, but I think other colleagues operating that scope of work,

I'm sure, understand. And some of them may say, "Hey, I wouldn't want to do that." But there's that person who does want to do it. I don't think it's easy to find any jobs right now, like anybody to work. Um, question. But, you know, hopefully at least we're being truthful in what the job is. So, if they take it on, they're you know, they're ready to go. And I don't know, I guess when you

work in mental health, you could have a tough day one day and then you could and then it's you. And I don't know if it's necessarily, do you know what I'm saying? Always the work. Sometimes it's all the stuff that is involved in it.

So, it's just different work. Same thing, but they have to do it a little different because their kids kiddos are not in Fall River. They're somewhere else, you know? So, they have a lot more people to communicate with probably, I'm assuming. Sorry, I wasn't trying to jump the gun on. No, no, no. And there are some differences. Like I said, the the summer work is legitimately different,

right? Well, that's what I'm saying. So, if you can work out, you obviously you're not going to I don't want to talk about negotiations here anyway. It's not the place, but yeah, you work it out with them, you talk to them, and you figure it out. That could be an advantage to somebody who maybe, you know what, I don't mind working a little in the summer because I'd love to be

able to have some time off, whatever, when my daughter's home from February vacation at college or whatever. I don't I'm good. Can I make a motion? No. Uh, I just got a couple questions. So, I've been around a long time, so I know like the players and the positions and stuff.

So, I'm going to date myself that we had a guy named Bob Mercer who worked in the district as the out of district coordinator. was an administrator and he administered out of district. So he took the pressure off of the um super uh assistant superintendent for special education special ed director back then. So we had a position. It's an administrative position that he did administrative type work with between

transportation going to this going to that being at meetings and potentially saving us and this is documented in meetings hundreds of thousands of dollars because we need a seat at the table and information from an administrator every single thing. So that administrative position was gentleman by that name. Then I'm not sure who took over. Somebody else took over. Then three or four years ago,

there was a person named Mary Morgan who did the job as an administrator. So this person who we're talking about is has done a nice job. As far as I know, I used to work with her at RPA. There was always a person administering this whole program, which was Mary Morgan, which was Bob Mercer 20 years ago. So when you get down to it, we have that position already in our system. So that's an administrative job.

Where is that position? because I think it's pertinent to what is this um discussion because we need to see the whole perspective of like I said I've been here for a while so I know that there was an out of district administrator call it whatever you want that handled all this and then the team chair at that time did the same job as the other team chairs so something happened I don't even know 3

four years ago because I was trying to look like look back to figure out when did this person leave and I only found something on the internet that said Mary Morgan was an out of district person. So where is that position right now?

Well, um it is not it is not in the budget. Um and and we've been looking too um to figure out when and how um it was no longer a budgeted position. So when that person retired, it was never filled and the person who was doing this position um continued to do the job. And there were elements of that position that was vacated by resignation that were picked up by other supervisors in

the district. So we've we've we have more supervisors now than we had when the that out of district supervisor position was first created. Um and so another supervisor took on those supervisory duties, which is who? Some of some some of them not all of them. Which is who?

So, um, when Mary Morgan had left the district a couple years ago, that position did not get filled.

So, Christina Misho, one of my other supervisors who already oversees three other schools or two other schools this year plus out of district, she took on some of it was really more about consultation with the auto district team chair, weekly consultation.

um you know helping her talk through the pieces but the um additional days in the summer that the FRA position used to do or the attending the meetings organizing the transportation piece that's nothing that the current supervisor who supports this team chair and that's what I would say is more of a supportive role than an administrative role over over the team chair um does now but she it was an existing

supervisor who just said, "Hey, I'd like to learn more about out of district."

And so I But she's in the FAA. The supervisor is FRAA. FRAA. What was the position, Mr. I go back to Mr. Merca?

But what is it? What is it called? Oh, was it out of district supervisor? I think it was just the predecessor to But it gets paid more than the others.

I think at the time when I'm go dating myself, but it was sort of uh Mr. Merc's position was I think at a different I'm just trying to figure out with the union like where that is. So what I would say is three oh supervisor. So what I'm looking for is the job description for the whatever that position was. I think it was called coordinator or something. It was something but they had the word out of

district in it whereas the other ones just say sped supervisor. Yes. So what is it I would look for? What is the job description call for that? Because to me I'm looking at these two things. We have how many team chairs? 8 10 whatever? 13 14. We have like 24 whatever it is. So So we currently have 24 positions as team chairs all doing this job description which should be revised

because this is not accurate either. So, the team chair, whatever this says, I don't even know if it says on here, but whenever this was, we could maybe find out when was the last time that the team chair job description was redone. I think that needs to be looked at and won. But we can't have 24 people, 23 of which used this job description.

Everybody's paid the same thing, but this one's going to get something different, no matter what it is, whether it's this or another thing. We don't have uh to use an example of a school, we don't have uh teachers that are uh teaching but at a certain school they are also doing vice principal duties. We don't have that. So I think we have to be very careful with we had a FAA position. We have an FREA

position. We need to go back and I'm assuming that attorney Assad's been part of all of these conversations with uh um no he knows that we're doing this but hasn't like I've spoken to Mr. Michon.

Um he has a copy of this. Attorney Assad talk to anybody about this other than you? No. With the union. So that's first thing that I would do is we are setting up a meeting. He needs to be involved in it because he has the historical perspective like I so the job description should see what it comes out as. I see this as an administrative position all day all day long and it

currently exists in a salary that the person works more days like if you're in 2D 3A this like more days. So it takes care of this minutiae at the bottom of 10 days maybe this maybe flex days try to administer that as the director it doesn't make sense. So I think personally we should go by the administrator. When I look at the budget that we approved it says in the budget new position out of district program

coordinator $100,000 special created through I got my glasses right here. I'm just excuse so tight created through elimination of teacher sped liaison Robin Aruda teacher sped liaison 240 position eliminated so in our budget that we already approved it basically says that we're creating a position called out of district program coordinator we all approved it I'm of the belief that I think that position

already exists meaning that the job description exists so I don't think it even needs to come back to us for the job description unless that job description doesn't exist But I think that we already have it in here as out of district program coordinator. We don't we shouldn't be changing it in my opinion. And I think we should go by what we voted on and get more information from all those

questions I just asked. We don't have to get them here. I don't expect you to have them here. But attorney Assad needs to weigh in because we can't be picking one union over the other. I would say FRA. If I was the president of FRA, I'd be saying, "Where's that position?" They felt like hell for the director of guidance thing that we had that debate over. Mhm. We couldn't just say, "Oh,

let's just make that a teacher." You know, we had to go through the process.

So, FRAA needs a seat at the table to do it. But it really this is basically filling and I don't know when that we didn't fill at all with the person who resigned, but basically we've never been told we cut that position as far as I can understand. I I tried to look back.

So, basically, I think we should just leave it as what's in the budget and say out of district program coordinator is being created.

It's right to be in the budget. Mhm.

then you find out the details and then you come back to us in two weeks and get the full meeting if there's some a job description change. Okay. But I think we should authorize them to go back and do their due diligence. But the intention being that we're doing what was in the budget out of district program coordinator. Is that a motion? You have a motion, Mr. I thought they were just

making a motion for anything. They still discuss something else. Uh we brought it here for discussion. I think I think we can refer with some guidance and then give them an opportunity to come back. But I think we should give them some guidance based on the facts that are before us. If those facts now change over the next two weeks, when you come before us, you say, "No, that position never existed." Whatever, you

know, but I think we need to as a subcommittee give some guidance. And when I see that it's in the budget that we all approved or I voted against it, but the committee approved, we should be doing what we said here and we showed the public. It's just an unfilled position. Sure. Yeah. So, it's right here on whatever line of I mean, I'd like to see you talk to the attorney and

just make sure everything's you make a motion. Would you like to linguish the specific? We're going to proceed with the out of district program coordinator from the white. Motion made. Second.

Second. Second. All in favor?

Read the motion again.

It was um to just follow what's in the in the budget. In the budget, this is the budget line. So, you're saying you're basically saying instead of hiring, you're saying let's hire this instead of that. I'm just saying to do what's in the budget. So, in the budget, it says we're going to have a new position called out of district program coordinator. And it's going to it says in the budget that we all approved says

position eliminated of the team chair.

So, or spread leazison, whatever the terminology. So, at that point, we're just doing what we were told, what the public was shown, what the school committee was shown in the budget. Then, the same job description. You're just he's just so I'm clear. Same job description, but you're saying instead of keeping the same title, we're removing that lead and we're putting this person in the administrative

position. Yeah. So, basically what we what we talked about was this administrative position that's existing.

No, I heard you. That's already existing in there. So, what you're saying is just fill that position instead because it's already in the budget. Fill the administrative out of district position instead of or in just to do what's here.

But one of So we're not going to hire another one for the retiree that she's leaving. That's attition. That's gone.

Okay. I understand. Use the money to actually pay and administer to administer the program. All right.

Second you want to refer. Yeah, we got to refer. It would refer. Yeah, referral to the full committee. Okay. Not for not for Monday, not regular meeting.

And I think that you Dr. Carol, you understand the like what you got the chance to come back with us and I think I can't stress enough to have attorney Assad. I know he's busy as well in those original discussions. Yeah. Be with the unions because we can't we shouldn't make any agreements or any like you know maneuvers without him being present because a lot of times and I'm not saying this under you but this has

happened things start getting worked out that we think the union and you guys agree. Then all of a sudden, attorney Assad comes in and says, "I haven't known anything about this." Okay. So, yeah, that wasn't We haven't met. Yeah.

They It's just they It's on their radar.

They've seen it. Um in Maybe you'll come back and say, "No, that's how we want to do whatever."

Description jobs. One more question on the job description on the responsibilities um just because um it is very important that it's um this committee understands where the chain of command is for this. So, for um what's the guy's name again? the attorney that we paid to Mr. Yeah. Attorney Joyce. Um, is that something that this coordinator would work with hand in hand, I'm assuming?

Um, if it's an FRAA position, yes.

Otherwise, everything goes through me, but most everything with the attorneys go through me first. As it should as it should. Okay. That's the But to your point though, as Mr. He just said it would he wouldn't if we left it as a team chair that position not being an administrative role like of overseeing it doesn't because none of those team chairs deal with the attorneys right so by leaving it as a a union FREA they

wouldn't work with this person but by doing it as presented in the budget as a new coordinator that person can be as needed that she can say no you can talk to the attorney so that Miss Oenchain can do her other pieces and I think that's the part for me that gets it is I think we have the numbers in sped are through the roof and you are one person

and you can't do it all and then we added Jim Sullivan which was I think was a good addition we have a position we are still short administrator you cannot keep burning yourself out doing all of these things so here's an example of if we had this person pay him a little bit more bring in the union once we get the person you can sort of oversee it but not oversee it intensely so I think to

your point that's the reason to do it as an administrator if Any new business?

Um, one question, Mr. Chair. I'm not I won't bring it up if this doesn't relate to this subcommittee. However, I um I brought an issue forward to the committee this morning and to the superintendent um regarding a school bus and was that school bus um did it how did it um transport students um through special education, early education or I mean alternative education or early childhood? I honestly don't know um

which bus company it was. So, so I'm not sure. What was the question? What was the general I was I was gonna ask for um some sort of update on I don't have an update yet on it. I think um we should get an update on that. I didn't read the email yet. Sure. But we should get an update on that. But in addition, I've asked personally to the superintendent

on a different situation with the um DMs and stuff. So, I've asked for some information that I think is pertinent to maybe your question in my I didn't send it to the whole committee. I sent it to the superintendent that we need to get like what's the contracts, what's this, what's that. So I think it's combination of those two things is going to get you an answer. Yeah, I'll have that

tomorrow. I I we asked for the video in terms of that report. So we we requested the video. I haven't seen it yet.

Um but I'll be updating with the other pieces around the contract pieces in this week's update. Yeah. Right. No, I I think um just real quickly, I think it just begs the bigger question when it comes to um and we've received already a few different instances with with school buses over the last few weeks and drivers. Um I think um just having a general overview on the accountability

aspect and making sure students are being transported safely, I think is important. And that's not saying that the administration isn't doing that.

It's just um just from the complaints that we've received that just we received some water update. Any other questions? Nothing good. Thank you all for your professionalism. Thank you for your hard work. Motion Motion. Motion to agenda is seconded. All in favor? I post. So voted. Thank you all.