6.27.2024 Fall River School Committee - Special Meeting

I'd like to call to order the June 27th special meeting of the school committee uh Deb would you please call the role Mr Agia here Mr Bailey here Mr Das here Mr Cory here miss ly here miss Perera here mayor Coogan here salute to the flag please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for

all pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged imp permissible um citizens input tonight is supposed to stick strictly to what's on

the agenda but I'll entertain a motion to wave the rules so that the uh the seven people can address the uh committee tonight motion still made can I get a second second Deb call the role on waving the rules for the um Mr Question Mr a do you know what they're talking about did they have to sign up yes thank you yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvey yes Miss

Pereira yes Mary Coogan yes um first first one is Christine sheret Brogan um three minutes please miss uh Christine thank you thank you for making the exception that allows me to speak good evening my name is Christine katr Brogan my name may sound familiar to some of the school committee members if I previously sent each elected member of the school committee and mayor cougan an

email regarding the mold issue at Turtle Elementary School addressing just some of my many concerns I wish to thank Mr Kevin agar Mr Colin Dean for taking the time to respond to my email of June 11 in full disclosure and far more than name dropping I am the daughter of Joseph Martin's deceased School Committee Member 2008 to 2019 I know from supporting my father through all of the bayil election

campaigns and my family being very close and mutually supportive much of what it takes to sit there on the stage as a elected official and be re responsible and approachable School Committee Member I am also the proud grandparent very involved of three elno Elementary Scholars I am here tonight to express my deep concern about the ongoing mold issue at laterno and the lack of transparency surrounding this issue the

presence of mold at any educational institution above the normal green amount for credible testing is cause for concern testing results by eni Biometrics from samples obtained on juice section showed eight types of mold 10 times the normal green level of and one particular type of mold at a 100 times the normal level these are just the June testing results there are six other PDFs full of information publicly

available at Fall River schools.org lerno what is not publicly available is the answer to the questions I posed in my previous email to the school committee members in May hugan when did this mold issue stop when was the school department became a aware of this mold issue why was classroom 8 the classroom with the highest total fungal counts in October 23 not retested as one of the 11 yes only 11 indoor locations

retested in May of 2024 I have one additional question when is the mold issue atero Elementary School going to be added to the for school committee meeting agenda so that the school committee as a whole and the concerned public can truly be informed past some seven PDFs and a few brief parent Square statements from Principal sabon I urge the school committee to get involved and work collaboratively with

laterno parents laterno teachers principal saon and the appropriate school department employees to address the issues of mold at lerno or any other school department building swiftly and effectively thank you thank

you uh I'll lean a motion to wave the rules for the second speaker um second I have a motion in a second Mr AG just uh person just asked a question so I think we should just at least try to get some answers from the superintendent to that so I can tell you I can tell you that Mr a that's not on the agend Mr a that's not on the agenda we we're waving

all respect Mr chairman with all due respect we wave the rules we we W the r the rules so that we could hear something Mr Agia the lady asked the question Mr Agia we are going stick with what we did we waved the rules for the for the people the citizens input we have a specific special meeting agenda and and if a person comes up in citizen input time and raises a question that we

can give them an answer to we should be able to answer it unless you're hiding something you should answer it I have an email in front of me so I have an email in front of me so the answer to the question ma'am is Monday November 13th 2023 we received an email Mr I'm going to end up it's going to I'm going to ask you to leave point of parliamentary procedure my point of

parli procedure we are talking about what's on the agenda and I doubt the ruling of the chair we need to be able to address the issues that come up when they come up instead of hiding it and not putting it on the agenda Mr Das asked you to put this on the agenda and you chose not to point of parliamentary inquiry procedure I doubt the ruling of the chair okay I doubt then let's let's be

quiet keep talking please let's take the vote we will take a vote Mr rad are we talking about what's on the agenda or anything my understanding is is that the vote that we took just a few minutes ago was to allow citizens input to go beyond uh the uh what is uh on the agenda uh with respect to specific items to discuss by the committee I believe that would that would require a second vote

I'll I'll I'll entertain your motion if you want to go off agenda motion that we'll be able to respond to the issues at hand second can I say something Miss Pereira so I was under the impression I could be wrong but when we received the emails after the last meeting that I was told that we were going to have because we discussed whether we were going to put it on the agenda for this meeting or the

regular school committee meeting and I believe that we had discussed I had said that I thought it was a suggestion made and I had said I think be best started in a subcommittee that's a small group they can get their answers everybody can still go it's still televised as many people can show up as as you want it's not hindering anything but then we actually get answers because what if the

answer comes in I'm just thinking ahead what if the answer comes that guess what we can't put the kids back in that school well we're not going to solve that in a full school committee meeting but if they figure that out in a subcommittee meeting then they can organize what they're bringing back to us so I thought that was it I M it's on the motion Mr Das that's where I think it should be handled so

everybody I think we should all just take a deep breath um we have we do have members of the public out there right now that do want ears I don't think it would harm anyone that we just asked superintendent just to give an update for the public on the information I agree with Mr Das at the end of Citizen input I'm with him but I want to take a

motion on Mr Agia I'm going to take a vote I'm sorry on Mr agar's motion call on the item before us uh you doubt the ruling of the chair you doubt Mr rad go ahead so the other piece of it when I look at the agenda we have a policy that's a a school committee policy that's been in place for at least 10 years in that in that it States including special meetings every single

agenda will show new business and it will also show any issues that the superintendent could not predict within the last 48 hours that's a policy of the school committee that's been in effect for over 10 years the only reason why it's not here now is because in my opinion the leadership of this committee doesn't want to talk about these issues that's what's the real issue here and

that's a policy of the school committee here but it's a policy of the school committee a policy of the charter that the city council will stay on the items on a special agenda you have your motion you Mr city council here Mr city city Charter Mr agar you just mentioned the city council I said the Charter I made a mistake I'm sorry I know you don't but I did the city Charter clearly defines

what the role of a special meeting is I ask for a call of the role because you made the motion now you want to still continue to talk call the RO because now I'm going to challenge what you just said because the attorney should have to weigh in on this as well because school committee policy supersedes the city Charter or any of those other things you're trying to figure out and I'd like to get the

the attorney to talk about that as well ask ask the attorney aside for the clarification please what takes president a school committee policy or the city Charter by law the city Charter thank you Mr Assad again let's we do the vot disagree you obviously Mr ragar you know more than anybody up here anybody in the audience my point is you make a motion and then you change the motion can we

please do a vote we can absolutely do the vot okay well then let's do the vote thank you for your permission go ahead yes we're voting on we're voting on Mr agar's doubting of the ruling of the chair that we stay with the special uh meeting agenda Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvey yes Miss Carrera yes mayor kougan yes I don't know what we voted on with

yes so at the end of the meeting at the end of the public that's not what the motion was at the end of public input Mr Pacho will give us an update on the Turnal appoint of parliamentary inquiry what was the motion to appeal the ruling of the chair what was go ahead that's what the vote was it was and and the appeal that I made was I want to have an

answer to the lady's question now the next speaker might have a different question and we should answer that question as well just so you know 1 four five people are going to talk about leral mold if Mr Pico can hear all their comments I'm sure at the end of it he can comment looking for process and the process we just took was we doubted the ruling of your vote that says we can't

answer this Mr then we are going to make sure that Mr Pico comes up andw need another motion to say we're going to talk about this after after citizen input no we'll do it at the end of citizens input Haley de madus I need a motion she lives in Taunton so moveed second do we need a roll call that yep go ahead M yes yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das

yes Mr Cory yeah Miss larvey yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kouan yes Miss deader 3 minutes please good evening I am Haley deader as a first grade teacher at lerno I stood here at the last committee meeting expressing how sick I have become because of the lack of Maintenance and follow through with recommendations made once mold was identified in the building in a ridiculous short 3 minutes time since

this issue somehow didn't make it on the agenda to be discuss further I want to go back to the beginning and provide you with the real details since Mr Pico has again provided inaccurate information this time to the Fall River reporter stating that mold concerns were first brought to his attention in the winter September 18th our first staff meeting I expressed my concerns with my principal

and asked for air quality testing September 24th Mr Simpson's first email to Kempa Chico stating two teachers were complaining about air quality September 27th I follow up with an email stating many of us are getting sick with a nasty cough myself included I know of the following issues on the first floor alone all classrooms smell room two has shampooed her rugs twice after being

told that may be the issue no change she runs an air purifier all day rooms 9 and 10 had to throw away many items when returning from Summer due to them being covered in mold room 9 has mold on ceiling tiles which conveniently have been removed just this morning cafeteria workers have mentioned scraping mold off of their walls after receiving no response to that email I again emailed

Mr pachico on October 4th to which he responded immediately that they have scheduled testing to be completed by October 11th and results within five business days to our surprise these results were never shared with us because Mr pachico claims they did a test he didn't ask for and he is unwilling to pay for said test although we did somehow find out that room two who was told her rug may be an issue had

it removed because it was flagged as hot it then took until October 23rd to test five classrooms laterno has 60 or more rooms that students and staff occupy throughout the building and day although Mr Pico stated it would take five business days to get the results it took 11 for us to receive this data room 21 126 total fungi count room 2 295 total fungi count room 10 2,484 total fungi count with a

2,274 count concentrated in the aspila penicilium species room 9 2,611 total fungi count with a 2316 count of aspila penicilium room 8 4, 674 total fungi count with a 4,463 count of asilis penicilium that's three rooms not one not two but three rooms above safe standards identified by the MTA as being below 500 asparagus is one of the five most dangerous mold species one of the recommendations made

States additional dehumidifiers may need to be added to the interior to assist in controlling mold growth during the high humidity months of April through September well here we are in Peak humidity months with many classrooms not being retested and mold undoubtedly growing when the health and safety committee raised concerns about hosting summer school in a breeding ground Mr Pico's response was

he's not worried about summer school how can you not be worried hello that's three minutes I make a motion that we wave the rules to let her finish thank you one paragraph one paragraph two two we'll take the vote okay take motion is made I need a second continue go ahead thank you this timeline only details from September to November which is what I would consider the very beginning of

the school year not winter I have so much more to share but since I am limited to 3 minutes and already over I must refrain it is my strongest belief that lerno is not safe for students or staff to occupy for summer school

uh next speaker next speaker Junior leite Johnson Street Fall River that was closer Mr Mayor hello my name is Junior late I reside in Fall River have been employed by the F frps for over a decade and I'm a proud parent of two Fall River students one is a senior at dery and the other one is an eighth grader I'm also a member of the F Health and Safety Committee I am proud

to inform you that the lateral health and safety committee has met with superintendent and her team several times result in some improvement to our school after months of our requests falling on deaf ears though much work has been done the root of the problem remains undetected I am embarrassed and quite frankly disgusted that the condition of our buildings and several others such as green and fansa has

reached the point where it has caused severe health issues for our staff and our members of the f I would like to draw your attention to the current Fall River commit committee uh policy manual posted on the city's website section e buildings and grounds management second SE section EC ECA States the following Public Schools public school buildings and grounds are the greatest Investments of the city it is deemed in

the best interest of the school department and City to protect the investment adequately the school committee's most important function is to provide for the education of children and it recognizes that the education of children is is dependent upon many different factors including a proper physical environment that is safe clean sanitary and as comfortable and convenient as the facilities will permit

and to use requires based on this policy or let's call this your job description you have failed as a committee while you publicly argue over Fall River politics or should you buy a $6,000 dinosaur costume critical issues such as the health and safety concerns of our students and Educators in our districts remains neglected this is shameful and acceptable as this is a serious matter that deserves your

immediate attention regrettably some of you decide think that it wasn't as this issue was not including on today's agenda despite a formal request by one of your committee members Mr Das Mr agar thank you for your attention and commitment to get into the bottom of this to the rest of you your failure to follow on or follow up and promptly address this concerned continues to erode The credibility of this committee

while jeopardizing the well-being of our community much like the boldy walls in our schools we respectfully and publicly ask the F frps follow through on its commitment to have L lnal thoroughly assessed assessed by independent and certified building assessor yet to be hired and that all remediations that recommended by the assessor be completed prior to the beginning of our up our upcoming school

year and finally we request publicly that your ongoing collaboration with the F health and safety committee to be to EST l a comprehensive testing and maintenance schedule for all schools not just lerno this is important for the long-term health and safety of all F members and more importantly to safeguard the city's most valuable assets the students of Fall River not just the buildings thank you thank

you um next speaker Aaron madas South Main Street forover

good evening school committee my name is Aaron madus I'm here today with my girlfriend Britney to speak about the mold issue at laterno elementary school our oldest son attended lerno from kindergarten to Fifth and our youngest son is going into sixth grade who has also been there since kindergarten uh since the beginning of this school year the concern for mold in the school specifically in a few classrooms

including including my son's room room eight has been discussed several times uh after some tests I don't have the exact figures but students and staff are being exposed to dangerous levels of mold uh specifically ASP regillus mold one of the five most dangerous mold species children are being exposed to harmful toxins throughout the entire school day which is causing harm to their health and safety children's

safety is the absolute number one priority throughout the entire education system let me know if you disagree no okay uh that being said this needs to be addressed through and through we cannot carelessly approach this we cannot take shortcuts this is our children's health that we are talking about this is not about funding wages curriculum dinosaur costumes this is about Children's

Health which is the number one priority for the entire school committee every teacher parent and employee throughout the entire school department children's health and safety is the number one number one thing before anything for now from my understanding that it's some form of mediation you know replace carpets they're able to get testing done but of course immediately after the testing uh the mold levels

would come down cuz you everything was as clean but Bas basically what I would expect is that this should be addressed through and through periodically it can't just be cleaned up and tested after the cleanup it should be remediated tested 90 days goes by tested again 90 days goes by test it again and follow through with it don't just clean it up test it oh the M levels are down

and move move on with your life it has to be a a process um sorry let me continue where I was uh now each and every one of you have a responsibility to protect our children each and every single one of you I understand it might it be your children or you being exposed to the harmful toxins but you need to treat it as so you need to treat it as if it's

you being exposed and your children being exposed no child should be exposed to that level of toxicity sorry let me continue where I was he's out now I uh sorry now each and every one of you should be addressing the issue and following up on it it shouldn't be just one person that that takes it under their wing um treat it as if it's your child being exposed now to get into the

specifics now my son has had constant respiratory issues for years he's gotten tests for allergies from Pulmonary Specialists respiratory specialist nothing was diagnosed he's had several excuse appes especially this year and there's a very high likelihood that this mold issue could be causing the health issue for him we can't determine that it is the mold that's what's causing him to

become sick but the symptoms absolutely line up to mold exposure regardless no child should be exposed to that level of toxicity to sum things up it seems like this issue is being swept under the rug and pushed off kind of like what a slum Lord would do we cannot clean and retest immediately we must do multiple retests and really get to the bottom of it it's not something that can be taken lightly

and shame on you if you don't take this seriously shame on you than one more minute please someone who is genuine and actually cares about the well-being of our children please take this under your wing and encourage your peers to do the same last thing if this continues to be ignored or approach with half effort it will lead to the mold problem getting worse leading to worse health issues and

eventually demolishing a school less than two decades old due to mold thank you Aon when the taxpayers ask how this happened we'll be sure to let them know that it was the negligence of our school committee last sentence for the sake of our children's health and education do something thank you thank

you next speaker I'll need a motion to wave the rules um from pcket mov second Deb please call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lvy yes M Pereira yes mayor cougan yes uh Alex Bradley

hello um before speaking I just want to say that I want to acknowledge what everybody else has said and health and safety is absolutely the utmost important thing that everybody should be worried about um but I need to speak to my truth I'm not in lerno so mine's a little bit different could you speak more into the microphone directly how's this is this okay all right sure um so

first and foremost I would just like to say that I love my job I'm a prek teacher at fonsa this is um I just completed my seventh year um and it seems like Outsiders think we must not love or appreciate our jobs since we're fighting for a better contract and coming here with so much you know anger I guess you could say um but it's because we love our jobs that we're

coming here and fighting every day for a better contract I want to be able to give my best self to my students and how can we focus on teaching when we are worrying about how we're going to pay our bills the next month research overwhelmingly shows that students learn best when having fun feeling loved and safe it's hard to provide that environment for students when we ourselves don't feel valued respected

loved and safe when I first decided that I wanted to become a teacher everyone made sure to tell me that it was a low-paying job and that never mattered to me because I was okay with making a humble living without excess however I didn't realize that what it actually meant is that I would struggle to make ends meet that and that I am not okay with every day that I walk into my

school I have a huge smile on my face and muster up all my energy to bring my best self to my students I have a sort of a reputation around the school and students and family in the community know me love me and appreciate that I look like an absolute ridiculous person just to make the kids smile every day I assure you this is not my natural hair color I don't do it for fun I literally

do this just for the kids because it makes them smile the way I present myself the way I present my classroom although it kind of looks like a unicorn found the Reading Rainbow um it's all because the kids appreciate it everything I do in my life I do for the betterment of my students I have three bachelor's degrees Dees one master's degree and multiple endorsements and licenses I am well

educated and hardworking so why is it that I barely am scraping by the school committee has made it clear that they think what we are asking for is ridiculous and over the talk over the top however I need you to take a look in the mirror and realize that the Ridiculousness of our request is only due to the Ridiculousness of the discrepancy in our pay compared to the pay in other

districts if you weren't paying us so poorly we wouldn't need to ask for this much we're not asking for a raise as as much as we're asking for a pay correction I drive 45 minutes to work each day and work with a community that is in high need and requires a lot of emotional exertion people always ask me why I drive so far to make less than what I could make working almost

anywhere else and the reason is because I genuinely love our community and I love our kids and our families more than I could ever explain sorry however there comes a point as a mother I need to realize that I'm what I'm doing isn't sustainable all seven years of my teaching career I have worked a second job and I'm burning the candles at both ends so this year I finally quit that second job and I had

to take out of my pension because I couldn't afford groceries and I'm not being hyperbolic it's really bad and just so you know inflation is rising we need to be paid better because I don't want to have to choose between teaching here and being a good mom thank you

um next speaker Heather Smith Holland Street forer three minutes please thank you for allowing me to speak tonight and I am going to try my best to do a good job I did not really prepare something but I I did hear about um the possibility of speaking on on about mold and I feel very it's very important for me to have a conversation around that today I'm here today in support of the testing of schools for

mold I worked for the for school department for the last 19 years 18 of my years have been at Green I have put in numerous complaints starting in 2013 all of the times I was told it was checked no mold the room I was in in green room 102 was loaded with mold and still is loaded with mold both my parents helped me set up in the year 2023 and when we walked into my

room everything was covered completely in mold we had to throw my rugs away every year they threw my rugs away my rugs every year I have to throw out countless supplies that I buy because they're destroyed from the mold and when I was told by the custodians that there is no mold as they're being taken out my things to wash the mold off the custodial staff is in no way the problem

but the administration is and when I say Administration I'm talking about the principles and the people who say that they're testing for mold I was told countless times that a gentleman was going to be testing my room I don't believe that's ever happened and room 102 is probably similar to the lady from leral school Mr Maris I'm certain of that the truth is the custodians knew that the rooms were profession were not

professionally checked they were checked by somebody who worked for Fall River and the mold was always something that we were not to talk about at the Green School I've had numerous issues as well with my health but since I left Fall River and no longer teach here I teach a New Bedford for many reasons this being one of them my health issues were real I was coughing all the time I had friends

say why why are you always coughing I don't smoke it's not a smoker's cough I wheezed but I'd go home on vacations and I'd be on the phone with friends and they'd say a specific friend was the one who brought it to my attention and said you know Heather I think you might have a problem with the school you always cough but you don't cough when you are like halfway through break and that is

true and since I've left I no longer cough cough it is a real problem most importantly I have been bringing this issue since 2013 to my school nobody has done anything about it only person who did something about it was myself when I said to my custodians if we don't do something the ceiling tiles are falling off a child is going to get killed because one of these sailing tiles is going to fall down and

hurt them or kill them they replaced my tiles and I took videos because they didn't realize I was going to be there I have pictures videos of the countless amount of mold in the ceilings and unless we address the problem and fix the problem you can clean it all you want but the health issues are not going to change thank

you and finally uh Rob Gorman I believe he's from Brockton could I get a motion to wav of w second I have a motion to Second de please call the rooll Mr aam yes Mr biley yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larv yes M Perera yes mayy Coogan yes ladies and gentlemen of the school committee my name is Robert Gorman I come to you today as a teacher from BMC

dery to discuss teacher autonomy now it's not as life or death as mold but next to compensation the issue of teacher autonomy is one of the most brought up in relation to retention at our school the connection between autonomy and retention may not be immediately obvious so let me explain for you at dery we've adopted two curricula Carnegie Learning and opsed for Math and Science departments

respectively in both the math and science departments we've been told to teach both curricula with Fidelity and that seems to be the big buzzword Fidelity in some cases we've been told to execute the material as written to the best of our abilities the implication being made when we're told to teach with f delity is that very little of the material should be adapted and that it should be instructed as

written in the math department we've been told to add additional many lessons to teach blind spots as we come across them from time to time but in science I've heard accounts of strict Fidelity being enforced generally speaking there are several issues with this approach both Carnegie Learning and open CED are meant to be adapted and supplemented in some cases extensively in Carnegie's case look no further than

Desi's own curate scores Carnegie scored full marks on standards alignment I'll give you that but only partially met expectations with classroom application according to Desi curricula that only meet expectations partially in this area should be supplemented or adapted substantively in ops's case the curriculum's website in addition to their PD Representatives state to the similar effect that it should be adapted

or supplemented for whatever reason we are being cautioned against adapting and supplementing reducing our our classroom autonomy I understand that as a school in turnaround everyone is looking for the Magic Bullet that will improve State scores as soon as possible but curtailing teacher involvement with their students education reducing our autonomy is not the way and I have the data to prove it

per a 2012 study that focused on the causes of mathematics and science teacher turnover a big focus in this District the strongest factor for teacher turnover in subjects that were state tested so this may even extend to ELA with as far as the mcast goes was the degree of individual autonomy held by classroom teachers if we continue down this path of mistrusting teacher expertise in pursuit of a generalized

cookie cutter experience that isn't even recommended by the state or by curriculum vendors turnover rates will continue and student learning will suffer we got into this profession to teach not to be liveaction versions of uity or glorified babysitters we are highly qualified professionals that you are paying for our expertise allow us to use that expertise to adapt and supplement per our students needs thank

you thank you I have a final one on uh laterno Claudia montino uh Deb uh from Fall River Deb will will read hello my name is Claudia coutino mono and I am the mom of Leon Cino Montero a first grader now going into second grade at l chno Elementary School I was planning to attend today's school committee meeting but unfortunately I'm not able to so I ask that you read my

letter to all thank you in advance I would like to stop by saying how upsetting it is that the mold issue at leral school has not been taken as seriously as it should be in how our kids have been put in this unhealthy environment every single day of the school year with no regards at all to their well-being the schools are supposed to be a safe place for the children physically mentally and

healthwise so this is not acceptable the lack of communication regarding this has been minimal the principal or the superintendent have not scheduled a meeting to talk to parents about it and it seems as it seems that there has been more effort to cover this up than to talk about it I would like to ask the members of the school committee How about if it was your kids in this situation in a school where the mole

levels were extremely high what would you do my son was sick various times throughout the school year he had a rash on his skin and I am pretty sure it could be related to the toxic environment and air quality in in his classroom my son was in classroom 8 and that was one of the worst in the school regarding the air quality and mold levels they were absurdly high they were

moved once in November then went back into the classroom then 4 days out of the school ending they were moved again like they were like that would make any difference at this point this is ridiculous this is outrageous this is unacceptable please to the people in the school committee to the superintendent do more and care more about our kids health because it it could be yours in this situation if you cannot relocate

these kids then do then do online classes it was done during Co so I am sure it can be done again if necessary sorry my son will not be returning to lnal school if this issue is not taken seriously and resolved do better thank you um as I told the committee in the audience U Mr Pico could you give us any update you may have on what's going on with the mold

aternal so um wish I had a lot of information I have some information um tomorrow morning we're meeting with the MTA suggested Environmental Group at 9:00 a.m. Mr Philip Terrell is coming down um we will walk the building we will walk the epicenter so to speak of where we have the issues and uh come up with a uh a plan moving forward uh in 8 and then the rest of um of that

particular area and then throughout the school we will spend as much time there tomorrow as he has available and then um come up with uh steps moving forward we also have um uh a reschedule of uh the gentleman Mark Stevens who uh works for Armstrong um equipment on the uh air purifiers to come down and and check on the installation and also to give us um the suggested maintenance

piece of it and then moving forward um whether we have um the newest addition of the units um and then um sub subsequently put the order in for um the rest of that particular area in the first floor and moving forward hopefully the whole building very shortly um short piece on the uh uh on the humidistats um we are um going to have a unit install tomorrow um that

we have in stock and um set it it'll be in room two 8 um so we can adjust um that particular piece see what we have for information that we gather through that piece in the meantime order an additional 7 to 10 units um for that particular wing on the building and then moving forward um they will be installed in in the entire building we also have um Mr Green uh who

has done a fabulous job in all of those rooms preparing for um potential summer school um at the request of um the the health and safety committee um we would move those classrooms elsewhere in the building um and to be totally honest if no one's comfortable in teaching in that building then we will move them elsewhere thank you Mr Pico um I would ask then we get back to the agenda when

will you you'll have your meeting tomorrow can you give us an update after that as soon as I I leave the gentlemen I'm hoping that we can sign an agreement moving forward with everything else I he's very interested in coming down thank you Mr chairman Mr agar so what is the process for the um to sign the agreement with the consultant is that a contract that has to is it based on

dollar amounts or do you have the authority to just or superintend so a certain dollar amount I'll obviously be able to you know pull the trigger immediately I I don't know what I don't know if I'm getting an alicot menu from him as to what He suggests and and what moving forward he wants to do I don't know that I won't know it until tomorrow I had about a 10-minute conversation with him on uh

Tuesday and um looking forward to meeting him tomorrow um and see where we where we move forward so the hope is is that I I can within a certain dollar range um do this uh with this company um and then if that is exceeded then we will I will come to the Comm committee um if I need to to um to get more uh Authority and what is and what is that

dollar range now that where you increased it so there are certain Consultants that we can hire up to $30,000 um that are exempt from the bidding process I'm not quite sure if his cooporation um fits into that and we will uh check on that as soon as I get some numbers from him I mean one of the reasons why I supported Mr das's request to put this on the agenda was be these

are the questions that we would need to expedite this issue like I have a ton of questions that I wrote down just looking at this one as far as like an emergency when there's expenditures and stuff I I think that we need to leave this room tonight whether it's now although we didn't put new business on so we can't because the agenda is screwed up we can't do a lot of stuff so I don't know

the mechanism for it but I think that we shouldn't be leaving here tonight without giving you or the the superintendent basically but the authority to do something if the thing comes out for 50,000 we're going to come back so I I just think it's um I am and I'm not blaming anyone I at all I just think that this has become a real bigger mess than I ever anticipated personally as one member of the committee the

school committee has roles and responsibilities and one of those roles is not the day-to-day operation of the school department that falls under the superintendent and her designes so we don't have the authority just for the edification of the public to order any test to do anything individually so really what we can do is at these meetings we can we can speak we can try to have you send us pictures we can try

to push the envelope for you but we can't do anything individually but when with that being said the the information that the people presented is very telling that we have some serious issues here the most alarming piece for me was when I heard last week that we also had green School issues that we heard nothing about on the school committee so I had to send an email to the superintendent say now is the green

school getting tested so now the yes the green school's getting tested so now does the Green School have mold the young lady who spoke that's a horrifying story about the Green School from 2013 I don't there's just so much information that just keeps coming somebody told me today I don't know who it was said fansa I heard now does fansa have mold like it just really totally blowing my mind and

that's why I was in favor of and I emailed everyone to say that I'm in favor of having an outside person come in be responsible for the whole thing and I think that's happening but time is going by so whatever we got to do here today I think we should be doing to make sure that we can actually get this done there's just so many issues with the the mold the summer school I set it Point

Blank and I'll say it here there's no way we should be having summer school at that school when we have molder just not and I I know there was agreements and stuff I just we can do it I I just think we're asking for trouble because it just keeps on it it's more schools and I'm not a oldold expert by no means but the next meeting that we have I want

to have a consultant there that's in charge this come up before us cuz Mr P so you're not an expert on everything either you can only do what you can do so I want the more I know the more the less I know believe me but what I'm saying is I want the person once we get hired so that that person's I think responsible for to clear everybody's uh Minds about it and to just make sure

everybody's safe because whoever it was that said you know treat it like your own family of course we do but we don't have that Authority necessarily so that's why I'm a little aggravated with getting all of this stuff at this point this has been going on all year I personally think we have HVAC system problems in this district for a long time I've asked today for five different items from I want years of uh

information I want School dude information I want to know who was requesting stuff because I want to see what's happening because I think this has become a big huge mess uh we know we had the issue with spraying sealing tiles for instance I talked to you about that you shouldn't spray to spray paint sealing tiles now to your credit you stopped that how long was that going on for what was the issue we had other

issue at tany school that I brought to the superintendent's attention that there was black fur behind a wall that a CST said to somebody else just cover it up I told you that 3 4 months ago I still don't have an answer on whether there was or there wasn't the these type of things can't happen school committee doesn't have this Authority I bring it to the superintendent and we can only

rely on them to do what they have to do but the the only question I would ask is if however it works out if there is a vote of this committee that's needed to have you via the superintendent be allowed to sign that contract I'm ready to vote for it yes I don't care what it says at this point but logistically you guys got to work that out with without I

um Mr Das thank you U Mr bico um I know we discussed some at the um health and safety meeting last Thursday um there's going to be a comprehensive assessment done um is that assessment um you want that to cover anywhere where there's um any anywhere where there's children correct where there would be children and as far as anywhere like like anywhere they could be children present in the school

that yes absolutely okay so that covers every classroom any like gym area it covers the entire building okay so every class has covered okay and just a quick question for the superintendent um just when when does summer school start for lnal if it hasn't started already Monday Monday okay so we're trying to get this done this week it won't be done it won't be done for Monday so we will move

students elsewhere out of that area if that's the will and if it is isn't and we need to shut it down then we will move them into another building okay yeah so just and you mentioned it but just to reiterate you're in close step with um health and safety committee if there's any classrooms they don't feel comfortable placing students in those students will be placed there exactly okay I Y thank you if I

could one second Mr chairman it's just um on on um on Mr aga's uh point the the blame is here the blame is not the superintendent the superintendent is at 4117 Rock Street can't be everywhere so the blame is the person who operates this particular piece and it's and it's right here this is not I don't pass the buck I don't expect it to be people who work for fno to take that responsibility the

custodians do a heck of a job year in and year out trying to do everything they can so the the the issue is right here and with that being said I will do whatever I can to get this thing ready for August I agree 100% about the full assessment of the building I'm hoping that Mr Terell will um and I tomorrow will will come up with um a plan that he

can put in into put you know pen to paper come up with that and move forward and we will do whatever we can or whatever we need to do to procure what we need to procure thank you Miss Pera really quick because a couple of things were already addressed how long is summer school 5 weeks I think 5 weeks maybe so cuz my initial thing was as soon as this happened I immediately was

why do we have kids there the test came back again why do we have kids there um I don't personally feel comfortable having anybody in that school this summer now I don't know anything about mold so when people come up and give me numbers and figures as as much as I appreciate and I'm listening to it I have no clue I know that it's not healthy I used to be a nurse that much I

know it's not good to breathe in I also know you can't see it right so how do we know where it is we know it's there it could be creeping around and I'm not joking I'm serious so if if we feel or the safety board or the school or what have you feels that it's safe just to to move to different parts of the building maybe I don't know enough but my thought

process process is we need to have a subcommittee meeting ASAP we need to have every all the important people on board and we need to find a different location probably for the remaining five weeks I don't I don't know what the plan is maybe everybody already has a spot I just think that number one we we I I don't think that in good conscience we can we can have them go into that building that's

my opinion um and it's just my opinion again I am not an expert um and then the last thing I was going to say just to reiterate um what my colleague over here and over there said if there's anything we can do to expedite it for the superintendent tonight if there's anything we can do to move something forward I don't know if you have to go out for bid for these

guys or what we can do but I think we'd like to just kind of do that now and let's get that ball rolling so that your hands aren't tied and you're able to like act quicker than having to come back so if if I could and there is one thing I should have mentioned that Mr AIA the one thing is wave the $25,000 reason for me to come back to the

committee and we could sign a contract with them uh with the consultant no matter what that price is say that one more you say just one issue just one issue with this item what can you so if we could wave the $25,000 okay motion to W the $25,000 just on this one issue on this one issue the consultant just consultant we can we can expedite and sign the contract I'm not saying it's going to be

I just all right we have a motion second and a second to wave the rules so that Mr Pico can take the necessary movement tomorrow to to attempt to tackle the issue at maternal I do have one more question here miss larv so Mr Pico is this is this meeting tomorrow going to include green and include fansa they is going to Lal tomorrow just lateral tomorrow so as the facility's chair so after tomorrow's

meeting we're going to connect right so if we if we could schedule a meeting for next week that would be perfect we will make that happen Okay absolutely so we have a motion to wave the rules so that Mr take M yes um and just um and just um on Mr pera's Point um the only reason if the health and safety committee I was assuming they were okay just from my understanding from the last meeting with

moving students into safer classrooms if they feel I feel the same way if they feel the building should be shut down then I'm I'm in lock step with that but again I think should um listen to um the boots on the ground which is the Safety Committee um but i y thank you okay thank you Mr D so we have a motion to wave the requirements and a second Mr

Agia so when I bring up issues about the agenda and how it gets created and the things that are not on it this is the perfect reason why because everyone sitting here wants to vote on a motion and I don't see any mechanism in this agenda that allows us to do that Mr mrad Mr ago's concern is we don't have the ability to wave the rule to allow Mr Pico to take the necessary steps well

from what I'm I'm hearing uh if this was a uh a an outside motion that was made uh that was not as serious as it is right now and it sounds like it's you have an emergency you have a situation where on Monday uh there are students that are are uh scheduled to be in that classroom I think in that particular situation uh there would be a waving of

the rules and I do not believe that the this would be uh something that we would be violating any any law or the open meeting law with respect to it uh this is a situation where uh action has to be taken today thank you we're not taking action on the moving of the children that's the problem it's contingent on what he gets tomor no Mr I'm not sorry I misund I'm I will

not excuse me Mr I didn't mean that I'm not going to have an answer tomorrow from this gentleman other than the fact that he's going to take the job not take the job and I'm going to try and get a ballp figure from him so that we can enter into a contract and he can get started I'm sure that he's not going to walk in the door tomorrow and just want

to talk he's going to want to walk around he may want to take some tests I I don't know that um I'm hoping that he may but I can't I can't ver I don't have anything to go by so what I'm saying is tomorrow that is going to happen and I would like to be able to say to him come up with a proposal I don't know if he's

going to get back to me if he can give me a verbal um tomorrow so that I can talk to the superintendent and figure out where we're going I I don't want to split the bit the bid you know so if he sells me well I can I can work I can do this for $1 15,00 000 for now and then we'll have to reapo I think the consultant piece and the nature of

environmental uh situations would allow me to do that so I I don't know okay uh and I would have to make calls on that um to the state to find out if I could enter into a deal with them knowing full well that it won't cover the full cost of what we're doing superintendent PS if I could just weigh in on you're right on the children if we could um I

I have to meet with Mr bico Dr Curley we have to look at where there's space and certainly make a decision tomorrow in regards to where we could house uh summer school for little Turnal children if we have to delay that by a week we or a few days we will so that we can make those arrangements but um tomorrow I could notify the committee we can make that determination as to what we will do

in regards to moving the leral children so that they can have a safe summer school if if I also could one second to the to the superintendent the it's not only the the um they do have outside agencies who will use that school so okay it'll affect them too our students but it'll affect them okay so Mr the point that I was just making of the agenda is the what attorney Assad said

was an emergency was related to the children starting on Monday that's not what this is about so my concern is just that we know what we want to do and I'm just reiterating it because every time I bring up something about we're not doing doing the agendas properly the leadership is not doing the agendas properly I get my eyes rolled I can see it from that side saying oh he's there

he's going again there he's going again but these are the things that are the reason so we have to do agendas following school committee protocol that says any issue that did not which is in the writing which has been in existence but we don't dot our eyes and cross our tees as a leadership on this school committee that's why we're in this Quagmire right now because we we want to vote for something but there's no

mechanism to vote for it the superintendent as I said earlier is in charge of the day-to-day operations the superintendent has every right to just move those children without us saying it I emailed a week ago and I said I don't know who the hell made that decision exact quote but no answer until we come here tonight now all of a sudden we can change we could have made that decision

a week ago so I'm a little frustrated by that particular piece but I think the superintendent can do that anyway the issue is just the contract so I think we're we're basically stuck like we were last time saying when Mr Pacho comes back and says we we need to go above a certain number we need to have a special meeting if we're going to follow protocol and policy and say this is when

it's going to be here to do it and I'm ready to to come to the meeting but I don't see any way that we can do what we all want to do because of the Screwed Up nature of this agenda again okay and that's what I feel and I don't think there's a right to do it there's a way to do it so you all right so we have a

motion to wave the cap on money so that Mr Chico can take the necessary steps to address the issues at lerno De please I have a motion second it's an illegal vote Mr Mayor Mr Mr um Mr Mayor Mr Assad said that we have the right to do this under a health and safety because the children are coming in on Monday he didn't say it was for a contract de

please call the RO the whole point the whole point if we can think about this this way the reason the school is unsafe is because of the mold we need the contract done quickly so we can fix the school quickly so we can get our kids back in safely it's all related to the healthare of the kids if you think it's illegal even though the high paid attorney doesn't list I'm done we're

going to vote we get Mr Assad to in please we have a motion a second Mr Assad please point of procedure Mr okay point a parliamentary procedure can you point a parliamentary what's the Parliamentary procedure Mr there is no mechanism on this agenda currently the way the open meeting law is related that we can actually vote on this right now Mr emergency that attorney Assad said was children coming

in the building on Monday and that's not what this vote is so this would be a violation of the open meeting law if we did it this way now I know we all want to do it but it's the fact it's a violation of the open meeting law because of the Screwed Up agenda saying it's a violation of the open meeting law it's not on the agenda well but you let

everybody talk we know that but you wanted to have this conversation so here we are you can ask to be recognized okay hold on Mr AA Mr Assad's going to give you your answer that you've been able to now we're trying to do something about prevent that you knew we it wasn't on the agenda but you wanted to talk I thought you looked no no no Mr rad was

going to explain to him why we can vote okay okay now my understanding is if the issue is about the open meeting law uh this would not this would not apply this is a a situation where uh is something on the agenda or not on the agenda in a special meeting everyone understands uh very clearly that the items are are subject to what is on the ineda and it doesn't go beyond that however there was

a a vote taken with respect to uh um uh I'm sorry public input in which this issue was brought up uh the individual from the school department uh Mr Pico was allowed to address it uh we have a situation where it's not something that could be put off it is something that uh has to be done as quickly as possible we have students and teachers and other individuals who are scheduled to go into

that uh building on Monday whether or not they go there or not is is a question that's going to be addressed by the administration I would assume the but the information has to be uh brought so that the the school department can take some action now uh Mr Mr aar's point is is that it's a special meeting and then generally in the special meeting you don't take up an item that

is not on the agenda however we have a situation that has been brought to the attention of the the school committee we are sitting here uh I and my my opinion my legal opinion is that uh this the school committee Tak an action that is absolutely unequivocally necessary to be taken right now is the is the right uh uh action to take and that uh we would be if we're going to be criticized for

taking up something that is not on the agenda what would the criticism be if we're made aware of this situation and took no action bottom line is it's my opinion that this would be this would not be a violation of the rules and even if it were all it would be would be a situation where there'd be a ratification vote taken at the next meeting Deb please call the

role Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lvy yes M Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes first item up on the agenda is yes Mr AA could we also ask the the gentleman came up to talk about curriculum and laid a bunch of things out I'd like to request from the new superintendent u a response to each of those uh items thank you item 3.1 is a

discussion and vote to approve the Early Childhood principal job description is presented by Kristen barias good evening thank you Kristen no problem um so I believe you were provided copies of both the current job description for elementary principles as well as the proposed job description for the principal of the Early Learning Center there are very few changes um that are made to this generally speaking

the overall administration of a school building many of those things are what they are regardless of the students that are in the building the general sort of day-to-day operations are what they are what is different in early childhood is that this is a specialized program so our Early Childhood Program at its foundation is a special education program and so this school is servicing students with and students without

disabilities however 65% of the students in the building will be students on IEPs so the principle of the Early Learning Center of any early childhood building that is a special education program really needs to have an understanding of special education laws special education procedures particularly those that involve the transition from early intervention in community- Based Services into public school Services

while that transition itself happens in the early childhood office and with my Special Education team there we are then handing that child off in the family and the the work around implementing that IEP for that child to the school building and the principal would be the person overseeing that work on the dayto day and so for this there are elements there where they need to work

collaboratively with the Early Childhood special education department on what that relationship is what that handoff is from the family coming in from early intervention and they transition into the public schools The Early Learning Center next year in two sites eventually in one combined site will house almost all of our halfday programs and so that means almost every single student that

is transitioning to us on an IEP will be the responsibility of this principle I know if you have any specific questions related to any questions for Kristen faras Mr dasas thank you um I'll start off with a few U thank you for coming down um so the question I'm about to ask right now is because I just have a few concerns that um some of the responsibilities for the proposed um principal position and um

your position are sort of duplicated so hopefully you can help me um through that um and thank you superintendent um for responding to my email earlier um in response to this so just so I have an understanding um your position um was moved um some time ago from small programs to large programs could you just explain what that is for my advocation for the public so explain why

it was moved or yeah um that and um what the difference is between the two um I'm going to be very honest I don't know what the difference is between the two I can tell you um I have been overseeing Early Childhood special education as a special education supervisor I began that role back in 2013 during the about 7even years after that I worked very closely with the previous director of Early Childhood she

handled all of the programmatic pieces to early childhood and so enrollment screening and registration of general education peers from the community curriculum and instruction as well as the Early Childhood grants that we had at that time when I applied for this position in 2020 what we discussed between the superintendent the special education director at the time and myself was that

coming into this position it made more sense for me to maintain the responsibilities I had as a special education supervisor for early childhood and combin those with the director of Early Childhood position we did not know at that time what the lift would be for that and what that would truly look like we I took this job in July of 2020 so the first year of this was Co and so

that year was not normal for anyone and so that didn't give us a good gauge going into the 2021 2022 school year is when we really got to have a sense of what is the lift of now essentially taking two jobs and making them one job I did not take all of my um special ed supervisor responsibilities with me I also had school age children at that time that was given to the person who

replaced me I only took with me the Early Childhood part of that side note on that at that time there were very few special education supervisors and so that while it was part of my job right at that time what it constitutes at this time is I carry in addition to the director of Early Childhood role a full special education supervisor case Lo so in June of 2022 is when I made the

request to have the position considered large versus small no clear definition of what the difference was other than the fact that the job that was previously held by the early childhood director and the job that I am doing are substantially different the special education piece is not in the job description if you read it um but but it makes sense for continuity as well as consistency for

services for the children both with and without special ed to have two different people overseeing curriculum and instruction for gened students versus special edged students just doesn't make sense in an integrated environment we want our students to have equal access and opportunity and so looking at our preschool program more holistically it makes sense that I would do both pieces

of that and so in June of 2022 I did make that request the request was not approved until a full year later and so this is the first year that I'm actually working under it as a large program the first three years um it remained the small the other piece of that is when I took this position in 2020 we had 17 preschool classrooms we currently have 33 our enrollment has gone from a a

capacity of 351 to a capacity of 609 in addition our early childhood grants which I oversee as part of the director's role we have grants in early childhood that are actually eec not Desi programs and so I oversee those as well the coordinated family and Community engagement Grant which includes our parent child plus program when I took this grant over we applied for some expansion and we were able to expand

that Grant to service 10 additional families that is a onetoone model where we have providers that work with families with children five and under in their home so we are now servicing 10 more families than we were when I took this position in addition we added a model to that called homebased child care where we send our staff into family child care centers to work with those providers on their program to strengthen

their skills in the work that they're doing with their students so that's an additional piece um that the previous director did not have in addition in 2022 we applied for the Commonwealth Community um the preschool partnership initiative Grant and were awarded that which we began in June of July of 2022 so that is a new grant that was taken on that year where we are working in collaboration with um headstar and

people link Preschool On doing shared work with making full day full year programming more accessible to families and being able to provide special education services in those programs okay so the job the director job as it was prior to my taking it is not the job that it is now okay so um just basally summarize that all up um principal is going to handle more the day-to-day you're going to handle the

curriculum um just a question there two questions for the superintendent um the so actually this would be actually for you so you're going to work hand inand you they're not going to report the principal position if it's approved they're not going to report to you they're going to report directly to superintendent but you have more of a correct so it'll be a similar it will be a closer relationship because the number

of classrooms that are in that building and the age of the children but right now many of our preschool classrooms are in our current schools and overseen by the principles of those schools and I have a close working relationship with each principal when something is going on in preschool they will reach out to me and we will collaborate to support the classrooms that are in the school

buildings but the classrooms are under the day-to-day supervision of the principal okay and um this confirm you don't have um an assistant director I do not okay um and so one question for the superintendent what's the average um salary range for if we have any assistant um directors like throughout the district I'm just trying to think can we get we don't have assistant directors you're talking about our

directors of program directors we don't have assistant directors oh right no um I'll you for now thank you anybody have anybody have anything Mr AGA thank you so uh just a couple of questions I guess so what you're saying is the there's you're currently doing the supervisor of Early Childhood so early childhood special education falls under me um as the Director of Early Childhood now

where it did not previously I've been doing that role for the last 11 years when I took over the Early Childhood Department I brought that piece with me so in the OR chart of the special ed Department you fall under your whole department falls under Miss soin chain as the assistant superintendent a part of my department so my Early Childhood has sort of three buckets so there's Early Childhood special education which

is the transition from early intervention it's the evaluation teams we run two evaluation teams we process about 350 referrals for special education for ages children ages 3 to 5 a year so there are two teams of psychologists speech therapists team chairs that do that work in my office so that's sort of one layer of Early Childhood the next layer is our public preschool program and so that's looking

at the program design the lottery placement of students curriculum and instruction for preschool as an age level as a grade level the third piece of that is our early childhood grants so we have two grants over a million dollars from eec not from desie that fund some of the programs we work on for children who are not yet enrolled in school so those are our parent child plus programs our homebased daycare

programs we run Play and Learn groups and we're also we also work with families of young children on getting access to resources in the community the diaper Pantry food stabilization those types of things um we work with families we have staff that do community outreach and we work with many of the local um partner agencies that work with young children can you clarify I had we had a

a subcommittee meeting related to this exact issue and it was indicated at that time we it was the title was an Aug chot I believe that the or chart maybe the superintendent can clarify where the or chart showed your position not you personally your position falling under Miss obenchain and I just heard you say partially I don't know what that means so it so my I directly report to miss

entain so 100% I direct yes 100% I directly report to miss obain I work also very closely with Dr Carly on the teaching and learning team looking at the curriculum and instruction piece but for sort of Sanity sake I sit under special education on Miss open chains or you'll see that under Early Childhood director it links that there is an additional org chart that separates out what is what lives in early childhood

but it all falls under Miss Oben Chain's assistant superintendency that's was my point was yes you said it was other than that and I'm still trying to figure that out but the so at the end of the day that's how the O track goes what is the percentage of children in prek that are on an IEP roughly uh 34 I think 65% in this particular building it will be 65% I

would say it's probably roughly in that range um across the district that's probably a good um I can get you an exact number but in this building it will be 65 so the majority of the situation is on the special education the first I'm hearing of the need for this position and I could be wrong but I don't believe they're in the budget this was on the list of either recommendations or the positions not

funded so I've never heard until this date right now that you were doing two jobs the special ed supervisor and your other job I still haven't yeah because we merge those into one and I can do those as one combined job what I can't do is those and be a school principal and that's what I've been trying to do this year and it's just not something that's feasible but to the to the

superintendent during the budget process this was known what we were going to do for additional classrooms so my question is was this presented to the committee related to that we're going to need a principal for the Early Childhood if we expand by five classes that's all we're doing is expanding by five classrooms it's not like we expanding by 17 classrooms no this isn't an expansion we

have currently seven classrooms that are housed at Eastern Avenue as well as five classrooms that this year were at um 251 South Main Street that are moving to Bishop Conley no I understand all all I'm suggesting is though is the need for the position so when we look at last year you had the same number of classrooms so we're not expanding at all when you say last year this past school year moving into

the beginning of next year no sir we are not expanding we have o this current school year I tried my best and I'm going to be very honest with limited success to oversee the classrooms that were at 2501 South Main Street as as well as the classrooms that are at Eastern Avenue as their principal in addition to being the director it is not feasible and I'm not trying to criticize

you at all all I'm just saying is taking the person out like has nothing to do with you just taking the positions and the history of what happened is we were told a year or two ago in 2022 whenever that thing went out that you had taken on a lot of different things because of additional prek students at that time when we voted and I I I think I voted for it I'm not even

sure at the time but we voted to move your contract to a bigger salary in a different level because it was a large program at that particular time it was never stated to this committee or to myself that the problem was that we you were doing the supervisor's job as well as this other stuff so all I'm trying to figure out is do we go back to to saying we got to you know streamline some of

the positions because when money's going to run out at some point we just can't keep adding positions so I just want to be clear when I made the request for the committee and the superintendent to consider the move from a small program to a large program it never entailed anything to do with the day-to-day management of preschool classrooms or preschool buildings it did not when we talked about the expansion that

expansion my Early Childhood special ed team doubled from one team to two teams because of the volume of students we were seeing what that did not include was my running the day-to-day operations of any preschool classrooms I have never done that building principles have always overseen the day-to-day operations of preschool as a grade level in their building where we got into a different situation last year running

into this year is we started to put create preschool only buildings and so preschool only bu when we put a preschool in a in a school building the principal overse understand I understand let me ask you a question how long have we been in Eastern Avenue this is the second year so for the first year who was in charge of the day-to-day operations of that school I was and that's what when we went into this year

we did have the conversation about whether we needed a principal and we were still trying to figure out what was going to happen to 2501 we didn't want to come to this committee and ask for something without clearly understanding what we were asking for and why a as this program has doubled in four years and so trying to really figure out the logistics and the support needed for that has been

challenging particularly since we haven't had consistent space we had Eastern Avenue we had classrooms that were at the Boys and Girls Club 2501 was sort of in flux we didn't know what we needed we tried to do it with bcbas and have them sort of fall under me director but run the dayto day that makes no sense it just doesn't work the social emotional behavioral needs and we have Preschool teachers here the social

emotional behavioral needs of our children ages 3 to five are significant and so those bcbas are spending 100% of their time in classrooms being a support to teachers they can't run the building so with that I have been running a good amount of it and then I'm very fortunate that I have a team that works for me in early childhood who do not question and go where they are needed to go and so

have really had my back trying to oversee those two buildings last year and this year but that's also pulling them away from their duties I understand so the issue that I think maybe is a little communication difference is that when we voted to move you from up to a different uh section we were told by the superintendent the reason was because we increased from 17 classrooms to 33 classrooms so that was

clearly what we were told when we voted that we weren't told that we you're doing a special a supervisor job and the like it sounds to me like you need some help is the way it sounds to me and I'm looking at it as Miss obenchain is the boss of that section she should be the one weighing in on the special ed piece the this is a real issue of special ed

special education but it isn't but it isn't and I don't mean to interrupt but I want to make sure we're clear on what we're asking for and why the combining of Early Childhood special ed and the work the Early Childhood director did makes sense and it is something that it with the team that's in place there now we are able to do what I cannot do is do that and run a building so it isn't that

I don't need help on the special ed side I've been doing that work for 11 years I've got that what is making that work challenging as well as running the grants and doing the other work is I'm trying to be a principal and I've been a principal I know what that takes I can't do both and be the support that I need to be to the children to the teachers to the families of the school I

actually Mr I was contemplating voting for this and as the more you talk it the more I'm trying to go against it now because what is happening is I feel we have some needs in most of the kids have in special education so we have to have the special education assistant superintendent more involved in all of the decisions that are going on now you're trying your best you do this and

I'm not criticizing your work I don't know you work that well quite honestly but when we look at most of the kids in special education we need a person that's in charge of that building to be special education focused as well as the day-to-day operations and principles correct so when I look add that to the the expectations here because it wouldn't be different than like a Mrs Shaw principal of stone school who has a

special education background we definitely need Mrs obenchain we need the person that the team if the position is approved hires to understand special education but it does need to be a principal right so when I look at the required qualifications the only difference that you added or superintendent added from the regular one is knowledge of special ed law and regulations as well as special related

protocols that's it doesn't mean you've had to have experience in it it doesn't articulate any of the other stuff that is related to spe it's not knowledge of special ed law and regulations as well as all special ed related protocols has nothing to do with Early Childhood three to 5 year olds that you discussed and the issue that you mentioned it doesn't say it in the required qualifications

then you look down to the performance responsibilities of sustaining programs to collaborate 90% of this is all the exactly the same as an elementary school principal but I'm just thinking it sounds like there's a bigger issue of special education you supervisor not having staff I think there's got to be a better a different way personally now the salary is going to be the same no

matter what you make it a vice principal you you're probably in a similar boat but I asked maybe we do a teacher in charge maybe we do something else that we we just are not going to keep having money to keep adding $100,000 positions I I just want to be clear that we tried this year to do bcbas per Mrs F's recommendation uh Miss obenchain has been part of all of our conversations we

talk about this at senior staff it's on our agendas um Etc we've this year we tried to see all right maybe not a principal can we try with another role to support if we're putting um if it's a building right now Mrs feris is listed as the principal of the building because for a Desi Cod you need to have someone identified as the principal of the building we tried to see if it would

work Mrs fias at the end of the year said we need a principal not a bcba they need to be dealing with a lot more responsibility than uh what a bcba can do um which is why we are coming forth asking for a principle for that the as far as the requirements you're correct and again Mrs ferious worked very closely we talked about the the special EDS um requirement background and what

would um we didn't want to limit ourselves and what would make sense in regards to what what are the qualifications that people have to have but all of it was developed in conjunction with Mrs FAS who's in the role so the issue that the issue that I have my my last point there is at some point we're not going to have y money to keep on adding these positions and you just said to us you

just told this whole committee that you had a bcba in of a building and I will ask you can you please send the job in charge of the building I was in charge of the building that person was there providing day-to-day support because I can't be in two places at once and this is split between two sites okay is it in the bcba's job description that they will be in charge of the day-to-day

operation of a building I can't answer that I can't I I can it's not so all I'm saying is that we're saying it didn't work but we we didn't really truly try it officially because we just said oh we're going to try it with this so now we're going to just add another principal to it I I understand you need help I just think but with all due respect Mr agar we are opening a school

you are opening West doall there was no question that a principal would be hired for that school in scope of size this school is the same size as what westall will be it has the same number of classrooms it will have approximately the same number of children it actually has more staff so there was no question when when the committee voted to Open West that a principal would be put there

this is a school it is a school with 12 if we expand potentially up to 14 classrooms it has approximately 300 children and 45 staff it is a school and it needs a principal and where is can you send me the notice that you requested this at the budget time oh my God and it was I did not request this at the budget time that is the problem right but that was not my place to

request this at the budget we didn't bring it because we were trying to see if we could run those sites with support from bcba and having Mrs farious overse it when did you know when did you come up with the idea that you couldn't do this that it wasn't working was it just yesterday no sir no it was during budget time you already knew this wasn't working and the superintendent knew in

my opinion because the senior staff talks about it that you said it wasn't working and you didn't present it I think where we struggle and this is where we're we continue to struggle is we did not know and realistically because the committee has not voted on the PACE Center we still do not know where these classrooms at budget time we did not know where they would be we did not know we found out just

recently about Bishop Conley and have started to do the work for that transition the location of these classrooms and whether we could create them as a school has been constantly in flux which makes it very difficult to make decisions about what is needed as superintendent Pont said with that being known we have tried multiple scenarios to try to figure out how to best support the sites until we could come up with a

plan it hasn't nothing we have tried has adequately supported the staff the children and the families for these schools they need to have a principle that is just solely responsible for them yeah I just disagree with the the the way it went about he didn't do it with through the budget the superintendent didn't do it through the budget and we're going to run out of money move the question second I have a we have a

motion to move the question any discussion pointed point of parliamentary I believe um attorney aside has something the way on we're beating this to death Mr a the uh a a motion to end debate and move a questioned uh has to be after the speaker has okay yielded I thought you did so when I ask you these questions it is not to give you a hard time it's in the framework of that

as a school committee member we have to work together to try to come up with some of these things some of my concerns are quite valid whether my committee members want to weigh in and not talk about it because they just want to go home that's that's up to them but my feeling is I have legitimate honest questions and concerns about this disrespect I do think I disrespect I do think that disrespectful I do think that

you need assistance all I was trying to get to is do we need to do it in a different trying to get to mrman Mr chair M lar Please Mr agar has the floor so all I was saying is I think that we need you need some help based on all of that stuff schw a principal M miss Larry miss Larry so sorry sorry mayor sorry so the only thing I was

saying is that you do need assistance I want to provide you the assistance but I want to make sure it's done in the right way with the proper vetting and all that stuff that's all I'm asking we have subcommittees which you know we had plenty of subcommittees this issue never got brought up at our subcommittees per se so all I'm saying is in the future let's try to do it ahead of time so we

can get some of these quirks up I do think you need support and I I appreciate that Mr Ag and I you know hindsight's always 2020 are there things that we could have done different are there things we could have brought up at different times there are but we've had multiple subcommittee meetings because there have been so many moving parts to what is happening in early childhood and

the the rate of expansion that we've had that yet there are some things that maybe we didn't do the way we should and I appreciate your acknowledgement that this is not something I can do on my own but I do respectfully ask that you value my expertise in telling you what it is that we need and it is a principle that we need thank you thank you I yield m l

well call motion to move the question second no have a motion hold on and a motion to move this no then I want to ask question oh that's right I got a motion to move the question motion to move the question I got a motion to move the question which stops debate we got to have a vote on that first Mr AGA yes no Mr Bailey yes Mr Das no Mr Cory

yes Miss larvi yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kouan yes that motion to approve motion to the motion to approve this position I have a motion secondary inquiry we never had a we're moving to question we never had a motion to move any question we're just in discussion so I don't believe that Mo she's moving 3.2 Mr um the agenda I should have read the question I should have read the agenda

item first I'll read that but it kind of she went a little bit quick but we're on 3.2 right now folks which is a discussion and vote to approve the Early Learning Center principal is presented by Maria Pon Miss Pereira what we need now make a motion approve motion to approve and motion to approve do I have a second I made a motion to approve somebody can second I have a motion a

second please call the RO then and who seconded the motion Mr agar or Mr Mr agar made the motion M PR Miss per Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes M Das no Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes okay three 3.3 is after we come out of one 3.3 is after we come out of executive session wait we just voted on 3.1 which is the

disc2 well that was an error okay what we were discussing is the 3.1 that goes 3.1 we've had a motion approved now it's 3.2 Mr AIA is correct discussion and vote to approve the Early Learning Center principle is presented by do I have a motion in a second motion approved with a question motion do I have a second seconds I have a motion in a second Mr a can we just uh after this

um because this is actually approving the line item I'd like to get an update for the whole committee on the AUG chart issue as well as the budget because I am concerned about the budget when we add you know at the time we're told we don't have enough money you know all this stuff and then now we're adding $110,000 position let's say so I'm just curious just I'd like to get it some

sort of details about where we're at financially and as well as the a CH for Early Childhood thank you I okay I have a motion a second Mr Das thank you the reason you want to talk and the reason I voted no in the last section because I just had a few um lingering questions about the program so I just know we had a discussion superintendent or if Miss

fares wants to weigh in um I believe so and I 100% agree you need to to support um no question there I just want to ask the superintendent um what type of conversation work had on um what other scenarios you said you looked at multiple scenarios um what were those scenarios cuz I'm just trying to think of a more cost effective way besides adding two executive type of positions I mean maybe

we could streamline it into a principal position give U Miss various assistant principal position I believe you do have principal experience you were my principal at T many years ago um but I just want to ask what was the process and what we looked at well Mrs arus already has a position so she's not functioning as the principal we are adding one position not two she already has her position so we're asking for one

position which would be the principal of the school we all of this year we went back and forth because I asked that question do we actually need a principal there can we see how we don't we've never had our preschool classrooms have been within schools we've gotten to the point where now they are in other facilities someone has to oversee them right so we said we were looking at if uh Mrs fias

oversaw this year we tried it with the bcba to support the school needs at each of those sites to see if that would work um we need someone that's going to be the person the decision maker uh for each of those sites that person will travel between the sites to support the school and that's why um and we've had the discussions about what would work best and you know I've asked Mrs farious why a principal why

not because we talked about teacher in charge it can't be a teacher in charge it has to be listed it's got its own code it's got to be listed with the principal for the school okay I you thank you Mr Cory I just want to say that this whole process from the beginning it's been very complicated but I place my trust in the central administrators who have really looked at this extremely

closely and all have a a wealth of experience in our school district for many years Miss farias was a principal at one time and I worked with her on that team and I have to say that analyzing this position for Early Childhood the numbers have grown the demographics have changed phenomenally since Co and this is another Co reaction to what's happening with the demographics to the students in

our district and our Central team has such a wealth of experience and I'm sitting here listening and I'm and I'm I'm I think it's just a disrespectful to the central team's experience and commitment to the to the Improvement in the special needs program which which I see viably is going on as we speak our special needs programming is improving year to year it has never really been that good for a long time but it's

getting better and we must trust miss faras our superintendent Miss Oben chain we must trust them to lead the charge forward and I place my trust in them they have a firm handle on the numbers they know what's going on and I believe our budget can sustain an extra position with a principle with that I yield Mr agar just the question on the um well two comments one is superintendent said we can't do a

teacher in charge and I disagree with that um you're the current principal we could hire a teacher in charge to run the day-to-day operations is if you state the principal correct we could I'm not saying you're recommending I don't know the answer to that but I'm going to I am not comfortable continuing to be listed as the principal of the building because I just cannot but I'm saying

theoretically theoretically you don't answer to that the other one is the so when I was mentioning the issue of special education the numbers so do you know roughly how many children leave the prek and they go into a substantially separate classroom is the number extensive or is it is that going to be part of the principal's role cuz we're discussing whether the principal of the school has like to to say whether they

children go into a substantially separate is it drastic so the classrooms that are housed at the Early Learning Center between Eastern Avenue and Bishop Conley are our halfday programs those children are not heading to kindergarten they will exit either Eastern Avenue or Bishop Conley and transition into one of our full day programs that are in our school buildings already the bishop Conley and Eastern

Avenue site contains both substantially separate and integrated preschool classrooms um we make that decision sort of we do our very best to give all kids access to inclusive opportunities does that mean that they all go that route no it doesn't we have a large number of children with pretty significant needs that do head into kindergarten it's substantially separate programs in collaboration with Miss obenchain and

the team of supervisors they have really worked in the school buildings for next year to create the grow program which gives us a a new opportunity to have a more clearly defined partial inclusion program for our children who transitioning out of preschool we have concerns about their ability to access and be successful in a large kindergarten classroom and so we're hopeful that with this program

we're going to continue to reduce the number of children heading into kindergarten in substantially separate programs um and that's you know under Miss open change charge that has been a really big focus of our department if I could just ask that somebody send us the numbers on that yep thank you I yield anything further de please call the rooll on 3.2 a motion um I don't have a motion

second yet yes we have a motion in a second yeah okay Mr agam yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lvy yes M Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes uh 3.3 will come up after executive session do we have a reason to go into executive session Mr Mr Mayor Mr need a motion I think and when I'm looking at the agenda like 3.3 clearly has to come after it like I don't know

why the request is not 3.3 and then four but it's listed here for the edification of the public so I make a motion that we move 3.3 to be appropriate with the agenda that's to the end I have a motion to Second Deb call The rooll Who second is it uh Bobby second Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes M Pereira yes mayor

kouan yes Mr Assad do we have reason to go to the executive session yes I would uh mayor could you please tell us why sure M laws chapter 38 section 21 A1 to discuss complaints brought against the school committee member or as a chairs determined that an open session may have a detrimental impact on the litigating position of the commit committee Mass General lawyers chapter 38 section 21 A2

to conduct strategy with session in preparation for negotiation with non-union Personnel specifically superintendent Dr Tracy Curley and to conduct contract negotiations with non-union Personnel specifically superintendent Dr Tracy Curley Mass general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to Collective Bing agreement including hearing grievances relative to All

Professional teaching employees for a school system including coaches Title One teachers nurses occupational and physical therapists and specialists in the teaching profession represented by the for of Educators Association the chairs determined that an open session may have a detrimental impact on a bogging position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 2183 to

discuss strategy with respect Collective bodying relative to all administrators and employees represented by the for administrators Association as a chair determined that no possession may have a detrimental impact on the bogging position of the committee Mass general laws chapter uh 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining relative to all cafeteria employees the forward school system

represented by the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees Council 93 local 1118 as the chair has determined that no possession may have a detrimental impact on the Bing position of the committee M laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect Collective Bing relative to all Safety and Security employees of the forward school system represented by the

American Federation ation of state county and Municipal Employees Council 93 local 1118 as the chair is determined the no session mayor a detrimental impact on AB bney position of the committee we would reconvene there may or may not be statements at that time can I get a motion in a second for executive session go on Executive session second I have motion second discussion Deb please call the role Mr

aan yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep M ly yes Miss Perera yes mayor Coogan yes back in session Deb please oh where's Deb oh no no Tommy you can do it that'll really ruin the goddamn we should just de we de we're wait for de superintendent can take take go roll call roll call just to go back in you're fine present yeah go ahead did you start it

yeah call the r Mr agar pres Mr Bailey pres Mr dis pres Mr Cory here M Larie yes here Pereira here mayor Coogan here anything further to come before the committee yes Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve dror Tracy curlyy superintendent um contract as negotiated second I have a motion and second discussion Mr Das yes um Mr Mayor um as um we discussed um I won't be supporting

this contract tonight mainly because of the decision that we made in the contract that would limit this a super the school committee's ability to remove the superintendent in the future with a 2/3 vote I believe that handicaps the committee I I don't support that but with that being said I do support the new superintendent I am looking forward to a productive working relationship and

working where we can my no vote isn't anything personal but I have to take a vote which I believe is um fiscally prudent for the taxpayers I yield it to time thank you Mr Cory I'd just like to say congratulations Dr Curley I yield thank you anything further Mr ago yeah I concur with Mr uh Das on this that's a provision that I couldn't support either I wanted to keep the same provision that

we had with the current superintendent but so I'm going to be voting no on this but I wish Dr KY well and I look forward to working with her as we move forward thank you further nothing Deb please call the role Mr aan no Mr Bailey yes Mr Das no Mr Cory yes M larvey yes M Pera yes mayor Coogan yes I'll entertain a motion to adjourn to I have a motion to Second

Deb please call the rooll M draga yes Mr Bailey yes Mr D uh yes Mr Cory yep M larvi yes M Perera yes may Coogan yes adjourned thank you Maria