6.3.2026 Fall River School Committee

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, Eddie Pursher 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 and permissible. We have three people tonight for citizens' input.

Point of information. Mr. Dias? I thought we usually take recognition rewards out. We're going to get to them, right? Next item. There's only three people tonight, Colin. Okay. First up is Shai Hong Sang, math tutoring.

Three minutes, please. Thank you. Hello members of the committee. My name is Chai Hong Sang and I'm currently a junior at Durfee High School. I serve as the junior class president, secretary of the National Honor Society, and head of leadership in several other organizations throughout the school. I am here today not only as a student leader, but

as a student who has personally witnessed the impact that academic support can have on student success. I am currently enrolled in AP Calculus BC, one of the most rigorous mathematics course available at Durfee. Through my own experience and through conversations with countless classmates, I have learned that every student struggles at math at some point. Whether it is

in Algebra I, Geometry, MCATs preparation, or advanced AP coursework, there comes a moment when students need additional help outside of the classroom. That is why the Math Lab is so important. During the past two years, the Math Lab supported students at every level.

From newcomer classes to AP courses, it provided a welcoming space where students could receive extra help, complete assignments, recover credit, make up assessments, and build confidence and their math skills. For some students, it helped them pass a class, and for others, it helped them excel. This year, due to limited funding to one-fifth of the requested amount, the

math lab was only available for two days per week for only one term. Yet, it still recorded over 130 student visits. The demand demonstrates how valuable this resource is. Unfortunately, the reduced scheduling made that many students who had commitments such as athletics, jobs, family responsibilities, and transportation challenges could not access

the support they needed. This is not just an investment on a tutoring program. It is an investment on student achievement, confidence, and opportunity. We often discuss ways to improve academic performance, increase MCAS scores, close learning gaps, and prepare students with advanced coursework.

The math lab directly addresses all of these goals. It provides targeted support for struggling students while also helping students enroll in AP and advanced coursework at higher levels. Our students have already shown that they will use this resource. The numbers prove it. The need is clear, and the question is, are you willing to provide students the support

they are asking for? As someone who is deeply involved in the community, I am willing to help find solutions. If funding is the obstacle, I will gladly work with student organization, school leaders, and community partners to organize fundraising efforts. I urge the committee to fully fund the Math Tutoring Center so that every student who needs help

has access to it. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Mr. Chair.

Mr. Dias. Briefly through you to the superintendent. If we can get an update on this in our Friday packet. I wasn't aware that we cut any math program. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next up, Keith Michonne, Tryon Avenue, East Province. You're usually pretty good, Keith. Three minutes, please, buddy. Thank you.

Good evening, I'm president of the Fall River Educators Association and I'm here to give what has become my monthly statement from the union. I want to start by congratulating all of our students that are graduating this week and those advancing to the next grade level in a few weeks. This is an exciting time of year for those students. From our seniors who have been working hard through ups and downs for many

years, to our pre-K and K students who have no doubt made significant gains this year, and everyone in between, there is plenty of reason to celebrate in our district.

I also want to take a moment to congratulate our retiring staff. I've learned that retirement can be a time of mixed emotions for many, but I know each of your contributions have been great. Thank you for your service. I wish you all the best, and I hope you continue to be a champion for public education while you enjoy your retirement. As much as June is a time for celebration, it's also a

time for reflection on some of the not-so-great things. This has been a difficult year for many reasons, and this last month has been one of the most difficult. Staff members injured, 213 non-renewals from my unit, and many difficult conversations. While some of our staff and students thrive this year, this has been a difficult year filled with disruption and instability for many. I'm very disheartened to see so

many great educators and those with great potential leave Fall River. I'm meeting with interim Superintendent Smith and Deputy Superintendent Legault regularly, and I'm hopeful that better systems can be put in place. I've been in many conversations about what the district needs in our next superintendent, which I've heard you will be discussing. Some have said we

need a person to clean house, a wrecking ball if you will. I think we need a builder. I know a little bit about building. An amateur builder comes in on demo day with a sledgehammer. A skilled builder may use a sledgehammer on occasion, but more often than you would expect, they use a screwdriver, preserving the integrity of the old and its surroundings. Many times you find, many times finding use

where others would discard. When I look at leaders in our district and our schools, I wanna see skilled builders who nurture and develop educators. Those leaders will have educators who nurture and develop students. I'm looking forward to the work ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. And finally, Kelly Gabbard, Riverside Avenue. Three minutes, please, Kelly.

Sure. Can you hear me? Hi. Can you hear me? Kelly Gabbardy. I'm a preschool teacher. Most of you know me, but I'm here to put a face to the non-renewal letters that you sent out on Friday. So Dr. Smith, and many of you know that I'm not somebody to sit around and be quiet when people are being treated unjustly. So that's why I'm here.

So like I said, I'm putting a face to the over 200 non-renewal letters that were handed out on Friday. We also have over 100 openings still. This is a problem. putting it out there, cutting your nose off to despite your face.

But I wish I had time to bring all the others with us so you could see us all. But this all happened, especially to me, very unexpectedly, as I have been with Fall River for over 20 years. I have a master's degree from Wheelock College, now BU, and at the time that I was licensed 30 years ago, there was no such thing as a pre-K to two moderate

disabilities license. DESE within the last few years has decided to make it a thing.

Fine, I'm all good with it. But, so, where am I, sorry. It wasn't a license option. But I sincerely love to have, I would love, love, love, love to have a conversation with DESE. not only about licensing, but about a myriad of other things, including undevelopmentally appropriate expectations. But of course, I can't do that just like I can't meet with Donald Trump and give him my ideas too. But

that's another thing. So here I am to ask you to really consider the impact of those 200 non-renewal letters we'll have on our students, Over the years, I have written hundreds of IEPs, progress reports, and developed specialized instruction for my students.

I ask you, if taking an exam 30 years after graduating from graduate school makes me a better instructor, does this extra license requirement mean that my children, as I refer to my students, are going to have a better teacher tomorrow? I think not. Actually, I will say that having to take a personal day today to take the MDLs harmed my students, especially my extraordinary

students. They thrive on structure. They thrive on seeing my face every day. They thrive to know that I'm there to hold them if they need to be calmed down or they need a problem, have a problem. I'm willing to be duly certified, and I'm Will my being a moderate teacher change the fact that not one of my students, including my extraordinary students, have made extraordinary

progress? I'm leaving my data with you. This is my winter data. If you notice, these are the red. This is not meeting. This is exceed not yet.

This is developing. Winter data. I leave my spring data. Not one student is not performing. including my children with ASD and my newcomers. Thank you. Superintendent?

Kelly, thank you so much for those words. I appreciate you being here representing so many of your educators in the Fall River Public Schools. I want you to know and for everybody to know how important each and every one of you is, you know, certainly to the schools. Thank you for your time, and we are going to work with each and every principal, with every teacher that may have received a

letter. What we're doing is working to make sure you're in a place for what they call highly qualified with DESE. We will work to help people that have to get licenses, that have been on waivers. This is something that is required of every district. I've worked very closely with the president of the Fall River Education Association.

I will keep having conversations, and we will make sure that we get each and every educator back in place and support them. So again, we have highly qualified teachers and we're able to support you in any possible way. So thank you for speaking this evening. Okay, so we're gonna go down the front now because we do have a number of recognition awards you wanna give out tonight.

Well, thank you all for this part of the recognition awards. I'm gonna call upon Dr. Smith, the superintendent, to present the first award.

Thank you, Mr. Aguiar. So I'd like to invite Jack Riot to come up here and stand beside me. Let's give him a round of applause. First of all, he's graduating on the field on Friday evening. And I wanna talk about leadership. It is important, student voice is important, It is important to all of us sitting here to grow the leaders of tomorrow to be able to take a step

forward to represent your class to represent it so well I know that I'm new Having just met you, but I've heard wonderful things I know what your commitment was and you show the future students coming forward how important this type of a connection is to be part of again a school committee a group of elected officials and that are tasked with making sure that your students receive the proper education that they

require to go on to college, to go on to careers, to go on to military, all of the wonderful things that'll happen for these students. So Jack, thank you so much. We have some special swag for you to always remember the Hilltoppers and Durfee High School and also a plaque. So I believe we're gonna take a picture together. Jack, come over with you.

Let's get one more round of applause for Jack.

And we will take a group photo after the other four or five people come in, so just hang tight, Jack. The other part of the agenda, always in June, is a special time when we have many dedicated people that have dedicated their careers to education that are retiring. So it's a bittersweet day for a lot of folks when they retire because they've been so dedicated to our students, whether it's here or

in other schools. A little token of the appreciation from the school committee and the superintendent is a recognition for your years of service in the school system. So we have one for each person that's retired. Only four of them could actually make it today, so we're gonna start off with those folks. The first individual was new to Fall River Schools. She's dedicated her career to teaching at the college

level, I believe, and other places. I can speak firsthand of the work that she's done at the R. LM Resiliency Prep Academy, getting ready with a culinary program that was a difficult task to start with. She's persevered, she's been dedicated, and she's made that program better today than it was when she got here. So let's get a nice round of applause, and please come up. Gloria Cabral.

One more round of applause for Gloria, please.

Next up, we have a gentleman who's worked for us for 10 years in the school system, and I know for many, many years prior to that, he was dedicated as a vendor for us. He's come in as a jack of all trades for a lot of things in our buildings, and we do want to say thank you to Mr. Jeffrey Cabral for 10 years of service as a carpenter.

One more round of applause for Jeff, please.

Next up, we have a teacher's assistant who worked as a one-on-one for the special education department at Durfee High School. 26 years of service. We want to say thank you to Christine Ouellette.

We thought she was going to be here, but we'll get this to her.

The last retiree for today has worked for 31 years as a teacher, various positions.

She's currently a coach interventionist at Frank M. Sylvia School. She served many years as the president of the Teachers Association, very dedicated to the students, the staff, and us as a school community. So we want to say thank you not only for your teaching service, but your service outside of the school system as well. This young lady

has done an excellent job supporting schools, was instrumental in getting the Student Opportunity Act.

So we want to say thank you. And your work, Rebecca, is going to be felt for years to come. So congratulations and thank you. 31 years, Rebecca Cusick.

One more round of applause for Rebecca, please.

So we have some retirees, but we also have some folks that are gonna be leaving us to move on to different positions. They're not retiring, probably a little too young for that, but ultimately we wanna recognize some folks as well that are gonna be moving on to different positions. in recognition of 16 years of dedicated service to the Florida School System as the CFO, Kevin Almeida, has done an excellent job. We're

gonna miss you, we wish you well, and thank you for your service over the 16 years. Come on up, Kevin.

One more round of applause for Kevin Almeida, please.

And we're also gonna be having another person who's moving on who's dedicated many years to service in the school committee as well as the students and staff in the Forrever public schools. And in recognition of the many years of dedicated service to the children and adults in the Forrever school system, we want to say congratulations and thank

you to our very own attorney, Bruce Assard, for all of his years of service.

Thank you, Bruce. Come on down.

I couldn't see him. That's why I was getting a little wondering where he was.

Yeah exactly.

The President. Okay, just say one thing here. Basically, when I started this, I expected to be here for a two-year period.

Thirty-two years later, I'm advising the committee that I do not want to or would not be seeking a new contract. But I want to let you know that it's been a wonderful trip, met a lot of great people, I've certainly enjoyed working with all of the school committee members, past and present, as well as the recognizing and appreciating the professionalism and

dedication of our administrators, our teachers, and our staff who serve our students and their families every day. I wish you all the best and continued success. It's been a hell of a ride. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We can get one more round of applause for Bruce.

And the six recipients, if you can come up to the front in the middle, we're going to be taking a photo. So please come on up and thank you for your indulgence. In a few minutes, we'll be done.

So thank you everybody, we appreciate everybody coming out to get their awards tonight. And now we'll get back to the agenda. Item number four is the superintendent's report.

Dr. Smith. Thank you, Mayor. Tonight my first update is the hiring update. So since our last meeting, we have had 13 new hires. We have had seven paraprofessionals, one interim superintendent, a teacher, an SLPA, one SEL liaison, a security officer, and a custodian. We have had four transfers, two retirements, and 28 resignations, and that is coming from our Human Resource Office update.

As far as summer programming update, and I may need Brian and Laurie if there are any questions. So we have a sheet here. I'm not sure if it's been placed in all of your folders. But it is everything from, I don't know if you want me to read it, but we have Credit Recovery this summer. We have Acceleration Academy. We have a camp for band marching. We have Summer Enrichment

Programs, a Teen Police Academy, Credit Recovery for our high school students. We have Summer School for our high school and middle school. We have, again, 21st century camps.

So extended school year for our special needs students that are required on their IEPs at a number of our schools. So I'm not sure if you have questions. I can certainly bring up staff. I think it's very similar to what you've had in the past or what we've updated you on throughout the year if there were any additional programs we would be housing. So many of our schools, the one

thing I will say, and this is having been a superintendent a long time, I right away credit our staff, our custodial staff, maintenance. This is the time where they're trying to get a lot done too. As soon as the doors close, we have projects. We're trying to get ready for students entering back in September. And they do an excellent job of allowing our students and our community to use the schools for

everything from recreation, as we said, to summer school, credit recovery. And at the same time, we always count on being able to open those doors in September. So, again, I'll answer any questions I can or have my team answer the questions for you. Mr. Aguirre? Just a comment. So I think just in summary, we actually are not cutting anything. I don't think we're doing anything less than what we

had the prior year, which in this day and age of budgets and that cuts, I think that's a credit to all of you as well as the committee for making sure that we're at least maintaining all the programming that we have in the summer. So, of course, we would always like to have more, but I do want to just make sure everyone takes the credit that's deserved. We're not going backwards. We're

not laying people off. We're not cutting programs. So kudos to the superintendent, finance team, and making sure that we're getting this. Thank you. Dr. Smith. Any other questions? Graduation update. Yes, the graduation update. I had the pleasure of joining Principal Jess Stevens yesterday. at Durfee High School to look at the staging area, to look at the seats all

out there, preparations for our over 650 graduates. Looks like the weather is going to cooperate, that's very exciting. I know the mayor and I will be on the stage leading with our principals and our teachers to graduation. Also, I know there are school committee members, so we will all be up on the stage.

Our senior team will be joining us, and I am looking forward to, again, being able to confer the diplomas, and being able to see our students as they march across that stage. So thank you to Angel and all of the team for getting these things ready, to our staff, to Ken Pacheco and his staff for making sure that we're able to have a wonderful graduation on Friday evening. So I look forward

to joining all of you there. And then my transition into the district.

So I'd like to tell you that since coming on exactly a month and two days ago that I've been able to visit every school. That has not been possible.

I have been out to a few of the schools. I am really looking forward to a time where this transitioning quiets down a little bit. It's just a busy, busy time of year with so many things going on every day, each evening, meetings in preparation for all of the things that we're actually talking about this evening. But I will tell you I've been able to attend some events at Durfee High School

for our seniors, the signing day, awards and scholarships last week. And I know all of you have been out there doing similar things to really congratulate our students especially, but our staff are making sure that our students have these wonderful events that are memories really for a lifetime for them. When I visited yesterday to look at the

graduation event, I think The thing that I enjoyed the most was going into your school store. I will tell you I was recently out, and I won't tell you the sweatshirt I was wearing, but it was not Hilltoppers, and somebody called me out.

So I was very excited to finally get my first Hilltopper sweatshirt. I will wear it with pride. I met young Colin there, he's a junior. And he was very excited. I was impressed when he met me that he said, Superintendent, you have a Juris Doctorate. I'm going into criminal justice. I said, oh my goodness, students are actually paying attention. I figured they would look and say, who is this person suddenly showing

up? But very nice conversation. It is just all about the kinds of students that you're preparing and graduating. The other evening, I will tell you that I joined our team before the city council here in Fall River. I will, the next day, I actually called President Cliff Ponte to tell him a couple of things. One was I thanked him for the knowledge and professionalism of our city councilors that support our students,

support our budget, you know, had many questions. And the thing that we committed to, Mayor, is going forward making sure that we're having regular conversations, looking at everything from transportation to having a collaboration. You've heard me talk about going before them in the fall to do what I call a State of the Schools address. which really lays

the groundwork for what our budget season will be like coming into next year. So again, I want to thank them. I thought it was an excellent evening for us.

I also want to thank the mayor and all the school committee members here. Many of you have met with me for well over during the transition two hours. I learned a lot about you, your reason for serving on the board, for taking all the time that you take each and every day. Many of you are meeting with me on a very regular basis, and that is a help to me. as I

transition very quickly into the district to know the challenges ahead, the strengths that we have, and really what our commitment is going to be. So thank you to your entire team. I don't know if you heard me say the other night, I have had a chance to get out into Fall River a little. I did go to a Portuguese restaurant. I will continue to do that in other restaurants and enjoy my

time here in Fall River. And I guess I have to say thank you to my senior staff. It is amazing that they have pivoted We have spent a lot of time together, again, looking at not only ending the school year, supporting our teams as we try to really bring this year to a close and already are preparing for next year. So I want to thank them for all of the time,

my deputy superintendent included. And lastly, I do have to say this about transitioning. I come in every day to a wonderful staff at 417 Rock Street. And what from Al welcoming me to Paula to Deb to every member there comes in. They work very, very hard. It is a wonderful place to be, and it really does make a difference, especially I'm talking about being new to Fall River, being new to your

district, and it makes a difference for the kind of work that you can do each and every day. I'm going to finish up by saying, again, thank you to, I have not gotten to meet a lot of the teachers, but I plan to be out there. I want to thank Keith for obviously representing our teachers and many of the other people and administrators that I have met district-wide. So I'm going to

finish up by talking about plans going forward. You've heard me talk about our professional development. when we talk about our teachers and their licenses and having to do professional development to serve your students for being highly qualified. Although there is not a requirement, there are certain requirements for school committee members, for superintendents, but the one thing that

I will tell you is I'm very excited going forward. You have a school committee committed to professional development. We have one of our first days coming up before the end of this month. We will continue to do that throughout the summer and make sure that we are working in a collaborative fashion to support well over our 11,000 students in this district. And I think I have to end, Mayor, by saying how

important it is that as you look at districts around you and you see people laying off teachers, we just heard Kelly speak about the concern for letters going out.

We're not laying off teachers. but we are making sure that we are supporting and hiring the best teachers possible for the Fall River Public Schools. We will continue to do that. Our principals, as we talk, as there are moving pieces here to making sure that our teachers, with some of the requirements of their contract, are making sure

that we're supporting those teachers, that we get them in classrooms throughout the district very, very quickly. So I will have, I know you've heard from your constituents, I will have those numbers probably early next week. as we start to support people in getting waivers and licenses and also getting people placed in our positions throughout the district. So

with that, Mayor, that is my report. Okay. We did have one of our retirees join us late, but better late than never. I worked with this young lady a number of years at Durfee, as we all did, but we're really appreciative you came down tonight. We're going to get back on with the meeting, but the... and recognition chairman, Mr. Aguiar will be glad to present you with a special gift.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. So we definitely mentioned it before, but I do want to mention it again. Teachers' assistants are just one of the backbones of a school system. We all feel that way and we're very appreciative of all teacher assistants.

This young lady has worked here for 26 years as a one-to-one special education teacher assistant and we want to say thank you to Christine Wollett. Let's get a nice round of applause and Ms. Wollett if you can come on up.

Item number five is our subcommittee updates. First up is facilities and operations. Mr.

Aguiar, chair. So we had a subcommittee meeting. It was a successful meeting. It lasted probably about an hour and a half. We discussed several items that are going to be on the agenda today. We reviewed the nutrition account. Some questions went back and forth. There was no action needed at that time. We talked about traffic management that's

on the agenda today because we're going to be having traffic management plans at all of our schools to make sure that we're doing what is appropriate for arrival and dismissal. We had a turf management contract that we need to make sure that we maintain the quality fields here at Durfee High School. So that's on the agenda as well. We discussed the playground at Bishop Conley. As you know, we're going to be

adding almost 600 students at the school. They need to have the appropriate play space, so we're going to be spending some money to do that. And there were several naming requests that came forth and we tabled those so that the superintendent can bring those through the appropriate following the policies of the school system. The meeting adjourned in

about an hour and a half and it was very successful. With that I yield.

Thank you, Mr. Aguiar. Next we had a policy subcommittee report. Mr. Dias.

Thank you. The policy subcommittee met May 13th at 5.30 p.m. Similar to what Mr. Aguiar said, the policy subcommittee reviewed several outstanding policies which are before the committee today for review and we continue to aggressively change and update the policy manuals so we are both within compliance and up to date.

I'll have further information to say when the policies come up. I yield. Thank you, Mr. Dias. The instructional subcommittee update will be carried over to the next meeting.

when Dr. Riley can give us the report. Item number six is the approval of travel requests. Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion and a second on all travel requests. Quick question. Mr. Dias. To the superintendent, are all our travel requests here, we're following policies, we're following ethics disclosures?

We're up to date on that? I'm sorry, what disclosures you? Ethics disclosures, ethics area or policies, all the travel requests are up to date on those. I believe they are, Mr. Diaz. I'll have to look into that. Thank you. I have a motion and a second on all travel requests. Anything further? Deb, call the roll, please. Mr. Agnew? Yes. Mr. Dias? Yes. Mr. Corey? Yep. Mr. Monas? Mr. Riley?

Mr. Stewart? Yes. Mary Coogan? Yes. Item number seven. Is the acceptance of donations? Motion to accept. We have a motion to accept all. Second. I have a motion to second on all. Very good question. Mr. Dias. Same line of questioning. We're up to date with both ethics disclosures and all these here. They haven't been expended yet before school committee approval. The only thing that I

can say, Mr. Dias, is when donations are made, And if they're made, certainly in a timely manner, they immediately go on the agenda for school committee approval. I will say if there is a donation made at a certain point, for instance, I'm going to say there are prom dresses. Somebody comes forward knowing there's proms. There is not a meeting, not an opportunity. I will

approve things like that and then inform the school committee. Thank you. I just want to make sure as long as we're in compliance with the law, this is something I brought up. month after month and I know Mr. Aguiar and myself just recently had a meeting with an MASC representative, which I believe I informed you of. Yes.

Which partially, which in part I brought up the issue of accepting donations. I just want to make sure ethics wise we're just fully on board with that. And I know you're new, obviously you're new, so just making sure our systems are in compliance with ethics laws here. That's all I ask for. Thank you. Thank you. I have a motion to second Deb on accepting the donations. Mr. Aguiar. Just briefly on the

work boots. So this is 1,000 pairs and reading the back of it's gently used work boots that I think our students are going to benefit from. The cost to the district is only $250 per pallet as a delivery charge. So I think it's a good thing that they're getting this opportunity. It doesn't necessarily say that it was gently used and you try to figure out how much, 1,000 brand new pairs of

boots is going to cost. $15,000 or something like that, but this is gently used, so I think it's a good program and I do appreciate the donation. Thank you.

Thank you. Deb, please call the roll on donation. Yes. Mr. Dias. Yes. Mr. Corey.

Yes. Mr. Monis. Yes. Mr. Riley. Mr. Stewart. Yes. Mary Coogan. Yes. 8 and 8.1, contracts continuation. I see we just have, it looks like we'll go with community partnership and facilities contracts under that heading.

Does anybody have any comments on coaching for change or industrial communications? There's more. No, no, but I'm just doing the first two under the continuation.

I have a question on industrial. Motion to approve coaching for change.

Second. I have a motion, a second on coaching for change. Ms. Stewart.

I just have a question. Why do we buy so many? We did it in February. We did it in May. we're buying more today. I get it. I understand why we need them. I just don't understand why we keep buying so many. How many do we have? How many is out there? We buy a lot.

Mr. Petrico. The district probably has well over 250 to 300 radios, and we're replacing them as they need to be replaced, rather than replace radios that we don't, that are not giving us problems. Some schools The radios are a different brand. I'm sorry, not a different brand, but a different age and maybe a rendition of a different radio. So some of those are

no longer capable of working with the others. So those are the ones that are first going. But Durfee has quite a few radios, and we are, as I said, I think I may have, and I'm Excuse me if I'm repeating myself, but we're using the radios outside on the playgrounds now, so if there's a situation on the playground that they have that direct contact with an administrator in the building. So we

are slowly but surely upgrading the entire district with the radios.

I don't, I said it last time, I didn't believe we were going to do another one. I'm hoping that between now and September that we don't have, other than a major order, we will, you know, and we'll come to the school committee for that. But as of right now, I don't believe that we should have another one because I think we've done what we needed to do to get updated. Okay, thank

you. I want to withdraw my motion on coaching for change. Okay, so we have on both items the community partnership contract, coaching for change, and the facilities contracts.

Industrial Communications. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the Coaching for Change in a similar fashion as the last contract, which was a three-year contract at $150,000 per year. Second. So Mr. Aguiar is amending it to a three-year contract at the same amount. I have a motion to second. I could probably do these by voice vote. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. Now on

approval of the, that was the approval of the amendment. on the Coaching for Change and the Industrial Communications. Can I get a motion and a second? Motion's made.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous.

Grant contracts. We have two from Amaral Bussing, Autism Level Up, Cartwheel, Deborah Harris, and New England Sports Promotion on that group. Does anybody have a hold or a question on any of those? Cartwheel. Cartwheel's held. Motion to approve the others. Mr. Dias made a motion to approve the others. Do I have a second?

Brief question. Second. Do I have a motion and a second? Mr. Dias. Just, um, actually this really goes for all the contracts. Um, we're up to date on procurement.

Does we're following procurement 100%? No issues? Yes. Thank you. I yield.

I have a motion and a second on all but cartwheel. I'm sorry, one more brief question. Mr. Dias. Just a brief comment. Just, um, want to make sure because we had an issue with this contract last year that they one of the vendors was not being paid on time so I just want to just make sure this individual is paid on time so we don't run into those same issues again

thank you okay on all the others discussion hearing none all in favor aye opposed unanimous mr. Aguiar on cartwheel yeah I did this go before the special ed subcommittee at all Is this a referral? No. I'd like to make a motion to refer this item to the Special Ed Subcommittee. Second. We have a motion and a second to refer Cartwheel back to SPED Subcommittee. Any

time concerns with this, Ms. Silverchain? Any time concerns? We're fine referring this back?

Oh, Ms. Brownhard.

This is a continuation contract, which is why it wasn't brought before a subcommittee. Is that, we're recommending it go back before subcommittee? Yeah, just for further, just review and have dialogue relative to the effectiveness of the program so that you can present to the subcommittee what's happening and then we can bring it back to the full committee. Okay. Mr. Chair. Mr. Dias. Going through the

backup, I don't actually, I see a slideshow presentation. I don't actually see the presentation.

the actual contract in here, which we usually have for the backup for our contracts.

It's going back to subcommittee. Yeah, it's going to go back to subcommittee, Colin. My only question why I'm bringing that up is we're not, it's going to, this looks like it's going to start July 1st. It's, we're going to, so they're going, I'm assuming it's going to be a brief lapse.

And But that's fine. I support the referral, but I just want to make sure that the company's aware and we don't run into any issues. I yield. I have a motion and a second. I'm referring Cartwheel back to the subcommittee. All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. Miscellaneous contracts are next. Power School.

Any concerns about Power School? Yes. On Power School, Mr. Aguiar. Just had a question.

I haven't really reviewed the entire... document here relative to PowerSchool, but I can say that from, in the past we've had various departments and companies. We were told several years ago at the subcommittee that we were gonna change to PowerSchool, I believe, because it was gonna streamline everything, it was gonna make our HR department as seamless and everything was gonna be easy to apply, the principals would

be happy, directors would be happy, the applicants would be happy, the whole bit. Lo and behold, I haven't heard that everybody's happy. So I don't believe that we should be just taking this as an automatic renewal until we get a presentation somewhere to say whether this is actually where we want to head. We're in the process of hiring a new HR director, so I think we should hold on any decisions relative

to this until such time as we get the new people in and we can determine whether this is the right company or how we're going to proceed. So I'd like to make a motion to table. Powerschool. Powerschool. Point of parliamentary inquiry.

Oh, just hold on. Do I have a second? The only issue is if with a table we can't discuss the table. I just had a brief question. Go ahead.

Thank you. I do support my colleague's motion. My first question is, do we still use SchoolSpring? Yes. So it's fair to say there's a duplication of services here. If we still have paying for SchoolSpring, there's a contract with SchoolSpring, and we still have a contract with PowerSchool,

I mean, what's the point of having the School Spring contract? Well, we want to up our contract with School Spring. The power school and School Spring, they should talk to each other. And right now, they're not talking to each other for whatever reason. I've talked to the CIO. We are working on this. So when we put our jobs up on School Spring, Ed Week, NASDAQ, wherever our

jobs go, they should just funnel back into human resources, and they're not. I'm trying to figure out why that's happening and why they're not talking to our computer program so that anybody who applies on SchoolSpring or anybody who applies on NASDAQ or anybody who applies on Ed Weekly or wherever, it should be funneled right in. Because we want our jobs to be on all platforms.

We want people to see it. We want to recruit. highly qualified candidates and the more places we put out the more applicant base that we get. That's fine. I'll hold those questions until we get a full presentation. My last question is looks like this contract started May 12th of May 11th of 2026.

Do we still have PowerSchool currently? It looks like the contract. This is a cleanup for this year. This was one that's been outstanding that was brought to my attention and I have brought forward. So this is a contract for last year? This is for this year, yes. It's for last year? Not for next year. This is for this year. So the contract I have before me is from May of 2025

until May of May 11th to 26th. Correct. And so we are in June.

Are they cutting off our services? Are we running into any issues? They have not, no. Okay. I yield a motion to the table. I have a motion to the table and a second. No second. No second. Do I have something to say? I withdraw my motion. You made the motion, didn't you? Yeah, but there was no second, so it kind of went out. Okay. There's no second to his, but I just

have a question on this. Mr. Anker. Frustrating, but it is what it is. We have a bill before us that is actually presented to us, and the entire 12 months of it is passed. So... I totally agree with you. Yep, so what I think we should do, just doing what I think is just good government, is we should take the one that we owe for the year separately. It's all bundled together

here. So the one that starts in July we can table, but this one here, which is 10,000, I got to it, what is it? 10,000, what is it, Mr. Alameda? The one that's a year old, is it 25,007, 22,55?

So both of them are for this year. Both of them are for this year.

And the total is 39,000, whatever it was, 39,802. Both of them are for this year? Yes. I thought I read one that was July. But is it July? Yeah, so one is from May of last year and one started in July. Right, so the July one, we got a little bit of time, technically. July of this past year. But it's running until July of 2026, is what I'm saying. Correct. So if

we meet in two weeks... So the other one was $25,725.

So both of them total? $39,802.23. Right. As much as I want to, I can't believe we're even having a discussion that we're here before us for this thing. I agree. But based on that information, I'm going to make a motion to approve the $39,802.23 with a request from the administration to report back to the committee within one month on how we're going to proceed moving forward.

Because then we're going to owe another one. All right, so we have a motion to approve the power school. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. We also have a number of special education contracts in front of us. Motion to approve. I have a motion to approve. Second.

Any holds on any of them down to South Coast Collaborative? I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on those contracts? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Finally, we have a miscellaneous contract contingent on school budget approval. Request for approval of the education cooperative. I have a question on this one. Mr. Dias. Thank you, so let me pull it up. The backup for this, I just want a little bit of a presentation. We just got a one-pager, so I understand it's a blanket the company will do... the bidding

for us, we'll get the contracts for us, but what is this specifically, like when you say general supplies, what are we talking about? So it's paper, it's, you know, markers, it's pencils, it's all general like classroom supplies. And so through the tech bid, we're able to get best pricing and they do all the procurement on their end for a nominal fee

of I think $750 a year. When we get these supplies, if there's any staff members that have any question on where they can locate some of these supplies, I'm just gonna ask the administration just to make sure we're properly advertising that to staff if there's ever a question on where they can get. The stuff is available in the warehouse through Russ Lewis, but yes. Thank you, how are you? Mr. Aguilar. Yeah,

so I understand fully what this is. When you read that it's going to be the lowest price, sometimes I believe that and sometimes I don't believe it, to be quite honest. So I'd just like at some point a presentation that we've checked it to see is it truly the lowest price. I think Russ Lewis down there does a nice job with doing whatever, but I think just having something to us to

say we've checked it and we are actually getting the lowest price would be appreciated.

I yield. Thank you. Do I have a motion and a second then? Motion to approve. Manny seconded it before. Manny seconded it. Okay, I have a motion to second.

Discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous? Okay.

And we have our facilities contracts 8.2. We have two contracts with Century, Paving, and Construction. I'd like to hold them both, please. Are you making a motion to table? No, I just want to hold them for questioning. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Starting with the first one, Mr. Dias. Thank you. So I read through the backup. So my understanding is we had some broken

granite curb that needs to be from the snowstorm that needs to be replaced. Yes.

Yes. What's the... So we're asking the company. So who...

Was it a vendor that broke the granite or was it our own staff? It's a combination. A combination of both. 44 inches of snow. You don't see the granite curbs. You don't see the end of a driveway. You don't see any of that stuff. So there is an opportunity, a very good chance that you're going to hit curbs as you're trying to clean the sidewalks. With that much snow,

the curbs break on the top, very brittle. Obviously temperature has something to do with it. And when they hit them, they do crack. Some of them move. hit with a big machine. Again, because of the amount of snow we had, this wasn't damage done by a snow plow. This was heavy equipment. Loaders and backers. From vendors and our own equipment. I guess I have a two-part question. For the vendors,

wouldn't they be responsible for fixing what they broke? Some vendors are.

responsible for this work, but this is, again, on a normal snowplow situation, this stuff doesn't happen. 44 inches of snow, it is going to happen. And it was very difficult to come after some of the vendors who were there doing this work blindly. Okay, 44 inches of snow is a blind snowplow operation. There is no way to know where that curb is. You can't see it, and until you

find one spot, so this is a spattering of damage done across the entire campus at Durfee. This item, although it may seem like a lot of money, is very, very little for trying to handle that kind of storm, a storm that took $4 million to clean up. So this is, again, it's a dollar amount, but it is really not a lot of money for the

amount of damage that we could have had with this situation. Okay, I guess you'll make a similar answer for the staff. Do we have, like, if things are damaged, I mean, I guess we don't really know who did it, but what are the policies surrounding... Again, Mr. Dice, I don't...

It is very difficult to find out who would have been the person who hit this, just because of the fact that Where these locations are, they're kind of bump outs in different spots where the machine would not know, the driver would not know where that particular piece is. If our people hit it, it's because they couldn't find the edge, if they hit it. And I'm not saying they are the ones who

did it, but I'm saying if they hit it, they wouldn't know where that edge is. We're also talking about a storm that people were working more than 12 hours, 15 hours, 17 hours, Some private vendors worked around the clock to get the work done, whether it was for us or for the city side. So again, as I look at it, I look at this particular piece and

the next item, and both of them are very small compared to the amount of damage that could have been caused with this much snow across the city but on our own property. I feel we escaped very well.

and we came out of this storm extremely well considering the situation. Last question on this is the vendors that we called in for the snowstorm for Durfee, I saw some of the bills come in. I did ask for the bills ahead of time. Was there any formal contracts, or was it more just like we're getting just a quick quote just kind of verbally tell them what the work

needs to be done and they want to? The ones that the district was responsible for were contractors that we already had their documents in place that they sent requests to work for the city. The hauling operation is a totally different matter and those were all paid for by the city but it was exactly the same thing. They filled out applications to do this work for the city

but it was a state of emergency. There were a lot of vendors in the real the number is astronomical the amount of equipment that was in the city doing this work I understand I think that's a I can agree that it was an emergency we needed to get vendors in there I'm not questioning like the necessary procurement piece or the urgency of the situation it's just more of the general idea if

we have vendors that come in and I understand it wasn't your typical snowstorm I know this was a special sort of event that happened But with that being said, I think we need to do a better job at going after the root issues.

I don't think if someone else damages our property, maybe a vendor or someone, it shouldn't be on the taxpayers to pay for it. But I understand your argument you're trying to make. I'm just a little puzzled trying to. Yeah, I get it. I mean, I'm stating facts, but I 100% agree. And in a normal situation, these things wouldn't happen and if they did happen the vendor would be responsible that's

the best way I can put it if this was not a state of emergency if this was not a situation that these things could not be prevented and I will say that with 100% confidence being in the snow removal business for 20 years I'm going to tell you this stuff was not able to be prevented on a normal situation this stuff wouldn't happen and if it did we would definitely go after

the vendors I can assure you of that I yield. Make a motion to approve the first one, $19,020. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous? Make a motion to deny the second one, $23,250.

Second. Discussion, Mr. Aguilar? Just I can explain to you why I feel like they're different. The first one, as I read it, it looks like it's things that... replace broken granite curb, radius all that stuff at four feet high. That's real intense work. When I read the description of the second one, I believe that we have eight groundskeepers, seven groundskeepers, whatever the amount

is. We have our own backhoe. We have different things. The second one can be done in-house, should be done in-house, because the content of what's here, to loom and seed, swirl areas around the asphalt sidewalks, roadways, and parking lots. We install some parking curbs, which I believe is the you know, just put them in place for $23,000. We should be doing that in-house, so that's why I made a

motion to deny. Mr. Pacheco, is this at Durfee? That's at Bishop Conley.

Replacing the parking spots and the grass areas and stuff. And if I can, Conley was the staging spot for probably 250 pieces of equipment and 165 National Guard along with their equipment during the blizzard. The damage was scattered, so not all of this was done in those particular parking lots and areas. However, this was throughout that property. There's not a lot of curbing at the Bishop Conley spot,

so finding the edge of the road, again, with a 44-inch snowfall, is very difficult to find that edge of the road. They can get pretty close. As far as having enough personnel, eight personnel is not enough personnel to do this kind of work in the spring, because we don't have to do this work in the spring normally.

We never do. Again, it's an extenuating set of circumstances that cause this particular work. I have to comment on this one. As someone that was at Conley for, I think, three days, that was a staging area for a large, large amount of equipment from New York. Vermont, Boston, and when they were doing some of their turns because the trucks were on both sides of the road, I saw them

backing onto the grass. We got some serious gouging issues over there. We don't own the property yet, and as Mr. Pacheco said, there are no curbs, so they weren't really hitting curbs. They were going right into mud. We hit the same thing down at Weaver's Cove. The ground was settling, and this was heavy, heavy equipment. I think putting this $23,000 back into the facility at Conley. We'll pay dividends

down the road. It needs the attention and I'm gonna support it.

Mr. Corey. So, I do recognize my colleagues concern and line of questions but after listening to the presentation, I would recommend being in support of this motion.

The extenuating circumstances of the storm were really untenable. And as you just stated, Mr. Chairman, was the staging area. So I mean, I just recommend that we pass this and continue on. Mr. Dias.

Thank you. I think my colleague, Mr. Agar, brought up the point that this is, I agree, it's two separate issues here. The first, with the Durfee one, we were talking about who was more of an at fault, like who was at fault, who should be paying, who's responsible. And with this situation here, we're not saying that there's not work that needs to be done. The argument here is we have

staff and we have a team that I believe is well capable to do the work that is here. I guess my one question would be is, and I did ask for this in the backup, Mr. Pacheco, can you just walk me through how many groundskeepers we've had over the last few years at Bishop Connelly? I can't remember if it's gone down or... Zero. We have zero groundskeepers?

We have no groundskeepers assigned to Bishop Connelly. Have we ever? Bishop Connelly is not a school that we take care of as far as grounds. We've never had a groundskeeper? We have not. Since we've leased the property? Since we've leased the property, we have no groundskeepers. So we are not responding. Point of power, Madam Chair, in court. Mr. Rega. In the lease, how many people were assigned when we signed the

lease from the diocese to work as groundskeepers at Bishop Compton? Three. Three. And how many are there now? There's one groundskeeper there now. But there was three? And there was three, yes. Thank you, I yield. Mr. Dias, you done? My last question is, in the lease that we have, is there, Who's responsible for maintaining the property? They're responsible for cutting the grass. We're responsible for removing the

snow. So why? Because the snow did the damage. We damaged the property removing the snow. This was not a natural act. We damaged the property when we removed the snow. I would make the argument that we didn't damage the property. The mayor even just stated that we had trucks going in and out. So it was outside vendors that damaged it. I just think we should

be fulfilling our lease agreement. We don't officially own the building yet, and I think that's up to the diocese to fix. I mean, we are offering them an extensive amount for Bishop Connelly, so I think that's just one thing that they could do for us. I don't think we're—I think this should be—if we're going to do it, we should do it with our own groundskeepers. I don't think we need this contract.

I yield. Anything further, Mr. Mouris? Mr. Monis. Mr. Monis. I just wanted to add, I mean, we are leasing the building and everything else. Aren't they responsible for the grounds and everything else? I would think you're 100% correct, Mr. Monis, in normal course of events. But like the equipment that was coming in and out of that day was breathtaking. And I know that some of it was going to clear

around the schools and some of it was doing the rest of the city. And they didn't even know where Conley was. They were all... very green to our city, but I believe, like I said, you're 100% correct in the normal course of events, but that was just something spectacular. Now, as far as Durfee goes, no other district or no other school was affected with curbs and sidewalks or anything like that?

Oh, I don't know. I don't know about that. It's just Durfee? So there were two, there were curbs broken in a couple of spots. I'm sorry, they weren't broken, they were tipped. So those we straightened out ourselves. The ones that were broken and chipped The detail around Durfee is a lot different than most of our schools, as you know. A lot of curves, architectural designs. Some of

cement. Exactly, right. So the ones that are in the other schools, a lot of straight lines. And when you hit a curb there, normally they would lay down as opposed to breaking. It's different at Durfee.

Mr. Egg, yeah. Just so I can, I mean, I'm reading... exactly what we were given. And nowhere in here does it say anything about the staging area or anything else related to it.

It says, I'm attaching here with, for the committee's consideration, request to approve a contract for century paving to loom and seed grass and soil areas around the asphalt sidewalk, roadway, and parking lots. The second portion is to install a damaged and disturbed parking curbs throughout the early learning center at Ellsbury Street. When I read this, and I

know We've been told in the past that we have grounds crew that is skilled labor that get paid quite well to do the work. I know that they can do what is listed here for what we want. I'm convinced that they could do that work. I just don't understand why we, because we're questioning it and now we're told it's because of the mobilization. If that was in here, I would have asked

ahead of time to say is the city or whoever's picking up all the expenses for that expense in the blizzard, is that going to be affected there? I just don't, what I see here is that's before us, it says that our people can do this work. We have the capability to do this work. And that's why we should be doing as many things in-house that we can't. I think we outsource way

too many things that our in-house people could be doing. So that's the reason why I'm making a motion to deny and have our in-house people do it. Mr. Aguiar's motion to, oh I am so sorry, I forgot you. You're way down there, Ms.

Stewart. Sorry. How much would it cost us? Because we would have to go into overtime or something, right? How much would it end up costing us if we did it? Or would it not cost us anything if we did it? So if I could just one second go back to Mr. Aguiar's. You're 100% right. People can do this work. I wouldn't say that in the least bit. This is all work within

their capabilities. Time-wise, we didn't have the capability. Eight people at this time of the year, early spring, there's an awful lot of work in the district across the campuses, all the campuses, and this work did not fit in. It was just a lot of time, and we didn't have that kind of time. So we're gonna pay prevailing wage to an outside vendor to do what our in-house people could do. I'd

rather you pay our people that wanted to do it. It's not enough over, Mr.

Aguiar, there's just not enough time in a day for them to do all of these things. There is always going to be outside contractors working for us. The eight groundskeepers are not enough people to do this kind of work. Adding a campus like Bishop Conley to this is gonna be very difficult to the eight. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. So if we had to do it, it would cost

us overtime? If I could fit it in, which I'm gonna say to you I couldn't fit it in, most of it would be on overtime. Would it cost more than the $23,000? I don't know how long it would take us to do. We're obviously not gonna finish it when a crew walks in there with every piece of equipment they need and the amount of manpower that they walk in to do that

with, along with having the materials already, loom, seed, it's a different conversation. Our people don't have all of that readily available. We don't have a lot of loom. This was truckloads of loom coming in to fix the amount of ruts and issues we had over there. The curbing, as I said, everything that this contract is saying, we could do in-house. Situations different, timing different, yes.

A one-off doing four or five stops in a parking lot happens all the time.

We do that kind of work all the time. Loom and seating a small area, absolutely, but the amount of yards that we used, 20, 30, 40 yards worth of loom across this property, that's not work we would do. Our trucks carry, it's a one-ton truck, we're carrying a yard, yard and a half a loom. How many trips we would have to make, getting it delivered would be an option. But again, it's

not work that we normally would take on on this particular property. And we were fortunate that we did not have a lot of this kind of work needed anywhere else. But again, Conley is not set up like our schools as far as curbing and things like that that would stop machines sometimes or trucks or cars from driving into the grass areas. That's not available here, finding that line of the road

was difficult with the amount of snowfall. Okay. Mr. Moniz. This work, wait. I'm sorry, Ms. Stewart still got the floor. This work hasn't started yet, correct? This work is finished. Normally at $23,000, it wouldn't have come here. Okay. Mr. Moniz, that affects your question? No, that's where I was going to stay. I drove by. It looks like everything's done. You saw it already? Everything's done, correct.

Everything's done. Mr. Dias. So why is it before us today? Because I felt it was important that it be here.

That the work was done by a contractor, that we spent this kind of money on this particular job, and I felt it was important to bring it here.

I mean, I guess if you add the two together, I don't know if you went out. I know it's two separate quotes, but that's why we need to well-define our policies better. If you add the two together, it goes over the 25.

I don't know. I guess we'll vote. I yield. What does the procurement say on that? We brought it forward because it's the same vendor and it was almost $50,000 combined. Theoretically, it's one in It's above the $25,000 threshold if we're just being truth in advertising. I get it.

So it's not that it's not typically here. So that's not true. So it's before us to approve. My biggest problem with it is, and you all know exactly what I'm going to say, is that we are here today to vote on something that's already been done. And this is not the first time. It's not the second time.

It's not the third time. So here we are debating something that we have already, it's already done. I was gonna ask before somebody asked the question, what's the problem of not paying it because it hasn't been done yet? All of a sudden it's done. What's the point of having a school committee to approve something if it's already done and then you just throw it to us and you want to rub a

stamp? This isn't what we should be having happen. And we can do the work in-house. Mr. Pacheco explained that we could do the work in-house. This is disheartening to just see about whether we did it or not. But the worst part of it is that it's already done and it sort of, we gotta get together and have a What's presented is presented and what's not. Things like this make me want to

make a motion that we reduce to $10,000 because all of a sudden we just keep on paying things and, you know, so we raise it to 25 to try to streamline things. Things like this make me want to reduce that down so you have to come to us to get permission to avoid situations like this. So I don't know if it has to be here or not be here. So I say

take a roll call on my motion to deny. Okay, Mr. Aguiar's motion to deny.

Deb, please call the roll. Mr. Aguiar? Yes. Mr. Dias? Yes. Mr. Corey? No.

Mr. Monas? Yes. Ms. Riley? Ms. Stewart? No. Mayor Coogan? No. I'd like to make a motion to approve, but going forward, all contracts, $10,000 and up come before the school committee.

Any second? I second. We have a motion and a second on all contracts, now go down to $10,000. I think that's gonna really burden some people, but Deb, call the roll. Mr. Chair. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, go ahead. So this is the quagmire that we put ourselves in, that the administration put us in because we're having something before us that we shouldn't have to do. It was

either, we got one person saying that it was here just voluntarily, we got the CFO procurement officer saying that it was kinda combined and there should have been one, So if it's combined and it should have been one, it should have been one.

It's listed here as 19,000 and 23,000. And when you look at the bids that people did, they were separate bids. They went one particular bid for all of this stuff. If that's what we should have done, probably is say one bid for all of the work so that equal people would have a chance to bid on the same exact work. We split it for some reason, I'm not sure why. And then

now it's one's here at 19, another one's here at 23. Now I fully understand that we shouldn't This is on top of the one we just had, that a bill came in for the whole entire year that the HR department didn't give to us. It's not a good look, it's not something that I'm happy about. I'm not gonna be supporting this only because I think the 10,000 would be burdensome, but at

the end of the day, I'm also not voting to approve this. Okay. Mr. Chair?

Mr. Dias? I think we should come to some sort of number. If 10,000 drastically is too much, I'm willing to... I think we should lower the threshold slightly because I see many contracts in quotes come down to bid which are 24,900, 23,000, 21,000,

which I don't, and then if you add another on top of it, we could very well have many more of these contracts that are being split up that just to either, I'm not saying just for facilities, just in general, either just to keep it from the school committee, or what not so I'll make an amendment to my motion from 10,000 raise it to 20,000.

Do I have a second? Second. Okay, I have a motion to second to take cap to 20,000 on contracts. And approve this payment. And approve this one. Because they already did the work they should be paid. Yeah, I don't know about the change but I want to get these guys paid. Deb, please call the roll.

Mr. Dias? Yes. Mr. Corey? No. Mr. Monas? Yes. Mr. Riley? Mr. Stewart?

No. Mayor Cougan? Yes.

Okay, last grant is Harbor Freight. Motion to approve. I have a motion, do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion?

All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Committee of the Whole update and a vote to approve alternative education and single district virtual school. Thank you, Mayor. I want to say that when, actually before I came on, one of the things, I believe I was on a Zoom call at the time, it was early April, and many members of the school committee had told me that one of the things I would be dealing with as

soon as I got here was looking at the alternative program in the district, and in fact that did happen. I want to say that again, during the past month, I did have the opportunity to visit 290 Rock Street, where you had your RPA alternative school program. I had an opportunity to speak to teachers, principal, and was well aware that there were going to be some changes coming to the

district. I've met numerous times with Dr. Amy Braunhard from my senior team.

We've brought our team together of our alternative programs. Jessica Stevens, our principal from Durfee High School, Jan Schweitzer from Evolve, who is presently the vice principal, and Stacy Monet, who is your current RPA principal. So what I want to say is we have been back to the drawing board a number of times. I've had the opportunity to speak to School Committee Vice Chair, Mr. Aguiar, who again has

had some experience at the alternative setting. We have finally come up with, I think, a resolution going forward. You have already, if I understand correctly, voted to move the Evolve program from its present location at Durfee High School down to the RPA Center at 290 Rock. And that was, my understanding was, a successful program. We're

looking to make it its own schools. I will have some recommendations this evening, but also to be able to grow their program. I think presently there are about 150 students there, and by going to 290 Rock, there's the capacity to actually enroll more students at the school. Another thing was looking at, one of the comments made was taking the RPA program and

redesigning, placing it someplace else. We felt that there were a lot of concerns about the challenges that that program faced in supporting our students. So what I've asked tonight, I'm gonna have Dr. Braunhardt speak a little bit about what the process has been.

I wanna take just a little bit of time, because I will tell you I'm very pleased with having met with the three administrators sitting behind Amy, Jessica, Jan, and Stacy. And I do believe the year ahead is going to be filled with a lot of promise, a lot of people that have We've worked a long time in alternative education and have a lot of ideas about supporting each of our students to

make sure that they have a successful opportunity here in the Fall River Public Schools.

So Amy, let me have you speak and I'll follow up at the end. Sure thing, thanks. And thank you to my three leaders who are behind me, but we'll certainly take the mic following. So Fall River Public Schools is committed to reimagining alternative education pathways to better serve students needing flexible graduation routes. The

proposal outlines critical reconsiderations detailed in tonight's meeting materials that represent initial steps towards developing choice-based options tailored to individual student needs.

Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, the district aims to create multiple pathways designed to meet students where they are and support them towards a successful high school graduation.

So Jessica is going to be talking to us again at Durfee High School and she'll explain to you is what we call tier one. That's obviously what we want our students to be able to do when they come to high school. So just talk about the supports at Durfee. Sure. Good evening everyone.

Durfee serves as the district's primary educational pathway for the majority of Fall River Public Schools high school students. We have a responsibility to support students across Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 while ensuring that students remain in the least restrictive, most comprehensive educational environments possible as long as they are making meaningful progress toward graduation.

CERFI provides a continuum of structured supports designated or designed to help students remain on track and then recover when they fall behind, including academic monitoring, counseling, intervention supports, unit recovery, term recovery, credit recovery for full course failures, after school recovery opportunities, and summer school programming. It is appropriate for

students to experience setbacks and then utilize these supports to get back on track while remaining enrolled in a comprehensive setting at Durfee. When students become significantly off track relative to credit accrual or coursework completion, often considered a year or more behind their cohort, traditional interventions alone are not typically sufficient.

So at that point, most often alternative pathways become a critical consideration for helping students reconnect to graduation. Evolve Academy has developed into a successful alternative trajectory within Durfee. Evolve's success has created an opportunity now for growth. As enrollment and demand for alternative pathways continue to increase, the

program has reached a point where a different location is needed to allow it to expand its capacity. strengthen its programming and further develop its unique educational model and identity. Okay, thank you, Jane. You wanna come up and speak to your plans for Evolve? Sure. So Evolve Academy currently serves 149 students in grades nine through 12 who are at least

a year and a half off track for graduation. And we are proud this year to have a largest graduating class this year of 49 students. Evolve students have fallen off track due to disengagement, lack of academic success, issues with attendance, social emotional barriers, and interrupted learning. When students transition to Evolve, they thrive not

only because the environment is smaller and more supportive due to the lower student to staff ratio, but also because they engage in competency-based and project-based transformative learning experiences, which we call TLEs. We have received 194 applications this school year alone, and we envision serving 200 students in the 26-27 school year.

We hope that we can serve over 300 students within the next three years. Evolve has been recognized as a canopy school and serves as a beacon in New England of what is possible for students in alternative education. Evolve's success is due to students' reinvestment in themselves as learners, which begins during the choice-based onboarding process.

We have a growing need and we are hoping to serve more students by returning to the 290 Rock Street building where we will have more space and more staff.

Stacy. Hi everyone. Our students come to us with diverse academic, social emotional, attendance, family and mental health needs.

We need to expand pathways and opportunities for our students including hybrid virtual learning, credit recovery, career and workforce opportunities, flexible scheduling, and competency-based learning. Flexibility is not lowering expectations. It is creating access for students who may otherwise disengage from school. Strong relationships,

consistency, and student connection are critical components of alternative education.

I believe there's an opportunity for RPA and Evolve coexist during next school year as a partnership to support all students to ensure appropriate placement for all. I also believe there needs to be a stakeholder task force created as soon as possible to explore future alternative options.

Thank you. So one of the things I'd like to you know open it up for questions but going forward I want to bring to the attention of the committee, that when you look at Evolve going down to 290 Rock, and it is to become a DESE-approved school, I would like to be able to name a principal instead of right now, presently Jan is considered a vice principal, you would be naming

a principal of that school. I'm also recommending that the new application for the virtual high school be housed at 290 Rock Street. That would involve teachers.

It isn't just a virtual program without the support of curriculum and teachers supporting the students in person during their time there. To make a motion that we approve the addition of a principal, well, conversion of the principal from the vice principal position, as well as approving the single district virtual school. Second.

I have some questions on the whole thing. I do too. No? You want to go first, Mr. Corey? I was just, just for a point of clarification, I'm happy to hear what I just heard. I heard Dr. Monet just present that, about the idea of coexistence of the current RPA program, as well as the absorption of the Evolve program at 290 Rock Street. Mr. Chairman, I know, just the point of... I wasn't finished. I

was just trying to kind of go piecemeal. Go ahead, Dr. Smith. I will speak to our PA afterwards. Thank you. So there is a principal there right now.

Well, let me jump ahead. So one of the things that you heard us talk about here is I think two very important things. I want you to see three leaders working together for the benefit of our students throughout the districts. That would be part of your coexistence piece. What I am going to recommend, since you are looking to grow the Evolve program, you heard me recommend that Jan take on the role

of principal because it's a designated school. You heard me talk about the virtual academy, uh, application and that school being at the 290 Rock Street.

I'm also going to recommend at this time, looking at the numbers, we think that we're presently looking at maybe 67 students that are presently in RPA. I'm not sure if those are exactly going to be the numbers going forward, but we are recommending to look for additional space throughout the district. There's a possibility of looking at some

space, I'm told, at PACE Center, your parent registration center, where we can start to build a program, look at a different schedule, as you heard Stacy talk about, a real flexible schedule, work opportunities. And granted, this is the 11th hour. I understand that, which is why it's critical we start to talk to people in the alternative settings,

start to take a look at what this might look like, and we'll continue to update you throughout. Let me just, one of the, you heard me start with some of the recommendations, so can I just go through them and you can piecemeal them?

I talked about the establishment of the principal at Evolve. Also, we'd have to look at the Evolve graduation requirements, which would mirror the 80 credits of presently the RPA and your virtual school. For the virtual school, you have to vote to approve the FRPS single district virtual school. That would be a separate vote. And as far as RPA, I want to vote to support the establishment of

not only a renaming committee for RPA, also I'd like to vote to change the start times for RPA for the school year coming up, excuse me, for FY27 and a staggered start for the upcoming school year. I would also need a vote on a new position of job coach and a job description will be brought forth to you by July. And I know this is a lot

and I'll go back. And the last thing is when you approve the budgets, we would have to divide up the three budgets with the three sites, the Virtual Academy, the Evolve School, and the newly renamed RPA. It's that simple? Yeah, go single district. So the motion that you need is what for the virtual school?

To vote to approve the single district virtual school. Motion to approve. Second. At the 290 Rock Street. Yeah, but she said 290 Rock. Okay.

So on that one item, the single district virtual school going down to what is now the RPA, I have a motion to second. Any discussion?

Very quick question. Mr. Dias? In the... the backup for students that have been reached out to. I don't see anything in here for graduating. I'm assuming some of these students are going to be graduating, and I see a lot of students that we haven't met with, almost a quarter.

And I just think it's all over the place. I just want to make sure this data is correct because there are students that are graduating, might be moving.

In the backup that you have, there are no 12th graders listed. So all of the data represents our current 8th graders who will be freshmen in September through our 11th graders. And the students who are not met with, those are the three buckets are the undecided, the students who are not met with, and the students that have selected RPA. Those are the students that represent the 67 number that Dr. Smith

referenced. Okay, it was a number of 29 students, so you answered it. Thank you.

Mr. Corey? So, Dr. Smith, I heard you clarified three separate entities. Is that correct? Yes. And so you need to delineate three, you know, there need to be three supervisors or principals running each program?

Well, you presently have... Obviously, we're talking about the virtual evolve and you're talking about the new RPA. So that's a good question. Stacey Monet would be the designated principal, I think, in your application that you already have for your virtual high school.

And that's within the confines of RPA as we know it, right? That would be at 290 Rock Street. Yes. But she would be the designated principal working and overseeing.

She'll work closely with Jan. And this vote is just for the virtual, just so we can try to get one out of the way. Dr. Bronhard, are we just addressing the virtual school now? Just addressing the virtual. Can I address our PA as well? Just the virtual. No, that'll come up next. This is just to try to clear the virtual school off. Okay, yep, okay. I like Dr. Smith's recommendations, and I'm

ready to support it. All right, so we have a motion and second on the virtual school being located at 290 Rock. Discussion hearing none? Roll call. Roll call. Go ahead, Deb. Mr. Radkamp? Yes. Mr. Dyer? Yes.

Mr. Mori? Yes. Mr. Monis? Yes. Mr. Riley? Mr. Stewart? Yes. Mary Coogan? Yep.

What's your next one, Dr. Smith? Let me go to evolve. So the recommendations there are to establish a principal in place of a vice principal because of the designation that it is a... Motion approved. Second. I have a couple of questions. So what's going to happen to Stacey?

Well, right now I'm an Evolve Mayor. I know, but what's gonna happen is Stacy.

If she's a principal down there, we're gonna have two principals in the same school?

No, no, she would be at the new site for our PA students. She would remain the principal, oversee the task force, work closely with the virtual school, so she would be overseeing, actually named as principal at two schools, which is not unusual for alternative type settings. Well, Jan's been a friend of mine for a long time.

She does a good job, but I... Really, was this thrown on? Point of information.

Hold on. I have a point of information. Was this on the agenda the other night when we did our meeting, Kev? Yeah, resolution on RPA was on the agenda, absolutely. They were working through their meetings and to try to come up with a solution, but the wording for making sure that we had the RPA discussion, the overall proposal, it was on the agenda. It was requested to be on the agenda, my

first item that I asked about. Point of order? I asked for it to be put first because Principal Stevens had... No, he's referring to the agenda setting meeting.

Right. Did this come up the agenda setting meeting? Yes. Point of order? I have a point of order. Mr. Dias. Mr. Dias. I just want to be cautious, and I know I've been thinking for this before that we don't cloud this with individual personnel decisions. I think that needs to be handled by the superintendent as she handles the day-to-day. I yield. Mr. Mayor, can I

clarify? Mr. Aguilar. So what the mayor is asking for is we have an agenda setting meeting where there's a document that's put forth with what they already know about the agenda. At that meeting, the first item that I had a little piece of paper with a bunch of things on it, One of the items that I listed was we need a resolution to RPA because we've been talking about this for three

months and the students, the staff, and the families need to know. So that's how it got on the full agenda. It wasn't on the original draft agenda, but it was the first item of discussion with the Deputy Superintendent, myself, you, and Ms. Cabral.

Yeah, I must have missed it. I really, I think we should look at the whole plan first. So you're gonna take Stacy and 67 kids and put them where? Possibly at Pace.

Have you been at the Pace? I have been advised that there is room there that they would fit there and give us a year to plan for these students.

I've been in Pace a lot. There's not a classroom there.

There's not a cafeteria. There's not a gym. There's nothing for them. It's...

It's the old vocational wing of Durfee. Now, we renovated where Cindy Kudo is and her crew the whole way going up, but those are just vacant warehouses. And those kids are going to be shunted to the side like that? Because they've already been in enough dire straits that we're trying to coach them up at RPA to get them back to something, and we're going to say, head down to the warehouse. You

don't get a gym? You don't get a cafeteria? And... Why? We got a building on 290 Rock that held 1,200 kids. 1,200 kids on those five floors. And we're, myself and Mr. Pacheco, were up at Diamond the other day making plans to get the auditorium seating out of there so we can rebuild that auditorium at 290 Rock. And we're gonna be getting some other stuff. We may get a couple of lit backboards for that little gym

down there. so that we can start to make these kids. We just spent a ton of money on that building. And I never wanted Evolve to leave the building.

I was clear about that when that fight first happened. I knew Durfee was gonna be popping. I knew we needed space and Evolve went to Durfee. And as I said, I've worked with Jan. She's a brilliant education leader and I have nothing but respect. But I don't really support this plan one whit. And I really am not gonna participate where we tell those kids that need a lift up, you can head

down to the old warehouse in the back of the old Durfee. There's no gym there, there's no cafeteria, no offices. Pace is beautiful where we help those families. Are those kids gonna be going up and down those halls every day? I don't know. We have kids there registering, coming in from all over the world to our schools. And I'm not against it. And we should be coaching those kids up.

But to yank the rug on them like this, I'm not in favor of this elect. Mr. Aguiar. Can we please have the Deputy Superintendent who's been intimately involved in all of these discussions speak. She's been intimately involved, Mr. Aguiar, but I've been in that building probably 200 hours more than her at RPA, and I've been in the Pace Center probably another 150 hours more than her, and I

don't know if she knows those kids at RPA, but I have, again, I have total respect for her, I think she's doing a great job, but I don't believe she has the knowledge or the history to talk about. So you don't wanna let her speak? Of course I'm gonna let her speak, I'm not like you. Go right ahead, Mr. Coulton. So, it's the 11th hour. It

is. And we are looking for space, we're trying to hit all the buttons. I'm an alternative person, I want these kids to succeed, I'm looking for success.

We want both programs, all three programs, all opportunity hubs, virtual school, Evolve, and the students that are currently in the RPA, if we change that name.

We were charged with finding successful pathways for them, and I get what you're saying.

I want to see these kids go out to work. I want to see school to career. I want to see them be able to use the CTE program in an after dark program or an evening program at Durfee High School, we're starting at the 11th hour right now, and if it's pace, I would love to have them go back to Durfee High School. I would love them to have an

opportunity to stay at RPA, but right now, we're looking at different opportunities for the students to be able to develop into successful young men and women, to go out into the workforce, to go to college, or to go someplace where they feel that they can be successful. Again, it is the 11th hour. There's still lots of planning. There's still lots to do. I get it. There's no gym.

I get it. Where's the outdoor? Where's the cafeteria? We are looking at all of these. Well, if you get it, you're not supporting this then. I do.

No, because we're not doing this to kids. We're not doing this to kids. I don't have any affection for this whatsoever. And I do want the kids... go back to Durfee based on three things attendance conduct and academics and they do work their way back and forth now the some give up and not make it it's heartbreaking but this is this plan go walk over the pace so mayor is there another

possible again I don't know this five floors there Jan can take whatever floor she wants she's got 300 kids there's five floors in that building You can come in the back way. There's a second floor in the back. I just got done telling you we're going to try to fix that auditorium. There's classrooms around the outside there.

67 kids. There's what? Four rooms? And we're going to do what? Put them in a warehouse? Or let's warehouse them up there. Anybody voting for this, I can't imagine they have any kind of a conscience because... This is totally, totally degrading our kids. Point of order. Mr. Aguilar. Point of order. I have a point of order. Go ahead. Again, Mr. Mayor, you have the right to your opinion, and

I actually don't disagree with half of what you're saying, but to...

cast aspersions on the committee before we even had the chance to hear the full presentation saying, assinuing that we don't care about the students. Is this inappropriate? Oh, Mr.

Dias, I'm not casting aspersions on the committee. I'm trying to say what they're saying they want to do, and I disagree with it. I don't know how you're going to vote. I didn't look inside your head. Whatever you vote, if you're with me, great. If you're not, you get your own vote. But I'm not questioning your vote.

I'm questioning this plan. Mr. I... So for several months now we've talked about a proposal to do various options to make sure we service all students. We've been faced with an RPA building right now, a school, that is not doing well. By everyone's admission, by everyone's admission, from the superintendents to the assistant superintendents to school committee members.

Over the last several years it's gone downhill. We're going backwards with alternative education, and I've said that for years now. But at the end of the day, we have to try to find out what's the best way to service all the children in the proper format. I was a proponent of bringing the Evolve program to RPA as a standalone school because that school and the population and the profile of those students

is such that they really don't mix well with other students that have behavioral difficulties or aggressive, or basically to tear up the school. I'm not in favor of having two schools in the building based on past experience in that building. That you cannot have two competing different types of schools within one. They're gonna mix and it's gonna be something that is not gonna be good for Evolve

and the long term future of Evolve if we want to expand that. So that's why I made the motion to have the Evolve go back there. Right now we have a problem with what is happening at RPA. I've asked for over three months for the data and the profiles to try to figure out what are the students that are gonna be left, how many students are left. We received some information, I've

met for hours, trying to go over this with the superintendent and others. There's a pilot program that the superintendent would like to run to try to plan what is the next version of the alternative school gonna look like. Right now if we have 60 students, we're not gonna be taking any more students until we get this right with all of those other pieces. Some of those 60 haven't even been talked to

yet, as we just heard from Mr. Dias. So we still have work to do to try to figure out how are we gonna service all those students. The deputy superintendent went to the Pace Center. There's multiple classrooms there that can be used in order to do this. We would have to do some renovations. We would have to spend some money, for sure. The other benefit of having such a program right next

door to the high school, is they would be able to use the Derfee fields, they would be able to use the culinaries and other 74 programming, and there'd be resources there for those students to be close enough by that they could transition back and forth, or maybe a class here, or an elective class like the Evolve has currently, that they allowed to take. So it's not throwing them out, it's not throwing

them to the wayside, it's actually just trying to create a situation where we're gonna make the most successful and the largest programming, which is Evolve, be a standalone school so that they can thrive. I'm a firm believer in supporting all students and having all options in a continuum. I said three months ago, right here, that we needed

alternative options at Durfee High School. And for three months I haven't heard anything about it other than we're going to do this, we're going to do that. So at the end of the day, we need to have, in my opinion, I'm voting for this so that we can have a task force, we can put all of our minds together, including with the superintendent, and then we can come up with a revised,

revamped, and renamed RPA that's going to service the kids that have that profile of need. It's not throwing any students away. It's doing what's right, I believe, to make sure that we have the sanctity of the Evolve program. Mr. Chairman. I yield. Mr.

Corey. I guess I was prefacing exactly what so many of these remarks were before. I didn't realize that I was stepping outside of my lane, but I've been extremely concerned about the current students who are at RPA as we speak. The ones that are not graduating, the sophomores and the juniors. And I know that they have expressed passionate arguments about staying there. I know that when we set up the Stone School

to be a therapeutic school and an early daycare center, that we were able to use the building for two programs, and along those lines, Why can't we just grandfather the students who are at RPA currently to remain there without upsetting their educational trajectory moving forward? And then after the sophomores graduate, if we could fully involve the

Evolve program there and renovate as necessary, then that would be the course of action that I would like to take as a school committee member in consideration to the students at RPA that are already there. So I'm asking if there's a possibility that we could coexist in one building with the current program as well as moving into the evolved situation, which is a great idea. Mr.

Dias. I think the way I'm understanding this is, and I, What the administration is proposing, I think, is supportive for the long term of alternative education. I see that. What my colleague just brought up and what the chair brought up, I thought, was some valid concerns. Thankfully, the Pace Building is right next to Durfee High School. And whether it's for a short amount of time, it's an extended

amount of time. And I've made this concern, I brought up this concern multiple times.

For RPA for stone students. We need to be offering equal services as much as we can so with that being said seeing that the building is Right next to each other the pace building in Durfee you could the students can walk there so what I would like to hear from the administration is The students that are going that could potentially be moved to the pace building that they

can have a equal services just at different times for gym, to use the state of the art gym, to use the cafeteria to be fully accessed as possible to programs at Durfee High School. I just like to see, I think that would alleviate some of the concerns of the committee if we just present that and showing that we are offering the most services that we can for those students. That would make

me feel comfortable with one member as well. I yield. Ms. Riley.

I feel like the kids who are getting pushed out are the RPA kids. I hear the whole conversation and I see the deputy's vision. She's had six weeks to put this together. That is not long enough to put this program together. And quite frankly, if Evolvely needs more room and we have classrooms at the Pace Center, why don't we put the rollover Evolve kids at the Pace Center? Why are we moving

the RPA kids? Like we just said at the last meeting, we have to have a plan for them. I'm looking at this, we haven't even talked to all the students and we haven't talked to families. The plan is not, enough for the students and I feel like all we're doing is we're saying to the RPA kids yeah we're not happy with what you're doing here so we're gonna shove you in this

other place I agree I don't think that that's fair to say to the students they have everything they need in that building if you've all need some more space and we have classrooms all the things we just said about putting our PA at pace why can't we put the rollover evolve kids at pace then and they can have access to the rest of the evolved program it just I I feel like

we have not taken the time to plan a thorough alternative program. I think what we talked about at the last meeting is leave RPA as is, do not add extra students, work through that process for the year and plan an alternative program for the fall. It's just not enough time in this short span to really do what's right for kids and I just don't see that it's fair to

move the RPA kids to another spot. That's not prepared.

I want to thank everybody for their comments, but at the same time, that building is five floors. I mean, we're talking 300 kids in a school that held 1,200.

We're not going to jam anybody. I know that we've spent a ton of money in that building, and I wish we could spend more, and we're trying to spend more. But at the same time, I don't see how that's going to in any way impact the space. If there's got to be spacings or a floor in between, I mean, I've been down there. They've used every configuration in the world. And I

do believe that the problem with RPA has just been they haven't and messed yet. We've had a number of principals down there, we've had a number of kids down there, we've had a number of teachers down there, and it's a constant flow. They need a little stability, they need a little bit of someone to care about them and pull them by the shirt, but at the

same time, I just can't understand why we would ever consider putting them in the back of the pay center. Anybody that walks through there tonight, I know Mr. Aguiar's right, of course we can renovate it, we were gonna do that with pre-K, but that was a long one-year plan. This is like they said, hi, let's get ready to go. And we got a fun-filled summer of work. I think there's plenty of

room to accommodate everybody at 290 Rock. Okay, so I think what we need, because we have been back to the drawing board, I've only been here a month, and I have heard every rendition possible from Opportunity Hub, putting all of the programs there, to the RPA kids need a new start, they need to be out of the building so we can grow, evolve. What I'm saying to the school committee tonight

is, we have the experts, I'm impressed by how they're working together, yes, we have to go back to the drawing board. We need to provide a better opportunity for the so-called RPA kids. I don't disagree with anybody up here, but we need direction tonight as to We have the people that can do it. I want you to have faith in us. We're going to work really hard. We'll continue to come back

and present to the school committee. We need to know where these programs are going to go. At one point when I was listening, you put, again, I believe, Evolve down to 290 Rock Street, and there was conversation about RPA coming out, unless I misunderstood. So can we have some clear direction for our team to be able to plan and and and I apologize because if it isn't the a pay center I

didn't know if there were other places other if we wanted our PA students in a different location if that's not what you're looking for we're able to go back and come back and present something to you sooner than later clearly though we did approve the single district their virtual school going down so that's one thing we've got out of the way and evolve going back was already voted mr. Aguirre

So I think what we need to do is just be honest and be honest about where the current state of affairs is at that school. We should be more concerned right now with the current state of education or the lack thereof at the RPA school. I toured the school, toured the school with the assistant superintendent, two assistant superintendents. And what we did and watched and when we debriefed, it wasn't good.

I think we're losing sight of the fact of how much that school has fallen this year. Because what I watched when I went around, I was very disappointed. What I witnessed, the lack of students even being present in the building, there was less than 25 students in the entire school that day. The expectations were not there, in my opinion. It hasn't been a good system right now. So we need to

do something different. That's why I keep on saying, if we're gonna change the need to rebrand and come up with something that at 290 Rock, the Evolve program has a good positive opinion right now. It's doing well. It's servicing kids well. We can't mix it with students that are either not, either wanting or ready to do what they need to do to be in a school right now like

that. So at the end of the day, we have to preserve the sanctity of that building, in my opinion, for the Evolve. Now we've had months to figure this out, months, and we have gotten nothing. Still to this day, I've asked at least 10 times for the profile of the students that are at RPA, what do they look like, what is the needs, what does their discipline look

like? Still to this day, I don't have it. I made a recommendation to the administration that we take the Evolve, At Durfee High School, one corridor, they had an entire corridor where Evolve students went to just take the 60 students that are left and put them in that corridor where you'd have multiple areas in a regular school where you'd have an entire school at your leisure, just like Evolve did when it

was appropriate for those children. Just flip the school and have one go there and now you would have it. I'm told no, we can't do that. So I've presented various options do that for this one year of planning and training and thought.

That's not an option. If they don't want to agree to that, we've got to find somewhere. In my opinion, we're risking taking the positive of what is in Evolve and turning that into a potential negative with different interactions with different levels of students.

And I think we need to be honest about it. Here's the story. We had Evolve kids and we had RPA kids come before us to say why they wanted to keep those schools open. And that same night, In the bathroom at that school, the RPA children were threatening to beat up some of the Evolve children.

Those don't mix. Everyone here, including all the assistant superintendents and superintendents, know that story. Those situations don't mix. They have a different level and a profile of those students. That's why I'm saying we need to do separate for Evolve and have a separate program wherever that may be. It can be back at Durfee, it can be at the pay center renovated with multiple classrooms. But we, in

my opinion, charged everybody to go find this and look at this stuff and now it's the day before the meeting and we're trying to figure it out. I have just been saying consistently, it's not working at RPA. It is not working. And if anyone says anything otherwise, they're not being truthful because it is not working right now.

And right now we need to do something, we need to take some action. I'm saying that we rebrand, we move into a different direction, and wherever that may be, let the administration deal with that. Ultimately, Evolve should be the only school at 290 Rock. In addition to that, we had presentations here that said we're gonna divide the school in half with a line in the middle of the school, and then at

the end of the day, you can't close the doors and you can't close in the building because there's fire codes and the like. So we're gonna mix Various programs in one place, it doesn't work. I'm telling you, I've been there, it does not work. And even in the documents that we got, it just doesn't work as presented. We need something for all of these children, I get it. But mixing them

down there is not the right way. Okay. I yield. Ms. Riley and then Mr.

Corey. I want us to stop blaming the kids, number one. Yeah. It's not the kids. We don't have the right program running. It's the adults. Okay. It's not RPA kids versus Evolve kids, they're all our kids and we have to do what's in the best interest of the kids. And all I'm offering is, this is not ready to move. None of it's ready to move. RPA stays where it is, Evolve

stays where it is, while you plan the right program. If we don't have enough room for more Evolve kids and we need to have more Evolve kids, that's the problem we have to solve. not what we're doing with RPI or Evolve. We have to give our new deputy and superintendent time to plan a thoughtful program that's an alternative program for kids who need that kind of environment. And that's any kid who

can't be successful. Not every kid can be successful in a school of 2,500 students.

And that's okay, that's life. But I'm not gonna blame the kids for what's going on. The programming needs to be corrected. That's an adult problem, not a kid problem.

And I don't feel like we should be penalizing the students for things the adults haven't done correct. That's why I'm not in support of it. I think we leave things as it's take a year to fix it, plan it, have our deputy and our superintendent put eyes on what's happening, look at ways to improve it, make it better, do some of these job coaching and other opportunities for our IPA kids. Don't

add to it until we have a good program in place. Evolve works because it's been a thorough process of kids have to apply, they have to meet certain criteria, and then they can join the program and they can be successful. We haven't set RPA up for that same success. Again, that's a program, that's an adult problem, it's not a kid problem. I think we're just not ready to move any of it,

quite frankly, so I think we need a year to make a plan that we can all accept. Mr. Corey. Yes, I concur.

I'm on the subcommittee and was privy to some of the early conversations. But I have to admit that I've never really felt clarified in any of the sense of direction that we're trying to grow this into. That being said, I am in favor of the Evolve program and want to congratulate that program for its success and for its potential building power. But two

meetings ago here, two school committee meetings ago, there were students in the audience that came and testified about trying to keep RPA solvent.

And I have to admit that those kids won me over. I listened to their hearts, and their hearts were genuine. And that's what I'm listening to as a school committee member, to try to respond to what our kids really feel. And I've also, as a retired adjustment counselor, I've spent a lot of time at RPA, and I know that it's never been properly resourced to find success,

but I concur with my colleagues' comments about putting the brakes on, getting a real good plan together, I'm figuring it out. I don't know if through facilities and operations if we can figure out a way to have two programs in one building successfully without any unsafe interactions. Given the small amount of RPA kids left, I really think that you can cordon off

that building and schedule classes in such a way that you could find success with maybe two programs in that building just for the meantime. But in the meantime, I'm not in favor of having the RPA program leave that building at least those juniors and sophomores find time to graduate, and then we can look at something a little more stable down the road. After all, this has been

presented as an 11th hour and I'd rather just put the brakes on and really rethink things. I yield. Mr. Dias. Thank you. Just two points. So the first point that this is an 11th hour issue and I agree, this is something that should have been done last year, the year before, five, ten years ago. I guess as we look, what I'm looking at is the transfer of students that were moving from RPA and we're moving them

over the pay center and there's debate on the stage currently if that is a punishment, if that is negative for those kids. So what I like to see is one member and my vote would be contingent on this is, and I think the administration can could present something in a near term on this is what services seeing that the buildings are close to each other. And I agree with

my colleague. We don't, we have to be cautious of like, like of, whatever, but if the administration can present a plan where the services at Durfee, the auditorium, the gym, after school programs for students that can go to those programs, I just don't see what the negative impact would then be. That's the way I'm looking at this, so maybe we should table this

if we're having a special meeting later in the month or we're doing something like that, we can bring it back up and allow the administration time to prepare specifically on that issue. I think that would be best and then we can also support the superintendent and move in a decisive direction. I yield. Mr. Aguirre. So Mr. Corey was talking about resources at the alternative school. This committee, and to

your credit as one member that voted for it, we over resourced RPA.

Resources was not the issue. We have spent, I don't know if the budget was three million, for some reason I have it in my head. $3 million to service.

When I walked around the building, there was less than 25 kids in the building.

Now granted there was some on the computer and the like. We spent $3 million down there. And if we said we didn't have the right staff, we should have done something about it. And I'm frustrated because we can do something about it. We should have done something about it. But we didn't. And when I said that's how it's been failing, it's not going well. I can't stress that enough. It's just not

going well. But at this point we got a number of 60, 63, whatever, something along that way. We have a defined number of students that are in that particular program that we have to figure out what's the best place to service them. And after listening to everyone here, they're discussing whether we go to PACE, whether we create anything. To me the most logical thing is that the Evolve has to expand

and they are ready to expand with a successful program. Hence the reason why I'm in favor of them going to 290 Rock. I'm making a motion that we move the 60 students and the RPA to the space at Durfee where the Evolve program was. That's a motion. I don't hear a second.

I want to say something else. Does anybody have a second? I'll second for discussion.

I want to say something right now. Evolve started at RPA. That's where it came from. That's where its roots were. The kids that were going into Evolve were RPA kids. And the kids that are at the alternative school at 290 Rock, the vast number of them couldn't make it at Durfee. The school was too big. Their attendance, they moved too much. They might have had a disagreement with some

other kids. They might have not liked the teacher. They may have done something, taken something that didn't belong to them, but they made a mistake. And if they go to RPA where it is, the goal was always to try to get them to work their way back. If they're at RPA, can't they transition into a valve if Jan sits down with them or Amy or Stacy and sits down says hey

this kid's working let's give them a shot at evolve they are there together and there is ways in that building to keep kids separate and I you know don't want any trouble in any school in the city of Fall River but I'm not going to trash those kids we need to coach them up we need to bring them back but putting them back in Durfee they left Durfee for a reason they

left Durfee for a reason and if you look at at their conduct, their attendance, or their grades, they need support. And that's why they went to RPA. And I know for a fact that a lot of them come back. They work their way back, but they're ready to come back. We're not gonna say, oh, by the way, now you're placed over here, the place you never got along, the place where you

didn't get along with people, the place that was too big for you, we're gonna send you right back there. Those kids that are RPA, I get kids that come in my office and say, I wanna go to RPA. They wanna go down there and get a fresh start. They wanna make up some credits. They wanna get ahead.

That's what happens to a true alternative program. And I second Miss Riley. Maybe we do have to do a lot of work down there. And Mr.

Aguiar is correct too. We do put a lot of money in there. We just gotta put the right plug in the right hole and get that place clicking. That's how that's gonna work. It's not gonna be put them over there, put them here, move them around. They need stability. And if those kids wanna stay, and I'm not even gonna get into the fight about, well, we're not gonna send anymore. I don't

know if that's a good policy either. Kids make mistakes. They need support somewhere else.

So I'm not, you know, I'm obviously not voting for this at all, and I don't think that this would be a tremendous disservice to these kids and their families, and that's all I can say. Are we going to vote on whatever the last motion was? Ms. Stewart. I just wanted to add, I think we shouldn't add any more kids anywhere until we can figure out what we're doing. The problem is,

looking at these numbers, I can see we added students two weeks ago, three weeks ago. I don't understand why we're adding any students anywhere. I'll tell you why. We have no idea. They can go down there and get into one of their credit recovery programs and pick up their grades and get their fourth English so they can get across the stage. They may have passed three and they may have missed enough

school at Durfee that they can't drop in on a class of 28 and get their English four done, but they have enough terms where they pass, but they miss too much work, so Stacy will take them and coach them up and almost have them sit one-on-one with an English teacher to get their grade up, to get them across the stage in a couple weeks. So you're telling me the four kids

that got put in in May, they're all seniors and they all just needed one more class? I don't know what they are. I don't want to get into individual things. Okay, I don't know. But that's what they used to do. I'm just saying, in general, I think that because of where we're at, there's zero reasons to bring in any more kids right now because we don't know what's going on. Why are

we adding more students to this? All right, what's the motion we're supposed to be voting on anyway? I made a motion and we're seconded. To what was it then?

To move the kids back to the Evolve Hallway, separate entrance and the- Back to Durfee. Correct. So you want to take the RPA kids back to Durfee. Deb, call the roll. I have a comment. Sorry, go ahead, Mr. Hanger. To Ms. Stewart's point, can someone tell us why four kids were transferred in?

specifically who the four kids without looking at the database. Did you get any transfers recently? Yes, we get transfers all the time and he's actually right because a lot of times it's credit recovery and we're trying to get kids. I don't know if they're all 12th grade but it is very fluid at RPA. We're accepting kids all the time to make sure that they stay engaged, are still attending and are still

gaining credits and a lot of times it's credit recovery at this point. Yeah, so I just, when we get back up, like Ms. Stewart said it was in the back up so that's the nature of my question. be why we also have to be honest and understand that we've created a situation where we've reduced the credits to 80 for RPA and for E now we're going to try to do it for

evolve that in essence when kids are already over some not all over age and under credited is almost telling them that they do not have an opportunity to go back because of the credit issue it's going to create a quagmire for when they do it's not as seamless as a transition and my history working in an alternative education is that sometimes that's not necessarily the best thing the kids don't even want,

but we can't necessarily create a system where we're trying to figure out, well, they can come back, they can't because the 80 credits benefits the majority of the population, I would say. So when that person is already deficient and they're overage, it's gonna exacerbate that problem. But all I'm saying is that as far as what I've witnessed, that I've seen in the limited information that I've got, I still don't know

a profile of each student exactly. I have summary data that I just got yesterday.

But at the end of the day, I still don't think it's going well at RPA. And I think we need to do something different. And when I suggest to go to that hallway is to run a program within a program. I asked months ago, what is the alternative options that are gonna be created when evolve, leaves Durfee because we had voted for that at Durfee High School to have a continuum of

services for those kids. I still haven't heard anything related to what that looks like.

So as far as I'm concerned, that hallway is open. It's a separate entrance. I've been there, I visited, and they can control where they come and go and those kids can go to elective classes, they can go to a world-class gym and fields outside. Mr. Aguiar, Durfee's already a 26-something. That school was built for 2,500 kids. We're already oversubscribed. The pressure that

Evolve is going to take off that building going down to Rock Street is what we're looking for and giving them a home at the same time. That's where they came from. They're going back home is where they're going. I think we should just vote on sending the RPA kids to Durfee. Deb, call the roll. That was Mr.

Agnew's motion. He has second. Move the RPA kids from Rock Street to Durfee.

Mr. Agnew? Yes. Mr. Dias? Yes. Mr. Corey? No. Mr. Moniz? No.

Ms. Riley? No. Ms. Stewart? Yes. Mayor Krugin? No.

Now on the main motion, I say we table it and give them more time to come up with a plan. Motion to table to a special meeting. We have a special meeting. Well, they're going to need more than four weeks, Colin. They're going to need some time. Motion to table. Motion to table? Second. I have a motion and second to table. I withdraw my motion because Mr. Edgar has a question. Oh,

I'm sorry. I pretty much explained exactly where my personal opinion is.

We have to provide an opportunity for the administrator. They want to do a one-year study. So I don't believe personally that it's the best thing to have two programs down there. But understanding that at some point we have to allow them to do some sort of study, I'm a little cognizant of it because we've said we're gonna do studies and studies and this is not reinventing the wheel,

this opportunity hub is the same stuff we've been talking about for multiple years. Some of the stuff has been in existence. Case in point, in here it says we're gonna have a, if we did this plan, we're gonna have a, an ingenuity lab at RPA. Great, we had an ingenuity lab there 10 years ago. Where the hell is it now? It doesn't exist. When I walked around, I said, where's the ingenuity

lab? It doesn't exist. So there's some things in here that are like basic low-hanging fruit that should be in existence, and it's not, which is why I keep saying I don't think it's a great thing going on down there, and I'm not trying to disparage anybody that works there or the kids. I went there and witnessed it, and other administrators all over this place have done the same thing. If they were

being candid, they would understand and agree that it's not going well. With that being said, we have to try to figure out a way to do something. And we have to provide some direction because the kids and the staff and the superintendent, they have to act. So tabling it till a date certain is not going to help us. If we can look at the report where the red line went in the

middle of the school. So if nobody wants to move them to PACE, I've said my own personal opinion. The second part of that would be plan B would be if we were going to do them together, what's the best place to do it for one year with 63 kids? And when I saw the line in the middle, you know, you've heard, I just don't agree that that's possible. You know, like you

can't sort of have a horseshoe and have half and half. So that, I think, if we're not going to move them and have something and we're going to just like rebrand and recall it, rename, whatever we're going to do, we have to figure out what is the next best way to do it. And in that building, what I saw on the proposal isn't necessarily the best way. So I think we need

to provide some direction to the administration so that they can make some decisions here relative to what's going to happen. Can somebody comment on whether that red thing is even legal? No, that's not going to happen. You've got Ms. Legault, you've got Amy, and you've got the crew. Let them go to work on this. Let them go to work on this because, you know, that's... You've been waiting for three months, sir.

I understand. And I'm asking what is in their proposal. But these people have been here two weeks, for God's sakes. And we're telling them to close the school and get another principal. This proposal, Mr. Mayor, is what I'm talking about. We have a picture here for the edification of the public that says we have a red line drawn halfway around a building that goes in a perfect square. This is the proposal

of the administration in our backup. I'm asking them to be heard on what is, what's the best way to do that. They do. Because they are the ones that created it. Let me speak from experience here. Okay, but Dr. Smith, let Mr. Monis make his comment, and then we'll go. Like anything, we need to make room and everything else. Why can't we just move the office personnel out of there to pace and give each

group their own floor? Yeah. Well, there's five floors there, Mr. Monis, so we can look at that, and I kind of support that, because I know they have a lot of office space in there. That's true too, Dr. Smith. One of the things I will share with you is looking at alternative programs, having come from a large city, you're all aware of that. I do think with a building the size of

290 Rock, and there are some limitations. I mean, we have fire codes. There are things that we would have to look at. We probably could create two separate entrances, two separate opportunities for kids, I guess you need to just give us a little bit of time and there wasn't time right now, but that was one of the suggestions to let evolve grow in that building and

They've had a lot of success whatever that is to try to not only rebrand because I keep hearing negative negative negative and I agree and This is not about negative for kids. We want an opportunity where people are excited to come, that there are opportunities for work, that there are opportunities for some career, that there are collaborations.

We can do this. We are looking from you for direction as to if it is 290 Rock, we'll go back to the drawing board. We'll be more clear, Mr.

Aguiar, than just a red line. We'll be really clear about how kids come in, how they're accepted into the school, how they have shared space, what's that gonna look like for security, how can we make sure that every kid feels safe there and has an opportunity. And to bring it back to Durfee, one of the things you did talk about, and I had a conversation with Principal Stevens, They do have many

kids at that school, and again, just to be fair, you were excited about having some of those rooms back. You had ideas for some of the interventions you were gonna do for your 2,600 kids that are at Durfee High School, providing some support.

I believe you talked about some expanded in the area of health. So there are some thoughts, because you have already made the decision, and I believe you voted on putting Evolve down to 290 Rock. Isn't that correct? So that's already been a vote.

So we can go back, we can come back to you with a plan. I'm confident, and as I told you from the beginning, watching these three leaders have conversation about kids and bringing it back to kids was really refreshing. So I'm confident we can do this. Mr. Aguero. So can I get some clarity on the red line that goes through the middle where it says we're gonna continue current through way, replicate

on second of third floor and both sides of fourth floor. Shared space for offices, not like. What is the, can you lock those doors so that nobody can come back in? Is there laws related to that? Because this is saying your presentation is saying that on the same floor you want to have it divided up. It's your presentation. So the mayor keeps shaking his head. But

at the end of the day, this is the administration's presentation, sir. That's not a plan, that's a red line on a picture. But it says right here in the words, they're talking about sharing a floor. I'm just trying to get clarity for what this is. Dr. Bride, do you want to talk about the discussion? Certainly. So we had a number of conversations in regard to what would work best to be able

to house both programs within the building. And what we really talked about with Stacy, who is currently at RPA, and what all of us have really witnessed, is we did not want to pigeonhole kids into one floor. And we talked with the superintendent really about how challenging it would be to use the same entrance for the same groups of kids and using the main, the current RPA office to switch that around

to be for Evolve. And so the superintendent really got us thinking around, well, wait a minute, can't we rethink the way that we would divide the building? And Jan, who has had some experience with dividing across a floor, said, I've had experience with breaking buildings apart in the past and housing two programs within. As you look at the red line, really what that is indicating is not a red line

through the building, but an entrance in the front for the current RPA so that that would not change for those students. An entrance in the back, we would develop a new main entrance coming in the back of the building so that our evolved students could really create their own space. It would be kids coming in facing one end and kids coming in facing the other. As we think about security, If you've

ever been at RPA, one of the challenges that we have is kids are constantly lapping the building. And so as we thought about classroom space, putting the classrooms directly down the long hallway and putting the offices on the end so that adults would be monitoring at like the ends of the space and the hallways, the long hallways would be where the classrooms are, but not on just one floor. That both

programs would essentially get like an equal divide to the building. would have two floors so that they weren't just stuck on a floor, which we've heard from our students does not always feel the best. And we talked about a strategic scheduling, which is also part of the, if you recall back two months ago when we brought this proposal forward, it was a later start time. And the kids were very vocal about

they did not want to be only having an option to start school at 11 o'clock in the morning, 1130 in the morning. And so when we did meet with individual students and we were able to talk about their individual needs, they were able to share with us some of the pieces of what we were proposing that they appreciated and some of the pieces that they were not appreciative of. And so within

the proposal, the original proposal that is part of your backup, the first part was the rebranding and the renaming that I don't think any of us are in a disagreement about. The second part was about re-dividing the building. not that kids were just forced into one floor and you can't go up and down the floors, but that you've got a double floor, there is staff distributed across the

three budgets that we feel confident will be able to meet the needs of the students that we are looking to enroll in the pathways. But in addition to that, to have the three leaders or the three programs, if you would, in the building so that there can be fluidity across them. Because every student who chooses Evolve may or may not be successful there. Just like every student who chooses our PA may

or may not be successful. And similarly, we've already experienced with the virtual school. And so by having everything in one space, what we also know is that it would be one stop shopping for alternative programming. So families don't get lost. If they're going to tour for alternative programming, it's in one space. You can meet with the different

leaders and really explore and experience the three different alternative pathways in one setting so that the motivation to go to a new setting and start fresh won't die. I go to one place and I don't like it and then I've got to get a new meeting scheduled to go to another place. And so for us, it was really about coming together as leaders, taking some of the feedback that was brought to

us by the committee. And in full transparency, nowhere in our conversations did we walk away thinking we needed to find a new space for RPA. That was not what we were planning for. We were planning forward to cohabitate the 290 Rock Building, as evidenced by the plans that are here. That is why we were not looking for another space. We have been very much also involved in knowing what Bishop Conley

has been taking from us, so to secure another space on top of that, we knew this was not the time to be coming forward with that type of proposal.

At least that's what we were guided under. That is where this came from. So the whole piece with the red line down the middle is truthfully so that kids are not just restricted to one floor other than the cafeteria and the gym and that there could be a two floor equal distribution for both programs with a different entrance and exit as evidenced in the picture that's there for you. Seeing we're at

a deadlock between, well not even deadlock, just a debate whether we should the two programs RPA, move one program there. But the administration, to your point, Dr.

Bronhorn, the administration really hasn't prepared like a detailed plan because we haven't really given formal direction as such as to what that would look like. So I think that is some of the hesitancy here by some members. I'm assuming. I don't want to judge. But I think what we should do is give direction to the administration to present two plans. One, what would it look like if, to Mr. Moniz's

point, maybe we move out some of the admin spaces and we get something concrete that there won't be any issues between any conflicting parties, and that we also present the plan of what it would look like, just a draft, not saying we vote on it binding, of what it would look like if we move one of the programs to the Pace Building, what it would look like in terms of structure, time,

programming. we give the administration guidance to present two draft plans and then I think we should go from there. So I'm going to make that in the form of a motion. What is your motion? I'm sorry. The administration present at a future meeting two draft plans. Nothing binding.

Do I have a second? I'll second it. I have a motion and a second.

Mr. Aguilar. Yeah, so I'm not going to be supporting this. I've said what I've said and I'm passionate about it. I think we're at the last hour, I can place whatever blame I want on whoever didn't do anything for three months or whatever.

That's not going to be a successful piece right now. We hired a superintendent to come in here to try to make some better decisions about programming and what to do. And I've said my piece, I don't think it's going to work with having multiple in there. But at the end of the day, I want to amend Mr.

Dias' motion to say we're going to allow the superintendent to make decisions on how these programs are going to coexist at 290 Rock Street without need to come back to us for votes because the time is now. We need to make this decision.

And out of respect to the superintendent and her experience and the deputy superintendent, I want to make an amendment to this motion that we allow them to look at the options here and make the best decision possible for all kids. Along the way, we're going to study it for the year, but we have to make a decision and allow the superintendent to move. Second. on

Mr. Aguiar's motion to allow the superintendent and the deputy superintendent to study what the programs at 290 Rock Street for a year? Decide. Just decide exactly what's going to happen. She has the authority to say they're going to coexist. The study's going to happen anyway, organically. But I want to make a motion that says we don't need to come back and have a vote. She can sit down again with her team,

which she sat down six times already in the last week, and come up with the best plan in her opinion and say this is how we're going to proceed for the 26-27 school year. And then Over the next year we'll all be part of it, the subcommittee can be part of it. But because it's the end of the year and it's already woefully late, I want to give her the respect as

the superintendent to let her make the decision. And I think she's going to make the best decision possible. I want to know, I have tremendous confidence, but I want to know what's going on too. So they can send us updates as you always say or give us a one pager. I want to know what we're thinking, because I'm not keen on any of this. I don't have a problem with his motion

and his amendment. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cory, we've done this enough, guys. In regards to the mention of the motion, obviously, I do agree in nature that we let the superintendent and deputy superintendent make the decision. But I'd like to see it again in subcommittee so that we can discuss it before it comes back to this table again.

It'll come to you guys. Okay. Call the roll on Mr. Can I just be clear, just in clarity? The motion isn't to come back to us needing approval to make these decisions. She needs to have the approval. That's what my motion is. So she can come back to us with one pages every week, every month, subcommittee meeting.

But we just need to give her the approval to move forward. It might be, and it's probably gonna be something very similar to what's in here, with maybe some tweaks as they research. But ultimately, I think we just need to move forward and say what it is. Like, just give the superintendent the respect and the ability to make these decisions. Okay, call the roll on that amendment, Deb, please. Mr. Aguirre?

Yes. Mr. Dias? Yes. Mr. Corey? No. Mr. Monis? Yes.

Ms. Riley? Yes. Ms. Stewart? Yes. Mayor Coogan? Yes. Now on Mr.

Dias' motion, which was just amended. What was your motion, Mr. Dias? Sorry. Do you have it, Deb? I think it was really... The administration to present two plans.

So I think the administration, this is just to present Mr. Aguiar's amendment was actually really different than my motion, but I think I'm going to alleviate some of the concerns that we just get, I just ask, I don't even know we need a motion, but we just get an update over the summer in the special education subcommittee. You want to go with what Mr. Aguiar said? That's fine.

So it's... He's withdrawing his motion. I withdraw it. Okay.

Next. Motion to approve. 10-2. Second.

Point. Who made the motion? So basically they want to read because I had made an amendment. So they just want to take a roll call, the same roll call.

Call the roll call, Debbie. Yes. Four. The amended motion. I withdrew the original motion so that became, my amendment actually became a real motion to assist the technical piece.

Okay. So we're just... I thought we moved on to 10-2. I did too.

If you think that parliamentary wise, we're covered, I'm fine. No, I think you're right.

We are? Okay. We're good? You are? Okay. 10-2. Is an appointment and vote to approve MGL chapter 71. Motion to approve. I have a motion. Do I have a second? appoint one or more school physicians. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on 10.2? Second. Mr. Riley. There's no contract and no cost. We're just saying yes. No contract. I'm sorry. On the physicians? So we're

appointing a school physician. That usually comes at a cost unless he's donating his time to us. Usually there's a contract and a cost. Who's going to speak on that one? Mary. Who? Mary Gustav. Mary here. What was the question? She wants to know what this is gonna cost. Same as last year. We asked that at the agenda setting. Same as last year. It's just the same as we just have to annually,

it's already in the budget. It's not a new position, it's just you have to appoint the president. Could we know what it is? Usually there's a contract for the backup. It's 3,000. Thank you. You got your number? 3,000. All right, thank you. Sounds like he is donating his money. All right. Second.

All right. I have a motion and a second on 10-2. Call the roll please.

Mr. Agam? Yes. Mr. Dias? Yes. Mr. Horry? Yes. Mr. Monas? Yes. Mr.

Riley? Yes. Mr. Stewart? Yes. Mr. Cougar? Yes. Yes. 10-3 is an update. The Florida Public Schools Redistricting is presented by Brian Michael Azick, Director of School Information Services.

Two minutes. Can I ask, is this just an update, no votes needed? No votes.

Michael, I think you're good to go. Okay, I'm sorry. So for the better part of the last few weeks, we spent pretty much every day going over the redistricting and moving over 400 students around, mostly in the elementary schools, a handful in the middle schools, to new school zones. Deb Cabral, Transportation, Cindy Cooden, Pace, and myself, along with input from MLL, special needs,

and schools themselves to make these decisions. The letters, as promised, will be going out tomorrow. We promised this week we'll go out. The letter will include the transfer request that parents can choose to apply for another school for next year, and those will be reviewed after the school year during the summer like normal. The dual program was

moved to Green School, which as of now, two classrooms per grade level.

Of the 180 students in dual that are at Rivera's now, 25 families chose not to go and they were reassigned back to the neighborhood school with many of them still being at Riveras. MLL department has four recruitment efforts, events going on this month to try to attract more students for dual and also for the incoming K class that we have to do no matter what. Special

needs did their movement of classrooms and all schools right now have up to date information on where the kids that are coming to them are coming from. And like I said, those are the basis for the letters going out tomorrow. We did it over three separate waves of moving students around. We would do a wave. We look at the numbers, the class sizes at the school, how that wave affected the school

population. We looked at the inclusion percentages. We looked at the ELL percentages for those support of students. And those departments now have information along with the principal to make determinations if staffing levels have to change or staff have to move from school to school because one school has more ELL kids now than before or vice versa.

It was a long three weeks of doing this, pretty much nonstop. I think Cindy is sick of seeing me every day like Deb is. But I'll answer any questions if you have any. Mr. Chair. Mr. Corey, then Mr. Aguirre. Thank you, Mr. Michael Azak. So I heard a couple of things. So the dual language program, when we were first talking about maybe paring it down to one classroom, but now is

it back up to two? plan, will we budget and also plan to have two classrooms per grade level because we're adding in the fifth grade. Based on the enrollment, because right now some of the grades may not support two full classes. Right, those were the prior discussions. That would be something that Kelly Cooney and Brian Raposo will, you know, make a decision on that to see if it has to go down

to one. But the idea was to have two and So we stand with that.

And so I understand that recruitment is underway right now to try to get more kids involved. There were four events planned as of now, yes. Okay, well that's good news, cuz I'd really like to try to see it maintained at those levels. When we have a nice program like that, we wanna try to grow it as best as possible. So I appreciate all those efforts. I agree. Number two, so I appreciate

all your efforts. on the entire redistricting of the district itself.

Do you think that it's gonna have any positive effects on the cost of transportation for our school district? I'm not saying it will. We didn't use that as the basis for moving students, but just naturally that some of the areas we moved had transportation, and we actually, the overall goal of this plan was moving more kids back to their neighborhood school, and I think we did that. I don't have

the actual percentage, but we moved a lot of kids back to their neighborhood school.

weren't in special programs. And I think that some of the areas, like Bavaris for example, there's some areas that were Henry Lord that are now Bavaris, that they now can walk to Bavaris versus getting a bus around Cookbarn to their, that will have some impact. I'm not saying it's gonna reduce busing, maybe reduce the number of kids on the buses for now. And then hopefully as we review this next year, we'll

have a better idea. Because our population, as we know, is steadily leveling out, if not going down, is my projection. maybe next year we're in a different place where we can do another coat of paint on this redistricting as well. I like the whole idea. It seems to be that redistricting is going to create more efficiency where the students are. And that to me may translate because

discussions at the city council level right now, there's a big cost in transportation. We all know that. I've already spoken to the state delegation about it. Moving forward, what can we expect? And I know that it's a hot button issue right now. So I appreciate all the efforts that we can make towards becoming more efficient in our systems. Thank you for your work. I appreciate it. I yield. Mr. Dias. Thank you.

Just a echoing some of my colleagues' comments about transportation.

I think it's as one member and as we prepare for the future, the next one to three to five years is around transportation. So getting those maps, those districts in a way that is the most efficient to neighborhoods neighborhood residents and neighborhood students is very important because it's one member and when we go on our retreat and we talk about the big rocks and how we want

to plan for the future in our strategic plan I would love to see this district move to K to 12 yellow bus transportation I think it's an aggressive goal but I think it's something that we can achieve especially if we finally get some funding from the state and not to go too far off track because it does have to do with have to do with this, with redistricting. In law, who sets the

transportation budget? And who pays for it by law?

The city does. Thank you. So I just want to make sure that's clear. When the school committee approves the budget and by law, I don't understand how the CFO of the city of Fall River can just pick another number that been approved by this committee especially if there's statutes around it but with that being said I think it's important that we get the maps right because I think it's important with having

K to 12 yellow bus we'll be supporting parents we'll be supporting those students getting them to school bring do even more good efforts with attendance so I hope hopefully this is something that the committee can support in the future I yield

One of the things I'd like to say in addressing that, I said it at the beginning, after the City Council meeting last week and speaking to Ponte, one of the things we committed to was to putting together a transportation task force committee to review things such as, and again, I'm just learning the way you've done this, but looking at the mileage. You know, there are some state requirements. There are some that

you as Fall River have put into place. So we can look at some savings.

We can look at, you know, if we are able to increase transportation. I'm not hopeful about the state coming through. This is something that's been talked about for years.

We haven't received anything, to my knowledge, from the state. But I am looking forward to working closely with the city, looking at the redistricting. We do not know if it's going to be cost saving for us, but we have an opportunity to do all of those things. Mr. Aguilar. Does the transportation, are we going to save money?

I watched a city council meeting where the CFO reduced the number just because, I guess, without communication. Where did they get the number that we could reduce the transportation? And at the end of the day, I took what my vote was for the budget was what Mr. Pacheco and the transportation director said they needed in order

to provide transportation. So I think as part of this redistricting update, it's important to ask the question, based on the limited amount of redistricting, nibbling here, going a little there, a few students here. I was watching the meeting saying to myself, screaming into the TV, saying the redistricting is not gonna save money on transportation. What

the hell are they talking about? That's what I was yelling at the TV. And I've been saying for months now, actually for years, let me correct myself, for years, that transportation, if we're gonna actually do something to reduce the cost, we needed to do a major overhaul of redistricting across the whole district for over two years I've

been saying it. And the old committee didn't wanna support anything. And the new committee at least is supporting of the little, but make no mistake about it, from my angle, if you gave us a budget of $17 million, that's what we need for transportation. I don't know where the heck 900,000 cut came from just because, and nobody told anything, but nobody said anything at the city council meeting. Then I found

out that the administration met with the city during the day. I'm like, well, did anybody tell anybody that we were cutting 900? Like, I just don't get it. No, we did, we told them. But we had a reason for doing it, and I think it's gonna be explained tonight at the wrap up, hopefully, of the budget. So it was based on data, they based theirs on data, and we'll

see how it is. But with that being said, Kevin, I've said it from the get go, we're not leaving any kids to walk. No, I understand that. No, I mean, it makes it sound like we're gonna, I'm not gonna chip any kids. No, no, I'm not making it sound like it. But let's call it like we see it. The school committee voted on a budget number. Right. That was given to us

by Mr. Almeida, Ryan Reposo as acting superintendent, Mr. Pacheco, and the transportation director. They gave us a number. I asked at the time, is there any more savings we could make, multi-tiers, whatever. Mr. Pacheco answered, or Mr. Alameda's one of you, said, no, we've maxed out. We cannot do it for any less than this number. But the CFO and the city and the mayor can just say,

based on your numbers, he's trying to say your numbers are going to say that you're going to pay less. That's a... But to get back to the redistricting, the redistricting isn't going to save us naturally in transportation. We might have transportation savings organically, but the redistricting itself is not going to save us, correct? Two questions.

The dual language numbers. Is there a grade that you can't come in in third grade because you haven't been K-1-2? Or do they come in

Yes, good question. So once you're at fourth grade, you really can't recruit students that are just monolingual, speak only one language, because they've already gone through the program. So really in K-1 and 2, we can sort of recruit. As we get to the upper grades, recruitment becomes a bit more challenging because if you just come into the program that late. So we're really looking at, it's very specific. For

instance, in fourth grade, we might recruit students that Spanish at home already and are really, you know, somewhat bilingual, that could be a possibility. So we have one grade level right now, my numbers as of today, fourth grade is at 28 students. and fifth grade is now at 31. So we're able to preserve what we talked about at subcommittee was we didn't want kids to have to leave the program. Some naturally

did. They chose to stay at the neighborhood school, which is fine. But right now our lowest enrollment grade, I believe is grade four, which is right at 28 right now. So that'll be 14 in each? That'd be 14 in each, or what we talked about at subcommittee was the flexibility to say, if we're at 28, maybe we run one section. that particular fourth grade. So that's something that Mr. Michalizak

alluded to where we're looking at those recruitment efforts. Yeah, I hear you. So the only reason why I said that was because we as a committee made a decision based on them coming before us saying that we wanted to preserve the program. I just don't want it to be necessarily a, like taking that mandate as we have to run the program regardless and I think we kind of made a caveat that

unless the numbers dictate otherwise. So we've also heard people say that it has to be a two-person team, and that's for the technical pieces of it. But I don't feel like we're in a position necessarily to say, you know, you have to make that determination, but I wouldn't want to see like we had before. We had a class size crisis across the district, and we had two of those at 14 each.

It didn't really look good. So that was one of my only points. There's 12 classrooms currently existing at Green with no other repairs, no taking down rooms, buildings, or anything. We have the space at Green School to do the 12 classrooms. But we may not hit that. Correct, but I'm saying we could if we were maxed out. We just need that flexibility to make that decision driven

situation where if we create a program for sixth graders, if I have a fifth grade student wants to go to Letourneau to that special program in sixth grade, Are we saying for the record that we're gonna preserve for seventh and eighth grade, those students wouldn't have to transfer again.

That is always my priority because I believe in that K-8 model. However, looking at spacing at Letourneau, we are able to open one additional classroom, so there will be eight classrooms at Letourneau. We can keep some of our substantially separate students for middle school, not all. Right now, Letourneau houses two programs.

One is at more higher needs for students on the autism spectrum based on transition to middle school, we are going to keep those students at Letourneau for middle school, but I cannot keep all students at Letourneau with the existing space for middle school. So all of our traditional middle schools have our stride program, which is a program for students on the autism spectrum or have

some neurodivergent profiles that A, have access to some inclusive opportunities with their peers. They have less special education needs than the students in our RISE program. Those students will need to go to their traditional middle school based on the spacing available at Letourneau. Does that answer your question, Mr. Aguiar? There's two different cohorts. I don't like it. I know. I

don't think it's good for children. Why is there no space at the school?

for both programs to exist up through a grade eight, if we're making it a K to eight. Right, but it's only gonna be a two unit school in middle school. It's only gonna be a two unit school in middle school. So the two units are the general education programming. If I have to keep, maintain the eight classrooms for my substantially separate strand at Letourneau,

it only allows one classroom for the middle school group, six through eight, and I have more than 12 students in that group currently because I have two separate populations. But you're talking physical space, not programmatic. You're saying physically you just don't have the space for two more rooms? So physically I would need another, so what I would need is if there's two general

education classrooms for grade in middle school, 2-6, 2-7, 2-8.

I would need at least two classrooms to house our middle school, all the middle school, Letourneau, substantially separate students. I only have one. I understand that. Because of physical space. How many do you need? And what are the other, I don't know, what are the other classrooms in Letourneau that if it's physical space, that there could be some changes to the other in order to

provide that because I voted to say we should do a K-8 model. I just vehemently oppose having a student in a K-8 school go through K-6 or K-5 and then all of a sudden say in six I have to go to a middle school. I just totally oppose to it. I know, I think we're in that situation even at Henry Lord where some of Henry Lord middle

school students don't go to Henry Lord for middle school. Yeah, I just... I think that that... Henry Lord, some of our Henry Lords, middle school students don't go to Henry Lord for middle school. They have to go to the other programs just because there's not enough. And I'm not saying substantially separate, but we did have to move classrooms to Morton, which was not what I would want to do. It was just

the physical space for our substantially separate at Henry Lord. I'm trying to keep it now. storing it at Henry Lord and at Letourneau. But even Henry Lord only has one middle school classroom for our substantially separate students. Yeah, philosophically, I'm opposed. I agree. I understand. I understand that it's very difficult. But at the end of the day, we've been asking. I've been asking for, can we do this?

So it's not like I'm not a gotcha. This is what I asked at the last meeting. I haven't gotten the information. So I'm not trying to spot anybody here.

Just that philosophically, I'm opposed to that. At the same time, we need to be very clear to the parents that this is happening because they're making decisions on IEPs and the like. So however we have to do that or to your team so that we're not giving some of the impression, move here and then move again. We can't do that to the kids. Right, right. And we are being very transparent with

families. Got it. Thank you. I have a quick question. Can I just add something?

So when we're looking at future years, that could change. based on our enrollment in K through five. So right now for this coming year, we're gonna have three strands of K through five.

However, if you look at the population of Letourneau, we may not need that in future years. So if we went down to two for each grade level, there's the possibility of that happening. Right, but to Mr. Aguiar's point, I never wanna say to a family, choose Letourneau for K-8, I hope in two years I can keep your student there. So I appreciate what you're saying, and Cindy

and I work so collaboratively on this, but that's my concern, is that I want to be very transparent. If you're making the choice to go to Letourneau in an upper elementary school for our programming there, I don't want to make a promise I can't keep to a family with the hope that that's our goal. It's not like I'm... Misleading anybody is always the goal, but sometimes the goal just doesn't end

up happening for reasons out of my control. Ms. Stewart? Aren't some of the kids that are at Letourneau now still going to go to CUS? They're not all staying there, right? Generalist students you're talking about, right? We have enough for two classrooms that will stay at Letourneau, mainly Letourneau kids, but there's some parts of that Letourneau zone

that they are going to go to the towel there. So I'm just saying that in retrospect to that, that some students aren't going to be staying there regardless. I agree with you. They should all stay there. I love the K-8 model. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that right now some other general ed students are going to be going other places, so it wouldn't just be them leaving. I

do agree with you. We should all stay housed together, but I'm just saying some general ed students are going to be there. Okay. Mr. Hagia. How many kids at Latino don't live in the district? Is it now none because they all moved out?

thought process with this was the kids that are at Letourneau now, we tried moving most of them to the sixth grade at Letourneau. There's many other kids that are in other schools that from grade five, they'd be assigned to either, and if they lived in the Talbot, they'd go to Talbot. Acosta, they go to Acosta. We've tried to keep the kids who weren't in Letourneau now. They're the ones that are mainly

moving to the other middle schools and the Letourneau ones are trying to keep most of them together. the parents choose to go. I was referring K to four. Excuse me? K to four is what I was referring to. So how many students, because I think in some parts of the city, we said if you are at X school and you do not go to your neighborhood school, you have to go back

to your neighborhood school. Have we told the Letourneau families that if you're at Letourneau and K to four, you don't live in the Letourneau, are you, is it fair across the district that anyone that's not in their neighborhood school has to leave? to make it a two unit school. So tomorrow we're sending out notifications to all families who are going to be affected by the redistricting. We

there's gonna be a significant amount of students from Le Churno going back to their neighborhood, but not all, because we didn't have enough room in all neighborhoods for those students. So there's still gonna be some that will be staying at Le Churno. So Le Churno won't be 100% Le Churno district, because it doesn't fill three schools.

of each grade level with just LaTerno, if that makes sense. I guess I was saying it based on if we made it a two unit K to eight school from all including the special education, you could do what we're suggesting. What you're saying is that we just don't have the room and those neighborhood schools to put them back. Yes, exactly. But if you did, based on whatever decisions are made otherwise, like

a full redistricting, you probably could say that's gonna be a two unit school like right K to eight which would solve this issue. So this is why we said this is a multi-year process. We can't do it all in one year because we didn't have enough room in neighborhoods for all the students. I understand. Thank you, I yield. Thank you for the discussion. Appreciate it, guys. 10-4.

Discussion and vote to approve the administrative assistant to the school committee's job description as presented by Colin Dyer, school committee. Thank you. The only... This is for final approval. The only change I would recommend from the last meeting into this one is on the new job description. It says under performance responsibilities number five,

to work collaboratively with administrative and supportive staff and address responsibilities, including school department planning, personnel policies and procedures, negotiations, management of grants, school department operations, evaluation, and other duties required the school committee. Even though this position is the school committee

administrative assistant position, the day-to-day would be with the superintendent. So I would just like to make, I would propose that we add there by the school committee or the superintendent, just so the superintendent has that flexibility. Other than that, I believe we should keep the position, the as proposed. So I'll make that in

the form of a motion. Second. Motion is second on Deb's job description. Anybody have any other concerns? Hearing none. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. 10-5 is a discussion and vote to approve the appointment of... Motion to approve. Second. South Coast Collaborative. I have a motion to second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor?

Aye. Unanimous. 10-6 is a vote to approve the building blocks math curriculum for pre-K as referred by the instructional subcommittee and presented by Kristin Farias.

Motion to approve. Second. Second. I have a motion. Any discussion? No.

Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Unanimous. Opposed? No, no, sorry. 10-7, vote to approve a multi-year pilot. Motion to approve. Second.

We have a motion and a second on the one-year pilot program for MCLASS, is that you? Yes. Mr. Aguiar. Mr. Prozo, I did not get a chance to watch the meeting. Could you give me the real shrink-down version of exactly what this is, basically? Yes, so this is basically, we administer DIBELS, which is a fluency screening in Fall River, to kids. We still hand-score that

and then enter the data in. This provides an opportunity for students to take this assessment digitally. We wanna explore this. We know that there's pros and cons, and we had, I think, a great discussion at subcommittee around that. I have a lot of experience, for instance, with math assessment, and when I meet with a child and do it individually, I can learn a lot about that child. And then there's

an efficiency aspect, as well as a data reporting. And so, with MCLASS, there's the ability to get some data that may make some recommendations around students. we always have the ability with our experts to override that and say, wait a minute, is that really what the phonics intervention should be? So we wanna really try this out. Instead of coming with a full scale across the board, we're looking to try it at

three schools. I don't know if you have the revised quotes I sent them. These quotes were for a full pilot, but it's actually much less expensive for just the three schools, and I believe that they're probably in, now I think Ms. Cabral, right? The M class? Yes, yes. So I can get that for you as well. Are you saying it's a different amount? Yes, it's a

much lower amount. So you originally wanted it more? Yeah, so originally when we brought it to subcommittee, the discussion was to go across the board. We were looking to potentially adopt. As we had, I think, a great discussion, came back and the motion was to come back to explore pilot, so that's what's before you today. So this

is the subcommittee's recommendation? Yes, this is revised pilot at three schools, much smaller scale, and we'll study it for a year, and then may come back to you next year and say, here's what we learned. Thank you. I yield. Do I have a motion and a second on this? Yes. Any further discussion on 10.7? No. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. 10-8. A vote to approve the

contracts to develop systemic functional linguistic units is referred by the instructional subcommittee and presented again by Brian Raposa. Motion to accept.

Motion to approve. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on 10.8?

Is approved by the subcommittee unanimous. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. Number nine is the vote to approve the Ridgecrest LLC contract as referred by the Instructional Civil Committee and presented by Brian Raposa. Motion to approve. I have a motion.

Motion to second. I have a second. Point of clarification if you can just update us on that. Sure, yes. So this particular item is around the ELA curriculum that we've been piloting at the high school. the subcommittee meeting we were able to hear from the dean of ELA, the associate principal, the team at Durfee around implementation. I also want to note that this coaching and implementation also includes RPA and

stone. So we would be using these resources at those schools as well.

And this provides us with just some more implementation support from a coach as we try this out. We did some units this year. They were well received and we're looking to expand that again next year. Anything further on 10-9? I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Unanimous. 10-10 is first read and discussion of the fraternization policy as referred by the policy subcommittee and presented by Colin Dyett School Committee. Motion approved. First read. Second. I have something. Ms. Stewart, we have a motion and a second. Ms. Stewart on 10-10. Can I do a brief presentation? Since I'm on the agenda. Just so the public and the

committee is aware, there are already policies in place for staff to staff fraternization. This is staff to student fraternization. There have been concerns that have been brought up by the past by some members of the committee. And I believe the committee unanimously chose a robust policy which covers everything.

simple way I can put it, I yield. Ms. Stewart? There's just that one line where it says student refers to all district students in grades pre-K through 12. It has to go straight through 22. I can't hear you, buddy. It says, in this line, it says refers to all students in grades pre-K through 12. I need it to say through age 22, because we have kids that's high. I thought when we

referred that, it was supposed to be changed? Yeah, but it's not. Okay, so you make an amendment to add the change? It's a first read. I'll make an amendment to the motion that we change it to what Mr. Doerr recommended going up to age 22. Second. I have a motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Mr. Agua.

Unanimous. 10-11. Motion to approve. All three. Press read. I have a motion.

It says first read in discussion in the form of a motion, Mr. Aguiar, field trip policy, student overnight travel, and public complaint policy. Any discussion? Second. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Anonymous.

Discussion and vote to approve the following job descriptions. Executive Director of Human Resources and the Chief Financial Officer.

Any discussion on those two? Mr. Aguilar. I'm having a hard time looking at diligent to see which the names of them, so I'm just going to sort of paraphrase, but what does it say relative to the qualifications? Is there a certification in human resources universally in the business field or in education? And is it when we're looking for the best person, I want to

say the first time I looked at it, it mandated like a superintendent or some other clarity. So if we had a real HR type person that might not have had those other credentials, they couldn't even apply? No, they could. If you look at the last bullet. Is it from the last thing? Does it say they can waive it? The last bullet of that same list, it says it. Such alternatives to

the, I'll show you this, Mr. Aguiar. Such alternatives to the above quote. Is there such a thing? a certified HR individual? It really isn't. It's superintendent, assistant superintendent. Some may have director license. But if we had a person out there who was a real HR guru that didn't have that assistant superintendent, superintendent, how do we

encourage them to apply? Is there a way to make that a little more robust as far as we encourage all applicants to apply? I don't have it in front of me, so I... Two things. One is it is called Executive Director of Human Resources. That would attract somebody looking for that type of job. And as we said, we do put a minimum master's degree from an accredited college university. That's our lead.

Desi Licenger, we do have there as assistant superintendent or superintendent. What we also have at the very bottom is such alternatives to the above qualification as the superintendent or designee may deem appropriate. So I guess I hear what you're saying. The only thing I would suggest is that where it says required, where it says assistant superintendent, maybe

we take that bottom piece and put it where it says assistant superintendent to make it clearer to an individual that's not necessarily the exact. I think it's saying the same thing, but in the posting it would, you have to read down six or whatever bullets to get to that point. So if I read it and it said, oh, I don't have the assistant superintendent license, I won't apply. I might not get

to the bottom, whereas if it said and the required of a slash or whatever that wording is. Well this replied, excuse me, this applied to all of the qualifications. Such alternatives to the above qualifications. I hear what you're saying. I'm just asking if we can clarify it a little bit. I don't think it's affecting the tenor of it. We can certainly adjust it. The job that

has been out there. Yeah, I'm just saying so that we put it out there.

So I'd like to make that motion to approve with that clarification of how they can make it more clear. Just wait one second. Are you approving both jobs? Yes. Okay. Mr. I made a motion to approve both positions with that clarification. Do I have a second? Second with questions. I have a second. Mr. Dias. Thank you. So my only question is, and

I've seen these on old job descriptions for the Follower Public Schools, not sure why we changed it. It would include if there are any qualifications that are waived, unless I'm missing it, but if there's any qualifications that are waived, the school committee would be notified. I could say in my... and a half years on the school committee or two years on the school committee. I have not ever been notified. I don't

think I've ever been notified of a waiver. I could be wrong. I don't want to make assumptions. But I don't recall any of those waivers ever coming to me if a qualification has been waived. I don't see that language in there. Do we have an explanation as to why? I don't.

Mr. Aggie, I may have some insight. No, it's just a notification procedure. So in job descriptions throughout the district, it says in there, there's a line that says, if one of the qualifications was waived by the superintendent, the school committee will be notified. So when they say, I appoint Kevin Aguia to X position, I waived the

X qualification. It's a notification piece. So if we haven't utilized it, like Mr. Dias' point, we might not have getting the notice, but it also might not have been utilized by any superintendent. It's just a notification piece for us. It has no bearing on the hiring. It was just a notification piece. That's in all of the standard.

In every one of the qualifications, so if we waived one of the qualifications. Yeah, like for instance in the top where it says required rather than says preferred. So when typically they say required, and if it said you need a doctorate degree. Yeah.

And it doesn't say that, but let's just say it did. you said no I want to hire Mr. Almeida because he's got a CAGS and he's going to do a great job. That type of situation would just be a notice to us, that's all. And that template language is in most contracts. It doesn't affect anything other than notification. I'd like to make an amendment that we add the template language back in.

It's fair, I second. I think it's just not a big deal. I have a motion. Is that an amendment to his motion? Yes, that the template language be... All right, so let's vote on the template language first. I have a motion and a second. Deputy Superintendent would like to say something. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. Mayor, can I ask a question? So when you

say template, that sort of means from top to bottom. So if you're just amending like one line for that waiver, is that what you're amending? Yes, just adding in that one line that says if there's a qualification waived, the school committee will be notified. Okay. Superintendent. Okay. Okay. Got it. Why don't you call the roll on that one, Deb? Ms. Draghiak? Yes. Mr. Dias? Yes. Mr. Corey? Yes. Mr. Ramones? Yes. Ms.

Riley? Yes. Ms. Stewart? Yes. Mayor Coogan? Yeah. Now passing the amended job descriptions from 10-12. I have a motion to second. Deb, call the roll.

Is this on both? Yes. They went together. Ms. Draghiak? Yes. Mr.

Dias? Yes. Mr. Corey? Yes. Mr. Monas? Yes. Ms.

Riley? Yes. Ms. Stewart? Yes. Mayor Cugan? Yes. 1013 is a discussion and vote to approve to conduct a public school access review study for the District 17 public schools as presented by Ken Pacheco, Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Pacheco.

in the packet is a proposal from Ty and Bond to provide the district with the access review. Basically a traffic study for the district schools. There's some schools that are highlighted that we would be hitting right away. And then there are, so it would be Green, Letourneau, Watson, Talbot, Westall would be focus at the beginning and then we would move in and do the, into all of the rest of

the district schools. Once we get a certain phase into it, it, the pricing is in all three phases.

It's broken down as to what each one of the phases would cost for the total number of schools. So overall the, we would be looking at total fee of 67.2, which would cover all of the buildings that are listed on the second page of the document. The City of Fall River put out a bid quite a few years ago, maybe two or three years ago, that would cover hiring engineering firms to do various pieces

of work in their field. And they selected five vendors.

This is one of the vendors that was selected in the engineering section. And this work would be part of what would be called engineering. Motion to approve.

Second. I have a motion to approve. I have a question. 1013 and Ms. Riley.

Oh, can I go? Go ahead. No, I'm sorry. Ms. Stewart, go ahead. I'm sorry.

So the schools that you have here, you have these five. I just have a quick one. How come the Veris is... beginning? Yes. It can be.

It can be. It can be. So I can ask for a sixth or I can remove one of those that are there now. So we can have that conversation.

Westall has already had some work done and so has Letourneau. So we could remove one of those. This focus is because they would start immediately and just do some preliminary work and then they would work until September on that work for these plus the others. Yes. And then they would come back in. So we can substitute Viveris in there or I could just ask them to add Viveris

to this list. And then how come we're not doing the early learning center? Is it just because of where it's located? We're not doing the early learning center because the traffic patterns, there's only one way, there's two ways in and out of the building. Okay. And both of them are off the same street, which is Ellsbury. The Langley Street piece is doesn't seem to be an issue. And to be totally honest,

50% of the students, better than 50% of the students that are going to go to ELC are being transferred by bus, yes. Okay, thank you. But they're going to do that work at some point. Yeah. Ms. Riley? So, I'm just confused about this is from a bid from five years ago? So it was a bid. it was a bid that was done two or three years ago and it was for a

five year period and picking five firms that would represent a group that you could pick from. So rather than going out, they call it like a house doc. You pick five carpentry companies. So this one was five engineering companies. And so you wouldn't have to wait for the RFP, RFQ process. You could go directly to one of these companies. It's like an MPA of sorts, but through

the city. So did we do any studies last year and the year before? We didn't do any. So we haven't done any yet? We haven't done any studies on any of the buildings to what this extent is since they were built. And they're only going to make recommendations, then it's actually on us to do what they recommend? Yes. Okay. Yes. Mr. Agar. So fiscally, if it's 69,000, if we approve this now, end of the

fiscal years in a month, like they're not going to do all this work. Can we pay for the services now, even though they're not going to provide us anything until next fiscal year? We can encumber the PO now. Regardless of what it is?

Yes. So we need this, I've said this at the subcommittee, we said it at the complaints that we get. We have a lot of like, we're going to do a one way here, one way there, four way stop signs here. So we basically need this for all, we should have had them already. So my feeling is that we should take the amount of money that is needed to do all the schools

and encumber that money so that they know we're going to pay for $200,000, whatever that would be. So the total is 67. But that's only for the top group. For all of them, for all of them. If you look, it's all of those groups. So the fee should encumber, it's phase one, phase two, and phase three. So $67,000 is doing them all? Right.

Unless we ask them to do additional services. So they're going to basically recommend where their drop-off and pickup should be, you know, the things that for $67,000 across all schools? Yes. Sounds good. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Mr. Dias? Very briefly, and I'm happy we're finally have this up and going, and I just think it's important

that when we're recommending things or proposing things to the city, we should probably...

off until this is complete. What's the turnaround time? Sorry if you mentioned it. What will be the turnaround time for? Some of the work will be started now before school lets out. Over the summer they will develop some of the, I would say, the more mundane piece of the report. We'll put together on all the schools and then they will go back and do some traffic studies, additional traffic studies

on the schools that they haven't hit out of those schools. schools. Thank you. Just want to quickly give credit to the administration. I know the deputy superintendent was on top of this and the police department through the SROs and through traffic, the traffic department for the city, there was a breakdown in communication at Tansy

and there was definitely some unsafe traffic operation there. In the last few days that I've seen, it definitely looks to definitely improved. I saw Mr. Ventura out there as well today. So I just want to give kudos to the administration for that. I yield. Okay. On 1013, I have a motion and a second. All in favor of the traffic study? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. 1014

is a vote to approve the Courtyard Playground at Henrywood Community. Motion to approve with a quick question. Second. I have a motion and a second. Who had the question?

Mr. Dias, go ahead, and Mr. Aguilar next. Same question, turnaround time. Once we approve this, when can we get it started? So with the approval of this, we will start the two preliminary pieces, which is the tree cutting and the excavation and demolition of the current. Again, school in session. We are going to have to wait. We may do some Saturday work to get this

work done. We may do some after hours work. The building needs to be empty.

because the noise factor? No, that's fine. I guess what I was, I'm just finding out. Will this be done by the start of the next school year? The hope is that if everything falls into place, it'll be ready for September. Thank you. I yield. Mr. Aguiar, then Ms. Stewart. Just a question on the, I had asked this at the agenda setting, about the inside versus the outside and the

things that come along with it. You know, why not just do it outside if it's easier? Don't know the rationale. So the rationale is the fact that the school

feels that the safety of inside and very, there's no chance of students eloping. They can't get away from that particular area. They can go back into the school, but they can't run off. The outside one, even with the fence, they could get away from the area, and Henry Lord is in the middle of a lot. area to chase students on. So this one here was a much better setting. It also allows us to do a couple

of other things in that area. And the protection of the equipment, some of the equipment that's going in here is extremely expensive. It allows us to protect that area where it won't have any other use other than the school community. Yeah, it does seem like a lot, and it's a task to get to that area. When you have, there's classrooms, I believe, all around, so it also

affects, in my opinion, it affects classrooms sometimes when you're having noise and things while they're, you know, so there's like pros and cons to each thing, but I did ask the question before to the deputy was, do we really want to, like, it's, I think, $300,000 more, is that what the, something like that, a couple hundred thousand?

to do it in there versus if we did the same. It's about $110,000 more than it would be to put it outside. There's something that we would have to do something with the inside anyway. The inside is not a safe area to continue using, so we would have to do something with the inside area anyway. What this will allow is that if at any point we decide to put the second playground

in, which was part of a plan, this school technically has three areas. There's one inside area that's much smaller next to the kindergarten area. This area and then that potential area where the basketball courts used to be before we built them the full court. So there are quite a few play areas here, not counting the acres of land where the football field is. So the outside area would be cheaper to do,

by what I had said. But it's not a significant amount. It's the equipment that's very expensive. Thank you, I yield. Ms. Stewart? That was- essentially my question, why can't we put it outside? My worry is though, once we get on the inside and realize how many roots and everything that are on the inside, it's gonna cost us more than what is being presented. So we've got a couple of assurances from the

companies who have gone to visit the bidding process. The trees that will be cut inside and in that particular area will be removed down to roots, stump grinded out, and all of those trees are gonna be leaving the building not through a crane. So that one piece is gonna be done differently.

The rest of the work is, the only piece in question is the crane piece.

They've all, all of the companies that have been on the work have figured in that they are gonna crane all of the debris that they need to get out and then also bring in the new, pieces and then the company who's providing the playground equipment and all of their supplies will be craned in also so that each group with the exception of the tree cutter will have crane there's

already cranes in their particular piece so there's no there should not be there should not be any hidden costs whatsoever because we as we went there we had that conversation with the vendors as to just what we were expecting That's just my, I'm just worried about costing more because of the roofs and everything else that goes on in there. Where we could have it outside, you could put a big enough

fence, it'd be fine. I'm just worried about this costing way more as before.

All right, Mr. Corrigo, then you go next. So Mr. Chairman, I just have a basic question in regard to Henry Lord in general. There were some homeless encampments on the site. I just hope it doesn't present a safety issue for any playgrounds that we're developing or any after school activities that are going on at Henry Lord nearby. There were homeless encampments along Amity Street. I hope it's

been taken care of and I hope it will continue to be taken care of.

Yeah, we took those out of there and cleaned it, Tom. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's going to be a vigilant effort moving forward, I hope. As vigilant as we can be for the homeless. If I could, this area is not accessible by anybody.

You have to be in the school to get to this area. It's an inside access only. Thank you. I yield. Oh, I have nothing.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mr. Hagia. Last time we asked, where is the money coming from? So last month when we did our third quarter transfer, we had nearly $4 million left in the budget. We proposed prepaying up to 2.75 million in prepaid tuitions last month, leaving you with a balance with about just under 1.3 million in the budget last month. This will come out of the balance, that's romantic. Thank you.

I would like, I guess the reason why I asked that question last month was, when is the committee going to know that we have $800,000 to spend? And that's some of my frustration with some of how we operate here. Because, yes, this is a $500,000 expense, it's valuable, kids, I get all that. We, as a committee, are the ones that are supposed to have the budgetary decision making on what's the value

judgment of spending $500,000 on this or $500,000 on something else. We as a committee never received anything from the administration to say, and we got $800,000 left over, what would you all like to do about it? Too many of these decisions at big money are made without the school committee, even though the school committees, one of their duties is to do the budget. So I agree with this, per se, but I

do think we need to have more transparency and respect for the committee. these decisions.

Okay. Deb, do I have a motion, a second on the playground? You do.

Okay. 1014, Henry Lord Playground. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. 1015 is a vote to approve the turf optics as approved. Motion second with a quick question. I have a motion and a second. Mr. Dias. Same thing, just turn around time when, is this something that's done yearly, correct? This is all yearly, yes.

This is a three year package. This is year two of the? This will be year one with this company. We had a small portion this year in the current fiscal year, very small. But this will be a full year quarterly work. Okay, so they already started to work but it was a separate contract. It was, yes. It was a small amount, yes. I have a motion and a second

on 1015, Ms. Riley. Did this go out to bid?

Did this go out to bid? Yes. Point of information. How many bidders did you get? Two. Okay. Rad was the second. Who was doing our work before? Was it optics or was it Brad? Rad, optics used to be, give me a minute here. The owner is the same. It's Arthur Eddie and Traverse. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Yes.

Anything further? I have a motion and a second on turf optics.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. 1016 is a vote to approve the playground, small toys and bikes at the Early Learning Center. Motion or approve? Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Just one quick question. Mr. Dias.

So they're gonna get started right away? This will be ready for the... This one here would, this one here, this one, this particular piece will be started right away.

So we will be working on this and this one will be ready for September also. You're all set, Mr. Dyer? Yes. I have a motion and a second on the playground at the Early Learning Center. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Unanimous. 1017 is an update. Service agreement for the Green Elementary School Energy Updates as presented by Ken Pacheco. So this piece is just part of the work that will be done at the Green School. These are the potential savings through the work that is being done by Amoresco, by E&E, and by the other vendors, the smaller vendors that are going to be working on the CEC grant

award. So these items are energy management service agreement. Every one of our projects that we do with Amaresco, because they are an energy savings company and their work is specified under chapter 25A, and that work is basically, you pay for the project based on savings. So they're normally 20 year agreements and they guarantee the savings. Whatever year they don't

hit their mark, they need to pay us the difference. So they sit there and guarantee their amount. So when you look at these amounts, these total guaranteed savings, these are the marks that they will hit. The savings are based on the new equipment and the difference between the efficiency on new equipment to the old equipment.

We have agreements like this with other buildings and with the city. This agreement is, this contract, the Amoresco, is a 10-year contract with the city. So this has been bid out and it's a open book. So we see everything that they're charging us all the way through the line items. So this document here is basically, as you get through These are the latter pages of

the document, you'll see what the new measures equate to compared to what the old measures are. This is an update piece, this is part of the overall performance contract. Mr.

Agar. I think this is a somewhat complicated, I'm curious myself to, So I'd like to make a motion to refer this to the Facilities Subcommittee. Second. I have a motion and a second to send the Green School Energy Update to the Facilities Subcommittee. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Unanimous. 1018 is a discussion to establish a time attendance policy for all AFSCME employees as referred by the Facilities and Operations Subcommittee and presented by Kevin Aguil. I'd just like to say first off this APSME should be deleted because the discussion was basically around the need for a policy, both for security, badging in, as well as safety, as well as who's in the building

and the like. So the request at the time was just to have the superintendent review and come back to us with some sort of policy related to all of those issues. We want to be able to be safe at the same time as people have badges for a reason. When I go to a school, if I'm working in various schools, in. The school knows I'm there. You know, God forbid if something

happened. So I just this all this was was to ask the superintendent and her team to come back to us with a recommendation for all not just AFSCME. And that's just a discussion. Thank you. Mr. Chair.

Mr. Dias. Just a discussion. Do we have an update on this Madam Superintendent? Based off of this item being here, do you, and based off what the vice chair just said, do we have something? I didn't realize that was the charge at the time. So we will go back. I'll meet with my team. And so my understanding, again, is you're looking to establish a time attendance policy for all employees? Motion to table.

Well, would that just go to policy subcommittee? Is there a policy that would go to policy subcommittees or are we asking the superintendent to draft the policy for policy subcommittee? I would assume that when they draft the policy then it's going to get referred. We should have a policy anyway on what's the use of a badge and the like. So it's just look at it

all, come back to us with some recommendations and it'll get sent to policy.

All right, going forward. I have a number of retirements, resignations, appointments, transfers. Motion to accept and place on file. I have a motion to accept and place on file. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Unanimous. Can I ask a question? Mr. Aguilar. I know we talked about this before, but we have new people around waivers. We didn't have a policy that if the person is hired on a waiver that it would be listed here. And maybe we're just not hiring anybody on waivers right now, but just want to make sure everyone's aware that that's a policy or protocol that when

somebody says we're appointing a person to a certain position and it says their license number for K to 12. But if it's a waiver, it should say that because we currently have a situation where people have been on waivers for a long time.

So I think you're trying to tighten it up anyway, but I just don't see any here on waiver. It's probably just because that's not It's not a practice we're doing at the present time. That's a good suggestion. Thank you, I yield. Okay. Item number 12 is new business. Any new business come before Mr. Dias? Thank you. An item I requested over five business days ago, I asked for

an invitation go to the Mr. Glenn Kutcher from MASC.

We had someone from MASC under the old committee. I think just having three new members of the committee, I know for myself, I have many questions for MASC. I like to ask in an open session about the services they provide and what they offer in terms of advocating for school committees. And I make no secret about it, I have many disagreements with what they advocate for

policy-wise. I did ask for this to go on the agenda. Before I make any formal motions, just want to get an update from the leadership.

Okay. Yeah, that sounds reasonable to me that they come down and talk. That's fine.

She never got it. Mr. Dias, Deb, never got a request for that. I didn't submit it to Deb. I followed the policy. I submitted it to the vice chair and yourself. She sent it already to MASC. And you just— Dr. Smith sent it to MASC. I received it from college. She received it. Okay. Go ahead. I just wanted to say at the same time Mr. Dias asked about having a representative as

a liaison. When we looked at the documents at the agenda setting meeting, we missed the deadline. So for years now we haven't had a delegate to the committee because it's May 1st when we need to do it. So it was just after that, not that we're opposed to a delegate, but moving forward before May 1st we have to say that we want a delegate. That delegate then has a vote at the

convention. we just missed the deadline. So it wasn't that we ignored it. When we looked at it, we said it's after the deadline. So in the future, we need to figure out who's going to go to the meeting and at that same time, make them the official delegate. Right. I think that's two separate issues. What I would like to see, what I requested is if we can have a near future meeting,

is Mr. Kuchar come before us, explain what MASC offers and what they do. And the reason I requested Mrs. Kuchar specifically, when myself and Mr. Aguiar had a conversation with our field rep. There was a lot of questions that he referred to Mr. Kuchar himself. So it's just and at the same time, sure I could ask for a meeting with Mr. Kuchar, but I just think again

having three new members that might have questions for MASC that we just have an open discussion with them. So I'm not going to make any formal motions on it, but I'm just hoping that the leadership can invite. So you want me to invite him to a future meeting? Yes. An official school committee meeting? Yes, please. Thank you.

In the last item I'll briefly bring up for a new business is diligent.

I think I'm just asking through the chair to technology subcommittee, which I'm a member of, that we can just have an update on this because I think there's a lot of bugs and issues that don't allow people who are adding backup on here to... think we're making it harder for people who add the backup to be able to do what they need to do because I think there's issues

with the software itself. So I'll wait until we have a discussion. But I just wanted to put it on the record. I yield. I would agree the diligent needs to be more diligent on how this works. So I think that's definitely something that we should look at. The secretary does a lot of work and then we found out yesterday if she changes one thing, it gets rid of all of that work.

It's something that we're working on, but diligent needs to do a better job. It's nothing internal here in my opinion. But the other thing is under a new business, I do think that we have a situation going on where our attorney is going to be leaving us June 30th. We do have a situation where we're looking at, I think, some ventures. to come in and I think we're going to have a

need for a special meeting in June before everyone leaves so that we can actually not have a lapse in time. So just putting it out there that I would request that the Secretary through the Chair reach out to all of us so maybe in two weeks have a special meeting for whatever topics that the Superintendent would like including that piece. Mrs. Riley has her hand up. Mrs. Riley.

could do it earlier. My son is getting married at the end of June. I will be in Detroit the last month. He's getting married on the 27th. We leave on the 24th. You'd have to do it before that. Okay.

I'm just saying. I think when everyone gets it, a few people are leaving, but I think that's important for us to get so we do not have a lapse in time. And it also gives the superintendent a team over the next couple of weeks if there's something else that comes up we can take these so we don't want to load up these agendas if we need for like one thing we should

probably meet for five things in my personal great thank you is there a reason to go into executive session there would be there motion to go into executive session thank you motion to second mr. Assad okay would you like to read the National Laws Chapter 30A Section 21A7 to review and approve the Executive Session minutes for May 6, 2026 regular school committee meeting.

National Laws Chapter 30A Section 21A1 to review the Open Meeting Law complaint dated May 12, 2026, followed by Colin Dias regarding the May 6, 2026 school committee meeting. The complaint alleges that some minutes were approved late and that all minutes did not contain summaries of the discussions. Master General Laws, Chapter 38, Section 21A1,

to review the Open Meeting Law complaint dated March 8, 2026, filed by Colin Dyers.

Regarding the March 4, 2026 School Committee meeting, the complaint alleges that a certain complaint brought against certain school committee members was discussed in executive session, and another member of the school committee revealed the information and the communication on social media. Master General Laws, Chapter 38, Section 21A1, to review the Open Meeting Law complaint. April 22, 2026

by Patrick Higgins alleging that Chair Paul Coogan and or his staff did not respond to his request for meeting minutes for the years 1974, 75, 76, 77, and 78 within 10 days. Mass General Laws Chapter 38 Section 21A1 to discuss complaints brought against school committee members. Mass General Laws Chapter 38 Section 21A3.

to discuss strategy with respect to the collective bargaining agreement including grievances relative to all paraprofessional employees of the former school system represented by the former Federation of Paraprofessionals as the Chair has determined that open session may have a detrimental impact on the bargaining position of the Committee. Mass General Laws Chapter 30A Section 21A3 to discuss

strategy with respect to the collective bargaining agreement including grievances relative to all custodial employees of the former school system represented by AFSCME, Council 93, Local 1118, as the chair has determined that an open session may have a detrimental impact on a bargaining position or litigating position of the committee. Match general laws, Chapter 38, Section

21A3 to discuss strategy regarding litigation regarding Department of Labor Relations in a matter of AFSCME, Council 93, Local 1118, and the former school committee, MUP 26, as the chairs determine that no perception may have a detrimental impact on the litigating position of the Committee of Mass General Law, Chapter 38,

Section 2183, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation regarding the Department of Labor Relations.

In the matter of ASME, Council 93 in the City of Fall River, Fall River Schools, GR number 269-26, 226-144SS-SK, LDOT, As the Chair is determined that the open session may have a detrimental impact on the litigating position of the Committee. Mastering of Law is Chapter 30A, Section 21A2. To conduct strategy sessions in

preparation for negotiation with nonunion personnel and or to conduct negotiation with nonunion personnel, specifically Kathleen Smith, Interim Superintendent of Schools, and Elizabeth Legault, Interim Deputy Superintendent of Schools, all Fall River Educational Fall River Government TV cable grant positions, eight of them. All non-union central office administrators, nine positions. All

administrative assistants, 12 positions. All school-based athletic programs support positions.

All facilities and operations supervisory positions, eight positions. All computer technical and student information management system support positions, 16.

All Special Education Support Positions, two positions. All Early Education Support Positions, four positions. James Sullivan, Chief Officer of Special Education Compliance. Christine Abdo, Procurement Specialist, Sandra Silva, Payroll Manager, Melissa St. Pierre, CTE Cooperative Education Coordinator, Evan Massoud, Production Technician Slash Editor, Muriel Karam, and

Community Engagement Specialist Renee Arena, part-time home visitor, Tiana Sens... I apologize, Sensilia Machado, part-time home visitor. We would reconvene. There may or may not be statements at that time.

Mr. Chairman? Mr. Agha. Tunisadeh, are you going to miss reading those now that you're not going to read with us? Well, you know something, I'll just call them in.

I have a motion and a second on going into executive session. All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Unanimous.

We're out of executive session. Anything, Deb, please call the roll.

Mr. Aguil? Here. Mr. Dias? Here. Mr. Corey?

Here. Mr. Monas? Here. Ms. Riley? Here. Ms. Stewart? Here. Anything further come before the committee? Mr. Mayor. Mr. Aguilar. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the executive session minutes for May 6, 2026 regular school committee meeting. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the minutes? Deb, call the roll please. Mr.

Aguilar. Yes. Mr. Dias. Yes. Mr. Corey.

Yes. Mr. Monas. Yes. Mr. Riley. Yes. Mr. Stewart. Yes. Mayor Coogan. Yes. Anything further Mr. Aguilar. Yes, Mr. Mayor. make a motion that we approve the contract as negotiated with Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Smith. Second. I have a motion and a second.

Any discussion? Deb, please call the roll. Mr. Aguilar? Yes. Mr.

Diaz? Yes. Mr. Corey? Yes. Mr. Holmes? Yes. Mr. Riley? Yes. Mr. Stewart? Yes. Mary Coogan? Yes. Anything further, Mr. Hague? I'd like to make a motion that we approve the contract as negotiated with Elizabeth Legault, Deputy Superintendent. Second.

Motion is second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Mr. Deb, please call the roll. Mr. Aguil.

Yes. Mr. Dias. Yes. Mr. Corey. Yes. Mr. Monas. Yes. Mr. Riley. Yes. Mr.

Stewart. Yes. Mayor Coogan. Yes. Anything further, Mr. Aguil. I just want to clarify that Today is the final regular school committee meeting for our attorney that we gave a citation to earlier. Attorney Assad will be leaving us, but he's not retiring. His school goddess practice on Bedford Street. You need an attorney, call him. Just want to make

it very clear to everyone. Pay dad. He's not retiring. He's still going to be active in his law practice. Thank you very much, Bruce, and good luck. Thank you. Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Opposed none.