7.15.2024 Fall River School Committee

soon um I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the forest school committee for Monday July 15th Deb would you please call the role Mr Agia here Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory here miss larav here miss Pereira Mary Coogan here salute to the flag please pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for

all uh pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible your time okay we have a number of people obviously signed up for Citizens input

we're going to ask you with all respect to please keep your comments to three minutes uh and we have a request for someone to go first um K Hebert uh Cherry Street Fall River

good evening members of the Fall River school committee staff of the Fall River School District and Families my name is kayin and I'm a special education prechool teacher at the Early Learning Center tonight I want to speak to you not just as an educator but as a parent and a dedicated member of this community every day I walk into my classroom fueled by a deep passion for providing a

nurturing environment where all my students can blossom it's a challenging job to say the least but seeing those three-year-olds grow and learn is the most rewarding feeling that makes the challenging days worth it however this passion is overshadowed by a harsh reality as a single mom of three I'm currently relying on food stamps and Pace vouchers to make ends meet even with a master's degree in moderate

disability the current teacher salaries of the Fall River districts makes affording basic necessities incredibly difficult let me be clear I'm not ashamed to use these programs there are cenal support systems that allow me to be here for my students and if I did not get them I would not be able to continue my job as an educator in the Fall River School District the truth is the current salary structure makes it fully

impossible to invest in my classroom the the hash show upall River campaign emphasizes the importance of Educators being present for our students but how can we truly show up for them if we're TR struggling to show up for ourselves and for our own families look the countless emails thank you the countless emails urging Educators to # show upall River are are powerful but tonight I urge you the

school committee to the stability oh sorry to show up for us hashtag right invest in your teachers invest in your teachers invest in the stability they need to create enriching learning environments there isn't this isn't just about salaries it's about investing in the futures of Fall River children some of you may know my kids as they are students of green my son Brooklyn has autism and school has been

a journey to say the least and we are only entering second grade his progress is a testament to the incredible educators of this District who poured their hearts into his education they are the Angels who took the time time and the patience that he needed we need you to be the angels for all of our students so the students of Fall River can have the education that they deserve thank you for your

time uh next is Kristen Anderson Ruben Street Fall River she sent in mayor I'm reading hers um Miss cab will read hers good evening my name is Kirsten Anderson and I am a product of the fall of Republic schools class of 2024 in kindergarten I knew I wanted to become a teacher because of Mrs Medeiros who I had at tany I come from a family of Educators my mother two of my aunts

and my uncle and my grandmother which also has Le led me to the decision to become an educator in high school I decided to go to college to a high to become a high school English teacher because of the amazing teachers I had at dery currently I am entering my second year at Fitchburg State University majoring in English with a minor in secondary education when I graduate my plan was always to return to Fall River

and apply for a teaching position dery High School's former principal Matt dearis once said that our goal the goal for us when we graduate from higher education is for us to come back to Fall River he said this at our first senior event my senior year and it was and it has stuck with me ever since when I come back to teach I want to make sure my salary is a livable income in Fall River

the cost of living is 98,2 24 and first year teachers make a mere $ 48,8 and at the highest step with a master's degree it's $84,200

to help these teachers and make Fall River a place with competitive wages a place people want to come back to a place where people can afford to come back to thank you for your

time um the next speaker is from Freetown I'll ask for a motion to wave the rules motion to wave the rules second I have a motion second all in favor I opposed unanimous Kate massud chip away Road Freetown all right good evening my name is Kate massud I'm a for I'm a former Fall River Public School student and currently a chemistry teacher here at dery high school I'm here to talk about teacher autonomy

during my seven years at dery as an educator there's been a lot of changes some good and some bad however very few have been as devastating to Student Success as the change to our science curriculum a little over three years ago our district adopted a highquality instructional science curriculum called open S at osc for sure once adopted this curriculum was met with almost immediate hesitation by teachers with good

cause the curriculum does not cover Massachusetts state standards for instance there are 14 Massachusetts state standards that chemistry teachers must cover according to the Department of Elementary and secondary education osc covers four of those standards and only partially addresses five more even if we consider these partially addressed standards as fully capable of teaching

our students which they are not osc only addresses 64% of Massachusetts chemistry standards if a student gets a 64 in a class that's a failing Mark yet the district has decided that this curriculum is high quality and what students in Fall River need as you can probably tell I strongly disagree with the district but it's not just me that disagrees with this curriculum in my experience teaching this curriculum my

students have never been more disengaged this disengagement in our science curriculum can be seen the decline in our recent mcast scores according to the Department of Education in 2022 and 23 an average of 27% of dery students failed the science mcast whereas prior to osc in the suspended testing years due to co only around 12.5% of dery students failed the science mcast in 2018 and 19 this is an increase of

14.5% meaning around 15% of students might not get a high school diploma because osc is a failing curriculum that the district is forcing us to teach with that being said we aren't fighting for Teacher autonomy because we're trying to indoctrinate our students or refusing to adopt and adapt new teaching styles we are fighting for Teacher autonomy because we are educated professionals who know how to teach Fall River

students the right material they need to succeed if we continue down this path our students will continue to suffer thank you

um the next speaker is from Taunton I'll entertain a motion to wave the rules motion to wave the rules second I have a motion second all in favor I opposed unanimous uh Garrett Boone Orchard Street Taunton hello good evening members of the Fall River school committee citizens of Fall River and employees of the Fall River Public School System my name is Garrett Brun I've been a science teacher

at dery high school for 10 years I speak today in response to the reduction of prep time and additional time commitments proposed by the school committee in last week's bargaining meeting to demonstrate just what is included in some of our prep time in the past four years I have not had a consistent curriculum for my English L English language learner students this means I need to use my preps to read the

approved curriculum understand how to implement it properly and find where it needs additional structures to match our state standards all before I can then Implement appropriate accommodations for our English Learners every reading or text needs to be appropriate for students current English reading level and questions need to be appropriately scaffolded for their writing levels to

do this well requires a large investment of time and that's just to make these materials accessible hours are also spent looking at data from class assignments tests as well as the two mandatory formative assessments given each week this data needs to be processed to see where students are excelling as well as struggling so so that we can determine next steps in hand uh helping them succeed preps also

involve checking in with other teachers Sachs guidance counselors and vice principles to Monitor and Implement interventions for student social emotional learning and responding to IEP update requests in a timely manner this leaves little time for other responsibilities such as grading making copies reaching out to parents and so many others this means that myself and other teachers need to spend time

outside of the school day in order to give our students the best chances at success personally I stay after school daily to work on these things additionally I wake up early on weekends to get these things done before my daughter wakes up only stopping once she tells me Daddy it's playtime not work time and she slams my laptop shut this level of work is not sustainable and will only become worse with less prep

time and more responsibilities I implore you consider bringing all School levels up in prep time as opposed to down for Equity between schools thank you um the next speaker is from New Bedford I entertain a motion to wave the rules to wave the rules second I have a motion a second um all in favor I opposed unanimous um Jenna Vieira Sterling Street New Bedford good evening my name is Jenna

Vieira and I'm a Special Education team chair at dery high school I am also the special education representative on the F bargaining team tonight I am here to speak to the importance and urgency of a pay adjustment for Far Over Educators there have been several phrases repeated at the bar at the bargaining table when discussing Financial proposals that I would like to share with the committee

first is the idea that the school committee would like to reward our teachers the best we can the idea that what the f is asking for is a reward is dangerous rhetoric and an affront to the professional qualifications we hold which includes Advanced graduate degrees the second phrase that has been shared repeatedly is that there is a finite amount of money available and that all sides need to deal with it it is a

widely understood concept that money doesn't grow on trees however the underlying implication of this statement is that the F should be grateful that an offer as high as 533 was made to us when in reality this offer comes with a cost extra time after school more minutes in the workday and less prep time for teachers when you factor in these conditions 533 isn't much of an adjustment at all furthermore

furthermore on the agenda for tonight's meeting there is an item to discuss and approve another administrative position the district has implied that the current offer to the f is the way in which the district will avoid layoffs but there are currently over 20 open positions on the district website a pay adjustment at the expense of cutting positions should come second to a more aling fact that we can't fill the

positions we have open a pay adjustment is an enticing tool to recruit and retain quality Educators the bottom line is that school districts fund what they value the fallover school committee has the ability to prove to the community that this District values retaining highly qualified Educators and support staff who can continue to build on the great work happening here thank you

next up is uh Kirsten rousell nor Norwood Street forer good evening members of the school committee Fall River Educators and guests my name is Christen rousell and I'm a 20-year veteran of the Fall River Public Schools I teach at the Lal School in Fall River and I'm an F member I'm here tonight to speak about the disparity in Pay between Fall River and neighboring cities for veteran teachers

over half of the F membership has been teaching in Fall River for more than 12 years we do that because we love our students we stay because we are dedicated to their success over the past 10 years the F negotiated what they believed were Fair contracts putting our students first rather than our own personal needs now it is time to correct the paid discrepancies and pay our professionals what they

deserve why is it that teachers in neighboring cities with similar demographics are compensated at a much higher rate than our Fall River teachers on average teachers with a bachelor's degree in New Bedford are paid $44,000 more in Brockton $9,000 more and Taunton $111,000 more on average teachers with a master's degree and may I say I'm old enough to be grandfathered in but after 28 years got my Master's

Degree teachers in New Bedford are paid $7,000 more than me in Taunton 9,000 and in Brockton 20,000 the longer a teacher stays in Fall River The Wider the gap between our pay scale and neighboring cities increases it's not fair keeping teachers here in Fall River makes a difference for our students and their families Family School Partnerships provide a connection between the two most influential

contexts in which Children's Learning and Development occurs statistics show that the high cost of teacher turnover negatively imp impacts a district including reduced educational quality and decreased morale among teachers students and families longevity does not reward our most dedicated and knowledgeable teachers who should be utilized to build capacity within their buildings these are the professionals

who can build capacity among our new teachers in this District as their mentors and teacher leads they need to be appreciated respected and used to better our students these are the professionals who can offer our students so much more with their experiences now is the time to show them that they are valued now that we all know better we expect you to do better

the next uh the next speaker is from Westport so I'm looking for a motion in a second motion to wave second second all in favor I I opposed unanimous next up is Allison madus gford Road Westport three minutes please good afternoon my name is Alison madus I'm a second grade teacher at lnal elementary school through my last six years of service to the fall of public schools both as an educator and an undergraduate un

volunteer I have shown to be dedicated and committed to fulfilling the needs of my students as best as I can both inside and outside the classroom I partake in three committees all outside of the contractual day one of those being the health and safety committee that was formed just this year with the collaboration of F and MTA I am here today to discuss my personal health and to ask for updates regarding not only

lero school but the entire F frps Community the the morning of Friday March 8th 20 2024 I should have been getting ready to safely walk lerno School Scholars to the school building as I am a walking school bus monitor I should have been getting ready to teach my 27 seven and 8-year-old students but that was not the case I instead placed a sick day through the Frontline platform

back to Thursday March 7th 2024 I was in my classroom having a meeting with our Hill for literacy coach when maintenance end entered my classroom to swap out the filters on the two wall AC heat units immediately after this was done my eyes began to itch and very soon after I began experiencing discharge during my lunch break I paid the school nurse a visit and she took a look she suggested

it looked like conjunctivitis or what most would call pink ey I contacted my doctor immediately and requested a prescription I continued to fulfill my role as a second grade teacher for the remainder of the day even with the discomfort I documented the progress of my eyes for the next several hours it continued to worsen the following day I woke up and my eyes were not only swollen shut but they were crusted in

the discharge I could not see luckily as I cannot afford a house of my own I live with my mother she also called out of work and drove me to the emergency room after several hours on a high dosage of steroids my eyes began to S settle however they did not go back to normal for another 2 weeks it was not conjunctivitis it was a severe allergic reaction to the Airborne allergen

that were released during this filter swap I am thankful to HR who gave me my sick day back however this should have never happened and it continues to happen every day I walk into the school building I see my primary care doctor and my allergen doctor they continue to influence me to look elsewhere as these conditions in our school buildings are not improving not only that but I now

use an inhaler for the asthma I was diagnosed with this year we need to take better care of our school building it is not only a faulty investment on our taxpayer dollars but to let these buildings go to waste but it's unethical to allow children to enter these conditions daily mold mold is not the only problem in our school buildings it is routine maintenance and custodial needs our

buildings demand but our staffing cannot fulfill I stand before you now requesting updates regarding the findings of the comprehensive assessments done at both lero and green as well as the plan moving forward for All Fall River Public School to ensure our students have a clean building to learn in thank you I guess it's for River next up Alexander soua blazedale Al Alexander soua three minutes tonight please Al all

right I'll keep keep it that this time hey guys hope you're all doing well uh last time I was here um we had just been asked to accept a raise of about 2% at the half year mark uh three years in a row which effectively is like 1% so relative to inflation that's actually like a 1% pay cut 2% pay cut uh we were told that this was a response to the

offer we had initially proposed that is to say it was so ridiculous to ask for 12% for three years in a row and therefore a pay cut was appropriate um they have since come up to 533 and we've come down to around 101010 and I'm asking everyone here uh to listen to what I'm about to say and decide which one of those sounds more reasonable to you uh last time I spoke there were 200

open positions at the fall Republic School website and as we just heard uh those haven't moved so the Billboards didn't work uh it's uh there are actually 226 right now um and about half of those are teachers so fer has about a 15 to1 um student teacher ratio so that's uh 1500 kids uh there's 750 seats in this room so look at all of these seats double them that's how many kids are getting an inadequate education

right um 40% of those students are specialed so the special ed kids alone could pretty much fill all the seats here after our first bargaining session the city put out a graphic on social media to try and frame the counter offer as an attempt to avoid cutting positions I was happy to see that most people didn't buy it it seems to me that our voters are sick of having their tax

dollars not really get put to work very well since I last spoke here I've gotten a few offers like I do basically every summer uh one of them was for 5K more to teach in Lincoln Rhode Island which is 5 minutes from my house the other was for 10K more to teach in Easton which is 20 minutes from my house uh for the record that's a 7% raise and a 15% raise on my

current salary um oh but I keep hearing fer can't afford it right that's that's what we all hear uh New Bedford pays more Brockton pays more Chelsea pays more hoolio taon Lawrence Central Falls pet East Providence all of them have a lower per capita GDP they're all about are about the same or lower than Fall River all right um this correction is long overdue we're like a decade behind

right um so I want you guys to consider um which of them seems more reasonable after inflation the city wants to give us about a 1% raise per year right that's 5% 3% 3% and what we're proposing is a 20% correction over those same three years which of those options do you think will get 1500 kids the teachers they need I'd like to point out I'd like to point out that this speaking here is not

easy even though I get like fired up it's really awkward I'm I'm being recorded right it is so much easier to leave it's so much easier to to drive five minutes instead of 45 and get $10,000 more but we all all are here because we want to be let us put this school first and not have to compromise with our families please we're begging you uh next up is Jennifer rendy Cecilia Street for Rover

I also have a few other students out there too that I graduated graduated me um hi I am here to represent the veteran teachers uh my name is Jennifer endes I've been in Fall River teaching middle school math since 2006 for the teachers who have been here in Fall River for even half of that time we know how much the Fall River students behaviors have changed for the worse on unfortunately

cell phones social media lack of par parental support then came 2020 Co it was terrible some parents believe students do not need to come to school because school was remotely taught temporarily well can't my child just make up their work at home that's chronic absenteeism Tik Tock challenges tell kids to destroy school property Snapchat allegedly deletes any texts of a bullying nature Instagram promotes

poor body images each and every year it gets more and more challenging to teach positions get added for seal they remain open teachers leave for better pay those positions stay open students with IEPs are unsupported because there's no special educator we love our students we absolutely do other speakers before me spoke of several districts I'm just going to compared to d uh to um New Bedford

myself on Masters plus 15 in 2024 this past year I made 84,600 I could have gone to New Bedford and made $94,700 even if you give me that 5% next year I'm at 88 924 still 6% below New Bedford if you actually wanted me to compete with New Bedford you'd have to give me a 133% raise and that's just to equal it not be above it we asked for compensation to set up

our rooms 10 hours maximum we all know it takes longer you said no you asked us to work for an extra hour every week for free for free why cuz you've always done it for free no more no more

we want to be paid what we're worth we have heard many many many times that we signed those previous contracts well this time we're not going to if the other departments in Fall Riv can get pay increases such as the police and the firefighters so can we we taught them

we don't want more than the UR other urban districts we just want what's fair we don't want a raise we just want a correction thank you

um next speaker I'll need a motion uh Warwick Rhode Island can I get a motion a second I have a motion a second all in favor I I opposed unanimous next up is um Helen shun marer a sh maker from um marjerie Lane Warwick thank you for the attempt it's Schoonmaker sorry good afternoon my name is Helen and I'm currently a foundational ESL teacher at cus and I taught mainstream ESL at Henry

Lord for eight years ESL is my lifeblood I am the child of an immigrant I was a multilingual learner myself from kindergarten through second grade I grew up speaking English and Spanish double majored in French and have easily picked up Portuguese on my own for my students when people asked me why I became an ESL teacher my response is this my students families dreamed of a better life for

their children which includes education and I have the honor and privilege to be part of that better life but how can I truly provide the education they dream of when I am stretched thin how could I when I was servicing two grades in two contents across both foundational and mainstream how could I when I wore myself out modifying entire novels for foundational students sitting in mainstream classrooms how could I

provide that education they hop for when I had 77 students on my roster across five grade levels for pullout services how could I when each of the 77 needed 45 minutes per day but they were lucky if they got 30 minutes a couple times a week how can I now in a foundational room when a wellth thought out rotation for Blended learning has to be reworked because my instructional par gets pulled

for coverage and I had planned for him to run station and talking to other ESL teachers this is the collective experience foundational teachers Paras are pulled for coverage sometimes for weeks at a time because we lose teachers to districts with higher pay many mainstream teachers service multiple grade levels with ridiculous case loads because there aren't enough ESL teachers because they leave for better pay or we

are told it's just not in the budget to open another position and yet year after year we're told that the needs of our lowest 25% are the most urgent and we need to push them how can we when we always have multiple ESL positions open across the district we are told to meet students where they are to meet their needs because it affects their performance but educators are human too the worries

and anxieties of life our families our bills our health affect us just like they affect our students meet us where we are address our needs pay us what we are worse so we don't have so many open positions so we can meet the needs of our special populations so we can give the parents of my students and others like them the education they deserve and dream of and so we can do our jobs

without worrying if we'll be able to pay the next bill our students deserve teachers that stay because they are paid what they are worth our students deserve so much more than what Fall River is giving them they deserve the life and education their parents dream of and you are not giving it to them thank you uh next up is Don Gomes Alden Street forover

D Coogan and members of the school committee my name is Don goes and I currently serve as a par educator aternal Elementary School it deeply concerns me to witness a committee of city leaders chosen by residents to represent our for of school district engaging in such disrespectful and belittling behaviors towards each other instead of fostering collaboration and addressing health and safety concerns

yes I agree that there's been unnecessary funding on items like the mural and the Lexi dinosaur while crucial budget resources for students needs and supplies remain insufficient I advocate for addressing the health issues and contracts for for Rivers teachers and Par Educators what city schools truly need is respect recognition and fair compensation for our hard work and dedication especially

considering the current staff and shortages it is disheartening to see funds misdirected towards non-essential items when educators of often spend significant personal funds on their own classroom supplies furthermore I was deeply disappointed by the recent school committee where citizens concerns were completely disregarded and brushed aside the neglect of the mold issue at lerno

as well as several other campuses what purpose does it serve to allocate three minutes to Citizens and most committee members are unwilling to engage or address these concerns as a resident of fora I am embarrassed by the disrespectful and dismissive behavior that was displayed if you are unwilling to advocate for far of Schools staff and students perhap it's time that you consider to your position my intention

is not to insult any of you but it's just to State the facts mayor KGAN you have spoken in the past meetings about making positive impacts on students lives in 1995 I was that atrisk student and you were my Advocate you believed in me when I didn't believe in myself where is that Mr Coogan your dedication is and positivity not only helped me graduate but it also inspired me to pursue a bachelor's

degree in Early Education this generation needs the 1995 Mr Coogan more now than ever today 29 years later I continue to strive every day to support nurture and positively impact the lives of all the students that I educate both academically as well as emotionally thank you um the next one I'm going to need a motion in a second on uh someone from Providence so moved second all in favor I I I opposed unanimous Shelby

Richardson Spruce Street uh Provence thank you guys good afternoon my name my name is Shelby Richardson for the last four years I have been a self-contained special education teacher at Henry Lord and I will be continuing my career in Fall River at dery this fall I am here today to speak to my own experience but ultimately to urge our school committee to take a hard look at the decisions

being made regarding our teacher contract in addition to my own career in Fall River my wife is also an employee of the district she works as a PA professional at Henry Lord as well within my first 3 years at Henry Lord Lord I went from the new hire to the most senior teacher in my department due to the level of turnover we experience and our severe and profound programs the

work we do with our most vulnerable and highest need students is challenging incredibly specialized and most importantly the most rewarding career of my life my wife and I make that dreaded commute over the Washington Bridge in Providence every day because we love our jobs and so I stand here and I am frustrated and I have grievances because of the fact that I want to be able to afford to

do the work I am passionate about if I was to leave right now and be hired by Providence Public Schools I would have an immediate 7.5% salary increase in New Bedford 6% seon 10% Boston Public Schools 63% salary increase and yes I check the math on that these salary discrepancies are the reason we canot not retain staff especially in hard to fill positions of the approximately 105 open teaching

positions posted right now in this District 40% of them are special ed teachers and 40% of those postings are self-contained teachers specifically we cannot continue to have our highest need students without licensed and quality Educators and we continue to talk about retention but the reality is research proves that over half of employees reasoning for leaving a job is money next year I will be a

step seven teacher with a master's degree and 30 credits my spouse is a step six perah which means she's literally capped out on her salary without a change to the contract between the two of us we have four degrees and 16 years of experience working with students and the reality is I'm not sure I can financially afford for us to work in this District anymore there are months that I am left buying groceries

and gas on my credit card because after I pay our bill bills there's nothing left in our checking accounts the idea of leaving my job and the students I service breaks my heart but it very well could become a reality for both of us and many many Educators in this District if this school committee does not find a way to prioritize salaries and prioritize respect for the Educators in

this District we deserve better thank you

I'm going to ask for a motion in a second on someone from Dartmouth motion to wave second all in favor opposed unanimous Lola grandela Alpha Street

D it's a lot easier back there good afternoon my name is Lola grandela and I'm a fifth grade teacher at fans Elementary I have been a teacher for a total of 17 years with the last seven being at fonsica first let's acknowledge the importance of our work as teachers we make all other careers possible we shape the future by preparing our students to become informed responsible citizens we spend

countless hours planning lessons grading papers and providing emotional support our impact extends far beyond the classroom influencing the lives of our students and the well-being of our communities we understand this it is why many of us force ourselves to work well beyond our contractual limits often at our own Financial expense and at the expense of personal family time several

years ago I overheard a conversation between two of my three children wondering why I had to spend so much time preparing for my students and no time with them I will never forget that all of us in this room have similar Stories the reality of our compensation does not reflect the value of our contributions but even more importantly inadequate pay leads to high turnover rates which disrupts the continuity of

education and negatively impacts student performance when teachers are forced to take second jobs or leave the profession altogether our students suffer the consequences consequences such as increased class sizes that make our students feel invisible consequences such as a decrease in academic performance that hinder our students future possibilities consequences such as reduced course offerings that limit

students educational opportunities it would be disappointing to think that the school committee doesn't recognize these serious consequences and their devastating impact on our students it would be disappointing to think that the school committee doesn't take their teacher shortage seriously no I didn't say it recruitment fairs and billboards will not encourage teachers to teach in our

district for well below their market value and a salary offer that tells us that we have less value today than 5 years ago will not encourage good teachers to stay Fair compensation is not about paying teachers what they deserve it's about investing in our future thank you

um next up Brienne KO Stewart Street

forover hi good afternoon um superintendent Coogan I mean superintendent Curley mayor Coogan and school committee members um my name is Brienne KO um I am a former dery graduate class of 98 um f member and currently a special education teacher at dery going into my third year uh prior to this I was a substitute teacher um for 10 years for the district where I worked as a long-term sub um in

various positions specifically um science department where I am now a special ed science teacher um and over the past few years I not only obtained my master's degree in education because I was influenced by people like you mayor Coogan and many others that are in the audience here to become a teacher um got my master's degree in education and just added on a special ed because I love those students they are

my heart and soul and keep me motivated um that said I show up every morning very early my students know this if they want to come talk to me or need extra help before or after school I'm here every day I'm here every day late and my senior son who's at home right now he's like Mom why do you work so late I said I know I'm sorry but I have

to do things that I want to get home get home to which is you but I have things at work that I have to prepare for and I don't have time to prepare for that while I'm working I not only co- te but I also have my own classes sorry went away um prior to um writing lesson plans and writing IEPs and working on modifying my assignments for my students I have also

done this all while the support of living with my parents I can I do this not on our spite but because I cannot afford a house of my own I want nothing but to live on my own but can't afford a place I'm a single mother of a high school senior who wants nothing but the best for her son and the students that she teaches and that deserves respect a fair contract and fair pay thank you

um I need a motion in a second on the last speaker from East Providence so moved second I have a motion a second all in favor opposed unanimous Keith Michonne Tron TR taton Avenue East provin good evening I'm Keith michon president of the forer Educators Association we've been attending and speaking at these meetings for a few months now we've had many bargaining sessions with your team and I I hope

you're beginning to understand the issues on the table this is critical because we'll leing losing good staff for bad reasons the school department shared a bargaining update with the community last week I think this is great that we're being transparent after all this is public education our constituents should be aware of the current state of our system and the steps that we are taking to address the

issues I know my members appreciate the transpar Arcy what my members don't accept is the current position of the committee collective bargaining agreements and budgets go hand inand in these meetings we hear people talk about bang for your buck the juice for the squeeze these are fun things to say everybody likes a deal but when the employer is talking about their employees in this way I have a hard time

not thinking about exploited labor over the past four years despite tough Economic Times the school department has been in a great financial position due to the student Opportunity Act that we fought hard for this makes it even more infuriating to know that those years we have not only failed to make progress towards competitive salaries but we have fallen further behind additional positions to support

students academic mental health and behavioral needs are outstanding reopening a neighborhood School sounds great the actual impact is yet to be determined but generally speaking we support those decisions what we don't support is when those decisions sacrifice living and competitive wages this extends Beyond teachers and includes every employee in the district as things are now we have

critical positions open because we can't recruit quality candidates we've created a revolving door in many positions because we can't retain the great people we have I believe we have arrived at this point with decisions made with good intention I have a lot of respect for the committee members the administrators and the people that have held those roles before you but it can't be ignored that

Corrections need to be made I've heard many times from leadership in this District say when you take care of the staff they take care of the students let's do that

I do I do wantan to I do want to I do want to I do want to say something before everybody leaves just so you know stay all night whatever you're comfortable with I saw some people leaving I do want to make it all clear I survived Don goome in 1995 look at her and I am so I am so proud of her when I go into the school and see her

there I know how far she's come and I'm really proud of all my students that here tonight but I do want to say something I want to make a request tonight with all of you here because we do have to get this done our next bargaining session is until August 14th I don't know if you know that we're willing to meet next week the week after two s a week but you have to insist on

your union who I know wants to get this done as bad as we do that we can move that bargaining date up and get back to the table ASAP is that okay with you guys attorney do we have to make a motion for that no no motion no motion no no motion was mayor oh no no no I'm telling you right now we will be ready you talk to your people and we'll go next week

the week after two times a week thank you guys Mr agar just like last meeting we had heard some speakers that said you know made some accusations of some things so I'd like to request that the superintendent respond to those to us directly on things such as the open SED not be an equality program because we've been told otherwise in subcommittee meetings we had an elll teacher say that she she's

not given the services to her children so I'm concerned about compensatory services and the like but as you go back and review it please respond to us relative to some of those things I would definitely appreciate it and as far as the um negotiations I think you know I for one way back in the start of this wanted to do collaborative bargaining because I'm not afraid to sit at the

table but I think that's if we really want to get something done I think that's what we need to do rather than have you people come here and then you can't even hear from us so I'm as one member ready to sit at the table and do collaborative which I've said right from the G next um thank you next item up on the agenda is the recognition Awards number three we don't have any tonight and item

number four is our subcommittee updates we have an update from the instructional subcommittee Mimi larav V chair yep the uh instructional subcommittee mayor met at 4:30 on Monday June 17th 2024 at Spencer bordon on structural Department directors presented updates uh on platform data usage and student outcomes uh five high do dosage tutoring ST Math Carnegie I ready uh grade one ignite

tutoring uh 6 to eth amplify coaching uh Lexia Core 5 the elementary and open sad uh they also they also presented curriculum and assessment materials um on Lexia Middle School ES L renew and pilot um Elementary newcomer ignite reading Lexia Core 5 goodart W Cox Health curriculum uh ref reps from the health department uh as a pa uh PE option at dery El assessment materials uh WEA and last

links for dual language education committee voted to refer all items to the full committee uh the committee had a discussion and voted to refer the English language assessment uh specialist revised job description and the partnership and professional development review uh meeting adjourned at 6:15 thank you thank you uh next item up item number five is the superintendent report superintendent

Curley thank you I have um three items on which to update our summer programming mold issues and our hiring update so first I'd just like to talk about the summer programming I'm really proud to say that all of our schools are running a summer program in total we have about 2,000 students who are enjoying summer programming in the follow River Public Schools um included in that we're

serving about 1,600 lunches in those programs and another 800 in the Parks we've got all different kinds of summer programs including an MLL program at Henry Lord enhancing language acquisition through real world learning experiences Early Childhood programming at 2501 South Main Street where we've added an internship at our 21st Century Learning site where high schoolers are working as interns with the goal of

developing career Pathways in the educational field this is a program that will actually continue into the school year at our dery enrichment Camp we've got a wide range of enrichment activities uh including culinary woodworking Dance Art cosmetology and a whole lot more there's a summer basketball program in the evening skills and drills as well as the summer league and we've got esy um

middle and high school at dery and Elementary at Sylvia and that's in addition to to all of the school-based programs um that we have across the district I want to acknowledge Our Community Partners in some of this programming including the Wata Rowing Club the mass audabon Society Fall River sailing program foota citizens for Citizens Family Service Association Recreation and Fall River children's

museum across all of the programs we've got a ton of field trips including those to the Wang center Roger Williams Park Zoo Boston Duck Tours Mystic Aquarium Boston Museum of Science the Southwick Zoo Treetop Adventures follower her Children's Museum and Battleship Cove and just want finally want to talk about the fact that on August 2nd all of our 21st century programs and some of our

other programs are coming together for a second annual Field Day celebration at dery high school we are still in the planning stages for that but we know that it's taking on an Olympic theme at um and has many different events um for students of all ages the next piece to the update um is around summer school cleaning and mold remediation our summer cleaning projects um in addition to what we do

traditionally is focusing on thorough cleaning of school facilities and addressing mold issues caused by excess humidity the aim is to ensure safe and healthy environments for students and staff by the start of the new school year I'm going to highlight ongoing and planned work across three sites of Interest green Spencer board and in turno the status of the Green School um includes the following we've conducted

an assessment of the facility identified areas with potential mold growth due to excess humidity we've installed commercial grade dehumidifiers in the areas of need worked on equipment um that has deficiencies and started preparing for the installation of a new Chiller in the late fall in terms of cleaning and Remediation we're continuing the deep cleaning of classrooms hallways and common areas

removed items which appear to have been contaminated and cleaned areas using industry um industry standard remediation techniques we're also dehumidifying affected areas to Red reduce moisture levels in terms of testing and monitoring all um air quality tests have been conducted in affected areas we've installed humidity monitors um to track and manage moisture levels continuously in areas of concern

and we'll continue um to follow instructions and recommendations of testing agencies including the assessment from environmental health our next steps incl um included in the ongoing remediation will be continued mold remediation in newly identified areas and to apply mold resistant treatments to prevent future growth on the site in terms of Spencer bordon we've conducted an internal assessment

of this facility identified areas with potential mold growth due to excess humidity um we found these to be limited to the first floor East we've installed commercial grade humidifiers in the areas of need and in preparation we're preparing for the installation of a new Chiller there in late fall in the meantime we're continuing to work on equipment with deficiencies as um they're found in terms of cleaning and

Remediation we are completing a deep cleaning of classrooms hallways in common areas removing items which appear to have been contaminated and cleaning um the all of the areas in using an industry standard mediation techniques we also have dehumidifiers in the classrooms as needed to Red reduce moisture levels ongoing remediation there one step that um we know is um is one of our next steps is going to be to replace

damage ceiling tiles in all identified areas in terms of laterno which was the site where we started the work we are still waiting on a report from environmental health the report will provide a road map for us in terms of which items need to be accomplished as a yearly on a annual basis at lerno and will be modified to fit each of our buildings in terms of cleaning and Remediation there we're completing deep

cleaning of classrooms hallways and common areas removing items which appear to have been contaminated and using the same industry standard mediation techniques dehumidifying effective areas to reduce moisture levels testing and monitoring at lerno um is a little bit more farther in the process in that we have conducted air quality tests in affected areas and we continue to follow

the instructions and recommendations of testing agencies including assessments from Common Sense environmental we've installed humidity monitors there to track and manage moisture levels and next steps include continued targeted mold remediation in newly identified areas and to apply mold resistant treatments to prevent future growth across all of our sites in terms of preventive measures we are continuing

with the installation of those additional humidifiers in critical areas that we know are prone to high humidity and implementing routine inspection and maintenance schedules to Monitor and address mold issues promptly in terms of final testing and validation we are conducting random spot air quality and surface tests to ensure all issues have been effectively removed and preparing a

detailed report summarizing findings and Remediation actions in terms of ongoing communication and training we're putting together a plan to inform School staff and stakeholders about their REM remediation efforts and outcomes on an ongoing basis and providing training on recognizing mold issues and Reporting um procedures the last piece is around new hires we have 169 new hires um between June 11th through July

15th most of these um will be our people who are starting in August included our three um Athletics positions assistant coaches one Carpenter two cluster coordinators five counselors two custodians part-time three department heads three directors four instructional support Le aison one nurse 21 par professionals one principal two psychologists two safety officers three speech language Pathologists 109

teachers one technician four Vice principls an early childhood education teacher and Ana zance we've had 26 resignations from June 11th to July 15th and 10 retirees during that same period thank you superintendent um Mr Das thank you um just a few follow-ups on the mold um actually I'm going to start with um another issue um regarding um the summer program was the summer program at

there's a summer program at at Stone correct yes was that program moved by any chance the stone summer program remains at Stone at Stone okay um and moving on to lerno do you know I'm gonna go outside just take this with you please Scott we can hear you they all laughed at you okay an update on lerno um has the remediation company that um the envir mental health um have they gone I know they've gone

into the school have they done um extensive testing yet in the classrooms at lerno we are awaiting the results of Some Testing that we did um a couple of weeks ago we actually had two of our um two vendors companies on site one that was um brought in by the MTA the other it was one that we brought in and that day um they actually tested the the same air the same surfaces they exchanged

testing results so that they could each bring tests back to their own labs and we're awaiting the results of those reports and what was the company we brought in I I wasn't aware of that's common sense Common Sense okay and um just um do you have like a timeline on when we're going to get a report back because I know it's been a few weeks now since they've done a report is that something

that like takes like a couple weeks a month um I didn't get a a response from them as to the timing um we did he did do some work there um and um did his own testing also besides the two other groups he did two spot checks in two rooms um but I do not have a written report from him yet okay I think we can just um get like a followup on that see

if we can get like a timeline and when we're going to get a report because I'm assuming that's going to come with um a plan on remediation so we can you know tackle this before the start of the school year yes okay I you thank you Mr AG just uh a few questions to follow up so I'd like to get a copy of the contract with the consultant so that we know what

they're hired to do um I know what we as a committee decided to authorize but we haven't seen the copy of the contract so that's one thing uh the mold like I superintendent mentioned a few times excess humidity excess humidity and I said this before that I think the problem is that HVAC system is the issue and I don't think our HVAC system is working properly as I superintendent was

gracious enough to meet me at one of the schools to talk about it when we went through the building it was confirmed a lot of what the people came before us to say that they reported things years ago and we didn't address it or whatever you know I think at the end of the day our HVAC systems are not working 100% like they should now granted that's going to

cost us money but if I as one member of the committee do not see something come before us that says this is not working and we need to spend 200,000 500,000 whatever the amount is I assume that all of our systems are working in the 2024 type of Technology clearly that's not happening in several of the buildings and I think it's not a secret anymore so I think one of the things I'd like to

request is a an update on every atrack system in every single building including and I've already asked for the backup but I haven't received it yet but all of the tickets and all that stuff is coming in but we need to get an assessment to say what is wrong with our buildings because as we continue to go we're trying to dehumidify and we got we got little baby humidifiers we got some

bigger ones that's not the way they handle it we need to handle it by fixing the HVAC systems in my opinion so we don't know because it doesn't get presented to us so the EXs humidity and all I just think the HVAC is one of the major issues that we still have I'd also like to request that the consultant that we hired comes before us in this public meeting the next meeting and stands

there so we can ask that consultant independent questions in the public public about what is happening and one of the questions I'm going to looking for in the contract is the consultant that is the agreed upon professional are they going to have a sign off on the safety of all of our schools before school starts not looking for an answer now but I thought when we talked about having a consultant that was going to

come in with their license and they were going to do an independent analysis I'm of the belief that that person is going to sign off and say to all these teachers and staff and the students that this school is safe and free from mold but I don't know that that's happening the um the last thing on on the mold was superintendent KY I think you said that there was monitors in uh all the schools

but when I went through the green with you there wasn't monitors so I don't know if that was referring to the lerno which was the first ones to start with I'm assuming you meant that whatever the technical term of that monitor in each classroom is up and running is that what you mean and the other buildings I never saw one thermostat uh mon so I don't know if that's

a typo or correction but if you it might be I know that um we are looking at the humid getting the humidistats in um but I'm just looking back to see where I said that can there could have been a miss you can follow up with it so my concern is I think like everybody else's if we said we're going to put a is it called a humidistat is that the if we're

going to put a humidistat in every single classroom then by tomorrow we should get a list of every single classroom in those affected schools and how many humid stats are actually up and how many are not I think that's something that we deserve to not only for us to have but the union and the other people should have the same thing so we can't just keep talking because time is going by and if we keep on

talking about well we're going to do this we might do that we're going to do this school's going to start and we're going to be in a mess so I hope you understand what my concerns are and I hope to uh continue to work with you on trying to get answers are y Mr DUS thank you and um just to concur with Mr AAR especially um specifically with lerno it probably isn't know we're

no experts in M obviously but considering that this has been going on at least since December we've been hearing about this I don't think it has anything to really do with just the change in the weather it has to be something internally with the school so just to follow up on that and then just one more question at school before the superintendent and yourself have you heard any concerns at um either at Stone

specifically about any air quality issue has been brought to your attention I haven't heard anything from Stone um I'm sure principal Shaw would have already contacted us um she's very conscientious we are working in the building now there's a lot of activity uh going on in the upper floors in that building um but I have not heard that okay I'll you I think thank you next item up student comment none tonight

item number seven is the approval of minutes we have a number of minutes I'd like to bundle them up if anybody has one they would like to pull or question about let me know if not I'm going to be looking for the approval of the minutes of the special ed alternative education Early Childhood subcommittee meeting from 32524 I'll be looking for the approval of the minutes from the facilities and

operations subcommittee meeting from 4124 approval of the minutes from the technology subcommittee from 4424 approval of the minutes from the regular school committee meeting from 4824 I'd like to take them as a bundle so move second with a question I have a second Mr agier are we within the timelines I'm looking these dates are very old are we are we within the timelines that we're supposed to be on the minutes

yeah one is like the first one's dated 3:25 and it's now 7:15 are we within the minutes of are we are we with with in the time frame is that one uh is that one dated properly Miss cabal I would think so yes okay so it's probably far as I know okay so was that a yes or no yes she said yes which would end the timeline yes I have a motion a second Deb would

you call the role Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das obain Mr Cory yes M lar yes M Pereira mayor cougan yes item number eight is the approval of travel requests we have one uh travel request I'm looking for a motion of second for a group to go to Orlando for the National Association for the education of homeless children and youth conference motion approved second second have a motion second any

discussion Deb call the rooll Please Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larav yes M Pereira M rodri I mean sorry mayor kouan yes item number nine is the acceptance of a donation um I need a motion in a second before superintendent curlyy describes it move I have a motion second I have a motion a second um any discussion hearing none superintendent Curley then we'll call the

role you want call the made a call call roll first I'm sorry go ahead Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larav yes M Pereira M hugan yes superintendent on behalf of dery high school Dr Jessica Stevens accepts $10,000 donation from Bristol County Savings Bank the donation will be used to support culture building secl initiatives and Equity work at dery high school thank you item number 10 is the

approval of Grants um we have a number of them if anybody wants to pull let me know if there have I'm sorry first three hold please the first three okay so it's coordinated family community engagement one8 foundation and promoting safe and healthy any others can I get a motion a second on the last two motion to approve Massachusetts and HQ second I have a motion to Second Deb could you call the

rooll on those two Please Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep Miss lvy yes M Pereira Mary Coogan yes um first one is the coordinated family and Community engagement Grant Mr agar so I'd like to just know what what is the impact of such a grant on the regularly budgeted prek Early Childhood that's you superintendent I'm sorry can you repeat the question so we're getting a grant here for 520,000

um what what would the impact be of this uh getting this Grant on our early childhood so we've been asking questions in the past relative to the cost of prek and how much it costs per placement and all that stuff now this is a grant so what would happen if we didn't either get this grant or what are the options for what we could use this money for in the grant is my general question so a

lot of money and um I'm appreciative of the grant but what would the impact be on the budget if we didn't get this grant Would we not be able to have a program so I think that this is is part of the larger program and um if we take a look at the at the budget Pages it looks like this is a this pays for a project coordinator for this partnership

because I believe that this is connected to work that we do with Community Partners as well and so there's a um a project coordinator and then also um it looks like three teachers educator instructors um stiens for staff participation in community events outside of work hours so I don't know that it I think this is this becomes a piece of our our larger offering around early childhood

education and I assumed the director is not here to answer that question no she's not does she work under an assistant superintendent maybe does that person have any any idea if you have no idea then just um not sure I was referring to oh I was going to say I anybody that has access I think I think to Dr Curley's point if I have an understanding a little bit I do believe that this is a

piece of the work that happens with all of the registration on the Go and all of our community events where we do have prek and Early Learning Center staff that are in attendance at these events and make them Poss so that we can be all over the community in the spring and in the fall particularly in the spring and in the summer getting our families connected to resources as well as getting as many of our kindergarten

students registered for planning purposes and why I um why I asked this is because when you're looking at the we only approve the number but we have to do a deep dive into what what do our pre look like and what are we doing with them and we're spending $500,000 but I don't necessarily see how is this being leveraged within the confines of the entire program such that if this exist

did not exist some of the worthwhile things that you both just said are happening how would they happen if it wasn't for this money if that was the case and we need to fund budgeted positions look two of these are office staff and Professionals for 68 68,000 well what do they do otherwise is that helping us with the budget or is these additional positions that work under the director that we don't necessarily know

when we are told at a meeting that there's extra helps needed I you know overwhelmed and all this stuff so the reason why I'm asking the questions is because it kind of flows with what we were told last month was that we don't have enough staff as it is now what I'm finding here we got $500,000 in a grant of Staff when I'm asking what would happen if we didn't get this grant would

we just not do these programs if they're worthy and I think there's probably more to it that the director can probably give us a some one page around but anytime we're going to spend $520,000 on a grant it's my in my my opinion as one member of the committee we need to have the director here to be able to answer those questions at a school committee meeting so I'm going to vote Yes just

because I think it's worthy but it's definitely worthy of more discussion thank you I yield anything further um can I get a motion and a second on the coordinated family and Community engagement motion to accept coordinated I have a motion a second second I have a motion a second what couldn't hear coordinator family Mr agya yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes M Pereira M

Hogan yes the next one that we have a hold on is one8 foundation ignite reading Grant Mr agar so this is uh I have a similar type of question on this that obviously I can I can read it says it's for 300 seats in ignite reading but what was the what was the options for the grant was this a grant specifically for that only so yes only or was it that we Noe

could have used it for something else and if that's the case what I don't have it I was trying to look to it quick but the actual licenses cost the entire amount or is it so it is literally um to pay ignite reading for 300 seats for grade one students in the district and so we had a um we we we ran the program this year this is high dosage literacy

toting in tutoring in grade one 300 students across the district we had an opportunity to extend the grant into a second year and we're we were choosing to do that we applied for that Grant and then in addition to that so that we could service students across schools there's something later on the agenda where we we'd like to fund an additional 100 C's locally um but I think the question is is this is this money

specific to the seats yes and the 18 Foundation require Foundation is willing to pay for 300 seats it wasn't an open Grant where we could write for anything for early literacy it was specific to a partnership with Ignite reading and I don't have the minutes of the meeting and I didn't watch the instructional meeting but I'm assuming that you had presented you or whoever presented that

the data indicates that this has been successful so I'm just assuming that but I'm not in assuming it does and so we were which is why we're looking to um expand the programming to an additional 100 students we um we have seen some marked improvements for students um I believe some of the data is is included here I know that we included it um for the instructional subcommittee but we saw

increases in the number of students who were able to um increase and kind of join their grade level peers reading at grade level um it we're seeing it huge increases in terms of those dible scores from um beginning to end of year so if I can just ask that that get sent the only thing we have here is three pages of emails so I do think it's if we don't

have any option to to spend the money I think it's no we don't have a choice so think it's successful but we don't have a choice on that 759 the rationale for it that's used um for the additional 100 seats is really the same um as what we would the rational for want to participate in the grant program but I could share that information now no I'll keep looking as as we go but the one for

this one didn't have it so as we go I'll probably find it thank you um motion to accept uh 18 Foundation ignite read second I have a motion to Second discussion Deb call the RO Please Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr Dias yes Mr Cory yes Miss larav yes Miss Perera mayor Coogan yes and um promoting safe and healthy learning environments um Mr agar did this go to the subcommittee too I just

wasn't sure I don't believe that it did Mr alme so I know that Mr faras sent out this Grant when he had applied for it so this is The Internship Grant that's going to go in conjunction with what's happening at the 21st century sites so there'll there are a total of 10 interns which will be interning uh all all year uh starting this summer through June yeah the only it sounds

like a a good program I just never heard anything of it and as a practice that we've tried to implement was that all these grants would go to subcommittee to try to get vetted beforehand and it sounds like they could justify it at that point um I don't know if it does this time is this time sensitive is this already just just in general Mr agar it's I it would be fine to move some

grants forward to the subcommittee previously or prior to but in a lot of cases they're kind of we're under the gun to take care of them and the state kind of gives us a timeline and that's the timeline and that's when we got to do it but if it's something that we can plan ahead for and you know plan for properly we can do that that's not a problem so I I haven't seen here but I

would probably be safe to say that somebody has to apply for a grant well Bel before July 15th we we applied for it I believe believe it was in June is when it was applied for right so to me at that point is that we're going to so if we apply for a grant the district and the school committee doesn't want to apply for that Grant and you already

applied for it and got the grant we are basically just voting as a rubber stamp to say this is what we're doing so all I'm asking is that as we go forward we say we want to apply for a grant to do this at that point we schedule a subcommittee meeting whatever one that would make sense that then we're all on the same page and say yeah that sounds good that we're going to apply for that

Grant so when it comes in it's sort of we already had vetted it before if you know what I'm saying that's all many things as we go through these contracts are lousy timing because it's July 15th and many of the things that are in here start July 1 and not many of there's several of them that didn't go to subcommittee so we're not going to we're not following the protocol is all I'm

saying so I'm going to vote Yes but if in the future information I Mr D it's a quick point of information what's the just the Mr agard's Point what's the timeline on the specific um Grant like when does it have to be approved by uh as soon as possible essentially because it's supposed to start this summer so there's no like deadline where we have to you have to apply by or is it

like so you want to use it for the the Dead the deadline was in June that's when we applied for it and we were awarded you know prior to we got we got awarded late June with the approval and I'm bringing it forward to you today so the deadline to apply but it technically not in effect unless we approve it tonight do it yep can can I just ask a question I you

I sorry Miss uh superintendent yeah so I guess I my understanding of the practice is that when we're applying for grants that there's a form that we fill out to to announce or share that we're applying for a grant and then it's been the practice I know in the office of instruction that once we get an award letter for the grant we basically send the same information out reminding you we applied for this Grant and we

received it and we in generally speaking we haven't brought um grants to subcommittee um I think sometimes if the timing is right and it's a big Grant like we discussed ignite reading at the last one but it's it hasn't been our practice and so I just want to be really clear about the expectation to do that the expectation that's right that's that's that's the practice right now the

the practice is that we that we fill out the paperwork but it's not that we go to correct to subcommittee Mr look to my point when did the school committee hear anything about this particular Grant I believe it was sent out in June Mr AAR no the school committee I I believe it was sent out in June I believe letting you know that we were applying for the grant I believe in June yes so if you

could get copies of that so mhm point that I'm making is that we should know when that's happening and then there's time in the middle to schedule a subcommittee to see whether it is but it's a dangerous practice as far as I'm concerned of approving something making it look like as if we 100% approve something before we even know what it what it is and in this case I would want

to know if that went out great if not show us the submission sure when did the grant get applied for and at that point we would say oh it was June 20th last minute I don't know how you apply for a grant on June 20th to implement two weeks later don't know how that works we just heard from superintendent's report that this program is already in existence and we haven't even voted on

it right we just heard that today that they're recruiting interns and all this stuff which is part of this we haven't even voted on it today but it's in the superintendent report at the beginning that says we're already implementing it just doesn't seem like it's it's backwards motion to approve if not if not made yet I have a motion do I have a second I have a motion to second any discussion Deb call the role on

promoting safety and healthy Mr AA yes Mr bailing Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes Miss Pereira mayor cougan yes uh item number 11 is the approval of contracts uh this we would use a similar format if anyone has any questions on any of the contracts um we can take them in sections or go through the new ones um we can do those first on the new contract TRS there's 1 two 3 four five

of them any polls or discussion Mr agie I mean I'm sorry Mr D so this is just on the new contract correct just the new section I um there's five there uh Mr D that's where most of my questions lie so I'm actually going to um have police holds on ignite Lexia um and two out of the three WB Masons the one for stone school and the one for what West all right so two of

the WB Masons the last two and ignite and Lexus so the only one we're taking a motion to approve right now is the first one from WB Mason furniture for rlm can I get a motion in a second on that one approve I have a motion do I have a second second I have a motion a second on WB Mason any discussion Deb call the role Please Mr agan yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory

yes Miss larave yes Miss Perera mayor cougan yes now we'll go back to the top ignite reading Mr Das um thank you Mr Mayor actually um I was going to put a hold on amplify not ignite but that's in continuation so I hold on that so um I have no questions about ignite if we want to move to the next all right can I get a motion on that then a motion um

made to improve I have a motion to second on ignite Mr Agia I just uh as we were talking about going through the agenda I don't see anything here relate to data so just just for the record that um it says 100 seats $2,500 per seat 250,000 that's all I see okay yeah I will reshare what we did at instructional thank you you set Mr AGA yes I have a motion a second Deb could

you please call the role Mr aan yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss laring yes M Perera Mary cougan yes um Mr Das Lexia learning thank you um does have a few uh different questions um one on the contract and two on the program itself um I know um um superintendent thank you again for responding to some of my questions so I'm just going to follow up on them um regarding the contract um

going through it um there was some items in there which um had some questions on um regarding the um the system so we're approving to this for the Public's edification um do we want to talk about the um what the two professional learning days um what that's going to consist so this is specific to Lexia English Lexia Learning Systems okay um is Lisa here Lisa zagarella I'm just G to ask her to speak

to it because she knows um more about the specific professional development line item of the contract than I do so the two professional learning days would be allocated the first would be an onboarding for the teachers so that they were 100% sure of how to use the program the second one would happen later in the year and that would be to have teachers once some data is generated by the

program to allow them a chance to work with the company to fully understand um the data of their students since Lexia English is a new program for us okay thank you and just so I don't get the too confused the Lexi this is separate from the Lexi English that's um cuz we have a few different Lexi Learning Systems in the budget so if it's not pertaining to this exact item just let

me know and and I'll save my questions um regarding the um Delia ior I know we had int not intense but we had a discussion about in subcommittee um more about the numbers from the last fiscal year to the prior I have some concerns regarding it because I feel like we didn't have see much of an increase I know we had a little bit of an increase in like

um in like the like the 100 like meaning like um a good number but um we talked about like a slight dip in the students that met usage from year to year um 53 to 49% um could you just give an explanation on like what met usage is like usage meaning they just used the platform or they met the basic standards for the program the the Met usage um is

a measure of um whether or not students participated in the number of minutes on a weekly basis that is recommended by the company so there's a range that says in order to you know make the expected progress students have to participate for you know between 60 and 90 minutes a week or you know 90 and 120 Minutes a week um you know and it differs by grade level okay NOS us a slight dip from 20

24 to 20 to pre previous fiscal year okay I'll yield thank you okay so uh Mr D can I get a motion on Lexi L uh motion so a motion do I have a second second Mr AGA so the basic what I'm seeing on this is the it's just the elll equivalent of uh the regular Lex year it's not I'm not missing anything right pretty much and how much do we pay

roughly is it relative to this or is this more per student than so this says $144,000 for seven I don't know licenses part whatever it is unlimited licenses is that for a whole classroom or is that for seven children I think that those are site licenses let me look at it so Mr agie are the seven licenses that you're looking at $144,000 for a site license so seven schools will be

getting full site licenses and then I believe you see 150 kind of random licenses that's because Lexia English is for our students who are at beginning levels that's what we're going to work on it with this year and so not every school has enough students at beginning levels to Warrant a full sight license so those additional the seven site licenses will go to the schools that have a large group of newcomer students

and then the other 150 licenses can be used ad hoc for any additional newcomer students throughout the district and that it's the same program Lexia English is different from Lexia PowerUp in that it's aligned to the weda so um it allows students to practice uh speaking skills and language development skills related to the Thea um standards to this one so the seven site licenses and the 150

individuals is that the same same exact program yes and seven licenses can be for as many students as yes so there was a um an amount of site licenses where to do kids individually it will become more costly at certain sites to buy individual licenses for kids than it would be to buy a site license and if my last question is if this is a program that's going to work I'm assuming you're

bringing it forward because you think it's going to work to help the children if that's the case how many children are not going to have access to this program all of our newcomer students will have access to the program how about the second one the 150 that would be for any newcomer students who are not sitting at a school that has enough children to Warrant a site license so for example

Doran may get one or two newcomers who opt out of foundational programs want to go to their neighborhood school so we want them to have the option to have that license even though they're at Doran and not attending a newcomer program at talbet Morton or C so there's going to be nobody that's not serviced by this program in all of the newcomer students not our Advanced students our

transitional students are not going to be working on this program but they use the regular alxia program they will have access to the to Lexia power up yes what if there's not 150 we pay for it anyway I believe that we do but I'm not really concerned that we will not get to 150 but you understand my point is I do fully it's almost like we're going to be at a point where we're either going to

have wasted licenses or not enough licenses so if you were telling me that we were going to be definitely you don't you're not going to have any problem filling this 150 that to me means that we're going to have more than 150 that aren't going to otherwise it's a very difficult number to prove right now because you don't know what you're going to get we have to I'm of the belief that

if it's going to work for the kids we should get as many as as needed I think that makes sense so so I think if we exceed 150 I'll be back before this committee asking for more licenses for sure sounds good thank you thanks anything further on Lexia can I get a motion a second there is a motion there is a motion second de please call the role Mr a yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr

Cory yes M ly yes M Perera mayor Coogan yes uh next hold was on the WB Mason furniture and pictures 2501 South Main Mr Das thank you and if I can like just ask the questions for both of them together or did you prefer you want okay um just I really don't didn't I I didn't see anything particularly wrong but just for the Public's edification at home the reason um because there are big price tags um

on these items and in the contracts um I didn't think they were very itemized um to to explain to my um circumstance um could you just explain just maybe if you want to start with stone then with West doll what um is being purchased with these two contracts sure so for stone first um the furniture that currently is is at um the West all uh school that furniture has been moved already once from um the

original stone at 1207 Globe street so the furniture is in rough shape um and it needed to be replaced so the the quote for 2501 is for new furniture in the classrooms um teacher desks chairs uh conference tables and um file cabinets bookshelves for 2501 so it's a complete fit out of that school for the first second and third floor the second quote is for westall and it's exactly the same thing that I

just mentioned um it's a complete fit out for a little over 300 students um and all of those ancillary pieces that go along with each classroom okay um what I just didn't see in the contract was um there was a cost for labor but what how much like out of the 296 and the 425 um how much of that is labor cost so there is on both items there a labor

amount um off the top of my head I can find it for you it's a turn key so basically they come in they set all the furniture up they clean they clean up if there are items that are that are uh damaged during shipping they'll take those back provide us with new ones um it's how we've purchased furniture because we've had a lot of issues with furniture that we don't put together uh

that we I'm sorry that we put together on our own we're missing both screws different items so the the company that provides the service through WME Mason um is doing this this work all the time and they always have so to speak spare parts um if needed so the service is well worth the dollar amount um it's um unionized Labor uh prevailing wage paid uh to the individuals doing this work

okay I yeld thank you any Mr dagia so I I I think I understood what you were saying this we're not not moving quality stuff we have stuff that's no longer going to be the stuff yeah the stuff that we have is in pretty rough shape so the only thing I'm as I'm looking at this it it's a big number what you just said about the um putting the stuff together yes it's 200 and something

thousand I mean it's it's uh 160 and 70 you know that's we're paying $230,000 to put together Furniture in two schools and I I trust me you're saying that it might not have worked in the past but 230,000 to put together Furniture I mean I know it's a lot of stuff but I just think you know there has to be a better I'm assuming you probably have looked in

is not a better way but that number is just so large to me no I understand that is almost like we're paying again it's it's a prevailing wage piece so we pay for veiling wage for people to put it together I don't have the Personnel to put together Furniture it's just valuable time that I need people doing what they what they're hired to do y and I think that one of my suggestions don't

even know if this is possible but when you bid instead of going to the state bid list or whatever we're doing probably with WB Mason is that we do a contract and say we want you to purchase the stuff and give us a contract including to put the stuff together so you're not paying prevailing wage for an extra person and I don't know if that's ever happened where we just say you know

to see that but 230,000 I don't think anybody would say that that's not a large number but why can't we just do it as a bid and have somebody so it is a bid this is a bid it is State contract but it's a bid and if the the items come together not assembled if they're assembled on our property they need to be paid prevalent wage we don't have a choice so if someone bought this

furniture from another company or from wbm and we hired them just to put it together they have to pay pil and wage we can't get around the pil and wage piece yeah I'm just I was referring to one person to actually sell it and put it together like deliver it put together I'm reading in here they're going to truck it to a warehouse I'm assuming that means our warehouse it's not coming

to a warehouse it's going to the in to the installer's warehouse and and they're going to bring it in right so the installer is receiving the goods the installer is going to deliver them as they can put them together we we're talking about a lot of furniture here so rather than clog up every room and hallways in in 2501 and in westall they're going to bring the work that

they can do on site um I'm not sure if they're going to assemble anything at their particular site my guess is no it's going to be much easier to move and if they did at their site they wouldn't have to pay prevailing wage they we'd still be prevailing wage because it's part of the contract got it so it didn't matter whether it's Insight or not and I to be totally honest moving stuff that's

not packaged is a better opportunity for we got to do we got to do I just wanted to raise that yep I understand that's a large number uh you know we spent $400,000 in furniture at the pay center and I was like what so guess there's not we can do our yield anything further on the last two Masons uh anything further do I have a a roll call that no motion motion approve

second I have a motion to second discussion Deb would you call the role Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Mr lar yes Mr Perera mayor Coogan yes all right the next section of U contracts is a continuation uh the facilities contract for Jefferson really any discussion on that as we're breaking it down by pieces Mr Das just going to um put a hold on

two of them um we're just doing the one at the top we're trying to break them down by sections Jefferson really understood uh no uh motion to approve motion to approve do I have a second second any discussion Deb call the role please M Dr yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Miss Pereira May kougan yes the next section is Grant contracts that goes to the next page

there's one at the top of the next page Wisconsin Center any holds on any of those Mr Das yes just two Mr Mayor um amplify okay and um Renaissance amplify and oh I'm sorry that's under miscellaneous I'm just amplify just amplify I have a hold on amplify anything else guys all right Mr Mayor Mr here I just had a a question for the superintendent or a comment so when um I was talking before about the

subcommittees so there's a lot of these that are technology related and we haven't had the subcommittee meeting to go over some of these even when it's a continuation one typically what we've been our practice has been to go through look at it and then Mr Cabell would give us data on how much usage we have and we have this program that tells you how much usages and all of the I haven't had

a chance to see any of that and I don't know if there's any on here that are absolutely needed under the current Grant contracts but the ones on the miscellaneous I do have some concerns that I would want to have forwarded to the subcommittee so I don't know if you know off hand or Mr alme can tell us which ones we have to approve but in this current group isn't the one I'm

concerned about as much as the next one we put a hold on the ones you want on the next group got it and we'll let Mr me to see what the timelines are so the only one on the grant contract section is Amplified can I get a motion a second on the others motion second I have a motion second discussion Deb call the role Please Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr D yes Mr Cory

yes Miss lar yes M Pereira Maran yes okay so uh Mr Das un amplifi thank you um and this again follow-ups from um um questions that I asked earlier um just going through the contract um there's some things that is a cost of contract U I just want to make sure um we asked these questions um so for this um development this professional development curriculum um so the 45 coaching day sessions you said

that was um H how many um per um sessions or day sessions are going to each school so in the information that we had shared um we shared that talet cussin Morton each receive one full day of coaching per month September through May Henry Lord Doran RPA and stone each receive a half day of coaching per month and that's based on the size of the schools and the number of teachers that are um being

coached and does that go into like a any need based at all or is it just at this at this time because because it's it's really just the second year of implementation um it it really is just based on the size of the school and um the number of Staff okay and um The Learning walks um they include uh district and the administration are those between um the the comp company

who who takes part in the learning walks so we there's district and school-based and um and folks from amplify who participate and then what we do you know we participate in amplify walks and then we replicate the same kind of walk in their absence um with District staff the school based staff right um I'm just trying to because I'm assuming is there besides these walks is there any communication between like your

Administration and Amplified throughout the year there's any concerns like what's like what goes into like those Walks Like what's brought up so when so they're directly related to the coaching and so when we when we're I when we've identified the priority areas in the areas you know the areas of focus where people are being coached we're going into classrooms and observing um I mean

really looking to see you know what's sticking and where do where do teachers need more support okay yeah I Y for now thank you okay any more discussion on amplify can I get a motion in a second on Amplified motion some second I have a motion to Second discussion please call the RO on amplify Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Mr larav yes M perrera May cougan

yes uh the next section is miscellaneous contracts I know Mr Agia had some questions what do you got Mr agar core there two three there second third and four second one okay two three and four there's three of Lexia magic school le Lexia magic school got it and uh neod which was your last one neod neod I got you anything else Mr Mayor Mr Das just renaissance renaissance got it okay so we have a

number of holes which is going to leave us with one 2 3 4 five six 7 eight others can I get a motion and a second on the others so moved second discussion Deb call the rooll Mr Mayor Mr AA sorry I just had a question on the parent square and which one not the parent Square I didn't mention for but just if the superintendent can issue us a report relative to uh the usage of the

parent Square just curious like coming out of this meeting yeah like to say like we've used it the last couple years to see is it beneficial is it not I hear that it's beneficial but the data is going to show us what thank you all right yes so the other eight I have a motion a second Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes Miss Perera mayor Coogan yes um Mr agar

Core Business there's three in a row those so I'd like to make so the part of the problem is that we don't get a chance in the subcommittee to actually vet these contracts so these are contracts that I believe that we agreed to sort of in a rush and just I think it's because it's easier not necessarily better and I don't know that we're getting the best service on these issues

so I think this should go before the subcommittee of technology so I'd like to make a motion that we uh refer the core business technology and refer those to the subcommittee on technology for further debate um just for simpl for me Mr agier so the three cores refer to the business I mean to the subcommittee is there any of the other ones you put a hold on you want referred no I think somebody I

think superintend could probably answer those questions okay I have a motion to refer the three Core Business to the subcommittee do I have a second second Miss larvi so is there a timing issue uh Madam superintendent these three so I was actually going to ask because I'm not sure what the timing is on the um on these particular contracts Mr alme so the core contracts are contracts

that we already have in place um the specifically the the other the second two not the fir uh the two and three the first is the yearly contract that we have with core for service and supplies of the copiers uh we can wait till next month we can wait till next month to uh talk them over committee okay so we have a motion a second on referring The Three core contracts Deb uh can you please

call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes M Perera M Coogan yes next hold Mr agel Alexia a point information are we going to vote to approve the others that don't have holds we already did did we just we took we we we took a motion to refer the the three holds to subcommittee we had a motion a second to approve we voted

before on the other eight didn't we we did the first motion was there was eight remaining after all that were Pulled Under the miscellaneous a motion and so now we're on the the other other hold Mr agar had Alexia Mr agar I thought I I held incident IQ um as well but is that a technology Madam superintendent that's not the program for uh buildings and grounds to to update the uh software

where it that's not what this is is it it's not right we had approved that like February or something like that where yeah this is more techn he's asking about incident IQ strictly for technology incident IQ is technology all right thank you if we already voted on that yeah we did Mr agar Alexia please so Alexia is the one we talked about earlier and I do want to just make a clarifying statement related

to this so as you know I was not I wasc concerned because we spent $6,000 on Alexia dinosaur yes and I continue to hear that um people come up before us in citizen input time and want us to be critical of I think it's aimed at me but maybe not but I think it's trying to be critical of me for bringing up the idea of spending $6,000 on a costume I want

to just be clear for the record I do not think that we should be spending $6,000 on a costume now is a costume needed to incentivize the kids and then get the encouragement and all that stuff sure when we have stmath and we have GG the penguin GG the penguin cost $400 for the mascot that's directly from SD math that we don't need to spend 66,000 I think it's just a little over the top just

want to clarify what that is we've never had a chance to talk about it but now this is Alexia contract I am totally for a mascot get the kids excited and have fun I think $6,000 is excessive and I think that's a picture of if we don't pay attention to $6,000 there there we're not paying attention to 10,000 there 12,000 there that's my only point so Lex here I support I think it's a

good program so I'm going to vote yes for sure but I wanted to clarify once and for all the last can I get a motion a second then motion to approve I have a motion Alexia yes yes okay I need a second second any discussion Deb craw the rooll on Lexia Learning Systems Mr AA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep Miss larv yes Miss Pereira mayor kouan yes on the

next one Mr Agar was magic school so when I uh you know how we talk about we should bring all these things to the subcommittee magic school is one that would typically come I believe to this instruction uh to the technology committee but I formally was on the instructional committee and I've never heard this at all so this is listed here under continuation contracts and when I look at the backup data it looks like we

had a pilot period of only $2,000 and now it's 31,000 so I this is just a technical piece of I think this was never rightfully before a subcommittee not saying I'm not in favor of the program I actually think it does some pretty interesting things that can assist us but no way did this ever come before a subcommittee in my opinion I'm going to I'm going to make a motion that we

approve it and vote Yes because I think it's a valuable thing but checking into the background of these would make it go to the sub committee so we can all know exactly what it is so we're approving something I happen to know what it is but not everybody does so subcommittee allows us to show here's the good things we're doing and then we won't be spending money on things that we don't use thank

you motion to approve second I have a motion second discussion Deb please call the role Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory obain Miss larvey yes Miss Pereira Maran yes next one is near pod Mr Agia please just looking for an explanation of what this is oh I'm sorry I thought that um Mr gabal was still here so um nearpod is software that's it's used by teachers um

and it was something that actually we first made available during school closure and um it offers an opportunity for teachers to kind of build a classroom build activities in near pod it's actually something that they use to kind of supplement their design of instruction and if I don't know the name of the program that has all of the um software in it that we can see how much usage we have

would this pop up or would that not fall under that oh I think it would um if we could just get the a print out of that or backup before the next techn ol subcommitte I'm going to ask for it but I'm just curious how much usage we had of it just to make sure that we're using it okay motion to approve I have a motion a second discussion Deb call the RO Please Mr AA

yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes Miss Pereira mayor Coogan yes the next one was Mr das's Renaissance thank you um I wish Mr cabal still here cuz I got a feeling he's going to be the best person to answer these questions um in the contract just so I have an understanding this is basically protection for the Chromebooks we we've ordered as a district am I correct not Renaissance

no under what's the cont what is that contract then CU I that that was my understanding that it was attached um in here is board dos oh no it's not related to that Renaissance is a platform that we use um to it's an assessment platform and it's a data warehousing platform data analysis visualization platform okay in in in board dos I remember there was a contract regarding um Chromebooks like protection like if

there were to go lost um like tracking information um does anyone do do you know um which contract that would be because believe it was under Renaissance but they they weren't labeled so I could have got that wrong um I'm I'm not seeing that in any of the disc that might be a Mr cabal one but he seems like he had technology issues make a motion to refer this to the technology subcommittee

second the Renaissance contract yes okay oh it's not a te it's it's not a technology piece it it's is attached to um office of instruction it's really what we use it's an assessment platform and um so we're using it across content areas grade levels motion is sent to the instructional subcommittee second my uh Miss lar is timing on that one as well it is the timing is not good timing

issue so there's a timing issue on that Mr Agia we just had a subcommittee meeting last week on the 17th y um can you amplify the explanation on what it does uh superintendent sure so uh one piece of it uh the illuminate DNA is the assessment platform um we've purchased some question Banks and things like that for the most part when once we transitioned away from anet um to do District benchmarking we started

building our own Assessments in illuminate we we were able to do that because of the number of release items that were available um in relation to mcast and so we're using it to Benchmark progress um across content areas and then in addition to that we purchased educ climber educ climber is um a part of the platform that allows us to do some intervention tracking um build student profiles it's really we're

building it out alongside our um system system for um tiered systems of support across the district and so that's something that we're doing in terms of the academic piece and we're building it out for social emotional learning as well we do have um you know we've had it for a few years now and um this is a contract renewal so Mr AA so are we using this in summer

school um well we're um I don't know the extent to be which it's being used in summer school um in particular because it built off of class rosters so any teacher or you know during the year their class is rostered they're looking at their student data in real time they're looking at their student profiles and their intervention tracking in real time um and I do not believe that we built it out for anything um in

summer school other than being able to use it to use to access previous data to inform what's happening in summer school yeah and I think it's already happening so when I'm looking at the contract it says July 1 again so we got a contract extension um so that we could bring it before the committee because it wasn't brought in June the company um I mean it's a kind of dual responsibility

here but we've had the contract for a couple of years we had actually done a little bit of a staggered start because we bought something that we weren't able to access immediately because we were just focused on some other stuff so the contract pieces of the contract were were put off They carried it over to they lost track of the contract renewal and so we didn't hear from them until

June saying we we messed up we only sent out renewals to people who's who had you know were in year two of a three-year contract we didn't send contract renewals out to people who were actually coming to the end of a contract so they sent it out to us late it was too late for us to get on that agenda in June and because it was a contract renewal um

that we were looking at we put it on so what did we pay last year um I think it was I think it was something similar and we didn't use it no no we did I'm talking about when we F we've been using this for the past three years um I just heard you say that we weren't using it so that's what happened was when we first bought the program um we bought a

couple of components of it and it became apparent very quickly that each of the components was a very big lift so we suspended part of the cont contract to the following year so there's one piece of it we've been using for a year longer than the other piece but in both cases we are we're at the end so for DNA and educ the only thing I would say is that

I made a motion to refer this because we're spending $400,000 on it I don't think it's too big a deal over three years to actually have a subcommittee meeting and discuss it but the July 1 date that's on the data and the information that we have and based on your own information was the per the companies lack of sending it to us so because they were they didn't do their

job it's now our problem to just solve something before we actually discuss it so I would like to continue to make the motion to refer it I have a motion a second yes I already second I just have a comment U Mr Das um just a respectful request going forward if we can um label the contracts and board docs they were labeled zero through we had I think 49 there's 49 contracts so um going through

all of them and trying to to decipher which one was which was a little bit of a challenge but just going forward if we can just put the names on the contract that that would be very um beneficial and helpful I yeld okay so we have a motion a second to refer Mr chairman just a read I just want to reiterate what Mr D said I was having a hard time finding this as well

because on the agenda it's called Renaissance and in the actual item is called illuminate education 148,000 yes so I think to concur with what he's saying it is confusing if it's it's not what's listed here like if the top of this page said Renaissance it would have been easy to find that's all I you T call the rooll on the referral Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep

Miss larvey no Miss Pereira mayor Coogan no uh that ends that section um special ed contracts any holds on any of those there's one two three four hearing none to approve I have a motion to approve do I have a second question motion second Mr AGA do the last one South Coast educational collaborative do we have a new member on that is's another one that uh that's the one that uh Miss uh Rodricks was uh this

a different collaborative is this a different collaborative yeah wait I'm sorry the last item here says South Coast educational collaborative yeah is that the same as smck or am I no they're two different collaboratives do we have a member of o on smck board currently I believe it was Mr Cory no was m r it was M rri but I don't have too somebody that's all I can yeah I you thank you

okay remind me to put someone on that board with M mck's leaving um okay so I have a motion to second on those four uh Deb could you call the role Please Mr AA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Miss Perera mayor Coogan yes uh Committee of the whole item number one is discussion and vote to approve the selection and appointment of Darlene meret LPN District approve I

have a motion to approve I have a motion to Second any discussion on Miss Moretti hearing none Deb call the rooll Please Mr I yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss L yes Miss Perera Mayan yes 12.2 is a discussion and vote to approve the revised English language assessment specialist job description as referred by the instructional subcommittee and presented by Lisa zagarella can I get a motion in a second

before we call Miss agell down so moved second Miss agella have a question she's coming Mr wait for so this is a this is a position that currently exists um it's just an up in the fra it's just an update to better capture what this uh person needs to do as part of their job responsibilities the position is currently vacant at this time so this doesn't affect any individual just going forward as we hire

one of the m major changes to the job description is that it does state that bilingual is preferred we are in need of someone who is fluent in Spanish in this position so if we are able we would like to hire um somebody who is bilingual this is a compliance position we must have someone screening our multilingual Learners and the volume of kids coming in that requires screening has increased over the years so we

definitely need a full-time position at this point Mr Cory yeah thank you I'm just concerned about the trajectory and those numbers with those groups and for is English langual learner that whole group in the trajectory is it growing uh what was the percentage maybe in comparison to 5 years ago so this year we're at close to 25% uh 24. 6 or 7 and five five years ago I know when I was at dery which is going

back a little further than that we were under 10% so about 10 years ago we were under 10% and we've steadily grown up to about to close to 25% within those numbers is there any way to um uh collate the amount of kids that are involved in um in subsidized housing that might move in and then move out how many of those numbers are movable or have those residencies been here for a number of years

so I don't have a lot of information about um whether the kids are moving in and out we unlike other districts do not have like a hotel that is taking in newcomers and then that they're being placed so most of our population is not as transient as maybe other nearby districts like New Bedford Brockton um however we don't I don't have the information about when kids move in and

out I'd be curious to get some data on our student base uh and uh the the English language learner base and just to try to figure out um how how long they live in this District so that we could properly service their needs and and as far as this motion I'm going to I'm going to uh support this motion but I would like to maybe make it mandatory that this candidate speak Spanish uh uh

you know some be multilingual I think that's like a really important piece in the connection between this specialist and the job itself we could certainly do that the struggle would be if we do not have a Spanish-speaking candidate we will need to supplement somehow with some the kids need to be screened so until we hire a Spanish-speaking person if we're going to require a spanishs speaking person we

would need to have a way to fill that Gap um it's difficult to find find someone who is willing to work kind of on an ad hoc basis we were very fortunate to have someone fill that role this year while we were waiting for the right candidate for this position um so we certainly can wait for somebody who's fluent in English and in academic Spanish liser is this a position that's um um where the uh the

candidate has to be certified with a college degree yes they do and they need to have what we have found is they absolutely need to have class room experience so that they can understand when they're interpreting the results of the assessment that they can understand what type of setting would be the best fit for our students so it absolutely does need to be someone who is certified

and has classroom experience thank you for that I yield anything further one question Mr a this is the job that reports to you but works out of the pay center is that the that is yes that is is there other people that do that I recall a conversation in the past about how we screen is there different screenings that go on or is this the this is the screening yes so if this person's not

hired you just have to get people from here and there whatever yeah we tend to fill in with licensed teachers who are willing to work extra hours with what we do during the summer because this is an frea position so we need to fill in in the summer with people who are certified and who are able to do this job yep and the only changes were stuff you're saying that just was not applicable not

that there's not any major changes to this so your posting was already out I'm assuming your so the posting has been out for a while um and we have some there are some changes to it I believe in the backup you can see the original job description versus the changes to the job description but what is posted is my question I'd have to check the website to see what is currently posted the old

job description should be what is posted so now you just changes because we can't can't post the job that we didn't vote on description I'm sorry we can't have the job description that job description is definitely not posted Mr if we vote for it you're going to change it to yes so should this pass tonight we would then post this job description tomorrow morning hopefully and do you have any

candidates did anybody ever apply so at previously this position was also we had the person teaching at tany as well and we did not have anyone interested in teaching at tany and doing this job last year mhm so you I don't want to know the candidates but you had nobody apply for the job all last year not so somebody took the job to teach at tany and then do this job and then resigned and then

since that point we have not had anybody else apply but you said it was posted the whole time and you had somebody fill it as far as I know it was posted the whole time I never I never requested we just get that data just interesting as we see vacancies you know here we got a lot of vacancies well trying to figure out what is the reason we have vacancies

if no one at all is applying then maybe there's another thing that we have to tweak so if you can just get us that data thank you I Yi anything further uh Deb could you call the role Mr a yes Mr Bailey Mr D yes Mr Cory yes M larv yes M Pereira mayor kougan yes interview 123 Mr Brian Raposa applicant for the position of assistant superintendent Chief academic officer for the F Public Schools

um Mr Raposa is the superintendent of school's recommended candidate for this appointment and his position will be assistant superintendent Chief academic officer Mr Roser do you want to open up by telling us a little bit about yourself I'm sorry Mr yeah I'm sorry just by way of just this the function of this position or the way this is worked out is that the superintendent is making this

recommendation so I think just for the edification of the public the superintendent should first acknowledge and sort of preface the situation to say what happened so that we're not asking questions of Mr reposa whatever and then usually typically what would be happening we get the questions that were asked at the meeting which we don't have so I have a couple of questions I want

but I I would personally like you to say why you you know what happened how did he get to this point so that when we ask questions it's all in context of we can either approve and we can't unreasonably withheld it and so I just just think it would be best if you told us why is why is he your candidate and then we can go from there I would love to so Mr Roso

was recommended to senior leadership by a representative committee as one of two finalists for the pool um from the pool of candidates following finalist interviews Mr reposo was identified as the candidate of choice for the position during the interview Mr raposo demonstrated a deep understanding of in commitment to our community and the exceptional skills and knowledge base he brings to the work of equity focused

leadership our team in our district know Mr raposo to be a key player and leader in turnaround work in the district specifically at cus Doran LNO and talit and also in his role as lead principal and principal Mentor additionally his communication skills and ability to build strong relationships have fostered Community Trust and collaboration across the district and throughout our community I respectfully ask that you

support my recommendation and approve Mr raposo for hire as the new assistant superintendent Chief academic officer as it is without reservation that I recommend him for this position thank you Dr C do we have any questions we'd like to ask Mr ooso anybody want to make a motion Mr AAR so uh thank you for being here sir so 12.3 just for the edification of the public it says interview Mr reposa

applicant for the position that's why I wanted to kind of preface that how the situation goes and naturally I've worked with you for many years here so I I know what you're all about I know what your your skill set is but I have a just a few questions so absolutely one of the questions I think that makes sense to ask is one that I asked two superintendent candidates when they came

and it reads and I'm reading from the phone because we didn't have a chance to get him ahead of time it's not a secret that Fall River has struggled with academic achievement uh overall data shows that we are barely getting back to pre-co achievement levels which were not at to begin with can you explain any specific situations where you were instrumental as a leader in moving the

needle to improve academic achievement absolutely thank you good evening uh I appreciate the opportunity to be here um so you know I'll start at the beginning I think that's a great question I think that is the most important question um you know I see this job our our main Enterprise is teaching and learning um I've been lucky in my career to be surrounded by you know amazing Educators

nothing that I've been able to do um I've done you know on my own and so I think really part of this work is building trust and building teams um and really um making sure that we're treating people as human beings and supporting them uh to do the toughest work that there really is in terms of specific examples as a classroom teacher I was at cus Middle School I started in

fer as a substitute became a classroom teacher in special education and Mathematics um I you know as a teacher in my own classroom um was able to really impact student achievement uh particularly at the middle school level at cus with students with disabilities um and general education students I at the time was one of U um several individuals who were hired um as cuss was in level four status and was part of

that team um as that as that building exited level four status at that time I became a math coach at Doran School um and department head there um and similarly Doran at the time was a level four school I was there for three years and uh really my work was there to support teachers I leaned on my experience as a class teacher and worked really closely with teachers in classrooms doing the work um so that we

saw a result you know in increased student achievement at Doran and that school also exited level four status um I became a principal uh at lerno and it was a uh you know a very powerful transformative experience for me I had no experience as a building principal um lerno as some folks may know was actually in the second percentile at the time and uh we met with a Department of

Education it was actually lero infons at the table um and trying to determine what we would do in terms of next steps for both schools when I was placed at the principal lerno um you know the desie really gave us an opportunity and said we're going to give you a year to see what we can start to you know what what turnaround can sort of happen at that school um and really with the staff

there um I really credit you know folks anywhere that I've worked for um being extremely flexible um you know jumping in on the journey we know that the work is really hard but I truly believe that if you can look to to your left and right and know that people are there to support you we can do anything and so um we move that school from the 2nd to the

16th percentile um you know in in uh as measured by the accountability data there and so um at that point I moved to talit um talit as you know is a school right now in the third percentile we've uh certainly struggled with student achievement I think that um our student achievement data does not reflect right now the work that's actually happening in those classrooms rooms um I really

think that our Educators at talbet are exceptional they're doing amazing work with our kids and where we have seen gains right now is in our attendance data we've seen gains in Stu and some of our student achievement data with certain um in certain content areas uh particularly last year in our accountability uh data and science we saw some some gains there uh we know that we have some continued work to do

and we obviously can't understate the fact that we had a pandemic in the midst of um you know our turn around work at at talit so I think we're you know the the team there um has done some exceptional work I think we have really strong systems in place um our Educators as you know you know in Fall River um our teachers have endured quite a bit in terms of you know new curriculum lots of

different initiatives and so I think about my team there who you know in this past year has adopted and embraced you know amplify as an English language arts curriculum and before that had several different iterations of what it was that we should should be doing in terms of ela and so I think now we have adopted this curriculum folks have really embraced that um and our Benchmark data

at the site level last year in ela I'll use that as specific example um showed lots of growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year so I do think that we'll start to see that reflected in our student you know at the accountability level as well because we're trending in that in that direction my other question is on the um when you look at curriculum you just

mentioned that there's a lot of curriculum all around and you had been here for a long time through various iterations as you said of various curriculum now this position is districtwide and you're going to have a tall task to try to get everybody on board relative to what's happening as well as you know working together with them but do you have any any thoughts on what that would look like under you as

uh your term as an assistant superintendent of curcum yeah so I think my my I've never been an assistant superintendent right um and so I've been a school principal I'm going to lean on what I know how to do and I'm going to lean on the people around me so I think the first piece is um the building principle really has a lot of Leverage in their building and so I think I can

be a support to building principles I can be um a thought partner um I can I can problem solve with them they are really the individuals that are um really designing and setting the culture in their buildings and ensuring what is you know what is being accomplished how their Educators feel what is happening in plc's what is happening in professional development so I think that's one leverage point that I'll have

and then also with the directors you know at at the building level I mean at the uh District level so I think part of what we need to do is really make sure that everyone starting at the top um is on the same page in terms of what the expectations are with directors and what expectations are with principles and then how are we feeding that you know down to teachers at the site level who

are doing the front lines work um one thing you know one mantra for those who know me is that I I really do think less is more as a building principle um often times I have to find myself you know I'm I'm a gatekeeper at times in terms of how many initiatives can we manage and do them well and so I do think there is something to be said for looking at what

is working what's effective really staying focused and committed to a handful of things trying to do those really really well and then decide when it's right to sort of add something else in so I think you know my first job is really to listen um and really listen to understand not listen to to sort of rebut um and so I think I know what happens in talit really well I have some

general knowledge of other schools but I'm not living in their classrooms and so you know as a building principal I like to be in classrooms I see myself as a teacher and so I would Envision in this role my first step is to really listen to people um building principles Educators see what's actually happening in classrooms what people need and how we can um make their job a little bit

you know more doable for them um and I know one of those things will be looking at all the initiatives we have and there has to be some prioritization right it's just impossible to do 15 things really well so we need to think about what is it that we can focus on and have a great impact on study that Implement that and then see what we can add and I think you

share my concern about I think everyone shares my concern about the academic achiev achievement levels are are wul low and we have to do something about it and we can't my opinion is we can't just keep doing the same thing spending a lot more money on in a lot of different areas and the results just happen to not be there so I for one will be looking for either bold action in some way with

you in collaboration with the superintendent to say that a year from now when we sit here it's not going to be saying well if we wait a couple more years we're just you know starting it at some point that the rubber has to meet the road and we have to say no our achievement level has to improve I 100% agree with you and I want you to know that the work is personal to me right

and so in any position that I've been in um I've you know I I stay committed to the work I keep the work near and dear and so you know as a whether it were as a classroom teacher as a coach as a building principal at two different sites the work is really important to me and I will be committed to ensuring that we're seeing the results right it means nothing unless we're moving students I

shared with my staff this year um you know that that what drives me to do this I live in the community I'm invested here I I started as a substitute teacher and I have two kids and I want to make sure that I'm designing a school that I would want to send them to right that that's how important it is and I think that we have Testament to that in the

schools that I've been in there are many cases where staff members are saying you know what I'm choosing to put my students in this school and I think that really speaks to um the culture and the work that's happened you know in those buildings and I would just say in closing so what you you said actually makes sense and it actually what you've shown over the last whatever period of

time that I've been here so I am going to support your candidacy but I do think it's important to know that it's important to you it's important to everyone but we just need to raise the achievement level and I think you're going to put the work in I think you're going to put the time in I do think it's a challenge now at this late hour to figure out what's going to go on in your

old position but we can't hold good people back uh now it's going to be a challenge on the superintendent to figure out how to fill your spot in the school so thank you for being here sir I appreciate your answers absolutely Miss lar thank you mayor how are you great thank you good uh first thank you for all your dedication to the district uh today uh you have an impressive resume

uh Tal's going to miss you I know the uh the adult and I will miss tal but thank you but I'll still be here I'm not all right okay but um you kind of answered some I I had a two-part question sure but um one of them was what motivates you about becoming our uh Chief academic officer and my second part was what you envision will be your immedi uh Focus but I think you kind of

answered that already with Mr agar's Question so what motivates you uh to become our RC yeah so I think in short this is you know an important question that I think all of us have to revisit um frequently because the days get really hard and we have to remember and maybe sometimes have written it down to look at it um and so I think you know my why is I really believe that any student

in Fall River um regardless of where they live in the city should have Equitable access to a high quality education they deserve it um that's just you know that's a right and so I think like in any position I can be in to continue to impact that at the building level I've enjoyed the opportunity and I really love um the work that I do as a school principal I think this just

presents um as another opportunity to impact that work on a larger scale and to really work closely with principles and directors which will in turn you know impact um student achievement thank you I wish you luck I am as well thank you to be voting big yes thank you uh Mr Cory nice to see you here Mr aoso I want to wish you well I'm going to support

your position um I just I I want you to know that as a school Committee Member and as a former uh Fall River educator I'm not a fan of high stakes testing I never have been I never will be I think it puts undue pressures on the teachers and the students and their families I've had deep discussions with our superintendent about it and she's helped me to further understand you know

the workings of desie so I'm not a fan of desie straight up that being said uh what a lead in to the question yeah thank you yeah how about a question that being said you said that the student achievement data at talbat is not reflective of the work that is going on inside the school and that to me represents the gray area the greatness of teachers and the connection they have

to their students because I think it still is the most noble profession in the world I really do a big fan I'm a former school teacher former School adjustment counselor and I care deeply on the mental health and the academic wealth of our student body and that being said um just wanted to ask your opinion do you see any kind of forward movement on potential for the growth of chapter 74 Hands-On education in public

schools that's a great question I mean what I can speak to at my current um in my current position is that um you know we've been fortunate at talit um to add you know a program at the middle school level I know that the high school has some programs I think that one of the things for us that has been great in terms of just um vocational education has been early exposure for students and

so I think you know um I I don't I can't speak to that necessarily as I don't know um is it something that you would advocate for once you're in this position for additional vocational yeah absolutely I think um you know I think it's important that we provide opportunities for students to pursue um whatever may be next for them and I think more importantly that may spark an interest in something there are tons of

related fields it gives students a different sort of opportunity and so I think that's something that we can certainly look at um I know we have enjoyed the opportunity at talat to be able to expose students and even this past year um we partnered with the dery CTE and students actually came in and did some work in the building which was awesome um and you know you know was impactful to almost connect the two

programs in that way so I think that's something you know we can certainly sport with the demographic that you've been serving at talbet for this past few years um do you do you ever get a kid coming up to your saying boy I really like doing something like that building something or working with my hands or working with technology or anything like that yeah absolutely we have students

who um you know we have students who ask to take part in that um we've also used it um as an as just a different Outlet so if we see something that's not working for a student it's nice to have another option and say hey let's try this um so I think that's great and I would say that our classrooms in general um should really reflect we should be you know thinking about what we're doing

in classrooms in general so that kids are creating kids are thinking critically right those are the skills that that kids actually need to be successful so I would argue that even in the context of the regular school day there needs to be opportunities for kids to collaborate for kids to think creatively for kids to think critically to defend their reasoning those sorts of things that have to happen you know in

the context of of the school day and to my colleague's point about our data being so woeful over the past several years I've refused to believe in the woefulness of our data because I don't agree with the high stakes nature where the data is derived from and I think there's so much of a gray area in learning especially scientifically speeching when our students are so young and and they're easily conditioned uh

there are so many environmental conditions that have affected it and everybody in the auditorium understands that you know but so there are so many Hills to climb and mountains to climb as far as desie data is concerned that's why I'm not a fan of it you know because I just want to see our students be happy Learners I want to see them feeling some some warmth of success you know and

something they can grab grasp on um emotionally that helps lead them forward into greater success in their own lives that's what I'm coming from absolutely you know so I just hope that uh in your position and I'm going to I totally trust in what you're going to do because I want to congratulate you mostly for your commitment to the Four River Public Schools and your career I think it's

commendable that you're standing here in front of us now uh being interviewed in a raw sense by us you know but you've given your career to our kids in our schools and for that I commend you thank you I yield thank you Mr Das thank you um thank you um principal reposal for coming down um I haven't had the pleasure to I'm getting to know you yet however everyone I've spoken to all they

tell me is if you get this position tal is going to lose I'm a great leader um I just have a a few questions um um in your in your opening um speech um you talked about um building trusts um could you just give um the committee some examples of how you've built trust with your peers throughout um throughout your career and how that can like reflect with building trust with us sure yeah I

think trust takes time um I know that you know in order to build trust there has to be vulnerability on both sides I think for me coming from the lens I come from a lens of everyone deserves a coach um and I use the word deserves because I think we only get better through coaching and so I think that our job is really just um wherever we are at any

point in our career is to continue to grow and develop and get better and so I think one of the ways is to make myself vulnerable you know as a as a as a coach as a principal um you know sometimes teachers may see it as interrupting but sometimes I like to hang you know go into a classroom I may even jump into a discussion you know as a principal when

I was at lerno um you know at that particular time I would even uh coach in classrooms with teachers you know I I would actually teach some lessons not everything's going to go perfect right and then we have that coners ation about um what happened there and then I think you know the most important piece in building relationships is to treat people as human beings and so I think

regardless of the position that I'm in I approach individuals first as a fellow human being um not necessarily from a lens of being someone's supervisor it's really important to me that I'm connecting with them on a human level um and that's you know that's something I would want to continue to do no very nice um last question for you um how important is the word transparency to you that's an interesting question

important I would say in what could you give me the context in terms of sure the reason I asked that and um not questioning anyone but um I always get asked um I always get comments throughout the community um School District needs to be more transparent transparent with the public on anything so I just want to see how important transparency was to you yeah I think that's important again I think you know

obviously in My Lens as a building principle um you know it really depends on the context if it's about a student issue or an issue with a family there may be information we can share or we can't uh but I think when it comes down to you know programs professional development support for teachers things like that um initiatives we should be as transparent as as possible thank thank

you I look forward to supporting your candy just a quick question for the superintendent um you mentioned there was a Review Committee with candidates and when did that uh Review Committee begin um let me check the date on that the 2nd I believe of July I think it was July 2 it was the Tuesday July 2nd yes perfect um at this time um I'd like to make a motion um to select and approve on Mr

reposo I I want to talk for a second though I didn't diets and I do I will even second your motion I just want to say I've been in uh both of um Mr propos of schools when he was principal at lerno and Talbert and I always like the climate in there I like the way things move I look at the flow of a school when I have the opportunity to walk around with you so

I'm uh I'm very confident in both you and the superintendent and the other assistant superintendant that you're going to be a strong member of the team and uh and move the district along that's all we're looking for what's better for the teachers what's better for the kids what's better for our families and that it's in a nutshell what I think you're going to do um now that Mr Das has made his motion I'll

second it any further discussion Deb call the role please Please Mr AA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss ly yes Miss per May Coogan yes congratulations thank you

Mr Mayor Mr Das just a quick clarification it's approval pending um like the what we did for superintendent pending the um negotiation of a contract okay okay um 125 is a discussion and vote to approve a proposed job description for the director of student services to approve I have a motion to approve can I get a second any discussion Mr Das thank you um just a clarification this is a um

Amendment to an existing job description or is this um new it it's it's an amended job description okay to a position that already exists for the associate princi one of the associate principal positions at dery okay and I just um the reason I just asked I forgot to bring that contract in front of me um what was the um salary range was it um like prior and what's the salary range um now so the

set salary range prior um was in three B and um it looks like that was um 94,6 to 151 379 and um and again I just don't have that contract per me what's the um salary range if we approve this the proposed here is 95,9 35 to 138,139 okay I thank you any further discuss Mr a just a point of clarification I believe this is a new position it's budget did in the school department but

this is a new position just want to clarify for the record okay yeah so I'm not sure how it's classified okay new position it's not new as far as uh spending like we have money a lot of than the budget but it's actually a new position that's more aligned towards new type of Duties that are responsible for the person thank you thank you that uh can I get a roll call on that please oh

so I did have a a request um and it we've already spoken to um the f a about it um the the job title that is listed in front of you is the director of student services and school culture and um we I'd like to suggest a title change to the director of social emotional learning and so um in Support Services um and the the rationale is really around the fact that the position has

responsibilities um with regard to students as well as staff and the initial recommendation for the job um the job title seems very student specific and the the uh replacement language director of social emotional learning and support services seems to Encompass um motion approve the recommendation second second so we have a motion to approve as amended on the amendment that we'll do that first can

you call the role yep Mr AA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes Miss Pereira M Coogan yes now on the job itself um can I get a motion oh we already have a motion we have a motion go ahead Deb please thank you Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larav yes Miss Pereira mayor Coogan yes uh 126 is discussion and vote to approve

the use of dery High School auditorium on November 9th motion to approve for the little second with a question and the on the 20th for the annual Christmas concert uh Mr agar uh question is just on the status of the dery auditorium is the roof ready is it bid out is it is the place in good shape this is the this is for this one that we're in today but

I did check on that today I believe uh capeway systems won the bid on the roof uh they're doing some planning uh they believe that roof up there will be done in October and they're hoping that in the same time frame the um fire suppression will be put in those are two of the key pieces to get the building ready to go can I just ask again for an update not that update but from the

school department I've asked in the past for just periodic update so I don't have to ask this question every time that's all we can do that okay thank you all right so on the on the approval we have a discussion I mean we have a vote do we have a second second we have a motion second uh Deb could you please call the role Mr yes m Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr

Cory yes Mr larv yes M Perera mayor cougan yes I hope we see you all there uh discussion and vote to approve the fourth quarter budget transfer as presented by Kevin almea so this is the final transfer for the year for 2024 uh the largest areas for transfer were the facilities department and the special ed Department uh in regards to the special ed Department it was to cover the prepaid SP sped tuitions that

were approved back in May uh in the facilities Department we were able to um pay for to pay down 2501 South Main Street totaling $3.6 million in addition uh we have funds to start to purchase materials uh for the PACE Center once the roof and the fire suppression um is done uh totaling about 1.5 $ million uh in addition to that um I've provided in your documents and in your backup with an explanation for all the

transfers and anything over $50,000 any questions Mr agar just on that uh that first one about the pay down of the South Main Street so it says that payment total so that's what we just came up with or is that no that was we we we had already made the payment so last year we we made a pay initial payment on the building uh this year we made our yearly payment that we

made at the beginning of the year and in June I we contacted the uh RDA to find out what the payoff balance would be and that was the payoff balance for the RDA for for the building so my only question then is can you please tell me where the vote of the school committee was in order to do that I'm sorry can you tell me or get me a copy

of the vote of this school committee to pay down that entire amount of money at the 2501 sou meain well the plan I the plan all along has been to try to get the building paid off this year and it's been in my quarterly reports to you can you tell me where the vote was of the school committee to fund that right now and how much was funded in June so like

you said we made a payment what was the yearly payment that we had uh I don't have it right on I don't have it right on a million or less more than a million so for the year you added 2 million recently to pay this off no this was the full 3 million to paid it off this year so the other money isn't this this is not to make payments in the future this

was to pay this is so the 3.6 million is new this isn't encompassing the original payment at the start of the year no it's not it's an addition it's an addition it's an addition so my only concern is that we don't get the information to us so that we can make a decision as a body whether we want to pay down or not at the same time as we're saying we're

going to pay down to 3.6 million which we were under no obligation to do because we had said that we was going to be paid over several years at the same time as we're talking about this I have to go around to school buildings and look at mold and HVAC systems that don't work and at the time we're told superintendent's told I was told Mr di was told when we went and the other

custodians that were there are told it's going to cost us money get these up to Snuff and to have them 100% working but we don't have that money and at that time I said well when is it got presented to the school committee to say we need a million dollars to pay for this HVAC system so that it runs properly we don't have the air conditioning going down and therefore the buildings heat up and then there's

mold and we got to figure it out after the fact where is that's the reason why I'm saying This Not That in one lens this makes sense yeah pay down the you know pay it off at the other time you got to put yourself in my shoes as a member of the committee and I hope everybody else that says why why don't we get a chance to decide if we wanted

to pay that off this year or pay for the proper equipment to make sure that our systems work to the 21st century standards we're told that for eight years the air conditioners haven't worked we're supposed to be able to tell an alarm goes off when the building heat goes down or or the or the chiller goes down or whatever the language is we're supposed to know that but we haven't fixed things for years upon years upon

years superintendent was right there with us talking about this for years we've had the same thing so it's frustrating when I say oh we don't have any money but it's not presented to us then we come here and I say oh without a vote of the committee we just decided to put 3.6 million towards the school it's not your issue Mr uh elme it comes from the top you take your direction from the

superintendent I totally understand that way that goes I much would have rather have had a decision to make when we said hey we're sitting on 3.6 million June 1st maybe a better use of this money is to expedite making sure our HVAC systems work properly so that we don't have it or all the things that we're spending it just really is a it's it's just disheartening I guess is the

way I ask every every meeting about how much we're going to have savings how much and now we got 3.6 plus we probably have $6 million in in in extra transfers that went on here and this committee did not take a vote and I def anybody to tell me that where we actually took a vote to pay down that money because we didn't I'm just going to say that it's been communicated that it was in the

documents that we've provided qu quarterly to you that was that was the plan was to pay down the building yep and I like I asked before I understand so the actual law reads that the way School committees are and one of our responsibilities budgetary that we decide overall what the budget's going to do you as the CFO superintendent as a superintendent does not have the right to just transfer 3.6 million without

coming to the school committee I don't care what anybody says that's not the case and you or anybody else can't find me a vote of this committee where it was said we were going to spend $3.6 million to pay down that bill understood thank you I yield anything further I'm Mr Das thank you and I have a couple questions but just to um to pick you back on Mr agar said he's brought up a very valid

concern I could ask through you Mr chair to the attorney um if we can look into that if we're supposed to um be voting on these I think we should but is it a requirement that we take votes on matters like that when we're transferring that amount of money with respect to uh that mayor if in fact the school committee would be looking for a legal opinion I would be

at the vot of the school committee I would uh be glad to uh research it and and issue a written opinion I'd like to make motion that um we request attorney Assad look into that matter second I don't think we need to vote for that but no I was going to say I don't think typically but Mr Das is new so like I do support what he's asking he's got a motion second let's

give him a vote go ahead um Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Mr larvey yes Mr perero Maran yep uh next question Mr D thank you um just regarding um and I had um a conversation with the superintendent and I um mentioned it to the committee about the bill structure um I just have a requests and a few follow-up questions um for the bills when we you send out when your

your team sends out the bills for the school committee to sign off on um if we can have like a rationale or an explanation attached to the bill um to to the to the batches that would be extremely extremely helpful what specifically because we you know and I say that not to be respectful but we send we have so many bills that we pay that that it would be a monstrous like

task to take on that's the one reason why I'm asking it would I think it would be helpful as one member to know when I'm signing um no each each B you know each batch had you know sometimes batches have up to 50 bills on a batch and there's 50 invoices and the documents are all attached to it so if there's anything specifically that you have a question on we can obviously we can

definitely answer it it's just just to ask just to have every Bill explained that's a task in itself thank you I would agree with that the only issue is um and I spoken to um members in the past that if I guess it's been a practice and and I'm not sure but I I've I've seen this firsthand myself um I've asked specific questions on one batches um before um I got the answers um from

someone your team and I asked when I got my answers uh my questions answered they told me I asked if I could sign they told me they passed it off to a um another school Committee Member so I wasn't allowed to sign so I guess my question is just to to get an understanding because again my my first month in here um like how do bills get dispersed to the committee is it just

sent to All um 67 of us or um is it sent to a select few um how do that work it's s it's it the bills a sent uh we we have certain members that won't sign so uh we send them to everybody else essentially that won't sign on when did the last batches um go out last week last week MH there's none that went out this week not not for this week no when

you say last week what day last week um Thursday I believe I was say I believe last Thursday okay the issue I have with that um I never received the bashes to be signed I don't know if it's because I the been questioning them or I don't know if it's um a mistake but um I'd like to see the bashes before they get signed off for approval I think um we should definitely look into that matter

I you thank you Mr Das uh Mr uh Corey then we go to Mr in reference to Mr das's Question um I think three years ago there was a school committee vote to um lessen the amount of signes uh for these batches in order to expedite the payment for these batches I think we took a school committee vote uh where everybody had to sign off on from four names I I believe down to two along

with a central administrator I don't remember the exact structure but I do remember taking the vote to help try to expedite because of the as Mr almea referred uh there's a tremendous amount of billage and there's a tremendous amount of of signing and to go through them is is inordinately it's impossible really so the way it's done now with docy sign it just helps to expedite everything and get the bills paid on

time and so I placed my trust into uh the central administrators knowing that you know this this these accounts are being handled in an extremely responsible way and then uh we doc you sign it with two school committee members as well as a superintendent and then and the chairman and then it's it's done so the school committee did take a vote on that Mr Das in U maybe right around uh the covid period with that I

yield Mr AG what's the reason why the school committee would sign I'm sorry what is the reason why school committee members have to sign why they have to sign yeah like what's what's the rest their responsibility to sign off on the schedules and what I couldn't hear that can you say that the responsibility to sign off the schedule for what's being paid it's the school committee's

responsibility to actually sign off on it yes so so when I look at the uh situation and I'm the person who told you I'm not signing ever again MH so on on the computer because there is no way to actually know technically what you're signing the timing on what you're signing and the backup documents so I never told you or anybody else don't send the information to me but I did say

not to do it I won't be signing it because at the end of the day when I was looking at it people people are approving it within I don't know a minute of it coming out two minutes of it coming out and at that point it becomes a foolish process of that we're signing off on something that nobody's actually taking a look at so I hear what Mr Das is saying because if he had a

question and we asked the question somebody gets called and says oh we need this sign we need this sign like it's a big rush and that's how it gets done and if we went back to the data and looked at it you're going to see that when it gets posted and when it gets signed you probably have sometimes minutes and it automatically gets signed to your point Mr elme you have 50 different things in

a batch a lot of things in a batch there is no way in hell that any member of this committee can look up all of those items before they sign in five minutes or 10 minutes it takes a long time and it's been happening just boom boom boom boom boom so I agree with what Mr Das is saying what I can offer as a suggestion some of the questions that I used to

have was if somebody has a uh for instance a receipt from papaginos because they brought uh uh vocational students or whatever they needed a legitimate expense there's a sheet that they have to fill out for their supervisor to say what it was those documents that document isn't there just the receipt is so I think just trying to help would be to say if we have put that cover sheet it it'll explain it's signed

off by the head of it just made explain it a little better that's all I'm saying but all I would ask going forward is that everybody gets as a school Committee Member all of the bills sent to them and then whoever signed them hey sign her if somebody wants to sign something and not look at it on this board that's up to them to to deal with not for us you got thank you I yeld anything

further oh Mr D thank you um and and I thank you for um educating me Mr Mr Cory and I can respect the fact that we switch from from having everyone go into rock Street to what signatures I can I mean that to um electronic signature I have nothing against docus sign um and I understand the urge for expediency and I understand um and I respect your um your comments regarding

trust um and I I'm not alleging anything I haven't seen any specific issue it's just um receiving all these documents I you just have to ask questions just um this what might my perv youw to do I just wouldn't sign anything without going through them that but that's just me um with that being said the the Bates last Thursday um so they weren't intentionally withheld from myself no okay I didn't I didn't receive the

batches yep so I I just um wanted an explanation so the way the way it typically works and I'm going to have to look into it is we have to send it to two people that's the way that's that's the way it works typically uh but um I'll look to see what kind of permissions if I can up if I can update those thank you and just if I can recommend and and that's why I emailed

the committee if I could recommend a policy change going forward if there is a question regarding expenditure like for example when I first come on there was concerns about Le the purchase of Lexia the dinosaur I as one member would like to get more questions before signing that and before it's approved there should be a system in place if there's a question on expenditure that needs to be signed off there's a way

that it can be held before it is signed off approved and nothing can really be done at that point cuz it's too late it's signed off um we need to again balance again the need for expediency and getting Bill sign with the with our responsibility of fiscal management and um yeah fiscal management i y for now thank you if I can just if I can just respond go ahead I totally agree with

you uh I I we have no issues responding to your questions and that's totally legitimate the pro the only thing I'm going to I'm going to comment and say is that I don't want to go back to the days where it was taken 6 eight weeks to process bills so whatever we can do to keep the process efficient more questions are are fine I have no we have no issues with that and we will address

whatever questions we anybody has uh but I I do not want to go back to the days where it was taking six to eight weeks to process stuff to be honest and thank you just one quick followup go ahead just a quick follow up and and I I I wasn't around for those times and I can understand how that could be a headache for your department but if there's specific questions on one or two bills

not not hundreds um there should be a process and I'm going to Advocate this for this in the future there should be a process and policy where it can be held for questions without it being approved but I'll leave it at that for now you got it thank okay uh do I have a motion a second on the fourth quarter budget transfer moved second I have a motion second dead please call the rle Mr AG

yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss ly yes Miss Pereira mayor cougan yes uh 128 is a discussion and vote to approve the year-to DAT budget report is presented by Kevin almea Chief Financial Officer so you have your qu your fourth uh quarter budget in front of you by cost center we've provided all the documents that we provide uh on a quarterly basis given you an update on

where we are with the budget um where we are with the Easter funds as of June 30th um where we are with insurance which um at this point with insurance the balance is slightly under $200,000 that's left over we've pretty much spent the uh full amount for this year so we should not expect a big uh amount of money to come forward next year in Insurance um so with that I'll open it up to

questions Mr yeah I just want to find out Mr alme how we do for uh the for the past School year I think uh uh July 1st started a whole new fiscal year so how did we close out on June 30th you know I I I understand the sentiment around the pay down of the uh 2501 South Main Street but I do think that that is a great thing I think that gives us

leverage in the future moving forward I think the fact that we Pro we uh prepaid tuitions again you know giving us some leverage moving forward I think you know from a sustainability kind of standpoint the fact that we've been able to to do those types of things the last several years I think it's put us you know in a really good position moving forward so we closed out fiscal year 2024 in pretty

good standing yes yeah and as far as the payout to 20501 is concerned uh we voted to move into that building we knew that moving into that building was going to incur certain costs you know and and to properly furnish it and outfit it is is is going to be something and and it's because we're we're working within the compliance of an expanded Early Childhood uh to help that building

outfit itself properly and so I think we we're moving in the right direction with all of that in place I'm I'm very pleased to see the growth I'm very pleased to see westall return to a neighborhood school so that you know it affords those parents you know it it's going to save us on some transportation it's going to be really really good so I think we're moving in a good direction

and to know that fiscal year 24 closed out and you're in good standing that to me that's good news with that I yield Mr AG do you have a rough total of all the transfers like what is the number for the year no for the fourth quarter yeah 5.3 million 5.3 million so that just means that it was $5.3 Million at somewhere within the budget that wasn't spent safe to say through different things

happening varet of things all year that's basically from money that was not spent so we have a policy quarterly of the the language in the policy I believe reads that when we knew what was the um amount that was going to be unspent it fluctuates all year I just want to preface that but when we knew the committee was going to get a bite at that apple to say what we felt that money should go for

and what I'm having a hard time with is when we have 5.3 million available to transfer in the fourth quarter how much did how did we not know oh I think I know the answer to this but we definitely knew we were going to have a lot of money unspent in that fourth quarter the thir the third quarter had you know the second and third quarter had what the balances were at that time projected correct so

between the end of the third quarter transfer and the this one we spent we had $5.3 million in savings somewhere that's where I'm trying to get at that at that point when we were going through the you know all the meetings we had I would have rather have had it said we got 5.3 million what do you think as a committee we'd like to spend some of this stuff on as we were going through

all these challenges and the HVAC is just an example of something that is it's really bothering me that we didn't spend the money to fix those systems so that's what I'm basically at when you look at the 2501 um payment what we agreed to when we authorized that was round numers 1.3 million per year for the next three years would have had to been paid what we chose to do was take 3.5 million in

cash in money that we could have spent anything we wanted on currently and said we're going to pay that down now now granted in the future we won't have to pay the 1.3 million but we have expenses that we didn't get a chance to decide we had a reasonable rate as far as what the uh going rate was for the thing we authorized 1.3 1.4 million for the next three years we chose

to run it up so to my colleague on on my right yeah I have no problem with what we did as far as opening 2501 my problem is with the financing of it we said we were going to spend that in the next three years now we just took $2 million or $3. some million in savings and in instead of saying we were going to fix the mold and the HVAC we decided to pay

down the debt that's and I don't think I'm wrong in saying that that we you're right basically it's like having actual cash and we just said we're going to spend it on that that's the point that I I just don't agree with and the piece about the um signing and all that stuff I I firmly believe that we should be getting it all the time the whole committee because that gives every

Committee Member the equal access to say what is in the bill schedule if the system system is in place that only two people or your whoever's doing that can just select two people that's not fair to all the other members and being transparent to say we're all seeing the bills and that's the first I heard of that only two people get it sent to them and I do get a lot of emails saying it's

closed out so if I get the email saying it's closed out why not get the email at least to say his transparently what is in the issue understood all right thank you sir I can I get a motion in a second motion to approve second I have a motion second de please call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes larv yes Perera Eric hugan yes um we

have a no 13 we have a number of retirements resignations appointments and regretfully some people passed away can I get a motion in a second uh so move second uh Deb can you call the role Mr AA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr cor yes Miss larv yes M Pereira Mary hugan yes item number 14 new business any M new business to come before the committee Mr agar yeah Mr chairman so uh I recently

was in a in a meeting in a hearing where it was determined that the um when we meet as a subcommittee currently if someone can't make the subcommittee meeting if one member can't make the subcommittee meeting then there's no mechanism or if a person had a conflict in a subcommittee there's actually no mechanism for that person one of us to be able to get a substitute on the school committee and I'd like to make

that in a form of a motion that moving forward if any member of any subcommittee meeting cannot make a subcommittee meeting that they're allowed to contact another member of the committee to take their place for that meeting and what that's going to do is allow somebody happens to be on vacation we have emergencies we have other things go on but so for instance if I couldn't make the meeting I could call any member

of the committee and ask him can you please sit in on that one particular committee for me and I'd like to make that in a form of a motion so we can have continuity and when we have only two members at a meeting the third member can actually get somebody to replace Mr agie my my only question Hawkins back to what we were just talking about do you send out an email

to everybody on the committee first and say could someone make it Wednesday because Paul Coogan can't make it or do you pick somebody and say come on over I would like it to be just whoever they they feel comfortable picking because they need if obviously if I said Mr Cory can you replace me and he says no the person who's absent it'll just be much more streamlined if the person who's

going to miss it ask somebody to sub form right if I said Mr Cory can you fill in for me on the sped subcommittee meeting I know he's been around special ed and alternative Ed if I asked him hey I'm going to be a away my family can you make the meeting and he says yes for that one meeting he can fill in for me right now there's no mechanism for that

so if that wasn't the case we just keep on having a difficult time getting full membership I think it's fair Mr Mr Cory then Mr z Oh any Zoom capability for an instance like that zoom in I zoom I was away for one of the subcommittee meetings and I I zoomed in no we can still Zoom I'm pretty sure we still can zoom they extended another year so I don't know if

that makes up for the well in May I missed a subcommittee meeting but I I remember zooming in for it well I think I think that covers it as far as I can still remember that the governor extended the ability to zoom for regular meetings so it's got to apply to to is if somebody has no ability to zoom or they have a conflict that they can't so right now there's no mechanism so

naturally you'd say first step would be can I can I zoom in okay if somebody's either incapacitated or they're out of the whatever they're not able to do it right now there's no mechanism for it it might NE never come to fruition but it's also something that we should think about that if somebody had a specific conflict they can actually get somebody it doesn't it's not Mr D no I was just

going to say I don't disagree um I think that's something that should be in a form of of a policy so I had to make the motion to for the matter to policy is that legal subcommittee we're actually voting on it now we make a policy right now no I yeah but I'm just asking uh attorney aside is that's legal to sub people in first of all the uh with respect to uh uh policy

uh I believe that the the mayor appoints to the uh subcommittees right uh and the only suggestion I could make is I would make would uh would be that if there's someone who cannot make in and you need to appoint someone else is that they contact you as mayor and that you appoint someone yeah I really don't I that that doesn't bother me if that's what we're going to do um I I will be

glad to do that I think I think Mr agar's got a good point let's keep the meetings going I I I don't have I don't have a problem with that responsibility subbing people out and do I'll do it on a rotating basis that's what I'd like to do so if you made a motion that you do that I I'll support that no Mr Mr Das did I'll second that this is the only

thing about when I'm thinking about that it's like you might think that's fine the next mayor may have a different I think that should be something that should be in writing personally but I'll still support it's support the motion I'll second the motion all right so we got a motion a second I have no problem with that already did but we don't follow policy here so go ahead so

my the reason why I made the motion was so that we can get out of the habit of trying to figure out well we got to call the mayor to do it quite simply my motion was to make sure that if a person was gone they could say to another colleague this is what I want to do if you want to add to that motion in essence that's the mayor actually appointing that person we

can take that next step but it shouldn't be just every single time and then to rotate around if somebody's out they call somebody that's what I made the motion at so that we can actually the person who's absent can actually say Mr Corey can you please fill in for me he says yes then it would go to the mayor to say it it doesn't have to be a convoluted process here so it's not the chair

no my Mo my original motion which would take precedence we're not supposed to take second motions if when somebody makes a first no I I I think it got subbed out so let's go back I'll withdraw I'll withdraw my second on Mr das's motion but's stay with Mr agar's original motion okay I have but I have a question okay okay so and I I think it's a great idea that that it comes up for

discussion I don't know that we're prepared to take a vote on it in this instance and so I would refer it to the policy subcommittee just for a subcommittee discussion so that everybody can get acclimated to the idea it's not a bad idea it's a good idea you know it's just that uh there's certain ins and outs that should be discussed are you okay with that Mr Ria sure okay

so you ref takes precedence can I get a second on that one second all right Deb call the rooll Mr Agia has a motion to uh find substitutes for subcommittee meeting when someone's Out Mr Cory refer referring it to the subcommittee Y to ref would it be the policy subcommittee y yes and that's Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larv yes M Pereira mayor C yes uh item number 15 is

a request for executive session so moved can I get a second um you want to read them okay Mr uh Assad will read the reasons First Nation Law chapter 38 section 2187 review and approve executive session minutes for June 10 2024 regular school committee meeting M Law chapter 38 section 2187 to review and approve executive session minutes for June 27 2024 special meeting of the school

committee AC Law chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to col body relative uh relative uh including hearing I'm sorry including hearing grievances relative to All Professional teaching employees the forward School System including coaches Title One teachers nurses occupational physical therapists and specialists in the teaching profession represented by the for of Educators associations the chairs

ATT tun the Open Session may have a detrimental impact on a bing position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to Collective Bing relative to all administrators and employees representative of the for administrators Association as the CH is determined that no possession may have a detrimental impact on a bargaining position of the

committee M laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collect the bargaining relative to all cafeteria employees of the for school system represented by the American Federation state county and Municipal Employees Council 9 local 1118 as the chair is deter the Open Session may have a detrimental impact on the baring position of the committee National laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 discuss

strategy with respect the collective bargaining relative to all maintenance employees of the forward school system represented by the American Federation state county and Municipal Employees Council 93 local 1118 is a chair is determin that no possession may have a detrimental impact on the baining position of the committee mat Law chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respect to collect the

Bing relative to all custodial employees of forward school system represented by the American Federation of state county and Municipal Employees Council uh 93 local 1118 as the chair is DET an open SE may have a detrimental impact on Bing position of the committee M laws chapter 38 section 2183 discussion strategy with you respect to collective bargaining relative to all safety security

employees in the for school system represented by the American Federation of state county and Municipal Employees Council 93 local 1118 as the chair has determined that open session may have a detrimental impact on the bargaining position of the committee Mass General lawers chapter uh 38 section 2183 discuss strategy with the respect to collect the bargaining relative to all civil Serv CI civil clerical employees

of the for school system represented by the for Department of Civil Service clerical employees Association and the chairs determined that an open session may have a detrimental impact on the Bing position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with the to collect the body relative to all par professional employees the forward school system

represented by the forward Federation of par professionals as the chair's determin no possession may have a detrimental impact on the Bing position of the committee Mass General Law chapter 38 section 21 A2 to conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiation with non-un Personnel specifically to new assistant superintendent the chief academic officer of the former school department

to be selected who is selected and appointed by the school committee in Open session at the July 15 2024 regular meeting of the forward school committee Mr Brian reposo is the superintendent of school sole recommended candidate for the appointment to the position of assistant superintendent Chief academic officer for the for school department M Law chapter 3A section 2182 to conduct

strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel and or to conduct contract negotiation with non-union Personnel including Brian La Human Resources Director Kenneth Pacho Chief Operating Officer we uh uh May reconvene and there may be statements at that time we will reconvene and there may be statements at that time uh de please call the role Mr Haya yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory

yep Miss lar yes M Perera May kouan yes recess

we're back in session Deb please call the roll Mr agam yes Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory here M larvey here Pereira M hugan here there anything further to come before the committee yes Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the executive session minutes for June 10th 2024 regular school committee meeting I a second do I have a second second discussion D call the rooll

Please Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr uh Das yes Mr Cory yes larv yes Mr Pereira mayor Coogan yep uh Mr Mayor can I uh make a mo a motion to approve the executive session minutes for June 27th regular uh special meeting of the school committee I have a motion second discussion Deb call the rooll Mr AA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Corey yes M larvey yes Mr Pereira mayor Coogan yes anything

further yes Mr Mayor like to make a motion to accept the contract of the new assistant superintendent Chief academic officer Mr Brian raposo as negotiated I need a second second I have a motion to Second discussion Deb please call the RO May Mr Mr D I I um I I I never mind I I yield Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes per mayor Coogan yes Mr May I'd

like to make a motion to accept the contract for uh Mr Brian L human resource director as negotiated any need a second second I have a motion I have a second Deb in discussion Deb call to v please m d yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Miss Pereira R houan yes anything further yes M uh mayor I would like to make a motion to accept the

contract for Mr Kenneth Pico Chief Operating Officer as negotiated I need a second second I have a second uh Mr Mr Agia yes so um I just have to justify my vote and I'm going to be voting no on this contract and I just want to State a few of the reasons so we went into executive session we received backup information related to this contract at 10:17 p.m.

tonight we shouldn't have to do that and vote on issues that were not presented with that being said we need to vote on the issues that are before us and not whether we're friends with somebody whether we like someone or not and we have to look at some of the job performance and some of the things that are currently ongoing in the situation the last meeting Mr Pico stood before us at the podium there

and stated that he took the blame for the mold issues and the lack of systems working in the schools we're currently doing an audit of several of his departments based on the prior superintendent's concern as well as the committee at the time for how the how the systems are in play in those departments I asked for a lot of backup information over the mold issue over the last month related to trying to figure

out who knew what when relative to all of the mold issues to this date I still have not received that from Mrs Pon or from Dr Curley Mr Pico walked around the green school with Dr Curley myself and Mr dis and indicated that he agreed that the HCK systems have not worked for many years uh I asked Dr Curley tonight to put a pause on this to no avail just for a

month just so we can try to figure out any of these other issues if they would were going to come to fruition um I asked in the back to table the discussion three members voted no and they chose instead to agree to a $144,000 raise for Mr Pico tonight I simply cannot support this under the current conditions that are out there relative to some concerns that we have with it and that's not to disparage Mr

Pico in any way Mr Pico is a standup person who stood up there and said this is his some his responsibility for this he said that in a public meeting what I would have liked to have happened was that we take a pause on this so we can try to get to the bottom of all these issues we sit before us and have people concerned about the maintenance in our

buildings and the mold and all the stuff meeting after meeting after meeting and now is not the time to give a $14,000 raise to Mr bico or anybody in that maintenance department because right now there's a lot of questions about what happened in that department so people can say oh we just wanted to do it because he does a great job and all this stuff that's not the point the point is

is that we have a lot of ongoing questionable things that are happening never mind there's many more things that I could talk about that we should have taken a pause here but superintendent three members of the committee chose not to take a pause so if I'm going to have to vote today I'm going to vote no I don't think a $14,000 raise is in order for this under the current conditions I

yield uh Mr Cory um I'm very proud for my yes vote on um Mr Pico's contract because his reputation precedes him as far as our facilities are concerned with sitting in a state-of-the-art building that he oversaw process from day one until completion and um as far as our facilities are concerned um they're all in very very good shape now the mold issue is a new issue and it's being addressed and the discovery in the

additional schools is as a result of addressing the mold issue at lerno and so I'm very happy to know that it's being addressed and that as far as our facilities are concerned they look absolutely wonderful and I'm very proud of the way they present to the public I'm very proud of my yes vote and a person in that position we just voted for the proper salary range in today's economy with that I yield Mr dce thank

you Mr Mayor and just to add to Mr agar sentiments um we received a rationale tonight for the salary and when we went through it we receiv that tonight again at an early time at 10:00 which again I agree with Mr agar we should be getting information before beforehand and secondly we can't even guarantee we we receive no guarantees that the information in this document is accurate um there's some um typos with the

numbers with the um the salary range we don't even know if there is a salary range with that being said I cannot take a vote on an issue when there's potentially in if I'm given potentially Mis acccurate information and again it has nothing to do with whether I like personally like the person or not it could be my own mother I'd vote no on this contract tonight and that's what I'll do I Yi

okay I I I am I'm proud of the job that Kenny Pico does for this city and the schools and I do want to say knowing full well tomorrow there will be a mistake in one of the 20 buildings something will go wrong somewhere but I know he will address it and it will get dealt with and that's how we should be looking to people and I do like the fact

that when he does make a mistake he stands up and takes responsibility and if we're looking for someone perfect they're not sitting in this Auditorium tonight and they're not sitting in this city so I am proudly going to be voting yes Deb would you please call the role Mr AGA no Mr Bailey Mr di no Mr Cory yes M lovy yes M Pereira Mary Coogan yes motion to adjourn second Deb call the rooll on

adjournment Mr agam yes Mr Bailey Mr d i yeah uh yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes M Pereira Mar Coogan yes