8.12.2024 Fall River School Committee

I'd like to call to order the Monday August 12th regular meeting of the farest school committee Deb could you please call the role Mr AA here Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory here miss larvi here miss Pereira here mayor Coogan here uh I believe Mr Bailey will be joining us by zoom and when he pops on we'll let everybody know salute to the flag please I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all pursuant to the open meeting law 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 acknowledge and permissible recognition Awards um we have none tonight citizens input uh obviously we have a number of people signed up to talk we're going to respectfully ask that everyone keep it to 3 minutes because even when we get done with the sheet we do have a number of letters that were sent in it we also want to make sure get addressed so the

first person up tonight for her three minutes Katie El Elliot uh Winford

way hello my name is Katie Elliott I am here as both an educator with experience uh for an extensive amount of years and um I'm also a dedicated mom Katie can you can you go right to the m yep thank you um I've been a mom for more than 24 years and I approached the issue of banning cell phones in schools from a unique vantage point with my youngest about to start sixth grade at Morton

Middle School the topic of uh managing cell phone use is especially relevant and important to me and I'm relieved at the thought of him not having access to his phone during the school day I believe the ban on cell phones in schools is beneficial drawing from both my professional background and personal experience number one reducing disruption and fostering focus and engagement from an educated standpoint

cell phones are a significant source of distraction and disrupt the learning environment whether through ringing texting browsing my experience has shown that when students are focused on their phones their engagement with the material diminishes I've witnessed firsthand how these interruptions can derail a lesson and impact the students ability to learn as a mom I want my child to make the most

of their educational experience which means being present and attentive during class I want my child along with all the students to have a classroom environment that minimizes these distractions and maximizes learning opportunities number two promoting academic Integrity cell phones can facilitate academic dishonesty they make cheating easier and undermine academic Integrity as an educator I strive to

create a fair testing environment as a mom I want my child to understand and value honesty in their academic Pursuits Banning cell phones helps uphold these principles and can help minimize opportunities for cheating during exams and assignments number three encouraging personal interaction in my role as a mom I value the importance of face-to-face interactions in developing social skills and forming

meaningful relationships in the classroom direct communication with peers and teachers is crucial with phones out of the equation students may be more likely to engage more with each other and build stronger more personal relationships number four promoting healthy habits excessive screen time is a concern I've navigated as a parent I've seen how it can affect health and well-being limiting phone use can help

reduce eye strain poor posture um better sleep patterns and um many headaches that the kids can um can have from the extensive screens number five ensuring Equity that's three minutes rules I'm sorry second thank you so much oh ma'am um we have a motion on the table to wait the rose to allow you if you want to continue with your 3 minutes if we can take a vote on it I only have a few more

points only three more or four more um I'll say really quick ensuring equity and inclusivity not all students have access to the latest technology which can create feelings of inequality in my experience promoting a Level Playing Field is essential for a positive educational environment a phone ban can help mitigate these disparities this of course leads to number six minimize bullying and harassment cell

phones can be used for cyber bullying which has been proven to be detrimental to a child's life in some extreme cases resulting in child suicide by restricting their use students can reduce instances of this digital harassment um and also creating a safer environment number seven this is the last one encouraging responsibility in self-reliance managing time and focusing on tasks are skills that will benefit

students throughout their lives by limiting cell phone use we can encourage students to be more self-reliant and responsible in their academic and social Endeavors they will engage more with physical resources such as books which so many of my students seem to have forgotten and don't know where the dictionary is in the classroom and uh it's been a struggle I did teach middle school last year um so I I dealt with it

firsthand it's always oh let me just check really quick on Google what does this word mean and I have to teach them how to look up a word so in conclusion my dual perspective as an educator and a mom leads me to strongly support the ban on cell phones um it's about creating the best possible learning environment for our kids preparing them for the world and um their success academically and someday professionally

thank you thank you um next speaker is from Pucket I'll need a motion in a second still moved second second all in favor I I opposed unanimous Alex Bradley Julian Street Pucket um three three minutes please Alex yep sounds good I'll be very brief today and I won't cry again again promise so um I'm going to be brief I just wanted to quickly come up before any other speakers come to explain the

visual representation that you see in front of you um every empty seat here represents one unfulfilled Fall River position currently for those of you who cannot see maybe at home there are 80 open F positions eight have been open for over 6 months 35 open sped positions eight of which are self-contained and 27 are inclusion positions keep in mind that this number was higher but positions have been recently filled

with new hires and something I have noticed in my seven years at F frps or working in F frps is that we have a lot of turnover we may have a lot of new hires but that is partly because of how many people leave this is a hard District to work in and people will not stay if they are not adequately compensated for their work it's not just about us the Educators think about how

it affects the students how many students will not be getting services how many students will have a substitute for some or all of the year we need highquality experienced Educators to give the children of Fall River the educational experience that they need and deserve thank you thank you uh next up Kristen Anderson Roberson Street three minutes Kristen thank you good evening my name is Kirsten Anderson

dery class of 2023 hello again I'm entering my second year of college majoring in English with a minor in secondary education and I'm here to speak on behalf of the future teachers of the fer Public School District a few years from now I plan to take my degree and come back to the district I grew up in when I come back to teach I want to make sure my salar is a livable income

at the last several school committee meetings and this one I've watched my teachers and those I hope to one day be my colleagues stand up here comparing salaries of neighboring districts and telling their personal struggles and how this pay correction is necessary I don't have these struggles yet I work part-time and I go to my job and I don't have to beg for my pay I'm hurt to see

that some of my favorite most memorable teachers have stood at this very Podium begging for an increase so they can provide for their families give back to their students and just live please think about this how can our Educators live on these wages why are highly ski skilled professionals with master's degrees having to work second and third jobs why are professionals with Master's

degrees begging for more money why do they have to why do we have teachers with degrees on food stamps is this what FIV has to offer me a mountain of school loans and public assistance why are similar districts not having these issues we have similar funding to New Bedford Brockton and toon our priority should be paying our teachers a comparable salary so they don't leave offering a competitive

salary so other graduates want to come back to Fall River like me and get back to the school system that did so much for them and was such an inspiration you all understand the work these teachers put in and the importance they have in students lives everyone has at least one teacher that has influenced them with a cost of living in Massachusetts the increase in housing cost thanks to the

new train and of course the astronomical inflation rates on top of that teachers can't live on these wages you as a school committee have the ability to stop uh ability to correct the teaching salary and F stop humiliating these teachers making them beg move on the salary we all know you can find more percentages and find the money you have a chance to help these teachers and make

forever a place with competitive wages a place people can afford to come back to a place they want to come back to a place where these teachers can stay in the district they've worked so hard for with the students they love because they stay for the students certainly not the pay since I was 5 years old sitting in Miss M's classroom at tany I was inspired and knew I wanted to come back

to teach in fler so please make it a place I can afford to come back to thank you

uh next up John Andre Prospect

Street hello if I could remind everybody that speaks adjust the microphone so that we can really hear it hello uh Hey Okay so after Co people don't want to be teachers anymore and honestly who could blame them um this has left schools underst staffed nearby districts are understaffed too but they pay more and they're all hiring um this is important because regardless of how long someone's been teaching here or what

they teach it's actually never been easier to leave before covid our teachers knew that if they had worked in low paying Fall River for too long they were stuck here and after so many years they become an expensive teacher so instead of hiring them other districts hire someone who's worked here for a few years and put Urban education on their resume um the rookie deserter gets rewarded with a better pay scale and the

veterans get rewarded with not nothing mold poisoning um but these last few years have shown that veteran teachers aren't stuck here anymore um it's normal to see newbies leave teaching here is hard but since covid I've seen many teachers step 10 or higher leave both days before the year starts and months into the school year and they're all doing much better financially uh it has

never been more apparent that we could be rewarded with buckets of cash if we just screw you over um in the end being paid so little um compared to my friends who have left makes it feel like my loyalty is being weaponized against me um and throughout this entire bargaining process I feel like the school committee has been kind of distant cold and deaf to our cries um for help regarding

retention and pay so I prepared for thought-provoking questions um that invite us the River Community and people at home who are turning in um to reflect on the school committee's actual level of commitment to Staffing our schools whether you address these or not today I feel like you kind of already addressed them um with your actions more than your words um or whatever words you like come

up with to address this number one uh when the school committee sees that you students at home haven't had a math teacher all year knowing that your mcast scores in graduation are on the line knowing the easy fixes right there but choosing not to ensure that we're paid a wage that would staff that classroom what does that say about how much they truly value your education and your success number two when the school

committee um tells teachers in front of these cameras that they're interested in bargaining and would like to participate but are nowhere to be seen during bargaining sessions guys guys I'm going to go over if you keep doing that uh but are nowhere to be seen during these bargaining sessions and haven't been seen the entire year how can we um and people at home and the Community Trust

anything that you say how can we believe that you're not just lying to look good to get reelected uh number three when the school committee sees that their teachers have been asking to get paid a better wage citing difficulties with putting food on the table and requiring safety nets like food stamps but your offers to us have been less than half of what we asked for just to be on par with

other school districts what does that say about how much you listen can the people of Fall River be certain that they'll be heard if they come to this Podium with their concern concerns number four when school Committee Member Kevin agar says that we fail forward in this District however this district is among the lowest paid in the area how can he be so blind to the fact that we're being set up to fail from the

start and he has the power to help fix it uh my closing remarks are these school committee members you can't be creative about salaries there's no incentives no bold moves no teacher appreciation week that fixes this problem just pay us uh your proposed 5% adjustments are a start thanks for getting there in August um but it doesn't compete with other districts and it's not going to fix any of our

problems it won't be enough to staff our schools not enough to keep people from leaving and not enough to ensure our Student Success thank you thank

you the next person um the next person I am asked for a motion to wave the rules is from Brockton still move Mo can I have a second second all in favor I opposed the unanimous Robert Gorman Somerset Drive Brockton three minutes please Robert thank you I don't know how I'm going to follow that great job John uh good evening ladies and gentlemen of the school committee up until this point

I've spoken several times regarding the financial plight of the Faller public school system and the decaying state of autonomy found within its Halls I've given you numbers illustrating how underpaid we are and the hopes that it has been an oversight and not by Design I've spoken of studies that allude to methods of holding on to your veteran teachers once you pay them appropriately

hint it's autonomy who knew at this point myself and other members are beginning to fear that statements like these are falling on deaf ears it doesn't help to assuage those fears when F members approach the podium to discuss finances only to see specific committee persons maybe decide that now is an excellent time to reorganize their binder we have a problem holding on to our talent my wife taught here for five

years she loved her colleagues love the students she taught ell students math she left dery 3 years ago because a district closer to just paid 10,000 more and because the Carnegie curriculum when implemented as instructed was inappropriate for the El population the autonomy to adapt the curriculum for students was withheld from her she felt hamstrung when it come to teaching we lost a computer science teacher to a

district with similarly higher pay and less micromanaging we lost an Algebra 2 teacher to a district closer to home with higher pay I personally know two Math teachers that have applied to other districts because of higher pay and we already have math POS math positions that spend the entire you're unfilled I advertise to my teachers volleyball group in Bridgewater that dery is hiring

and I can't blame them for laughing when I answer the salary question knowing retention is an issue is the issue it is you can understand my confusion when I get to the bargaining table and see that what is being offered after laying out all of the numbers after showing how the district State contribution has ballooned and yet we're still seen by you as bargain teachers I'll work my

butt off for you but I am no bargain teacher your honorable attorney your honorable attorney feeds us the same message every time we meet about how the Gap we're trying to close can't be closed in a single contract well no kidding that's what we tried to do last time and we were told the exact same story about how this is just a start we don't know how much money we're

getting this is all we can agree to come back later for the rest this is us coming back later for the rest how many contracts how many contracts is it going to take then how many times is the state contribution going to be readjusted do we expect it to be readjusted again anytime soon how many times is far we going to see the influx of cash from the state that it has seen in recent times

now is the time this is our chance your chance to make good to make things right you know right after bargaining session the F president Keith michon was talking to attorney Assad about how bad contracts had been agreed to in the past the honorable attorney chuckled at the statement and responded something to the effect of if they're that bad then why did you agree to them well I don't want

any of you to worry we've learned a lot about what we're capable of as a union recently and we don't plan on agreeing to any bad contracts in the future thank Youk you thank

you uh next up Jennifer Brogan Russell Brogan Boulevard Fall River good evening my name is Jennifer Brogan I've been a teacher at dery high school for the past 26 years in recent years I've been the teacher leader for the math department historically High School teacher leaders have taught one less class and received a reduced stipend compared to other teacher leaders in the district and there are important reasons

for this reduced course load I would like to provide a quick overview of what I do as a teacher leader within my department to illustrate why the reduced course load is crucial throughout the school year I collaborate weekly with the math theme and math coach to plan and facilitate plc's and department meetings I manage to preap plc's and attend and participate in other plc's supporting geometry Algebra 2 and AP

courses this year I will be collaborating with a select Algebra 1 teachers on a weekly basis during PLC and CPT time to establish and refine the necessary materials and structures for our standards based grading pilot I participate in weekly instructional leadership team meetings to align our department with the school's vision and goals enabling me to better support teachers and contribute to to

instructional changes the math de and I conduct learning walks across all grade levels spending time in classrooms debriefing and providing feedback we also analyze data from various assessments to guide next steps during the school day I provide assistance to teachers on various issues including curriculum classroom management social emotional issues and Technology I strive to handle daily issues that arise within

the department to ensure smooth operations seeking the math themes involvement as needed I have written and submitted proposals for the math tutoring center and the accelerated Algebra 2 course that we've been been able to offer to our students in addition to organizing creating materials for and running the assembly for the AP students in the high school I oversee the math tutoring center and

provide assistance to math students and serve as a Department's primary contact for all matters related to illuminate and math assisting teachers in creating with creating and administrating administering their assessments as well as analyzing assessment data moreover I have organized and conducted school-based and district-wide professional development sessions during the summer and throughout the school

year this year as outlined in the waiver application for two of our Math teachers I am responsible for for providing targeted support and coaching to help them prepare for and P the mtel ensuring that they meet their certification goals and as we begin the new school year I'll be stepping in to help lead the department during our Dean's short-term absence Beyond these scheduled responsibilities I frequently address

unexpected issues throughout the day often extending my support by taking calls at night and on the weekends to discuss these matters with teachers and administrators despite all these duties I still teach three different math classes completing all planning and Grading in my own time I hope this gives you a clear picture of what part of my role is as a teacher leader and the importance of maintaining

our current workload teacher leaders play a vital role in supporting students teachers and administrators taking on a fourth class would significantly reduce our ability to provide this essential support much of which is must be done during school hours thank you

uh for number seven I'm going to need a motion to wave the rules from Swansea motion wave second I have a motion at second all in favor I I opposed unanimous Rachel Martins Oak Street Swansea hello my name is Rachel Martin I'm a special education teacher currently displaced at the Early Learning Center on nor Eastern Avenue I'm reading this letter written by a parent who is unable to attend this

meeting tonight the letter reads as follows my name is Chanel cardoo and I'm a mom of two girls who have attended the Fall River Public School since age three my girls have attended three different Fall River schools Sylvia green and laterno I have one daughter in General Ed and another in the stepup program my oldest daughter started at the green school at age three with Mrs G Miss G was like a second mom to my

kiddo while she transitioned to school from never being in daycare Miss G was such a compassionate gentle soul and the best teacher I could have asked for for a first teacher for my child Miss G was always there encouraging me and my daughter and anytime I had questions or concerns Miss G always made herself available even on nights and weekends Miss G is a treasure and should not be

taken for granted we had the luxury of having Miss G for 2 and a half years my daughter and myself grew attached to miss G and it was an emotional goodbye when we had to transition to our neighboring school she then transitioned to Sylvia school for kindergarten I thought for sure we couldn't get lucky again with another great teacher but boy I was wrong we had Miss C and she was

sweet and firm at the same time Miss C was always pushing my daughter to do more and meet her full potential Miss C never seemed annoyed or upset by my endless questions or concerns we worked hand inand to figure out what works and what doesn't for my daughter once my child moved on to first grade and needed some extra support Miss C her kindergarten teacher offered to tutor my daughter after school which she didn't

have to do but wanted to do this was what you call going above and beyond my youngest daughter then joined her sister at Sylvia in the special ed preschool with Mrs B and Mrs B was so caring and compassionate Mrs B would send me daily updates on how my daughter's day was going because she's non-verbal and she knew I was concerned about the transition to a new School Mrs B was never annoyed by my endless questions

and always treated me with compassion and respect you know that saying you were made for this well Mrs B was made to teach special education children we had Mrs be for two years again and we had an emotional goodbye when we were getting ready to transition to a new school and teacher again another great experience and I kept waiting for the ball to drop how was I getting so lucky

with all these great teachers well the ball was about to drop when my youngest moved on to lero for kindergarten I was about to get my first taste of disappointment in the Fall River School District when my youngest started kindergarten their teacher was not prepared to handle a special ed classroom and quit 3 weeks into the position I don't know what reasons for quitting but I'm going to guess lack of

support perhaps not enough Paris or lack of salary during the transition period we had other special ed teachers AIDS and even a BCA bcba filling in while the school district scrambled to find a replacement about 6 weeks later we finally got a new teacher Miss Jay Miss Jay walked into a bad situation and she took on the task with ease Miss Jay made the classroom warm and welcoming which

it had not been with the first teacher she made all of us parents feel heard regarding our concerns on how the school year started Miss Jay never seemed overwhelmed by her endless questions and concerns on how she was going to make up for the late start in the school year Mrs Jay has proven to be a great teacher with compassion and understanding for her students Miss Jay adores her

students just like all the others and treats them like her own all of this to say overall we have had amazing teachers and Paris in Fall River the staff truly cares about these kids this isn't just a job for them these kiddos become extended family and you want to take care of your family do better Fall River treat your teachers like family pay them a living wage we can't afford to lose

those great teachers to neighboring districts such as New Bedford or to Taunton sincerely Chanel cardoo a mom of Two and a homeowner in the city who cares about our teachers making a living wage thank you next up I'll need a motion to wave the rules from Somerset still moved second I have a motion to Second all in favor I opposed unanimous uh Kelly gabardi Riverside Avenue suet good evening and that's why I'm

here I'm here because of those kids but I'm wondering why you're here no more more NOS more questions more guilt and More Lies once again F members come to the table ready to make progress and get to a resolution but what do we get I will say this time around we did get some tentative agreements but we still have many more NOS without explanations we are asked questions and told more lies but not

only that we are made to feel guilty about some of our ass I'm not talking about a wage adjustment or aola I'm talking about things that we're really asking for would benefit our students the school committee would like you to believe that they care more for the students of Far River than us teachers do and if that was the case they would have agreed to some of these things like

a quarter day sick day like just give me two hours so I can run to the doctor and run back nope I got to take a whole day or a or a full day um giving us more time with our students don't ask oh another question that I was called out on do our students deserve well organized and clean classrooms well this requires time teachers already work so many hours outside of their contract

but yet we are asked when we ask for an optional 10 hours of optional like not everybody's going to take it but elementary teachers need at least 10 hours to clean and organize their classrooms um we're told no no you don't get it so in what other profession are employees expected to work for free and get penalized because they do not have the time to properly organize declutter or clean their workspaces what other

professions add more work such as unnecessary and detailed lesson plans or larger case loads or again paid providing paid time to complete these tasks or not Prov providing co- teers guaranteed time to plan lessons together do teachers deserve their special do our students deserve special education services to be well planned out and implemented this cannot happen if a provider has such a large case load that

they do not have adequate time to plan or even transition their students we do know that many students were owed compensatory services but that is not our fault and we should not be made to feel guilty in public for wanting to be able to provide proper services for our students because the district cannot hire The Specialist needed could it be why that the district cannot hire specialist because they

cannot they cannot make the5 to $10,000 more that they can drive east right East and or north for these positions or now even go to sumerset I would also like to point out that we are given we were given amounts of filled positions the numbers were incorrect for instance we were told that we hired 20 new Preschool teachers H there were nine of us here so there's only 22 classrooms I don't know how you do that

math and as you can see we have plenty of open seats so lastly we deserve respect from the school committee and most importantly at the bargaining table we do not need to hear about past negotiations or that 555 is the best offer in the area cuz that is gaslighting and also untrue Somerset just received 14.7% over 3 weeks four weeks paid parental leave and other many other benefits at this time let's end the lies

the demoralization and the guilt and the disrespect you are giving us thank you thank

you next up from school street and Fall River Paul

Ferrera first of all have to have to compliment the eloquent passionate speakers that that that I'm following um for of a school committee mayor Coogan my name is Paul Ferrera forever resident homeowner and a proud former forever teacher and a past president of the Flor OFA educator Association the future of a public school system is at stake as we ask ourselves will we be able to attract and

retain the best and Bre and brightest teachers to staff our classrooms the path to reach that objective to me is clear I stand in support of f president mishon and the professional Educators effort to negot appreciate a fair and Equitable contract settlement I stand and support of the students who deserve a quality education from Resolute teachers and fully staffed classrooms I stand in support of the

parents of those students who demand and expect the best educational opportunities and instruction for their children as a taxpayer and as citizens of forer we should expect no less and urge our political leaders to stand with me to support these goals thanks for your time and

attention next speaker is from Taunton I'll need a motion in a second so moved second I have a motion second all in favor I I opposed unanimous Haley de maderis Cherry Avenue Taunton good evening all after speaking at the last last few meetings I think you know I am Haley de maderis teach first grade in room 008 which has now been labeled the epicenter at laterno and I will need more than 3 minutes to

read what I have prepared while we have finally begun to make progress I continue to be extremely concerned about the health and safety at lero on June 27th this Comm committee met as a whole and ultimately suggested to host summer school elsewhere and hire Mr Philip Terrell to do a comprehensive assessment of the building the following day Mr pachico met with Mr Terrell to create a

plan as a health and safety committee we did not receive any update after this meeting until July 22nd when we received Mr Terrell's initial report which to our surprise was labeled a limited mold survey this is not what any of us were under the impression was going to be happening at the June 27th meeting Mr Das asked and I quote that assessment will cover anywhere there would be children present in the school that

covers every classroom gym area to which Mr pachico responded it covers the entire building Mr Terrell tested 15 areas in the school when we asked why the assessment was limited rather than comprehensive we were told there was not enough time at that point in the summer to do a comprehensive assessment as they take an extensive amount of time but Mr Terrell being the professional that he

is felt comfortable with the data we already had and the new information he received from his testing to make recommendations for remediation moving forward prior to this information again at the June 27th meeting Mr aiar said there's no way we should be having summer school when we have mold there miss Pereira said she was not personally comfortable having anyone in that school and later said in good conscience we

cannot have them go into that building to which Mr Pico said if no one is comfortable teaching in that building we will move them elsewhere well now we are 2 weeks out from opening schools for the new Academic Year and Remediation has just begun today so so now I ask Will remediation be completed in 15 days do the same people who didn't feel comfortable having students and staff occupy the building that was shut down

over the summer feel comfortable opening in 15 days teachers should be able to enter the schools on August 19th to begin setting up classrooms but this will be before we receive an all clear from Mr Terrell who will just be returning from a two-e vacation on that day will teachers be expected to go in before the all clear is there another space for lerno Andor green who also has issues to go while remediation is

continued is there a plan mayor Coogan you have the power and the responsibility to do more become more involved and make sure our schools across the city are safe for students and staff to occupy I also wanted to acknowledge that Mr Pico has taken full responsibility for the mold issues that are occurring yet at the July 15th me meeting he was awarded a $14,000 raise being in support of this raise Mr Cory

stated he felt that our facilities are in very good shape and that the mold issue is a new issue that is being addressed a former teacher at Green spoke on June 27th about mold issues going back to 2013 green is in worse shaped than lerno and right now no one on the health and safety committing committee committee geez is aware of what the status is at Green in regards to remediation Mr Corey

also stated in support of Mr Pico's salary increase as far as our facilities are concerned they look absolutely wonderful and I am very proud of the way they present to the public I am wondering have you conducted a walkthrough at lerno or green also adding that we just voted for the proper salary range in today's economy I hope you can consider the proper salary range for our F members in today's economy as

we continue to negotiate a fair contract and perhaps a stip in for the health and safety committee who has dedicated countless hours to ensure our schools are in safe condition i s and I've tried our best to hold those in power accountable thank you um next individual also from Taunton I'll need a motion a second so moved second I have a motion a second all in favor unanimous Paige VC lynen Street tun

good evening members of the school committee my name is paig vzy and I'm a science and early college te teacher at dery high school I have come today to speak about the importance of teacher retention on the emotional well-being of our students during my four years working in the district I have had the pleasure of creating meaningful and lasting relationships with my students these relationships I have Fosters are

one of the reasons I have not left the district despite being underpaid compar to surrounding districts I would like to take a moment to share some of the interactions I've had with my students over the past few years that illustrate how not retaining teachers affects their emotional well-being after my third year of teaching I switched roles within the science department relocating my

classroom from The Freshman Academy on the second floor to the upstairs to the third floor at the beginning of the school year my former students were alarmed assuming I quit upon seeing a new teacher in my old classroom they questioned other teacher in the hallway about my whereabouts and upon finding my new classroom they greeted me with tight hugs expressing relief that I had not

left a few months towards the end of the school year when I informed them that I had good news to share or had news to share their immediate assumption was that I found a new job despite my attempt to share positive news their first reaction was negative assuming that I was not staying which is often the reality in our district students have mentioned that they have primarily had young teachers and really rarely

experienced older ones which aligns with a high turnover rate in this district and similar ones around it while there's nothing innately wrong with having a young teacher having a teacher who has more experience just gives our stud students a better educational outcome many students in our school system are considered at risk youth lacking a stable home life or positive adult role models having consistent

adult presence throughout their high school years can significantly impact these students it motivates them to pursue a positive path and helps keep them on track dery aims to establish such relationships through an advisory block where students connect daily with a trusted adult in the building unfortunately this goal is often unmet when teachers depart for better opportunities the departure of a trusted

adult can leave students with inexperience Replacements who require guidance in developing meaningful relationships with students in some Cas cases the position remains vacant for the entire year reflecting a harsh reality in our district like many other teachers in the district District I have a deep affection for Fall River and enjoy working here I always strive to provide my students the best education they

deserve however there comes a point where I must prioritize what is best for myself and my family remaining in a district that undervalues me and uses a statement remember your why to guilt me into staying relying solely on the hope that serving students will compensate for inadequate pay forces me to reflect on my true motivations while I wish my primary motivation my why could solely

be the students the reality is that Financial stab stability plays a crucial role ultimate ultimately this profession this is a profession and I must earn a living to support myself and my family thank you thank you next we have a series of letters that are going to be read first up Michael Costa Bliss Street Fall River dear forover school committee I wanted to take a moment to express my

sincere appreciation for your hard work and dedication our school dist our district leadership has put into discussing and planning the potential Yonder pouch implementation in crafting a new District cell phone policy at the secondary level unfortunately I was unable to attend the meeting tonight and I regret missing the opportunity to support such an important and impactful policy that

stands to affect a generation of learning for our Hill Toppers the implementation of the under pouch and the enforcement of a no cell phone policy are significant steps toward enhancing our educational environment these changes are not just administrative decisions they are vital for improving student learning and engagement in classroom by reducing distractions we can foster a more focused and productive learning

atmosphere moreover I believe that these policies will have a positive impact on our students social emotional learning limiting cell phone use use usage can enhance social interactions among students allowing them to develop vital communication skills and build meaningful relationships with their peers and the caring adults in our building I believe this shift will ultimately lead to a more cohesive and

supportive Community School Community furthermore I am confident that the support these I am confident that the support these policies provide to our teachers will be invaluable by creating a more conducive classroom environment we Empower our Educators to deliver quality instruction without the interruptions that cell phones can cause this has been a constant battle for staff and diverts from our Vital mission

of educating the youth the youth in Fall River our teachers deserve all the support possible to assist in the most difficult job there is teaching thank you once again for your commitment to our students and their future I look forward to listening to my colleagues as well as the presentation and subse discussions that will hopefully lead to a vote of confidence to implement this

very important initiative we know this will be a challenge and may not be popular with some students and families but this is what's best for our Scholars and their future and that's all that matters thank you uh next up Tim I'm next up I'm going to need a vote this gentleman some East Providence um motion only second our motion second all in favor I opposed unanimous Tim Powers Ingram Street East

Providence as a 12-year teacher in the district I have split time between the elementary and middle schools throughout my career when I took a position at the middle school I quickly realized that the majority of my students were relying on their cell phones to get through the day thankfully though there are those students who can leave their cell phones in their pocket and engage with the

school work but for many students the urge to check social media or play games on their phone deers from the opportunities provided to them getting their getting these pouches for students cell phones have a chance to make a difference in many of our kids' School experiences I know from my own experience that attending concerts and shows that require pouches for cell phones being phoneless has led me to be

more engaged with peers and the environment we are in Imagine the impact this could have on getting students engaged in their schoolwork there are school districts that have already implemented similar similar programs and their testimonies should be the proof needed to understand that this program will work if given the opportunity it will be an adjustment period for everyone but I believe the benefits of

this program could be felt by all besides the obvious distractions that are taking place in the classroom because of cell phone usage during instruction time students are also dealing with pressure and stress from using phones for things such as social media these children's brains are still developing having them develop a tendenc a dependency on cell phones and continue to grow the sense of Detachment from

reality is only going to hurt them in the long run there are definitely going to be concerns about how parents will get their sensitive messages to their children during the today however I do not think this should stop us from trying to figure out ways to address those concerns while still achieving our overall goal of increasing student engagement in the classroom please give this idea and initiative a chance I

think we will start to see a shift in the Dynamics of the classroom once we limit the amount of distractions we need to show students there is more to life than Tik tocks and Snapchats this is the first step in the right direction to help them engage in a positive way with their peers in education Tim Powers cus Middle School teacher thank you uh next up uh Nelson Vasquez Sunset Hill Fall

River dear members of the school committee I would like to express express my comments about some very important topics the first one is about this disgusting mold infestation taking place in our schools if I held the exact same position as Mr Pico in the private sector in this same oldold situation took place I would have been fired immediately if a major lawsuit comes down after the situation concludes this

city will lose in a harpy as for our brave and courageous teachers listening to my input I have a message for you all if this contract situation does not end here's what all of you should do the next time another protest gets schedule I know the perfect day for it that should take place on the first day for the new school year coming the parents and your students will know exactly what

you're fighting for it's time that the other side truly comprehend the class that class will not go into session until our teachers get what they deserve Nelson Basquez 210 sunet Hill uh next uh next up I'll need a motion in a second Mata poet so move a second I have a second all in favor I opposed unanimous Christina Webb Shady Oak Drive Mata poon fall rer school committee I have

been an urban educator for 12 years is in three different states throughout that time I've seen firsthand the negative effects phones have on our students on my first day of work in Charleston South Carolina in 2012 I attempted to take the phone of a student per our school's policy and she responded using extreme explic Dives since then I've ured responses like this countless times highlighting the hold

highlighting the hold these phones have on teenager especially in the classroom I've seen my students academic performance decline the Allure of social media texting and gaming often diverts their attention away from the lessons students are constantly checking notification and it affects their ability to concentrate and engage with instruction even with no cell phone policies in place students

have these devices on them and have become increasingly sneaky in order to have them having multiple phones passing it to a friend Etc I feel as though the only way to help this crisis is to implement some sort of a pouch system so that our students will so our students still maintain possession of their phone but cannot access it not only is it a safety risk for our students to have

them but it poses a mental health risk as well there are numerous studies warning us that we must do something drastic to help our country's Youth and I agree no curriculum will be effective unless unless we retain effective Educators and increase our students attention and perseverance a phone pouch system is an easy measure we can put in place to help our students focus on their studies and break the unhealthy

habit of constant phone use I encourage you to pass a phonefree policy phone free school policy and approve the use of locked pouches for phones thank you in advance from an educator who wants the best for our kids uh next up Tom lundstrom Rich Street Fall River good evening school committee members thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on the potential of a cell phone free school I have been

teaching in the Fall River School since 2012 currently in sth grade at talbet Middle School when asked to write this letter my first instinct was to take a look at what research had been completed on the topic a quick Google search led me to numerous sources I spent the majority of time on two sites of those to the most informative was Common Sense Media among the research and data I

found that over 90% of students bring cell phones and other devices to school on a daily basis a report posted that Common Sense Media website states that of students that bring a cell phone to school the median amount of time they are are spending on these devices is 43 minutes per day that statistic could be interpreted as more than half of our students waste the duration of a class

period or or more every day on devices furthermore that same report indicates that three most common uses in order are social media YouTube and gaming discussing the negative implementations of social media are students who warrant would warrant an entire series of meetings I am sure we are on the same page on the topic another site that I reviewed listed provided this list 10 negative effects

of cell phone use in students classroom distraction cyber bullying academic dishonesty social isolation physical health issues sleep disruption privacy concerns inequality reduced physical activity and addiction in my time as a classroom teacher I can honestly say that these represent a fair and realistic portrayal of some of the impacts of cell phones in my classroom I would consider the three

most impactful of the list being distraction cyber bullying and sleep disruption of those three we have the opportunity to curb two of those three and if we can successfully develop Partnerships with families and stakeholders we can get all three under control during the past Academic School past past Academic Year the seventh grade team at talbet piloted a cell phone procedure where students turned

their device in placing their device into a wallhanging pouch as they entered each of their cor subject classrooms Ela math science and social studies the vast majority of students were compliant without any sort of incident as I am known to say 90% of our kids do the right thing all the time with those 90% The Worst thing that could happen would be forgetting to turn off or silence the device or having a

notification ding or the phone ring during class the last one difficulty in the policy would be achieving 100% compliance what I refer to as 10% on paper there was a stepped consequence for every additional viol violation those consequences were not always able to be administered of followed through for a variety of reasons be IT staffing scheduling overlaps and ability to take action at that moment or parent

buyin another constraint was continuity the trial procedure was piloted only in the seventh grade hallway and wasn't designed to be implemented building wide during the last school year the procedure did not carry over into impact classes and was not introduced to other grade levels in other parts of the building especially where classrooms were staffed by substitute teachers there seemed to be a good deal of phone

use student phone usage overall I would consider piloting this procedure over the past year as very successful the number of cell phone incidents in my classroom was considerably reduced from past years past once all students understood that we as a team were United and consistent most students were easy to meet the expectations even those 10% were less likely to take those phone out during the

class there's a little bit more the last part okay I strongly encourage school committee my colleagues and families to uh of our students to embrace the idea of a self phone free school this is an opportunity to opportunity to regain focus of what the what is important and necessary to achieve our end goal of improving outcomes for our students thank you thank you uh next individual up under

subcommittee updates uh special education alternative education and early childhood subcommittee meeting Uh Kevin AGI our chairman item four so I just had a question for the superintendent on this that at the subcommittee meeting we had asked for some information uh is anything in the binder different than what the subcommittee received so when we had the presentation from several of the partners we had

asked some questions various members and I'm just curious if it was anything different was in here or was it the same because I believe there is additional information in this finder okay because they're not on the agenda so that's the little bit of a discrepancy of how uh I'm going to you talking about backup for specific items that went were asked um subcommittee full committee at the subcommittee we

talked about presentation of Community Partners there was four of them so the committee members had asked and the public had asked a few things so um I don't know when the mechanism maybe when the contract comes up is that when we're going to go over that or I believe so I think they're all I think all of the pieces were listed in contracts and so I'll just hold them we'll talk about

them then so we did have a successful meeting uh presentation was on several Community Partners that do a lot of work for the community helping us as uh Partners here in Fall River so those are on the list of contracts so I guess we'll talk about those at some point uh we talked about an early release which is on the agenda for the stone school and that is basically to um keep them in

very similar situation as the RPA alternative school so that passed favorably as well um we talked about some communication boards communication boards are were purchased in early 2024 to be put up in the playground so I think there's a plan in place to uh get those up and running before the start of the school year um as I said the presentations were took up a lot of the time that was in the

meeting so uh if someone could either be ready to answer what is the different information to highlight just so that we can get a we didn't get a one pager on it but um your subcommittee um your assistant superintendent were there so maybe they can help try to help with that um but it was a successful meeting we did defer a few questions on the special education relative to the hiring

practices as you know that's an issue of how many vacancies that we have so we did receive an update on the Friday email related to that I do think we have an issue that we need to address with making sure all of our positions are filled I don't have a magic want to do that but that was definitely an issue that was presented so it was a very successful meeting and uh thank you very

much I yield thank you Mr AGA um Mr Das has a comment on Mr thank you I just had quick comment just from the Citi input I just um a few members of the community mentioned the um the mold issue um when it comes up on the agenda if we can also invite maybe the f anyone from the um f um health and safety committee to also speak so we can um engage in some

healthy dialogue if if they're opening willing to that but I'll y for now thank you Mr Das next up in the facilities and operations subcommittee is uh chairman Mimi ly uh facility subcommittee meeting um met on Friday August 2nd at 4:00 at the cus middle school there were three items on the agenda discussion and vote to refer the air quality reports a discussion and vote to refer the

National Guard lease extension and an update on campus Services uh Dr uh Terrell from environmental health and representatives from Common Sense environment uh environmental and Scott Fulmer uh the MTA hygienist were all in attendance Dr Terell gave a presentation on his findings and gave us some recommendation moving forward some findings from lerno where mold in air uh is well controlled M with the steps

being taking taken mold on surfaces or insulation should be professionally abated uh immediately long-term moisture management necessary some of the recommendations for lerno to continue what we are currently doing by placing the instant draining humidifiers in the necessary classrooms and bigger machines in the common areas a focus on moisture management by adding humidity sensors in

classrooms recommend teachers declutter classrooms and paper traps uh cuz as paper traps humidity which turns to mold if not identified for a while some findings at Green where humidity findings were higher than at laterno the molding classrooms was not well controlled some of the recommendations for green were improve the HVAC systems Implement summer environmental controls continue what we are uh currently doing

by placing the instant draining dehumidifiers in necessary class classrooms and bigger machines in common areas a focus on Long long-term moisture management add humidity centers in classrooms clean up after water issues follow mold AB bment standards have in-house trained Specialists recommend teachers declutter classrooms and paper traps humidity as paper traps humidity which turns to mold

if not ident identified for a while the representatives from Common Sense environment agreed with Dr Terrell's report and recommendations to the committee and mentioned both companies findings were spot on as to one another um as for the grounds um everything uh that is planned is on on uh time and we look forward to hearing from uh them again as we move forward um instructional yep so instructional uh

subcommittee was held on Monday August 5th at the administration billing uh 5:00 p.m. there were three agenda items to come before us all three discussions were vote to refer on contract renewals we had a discussion on Renaissance ignite and elevation contracts Dr curly and Miss Lewis presented supported data and information on how eliminate DNA is used to create and admit a standards

aligned assessments for math Ela science and expanded DNA for social studies World languages and the Arts and health and physical education Dr Curley with Department heads also presented information on illuminate educ climber which integrates the whole student into one platform with a f with a focus on attendance academic demographics discipline and more it provides District personnel with instant student data at

their fingertips uh the three-year contract renewal with Renaissance is $467 I'm sorry $467,000 678 88 uh Dr Curley our presented information on ignite contract with which is8 this is a continuation of a grant to offer reading to uh tutoring to students in the second grade who have not closed the first uh grade literacy gaps and are eligible for the rooll over tutoring there will be 121 tutoring seat

seats for the second graders fansa Henry Lord Spencer bordon Doran and tany uh Dr Curley discussed the renewal of elevation contract which is a focus on professional devel velopment to grow teachers knowledge working with English language Learners Dr Curley is requesting the same service as in years past with no additions uh the subcommittee voted to refer all three cont uh contracts to the full committee thank

you um next up we have the superintendent report item number five one more oh I'm sorry oh I'm sorry M Mr agier I'm sorry that's right so we did have a successful technology subcommittee meeting uh we talked about several things two of informational Only The Core Business uh which is the copers that we use Mr cabal let a discussion relative to that the committee's concern was to make sure that we're getting the

best value for our copers so um they're set heading towards the end of a lease and we're going to be reviewing those over the year to look to potentially bid that next year to try to make sure we're getting the best value also an informational discussion was related to the technology positions that are in the budget just to try to get some Clarity on where they are and where they fit in

the org chart uh Mr cabal presented a technology plan which will be on the agenda that was passed unanimously also an in Improvement to the website was also recommended and we had a long discussion and a presentation from Dr bronhard relative to the cell phone free policy it was a healthy discussion I think it was very well done well put together and that also passed unanimously and recommended that for

full uh vote of the full committee today with that I yield thank you Mr agar item number five is the superintendent report last week we hosted The District's annual administrators Institute and at that time we had more than 250 administrators from across the district come together for four days to get to know one another celebrate some wins coming out of last year get focused on priorities for the coming year and

participate in professional development sessions to support the work moving forward we used a mix of whole group in smaller group opportunities used our own staff as well as outside Partners to facilitate some of the work some highlights included a principal session F focused on visioning school partners and setting short-term goals a session familiarizing General Educators um on the new I with the new IEP a session

focused on student discipline law in our internal processes and we also had about 150 administrators take part in a full day professional development titled the together leader focused on getting leaders organized for Success around their priorities um next piece here is a school opening update um we are just uh 15 days uh from opening and we'll welcome um all staff back into our buildings um for one day

of Staff orientation before students in grades 1 through 12 return on August 28th um just a reminder to families that our students um will attend school on Wednesday and Thursday of that week um but August which is August 29th and 30th at sorry also be Wednesday and third Thursday August 29th and 30th we're closed Friday through Monday before welcoming students back on Tuesday September 3rd and just to note that prek

and K programs don't begin on the 28th we have prek beginning on Tuesday September 3rd in kindergarten on Friday September 6th uh we do had have varied start times across schools so I would encourage families to check the website um for specific information right on the follower our schools home page there are links um you don't have to go into any of the drop- down menus or anything like that there are links to

um and start and end times the district calendar registration information and a lot of other things that I think would be helpful to family a lot all of those links were moved to the district homepage um and not in some of those drop- down menus I want to give an update on summer projects this summer we've had work done in just about every one of our buildings a combination of work completed in-house in through

outside firms and I'm just going to highlight three of the major projects for you um as they're three of the larger projects that we've had for the summer the first is at West doall um as you all know we're we're reopening West doall as a k to5 neighborhood Elementary School and while the building has been housing the stone school for a number of years increased enrollment expected um

as we open a typical elementary school has required some cosmetic changes in the building including um um extens extensive painting and the removal of six walls that had previously been constructed to create smaller spaces in the school um for offices in small learning spaces um the school has also seen some Plumbing work done to provide um roof drain repair as well as um to support the relocation of the nurse's

office um and a restroom attached to that additionally the teachers room is seeing some upgrades including new paint new sailings lighting enhancements um the painting remains in progress in the building and we're also going to do some cafeteria improvements in the next couple of weeks um at Stone relocated at 2501 South Main Street we're just waiting on the completion of work on the

third floor so that we can start the movein process um for the setup of furniture and other materials that are coming in from various locations and that's work that will continue in the next couple of weeks as we ready for opening at talit the HVAC improvements um were about 70% completed as of Friday and um by the middle of this week we're going to begin the process of getting

everything back where it belongs so that we're ready for opening and the final test of H HVAC will happen um next week in terms of enrollment as of today we have just under 11,000 students registered to attend here in District in our seats in Fall River in comparison to last time at um last year at this time we're up about 400 students K enrollment is at 617 which is comparable to where

we were at this time last year right now uh we do have an additional 227 students who are going through the registration process and um we do have some cleanup to do still in terms of students who have moved um or might be attending private or parochial or cvte programs Charter Schools there's still some cleanup to do there but we do expect to start the year at well over a thousand

um 11,000 students um if we still have families out there who are have not registered I would encourage you to start that process as soon as possible um again if you visit the the district website at the main page www.fool.com

and one retirement um I do have a hiring update with in terms of overall stats some of it some of which which were shared during the um citizens input but we have currently have 155 open positions in our schools 81 of which are which are um open teacher positions five administrators 57 par professionals and 12 others um we do have people who are getting processed right now right now

but schools um and the rest of us are obviously making some backup plans um for some open positions that might not be filled by the time we open so thank you thank you superintendent uh Mr Das thank you um I I do have a two questions um one is regards to the school open opening update and I'm it's mold related so I'm going to keep it strictly right at least right now to the school opening

um we had a citizen input in regards to LNO and um the remediation that's going on there um how confident do you feel it will be done before for the start of school I feel confident I feel very confident I think that um you know one of the agenda items is an air quality report um some of which will be similar information to what um Miss larvie shared in terms of the update from that

subcommittee meeting for facilities and operations but we do have a whole host of information to share and um including next steps and what we expect um in terms of opening schools okay so I'll host most my questions for when that comes up um question on um stone school or um West doll and I was going to ask this question actually when um because I know one of the contracts is up that's

I'll ask one of them now um why didn't we start the painting um when we had Stone um students from Stone in the west do school like I just I'm just trying to understand like why we're going to um paint now now that we're opening up for K through 5 I just I just don't know like the rationale why why why didn't we do it earlier why are we doing it

I think much of the painting is related to walls that are have been taken down but I I'm sure there is additional painting I think that you know westall had a complete rehab um for you know when Stone opened there um and I think that just like we do in a lot of our buildings there's a rotation in terms of when schools are updated and paint is freshened and things like that but

certainly where there might be some floors or some um hallways is where work was being done and painting had to be done it made sense to continue the painting so that things would be more uniform okay in terms of um opening of school we approved this contract today um and I I could save it until like it comes up on the contracts but I'm just trying to get a timeline of when would

that like process start and would that also be done before we open up for school okay I think that it might be better actually for um for Mr bico to answer that when the contract comes but thank you I Y Mr agar just to follow up on Mr Di's question so at the facility subcommittee it was mentioned about the painting and I believe it's the whole school so wasn't just spot painting and I sure as heck

hope it's not for $140,000 uh but I think it was the whole school if I recall um I did ask a question to the principal of the stone to ask why is it how was it when you were there and she indicated something about oh they always took good care of us and it was just a sum of thing so that question did get asked at the facilities but I do

believe this is for the entire um maybe Mr Pico can say otherwise but I think it's for the whole school I I'm not saying that it's not I'm just saying that when there's construction underway and it doesn't make sense necessarily to do some touch-up paint in one area where there's been construction and it was an opportunity to you know I don't know the word but to do the entire school yeah I don't disagree

I'm what I was saying is just and I look it's in the other part of the binder but if we just get it clear to say what when we get something to say this is the contract for such and such if it was for the whole school we just indicate that and I think it might answer the question ahead of time but related to the mold issue and being ready uh for the school

I think it's it's definitely an issue that I have uh I had this issue at the facility subcommittee in that the person who we hired as the quote unquote resident expert to come in and look at it which we had in an emergency hired right at whatever time that was in early July indicated to the committee that they he was going to be on vacation for several weeks and then when he returned he was going to

look to see if the remediation was successful or not or something like that so I'm not comfortable with that particular piece and this is the last meeting before the school year and I personally would like when I made the recommendation that I would support the gentleman I wanted him to sit at that Podium stand at that Podium and tell us and tell the teachers the staff the kids in the community that in his

opinion this was safe not anybody in the school department that's not an expert of so so-called on it that's the motion that I made I said that at the facility subcommittee Mr bacho happened to disagree I think I don't know if the superintendent agreed with me or her or him on it but if we review back to the tapes we can see what we what we talked about and I don't believe that it was

mentioned that we would just come here and say everything we're comfortable everything is going to be good we had some pretty good discussion and some questions there and I for one I'm not comfortable with this being the last meeting before and having them do so I would have targeted questions for the gentleman like what did you see like I did at the subcommittee but he's not here because we hired a guy who's on

vacation for the two weeks that we needed him to be here to see it so so what do I do I I I feel like we need to have either another meeting or have some sort of plan in place to say we need a separate time for us to see it to possibly let us go view it to look at the reports you know that's what I think we need and

um I know we're going to talk about the um the two reports but I also asked at that time to get an update on all the schools uh and I'm assuming that's in here like to go over but the the concern that I have is that the two schools that the green and the laturno were more active and they got a lot of the attention but we've been getting and I

said this in a public meeting we had all of the disc people have been sending us pictures from all these different places our R track systems are not in good working order and we got pictures everywhere of potential mold in all the buildings so when it comes time for that discussion item I think it's incumbent upon us to either address it or just say we're going to have a special meeting to

go over this once the person's back so he can stand there and personally I'm not going to sign a one payment for the gentleman if we hired him for something that we didn't ask him for personally and if that's the case then I don't know I don't know who had the authority to agree to have him give a proposal that he was going to come in and just spend

whatever time in bill us but EI for one didn't expect that so I don't know if after the subcommittee meeting you and your team had a chance to go look at it and say well what was said what was agreed to because to me that's the purpose of the subcommittees is to raise the issues go over the issues we ask the questions and then you come back with your team get the answers present the

answers to us before the it comes back up so I haven't necessarily gone through all of the um new info but that to me is the is the issue the mold issue is something that I think we need to have a special meeting on Mr DUS thank you I'm through you Mr chair and Mr agard or gentleman you're referring to that you want to come before us Mr Terrell yes sir okay um and I'm in

complete agreement with Mr agar we need to get this solved before we open the schools I'd like to see that gentleman before here so he can answer to all of us and answer to the entire community so I'm at I'm at this time going to make a motion that we invite Mr Terrell to a meeting of to a special meeting of the school committee and that we ask the chair to hold a special meeting before

the start of school um second I have a motion in a second um when would we when would he be done with the work so we know we're getting a complete report do you know Mr Pico what was his timeline for finishing up the work that he could do on those schools he's scheduled to come in on the 19th to do the inspections of the work that he asked to be done so that the

19th is a a week from today Monday and then he'll start going through the to two buildings in that report you think you'd be ready beginning of the following week to give us an update before we start I can't speak on his behalf okay that's up to him so I'm not against I'm not against the meeting to address this so that parents know and teachers and students know the schools are safe so we'll wait

for a report on the 19th and schedule a meeting after that a special meeting to address mold the schools that's not a problem I don't have a problem with Mr AIA just to uh let you know Mr chairman so we at the facilities meeting I would encourage you or anybody else to watch it because the first premise of the meeting was what is the scope of why we hired the gentleman and there's a

difference of opinion between the administration and me for as one member but I think for other members and especially if somebody watched it or whatever they would say so that the scope of what this gentleman is going to do is totally different I have a total difference of opinion with the administration on this so what we want to do is if we schedule a meeting for him to come in we want to be able to

tell to that he's going to know know what we're expecting right now he's just saying he's going to come in and inspect the work that he told everybody else to do but he's not here looking at the work to figure it out like so it's not a real what I thought it was going to be was a contract to say over the next 6 weeks we're going to do all this stuff and

you're going to come up here and say yes we did it to the standards of remediation and the like that's what I was under the so I think the special meeting is great but just getting some clarity from the administration I you know I I do agree with you Mr to a point Mr U Pico that company I'm assuming they have Management on site or someone running the operation that knows what's

going on the service companies the service companies that are doing the service work because anything that Mr Terrell said needed to be handled by a service company is being handled by a Service Company okay so those are those companies are certified to handle the material and to do the cleaning according to the protocols okay again I'm I'm not against a special meeting where we get some information I'm

looking if we start the 29th before school starts the week prior if we can get uh get some reports and get a gentleman someone in front of us that did the work to certify what's going on in those buildings I think that would be a plus for everybody I just just so there's no misunderstanding he's coming back on the 19th we will not have a report on the 19th okay that that's

that's a guarantee right so if we're looking for something in writing um it's going to be towards the end of that week my assumption is but I'm not going to stand here and speak for you I just don't want anybody to have any any thoughts about having a report in their hands I'm just looking at calendar here and you look at the 19th um it's next Monday yeah so we're got to I'm thinking

the week following that but the week when school starts is the 29 30th so sometime in that timeline from 21 to 24th so start teachers 27th so that week 21 to 24 we could even do it on a Saturday morning for all I care if we had to do it if we could have a special meeting related to molding the schools getting updates that would be good we'll talk thanks Mr

Pico Mr chairman Mr Ria just as you as you were talking it just it it still bothers me that we're even having this discussion because it's so close to that we're talking the teachers are coming into the building so at that point if we have a meeting on a Monday and they coming into the building two three days later what can we do if it doesn't work we're basically at the point where we're just saying we're

going to roll the dice and hope that everything gets done it it really just is I don't I don't think that's accurate roll the dice makes it sound like you have people that don't know what they're doing it's a crapshoot that's not what I'm talking about well roll the dice is like a a gambling term that we're gambling we're not going to gamble with kids that teacher safety that's I'm glad

to hear that but who who is going to be the authority that's going to say whether their the remediations were done right and they were safe is it Dr Curley as the superintendent it's going to be the company be hire to remediate but then that's what not what their role is they they've admitted to us in a public meeting that's not what their role is so all I'm trying to do is pin down who is

it that we're going to listen to 3 days before the teachers come back in to say that the building is either safe we've cleaned it properly like who are we going to talk to the only one I can say is Dr curle is the superintendent and I'm not trying to put you on the spot but you are the boss and you are the the head of this whole organization so I

have nobody to look at other than as a part-time School Committee Member to say are you going to make that determination and if that's the case then the timeline that we have he has to be expedited some other way a speaker came up just now and said which I was sort of flawed by when she said whether it's true or not I'm not sure but I can take her at her word

she said the remediation started today it's August 12th is that true at lenal school I think that's a valid question I guess question I guess the question I would have is what part of the remediation are we talking about you know abatement work that had to be contracted out and today is the day they started it that could be true if we're talking about any of the recommendations that were made by Mr Terell in terms of

the kinds of work we need to do with dehumidification and the cleaning of of rooms I no I that didn't start today so what I'm saying is the person came up and said it so what I'm asking for is how do we get we don't have any reports I don't have any reports to say since the subcommittee meeting where we met with those three folks here is the next update zero none so so what I apologize

because I I will say that I when I consulted with Mr pico about this last week I suggested to him that he do the reporting like he offer the reports that we have some of which was already shared at subcommittee and things like that but that we share the reports that we have and that tonight he would have an opportunity to present to people what was going on and so it was I will my

take responsibility the report that he's going to the air quality report that he's going to report out on tonight was not given to people it was it was something that I suggested that he present this evening as a formal presentation of what the backup was in terms of reports from Mr Terell the presentation that Mr Terell did so all of that is part of his presentation and then in addition he has talking points

about work that's being done in other schools so we have contracts then with contractors that are started today is that what you're saying I I I honestly don't know we have a service contractor that started today that they were out here last week planning what days when they were going to do what they were going to do and how long it was going to take on each item today they were here

first thing this morning looking at with the contractor one of their subcontractors um to look at the univ events and see how they were going to attack that piece so that work started today the rest of the work that Mr Terell had suggested has been ongoing so when the speaker to spoke today that the room was just getting remediated today can you define what that means is that an accurate statement

or it is it it's very accurate Haley's room was being worked on today by the Service Company yes Absol the univent or whatever you just said they were working on um insallation in the ceiling and univan and how is that a contract is that it's a service master it's state contract for remediation companies so they have a a contract that says we're going to go in and remediate the green school they have a contract to

say that they're going to do the work as prescribed in the report they have all of the reports that we have and what I'm just trying to get a level of uh comfort that they have so what contract when you say they have a contract can we see that contract it's a service contract it's it's a document that says they're going to do the work as prescribed I don't have it here today you're saying you're

going to tell them that they need to do 100 hours worth their work or something like that and then they would do those 100 hours I didn't ask them the price it doesn't matter the work has to be done so what so that's not the the contract concern is the contract itself so we hired a company as we were directed to do to take care of the Remediation in this building they are going to do exactly

what was in the reports that showed where the issues were and what needed to be done on top of that we have said to them that we would like them to look and follow the trail of wherever it leads them in that building to figure out if we have problems elsewhere that have not shown up or problems that have shown up and have not been basically uncovered and when you say contracts plural you mean

all of the contracts that at the meeting we had it's one contract no no the ones that they're following the recommendations is in all of the contracts they're following the recommendations that were given in in all of the reports that they have do not just Mr if Mr Terell missed something in Mr Terrell is one report Mr Terell is one report they're doing the recommendations that Mr Terell has asked

which is what I we asked him to put together something that would give us a road map a pathway as to where we need to go the rest of those reports they have them all and that's what they're working on this service company was in the building earlier this year this is not the first time they're there so so they were in here earlier to do work yeah if I could just ask that

anything that you have that would help to make us feel more comfortable or make me feel more comfortable please send it to us so we can see what the scope of it is and I still maintain that we need to get an answer on what is truly the Mr Terrell's role so that we can say if it's going to be you Dr Curley then just please admit it and just say it's going

to be your decision and that's it and and I might not like it but at least we're going to know at that meeting on the 22nd or something like that that we're going to look to you and say as the leader you're going to say this is Bill and that's all I'm asking for you or whoever you're okay because I thought it was going to be Mr Terrell but he

said he's not doing that so right I thought it was clear it was clear coming out of that meeting that we don't have a professional who is going to give a stamp of approval to say safe not safe I yeah I I think it was clear too I was like I said I can't say I was happy with it because that's not what we asked for but with that I Y thank you thank you um

I need aoll hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on you need a roll call on what there was a motion Colin made a motion to invite Mr no Colin you're okay we schedule a meeting you don't need to vote on it we'll have we going to have a meeting okay um roll roll call roll call is fine for a special meeting correct correct that last week Mr AGA go roll

call okay Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes M Perera yes mayy Coogan yes Mr chairman Mr a i meant to ask the service master is at the lerno is what what company is going to be doing the work at the green and is this like when we when we say abatement this is basically they're doing the abatement full abatement no other people doing abatements green and

lerno both the same company same company and are they responsible for all abatements they're responsible for the abatements in those two buildings that's their charge right now so if we have issues elsewhere that needs batement then they will move forward as you Mr Terrell had mentioned that we can't just say we want to cut out half a sheetrock in a room they'd have to do it truly by

whatever needs to be done will be done it's not District employees full service master it's not District employees who are doing it thank you sir okay we got a special meeting scheduled item number six student comment student delegate report we do not have tonight item number seven um the approval of minutes I have one two uh move to approve four I just need a hold on the uh regular school

committee 61024 that's not quite complete yet but I would like an approval on 71 7274 71 being the regular meeting of the special uh I mean the I'm sorry the subcommittee for special ed alternative Ed an early uh childhood subcommittee meeting on 5 15 approval of the regular school committee on 520 approval of the minutes for the instructional subcommittee on 617 I have a motion a

second any hold or any comments yes I like to place the hold on the instructional subcommittee the last one 74 can we approve 7172 anything further on them uh Deb can you call the role Mr AIA yes Mr Bailey Mr Bailey yes sorry I was muted Mr Das yes Mr Cory yeah M larv yes M Pereira yes mayor kougan yes uh Mr Das your question on 74 please yes um in

regards to ignite um I I do know there was some discussion in regards to um sending either one or of two contracts there was a smaller one and there was the bigger one I know the previous superintendent had um some concerns about sending over um the bigger contract um I don't see any of that discussion or that uh Motion in the minutes um so I at I can't vote to approve them at this

time okay so you motion to table second you want to table the minutes from Seven um the 74 minutes from six from the instructional subcommittee 617 I have a a motion and a second any discussion on that matter Deb call all the rooll Please Mr ago yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larav yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes so we have two holds on 73 and

74 next up approval of travel requests we have none tonight under item number eight item number nine is the acceptance of donations we have two donations tonight um I'll turn over to uh superintendent Curley on behalf of Green Elementary School Dr Liz Dunn request the acceptance of a $5,000 donation from Granite Communications the donation will be used to benefit students on behalf of Sylvia Elementary

and Doran Community Schools principals Patrick lens and Jason Souza request the acceptance of a donation valued at $3,000 um it includes essential school supplies for students from Kids in Need foundation in the Burger King foundation the donation will be used um for students can I get a motion motion to accept I have a motion second have a motion to Second U Mr agar Dr Curley may

I I ask I see the donation is for school supplies and that's an important thing obviously if we could get a report and I'm not looking for this today but there's been a lot of talk in the community about school supplies what we have you know we have a needy Community but we also have things and it sort of gets to me every year when there's things that we should be purchasing

every year that are out there for either teachers are asking for the support teachers are spending money on their own or there gofundmes and all these other various things so I think there should be some sort of hard to look at this so that in the future we know these are the for instance just a quick example somewhere somebody put in a list that they wanted pencils for their classroom

it just doesn't sit well with me that we don't provide the pencils now that's just one example but you get the flavor of what I'm asking if you could just give us a report and it can be once the school year starts but I think going into next year I don't want to have the same thing happen where we're out there asking for stuff that we should provide okay thank you are you open

thanks so I have a motion do I have a motion to Second de you do oh can you please call them all please Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes M Pera yes mayor Coogan yes item number 10 is the approval of Grants we have have three federal grants tonight um does anybody have a hold for any of those three grants motion to

accept motion to accept second I have a motion to Second discussion hearing none Deb would you please call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larv yes M Pereira yes may Coogan yes um we have a number of contracts tonight to approve and as we do does if anyone has any holds they'd like to put on any of the contracts please let us know now Mr Das

would you just like facilities or all of them um we can go right through them because you give me you as I'll check them off right now okay I'll give you all of them um I'm going to do for facilities art painting for Community Partnerships People Incorporated hold on I'm sorry I'm Mr chairman people incor yes I think past practices we do new the group of new and then we get rid of that then we

do it like we do it by we can so under new the only one we have is Arch painting unless someone has something else I have the cleaning restoration supply of New England you'll get the rest of yours Mr Das in the next batch okay sounds good so I have two holds on Arch painting and cleaning restoration supply of New England can I get a motion a second to approve the others so move

second I have a motion a second discussion Deb call the rooll Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr yes Miss ly yes M Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes Mr Das a painting thank you and superintendent you pretty much answered most of my questions from earlier but just the followup if we can just um I have question for Mr Pico um could you just explain for the community because they see

um 141,000 for painting if you can just um maybe describe what's that what's that's for like what's what works actually being being done sure so Arch painting um is painting the entire building interior of the building four floors uh downstairs and then the top three floors um that building last was painted by the city um during the when the roof blew off um I want to say that was in

2013 if I'm not mistaken I was on the city Side the building was renovated elevators roof uh a bunch of um a bunch of improvements so uh the building was in desperate need of a of a paint job top to bottom okay and it's like um painting is that something that's like a regular schedule or is that more as needed so painting is is done at need we have two painters in housee um when we

have the opportunity to bring outside contractors in that they can hit seven to 10 rooms uh during a school vacation we do that it all depends on their availability and and um our availability uh as to whether or not we can pull that off as far as financially um speaking okay and um is it more the painting's more for cosmetic reasons or there more like there things that really need to

get done in there so well some this building here had so we had some uh walls to take down so some of the the painting necessitated some you know work to be done we also had a few walls to build uh at this building for the different um use that the building is going into now we had uh different needs so both of those items necessitated some painting um but after doing a good walk through

when Furniture was not there and and we had the building to literally walk through room by room um at that time um I suggested that we paint the whole building um and top to bottom and um and mentioned it in the contract and you just mentioned it now um the four floors will be painted are all four floors being used at the elementary school they okay um okay how you thank you uh any

other further discussion on Arch painting I'm looking for a motion in a second so move second I have a motion to Second discussion Deb on Arch painting could you please call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larav yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kruer yes Mr agar cleaning restoration supply of New England my uh question on this obviously I can I can see that it's the

industrial size dehumidifiers uh 20 Mr Pico is that accurate yes so my question just based on all the things we've been talking about is does that suffice what we need for the building so we had the little ones and you know I've been critical of those little ones but the little ones are going to stay because they're serving a purpose these bigger ones here we use in bigger spaces

or if we have a problem area we'll bring the bigger unit in this will give us the flexibility of not having to wait for a contractor to drop off rentals um to attack a situation and in the report we basically we'll let you know you know the the overall plan for all of this but this this could be a drop in the bucket as to how many we need so I would

probably venture to say I will be back at some point um we are this will take us through the rest of the season um but I will be prepared for the spring and and summer um so we will be needing more equipment everywhere and the rentals that we had those are gone now because we purchased so some of the rentals have left these this is a purchase that was waiting so these have not been picked up

I have six um units that we picked up already uh and those are been deployed to different areas um after tonight's meeting if this is approved then we will get the other ones delivered and uh sent throughout the district and the rentals will be returned so the six there there the money that's why this is here but the other ones weren't so six were the only ones that were available at the

time and there's a threshold of money why it has to be on a contract versus just you purchasing exactly three or four here um personally I think we should purchase more of them just as I walk through and see the little white one that I know Mr Terrell said they're serving a purpose I'll just leave that at that but we we probably need in all of the buildings that we've had issues with

along with the HVAC systems that we have having issues with generally we can't fix that overnight I believe we're going to need many more of these so I would ask superintendent to come back sooner than later with what we need especially if this gets us through the season we don't want to be caught up into next year wondering why don't we have them if we have resources This Is

50 some, for 20 um maybe we get a better deal if we buy 40 or 50 but I I do think you're going to be back here probably with with some even just as protection just in case something happens so I would support more but I make a motion to approve this as presented I have a motion do I a second second I have a motion second I have a motion to Second we'll hold the

vote Mr Das thank you um Mr Pico so is this the um we talked about a few times what you wanted to be like the rap response like the humidifier so this humidifier has a pump so it drains we don't have to place it near a sink it's it's um it's much more versatile in the building room where we where we need to place it thank you and um if you don't

have the exact number we I I don't need it today but just curious um how much do we spend on rentals per per year like how how much have we spent it it's hard to say I mean I I rent lifts because we at this time of the year we need you know a dozen lifts across the district District then we have a couple of our own so I rent lifts we rent um other

equipment um if we're having a major event that we don't have tables and chairs for we could possibly rent that um but there were different items um that we would rent in the course of uh a year right and You' agree this is more of a cost Savings in the long term well this is just going to give us the we won't have to wait for any so we're not

going to be at the mercy of waiting for a vendor to bring it to us they they do respond normally within a day or two sometimes uh you know quicker if if they're all available but the issues that we have when we're renting everyone's doing the same thing so with these items here it would be better if we had a decent amount of our own uh to handle okay and just um last question

who's going to maintain them or who's going to be like the responsible we have a service contract um that we'll have with the company for a year a year and a half and then we basically will look for um a firm to take care of this okay so we're not we're not going to M we're not going to hold we won't be maintaining them ourselves no okay um if it if it helps you um

that's good for me I yield for now thank you uh Deb could you please call the role on cleaning restoration Supply Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Corey yes Mr larv yes M Pereira yes may kougan yes all right so then we go to our um continuation starting with Community Partnership contract Mr Das put a hold on People Incorporated does anybody have any other holds on that next page and a half

list which ones are you looking at I'm looking at the one that says Community Partnership contracts Mr Das put a hold on people Link at the top of the page the third one down Mr one goal is the only one I'm sorry one goal one goal down towards the bottom okay anything else there's some otheres okay here in none I'll ask for a motion and a second on um all the contracts except for the

two holes uh motion so made second a motion second discussion yes Mr uh Agia Dr Curley can I ask on the the contracts on the special education contract where we have Services uh speech services um nursing Services there's different types of program and my question is I guess if we can't find a person to fill uh need or whatever these are this I believe is how we handle it in order to

get the per the children to get serviced by somebody is that correct yes I'm not off on that right no I don't think so so I think we need to take a real hard look at this same model so like the I'm looking out there at all those vacancies and you know at some point we have to try to figure out what can we do now we're in negotiations on a contract

we're trying to get that done but separate from that we have vacancies in this Paris uh whatever the positions are but the special education ones come before us as a group to say well we need to get the services for the children it's the so we do this and I'm totally in favor of it if you're able to hire speech therapist then we would reduce this number and pay those folks I get it

but I think we should take that same model and look at any vacancies in the whole District to see if there's a way to figure out whether an agency can help us with some of this uh some of the vacancies that we have across the district no matter what their positions are so we do have we do have Partnerships with various agencies I just was meeting with the uh director of

HR today about this very thing there aren't teachers I'll say that there aren't um so even when we get notices and you could you know kind of read the subject line and it looks like they have teachers because they may say educational staff or whatever it is when we look at the the resumes they're actually sending they are for paraprofessionals um and not for classroom teachers but you're aware of

it trying to get yeah the point is if we're trying to we are have creative ways to try to figure out get an agency to help us even if it's the knock down 25% of them it's less people that we're going to have to need so I I do support this because of that reason but um I think we should look at it across well thank you thank you Mr Mayor I apologize

um so we're just doing all um continuations right now all except for the two holds who you got can I um place an additional two holds on ignite under Grant contracts and um core contracts under Core Business Technologies and miscellaneous I apologize Core Business Technologies top or all all three yeah so um People Incorporated um ignite reading under Grant contracts and um under miscellaneous the first one Court

the first core okay can I get a roll call vote on the others please um Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larv Miss Pereira yes Mary Coogan yes Al so the first hold is on People Incorporated Mr Das thank you um I just have a quick statement um again I have great respect for the work that Mr ly does in her personal life but the

contract we have before here today has nothing to do with that and in my opinion that approving a contract that is in lock step with having a school Committee Member associated with it and working lock step in the school set a bad precedent one for the school committee and I believe it erods the institution itself I think we need to as a school committee we need to hold ourselves to to a higher standard and I

did attend the last um special education subcommittee where this was brought up and some of my colleagues made false assertions without evidence that the line of questioning was personal it's just not the case this is a contract being funded with taxpayers dollars I have a duty to vote on that contract and to ask questions on it if some of my colleagues want to use fallacies to try

and scare other members out of asking questions they don't agree with that's not fair and that's tough luck that's not going to happen with me I'm going to vote my conscience and ask questions that I believe are in the best of the city thank you Mr Cory uh in reference to my colleague's remarks um there were no fallacies stated out at that at that meeting um I just came out in fierce

defense of U Miss lv's position of being Vice chair women of our school committee as well as being an employee of people Incorporated and I know that last year the city council voted to approve the situation as it exists and that's the ruling that I take to heart um beside the point is the fact that miss lv's work is so important and critical to our community has been for a great number of years and continues to

be in her current role especially in designing the Civic engagement Center at People Incorporated so that we could integrate the kids who graduate from there and even come back into the age of 20 and 21 years old to be able to integrate them into to local businesses so that they become an asset to our entire Community rather than a problem and that's why I think it's just a perfect fit um the city council has

exonerated the issue it should not even be an issue before us we it's not an ethical violation to me to be able to serve with the champion of Youth causes I consider it in honor with that I yield Mr chairman Mr AGA Dr killer can you please tell me what the Civic engagement Center is doing and about kids coming back can somebody please enlighten me on the work that people link is doing because that

was Mr Corey just said that the cific engagement center that is part of this contract discussion is bringing back children from that have graduated to come back to I don't I'm trying to re State what he just said but please tell me that that's part of this contract or not like I just I'm missing something there is a part of the project particularly last year when they brought in uh former graduates of RPA that are

productive citizens within the community that hold full-time jobs across a wide range of job shadow job experiences and I think that's what Mr Cory was talking about as an element of um particularly the freshman sophomore and seventh and eighth grade experiences that they were generating last year at RPA as it reles to we're getting those people jobs by this contract we're getting we have guest

speaker like they're coming in as guest speakers yeah what does that have to do with this contract the Civic engagement center it's not even called Civic engagement so what what is the Civic engagement center it's it's part of her duties in in her role the Civic engagement Center was a piece of the building at RPA that the staff from People Incorporated worked out of so whether that was the tutors is

that are you past tense or present tense you said worked out of last year and we'll plan to continue to work out of there this year it's a newly established space in the building and it's called Civic engagement Center I think it's called Community engagement Center yeah I believe that's the title that's been used as the space in the building that the staff from people incorporate run and and essentially work

out of during their time at RPA so we we had a subcommittee meeting where I asked some several I asked several questions so I would first like to ask Dr Curley what what was looked at after the meeting so we had the meeting we had citizen input time from two individuals I had some own my own personal questions on the contract and what was looked into between meetings because when I asked

about what is here I'm trying to like look through it to see what is different than what we there is there is nothing different on this particular cont cont from that meeting right so that's what I was trying I apologize I thought the last page that's here looked I thought it was um the last page that's here that says RPA fy2 budget I thought that was different from what was shared at the

subcommittee meeting it was no it wasn't I don't believe I don't have it in front of me I'm sorry right here didn't have this she explained that these there were some additional pieces added in writing some things that were discussed potentially in terms of um kind of where the money was going more of a line item paying 38% of this salary and 50% of this salary which I thought I watched but I I thought that

was new that might be that might be newly added to that budget page yes but the program and the contract itself did not change just an update to the budget to be more clarity providing more clarity in that budget page so the the comments that the questions that I recall asking were um to look into what's happened in the past relative to a grant and any of that any feedback on

so I know that in the we you know we've had a relationship um for you know 10 years or so and I know that in the past there was um you know a piece of it was grant money that is not available so we are picking up um you know we're picking up the entire contract in terms of all of the services that are being provided would be funded through the fall of our

public schools and not um supported by some other grant money true y so when we um one of the other questions was about what are the services for the kids that and we were told that we had a person who was there 80% of the week if I recall uh working with the couple of periods to helping the kids and do resume writing and this and that in in collaboration with the guidance guidance

support staff we talked about there was two uh tutors 20 hours a week they get paid $20 an hour that was there so what what else are we get so I'm having a difficult time trying to weigh multiple things here one is the issue of that we have a sitting school committee member who is actively working in the schools and I have I do have a problem with that and you're very well aware of

that but the second one is just looking at it to say we're spending $140,000 is it something that we could do the type of things that they're doing without having the need for a contract I think that's a valid question for any including the ones that we just you know had coaching for change or Youth Court like what that's what I was looking for to come back with to something to say we

took the considerations of the citizen inputs we took the considerations of the chairperson of the committee and here's why we're still bringing it back I guess that's what I'm trying to pull from you is to say what so we so we did we have have had time to reflect gather some information think through I do think that we have to be fiscally responsible I know that um with this partner and

with other partners that we have there's always this moment where we look at a contract and say wow that's a lot and we could do that with any number of our partners who are coming in to support planning and doing observations and ideally this is all work that we would do ourselves but when we buy new curriculum or we're starting up a new program we very often partner with you

know someone from the outside to come in to do some of that work some of it is capacity building and some of it is just the lift of a new program or something like that um or a particular position that we don't have at that time so as we considered this contract we looked at it in terms of um what how what would we do to replace the services that are being

provided and at the most basic level we would very likely hire to isls instructional support liaison to pick up the tutoring during the day um and look at their salaries in terms of you know salary plus benefits and so those two positions would cost you know about $100,000 with Benefits included and then we would look at um you know a career counselor and even if that person was only coming in at um you know with 80%

if they were only working four days a week which is not really an OP option in the fall of public schools because we don't do anything with part-time help um even that when we look at the the rate for that kind of counselor would cost you know probably um 60 or $70,000 to do that kind of work and so for a shortterm look at um fulfilling the need of a in a building and not committing

initially to kind of any long-term commitments to additional staff we looked at it and thought it made sense in the short term to contract out the work with a partner um and then it'll give us an opportunity another year to say you know is this kind of tutoring getting us what we want it to you know in this short term and then potentially we would look to add an ISL or two isls

to the building and then we might do the same thing with some kind of career counseling where we would look to add a position whether you know again we don't have a mechanism for part-time um positions at at a singular school but whether it's sharing across schools um or or hiring a full-time person at the school then we would look to do that so I appreciate the information sure but

I've had to try to drag it out of you we you didn't you I mean I you didn't okay you asked if it was in the backup and it wasn't I actually thought that potentially Dr bronhard was going to do some part of um you know she was going to present in some way and that we would have that opportunity to share that information I don't feel like you had to pull it out

of me I just when you asked it seemed like a question earlier is there anything extra in here my answer was yes because there was something extra it just wasn't the thing that you were looking for I understand so why I said I think I had to pull it out of you is because I don't have the computer on right now but I would pretty much guarantee that what you just stated is

nowhere to be found in our minute in our packet no it's not it's not so when I said when I was referring to saying I was trying to pull it out of you that's what I was referring to okay when I asked the first question at the beginning was to say are these programs going to get presented as part of the budget like as a discussion item in the past I believe that they did

so that the questions from the subcommittee could be worked on and then analyzed in a report to us so what I was trying to get and then now you said that you would hire two isls but they have two tutors for 20 hours a week MH and it cost $34 878 I'm just going to be honest with you I think it's just trying to figure out how can we justify 140,000 and start to

pull up I don't think so I mean I the one thing I'll say is generally speaking if we're looking at that 40 hours it's probably one and a half isls we just don't have a mechanism for a parttime ISL so then I say okay then it's going to be two if it were one then we'd probably be looking at something close of $50,000 and maybe we wouldn't serve um students to this extent um because we

wouldn't have two tutors working at the same time you know and I'm sure you'd have to bring in the principal to say what is he because he's there to see what it is so I I just don't want to be like okay we we debunk the idea that we can do this stuff in house by just saying we add a few people so I appreciate the idea of we're going to

look at it you know I also want you to know when you went to superintendent over a year ago I've asked the same questions and said we're going to look at all of these with a fine tooth comb we're going to try to figure it out so it's not new I'm not new to the game on trying to ask these questions uh with this particular contract the piece that I'm having a hard time with is not

necessarily the services is the fact that we have a sitting School Committee Member that's actively participating admittedly in front of everyone including the people from people link who are very forthright and forthcoming at the meeting so it's not negative on them what it is is that we have a position here that we as a school committee are paying the salary for a person to have a job that's working as

one of our colleagues now when you look at the ethics uh disclosure that was sent to the city council I for one don't believe the city council knew what they were voting on at the time but it was over a year ago so I think that they this should be an annual event if that's the case for one and number two is that it just creates a problem not only ethically but morally and in Integrity

wise for the administration to say that we're going to continue this program knowing that the person's going to be working as a school Committee Member to be working in a school it's just unfair to the principal of the school the teachers the directors or anybody to have a person working like that it just it it really is and I think that um you know my stance because I sent you

after the meeting I sent you and the three assistant superintendent a wellth thought out email related to my feelings on this issue and I don't believe it's appropriate for any of this committee to be doing that now if Miss lar Works somewhere else then go ahead when I ask the people link folks do you have another program or something so we could say maybe she's doing this project in

taon or wherever it was said no it's right here so it's blatant very clear to everyone that she's working in our schools paid for by the school committee and I cannot support the program that way what I did suggest in a followup to you and your three assistant superintendents was that my suggestion would be in order to create the the situation where the children get the services that we wanted that we could do

the tutors as is here because in the past we've done tutors at Henry La school back in the day we had retired folks come in and whatever we could do with that as well as a um either a um SCA on or some other position so that the person could actually work with the school and we wouldn't have to every year try to figure this out we would say we kind of get the services I've

articulated I don't think necess neily think that people link has I call it skin in the game of a a grant that we were paying you know for which happened in the past so they've admitted that there's no skin in the game this year it's 140,000 and I just don't see the need to do that I think we should avoid any conflict Miss L we can stay on the committee and I think we should deny

this particular contract and come back with a plan to just say we're going to hire some staff with the similar amount of money to make sure that the children get the services so I'm going to make a motion to deny this and then we can still have conversation after as long as it gets seconded Mr chairman uh Mr Cory oh I'm sorry Mr I made that motion to deny if we could get a second and

then we could still have discussion second okay I got a I got a second from Mr D Mr Cory I did tell Mr Das I call him next go ahead thank you Mr Mayor um so a few questions on the contract um itself um what is Miss L salary with People Incorporated I see people Incorporated here so can we um entertain um some discussion with them oh here comes

M good evening thank you um thank you for coming down um M um few questions um what is um Miss L's um actually I'll start with the role what's Miss L's role at People Incorporated sure she is the program director of our Workforce Development and also our affiliate uh Diabetes Association which is Camp okay and um responsibilities um so for certain roles of responsibilities so all those responsibilities under her

position tie into um RPA no 38% of her payroll is geared towards RPA the rest is towards Diabetes Association and other functions within our agency okay and what would Miss L's um duties functions responsibilities be primarily at RPA sure she's our program director um so she is overseeing any of the staff that are operating within the school so the Emily who is the coordinator there as well as the

tutors okay and um there's any way that we can avoid the conflict and move Miss lar to another position uh at this time the structure of of the program has operated and will have to continue operating in terms of having a program director uh within and then throughout those other staff members okay when did is some Program start 10 13 years ago we've been at RPA for quite some time I'm not positive on

that number but it's been quite some time probably a decade at least and when did M when did Miss L be um come on to the position we must be approaching about year two okay and um thank you um so a question um for the administration um the ethics going back to the ethics disclosure that was bed with the city council um I read it and it had in the years that um the ethics disclosure

covers was um the last fiscal year so I I mean Mr agar I believe brings up a great point that this might have to be renewed by the city council and I did watch the city council meeting where they approved that um three members were I believe three members were um absent it was a very quick meeting they might they may or may not have had a full understanding um I think we need to get

a full opinion from the city attorney on this matter um so yeah at this time I'd like to make a motion that we we already have a motion you second I mean right um so I like to continue with that vote okay I y i i i uh Mr Cory and so uh I just wanted to go on um look a little bit more closely at this now in my years working in inside

the Fall River Public Schools we were able to build really strong Community Partnerships with Community Development organization with family services with the boys and girls club with the YMCA and with People Incorporated there have been so many cases involving the welfare of our students within the schools where we've needed so much extra help in scaffolding throughout the community and having those having that

Network so closely available to our intent work inside the schools proves to be so valuable year in and year out and our relationship with People Incorporated is no different now I would tend to challenge the idea that there's an ethical violation going on here because Miss larv is not employed by our Public Schools she's employed by an outside agency that's doing a direct service to our public

schools and especially in community engagement and reintegration for children who have had criminal records and need extra backup to get a leg up these are the kind of these are the kind of this is the stuff that makes Fall River a better City not a worse City and it takes special Dynamic personality in order to run allows these children and these young adults and to keep them engaged in the process of

their own lives and how critical the situation is in their own lives that she keeps their heads in the game because that's the type of person she is she's that critical she's that intense she's that successful and she develops leadership skills within people and as a worker for an outside agency doing contract work with the florid of the public schools I see no violation at all in this as a matter of fact I

consider it again an honor to be able to be by her side and to forward the lives of our young students and and young adults in this city I hope I've made myself clear with that explanation she works for an outside agency providing a direct service to our schools with that I yield Mr chairman Mr Das um I believe mrar has hand up first what are you going to go

ahead okay um I I'll make a motion um to the I'll make an amendment to the motion at this time that um we receive a um written opinion from the city attorney as to the validity of the ethics disclosure that was filed by Mr ly I'll make that in the form of an amendment come on okay hearing no second Mr AGA good Mr so the issue that we have is um under what Mr Cory just

described if we had a person on this committee that is a counselor let's just suppose and they wanted to go work for a private agency they could come in get a 268 whatever the ethics thing is and say they're able to come in and do counseling in our schools with our kids as an elected official in the schools and we wouldn't think there's any problem with that and the superintendent

and her Administration wouldn't have any problem with that what we what we're talking about here is multi-layered let's not talk about what people link does it's a great great organization they do good work they've done good work with us the bottom line is is that we should not have an elected School Committee Member here and we're taking that vote now this is a new contract so so we're basing it on the

superintendent and her team actually presenting this and thinking that this is an okay thing to do and I'm not voting for for that reason separate from what the ethics commission said it's just not okay as far as as a violation of just common Integrity we don't want to have our school committee members being in the schools working side by side with our staff with our principles and the perception of undo influence

positive or negative ative is something that shouldn't be Miss larvie admittedly by the people link folks and anybody that was at the table admittedly she's here working she's advocating for the program she's in the superintendent's office the prior superintendent's office she's meeting with the principal she's meeting with Dr brunard she's pres she's actively working on a program in our

schools as an elected sitting School Committee Member and that's a problem that's a problem for everyone including the administration and I want to say I had mentioned this to this to the superintendent and the assistant superintendent so I wrote an email on Thursday August 1st I wanted to share some backup based on our subcommittee conversation related to miss Low's exemption from the contract thank you

for looking into this because it was stated at the time that you were going to look into it I believe that regardless of any exemptions Etc we should not have elected school committee members in our schools paid for paid work and that would include myself if that if need be if I visit schools and buildings I follow the agreed upon procedures to alert the superintendent of my request

to visit a school just like I did when we went to the Green School visit recently it is not appropriate for principals admin or teachers to interact with school committee members on a daily basis working in the buildings during the workday this is something that's not only part of our own procedure as school committee members but I believe that thec would have to weigh in on this as

well I would not to want to work under these conditions at my daily school job so I feel strongly about this issue at the meeting it was made clear that miss larv is actively participating in advocating for people in it was also stated by the director of people Inc that they have no other program under Mimi's position with any school other than Fall River therefore if it was not for the people incall River schoool's

partnership Miss lv's job would not exist that's what I sent to you Dr cury and the assistant superintendent it spells it out pretty clear that I can I'm only speaking for myself that's why I have one vote but the reason why voting no is because this is a violation not of the ethical piece because that's a totally different discussion for the ethics commission to have or the city

council to have but as admin in this in this District we should not allow this process to go forward so I'm going to consist consistently ask that a no vote gets done and figure out a way to get the services to the kids are you I I I haven't spoken on this at all I'm going I'm going to support this uh I work for people l in uh I'm probably the only one

on the stage that worked at Pi when I um retired from the schools in there um what then was called the Civic engagement Center working with kids I have no problem with the ethics ruling that was given to allow Miss larave to do that that's why we have an Ethics commission that rules on things like this second of all we need all the support we can in that building and if someone's building links with the

community helping those kids get jobs I went down there to career day when they had all those people talking to the kids because I think it's important and that's uh you know I know Mr uh agar just said we shouldn't be in the buildings I'm in the buildings and I'm I'm going to stay going in your buildings I don't think there's a principal here that hasn't seen me walking around their building I think

it's important to know I support them and I'll do whatever I can to make sure they they have a strong and uh support from both the school committee and the administration and that's how I look at education this is another partner we have if the principal of RPA looks at this and thinks it's disruptive it's not having a positive impact on the school it's not it's we're not getting our

money's worth then he should propose an alternative plan for next year not with 15 days to go and say we can do this better because and outline the steps necessary to help those kids because right now I haven't seen that I've seen this one I was in that program last year with the principal and uh when Miss larby was there and I think maybe Dr bronhard was with me but we were in

there working to see what was going on to support those students that do need extra supports and I'm not going to vote against giving it to them with 15 days to go pull the rug out from under them if I as I said there's a better plan and someone on this stage has it get it to the administration work with the existing principal and um the assistant superintendent and develop it but right

now with 15 days out um I don't believe that um we're still trying to fill Math Science and and whatever else I think um unless doc if Dr bronhard Who I said I know I go by there she's in she's living in the front of that building if she thinks we don't need that that program I'm going to listen to her but I'm going to support Dr bronhard so I'm maybe not

living in the front of that building but I do try to be present across the district I think a couple of points I would just like to add to this last year we did do a hard look at the particular budget and the services from People Incorporated which is what prompted us and I Wish U principal Riley where he had tonight which is what prompted us to bring the culinary position into the

operating budget during budget season because we recognized that that was a Korea pathway that was of high regard of our students and there was a high request for that program and we saw an opportunity to really build it out across the grade levels and the opportunity for a full-time educator in that position potentially even going Chapter 70 down the road in addition to that we brought the program of study

forth last year and in there is a heavy lean into the work Force development because of the urban youth initiative which was the arm that was Grant funded of last year's contract from people link that they brought in to subsidize the contract with we were struggling to find success with our students because we didn't have enough students that were looking to engage in the Human Service

field in addition to that their basic workplace Readiness skills needed some serious development and support So as we look at the program of studies and how we've really attempted to take a a grade level developmental approach to to this work we need somebody who can do do this work and I'll just use Emily as the person because it is her role and it is her position within the building um to

take on this work and continue to work with our guidance councilors and create the community connections to really look almost like a specialized Workforce plan for every one of our Juniors and seniors similar to that of an indivi IND individualized education plan for our students because each of our individual students at RPA truly needs something different as it relates to not just

Workforce Development but also College in career Readiness and college in career awareness our kids can go to college our kids can secure high-paying jobs but we need to support them and give them the skills and the tools to do that and knowing the landscape of needs at RPA as we are truly looking to Rebrand and restructure all that we offer down there to make it truly an alternative school here in the city that

provides alternative options to kids not just a sep School building and so that is where as we came forward to this you know this has been I think it's important to recognize this has been a 10year history that personally I can speak to that I stepped into Mimi is not the first school Committee Member as the mayor just noted who has occupied this role in The People Incorporated contract

over the years and so as we move forward if this is the committee's wish Mr AGA we've heard from you loud and clear but you are one vote and I also don't feel it's up to us at this stage to just take the contract away eliminate it without getting feedback from the committee because of its long-standing history um and so I guess that is also some guidance that we need because of the

long-standing history of people Link in the partnership I don't want to undersell it and I don't want to act as though we can just replace it with internal folks because as we often know sometimes those folks get pulled in other directions and then the work they were hired to do isn't as robust as it was intended although best intentioned so with that I'll yield but I I thought it was important to put some of those

pieces out there Mr cor we vote no no I have go ahead comment go ahead along the lines I'd like to comment again um we just heard a strategy going on at the RPA school that has forwarded the vision of that program that's been really troubled for quite a long time and I really I I really need to thank Dr bronhard because pedal is on the metal as far as trying

to change the whole situation at that place and things are on the move that school is slowly but gradually improving in its overall vision and output and as I stated earlier we need all the help we can get from our connecting agencies in the city to develop a close partnership with those agencies of which people incorporated as a a strong strong partner and I can't help but think and

I've been doing volunteer work inside that school on a weekly basis I can't help but think to know that I'm seeing improvements take place in front of my eyes I can't believe they're going to have a culinary program there I think it's just tremendous those kids need every opportunity they can get and People Incorporated is contributing to that overall goal the city council looked at this last

year and gave it its blessing we have a champion at the helm of this position and I can't help but feel that this is more than just looking at a budgetary contract item with that I'll yield Mr AA so this is definitely more than a budget item this is an issue of a personal decision that each school committee member has to make and the administration from the superintendent to her assistant superintendent needs to

make the question at hand is do you do we think that it's okay for the school department to pay for the salary or half of the salary whatever the percentage is of a sitting School Committee Member to work in our schools yes or no is that clear yes or no that's what the vote is for the services aren't what anybody's debating and the and the issue of what the need is is not what anybody's debating but

the issue is when are we going to say enough's enough so the chairman said he used to work as a Smiles Mentor coordinator whatever for people link I would say the same exact thing at the time that was the same problem we shouldn't have been having anybody you shouldn't be able to retire from the school and get a job working in our schools for a private agency just like I

just said if Mr Corey wants to go as a counselor and be a counselor he can go to people link say let's get a contract to provide counseling and I can go work in the schools and I'm retired I would say no that to me is not something that we should support and that's not something that the superintendent should support but the superintendent is supporting this and I want to let people

know this isn't something that just came out I've had this conversation over one year ago when this contract first came out with the old superintendent when it came out when Dr bronhard first got the job I articulated the issues we also have to understand Community engagement Center if there's nothing wrong ethically with Miss laravie taking the job of the director of that Center or

whatever it is why then did we have it on the website for years even after the position ended called person's job was the director of the community engagement Center on a school department website with a person who doesn't supposedly work for us but is on the website we brought that up to you over a year ago same thing with the prior superintendent so the issue is it becomes part of the

school it's listed on the website as part of the school it's an outside service Mr chair tomm Tommy Tommy he's got the floor so the issue is that we have that the person shouldn't be doing that as a sitting School Committee Member if like I said if Mr Cory wants to go get a job counseling and and try to go to an agency a third party go ahead I'm going to say the same thing

about him or any other member right now all right so on August 6 I wrote back to the same folks looking for an answer on something to try to get feedback so I've been thinking about the information presented the president of the people link confirmed at the meeting that they are not putting any money in the program for our schools that they work with in the past it was a grant so this begs the

following questions for me I wrote to the superintendent and the three assistant superintendents as one member with one vote why do we need them then does People Inc have actual skin in this game are we continuing this program for political considerations question mark it was told to the subcommittee and if we're being honest this is the reality of the services provided they're paying

the following two tutors 24 20 hours a week 34,000 and one young lady to work in the classrooms 80% of the week let's assume that's a $50,000 Bill those Services would both add up the students are getting around $85,000 worth of uh money our budget is 140 the total budget is 139 less the 85 we could get 50,000 savings let's just say we want that to keep it equal we got plenty of play to

try to make it equal I can't support this contract moving forward I write to them I do recommend that in order to preserve these Services long term we should hire a person to work full-time at the RPA doing the work mentioned which by the way it was stated that they would be in collaboration with our own counselors and staff so they're doing it in collaboration with our guidance counselors and adjustment counselors

that the case load is very low relative to that school we we can hire the tutors as we have in the past as a past practice in the schools this would allow the work to continue at RPA without needing to be subject to grant funding annually that is my proposal individually to the assistant superintendent and superintendent to keep this longterm as one member I just don't understand why

we're going to sit here and actually say we're going to take a vote so in my opinion any school committee member that votes and says this is okay you are allowing the for River school committee to pay the salary for one of our members to be working in the schools that's inappropriate both on our own policy the role of the school committee that we always get uh talked to about what's the

role of the school committee it violates several of those things including the Integrity of the superintendent and the administrative team for allowing this to go on this is a St and I think we need to vote no on this contract with that I yield okay Mr Das go ahead I'll be quick Mr we want to get to a vote tonight M Miss bronhard um have you spoke to Mr L um since the last um subcommittee

meeting about this not no not directly I communicated with Dr Curley and I communicated with the co the program executive director rather Mr the only question I have that I just want I just need to understand if M ly saw the opinion of the ethics Commission because I think it's a valid question on the on the ethics um disclosure it did have last year's it was disclosed for last year I would take

that we need to find out if it needs to be renewed because I can't sit here and take a vote on a contract that could potentially be illegal I think we need an answer to that question before excuse me um I think we need a question answer to that question before we we take a vote on this whether because we don't want to put anyone in legal implication either the E the ethics disclosure had

last year's fiscal year and we're voting to renew a contract for this for school year I think it's a valid question that we should get the answer to before and the school committee should do is due diligence in knowing that before we take a vote tonight that's why I support Mr agar's motion and if that does not succeed I'll make a motion to the table until we can get an answer because we

should not take a vote that's potentially illegal till we know that very important answer I yield okay okay we ready to vote let's vote um what's the yeah please weate the motion the motion from Mr agar seconded by Mr Das was to deny the people in in People Incorporated contract Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey no Mr Das yes Mr Cory no Miss larvey Miss Pereira no mayor Coogan yes 3 three what does that

do next item motion to table next item I don't well I just wait we didn't even vote on what was the contract no you voted no meaning you I voted no on his Amendment first of all this is what's confusing we have it's confusing let me please let me just Sor this is the only thing I have to do CU it's like I know what everybody thinks cuz I've heard it 50 times what I'm confused

about is on the agenda it's a vote to approve then M my colleague Mr AIA make an amendment to deny the motion which is what thought I was voting on yeah me too all right so why would we this is what I don't understand and I know I'm still new to this guys don't get me wrong but if we have a motion on here we approve something why do we need to make a

motion to deny it right not passing be the denial my vote is was a no I am sorry Mr Hagar's motion was the one that confused me Miss per is right so that motion is denied 4 to two motion motion to table second on the motion to table I am going to vote well hold on no discussion motion to table okay no go ahead you want to table this so it's to table the People Incorporated

contract Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory no Miss laravie Miss Pereira no mayor Coogan no any is not motion is not Ted now to now can I get a motion to approve motion to approve please can I get I have a motion and a second to approve the People Incorporated contract Deb could you call the role Please Mr Mr Agia I'd like to make offer an amendment to the motion

that we remove the entire salary from miss Larry to this vote second I don't know if that's an appropriate motion I don't think if we're allowed to do I would think that's not an appropriate motion we're going to approve the contract first if you want to make a motion to I think it's a I don't I believe point of well where's Mr uh Assad I don't think um that's an appropriate Amendment I'm sorry I was

too that's reducing the contract on the issue on the issue Mr Mr Assad we're now voting to approve the contract for People Incorporated Mr agar made a motion to reduce it by the salary paid to miss larvey is that an appropriate motion I don't believe so I don't think so either okay call the role Please Mr chairman let's call the role first Mr chairman you to be recognized on this vote okay that's all go ahead so

attorney Assad when you were not here the question is we're voting on a budget that's here that's the contract in the budget that we have here it's listed at whatever percentage is the salary for Miss laravie particular money here on it I don't know which one it is I said Miss ly because I don't know which one it is is it the program director or the career counselor I would assume that it's the

Personnel director program management Personnel director can somebody confirm that because that's all I'm asking is to reduce it by that amount which is definitely part of what we're voting on we're voting on this particular paper that's the budget that lists specifically that line item and all I'm asking to do is reduce that line item that piece of this can somebody please get an answer on whether what that is Mr

AGA you don't even know if it's approved yet you don't know what the amount is and you're trying to make a motion it doesn't make sense it's because that we're approving this budget sir what we're approving is the budget that's here I I was approving what was in the right and and the backup document is this budget right here so it's is that an appropriate Amendment it's I don't I do not believe so you are the

parliamentarian I'm going to rule that out of order can we get an answer please I'm going I still have the floor thank you okay I'm going to go with Mr Assad's recommendation that it's out of order go ahead I still have the floor so uh can someone tell me what which one of those percentages is uh program management Personnel director 25,2 70 is the total I'm going to ask the superintendent a

pointed question do you think that it's appropriate to have a sitting School Committee Member work on this contract in a school yes or no where we have a sitting where we have a sitting school committee member who is not supervising follower of Public School staff and we've had no indication from coming out of the school that there is a conflict I would support it so you would say yes to that question that you

think it's appropriate to have a school Committee Member working in the school under this contract she just answered repeat you're to repeat her answer now Kevin can we get to a vote please you can do everything you can to beat this up yep I'm going to ask one more question that' be great I want Dr bronhard do you think that appropriate for this to be for a sitting School Committee Member to be working in this

particular contract I I think it has been a past practice of this committee to allow it back in May when we brought the P program of study forward and communicated specifically about people's Inc involvement in that program of study I would have appreciated a conversation by the committee at that time to bring up the role of a sitting School Committee Member in the schools to Dr Curley's point I have not received any

communication from Mr Riley um adding that there is a level of influence that he is experiencing negatively and I'm all and I would like to be able to plan forward for this school year to be able to be on time and providing the services to our kids so the answer to the question was yes or no do you think it's appropriate to have a sitting school committee but we're

working in the school yes or no I think it's a policy the committee needs to reassess because they've allowed it for over over a decade so I would say that answer is yes I'm not I don't really have an opinion and I can tell you the reason why is because and the reason why I'm asking those questions is because I raised things and I've raised this to you specifically over a year ago

relative to his position so it's kind of disingenuous to have you say that you would have liked to appreciate it some time in May because we had a conversation last year related to this exact issue when you first got the job so don't think that it's okay to just throw it out there and Mr a can we get to I did say this over a year ago and

you can deny it if you want but the fact is that we had that conversation and I know we've had conversations and I don't think that either one of you are being truthful with relative to this particular issue so with that I'm vote no and I yield you don't think that I'm being truthful can we just do a can we just yeah just do a roll call this is just he just this is making please

confirm the vote so everybody knows what they're voting on this time please okay go ahead again please de motion was to approve the people in corporated contract Mr Carrera made the motion and Mr Cory seconded it Mr AA Mr Das has his hand up go ahead I'm just going to ask one question um so we're voting voting on a contract and is it usually practiced to include the actual contract the language of the contract in the

board dos is that typical practice no because we don't because Mr agar's point we're voting on a budget we're not voting on the actual contract I like to see the actual language we're voting on that wasn't included in the boards you just voted on a contract that now you want to see I I'm I'm not I'm not going to vote to support the contract but we don't have cont going to change you're going

to vote no anyway it it it doesn't matter but for the public edification if we're going to vote on a contract I should see the actual contract in front of me can we get the vote Please Mr chair what is it now Mr AG I think it's a valid point that Mr Das asked the question that he the question that he asked to the superintendent moving forward this is the question that he

asked when we have these things should we have a contract and agreement yes or no we have it for coaching for change we have anou which is a contract that says the terms of the contract what's expected and the like we have that for one we don't have that for others so for he's right on point that for moving forward when we have these things we should have a contract so that when we

vote we're approving the contract that's all the gentleman asked idea put yeah put it up online go ahead Deb could you please call the rooll Mr agel no Mr Bailey yes Mr Das no Mr Cory yes Miss larv Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes next up ignite reading Mr Das um just real just going back to our last instructional um school committee meeting um subcommittee meeting um M superintendent if you can just explain

to the um public um we're not actually voting on an actual dollar amount this is the one we referred out of um sub commit correct yes so this um particular ignite reading um contract is really for um granted it it's paid for through grant funding when we were awarded the initial Grant um last year for ignite reading um there was money that was allotted potentially um for continuation of the

grant um with some students who did not meet um who did not make the expected progress so we had a grant last year for first grade students um with the additional money that was built into the grant we were um offered the opportunity to continue to work with 121 of those students um as second graders and that's free of charge yes we're not paying out of pocket for that right and I support

that I just wanted for the Public's edification they see the $198,000 but it's really not yes exactly thank you I yield uh motion to approve I have a motion to approve ignite reading I have a motion to Second discussion Deb please call the role on ignite reading Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Corey yes M larv yes M Pera May Coogan yes um next up Mr Das put a hold on Core Business

Technologies thank you um just want to get an understanding I I brought it up at the last meeting so this is really um for for printing am am I wrong correct yeah he just explain for the community's edification at home like why the it's $216,000 just for you know printing have we looked into other ways we can cut down on that we have that is for our over 200 printer Fleet that includes

anything from a typical plastic piece to a more a finisher which can go for10 to $30,000 depending on the machine um this is for all of the preventative maintenance throughout the life of the machine um this is State contract which we've done in the past um the reason that I have continually gone with this company is because when I call they arrive um teachers need to have the copy

machines available to them to run you know worksheets and such off um core has been excellent to us um and they've also been able to get us um the parts the labor and the the drum units when no other vendors could at the time um we will after speaking at the tech subcommittee meeting uh be doing a more in-depth dive into the area of copy machines um and doing a more formal RFP

just to see what's out there did this go before technology subcommittee it did yes it did and it was it was referred out yes unanimously okay yeah and just and just to your point um if we can have those discussions going forward to find ways we can reduce on those costs because I think especially in today's day of age where we use um a lot of technology and a lot less paper I think that we can

definitely cut down on that I yield anything further on Core Business Technologies Mr a yeah just uh for the director for the assistant superintendent I think superintendent is not here but this is the same thing that we when we present something at the subcommittee a contract that we're going to actually present it's the expectation that we present that at the full committee so that it could be

streamlined it could be something but we actually have a line item in the agenda the following agenda that says we referred these contracts for forward so just nothing wrong with this one Mr cabal answered the questions fine you're going to look at it it's just a systems thing I think we need to get into consistent systems we should have brought all the other reports back we should have brought this one back so I'm

in support of it but you get it thank you are you anything further on Core Business may I do have can we hold final site because it's a discussion item and this is a contract hold which one buddy final site it's a discussion item okay so you want to hold that till after we go into we're going to have to hold that all right so we're going to hold final site which is

a couple down until later in the Mee explain that um it's a contract we have to approve an executive session no not an it's a discussion item on the agenda oh okay I got it's on the agenda it's also here so we'll do it when it's on the agenda instead of in this group so yeah go ahead so the issue is so we have final site in the contracts on section

two or three of the uh agenda right when we sit down well not we because I don't sit down when the chair Vice chair attorney and superintendent and her team or whoever sits down to go over the agenda wouldn't it come up that somebody says what the our school committee uh secretary just picked up that if something's on the agenda and item number 10 we shouldn't put it on contracts in item number two wouldn't

you think that that might be the case but why why is it the and I've said this over and over and people can roll their eyes all they want the end of the day we we I don't know what we do on those agenda meetings but this shouldn't be picked up by the secretary at the time of vote I yield thank you Mr agar Mr chair Mr Das just a quick question um so

what do we just a a point in parliamentary inquiry as um since we just voted to approve that contract will we have to make a motion to reconsider would be we did it as part of the block okay so it's done anyway yeah it's done it was on two spots okay Core Business did we vote on Core Business Mr D no I need a motion in a second okay I

need a motion I got a motion second um Deb would you please call the role on core business I need a motion I need a motion motion I have a motion do I have a second I have a Mr Cory you got to say something second on Core Business can we call the role Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Bailey be taking a break Mr Das no yes Mr baile yes Mr D Mr Bailey said yes

Mr D said no Mr Cory yes Mr larv yes Miss Pereira which one is this cor cor Mr D put a hold on it we just got it explained to us by Mr uh Scott okay I'm sorry could you read to me the could you read to me please the what I'm putting on it's uh to approve the core business technology in the amount of $216,800 yes thank you Mary Coogan yes next one

that Mr D put a hold on was one gold oh was that M uh I don't have any more holes was that you Mr Agia one goal yes go ahead the only thing I was asking on that is when we see contracts if we can get and I it might be here so I apologize if it's there but I believe this is an increase um from the prior year and I

just don't know that it was highlighted as such that this is the program I think I always ask you a lot of questions about why can't we do it in house and now all that so separate from the piece of that discussion and I don't want to take that discussion again you know my stance on it but we just increased it by 10,000 and it just sort of was going to the way

I was seeing it slide by maybe I missed it so I apologize if I missed it but I don't see a a one pager in the thing that says uh it's an increase so the more that we keep increasing an outside program where we can do the same job with an inhouse person I start to question I'm not looking to go over the whole thing I'll make a motion to approve it just just a point of

clarification that we shouldn't be seeing buried increases without clarification make a motion to approve second I have a motion to Second any discussion on one goal please call the RO de Mr Aya yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Corey yep Miss larvi yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes Committee of the whole this comes up every year here we need a discussion and vote to approve a school committee Delegate for the

November masc Mass joint conference as presented by Dr Curley so I'm here tonight to ask for a volunteer from the committee to attend the conference in hyenas November 6 through 9th um I can tell you how it's described it's described as a must-attend event for Education professionals dedicated to enhancing School governance and improving student outcomes um it's really an opportunity

to you know interact with um some peers and potentially people in other roles um this is a conference to which um school committee members superintendents and assistant superintendents are invited um administrative and executive assistants business managers um life members of the mass Association of school committees and there are also vendors and sponsors there who I'm sure are selling their

wees Mr Das is volunteered to go does anybody else want to go your hand Mr Aya no I don't definitely don't want to go okay so after um the disappointing performance by the masc of course of course of course yeah I don't I don't know why we have side dialogue it's okay for you Mr chairman but there's not side dialogue with other people why you're talking so all I'd ask you is please be respectful

and as chairman when you're not respectful and you keep on mumbling under your breath while laughing and giggling it's really not professional yeah thank you for that my comment on this particular item 12.1 is that the masc I don't think represented this entire school committee quite well with the superintendent search so I'm going to be voting no on this and I'd also like to request that

we have a representative from masc come before us at a future subcommittee meeting to determine whether we want to be a member of their organizations rather than just pushing it forward thank you all of you voting no are y all right um I uh I would definitely support Mr Das going down it's good at Learning experience for a young member um can I get a motion a second motion motion I

have a motion a second second Deb would you please call chairman question on the issue sure what does it cost oh I'm sorry I just I think it's on there have to register do believe it my might I do believe it's on here I want to say it's

400 a conference ticket is um $425 if we had done it by August 15th which we have we will we will be able to do that um and then there are different events there's a keynote um dinner ticket that could be purchased buffet lunch tickets and things like that but $425 plus whatever so I think it usually costs around 600 sure I think that I definitely won know y okay Deb could you

call the roll M drag no Mr baile so we're voting on Mr Das to be our delegate Mr go Mr Das abstain Mr Cory yes Miss lvy yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes good luck Mr Das good experence next item up on the agenda is a discussion and vote to approve the job description for the Early Childhood support teachers presented by Kristen faras

go ahead Kristen you're up okay um so the job description before you is not a new position it is a position that has been in place for many years we are approaching the possibility that we are going to have to post this position I'm anticipating it's going to become vacant uh however we were unable to locate the previous job description and so I'm bringing before you just a new job description for

approval okay you have the job description in front of you anybody have any questions m is this the one that I was looking at that didn't have the salary range again so there's no salary range on it because it's an fra position so the salary would be per F Rea contract so do we know where they'd fall and what they would be depends on the candidate it would depends on the candidate their years of experience

their education so but does it do they have a range that they know it would fall under and is this typical not to have the salary on there because again it comes back to me to the same point if I'm applying for a job I want to know what the range is and I know that if maybe I'm not as qualified of as much as experience I may fall at the lower end but we're

expecting people to apply for a job not knowing what they're getting paid go through the interview process go through the resume process come in here meet with HR get the job find out they're not making enough money just doesn't make sense if that's the way it's supposed to go based on Union things but I'm in a union at my work and every job I apply for has a salary range on there so I

think every job that we have should have a salary range that's my only problem but without I yell I'm pretty sure the salary SC scale is posted for all teachers so if you come in with four years experience you look at step five in that okay but if I'm looking for a job on the floor of a website and I'm scrolling through I want to see what this job pays before I click app

I want to have an idea of the range before I click apply I don't want to then go do research to I mean and I mean Clearly say they're going to be disappointed so we should at least make it easy for them all right anyway without we we can absolutely at we can substitute that language with the range it's about a $40,000 difference like you know say like 48 to 88 or something like that

4887 okay Mr Mr uh Corey and then Mr a yeah I just want to get a little bit of background r on this Miss various so according to this description uh it seems like this support teacher would be um a major consultant for the Early Childhood Program and working in between uh everybody that's working in the program and especially with outside agencies uh is that correct yes so this person um works out of the Early

Childhood office and really does span um all of the community-based programs across the city working with early intervention working with families as well as working with our um in District classrooms particularly in the areas of um indicator 7 which is a reporting indicator for Desi in early childhood as well as child find so looking at kiddos who are coming to us in community base

in those Lottery slots where there may be concerns yeah um so when you say they're working with outside agencies they working with the mental health agencies so no this is working directly with the community-based child care agencies so those who serve children ages 2 and a half to 5 years old oh okay so all the other uh uh the ones that are private y the childcare agencies at a private so our child find obligation

expands to any child who resides in the city okay it's it's a little a little bit it's a little bit cloudy to me but uh but I understand it's a it's a Le it's it's a liaison type position where this person would be bringing a lot of pieces to the table yes and so a lot of the work with the community agencies the childcare agencies really relates to child find and so when an agency has a

child that is enrolled with them where they have concerns about that child's development they contact contact our office this person goes out works with them works with the child gets involved with the family conducts a developmental screening and then works with us on if that child does require a special education evaluation will support the family in um that work with us if that

child does not support uh a special Le evaluation do we still take the child not necessarily so again Our obligation through child find is really to identify children that reside in the community that may have a disability very good so we're providing those Services according to the disability of the child correct thank you are you any further disc Mr R here oh I'm sorry so miss Pereira raises a valid

question and I can say with certainty that this same exact thing has been mentioned at least 10 times at this table by the committee most times I was the one asking the question saying I have no idea why when we're going out in advertising positions why we don't put the range the minimum and the maximum range for every job by putting it out there and say well by contract it doesn't make any sense to

miss pereira's point you want to be able to look at a job and say this is how much it makes this is how much it makes we should do that from every job in the school department and we've said this over and over but for some reason when things get through the agenda process or whatever people aren't looking at these things with a fine tooth comb because this has been said over and over and

that includes the top job when we advertised the position of superintendent of schools we didn't even put the range of money that we thought because this committee never actually voted to say what the range of position was why I had a problem with the mass Association of school committees and the mayor was chuckling about oh of course I did the reason why I had a problem with that was

because when we advertise to try to get the best person for the job we should have advertised the job to say we're paying between 210,000 and 245,000 or whatever the number is that the committee would vote on so that when that advertisement goes out somebody that's looking to make 225,000 235,000 might apply so miss pera's point on this is 100% on point but I don't understand what the problem

is and why we don't do this on a regular basis if it's a it's a contracted position we have arranged start to finish in this particular case if it's the teachers union you would say the starting pay is 50,000 whatever it is to the total we've said it over and over and over and over and it still doesn't happen so I'm totally in favor of the pro the position but the question that

she asked was spot on why is it not say that if I could just say a couple of things so I think what happened in this particular case was that um we used the um you know the bones of another contract to make sure we had all of the elements I'm sorry of of another job description and in that particular job description the one that we used it did not have the range it just had the

language that it would be per the contract so we had that discussion I said I thought we had a conversation about putting all of the S um putting all the salary ranges in and it you know what came up was like oh perhaps that was just for kind of these snon position positions and things like that because this you know this is an existing job description and look so it's like luck

of the draw we picked a job description that we had on file that had not been updated with with the um with the salary ranges so we can make that change the other change that I would like to suggest that we make is actually in the last um statement where we have listed here additional duties as assigned by the director of Early Childhood that was language that was modeled in a different

contract um and I'd like to propose language that exists in other teacher contracts um that says all other responsibilities listed in the collective bargaining agreement between the fall Riv Educators Association and the Fall River school committee that would help us remain consistent um with other teacher contracts F Rea contracts that language change and the addition of the salary

range I got to see anybody okay sorry Mr AG I can't see so that particular change somehow we've had this debate also to say why is it that we have contract language inside of a job description we've had that debate many many times that we don't we shouldn't be putting contract language in job descriptions because the job description stays for whatever and then the contracts change so if it says something

in the contract that would dictate what happens what we did in certain situations that have caught us as a quagmire now is that we have things that somehow popped into a job description that said we're going to follow stuff in the contract and when I've asked probably 50 times to every person on this board including the attorney to say please tell me how that happened no one can trace it back to say how it happened

so I totally would be opposed to we the contract language dictates what happens we don't need to put that in a job description we're in the middle of a mess right now relative to that same exact issue and I'd like attorney Assad in before we add any of that type of language because it doesn't make any sense to be putting contract stuff in a job description and I think the new

gentleman is wanting to talk but I don't have the authority to ask him to say let's see what he says I just have some information about job descriptions and whether or not the salary is posted um so I'm Brian L I'm the new director of HR first of all um so one thing the the job description that you have in front of you is just the job description the other thing that I'm going to talk

about is the job posting and that's what gets put online and that's what people actually apply to the job description is just the language of job description qualifications job posting which is on Talent Ed every job posting includes the salary range so you're not going to see it on this paper which from my standpoint makes sense because anytime a new salary range gets approved by the

contract we don't want to go into every single individual job description that we have to change that on the actual paper instead what we can do is in Talent Ed we can say every single teacher position we're doing a minimum of the lowest that you can make a maximum of the highest you can make and that gets put on every job description we can do that for par professionals maintenance all of our other U unions as

well so it's on there Mr chairman yeah Mr chairman can't see him Mr can I ask the gentleman a question so based on that logic you would agree that we shouldn't be put putting the info in there that says the contract language cuz it's duplicating that I I honestly I'd have to look at it like Case by case basis I think maybe depending on on what it says um in general I I don't think I would

include contract language in the um job description just because that's why they have a contract I AG but I I think I would take it on a case I think we're on the same page thank you okay so is the so are we saying that we would just take out number 14 Al together what does it say number 14 says additional duties as assigned by the director of Early Childhood if they're

within the contract that's what they just said the contract yeah it's fine she should have the right to say this with the assignment I think that's the language the piece of the contract is like the gentleman said that's part of the contract okay so this is just with the understanding that there are contractual duties that would be assigned that Mak take presence yeah sure all can I get a motion a second

motion approve second I have a motion a second Deb call the rooll Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes M Pereira yes Mary kouan

yes yeah tell me would took him up where is he in the which one is it number seven okay we've got a request to take item 127 a discussion approve second I agree we have a motion to approve the lease for the National Guard one question we have one question I have questions too on that one you have one too I have a question on it is this the band like the practice

the band can someone just explain what happened with the leak in the last year the leak in the practice room Mr uh Pico what a gentleman I think he I didn't know he was that so back there I would have called him up after one Chief Warren Officer Steve Martins what was the question as far as the leak though sir what was the question as far as question was over the last year did you

have an issue with a leak the roof was leaking on some of your equipment did it cause you any heartache as far as your practices or anything like I I don't know anything about it but I heard there was such a leak that caused you some heartache sir there there was and we've done well with uh the response first of all uh that we get on uh anytime it happens uh there are some leaks we are

trying to avoid the areas in which they're happening um I think you know the contract that's upcoming with the with the roof and and those sorts of things will certainly help what's going on there but it has been an issue but the response has been has gone well and we're looking forward to uh to the roof fixings uh taking care of that for us did any of your equipment get ruined it

did not we keep it all covered covered in tops or something yes sir thank you sir oh Mr Das thank you um just in the actual um contract I don't know who can answer um what was the what's the price that we're um charging the National Guard for uh there's no fee okay that's good all right I Y thank you okay can I get a motion a second on proven item 127 oh no

the the motion was to move item to take the we have to vote on that first yes please motion to approve no Mr I made the motion motion to move second I just need a roll call all right call the roll on motion to move and we'll vote on the item Mr agel yes Mr Bailey Mr yes Mr Cory yes M larav yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes now can we get a

motion motion to approve second before before can I I have a motion and I have a second and then Mr Corey do I have a second yes okay go ahead Mr Cory I just wanted to ask uh ask you sir um on behalf of the National Guard and the music that you guys produce is there any chance that you can give uh the public schools uh a concert or such uh at some

date down the road yes sir I've offered many times be more than happy to either do a clinic uh and actually work with some of the students um we're still trying i' put it out a couple of times here at the high school more than happy to do that uh more than happy to to perform concert as well I just think you guys would be great role models especially for the kids here especially

for the kids in Bandit dery high school and the kids in Bandit the middle schools I think it would just be just a Fant fantastic thing for them to see thank you sir appreciate it thank you very much I got do I have a motion to second on appr I do Deb could you please call the roll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes M

Pereira yes mayor kran yes 123 thank you congratulations 12.345 together thank you sir all right so Mr agar has offered to approve 123 I may I'm take that back Mr agar has made a motion to approve 123 124 125 together second yes I have a motion and a second any discussion on any of those items Deb call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss

lar yes Miss Perera yes mayor Coogan yes 126 is motion approved no okay 126 is a discussion and vote to approve the cell phone policy um as referred by the tech subcommittee and presented by Dr Amy bronhard assistant superintendent I have a motion and a second and I have a question for Mr Corey yes okay uh is Miss brard still here yet I just have one question in

regard to um let me look at let me look at my paper um I I'm really excited about this entire proposal um it's about time good work Dr b um it's it has to do with the Yonder and I'm I'm trying to find where that is now right here the Yonder uh piece of it um I understand that they want to provide pockets for the cell phones to be put into

um but I'm wondering about a child a classroom child um constantly raising their hand to say I need my cell phone in the middle of a lesson when that cell phone is locked up has that part of it been discussed because I I know that this is going to cut out so much of the teaching distractions that are going on with social with with all of these devices but I want to know about that

particular piece the phones are going to be locked up but then uh when are they given back to the kids cell phones would the expectation would be that as students come through the door in the morning just like the high school we have the Evolve systems um they come through the door there will be a protocol in place where students need to put their cell phones earbuds and watches in the the in the magnetic

bag there are also medical pouches if if we I wasn't sure how this was going to go if I was going to have the opportunity to present versus just questioning um but there are medical pouches as well for students that need to access their phone for medical reasons um so there's a Vari those those are not magnetic those are velcro but students will be held to the same EXP expectations that cell phones are off

and Away during the day as they walk out of the building at the end of the day there are large magnets that we will have strategically positioned throughout the building at the exit so that we are very aware and cognizant of ensuring that students are able to hit their bag up against the magnet it will then unlock the magnet and students will go home with the bag as well as their cell

phone will be open at the end of the school day so that means the kids relinquish their cell phones upon arrival at school and then retrieve their cell phones on leaving the building they keep them on their person at the high school and I believe at the middle school they are we are looking at a few variations around putting cell phones in the pouches and then putting those pouches in lockers

because students are not carrying backpacks around our middle schools for safety reasons will they still be able to distract a lesson going on in a classroom no because notification should be turned off and and phones should be silenced as you look even at um the the Matrix for unmet expectations you know we will support students with figuring out what systems they need to put for

themselves to be able to put the phones off in a way um to ensure that the phone is not a distracting element but there will be ma uh magnets in all of the grade offices in all of our main offices if students are dismissed they will be readily available they will be available in the nurse's office should students need to go to the nurse's office and get dismissed from the nurse so we are still

working out some of those final details with our school-based leaders after a really great working experience last week at the admin institute around this plan uh when when parents feel they have to reach contact with their child would they be calling the school offices first they would be calling the school offices we will continue to leverage parent Square which has been a widely utilized

and widely access tool to um in increase two to one two you know one-on-one and two-on-one communication with families um so we will continue to work with individual students and with families recognizing this is going to be a shift for every body I think it's really important to recognize that we are absolutely not t taking this lightly this project started back in early may as some of the secondary leaders came to

me looking for support on how do we really begin to attend to the issues that cell phones are having in our schools this is not just a Fall River pandemic or epidemic but it is a national crisis as we look at how quickly our students from the youngest of Ages to all of us have become very much connected and rying upon immediate communication immediate gratification not to mention all of the

hazards that come with that for our young developing students we recognize the fact that bullying has been an issue not just through cell phones but that certainly has increased access and increased influence if we look at that based on the bullying needs assessment in Fall River but we started back in April we began with putting a survey out to families as the as the slide Deck shows we were

very very excited to have over 692 families respond to that survey we had a wide range of of of um responses security and safety being the number one and I would be neglect to say if we didn't all believe that that two is our number one but we do believe that we have strong systems of safety in our buildings and strong Communications with our families and we will continue to look to improve particularly if there

are areas of weakness along the way if a child needs to be excused to go to the restroom would they be able to access their phones in that classroom absence time in that five six seven minutes that they're out of the classroom no they should not be able to based on the product because the pouches would be magnetically locked correct yeah that sounds good to me I mean uh I've been

retired for 10 years and I asked this question maybe a dozen years ago of my school principal I wish that we could control those devices back then and and I'm really so happy to see this coming up and and and again I'm very proud of this work thank you very much well I appreciate that but I also think that offers an opportunity for us to recognize that we need to support our

schools 100% yes we need to be able to support our school leaders who are going to take this on and support our teachers with the implementation of this protocol this is going to be great and so when we get to a point if we get to a point that folks are frustrated or it's not going you know according to plan we need to collaborate and work together I feel very strong that this has come from a

place of strong um research in our community we had an opportunity to also survey our staff and we had 451 staff members who also participated in the survey and the number one concern among staff members was consistency and ensuring that we were going to roll out a policy consistently we then drafted a policy um taking some feedback from the subcommittee meeting you'll not the policy

um we we identified the schools that already turn in their cell phones and it's important to recognize we already have schools doing this work at RPA when you enter the building you are physically turning your phone in already and that practice will continue at Stone therapeutic at the secondary level as well they turn their phones in upon arrival they've got systems for that already in their buildings those systems

will stay consistent we are focusing on dery high school Morton Middle School cus middle school talet middle school in our 2K to8 Henry Lord and Doran which is where we would be looking to implement the Yonder pouches okay we got a motion in a second any discussion Mr Das thank you I do have a few questions on on the policy um and I wanted first appreciate all the hard work that you and your team have

put into this um definitely is very detail which is why I have a few questions um for the um schools that deand program will cover the Henry Lord the Dorne Community those are both K through 8 correct so all K through 8 that's that policy will apply to all K through 8 I appreciate that question because this did come up in our administrative Institute last week so the this policy is only going to be

supporting our secondary grades so grades six through eight however at those two schools particularly we did note that if there is any struggle with cell phones with fifth graders or fourth graders that we would look to support with putting some locking cases in offices so that we would take phones for those students who it's an issue with when we spoke with Elementary principles

in the early onset of this it is not a major issue at the Elementary grades there are certainly some students who have cell phones probably a many but the systems of kids putting things in their lockers and not going to and from lockers all day is pretty consistent at the elementary and so we felt as though we wanted to stay consistent Even in our K to8 if that means we have to offer an

alternative safe holder Safe Haven place for them to lock those phones away um then we will address that when the time comes okay so the Yonder pouches they hold on to them the entire they hold on to the pouch the entire day with the Turnin protocol or and or they put them in their Lockers in middle school so it's in the pouch but in the locker for the Turnin um protocol they're just

handing in their phone they can't get it for the entire day unless they leave early or they leave the the property why why didn't we consider um implementing this policy to RPA because RPA is already on a Turnin protocol at the door and principal Riley at the time thought that that would create too much um access that potentially the students at RPA wouldn't be able to help themselves

staying away from so he didn't want to undo what was already working knowing there are a number of other changes going on at RPA to start the year okay so I'll ask the reverse so um because I'm just trying to maintain some Equity between the two schools because I know I won't divulge but I know that's been um a topic of conversation um so with the pouch is why didn't we just consider doing this a

Turnin everyone turn in and I understand dery's a huge school but why didn't we just consider just doing a a Turnin at the door at at like at dery or any or you can go with a smaller school why not cuss why not t just having a Turnin well when we look at our middle schools that have 500 students in them I don't want to be liable and I don't think it's I

don't think we should be asking administrators or teachers to be liable one of the conversations we did have was to use the door caddies that was referenced in one of the support statements tonight the issue with that is that we can't control theft of those devices we can't control if a student goes up and takes a different device if it if it's not their device they might be a newer more updated model of a

device and we don't want to give kids an opportunity to take the wrong devices and then as a school department we become liable we recognize these are you know high price items and we need to be able to support our students with keeping them away but do the best we can to ensure that they have their device and they leave every day with their device I I don't disagree um it I guess

you could say the same about the same liability for stone and and RPA as well I think we could just make the the same argument I'm moving to the exemptions um under the exemption of circumstances I remember just a few years ago when I was in high school we used to play cahoot we used to we used to have certain activities where it's permitted for us to use our phone there won't be any

ability for an educator teacher to like maybe like allow their students to use the phone if it's some sort of um necessity or some sort of game I know they have the Chromebooks some things are easier on on a on a mobile device but so there would be absolutely no ex exception to you for for the phone at this current time that is what we are proposing particularly so

that we can have a strong launch I think you know always coming back to the table once we get things off the ground to recognize how well it's working or areas that we need to make some adjustments um we will certainly be in regular communication about this so should we want to make some adjustments we would but at this time no it would be leveraging the apps and the additional

tools that are now available through the Chromebook that maybe weren't so available through the Chromebooks back in the day when we were leveraging those tools um so that we can ensure we have phone free schools and we don't want to be putting teachers in a position where they have to take on that argument with kids right because when they walk in the door it's the administration the support

staff and security and all Hands-On deck to ensure that once students cross the door threshold um within a little bit of a room to make sure you know we're getting kids in from the weather elements in the winter but that once they get through the door by the time they get to first period across our schools phones are off and away and we're getting into teaching and learning okay and my final question my my final

line of questions is the issue I have the most concerned with and I actually received um a few phone calls from a few parents regarding this is the emergency protocol because there are some students out there that may need their phone for for um for an emergency basis or for a health need or social emotional need um so with the um emergency protocol could you just walk us um cuz I have it here

could you just walk us through um so there's an alternative um education like there's an alternative um punishment if a student who needs the phone but they're caught not being on their phone could you just explain the um the emergency protocol again so would you like me to read it so that way folks can yeah that we want our students we want our students to be engaged in their learning students are in possession of

their phone in their Yonder pouch for the entire school day we will advise students to store the pouch in their backpacks where it is completely safe in the case of an emergency at home parents or Guardians can contact their child during the school day by calling the school's main office if the main office is not available parents or Guardians may call the guidance office for assistance or contact the school

administration versus via parent Square in the which so pause we've seen a wide range of use of parents Square there are many parents who have more access to us than we ever did before through parent Square there is a text messaging app there is an email component as well as the phone call component so we feel really strong that parent Square can be that immediate point of contact UM in

the case of an emergency a perimeter or a lockdown we will direct our students to Safety First following the school's emergency protocol and all parents will receive notifications from our schoolwide notification system through parents Square so we will again continue to notify parents and we are also Al aware that there might have been times in the past where our communication through parents care was not as

immediate as it could have been and so taking into account recognizing that we need to have immediate communication out we do have opportunities through parent Square to have pre-scheduled messages so that we can have things rolled immediately so that we are not having any lapse of time between when parents are notified of a lockdown and letting them know what's going on in that lockdown as an example just as an

example and and I respect that but I think we can agree that's parent Square not every parent uses it so if there was a permanent lockdown students would be in violation if they took out their phone to text their parents they wouldn't be able to right and that's where I I personally have an issue like I agree with um with the policy in general but when it comes to those emergencies or um if I can ask

if um you receive if the school received a um either a doctor's note or a note from a therapist or I'll go with those either a medical concern or a social emotional concern where they you receive proper documentation um would that be enough to would that be what would be the like the protocol to um not being in like what would be like an emergency like you go to the separate that would be under

the exemptions exemption um circumstances right and we will work with every student on an individual basis I think that's just the best way um to respond to that okay so disability or learning difficulties okay again I just really have a concern with the emergency if there's an emergency parents are going to want to get in quick communication with the parent with their with their student with their with their child

um so I'll make a I'll make a um an amend if I can make an amendment that we strike out um the in the case of a school emergency that we could um allow students to use their phones no they can't open the packet say something first they can't open the packet yeah they they can't open that the only way they can open is at the door if if I can

when you're Miss I'll I'll you for now thank you so um I read through all of this I was really intrigued by it so I think it's good for um the public to know so when the kids come in they're going to get these packs soon as they get in their phone's going to go in it gets locked up the only way that unlocks is if they go up to one of these

stations which are located throughout the school mainly in the front to exit there is going to be exemptions for students who need their advices for medical purposes for example I'm a diabetic I'm not a diabetic but if I was a diabetic I may need to access my phone to access my insulin pump um I may need it because it's whatever the reasons are so if there are any medical reasons

there will be a medical exemption so if your child for some reason needs to use their phone for anything related to their health care there's going to be an exemption for that as far as being able to like access Maybe music or things that maybe Scholars earn or are allowed to do during those times they have Chromebooks and they can use wired because you're not going to be able to

have wireless earbuds either those are also going in the pouches because kids is snack and so those will go in the pouches too so they'd have to use the wire earbuds but they'd still be able to access music and cool things if they earned it on on their Chromebooks I understand the security standpoint but that's more like make me feel good thing in as a mom of course I have two daughters of course you know their

schools have been have been on lock down you know for no other reason other than proactive safety um and of course you want to know right away but the reality is I am not the police I mean they they can call me and tell me they're on lockdown but what is that going to cause chaos it's going to cause chaos it's going to be difficult for our police difficult for our our our school

resource offices and difficult for our teachers really to navigate a lockdown situation so as much as being a mom I can appreciate the wanting to know I get it um but it's not actually a safety thing because calling your mom isn't going to change anything if there's an active shooter or something like that right it's not going to actually make anything safer so I know it makes us feel safer and I can understand that

100% but doesn't really make us safer and then the other thing is they're also exemptions for like family emergencies let's say um my mom is maybe still or there's an IM mer or maybe my sibling is ill or someone's in the hospital or something like that's going on this is where a student can go to the guidance counselor right and say hey I need to have access to my phone and they're

going to be able to give these exemptions it's a work in progress you were going to get a lot of Kickback a lot because change is hard even good change is hard but I promise you you will know get no Kickback right here this what is what needs to happen it's bold some people are going to be angry your teachers are going to love it because they are not going to have to

navigate that it is not their job it is they have enough on their plate to begin with this is the least that we can try to do and believe me I understand it's the least but with that I'm in fully support I'm excited I hope it goes better than you even expect but you're never going to know you're going to have to work it out and then you find The

Kinks and then we we fix it as we go along but I think parents should be okay I mean at least me I as a parent would say you know what you're more likely that your child is going to be safe cuz they're less likely to be bullied online in school they're less likely to have hey meet me outside and we're going to beat this one up and all getting Cahoots

that's actually a safety issue so if we're talking about safety taking the phones away from the kids actually and I I'm not just saying this I believe the school resource officers would say the same thing it actually provides a safer environment and then the one last thing I had to say that was mentioned here and I'm going to say it again equal is not the same as Equity um so equal would be the RPA

people have the baggies and so does everybody else R dery does too that wouldn't really be Equitable though because what we're saying and we're hearing from Principal Riley is that my students are functioning really good like this if I had them put it in their bags then keep it on them we may have issues they have a little bit more of a control issue perhaps maybe some other um challenges where it make make them

more difficult to make that right choice in that time and we could have damaged equipment and things like that so I'm assuming that's the process trying to keep it really safe and good for all our students and if it's like working don't fix it like if it's not broke sorry if it's working if it's not broke don't fix it so I'm okay with that being different at the RPA maybe when the program goes

on principal Riley may come and say you know what I think this is great and we want to expand it here and that would be good too but I'm I'm fine with the way it is now and again I I think it's great if if I could also just make a note this is not going to start the first day of school we are going to take the opening of school to get through the opening of

school we want to be certain that we have opportunities to hold parent engagement sessions at all of our schools um in addition to that I think it's important to note that the families who did respond through parent square and had less than supportive um remarks we are directly reaching out to those families and after you know last week the high school took the lead on that recommendation from myself and really

after talking with families who originally noted some lack of support for this after spending the time to explain what it was going to be for families they saw a real shift in some of the energy from families so it is our goal to take the first couple weeks of school to get all of our systems of operations up in set get school in full function and then we will also have an opportunity to be holding assemblies

with all of our students literally taking attendance in our assemblies to make sure that every student is hearing the message and then personalizing that conversation through advisory and in those plac where kids are with trusted adults who they do have relationships with um so that we can really get down to the nitty-gritty because at the end of the day what our kids don't know they

don't know and they don't know how much they're losing out on they don't know how much this is having an impact on their ability to be focused and engaged in school and they don't and they aren't being afforded the opportunity to recognize that if any one of us stood on our phones as long as some of our kids do throughout the day they would not be with a job by the end of that and so we

really need to put some good workplace habits in place for our kids we need to show them what responsible decision- making is all about as it relates to cell phone limitations and access um so I just wanted the committee to understand the parent engagement piece and certainly the student engagement piece once school starts Mr Das thank you and I I really respect that and um I with what Miss perea said she makes

really valid points just um one and I'll vote to support this I just have one quick question on um this following back up on the emergency protocol um not the emergency protocol the exemptions if um the student has a valid exemption what would be the protocol in place to um like get that exemption like if any parents have any questions on that there will be a form that will be available

and we will have staff at buildings have direct contact with families so that we can support families and support students to really meet their needs as it relates okay and and in some cases there you know it's written into the kids IEPs potentially it's written already into 504 plans as it relates to accessing phones for a wide range of different reasons so I Envision we would take a

similar approach but there will be an exemption form that families would need to fill out um and would potentially require you know a meeting if it wasn't already connected to something that we had on file with documentation okay um a then thank you Mr AG the presentation that's in the binder is this the same exact presentation no changes no the only changes were to the policy based on

some of the recommendations from the committee subcommittee and can you just highlight those just so well it was the piece where we wanted to call out the two schools that were not part of this pilot just to ensure that down the road if the principles of stone and RPA changed their mind that we were not allowing that to happen that we will go and cell phone free across all of our schools using two different

approaches at the current time and that so that'll become policy policy so the thing that I as you were talking about somebody asked the question if a student leaves the room to go to the bathro let's say with their pouch if the magnets are in to public of a place they could just open it is that are they not going to be in a public place is that so for the the magnets

will be at the exits of the school here at dery we have security posted at all the exits um at the three main exits I should say so at the main at the north where we came in tonight and at thei us we have security there throughout the scho so they're only going to be placed with the security cover is basically the uh just of it they're not going to be

Place wherever no because in the event of them leaving they could just go and open the open the pouch so I support this program but I I think the thing that I want to just State for the record is that the reason why we're here today isn't because it's been going well related to cell phones it's not been going well with consistency of the administration the staff whoever and you acknowledge this and I appreciate that

at the subcommittee that we had to take a hard look at it and say can we do this without such a thing so to me we need to do it and we need to support you that means there's going to be some students that are going to push back there's going to be some students that are going to say no you're not doing that get in your face whatever they're going to do

and they need to be punished to absolutely the with a a definitive line if we're going to take back to school so that there were no cell phon so the kids can actually learn which is what the reason is we need to do that consistently and that means school committee members so I for one will not take calls from parents that are going to complain about this policy and call a superintendent or anybody else to go

over it we need to be strong and say to them you implement it now you guys are in charge of the implementation not me so I can't tell the principal of the school or whoever how you're going to implement it but at the same time it's your job to do that so we as school committee can't have that when that first day of implementation have pictures of kids waiting for two hours

to try to get in the building like we can't have a mess like that but that's not a school committee vote B is the policy and support you the implementation is on you guys to do so I do support it I think it was well done he took some time talk to a lot of people stakeholders so I'm 100% in support of it I yield do I have a motion

a second on this motion to approve you do you do I do yep Mr I get me the motion Mr Cory second okay Deb could you please call the RO on the cell phone POS it Mr agan yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes with my best wishes Miss larvi yes Miss Perera yes M Coogan yes thank you 12 good work guys good work good luck good

luck 128 is a discussion update on the air quality now we kind of vetted this in the opening Salvo and we are going to schedule a follow-up meeting so I don't know if anybody has anything further to say on this I don't v um if we uh do I have the floor yeah Mr I'm sorry that was UN thank you um just the members of the um health and safety committee I know they're waiting

here they had some questions that would rais in citizens input um I don't know if Mr bico had an answer most particularly um I would ask um how confident do you feel will have um like all actually I'm not going to say just the term all our schools um safe by the time we open up yes so as I stated in the other meeting in the subcommittee meeting I'm not the authority okay I'm going to do

everything that people tell me to do who make these decisions I'm not talking about the superintendent I'm talking about the Professionals in this field I'm going to follow the protocol and I'm going to make sure that everything they've asked for is done that's as far as I can go with that I will do everything I can can and I I think that we've made some very good strides so far but there's a lot of work

still to do and we will do as much of that as we possibly can my hope is is that I get everything done on time but it's not the end of that work because school starts there's a whole bunch of work that's going to have to continue going on in the schools millions of dollars that need to be invested so that work is going to continue as far as saying that it's safe

that's not my job my job is to do everything that I'm being told to do and that's exactly what I'm going to do from the experts in the field Mr chairman if if I I still the the floor um and I know I know um the um Miss maderis de maderis um had a few different questions can we I don't know if we have to make a motion to wave the

rules but if we can just um reiterate those questions cuz I didn't write them down is that okay with you that we well we got a member that wants to speak Mr D so I I wanted to uh try to help um Mr Das uh to understand what we talked about in our subcommittee meeting actually I thought it was really constructive um I I thought that Dr Terell presented certain ideas that we

may not have been privy to previous to this crisis but I know that the client over the past two months has been a major factor in the spike of humidity which CS which which causes mold spores and so we learned a real lot Mr Das in that meeting and we even learned uh certain things that are going to help classroom teachers moving forward because a lot of teachers just accumulate tons and tons of paper in

their classroom rooms and in this type of humidity the all that paper is is developing mold spores so when we say that this problem is going to be completely adjudicated by the time school starts well it's an ongoing issue it's been an ongoing issue for years in the public schools but right now I feel there's a deeper focus on the efforts to remediate the issue and they will be ongoing in nature I yield man

um Mr chair um I just a question for superintendent what Authority if we if we end up going because I don't feel comfortable open up any school if there is um a safety issue in those schools what Authority is that a school committee authority to shut down a particular school if there is a mold issue or that be up to you or your Administration no I'm going to be honest and say I

don't know I know that you know the call around many other um elements is is mine in terms of whether um you know we moved students in terms of summer school so that we could make way for any kind of um work that had to be done and things like that but if we were making a decision to um not open school or try to relocate um for educational purposes an

entire staff and student body I don't think it would be mine alone because I think there would have to be some approvals made um by the committee in order to do that okay and I'm happy we're going to have a special meeting so we can hopefully um avoid that issue beforehand um I don't know if anyone from the health and safety committee has anything they want want to add I would

um as a member invite them down if they want to speak we're not going to be inviting the public down at this time Mr Das does anybody think El have anything else on 12 wave the rules and have anybody that wants to ask a question please come down second what about the people that already left you I know this is about as Fair as nothing yeah oh if we stood till

the end we could have asked more questions I I'm not opposed to anybody asking questions I just think it that it should have been put in place before so that everybody else knew I just want schools cleaned and go forward from there we have a motion a second meting yes Mr I don't want so just a couple things so one is uh when it's convenient and I've said this all the time we use

rules when it's convenient to you that's how you rule the end of the day is we didn't say we have 100 teachers out there that are concerned about sitting here waiting for the mold report we didn't say let's make a motion to move those out because they were waiting their turn like everybody else so Mr Das excuse me am I hearing something I'm not sure why I'm hearing no one knows what I I

can't understand you Mr ago I can you understand somebody mumbling I can't understand who that is and why they're mumbling when I'm speaking uh you're speaking all night so I like cing fine that's fine if you want to rush home that's on you I have question I have questions that the people Mr Mr I have the floor thank you very much I have the floor okay thank you very much it's a

nice comment my point is just make your point about you and what you're talking about this is about mold go ahead we have people in citizen input time that ask questions about the mold can we please get those questions answered and if the the secretary can read the questions especially by the person who Mr Das just said had some questions if we can get an answer I'd appreciate it I don't think we can answer all these

questions tonight if between the cleaning that started a while ago and the cleaning that started today and we're going to have a special meeting to address where we stand on the cleaning let's go forward on the cleaning and see where we end up I I can see where you stand so the issue on the agenda is what can somebody read that update on the air quality report as referred by the facilities and operation

subcommittee presented by Ken Pico okay so can we get the presentation from Mr Pico please sure thank you a point point of information can we take a vote on the motion that was just made in seconded then they can eventually after Mr bico is done they can come down it's approved first of all I I want all their questions to be answered that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is you just

what I both thought you were trying to St was a last minute citizens input which I don't think is fair to the rest of the people and what I'm telling you is not Fe and if you do it again I will keep mumbling just because I don't agree with you does not mean I want to do my job does not mean I want to go home I could sit here for 10 hours what I'm

sick of is hearing the same thing over and over again you ask a question and then you repeat it like you're an attorney you're not an attorney you're not the ethics commissioner you're a school Committee Member like all of us speak to all of us respectfully with that I yield Mr chairman hold on I just want to be clear I just talked to Mr uh Assad uh members canot bring down the

public during a meeting that's already started public input timing before that I just asked him I got an answer Mr let's go with that Mr Das I'll go by the ruling of the school Mr chairman go ahead Mr when you walked out just so you know I could hear it my colleague wanted to challenge me or whatever that was all I'm asking for is that proper etiquette for the school committee and rules are that when one

member speak in the other one doesn't Mumble and doesn't try and interrupt that includes me or anybody else you don't see me interrupting when somebody else is trying to go off on a rant like she just was she got her chance to speak but when I'm speaking all I'd ask is that you as chairman M larv as the vice chairman control the meeting and make sure people aren't going back and forth

while somebody's talking the agenda item said a air quality report August 12th by Mr pachico now people have been waiting and it doesn't matter how long it is Mr Pico has a report that was done both by him in collaboration and informed by Mr Terrell I ask that we have that presentation there's some valuable pieces in here that he's going to indicate what is the plan and I want to

I thought he gave most of the update earlier in the meeting that was my opinion be allowed to miss Pereira hold on Miss Pereira was next honestly I just would like to hear from Kenny because I'm not going to have a side conversation about personal stuff cuz that's what that's what this ends up being we're here to discuss a serious issue I'm happy more than happy to listen to Kenny I've read all the emails

we've spoken about this this is very very important not just regarding that when I disagree about the way things should be done it's because I want to make sure it's fair for everybody and when when I have a colleague who lies about me I'm going to call that out all right I'm going to call it out all right let's let's let's stay on point Mr Pico thank you um so lero update few items I'm just going

to read you the highlights here we're on on number actually counting the cover page number two uh latal update history of Water Events chronic high humidity and the findings um the green history of Water Events chronic high humidity and the findings lero work and progress prevent prevention and management plan additional sites tany Sylvia Spencer bordon fonsica Stone and Watson additional sites work in progress

preventive prevention and M and management plan longer term planning on all Sites so lateral first um as we've said a few times uh there was a flood a uh a storm a tropical storm that passed um this area uh early on uh in 21 and did damage to the gym gym storage library in the art room that's a water event for laterno L lerno also had some leaks roof leaks um that's not necessarily listed here but

we did have roof leaks leak s those roof leaks were not always attended uh to at the time that they should have been attended to um those leaks have been repaired I still have one chronic issue on the library and hopefully with all the rain I heard hitting the roof here hopefully that was corrected two or three days um I think it was Thursday or Friday of last week um

EXA the conclusion of all of of of what is going airborne mold levels in classrooms quite low molden area classrooms well controlled with recent changes all of these items are with Mr Terrell's uh in Mr Terrell's report um but we're putting it here so that you can see it in in uh in this format and additional efforts needed prior to school resuming long-term humidity controls moisture management which we

talked about earlier with the uh purchase of some of our own equipment which is going to allow us to react much quicker to situations and um at a much larger scale Lal room samplings um if you look at the color chart green means Obviously good yellow would be we have an issue we need to correct and red is a problem um so room 239 we have problems above that ceiling um that we will be

correcting as part of the remediation plan uh site specific unit ventil l so um in the document uh and in the reports there are um pictures of insulation pipe insulation that have Milo mle spores on them those um insulations will be treated removed replaced um I say treated because some of some of the um covering on on uh the insulation is cleanable the elbows are cleanable um but the paper

itself isn't so if the staining is on the paper side they would be removed chances are um these units um in each classroom are going to be similar but it would be um depending on the location of where these units are and um temperature of the water there's a lot of fact involved but we are investigating all of those units we are starting with um 008 and we are moving

forward with um the rest of the items um again uh replace stained or damage installation Mo resistant which is part of of the report include the UV systems as part of the annual preventive maintenance um so in some of the classrooms we have a UV system uh three units that will change a in that classroom filter it and um and use the ultraviolet light to um to cleanse that

uh the lights uh as part of this the bulb itself will be replaced each year and the filters will be placed periodically uh replace carpets annually in heavy traffic areas so in all the classrooms there is uh usually especially if there is no wall to- wall carpet in that classroom there's usually a a 9 by 12 rug um that the students use for morning meeting um that those rugs are going to be replaced regularly on an

annual basis um some of those rugs are quite old in the building and haven't been replaced in a while so that'll be part of the of the moving forward practice um minimize vinyl wall stickers so um I I'll get to it more with green but a vinyl wall sticker seals that that area um with the paper backing of the sheetrock and therefore uh when you peel that vinyl or if it gets picked that and

it gets peeled um those mle spores are behind that so we're going to um try and U minimize wall stickers but also I would I would ask most likely that we don't put that on the wall I would rather see them make holes with TS than to um stick things permanently on the wall that are going to cause us issues uh and the the dehumidification um Mr Terell would like us to um hit a level of

60% up below 60% on the humidity and then monitoring the roof Integrity so um I'll just say it here but on on the back of this document is uh a plan for us to hire uh looking for the commiss permission from the district to hire a engineer to uh do our HVAC systems um and to do other issues and one of them there will be a complete roof um evaluation of all our roofs um as part

of this overall um look at our buildings envelope Mr Mr P might ask a question relative to these uh this particular slide sure so on number uh the second bullet down it says abatements using full containment methods ceiling in library ceiling in art room yes and I see I just notice the word abatements in that first sentence comma but in the first one where it says unit ventilators

inspect replace stained UV systems it doesn't say abatements using full containment methods is that meaning that it's not abated professionally or is that no it means it's it's we're still abating it professionally it's just that the containment piece um is not requested is not being requested so I'm going to tell you that the that the people who are doing this work are going to treat it like they would treat the

other piece the only difference is is that there will be a full containment around for instance when they're taking down a piece of sheetrock like they're doing in green there's a sheet of sheetrock that's going to be removed they will build a they will build a a tent around that particular piece take that piece down um and then you know clean that out as we as we move forward I know I asked you

the question about the abatement so yes what I would recommend is that on the site specific recommendations I recall Mr Terrell saying professionally Abate all molds so it wasn't it was like an issue of whether our own people can do it the coding can do it the maintenance can do it none of them are being asked to do that though so all I would ask is that on this particular slide it gets

amended to say that to reflect that in the slide so when this gets presented I'm assuming it's going to get presented to the health and safety committee or others it's going to say something relative to what you just said that it's sure it's going to be professionally abated because it the way this is listed it just begs the question question um for that I yield Mr Das thank you okay I'm sorry Mr

Das has a question about this slide thank you um it wasn't on the slide it was on the report in general oh than okay um so just um quickly on tany um I Know Myself and I believe other members of the committee asked for any mold reports that were done um we said we would get them I haven't gotten any yet I just had a member in the community

asked me when when I was coming in um what's the update on tany um and if we could get a copy of any mo report that's been done and um just going back to lerno and not trying to be labor to point however they're not the people in the audience aren't just members of the public they're members of the I believe M MTA health and safety committee which is referenced in this report I would say they're

more less I mean if we're going to use that logic we shouldn't have invited down um the people from People Incorporated because they were more private citizens than the people in the audience are um I know there was a few questions that were asked I just wanted to see if we can get some answered tonight if we can't get some answered that that's completely fine but just so it's on everyone's mind but I do

remember there was one um um brought up about the assessment um at lerno so I remember for a while we brought up this the assessment if it was going to cover everywhere where there would be students I guess the and I did watch the meeting I saw the slides I guess it was more limited in scope the assessment that was done um why is that why didn't we go so the assessment is basically the way we

took um Mr Terrell's comments is that we are looking at all of the areas that were tested in lero unlike other buildings every room was tested in leral so we are we are going after the rooms that were originally tested for um for good reason those rooms needed to be tested we also went that next step and tested every room in the building along with MTA this is not something we did on

our own MTA took half the load we took half the load we tested all the rooms so we're dealing with all of those different reports and we realize that we have work to do in you know throughout the building so we we will be if Mr Terrell's report is going to show that unit ventilators need X Y and Z when his final report is in then that means every unit ventilator needs X Y and Z

because we can't make that distinguish distinction between one or the other so if that's how the report's going to read then that's how we would look at it and the same is going to go for exploring up above the ceilings so if we're going to look up above the ceiling in one classroom we're going to look up above the ceiling in all the classrooms and if insulation needs to be changed in room

241 whatever then we're going to look at the insulation and if it needs to be changed we'll be changing those um so it's not going to be it's it it wasn't projected that way but that's not what was meant okay and I and I fully understand that first piece that went out was limited only because we was we weren't doing a full building overall test at the time nor did he have

the information to do the full assessment without doing all of that extra testing so we will be moving forward doing all of that work mimicking whatever we were told to do elsewhere and not just in this building so we will be doing that work as I keep saying ongoing because it's impossible to do the the magnitude of this kind of work and the exploration you know quickly so there's

additional testing to be done there will be testing done and but I'm more concerned with the work the testing is a one-day test and the results will come when they come but the work is going to be much larger than the testing right and that's why I believe it's very important that we have Mr Tero here so we can ask some those in-depth questions do you believe this is comprehensive enough are we missing anywhere um

because he's obviously the expert and um yeah so I just want to reiterate it's very important that we got Mr trow here for a special meeting i y for now thank you chairman who Mr the uh we talked about it at subcommittee about the hum humidity detectors being in each room in each School are those up or they where's that at they are not up as of yet they will be they will be up before school

starts yes so when we say the humidify set a goal to keep relative humidity below 60% at the lerno site is that you you're going to look at those uh they're not connected all together but there none of them are connected each system is by itself each each youit a youit a stat for lack of a better term is individualized so it's not connected to any logger system that we had nowhere

near that kind of Technology if I was to work in a school in a classroom yes I would walk in I'd see the stat and it should say it's below 60% is that way you say that's the goal I'm not going to say it's going to be 60 lower than 60% the goal is to to do that so with all of the with all of the upgrades that we'll be doing with all of the larger units

working in the building that is our goal to get that down to that amount I can tell you that today maybe yesterday maybe not after the rain uh last night but I a week without humidity at 85 is going to produce that anyway it's going to get it down there may not get it to 60 but it is going to get it down there yeah I I just think that we've been talking about

that for a while so you know I feel like we should have already done that but the sooner that we put those in it's just another mechanism of of support for the guy said cheapies you know show up money um I think we should get those so people can at least start to look at what is the humidity in the room so that that's going to be one factor the other factor

is the um so when we had the subcommittee meeting we had asked a lot of questions and there's comments from the public and I've asked I've stated this multiple times to Dr Curley as a superintendent so when someone at a sub committee says uh a citizen input time or in the subcommittee meeting from the crowd or from wherever they State certain things I for one member would want to

get an answer a response to those things somebody came up one time and said the science curriculum is crazy or whatever they were not doing we ask for an answer we get it so in this particular meeting we had a lot of things said that we haven't got responses from so I just want to reiterate one that just stuck with me and it didn't go it it really just stuck with me

a member of the uh Union got up and stated something I don't want to paraphrase that the problem that we have here is that we have custodians and maintenance staff that have been threatened I think it was the word that we used or told that if they mention anything about mold that they're they're going to maybe lose their job in the future or the jobs at stake something along those lines so that people haven't

actually wanted to say we had mold in the room I'm not looking for an answer today all I'm asking is that Dr Curley present something to us to say whether that's factual or not so when somebody asks me that I'll say to them who said that and they're going to say Joe moo said that I'm going to take that information and let the superintendent know that that's the reason why they get

it they didn't just make up that statement in a public meeting to say that the leaders of the dist of the Union are making up that people have been threatened people have been told don't say anything because you're going to get affected by it to me that was most very serious allegation that if that's happening we have some serious problems with all of this so all I'd ask is that you research it sure maybe even

a survey to the custodians and maintenance folks to see if that happened I just want you to try to get to the bottom of it because to that's still not sitting well with me that people can't say that that's sort of not approprate I'll I'm going I'll go back and um and watch the video I didn't leave there with the impression that it was custodial and maintenance staff but other staff in the building and I have

done some followup prior to today had another conversation about it today um I have not had the impression that we have individuals who want to come forward and name names and get specific but I will continue to ask questions and I'll go back and listen I left there that day not thinking that it was G the maintenance staff but I I'll yeah I left it with the impression that it wasn't in

the current EnV because some people were very courageous to say my room is a mess they they came forward so in the current environment I don't think that's the issue but how we got to this point if we rewind back that's why I've asked for two three years of information because that's what was going on I I I got a feeling and I don't think that they're making it up so we got to get to the

bottom of who said that sure and there needs to be consequences for anybody that told the staff member don't say anything my that's just my opinion I yield thank you go ahead Mr Pico oh Mr go ahead Mr thank you and just to follow up on Mr agar's point that is a very serious allegation I didn't even know was being presented I would even go a step further that that should be investigated externally because

having um having threats made or whatever that allegation alone just erodes confidence in the system um I do have um I did hear um Rumblings um and I saw pictures of um cover the spray cover up being used in the in the classrooms are you familiar with that at all on tiles it was a practice um it is for the Public's edification why why did we do that um to be totally honest the amount

of the amount of tiles that that were being changed I was told wasn't going to be acceptable and that you know was why it was done back then you you you were told what I'm saying is is that the amount of tiles that would be changed yes so as I said earlier there were roof leaks in that building there were damaged tiles so rather than change that tile they would paint that tile to to

cover up the mold to cover not mold cover up a water stain a water stain is not mold a water stain a brown stain is a water stain okay okay I'm saying that that was a water leak but it wasn't a it's not a mold would it be would it be possible that that turns into absolutely absolutely and that's no longer the practice it is not the practice the tiles are being changed okay I I yeld

thank you go ahead Mr Pico uh so the next uh the next slide is a a green update so minor water damage during frozen pipe event in 2022 we had a unit freeze during a that deep um that event that was uh negative negative wind chill uh temperatures we had quite a few units that popped a few and Doran um one here we had uh I want to say five in Henry Lord um so those

damages cause these issues most of the time when when pipes Thor is when they but burst and that water unchecked would be um quite the mess so green has had a couple of these events um water shut off as quickly as was found uh water cleaned up but it is it is worth mentioning because it does happen and it's it's not isolated to these schools you know um it a situation

A do left open cracked open a window an air vent that is bringing in fresh air is stuck open a hatch on a roof um blows open with wind there's a whole bunch of issues that could cause these things so that's the the at one piece with green green like laturno um lots of humidity um lower level more than any other but um it it is happening um so with green we are in

the we're doing the abatement um if you look at the next page on the sampling we have room 2115 Route 215 above ceiling in the Red Zone we we have work to do in 207 212 153 and 202 so those items will require abatement um some of that work has started um I want to say two 16 maybe nope maybe 17 um where the uh the tree was um vinyl tree was on the wall behind

that vinyl tree was mold on the bottom mold so uh that piece was abated today um and then um Mr Terell had also asked for us to remove all the rubber baseboard in that room to see if we have mold behind a rubber baseboard I didn't think that happened as of yet but I'm not sure if there if there is then they know they're going to cut that piece of sheetrock up a certain

height remove it all resheet Rock and um put new rubber base so that'll all be done before school starts in those highlighted rooms and then site specific again um room inspections address the HVAC concerns so um green has different situation with um HVAC it's running um on about 20% of the controls um uh in the entire building um the system is is um is old um and uh needs to be replaced so that's a major

expense on on the HVAC side uh without the controls we can't necessarily distinguish one room from another and change temperatures as easily as we would like to so that's a major uh repair that has to be done however doing some of the work um that we can do in um in green uh by changing temperatures on the chilled water and also adding heat to it so we're Heating and Cooling some of

these buildings at the same time to eliminate some of the humidity all of that is happening and has been happening for quite some time now uh carpet I said earlier the carpets are um some carpets are in terrible condition um the ones that are decorative um of school age uh carpets we are um having those professionally clean those that are worthy of coming back will come back and those who are not

will be replaced with the standard rugs that we have um ordered uh again the pipe insulation uh no different from lerno at Green and then the dehumidification piece so next slide is lero and green the work and progress is similar in both uh and that um the only thing I'd like to add is that um Mr Terrell feels that if we're going to have custodians be our first line of defense when

something happens that they should be educated um in handling this properly so we will do in-house training um and um it'll be offered to the senior custodians first and then we will offer it out to um the rest of the custodial staff so that we have that uh first line of defense additional site updates so tany Sylvia Spencer bordon Watson Stone and Fons Stone 2501 Stone uh tany

repairs can we just stop on the green Mr Cory had a question and I have one as well sure sorry Mr Cory so M Pico um in in uh on the site specific page for green um where it says remove affected wall and use mold resistant drywall to rebuild right so moving forward with all of these drywall issues that we're going to face I would hope they're going to be the higher

grade mold resistant drywall yes to replace the existing drywall they will be they will be in fact we'll be using that in other projects um when it's total new um Renovations uh with everything we do not just these pieces but it's it's a nominal expense and to be totally honest it's all we should be using I didn't want to lose sight of one of Mr Terrell's report which I thought was extremely important at the

subcommittee meeting when he talked about our our practices of building up too much paper goods in all of the classrooms and I would hope that maybe this could filter down to um all of the principles in our district to uh have workshops with their classroom teachers if we could develop some type of strategy at being able to develop new practices About Storage especially in extra humid cases those kinds of things

would help us toward prevention down the road I yield anything further Mr AG so Mr you mentioned 20% controls it's about 20% is not working or 20% is working 20% that's still working in the system so Sylvia was almost almost down to zero and Spencer bordon was about 15% maybe 20 um both of those have been redone with Easter money um it was a separate program um IAC um grant that we uh used

to supplement some of the work we were having done through eer so it was an additional $2 million a little over $2 million worth of funds available through the state State um that we used to upgrade the controls in two of those buildings um and that work was done through the amorisco contract so when I um obviously that's concerning it should be concerning to anybody uh when I looked at some of the emails that I had

requested and one of them is it it gave an answer on uh from Mr almea s or somebody about using Grant um Esser funds to fund it and it also indicated that had to report so I asked the superintendent for that so I can't comment on him because we haven't received him yet but I'm assuming it's coming but in those reports when we said we did a thorough analysis is that

just do you know about those reports so I don't know which report I don't know which report that is in order to justify the lady from the Esser funds to say that we could spend the money Mr almea had to attach a what was called uh an assessment of all of our systems yes and it was I think dated in 201 21 or something like that yes does that indicate what the status was of where

we're at and isesco you mentioned amesco amesco so amesco is is the city's energy contractor they are a a um an Esco meaning an energy saving company and they do all items related to how much you save so if we were doing this building and if we changed certain lighting to this new technology we would save $200,000 so they would you would pay $200,000 or $500,000 200 of which would

be part coming back to you as opposed to not paying it to the to the utility in order to do that they must add reports is what I'm saying reports for everything they do a full audit so if we can just get copies of that just of you I'd appreciate it sure the one that gets me is it says same as laterno but more severe chronic humidity and laterno

seems to be the one that was more um on our plate but it if the green was more severe I think we might have had a worse problem at Green than in LNO so it's a concentrated piece at lero um more than green which is um it's affecting the lower level classrooms a few upper level and a couple of of uh classrooms up on the third floor um and remember that we just

changed the chiller a year and a half ago if I'm not mistaken at Green and that number could be wrong CU time's um slipping away on me but um we removed that put a new Chiller in that building so that building was really in trouble um for cooling in the summer so that building has a humidity issue um it's had it for quite some time and adding the

chiller gave us a an up a hand on some of that but what is hurting us now is the control issue so we was it a brand new Chiller the chiller came from dery it was uh n and a half months old and it's been working fine that part it was working fine it right say green it's not the issue other pieces that are the issue just wasn't that so the only

question I would have on the green is if the superintendent could pleas there's photos in a lot of this stuff of the rooms if you could send the whole committee a photo of the room in kindergarten that uh downstairs wherever it was prek-k that was loaded with books and and stuff as many pictures as you can if you get sent to the committee I appreciate it I yel thank

you go ahead Mr Pico so um again back to that lateral green um laterno and green work progressing a future management issue so additional sites uh tany we had um a uh a busted line in the ceiling and another classroom with a stain on the ceiling uh both water damage um those were remediated by us um and replaced uh repaired one of them had to wait until a school vacation to do it um

but um they were both repaired Sylvia uh dehumidification as needed so Sylvia is the opposite of green Sylvia has a chiller that's on light support and um an operating controls that Chiller will be replaced um end of October um so that building will be in good shape not perfect but in good shape we do have other things that we'd like to do in the building but we will have that developed

and um if this committee so chooses to um we will bring it at the next meeting um the request for an RFP Mr Mr to uh move forward Mr Das has a question on that thank on tany um so repairs the piping um when those um pipes bursted there was a water leak yes um and there was test for mold yes did those come back positive for an extensive amount so

I'll get you those reports okay they're negative okay absolutely I yeld okay Mr poo Mr chairman Mr so on this we have additional site so at the subcommittee meeting we were talking about the health and safety committee was there members of the health and safety committee were there looking to collaborate looking to be partners try to trying to work with us so the information that we're getting here

today related to these other sites has this been communicated at all with the health and safety committee and what's the method of communication between the administration and that health and safety committee cuz I what as I understand it they're trying to get one at each school what is the communication about are they hearing about these things for the first time right now the health and safety committee so we were

we learned about a few of these through uh pictures social media pictures um but some of these issues so to speak so I I'm going to address Watson because it's the easiest one so Watson had roofs leak the roof leaking in that building um for years a lot of years through the msba project that roof was replaced along with another $9 million worth of repairs um to Watson some of those

walls um were existing some of those spots were existing um those areas were removed repaired and that building is being painted now so those were old weeks old repairs uh new repairs and now moving forward Spencer bordon um had some classrooms in the lower level East um on one of the days that the humidity was way up there so we got to it as quickly as we could put in the big

dehumidifiers dried it up remove some of the items we thought um were going to be problemsome some of the ca on the C boards um had water soaked into them um so we took care of that in that particular building um in the Sylvia we had a um a situation with um areas that every year we have trouble with um some of it is is strictly time of year weather um high humidity doors open let

students in and out sometimes that door is open 15 20 minutes um so that the student students are not constantly or teachers constantly opening the door closing the door so those as they come in the humidity is in there the floors are getting wet that's how much humidity is is hitting that cold floor slabs are a set temperature they don't variate they're a set temperature no matter what

we do the outside air is always going to affect the slap so that was the issue at Sylvia so all of these items as I put here yeah I guys my only question suggestion would be to open up better lines of communication with them so so as things are happening the more we can just keep the open lines of communication with them so they know and it's not like oh we didn't hear about

that we didn't hear about this I get the same pictures I sent them to you or to Dr Curley but the um I think that they need to be aware of these things school year starting we got all these things the tany school was one that I had an issue with and if you recall I had mentioned that uh this has been going on for months that I was told pretty confidently that there was a

a hallway with with a piece of wood with black fur behind it I was told that the carpenter covered it up I took that information I gave it to the prior superintendent and said this is an issue that's reported to me here's where it is we got to figure this out because it's not okay we I heard nothing for a long time then I asked about it again and we keep getting that tany had some repairs

in a couple locations this template language but I sent the picture to the old superintendent that said in that particular spot there's was leaks there there's black mold black fur wouldn't say mold but doesn't but there was black fur behind there and a in a carpenter covered it up Miss patrio and I had a conversation about it during our Green School visit and what you indicated sir

was that yes that did happen but the person went back and took care of it in a so it was covered up because we couldn't do it without it's on the entrance of one of the trailers so the the portable classroom so in order to make the repair we would have had to shut the entrance of that out and contain it and then the students wouldn't be able to get back to that

trailer so it was covered when we had the school vacation we were able to remove it repair the the issue and then um remove all of that stuff put it back which is acknowledging that there was black fur there yes there was absolutely so all I'm asking is that we get an answer on that of what this is what happened this is what we found so it's not open for interpretation anymore did

we yes we found it there was black fur behind the wall and the guy covered it up but then he came back two weeks later and took care of it um would be mine and the the my last thing on the green is the green numbers were potentially worse or the system was worse than the lero the lero we've been working on for six or seven months now of remediation work

in the like I don't think we've done that volume in time for the green so that just makes me wor that the green is not going to be ready and we've been worrying more about the laterno so you don't have to we're going to talk about it more when we get the report but timing wise six months of remediation testing amongst bunch of things now we get this to say green was worse for

humidity my concern is that green might not be ready and we thought latero was the issue so I appreciate it iiel thank you Mr Das quickly um just to Mr agard's point about communication I even suggested there should have been a task force but regardless um I think a good way if I can give a suggestion to the superintendent that we can keep a good line of communication similar to how you

do your superintendent reports maybe we could have one similar to mold um you know send it to the committee maybe send it um Mr Pico can be CCD on it or he can even be the author sponsor the administration and then we can also CC the f um sa health and safety committee so if they have um any comments or questions they want to forward they can forward it the the community can see it

then we can work lock step I don't know something but I I'll you thank you okay Mr Pico uh so the next slide is longer term uh long-term planning um and um a requests will be forthcoming to the school committee uh for the approval of Engineering Services to evaluate the current HVAC systems and our buildings to provide recommendations to enhance the equipment currently in operation

develop the scope of work required in each building as a standalone project because we will not be able to um handle the um the total cost of any of this uh complete the proposal to include market rate pricing index for estimating bidding and implementation develop the final plan for construction and develop a funding source for yearly capital investment exclusively e mared for HVAC

improvements um I will have a document uh for the school committee to look at at the next meeting um this is longtime work this is going to take um months to develop the comprehensive plan in the meantime there will be short-term um options for us that we will ask them to do as part of the RFP low-lying fruit so to speak that we could do maybe it's just changing some

um some fan motors um I'm I'm just taking shots in the dark here right now I don't know what that what them short-term Solutions will be but they'll also hopefully be uh something that we can do uh within our budget uh preparing for the opening um and collaboration with MTA health and safety Committee conduct random Air samplings at all the schools so we will hopefully um start some of

that work soon um after we have a conversation as to what uh we can agree on for what we're saying sampling you know and how we're going to sample that continue de humidification as needed to ensure indoor air quality so the largy units will allow us um to um spread out those units more across the district as needed uh and um allow us to keep that humidity down you know a few months from

now uh that temperature the humidity will be we down and and um we will be uh have a temp a temporary from uh that particular piece um provide real time updates to principles and faculty regarding building conditions so this we are I am um negligent we need to be sure that everyone knows what's going on in their building um so we will keep them updated through the principal um down uh to um

everyone else in that building uh plan walkthroughs at each building before the start of school with MTA health and safety committee I'm I'm sure that they'll be up to it and uh we can um and we can take a walk through and point at uh issues that need to be corrected I I am I I'm not when will we get um some updates on some numbers Mr uh Pico we did talk about that do you

have any idea as far as what's going on in the air and some of the buildings that we are concerned about like green on the T so it I mean the testing has to be done um number-wise I I don't know that time frame will it be contingent on the repairs being done then we test so we're gonna so as the work has started at lerno ongoing stuff going on at Green

so so we'll we will get areas done test those areas okay to see um what we have and then move forward with that uh the last slide and and again it was it's highlights and key updates remediation ongoing various locations Henry lordy HVAC improvements and 90% complete um that will be done before school um starts talbet HVAC Improvement 70% complete we do have major Crews that are working there um and we also have

Saturday work going on at talbat so uh talbet would be will be ready um HVAC is going to roll the starting uh the system start will be rolling so we'll be getting sections of the building done and at a time as soon as they're ready to run they will run and uh Spencer bordon and syia CH replacement schedule for late October thank you Mr Pico anything for Mr Agia is the pay center a track

working yes and working well I I should so it's not so it's working it's working sporadically um the air conditioning works best in the um in the National Guard area um um the other section is a hit or miss so we do have one we do have one rooftop unit that will need replacing um relatively soon um we will'll be all set for the winter um but it will need to be replaced so I I think

that there's an issue from what I understand with the air conditioning works somebody's got to go in and manually open the so controls of that because the controls are so if it's working I'd suggest that somebody go in there and open them like I think the prior director did so that it might be too cold but it's better than being too hot and I think the staff in there is

like how from what I understand you know they could be really cold and it it to me it would make sense to open the things manually if if they're seized up and not working so that everybody gets proper Cooling and then from there we can fix it ultimately but thank you I Y nothing further 129 is a discussion and vote to approve the relocation of the enact of class accounts for Student

Activities is presented by Kevin almea Chief Financial Officer motion to approve second Motion in a second any discussion Mr I do um I I have a quick question on this so um do we have any collaboration because I'm just trying to think of some ideas that we can better use this money did we work with like the um Alumni Association or did we talk to the Alumni Association when we no so these these

are all old class accounts these these accounts date back to class of 1994 there are 22 class accounts here and so last last year in October we adopted the Student Activity policy and this is one of the items that spe specifically called out within the Student Activity policy and so technically after two years of being dormant and inactive um the school committee can take take a vote to reallocate the money and so in

this in this vote you're Rec you're reallocating the money into the dery general Student Activity account with hopes where I'll work with the administration so that they can work with the classes to hopefully offset some of the costs this year for these for the classes at dery right I just think there's um a good opportunity since these have to do with previous classes um used for I don't know I'm

guessing reunion activities yep um I think there would be a good way we can work with the um Alumni Association so I'd like to make a motion to to refer this to the parent and Community there's a motion okay I I'll make to make oh whatever um I so I can't make a motion to refer it to a subcommittee if there's a motion on the floor there is a

motion well I I really think I I think um there is good opportunity if we U work with the alumni ass I'd like to see it go to parent and Community engagement to see if we can work out so is it so just as a suggestion can we make the vote to move the Monies to the dery general Student Activity account and in a separate vote we can do moving it to moving to the parent engagement

committee to potentially look at ways in the future to correct this and fix these things Mr chairman you done I I'll you some if someone has the floor I'll you yeah I just want to give a suggestion so uh this is a little bit complicated we did pass the thing so what I would recommend is that we pass this so that this gets addressed and then as chairman of the committee you're in charge of exact I

think you're the chairman right you're in charge of exactly what it is you don't need anybody's approval and a vote of this committee to put that on the a future agenda so I would just recommend you put it on the agenda as a chair and you have that right okay thank I'll here to that I you okay so motion a second Deb call the role Please Mr a yes Mr

Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes M Perera yes yes Miss mayor Coogan yes and um 1210 is a and is a discussion and vote to approve the fourth quarter revolving funds sented by Kevin I have a motion to Second any discussion hearing none Deb call the role Please Mr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lvy yes M Pereira yes

mayor Coogan yes uh um item number 13 is just information retirements hires again regretfully some deaths um can I get a motion in a second motion to approve of the question motion to approve a second do I have do I have a second second I have a motion to approve in a second Mr Agia I was going to ask a suggestion to the superintendent but when we get the appointments uh this might be good for

the HR person or whoever does the agenda so we get appointments listed on the school committee but we don't get appointments if this person's currently working for us so I'd like to make that change so that it's I think the purpose of this is just truth and transparency and just put laying it out there so if a person gets a position a new position it doesn't show up on the appointment so

I'd like it to show up on every appointment on the future agenda so we know what happen just a suggestion I yield okay I have a motion a second uh dad you want to call the rooll Mr ja yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory m l yes Mr Pereira yes mayor kougan yes any new business to come before the committee Mr chair Mr D yes I I have a

question on board docs um and I was um in communication with the CFO on this um request that to be held and um be presented before the entire committee because there was a few um few of us that of us members that had questions on it um I was was looking for an update on um where Bard dos is business if I can get that from the CFO where're board what do you mean we

board do the the contract of board dos um if it's going to come before the committee or not we currently held the contract for this fiscal year last fiscal year was paid but I'm waiting for some updates uh the company has gone through some restructuring so I'm waiting for some updates to see what they can offer us and what they can offer us to make a decision moving forward okay so the contract will

eventually come before the the committee if we decide to move forward with it yes okay um how yeld then thank you Mr chairman Mr follow question when did the contract end June 30th June 30th what's the date now July 1st August what did we use for the agenda today Bard dos they give you a they usually give you most software companies give you a between a 50 and a 60-day pass through we've done it before

in the past where you get the idea though right yep so time is of the essence relative to this now I mentioned this over a year ago that we didn't have it the actual board do is not board dos Bard do the company bardu that we all thought we were paying Bard dos is actually paid to masc the mass Association of school committees so this is part of what we were talking about of

just telling it like it is so we actually paid because I looked for the bills on bardocks in the past this is another payment to masc the mass Association of school committees not to Bardock so truth and advertising we shouldn't be talking any more about board dos we should be talking about the contract with masc and now it's three months old already and I don't understand why it wouldn't have

been brought forward after I mentioned this over a year ago prior to it expiring in June 30th we should have brought it forward and said do we want to use it or not I would also encourage you to go back and look at the minutes of the meeting as well as the video of the meeting when we first booked board dos and to see if what we told we were getting if if that's truly what's

happening that's my suggestion I yield okay just a quick question to follow up on Mr aar's point about M about masc um when is that contract I know we had a little bit of a discussion what do that contract do um when is that come up for

Renewal which contract in particular you talking about massach associate of school committees we don't pay we don't we don't pay a a fee to them or we pay we pay school committee dues to them on a yearly basis there's no there's no written contract there's no specific contract to them other than Bo dos that Mr just referenced and um would that have to go before a vote with the committee every year

typically uh the masc dues do not they they're under the threshold um the board docks what is is $188,000 that's how much board docs is no that's I'm more in particular with Ms Mas because I know missar brings up some good points I do have some questions on our um commitment to them and um Mr also brought up a good point about maybe we should have um a representative from

masd come before the committee so we can ask some questions if we're getting um a good return in our investment so I I'll make a motion at this time that we invite a representative from massetts Association of school committees um to a future meeting of the school committee I'll make that in form of motion second discussion can't hear it yeah it's a future meeting go ahead give it a Ryan

Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory okay Miss larvey yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kouan yes do we have a request for executive session yes yes we do maam can I what um do I get a motion to second first and we'll vote good so moved second I got a motion second the reasons Mr Assad please National Law chapter 38 section 2187 a review and approve executive session minutes for

July 15 2024 regular school committee meeting M Law chapter 38 section 21 A1 to review the open meeting well complaint dated June 19 24 filed by Patrick hiin regarding June 6 2024 record request made Mr Higgins alleges the school committee and uh was in violation of matal Law chapter 38 section 20g Mass laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collect the Bing agreement uh including

uh grievances hearing grievances relative to All Professional teaching employees of the forward School System including coaches Title One teachers nurses occupational physical therapists and specialists in the teaching profession rep represented by the FL educated Association as the chair has determined that no possession may have a detrimental impact on the B position of the committee we will reconvene the may

may up statements at that time okay uh thank you can I please get a vote now um Mr ago Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes M Pereira yes mayor cougan yes recess to Executive session we're back out of executive session Deb could you kindly call the rooll Mr Agia here Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory president M lar here Mr perea here may cougan yep anything further to come before the

committee yes Mr chairman like make motion to approve the executive session minutes for July 15th 2024 regular school committee meeting I need a second second I got a second any discussion quick quick comment um just just to reiterate what we discussed that we'll um look into potentially releasing um the the way we can release the minutes in the future okay how you Deb the role Please Mr AG

yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larv yes M Pereira yes mayor Coogan yes anything further yes Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion to allow attorney Assad to respond uh to the open meeting law complaint dated June 19 2024 second I have a motion to Second discussion Deb please call the role Mr ago yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Mr lar yes Mr Pereira yes mayor kougan

yes anything further no motion to adjourn second I have a motion second Deb please call the roll on adjournment Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory y ly yes Mr Pera yes may cougan with yes adjourned