8.26.2026 Fall River School Committee - Policy Subcommittee

going to call this, um, August 26th, 2026 Policy Subcommittee meeting to order.

We got a roll call, please.

Mr. Diaz?

Here.

Mr. Riley?

Here.

Mr. Stewart?

Here.

Salute to the flag.

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.

Oops.

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 recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, and are deemed knowledge and permissible.

Citizens input— do we have any written citizens input?

Moving on to item 3, we will start with item 3-1.

There's discussion and vote to refer attendance policy for all grade levels, and I'll turn it over to the administration at this time.

All right, hi everybody and thank you for being here with us today.

Um, so just playing my electronics so I can have access to the digital— okay, um So I'd like to just take an opportunity to introduce some of the folks that were on our attendance policy committee that are here with us tonight.

Um, I have Lisa Sullivan— actually, why don't we just do some introductions?

Lisa Sullivan, attendance officer.

Mary Ellen Shaw, principal at Stone.

Jessica Stevens, principal at Gar-Field.

Lisa Zagarella, principal at Talbot.

And Brian Hancock, vice principal over at Cusman School.

I guess while we're doing some of the room, I guess we'll just Do all the rooms.

So, uh, you want to start?

Sure.

Aldo Petronio, CFO.

Liz Lowe, Deputy Superintendent.

Chanel, School Committee.

Colin Dye, School Committee.

Anna Riley, School Committee.

Kathleen Smith, Interim Superintendent.

Brad Buffston, Athletic Director.

Deborah, School Committee Administrative Assistant.

Perfect.

Um, and so just a point of clarity Dr. Stephens had 2 representatives on the committee.

She herself was not present on the attendance committee, but she's here representing her team.

Principal Zagarella also is here representing the team, but the rest of the members in the room were on the committee with us.

And so it just should be noted, I just want to kind of share a little bit of the sequence of the work that we did leading through the committee.

The attendance officers at large, we are a 7-member team, and through the spring, end of the winter through the spring, we started doing some investigative work around other districts their attendance policies to take a look at how do— how are our students being measured up against other schools, what are the success rates that other schools are getting with their attendance policies, and also reflected on the work that we have done both with our attendance policy but also with our attendance monitoring protocol.

And so in your packet with the data that you have received, You will see that back in SY23, we had an average— and this is a district, this is district data, we're not going to get into specific schools— but on average, we had a daily average attendance of 89.7%.

And at the time, we also had a chronic absenteeism rate of 37.3% at the district level.

And as we know, the district is comprised of all of our schools, and so When I stepped into this role as assistant superintendent at that time, having been a principal at the Henry Lord Community School and really doing some amazing work with my school in building teams at the building level so that we were distributing the work of student attendance through our support staff and through the folks that we had invested in coming into ESSA and coming out of ESSA funding.

We had really invested in our support staff and the positions within our support staff.

And one of the core beliefs is that we cannot educate empty chairs.

Over the years, Fall River has had a number of campaigns, the Red Chair Campaign, and it was really kind of, you know, looked at at a wide different lens and a wide kind of purview of the work.

But we really truly wanted to be able to dig in with families, learn about the barriers and the hardships of school attendance, And then how do we break down those barriers?

We also felt really strongly that we needed to have consistent people reaching out to our families.

Because as we know, as students begin to struggle with school attendance, that becomes a pattern.

It oftentimes becomes a pattern for those students.

And we wanted to make sure that our families had a consistent person monitoring their kiddos' attendance, a consistent person that if they needed help to overcome the barriers, that they would know who that person was, and in addition to that, that our families were not expected to retell their story every time a new person was calling to try to figure out why your son or daughter was not present.

And so we adopted over the course of that year an attendance monitoring system.

We rolled out expectations across the schools.

We worked directly with the attendance officers because I supervise and I am the lead support for the attendance officers.

We meet biweekly and we were reviewing systems, we were reviewing the monitoring system and working with schools to continue to improve practice.

And I think it is the most beautiful thing to be able to say today that as you can see within the data, we have risen our daily absentee rate over the course of the last 3 years under this model to 91.6%.

And we have reduced chronic absenteeism to 25.4%.

And then if you really look school by school, it is breathtaking.

We have had schools— the Green Elementary, over 700 students, consecutive years of enrollment in the, in the South End, very diverse school— they have remained under 10% chronic for the last 2 consecutive school years.

If we look at Watson Elementary, they too have done amazing work in the last couple of years.

I can honestly go school by school and identify growth in every school.

Last year, our middle schools worked their everything off, and they were gunning it right to the end to keep chronic absenteeism below 20% and/or reducing from the year prior.

And we have continued to meet a number of those goals over the last number of years.

And so what we have seen is that with our attendance monitoring approach, personalizing this work with families, we are continuing to move in the right direction.

And Fall River is now at pre-pandemic rates as it relates to our chronic absenteeism.

Because as I said earlier, we cannot educate empty chairs.

And I think we would all agree that when our kids are not in school, We can't guarantee that they are in a safe place where their needs are being met and where their safety is a top priority.

Our families work, they oftentimes are unsupervised, and we know that that just leads to risk, trauma, and challenges.

And then on top of that, I think we also know that in life, even for every single one of us, when you don't show up, whatever the task is, is going to be more difficult than if I show up on a regular basis and seek the supports that I need.

And so with that, you know, we kept all of that in mind as we moved forward to look— to take a look at our attendance policy.

In looking across the different schools, what you will notice is that atop the policy, we've kind of chunked out the recommendations for change and combined by a highlighted approach.

So we took a number of language adjustments from other districts.

And so as you look at the adjustments that we were looking for around— and in some cases a lot of it also is like definitions and wordsmithing so that we can all be very clear about what we mean when we define certain words that are connected to student attendance.

And so looking at dismissals, um, and being very clear that that is for students under the age of 18 may not excuse themselves from school, and being very clear about who who has the right to dismiss students from school and at what age are our students able to dismiss themselves.

Also looking at truancy and defining truancy for our families.

And then also looking at health and safety standards during a state of emergency or other extenuating circumstances.

So we looked at other policies across the state.

The attendance officers were making recommendations, so when we came forward to the Attendance Policy Committee, we had done a little bit of this background work through the attendance officers to be able to share recommendations for adoption.

And so the attendance committee, these are some of the recommendations for some of the language changes that we were speaking to.

In addition to that, as we were going through, also making sure that we're speaking about membership days.

If a student who is with us for a shorter amount of school days in the year, let's just say a student arrives in January, Their chronic absenteeism rate is going to be different than a student who started with us in September.

And so making sure that we are educating families, because chronic absenteeism, just for the community's edification, is by missing 10% of your membership days.

And so if I'm here for 180 days, the target would be less than 18 days.

But if I am only here for 93, 93 Right?

Wait, 93?

9.

Oh, 9, yes.

Right, and then if I only have a 93, then 10% of that would be 9 days a student would be chronically absent.

It should also be noted that this is a very intricate formula that we have to follow.

We have done extensive work with Brian Michael Azak and the tech department with Aspen to have Aspen build for us a myriad of reports, particularly monitoring daily attendance.

And I just want to speak a little bit because daily attendance is what our chronic absenteeism rate is measured by.

Daily attendance is the threshold for accountability.

And while I know accountability isn't everything, it is a part of the measuring stick for us.

And so rather than getting caught up, you know, it's— so for us rather, it's really important that families understand how that chronic number is defined.

Because again, a student with 90 days with us, if they hit 9, they are considered chronic.

But a student who was with us for 180, they're at the 718 mark, right?

And so we want to make sure in this policy for some of these language additions, it truly is to be able to educate families and inform families to the best of our ability of what we are kind of measured up against and how we are measuring the stick with our students.

Um, is there any questions about those 2 pieces?

Moving on.

If, um, I have one question.

Sure.

The monitoring piece is, um, and you hear many different things, um, with the daily attendance.

Can you just walk through what the reporting is if a student's absent?

What system does it go into?

Who's responsible for entering that into the system?

Is it the building principal or is it The teachers would take daily attendance, and then any student who comes in tardy, the office would also put in if they were tardy.

Dismissals, depending if it was the nurse, she would put it in, and/or the office if it was a parental dismissal.

So it's the teachers putting in the daily attendance.

After a period of time, usually 45 minutes to an hour, the daily attendance is run, and then the attendance monitors take their lists and see who's absent that day.

If a parent called in, they don't make a call.

If a child was chronically absent the previous year, they would call right away.

Is there data specifically— it's just say like a child's, um, marked absent and they're absent but they come in late, is it— and they either change to tardy or excuse, whatever the circumstances, is there like forensics or data on who made that change?

Uh, it would, uh, Brian Michael Lazak could run it and it would probably be the office that would change it.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions?

Yes, so I'm trying to follow your, your changes.

Yeah, so in this document, anything that's light blue has been changed, updated.

So the yellow, anything that's highlighted in yellow— I got green and blue here.

Well, if you keep rolling, you'll get to yellow.

Yes.

But so the chart reads— because I think you might be looking at just the policy.

Yep, I'm just trying to follow along the changes.

There is a chart.

Yeah.

Did you receive the chart?

Yep, that's up at the front.

So the chart gives you the color coding system and where the language lives within.

So, so the yellow, anything highlighted in yellow was a recommendation from the committee that came from a neighboring district.

But it's new language to our— what I'm trying to figure out is what's new language to our policy?

What's changed?

So the yellow, the yellow is new policy.

The yellow is— the majority is new.

The blue is modified.

Okay.

The blue is modified existing language.

Okay.

The green is new language from the committee, and the yellow was new language from other districts.

So that's just so I understand.

So anything that's highlighted is new in some form or modified in some form.

However, you're color coding it based off where the, the changes came from.

Correct.

Yeah, correct.

So it's either new from other districts because we like the way that that district communicated that particular piece.

The green was additions from the committee, the working committee.

The blue was modifying existing language.

That came from the committee.

Committee, correct.

Yep.

So my daughter was in at CUS and she was marked absent unless she used her card.

We're just gonna get there.

Sign in.

We're just gonna get there with you guys.

Yeah.

Which actually I thought works better, but that's how they did it.

So, so in response to the challenge, so I, so yeah.

Okay.

So one of our chall— so if we maybe shift, because this'll get to some of the requested changes around So that's some of the language changes specifically.

In many cases, Dr. Brown, if I may just ask one more question on what you, um, just presented.

Sure.

So I'm just trying to understand, as one member, come to my attention we've had an attendance task force that existed maybe a few years ago.

I'm not sure when the exact dates were, and then it was disbanded at some point, and my understanding was a new group was formed.

I'm— I've asked superintendent on multiple occasions now for the, the minutes, any notes from meeting dates from when these attendance task force meetings took place.

So we didn't have a task force.

This was an attendance policy review committee.

This was an internal committee of the school department staff.

There was a Fall River task force that probably goes back about 10 years ago, if not longer, where it was the Red Chair Initiative.

And if you remember, across all of our schools there was a lone soldier red chair that very much negatively attended to a missing child and the importance of attendance.

I think the intentions of that were good, but I don't think it ended up really getting at the point that it was trying to get at.

But these are very— 2 very different things.

That task force has been closed and put to bed.

I mean, I don't even think it was in action when I was a principal at Henry Lord.

I just remember stumbling over that red chair in the hallway, and then we, we moved it along because the significance wasn't anymore connected to the efforts of a larger task force.

When we brought this policy forward, it was a policy that— it was a committee of internal folks from the school department.

It was not a task force as compared to the task force that we are launching right now at 290 Rock that is all-inclusive of school, community, and everybody.

Because we were coming forward to review just the policy, we were not looking to take this on in a larger task force initiative.

That's how we look at it.

That makes sense.

That overall makes sense.

So my follow-up question would be, When was this committee, review committee for the policy, when was it formed?

Is there like notes, minutes?

Because I've asked— internal committees don't require notes or minutes though.

Not a requirement, but it's just— I think these are their notes though, right?

Yeah, these are the outcomes of— this is the outcome.

So this top portion is your notes that then you've tried to merge into the policy, right?

These are the outcomes of our meetings.

And I'm sorry, by the way, your code is cut off on either end, so that's why I was trying to figure out what colors meant what.

Um, but I'm assuming that whole top half is your notes, correct?

And then you've tried to embed into the policy what your changes are.

We had an agenda.

Yeah, we had an agenda.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um, and so back to, um, Miss Stewart, what you were referencing was Project Present.

So as part of our work around attendance, and particularly at the secondary schools, um, this has been the challenge of getting daily attendance accurate.

Require— it has been a Herculean effort across particularly the secondary schools.

Our elementary schools where they go to one teacher, that one teacher takes attendance, they own the students for the day, very different than when a student comes in at the secondary level.

They could come in at any point in time.

If they happen to skip by the main entrance, if they don't come and check in correctly, they can very quickly get by the daily attendance marker.

And so one of our challenges has been forever is getting daily attendance accurate.

We have worked with Brian Michael Azak extensively over the last decade, to be honest with you, about creating tools that help us as leaders have documents.

I mean, we have 2-column bulletins that give us a quick snapshot on who's absent.

So when you go to the cafeteria, you can take it with you and you can see who's here that's still marked absent.

When I was a vice principal at Durfee, we would run that report every single day.

I'd be in the cafeteria and there wasn't a day that I didn't have 20 kids that I would be able to find erroneously marked absent in our building.

So constantly on the cycle of trying to get daily attendance accurate, because when kids want to not be noticed, somehow they can figure out, or if they're just busy rushing in, I got to get to class, and it loses their mind.

And teachers cannot change daily attendance, so it's important to note that.

In the morning, teachers can access daily attendance, but once that window closes, they can no longer edit that field.

So now it requires the teacher to send an email or to email the clerk, and the clerk better be there to answer the phone because if you miss it, you might not be able to cycle back and get it in time.

So we have been chasing daily attendance for years.

And so part of our efforts also is recognizing we need our kids to have IDs for safety.

In addition to the ID for safety, we also need our kids to have IDs at lunch because we were seeing errors with our lunch counts and errors in that piece.

And so then we said to ourselves, well, wait, and we also moved to yonder at the same time.

And in the front of yonder pouches is the spot for kids' IDs.

And so we said last year, is this an opportunity to begin scanning in at the door?

Give our kids a reason to say they showed up every day.

I scanned in, I marked myself present.

That developed a whole new culture and it has really been amazing to see the continued efforts to keep that going.

It has its hiccups and it certainly has its work that we got to keep going.

If nothing is ever going to happen, you got to keep staying on it.

But we've worked with security, we've worked with nutrition, we've worked with the tech department to be able to make this happen at all of our schools.

And it's all hands on deck in the morning for Yonder Project Present, which is how we define that piece.

And it gives kids a sense of, I check in, I'm here every morning.

And that has helped us with increasing the accuracy of our daily attendance.

Any questions about those pieces?

So in the secondary schools, the 3 large middles and Durfee, those schools were using Project Present, and we are looking at rolling Project Present to the K-8s and to 290 Rock as we roll into this school year.

Any questions?

Any questions on those pieces?

Okay, so then the attendance policy, which is the D4 buyback.

So the D4 buyback has been in full effect, or has been in effect, I should say.

I don't even know how long this goes back, but I do remember that there was a time where there was no attendance policy with what I'm just going to refer for the sake of reality, a consequence tied to it.

And at that point in time, there was no ex— of course there was an expectation that students came to school, but there was not anything that would give us meat to hold kids to show up to school.

We had had the D4 policy prior to, and then I don't even know kind of how it went away, or there was a something that was aligned with the D4 before that, correct?

Um, and then it went away, and then we went through a stretch of time with nothing built in other than you just need to bring your kids to school.

And we saw a drastic decline in school attendance, an increase in chronic absenteeism.

And so we brought back the D4 policy, which is now the D5 policy at the, um, K-8s because they are on a trimester schedule.

So how that in essence works is that a student at a 3rd absence, a student could not be absent again in the term unexcused, or they would— if they were— if they did get that 4th absent and they were passing the class at the grading period, they would get the 65 in the class in lieu of the grade that they earned.

Can I clarify a question on that?

Is the D5 just for— you said the, um, community schools?

Yes.

Is that in the policy currently?

Yes.

Thank you.

That is Henry Lord and Doran And now that will extend this year to laterno, right, to laterno.

And so after the 4th unexcused absence or 10% of the membership days for the term as measured by— so in the current policy, it is measured by class attendance.

It is not measured by daily attendance.

Now that makes sense in the sense that you could go to school And really what I think this was targeting— I apologize, Dr. Burke.

Can you explain the— I'm just not following the difference between class attendance and daily attendance.

So daily attendance is your daily attendance for the day.

It means you're signed in.

We know that you are accountable in the building.

Class attendance is your accountability period by period following your schedule.

So if you're missing a class, that's an absence.

That would count as an absence on the D— That would count as an absence in the class, and it would count as an absence technically by the policy on the D-4, correct.

If you skipped a class, if you skipped it, and/or— I mean, there's a lot of pieces that made this very complicated though, because with the class attendance, as we know, we have had teacher shortages, substitute challenges, kids that might come into class late, the teacher forgets and doesn't go back and change the class attendance immediately in the moment.

And as we have navigated the policy, it has been very challenging because when you go to hold kids accountable at the class attendance level It can have a heightened frustration with parents, documentation verification.

My kid was there, you're saying they're not there.

As a school, we monitor class attendance, but there are— we do not have as sophisticated reports for monitoring class attendance as we do daily.

And it should be noted that class attendance is not an accountability measure for us either.

We also have spoken about the fact that class attendance is truly a management system in the building.

If kids are cutting class and kids are not being held accountable for cutting class and missed class, we do not believe— and this is one of the recommendations for change— we do not believe that a student's grade should be impacted for the class attendance pieces, knowing the number of variables as a school we do not have full control over, and that the student's grade is too important to leave to class attendance.

The part we know we have a much better grip on and is much more accurate than it ever has been is the daily attendance.

And working with kids and families around the cutting of class, because that's really the thing that would get kids jammed up, the cutting of class, that's a dis— I'll use the word discipline response that we need to get right with kids and families.

And that is why we are advocating for this shift from the policy, the daily— the class, rather, and going with the daily.

So that as we are in communication with families through the monitoring process, as we are calling families through their attendance monitor and officers, we are able to communicate with kids and families.

I think it should also be noted as well that when students are chronic class cutters, that means they are not regularly in class.

And when we look at our data, those are not the kids that are getting caught by this attendance policy piece, right?

The kids that are chronically cutting, they are failing the class in their own regard.

They are not kids that are earning passing grades in the class to then get the 65 instead of their passing grade, if that makes sense.

And so as we move forward, it is our goal that we can shift the policy to be daily attendance in lieu of class attendance.

To be able to message more soon with families, leverage our communication tools with families, and because we monitor that daily on every inter— at every intersection every day.

Any questions on that piece there?

That's right.

What you just explained about class attendance to me is— completely makes sense.

I guess I'm just not sure how you're not applying that to daily attendance.

If I have an 85, but I've missed 4 days, now I have a 65?

That's not about instruction, that is about my attendance.

So if we're saying attendance matters because we can't teach to an empty chair, but I have an 85, now you're going to give me a 65 because I wasn't in school, to me that's in conflict.

Then we're just chasing attendance numbers, we're not chasing instruction.

I had an 85 even though I missed 4 days.

So then it's not about instruction, it's about attendance.

So I guess I just want to show that there's a dichotomy here in what we're saying.

If we're saying attendance matters because you can't learn if you're not in school, but I haven't been in school but I've got an 85, I guess I'm just struggling with how those 2 things fit together.

So it's either we're chasing attendance and we've got to be at 92% because that's what matters, or we're saying attendance matters because you need it in order to improve instruction, but then we're penalizing the kids who are still meeting the instructional requirements but not coming to school.

And I know there has to be both.

I'm just concerned about how we're addressing it.

Because you just made the same argument for class attendance.

Kids who don't come to class are failing.

But then we just gave the opposite example of I've got an 85, but I miss 4 days, I'm gonna get a 60.

85.

So then we're not worried about instruction, we're worried about attendance.

Well, I think we can also recognize that— well, it's unexcused absences, right?

So it would be unexcused, and they can do a buyback so that they can earn the 85.

So, you know, they need to come to school.

And the 85 is also based on a test, a homework assignment, not necessarily the material, obviously.

They're taking in, right, if you're in class.

We're also looking at the full experience of getting our kids in school, right?

And as we know, the grade is also the teacher's— lots of variables in grades.

I think we all know that too.

An A is an A is an A is a B is a B, right?

I mean, um, but I think it's also about, for us, ensuring that it's the middle sweet spot of students that we need to be able to connect with and motivate to be able to get back in school and get back on track full-time.

Agree, agree.

So we think giving them a 65 is what's going to push them?

I don't know, I'm just— I'm asking the question.

You've been doing it.

I know at middle school at Henry Lord, the kids, when they know that they're going to get the D, they're like, give me a buyback, I'll be in every day.

Right, right.

And they do their buyback.

Because there's just a clarifying question.

I'm looking at the buyback.

Data that's provided, right?

Oh, I see Henry Ward.

So, um, just through my understanding looking at Henry Ward's numbers, so for the D5, trimester 1, you had 22 students going to the buyback.

You had 1 successful student return from the buyback.

Am I reading that correct?

So the buyback, you've got one, one student that bought a buyback in that time.

Yeah, at Lord specifically.

Yep, out of 22 students that was documented.

So I also want to just say, this is also just based on the documentation that we were able to pull from Aspen in the summer.

Um, and so I don't know if at Lord they documented a buyback in a different place.

So the Doran and the Henry Lord, I wasn't able to get in touch with the people in those buildings to make sure it was fully— I'm just telling you.

And some, sometimes it's student will bring in a— they, they're going to get the, the D5, but then they're going to get a doctor's note from— there's a doctor in the city that will provide a note if you're out from September to April.

They'll give it to you in June for 6 months.

I guess you're just giving me more evidence about why this doesn't work.

Like, it feels like the wrong intervention for those middle-of-the-road kids who are still getting passing grades.

But are getting— are having attendance issues.

So it just feels like the intervention should be around what's preventing those students.

Back to what you started with, which is connecting them with someone to figure out what it is.

I don't know, it just feels like we're punishing that middle group of kids who are passing.

We're knocking them down to a 65 and making them buy back if they choose to buy back, but it feels like It feels like the wrong intervention.

I don't know, I mean, you've been doing it, but it doesn't look like there's data to support that it's been successful.

And so when you have this team working, like, did anyone like— are we talking about other interventions?

Have we talked about something else?

Like, if I'm getting an 85 and I've missed 4, 5, 6, 10 days and I'm still pulling a B, what's making me not come to school?

Because I can do the work.

Clearly I have the ability to do the work.

And now you're going to give me a 65?

You know what?

I'm not going to do any more work.

I'm going to get a 65 after doing all that work.

What's the point?

I guess I'm just not understanding.

Because if you don't do any work and you fail, you get the failing grade.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you've given them a 65.

I mean, one kid did the buyback.

So that means all those kids just kept the 65 even if they were passing?

Some kept the 65.

Others provided documentation to excuse their absences so they didn't have the D5.

So if you were smart enough to get a workaround and go get a doctor's note.

You're covered.

Yes.

And that's why we— but that's why the language changed for 2 weeks is the time frame to bring a note.

Because in November, they'll— parents will go and get notes first from September.

Yeah.

Um, I had a parent who got a doctor's note when they told me they were going on a cruise.

Um, and I said that's not excused.

You're going to get a D5.

And they went and got a doctor's note, and I fought it.

Mary Ellen, were you going to say something?

I just wanted to say, I'm sure you're going to get to this, but I think that one of the most important parts that we haven't talked about in the policy yet is all of the work that we do beyond.

The D4 to me is like the least important part of the policy, to be honest with you.

The most important part of the policy is what we're doing at now is during the summer we are meeting with parents, we're meeting with parents and their students, we're saying, okay, let's talk about what's the problem.

Why are you not able to get here?

What are some of the things that sometimes it's— all of our kids are transported, but that doesn't mean that they're going to be able to get out of the house on time in the morning.

They have baby brothers and sisters that they're taking care of.

Okay, so what can we do?

Can we do a pickup on the odd day that you're going to be out?

Yep, we can do that.

What kind of an incentive plan can we put in place to help you?

What kind of thing can we do if you have to be out?

Because one of the discussions I've had with Amy is that for our kids, a lot of times their absences are for emotional issues, they're for mental health issues, and often I have a problem personally consequating that.

If I can get a student to come to school for a day, or if I can get him to log on with me at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and do some of that work and make it up, I'll make a contract for that.

And that contract becomes one of the most important parts of the plan.

And I think that's where the bulk of our work has to go.

Ms. Shaw, if I could just ask a clarifying question for the incentives.

You mentioned, um, a pickup once in a while.

If we have a student whose mother didn't get home on time, we have an attendance car.

We will go and pick them up.

We won't do it every day if it becomes a chronic problem.

That's common across the district.

Yeah, across the district, right?

So, you know, we're dealing with students who don't have just, you know, they don't all have 2, a mom and a dad, and they don't have a steady home that is going to be consistent every day.

Sometimes they need our help and we have to say, okay, what can I put in place in order to get you into school tomorrow?

And if this is going to be something— if mom's going to call me and say, Mrs. Shaw, and this has happened, I have to work until 7 tomorrow, I can't put so-and-so on the bus, is there somebody who can come and get them?

I'm gonna go get them.

We're gonna go get them in the attendance.

Car.

We're not going to do it every day, like I said, but that's going to be part of a plan that we are going to put in place to support kids who need a little extra help.

And I think, you know, I was just gonna say, in addition to that, I think it's important to note I very much agree with what Mary Ellen said.

And I think while we have a responsibility to identify these truly challenging situations that families and students face where we need to demonstrate compassion and we need to demonstrate flexibility and, you know, all of those types of things are very legitimate.

We're also concurrently looking at protocols relative to grading where there are certain parts where you have to be present in the class to obtain, you know, certain parts of the grade, or what part of the grading accounts for your presence in school and how do we regard that so that to your point, Anna, there's a factor that's directly tied and would compel you to be there to earn that part of the grade.

In other words, kind of looking at the root, I feel.

I think that Maryellen's point is critical.

I think that that point is critical in getting to the core there.

And I also just think it's very, very hard when we're living through a day and age where nationwide there's an epidemic relative to attendance.

And we know that to be true, particularly at the secondary level, that for whatever reason the value system has evolved a bit.

And it's not to be critical of anyone, but in these roles, public servants, we have to be— we have to be cognizant of society.

We have to be cognizant of the evolution that happens over time and how we best serve people.

And if we see value to being present in school in a routine way, then we have to name it.

And we have to say we have to be here this certain percent of time or there's some direct implication.

And so that's just my feeling, and I felt compelled to contribute.

I just have a question on data.

Do we know how many students got a D4, how many bought it back, and how many didn't?

So like, did 100 kids get a D4 and 50 kids— that's not— that, that's not— it's not reflected here because this says not students, this says courses.

It's not the same.

So my question is, did 100 students— yes, yes, thank you for that.

Yes, that's what I want to do.

This is courses, not students, which says completely different.

So I want to know, did 100 students get it and did 75 buy it back, or did 100 students get it and only 30 bought it back and still 75 still got A D. Do we not have that?

That's what I need to— that's not this data.

This data says the D4 data is through the grade tab.

And so I don't— I wouldn't know.

I didn't know.

I wouldn't know how to pull the student level of that number.

This was pulled through the grades tab to be able to find the D4s total.

Because I was under the impression this was individual students.

Yeah, right.

But what does that mean?

Like, am I not like an individual?

So like it could be math, science, just like every— so I understand because we used to do it per class and not per daily.

We're recommending daily, but this is by course.

So I could be absent— I mean, this happens too.

I'm absent every single day first period because I want to go across the street to Dunkin' Donuts to get a coffee, and then kids just stroll in late and then they fail their first period class.

You know, on the D4, but they don't fail any of those other classes.

Or I, I don't want to go to this particular class for whatever the reason is, and so I go to every other class, but I don't go to that class.

And that's the whole discipline piece we talked about in regard to cutting class.

So this— or I get dismissed at the end of the day every day because I'm trying to avoid, or life circumstances, like whatever comes up.

So it also gives us a way, to your point, to be able to to dig deep to figure out what is going on and how can we help you overcome all of those barriers.

I'm just trying to see, is D4 helping?

So my, my theory is, if— is it helping?

Is 75% of the kids actually buying it back, or is 25% of the kids actually buying back?

I, I need to know what percentage of what amount of kids are— is it actually helping?

Is it— or is 50% of the kids saying, I'm not buying it back?

Well, the buybacks are individual students, not courses.

But then it's not help either.

I can't figure that out.

But I'm just saying to you, so there were 172 students that did a buyback term 1 at Durfee last year.

Okay, but there could have been 800 kids who had a D4.

So you're not telling me how many kids have the D4?

Well, there aren't 800 kids because there were only 594 D4s.

So, but now you tell— but it could be 594 D4s.

I don't know how many students that is because you're telling me that's how many courses it is.

Yes, you're telling me how many buybacks there were, but you're not telling me how many students there were.

I need a student.

I have to figure out how that data dive is done because it's through an angle I don't— I'm not able to pull myself.

And I can't get a percentage from because of the cost.

And I just want to speak to what Jess said.

Like, I, I agree completely about like there has to be some motivation for kids coming to school and what they're doing.

I think the struggle is, and I'm going to guess the data is similar here, when you look at a student at the high school level, even at the middle school level, who's got chronic absenteeism, it didn't start there.

By the time they get to 9th grade, they've already got a— in Aspen, when you run their all years, they've got 800 absences.

They didn't come to Durfee and become chronic when they got to Durfee.

Most kids started.

What I don't see in this policy is where we need to hit kids is K-1, 2, because that's where they form their attendance habits.

And I feel like we don't really dig into the intervention for K-1, 2, and that feels like the place where we have to put all our efforts.

The attendance monitors that I work with, yeah, absolutely do for kindergarten, even though they're not counted for chronic I tell the 6-year-olds still don't count.

Just kindergarten.

If they're kindergarten and 6, they don't count.

But if they're 6 years old and not in school, parent can go to court.

It's a double-edged sword.

Yeah.

So first grade.

First grade.

But even my kindergarten monitors, they call and they say that good habits, we want to start good habits now.

And as you can see, and we talk about having good habits, the ones who are 6 years old, look, you— the attendance officer can't call you, you can't go to court.

It's mandatory that they are in school.

They're 6 years old.

In first grade, they start really— they end kindergarten with, look, next year it all counts.

They need to be in school.

They need to make good habits because if they're not in school and they don't have good habits, they're going to fall behind.

They'll be in 3rd grade and still can't read.

So that's, that's what we're doing in kindergarten and 1st grade.

And just not to toot my horn, but my 3 of my 4 schools were in the top 4 for attendance.

And I, I have Green, Henry Lord, and Westall.

And Stone did make improvements, but The kids— Mrs. Shaw had many kids who came chronic for the year already.

But when I ran the numbers with just attendance at Stone, it was like at 40%.

So, um, if you look at Stone's numbers, please don't feel that Stone's not doing their job.

I just want— I just— just to jump in, um, just going back to those numbers is, um, for, for example, for Doran.

So these are the individual classes.

So not one class at Doran had a D5 student, if I'm looking at this data correct.

I'm going to assume there was a reporting— I told you there was no— that was the error in reporting, and I couldn't access the people over the summer with Doran.

That's why I wanted to mention that.

Thank you.

But just to also go back to, um, what Mrs. Riley just said, when we look at— and I'm not sure if you guys have the full, um, chronic chart.

Yes.

Right.

But if you look across, what you will notice is We have done all of that extensive work in our elementary schools in the last 3 years.

I mean, if we're looking at— let's just pull a few as an example.

3 years ago, Fonseca Elementary School was at 47.4%.

This past year they were at 19%, right?

Yeah, I got cut off.

That's why on the, on the paper one— that's why as long as— right, it's not on the— it got cut off on our computers too, so we can only see up to 25.

So I will share this piece with you.

But, you know, when you look at, when you look at schools like even as an example Spencer Borden, 3 years ago they were at 26%.

Now they are at 18.7% chronic.

When we look at a Green, 3 years ago 27%, they are now at 7.8%.

When we look at a Westall that just got launched, first year they were at 17%, last year they were at 13.7%.

So, so it's daily attendance, not daily, correct?

Yes, daily attendance.

Yeah.

What is it that's happening at those schools that could be mirrored at other schools?

Well, like, that's the piece that, like, something good is happening in those schools, right?

And we pointed out, I think you said earlier, Letourneau had a huge improvement.

So what has changed at those schools?

Because it's not the D4, because they don't have that there, because elementary— well, it all comes with working with families.

And as we know, the older kids get the less involved families tend to be as it relates to getting kids to school, fighting the fight to get kids to school, holding kids accountable.

Sometimes families are taking kids to come to doctor's appointments and all of those different pieces.

So that is also why digging in with our kids at the secondary level has been really important, both elementary and secondary level.

But as kids get older where there is more of that individual responsibility to get to school, we start to see some of the fall-off and kids working the system.

I can know I can be absent so many days before there's consequence to me.

And while it certainly might not be perfect, what we've also seen in the past is when there was no parameters involved and there were no guidelines for kids, it went off the cliff in the other direction, right?

Yeah, just to— in my mind, correct me if I'm wrong, I think the at least some of us on the committee think that— I think we're moving in the right direction.

I think the data shows that with attendance, and I think we have a lot of other parameters, to your point, in place other than this, the D4 to the D5, and now we have a D8 buyback program.

Um, I'm not even gonna really get into that.

I have a few concerns that if, um, One, I think we should include the data for Evolve if we're going to have a D8 for the Evolve program.

We should have the, um, in the data section.

I don't believe Evolve's, um, segregated.

Like, you just have all of Durfee, and I'm assuming Evolve was part of the Durfee numbers.

I want to say Evolve's, uh, as a matter of fact, we do share Evolve's data pretty regularly.

Oh, I apologize.

In the chronic, yeah.

Um, that's a crime.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

There's a little chart just on 24.

I apologize, I was looking at the top chart.

I, and I, I say all this to say, like, you obviously haven't tried the daily attendance in D4 because— right, correct.

Those numbers that I think Mr. was asking for, I think is what would be relevant to us.

Like, let's see some data that there's 100 kids and better than 75% of them are taking advantage of the buyback and doing the work.

I feel like you don't really have that data right now because it was measured differently.

I'm just wondering if rather than put it in policy, it's in the handbooks, because I feel like what Ms. Shaw shared is really relevant.

It's probably going to be relevant for RPA and Evolve and the online school, where the circumstances for students might be very different than many students at Derfee's circumstances.

And I would hate to bind all of those schools to this policy when it might be different for students at those schools and they're— couldn't those consequences be developed by school and put in the handbook?

Durfee wants to try the daily attendance, D4, buyback and collect some data.

Is that something that goes in the handbook as the rule at Durfee versus a policy that binds everyone?

Because if it's a policy, it's going to bind the whole group here.

So I'm just wondering if we need to think about— I mean, we keep talking about we need to make things different for our students in the alternative pathways.

And particularly just listening to the one example Ms. Shaw had, like, I get that.

That makes sense.

These are kids who have— there's a reason they're at these alternative locations.

The circumstances are different.

So to bind all kids to the same thing just feels like restrictive.

And so if it was in the handbook, it would be a school rule.

Yeah, school-level policy.

Like if Derpy wants to try the D4 daily attendance, you think this is going to really help kids and improve?

Because I don't know the difference between the two, so that's why I think, you know, that's a good point.

School committee already has— we already have an attendance policy, right, for compri— right, yeah, compulsive attendance.

I, I think what Mr. Riley is looking to do is just have— just give it directly, give this responsibility instead of having the policy, give it directly to the D4, the consequences, right?

That's a handoff.

Attendance already exists, right?

And if they need to make a change mid-year, they need to try new things throughout the year, that's not— halfway through you read the semester grades and you're like, this is not working, no kids are doing the buyback.

Like, I just feel like there's more room at the school level for them to have some wiggle room versus it being in this district policy.

I see where you're going with this.

I agree.

Well, compulsory attendance is a state law, so it has to be in your policy that kids have to attend school.

Right, and I think you've done a very nice job of updating all of the research and including the why it's important and all of that.

I think that's great.

All I'm suggesting is we take the kind of punitive piece out, that secondary attendance policy and buyback, and leave that to the school handbooks.

I think you could end the policy.

So carry this work through the handbook and leave it being connected to the policy?

Yeah.

And have your school and have your, um, your councils.

So have your school councils, uh, work on them at your— you could almost end it at Tier 3 where you have individual support.

Here's what we're doing for kids, because then you start getting into response to consecutive absences.

Because all school councils will be different.

Stone's going to be different, right?

Spencer-Borden will be different than Maury, you know, with these school councils.

But maybe it ends at After D4.

Yeah, when it gets to the D4 piece, I think it could land on page 16.

I'm sorry, I don't know if this matches what you have printed.

Also, that's a really long policy, 16 pages.

Yes, I would be interested to see what MAS sees model policy.

I mean, it's very short.

It pretty much just says kids need to come to school.

Yeah, it doesn't give much information.

I've looked it up.

Some, some of the ones we looked at Because all the info is in the handbooks, right?

The attendance policy— policies in general should be a one-pager.

Yes, they should be something a parent can look at, read, and see, okay, this is the rule.

Then they have to go to the handbook.

Just that way here.

Yeah, it's always been coming through this way for years.

This is our last official one like this.

MEFC is coming in to do all our policy stuff.

Yeah.

So I'm wondering if we should table this.

You all need to do your work, and the handbook should reflect the things that you're talking about.

I mean, and Durfee's handbook might be different than the one for Stone and RPA.

That's why it was tiered, and just— that's also why we tiered it this way.

Yeah, yeah.

But that should just be in their handbooks versus the policy.

And I don't think our policy should just be one paragraph.

I think we should speak to some of the research and talk about that importance of early grade attendance.

But I almost feel like we should table it and see what we get.

But I'm gonna tell you, MASC— but I do have a worry about D8 because you're gonna go into chronic absenteeism as soon as you do a DA.

That's my worry.

So just so you know, the piece about the DA, and if you look at the way that we phrase it out, and because I also just to tell you, like last year we had some feedback from kids, particularly for the time that I was spending at RPA.

And you know, they said, no one says I need to be here.

No one says I need to be here.

You know, we're frustrated that we have attendance at 65%.

We have chronic absenteeism rates of 92% and 95% of the RPA school last year.

And so some of this is also about us setting in, well, you know, in policy, in handbook, wherever it needs to live, of like, no, this is our high expectation for you.

And we are here to break down barriers.

We are here to do all the things.

But as we know in life, life is going to yield you a very different outcome if you don't show up and advocate.

And so we feel this is our opportunity to also set a standard, set a standard that we are expecting you to be here and there's a threshold that you need to meet.

And because the other part is like the D4 and the D8, kids can chase those numbers.

Kids can— they can know those numbers.

So when we think about setting short-term goals with our kids, tracking goals through our attendance monitors and with our vice principals and all of those touch points with kids, all of these data points help us.

Why so high?

Yeah, with the 8?

Yes, that's what my worry is, is how high the number is.

Because we also want to be realistic with where we're starting with that population where there has been a minimal— there hasn't been a minimal expectation, but they have felt that there hasn't been a minimal— an expectation because we waived the D4 in those settings.

Because as we know, kids are chronically absent.

No student would have passed a class if we implemented the D4 in those settings.

And so this— would they have passed it if they had a D8?

Possibly.

There are kids that didn't have— and again, it's 8 per term, so keep in mind by the end of the school year you are looking at over 20 absences at the end of the school Oh yeah, we know this is going to make them chronically absent, but we're also starting at a place where 89 and 90% of the school is chronically absent.

So as we looked at the data, and Mary Ellen, you and Jan were weighing in on this piece particularly, is really about setting a standard to start with.

There is, as you can see in the policy, principal discretion.

So as we review every single student at the end of the term, vice principals in partnership with The principals, and you guys do this, boots on the ground, Brian, you might be able to speak to this, we review every student record, we review all of those pieces to make sure that if there is any extenuating circumstance, that student doesn't get the D-4, and we work with that student and family.

And Brian, I don't know if you want to— Yeah, we've had some, I'm at Costin, and we've had some amazing successes with our D-4 procedures.

We, you know, our school counselors track that and put themselves through their trackers.

I personally meet with all of my grade level, and I work with my school counselors, so I actually run the reports with them and we go through the data.

And all of these things, it's kind of part of the checks and balances to kind of keep us with those success plans.

But students really buy into that tracker and making sure that they're accountable for that time.

It provides another touchpoint of communication.

They come back and they see me as the vice principal to kind of look through it and make sure that they're on track with the— with signing off and getting their signatures.

And yes, we do make those decisions for like substitutes and things like that, but that's that communication, uh, that we have, uh, with our— with, you know, with our students and kind of also finding that, you know, maybe there is an excused absence that we didn't— we didn't we didn't notice.

And that's another layer of that, that D4 procedure that we go through where we use the, you know, the principal discretion, and we, and we do sign off.

I, I— that makes it feel like it even more belongs in the handbook of the principal discretion, because then the principal always has oversight.

So we are using my cap.

It's like, I, I can't— Amy, you might be able to speak to this a little bit.

Do all middle schools use my cap?

We did.

Okay.

Yes.

I don't know that we're leveraging that to the fullest extent.

It's growing and evolving.

Yeah, well, I'm just saying they have the tracker in that.

Yep.

And we do do— the thing I wanted to say is our kids do bag checks at the traditional middle schools weekly.

So this is on the kids to look at their behavior, attendance, and grades every week and to know themselves if they're on any kind of slippery slope.

That's why I think the, the MyCAP is a good tool.

It was, you know, it was brought in by DESE.

I know that they gave a lot of work with it.

I mean, we're an accredited early college program, so MICAP is attached to that.

I think it's a good program for middle school students, and it does have the tracker on there, like you're saying, and you can look at yourself, where am I this week, what am I doing today?

You know, instead of, you know, buying something else, I mean, we already have that.

And we're using it.

We know that it helps us get into the high school and where we're going.

I agree with everybody what you're saying.

I think we're trying to get kids to school.

I think it's important.

I think it should go across the board, you know, because if you're not here, including myself, if I'm not here, how can I help anybody else?

That's why I gotta be here.

You're meeting every week with kids that run through the back.

That's what's making them successful.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

That's what I'm saying.

If you're not here for your own self, for your data, making sure you know what your grades are and what's happening.

So I don't think that's the D4.

I think it's what you're doing.

It's the system you've designed.

That's why I think it goes in your handbook.

You figure out— that way the principal can make the decision to waive and say, okay, I met with Johnny and his parents.

They've been meeting every week with the vice principal.

He missed 4 days, but this was a fluke.

He's had perfect attendance for the last 5 weeks.

We're not going to change his grade 2 weeks before.

There's not enough time.

I just think all of that Discretion comes when it's in your handbook.

I think putting it in policy, there really isn't— shouldn't be discretion in policy.

Policy is policy.

If it's— if the school committee sets it, it needs to be abided by and everyone's held accountable to it.

And I just feel like your schools are unique and you have to— you have to set up a system that works.

I'm going to make a motion and refer this policy to the full committee with the— except that we remove the everything after page 16, everything from D4 and below, and the— it'll be reflected in individual school handbooks.

Perfect.

Okay, second.

Motion second.

Discussion on the motion?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, for the city code I think we need to do the panel with you.

We haven't done that in a while.

Okay, cool.

All right, moving on with the rest of the agenda, everyone.

Anna, Anna, I'm sorry, we're just going to move on with the rest of the agenda.

I know we're— so we're just going to, we're just going to be moving on with the rest of the agenda.

It's okay.

Um, so 3— I'd like to make a motion to, um, table 3-2 to the next meeting.

There's, um, information Specifically for one, to take the time and so we can move on with other items.

And 2, there's information that I've requested in terms of data for the— this policy, which is not reflected in here.

So we make a motion to table.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Move on to, um, 3-3 is the discussion.

Discussion and vote to refer the, um Thank you.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Thank you guys for coming.

Durfee High School Athletic Handbook for the school year 2026-2027.

I'll refer it over to the administration for presentation.

Do you want me to present it?

I've been looking at it for the last like 14 years.

Yeah, sure.

I heard we might be getting a volunteer coach too.

Yes, I heard that too.

No, not girls soccer.

Yeah, so that's cool.

Uh, yeah, so, um, the handbook, we just kind of made it look a lot nicer than it was before.

And also, um, one of the things that we really wanted to focus on was the athletic eligibility part of it and a student understanding what it, you know, what it's going to take to be eligible.

And if they are not eligible, the way the seasons fall and then where the term ends, there's an overlap.

So for instance, term 1, the grades come out in November, like the second week of November.

So it really doesn't affect anybody in fall sports except for football.

So that Thanksgiving Day football game, an athlete can become ineligible.

So term 1 grades will go to winter sports.

So we have to look at all the term 1 grades to determine whether or not they can play winter sports.

The term 2 grades come out at the end of February, well, mid-February.

So a student can actually be removed from the team if they're not— if they're not eligible.

So we have to remove them.

Um, and then with the spring, the term 3 grades come out in April, and the season starts the 3rd week of March.

So they could make the team because they're eligible, but then they could be removed from the team Um, and vice versa.

So, um, we're just going to clarify that if you're not eligible, you cannot play.

Okay, just my first and only question is, what, what makes a student eligible?

Is it if you're under 65?

Is it under— it's a, it's a lot of different things just because of all the different, um, academic academics we have.

Like, some kids are taking 6 classes, some kids are taking 4 classes, and then they have like a credit Like cosmetology might be a 10-credit class.

So there's— it's a different— the eligibility is different.

So we have a baseline of we look at this, we look at somebody's report card, we look at how many major classes, how many core classes they're taking, and then we base that, and then how many non-core classes they're taking.

So we base it on how many they're passing on that.

Right.

Which is— what's— I'm sorry, what's the threshold for that?

So they have to be passing all their classes?

Nope.

So if they're taking 5 core classes, they have to be passing 3 out of the 5.

It's 75% or something, right?

What's that?

That's a percent.

It's a percentage.

It's a percentage of what it is.

It's like 70%, I think.

Yeah, it's like the MIA has a policy.

The MIA policy is actually if you're taking 7 classes, you only have to pass 4 of them.

But we don't have a 7-period day.

So we usually have a 6-period day.

The districts are usually a little bit tougher than MIA's policy.

Yeah, I mean, just like the baby— that's not right at all.

What's that?

Should that be in here?

Because that's not in here.

So how do kids know what that number is?

Um, it, it was the— as far as the eligibility.

Yeah, it looks like for credit recovery and athletic eligibility, there's just that one little section and it doesn't have any.

Yeah, right, the academic expectations part, we, yeah, we took it out just to make it easier to read.

But we could add it back in so kids know.

But it is a lot different though, so it's like it's based on how many classes you're taking.

But we could put in each different scenario.

I just or a link to it.

I just feel like kids should like know it.

We could definitely link it.

I think that's why they go.

You don't want kids to be surprised if I know.

I didn't know I was.

I would have tried harder in this class if I had known I can.

But I think it's.

If you do it, I think that's why we go back.

Percentages, because there's some districts that go, you know, high school has 7 periods.

We have others that are weighted different.

You have different weights.

You've got the 4x4, you've got the 6x8 model.

You got some sort of mathematical formula that Mr. Reilly just said could be in a link.

That's up to the building principal to say, you know, she wants 70% or the— we actually do have that.

Yes, we can add it.

Yeah, you said it was long, so just make a link to to it rather than sticking it in here.

We just, we tried to make the handbook a little bit easier to read.

Yeah, yeah.

But we could definitely put a link in there.

I mean, it's electronic.

I mean, I've only ever read it electronically.

I've never read a printed copy.

We actually, we used to print these out and give them to every single student.

And we would find out— We used to sign them.

We would find out all the time.

We all real sign them instead of what's on it.

So we got rid of the paper and now it's all electronic now.

Mr. Dyer, so I'll make a motion that we refer with the, um, refer to the full committee with the recommendations that Ms. Riley just made.

Second.

Second.

My only, um, question for discussion is school year starting next week, so what will we be sending out to kids?

Um, I mean, if you send this out as a draft, just— I would just put the caveat subject to The old one is gone for fall.

I already signed the old one.

Oh, for fall.

Yeah, we haven't.

So it won't be updated until the following school committee winter season, right?

Yeah.

So then once we approve this at the full committee, it's going to get sent out again.

Well, it's in your— it's in your registration thing.

Yeah.

So you would just update all the registration.

Just update it.

Yeah.

The other thing that we wanted to clarify— oh yeah, I just didn't know if We you also wanted to clarify too that in the past, students, if they were failing, so they failed and they're not eligible, they could do credit recovery.

Yeah.

And they could make up a whole bunch of work in a short amount of time, and then they would have to go back in and get a grade change for that term, and then they would become eligible.

We're gonna stop that.

I was gonna say, I see you changed that.

It says that.

Yeah, it says it.

Yeah, so there's no— they can still do credit recovery, but it's not gonna kick in until the next term.

So are you gonna do that with kids at the team meeting so they know that?

Yes.

So I meet with every team and I go over all this with every team.

Perfect.

So they're going to know now that if you're ineligible, you can't go to your teacher and say, hey, can I make up a whole bunch of work?

And that teacher is going to do a grade change.

They can do it, but it's not going to change your eligibility.

But we're not holding them from— if I was a freshman last year and say I was ineligible for baseball, okay, it's a new year, they're going into football.

I'm just per se, if you failed the end of the school year, yes.

You can't play a fall sport.

So it goes by the end of the year grades, not term 4.

It goes by the end of the year grades.

And a lot of those kids that were— that would not have been academically eligible, a lot of them took summer school.

Right, so they should be eligible.

A lot of them are eligible now.

So each summer school is not the same as credit recovery is what we're saying?

No, summer school is not the same.

That's why I'm asking.

Summer school can make them eligible.

That's why I'm sort of asking.

I don't want double jeopardy.

You know, I don't want double jeopardy.

Yeah, you know, like kid wants to go for theater or something, that's it.

Because we talk about attendance, that could be a pull to keep a child in.

Might be the athletics that keep them here, might be the theater program, the band, right?

You got a lot of stuff.

We have a lot of things after school, and those things usually work better than a D4.

Yeah, those things usually work better.

It's a hooker.

It's a hook to— yeah.

You know what I meant.

It's a hook.

I didn't mean it like that.

It's a hook.

All right, I think we can take a vote.

Um, all those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed?

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else on this?

No, I think that— well, we have, um, uh, Mr. Petronio for 3-4.

Okay, so we have 3-4 is a discussion to vote to refer The expense reimbursement policy.

Is there an updated MASC policy for this?

The MASC policy is part of the backup.

The— is there— so we have the— this is the most updated one from MASC.

From MASC.

Do we have our— it doesn't have the MASC reference on this one.

Yeah, this has the Fall River Public Schools logo.

There's This was the backup.

Oh, here you go.

It's in the blue.

If you— here, could you give me yours, Alan, so I can give it to— um, no, right there.

Which one?

No, this is the same thing that we have in us.

I don't— yeah, it probably wasn't anything.

Oh yeah, it says MASC review, right, right.

But the one we have doesn't— doesn't— it says it on— yeah, but they're the same.

It's the same thing.

Yeah, it just doesn't It just doesn't have the MASCC on it.

So just, um, just the— for the committee's indulgence, this was tabled to give to the administration to come back with additional information to put in here, like, um, reimbursement rates and, uh, things of that sort.

Do we have that information available?

Okay, I do.

This is what I pulled off from the internet.

What I looked up was the IRS and the government put out a set of rates.

The tough thing about it is that they base it on an area that you're going to.

Regionalized, right?

Exactly.

So if you're going to follow that type of a policy, you're going to be constantly changing, going through and auditing the person's reimbursement as to where they're going and what the allowance was.

In the past, we've spoken about this at other districts, and we try to come up with just one straight amount.

And they're all within $10, let's say, of one another.

So it's much easier to just say, here's your daily allowance.

Here's your breakfast.

Here's your lunch.

Here's your dinner.

If the lunch is provided by the conference you're going to, we're not going to reimburse you for it.

But otherwise, you have, you know, this is $92 is your reimbursement for the day.

And go eat whatever you want.

Yeah, so it makes things a lot easier.

It makes auditing a lot easier.

So I was keeping the receipts, looking through the receipts to see if they paid tax or if they tipped.

Um, I actually went and, and used AI to put together a policy.

I printed one here.

It came out about 15 pages long, but it has everything broken out for all the different scenarios you could go through.

But really, for what we need, something like this where we basically say Hotel, reasonable.

We can look at that.

And as far as the daily meals, we can break it out by the 3 categories if they're comfortable with the Boston rates and go with that.

And yeah, I think it's just— it streamlines everything.

So we attach to this policy this.

We just put all this in the policy, and that's what you're recommending?

Well, I'm not saying we cut and paste from here.

I'm saying we use this as a guide to put in and basically say we will reimburse you for travel that's authorized by the district at these rates.

So much for breakfast, so much lunch, so much for dinner.

Hotel rates has to be pre-approved, but hotel rate that's reasonable.

Just to basically say, um, we're going to go with the $291 a night hotel rate.

If you're going in a Boston hotel as opposed to a Worcester hotel, it would be a big difference in price.

So, you're better off just at that point saying, we want to see the estimate of where you're going to go, and sign it off.

The superintendent or myself sign off on what's reasonable.

My only question, my additional question would be, have we taken a look— actually, I'm asking that because I know we have taken a look at the CBAs, the contracts, because there might be some language in here with different unions.

So I guess my— I guess separate from this is, um, well, actually it is included with this— is, um, travel.

Like, I made the— I brought up a point looking through the warrants that we have some directors who put in for reimbursement for a half year, $10 a day, and For travel within the district, right?

And there was a question whether or not that even aligned with the CBA and the contract.

So, um, who's in the contract?

But that's really different travel than this.

Yeah, that's in-district, right?

It's in-district and it's specific to travel within the schools.

So do Massachusetts policies also have like— do you have exhibits?

So in Rhode Island, like, I would have— this would be policy DKC, the DKC has an exhibit and the exhibit would be like this so that it can be updated.

This could be updated without having to touch the policy.

Do we have that in Massachusetts?

I haven't seen it that way, but I don't know.

We can ask the DKC too when they come.

I'm just wondering because it feels like this changes.

So next year you might have to update this depending on— I think that that's just a guide, right?

Yeah, that is exactly.

To guide you.

So I would— yeah, well, I feel like you should have permission to adjust this.

Yeah, once a year when the IRS comes out with a new miles reimbursement rate, we send that out to everybody.

As of January 1st, here's the new rate, 72 cents per mile.

At the same time, we can put that out, we can put out the IRS rate.

Exactly, we'll do it at the same time.

Yeah.

And go, if you're gonna go off the Boston regional rate, then that's the policy, then that's what we'll put out every year.

Mr. Dias, I think one of the issues that you had brought up that I think What we'll have to look at is that where— who was signing off and who was— I think that was a problem prior to the newest CBA agreement, is that, you know, we have directors or somebody like speech pathologists going from building to building, you know, sharing to elementary schools or whatever it was.

And used to have the principal— a long time ago, the principal would say, You know, Liz Legault was here from 9 to 11:15, and then you'd sign off and you'd take that sheet, you'd go over to the next elementary, and you would sign off.

Now the new CBA is we're taking into consideration that Liz Legault is the speech pathologist, has 3 schools, we know that she's traveling, and you're gonna give her a specific rate.

I think we can, my personal, like when you had sent that to us, I had to look into it.

Yes, the CBA says that.

I believe that once the CFO says yes, or whoever signs off on it at that level, and then it goes, then that's why that stipend was given.

But I think that those are things that we can look at moving forward.

This is in the CBA agreement, it was, yeah.

So, I don't think instead of adding this, I think what Mr. Vetrone is suggesting is maybe we just add a sentence that says the Boston Cambridge Mass federal per diem area rate will be used on an annual basis.

So that actually has changes, right?

It can be— I have an even better idea.

Just, um, like to your point, it's just adding a sentence, um, stating the CFO will, um, produce every year a, a guide that will be available for staff.

I think that would— the CFO's nodding his head, so I think that's something that would be helpful.

So if you could add that sentence in here, when we bring it to the full committee, it's already in here in italics maybe so we know it's new, but that would tell the rest of the committee what the addition is.

Yes.

That way, that way we don't have to remember.

And you have to remember an example of what it looks like.

What's an incidental?

I've never seen that.

$5 incidental?

In case you break something.

Is it?

Break what?

A water bottle.

I mean, I've seen like a water bottle.

Or you take, or you grab, or you have a coffee or a $10.

It's not a Starbucks coffee, you can only have a Dunkin'.

A bottle of water in a hotel room is $10.

For sake of time, I'm going to make a motion to refer to the full committee with the recommended changes in italics.

That way we'll know it's new.

I just feel if we don't put it in italics, nobody will know it's new.

And remove— and also removing all the MASC stuff and doing everything that Miss Riley always I suggest we do.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed?

Motion passes.

Okay, motion— I mean, next item is 3-5, is a discussion and vote to refer, um, destruction of, um, a property policy.

Um, I have here— I don't know, this is the same situation I have.

The only thing I have in the backup is the current policy from 2010?

Oh yeah, you have.

Okay, it's the same language.

My only question would be, adopting this, referring this to the full committee, is just on— I mean, I agree with the language, it's just on enforcement of this.

And are we going to be able to enforce this policy?

Anytime something gets broken in the school, whether it's a window, whether kids Hanging on the pipe.

I mean, you know, I would say as a middle school principal, you need a lot of that stuff for middle school.

You're gonna see a lot of boys and girls hanging on stuff or kicking stuff, or we're seeing it.

Do we like to hold them accountable?

Yes.

We'd like to bring parents in and say, you know, your son or your daughter broke this.

Kids do that.

And when you say, I mean, you do a fixture in a bathroom, fixture in one of our bathrooms is probably $400, $500 at least, easily.

The handles, they're built for industrial use because they're used all the time.

So when a kid breaks that or does something, and when you bring a parent in, then you start to get this with a parent.

And I know that we want to get that money back, and I get it.

We want restitution.

We want it, you know, them to understand.

But sometimes saying, look, you know, we want $25 for this.

$25 to somebody who doesn't have $25 is a lot of money because I've taken from a kid $2 a week for 10 weeks to pay something off, and that was a long time ago.

You know, it's— I know we want to hold people accountable and we want to get our money back and we want to do this, but we We have to remember we are an 80/20 district.

We have a lot of students that come to school that have, you know, that need our help and support.

You know, maybe you put a tap out, it's, you know, $100.

I know for a fact that Google Chromebooks, you're— We see the bills that come in for the spare parts.

The attorney in my former school district, our attorney said, taking $35 for is really— it's a no-brainer because it's not— you don't want to do it because your insurance is holding on to it anyways, because you can go to Walmart and buy a Chromebook now for $79.99.

So we want them to use our devices.

We know it, kids pop the keys.

That's what they do all day long.

Kids pop keys in middle— in middle school, they just sit there and they pop the keys off, and we got to go back and do it.

I get that.

You can set a price for it, you know.

I think this is what happens.

You say— it's just like, I mean, I've got 2 examples for this.

You tell a student, you're not getting a Chromebook.

You won't get a Chromebook back until we get your money.

We've tried that.

Kid says, my parents don't have any money.

I'm not getting another Chromebook.

Then we give a student a loaner.

That loaner goes out to that student.

That kid's got the loaner from October to June.

We're never going to see the money.

So there's the one thing.

The other thing is, is a long time ago when we had— when the cafeteria let kids used to borrow money.

Watch.

Okay, what'd Dusty say?

You can't do it, right?

Well, you run up a deficit bill and then they want you to clear it with some funds other than the federal funds you received.

And that's what happens because when you're in a district such as ours that's getting a lot of support in federal and state funding, That especially, you know, the food is a big deal.

Like, we had to clear it ourselves.

You can go out and say you can't get food, you're still gonna get a lunch.

Student's still gonna get lunch, he just can't go through the à la carte line or buy the snack portion.

Are you thinking we just don't need this policy?

I think you need a policy that vandalism is against the law.

And vandalism, if it's criminal, then it's— yeah, it's criminal.

Like, it's against the law.

I think that that's good.

Maybe you do, you know, just a— and then I don't want to say nominal fee because I don't think— I think any fee is tough for people.

What I would like to see, Deputy, I think— yeah, I agree with a lot of what you're saying.

I think what would be important is the data collection.

If we're not— we shouldn't hold accountable a 7-year-old for tipping over a flagpole by mistake, it breaks.

Yeah, that's different than the high schooler who's purposely smashing it.

Oh yeah.

But I think the data collection, whenever something breaks, we should have data on that, dollar amounts, so we're aware.

So if we need to amend a policy or go for— or the administration needs to crack down on things, we have that data available.

I mean, you know, I mean, we use students.

I mean, I'm hoping that we still have, you know, the student workforce during the day that fixes the Chromebooks.

It's a good deal to have those kids help you.

Most tech departments have those.

Most high schools have those.

You bring 3 or 4 kids in because they love computers.

Computers and they'll help you fix them.

These kids, I would say, if kids pop, I don't want to say these kids, kids pop those keys off.

We see the glass broken, the shields broken.

I mean, we bought those, how many Gator cases have we bought?

I mean, I bought, you know, how many do you buy a year to put so they don't break?

You know, and they still break.

The glass still breaks and they still get, you know, they leave them outside or they I think a nominal fee, like you break your Chromebook, it's, you know, do you want money from them or do you want them to understand that?

I believe we have a separate Chromebook policy that specifically covers the Chromebooks, but this is more of a general— but I mean, vandalism, I mean, this is part of it, right?

That's where you see the most of it because you don't see kids throwing a baseball at a window.

I mean, kids aren't playing on a baseball field now, it's not so close to the school where they're going to hit the baseball into the window.

So no changes there, we're comfortable with the assessment.

I'm comfortable with vandalism, if there's graffiti, I mean you can assess.

Oh yeah, if I can just ask one question, just adding a sentence in terms of data collection, I'm not sure, just adding a sentence that says each school shall document and store, um, how much would it cost?

Like if there was vandalism, so what you're saying is like if Cus Middle School, somebody goes out and goes like this, spray paint.

Or they break something like that.

So we'll use the pipe, that's a perfect example.

Someone breaks the pipe, we got to bring in documents, they broke it, the amount, and we, and we store it just so we have it.

That takes a worker to go, so it's like $350.

Yeah, I get that.

So, um, we would put a fee to that to show you if you— yeah, let that— I'll leave that to you all whether or not to assess a fee, but we should at least— no, not assess a fee, but just to tell you that data, to collect the data.

It's like, what does it cost?

How long did it take us to fix?

Do we have to call out for the— so I'm not surprised as a member of the school committee I see, um, a couple hundred dollars maybe.

I don't know if I'm exaggerating it for a broken pipe.

Yep.

And then find out that kids were jumping on it.

So I, I think it's just— they were jumping on it, right?

No, that's exactly— I mean, I would tell you I had a field hockey ball, uh, that was put it down a toilet and they couldn't get it out.

And these toilets are like almost like $600, $700, the commercial ones.

Yeah, sure.

We couldn't get it out.

They had to come remove the toilet, and then when they went to try to get the ball out, broke the, broke the whole thing.

So I mean, I didn't know who put it, the field hockey ball in there, you know.

So we can, but we can have that data for you.

So just let me set a threshold though.

I don't think we want to report.

Oh, right.

Like someone spray paints, that might cost $10 to remove.

I don't think we want to track.

One, $150.

Do you think we need to know about $150?

All right, anything over $500?

Anything over $500?

I don't think we need to see all documented vandalism.

We have school.

Yeah, I agree.

Right, but you log in if you need Um, get a ticket, put in a ticket, right?

Yeah.

Incidents over $500— data shall be kept for incidents over $500 in cost.

That's all.

Like, just let's keep track of vandalism things.

Um, and each school will be responsible for maintaining that.

Um, so I'll make it— yes.

Is it the school who's— I'm trying to think of like— well, the principal would have to alert the Facilities that have to put in a ticket.

I would say each one of them has a book up front that's called the vandalism book.

Something like that happens, log it in the book, call and place a school dude in and get someone here to fix it.

Because you could always look it up.

School dude, that's another way.

School dude, anything over $500, that's it.

It's not vandalism, so they just need to document it.

It's about documents and it adds vandalism to your complaints.

Um, Dr., um, Rather be brought up.

Can we add a field to SchoolDude called vandalism?

Yes.

Sorry, I just said that.

So you can put that field into the IQ, mark it as vandalism, and anything— run a report.

So when the ticket goes in, it's automatic and it's not another— yeah, it's an IQ.

Nobody has to keep a book, right?

I'll make a motion to go log it in.

I'm going to make a motion to refer as discussed and amended.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed?

So carries.

Motion 3-6, discussion and vote to refer work from home policy.

I'll turn it over to the administration.

I, I have a problem with work from home policy, which you started to work on, it looks like, in 2025, probably.

Not me.

No, Tracy, that was Tracy.

I just have a problem with it for 2 reasons.

Number one, if you're sick, you're sick.

If you call in sick, you're home, you're sick.

I had a thing the other day.

I called someone on their cell phone and they said, oh, I'm not in today, I'm sick, but I'm working from home.

I said, nope, thank you very much.

I'll see you tomorrow or the next day when you're feeling better.

When you're sick, you're calling in.

That is comp— we compensate you for sick time.

We compensate you for your work time.

You're comp— when you— we give you 15, 14 days a year to use if you are sick.

If you're gonna be sick, then why work from home?

And so I agree, that's, that's what I'm saying.

I agree.

And I don't think that we got— that should be the policy.

That's the policy.

So I don't think we— there is no work from home.

There is no work from home.

Oh, if the students are here, you're here.

We just talked about student attendance for Right, that's my— students have to be here, we have to be here, period.

My concern is, is that, you know, um, I don't know, I didn't have— I don't think people had great results over COVID.

I don't think people had great results of going home.

I mean, I come to school every day, Dr. Smith comes to school every day.

I mean, we're here every day, Debbie, everybody's here.

So I mean, if you're here, that's where you get it done.

So this policy doesn't exist.

This was a draft to make a policy so we can just take it.

Exactly.

What are you saying?

So there is no— so nobody should be working from home anyway?

Anyway, if, if I may, the reason that this was brought up, and I encourage everyone to— I know the vice chair has been very adamant on getting something on the books.

We need to have a policy that, in my opinion, that says what the deputy just said, because we've had situations where We've had staff work from home, even my, my, from my information I received recently as well, where staff should not be working from home.

We had a staff member who was working in Portugal.

That shouldn't have happened.

However, the administration at the time pointed to there's no policy.

So that's why my opinion as one member is important that we have a policy that says exactly my opinion with the deputy the superintendent just said, just having language in there so we don't have situations where there's— might just— where we shouldn't have it.

So, so we have to have a policy that says— a work-from-home policy that says we don't work from home.

So I think that's not a work-from-home policy.

I think we have an attendance policy says, okay, there's no work for staff.

Okay, attendance policy for staff, as per CBA, you get so many sick days, you get vacation days if you're whatever, There is no work from home.

Yes, I think that's an attendance policy, not a work from home policy.

Why would you have a work from home policy if nobody can actually work from home?

So then we don't need this.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

Can't be a teacher and work from home, right?

Definitely, definitely.

No, but can other people?

Do we have an— do we have a staff attendance policy in the manual that Miss Thorpe was just asking?

I don't know.

Well, I mean, staff is expected to attend.

Yeah, but I'm saying like, I'm saying like, Aldo doesn't— Aldo work from home, you know what I mean?

You're saying teachers, but I'm just saying anybody.

Could you work from home?

Can she work from home?

Like, I'm saying like anybody.

It's not just teachers we're talking about.

Yeah, well, I have had occasion.

I had, uh, surgery on my, uh, what did I have, couple of times a couple days ago.

I was— I forget what district I And I had to attend.

It was during COVID There was Zoom calls.

Yes, that's different.

COVID was different.

I'm just saying, you know, there was a reason for it.

I had to get permission.

School committee knows.

And of course they wanted me.

I was on the calls and doing what I had to do.

I couldn't do much.

But I was only saying that because you just said teachers.

I'm not talking about teachers.

Obviously teachers are here.

I'm talking about as a whole.

Yeah, nobody should be working out from home.

Nobody should, but I just had a situation where I had somebody out on intermittent FMLA.

There was something that I needed done in the district, so I was very careful to bring in the executive director of HR.

Brought the person in because I needed to know if they were in, if they were out.

I needed a person they were reporting to.

So I made it very clear we were here to support them, but they needed to report to— and I had them, you know, as a top-level person to the executive director of HR.

And there was a conversation, well, sometimes I feel good in the morning.

I'm like, if you— I don't know what your day is, and if there's something the district needed, and there were some specific things, and I could account for that being done, and it was under the direction of, like I said, the executive director of HR, I was allowing that.

And it was a day-to-day thing, and it wasn't— I was encouraging it.

The person had documentation, FMLA.

So I do think you have to give the superintendent, you know, some authority to make decisions if it's in the best interest of the district, not the employee.

Sure.

I was— I had COVID very bad a few years back, and I ended up on oxygen 24/7.

After the first month, I was able to work, but I couldn't leave.

I had a big machine that I was tied to, and the portable tank only lasted a couple of hours.

So I was able to work from home because I had a machine that made the oxygen.

So I was able to actually do work from home.

But again, it was the superintendent made a special arrangement for that because there were reports that had deadlines that had to be done.

Is that a liability if— I don't know, I mean, you brought up the example, so if like some, God forbid, something happened and you're on the clock getting paid to do work— I don't know, that's the first thing that came to mind.

Like, I can't tell you, I can't even compliment times I've ever done it.

But like I said, I gave you an example and it benefited the district.

It would really put— would have put the district, you know, at risk if we didn't do something.

I think it is— I think there's 2 different ways you look at this.

As a 12-month employee, as a superintendent of schools, you're always on the clock.

I don't care if we're at a wedding, at a wake, if you're in Cancun, you're gonna get a call if something goes on in your district.

It doesn't matter.

That's why— that's why we signed— that's why you signed up on Got it.

So I don't think a work-from-home policy goes for your executive staff.

I don't, because you're always working from home.

I could call— you're working from home when you're actually on a sick day, right?

It doesn't really matter.

But the superintendent could call, you know, Aldo at, you know, 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning and say, you know, I've got an— I said, I just heard something, is this true?

Yeah.

Or see something in the paper.

That's different than a teacher.

You're technically not working.

I technically— you are working, but you're technically on the page, right?

But there's 12-month employees.

But I think what's happening is when people say, can I, you know, I'm going to work from home, I don't want to take sick day.

That's what a work from home— that's what a work from home policy— I think that's where they— that's where it originated, is people said, I don't need the sick time, just let me work from home.

Well, How— where are you logging in?

How are we gonna log in?

How do you teach kids?

How, you know, I mean, there's a big difference in the summertime where, you know, or any time of year, a district employee that doesn't have kids in front of them— it's hard for a teacher to teach math from home.

So I don't think there's a policy in front of us.

So I don't know, actually, I think this is really a work-from-home policy.

There is no work-from-home policy unless designated by the the superintendent of schools.

That's what I was just saying.

Yeah, that's why I'm saying I'm not for working.

But you did— it sounds like you did have the superintendent authorize somebody to work in Portugal.

You know, I keep hearing that story.

This school committee, this school committee, the prior school committee, never authorized.

I'm just saying I heard it.

But that's my problem.

My worry that I have is, is you saying give the superintendent discretion.

So now we give you discretion and now you let somebody work from Portugal.

That's my worry, just for you to say, to give you And I hear that's something— that's something.

So, one person who's going to do that, and if that person does that, then we can hold that person accountable, right?

But this was— I think this— and I'm going off of internal emails, so, um, wasn't there a situation of someone working on grants?

I thought you brought to my attention when I— something I emailed over.

There might have been.

I said in the summertime There might have been, I don't know if it was an overlap, there could have been someone on a grant because I think you saw a pay, right?

It was off a warrant, right?

Wasn't that how it was?

It was brought to my attention that it was on a warrant or something.

I said, yeah, I don't know the person.

It could be.

It was in a warrant that somebody was working.

It got paid.

It got paid.

And they said, why is this per— this person is no longer with the district.

The person has gone to a new district, but the name came up on the warrant as finishing or completing work.

I said it could have been a grant that the person was working on for the district and had to complete the hours of the grant or had to complete the work for the grant, the project, to get paid.

And it just got finished July 15th.

The warrant goes out, the grant's still open because they're not going to close the grant until the grant is fulfilled.

And that person could have been in another district already and just said, I got to finish this grant for Fall River.

I don't know, that's what I'm saying, I don't know where that person is.

I don't think the district's— I don't think the person is still in the district.

I did look the person up, they're not in the district.

But if they're getting paid on July 15th, I did look that up, there is a grant.

The person had to fulfill the grant requirement, and that's probably why they got paid out, because they were signed— they signed on, the director signed off on the grant and the grant work.

So the grant has been completed.

Completed.

That's— I don't think that's a work-from-home policy.

I don't either.

Well, the committee would, uh— but can we table this and see if there is a staff attendance policy?

I think we could add it in there and just say— yeah, I think that that's very— it's a handbook, the staff handbook.

I've got it right here.

It's part of the medical.

We'll make— no, we can come back.

We'll come back.

We'll make a motion.

I'll make a motion.

I think it's in there, Kevin.

I think you're right that it's Are there any recommendations?

There's tabling.

Okay.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

I mean, there's FMLA too.

So if somebody's really sick.

No, that's fine.

I think I know we tabled this, but I guess my recommendation would be I think the administration can either look at the attendance manual and then come back and put something where I think we can all be happy.

Okay, I leave that up to you all.

All it says is attendance.

Fall River Public Schools will monitor attendance for all staff.

And this is just in your— for example, sick days are intended to be used for illness in accordance with provisions of your contract.

Using sick days for circumstances other than illness is inappropriate and grounds for discipline.

Yeah, that's your— so we can come back, maybe add something in there, or we can address it, but it is tabled.

So we'll move on to 3-7, which is a discussion and vote to refer possible job description policy and following of jobs.

That's just a discussion.

I'm sorry, discussion is a discussion item.

3-7 is possible job description policy and following of job descriptions.

I wanted to bring this to the committee's attention and see if there is a possible need of a policy.

There's no policy on the books.

Um, there's been not just one— there's one recently that I brought to the administration's attention.

However, there's been a few instances where we hire staff members who are not meeting the qualifications in the job description, the required qualifications.

So I wish to bring it to the community.

I can, I can indulge further if you would like, but I just want to bring it to the committee's attention whether this is something that should be addressed with policy.

That the superintendent or the hiring person must hire an individual within their job description.

But isn't that the point of the job description?

I don't know if that's a policy.

I think it's holding people accountable.

To the job description, right?

So you're saying like someone's not certified as— I'll just give a minor example, you don't have to give me the entire— which we hear all the time, right?

But like let's say we're looking for a special educator, we have to hire someone, there is no candidate who interviews who is certified, but we have someone who's working towards it, so we hire them, we get them an emergency cert.

They might not have met the qualifications, but there were no candidates at the qualifications.

Like, I guess you have to have a— you have to have a little bit of wiggle room because you might not get candidates who meet all the qualifications that you want, especially in hard-to-fill areas, right?

But the situation now is— I think what I would like to— if there were a policy, is the superintendent— it's in the job descriptions, however, that's not policy.

Job description is not policy, right?

That the superintendent should notify us when a qualification is waived, or at least keep some sort of data.

It's in the job descriptions.

However, it hasn't— so can I just add a different suggestion?

So in all my job descriptions, the last— the last requirement is, or any other requirement the superintendent waives.

Yeah, so it says, where's that one?

Reserves the right to waive a position qualification, right?

Because sometimes you have an excellent candidate and they don't have— you've asked for a master's maybe, and they don't have a master's, but they're 3 semesters deep, they're gonna finish in a semester, but I think they're the best candidate, then I'm going to waive that requirement.

I'm gonna hire that person.

If they have to tell us every time they do that, we'll have a new list every month at our school committee.

Here's the waived people from the requirements.

I can add to that.

Over the summertime, because what we did with the waivers and what we did with human resources and now having Dr. Godino here.

I can, I can assure you, because I was there and I did it myself, and then Dr. Godino has taken over, I can assure you that we did have a few people come up that were not certified in areas.

Dr. Godino sent them back to the principal because Dr. Godino went through all the applications and said, I see 4 people that are certified in this area and I'm sending it back to you.

Please send me a certified candidate.

Now, some of it was because maybe the person that they wanted was on the waiver, but we said as a committee, or as a— from Dr. Smith's office, that we want the most qualified and certified people because if we're gonna hold ourselves accountable to saying that and going for this, then we need to hold it accountable.

But truth be told, as we're getting closer to school, we are going to have to go forward with some waivers.

We've cleaned it up a lot.

I think the team is saying they are following those rules.

Yes, we are.

And I can say this too, Mr. Dias, I can honestly tell you this, and Dr. B can probably add to this with the principals.

We were never in frontline using— there's a place for comments on the side or there's statements or notes on the side.

We'd never used that before.

Dr. Godino, now it's a requirement as you are going through your hiring process.

They are looking if you're under Lori Maduro's group of schools or Anna Poon's group of schools or Natalie's group of schools or Kathy Bent Whatever schools are looking at, they are looking at the side.

What do the notes say?

We, you know, there were 7 qualified candidates, we interviewed 5, we chose 2 to send up to human resources, and we've asked them to send multiple people that are qualified that would be a good fit for Faribault.

You may only need one, but we need another math teacher in the district, right?

I think it's more like those are 2 separate issues.

You have the, um, the teacher and you have waivers and superintendent.

I He explained the process well to me.

It's just more of the non-teacher positions and the positions where qualifications— there's a legal need for it, like having certain certificates and licenses.

There was a question, it came up, I just got the response yesterday.

I spoke on the phone to one of our school committee members.

It'll be in your Friday packet.

I spoke to the individual hiring.

As we said, now we have Dr. Godino you know, doing the check, making sure.

So, uh, it'll be in your packet to update.

I'm comfortable with the information that was given to me and the person responsible for overseeing the particular job.

So if it's the same situation, I, I have a few more questions, but that's not relative to this item.

However, I, I think, um, Miss Riley made the point.

I think this is something that needs to be followed individually.

We hold the administration accountable to.

So I don't see a need for a policy.

So I believe we can move on from this item.

I don't even see a sample, so we can check with MASC, but I don't even see like any sample policies, so we can ask them.

So moving on to 3-8, which is actually an update with MASC, is, um, just— and I added this as an update item.

I did ask to be placed in the backup if we've received the draft contract yet.

It is in the back home.

I don't have anything in my back home.

No, when I click, nothing pops up.

Um, do we have a paper copy we can just put through?

Yeah, I'll give it to you.

The contract was signed and was, um, I have another one.

I've got one minus it.

Um, just a quick procurement question.

We didn't send any, um, payment out to them yet.

No.

Okay, this is really just an update, just so we don't need to go through this entire thing today, but just so we can have a copy.

Um, if you have any questions Send it to MASC or through Deb to MASC or through superintendent to MASC.

Do you have one?

Yes.

I don't know if there's any questions that we have.

This is coming in front of us.

Did we already approve this?

We already approved it.

We did.

Yeah.

There's a motion that already has to approve.

We pre-approved it.

Yes, what I'm saying, we pre-approved it.

So we're all set with it is what I'm saying.

Yeah.

So.

The mayor was signed off on it.

It only needed the mayor's signature.

Okay.

So Aldo would need to— I think our internal— when it comes in, it goes to— yep.

Require 4, I believe, 4 signatures of the school committee for— we already voted to approve this.

We did, but we still have to sign off on the contract.

We didn't sign it, which we're required to.

Even if we approve it, we have to still sign off on it.

So the mayor just can't— we do 4 signatures.

We do, we do, yes.

The mayor can't just sign off on everything and think he— is that the 4 signatures just for like a warrant?

No, every time it's processed, every contract that we've ever approved as a committee always comes before us for 4 signatures.

Usually if this committee has approved it, the superintendent signs it, sends it to the mayor.

No, we, we have 4.

We always have the 4.

Any contract that comes before is 4 members sign off and the mayor signs off with the payment.

You're talking about when— yes, yes, that's the contract.

Yeah, not this.

No, the payment.

Yes, that hasn't been processed yet because we haven't received an invoice yet from MASC.

So once they— once we receive an invoice, then we do a record.

And I think this say we voted on it, we said yes.

Now, correct.

And that's the scope of work that he's going to be doing, right?

But it's usually the contract we sign off on.

We don't just sign off— I don't, I don't think it's just the payment.

It's what— how the contract's in the warrant though, and that's where we signed it.

I've never gotten a separate, just the contract without the warrant.

It's always been in the warrant that I get it.

Like, we don't get an email with contracts to sign.

They come in the warrant.

But we do.

We absolutely do.

We get contracts in the warrant.

No, separate from the warrant.

Absolutely.

Like, come from Christine?

I'm just assuming those are all warrants separate from the warrant.

I always thought they were separate from the warrants because the warrant's just the bill.

Listen, they come, I see the signatures, I sign it, I review it.

I know we voted on it.

Yeah, we voted on it.

You make mistakes.

I sign it.

Me too.

So if we voted on this, it shows up in here.

I ask a few questions, then I side view.

Um, is there an issue with that contract?

No, no, this is the first time I'm reviewing it, so I don't have any questions right now, but I'll review it and yeah, if I have any questions.

Yeah, it's a standard— yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm assuming it's a standard.

Okay, so, um, moving on to 3-9, this is also just a quick update just so everyone has the handbook.

So the reason I wanted bring this quick update.

We have the district handbook 2025-2026.

Just want— we discussed this a few months, um, prior.

Just wanted to just get— refresh ourselves on whether or not we should have had a separate staff handbook from the student.

What did— what did we have a consensus on as a subcommittee?

I'm just trying to remember.

There was staff handbook, yes, from 2023.

We don't have an updated staff.

It hadn't been updated.

We only saw an updated student one, so We need you all to update this.

So the next meeting we'll bring forward an updated staff handbook.

Is that enough time for you all to update the stuff, or another?

Not— oh yeah, it's just a lot of pages.

I'm just— yeah.

And I don't think they should do it for our next one anyways because we're going to have MASC.

We're going to be doing a few different things.

I don't know what next month would be, or October.

Maybe we can have that.

So October, is that reasonable?

60 days?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

I think 60s.

So we'll move on.

That was just— so you're looking for a draft of the staff Yes.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That might be nice.

Just contracts trying.

So last item here is just a review of our marijuana drug alcohol policies, and just for the subcommittee's edification, this is an item I added on last minute, and the reason why I attended the Fall River City Council.

Public Safety Subcommittee meeting, and I, I was not a happy school committee member hearing some of the things that I heard from some of the parents that were there speaking at public input.

There's some comments made around possible, not confirmed, however possible use of things that shouldn't be.

So just want to Looking at this for— and again, this was just added, uh, this morning, so I— and I'm just looking at this from first glance.

I believe we might have a few more policies on the books other than this.

However, just want to ask the— first ask the administration that once they can take a full look at this, what message can we send out just as a reminder to parents to staff with the expectations?

I know that, I know that was discussed briefly at yesterday's meeting.

However, just want to ask again, with the school committee, where— if we're going to be sending out some messages.

So last night, during the meeting, there was talk of during breaks.

Again, there were— and these are neighbors— there were staff members that they were identifying as staff members their cars.

I think they said smoking, vaping, they talked about litter.

There were all kinds of things, and that was staff.

And then there was a comment about parents, something very similar.

So this morning when I get in at 8:30, I immediately talked to Dr. Godino, talked to our communications person, and we started to put something together which principals will share and just reminding people again of our policies, of what's acceptable.

So the principals will be sharing it with staff, you know, as they welcome staff back to the buildings.

Also, the principals will have an opportunity to just remind parents where, you know, again, you can't come and smoke on our school property.

I mean, you know what is at risk if that happens.

You know, we're held to a very high standard for grants.

We accept everything from Title I, etc.

So that is it'll be shared.

What is the consequence if a staff member leaves the property, smokes, and comes back and you can smell the marijuana coming off of their body?

That should be addressed immediately by administration because that's unacceptable.

But my question is, what is the consequence?

Well, the consequence could be many things.

We'd have to safely make sure the person gets home or assess their ability to do whatever they need to do, and it would would be addressed by human resources along with progressive discipline.

Also, I think I haven't noticed, but I know I just had to update all my signs about no smoking on school grounds.

We just talked about that.

Those weren't in the original signs.

Those weren't things we considered, but it's no smoking or vaping.

Kathy brought that up last night.

I was saying, and we were— I drove around today at a couple of the buildings and we Starting to write down.

Yeah, the neighbors.

But I think it's bigger than that because they're leaving the school.

Had a whole street.

No, I'm just saying our school signs just say smoking, but it's actually smoking and vaping.

I think genuinely there are people who are confused and think they can vape because it's not the same as— but actually the grants and all that prevent both, which is why I wanted to bring this forward.

And just for a quick review, I think we should let the administration take a second look because my— just my backhand knowledge makes me believe that there isn't anything that really addresses vaping.

It might address drug use, might address smoking.

I wonder if there's an update.

I'm not sure if there's anything for vaping, which is kind of the new thing.

We must have a different policy about smoking on school grounds because that's an old policy that must have been around forever, so that probably has to be updated to say smoking and vaping.

So, um, yes, just wanted to bring it forward and allow the administration just to address it because this was brought out in public, so I figured we should respond.

And they also said nips.

What's that?

Nips.

Remember that?

And that was the litter on the— litter on the side.

And I— and matter of fact, I went down to Laterno today and I did see a nip bottle, or a nip, whatever they call it.

Uh, on the— no, it was on where they— on the street where the Um, like you would.

Yeah, in the South End, again, only because I live in the South End, you can't go a block without stepping on a number of nips.

I can't go out for a run without tripping on nips.

And if you speak to the local convenience store people, that is a bulk of their— yeah, you know, I think that's true.

Yeah, this is a lot of litter.

I'm always thinking of the South End because that's where I live and that's where I'm at.

But it is, it is a surprising litter problem in the city as well.

It's not school department.

No, I'm just saying they were— I saw them because someone mentioned it, but I saw it.

So as far as the signs, everywhere.

Yeah.

And as far as the policy goes, I don't know that Ken and I talked about the signs.

We'll review this.

I just wanted to bring this forward quickly just so the administration can say we have zero tolerance for any of that on school grounds and during school time or at all.

So, um, any new business?

Um, may I ask a question?

I know that last year you set kind of a schedule to have meetings.

I don't know, with MASC coming in, if you want to hold off on that until they come in and they set— they throw out a schedule, and then the committee, you know, when we talked to him, correct?

He did.

Yeah.

Uh, Sean has not reached back out when he has the signed contract, but he hasn't reached back out.

So I'm not sure what the committee is looking to do.

We will believe it would work.

Maybe we have Wednesdays.

How about we make a time offline to me, you, and Mr. Cassell?

We can have a group call and figure that out.

And we can handle this scheduling internally.

I'll reach out to Sean.

Awesome.

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you, everyone.