9 11 23 Fall River School Committee

the call to order the Monday September 11th regular meeting of the Florida school committee uh Deb would you please call the roll Mr here miss laravey here Ms Pereira here Ms rodericks here mayor Coogan here salute to the flag please

stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you 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 at such recordings the Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible

we have no one signed up tonight for Citizens input but we do have some recognition Awards just go down front foreign

thank you well we have three awards today and they're very special Awards because it's just students which is the best kind of awards we'd like to give so the College Board a national recognition program Awards academic honors to underrepresented students the four National programs recognition programs include the national African-American recognition program National Hispanic recognition program

National indigenous recognition program and National Rural and small town recognition program students who take eligible administrations of the PSAT or pact 10 or AP exams will be considered for awards students must identify as black African-American Latino Hispanic indigenous native or attend high school in a rural area or small town this is not a scholarship program however students can include this

academic honor in their college and scholarship applications and we're fortunate to have three people with us today and the first one is adrenal at a donalo olabanois I was close

let's get a nice round of applause for her you're going to stay up with us the next one is Leah Rodriguez

and the last one is Rachel Lemma

and if we could get one more round of applause and have the three young ladies come right in front thank you

um just a little more housekeeping um School Committee Member Paul Hart is joining us virtually tonight next up item number four subcommittee updates we'll hear from the parent the community outreach chairperson Sarah Rogers so the family and Community engagement subcommittee met on August 21st okay oh you can't hear me sorry thank you how about now yep okay so the family and Community engagement Outreach

subcommittee met on August 21st we had reviewed what we are doing to outreach to our families and to look at what our engagement efforts are so we reviewed a lot of the work around our out of school hour support what summer engagement looked like and it looks like we serviced a tremendous amount of students over the summer with a lot of great success we reviewed Our Community Partnerships and how we want to make

sure that those Partnerships continue throughout this school year in order to better support the needs of our kids and our families and then the connection between what our staffing and what the our social emotional learning programming really looks like and how that relates to our family engagement so we also started talking about what future planning looks like for the rest of the year and we'll be meeting again

soon to kind of check in and see where we're at with all of those pieces thank you next up we have the superintendent's report um superintendent partner thank you Mr Mayor I will start with opening open at 12. on Tuesday September 5th we welcomed our younger Scholars our Pre-K most of our Pre-K students on Friday September 8th just this last Friday will welcome back kindergarten and tomorrow

Tuesday September 12th we will welcome the remaining night classrooms of pre-K to our new site the old Atlantis Charter site located at 2501 South Main Street our enrollment stands at a healthy 10 785 as of today currently we have 785 in kindergarten some of our students are still in the queue so those numbers will fluctuate our Pre-K stands at 432 across eight sites six schools and two Satellite sites the

Eastern Avenue site as well as the 2501 and enrollment at Durfee is at 24.38 for the most part back to school transitions have been very smooth we have had I'm not going to lie we have had some transport rotation glitches as everyone got themselves used to the routine of drop-off pickup times routes Etc we are getting lots of calls from parents who want to add children to buses I will say

people have to be patient because that's not going to happen until the first week of October simply because we have the students who actually we are obligated to transport first we have to run those routes for a few weeks before we can determine if they're open spots and then after that we will open up spots where available student registrations are still going strong please know that if

you have to register a student you should be doing that through our parents and Community engagement Center on Race streets not at individual schools it's important to note that you can't just show up at your neighborhood school because that might be filled and you're going to have to go where there's space so the parent Center will know exactly where they are spaced and they will be the ones who help you facilitate

registration attendance is a major Focus for us this year as we get ourselves back into good routines and good habits we all know that our teachers can't do their jobs if kids aren't in school so we ask families to partner with us as we support students to engage in their learning by develop developing good habits which will follow them throughout school and Beyond average attendance for last week

was 90.8 which is good and the previous week that the first two days it was at 88 so as you can see we've improved and today's attendance was at 92 which is a very good sign now for the hiring update since our last school committee meeting we have hired 80 additional folks 36 have been teachers eight have been administrative positions 25 paraprofessionals eight educational support positions and three Operational

Support positions conversely we have lost 20. we've had 20 resignations 12 teachers seven administrators we have also had some paraprofessionals that have left us some educational support we had a recruitment event on August 24th and we also attended the city's recruitment event on August 30th where we're able to gather 30 or so applicants various positions that they applied for currently we still have the

following positions we still have 74 teacher openings that I posted on our website of those about 10 of them are interventionists coach positions the high needs areas that we are still struggling like mostly everybody our ESL special education and math positions we have 36 paraprofessional positions currently still posted on our website and that's the update thank you superintendent any questions Rogers

um quick question do you I don't expect you to have it now but just in comparison to what attendance looked like the first week of school last year it'd be good to compare where we were then to where we are right now yep I will give you that for the comparison absolutely okay um we do not have any item six student comment tonight I do have three sets of minutes that I'd like to um bundle together

on seven one is the approval of minutes from the policy subcommittee meeting on eight eight twenty three seven two is the approval of minutes from the regular school committee meeting on 8 14 23 and finally set item seven three is the approval of minutes from the parent and community outreach subcommittee meeting on 8 21 23 with no discussion I'm looking for a motion in a second motion to approve 7.1 7.2 and 7.3 man

I have a motion in a second any discussion Ted please call the roll against a heart yes Miss laravey yes Miss Pereira yes mayor Kruger yes item number eight is the travel request for the Durfee High School girls soccer team to go to a division one game at PC can I get any uh Motion in a second motion approved second I have a motion and a second discussion Dad please call the roll yes

yes item number nine is the acceptance of donations um I'd be looking for a motion and a second for this and then I'll let the superintendent explain it I have a motion to prove I have a motion a second um roll call Deb Please Mr yes Mr Bailey yeah yes yes Ms Pereira yes Mr Rogers yes mayor Kruger yes superintendent could you please explain them to us sure thank you

um from Mr Edward Almeida to the fine and Performing Arts departments um Miss Jackie Francisco accepts ten thousand dollars to purchase instruments for the music department also from the mass cultural Council to the Fine Arts Department Miss Jackie Francisco accepts twenty five hundred dollars to acquire additional inventory for the May 2024 event from feast and federal food delivery

service to the athletic department Mr Brad button Bustin accepts t-shirts valued at 630 dollars to be used during the month of October for breast cancer awareness month from Stonehill College alumni office to Watson Elementary School principal Celeste Hogue accepts 100 backpacks for grades K-5 for families in need and from Waters Church to Watson Elementary School principal Celeste Hoke accepts

supplies and backpacks to support students in need of supplies throughout the school year we thank everyone very nice item number 10 is the approval of contracts as we always do if anyone has a hold on any contract let me know which ones and we'll discuss them separately Mr agya can we hold uh brightly I couldn't hear your mistake I'm sorry frankly under the continuation within brightly the first one in cultured care

and futures all right cultured care cultured care in brightly item number one and the the one under special education contracts those two are on hold anybody have any others Futures as well and Futures okay I'm sorry those three Anderson's Ed collaborative it's the last one the last one for 85 000 okay so we have four items on hold to discuss can I get a motion and a second on the others so moved second I

have a motion the second Deb please call the roll yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Mr Hart I'm sorry yes Miss Laramie yes Miss Pereira yes Miss Roderick yes mayor cooking yes Mr aguiar brightly so it says this is formerly dude solution so I'm assuming it's just a similar type of software just change their name but my question is and I'm assuming that we're using this um to its greatest ability correct

okay software we are using it for three items right now um we do have others that we will be incorporating um with the new director of Maintenance coming in so if I may just ask for a summary report or something like that for the last six months of what's in there just so we can get an idea of what it is of what's in the system yeah hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of

requests job requests yeah just to some a summary report of some type right now we've never seen anything so I'm just looking to see like what is it actually checking what is it what are we utilizing it for that's all sure and I make emotional proof I have a motion I have a motion a second on Brightly uh discussion Deb please call the roll this

Mr Rogers yes Maricopa yes uh cultured care was the next hold uh Mr aggia please so I asked to hold both this and futures for the same question basically I can assume it's just for Staffing because we don't have can't hire people my question is more of the financial reporting on it so just like last month we should get something that if we're taking this money if it's not budgeted

it was budgeted for salaries we should see a a transfer of some type at some point look at the next what is it every quarter now sure

so cultured care is something different cultured care is contracted nurses that we use for special ed students so that's not an FTE position that we currently have budgeted that's something that's completely separate that's budgeted in the contracted Services line for special ed in that in this amongst budget like there's a line item in the budget called cultured care special ed nursing

Services no we have we have money in the contractor Services line for sped so you're not going to see a line on the like nurses or whatever that has money associated with this because we don't have ftes to support this so how much would be in that line total roughly I I have to go and look at it it's it's nearly I believe almost two million dollars in that line that we

have in sped and in that within that line we don't have a breakdown to know how much culture care was taken up I I'd have to I'd have to take a look at it no but it but that is where it's probably this close to this amount I'm guessing yes yeah that's I'm just doing trying to do a checking balance to see if it's close to it sure and the sing one the um

Futures is the same because they always say we are we're trying to hire speech people we can't so then we have but the same budgetary question are those Futures is we are continuously trying to hire people um and they're currently in Futures I believe we have three slpas that are being funded with this contract and then we have money left over we may have some money but not but not not a

lot because I do I still had money that was allocated in that line item for futures I'm just looking at it says 400 000 and I don't think we're paying three slpas four hundred thousand so this is an estimate because of what we've used in the past but where current we currently have staffed for three slps so you get some cushion there yes in case you have something yes thank you I yield thank you

anything further on cultured care emotional proof I have a motion a second discussion hearing none uh Deb Please Mr Dragon yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Miss laravey yes Miss Pereira yes Mr rodericks yes mayor Kruger yes finally futures I'm sorry smack motion improvements but Futures one with the last one okay so we took those two together now finally the last one is smack uh Miss Rodricks

that's the one that I need to abstain from you asked us to hold it do you have any questions about it no that's the one I need to abstain oh Mr right here I'm sorry I'm sorry I had a question on it oh okay it says bcba Services is that just specialized what is so we had a late resignation in August I already had two existing open bcba positions so the late resignation services are highest

need population at Stone in RPA I was able to fill two out of the three with Fall River staff but looking to fill that last one that really has the highest needs students we don't have a candidate pool that would meet that requirement so while I'm continuing to look for someone I'm requesting that we contract with smec who has the experience of the bcbas that we need for both Stone and RPA and then I'm going to

continue to to look to hire when we do we will bring on and if not we then my prior question about reducing a line item would be if we're paying instead of the salary this it would get reduced right right right so this is this is projecting for the year if we were needing to keep them for the year but sounds good thank you motion approved second I have a motion and second on smack

um any discussion then please call the goal Mr argue yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Ms larva yes Miss Pereira yes yes we Have No Grant tonight under item 11. so we'll go straight to the committee of the whole item number one 12.1 is a discussion and vote to approve the selection appointment of Sheena carrier nurse for the four of public schools as presented by Mary Gustaf director of nursing promotional proof I

have a motion to approve that I have a second second I have a motion any discussion on this uh young lady joining our staff hearing none dead would you please call the roll this drug yes Mr Bailey yes Mr harp yes Mr rodericks yes mayor Kruger yes item 12-2 is a discussion about to approve the district handbook as presented by Maria Ponce superintendent of schools Ms Potts what you have um before you is the

revised edition of The Fall of the the district handbook annually we come before you with any revisions there have been some language minor revisions some pronoun revisions and some clarifying language um that that was adjusted in the current edition so we're looking to have the new handbook um revised uh approved we actually added the revised attendance policy that was recently approved and replaced it with

the old policy but other than that we don't have and the technology policies that were approved also with the new revised ones were added to it other than that it's language changes that were minor fixes any discussion on the policies as I'm looking at it it does show the code of conduct in here so I recall in the past having a separate discussion about the code of conduct has that

happened at all or is this just carrying over and this is the carryover of the code of conduct Dr Barnhart is putting a team together that's going to make that work that they're going to focus on this year and pull it apart and make revisions So currently this is the the current code of conduct that we have in place but it's on the review is what he's saying yeah I just think that we've

always talked about it a little bit and some of the policies and um the duties of the school committee is to do policies and he is right this is a chance for us to have a a weigh in on it and it's just sort of in here so someone that we're going to have meeting subcommittees of some type right when she puts that team together and they pull it apart and then we'll go through

subcommittee and then ultimately through this full committee and the only other question I had is this the Chromebook piece in here is um we had done this I think through the technology subcommittee yes and I want to say there was something in there about um sign offs or something is that happening yes so every student that has gets a Chromebook has signed off that if they break it they're going to pay and

if they don't they don't have a Chromebook yes we're using parent Square to communicate with families and students they're getting the sign off through that but yes when they're issued we have it tracked with the serial number attached to the students so if I'm hearing it right so we have 10 000 students we have 10 000 signatures from parents at this time no office schools are still tracking down

signatures like um superintendent Ponce said we send them out digitally via parent square that is the cleanest option because it's a real time if the parent signs off on it we we're noted then the building passes them out there are other buildings that use paper as a backup because some of the parents do not receive the email so those are the students right now that um they're still

tracking the students down they do not get the Chromebook signed out to them so what do they do in the meantime so at the middle schools we were able to put hundreds and hundreds of spares available in the classrooms and at the other locations the elementary school the classrooms it's a little bit different so teachers have five or six devices until the you know the sign off is complete and at the high school the

high school has the highest complete signings Matt Damaris and his team have been amazing I think they're up to I want to say it was 93 digital signatures as of last check so what my concern is just how long is this going to go on and what's the incentive to sign off if you get one on my end I just want to make sure that the kids have something in the classroom

to use so we've been working with teaching and learning to make sure that they have stuff for the digital curriculums and then usually the main offices and the admin team in the main offices they try to have it buttoned up in the next few weeks they don't let it go usually past October 1st so what are you thinking about Oktoberfest we'll have all of them assigned one way or another

I mean that would be my goal yeah right that sounds good please send us a note on October 1st with exactly how many they have okay thank you I yield any further discussion do I have a motion a second no motion no proof second I have a motion a second Deb please call the roll s yes Mr Bailey yes Mr harp yes Miss laravey yes Miss Pereira yes Mr Rogers yes mayor Coogan yes item 12-3 is

discussion and vote to approve an addendum this is a Durfee program of studies as presented by Matthew Damaris Durfee High School principal Mr Damaris good evening everyone um what you have before you uh should have been on the on the August agenda and we missed that um that that's on me um the the two proposed uh additions to the program studies are a CP biology class that should have been in there there was

an editing error on that on that end and then um the math class principles in algebra and geometry is a senior specific course that we're offering to students who still need to pass MCAS but all and also need a fourth year of math we worked with the office of instruction to make sure that the course that we offered is in alignment with wadesi is looking for in terms of course numbers and and the

standards that guide the course I have a motion to approve I have a second second I have a motion any discussion Deb please call the roll let's drag yeah yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Mr harp yes Miss laravey abstained Miss Pereira yes Miss rodericks yes mayor Kruger yes 12.4 is a discussion and vote to approve DocuSign as presented by Scott Cabral Chief Information officer and Laurie obashane

assistant superintendent of special education come on down so you know one of my goals since I joined this District was to work on our compliance and part of our compliance requires us to get signatures from parents from many legal documents right now when I look at past practice our special education clerks our supervisors our team chairs they are sending multiple emails they are making

phone calls we are having Cartiers bring things to people's houses and we still end up with all of that effort it takes time and with time it makes us come out of compliance with Jesse timelines no matter what our best efforts are so we started to explore DocuSign which is used by Finance in our district and when Frank various and I met with DocuSign kind of explained what the needs are for

just the legal documents that go along with special education we came up with a proposal for you to consider which would be 50 15 000 envelopes because that's how DocuSign uses um or records things in envelopes and even though you can put more than one document in an envelope because of the timeline requirements you can't keep an envelope open for too long so you have to make a new envelope for the same

family if that makes sense so based on us presenting what our needs are and then they know their system their software we came up with a number of 15 000 envelopes as a good measure to start for this year on the technical side of it this is just going to streamline Lori's Department as far as document it's going to be a repository for those documents it'll be a backup it'll also be then uploaded

into X2 so there'll be two areas secure areas where these documents can live the process in finance has been Stellar started out slow it is a much easier process just example department head I sign off on an invoice it sent to me electronically I can sign it on my phone and or computer I send it back to the cfo's team it's streamlining the process other districts that are doing IEP collection via DocuSign

they've had nothing but great things to say about it I will say that X2 is probably 24 to 36 months away from being able to do digital signing within the platform but right now we need that product to get us through so that Lori and her team can streamline that process I have one question so if you email me uh or I get my email it's a DocuSign element Am I going to

have a conversation with somebody from Special Needs about what I'm signing before I sign it or am I just going to get the paper and file you know like I do with a lot of the finances right well you would have already participated in a meeting that reviewed all of those documents this is nothing we already do this as our current practice so you meet with your team they review all the

information you take the document home with you we send you the final proposal you have time to call us ask questions this is just to make the the signature component much more efficient for our department makes sense thanks to approve I have a motion a second uh any discussion on DocuSign Deb please call the law let's drag him yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Miss Laramie yes Miss Pereira yes Miss

rodericks yes mayor Kruger yes 12.5 is discussion and an update on the technology summer projects and Aspen as presented by Scott Cabral Chief Information officer good evening everyone so first we'll talk about our Aspen conversion and I can say that at this time last year we are at Leaps and Bounds light years ahead of where we were with the our original transfer from PowerSchool to Aspen um

at this point there were many sleepless nights last summer and this summer it has been much smoother um the conversion process has just been there have not been as many flaws as there were during the initial one by August 29th we were 95 completed there are still going to be times during the school year that we're going to be transferring data as I mentioned before we have a Sandbox copy of everything

power school that data is ours now Mr Michael Isaac and his team can go back in there to pull data as we're doing you know certain pieces of of data conversion um all the IEPs both old and new are in we are working on formatting issues the one thing that I can say about this process that we learned when we went from PowerSchool to Aspen and now back that the communication between the

Departments has been key on this side with the special education department Laurie and her team and Kristen and her team have been working hand in hand with the Sims team it's made the process that much smoother they're finding you know errors here Aspen has been excellent because they're working through those errors the response from the vendor the this time has been far surpassed what it was if we see an

error they're open to it they're fixing it they're actually stopping what they're doing the support has been Superior up to this point we've had a couple of issues we had one outage with X2 it was a whole Northeast outage Aspen went down for all the districts this time they contacted us to let us know that they went down even though we knew we had gone down at the same time so the

communication from the vendor piece has been excellent as well we've been doing system administrative trainings with the core Sims team two of our members part of the original contract with X2 they've partaken into two-week classes they're actually going to finalize their last two weeks sometime in November so now we not only have our Sims coordinated but we'll have two other individuals in the department

that are admin trained directly from X2 student registrations almost a thousand registrations were processed with the Aspen piece we used registration Gateway before when we knew that we were going to move away from power school we went to Aspen's version of registration Gateway initially some hiccups with language translations and just the way that it looked on the screen however now it has

been an excellent process we've learned some things this year that will Implement next year at that crazy registration time but the process itself is working correctly it's firing off the emails and firing off the work process that we put in place so very pleased with that part part State reporting DSC officially opened up their state reporting portal on 9-5 so we are starting this year's reporting through

Aspen I can't say with the support of the committee and the way that we reworked The Sims Department we were finished with State reporting the earliest that we've ever been in the last 20 years because Mr Michael Isaac had a team that he could Farm out the work he wasn't just doing it on his own and I can say that there were I believe 1300 errors initially which is like solo

compared to what we've had in the past so that team is working great and they're actually excited about epims in this day reporting coming up because they have a process internally to turn it around that much quicker daily School operations people are happy to see the workflow back they're happy to see what they're comfortable with attendance scheduling conduct everything is going smoothly if

there's an issue principles have been excellent they contact Sims they work through them um super assistant superintendent brownheart has been working closely with Brian and his team because we're to do some changing now with conduct workflows and some things in attendance but it's been growing smooth and it's actually I got a comment from The Sims team that it's actually fun to be working through

this stuff they don't feel like the stress is there this year they're comfortable and they're able to they have a vision for the future now they're seeing what they want to do and the nursing side Mary and her team have been great working through medication piece and all that there in a good place right now we have some ideas moving forward that we will come to the tech subcommittee with in the future

where in the process of training the frea Gradebook mentors we had a or group of Gradebook mentors we're actually expanding that a little bit Brian and his team have been working on the trainings as we speak and the last piece is Aspen is our Sims but it also talks to all of our different software platforms clever edu climber all of them parent Square for one so we finally every year that's a little bit

of a stress piece because it doesn't always go smooth Frank various on the instructional side was able to work with clever we were going to turn that around in 48 hours as opposed to the usual like two weeks it takes and now we're working through the one two Z issues as far as teacher schedules um but it's gone much smoother than anticipated I'll be honest much smoother than anticipated the last piece is for

data transmission where the nutrikids so that's our daily lunch program that is actually firing off in the morning and at night and we've had no errors um on the technology Services side we've had a lot of pro projects this summer the first one which took some time was 2501 I can just let the committee know that as far as technology infrastructure wiring we are complete on the two four

floors that we're going to occupy at this time classrooms have their Promethean boards installed all of our Network equipment is installed we are just waiting on our fiber optic contractor to pull the fiber into the building in the meantime the building is retrofitted with wireless internet through one of our cellular providers to get teachers the internet they need to take attendance and have access to X2 we

will be looking at in cooperation with Ken and his team wiring the third and the fourth floor probably over Christmas break because we won't occupy those floors you know until next summer the only piece on the technology site at 2501 is copy machines will be arriving on Wednesday and they have a temporary one there and now so that they can make copies for the students and the staff um you have before you the project

status that we've been sharing through the summer um the two main projects of course are card access and you know camera installation card access we are in a process now the equipment has been ordered the vendors are on site starting to begin the wiring they have completed the Morton project and they have completed spencerboard and they are now working on the elevator cab at Watson

and then they'll be going out to the other buildings the thing that's nice about the card access project is they can be working while the students are in the building because 95 of the work is in the entrances so they sign in with security and the building admin team and they go to work they swap out the cans they're called and then we bring that system online at this point it looks

like right around Veterans Day the buildings should be complete barring any major issues that round of buildings that we approve approved so for card access there'll be that one card for the majority of the buildings this building being a separate system But Ken and I are already looking at possibly marrying this building to the rest of the system so we have a One-Stop shop camera installation

that has gone a lot slower than anticipated and it's just the building construction it's getting the wires to where we need cameras so where there were cameras that needed to be swapped out it's a quick 20 to 25 minute at a camera but if we're running a new piece of wire to a camera it's taking hours at a time so we have on the project status there are buildings that have completed there are

buildings that are very close to being completed we would have had a few more buildings done but I had to move some staff members in a low voltage electrician to 2501 because we had no infrastructure there so now that that's done the two individuals one from my department and the low voltage from Mr pachico's side they're going to get right back to it and we have one vendor doing RPA because the work there

required additional wiring because they had the oldest camera system RPA does have all internal cameras up on the cloud they're working on additional cameras now they've sat we've sat with Kyle Riley the new principal and some of the admin there for some of the areas that didn't have coverage before so that's what we're doing there now cameras I'm hoping to have done right around the same time right around

Veterans Day sometime in the middle of November now that it's slowing down with the open I can actually move some other staff members to assist in that area as well and then just something good news for the committee our last building was transferred over to VoIP which was Watson school so now all of our Fall River Public School buildings are on VoIP and we will begin the internal audit I'm going to sit down with Mr

Almeida we're going to look at where we can do cost savings now because we've been promising cost savings for years but we've always had to stop the projects because of funding now that the buildings are done we'll look at an internal audit and we'll be able to stock to cancel some of those analog lines to see a cost savings and I would say you'll start to see those savings right around the first of the year once

we finish the audit and we can start to cancel the lines if there are any you know questions about any of the projects I feel free to answer them anybody have any questions for Mr role Mr aguiar just a quick question the front page where you talk about new student registrations those are obviously new but when we were when the conversion was happening Kampala school to Aspen all the students carried over

and rolled over from so we actually saw this about a week ago when we turned off PowerSchool on June 27th there were a handful of students that got lost from one system to the other Brian and his team isolated those has been working with Mrs Kudo and the PACE Center some of those students we had to re-register in the new system but I want to say it was less than 20 at that point and otherwise every

that conversion time was fine everything that conversion I've been through many conversions in my career in I.T and I kept going to Mrs Ponce and saying that it was just it was much smoother I was real worried because we went from 20 years back the Plus for us was X2 never removed any of our historical data so we really had a Year's worth of data to get back in and then just some cleanups um

we meet week bi-weekly with Brian and we go over some things that you know we may want to remove we're at the point now where this past Thursday he said there are some things that he'd like to add so we meet as a team we discuss them and then he's been cleaning it up but the conversion has been literally um night and day compared to what it was this time last year and if it's only 20

I'm assuming that's they're going to get them up this week Dave actually whatever was left in that old registration Gateway Brian and his team have already I believe it correct thank you any other questions oh MS larvy just about cuss so pole cameras um I had a vendor that was going to come out and cut the concrete Ken and I talked about it they're going to use a saw and they're going to drop it below

and at the last minute they said they couldn't help us so we have Sully Mack coming out to to do that work and we're going to do one poll and then we're going to try to Loop the remaining pulls but the one thing that I did do in the meantime is the vendor had a different camera that we've replaced on the outside of the building that actually

gives me 180 to 1 zoom in so I can zoom in quite far with these cameras I couldn't with the old ones so that'll give us that stop Gap until they can do that work you have any idea so they're going to come out they're supposed to come out Thursday morning to look at it and then they'll put us on their emergency list and I have to talk with

with Ken I don't know that side of it the asphalt side of it I just want to make sure we're doing everything correctly I yield thank you anything for okay thank you Mr Coral 12-6 is a discussion vote to approve to special education clerk job description as presented by Laurie obasham assistant superintendent and special ed 45 seconds seeing me yet um so we have a special education clerk

who is retiring in January Lisa schwinnard her responsibilities as a clerk are very different than the rest of the clerks she actually handles a lot of the financial pieces for us a lot of the state reporting for us a lot of the Aspen work that is involved with special education so when her and I were talking about her transition into retirement and setting up the district for Success one

of the things we looked at was the her current job description and it does not reflect any of the skills we need a person to have in order to be able to pick up where she left off in speaking with the superintendent I really wanted to get an accurate job description before you so that we could potentially hire and have an opportunity for Lisa to absolutely train a new person because Lisa does a

position that only Lisa does and she does it very very well and I would want someone to know what they were signing up for when they want to come and join my team and be able to be trained by Lisa so this is why we're presenting it to you tonight Mr Coogan can talk a little bit about this was in a government place before and so it's going to be

moving out of there but I'll let him talk so the government programs unit at one time was quite large and little by little those positions have been absorbed into other units the person that holds this position it really is a very unique position it's part Finance part record keeping and Reporting and some some clerical skills mixed in as well when this person retires whoever gets hired to replace this condition

this position will go into the regular clerks unit so this is actually a new position for the clerks unit so we've just gone through it with the person who currently does those duties created a job description that really shows the scope and the tasks involved and we've gone over it with the clerks unit which will be absorbed in this position and it's just it modifies it to capture

those duties in a in a more accurate way the position will be in the other unit and it'll be paid according to that scale any discussion on this special education clerk Mr Enya what is the current scale it's in the government programs unit which going back about three or four years the government program scale copied the scale in the regular clerks unit so that we could sort of merge

those two together and it has one unit Sunset it and people went out they could come in at the same scale and it got rid of those disparities that existed between government program scale and the regular clerks unit scale so it's the same it is a pace reduction as my silver chain is talking it seems like this is a larger position than a typical Clerk and I wonder if now is not the time to

to look at that so that if you compare the duties that I read in the the job description read and Miss open Chain's description of what it is the skill set the responsibility the totality of the job it appears to me like it's worth more than a regular Clerk's position there are two tiers actually three tiers within the clerk's unit scale there's School Clerks there is regular Office Clerks and then there

is the finance clerks and this position would go into that second tier that Finance Kirk scale so it is compensated because of the skill set that's required and a little bit higher than a regular Clerk's pay and do we have other people that do similar things in other departments that are under the same or they under a different uh for instance bookkeeping payroll those those skill sets are a

little bit more advanced than where do they get paid they get paid in that second tier like in the same tier or is it it would be similar to this tier for those clerks that have a higher skill set that there is some background and experience that's required for that's that's where this will work that's what I'm just asking is if we're going to take this on are we putting this position in a similar role as

everyone else that's in similar type of skill sets in clerical type positions in all departments similar to the people that are doing this type of work this level of skill yes across all departments whether it's an S9 or a regular I don't know exactly which position should be referring to as an S9 I would say this is probably not quite at the same level as a as a admin assistant but

this is certainly compensated at the higher level that those others what is the skill set relative to an admin assistant um I would say this involves a little bit more of the finance operation and record keeping a reporting piece with respect to the confidential piece that's that's a more integral part of the admin assistant role everything I read here looks like this is confidential as well this is talking

records this is talking with respect to the Student Records yes not the other stuff that would involve you know personnel and other things like that so this job and skill set are trying to get somebody is worth fifteen thousand dollars less than an executive assistant um I would say this person is going to make similar to what um the person who currently holds the position holds uh depending on the level

of skill that they bring to the the background when they're entered but it is it worth fifteen thousand dollars less than an executive assistant I don't know that it's going to be 15 000 less when it's all said and done because we don't have a replacement yet but the max is 37 or 41. that's step one if it's somebody coming from the outside the way the clerk's contract works if there was

a person from outside of the system they would have to come in on step one because that's the way the Union contract reads if it were a person from inside the system that came in they would come in on whatever step they're on that's the starting salary that you see there yes the only thing I'm going on is what I'm reading yep so that's why so when it says the range that I was

looking at it said 37 to 41. it says starting starting range I believe but that's not the range it's not the entire range because that range is not available to somebody coming from the outside the clerks unit so if I had a so let me get this right so a person came in with 20 years of high level experience with all of the skill sets in this they are not eligible

for the same salary as somebody that was working for us if they're not a member of that unit now no that's the way the clerk contract reads it's very restrictive for outside hires so it's open chain one and hire the best person for the job will be restricted by only the folks that that actually want to work for the 41 000 even though the job if it was current somebody could could make 55.

which is the Fourteen thousand dollar difference so let's try to find the best people for the best jobs but only if you work for us you can get 55. if you happen to come from the private sector some other school system that has all the skill sets you you're stuck at 41. that's what you're telling me well Mr Mr aggia we're not going to violate a Union contract we're not going to violate a Union

contract if you want to offer that up as an amendment for the next negotiations I I probably are going to I'm probably going to vote with you but right now we've got to follow the contract from Mr Mayor what I'm what I'm talking about if we if we read the memo that came from Miss open chain of Mr Coogan it talks about a person retiring at this point they're in government

programs this is our chance this is our bite at the Apple whatever language you want to use to do it right this is the time right now this has nothing to do with the contract this is not this is the government programs this person's retiring the government program's job is no longer going to exist if we feel that the job now based on everything that I've just heard is worthy of trying to get the

best person to work for Miss open chain and do the skills and and work what's needed we should take a second look at this because it's really makes no sense why we would say somebody internal can get 55 000 but somebody that's external that has more skills or the best skills for the job can only get 41. this is the time that we can make that decision this is not a

clerical Union position right now I read the paperwork from this open chain Madam superintendent my accurate or am I wrong that we have to this is a time for us to look at it yeah yeah we do need to look at it we didn't we didn't propose an admin assistant is what I think I hear you say instead of a clerk what Miss open chain was doing she was looking within the

parameters of that job but she noticed that a typical Clerk's job description looked very different than what Miss schwenot has been doing for years and years and she wanted to make that more applicable to that specific position so she was working within the parameters of the clerk she never asked us for an admin assistance certainly but she was trying to streamline that process and

make it more applicable but now is the time if we're going to do anything different and the logic that I just brought out was that we if we hey only the person internal in the union we could pay them up to a 50 whatever it is because we don't see it here so when I see the job description says the range is 37 or 41 I think that's truth in advertising that's

what it is but that's not what it is I guess if you work for us you might do that but you might not be the most qualified person but why Force Miss open Jane the high the most qualified person to do this important work this work if this doesn't get done right costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars or maybe even Millions so let's not get the best person let's just say we're going to

hire the person at the lowest salary but it just to me it doesn't make it it we should get another bite of this apple and if it means that we pay the person like an executive assistant like every other person that is doing similar type of work then I think we should take a pause come back next month and and look at it I think time is a little bit

critical on this so if the proposal is that you make this a non-union position um I would say that you have the opportunity to modify that now because it doesn't exist in the regular clerkshire however there is a number of Duties associated with this that following past um our practice of the past those people would transition into the clerks unit in either a finance or a clerical type

position so if the if the intent of the committee is to vote to make this a non-union position it doesn't exist within the clerks Union right now it exists within the government programs unit and over the last three or four years we've absorbed probably uh half a dozen positions that have gone from one clerical unit to the other clerical unit following the agreements we have negotiated and based on on the

information that Ms open chain presented of the DraStic nature of the difference in what's in writing versus what the reality of the position was I do think that it's it's time that we do that so I'll make a motion that we amended this recommendation to be an executive assistant which will allow her to hire the best person for the job and save us hundreds of thousands of dollars with the same job description

what we need a second to finish the conversation so is this the only contract that has that language which what language you refer this government so is this the only position I should say that has that language which language that it's the clerk what am I trying to say the clerk Union yeah the clerk you so it's all the clerks so we have a clerks unit it's a regular Civil Service clerical Union and

there's a probably 51 or 52 positions of that currently right now and they all have the language and and their clerk unit they have the positions that are within their unit now this other unit this government programs unit at one time had administrators teachers all different kinds of positions in there little by little those positions have been absorbed by other units the last holdouts for those units is about five

or six powers in that unit and there's probably another five or six clerks the clerks and the parents have not absorbed these positions yet what we're doing is through attrition as people leave those positions when we get Replacements we're putting them into the regular clerical Union depending on the job description Etc some of those have been regular uh typical clerk positions or some

positions at the parent Center Etc so those have been absorbed into the regular unit as we've replaced those so that we now have a single unit these are these are the last four or five clerks that left existing in the government programs four or five okay so and and what we did was put Sunset language in in that that bargaining unit that anybody hired after a certain date is no longer recognized by the government

programs unit they're now recognized by the regular clerical unit okay so we're saying because of urgency and timing yeah I just wouldn't want to uh what we're trying to do is capture that Legacy knowledge of the person who does this sort of unique position um and and it is a very unique I mean I I agree with Miss agion if if the superintendent says that also this is the time that we should probably be

looking at this right I mean as well baton is this the time to be looking at this to hold and think about it yes okay I would just request like what could I bring back to you so that this my goal is to have Miss schwinnard who is the expert have time to train someone before she retires January 1st around there so I was hoping that whatever you need I'm happy to come back and bring to

you guys but being able to post hire on board all of those pieces that's all that I was trying to be proactive about say if we're going to amend okay okay yep I yield thank you okay motion's still on the table second I have a motion in six seconds oh Mr Maggie you repeat your motion again please it's to just take this position and talk about it as an executive assistant which

will be a s non-contract rather than the salary the terms of employment and salary and benefits as presented by them which will allow them to make sure they hire at the right time it's just going to allow for Miss open chain to hire the best and brightest person based on the salary because we know most people come on salary so we try to recruit somebody with this skill set from somewhere else

they might be making 52 000 but if we if she has to say sorry you can only make 41 because you're new that's what I'm trying to avoid okay all right so I have a motion this second um any discussion Deb please call the roll Mr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr harm yes Miss Laramie yes Miss Pereira yes Miss Roderick yes mayor Kruger uh yes so we're going to come back to this position as an S9

Mr American I just clarify we're not going to come back they're just going to hire him that position will come back as an S9 perfect thank you 12-7 is a discussion and vote to approve the addition of two one-to-one motion of proof second I have a motion there we go and a second to approve two paraprofessionals that Henry Lloyd Community School any discussion Deb call the roll please let's try again

yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Ms Laramie yes Mrs Pereira yes Miss rodericks yes mayor Kruger yes 12 8 is a discussion involved to approve to raise the contract threshold as presented by Kevin Almeida Chief Financial Officer good evening so the the current threshold for the school committee has is uh ten thousand dollars to approve every contract so we bring the contracts to you every month that are over ten

thousand dollars in request approval from you what I'm looking to do here is to increase that threshold to twenty five thousand dollars and the reason I am bringing that forward to you is due to the fact that um you know given the time that we're in costs have increased which have pushed some of these limits in addition the state has upped all their limits uh in require in regards to purchasing so at

the state level the purchasing requirements have gone from 25 to 50 000 and from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand so with that um I'm looking for the potential to increase our thresholds to um twenty five thousand dollars in addition so you can see in the back on the second page that I provided to you I have provided you with a listing of how many contracts have been approved over the last three years and you can

see how many of those contracts fall within the limits that I'm talking about so I provided you with contracts that are up to 25 000 up to twenty thousand and up to up to fifteen thousand just for your reference and so with that I'll open it up for discussion I have one question Mr Almeda when did the 10 000 threshold slot if you remember honestly mayor I have no

idea and I say that to you because it's proper to me being here I've been here since 2011.

any further questions or discussion Mr agya so in the memo it the second part so the first paragraph is about the raising it to 25 000. the second paragraph is about 30 B are those are you talking two different things no so I've referenced 30b and the reason I reference 30b is because of the limits and how the limits have changed over the last couple of years but the top part would still be 30b

I'm sorry the top part of going from ten thousand to twenty five thousand you'd still have to use 30 B yes so the only question I have is it says here no under Chapter 30 B the state changes guidelines and have raised the threshold to ten thousand to a hundred thousand which was originally ten thousand to fifty thousand but it's not saying that the state raised the ten thousand to twenty five

so the ten thousand so the the ten thousand just applies to how many how much how many quotes that you have to obtain so anything over ten thousand dollars we have to obtain three quotes for that work so that will not go away what would go away is just the the fact that we have to come to you for anything over ten thousand dollars in between twenty five thousand dollars that's what would go away

not necessarily 30b that's an internal control that that we have correct that's what you're saying so yeah so our our let's let's just say how can I say it is our threshold is much much more stringent than I'll say everybody else so I you know I've contacted uh our other urban districts here and um I'll be completely honest with you I was amazed by what other districts do our um our policies are much more stringent

than everybody else and what we currently do and I and I do feel that you know we need to have that in place to ensure that we're doing the proper thing you know by everyone here but um you know there is a big gap in what people do compared to what we do so you know I I one of the districts I spoke to said that the school committee the school committee does not get

involved with anything under 400 thousand dollars I had another District who said the school committee doesn't get involved at all that they don't approve any warrants but they don't have any official votes at their school committee meetings finding contracts and you know so I'm not you know moving forward requesting to change what we do I'm just requesting that we change the limit from ten

thousand to twenty five thousand and there's a reason why we do the ten thousand to have a check in the balance that's what school committee members get elected to do so I can appreciate what you're saying the um you know my my thing is just that if as we go forward and we've been saying this over the last several months I for one have a concern with sometimes how we

hire how we who we hire how we solicit people we're not going to the local person we've given several what I'll say no bid contracts that I I'm not comfortable with so the more that those things keep happening the less confidence I have that everybody's doing what they need to do to try to get the local person to get the so I'm going to vote for this but I also just want to reiterate my concern

and you as a finance person I'm just telling you my own personal concern is that I don't think we're going necessarily to the local person all the time even to give them a shot at it and I don't think we follow the regulations like I think we should we might say oh it's we can do this we can do that but I'm not saying anybody's doing anything illegal but I personally

would like to see the local person get a better shot at it than a few of the no-bid contracts that came up understood with that I will support this so I'll make emotional proof second I have a motion second any further discussion yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Miss Laramie yes Ms Pereira yes Miss rodericks yes Mary Coogan yes 12-9 is discussion about to approve the 2023 eligibility application to the

community preservation committee for the following project replacement and restoration of the front patio railing system at 417 Rock Street as presented by Ken pachico Chief Operating Officer motion tool you have a motion second emotions any discussion on this project Deb please call the roll Miss Dragon yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Miss Laramie yes Miss Pereira yes Mr Rogers yes mayor

Kruger yes 12-10 is the follow-up is a discussion about to approve the 2023 eligibility application of the community preservation committee for the following project replacement and restoration of 78 windows at 417 Rock Street as presented by Ken Pacheco the Chief Operating Officer motion to approve second I have a motion a second any discussion Mr Mr comment is I think this is the one that was here before and it

says 2022 in the document but it I think it's current but it it's basically the same project just going to go forward right thank you I yield please call the role Mr agya yes Mr Bailey Mr Hart yes Miss larabee yes Miss Pereira yes Miss Roderick yes yes 1211 is a discussion and vote to approve the usage of the Durfee High School parking lot to hold the Fall River Drive-in movie night on October 6

2023 as presented by Ken pachico the Chief Operating Officer motion approved second second um Deb please call oh Mr aggio just uh I'm assuming this is coming forth because because that property is still the auditorium and the parking lot still in the school department if I could just get a report I had understood there was some damage done to the auditorium earlier a couple months

ago if I could just get a report on that appreciate it not right now I want under a separate cover thank you okay I have a motion and a second Deb call the roll please Mr Dragon yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Miss Laramie yes Ms Pereira yes Mr Rogers yes mayor Kruger yes well this event on October 6th would you like to invite all the families out this is

going to be the movie Transylvania it's also going to be Trunk or Treat night for the fall of public schools and uh City Recreation will be having there exhibits their hamburgers and hot dogs and maybe we'll have a costume contest and a few things so if you're looking for a fun night on October 6th we'd love to have you join us with that being said I have a number of retirements resignations appointments

and obviously regretfully a few people have uh passed on can I get a motion except in a second to accept all these motions uh Deb could you please call the roll Mr Dragon yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Ms Laramie yes Ms Pereira yes Miss rodericks yes mayor Kruger yes item number 14 is new business is there any new business to come before the committee hearing none um attorney Assad do we have a reason to

go into executive session it would be uh do you want to read them first you want me to take the vote Master on Ross chapter 38 section 2187 to review and approve executive session minutes for August 14 2023 regular school National laws chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with respective litigation including workers compensation case studying Korean general department of industrial accidents Board number

001897-20 has a Open Session as a chair that open session may have a detrimental impact on the litigating position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 21a2 to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel and or to conduction contract negotiations but non-union Personnel including Kelly Mahoney athletic trainer George Simmons director of Maintenance

Kevin Galloway facility manager Clarice Brooks former Robert L Medeiros resilience you Preparatory academic principal we will reconvene there may or may not be statements at that time uh could I get emotions in a second please motion to enter into executive assessment please call the roll again yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart yes Miss Laramie yes Miss Pereira yes Mr rodericks yes mayor Kruger yes June yes

Miss Pereira here miss rodericks yeah mayor Kruger yes anything further to come before the committee tonight yes Mr Mayor like to make a motion to approve executive session meeting uh minutes for August 14th 2023.

second yeah yes Mr Bailey you're on speaker stay on speaker you're on speaker Paul to vote for the acceptance of the minutes Mr Hart yes just stay there it's the heart acceptance of the minutes hello Paul thank you next Miss Laramie yes mayor um Miss Pereira yes Ms rodericks yes mayor Kruger yes anything else yes Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the contract uh with George Simmons as negotiated

I have a motion a second any discussion Deb please call the roll let's try again yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Miss laraveen yes Miss Pereira yes Miss Roderick yes mayor Coogan yes yes and then Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the contract with uh Mr Kevin Galloway as negotiated discussion please Deb please call the roll Mr I yeah yes Mr Bailey Mr Hart yes Ms Pereira yes Miss rodericks yes

mayor Kruger yes Miss laravey I'd like to make a motion to accept the agreement with Miss Clarice Brooks as what's up negotiated I have a motion in a second any discussion Deb please call the roll Mr uh yeah yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart Miss laravee yes Ms Pereira yes Miss rodericks yes mayor Coogan yes anything further to come before the committee I like it yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Hart

slavery yes Miss Pereira yes Ms Rogers yes yes adjourned