9.16.2026 Fall River School Committee

I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the Faribault School Committee for September 16th.

Deb, please call the roll.

Mr. Agnew?

Here.

Mr. Diaz?

Here.

Mr. Corey?

Here.

Mr. Moniz?

Here.

Miss Riley?

Here.

Miss Stewart?

Here.

Mayor Coogan?

Here.

Salute to the flag, please.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium.

Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived, by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

We have no citizens' input tonight, so we'll go directly— oh, um, I think Mr. Coy wanted to make a brief statement.

Okay, Scotty, I'm sorry.

Mr. Diaz, you're up first with Policy Subcommittee.

Thank you.

The subcommittee met on August 26th at 5:30.

We discussed several potential policies and revisions to policies and made several referrals that are on tonight's agenda.

Um, just before I get into the, um, Knit and Grit, the— I have a concern that there were recommendations that were made by the subcommittee that are not reflected, at least when I checked yesterday, not reflected in the agenda, such as, um, just an example, the subcommittee recommended adding language to our vandalism policy to track vandalism, instances of vandalism in the amount of $500 and above.

That language for the last I checked, was not in the backup.

Similar— there was also a similar concern with the expense reimbursement policy.

Going back into the nitty-gritty, the subcommittee reviewed drug and alcohol policies after a complaint was raised at a City Council Public Safety Hearing Committee hearing.

The administration then sent guidance to staff, so I appreciate— we appreciate that.

The subcommittee also tabled a potential work-from-home policy as we work out different viewpoints and clarify the language.

We also discussed briefly our contract with MASC.

We'll admit scheduling has been somewhat difficult to get on hold with MASC.

However, we will work to bring them to the Farver Policy Subcommittee as soon as we can.

While we are on the point of MASC, as everyone knows, there is a conference that's going to be in November.

Ms. Stewart and myself are attending, and by their policies, the committee needs to designate a voting delegate.

They have, um, I forgot what it's called.

They have a delegation meeting, and we need to have someone.

If we're— in order for us to vote, we would need to have someone appointed.

So I'll just like to make a quick motion.

We appoint Miss Stewart to be our voting delegate at the MASD conference.

Second.

I have a motion and second to appoint Miss Stewart the conference nominee.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Unanimous.

End of report.

Congratulations.

Thank you, Mr. Diaz.

Mr. Aguiar, Facilities and Operations, please.

All right, Facilities and Operations meeting, we talked about the administration building update.

The administration provided their rationale for the Windows upgrade project, which has been delayed for a few years.

Hopefully now the project will be finally commencing in, in the spring of 2027.

The Bishop Connelly Pre-K playground was discussed.

Project was slated to be completed before school started, but unfortunately it was not able to be completed.

Subcommittee asked the administration to be sure it was safe, school was already started.

Mr. Pacheco indicated he would have a temporary fence put up around the construction site for safety reasons.

We talked about long-term planning, which is something that is needed relative to our facilities.

Subcommittee requested that Deputy Superintendent Legault and Mr. Petronio start the process, and we will reconvene in 2 months to discuss any progress and if there's further action that's needed in order to proceed.

Overtime use was reviewed for the summer.

It was summarized as a group.

Further review of that is ongoing.

And lastly, a discussion regarding the handicap accessibility at 417 Niroc occurred.

The subcommittee was assured that it is working properly and up to code, and the meeting ended.

It was a successful meeting.

Thank you.

Um, next, the Technology Subcommittee.

Uh, Mr. Moniz, Chairman.

Yes, Technology Subcommittee.

We met on September 10th.

The first item was software usage update.

Mr. Raposo went through the various software used in our schools.

The committee requested some additional information, and this topic will be on all quarterly meetings moving forward.

The second item was school opening as it related to technology.

The administration indicated that technology is working to start the year.

A discussion related to the ID badges and Yonder pouches led to the subcommittee asking for additional information on these topics.

And that's all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Moses.

Next item, number 4, is the superintendent's report.

Dr. Smith.

Yes, thank you.

Before I begin, I do believe in your packet, and I know we were struggling to get things things, uh, to you with the opening of school and, and some other things.

But I do believe you, from policy, you have a vandalism update as to looking at a threshold for not only documenting vandalism but also looking at assessing an amount of money if in fact we're looking for some kind of reimbursement.

And I do believe our Chief Financial Officer Aldo Petronio put together an expense reimbursement looking at a statewide policy.

So I think that is in the backup, is that correct?

It is, it's in documents.

I'm being diligent.

So again, we apologize.

We, you know, we're trying to get things to you as quickly as possible.

So let me start with a good evening, everyone.

I want to begin tonight by talking about the start of the school year.

So we officially kicked off the '26-'27 school year with opening day and our staff convocation on September 1st.

This was the first time since 2019 that we have been able to bring all of our district staff together in person for opening day.

Our original plan was to hold the event outside at McAldrich Field at Durfee High School, but unfortunately Mother Nature did not cooperate.

In less than 24 hours, our facility team pivoted and transformed the Luke Urban Fieldhouse at Durfee into the site for our convocation.

It was a tremendous coordinated effort.

We arranged parking at several locations and shuttled staff to Durfee while our nutrition team provided food for refreshments.

We were also pleased to have members of our school committee— I think all of you were there other than Miss Riley, who had her own opening day— and several community leaders also joined us.

We received well wishes from Senator Michael Rodrigues And in attendance were representatives Carol Fiola, Alan Sylvia, City Councilor Linda Pereira, and members of the Fall River Fire and EMS departments, a deputy chief from the Fall River Police Department, and I think we also had Scout there, so the comfort dog.

This great first day for staff was also covered by your local news outlets, including, including WJAR Channel 10.

I believe School Committee Men Colin Diaz and myself were interviewed during that process.

We felt very good about being able to, you know, bring good news about Fall River to the local community.

Following the convocation, members of my senior leadership team and I met with groups of essential staff, including paraprofessionals, clerks, facilities, nutrition, security, and technology.

These employees are an important part of keeping our schools and our district moving every day.

And we wanted to take the opportunity to thank them for the work they do and also to remind them that our school leaders are here to support them.

And I believe in attendance that day we had close to, I think, 2,500 employees.

So we took the time in building a culture to make sure, you know, everyone was able to be there for those couple of hours.

And again, I think it was a success and a culture builder.

So 2 weeks ago today on September 2nd, we then welcomed 10,000 students students in grades 1 through 12 back to school.

We had a beautiful day for that.

It was my first Fall River High Five organized by community partners.

I think it's Christian McCluskey.

This year we had more than 65 local organizations represented, which included 285 volunteers.

We sincerely thank everyone involved for showing up for the students of the Fall River Public Schools.

The students loved it.

The families were taking pictures.

It was truly an amazing thing to experience, and it is so unique to Fall River.

And I want to tell you, during that time, I believe I was at Tansy, and I was so impressed with young college students from Bristol Community College.

When I went over to speak to them at the end, they had the shakers and they were cheering the kids on.

They were members from the athletic department.

They were student athletes, and they had come together, took time out of their day to welcome our young students.

And I thought to myself what wonderful, wonderful— I'm sorry, my watch is going off— what wonderful, wonderful mentors they would be, you know, for our students.

And I do plan to follow up with Bristol Community College to personally thank them for— and I know there were so many other wonderful volunteers, but that just struck me as so wonderful for our kids.

Our district leaders divided and conquered, visiting schools throughout the district for arrival, dismissal, throughout the school day.

Deputy Superintendent Legault was out having coffee with neighbors, parking cars, finding parking spots, and I have to thank her for, for truly the effort that she and Ken Pacheco put together to make sure we had dismissals and arrivals happening in a way that again is ongoing to make sure our students are getting there safely.

We wanted to make sure our students, staff, and families know that we weren't only there to welcome them back and support them as they started the new school year on the first day of school.

But we also are going to be here every day this school year to support them.

So earlier today, I wanted to bring to your attention— and I spoke to the school committee, I think, about this at one point— the district leadership team and I visited Principal Allobri and the staff at Doran Community School.

So this was the start of something we're going to do at our 20 schools.

We brought our entire senior leadership team there.

I talked to the principal ahead of time for them to understand, and I know it was so close to the opening of school, she's a brand new principal.

I will tell you, she knocked it out of the park, you know, talked to us and gave us an overview of the school, talked to us about class sizes, enrollment, about hiring, about curriculum, about coaching, about— it was just a wonderful, uh, conversation.

I had everybody there from our chief financial officer who was new to the district, making sure a principal puts a name with a face.

You know, again, uh, human resources, you know, talking about hiring, talking about being creative.

We were there for probably close to 2 hours.

We got a tour of the schools.

We have our REACH programs, you know, talked about the challenges.

And I know when I spoke to my senior staff afterwards, we understand the importance of doing that at each and every one of our schools to— again, you know, I can sit here and talk to you about the wonderful things the kids engaged, what was happening in the school from the beginning to the end.

But there are challenges.

A lot of it is hiring challenges, making sure professional development is happening.

Uh, you know, we were getting very creative to make sure, and I hope throughout this year you see us when we talk about staffing, you know, everything from looking at some of the colleges for some of your students who are going to be graduating in December, finding out if there are ways to engage them to get ahead of the hiring process and to make them part of our team.

So again, um, speaking of our schools, our students and staff returned to schools that were clean, they were prepared, they were well equipped with supplies they needed to begin the school year.

There will always be challenges at the start of a new school year, but our commitment is to work together to find solutions and support our schools when challenges arise.

And most importantly, we want to keep our focus on what matters— our students, our staff, staff and our families.

I also want to quickly mention another school visit this week.

The Tansey Elementary School celebrated the launch of Scholastic United States of Readers program, which allows all of our students in that school to receive 10 books to take home at no cost to their families, looking at what interests them, helping them build their own home libraries.

And our teachers also received 25 books for their classrooms.

Students had a chance to meet and chat with award-winning children's author Jerry Pallotta, who was just a wonderful— not only an author, but talking to kids about things that they were very interested in.

We know how important it is to our children's success in schools for opportunities like this to help get books into the hands of children and encourage them to develop a love of learning from a very early age.

Tansey is one of the first schools in Massachusetts this year to participate in the Impact Reading program, and I believe we're one of 6 in the state to actually receive this.

I want to thank you to Vice Chair Aguiar, School Committee member Chanel Stewart, Mayor Coogan, and other elected officials.

I believe we had Senator Rodrigues there, Representative Fiola, who supported the students and the school community.

The students were excited to be part of the celebration, and it was a wonderful event.

I would have, um, loved to attend it as well.

I just don't recall ever getting an invitation from the administration on this.

So I think if, um, we're promoting these events, I think it's important that— and these are great events, these are great things that are happening— members of the committee that want to be a part of this as well and go to these events should get an invite from the administration.

Okay, go ahead, Dr. Smith.

Thank you.

And we certainly want to include everybody.

It was, again, a wonderful event open to everyone.

I'll make sure we are looking at that.

The first day of preschool last Tuesday, September 8th, marked a very special milestone in our district as the Early Learning Center welcomed all of your pre-K students together in one location for the first time.

There are 400 students enrolled in 33 classrooms.

I will tell you, being there for the start of the program, and I laughed at our communication specialists taking pictures of families with their children, and the kids were all excited.

And very quickly, when it came time to entering school, you can imagine some of the tears and the— at this young age being separated.

But, you know, it was, it was really all taken care of very quickly.

So over the past few months, dozens of staff members from facilities to technology have worked hard to transform the second floor of the former Bishop Connelly High School into additional classrooms for the Early Learning Center.

Bringing all of our preschool students together under one roof creates a welcoming and unified environment for our youngest learners and their families.

I had the opportunity to greet students and families, tour the newly expanded space, and celebrate the exciting first day of pre-K. Later that morning, I visited 6 schools across the district.

I was accompanied by School Committee Member Stewart, who reached out to me, uh, and, and joined, uh, in, in going, and it was really a whirlwind getting to all of these schools.

What we saw were students and staff settling into new school year learning routines, working together, and filling classrooms with excitement and energy.

And I have to tell you, one of the things that jumped out at me— and I know you have spirit wear in your schools, and I have been in districts where it is a fight to the finish— and I was so impressed with— first of all, there were a lot of selections.

There were different colors.

You know, there was different uniqueness about the things the kids were wearing, but I thought it was very successful and, and very well done.

And kudos to all of you that have continued to support this and to the families that continue to support this.

Our school looked clean.

They were friendly.

They were welcoming and ready for a great year ahead.

And let me finish up with the first day of kindergarten.

So it took us really, what, 3 days to get everybody into school?

But just last Friday, our kindergarten students started school.

More than 870 kindergarten students arrived for their very first day.

11 elementary and community schools have more than 35 kindergarten classrooms, and that includes not only our gen ed classrooms, our special education integrated classrooms.

Our Deputy Superintendent Liz Legault and I, along with members of our district leadership team, visited our elementary and community schools to welcome our newest learners.

Thank you to our district and department leaders, members of the Fall River School Committee, and everyone who has taken time to visit our schools, welcome students and staff as we begin the new school year.

I believe, uh, School Committee Mendez, you were with, uh, Laurie Oberchain and visited— I think, I can't remember what school it was— Morton Middle School.

Thank you.

Yeah, but thank you to everybody that I know you're working, you're involved in in many things, and you took the time, and it is noted, and we appreciate it.

I also want to— I'm sorry.

So what I'd like to do right now is to invite— I know Brian Michael Azak is here, our student information coordinator.

Cindy Couto, director of our PACE Center.

I'd like you to provide an enrollment update this evening.

I just want to say one thing, Brian, before you start, please.

I was very impressed with the opening of school this year.

There was tremendous enthusiasm across the district.

I did get to go to Sylvia, Fonseca— I forgot, I ended up at Green, I think.

But there was a lot of friendly, friendly teachers and staff greeting the kids, and the parents were definitely enthused about this coming school year.

We have a lot of changes in the district, and we're desperately, desperately asking for parents to work with us all year long so that we can have a smooth year.

I want to congratulate, um, Dr. Smith, Dr. Legault, and the whole team that, uh, put together the convocation at Durfee.

I thought that was extremely well attended, and I thought it set a tone that carried through to the open day.

So congratulations to you, Dr. Smith, and your entire team.

Good job, and let's keep it rolling.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, I'd like to first correct something that was just said on that first slide about the 870 kindergarten kids.

I think I did not provide that information.

Debbie, can you go to the next slide?

Um, I want to point out that we technically, as of, as of yesterday, have 814 students in kindergarten in our 17 buildings.

I think the number that was provided by whomever provided that included the referral, uh, kids that are getting services only as well.

So there's probably like 50 kids getting services only by special ed and so on.

So I want to correct that because I want to point out in a minute when I go back to this slide and talk about it.

So I'm going to go back to the slide before that, Debbie.

4 weeks ago, Cindy and I stood here and using the trends of the last 2 school years and the beginning of this calendar year, we tried to project where we were.

And I said 10,100 students is what I thought we would get to, which is still less than last year's, uh, number.

So I know we're going down.

That was the theme— we're going down.

Um, as of now, our current enrollment is 10,886.

That's within our 17 buildings, only counting the active kids that will eventually report to the state.

Um, last year we were 11, you know, almost, uh, 400 and something more last year on the same date.

This is not the October 1st number yet, but this is usually where we are, you know, apples to apples.

In addition to that 10,886, we have 72 kids that are awaiting placement by PACE.

They're usually just missing like paperwork that, that as soon as they're cleared by the PACE center, they're placed into the school.

As an example to that, some were cleared in the last 2 days, and actually that 10,886 is actually 10,900 exactly as of an hour ago.

In addition to that, we also have 24 kids in the special ed version of PACE that are being tested, and of about 190 total in that, in that school.

And we expect about a few dozen of them to become active, um, as soon as the testing and IEP review is done.

So that's another 24 we hope to add to that number.

And we also have 52 additional new registrations that have not been completed by the parents.

They're working on them.

So those are still in process, and hopefully those 52 will become— the 52, the 24, and the 72 will become part of that larger number as we move towards the October 1st number.

So that being said, the trend of moving down, that is still the trend, and ideally I want it to be more, but this is where we are.

I wanted to point out though, and that's why I highlighted the K and the 5, that We did see— we have not seen the K registrations that we thought we would see in the last 6 weeks of the summer, or from like August through, uh, you know, through now.

That's why we're at 814, which is about 50 or so less than this time last year on the 15th of September.

Um, so we do have less in kindergarten.

We do have some kids that are in that group that we just saw in the previous slide that will become part of kindergarten.

But, you know, usually the ones that are late registrations to kindergarten have been in by now.

So that is sort of like an asterisk on possibly for next year, you know, grade 1 may need to be adjusted, um, and K hopefully we'll have a better handle on, um, as the school year— the new school year starts.

In grade 5, I want to point out this is the start of a bubble that's been growing in the elementary schools that, um, For example, we're at 959 in grade 5 right now.

That'll be— that'll eventually become grade 6 next year.

Last year we were about 100 less, or exactly 100 less, um, and then they became 807 for the grade 6.

Now it's less because we do have every year in grade 5 when they move to 6 about 100 or so kids that go to charter school, Argosy, and, you know, other places that we have to you know, move out because they do accept grade 6 kids, um, at that time.

So that 959, the same trend, we probably should have 100 more kids to plan for for grade 6 for next year, which I think as we start the budget process and scheduling and so on, we need to account for that, be mindful of that bubble and account for that in our planning.

Because some schools that are working on a, uh, a 2-house, 4-house system, 4-team system of 8 classes per grade may need to transition to a 2-house, 5-team thing to account for some of these kids.

Um, so it's just something we have to be mindful of, so I wanted to point it out.

But if you notice, if you look at the 4, 3, 2, they're all in the 9s.

So that's not— you know, that bubble will continue for a few years, you know, to a lesser extent in grades 4, you know, moving on based on the current kids that we have.

So that's that.

Um, next slide, Debbie.

So continuing from last, uh, presentation, we also have about— we just don't have as many kids registering anymore.

This is not registering in the numbers we had in the past 2 years, um, and we're down comparing withdrawals to registrations about, you know, 471.

Um, the biggest source of that is that in calendar year 2024, um, we had about 1,000 kids come from outside of the country, you know, from mainly South America, uh, places in, um, you know, Puerto Rico and, you know, Middle America.

In 2025, that was still a big number of our new registrations.

It's not as much as that first year.

And this year we have some— it's still around 25 to 30% of our total registrate— new registrations, but the number of registrations is down.

So we still have, you know, I think only 300 kids from outside the country coming in which translates into less ELL numbers and so on.

So that's one of the things, that ELL was down about 500 kids from this time last year.

So, um, just pointing that out as, uh, this.

And so unfortunately I had to adjust that number, and I'm being very ambitious and hopeful, and I'm playing these numbers for my keno at night.

Um, 10,975 I hope to get to as October 1st number.

Um, that's the enrollment within our buildings.

Obviously the foundation number from DESE is slightly different because a lot more factors and formulas with pre-K students counting as half and school choice kids don't necessarily count on that number.

So that's a different number, but we're hoping to get to that as our enrollment, and then hopefully the foundation number that we'll base next year's budget on will be, um, you know, in that, in that range.

So Okay, and that's it for me, I guess.

Yes, I got a question, um, Brian.

200— it looks like, just doing quick math, 200 kids bump enrollment across the high school level on the 4 grades.

Um, you mean looking at the 9, 10, 11, 12?

Yeah, yeah.

If you notice that just in grade 12, we have 70 less kids in grade 12 compared to— that's like if you look at every, every grade is almost its own independent, you know, entity.

And as they move through without repeating, if no one's, you know, staying back and so on, it just changes.

Um, if you notice, like, the K numbers are down.

One of the things that we did a little research on yesterday, which I don't know how true it is, is that the K kids are really born out of that COVID year.

And it just seems that there's a, there's an actual term for— I don't remember the name of it, but a lot of parents were probably sick of each other at that point and just not having as much fun as they probably should have.

Not meaning less kids, I mean, that's legitimately a nationwide thing there.

I'm not trying to misframe that.

Yes, we're peaceful people.

No, no, I just didn't know if you saw any trends in high school.

It just happened to be that we had— okay, we had a good number of kids go to Diamond, more than— a little more than usual this year.

Um, more— not many more, but more with the, uh, Argosy Charter, Bristol Aggie.

That's in the grade 9 year.

But there's also just less kids were there the year before.

So, um, you know, unfortunately, okay, that's where we are.

Oh, I'm sorry, I meant down.

Right here.

Yeah, down.

Quick question.

He's right, 200.

Miss Stewart, from 11th to 12th You had 732, and then in 12th grade there's only— like, it dropped a lot.

Did they drop out?

I don't know the exact reason.

We, we do have many kids that withdrew, uh, that withdraw from the district.

Um, I can get you that information.

I didn't actually look at that level, but I can.

Thank you.

Please, so I can send that to the superintendent.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Diaz, do we have numbers on after 12th grade specifically for special education, like, um, students who, um, stay in the district till they're 22?

I don't know.

Yes, it's actually not on this slide because it's about 40 kids right now that are, uh, they're technically, um, they call it— they call it— the state calls them, uh, young adults, not grade 12.

So they every year they roll up to be YA over and over for 4 years till they get to 22.

So I can get you that.

That's about 40 kids total.

Um, they're not actually in this number right here.

They're in the total enrollment numbers we saw.

Okay, it's not on this slide.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Michael Hazek.

Thank you.

I think one of the things, Mayor, when I hear, uh, and I've met with the superintendent from Diamond— you and I were both there for the ribbon cutting— um, they're a great partner.

And, you know, while I'm excited for our students to have opportunities and a beautiful new facility, they certainly have those same opportunities.

So when you hear us talk about like the end of the year report, you know, all of that information, you know, putting together something about choosing the Fall River Public Schools when you talk about charters surrounding us, this is the kind of thing that again we're working on to do this year to make sure we're communicating all of the opportunities that you provide, you know, in, in your public schools.

So while I look at the numbers and I know people have choices we want to make sure that they're choosing the Fall River Public Schools if it fits their student and opportunities, and that's something we'll continue to talk about.

Can I just— Miss Stewart, last year we had an issue where the middle schools, the students were seeing Diamond and all those other schools first before they were seeing Durfee.

I just want to make sure that they see Durfee first before they see those other schools.

That's the only thing that I ask.

Thank you, Mr. Aguirre.

So the— I know we just heard that Diamond increased, but I thought there was limits on, on how many students can go to any of the schools in charter, and I thought we were at our limits.

Somebody answer that.

I don't remember that there would be.

I mean, they might have limits, you know, Diamond might be able to— yes, a diamond can certainly have some amount of students from Fall River.

You are correct about the charter.

When the charter is given a charter, my understanding has always been if they choose to increase their enrollment— but it isn't just Fall River— they have to petition the state to be able to say we want to add 50 seats.

We have an opportunity to speak for it or against it.

Um, so I, I don't know.

I guess I'm asking for exposure.

So every time Mr. Michael Azek comes up or Ms. Scudo and talks about us losing students, all I see is that we're going to lose money in the future years that we have to prepare for, as I said last month.

So this number now might be 200 at $22,000.

Do the math.

But at the same time, we need to get a report to know what the exposure is on Charter or Diamond.

Like, so if Diamond could take 140 students, that's it.

The Diamond can only take 140 students.

It's not like we would have— but if they could take 180, they would take 180.

Same thing with charter.

We need to know what our exposure is when we're making budgetary decisions, because that's $4 million that we're not going to get if we lose 200 students.

And Mr. Michael Azek last time said that the ELL population went down by 500.

This— that's also a dollar figure.

It's time that we gotta like really get a solid report on where we're at.

Because, uh, have you done a demographic study in the district?

NSDEC coming in, kind of, they look at birth rates, they look at immigration.

Is this something we've done as a district?

Yeah, we did.

We spent $35 grand on it and then we put on the shelf and never used it, even with redistricting.

So I'm sorry to be a little, uh, oh, you know, we've gotten them and in the past that we've just never done anything with it, but we, uh, definitely have them.

We can start to certainly look at— that's, that's excellent information that we should have.

You are correct, especially with, with planning.

Um, but I'd like to be able to look.

I didn't realize the price was that much looking.

Are you members of NASDAQ?

I don't know, but it was— we did them, and, uh, years ago.

Mr. Pacheco, I'm sure, knows about it, but that's food for another day.

I just wanted to make sure that we get a good feel for whether we can have— like, we're not going to have mass exodus, in my opinion, because we're at the charter cap, but it also matters if the legislature removes the cap, it could affect us.

So we need to know this to advocate to them.

We can only go so far as far as some of those rules.

But I had a comment on the Doran School.

I know it was during the presentation, but we jumped to this one.

So when you visited the Doran School, when you look outside to where the playground is, definitely a safety issue, and I've raised this for several years now.

We have people in the community that just walk, and they're not the best people, let's just say, to be walking while kids are playing on a playground.

The principal's trying— usually you get a school that's boxed in with a fence, and you have to— you just can't have people walking in, you know, under the influence or anything else.

They can walk in back and forth.

And then if you look to— if you're looking out the back where you head over towards Battleship Cove, there's a walkway that's around 400 feet of handicap that's got ridges in it that are, I don't know, 3, 4 inches.

Back when Mr. Moniz actually worked here, that was an issue that he raised, and it's still not— we have to figure out that complex and figure out how to protect the students and the staff and make sure that that's up to grade, because it's— I didn't go as far as that, but I will tell you, when we were walking out after the visit ended, we went out by the area I think that you're talking about, and there were some concerns.

There were dips, there were, you know, and people can just walk through it.

Now, you know, every other school has— you, you can't go and see children playing on a kindergarten playground just by walking.

You can't get to the playground unless you walk over a sidewalk that's public for people to come back and forth.

So I just wanted to remember, Mr. Pacheco and the department, thank you very much.

Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Diaz, it's going to save my facilities issue for the end, um, since my colleague brought it up.

I'm gonna just bring up mine now to save it for the end.

So is there any update before I even go into, um, what I want to go into?

Is there any update on what was brought forward about Bishop Connolly?

Nope, still working on it.

That's the superintendent.

Oh, I'm sorry, are you talking about the playground?

Yes, the city's— oh, the playground.

Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead.

I don't think I included you on the email, Mr. Mayor.

I did have— yeah, I— can I get to that?

All I have, quite honestly, is, um, you know, the Early Learning Center.

The work is continuing.

I know we put a safety fence around there.

I'm sure when we get to that, I can have Mr. Pacheco come up and address it because I have a couple of— I'll save my questions then.

Thank you.

Okay, all right, on the hiring update, uh, first of all, I really do have to thank our human resource, Dr. Godino, and her staff.

I'm sure if any of you have driven by or have been to subcommittee meetings, you know that they're there late into the evening.

I make sure that I'm signing everything as quickly as possible to get people hired, to make sure we're doing reference checks, to make sure— so, you know, we are continuing to hire, continuing to recruit and get people on board.

So I first of all want to thank her and her staff.

So since our last school committee meeting, we have hired 109 staff members.

So that's just— I think it was on the 19th of August, our last meeting, including 49 teachers, 39 paraprofessionals.

We still have 126 open positions, and again, our human resource team continues to work to fill those vacancies in the coming months.

I want to continue to make sure our human resources department has the support it needs, not only to attract talented people to the Fall River Public Schools, but also, also to support and retain the staff we already have.

So as we hire staff, we were having resignations.

That's not unusual, but I think that's another thing that we're going to be looking at this year by— and thank you to the school committee, I know you're supporting resourcing that office and making sure that we are able to support our staff provide professional development, provide opportunities for advancement, opportunities to take MTEL with support and to become highly qualified teachers if that's a need, opportunities to get the endorsement they need, that SEI endorsement.

So we're going to continue to do that in the coming months.

Part of the work is looking at ways we can grow our own talent, provide our teachers with opportunities to learn more about school leadership, including potential internships or shadowing opportunities with administrators that I will talk about as the year progresses.

Continue to explore partnerships with local colleges to connect students who are preparing to enter the profession with opportunities in our schools.

Ultimately, this is about investing in our people, those who have already chosen the Fall River Public Schools and those who may be thinking of becoming part of our team.

And any questions before I go on to the facility update?

Yes, Miss Stewart.

Is it possible to know what schools have the vacancies?

Sure.

Only because when we went into a lot of the schools, they were like, oh yeah, we're fully staffed, we're fully staffed.

And then I'm like, how do we— what do we— I know that was— I, every— you were with me.

Yeah, every question.

I was so impressed with principals, you know, telling me I, I have staff, or they might have had a para opening meeting.

We can certainly get that to you in the suites.

I'm sorry, Dr. Godino.

Sure.

I think on the Friday report when you get the vacancy, it does say by level, like elementary, middle, high.

It doesn't say by school.

I can certainly provide that.

But when you look at the 126 positions we have open, if you look at like 19 schools, it is very few really across the board in different areas that are open, although it sounds like a big number in whole once you spread it out over the district.

It's only because when we went to all the schools, they were like, we're fully— I know, it's exciting, right?

Like, wow, we have so many, but we're fully staffed.

Yes, we haven't been to Durfee High School yet, so our largest.

Mr.

Chair, Mr.

Dice, thank you.

So my one question is, and this is something I've brought up, um, with the previous administration is around exit interviews.

Currently, what is the process if a staff member leaves the district?

Either they resign, they take a new job, whatever the circumstances.

Are they sent an email exit interview?

What's the, what's the process?

Yes, they are sent a letter, and in the letter there is a link for the exit interview.

So we will be looking at that, examining that data, um, once we get through this hiring phase to really look at how— when we look at teacher retention, to give us information on how— what we need to address in terms of that.

So it will be your goal to look at the aggregate, whatever them— if they take the exit interview.

So either one, we, we know for sure that we're sending them out, there's no question.

Okay.

Um, not saying because if But I've heard mixed stories in the past.

Um, secondly, when we send out the exit interview, staff that are taking them, they're going to provide a reason.

So we're going to take those in an aggregate format and kind of look at trends.

Yes, we'll look at the data from those.

Thank you.

Thank you, Doctor.

Okay, yep, facility update.

Uh, Chief Operating Officer Ken Pacheco is here with an update from facilities.

Including information on the playground at Henry Lord Community School and of course the Early Learning Center.

I had the opportunity to see some of this work firsthand while visiting schools over the past couple of weeks, and, and again, I want to commend the committee that puts children first, making sure that they have safe places for playing.

You quickly pivoted when Bishop Connelly became obviously our preschool center So let me hand it over to Mr. Pacheco to update us.

Sure.

So, um, the playground at Henry Lord, we are making headway.

There was some turf put down yesterday, turf put down today, and that is starting to work its way near the playground area.

There's a spot of green there And they, they're laying that piece in.

The hope is that they will be done on Friday and the students would be able to get out there once we do a final check and walk through.

The playground at the Early Learning Center was paved yesterday, complete, and fencing will go up hopefully tomorrow.

If not tomorrow, on Friday.

Um, that trike area will be ready to use.

We have a storage unit that will be put there for the bikes and trikes to be put away at night.

The opposite side will be worked on and, um, regraded for a few spots, but that area will be also ready to, to, uh, to work.

So that's a couple of days ago.

That pavement is finished.

Both binder and finish coat are done.

And the, um, the rest of that playground is, is, um, pretty much near completion also.

In the interior of most of the buildings, there is very little work still going on.

There are a couple of things we're touching up in the buildings, but overall we are in really good shape.

Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Mr. Pacheco.

Mr. Diaz, thank you.

Uh, first on Henry Lord, and I fully agree that— and I'm happy myself, committee, we all supported the renovations to that playground.

It was long overdue.

The work needed to be done, and it's looking good so far.

My only question, what was the final dollar amount on that, on that project again?

It was close to $800,000.

I, I don't have the exact— no, that's, that's fine.

I guess looking at that, knowing that we needed a playground that needed to be done, there was some hazards on that property and it's caused issues, and the kids deserve a well-functioning playground to go on.

But when I look on that playground, I'm just trying to understand where the $800,000 is, is coming from.

Like, for example, that thing thing in the middle, that middle space, that already was there.

So it's just putting in the equipment, it's the, um, the flooring.

I'm just trying to see what was the chunk of that $800,000.

So there was close to $100,000 of site work.

So we had to remove everything that was there, all of the organics, a lot of tree stumps, branches, roots.

Probably about 3 to 4 inches worth of organic material.

So it was over the years, leaves that would catch in that area and different things like that would compost.

So all of that soil needed to be removed to be sure we had plenty of drainage.

The amount of material that we took out was a little over 110 yards, and we had to bring in 110 yards to replace it.

So all of that work had to be done with a crane at a yard, yard and a half, 2 yards at a time.

It's a very lengthy process.

The crane was a big piece of that project.

And then as far as the remaining dollars, you're looking at a very expensive playground itself.

The equipment— playground equipment is, is by design, um, not so much complicated to put in, but it's a, it's, it's a complicated, uh, process to install it all at the right levels because this is an inclusive playground.

So everything has to be perfect so that when a student in a wheelchair or has any kind of mobility issue, we would be— we need to be sure that all of those ramps are the proper pitch, so to speak.

Yeah, I think just if this ever comes up again for a project, like, and I know myself, Miss Stewart, Mr. Moniz, um, Deputy Superintendent, we all— and yourself— we all went to visit this property and inspect and look at the work.

I think, and I know they have like the, the auditorium and they have like the windows.

I don't know if those are easy to come in and out, but going forward, maybe they can— I don't know if we ever thought of just bringing the equipment through, through that way.

I'm, I'm not sure if you know where I'm referring to.

So the, the thought was that the equipment, first of all, was too big to get in that way, so the crane had to be used to bring the equipment in and out.

The material itself, the only way it would have traveled through that building would have been wheelbarrow, and 100 yards of wheelbarrowing would have been a heck of a lot more expensive than doing it this way.

The purpose of— and the whole design of, of wanting to do this area was because it's a very safe zone for the students who'll be using it.

It's completely surrounded by school.

The only way in is through the school, and the only way out is through the school.

So as far as the, the construction, it was very difficult.

We had a courtyard playground that we built at the Fonsca School.

That one there, we were able to take out windows and drive straight through with heavy equipment, bring all the stuff in and all out.

The design of Henry Lord did not allow us to do that.

There were no hallways that were close enough to do that.

The outside of the building was a minimum of 90 feet away from the courtyard, and it's too big of a distance and too many turns in Henry Lord to make it as easy as Fonseca was.

And at the time when we did Fonseca, we found it very difficult.

That was nothing compared to this one.

This was a challenge from, from day one, but it is a showpiece, and it will be, I'm sure, enjoyed by our students at, um, at Henry Lawton.

Thank you.

On the, um, Early Learning Center portion, and, uh, happy the temporary fence is going around.

I know there's something that my colleague Mr. Moniz brought to the administration's attention at the subcommittee.

My concern is, is the company that's doing the work, and, and I made it very clear to the administration— I'm not sure if you saw the communication yet— are they going to still be doing work before the temp fence is put in?

And they're going to— I'm assuming so.

The work is, the work is completed on the asphalt side.

So the only work that's left to do is some grading inside the grass side of it.

The fence is already up on that side of the building, on that area, so there's no need for the temp fence to be there.

So the area that the temp fence was used on was the short side.

It was used for a day and a half and no longer needed.

The fence on the, um, on the grass side of that particular playground is already up, as you can see in the photos.

They've— it's been up for well over a week, so that site is already protected.

Um, the other side, that, that fence will go up hopefully by the end of this week, and, um, that playground will be usable, um, so at the latest Friday or Monday.

I guess my question when it comes to safety, what equipment is going to still be needed at the— a small piece of equipment to do grading, but there's a lot of hand work that will be done there.

So no more dump trucks, or there shouldn't be any more dump trucks.

And if they are, they're dropping a load off in the yard, and it's going to be probably wheelbarrowed or a very small machine to bring in a little bit more material.

I have not been by the playground today, so I couldn't tell you an update, but I will go by there when I leave here to see what it looks like.

Okay, my concern, and I'll just, I'll just quickly state it, and I went by just to see like the project as well.

This was either yesterday or the day before, and they have like the dump truck, and they— I'm assuming they're still like— there's— it's not the, the kids at the school, but I'm assuming there's, um, different, um, schools that are using the field up top.

There was a school that was using a field up top, and there was a track meet— I'm sorry, a cross-country meet yesterday there.

Not us, but it was Diamond using that area.

Right, through the diocese rental, right?

And but we're currently working, and again, this isn't anything that you— I'm assuming no one in the— in your office or the administration had any knowledge of.

But the issue is they— the dump truck, they were doing work and had the dump truck in an active construction zone while you have school bus parked— parking there, and then you have the field, you have the kids coming down from the field going by the active dump truck, and it just creates a liability.

I was very concerned when I saw that, so I just would just like some assurances that nothing like that's going to happen again from the company through— the problem is, is that none of the other things that were going on on that area were our issue.

We did not rent the field.

Did not use the, um, the site for the cross-country.

So we had no control over those 2 items.

Those administrators for both of those things were in charge of their own students.

This was not our doing.

The construction part was.

Our students were already released for the day, right?

But the company— we could track with the company that's doing the work.

We do, Mr. Diaz, but the, the work— the— our liability with that company was well noted, and they know what they needed to do, and they did everything they could.

They had spotters.

Not everybody was with a shovel in their hands.

They were watching the surroundings.

There was 2 or 3 people as the, the track— the, the cross-country people were coming through— that were watching their actions to be sure that they weren't getting anywhere near where they didn't need it to go.

Again, we didn't have any knowledge of these other groups being, being allowed to use that stuff.

No, we would have, because it's not our property.

So we did— not yet.

It will be very soon, but it wasn't at the time.

So there's a whole bunch of things that I'm, I'm sure there are a whole bunch of things that happened here that would not happen if we had control.

And I'm sure that the diocese is did not purposely have these things rented knowing full well that there was something going on?

No, I, I think it was a miscommunication.

So I think it would be on us to communicate with the diocese and on the company that's doing the work.

I, I think for the, for the conclusion that it wouldn't be our responsibility if God forbid something happened, I think that's something we should run through our legal counsel and just make sure, because the last thing I would like to see, regardless if it's a Fall River Public School student, if it's a student from Diamond, a charter school, that work that we ordered as a school committee being done, and then because of, I'll call it sloppy work ethic on, on the ground, a child gets hurt.

I, I think we all, all of us here in this room takes safety very seriously, so I'm just speaking as one member.

I hope that's just something we can— I, I will, I will say that, um, we will, we will make sure that at any of our buildings where we have control that things like this won't happen.

And as far as this situation, we will look at it in retrospect and, and figure out what, um, what we can do if there is any— a situation like this arises again.

Thank you.

My last question is just actually on Durfee High School, um, quickly.

I know I've sent them a few different emails about this over the last week.

When should that section next to the field— when should that be completed around?

I couldn't tell you that right now because if you go by, there's, um, still dirt on the sidewalk.

It looks like some of the sidewalk was scratched up.

I'm I don't know if it was by machine or if it was— it was by machine, and the scratches will go away.

It's cement.

And as far as what's there now, uh, it's not a safety hazard whatsoever.

The students don't walk through there.

They walk around it, but they don't walk through the piles.

They never did.

None.

I don't think they're going to start.

They're adults, young adults, but they are adults.

They're not— they're not going through that area.

And we will have that as soon as possible.

We are currently trying to take care of the work that they have to take care of, and this was a piece, an extra thing that they were doing.

Thank you.

Okay, Dr. Smith, how about— yes.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Morris.

I'm sorry, Mr. Morris.

The Henry Lord playground, who's going to be maintaining that playground and keeping the upkeep on that playground?

So we do all of that, and we also have inspections Um, when they come due on the playground equipment.

They all carry 1-year warranties on all the labor and material, like most of these playgrounds that we've done.

So the playground company will be responsible for, for anything that we find.

And then we do periodically with our own people do tightening and checking anything that seems to be not quite right.

But as far as the the overall playground maintenance.

We do do it in-house where we can, and if it, it's a situation where we require an outside contractor to do that, we will subcontract that work out.

So we will mean our people are going to maintain the playgrounds, the rubber?

We will maintain what we have the capability to do.

Yes, we will.

Again, the— we getting equipment in that playground is not is not possible.

So we will be doing most hand work in this.

This is not like a football field.

It doesn't require the same kind of work.

And because of the play that's going on there, we will again do any testing that the, um, that the playground company and the turf company require.

Like on the, on the fields, we do G-Max testing.

We have that done every year by an outside independent company.

To be sure that we're in good shape.

We will do exactly the same here.

Whatever requirements are necessary to be sure that those, uh, those playgrounds stay safe, we will do.

Okay.

And basically, just touching briefly on Bishop Connelly, um, that is a construction site.

It— in my experience, it wasn't safe.

Um, and I'm going to leave it at that for now, but going forward, all the playgrounds— because I visited some of them with Mrs. Legault and I didn't see any UV protection, any maintenance being done to any of them, or upkeep— is that on a plan?

Is that— we do what we can with the amount of people we have to do the work.

That, that's what I'm going to let you— that's what I can say here.

We are, as I said, we're going in tightening bolts, checking equipment.

If equipment is broken, we're either taping it off until we can order new parts like slides and different pieces like that.

That's what's happening with the playgrounds.

Playgrounds are very, very expensive, and the equipment, every single piece down to the nuts and bolts, stainless steel, are very expensive to work on.

And our maintenance departments are keeping everything in general?

Yes, yes, we we are.

Okay.

And another thing, uh, touching a little bit on, um, Durfee, as far as, um, picking weeds with a backhoe— those weren't weeds.

In all due respect, Mr. Moniz, that wasn't just a bunch of weeds.

Those were plants that were being removed.

Those were overgrown facility, and we did what we needed to do because it needs to be started from scratch.

A lot of the stuff that was planted there was not something that we can take care of with 8 employees, correct?

But an oversized machine to do a little tiny area like that is overkill, especially when you're, um, you got events going on on that Saturday and everything else.

And the way they had everything positioned, you can look at the footage.

Like I said before, you'll probably get a laugh out of that, but I don't laugh at anything like that, Mr.

Moment.

There's nothing funny about it.

You got that right.

That's why— absolutely, there's nothing funny about it.

Correct.

That's why I want you to look at the footage.

Um, but at the, at the end of it all, um, I thought we were dedicating 2 people to Durfee, or that's what's— well, now when you have 8, you can't dedicate 2 to Durfee.

Well, that's what the original plan was, to leave Brightview on site doing the work And we would have the 8 employees— well, let me finish before you jump.

Sure, let me finish, please.

We're going to leave the full— a point of order, point of order.

Hold on, hold on.

It's like to make a point of order.

What's your point of order, Mr. Diaz?

Mr.

Chair, please, um, give a quick instruction on decorum.

Mr. Pacheco, you have the floor.

Go ahead, answer Mr. Moniz's question.

Madam Secretary, can you please enter into the minutes that I'm being badgered and I'm not going to put up with it?

It's a hostile work environment.

It's been a hostile work environment for a long time, and maybe the decorum should be told to the, to the group.

I am— I am— made a statement and I expect it entered into the minutes.

Are you done, Mr. Pacheco?

I'm done.

Okay, anything further, Mr. Barnes?

Yes, just please make sure everything is safe and the kids are safe, the staff and the public.

Anything further on facilities?

One, uh, just a— Mr. Aguirre, this can be for the superintendent.

So the, um, the grounds, you know when you go in the, uh, rubber, you know when you— it's expensive to, um, to make it rubberized across the whole district.

Can we just get either a one-pager on something on if we are able to do that in-house, and if not, can we work on that?

So for instance, if at any given facility you'll see a 6-inch hole, like a pothole on the— for lack of a better way to say it— that if we can fix those things in-house, they cost a lot less than otherwise.

So that's my only question, is if we have the means, or can we make sure that we have the means and to purchase the stuff ourselves to make sure that it's flat without potholes?

In the playgrounds.

And I think you bring up a good point, uh, again, uh, when you say this, Mr. Aguiar, and listening to the concerns of the committee.

And I've been listening to this, you know, since I think I arrived on May 1st, and there's nothing more important to all of us than the safety of our students, making sure they have safe play areas.

So as I listen to this, we are not the only urban school district with about 20 schools.

So I really would like to look at the staffing because it keeps coming up and coming up.

And you make other good points of we could be losing students, we have to look at our budget, and this is a priority with this committee.

So I would like to be able to look at the staffing to make sure all of the things that we're requesting— I know we had a conversation about overtime, so we will look at this, but I'd like to take a look at our staffing of this department for what we have oversight of.

I know in some communities, and I don't have the information.

It was a shared responsibility sometimes with the city, with playgrounds.

So I really will have to work with your team, Mr. Mayor, to understand that a little better.

But I want to make sure we're providing our workers with opportunities to do the work that is expected of this community.

I could— I, I agree, Madam Superintendent.

So I believe that, uh, under yourself and Mr. Petronio now, I think we should do an analysis of what we have.

So we spent $600,000 in salaries alone on our grounds.

That seems like a lot of money, but is it the appropriate amount of money?

Do we need other laborers to help us out?

There's a lot of properties here, and the reason why I raised this about the playgrounds is because it's inevitable that they're going to continue to have holes in them.

I was at Letourneau School looking at the traffic pattern, and when you look to the right in that little playground, there is chunks of, uh, the soft material that is rubberized that is good.

I call it potholes, but that's for lack of a better way to say it.

That's happening probably in every school.

So we have to have a sort of an in-house system of how are we going to have somebody go around and, you know, and maybe it's already being done.

I, I'm just looking for you to give us something on it.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Um, next item up is the DESE.

Before I go to that, can I just finish up as part of— it really should have been under my opening on transportation.

I will then go to DESE.

Mayor, I want to recognize our transportation team and our transportation partners for their work getting students to and from school as we begin this new school year.

As of this afternoon, we had 2,244 students being transported to and from our That does not include the 15 direct routes to Durfee High School.

At any given time, we have about 70 buses and vans transporting our students.

We've not experienced any major issues with our buses, which is a significant undertaking given the number of students we transport each day, including our youngest pre-K students.

I also want to remind families that students who ride neighborhood or ELL buses have to have their bus tags.

These tags are an important safety measure and identify the student's grade level, the bus stop, and whether or not an adult is required to be present at the stop.

So families who have not yet requested a bus tag should visit the transportation department website to make sure that their child is on the appropriate bus list.

So thank you, Dr. Smith.

Thank you.

And going to— so the DESE deputy Commissioner update.

I was asked by the committee at the last school committee meeting as we looked at the district review on governance to reach out.

There was a comment made about school committee members going into schools unannounced, and, and I was asked to get information and data on that.

I did speak to Deputy Commissioner Rob Curtin, I want to say 2 weeks ago.

Basically what he said to me was data is aggregated, triangulated and he was unable to give me specifics, but in the conversations he had, those were comments that were made, and, and that was what he was able to give me.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Diaz.

Thank you.

So when this, um, DESE, whatever you want to call it, inquiry, investigation came about, they did take transcribed notes.

So for the Deputy Commissioner to say that there was just absolutely no data, I believe it's absolutely false.

However, again, I think there's just a lot more to the story of how this came about, and I think there'll be more coming out on it very soon.

I yield.

Dr. Smith, Evolve Academy update.

I know this is going to be information on the budget.

But first of all, I want to welcome Rob Correa, who is our new interim principal at RPA.

I want to thank him.

We had wonderful conversation.

He and I are of an age, if I can say that.

We've both worked with alternative education for a long time, and I'm really pleased he is going to be with us for the next few months while we continue to look for a principal of the school.

So again, welcome Principal Correa, and thank you so much for taking on this role.

So just to give you an update, I'm pleased to report on the current status of our 3 innovative programs housed at the Robert L. Medeiros Building.

These programs are collectively serving 263 students throughout 3 diverse educational models, including in-person, virtual, hybrid, extended day opportunities, dual enrollment experiences for our evolved students specifically.

So in Evolve Academy, currently is enrolled 140 students across grades 9 through 12, with the largest cohort in 11th grade, 54 students.

As of today, there are also an additional 15 students scheduled for interviews, shadow days, over the next 2 weeks.

19 students are participating in dual enrollment opportunities through Arizona University, and our after-dark programs in construction and cosmetology are serving 5 students with active recruitment underway to expand our participation.

We have 11 students exploring both after-doc programs for possible enrollment.

That would bring enrollment to 16 Evolve students if they all commit.

Additionally, 9 students are engaged in our Flex Hybrid Pathway.

Through this pathway, students in Evolve engage in competency-based instruction through Google meets.

The Flex Pathway supports our older students who are overaged, undercredited, and are working full-time in most cases and who need a flexible model.

At our new virtual high school, the Fall River Public School Virtual High School, we're serving 34 students currently as of today with 8 additional applications pending.

The program maintains a balanced grade distribution with 10th grade representing the largest group at 10 students.

Through our AM/PM advisory check-ins, we are hosting a virtual info session for After Dark for our students on Thursday, tomorrow, September 17th.

At our, uh, RPA, we currently have enrolled 90 students and provide comprehensive support as we strive to develop our workforce development opportunities.

We are exposing students to our After Dark programs at Durfee High School.

Currently, there are 3 students enrolled in after-dark program— programming, and an additional 10 students are touring and exploring for possible placement.

That would bring RPA student representation to 13 students, the most in RPA's history.

And finally, the Education Innovation Task Force subcommittees, which we have 2 members from our school committee serving on, Mr. Corey and Ms. Stewart.

They continue their important important work with the Student and Family Services and Pathways subcommittees meeting on September 9th and the Belonging and Community Subcommittee convening on September 10th.

All 3 subcommittees are preparing meeting summaries to drive next steps and will be shared with the larger task force, which will be scheduled, I believe, for late October.

So I think the numbers— and people were looking for attendance, so numbers are one thing, but, you know, who's actually attending, especially this group of students.

For RPM— excuse me, RPA— we have 90 students enrolled as of 6/16/26 with a year-to-date attendance of about 57.8%.

And, uh, numbers of students— there are about 19 students that are missing quite a few of their first days of school, either 7, 8, or 9 days of the first 9 days of school.

The virtual high school, we have 34 students enrolled.

Year-to-date attendance at a little better at 63.3%, and 3 of the students have missed again those large numbers of days since the beginning of school.

At Evolve Academy, we have 140 students enrolled.

Our attendance there is much better at 84.3%, and only about 4 students are missing the larger number of school days.

So that— there will be more update.

I know we a budget update coming up, but that is the update.

As I said, there would be at the, uh, at the school committee meeting, and that is my update, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you.

Mr. Aguiar, just if we may get a copy of that update so we can have it for later.

The other thing is on the task force.

So, uh, I think I know the answer to this question, but I'm just going to ask it anyway.

So when you look at the school committee and our role on planning and all that stuff with budgets.

How do— how does this task force rate against the school committee?

See, I'm sorry, how does the task force— so like, is the task force control things a lot more than the school committee?

So if they make recommendations that the school committee chooses not to take, is that like— I think they'll make recommend— recommendations to the superintendent, you know, as, as far as what will be successful, what kind of things we will monitor.

I'm happy to continue to update the school committee.

We have 2 school committee members, you know, on the task force.

But my question is, if the school committee voted to say we— if anything came before them to you, and then it comes to the school committee and says, I'd like to do the following, does the school committee have a say?

What is— are we just looking at a task force to say they are actually the ones controlling things?

I'm not going to say they're the ones controlling things.

I would like to say that they have input that they bring to the superintendent and their team.

There are some things that, you know, I might not bring to the school committee if I do not feel that they would be successful.

Maybe that wouldn't be something that we would budget for at this time, but I'll continue to keep you updated with, you know, what's happening on the task force.

I think I just wanted to make it clear that the school committee still has a say in what happens with alternative education.

We didn't have a say in who was on the task source, and some of the folks on there might not have any expertise whatsoever with alternative education.

So we just have to be careful.

It's an advisory committee, and they're not going to dictate what happens in alternative education.

It's an advisory committee.

And I agree with you, Mr. Aguiar.

And again, you and I, following, you know, what is legally permissible, will make sure that that happens, that the school committee is able to have their say and also that the superintendent and their team is able to make recommendations.

Agreed.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Diaz, um, can we quickly just go back to the numbers for RPA Evolve and the virtual?

There was a, there was a presentation on there.

It had the numbers.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Um, so I guess my Okay, so I guess my one question would be, because this— I know this is of as of September 16th.

We received a presentation at the subcommittee and the numbers from, um, September 9th, they seem to have fluctuated.

Um, specifically like the virtual high school has gained, looks like 8 students.

The Evolve has gone up 9.

And, um, it looks like all 3 have gone up.

Is that just, um, students coming from Durfee going into these programs, or is that just more locating students that weren't arriving at the first week that should have been there arriving now?

That's a, that's a very good question.

I'm sure there is conversation with Dr. Stevens and the high school.

I think one of our goals is we've talked about making sure that if students have dropped out that we've re-engaged, that we're having conversations with families from the past year.

I can't exactly answer that.

Uh, Dr. B, can you answer that?

Or I don't know, I, I see Mr. Correa, Jan.

I'm not sure who can answer that.

It's all of the above, doctor.

I mean, we've got kids that might have dropped last year and we're bringing them back.

We have students that might have disengaged, and so we're bringing them back.

And we have some students that might have started off at Durfee and thought that this is probably— I want an alternative program, I'd like to go down to that alternative program.

I can tell you that the principals have been terrific down there, and especially with the Durfee guidance working back and forth and bringing students in.

So I think it's an opportunity that we, that we have to offer students.

It's there and, um, students know it's there.

And I think that we've got leadership that can handle it and making those moves as quickly as possible.

So my— thank you, and I don't disagree with anything you said.

My last question is, so there's absolutely no involuntary transfers from Durfee to any of these virtual programs?

Not that I'm aware of.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Corey.

Uh, just to refer to my colleague's concerns about the ad hoc committee, I'm a member of the ad hoc committee and I also sit on the school committee, but I can tell you that it was primarily made up of members in our surrounding community, from even, even the pastor next door at the church, just trying to be there and being a good neighbor.

In having great communication with our school leaders at the building, being very neighborly, as well as the mental health agencies, as well as the student services director for the city.

And people like that were members of the ad hoc committee.

And at the initial meeting, there was a real vibe in the air of, you know, everybody was so willing to see breath of fresh fresh air happen for our alternative education, uh, because, you know, it's, it's been, you know, under scrutiny for the past several years, and we're working hard to try to right that ship.

So I would invite, uh, any of our members to even sit in on a meeting at one point, but in no way are we trying to control the agenda of the school committee, Mr. Vice Chair.

I think all— I think the ad hoc committee just wants to be in a position to make some recommendations as an advisory to the superintendent, and then it— I'm sure it would come formally under the jurisdiction of the school committee to determine, you know, which way it's going to direct.

I yield.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Is that you, Mr. Aguirre?

So, the— Madam Superintendent, we on Thursday had this enrollment discussion And it was requested that we get the information that Mr. Diaz asked.

So I would just like to reiterate that, that we were looking for this information on Thursday, followed up with an email on Friday relative to the same.

It— the numbers have been fluctuating, which I personally understand.

They can go a little bit here or there.

As we talked about last May, we had 60 students at one point reported to us, and then we had 120 students.

Now we got 90 Like, so just trying to make heads or tails of how the numbers went.

There might be a perfectly good reason for why they did, but the— all I'm asking is to please give us the information that we asked for on Thursday.

I yield.

Thank you.

Next item up on the agenda is— oh, I'm sorry, Miss Stewart down the end.

I forgot.

Yeah, Miss Stewart.

What is the plan for the students who are not coming?

So we had a lot of them that did didn't come last year, and those same students I think are the ones that's not coming this year.

Is there a plan for it?

Like, are we going out to their house?

What are we doing?

Are we— I understand, like, there's obviously, you know, we can only do so much, but I just want to know what is the plan for those.

Right now it says 19 students haven't come this school year.

What is the plan for those students as they walk up here?

I can tell you that Mr. Carrera told me that he was making home visits.

I love that.

And getting out there, meeting the parents, talking to students.

I was actually— went down there yesterday, the day before.

I think Jan, uh, both Jan and Rob were on calls, you know, meeting with parents and talking to parents.

And, um, but I know that Mr. Carrera has told me that he's making home visits, and that's important.

You know, we extend our hand, we're here for you, come on in.

And the way he's dealing with students at RPA, and I know that Jan— I've seen the kids, they're happy.

Um, if a student makes it 90 minutes, that's terrific today.

Absolutely.

Tomorrow we'll try for 91, we'll try to 93, we'll try for 100 minutes.

We do the best that we can for you.

What is good for you is what is good for us, and that's what we're going to do to get students through.

But I'll let Rob or Jan— okay, thank you.

Good evening, school committee.

Just want to give you an update what we're doing about these students that are not coming up.

We're identifying them, and the first line of defense is sending, uh, Miss Kennedy out to the house, and we find— we do a follow-up as to why they didn't come.

And if we have to do another follow-up visit, then it's going to be not only Miss Kennedy, but it'll be a school representative as well.

Okay, we want to show that we are interested in getting them into the classroom into the school feeling comfortable, knowing that the, the culture of the school has changed.

And that's important.

And we can't do that unless they come into the school.

So we did have an increase of 7 students, not much, baby steps.

Absolutely.

But I'm proud of that.

And I'm proud of the students that do arrive because they do feel safe.

They do feel like this, the staff cares about about their education, and that's important.

So that's what we're trying to establish by that, and we will continue doing home visits throughout.

That's a must.

Perfect, thank you.

So much like Mr. Correa, we've done home visits for 100% of our students.

So we right now, we have 2 students out of 140 that we did not see return to school yet, and we're using some very creative ways, even eliciting students' friends to say, hey, let's reach out to our friends and really use the community and culture that we built to also bring students back in.

One came back in today.

We're having support meetings for every student with all of our support staff also to come up with some really creative ways to get students back into the building.

Much like the deputy said, how are we really going to build on students' current level of performance and really help support them in re-engaging, even if it is slowly re-engaging.

We have 7 students also that we are targeting from our dropout list from last year.

We were able to re-engage 3 of them so far.

We actually had 2 of them even coming in today.

So we really want to make sure every single student has a plan moving forward for how they can be successful, not only coming back into the school but also even exploring other options that maybe if Evolve didn't work for them last year, maybe the virtual high school is working this year.

So really want to make sure that we're targeting every single kid and meeting the families where they're at, whether it's at their homes or on site.

Mr.

Chair, Mr. Corey, uh, just a question for the two of you.

Has— just in a very general sense, has there been any feedback from any of the parents of these kids that you're reaching out to?

We've had, we've had some success success with some of the parents.

However, unfortunately, a lot of the parents are not answering the phones.

We're leaving messages.

Even when we do the home visits, they're not there.

So we're trying different strategies such as going different times, you know, rather than just going the same time every single day.

We try to— ideally, we try to find the second person on the contact list to see if we can contact the parent that way as well.

So we're trying alternative ways to get in touch with parents and get them involved.

We're also using ParentSquare to try to get in touch with them.

We are meeting some success.

Yes, I know it's hard work.

I realize.

Absolutely.

I lived it.

I know your work very well, Ms. Karam.

By the way, I'm happy to see you back in the fold.

Thank you.

I know you're gonna work really, really hard.

Believe it or not, I'm having a good time.

That's awesome.

That's— I'm happy to see students come in and smiling.

Yeah, that's great.

That's the amazing part.

That's great to hear.

And, and you know that I'm so proud that you're, you're using home visits.

Home visits really work.

Absolutely.

So, so keep that up, and I hope the feedback from the parents is supportive because that's truly— we need that component for the child themselves.

The parents that we have contacted have been exceptional.

Thank you.

They're really on target.

They want to see their students succeed, and I can appreciate them.

Yes, thank you.

I yield.

Miss Stewart.

I know the name on the building still needs to stay the same, but I really wish we can stop calling it 290 Rock.

Can we please call the building something?

I, I, I don't— the Opportunity Hub was lovely, but I— can we just call it something?

Because 290 Rock just isn't it.

Sure.

We've really got to call it something.

Sure, we have signage on its way right now.

We just— we were looking at signs the other day that would, uh, Robert L. Medeiros, I think, is, uh, building, and then we'll have all 3 schools listed underneath.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Um, item number 5, motion to accept.

We have 5 travel requests.

I have a motion on all 5.

I have a motion and second.

Any discussion on the travel?

Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Unanimous.

Motion to accept the donations.

Second.

Second.

Motion to accept the donations.

Um, hearing any discussion on any of the donations?

Hearing none.

Comment, Mr. Ragia?

Same comment that I make every meeting relative to this.

I don't want anybody to mistake the fact that I questioned DonorsChoose or any of these programs like as if I do not support them.

But there is no way, Madam Superintendent, that you or any of your administrative team can tell me that in this district, with the number of caring administrators and teachers and staff that we have, that these are the only purchases from DonorsChoose that are out there for the entire district and principal that is here, she used to be at the Green, is now here.

She presents these faithfully.

There is no way that anybody can tell me that— and we've asked prior superintendents, we've asked this superintendent, we've asked people to just say it has— there's a process, just follow the process, and it's a problem.

There's no way that this is the only ones.

So Mr. Aguirre, and I know you're going to find me to, to not be, uh, with this donation out there, but I will tell you I met with the principal I talked about it.

I called out that there was a particular principal, not in a negative way, but was, you know, sharing with us so we could put on the agenda.

I will make sure the principals again get to us.

They know that they have forms.

I believe we have a meeting tomorrow at 3 o'clock.

Staff, please remind me to continue to tell them that this came up in the meeting.

We want to make sure that we acknowledge donations.

Donations are wonderful.

We thank the community the partners, the people that are willing to support our students.

So I couldn't agree more.

I want to recognize them, acknowledge them, and it can't just be one school.

Mr.

Chair, Mr. Diaz, right?

And just to back up my colleague, this is something— is not just accepting, acknowledging a donation for the sake of, um, not— at least not only just not acknowledge it for the sake of acknowledging it.

We have to accept these by law.

It states clearly within our policy manual, um, state laws pretty clear on this, the MASC guidelines are clear on that as well.

So it's not just something that we should do, it's something that we have to do by law.

So I think just reiterating that to the staff would— to the principals would be ideal.

Thank you.

Okay, I have a motion, a second on accepting donations.

Discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Unanimous.

Um, Dr. Smith, are you going to read the donations?

I'll be happy to read them.

Interim Superintendent Smith, on behalf of the Durfee CTE Cosmetology Cynthia Sylvia, requests acknowledgment of a $2,488.50 donation from Representative Carol Fiola.

This donation will be used to help students in need with alteration, shoes, jewelry here and makeup along with the cosmetology program to provide beauty services for students going to the prom.

And I did receive information Representative Fiola wanted to be here this evening but was unable to meet that in her schedule.

Interim Superintendent Smith, on behalf of the Sylvia Elementary School principal, Dr. Elizabeth Dunn, requests acknowledgement of a kidney table chair pockets totaling $565, a donation from DonorsChoose.

This donation will be used for small group instruction organization in the classroom.

Interim Superintendent Smith, on behalf of the Sylvia Elementary School principal, Dr. Elizabeth Dunn, requests acknowledgment of various classroom items totaling $236.60, a donation from DonorsChoose.

This donation will be used for direct classroom use supporting daily instruction, student organization, reading fluency routines, transitions, and independence.

Interim Superintendent Smith, on behalf of the technology department, requests acknowledgment of 10 Surface Pro computers, a donation from Bay Coast Bank.

This donation will be used in the strategic planning process as far as we're looking to use that to encourage focus groups or opportunities for students to receive these devices.

Thank you.

Committee of the Whole, item 7-1 is a discussion and vote to approve the selection and appointment of John Kobianchi as a nurse for the schools.

I have a motion.

Second.

We have a second.

Any discussion on Mr. Kobianchi?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Unanimous.

Motion to approve 7-2.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we move 7.10 to vote for Evolve RPA and virtual school to the present time.

I have a motion and a second one.

This should take 2 seconds, Mr. Aguirre, then we'll do the one you brought up.

It's a motion to approve the use of Durfee High School, um, Nagel Auditorium for the Christmas concert.

Um, I have a motion.

Do I have a second on the Christmas concert?

Second.

I have a motion, a second.

Um, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

I just do want to mention one quick thing for Mr. Aguiar.

On October 2nd, um, Maggie Rose will be there to support all of the elementary schools in the city of Fall River.

The money being raised on the October 7th concert goes to the Fall River Children's Christmas Parade.

And as you know, all of our elementary schools make a float.

We have a ton of children participate, families.

So we hope to see you October 2nd at the Bristol Community College Auditorium for the Maggie Rose concert.

If you need tickets, just go to the website.

Mr. Aguiar asked that 7.10 be moved up, which is fine with me.

7.10 is a discussion and vote to approve the budget line breakdown for the following, presented by Aldo Petronio, Chief Financial Officer.

We have Evolve, RPA, and The virtual school.

Was that a motion or just, just a request?

I just took it out of order.

Yeah, we're fine.

Okay.

I do have hard copies.

It wasn't diligent, but I have hard copies if anybody— Mr. Petronio, good evening.

I was asked to, um, from the meetings that happened back in, I guess, the spring in April, May with the separation of, of, or the creation of 3 schools evolve, the RPA and the virtual, to break those pieces of the budget out and create a separate budget for each school.

In your packet, you should see a breakout of each school, the number of students that attend the schools, the plans, the number in each grade level.

And then below that, you'll see the actual— if there's a name to assign to the position, it's there.

If it's vacant, it's vacant.

But the dollar amounts of the actual salary or an approximation if it's vacant of what we, uh, the average salary would be to fill that position.

And at the bottom of each page, there are some positions that are shared between the schools.

So you'll see most of the breakouts are 50/50 depending on if it's a 50/50 between Evolve and RPA, or some of it goes towards the virtual school.

You'll see the breakout of that for each segment.

So the first page, 2 pages you see are Evolve And that has a total budget with the breakout of $1,874,156.

Same thing when you move to RPA.

I included the virtual school along with that because it's the same principal running both, both school programs.

And again, the positions that have names are already assigned.

The positions that are vacant are vacant, and will be filled when necessary, when we can either find the applicant or when we have the number of students necessary to fill those positions.

Again, you'll see the number of attendance of the RPA and the number of attendance in the virtual school currently.

These are actually as of about last Wednesday or Thursday, and I know those numbers are changing so they don't match the slides you saw tonight, but they'll, they'll be updated as we progress with them.

So the total budget for those 2 schools is $2,476,508.

The 3rd section is— I just reiterated to show you the positions that are shared.

They've already been included in those budgets.

You can kind of see across the board the 3 schools of all RPA and virtual, and you can see how certain people are covering certain, certain teaching, I guess, aspects across those schools.

Those costs, like I said, are already included in those first 2 figures I gave you.

And then looking through the, the budget book, looking at what was proposed for this back in April and May, and looking at what positions are moving around, the last page is an approximate savings to the overall budget, um, in what, um, has transpired in here.

It's about $745,000 in savings that has been called out through this whole process of separating these schools.

So I'm looking tonight for any questions and also to get a vote and an approval for these 3 budgets moving forward.

And then when we plan FY28, they'll be able to incorporate these as their own cost centers in the budget book, and you'll have an opportunity at that point to make you know, any adjustments or changes or recommendations at that point.

So where this is basically now just started, over the course of the next few months we'll see things settle into place as to what positions are, are needed in addition to what we currently have.

Mr.

Chair?

Mr. Diaz?

My questions are actually, um, going to be very brief.

Um, I think based off of what you were given, I think this is, um, Very good in a short amount of time you've been here to put this together.

Thank you.

Something we've needed as a committee.

Um, my only question is, will Durfee's budget also be modified as a result?

So if you go through the budget, Evolve, I believe, was a part of the Durfee budget.

Now that it's separated, they would have a new budget.

Well, basically their budget is within the Munis system.

Their budget will be reduced because we'll move salaries that have left Durfee to here.

And in, and in building the FY28 budget, you'll actually see the changes made at that point.

Since the book is already in print for this year, I'm not going to reprint the whole book, but within the system they'll be changed.

So yes, there'll be a difference.

That's actually going to be my next question.

So my concern is, with years past, is the budget that's posted on the website is the proposed budget by the superintendent brought to the committee, and this has just been the way it's been for years throughout the budget process.

There's usually changes that were made before there's a final.

So I was going to request, and getting in, um, a good habit of things, and for the public's edification, the public, when they go on our website to look at the budget, they should see the most up-to-date budget as approved by the school committee, the city council, the mayor, when they're going to look at that.

And Seeing that we're making changes today in updating our budget, and whenever there's an update, I guess my opinion is when you go on the website, you should have the most up-to-date budget.

So is that something that can be done relatively in a short time, or?

I think so.

I have to see how it's— I've looked at it online, the overall budget, and I'm not sure if each cost center is put electronically in separately or if it's just one massive download.

If each one's in separately, then yes, we can add these to it, and I can go back and look at the Durfee and remove anyone from their budget that's there so I can make the changes.

Sure.

I'll have to see how the— between the finance office and the IT department, how they put that in there.

But right, it's not, it's not the biggest thing in the world, but it's just more of a member of the public goes on website, they have the most up-to-date.

Sure.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Miss Stewart, I just have a question.

How is RPA running without a special education teacher with 43 students?

And how is the virtual running without a math and science teacher?

No math teacher at RPA.

Oh, and there's no math?

Yes, there's no math at RPA.

I guess that's I can answer the virtual, but, um, I couldn't— we have engaged with Edgenuity.

At this time they have asynchronous, they have a live teacher.

So, uh, we have been looking, even Durfee High School is looking for a math teacher right now.

Math and science are difficult to hire.

We are looking and recruiting and we're constantly moving in that direction to hire a live teacher.

We have engaged, I did yesterday talk to Edgenuity.

We are going into that way with a live teacher so students can be in the virtual and in the class at this time for math and science.

We bought enough licenses for students, but they're not even budgeted here.

No, they're part of the Edgenuity.

Yeah, but I'm saying when we do hire them, they're in holding spots.

I don't see a holding spot is what I'm saying.

For virtual, I don't see on the last page there we had holding spots for them.

Pretty sure.

So I— oh, I could be wrong.

It's under saving.

Yeah, over here.

Okay, math teacher was over here.

So on the other pages is holding spot.

Also in RPA it says holds, but on virtual it doesn't say hold, so it's just on the other side.

So I, you know, you have 50 students in math, they— the teacher could go back and forth between both programs, and that's what we continue to look at.

But right now we didn't have a math teacher at all, so that's why we contracted with Edgenuity to have a live asynchronous teacher that could go virtually for both sides.

So in RPA and in virtual, if we were to get a live teacher, a teacher for the classroom of record, then we would, we would look at how many sections you would have, and you could go back and forth.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, that makes sense.

No, no, no, don't leave me.

You're high— you're still hiring for math teachers, what you're saying?

Yes, we are.

We're actively looking.

We look every single day.

Uh, we look every single hour.

However, there, there have been, uh, very few, uh, applicants.

For it.

And the ones that do apply, when we speak about coming to an alternative school, they turn around and say, no, I'm not really interested in that position.

And— but is it affecting IEPs?

Excuse me?

Is it affecting IEPs?

Not at this point, no.

Okay, because we're making sure that the para that is working there in the math room has been working with the, uh, special ed teacher prior last year.

She was well aware of students' IEPs.

She's going through IEPs now and making sure that she's working with the new department head to make sure those students are serviced.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, Miss Riley.

Thank you.

But a paraeducator is not certified to cover it, so, so we're not meeting IEP requirements if we don't have a special— we're trying, like, I— we're trying to meet the IEPs the best we can with what we have.

Thank you.

Anything further?

Mr. Hager.

On that note, with the, uh, teachers, I think we have to look at who we have that special education teachers at the high school level to make sure that we're meeting the minimum minutes.

And I'm sure you're doing something like that.

The teacher aide would be watching this, the room partially, or At some point you have to have a special ed teacher service in the IEP, so I don't want to have to appear like you're not.

I think we do have— we do have a special ed teacher, um, that does the sub-separate room, and she does help the, uh, para identify those areas that need to be done within the classroom.

And I think if there's no teachers, there's no teachers, but at some point we have, uh, what do you call it when we hire somebody else, uh, a vendor?

You know, uh, things like that.

So that could happen as well, uh, but I think just starting out, you got to do the best you can with what you have.

And we, we will be starting the Ingenuity math that also helps incorporate the IEP.

We put the IEP, uh, requirements down within the program and adjust this program accordingly.

It's not ideal, it's not the best, but it's what we have right now until we can find a math teacher And Ms. Obenshain wants to say something, I'm sure.

I just wanted to give a little more detail.

So I just met with the special education supervisor from RPA, uh, and for the virtual school.

We went over every student, every service on their IEP.

If a paraprofessional right now is the one supporting the students in the classroom or while they are on Edgenuity We are going to stipend a special education teacher, either Durfee or RPA or Evolve, to oversee the program that the paraprofessional will deliver.

That's typically how we do this when we don't have an actual teacher on board.

We did have a virtual teacher up until, I think, the day before school started, so we are actually looking at the those students who have selected virtual school, there are some that we really want to recommend they come back in person because of the minutes on their IEP.

And families need to understand that if they're selecting the virtual school, the special education services look different because there's not a teacher with a student at this— at the time.

So we want to make sure that parents are very clear on when you select a virtual school for a student with a disability, the service delivery is going to look different.

Once we connect with those students, should they choose to stay virtual, we will talk to those families about what service delivery will look like.

We will reconvene those teams and make sure the necessary changes are made to the IEPs.

Or if they would like to come back in person, we will certainly help them facilitate that.

I had reached out to Taunton who does have as a virtual school as well, just to ask them about providing special education services virtually.

And they do the same thing, talking to families about how services would look different, reconvening teams and amending IEPs if needed.

Thank you.

My other concern is on, I mean, the virtual school, we're trying to get it up and running for the first year.

I understand that, but at some point we have to look at positions support positions.

I can't support in here where we have a virtual guidance counselor and a virtual SAC as well as one at the regular school.

So that's like 4 SACs/guidance for basically 80 kids or 90 kids when you get down to the numbers.

So I just think that's a little over the top for it.

There's no reason why a person can't do both, but as you're looking in here, I fully I fully understand that there's some shifts and the administration can shift things as they go.

But to me, that's glaring when we look at the amount of dollars for just the virtual, we have to be able to pivot and allow some cross.

I know you got on here 25/75, 50/50, whatever you have to do, but I just see that there's double and we have openings in other places.

I just think that that needs to be addressed, but I wanna commend Mr. Petronio for doing the best he could with a situation where this was very convoluted.

It was, in my opinion, it should have been done before June 30th when we had our meetings.

I've voiced that concern to the superintendent for months, so at least we're getting to the point where now we have something, full well knowing you have to move some things.

There's a position, I think there's one math teacher for RPA listed, but if you lucky enough to get those calls and find 2, he's supposed to have 2 placeholders for math teacher.

We need to be able to pivot and make sure that happens if that's the case.

My only other comment was on the clerk that we don't have.

We have 2 schools and 1 clerk, and it's kind of convoluted because you look in the budget, the clerk is from RPA, not from Evolve, but the clerk's co-located in Evolve.

So I just raised that as something that you got to figure out, and you might need to change some positions, uh, along the way.

But I'm in support of this because, um, I wouldn't spend the savings right now because we need, we need that for other things when you get here, Mr. Petronio, to figure out what's going on with the budget.

But thank you for your hard work on this, and thank you, Mr. Correa.

You're welcome.

Mr. Corey, uh, Joe, I'll be very brief.

Um, is there any way we could use a temp agency to hire some retired math teachers or anything like that?

I am in daily communication with our agencies.

They have a hard time recruiting certified teachers, um, themselves.

So we always ask, what do you have available?

Send me resumes.

We interview just about everybody who meets the requirement and then make a determination if they're the right fit.

So yes, If you know of any, if I'm missing some, please send them our way.

Okay, thank you.

I yield.

Mr.

Chair, Mr. Diaz, um, last 2 questions.

Um, a question on the special ed supervisors.

They— there's one for— unless I misheard you, there's one for RPA and one for virtual, is it?

No, it's the same person.

So actually, between Durfee, RPA, Evolve, and now the virtual school, I have 2 special special education supervisors.

One is primarily staying at Durfee, the other one takes on the RPA Evolve virtual school and supports a little bit of Durfee because Durfee's so big.

Um, and the other ones, they cover like the, the program at Grice, Stride.

Is it so the special education Yeah, the special education supervisor position, they are actually responsible for the oversight of the entire special ed program for the buildings that they are assigned, unless they are specific to a specialized program like you— the 2 that you mentioned.

So it really just depends on the size of the school, how many specialized programs are in there, but I have 9 specialized supervisors total.

For over 3,000 special education students.

They have to review every IEP.

They support family communication, enrolling new students for us, and just the, the overall instruction and compliance responsibilities of special education.

Okay, thank you.

I yield— I mean, I don't yield.

I, I thank you for that.

My last question is actually on one of them, the positions I think my colleague just mentioned.

Was, and I saw the backup come in, um, it was like 3:50.

I actually didn't even get time to review it, but the virtual— the one of the pathway specialist positions, so is that primarily, um, technology-based, like trying to get everyone on, and but they report directly to the principal, they don't report to technology at any school?

Whether it's high school, middle school, virtual school, alternative high school, the principal's in charge of the building, and that is our first line of defense at central office.

So when we talk to a building, we talk to the principal, and everyone in that building reports to the principal.

So a virtual pathway specialist would report to the principal, right?

But that's the only technology position that's not on the technology org chart.

Still phrasing.

It's a school-based position.

So if that, that person would possibly oversee the Edgenuity lab for the math and science while the students are in that lab to make sure that they are supported through, uh, Edgenuity, making sure that they're on, making sure that the time allotted, that they have time to finish that skill base or that skill set or that Uh, so the front— like, for just an example, so the Fred TV, um, teacher position at Morton, that's in the Morton work chart?

That's not— that's not in the technology work chart?

Morton.

Is it?

Okay, I yield.

Thank you.

Can I have one more question after her?

Ms. Stewart, then you.

That's right, Ms. Stewart.

So I have— I'm back to my original question.

In virtual, this math and science It's on that last page, but this last page says savings.

So why would it say savings and not be in the budget?

That's 2 completely different things.

I went from a proposal I saw that was handed out back in like April or so, and in there it had the number of positions they were requesting.

But then what we ended up filling in here for each of these schools is what the principals requested.

So my guess is that they thought there'd be a lot more students in the program, so they said, you know, in the original— originally they needed 2, but when they finally came through with the actual numbers that were attending, they only needed 1.

So I put it through as budgeted back in April but not necessary.

It doesn't mean that if you find that we need enough— there'll be more students that we need more, we won't add more.

But right now that savings is just sitting there.

No, I'm talking about a math and science teacher.

Teacher, right?

They don't need a math and science teacher.

I'm saying at the— there were 2.

They— no, right now it only has an ELA and a social studies teacher.

I'm not talking about 2 of them.

I'm— right now they only have ELA and social studies.

They still need a math and a science.

I understand that we're using Ingenuity.

Why wouldn't we have a hold for a math and science?

Well, since we're, we're purchasing Ingenuity, we're going to use it for the year.

You have a math teacher that's listed.

There just no is no math teacher on the first page.

On the— what page is this?

Where?

Okay, that's under— on the 3rd page, RPA.

On the 3rd page of Resiliency Prep, on the 7th line down after, after the ELA teacher, there's an open spot and says teacher for math.

But that's for resiliency, that's not for virtual, right?

I'm talking about for virtual.

It was there last night.

It's not— there's nothing, there's nothing for virtual.

For virtual, the only thing that's there is ELA and social studies, so there should still be a hold for math and science.

I didn't put the hold in because literally Edgenuity, we just contracted with them.

But I still think we should have a hold there, and just in case we get the teacher, regardless, we still need the hold.

Because for that matter, why would it— why would we have a hold for anything else in RPA?

I guess again, it depends on where the population goes.

We can move— if, if, if we get another math teacher, we can move them to either the virtual or the RPA.

It's just that the virtual has so few students?

I can tell you this, if, if we get a math teacher, we're going to put one where that— where it is needed.

I was in a meeting the other day, I think Chris Codino was there, and then we had one with Aldo.

Jan Stevens, we, we've asked, can we take a math teacher?

Can we— can we— can you come up?

Can they— can some of the students go down?

She had a class of 13.

Can we put 5 students in there?

Can we put 6 students in there?

Can we put 2 students in there?

So there is conversation on a daily basis on how we're getting— how we— sorry, I can't see— um, how we're getting students in the classrooms.

I agree with you.

I wish I could fill every class or every position with a teacher.

Right now there is no math teachers at Durfee High School.

I was with the Durfee principal the other day.

We were walking, looking for math teachers, looking for science teachers.

It's a very difficult place, a very difficult, um, discipline to hire for, I can tell you that.

But we're doing the best that we can, and it's still posted.

I mean, it's not that we're— so now it's posted, yeah, and somebody comes in, we don't have a budget line for it.

That's what I'm trying to say.

There is no budget line for it because there is no hold for it.

But we have a savings for it.

We do not have a budget at this time.

There's a savings.

Yesterday, I can tell you this, maybe that was moved and the— that was the drop we had.

No, we had yellow lines through things that say dropped, um, uh, or I mean, um, a hold.

It said hold.

So you see that we've done this 15 times over the last probably week trying to make sure that it is accurate.

We're looking at the virtual school.

I mean, I called Lori in I want to look at IEPs.

I want to make sure that we can, we can do this good things in the virtual school with some of those students.

Exactly what she said.

Same thing with math.

We had hold on some of these.

I guess it changed to savings at this time.

The CFO's maybe he's looking at it like at this on today on 9/16, it's a savings, but it's still in the hold.

We would never not say that we're not going to put a teacher in placement when we need a teacher.

I just don't want that savings to be used somewhere else, and it can be— somebody will use that savings somewhere else, and then all of a sudden it can't be— he won't— and then all of a sudden there's a math teacher comes about and now we can't use it.

That will be my problem, right?

Well, you're voting on this tonight, so you can make an amendment and move it, put it in if that's what you'd like.

I, I really do believe that we need both those places to keep a hold for that.

Mr. Aguirre.

Mr. Aguirre.

Yeah, so I understand what, uh, I think the word savings should say potential savings, because I think we're just trying to figure out what the heck's going on because this is 3 months ago.

But to Ms. Stewart's point, we just don't have enough students to justify, in my opinion, a, a only virtual English, social studies, math, and science.

They have to be cross-used, utilized with the other school.

With that being said though, I think we need to take 2 of— just so that there's one of each subject matter.

And move them up from the savings to the virtual so that at that point you have the placeholder if somebody happens to come in.

But basically all of the— in my opinion, we're going to have a lot of other things coming up in the next couple months relative to budgets and the like, but you need a placeholder.

Just like if Mr. Correa— or my question was for Evolve on— there's 140 students and the hope is to get to 200.

My question is, can you get to 200 with the current staff?

And Ms. Reiser's answering yes.

So at least we know each of those positions is listed, they can get to 200.

Now, can RPA exist with 60 kids with the same staff?

Because that's basically what we have right now.

That's the kind of moving, uh, number.

But I would make an amendment that we add the make sure that we have 4— English, math, social studies, science— in the virtual class, and then put potential in front of the savings so that none of that money is going to be spent, uh, because Mr. Petronio is still trying to figure out what was agreed to.

If you recall, in the budget, a lot of yellow lines said move to go here, maybe to go here, this one's transferred here.

So he's got to digest in a month or two to figure out.

Second.

All right, so we have a motion.

Before we get to the vote on the budget for the 3 programs to change savings to potential savings.

I have a motion and second.

Any discussion?

And to make sure virtual has all 4.

Yes, they understand that virtual— those potential savings are targeted for virtual.

Um, I got 2 people with hands up, Mr. Dias and Mr. Corey.

Thank you.

I support the amendment.

My only question would be, if we approve this tonight, Mr. Petronio, I know you mentioned that next year we would have to set up the cost centers?

Correct.

So approving this budget, this is all going to go under one cost center.

So the— technically, the superintendent she chose can move the money in and out?

Well, no, there's 3 cost centers.

It's going to have to be 3 because that's how the Department of Ed recognizes it.

Correct.

But we have a policy which states the superintendent cannot move positions or money between cost centers without a vote of the committee, you, you're stating right now approving this, we're still under one cost center.

We approve this budget, there's still just going to be one cost center until we approve the next.

That's not what he said.

That's my question.

It's a question.

Each one is separate.

Each one is separate.

So when you see the RPA is one, Evolve is another, and the virtual is another, those are 3 cost centers.

So we are— so, okay, so we are approving 3 cost centers when we approve this budget, correct?

Okay, that was my clarification.

Thank you, Mr. Corey.

No, I didn't have a question.

Okay, okay.

First, on Mr. Aguiar's amendment, any further discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion to approve as amended.

Motion to approve Evolve, RPA, and Virtual as amended.

Second.

I have a motion to second.

Any more discussion on the 3 schools?

Hearing none.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Unanimous.

Back— going back up, 7.3 is discussion and vote to approve the Durfee High School Athletic Handbook as referred by the Policy Subcommittee.

Motion to approve.

Second.

I have a motion, a second on the handbook.

Does anybody have any questions from the Durfee Handbook?

Like a presentation?

Uh, you want to hear the presentation?

Yes.

Mr. Bustin.

Can you fill us in on what's in the handbook?

Any changes, any potential things we should know about it, please?

Yeah, so the, um, the major change is that we're adding in that credit recovery cannot be used to become eligible.

So the fall season, when the report cards come out in November, the only sport that's affected by that is football and then all the winter sports.

So if somebody finishes term 1 and they're not eligible, they will— they can still do credit recovery, but it will not kick in until the next term.

So they cannot do credit recovery and then become eligible for the Thanksgiving Day football game or the winter season.

They will be ineligible until the next— Can you explain what credit recovery is?

That's a Durfee policy, I guess.

Right, Durfee has credit recovery.

Right.

What is credit recovery, he's asking you?

Oh.

In the context of what you're talking about here, like— So they— the work that they missed during that term which caused them to fail or get an incomplete, they can make up that work and then they will go back and they'll make a grade change and they'll change the grade for that term.

Is there any other requirements, any, any timing on that?

Is it— do they have to do better in the next term and then it goes back retroactively, or what is this, on the spot?

Dr. J might be able to— so for, uh, Durfee unit recovery, if a student fails a course, they can do unit recovery for one term, I believe, out of the 4, and that's a teacher-directed assignment.

If they complete the assignment, one, their grade can move up to a 65 from a failing grade.

But what is the timing on it, I guess, is the question?

It typically has to be done before the next progress report comes out.

So you're talking weeks?

5 weeks, a month, 2 months?

Like, uh, the next progress report is typically like 4 weeks, I would say, about halfway through the next term.

I'm only asking because I was confused watching the subcommittee, and I'm still trying to figure out what does that truly mean.

But if a student, under what Mr. Boston just said, failed middle of November and they could do this so-called assignment and get themselves back like in a day?

Like if they— I mean, what— I guess that's the point I'm making, because it seems like you're changing something because there was a problem with it.

Like, so teachers were changing grades.

So I, I think we agree with you.

That's why we're proposing this, that because there probably wasn't enough clarity as to, you know, when grade change was submitted or what constituted a grade change, that we're asking to make it as clear and concise as possible and that it isn't reflected until the next term.

But I guess I'm asking what— so last year, tell me about the situation that happened that was problematic relative to this.

Well, anytime a student completes recovery and then there's a grade change submitted, it could be 2 weeks into the next marking period, it could be 3 weeks into the next marking period.

What we're saying is that we don't feel like, number one, it's fair, or number 2, the expectation is high enough that that's what it takes to become eligible.

We are suggesting that eligibility at the marking periods is when it should be determined.

And anyone in the past that has used this, has it been instantaneous?

Yes.

Like, I failed today, I go to my teacher, say, I, you know, I give you what I got to do, I'm back on the team in 2 days?

You complete the unit, I didn't say 2 days, but you complete the unit recovery and when it's completed, if it, you know, if you complete it appropriately and they submit the grade change, then yes, your grade would be changed.

And a unit recovery, I guess, is different than what I heard Mr. Boston say, if you had missing assignments, so it has nothing to do with why you failed, no missing assignments, it's just strictly a totally different project.

That gets you to the unit, I guess.

I, I'm just trying to figure out what that looks like for the school because you're utilizing it, that terminology, in the athletics, I guess, is like— excuse me, I think all I can say is that our intention is to make it as clear as it can possibly be, and so that unit recovery is the way that you potentially get your grade to a passing grade and that it doesn't impact eligibility until the end of the term.

And did this happen a lot?

I guess I, I'm just trying to figure out.

No, it's just a confused— it's just definitely confusing to me.

But that's what you're trying to figure— that process has not changed at Durfee High School.

What you, what you're saying here is this is going to change, but the other process that you're referring to is still ongoing.

So kids are still getting credit recovery Uh, that same way at Durfee High?

I don't completely understand the question.

Outside of athletics, if a student needs to recover credit, they're doing what you just suggested.

They're still allowed to do credit.

That's what I'm saying.

That's still in existence.

That's not going away.

Correct.

It's how that impacts this— is their eligibility.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, go ahead, Mr. Corey.

I'm just curious, Dr. Stevens, is there an attendance, uh, standard that the young athletes have to aspire to as well?

Well, they have to be— um, is there an attendance standard like outside of the D4?

Yeah, are they tardy a lot?

Is there a lot of tardiness with the athletes?

Agreed.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know the exact percentage of athletes that are tardy every day, but if it's an ongoing occurrence, we have our coaches discuss it, um, and if they're missing practice, and our coaches take attendance at practice, if they're missing so many practices, they'll be removed from the team.

Not without a discussion, of course.

Yeah, not, not only in practice but also like for the, for the regular school day.

I mean, I'm, I'm hoping that— I'm really proud of Durfee Athletics, and I'm just hoping that it's a motivational factor for these young students, you know, to participate in the academic process as well as, you know, participating in sports.

Sports, right?

And I think that's what this is going to do.

This is going to clarify it better that you cannot, you know, not be eligible and then all of a sudden become eligible.

Yes.

So they, they are going to know now that they have to be, you know, they have to get the grades in order to play.

Yeah.

They just can't go back and switch it.

Good.

Thank you.

I yield.

Anything further?

I, I'm sorry, I interrupted him before he was done.

If you want to finish the presentation.

Oh, he wasn't done.

I don't think I interrupted just on that one question.

Yeah, so no, that was the major change to the, uh, handbook was just clarifying that, clarifying the credit recovery.

We're also— we're not going to allow— and we've— it's an MIAA rule that somebody can be on the team and not be eligible.

They can practice with the team, they can be with the team, but they are not allowed to play in the game.

Until the report cards come out, and if they become eligible, then they can be put on the team.

We are not going to allow that anymore.

You are ineligible to start the season, you are ineligible for the whole season.

Anything further?

Mr. Bustin.

Mr. Aguirre.

And that shows up where?

Is that in here somewhere?

That's just, um, it— yeah, that says that in the new— it says you cannot We clarify, uh, term 1 grades, Thanksgiving Day football and winter sports.

Term 2 grades, end of winter sports and beginning of spring sports.

Term 3, remainder of spring sports season.

So term 3, for an example, spring sports start the 3rd, 3rd Monday in March.

It's always the 3rd Monday in March.

We go by term 2 grades to look at eligibility.

Term 3 grades will come out the 2nd or 3rd week of April.

At that point, we're already 2 or 3 weeks into the season.

We can remove people from a team because they're all of a sudden they're ineligible now, but somebody cannot become eligible 3, 4 weeks into the season already.

Understood.

The, um, the part in here about, uh, you had mentioned this at the subcommittee and I was still trying to figure it out, the how many classes a kids can fail and some kind of rules about they're in different classes and are just a little— yeah, so we didn't include that in the new version, but, um, Mrs. Riley recommended that we put it back in, so we did.

We try to clarify the best we can, but the— it's tough to clarify because we have so many different programs at Durfee High School and we have so many different credits for different things that kids are doing.

So we have to look at how many core classes they're taking, how many elective classes they're taking, and then we look at that to determine their eligibility.

I read somewhere in here, I can't find it right now, and I'm assuming that this is the most current what we have, where I was always of the belief all these years was you can't fail 2.

You fail 2, you're okay.

Fail a 3rd, you're done.

Do we have kids that fail in more than 3 classes that still can play if they know how to juggle and— or 3 or more?

So they can.

It depends.

Like, we can have a freshman that's— because of discovery classes, a freshman could be taking like 8, 9 classes because I think that some of the discovery classes are only a couple weeks long.

So we say that you have to pass 50% of your elective classes, and depending how many core classes you're taking, you have to pass— if you're taking 4 and this is the MIA rule, if you're taking 4, you gotta pass 2.

We, we say if you're taking 5, you gotta pass 3.

So that's when— that's with the core classes.

But can you fail 3?

Is there any student at Durfee High School that's eligible to play sports that fails 3 or more classes?

Not usually.

3 is the highest.

But again, it depends on how many classes they're taking because we have a 6-period day.

But we also have classes that are short because of discovery.

They're— they could be 2 weeks long or whatever.

So it could be a freshman that has many, many classes.

So there is a scenario, but for the most part, if they're— if they have 3 Fs on their report card, they're most likely not going to be eligible.

Yeah, I, I think it— to me it's confusing.

If I was a parent, I'd probably be just as confused.

But I agree with the idea that we need to raise these standards.

And to me, having something in here that says you can only fail 2 classes no matter how many you take or whatever it is, I can't see kids failing 3 classes and, and just playing sports.

Like, how is that raising the rigor for them?

I just think, I think that's an issue that should be looked at.

This already is— I think you already told the kids this is Yeah, we— I mean, that's definitely something that we can look at.

Fall's already happening is what I guess what I'm saying.

So they're operating under last year's rules.

What's that?

The current, uh, students that are playing sports are operating under last year's rules, I'm guessing, because end of the year.

Yeah, they— to play in the fall, we go by the end of the year grades.

No, I'm saying like the handbook that we're approving is they're looking at the old one.

So technically speaking, we can't do something now We can't pull the rug out for them and change something now for the fall until you— not for the fall, the notice.

Yeah, so I'm only raising it as a suggestion that I've already met with all the teams and I've— we— I've already met, you know, I've told them all the changes that we're going to be doing.

So all the fall teams are aware of it.

Yeah, I just don't think even if we— even if you told them, I don't see how you, you pull the rug out from under somebody that's already— yeah, so that was, uh, one of my concerns there.

My last 2 comments.

One is about conduct, uh, how discipline's handled.

You know what, I've asked this in the past relative to the elementary and middle.

Is it— is the high school expectations on behavior greater or less than what we would expect out of a middle school?

Do you know?

We follow the MIA rule, but is it greater or less than a middle school?

It depends.

There are so many different scenarios, so many different things happen.

I mean, I could, I could talk to you a lot about all the different scenarios that I've had to deal with.

Well, I think that we need to— obviously for our high school, they should be more stringent and expectations should be higher than the middle school, just like the elementary school.

Middle should be higher than the elementary.

Just, that's my feedback.

The last question that was on the end of the year, uh, you know how you're eligible for the— you had mentioned about summer school.

And you can fail and then take summer school, but you're eligible.

I personally disagree with that in the idea of what you just said about the— you can't take a credit recovery and get to play.

All of a sudden now I could fail and still go to summer school, which I'm just going to say it is not really very robust.

So you could have people that said, okay, I'm going to just blow it off, fail, and then go to summer school which is not very rigorous and still be eligible to play.

To me, that's not raising, uh, the standards for our students.

Some schools that I've worked at in the past have done 4th quarter to make it equal to 1st quarter, 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, 4th quarter, that if you don't— if you pass 4th quarter, then that's what you judge for the fall.

The MIAA rule is end of the year grades, not 4th quarter.

So we can't be any more stringent than the MIAA?

I mean, a student could have a very good 4th term and then still flunk for the year because they— you know what I mean?

They could, they could get an A 4th term and get an F 1st term, 2nd term, 3rd term.

So under that scenario, if we're talking about kids that actually turn it around— so if I have a student, you have a student that says, I'm going to turn it around 4th quarter and I'm going to knock it out of the park.

I'm going to do everything.

I'm going to buckle down.

My counselor worked with me.

The principal wants me to do this.

I'm going to get it done.

If they fail for the year, you're just saying that's what MIAA says, you have to not let this kid play?

If they fail for the year, they, they will not be eligible for the fall.

But if they, if they do go to summer school and they pass summer school, they do become eligible, right?

And that's my point is I don't believe that that should be the case.

Well, I mean, I don't— Mr. Aguirre, we're, we're hurting— not— I mean, we're struggling with participation numbers as it is.

And if a kid can get up every day and go to summer school— and you, you say it's not rigorous, I don't know about that— but they are getting up every day and they're going to summer school.

I feel confident in the fact that it's not rigorous.

Well, then maybe the summer school has to be looked at, you know.

I don't know.

But they're getting up every day, they're going to summer school and they passed the class, they're looking forward to playing a fall sport.

There are some kids that, that they want to play sports.

Oh, I'm a— I'm an advocate for sports, you know that.

So at the end of the day though, I'm also an advocate of us raising the standards, and students will rise to the level of the expectations that we have for them.

I mean, I, I would like to agree with you, I really would.

I mean, but when you see the participation numbers, I think a lot of kids are opting now to just say, yeah, I just won't play.

I understand.

Do we use our summer school for graduation.

So in other words, if students have to pass a course, they pass summer school and they're able to graduate.

Is that correct?

Yes, that's what, that's what the summer graduation reflected.

So if we need to look at the programs or making sure— I'm sure there are competencies, testing benchmarks that the students need to pass in the summer.

I'm sure attendance is part of that.

So, you know, I, again, I support making sure that, that our students have a robust curriculum, opportunities.

Uh, thank you to our athletic director because I agree, we want, and I know the school committee wants the same, we're talking about students participating, being involved in programs, having an opportunity to, to recover, so, so-called.

So MIAA gives them that opportunity, correct?

Yeah.

My last comment is the, and I, we've mentioned this in the past.

Mr. Corey mentioned the tardy issue.

You know, we— you and I spoke about this one we visited.

We also have to figure out a way in at the whole school or for sports of that you can't show up and be tardy X amount of times or get dismissed.

Like, all this stuff, you have to tighten it up for those that are doing extracurricular activities because there's way too many kids coming in tardy.

We watched it ourselves, and when we sat there, I said, well, how do any of these kids play sports?

So if you— we had a rule that said you can't be tardy more than 5 times in a term and they want to play sports, guess what?

They're going to show up to school on time.

We have to look at the big picture of how do we stop these kids, you know, get these kids to show up.

And tardiness is a— I'm not— I'm preaching to the choir with that one, I know, but it's a major issue to look at and we can utilize it with extracurricular activities and the like.

The— I think sometimes kids are lax.

They start to figure out how how to work the system.

And if we allow them to work the system, you know what they're going to keep doing?

Work the system.

So I applaud you for trying to make the— it more rigorous.

And, uh, with that, I will thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Corey, I'll be brief.

Um, as you know, I worked at Durfee High School as an adjustment counselor, and there were several student athletes that were in my caseload, and I enjoyed working with all of them.

Some of them were in special needs and would— some of them were difficult learners, but they had a tremendous ability in their athletic endeavors.

And, and so I think it's incumbent upon the full supports within the high school, the counselors, the vice principals, the school teachers themselves, all working together collaboratively to drive this student forward.

And I, I I think with those motivational factors in place, we are going to bring the numbers up.

When we talk about academic standards for a talented student athlete with special needs, maybe they're going to fall short of some classes.

Maybe math is going to present a real problem for them grade-wise, but yet they excel in their sport.

We need to keep the sport participation numbers high.

And I want to— and I want to take just a moment to laud you, Mr. Boston, for getting us into Fenway Park before Thanksgiving Day.

That's a real PR for Fall River Sports right there.

That's really big, and I hope it motivates more young student athletes to participate.

At the same time, we do need to hold up their attendance numbers and their academic numbers, and I know everybody's working hard.

So I would just suggest to get the adjustment counselors rallied around those kids with those issues and talk to their parents and, and get the whole support team, you know, working collaboratively to drive that student's standards higher.

With that, I yield.

Thank you.

Um, 7.3 was the discussion and vote to approve the athletic— do we have a motion?

Roll call.

We do.

Roll call on that one?

That's fine with me.

Give it a roll call, Deb.

Mr. Agnew?

No.

Mr.

Dice?

No.

Mr. Corey?

Uh, 7-3 for student handbook?

Yes.

To accept it?

Yes.

Mr. Moniz?

No.

Miss Riley?

Yes.

Miss Stewart?

Yes.

Mayor Coogan?

Yes.

7-4 is a discussion and vote to approve the attendance policy.

As referred by the Policy Subcommittee and presented by Amy Bronhardt, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services.

Can I ask a quick question before presentation?

Sure.

Um, procedural question.

I'm just— do we have the backup in here from— never mind, all set.

Thank you.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Can I ask one question first too?

Mr. Aguilera, I see the presentation.

Is this program EDIA that I was asking about last time?

Is that just because this was— it was referenced in there from earlier?

Yeah, that would be the only word omitted.

We're not going forward with that program, not currently.

Nope.

Good, thank you.

So first and foremost, I want to celebrate and thank the Fall River Public Schools parents, students, and school communities over the last 3 years, including our tremendous attendance officer team of 7 who have led the school-based teams and attendance monitors in our efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism and increase daily attendance.

Our collective commitment to date has made a real difference in our schools, and our district has improved an impressive 12% reduction in chronic absenteeism over the last 3 years.

And many of our individual schools have shown tremendous growth in supporting students to be present and engaged every day.

And you can see that chart in your backup.

As we continue this important work, the Attendance Policy Review Committee has recommended several language updates to our attendance policy that are before you tonight.

These changes are designed to provide greater clarity and support our students and families with aligning with state law and best practice.

So some of the key updates include expanded definitions and legal requirements.

The policy adds full legal definitions from the Massachusetts law, including clarifications on child requiring assistance, truancy, and membership days, because all of that impacts chronic absenteeism and its measurement.

It reinforces that state law requires all students to attend school every day and that chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of enrolled school days, which can impact academic progress and grade advancement, as well as our students' abilities to participate in extracurriculars such as athletics, like we were just discussing.

In addition to that, we have strengthened some of the language in our health department as well as dismissal procedures.

The new language distinguishes between parent dismissals and nurse dismissals Clarifying that a nurse visit alone does not constitute an automatic excused dismissal.

The policy also adds guidance on medical documentation requirements, including a limit on not seen in office notes, which we have continued to see an increase in, as well as emphasizing collaboration between school nurses and families to support students with chronic health conditions.

Additional protections and supports: the policy recognizes that students experiencing homelessness housing instability, foster care, disabilities, or other safety concerns may need additional support and protections under federal law and state.

It commits the district to partnering with families through our MTSS procedures to be able to remove barriers and increase students' attendance at every opportunity.

And then there's practical updates.

The policy clarifies that students must be present for at least 4 hours, which represents 50% of a school day, in order to be marked present and updates procedures for making up missed work and transitions applicable to schools' daily attendance tracking.

These updates reflect our commitment to family partnership and ensuring every student has the support that they need to show up and be successful.

And as part of the recommendations from the policy subcommittee, we are moving the D4 and the D5 language to be reviewed by schools at their leadership councils early on this fall.

And if recommended, to be included in student handbooks as protocols for implementing the policy.

Are there any questions?

Mr. Diaz.

Thank you.

My first 2— I guess actually I just have one question on, um, for the superintendent.

Um, do we have data on MTSS?

As I previously previously requested.

I believe you responded stating that it may or may not be provided.

No, you did request.

It was a lot of information.

I need to work with my team, and we will do a presentation to the school committee at a later date.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I guess knowing that this concern is about to be raised, um, can we speak to the fact that this is going to— we did move this.

We recommended that D4, anything to do with, um, attendance policy, be moved to the handbook.

So are we going to run into situations where you could have a Morton Middle School have a D6 and, uh, Talbot have a D4?

Is that— no, I've actually consulted with the superintendent post that meeting, and we've discussed, um, what we will be presenting, which would only make sense in elementary handbook.

A middle school handbook, and a high school handbook to ensure consistency across all of our schools.

I yield for now.

Thank you.

I just have one, Miss Stewart.

I just want to give all the props to Green because their chronic attendance is at a 7.8, and that is just phenomenal.

And I just wanted to put that out there, like, that is absolutely amazing.

So I just wanted to give that out there.

Mr. Aguilar.

I didn't have my hand up, but I'm ready.

It looked like I was scratching my head.

Okay, but I do have a question.

Uh, I watched the meeting around the D4s, and, uh, that was one of my concerns, was moving it back, that it's not consistent.

So having the policy, everyone was following the same thing, so 7th grader at one school isn't getting treated differently than the other.

Uh, but watching it, we did— people have to come to school.

We all know that.

And unfortunately, there's things that happen where they make it more difficult for you to track it, to, you know, all of that stuff, to try to get them to understand the importance of school.

But at some point during the meeting, it was talked with the D4 policy, it was mentioned like, you— what if I'm out 10 days out of the 40 in a school, a given term, but I have an 85 average?

Or a 90 average.

Instructionally, I find that somehow to be problematic in that you could miss one quarter of the days and still get a 90 average.

I think that's something that we need to look at is whatever the rigor is for the instruction.

You really shouldn't be able to miss half of, uh, half the days, not be present for the instruction, and get a 90 average.

I, for some reason, as I was watching it, that sort of stuck out in my head that I think it's an instructional issue, not an attendance issue.

Uh, we— I did like the idea that somebody said they used the cars, the attendance cars.

I think that's something that we did years ago, which is very important.

But my last concern was on individual data that they had asked for.

So I think not about MTSS, but just about the data of who was getting the D-4s, who wasn't.

I think that's important to to get so that we can try to figure out inside policy of middle schools, elementary, what does it look like by the students.

Because, um, looking at it globally is one thing, but it's a little different when you, uh, when you look at it individually.

So I'd look forward to getting that whenever you guys can get it.

With that, I yield.

Thank you, Mr. Corey.

So, um, I want to tell— I want to say thank you so much for your work in trying drive up these numbers in that data.

I see Miss Cudo in the crowd today, and I know that we sat together on an attendance task force in years past.

And I know going back many years that the schools have always wrestled with this as an issue.

It's a, it's a chronic issue year to year to year.

So I just want to, I want to say thank you to all of the, uh, the administrative staff that takes this issue and tries to figure it out properly.

Uh, there's only so much that we all here in the schools can do.

So for the public certification, I'd just like to make an appeal to the parents who are watching this meeting to, uh, you know, make sure your kids wake up in the morning, get dressed up, and come to school.

So at this moment, I'm speaking to all the parents in our community.

We need your help greatly in order to drive our attendance figures up to where they need to be.

And I'm very pleased with the improvements that you just reported.

That, that comes through super hard work with the attendance officers and the adjustment counselors doing home visits and the social workers, you know, from other agencies working with parents to try to get their kids to come to school more regularly.

It's very hard work.

So the appeal that I make right now is to to the parents in our community, please help us by getting your child into school and getting them the proper education that they deserve.

I want to take a moment to say thank you, Dr. B, for all your hard work.

I yield.

Thank you.

Mr. Aguirre.

Just, uh, Mr. Corey, uh, brought something up that to me I've been asking for this for several years, of the status of the attendance task force.

The years ago, that was very good.

It was people in the community.

It was well done, and it, it's fallen by the wayside.

So I'd like to make a motion that we re-engage the Attendance Task Force in a similar fashion as we have in the past ASAP.

A second with a comment.

Mr. Diaz.

Thank you.

That point my colleague just brought up about the Attendance Task Force, it was asked— administration, correct me if I'm wrong— my understanding was that this was a abolished years ago.

And then more, more recently, to look at this D4 policy, there was a review committee put together to just review this.

However, I am in support.

I believe we should have something that's more robust going forward, so I'll support the motion.

I yield.

Okay, so is that an amendment to the attendance policy?

Are you referring to the Red Chair Project?

No.

What task force were you referring to?

I'm referring to the task force where we had community partners The red chair was through, I think, the Chamber of Commerce Education Committee or some kind of thing like that.

But there was an attendance task force where we had principals and administrators, attendance officers, the like.

They met, and Mr. Corey, I think, served on it at one point.

So that was a very good attendance task force where they met to go over over what is the barriers in the community, what— how— what some of the work might be being done in silos at the present time.

I'm making a recommendation we pull that task force back together and start it as soon as possible.

But is that a standalone or an add-on to, uh, 7.4?

Mr. Aguiar, you can add it on if it's just a simple— so on Mr. Aguiar's amendment to reinstitute the attendance task force, I have a motion, a second.

Any discussion on adding that back to the programs in the foreign public schools?

Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Unanimous.

Now on the attendance— I just have a quick question.

Sorry, I got 2 down there.

I'll go— I'll give, um, Miss Riley a chance first, and then you next, Dr. Stewart.

I just want to bring up a point that we discussed at policy subcommittee, that there was not a lot of data supporting that D4 worked, but rather it was the procedures that were going on in the schools that were what was making a difference.

I think we highlighted one school, I think I remember the name but I won't say it in case it's the wrong school, where there were 500 D5s and only like 2 recoveries from that.

So I think if we're going to do it, if it's going to be in the handbooks, I think it's something that needs to be measured and we need to see that it's successful.

Otherwise, I think we're actually hurting the kids who are making academic progress but missing school.

So I just want to restate that.

Thanks.

Miss Stewart, I just have a question on the attendance vehicles, the cars that we have.

How many do we have?

6.

How do we have 6 vehicles but we have 7 officers?

How does— why do, why do we do that?

That's just— well, we have 6 vehicles and 18 schools, which I think is even a better question.

Because each school would tell you they need that vehicle for arrival and for dismissal to make the world be as fluid as we need it to be.

So that, I would say, is really, really the question, because just on Monday when I met with my attendance officer team, we were already lobbying for who's going to get the car at their school and how does all of that make sense.

And so we truly put the cars at the different points across the city so that there's some representation in the South End, in the the North End.

And then there are some schools that need those cars with a little bit more regularity.

So as an example, you know, down at ELC, we have some of our kiddos who can't ride the buses yet.

And as part of their developmental plan, we start with the attendance car and then grow to get them on the buses.

We have had a car up at Stone as another example for our therapeutic school to be able to meet the needs of the students up in that neck of the woods.

And that gets utilized by Henry Lord and over at Viveris.

And so because we don't have enough cars to go across, and in looking at the distribution of the attendance officers and their schools, it's not really 100% a match to have it be connected to the officers directly.

And so we constantly keep the cars a little bit on rotation.

There are some schools that have earlier start times than others, so we would want the school— the car at the middle schools that are starting at 7:15.

And then the elementary schools, although it might not be convenient, you can go and get the car should you have a need for the car in the moment.

And so ideally we would have one for each building.

We know we can't have that happen, so we've developed some systems and we've developed some rotations for where the cars land over the course of the year.

But working with school partners, working with clerks to make sure that, hey, we're coming to get the car, can you have the key ready?

And teams do really kind of work in that way, and we've been pretty successful with that.

Who drives them?

A range of attendance officers and support staff at school Would it make sense to try to buy one, one a year?

I'm all about putting a long-term strategic plan together to increase attendance.

Thank you.

Can you help me work on that?

I will.

You're on the Strategic Planning Committee, and I feel like this is really important when we think about attendance.

You know, as we know, and it just should be noted for the community to know, we are not a taxi service, certainly, um, but we are there to help remove barriers when they arise and to work with families when intermittent issues come up.

Um, but the cars have proven to be successful.

Um, and we, you know, we had a tracker last year.

We have a tracker up and running again this year so that we can do our best to collect every interaction with the car, uh, to be able to report out on the, the use of the cars so that the school committee can see how often we are utilizing those cars.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Diaz, gonna make a motion to approve as referred with, uh, Mr. Aguiar's amendment.

Well, that was what we have now, Mr. Diaz.

So the 7-4 is a motion to vote to approve the attendance policy as amended by Mr. Aguiar.

Do I have a motion to second on that?

Deb?

Motion.

Motion.

Who is the second?

Second.

I have a motion to second.

Uh, any further discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Unanimous.

7-5.

I'd like to move 7-5 to refer back to the policy subcommittee.

Mr. Aguiar.

Is making a motion to refer 7.5, the public comment policy, back to the policy subcommittee.

Mr. Diaz, just like to ask for some direction here since we did re-refer this up already.

We're gonna— I'm fine referring it back down, but is there something we should look at specifically?

It's, uh, I would look at the language to make sure that it's clear on what we currently have versus what's recommended.

So it's a clarity of language.

I've asked for copies of pre-COVID stuff relative to this, but it's a little more complicated than doing on the fly.

So I understand.

So 7.5, we have a motion to refer back to the policy subcommittee.

I have a motion.

A second.

Second.

Any, any discussion?

Hearing none.

All in favor?

Opposed?

Unanimous.

The public comment policy goes back to policy.

7.6.

Is a discussion and vote to approve the expense reimbursement policy as referred by the policy subcommittee and presented by Colin Dyer, school committee member.

Thank you.

Um, before I present, my first question would be— this is the one where I mentioned in the— my report where the subcommittee voted to add language to this policy.

We, we had— we took the MASB base model, and what we did was refer it up and we added language that the CFO— I'm paraphrasing here— but that the CFO would create a yearly manual for reimbursement, which the CFO did, and it looks— and I'm fine with it, looks good.

However, that language should be in the policy.

I don't know who has the answer.

I did ask this ahead of time, so it's not like Not bringing it up.

So it's just not part of the policy, the second piece that we have in our backup, right?

But if you recall, we specifically said we're adding language in there that the CFO, whoever the CFO is, would create a yearly manual.

It's fine right now, we have the, um, the manual out.

Mr. Petronio made the manual.

However, if we go 5 years from now and there's just a whole new slate of people here they're not going to know in the policy unless it's stated in the policy that they have to create a manual every year.

So having that language is that the CFO will make a procedures list or manual, whatever it's called, every year.

Having that in the policy would be helpful, which we referred— that was the motion we referred up.

But I think in number 6, the annual rate adjustment, he, he's going to just use the same numbers but adjust them annually.

Is that not what you're talking about?

Right.

No, I'm not worried about this year and next year.

I'm talking about 5 years from now.

We're not gonna— I don't know, maybe Mr. Petronio won't be here, but assuming that we have a whole new team, it should be stated in the policy so that CFO knows, make a manual to hand out to staff that are going out for travel every year, which we referred— we talked about that, we referred it up, but it's not— the language isn't reflected on what we voted on.

So it should just say in the policy the CFO will adjust this yearly?

That's what we said.

So that's all it should just say?

Just adjust it to say the CFO should adjust this yearly, right?

So my point is what we referred— I'm making that motion.

Miss Stewart makes the motion to add that to Policy DKC, seconded by Mr. Diaz.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Next item, discussion and vote to approve the destruction of property policy as referred by the Policy Subcommittee.

Committee, presented by Columbine School Committee.

Same issue here as with the last one.

We made a— we added language for the $500.

I know we're going to have a debate on the $500.

However, we made the referral— when we referred it up, we made language that anything $500 and up would be reported.

The language— I don't see that within what we referred up.

So the same in red at the bottom where Where it says proposed.

Oh, okay, okay, perfect.

Um, so now I— now that that's there, I think, um, we should just have a discussion on whether we should keep it at the $500 or whether we should lower it.

I, I know I made a mo— I know I voted in the affirmative to have this be at $500 and above.

However, this isn't discipline.

Discipline will be handled at the individual schools.

This is reporting, and I believe we have an Aspen system where these things should be going in anyway, just so we have record of it.

So I don't think we should have a $500 limit.

It should pretty much be almost anything, in my opinion.

However, I think we should open that up for discussion.

I yield for my colleagues.

If, if I may, the way I understand it is, is in the system, anytime a principal needs some graffiti or any, any vandalism removed from their school, it gets entered into the system.

And what we're asking them is to add a tag in there that we can mark as vandalism as opposed to bathroom repair or whatnot.

So it'll track everything from, from power washing the side of a building to actually fixing a broken window.

So It'll be logged in that way.

So the, the damaged pipes, so there's an Aspen report already on those damaged pipes, the ones that kind of spurred this, the ones that we've talked about, Deputy?

There's probably a report, but we need to— I'm going to have it built into the system.

So there's a either a drop-down box when you choose what you're— why you're logging in, the repair you need, why it's there.

Was it wear and tear or was it vandalism?

You know, we'll track it in the system that way.

I believe someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe I asked for any reports on that.

We don't— we don't have it yet.

My— yeah, I put in my notes to get this, get this created, so we don't have it yet, but it's something we want to add to it, right?

So I believe we should maybe modify the language to kind of say— because the language that we referred up doesn't match what you're saying because we put the $500 buffer.

So the language that you're saying is that I don't even know if it needs to even be in the policy.

However, I think the point is we want staff to have record of damaged property.

I'm not sure that's something that's happening right now across the district, but I think that's the point of why we even brought up this issue, right?

The way I understood the discussion was we originally said $500 or more, and then we'll keep a separate logbook.

Then we said we don't need to do all that.

We can just modify the current system we have in place so no matter what the cost is, it just gets coded as vandalism.

So you actually see if there's 30 reports in one year, you'd see all 30 reports, what school, where they were.

There might not be a dollar value in there, but at least you'll see graffiti, you'll see broken window, you'll see whatever the incident was.

Are you talking the Incident IQ?

Yes.

Yes.

I yield for now.

Mr. Aggio.

So we have Incident IQ, I think, for technology, but maintenance, we don't have Incident IQ.

Yes, we're working with them right now.

Um, it will be open by October 1st as we get PD for all custodians and supervisors of the custodial staff.

We had a meeting today on it, um, with technology.

We also have a meeting tomorrow where, um, that I'm involved with and Zooming with Um, IncidentIQ.

Um, I can't remember, Leon, who is our— yeah, that's news to us.

And we had a long debate over Brightly, which was SchoolDude, and we spent over $100,000 on a system that we said was going to work perfect that's not working perfect.

Now we're going to change to IncidentIQ and no one's going to tell the school committee?

That's not acceptable.

The looking at what we have here before us says the district will keep track of any damages over the amount of $500 and have it recorded.

I think what you— what I just heard you guys say is you're going to record them all and people need to owe it if they owe.

If it's an $87, uh, piece or something like that, then you go after restitution on it.

If a student loses a book and there's a policy that says you lose a book, you owe us the money for the book.

Why would we put $500 in here?

It should be the same.

The incident that we're talking about is back in the spring.

Yeah, Mr. Diaz was looking through, which he does thoroughly, the build schedules.

There was one for a pipe that broke because an elementary school student jumped up and he broke it.

Mr. Diaz asked the question, what is the process here of something like that?

He asked the question of the administration and said, because I was on the email, and it said, what is the resolution of this with the principal?

Did this student get it written in their X2?

And what was— what went on with it in general?

Not about the kid's name, about we got a bill now in front of us.

The answer we got back was they didn't even put it in the computer.

So there's like a double— in my opinion, there's 2 sides of this.

Anything that gets damaged needs to go into the system that you're going to work on In addition, if a student vandalizes any property, they need to go in X2, whether it's called vandalism, horseplay, something, so that it's acknowledged that the expectations are you don't damage property, you don't pop keys off of a Chromebook and just— we're going to give you another one.

Here in Fall River, we just give away— oh, you broke it?

So what?

Here's another one, here's another one.

And there's a Chromebook policy for Chromebooks, but if a student wants to jump up and break a pipe and we have to pay for it, families should have to pay for it, and it should get documented and tracked.

That's my only thing.

So I think what you're asking for is to make a motion to approve this without the $500 figure, and you're going to track them all.

Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes.

So moved.

Second.

I have a motion, a second on item number 7.7.

Any further discussion on the vandalism policy?

Hearing none, all in favor?

Opposed?

Unanimous.

7.8 is a discussion and vote to refer the Civil Law Enforcement Act.

Motion to refer as presented by Dr. Smith.

I have a motion to refer to Policy Subcommittee.

I have a motion to refer to Policy Subcommittee.

Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a motion, a second on referring this to the Policy Subcommittee.

Any discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Civil law goes to policy.

7.9 is discussion and vote to approve the Associate Director of Human Resources as presented by Dr. Christine Godino, Executive Director of Human Resources.

You're up, Dr. Godino.

Talked about many times, we are in need in expanding the human resources department, so we're looking to hire an associate director.

This person will primarily work closely with me on recruiting, recruiting and hiring.

And as I've stated before, retention is a huge piece.

I know Assistant Superintendent Raposo has taken on a great deal of these duties in terms of MTEL preparation courses, finding pathways for our paraprofessionals professionals to become teachers, our teachers to advance.

That really needs to come back to the Human Resources Department because certainly he has many duties that he needs to attend to.

We also need to look at someone to help with the investigations in the department, and there are many reasons, as we've presented to you over the past few months, about why this position is invaluable.

To the district.

Mr.

Chair, Mr. Corkery.

So, Dr. Gordino, so yeah, we've been talking about retention for years and years and years.

So would this position try to affect positive change as far as teacher retention is concerned?

Absolutely.

I think that's such a key piece of this, and I've also had, um, you know, brief conversations with Jay Correa, with the mentoring program about how we can coordinate and work together to really look at that piece.

I think there is a lot of work to do in that area, and it's time-consuming, but I think it's extremely important to the district.

And what about trying to incubate through recruitment, like at the local universities?

Absolutely.

Bridgewater, UMass Dartmouth, BCC, the like, Rhode Island College, those kinds of places.

Would you be sending a recruitment officer to those schools to see what— Yes, and a lot of that is reaching out, and I know people here have been doing that work, but having student teachers come in, really making sure we get those student teachers in and keeping those student teachers once they graduate.

There are a lot of different angles at which we can look at this in a lot of different ways, and I think we really need to focus on that in another— this associate director would help us do that.

You mentioned something about the paraprofessionals.

In the past, yes, we had a program called the JET program, and that was aimed at the paraprofessionals getting their credits so they could— my mother was a paraprofessional, and she said, if I only had that degree.

She said, I'm doing the same work as the schoolteacher in the room.

And we have that now, you know, to assist— Superintendent Raposa has worked on developing that, and we need to continue to work on that and grow that.

So do you see positive outcomes coming from this potential appointment for an assistant director?

Yes, absolutely.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

I yield.

Mr.

Chair, Ms. Stewart, during the budget season, we gave your department money.

Is this for that position?

It's some.

This position is more than that.

I think it's $70,000 that was allotted to this position.

In this position, the range is $125,000 to $150,000.

Yeah, okay, gotcha.

Thank you.

It doesn't even say that on the ad.

Second page.

Mr. Hagia, I think in the job description it should say what, um, at the end, any other duties or something like that.

Um, yeah, it does.

It's the last bullet.

It says complete all other related duties and responsibilities as assigned by the Executive Director of Human Resources.

Okay.

The other thing is the format of this is different than others where there's required, uh, requirements and then preferred.

So everything in the qualification says preferred, and then it says later if the superintendent intends to waive one, but there's no requirement, so you can't waive— you know, I think that's just a form issue.

Usually there's a heading that says preferred qualifications and then required qualifications as 2 separate.

All of the ones under qualifications say preferred, so I think this position needs to be a human resource person first and an education person maybe not even ever, or a second.

And I don't know, by reading this, looking at— even though it says preferred supervisor, director's license or whatever, I feel the need is we need a human resource person.

We don't need somebody that has been working in a school before.

They're a supervisor, director, they're a vice principal, they were this, they were that.

We need a human resource specialist.

Well, I actually would disagree with you on that, and for several reasons.

A lot of work that we have to do is, um, in evaluation, and I think we've talked about that in the past, supervision and evaluation.

We need a lot of work to do on that.

That has to be through an educator.

I think when we're recruiting and retaining teachers, it's absolutely important that you have an educational background because you have to know the scope of the jobs, what they look like, what an elementary school looks like, how you would fit into our educational system.

Educational system, I think it would be a disservice just to hire a human resource person without any educational experience.

Well, we have been told over the years that we have all of those folks that you're mentioning already working for us.

So my problem with this is that we already were told that we have people that have been doing the evaluation, hired specifically for that, raises given specifically for that.

All the things that you're mentioning, that we've been told in the past we have all these people that we currently have doing all this work.

What we don't have is the piece of true HR stuff, not getting clouded by school, just strict HR, like you said, investigations, complaints, this, that.

We've been told otherwise.

So I can appreciate what you're saying, but I've sat here for years being told opposite what you're saying because You're saying we need all this stuff, it's so important.

That means it's not happening.

Yes, so that means it's not happening, at least not to a degree that we would want it to be.

There's a professional in the HR office focused on educator evaluation.

That has happened in the past.

Yes, that's what we've been told, that that's their only purpose, was we need to give this person X amount of dollars and we need to give them a raise for specifically evaluation.

Oh, oh.

Okay, so that's setting up, that's setting up the, uh, the forms and the process.

It's not, um, it's not content, and it's somebody who works in TeachPoint in the database.

It's a database person who works on that.

All I can tell you is what we've been told.

Okay.

And at the end of the day, we make judgments based on a salary, on positions based on what administrators are telling us.

And that's what we've been told, that this person was the evaluation person.

I'm for this.

I, you know that I'm for it.

I want to be for the HR department.

But what I don't want to have is just consistently having that same thing happen where we have like school, school department generalists and not necessarily specifically skilled HR folks.

That's my only concern.

You are going to determine with the superintendent who you hire.

I'm just hoping that when you put something here, we don't list the job description in such a way that a real, uh, experience with credentials for running HR type stuff wouldn't apply because of the way we write it.

That's my only concern.

And I said it before you actually got hired, I said same type of thing because we, we posted it almost like as if you needed an assistant superintendent license.

So then we had people who were interested that were very knowledgeable about negotiations, about, uh, you know, investigations, collective bargaining, all that didn't even apply because the resume, the job description was so heavy on school licensure stuff.

That's my only concern.

Well, I would say, you know, someone would a superintendent's license would be very versed in negotiations and contracts and things like that because you're part of the negotiation, you're part of negotiations.

You would think, but it doesn't— it's not automatic, I guess, is my point.

We actually have people that would— you could be running an HR firm for a Fortune 500 company or something like that, that you don't have any of those things about being a superintendent, but you could come in and help us with HR.

So I think we've been just focused too heavily on educators.

I'm in favor of this.

I just thrown out the feedback that we have to try to, um, we get— we need some more people in there that are more experienced than what we have, that are going to be able to, to lead us in the right way so that we're not going down roads and having a million different things going on and not being done.

But when we talk about evaluation, trust me when I tell you, and you can look back to the records, we were told that we have a person-specific specifically for evaluations.

And if that's not happening, shame on anybody that told us that.

Mr.

Chair, with that I yield.

Mr. Corey, then Mr. Diaz.

Yeah, just to follow up, um, no, I'm excited about the potential in a position like this.

And I know that, uh, teacher recruitment I think is down nationally.

I think it's a trend, a national trend.

So given the reduced numbers in teacher recruitment, then we have to work doubly hard to try to recruit the best and brightest that we can bring in to our district and think very selfishly along those lines.

So would, like, potential ideas be to maybe have job fairs, work with the local jobs councils in the community to see what's hanging out there, you know, the low-hanging fruit that might be available, maybe an extra job fair, maybe not one a year but maybe 2 a year, and strategically timed to, to maybe grab a kid coming out of school, or maybe when a kid's doing their internship in school, that maybe we can start talking to them, maybe try to attract them into our district.

Because even 15 years ago when I was at Durfee High School, we had a dearth of math teachers.

Teachers, and it wasn't good.

There were several math classes that were hurting for teachers.

So this is a long-standing issue.

It's not anything that's new.

Yes, I agree.

And there are a lot of different avenues we can go down— early college, you know, a teaching path.

There are a great many things we can look into.

Yeah.

So I mean, I'm excited by all that prospect.

Thank you.

Motion to approve.

Second.

I have a motion.

Second.

Mr. Diane said Had a question.

So my concern is, and this is the second time we've done this with a position, that we're putting the cart before the horse.

Specifically, we already have in our policies is either the assistant superintendent or one of the positions, or it's the— your position that serves as the Title IX investigator, and we have not touched that policy yet.

So my question would be, and now that we're deferring that away, how many Title IX investigations have we had in the district in the past year?

Do we know a ballpark?

I do not.

5, 10?

I do not know.

That's something we can get.

Sure.

Okay.

Um, can I just point a clarification to the question, Mr. Aguilar?

Did you mention that This position is going to be the Title IX coordinator.

I'm just trying to— investigator right here, Kev.

Okay, but they're not in charge of it, like, so just serve as the investigator and participate as a— I'm reading that as a— so the Title IX person in charge, if that's you, that's going to be Dr. Godino, still going to be you.

Yes, this person could.

So I don't see— I don't read that as, uh, they will be the person.

So it's not taking away anything from your job description.

You're just going to have a resource under you, like sometimes you have to do now if somebody's conflicted, a principal has to do it.

And so we have multiple Title IX investigators, but one person in charge would be her job description if it's in there.

That's not changing.

Are you— is it the HR director or is it the assistant superintendent?

Because I know the assistant superintendent has some role.

I— is— are you the— there are many people that can do Title IX investigations.

Negotiators in the district.

But who's the coordinator?

Are you the coordinator or the assistant superintendent is my question?

I'm the coordinator.

Okay.

Um, yeah, like I said, I think just, just want to verify that within policy.

So that's my only concern with this.

I do agree, like, with the need that the superintendent has shared is that we need to strengthen that office to support us happen, but it's just— I think there's some things that we need to clarify first.

I yield.

All right, I have a motion.

A second?

May I just clarify one thing?

Dr. Codino mentioned one salary, and on the actual job description here it says $110,000 to $140,000.

So I don't know if what you have there is— I just want to make sure.

Mine's the updated one, so I don't know if you have— the one I got in the book today says $110,000 to $140,000.

That's an old job description.

Okay, so it's $125,000 to $150,000.

I like the $110,000.

Yes, and that's a range.

Okay, I have a motion and second.

Can I ask why we don't have that?

I mean, it's— I don't know why you don't have that.

When was it changed?

Quite some time ago.

Anything further on 7.9, the Associate Director of Human Resources?

Do I have a motion?

A second?

Deb, you do.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Opposed.

Opposed.

Okay, let's call a roll on that then.

Let's do it the right way.

Deb, please call the roll.

Mr. Aguirre?

Yes.

Mr. Diaz?

No.

Mr. Corey?

Yes.

Mr. Moniz?

No.

Miss Riley?

No.

Miss Stewart?

No.

Mayor Coogan?

Yes.

It fails.

Make a motion that we approve $110,000 to $140,000.

Second.

Okay, um, Mr. Aguiar made a motion to change the salary to $110,000 to $140,000.

We'll not change it.

This is what we've had all along.

That's what I had.

That's what I said when it came up.

Um, $110,000 to $140,000.

I have a second on that?

Roll call.

Yes, Miss Riley.

I have a second on Miss Riley.

Okay.

Yes, uh, the same job description with a new salary of $110,000 to $140,000.

Deb, call the roll please.

Mr. Agnew?

Yes.

Mr. Diaz?

No.

Mr. Corey?

Yes.

Mr. Moniz?

No.

Miss Riley?

Yes.

Miss Stewart?

Yes.

Mayor Coogan?

Yes.

7:11.

Last item on the Committee of the Whole is a discussion and potential vote on the hiring process for the administrative assistant to the school committee.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Aguilar, I'd like to make a motion that notwithstanding the following policies— GCE, GCF, GDE, and GDF— that the position of school committee executive secretary will report to, be hired by, and be supervised by the school committee.

Second.

Can you just briefly tell me how that's going to work, Mr. Aguirre?

How the, how the supervision is going to work on a daily basis, just so I have an idea what you're talking about?

I believe if this motion goes through, then we have to discuss that secondarily, like how is it going to be that we're going to supervise.

Yeah, but we can't do it until we actually say that this first part.

So be happy to answer that, or somebody can make a motion to that effect once it's It's approved.

I don't even know what all those policies were either, though.

You said about 4 of them.

You didn't study the policy, Manny?

No, I did not.

I'm sorry.

I'll apologize to you.

So what this is, is based on Attorney Spadafore had mentioned that there's some— a few policies that might look at whether this is— in the past, we've had this secretary report directly to us, so those policies are such that If we don't make this motion, we'd have to go through individually with all of those.

So those policies are going to get referred at some point to the policy subcommittee to be worked on with Attorney Spadafore to go through them.

But for tonight's vote, we have to basically waive those rules to make sure that this is going to be done for us because of the timing of— we need to have a secretary.

And the mayor— the attorney is here if you'd like to have her update the concerns that she shared with the committee and shared with me.

Yeah, you want to, you want to give us how this is going to work there, uh, Attorney Spatterford, please?

Good evening.

So, uh, the request was made whether or not the position could be adjusted.

I understand the job description may have already been adjusted.

But that the position be posted in such a way that it would report directly to the school committee rather than to the superintendent.

Legally, there is a statute, Chapter 71, Section 36, that requires the school committee to appoint a clerk.

However, much like all— a lot of other statutes that require the school committee to appoint certain positions in addition to the superintendent, there are ways to— or there are districts that accomplish that requirement by having that position report up through the superintendent, as Fall River has done.

There are also districts who have the school committee administrative assistant report directly to the school committee.

Legally, if you want to do that, I think the statute allows you to do that.

However, as Mr. Aguiar said, there are 4 policies.

I don't remember the type titles offhand, Mayor, but I can tell you they— 2 of them deal with the hiring and evaluation of professional staff, and 2 of them deal with the hiring and evaluation of not— of support staff.

And essentially what those policies say is that the hiring and evaluation of those staff is the sole discretion of the superintendent for district-wide positions, and then the principal for school-based positions.

So those policies would prohibit at this point the school committee from making a position report directly to the school committee.

So Mr. Aguiar is right, if there's a 2/3 support to waive those policies, you could proceed, and then those policies would have to be revisited and adjusted at the next meeting.

I did share that there are some other statutes because of the Educational Reform Act of 1993, all hiring was intended to flow through the superintendent of schools.

So there are other statutes like MGL Chapter 71, Section 42 and Section 42D, which deal with the discipline and dismissal of staff members that vest that authority solely with the superintendent.

So if in the off chance we ever end up in a situation where the staff member would have to be disciplined or dismissed I do have concerns that the school committee has the authority to do that.

I think the superintendent would only have the authority to do that.

That said, hopefully we don't hit those circumstances.

I did share some concerns I have about operational ideas, but from a strictly legal standpoint, that's the process by which, Mayor, that you could accomplish what has been stated by Ms. DiAguiar and others to have this position report directly to the school committee, which I understand was the model in Fall River prior to the last decade.

And there's multiple cities or towns that do it, correct?

I'm aware of— exactly, I'm aware of Cambridge, Framingham, Worcester, and Boston.

And MASC was consulted by me as well as you, and they said that this is doable?

It's legal, yes.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair.

Oh, okay, Mr. Corey.

So, Attorney, uh, it's about a force, so I'm just trying to figure it out.

Um, the proposal here gives the school committee jurisdiction over the hiring, firing over the assistant, uh, the executive assistant.

Is that what it is?

That's the intention, I believe, of Mr. Aguiar's motion, is to waive those policies such that it would permit the school committee to hire and supervise an administrative assistant.

As I've stated, I'm not sure legally the school committee has the authority to discipline or dismiss that position.

I think that solely rests with the superintendent, but you can legally hire and supervise so long as your policies don't prohibit it.

So I, I know just from past experience, uh, previous to the executive assistant we have in Ms. Cabral.

She's been with us for a real long period, but previous to her tenure, we were going through— we were jumping through hoops to hold on to an executive assistant, and it was a tough position to fill.

Those are my concerns as far as this proposal is raised.

Uh, so thank you.

I just wanted to know.

I yield.

Anybody have anything further?

I, I, I just don't know how this is going to work.

I don't see how the 7 of us are going to have a handle on— I don't know what Miss Cabral does all day long, um, and I don't know what the next person's going to do all day long, and I don't know what's going to happen when, um, one of us says we got to get rid of her.

And we get a vote, it's 4 to 3, 5 to 2 to get rid of her, and we can't even get rid of her.

Am I reading what you said wrong?

Yes, with the clarification we're not talking about Miss Cabral.

Okay.

No, I mean anybody.

Yeah, you know what I don't understand?

Again, I've been in a number of districts, you're aware of that, large districts similar to Fall River, and it should be a collaborative process with the superintendent and the school committee.

Superintendent is the day-to-day person when somebody comes into the office as far as their attendance, their vacation, their oversight.

And I don't understand why it can't be a collaborative process.

It would appear that if that's the case, an executive assistant to the school committee along with the executive assistant to the superintendent— we're talking again about working together collaboratively, cross-training.

You know, I would be opposed obviously to this type of a structure, because I, I don't understand why this is coming about when it feels like it's been a collaborative process.

Mr.

Chair, are you done?

I, I guess I am.

Okay.

Mr. Diaz, motion to move the question.

Uh, motion to move the question.

Do I have a second on the motion to move the question?

Second.

I have a motion, second.

That's a 5-person vote.

Right, huh?

Yeah, Deb, call the roll.

Mr. Aguiar?

Yes.

Mr. Diaz?

Yes.

Mr. Corey?

No.

Mr. Moniz?

Yes.

Miss Riley?

Yes.

Miss Stewart?

No.

Mayor Coogan?

No.

Motion fails.

Motion fails.

Mr. Aguiar?

Yeah, it's unfortunate that, uh, we're trying to have this conversation in a public meeting, and I can't really give my— I've given it privately to the superintendent, to Ms. Spadafore, to the deputy, relative to the why we are in the situation that we're in.

Out of respect for the individuals that are here, I'm going to choose not to go down that road because there's definitely enough of an argument to be made for why we need to do this differently than we've done it for the last 8 years.

You know it.

Superintendent knows my feeling.

Deputy knows my feeling.

They've— many members of this committee have voiced the same exact thing.

But we want to have this discussion in an open session, which is unfortunate and unfair.

But at the end of the day, rest assured that in my opinion, we need to do this so that we can have our own person that works for the school committee like we've had for 25 years prior to— or more than 25 years prior to the last 6 or 8.

It worked before.

It worked for a long time.

We had long-term people in these roles.

It worked before and it can work again.

Saying that, oh, it's not going to work is not— to me, the proof is in the pudding that it's not working.

There's certain things that the school committee needs to get done statutorily as well as what we expect, and they're not getting done under the current setup.

That's the reason why this is here.

So I urge my colleagues to support this motion, and then we can make other motions, so be it, relative to who's going to supervise or how we're going to work this process.

But at the end of the day, make no mistake, I'm not going to go down and air out all of our concerns in a public meeting.

Superintendent's aware of my concerns, deputy's aware of my concerns, Attorney Spadafore is aware of my concerns.

Concerns.

I urge you to please support this so we can move forward.

Yeah, but what it feels like, Kevin, is vote for this and we'll fix it later.

I, I don't see how 7 people can supervise someone in a building that none of us work in.

Um, I, I just see the day-in, day-out workflow that she puts out, and, uh, I think, I think whatever your concern about the person in that position now I think she does a great job, but that's just my opinion.

We have all different opinions up here.

So then one person supervises— the chair supervises her, the vice chair supervisor, then Kevin supervises her, though whoever the person that comes in— one, only one person gets to supervise because there's no way all of us are going to be able to supervise.

So then I say that Kevin does it.

But Miss Stewart, if she works for all of us and let's say Kevin's the supervisor.

What if you don't like her and he loves her?

That's what I'm saying.

You, you, the 7 of us are going to have an opinion no matter who supervises her.

That's how I look at it.

I mean, you can say, gee, I, I know Paul Coogan's our secretary.

Miss Stewart says I hate him.

Kevin says I love him, which I know he'd say any minute.

But at the same time, what do you do, Mr. Diaz?

So I, I think And, and I think the point of this motion was to discuss this next.

I think what I'm assuming would be, uh, something that would be acceptable is the attorney just said we cannot discipline or supervise this employee.

We're talking about day-to-day supervision, so making sure that if there's any tasks that the school committee has in terms of subcommittees, things like that, that we have a point person that is in charge of communicating with the secretary on a day-to-day basis, making sure minutes are done, making sure there's requests for information or whatever the topic is.

So it wouldn't be anything to do with disciplining, and it wouldn't do— have anything to do with hiring.

That's a decision that will be made by the school committee.

The vote that we're taking now, the way I understand it— Attorney Spadafore, correct me if I'm wrong— is so that we as a school committee have say in the hiring process so the superintendent can't go behind our back and hire someone for this position.

Um, and then secondly, we would then take a vote to appoint, which would— I would vote to appoint the vice chair as that site person, that, that point person to communicate on that day— daily level of supervision.

And it wouldn't even be daily, but just to be that communications person.

I think It's like you said, it's been done in other districts, makes sense.

Would that— so a slight correction, it's not just to hire, but it is to supervise and evaluate.

You said we're not going to supervise.

No, I, I, I said we are going to supervise.

I misspoke.

But we're not going to discipline or fire.

We're not, we're not statutorily allowed to according to, um, what Attorney Spadafore is saying.

But it's just more of hiring and having that point person just to over— just to have oversight on that day-to-day.

It's my understanding.

Am I correct?

I think the motion that's on the floor is to waive 4 policies such that you can entertain this discussion, right?

Exactly.

So we're— this is to have that discussion, and then I, I think we're gonna— I'm assuming we're gonna come to some sort of consensus on that.

But thank you.

I yield.

So in the city, in the city of Fall River, city council president actually supervises the people that work under him, the secretary and the assistant secretary.

No different than what we're trying to do here.

It's already being done in the 6th floor in Government Center, and there's no real reason why we can't do the same thing.

It's, it's, it makes sense, and mark my words, it's gonna, it's gonna work, and it's gonna work better than it is now.

We're not going to have backlogs.

To have what we need to get done so that the work of this individual is only going to be school committee related, not anything else anybody's making her do, having her do, or anything like that.

It's school committee work only.

And that's why this has to be reported like this.

This was never an issue when people were in that role when this was the actual protocol.

We were never backlogged.

We never had open meeting law complaints.

We never had any of those things that were— that are happening now.

Those will be avoided because this person needs to do what they need to do just on school committee.

A current person is getting pulled in various different directions.

School committee only, that's what the motion is.

Mr. Aguirre, I agree with you that this is not the place to do this in public, but what I will say to everybody, I've been here since May 1st.

I've worked very closely with the administrative assistant.

We are a team.

There are times when you have to step in when somebody has stepped out on my team to support each other.

The amount of meetings and minutes— and, and we're working very hard to make sure you all have the information that you need to make the decisions.

So I am going to sit here and I'm going to say that the administrative assistant has done an excellent job.

I've told you I've been in a number of districts.

I'm very pleased to have had the opportunity, and I know this isn't the place to do this, and I really apologize.

So you make your decisions.

We will do the very best we can.

But make no mistake about it, as far as this administrative assistant, she has worked hard every single day, comes to work every single day, works as a team, continues to support our school committee members.

I thought Attorney Spadafore said this wasn't going to be about our current secretary.

Now you're making it about her.

This has nothing to do with her, Mr. Aguilar.

It sounded like you were talking about things were not getting done because that's a fact.

Person was doing— all right, all right, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

I apologize.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

So on roll call— well, hold on, that's what I said.

We're back on the motion to waive the policies.

Mr. Aguirre, could you read them again just so I know?

I'm sorry.

GCE, GCF, GDE, and GDF.

On the motion to waive those policies For school committee supervision and hiring over the administrative assistant.

Deb, uh, do we have a— we have a motion to second that?

We do.

Deb, call the roll on that, please.

Mr. Aguiar?

Yes.

Mr. Diaz?

Yes.

Mr. Corey?

No.

Mr. Moniz?

Yes.

Miss Riley?

Yes.

Miss Stewart?

Yes.

Mayor Coogan?

No.

Motion passes.

Motion passes.

Next item up on the agenda, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Diaz.

So we, we do need to have— this was just to waive the discussion.

I mean, to waive some— we need to have a discussion on what the process is going to be, um, the interview process, um, eventually the person who's going to appoint.

So I'd like to make a motion that evaluation subcommittee be charged with evaluating potential candidates to bring forward to the full committee, um, bring forward finalists to the full committee for discussion.

Yeah, that's fine.

Uh, yeah, I don't have a problem with the evaluation subcommittee.

Well, let's get the ad out.

Let's let the evaluation subcommittee sit down with the candidates first.

That's fine with me.

So that's a form of a motion.

Someone second it?

Okay, I have a motion and second on the evaluation subcommittee hiring them, uh, handling the hiring of the new administrative assistant.

Uh, Deb, call the roll please.

Mr. Agam.

Yes.

Mr. Diaz.

Yes.

Mr. Corey.

No.

Mr. Moniz.

Yes.

Miss Riley.

Yes.

Miss Stewart.

Yes.

Mayor Coogan.

Yes.

Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Diaz, one final motion.

I would like— just going back to the discussion that we had— in the event that we do appoint someone, um, to be our next administrative assistant, I'd like to make a motion that the vice chair be the main point of contact for the committee in terms of supervision.

I think we should look at the candidates first.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Uh, I don't, I don't— I think that— all right, we gotta vote.

That's what it is.

We have a motion.

I don't agree with that one, but go ahead on making the vice chair the direct supervision of the, uh, new administrative assistant.

Mr. Iga.

Yes.

Mr. Diaz.

Yes.

Mr. Corey.

No.

Mr. Moniz.

Yes.

Miss Riley.

Yes.

Miss Stewart.

Yes.

Mayor Cooley.

No.

Now let's get to the grants on page 7.

Um, we have a number of grants, entitlement grants.

I do have a hold.

Just give me— which one, uh, Mr. Dyson?

I have 2 holds.

Early College and— excuse me one second.

Sorry.

Early College and the one of the, um, MLL grants.

I believe it's, um, FY FC 10 182, as it's labeled on the backup.

It's the, um, FC 182, Strengthen ESL Programming and Services.

I don't see that one, Miss FC.

That's on the— it's on the next grants.

It's on the bottom.

Oh, let's do the entitlement grants first.

Oh, on the top grants, the entitlement grants.

The only one you want to hold on the entitlement one is the last one, early college support.

Yes.

All right, so can I get a motion, a second on it?

Second.

All in favor of accepting the other grants except for the whole?

You want to vote or you want to— I just want to make a comment on what we're voting on.

Okay, go ahead, Mr., um, just— there's a lot of, uh, grants here.

We're talking $12, $13 million.

And, uh, Title I and all the, you know, all of these grants.

I know they're entitlement grants, but I don't see in the back— I, I see the applications in the backup.

I think we should get some sort of, uh, summary moving forward.

I'm going to vote to approve these today, and I'm not suggesting there's anything going wrong with them, but we, we need to get a big picture of what, what's in here, what's not.

We have a new CFO.

I'm sure he's going to be intimately involved in this.

I always have questions on what is in the grant that's actually in the budget to make sure that they are speaking to each other.

I'm not suggesting that they're not, but it— this is a lot to just approve in one fell swoop without presentation.

So moving forward, I'd like to get either a one-pager on each one and some sort of additional backup, but I am going to support these.

All right, I yield.

Any further discussion on the ones to approve?

There's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Hearing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Unanimous.

Mr. Diaz on FC0460, Early College.

Thank you.

So I, I— the reason I want to place a hold on this, which will make it clear I'm in full support of dual enrollment and early college as a whole, um, with the way we do it here and without giving going into the nitty-gritty.

I have some questions on either the stipends and just the evolution of the program from dual enrollment to how it's morphed into today.

I've also asked for information from one of the early college partners, UMass Dartmouth, and I've been stonewalled.

I did speak with the superintendent today indicating my concerns, and superintendent indicated she had no issue with referring this to the subcommittee for presentation.

We do have an instructional subcommittee that's Instructional and Early College, so I'd like to make a motion to refer this to Instructional Early College.

Second.

Question?

Motion to refer to early— to instructional subcommittee?

Yes, it's Instructional and Early College.

Mr. Corey, would this hold up?

Can we make a— yeah, can I have Mr. Woodward please?

Please, um, comment on that if possible.

Mr., uh, go ahead, Mr. Wilbur.

Sure.

So the, the constitution of, uh, this grant is to support, um, teacher stipends, uh, during the part of the day where students are enrolled in the early college program.

Uh, so that's the last 2 periods of the day.

So teachers on their prep period, uh, for the most part are working, um, either in support classes or at support, uh, support teachers with early, with early college professors or providing academic tutoring.

And we need that support ongoing through the semester to support our outcomes.

So I would just ask, if possible, if the committee could, uh, vote to approve this grant while allowing for us to do a deeper dive at the subcommittee.

If I may add, Mr.

I'll defer to Mr. Raposo first.

I did actually request today as well.

I spoke to the superintendent and emailed Miss Cabral.

We have a few items.

I was hoping to have an instructional subcommittee potentially in mid-October.

What early college update was going to be one of the items along with an after dark program, and we would ask our partner to come to that meeting, which you know could be Miss Dr. Almeida potentially from UMass Dartmouth.

So, um, you know, I, I did reach out to try to set up a meeting and, and have an update and a presentation at that time.

Mr. Mayor, can I respond since I brought the issue?

You did, and then you go, and then Mr. Corey, go ahead.

Yeah.

Oh, thank you.

So I guess my question would be, what's the rush on, on approving this?

So I, I for one have— if I may, it does not, it does not go favorable with the state when you, when you hold on a entitlement grant.

They press us to get them filed right away.

They look at it as though we don't need the funds and then they could not award us the funds if we don't move expeditiously on them.

We constantly get advisement emails, especially on the title grants, on the IDA grants.