1.13.2025 Fall River School Committee

I'd like to call to order the Monday January 13th uh regular meeting of the Fara school committee Deb would you please call the role Mr AG here Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory here miss ly here miss Pereira here mayor kugan here salute to the flag please I pled alleg 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 the perceived or UNP perceived by those present and are deemed knowledged and permissible um we have no recognition Awards tonight so we're going to go straight to student

comment um Brook go first bookus dery so I wanted to start off by mentioning that dery boys and girls basketball teams both won their respective skip carum tournaments over the holiday break and then um there's F frps 8th grade visits to dery happening over the course of the upcoming next two weeks um from from all five of the middle schools where students will get a feel for dery high

school and will receive tours from upper classmen and then I've I've been selected to go to the healthy youth Summit which will take place for the full day on February 18th in the convention center in Boston and will include panel discussions with with the lieutenant governor and youth leaders as they discuss teamwork respect and overcoming challenges with your team or friends breakout Workshop where you

late June so thank you for that um students have also expressed um their desire for our new gym new gym floors as the current ones um are not in good conditions they're pretty bumpy lastly we wanted to emphasize the urgency on completing the culinary kitchens um students have earned their serca food handler certificate and are eager to practice in the kitchen they were promised and we'd like to inquire

as to when the kitchen will be finished for student use Mr Das thank you um and um great um comments um one thing um regarding the fire if we have um any information on any way we can like help individually that can be passed um to the committee um that I would love to help individually and in regards to um the student comment and I think it's amazing that we have this in the student deleg

because I think we should um consider also expanding it to Stone and um as well as to the middle school and elementary schools as well I'd love to hear from the entire District thank you a Mr chairman Mr Corey I just want to congratulate both students for their comments tonight and uh as far as your concerned going to Boston for the uh youth conference I want to wish you well be part of the panel discussion open

your mind open your heart share your thoughts and that's excellent growth so good luck with that wish you all the best thank you thank you Mr Cory Mr chairman Mr agar would ask the superintendent to uh respond to the issue of uh that the young lady just mentioned about the kitchen being ready for the students I know I emailed earlier today about it so I'm sure you have something to share with the public

uh I know we had a January 30th hard date as what I submitted but I'm sure you could shed some light on it thank you we do know that by um the February 1st we are expecting um delivery and that it will take um one day of work um to get that to get it turned over so at February 1st at the latest is when we're expecting delivery and so I would expect

that by the next day that the um the two items will be installed in the meantime there are elements to the space that can be utilized um and so we can so it's safe it's safe for use for what is available but there are some pieces that are missing and and so the plan at this point is to meet at the school with the principal and the teacher um Mr Pico

and myself so that we can review what is available but we expect that by uh February 2nd it will be ready for full use Mr chair Miss PR so I was under the impression there was correct me if I'm wrong there was a stove that was not the correct stove that the person who's teaching wanted we're moving that stove somewhere else to be used differently and we were purchasing a new stove that was mainly

the hold up right was the stove so I'm sorry dishwasher dishwasher right so have those already been purchased so we're just waiting for them to come in right okay all right cool thank you that's it Mr Das um Miss per answered my question to you okay all right citizens input remember we have a half an hour limit so we're going to ask people to please be respectful of the 3 minutes and we're

starting at 54 40 next first person up is Sharon Vieira Dartmouth Mass Kingston

Street hello everyone my name is Sharon and I have been working at for River Public Schools as an slpa for a year this February and I am a part of the unit B members entering the school mid year was overwhelming to say the least I I quickly began to realize how much the staff were expected to do with so little time with a case load of 55 students most of whom are seen two or more times

a week I realized that I had little to no time to prepare sessions and materials that I needed to help my children meet their full potential my case load consisted almost entirely of sub separate students which are highly involved children no toys appropriate for the developmental level available I found myself spending hours and hours trying to find toys at Savers with what little money and time I had by the end

of the year I felt tired broke and defeated this year I was thrilled to realize that we would be bargaining for a better contract that supported both us and the children we serve I am currently working three jobs to pay the bills and I know that the majority of us in this unit are in a SAR predicament this economy is hurting all of us by the time I pay my electric heat groceries gas and

mortgage for a small home I still don't have enough money to fix my car if something goes wrong it is beyond disappointing to be repeatedly told that there is no money for us when we pour our hearts into what we do and have nothing to show for it someone with a bachelor's degree and three jobs should not be struggling to make ends meet yet here I am humbly asking all of

you to consider what we are going through we are not asking for much we are asking for a livable wage most of the speech staff in this unit have been working for Fall River schools for less than 4 years the city has been unable to fill vacant positions kids rarely have all their Miss sessions made up at a later date this not this is not not only a disservice to us but to the children and

families of Fall River we love and support your children every day and now I'm asking for you all to do the same for us thank you so much for your time thank you uh next up is Daniel Pino High Street Westport three minutes please Daniel thank you good evening my name is Danielle penal I am a physical therapist assistant I've been with the for of a school system for two years although I have been to

several meetings throughout the contract negotiation process tonight I would like to advocate for a fair contract specifically for the 32 members of Unit B 32 members may be a small group of people however this small group of people do some really big things for the students of for over a school district for example Physical Therapy has only three full-time therapists who provide

skilled services for the entire District if we were to lose just one staff member it would decrease PT Services throughout the district by 33.3% every day myself along with 30 other unit B licensed professionals are faced with many barriers while doing our jobs we have heavy case loads we have limited time equipment workspace and resources as service providers in order to be successful and address barriers we have

to be positive we have to be creative we have to think out of the box we have to find a way to make it work for the students to fall over schools I'm asking this committee to do the same to stop responding no to nearly every proposal made with little to no effort towards a solution I'm asking this committee to consider utilizing the same perspective we do the 32 members of Unit B I ask you

to be positive I ask you to be creative and to think out of the box find a way to make it work for the students of Fall River schools just like we do every day we all know it comes down to money so let's talk about it currently in order to cover vacancies contracted workers are brought in at a higher rate and still not all eligible students are receiving Services what we are asking

for is very little relative to the entire budget although it would have little impact on the entire budget it would have a huge impact on the lives of the dedicated professionals who consistently give 100% to the students of this District we the dedicated employees of Unit B deserve a living wage without having to practically beg for it I'm asking this committee to consider other areas to limit spending

and not put the burden on the backs of dedicated employees that go above and beyond to service this students of Fall River every day we deserve a fair contract we deserve a livable wage thank you thank you Josh leder Deval Street

for good afternoon I'm speaking tonight as a unit a member of the Fall River Educators Association in support of our fellow members and our other bargaining units to ask you to quickly resolve outstanding contract proposals for the edification of the public the bargaining team that you empowered made a deal with the bargaining team that we empowered for unit a which is the vast majority of

our membership the deal is labeled a tentative agreement because it's still pending ratification by our members and approval by U all on the school committee our unit B is our related service provider assistance who help our special needs students access speech physical and occupational therapy our unit c is our High School uh school administrative managers these are people who are all critical in the function of

our district and the services that our students need they're also all people who need to work second or third jobs because they aren't paid a living wage the Educators in unit a stand with our colleagues and other bargaining units I attended the most recent bargaining session on Wednesday I was disappointed but not surprised that your team had chosen not to make meaningful offers to them at the table and rejected

the notion of equity they approved an hourly rate for unit a but don't want to offer the same rate for the same additional work as Unit C why should I be paid more than them for covering the same after school detention Duty for example you've approved a certain longevity amount for units A and C but rejected those same amounts for Unit B why these are the kinds of things that

don't make any sense to me the only difference I see is that these two units combined make up less than 4 people but make no mistake the thousand plus members in F are watching we will not stay quiet while you short change our colleagues and smaller units because you think you can get away with it the combined difference in financial proposals between units B and C is minute less than a salary of a few Rock

Street administrators less than the money that was unaccounted for with those playgrounds I think it's clear that there is a problem with waste and some frivolous spending in the district and I agreed that you should absolutely be looking at where you can and save some money but our colleagues are absolutely worth their paycheck this deficit shouldn't be standing in the way of fully funding these outstanding

contracts and the programs that our students need please send your team to the next bargaining session ready to make a deal thank you thank you uh next up Alexis Beria Stewart Street Far River good evening members M of the school committee mayor cougan um superintendent curlyy staff and Community thank you for the opport the opportunity to speak tonight I'm speaking on behalf of myself Alexis and

the other Sam school administrative managers we only have two here tonight which is just about half because there's five of us in our unit Sams play a critical role in ensuring that the daily operations of our high school runs smoothly from signing tardy students in to verifying class contacting Guardians issuing consequences and responding to classroom incidents our day is a whirlwind of

responsibility and when we're not doing that we're covering classes monitoring detentions triaging students when they come into the office and even providing social emotional support for students in need but now I stand here to ask you for your understanding and support as we fight for fair compensation we work a full 40-hour week but we also take on additional duties like detention

Wednesday schools Saturday schools um I even have to work Athletics to make a few extra bucks sometimes our work may not always be seen but it is deeply felt it's in the student who finally shows up on school to time is in class doing their work the parent who knows someone is looking out for their child and the teacher who can finally focus on instruction so tonight I ask you to

remember this behind every school day is a team of Sams working tires tirelessly to support students educators administrators we love what we do but we need the resources and respect to continue doing it well thank you for your time and for supporting Unit C as well as Unit B as we advocate for what's fair not just for us but for the entire School Community thank you thank you next up Jose Rodricks President Avenue

for 3 minutes please Jose thank you hello everybody I am now counting down the month until my retirement this summer I want I want to thank for River schools for the learning opportunities they facilitate to my children my daughter and my son my daughter she's a cap captain at Air Force and medical doctor in Texas my son will graduate next next year from Boston University with honors in international relations and

economics I most I also want to thank you to the SP Department that gave me the opportunity to treat hundreds of elementary middle and high school students a few years ago one superintendent honored me with the crystal Apple award for work I do with students as well with colleagues teachers and parents I have many letters and many cards thanking me for my work with special education students I am here happy this

recognition but I worry because I have observed many people better than me leaving for River schools and moving to other school systems looking for better workplace condition s recently I have been observing a new culture in our school system the culture the Fall River schools decided as a professional of 17 years of experience I believe would be better if we could participate in in this decision M making

process we are now negotiating our contract new contract our supervisors very busy with their work the same way that we are very busy as therapists will see a higher percentage increase in their salaries than the one that you're offering us are we second or even third class citizens or workers our work is not only direct with students we we assist teachers in classrooms and our work cannot measured

in the category of economy of scale it is very difficult to complete our duties during the time that we have in school we are asking to decrease the number of students in our case loads in the in the best interest of our students and services the answer is no I me all my students to say that they are the best and they are I would like to to say the same about

the team that is negotiating our new contract motion away the rules with the the new contract with our Union we deserve respect and recognition for the hard work that we do every day in our schools in the best interest of our students in occupation therapy a few years ago one of my students trying to guess my age and uh as guests maybe f 50 or 200 thank you I told him that I'm 23 on

Mondays and more than 200 years old on Fridays when I go home thank you next up uh Deb um we have a what um this cabal is goingon to read uh Christopher pekham beac Beacon Street for honorable school committee I'd be remiss to address recent issues that I have come to light as both a private citizen and a former city counselor last week it had to come to my attention that school Committee Member

Colin dis had put a social media post out to the public regarding his relationship with the mayor and what he was experiencing during his short time on the school committee I am writing this to show my support to Mr Das it appears that there are accusations against the mayor accusing him of unethical tactics and cohesive Behavior bullying and telling people to keep quiet I am compelled to write this

letter and took these statements kind of personal because it familiar as a new counselor I was told many times to not bring up things I was told you're making the city look awful and stay off social media you actually told the entire city council to stay off of social media during your state of the city openly in 2020 whenever I relayed what I found to be pertinent information to the citizens

of Fall River you had a rebuttal whenever something wasn't in your favor and you and it hindered you it hindered your interest you made it a point to shut me down for example the triple shootings double homicide at Griffin Park I scheduled an expedited public safety meeting at the Corky row Club as safety chairman you booked the same time and place to hold a neighborhood meeting and told council president that I'll

just show up even if Chris does his I'm the mayor everyone will follow me to the park when I released the gang numbers and gang de details to the constituents you had the police chief call me to tell me it wasn't a good look then you had all City councilors access restricted to the the police station with the captain or above entrance approval through sop to stop us from obtaining any

information you frequently referred to the chief at the time as your Chief even questioning me once as to why I was calling him I cite these experiences because it is no different than what you're doing to Mr Das we're a co-equal branch of government here in Far River in itself that should negate the ability of a politician like the mayor to conduct himself in such a manner Mr Das

speaks his mind and is transparent it's the people he needs to answer to not the mayor that is UN that is the underlying issue here the administration does not want the truth out there reverting a scare tact reverting to scare tactics as silence to silence another elected official is that it well there's just one sentence left I write this letter with the intent to show the public that this is an inherit

in inherent problem with the administration and it's been happening since the mayor's first tenure also to ask the school committee to please call upon your chair to stop his cohesive actions against while conducting School Department business and City business as a whole respectfully Chris P thanks dead Mr Mayor Mr Das I was mentioned directly in the citizens then put like the the

opportunity to respond uh we're going to go over the the 30 minutes how long you is there any other citizens input no okay um there no more citizens input I was just it's been practice of this committee to allow members who are mentioned directly the opportunity to respond okay I was too so go ahead you can go first sure this weekend I have experienced intimidation and the misuse of official government by mayor Paul

kugan after I did an interview on the fall of a reporter the mayor sent an unknown uniform man to my house who never said who they were and never presented a card the hand served me a letter that never needed to be served which I already received he then told me on the phone he was sent Far Over police to my house I do not believe the mayor seriously wants to look into fraud the

mayor has no legal authority to order forer police to my house the mayor also went on to tell me this is not going to look good for you you're treading a very fine line here right now my friend and he would keep on pushing after me among with many other professional unprofessional comments about my character and my family the mayor demanded I also issue a retraction if the mayor wanted to look into fraud with

the Faller police why didn't fer Police Issue a report on the investigation into DCM why did his administration have to be sued by the Harrow news for a reporting to that issue and lose that lawsuit and then fight the order by a judge wasting more taxpayer money why did the mayor tell me not to ask questions on school committee expenditures that we sign off on why is the mayor against individual school

committee members requesting information from the superintendent and why is he against an audit of facilities and operations I'll once again admit I should have been more clear with my remarks I learned that however I believe the city of Fall River learned over the weekend that we have an authoritarian on the sixth floor and the mayor's conduct and I agree with that citizen input the

mayor's conduct Must Be Stopped let's work together to finish this contract and to into a fair contract with all our Educators ensure that we have a school department that works for everyone thank you uh again I don't usually do this but since M as Mr Das explained he was mentioned in citizens input as was I so I would like to at least give you my half of this um I read an article where a school

Committee Member uh two two actually Mr agar and Mr Das were mentioned in a story in the for reporter one mentioned fraud which I consider very serious and I called it out when I heard about it um that morning um on behalf of Mayor kugan in his capacity as chairman um the attached letter is being delivered to you this was an email we sent to Mr Das at 10:36 in the morning

we not only emailed him we sent him a letter stating that we were going to hand deliver a letter to him and that's exactly what we did he uh subsequently went down to the police station later in the day but this I actually have the police report here of what went on that day so that there's no confusion I'll read it as Mr Das read his statement on January 10th at approximately

2:00 Sergeant Ross armman assigned to the professional standage division became aware of a Facebook post authored by Mr dis a sitting member of the for public schools in that post Mr Das alleged that mayor kugan utilized law enforcement to intimidate him by sending officers to the house the police were naturally concerned they thought it was their offices they weren't sure what happened um upon review of the

Department Records I confirmed there was no documented response by F frpd to Mr das's residents at 560 or at on Ray Street in over a year I contacted Mr Das via telephone to confirm the details and during our conversation Mr Des Das described that around 122 uh 12:45 a male dressed in jeans and a jacket with a badge embroidered on his jean coat approached the residents spoke with his

parents and handed them an envelope the individual who did not identify himself inquir if Mr Das resided there Mr Das acknowledged the idual was not a former police officer and suspected he was a constable based on the clarification I requested that Mr Das amend his social media post to avoid further misunderstanding regarding any police involvement at approximately 3:00 Mr Dias contacted me again to report his

intention to file an intimidation complaint against mayor kugan later at about 4:30 Mr Dias and his mother Sheila Das arrived at the F frpd to formalize the complaint sergeant perosis and I met with them in the station Lobby where we activated our body cameras for the interaction Mr Das and his mother recounted the interaction with the individual who delivered the envelope which contained a letter from

Mr kugan on the official letterhead the letter demanded that Mr Das provide evidence to substantiate the allegations of financial fraud against the part of public schools I believe Mr Das did substantial damage against the for of public schools when he alleged Brad we have an excellent Finance team we have a good superint intendent and the money that will go to our teachers is not going to be wasted on anything like

fraud Mr Das stated he had already received a copy of the same letter via email earlier in the day and confirmed the mayor's office that the document delivery was executed by a constable for context constables make uh deliveries as bondage service Mr Das further explained that when he contacted the mayor's office earlier in the day to request a discussion with the chief of staff he

instead spoke directly with mayor kugan during the conversation mayor kugan reiterated his request for evidence supporting the allegations Mr Das inquired about the use of law enforcement the mayor clarified that law law enforcement had not been dispatched and added not yet according to Mr Das the mayor explained that his allegations of financial fraud involved criminals implications he could request an

investigation by police detectives Mr Das expressed concern over the statement and felt intimidated by those implications we ad we advised Mr dis that his concerns were understandable but did not meet the legal criteria for criminal intimidation under chapter 268 section 13B for an action to conate criminal intimidation it must be intended to obstruct impede or delay a criminal investigation the potential

involvement of police detectives in an investigation of alleged crimes does not fill that requirement sergeant perosis and I explain the legal standard to Mr and his mother emphasizing that no further police investigation was warranted both were advised that to pursue open and constructive communication with mayor kugan to address differences Mr Das and his mother acknowledged our explanation and

were informed they could reach out further if they needed any assistance they then Departed the police station on Saturday morning we did a show on um on S and Mr Das called in we had an exchange and he said we were under investigation I explained to him there was no investigation cuz nobody did anything wrong when you hear when you hear one member on this committee anyone make an allegation of fraud we take it

extremely serious we have um a mayor in prison in the way way past we had school committee people go to jail for fraud I take it seriously I respect the process if Mr Das had said he believes there's waste he would have never heard from me he's allowed to make his opinion until he says Criminal activity is going on in the schools and he should identify it and that's all this was about he was very uncomfortable

and he had no concern to identify that our finance team does a great job and I do not believe as Mr Das said Saturday morning there is any fraud in the for of public schools at this time thank you Mr Das thank you so what I was referring to which again I believe this Administration did not take seriously was the fact that we had reports of of a garage in the district and we had

someone working on private Vehicles you know with the use of you know public funds and the public uh come on and a public garage excuse me excuse me that's excuse me m per I have the I understand but I'm reming as a g let's go this has nothing to do with on the agenda we're not talking about a garage went back and forth Mr D we're done Mr chairman Mr

Agia so the uh people that spoke earlier excuse me they mentioned several things about the hourly rate and I had a couple of questions on that for the superintendent so if a if a teacher works and I think it's changing in the contract but let's say it's $35 an hour they get extra for teaching if they work like Athletics or something else that has nothing to do with teaching do they

get that $35 or is that specifically for educational type of uh duties you know like if you're teaching a if you're a history teacher you stay an hour after typically the contract $35 for whatever it is would be the amount that you'd get for staying after the tutor or do the actual piece of your job as a teacher now if you go in the evening let's say and collect tickets at a basketball game

do they get that 30 that same hourly rate or is it the rate that the athletic department can pay as a different type of position two different people uh just talked to Citizen input time I believe that teachers receive their contracted rate to collect tickets so up Tracy mic sorry I didn't know if you wanted to say the same thing again okay I believe that teachers receive their contracted

rate so the young lady I think who just mentioned so I'm a teacher I go to collect tickets at the game I get $40 an hour if I'm a slpa a teacher assistant or whatever else and I go to collect those tickets what do I get well they contracted rate so if they're doing the same exact thing they could get two totally different amounts because that would sound like a

very odd um both sides that seem very odd one that the contract language for a teacher is I believe and I could be wrong but this is what my belief is and I think past history would show you that over the years they didn't get the contractual rate to teach like you're not teaching the students at that point when you're going to do something for for athletics or some other place

collect tickets or whatever else you get the rate that they do whoever brought that up I think it's a valid point that they if a teacher getting $40 an hour to collect tickets I don't necessarily think that's the way it should go because it's not in the education piece but the person who makes less money is making less money to do the exact same thing that's what I'm hearing here today

and if that's the case that's totally wrong and it needs to be rectified relative to the contract or not the contract in my opinion and I just think it's something that we we definitely need to look at when people come before us uh like you know and you've always been responsive I'm I'm raising the issue because I think it needs to be corrected so if the contract doesn't get solved let's say the

contract's going to go for a few months if there's a teacher or whatever getting $35 an hour to do their job and a lower paid person every day is doing the same job they damn well better get the same amount of pay in my opinion that's only Equity that's my opinion thank you superintendent thank you can I just wait on that Mr Bailey um I'm I'm in agreeance with uh Mr Agia when it comes

to that um I just I mean in my job is the same way if someone works and if we want to talk about inequity that's one right there if someone's working the same job and they're working an after school event I'm in the I believe that they should get the same rate as the other person so I definitely think that's something that that we can we need to correct um like I said that's

that's how I operate um when I run my Athletic program um especially considering that people are taking extra time in their day and when you look at all these after school programs um whether it's overtime or not I'll tell you for one member myself and and I I know Mr agar said it and I'm just repeating what he said um if I worked the same job did the same exact thing

and I got lesser pay then I would have a problem with that thank you Mr chair Mr D agreeing with um my colleagues my far right and my far left could we possibly just get like an update if we can you know set list outside of the contract and like a Friday memo wait can you just can you just repeat that if is this is something we can settle like outside of the contract

can we maybe could the committee receive like an update like next Friday is that something we can do yeah I mean I think we can we can receive I don't can receive an update I think the issue is that there are there are two different pieces it's about there's an element of whether or not when performing duties outside the school day people should all get paid the same hourly rate that people may

agree or not agree with that we approached the contract negotiations and you know with through a particular lens the separate conversation is whether or not anybody any Professionals in in our district should be paid the same hourly rate for collecting tickets that they would if they were providing tutoring Services outside the school day or working on curriculum or um um you know

providing professional development so I think that is the bigger question really as to whether or not that out the hourly rate whatever it is whether or not that should be applied to every single hour of whatever the activity is outside of the school day and I and I don't think I know I can't clear that up in a Friday memo I do think that's something that needs to be um bargained it does yeah Mr

chairman Mr EG yeah so on that same note I would agree with the superintendent what I would ask is that we just get some information so for instance did this has this been the policy for the last 10 years has it been the policy for the last one year who made the decision and on what grounds to pay people by these rates so I recall quite uh clearly Mr buston coming

here a couple years ago and we were talking about like at tickets and you might get $25 and if you did uh something that was a little more like you get different rates I had never ever heard anything about the contract calls for what you just said about curriculum tutoring that type of thing counting I've never heard that so something happened recently that's what I would be looking for in a memo not that you're

going to clar uh clear it up sure just that we need to get I think we need to throw it on the table to say what is it so that we can figure it out uh but on the second issue that Mr Das was Raising I do think that uh the back and forth with the mayor and Mr Das is relative to the word fraud or any of that stuff uh

when you look at it and the mayor calls out a school Committee Member and says if you have fraud please prove it Mr Das is raising the same issue that I've raised for several years now about an illegal garage in the district no no let me finish it's it's relative to this isue Kevin Mr Mr Mayor started under megma Brown and you're going back to that date now and here's the fact of the

matter you never went down and filed the police report and did anything just sat on it so I was told by a constituent that we had an illegal garage as a school Committee Member I went to meet with the mayor I went to meet with the mayor and the superintendent and presented the evidence so when you tell Mr Das to look at this fraud if that happened which we now know happened that

is fraud so please give the gentleman the courtesy of if you're asking him a question let him answer the question I yield all right let's get on with this subcommittee updates we have two tonight first up is special education alternative education and early childhood subcommittee Kevin agie our chair to which one special ed the one I just read yeah I believe that was from a couple months ago right was December

11th it was after our December meeting this was the one we I thought we had discussed this already at the um full meeting but what we talked about at this meeting was The Early Childhood issue I think took sort of sent the stage uh to how we were talking about what we were told and promised or not promised so at the meeting we've been having a lot of early childhood and um

meetings relative to that from last year so we went over the timeline we went over some information that I as chair had asked the superintendent to provide to the committee uh trying to figure out why we were told one thing relative to the Early Childhood opening September of 2025 and at the meeting two days prior to this we were told we were not going to be able to open until September of

2026 based on couple of factors one of which was that we had overspent by $700,000 uh for several playgrounds so that we didn't have the money to pre- purchase supplies or whatever else we needed to do at the same meeting it was discussed that um even though in March and April it was stated that we needed the city to um fix the roof in the old uh Auditorium as well as the fire

suppression system in order to open in September um it would came to light that that hadn't happened either so we had multiple uh reasons why we couldn't uh open in September 2025 debate ensued relative to whether that was a good thing or a bad thing or how did we get there and I think that's still an ongoing issue uh right now the issues as the chair that I requested some uh emails and trying to find correspondents

to figure out how the heck did we get to a place where we didn't do the um project on time has still not been submitted to me and that's the debate we're having uh with the city uh with the school department over whether we have a right to ask the information but I still think there's some on outgoing issues uh outstanding issues related to that we also talked about that being

said how are we going to proceed going forward with uh the Early Childhood Program renting space at nor Eastern Avenue Bishop Connelly I think that was a productive uh part of the meeting where it was stated once again something that I was very concerned about back in April the northeastern a site that we have for prek is actually losing $600,000 per year when we look at the reimbursement and the cost that

obviously is not a good thing so uh I brought up a lot of issues relative to the 700,000 we were behind the 600,000 that we're losing the4 $500,000 in rent that we have to pay because now we can't open up in um at the dery site we have to rent and I I just think that's some uh money that's not being well spent so we did discuss the how we're going to

get uh through that and the superintendent Mr uh it was a long meeting and Mr Pico and I think Evan from Fred TV were going to take a a video just so we could show the public what area it was going to go into and I think that's still ongoing but I think that would be good to even just to show people what it looks like and what what it can happen I do think Early Childhood

needs to be um on the Forefront of what we're going to do and I'm still disappointed in how that went we also talked at the meeting about um hiring and making sure that we have the proper Staffing in place for the special education um department so I think there was some good conversation between superintendent Miss Oben chain Miss Dr bronhard and uh the committee trying to figure out are we maximizing

the ways to recruit people as well as we need to hire people from agencies if no one applies so I do think that it was a productive meeting overall and um we will be having another meeting shortly special ed alternative aded subcommittee had eight meetings I think last year uh I think that's an active committee and we'll be having another meeting Charly thank you thank you Mr thank you Mr Ang

Mr Das thank you um just um a question and a request um well the requests um and nothing urgent but um I did put in a um request to the the administration that um we address the the use of timeout rooms at our collaboratives and making sure we have adequate security planning Pro proper protocol if there ever is an incident in these timeout rooms um specifically South Coast collaborative um the South Eastern

Massachusetts educational collabor actually has a very um robust um accounting system for their um timeout rooms which I'm very happy to see um I think there could be improvements at some other collaboratives however um and just on the issue of the the information I really truly believe that subcommittees and subcommittee chairs should have the unilateral right to request information that's the only way

we can push government forward in the in the flow of business forward without any um unnecessary backups and and I hope Mr agar's request to get answered I yield uh next up is the instructional subcommittee Mimi larav chair thank you mayor uh the instructional uh subcommittee uh met on Tuesday January 7th at 4:00 at the admin building uh there were three items on the agenda um adding nasal knockan training to the

current uh fir CPR first aid classes uh 11th and 12th a virtual pathway for RPA students and uh competency determination uh for graduation uh the admin presented a a for River Fire Department in uh for River Police Department data on overdoses in for River since uh 2019 uh numbers uh remain uh high in Fall River and the request for the nasal knockan to be integrated into the high

school health 2 curriculum uh for 11th and 12th uh the students in this curriculum will be taught uh recognizing signs of Overdose understanding opioid IDs and overdose how to save a life and where to uh access knockan uh lessons will ensure that the students gain comprehensive emergency response and skills and will uh destigmatize addiction and forc to valuable conversations uh about substance abuse

and harm reduction uh being trained on how effectively you how to effectively use KN uh nasal knockan will empower the students to save lives while encouraging encouraging empathy and reducing stigma admin also mentioned the district is working with star and they'll have nasal knockan available if need be uh conversation was had about EpiPen uh training as well the subcommittee requested admin uh get some data on how

many students in our district are prescribed an EpiPen and self carry uh committee suggest suggested offering EpiPen training to non-prescribed uh students in the future uh the committee voted to refer to the full committee tonight to teach integration of CPR uh training with nasal knock hand delivery to the health to curriculum um admin admin presented data and information on why a virtual pathway for

RPA students is pertinent in meeting the D diverse needs of the 9th through 12th grade population attendance is still very low at RPA in a virtual pathway would provide a more flexible personalized education pathway for students who struggle to attend uh School in person for various reasons uh there will be a live instruction there will be live instruction during the day uh through a virtual connection with

teachers a special education teacher will be available in all virtual classes uh virtual tutoring will will be available inperson drop in tutoring and seal support will be available 3:00 to 4:30 on Monday through Thursday teachers will monitor all attendance students will not have access to the virtual pathway unless a parent or Guardian opt in for the service virtual pilot program

will start with approximately 15 10 to 15 students there'll be no extra cost for this program uh the subcommittee voted to refer the RPA virtual Pathway to the full committee finally admin presented information on on competency determination and how the district will determine student competency as it pertains to graduation students who have previously earned a compet determination through a regular

or retest of the mcast or through a zi appeals process will have earned their competency determination students who have not yet earned their competency how many times I going to say this competency determination through mcast can meet their requirements through receiving a passing grade in an equivalent of a 10th grade English course receiving a passing grade in the equivalent of an algebra 1 or geometry

courses receiving a passing grade in the equivalent of a biology or physics courses the disc the discussion was not in place on the agenda as a vote to refer discussion but the committee and admin agreed to bring to full committee with the discussion F focused on the competency determination for the class of 2025 only uh it was voted and referred to the full committee meeting was adjourned at 5:30 thank

you uh next up is the superintendent report uh Dr Curley so I will start um as I always do with a hiring update since our last meeting we've had 22 hires including one clerk one Community facilitator eight par professionals one provisional custodian one part-time utility worker one Sac one seaon one speech langu with pathologist and seven teachers um in that same time frame we've had 34 resignations eight

retirements and 17 transfers um the next piece is um a community outreach update so I just wanted to put it out there um to the public that in the next week or so um I and members of my team will be reaching out to various Community organ organizations including neighborhood associations and other community groups so that I and members of my team can come out um and join in some of the

meetings over the next few months our goal is to share um and gather information um around how we're doing and what we can do to strengthen Partnerships in the community um specifically in service of our students um if we are able to plan ahead um I'd love to be able to prepare to answer some questions um from groups uh in but in the absence of questions we would provide information about what's going

on in our schools and I'm hoping that leaders of some of our community groups might hear this message and if for some reason we haven't reached out to your organization and your group um that you could reach out to my office I wanted to mention that we when we did our budget survey we heard back from about 600 families and um we were really thankful to those who participated and the um the feedback

that we got was certainly um there you could see it in the budget priorities um we heard from um hundreds of Staff members as well um I wanted to put out there that all of our families can be expecting another survey probably in the next month or so um somewhere around mid year um because we're collecting some additional information specific to caregiver experience and perceptions

about um the school district so we're going to be using that information as we're preparing our 3 to five strategic plan and it's something um for which we need uh in input from as many families as possible the last piece that I wanted to talk about in terms of community outreach is um I just want to say that when we are trying to ensure that concerns and questions from the community and specifically our our

families are addressed effectively and efficiently we are really encouraging people to reach out to members of um you know initially the school community and that we're following an appropriate chain of communication um when issues arise I think it's always best to start as close to the source as possible so when there are classroom issues that there's an attempt to talk to teachers

first and if it's a larger school is issue that we're reaching out to principales um and only after that do we you know bring our concerns to central office or or outside of central office even to um the mayor's office or school committee or or whomever um we're finding that um too often when concerns are escalated directly to you know the mayor's office or even to my office that

there's a lot of backtracking that needs to happen and initially when we get our cons um complaints if you um if you will there isn't a lot of information there and we are spending you know maybe an inordinate amount of time gathering information um back and forth in emails or or via telephone and so um it it's it's feeling like if we can get people to get as as I said as close to the

source as possible and then as people if they feel like they need to kind of work their way up um that people we're getting as much information um as possible in some kind of initial um initial communication and so but I just want to say that you know we do appreciate the communication um and we appreciate the your cooperation and just trying to improve it as we move forward and so um

I'm hoping that we're able to do that uh the last pie that I wanted to talk about is um back in November I had announced that the Faller Public Schools um would be would had been um selected by the department of Elementary and secondary education to participate in a comprehensive District review for the 2425 school year that was the week of November 18th and here we are two months later and um we actually have

gotten some feedback the initial feedback that we got came in the form of just the instructional observation report and while the larger report the comprehensive report that takes the observations and interviews and focus groups and Survey data um all into account the initial report it doesn't offer um feedback in terms of recommendations for next steps but we did get some feedback in terms of what

was observed so the observations take place across four domains emotional support classroom organization instructional support and student engagement um it shows up in feedback for different grade spans k to um K to five 6 to8 and then 9 through 12 and the what we what we got in this initial report um is is you know high level it's across um you know it's across all district schools we don't receive any

individual school um data but we I did want to report that the district ratings across the four domains um are all in the middle um to high range and um you know so they're not all perfect but in the middle to high range you know uh four four to upwards of six on a scale of 1 to 7 and so I just wanted to give an update that at this point we're taking

that data um taking a look at it internally sharing it with the district instructional leadership team and while that data is high level uh we're really looking at you know some specific elements um around instructional dialogue that really ties in very closely to our district priority which um has a focus around language development and the use of language to communicate understanding so as I said

um it's not a report that includes recommendations at this point but the full report which we're expecting in um in the spring I think sometime in March will um offer more feedback recommendations for next steps and we'd be looking to incorporate those recommendations into our U 3 to five year strategic plan so more to come on that thank you m Mr Das thank you just real quickly on the community outreach

portion so um Mr superintendent if I um heard you correctly you're looking to have um maybe some public sessions with Community Partners like public meetings yeah we are um I just wonder maybe um myself and my colleagues on the um on the subcommittee on the parent Community engagement or community outreach can be invited or just be kept in the loop yeah well I I mean one option that we have

actually is that we could do um we could schedule some of these you know through that committee um and invite some people to come in to do some focus group kinds of things definitely so if if there's an interest there I can definitely do that definitely thank you just to follow up on that Mr Bailey um and this is this is just my own personal thoughts if we if we were scheduling those I I would like

to um actually participate um as a citizen instead of someone on a school committee um considering the amount of work that I do in the community and working in the community um I would prefer it to be there as a citizen instead of a school Comm member not that it's not important um I just do work over the summertime with kids and I would I would like to just be part of that okay all right all

right thank you next um approval of minutes item number seven I have three uh groups of um minutes I'm going to ask the council to allow us to pull 73 74 and 75 motion to pull out second 73 second 74 75 I have a motion a second on pulling those three dab you want to call the rationale uh I I don't believe they're completed they were not completed not completed Mr AGA just begs the question

why are they on the agenda then thought they'd be done in time sorry you know what I'm saying it makes sense not to Deb you want to call the role Please Mr yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep M larvey yes m Perera yes may kouan yes motion to approve 76 we're going to go 71 72 76 we'll approve all three I have a motion for Mr Das second yes and

I have a second Deb could you please call the role Mr ago yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larav yes M Perera yes may kouan yes item number eight is the approval of travel requests we only have a couple any questions on the Travel requests approve I have a motion I have a motion to Second discussion hearing none Deb please call the roll Mr ago yes

Mr Bailey yes Mr di yes Mr Cory yes M larav yes M Pereira yes mayor kugan yes uh we have a number of donations under item number nine motion to accept and place on file second a motion to accept and place on file and a second uh Deb would you please call the rooll M Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes Miss Perera yes mayor kouan yes Dr

Curley okay we have a number of donations um the first of which is $220,000 from metatech to the Fallout Public Schools $11,000 to purchase gifts for students from Aaron Mack for the fansa elementary school $450 to purchase clothing to restock student Clothing Closet um from the Good Samaritan um God Phil opticus Society um to the fansa elementary school $400 to support the Adaptive PE

program at driscal skating rink from Mesa 21 to the fall of public schools $360 to purchase holiday gifts for families in need from the Watson Scholars class of 1960 for the Watson Elementary School $2200 for the Serve Safe food handler certification donated by Gloria cabal to the Robert elementarius um RPA 12 pounds of popcorn and 25 bags of popcorn for the attendance reward for December

2024 from the Showcase Deon and Shaws North Fall River to the Green Elementary School fulfillment of the Christmas wish list gift for families from St anthon Anthony of the desert for the Watson Elementary School Coco for 400 students for the December PBIS incentive from whites of Westport to Green Elementary School and new sneakers for the boys and girls varsity basketball teams from Joan um sanon um to the athletic

department thank you um now item number 10 we have no grants tonight uh so item number 11 is the approval of contracts now we have six new grants for contracts does anybody have any questions Mr Cory I just have one on the very last one school Works does anybody else have any holds Mr chair Mr Das on the three service master contracts the three service Masters okay and the one

on drark Mr Cory excuse me trar is the one no school works the last one last one oh I'm sorry um okay so we're going to hold the three service master and the school Works can I get a motion and second on the others so moved second I have a motion to Second a general question or comment Mr Mr agar I just wanted to raise the question to Dr K I know I did mentioned

this earlier today too if we can just look at the timing of when these bills come in we've had a lot of uh bills that come in from the summer and they're in now it just begs the question of how long it takes to get the bills process I not opposed to any of them but I do think it's something we should look at thank you I yield okay so we have three service

master and school Works will will approve all the rest I have a motion a second Deb call the role Please Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes m l yes M Perera yes mayor C yes Mr Das service master Spen of Orton thank you and my questions are pretty much going to be all the same for all three of these and just basically for the Public's edification so the public knows

what happened and what what's been done um for the remediation for the fire for Spencer board I'll start with that um just for the public certification I know the the school committee's received info um what did they have to um replace and like what work had to be done for the 99 so um on the remediation for Spencer bordon um this was Labor equipment and um and some subcontract work needed uh

basically they went in um scrub the uh the place top to bottom in the areas affected by uh smoke very uh little of the building was affected by the fire itself it was contained to the boiler room um but all of the areas where the smoke um got into the building um had to be cleaned top to bottom so sealings walls um fixtures uh seiling tiles were replaced um duct work was cleaned um

both inside and out um the stage curtain was sent to be dry cleaned um remove take down dry clean put back up uh and um a uh athletic storage room all of the equipment inside was thoroughly cleaned by the contractor and then put back in bags and then on back into the shelves and they did not do any work in the boiler room itself in terms of there was no work for the the cleanup company to

do in the Boiler Room okay yes thank you a motion to approve second I have a motion to second on spense of board and Service Master contract Mr AER is this an insurance uh reimbursement at all or is it how does that work at it's um it's a little under $1,000 um for our deductible so there is no reimbursement our deductible is $100,000 Oh I thought you said a thousand so I

was thinking it's no it doesn't it doesn't meet the threshold it didn't meet the threshold of for deductions it was enough damage it just didn't meet it exactly and what was the cause of it again if it was a a um a motor on um the uh water um domestic water heater and that's what caused it a short circuit yes and the um if we can just get under separate cover anything if there was any

issues with the water heaters there over the last several years we appreciate it I'm sorry I I was there any issues with the water heaters in the in the past so is it something we knew or not and I don't need an answer we' had water heater issues but none obviously to this extent thank you I yeld okay okay so on that one Deb we call the vote on uh Service Master Spencer bordon Please Mr

AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes M Pereira yes mayor kugan yes uh Mr Das on the Spencer board and second one same thing I guess my two questions would be um how were we made like aware of the the mold issues within spener board and what did this company do to REM remediate it the remediation at Spencer board and was a dehumidification to a lodge Point uh

equipment um left there for um I want to say approximately 70 days 75 days of of operation um there was cleanup uh done by internally um at at the um at the site uh sailing tiles were replaced that were damaged um any um carpet in place um that was damaged was removed um those kind of things so is separate from the from the fire just has nothing to do unrated and um so this is mainly

equipment yes okay a motion to approve second have a motion to Second any question Mr agar just if we could I know we asked for this and it's bills coming in if we can get the total cost of all the old issues you know since they started in March or whatever like that curious we can absolutely that are you I have motion a second Deb call the rooll on the mold remediation Spenser Bardon

Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Miss Perera yes Mary kouan yes and uh Mr das's last one was green mold remediation same same questions so basically um the um the work that was done there was some cleanup work we had some walls that were removed we had uh rugs that were replaced um there was painting done at this at the building uh cabinets were removed moved ceiling

tiles um pipe wrap uh much more extensive work at Green than there was at Spencer okay and then it's the same thing with Spencer board and if we can just get um I think some of them were already provided especially for green but um we could just be reminded just to get any um just to make sure any like reports just to make sure we don't have to deal with this issue in the fall

again um that that would be great motion to approve second I have a motion to second on the last service master at Green discussion Deb please call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes M Pereira yes Mar kouan yes that that's the top group the second group is the miscellaneous contract and special ed contract cont oh SCH works okay I'm sorry Mr Cory school work just

a brief question Mr chairman uh cppi what's that what's that stand for cpbi that's the Commonwealth preschool Community Partnership so that is the grant that we have where we partner with some of our community agencies to expand access to full day yearound preschool for families as well as to provide special education services to children who attend those centers so they can remain in their Center versus having to

transition to the public schools so where are they based out of the two classrooms that we partner with right now one is at People Incorporated preschool and one is at Head Start where's cppi from cppi is an um Early Education and Care Grant so it's out of the Department of Early Education and Care through the state okay so that's a state agency it's a state agency yep so it's the sort of early Ed um version of

the Department of Ed they oversee Early Education and um after school and out of school time programs yeah I was just curious thank you I yield anything further on school Works motion to approve I have a motion do I have a second I have a motion a second Deb call the role on school works please Mr ago yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larv sustained Miss Pereira yes mayor C yes

and at the bottom we have three more crown castle Meeting Street and Walker any holes on any of those crown castle crown castle Mr agar um I'll look for a motion on Meeting Street and Walker Inc so move second I have a motion to Second discussion on those two Deb please call the role Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr D yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes M perer yes Mayan yes uh crown

castle Mr agar so the only question I had Mr cabal is the is this the amount of the increase or is this just for the two sites uh wasn't necess neily clear so no so this is just the second half of the year um the increase is there because we if you notice on the next page in October they buil us for the construction and the buildin phase to

get 251 in and as the memo States um it's a little bit more expensive because I cannot eate 251 or the Early Learning Center because eate as soon as as preschool it doesn't qualify for E rate so we pay the full 100% cost of that at that building or everywhere else we only pay uh 20% of the full cost cuz EAP picks up the other 80 to construct it or

to yeah so to get the line from the closest D mark which was down on Bay Street they had to pull down Bay Street and then come up into the new building so when we look at the spreadsheet on the next page it's $144,000 per month that's the whole district for the whole District that's not just for the two schools that so that's the whole District minus right now Conley Conley is on a Comcast

connection because it was going to be an outrageous amount to wire us into our Network and we weren't planning on that for long term so that has its own Comcast connection so that 14,000 is for the district it's not for the because otherwise the schools would cost a lot more money corre right thank you I yield question Mr D um just curious and maybe um this could be um talk for a bigger

conversation have we ever considered like Municipal Broadband or localized Broadband maybe that save cost in the long term uh I work for the school department so my job is to make sure that the 17 school buildings have internet that would be a city discussion right and I well not doesn't have to be a city discussion I think uh for public schools can have its own um Broadband its own internet service that we can I

think that would be state of the-art that' be something I think Mr Das we we currently do we have our own doc fiber Network across the city that connects all of our buildings however um we're not in the business of supplying internet that takes an outside vendor um we would not be able to handle that in house right that's what I was trying to get I wasn't this wasn't a question for

you um Mr caral just more of a a broad statement I think that's something we should look at and find a way we can have a long-term cost savings um but yeld motion to approve I have a motion to approve second I have a motion second that please call the rooll Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kouan yes finally committee the whole 121 is a

vote to approve the election of Vice chairman of the Fara school committee chairman Mr Corey on this motion 121 I'd like to nominate Mimi larvi for vice chair do I have a second second I have a motion a second any discussion on Miss Larie being Vice chairman again hearing none oh Mr AA yeah I'm not going to be supporting this just wanted to State my my rationale so several years

ago Miss lar and I had a conversation about what the role of the vice chair would be at that time it was agreed that there is some valid questions that can come from the committee and she assured me that she was going to support asking questions of the administration as well as the mayor when needed and I don't believe that that's been happening over these uh last several years so I will

not be supporting Miss Lowry at this time thank you Mr chair Mr uh Mr Das thank you and I'm looking at the position and just um going years back um it seems I believe we should have some sort of term limits just so it can switch around different members I like to make a motion that oh on we have a motion on the floor we're going to vote on that then you can bring it up after

we have a motion all right fair enough but um just and this just so I can give my um two centus because I believe there should be term limits for the position and I believe we should pass it to other col colleagues I also not be supporting this at this time Mr Cory Mr chair I'd just like to expound on my position for nominating Miss larvi I've I've known Miss larvie for well over 30 years I've

known her to be a champion on behalf of Youth causes and it's an honor for me to serve on the school board with somebody who Champions youth causes as she does keeps it close to her heart and she's been extremely active behind the scenes and making so many good things happen I have to disagree with the assessment that she doesn't do a lot behind the scenes I think she's working really

really hard I'm very proud of her leadership and uh I'm proud of my nomination for her again this term I yield thank you anything for Deb call the RO please on the appointment of Mimi Larry Vice chairman Mr Iya no Mr Bailey obain Mr Das no Mr Cory yes m lar yes Miss Pera yes mayor kran yes Mr congratulations Miss lar thank you Mr Mayor thank you I'd

like to make a motion that we Mr um Das she just got red apologize I mean I apologize I apologize just give me one minute I won't take much too much time just want to thank you uh four or three who who who did vote for me um thanks for placing your trust in me and uh the confidence you've shown in me and for working with me and moving forward I hope this committee can come together

and display uh I guess collaboration and kindness and doing our best to move this District forward um I think the committee's work and uh showing our Collective efforts to lead the district is is meaningful process and in order to get the work done and the job done moving this District forward to to those successes we have to work together so with that I thank you and I look forward to the next

year Mr Das thank you and and thank you for your comments Mr lar I do apologize for jumping the gun a bit um I however I do want to stick by my comments that and not even necessarily Mr Larry but in the past the position has been held for years years and years and I believe it should be passed on to different people so we can get different different perspectives in there especially that

disposition has to do a lot has a big say in crafting the agenda and what goes on the agenda which I take very seriously so i' like to make a motion that we amend policy BDA by saying a member cannot be Nom um accept the position or be nominated I'm sorry not be nominated in position more than two times in a row I make that in a form of a

motion here second M I hear a second Miss Pera so I think as I think about that the reason that I'm not going to support this is because the job in itself um and not that I don't think it's nice to have a change of leadership because I I agree with Mr Das as far as that's concerned um however I feel the job itself requires a little more right there's more meetings setting agenda

there's being able to communicate effectively um with the rest of the committee including the administration and there are times where I I don't think we have more than one person to do that currently so if we set this if we say okay you can only the same person can only serve twice what happens that which basically means one elected term cuz we elect every year right which I think is a law I think we

should just keep the same person for two years but whatever so we do this every year so that's to say if I'm elected and I get to serve as Vice chair I only get to do it one time then it goes to somebody else even though that person may not want it they may not have the time to do it and they may not have quite frankly the communication skills

to do it and so um certainly how however I don't know if Mr Das is aware but more than one person can be nominated so with that being said even though we have Nos and abstains and whatever I didn't hear anybody else's name called out which is fine that's totally fine CU I don't want I don't want the job right so there are other people up here I would have voted for

but they weren't nominated so I voted for the person who I thought would do the best job who was nominated so I think putting a term on it just doesn't Mak sense due to the circumstances so that's why I'm going to be voting no on that motion anyway thank you Mr chair I well I think Bobby had his I'm Sor Mr Bailey uh and I'm not going to support this either and the

reason behind that is if someone is doing a good job whether it's two terms four terms whatever the case may be I don't think we should um prevent them from running again because I mean it's a job and as as Miss Pera was just saying um there's a lot of work that goes behind it and there's a lot of work that that that happens behind the scenes um and as I do support what you're saying

um you know a fresh you know look on things or or or change of leadership sometimes with those things could be but if someone's doing a great job there's no need to change it um so that's why I won't be supporting this um but I do respect what you're saying when it comes to that Mr Das thank you and I again I'm full um respect respect and two both my colleagues comments on my question I

actually did not know um we could have more than one nomination I I I didn't know if it was um if maybe the chair can clarify if we can have more than one nomination at once or if it has to be nominate if that person doesn't suceed then you have another nomination I I didn't I no honestly I didn't hear any conversation of what any further nominations which I thought was the the

way it was in the past so I would have nominated others but I I appreciate the clarification I still support I'm still going to um not going to withdraw my motion because I again I believe it's um important I and in the overrides um not saying the I think what's most important about this Vice chair position is that we have Alterna alternative um viewpoints in the agenda setting meeting that's very important to me and

so I I'll still vote Yes on my motion but again I have full respect um for my colleagues comments I Mr agar so the um answer to the question I think is about whether they can be more than one nomination the answer is no so that's just the way the policy manual is read or whatever the issue is I think Mr Das actually sent something to the chairman relative to trying to

change the way that we vote so that he can do it similar to the city council obviously he got no answer on that it's on the agenda item number nine or 10 relative to today I'm speaking so like it hasn't happened yet so no uh the issue at the end of the day is um I believe that we need to have higher expectations we need to both right from the top and including the school

committee that we need to have expectations for positions of the vice chair of the chair and we need to analyze whether things are being run correctly not correctly uh questions being asked uh we just in leadership positions to agree to everything and let it go through and not question anything I think that's what we really need to look at over the next several years because obviously asking questions is

not a bad thing and having making sure that things are in order such as the agenda and the like which is part of the duties of the vice chair in assisting in that would therefore indicate that we shouldn't have all the issues that we've had over the last year relative to the agenda so I think we need to take a hard look at what the expectations are of the position I actually don't agree with Mr

Das on this that I seconded it for discussion But ultimately the person has to work with the administration and if the person is in a disagreement with the administration on how the chair is running the meetings I don't think that would be a healthy thing as well to have somebody uh that disagrees with the chairman being sitting in the vice chair seat so if that would be for continuity

I think we should not have a a limit but also I just want to say for the record we need to really look at our expectations for not only this position but all positions I yield okay anything further I say one more comment Mr Mr DUS quick comment um and and just um one thing I'll just dis disagree with my colleague on I right I think everyone on this stage is qualified for the position

and um and going in past years I think we've had many qualified people from on school committee in the past but I do agree maybe it could happen in the future I mean so but I think we have a qu qualified Bunch that can hold the position but I m Pera just because words are super important I don't think I use the word qualified I said that not everybody wants the job and quite

frankly there are some here they're not capable because again as Mr Agia spoke we need a vice chair who actually can have a relationship with the administration and the committee and quite frankly in my opinion there are people on this stage that find that difficult and are working through that so absolutely there are people here that are not I guess I will say that are not qualified for that job with that I yield

all right let's give it a what was that I I couldn't seem to find anyone that met Mr PR's qual um assertions um sir I I would speak honestly calling right now to you sir I think your lack of experience and your inability to disagree effectively would make you a poor Vice chair currently not to say that's something that couldn't happen in the future okay no all right let's call the role on that on the term

limits Deb Please Mr AA no Mr Bailey no Mr Das yes Mr Cory no Miss lar no Miss Pereira no mayor kugan no next up 122 motion approve second I have a motion to approve on um selection and appointment of uh Kelsey tiberio any discussion Miss Tori I um I just wanted is is is Miss goodu here yes could you come to the podium I just have a couple of questions couple of basic

questions thank you Mary I appreciate it it's not in regard to um your candidate I I I fully support your candidate my question is could you just give us a brief update as to the state of Nursing in all our schools right now Mr Agia pointed parliamentary procedure this is about approving a selection only yeah I I agree it's it's not about that Tom it's about we just going no we're going

to M I think she could give him the answer in a private memo she can talk the after okay uh sorry for that thank you very much I get lost can you call the role please Deb sure Mr agas yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes M Pereira yes mayor kugan yes 123 is a discussion and vote to approve the second read of the budget priorities for FY 26 as presented

by Dr Tracy Curley superintendent of schools motion to approve of the question motion to approve of the I have a motion in a second and then Mr ago's got a question go ahead Mr Agia please my first question is are we going to utilize a zerob based budgeting uh philosophy I would say that in its purest form no we are not using a zerob based budgeting process agreed the uh when I look at the

all the budget priorities I I'm just struck with uh not so much anything that's within here but the budget that we're going to have is going to have to the biggest priority in the budget is to not have Cuts in my mind so separate from any of the the um headings I would like to put as the top priority is that we do not have Cuts in some way fashion

to say that it's a priority of us as a body and and collaboration to not have Cuts as the priority because if we look at a zerob based budget if we're going to do zero based budgeting great which I don't we always say it we never really truly do it but at the end of the day all of this stuff on paper is is is really a moot point in my

opinion if we're going to have Cuts so I think as a when we're doing this as a document of draft budget priorities the overarching goal should be no cuts and I'd like to add that to the um top of it as and this is only a draft I believe we're bringing this back for a second read I think this is the second read I brought it in December but there

hadn't been any feedback so I would say I'd like to make a an amendment to this to say the top but top bullet point to just to say uh the top budget priority is to have no cuts to staff um second I have a motion to second on no cuts um I on that I would caution the committee because going forward we have no idea I was watching the news today and there are people talking about

cutting $3 trillion dollar out of the federal budget this year right now um which in turn could trigger some severe Cuts in some of our federal funding whether it's Title One or whatever um I definitely support Mr agar's intent to limit Cuts or not you know use them as the first fallback but going forward we have no idea what funding is going to look like to the far of public schools

and I just think we have to be very cautious I do like I said we all approve of uh not building a budget with cuts in it as any kind of a an operation to save money but if there is something radical that goes on with both the federal government and the state then we may not be able to do that Mr Agia go ahead Mr just uh what I suggested I don't think

it would affect anything that you just said Mr Mayor okay so as the priority of saying no Cuts I think that's just giv direction to the public to the superintendent to the school committee that our our first goal is to have no Cuts now obviously if our budget gets cut in Title One let's say by 20% we're going to have to have Cuts but I think it doesn't if we don't put something

like that it makes it look like we can do some of these other pieces program expansion this that and the other thing but the real thing would be to preserve the staff first and then obviously we're going to have a bite at the Apple to approve the budget but as a document if I'm was reading this in the public I'd say oh they're going to add all kinds of things in here the first statement of

the prioritize that's what the name of this is a budget priority should be to preserve all the staff that we have in the buildings and across the whole District so I don't think it would harm us to add that as a bullet point or some kind of statement at the top and then we take it as we go if we have to make Cuts we have to make Cuts but this is a

document that just identifying our priorities and I think the first priority needs to be to preserve staff are yield Mr Das yeah I no I I 100% agree with my colleague and the priority should be making sure we look for any way we can save money and the first priority should be we are not cutting any staff and whatever I can do as one member any vote any advisory committee or anything I can

do to save money for this District I'll be that person to do that that's why I'm in 100% ingredients with with Mr agar's amendment I you yeah I guess so I mean I I that's fine we have a motion a second anybody have anything further go ahead D call the r Please Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larav yes Miss Perera yes mayor kougan yes item number

four is second on the overall I'm sorry we Tak a vot you're correct Mr on the overall item number three approve the second read of the budget priorities Mr chairman Mr AGA just uh looking at I item number two uh obviously taking into consideration the vote of trying to make sure we have no Cuts uh special ed program and supports I think that um I've been advocating for several years now that we need to continue

to um make improvements in our special education across the board I think when Miss Oben chain first got hired I think it's several years ago now one of the things that I asked at the meeting was looking for some robust bold changes to uh special ed programming supports the way we do operations it's a major major piece of what we do and I would just like to add it doesn't have

to be in this document but my two cents on the fact that we need to make some robust bold changes that might be shocking to people if we want to just keep doing the same thing to go along to get along each and every year but we need to change some of the ways we do business with organizational structures and the like so that we can get more bank for our buck across the board so

I'm putting my two cents behind we need to make some bold changes in the special ed programming and supports and give Miss openchain the support that she needs so with that I go thank you can I make one suggestion M larvey I'd like to also add maybe uh a discussion about uh priority as it pertains to the h uh Department um I've noticed uh many departments from other districts that uh

so uh New Bedford uh Brockton that are similar in size of Fall River and their HR department is three times four times bigger than Fall Rivers we sit here all the time and we talk about retainment and and going out in in Recruitment and getting these these teachers into our our district but I strongly feel we lack uh the Staffing or the appropriate Staffing in our HR department so I hope

some way somehow we can make that a priority uh moving forward um I yield anything further Mr chairman Mr Cory yes I'd just like to recommend this in in the segment of College and Career Pathways where it says to develop alternative Pathways to meet the needs of atrisk students I'd like to I'd like to keep our eyes on Higher Goals and to uh think about expanding CTE as much as possible according to desie

guidelines uh to keep um a demographic study of our students here in the city and knowing that many of them could could really Prosper with a Hands-On style education those children who are not going to go to college and maybe they can end up up becoming long-term residences and future business owners in Fall River that's my that's my hope and uh I'm going to keep pressing that CTE Point down the road I

yield anything further Deb call the role Please Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr D Mr Cory yes Miss larvi yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kran yes 12.4 is a second reading vote to approve the school committee and superintendent goals for school year 2425 is presented by Dr Tracy Curley motion to approve of the question motion to approve of the question second I have a motion a second Mr agie thank you uh

want to thank Dr kley for adding some Benchmark evidence as we suggested at the last meeting appreciate that the only thing I would ask is on the second part where you indicate um the 50% number towards targets and um the three out of four in each of those um various areas could you give a uh Layman's example of what that means in order to achieve three out of four because I think it's um it would explain

it to not only me but the committee and the public what that means so um every year we receive targets from the Department of Ed um in a bunch of different categories um some of them are around student growth student achievement student attendance um our um progress toward English language proficiency things like that and um we have not to date met um 50% of those targets we haven't earned 50% of

the points yet so this year we'd be looking to um we'd be looking to earn at least 50% of the progress um toward Target points and then in terms of the three out of four um the three out of four the three means we've met expectations so we'd be looking to meet the target for ELA achievement meet the target for math meet the target for science and meet the target for English language proficiency progress toward

English language profic proficiency if if we did meet if we did score three if you attained all four of those goals what would that mean for the district in I mean it would it would signal um significant progress because the um the department of Ed you know puts us on a trajectory and they tell us like you know kind of where you should be a year from now based on where you've been

based on what kind of um a lot of it the target points are relative so they look at how other districts who were in a similar situation um kind of what's reasonable progress that's how the targets are met and so if we were meeting our targets it would mean that we were um we were making the moves that uh were expected by the department of EV right I think I think that you know

having an experience in it I think that if we met three out of four in all of these we're going to be doing pretty well uh but I think how you translate that to the public to the school committee that don't work on this in on a regular basis this I don't believe is a um a low goal like you're setting a goal or you and your team are setting a

goal to say we're already almost there so let's just set the goal and go I think this is somewhat challenging uh and correct me if I'm wrong but I think that's what this looks like that getting to 50% and and above three out of four and all of these categories if this was what happened I think we would all be happy with the results and you guys would come to us and say we're really

doing a great job at this so the reason why I pushed for some of this stuff was because I think that's what we need to do is to say we're not just going to be comfortable with the lack of achievement that we had so I do appreciate the fact that you added these in and um I am going to be supporting it based on that thank you okay thanks anything further

Deb would you please call the RO Mr agan yes Mr Bailey yes Mr D obain Mr Cory yes M larav yes Miss Pera yes mayor K yes 125 is discussion and vote to approve a school committee date change from February 10th to motion second I have a motion second hold on Mr Bailey um so February 24th I'm just going to um put it out there now I'm not going to be able to be

here on that date I already have something um planned for that date so I will not be in attendance that meeting any other oh Mr Das next I I just want say why I abstained I was just in the bathroom so I missed half the conversation so I thought it was appropriate I anything further Mr AG just uh I I saw I could read the rational was to get the budget

uh either worked on so in the format I have in front of me is February 24th the date of the presentation on the budget yes yes so it was Fe 10th um Pard of me out of courtesy to uh colleagues when somebody cannot make it and they tell us ahead of time we don't we don't just meet on those dates and especially being the budget presentation I think um we should look at an

alternative date uh or just move it back if we can within the calendar to do it in the March meeting if I don't think that's going to be that big a deal if we just said the budget if we kept the meeting on the 10th but for the sake of the budget if we moved it is it is it going to be a problem with the city council you know what I mean I don't

know if there's any other op Mr Al it would just move things around in the calendar so if we were to move the further we we move it out it would just kind of expand our it would shorten our time frame to get all of our individual meetings done prior to making it available to the public and all that and everything that happens in the process but could it be done could it be done

yes we could make it happen yes I would recommend that we just uh leave it at the 10th so that our colleague could be here and we move the budget to the March meeting or move even if we move the March meeting up a week or something like that but I don't feel comfortable knowing that our colleague Mr Bailey can you zoom it uh no I have I have senior nights okay

okay what's the what's the will of the committee Mr Das just an idea maybe um you Mr Cher has hold a special meeting in between those dates at the 10th and the 24th that works for vacation committee vacation we would it just Happ to be the week of the vacation so the following Monday is the Monday holiday and then the the 24th was the next Monday first day y the first day back

Mr chairman yes Mr thank you just uh based on the conversation we just had relative to the budget and uh the zero base nature or not and all that stuff quite frankly I think that we spend a lot of time haggling over the budgets with the Departments and the principles and everything like we've been doing this for years the same way and I think maybe this is an opportunity to do it

maybe in a little different way where we streamline the process a little bit because there's no reason why people work all day and then got to get stressed out coming here to try to figure out at this point we're going to have a budget that doesn't have much wiggle room so they not going to need to come and try to justify all these things we're going to be basically trying to

hold on to everything that we have so I think this might actually work to your benefit to streamline it and I for one am not looking to have everybody every meeting like at some point we have to we've exhausted that over and over so I think it might be a good thing I yield what's the will of the committee so I have a question m l so so Mr agie are you recommending that none of the

schools the principes come before us and give their explanation of why they need this why they need that right that whole part of the process they do it twice so they do it twice is from what I so they do it with the administration and then they do it with us right so why not just go through the administration Administration and they come to us and say at a meeting the like if we for

instance when we were adding uh 888 positions or 115 positions I think was more this year if you come to us and say we're adding five positions I'm going to congratulate you so I just think it's the time for a little bit different uh way about it and um we can do it transparently through documentation back and forth but um I don't see the need then if we bumped it to March it's not

the end of the world because you're going to be sit up here in February and you're going to say mark my words if we did it this way we don't have all the data in we don't have all the numbers in we're not exactly sure like you're going to have a lot of guesses so the more time is better for me at the end of the day so going to say I'm not I'm not

saying no I'm saying fine I'm saying it's fine so it's the will of the committee to stay with February 10th and the March meeting is when March 10th March 10 March 10th March 10th that's where the budget would go so he'd have to make a new calendar to say what it is and then you come up with in February you could tell us what does it look like now with a condensed version I I can

have a new calendar for next by the end of the week thank so may I withdraw my second okay so why don't we just um table this item or vote vote to withdraw it motion to table motion withdraw second motion motion to withdraw motion to withdraw was made by Mr agar seconded by Mr Das give it a ride there Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes M Perera yes

mayor KGAN yes 126 a discussion and vote to approve to teach integration of CPR training with nasal Naran delivery and health to curriculum as referred by the instructional subcommittee motion to approve second I have a motion any discussion on this item or do we want to hear the presentation Mr Das I don't need to hear the presentation again I just want to say I support this because it just makes

common sense it's actually just slightly amending the curriculum already just so the students can see more Hands-On approach to how Nar works and how it's administered and I believe it's a very important um tool to be used and to be taught in the district and I'm fully behind this you anything else Mr Cory can I ask Mr felle just come down and just explain it briefly I just want to I

want to know a little bit more about it for myself

so in health 2 um you know the new framework everything is skill-based so we teach the kids um all about addiction the drug categories overdose potentials what drugs oxycoton medication addiction go through the whole opioid um whole opioid crisis then we introduce Tales of Overdose survivors um and then that's how we introduce how K would be delivered um we go through you know the stages of the

Blue Lips fingertips shallow breathing pinpoint pupils and we talk about CPR as a life-saving skill we'd also like to add in and I brought it so that you could see this is all done on a mannequin these are just um Narcan nasal trainers where the kids would just literally go to the to the mannequin push the plunger in put it down take the second one out box an AR can typically comes with um two

um um two nasal sprays that way that if they know somebody they care for or they're around somebody um as statistics shows Fall River since 2018 is averaged 1.82 overdoses a day and 1 uh8 deaths uh per week I'm sorry per month that's my apologies on that um at some point it's going to be one of our former students somebody they care for it might be you know someone they know that has an addiction they struggle

with whereas we also star provided us with um a list of um resources in a community where if somebody felt that they needed help or someone that they cared for needed help it's just a way to empower our students um as a life-saving skill I think it's fantastic um is there is there a career pathway when students learn this skill moving forward possibly as EMTs or anything like that I'm sure

that's definitely part of the EMT training um as far as the health to um we just provide them with the the the CPR and you know the nasal Naran delivery we would like to So within the scope of the school department and you guys teaching the kids this skill are there any liabilities associated with that no because um ay Naran there's nothing that comes out of these the student didn't want to do it

not a problem we're not going to force you to do it but we would like to be able to demonstrate while we have the mannequins out that way if they're ever in a situation that they know right uh with the train coming in the bus stations many of our students transfer from there uh substance abuse is high in those areas you never know um especially with you may break a finger you might be

prescribed uh some type of opioid um become addicted you know it's just something that you have that could be a skill forever um Miss Pereira brought up a great point that we're looking into as well with our new curriculum um talking about bringing in uh EpiPen training especially at a lower levels um I know when I did Middle School sports for many years uh nurse Moren uh nurse Pat F

Nurse Christine down at the C middle school it always pull us aside show us how to uh use the F pen and that's something that we are talking with our lead teachers now um about what grade level should we look to do that in it's fantastic than thank you for that insight and that work I yield uh Mr AGA if I could I support this uh I just want to ask that through

the superintendent if you could get us an update on the substance abuse education going on K to2 I know we've discussed it in the past just get an update on how that's uh being rolled out and how it's going that's all thank you AB absolutely would you like me to no he uh get it to the superintendent I guess and she'll get it to us okay absolutely thank you very much you

thanks anything further uh do I have a motion to Second de no motion so move second I have a motion a second de please call the rooll Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes M Pereira mayor kugan yes 127 is a discussion and vote to approve the virtual pathway at the Robert El madus resiliency Preparatory Academy as referred by the instructional subcommittee motion to

approve second second motion and a second any discussion on this item yeah I just want I just want a brief presentation on it just to get oriented to the idea M Dr bronhard please thank you um so I am here with principal Riley and uh Mr Woodward we have been really working collaboratively all year to address some of our attendance concerns and meeting the needs of our students at rlm

RPA and as we currently we're serving 161 students down at RPA um as of Friday we are at our 81st day of school for the school year so in looking at our chronic rate that we measure every 10 days so that we are continually tracking our growth as it relates to reducing chronic absenteeism um RPA continues to struggle and we recognize that our students at RPA just bring different needs and

different challenges but one of the pieces that we also looked at is our average daily attendance because that is a metric that we feel we can get some leverage with on a week- toe basis and we continue to struggle with attendance at RPA around 55 to 65% attendance on a daily basis and so we recognize that we need to look to do something different and not just bring a similar program of

you know of what they've experienced in the past to RPA and so in looking at our student attendance daily we recognized that we had low classroom attendance and so we began talking about building a virtual pathway through RPA by leveraging our teachers support during the school day and so we started by putting some ideas together we brought a proposal get together um to the staff of RPA in the beginning of December

recognizing we could not do any of this midyear pivot without their support we collected some feedback we've made some adjustments and we responded to the staff feedback as we began to develop a virtual pathway for RPA it is our goal that we will launch a virtual pathway uh at the start of semester 2 really with our intentions to Pilot something different excuse me something different

so that we can have some trial based experiences that that when we do come forth with a program of study for next school year that we've piloted a couple of options to really look differently at how we're meeting our kids' needs um and so that is what we are bringing forth to you today is a virtual pathway that would run Monday through Friday periods 1 through six at RPA our current

teachers would be live they would be virtually connected to our students our students will have the ability to interact with academic coursework as well as live tutors throughout the course of the day because we are partnering with our uity platform that we have already purchased we have already got that agreement with Edgenuity and we also have the platform element that brings in the live tutors

so that even when students are not connected to their teacher during that time they do have access to live tutors during the off time and students will be able to access their core content at any point during the day during the night um on weekends whenever it is convenient for them to be able to dig into their academics and make progress our support staff will have regular check-ins with

students our teachers will have regular check-ins with students so that we are getting eyes on students daily and weekly and we truly believe that with this wraparound support and meeting students where they're at we will be able to have more direct connection with some students that right now we're not able to meet with and connect with as regularly as we would like to so it again it is our intent um we're still

just in in full transparency too we are waiting for a final word from the Department of Education as it relates to any legal elements that we need to step into with desie to get approval around time on learning but we are we are in communication with them through this week we needed to bring this before the committee to get an approval from you so that we can confidently plan forward for

semester two which comes up in just a couple short weeks for us um at the end of January so again pending Desi's support and giving us the nod um which we have a meeting this week with a few directors at desie we will be looking to move this forward semester 2 at RPA just one point of clarity um in miss me uh Miss lv's comments at the subcommittee she had mentioned 10 to 15 students I

just want to clarify we we're talking about 10 to 15 students per grade level um and that we're going to really look to go slow to go fast with this program and it will be student and parent electing themselves to be part of the program because what's going on right now is not working for their student Mr Chim Mr Cory then Mr B so no no I I I applaud the effort to try to you know

navigate ways to get these kids in education and I realize that attendance has always been the hang up with this population uh Mr Riley is is this a result of the the consultations you had last year with that outside group that I saw at the school a few times you mean sessi the contractor sessi is that who you're talking about yeah yeah um I I think they brought a lot of good points

up at the time I think this really is a pivot this year uh with Dr B's office um with our teachers and our staff really having those conversations when we finally get a kid up and going and he's coming in in on a regular basis all a sudden we turn around we lost two others and it just seems like the numbers haven't changed even though we changed as Dr bronhard said so uh it really is a

pivot with this parents buying into this idea yeah we made some initial phone calls just to see what the fever was out like out there um because we didn't want every parent to say we don't want this at all and it was uh the initial conversation if this passes if we go forward with this was very positive we only had one out of both floors that said that's not for my kid and as far as

pedagogy is concerned is it going to stay on the level are these kids really going to be held to the content of the subject matter that they're studying it it really is using Ingenuity we use that already we have a lab in our uh school that we run four times a day so a lot of kids be used to that software that aligns itself with Massachusetts uh curriculum Frameworks is there going to be any

followup as far as work study or or job placement or anything like that to a program like this you want work study I meant sorry so as I mentioned you know all of our students who are in this program will have access to our support staff and any services at RPA currently right now our students who we identifying as in need of this are really not accessing any of our current

services so as with all programs and services they are available to students but we really want to meet students where they're at get them connected back to school and then begin looking at additional workplace Place placements and and all of the like and it should be noted too um that we're are targeting this year for grades 10 11 and 12 as we look to come forward for next school year I would Envision us looking at

particularly different grade bands but for this year we're just looking at grades 10 to 12 at RPA okay thanks I I'll be curious to see how it looks like uh you know some months down the road good luck with all of this thank you you gave a very um good you have um you gave a very in-depth presentation full support of this um this is one question is this considered

its some own school or is this a conduit of um RPA no this is a pathway at RPA so it's it's a part of RPA it is a part of RPA so you were to expand this to other schools they would have their own conduits I don't want to speak about expansion I just prefer to stick with this for right now um when we start talking about virtual schools as we

began to discover last year there are some particulars that we would need to consider and so it is really our goal to take a hard look at what we are able to develop that is alternative in nature at RPA so that we're not replicating a similar student experience between whether it's dery or on middle schools over to RPA where it really doesn't look too too much different and so this is

the first you know one of our not first but in another opportunity that we're looking to take to create something that looks a little different to meet our kids needs at RPA right no and I fully support that I guess my question was so if we were to do this at Stone or Derpy they would have their own conduits just hypothetically I think ideally we want to be careful about that because by

replicating the same programs in multiple places we eliminate that being something different at RPA and I think as a as a community this is also a part of us rebranding RPA because unfortunately we know we've struggled with some of just the perception of what RPA represents in our community and I think it's really important as we move forward that alternative in Fall River needs to begin to be looked at as

something different and not something bad or worse than or good or not as good and so my only cautious with thinking about replicating programs at different schools um is that we send a message un potentially unintended and so if we're talking about a virtual pathway I don't think we would need multiple virtual Pathways because technically if you're in a virtual pathway you're not coming

to school and I don't think we need to do that in multiple places I think as a district just so that we all are aware there is a call there is a little bit of an interest in a virtual experience as we continue to see our Tekk numbers rise which is the Massachusetts Virtual School numbers they continue to rise particularly at this secondary level and so that tells me that within our

community and again we began to look at this last year with the launch of a virtual school and some of our initial um data collection there is a thirst for a virtual school in Fall River I just want to be clear that and certain that we're meeting the needs of those that would be able to take advantage of that that's fair enough thank you yeah um m m Pera yeah I just wanted to to basically

say I agree with with what you're saying um that to me this is an option because students have already exhausted other options right so I think we need to keep that in mind it's not just hey we have this cool thing where you don't have to come to school anymore no we want kids in in the classrooms we want them in their seats we want them attending um our students who struggle the community

may then go to an alternative type of educational experience at the RPA because that's what they need while there maybe they also continue to struggle um with with attendance and other as we talked about in the subcommittee meeting family Dynamics and a plethora of barriers these kids face um and that is where this Virtual School comes in handy so I personally would not before it being an option um at the

traditional high school at this time but it's a great program and I'm happy to support it Miss larvey Dr B there was uh we did speak about the opt-in um parents have to opt in for the program what we didn't really talk about is the the process of it are they going to have are the parents going to have individualized meetings with the student are they going to come and speak to Administration talk about expectations

of the program the whole n or are they just going to sign off opt in like through email no it'll be communicating with each individual family and meeting them where they're at so whether that's a virtual meeting with the vice principal and the students family um an in-person meeting maybe it's a home visit that we make but it is you know we're going slow to go fast so we've identified students for a plethora of

different reasons why we are identifying you to to offer the program but again this is not a come one come all we we are going to be selective in who we enroll because it is our priority to bring our students in person but we do feel we have an obligation to those students who are unable to come in person or who are really struggling when they do come in person and when we can

agree with families that this is the different but next best opportunity for their student we want to be able to offer it to them right I Just Want to Thank You commend you guys for this I think this has been you know uh an interesting subject for a couple years this has been coming up and I'm very very excited to see where this is going to go this is going to help a lot of

students I think on a quick other note just to follow up from Mr agar's request around you know the opio excuse me the drug or infraction data that you had um asked around today we launched pass at the Boys and Girls Club um so our funding from the opioid settlement kicked off today we had four students enrolled and we already have six students enrolled for the next couple of

days so I am very optimistic and I want to give just a shout out to both our leaders at dery high school and RPA and stone and Diamond because we have already had three different schools represented on day one which was really a nice cross-section to see um and we are gearing up for day two and just continuing to collaborate and communicate across schools to ensure that we keep our kids coming to school

every day and support them with whatever it is that they might need so shout out to the Past staff and shout out to our community um because today launched day one at the Boys and Girls Club very successfully than I just want to I just want to add to that and just want to give you Kudos on that as well because I've heard a lot of positive feedback from administrators that um is going

well it was seamless um and and and they really like the program so I just wanted to give you Kudos on that as well I appreciate that you know just to give my team a shout out I'm sorry I'm just going to give this take this moment but just to give my team a quick shout out because we turned this around very quickly we were able to find some five-star quality staff to join us in

this Mission and so we are very excited for the community collaboration with Star Family Services um jri and the like uh with just the partnership and collabor support So shout out to the for of a community day one of past has come and gone and I look forward to be able to give some updates in the future around our success rates beautiful thank you Mr Agia just uh want

to say that I I do think it's a difficult position down there at the alternative school the kids are come in with so many needs and you unless you've been there and worked there I don't think you truly get a picture of what you deal with on a day-to-day basis so kudos to Mr Riley for stepping up and and yourself and M Mr Woodward for doing that I am in favor of the um online type

of situation I was in favor of the virtual school um I just got to say that uh we I was disheartened over the last several years because four or five years ago we had this going quite well with the virtual option with the uity and all that stuff and then the powers that be no nobody that's here right now put leadership in that took us backwards and I said this in a meeting and I'll say it

again we went backwards under the prior Administration there they dis dismantled all the things that we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in planning on doing so kudos to you for acknowledging that turning it around and not waitting till the end of the year but we this is an option that needs to happen for all kids in all of the schools if need be so like you said it's if it's an

alternative has to be different you want to keep doing the same thing you're going to get the same results so kudos to all you for doing it thank you Mr Riley for your dedication down there I hope to come in and visit on February 1st while you're here Mr Riley after I get out of work somehow I might have to take a half day to go in there and and buy something from that Bakery uh on

February 1st cuz that's the deadline that we have hard set and I want to say that again thank you very much I de please call the rooll on this Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr D yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Miss Pereira yes Mary kugan yes 128 is in discussion and vote to approve the competency determination for the class of 2025 is referred by the instructional sub committee and presented by Brian Raposa assistant

superintendent motional approve second I um you want to anybody have any questions Mr oppos you want to hear the presentation Mr oppos you might get lucky dead give it a call please Mr AA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep Miss larvi yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kougan yes chob Mr proposal 129 is discussion and vote to approve the creation of the efficiency and waste reduction advisory committee as

presented by Colin dis that the floor Mr Mayor yeah okay um thank you um for putting this on the agenda Mr chair again as we just discussed today and as the mayor mentioned earlier we we don't know what's going to happen in the next few years when it comes to Federal money when it comes to State money and support for this District so I as one member and fully fully support looking into any

way we can possible to look in the ways we could save money especially potentially knock on wood if we have a new contract and like Mr agar said earlier my last priority is laying off cutting teachers that is something I do not want to do so I want to look for any way we can find money to support the Educators and to support the staff and and to support the student students of

the city and it's the fiscally prudent thing to do for our taxpayers there's been instances where I believe that we can better use funding in this District in better ways that we can look to cut back on the wasteful spending we we wasted over $600,000 overspent on playgrounds let's figure out how we can avoid that in the future we can cut back on a small cost like the dinosaur

costume I think this is a good way we can get the community involved and look for different ways that we can cut back on wasteful spending um with this being approved if this is approved I hope the mayor who would have the ability to appoint members would look again into the business um appointing Business Leaders within our community those who have successful businesses so they can assist

the superintendent this I believe is a really good way to assist our Administration in looking for ways we can save our money in this district and avoid any collateral in the future with that being said I'll make a motion to approve second with a question I have a second for Mr agar question please so the the question I have is not the um uh intent of it I think the intent is

pretty solid on looking for savings or potential waste or things that we could do better I don't think the mission as far as that's concerned is something that uh I don't know anybody that would disagree with that looking about uh long-term planning operational efficiency uh identifies cost savings how we report things how we question things I think all that is is definitely solid um the only problem I have with

this is necessarily in the membership I think it might look like a um a bog down too many people uh too many different people at the table I'm not sure it's going to get to the point of uh what the goal of it is so I would like to try and find a way that maybe we add something like this to one of our current subcommittees so that we get the um

flavor of this uh where people could report out to um as one of our committees so for instance I'm on the shair the special ed alternative Ed and Early Education committee so we could take a committee that the mayor chose and just put comma government efficiency advisory or something like that so if if members of the public the school department workers or anybody has a suggestion they would funnel it through

that sub committee uh so I I would like to do something like this but I think doing it in a way such that it's with one of our existing committees would be make the most sense would that I yield any Miss Pera um so I agree uh with Mr agar in that the atttention of this makes sense it's it's what we do here um I just have a couple of my main

concern is I feel it's just redundant in terms of we have a committee that looks at Cost savings financially plans reports it's called the finance committee and we're all on it um I I personally think that having all of committee members on a on the finance committee every member is a member of the finance committee right so we have different subcommittees everybody is on that one so to me it's just duplicating

what that does because on that committee also is the superintendent and the CFO and and I I just I don't feel I certainly think that the people who are sitting up here were elected by the public to look at budget issues and look at where things could be cut I'm not comfortable you know taking suggestions from the public is great I'm not comfortable with starting a committee with

five members of the public I don't know that I would feel they had any more experience in um the budget process than anybody sitting up here I mean I think maybe once the budget meetings start which they're starting soon right before we know it we'll be in you know a million meetings more more even than now and I think that my colleague will see that that process exists and that is the

place where I think this should be vetted right is in the finance committee that makes sense to me so it's kind of along I agree with M agat it's along the lines of can't we do this in a subcommittee we don't need to create something new and add add members of the community as board members or whatever um but I I I I'm not for this simply because I feel like it's just a

replication of the finance committee and we should in all our subcommittees be looking at where we can find cost savings we should take that upon ourselves in every committee because it's it's part of our job on the school committee make sure that that the budget is good and that um we're spending money efficiently it's literally the main point of our job so so I do agree with the purpose however I feel like it's a

duplication of services so that's why I'll be voting no thank you uh Mr Das thank you and I again full full respect for my colleagues colleagues comments and and I do agree with Mr agar the purpose behind getting individuals from the community for an advisory committee which is supposed to be temporary not permanent is to give suggestions to the superintendent and look more in depth we're not there every

single day and our our main goal that's one of our goals but it's not our main purpose to sit with the superintendent and the purpose was hopefully we would you know um look into appointing members of the business Community CEOs that was my intention those who have done really well in fall river to look to help the superintendent look at ways to um cut back on spending however I do agree with Mr agar um it

should be something with with I mean we do have the finance committee as well so um I would love I like to hear the superintendent's opinion I haven't talked to superintendent on this um if either on this or ways if you have any other suggestion or I mean I think I was glad that the question came up before a vote um just in terms of I I've been thinking about like how this

would be operationalized what this would look like just in the next few weeks to few months in terms of even whether it was if if we decided to if if the vote here was yes it's like well who are the people how are they selected how do we you know include them in our meetings I believe don't me I know the mayor selects them but I mean what criteria would what what's the

expectation for that criteria things like that and there's I mean for me there's certainly a question um I I do think that people can be very successful um in business and not fully understand School budgets and I think the time that it would take to orient people to all of the different needs um and all of the work that's been done to date I I don't know how effective those people could be

in in a short amount of time the other piece is I think the like a more effective thing to do even you know within our short time frame is really to take a look at our um internal processes not just internally in terms of my team but internally in terms of this committee and the role that the committee plays and the kinds of things um you know I think in terms of the ways

in which the committee would like things to be presented um because I think that when we don't get that right potentially then that um brings up more questions and a little bit more angst at the table than it needs to versus our preparing the kinds of Doc doents that the the committee wants to see and will require and so on and so on so I'd like to see some time spent on um just improving

that communication around those processes and not think outside of the existing finance committee fair enough um what Mr agar said um earlier is that something you'd be supportive of if it was like we had a government efficiency title added to one of the subcommittees I I think that I think that makes sense I think that it I just don't know how to choose which Committee in a way that like if we if we

pick a committee and then someone's not on that committee and the budget seems like something that is um something everybody has kind of an interest in a hand in which I think is why the finance subcommittee really is a committee of the whole I think it would be difficult to identify a subcommittee of that committee that everyone would feel comfortable with all right so maybe we can have a conversation around um

amending the finance sub committee to make it more useful I I don't think we someone correct me if I'm wrong I don't since I've been on this committee I haven't recalled having a finance subcommittee yet they're coming up it's coming up got here the budget they're coming so the point I was trying to make thank you to my colleague to my right is that maybe we can expand the the use of

it and also to expand the the description of the subcommittee so um I'll withdraw my motion right now and I'll make a motion that we ask the superintendent to look into the description of the finance subcommittee to potentially add some amendments to um the conversations we've had today second yeah just he's withdrawing it someone's someone's got to with withdra Mr AG I'm sorry so um I think it was uh a good

suggestion as I said um taking both suggestions relative to finance as well as what Mr Das brought up on efficiency I think we should have a finance committee meeting quarterly with an agenda item that's called Fall River Public Schools efficiency reporting and that will allow us to quarterly report out it could be as something as simple as uh each quarter the superintendent or one of her staff through her reports to

us on any ways that they've been efficient whether it's in uh new systems or whatever else I think having it be an agenda item item just talking about quarterly reporting it'll allow us at that meeting to say well I have a suggestion of X Y and Z let's talk about at that meeting so people aren't coming from a million different angles and you could present to us ways that you think

and if there's no efficiency for that month we just say there's nothing to report but second um I think that would be the best did you make a motion yeah I'll make that in form of a motion yeah wait wait wait wait wait I got to I'll withdraw my motion that I Colin didn't get a second no we did not okay so on the original motion he never got a

second he got a second he withdrew the original motion okay he made another motion but no one seconded it okay and I'm making the motion just now can I second so mi Mr Agia my my question to you is so if this is going to be quarterly would we then meet like in finance similar to what the council does 530 to 6 and so okay just like we did for like we had a meeting about fisc

policy a couple years ago all right we got a motion a second Deb call the r on that can iead Sor question so you just mentioned just like the the city council so we'd be meeting a half hour before targeted dates that we're going to pick ahead of time correct right is okay I got a motion and second by Miss Pera Deb call the rooll please M drag yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory

okay Mr larv yes Miss Perera yes mayor kugan yes uh 1210 is also by Mr di is a discussion and vote to refer the following policy BDA to the policy subcommittee um Mr chair it does say on the agenda this is um presented by you but I have no problem presenting it no it I that was a typo I'm not presenting it go ahead okay so this basically um

just an idea that I had we should just make it similar just to the city council I think they have a pretty simple process um and that's my rationale for it I motion to refer to policy subcommittee second just to let the policy subcommittee hear it okay it's just a referral to the policy subcommittee de call the rooll Please Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory okay Miss larvi yes Miss

Perera yes mayor kugan yes and um 12 11 um 1211 is also Mr Das um I a vote I'm assuming you want this to go to the policy subcommittee also proposed policy regarding request for information from the school committee as presented by Colin Das correct yes this was obviously um proposed by myself just after what happened over the last month I as one member fully support individual members

of this committee being able to request re EST information I do agree with some of my colleagues that have expressed that it should be there should be policy around it um I believe what I presented is a happy medium that I believe should um make everyone happy um however I think referring it to the subcommittee so we can have more in-depth discussion uh there definitely needs to be some policy around this I

know I had a conversation with the mayor where we talked about Shrewsberry I believe it was that had a policy as well in regards to this matter I believe we need to have a policy where individual school committee members is their rights are recognized to request information and subcommittees as well should also have that inherent right to request information as well so we can improve government however had allowing

the superintendent if they believe if um superintendent believes the request is either not within the purview of the school committee or is over overburdensome to her position has the ability to bring it before the full committee for a vote I think that's a good happy medium and so I'm I don't know if I made it already in in my my discussion but i' make a motion to refer to policy subcommittee any second sorry

you seconded it we had a motion second to refer to policy subcommittee Mr Agia so just another it did say presented by the mayor that's why I asked ear today saying you know everyone should be able to uh present the uh the only thing I would say is going to the subcommittee is fine I just think it's very very clear as far as I'm concerned as one member that we as school committee

members appoint the superintendent of schools so we should be able to ask the superintendent of schools for for information and I think a lot of this got cloudy and trying to figure out is people trying to give the superintendent a hard time or not back and forth at the end of the day we appoint the superintendent we should be allowed individually to ask you for information and if you say it's going to take me a

while or whatever then you just say that and we can deal with it so what doesn't how this got brought up was originally when I asked for certain information it was taken personal like oh I'm asking for stuff that I I'm not entitled to and everybody got all jammed up at the end of the day individual members vote for the superintendent appoint the superintendent and can't ask for information so that's all I was

asking for so I think this is fine to refer but I think it's it's expounding the the problem just keeps on going on and on we ask you for information you give it if you can't give it you say I can't give it and it's all with the everything I've ever asked for is trying to figure out a way to make it better in the future so um I'll support this but I don't think

it's necessary I yield I just I I think Mr agar in the context that you ask it it sounds reasonable but there's seven of us up here and she has a job to do and it's not to respond to seven requests a day from Seven members and that's all my concern is when when does she do her work when when do we evaluate her on her work it's not responding to us we're a

committee she she can't get bombarded with um mayor cougan calling up to say how many kids at lerno didn't take gym last week I heard there was kids sitting in the gym and she's chasing she's calling a principal I just think it can get can get unwieldy that's all I that's that's my concern with that and that's where I'm going to sit I just don't know who who's going to regulate you you have

a request but you you're entitled to your opinion as one member so right so is everybody else all I'm trying to say is we've wasted a lot of energy trying to figure out how can we say that she doesn't have to give this or that attorney Ramsey gave a legal opinion which you know I thought was ridiculous that it forgot it just happened to forget the eight words that said appointed by the superintendent we

didn't need to get into all that all that came from when somebody was just trying to protect and not get information rather than have the superintendent say no I don't think that it's going to take me a long time to get that we I've had personal conversations with the superintendent to say you've asked for all the stuff can I get it in a streamlined way and we've come to an

agreement yes we can do that and it's not something that I'm saying well we need it right now but as one member of the committee as every member of the committee if we ask somebody for it you should get an answer whether it's it's going to take me a week or whatever so we just have a difference of opinion on it all I'm saying is let's not keep on

going over this over and over we have a right to the info and let's move on I think it can be vetted at the subcommittee level and and look at the charter look at the state laws and craft the policy that complies with everything so to refer it to the subcommittee that can we take a vote Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory which subcommittee policy yeah policy yes Miss

larv yep Miss perara yes mayor kugan yep 1212 is a discussion and vote to approve the superintendent's evaluation is presented by school committee woman Shelley Pereira so we completed the evaluation of the superintendent I want to stop by talking about um the areas um and how she was evaluated um so the performance of every um indicator here uh there's four different standards proficient well unsatisfactory needs

Improvement proficient and exemplary unsatisfactory performance is me is basically merited when the performance is significantly um in need of improvement or the performance is consistently below required standards so that would be unsatisfactory um needs Improvement needs Improvement represents performance that is below the requirements of standard but is not considered to be unsatisfactory at this time it means

that Improvement is necessary and expected um for new Educators and performers this is often um where you tend to land proficient performance is understood to be fully satisfactory for the superintendent and others administrators as well as teachers this is rigorous expected level of performance and is demanding but attainable so meeting proficient status is quite a demanding task but is attainable and then exemplary

performance represents a level of performance that exceeds the already high standards of proficient um the super intendant was graded on four different standards instructional leadership management and operations family and Community engagement and professional culture each of the members um graded the the superintendent on each of those standards and those standards were then um calculated to give her a final goal

so a calculation score for the superintendent overall between zero and one would have put her in the unsatisfactory Mark a score from 1.0 to 1.9 would have put her in the needs um needs Improvement and Etc till you get to the four um with that being said um the superintendent on standard one instructional leadership needs Improvement standard two management and operations needs Improvement family and

Community engagement needs Improvement and professional culture needs Improvement um when you list um a status of needs Improvement you're required to write um a comment or unsatisfactory you're required to write a comment proficient and exemp you're not required to write the comment but members did um so I will now just read the comments of uh the committee members okay Mr chairman okay yes can I ask Point Mr

Mr AGA I just believe that we we made a motion that comments had to be for every section by every member so the one that I'm reading that was in the envelope doesn't have any comments just to to let you know no I I actually I have the comments in front of me because I I received everybody's comments I did notice that the one we got today didn't have all the comments but I had told Deb

previously to make sure that all the members received copies of everybody's comments and she's going to do that tomorrow but I'll read them right now fine I just wanted you to know was and I I I don't think we can require people leaving comments but everybody did leave something and it certainly is worthwhile um I mean I think something that important to understand is an evaluation tool is not a slap on the wrist an

evaluation tool is a tool that's used um both by the person evaluating and by you know and by the um the employee and the goal is to make things better right the goal is to improve proof to say hey where are you struggling what can we do to help you get to where you need to be so we can get where we need to be that's my interpretation of what an evaluation

should be so I'm going to read the comments now of members um starting with just in no particular order other than the way they're piled um Mr agar My overall rating of needs Improvement is based upon several factors the academic achievement levels across the board are in need of improvement Dr Curley is new to the superintendent role since July 1st but has been an assistant superintendent for several years prior

this evaluator assigned a needs of improvement to the prior superintendent for the same reasons the goal of improved academic achievement needs to be a priority for all including the superintendent our achievement levels as a school system are clearly not fully satisfactory to anyone including Dr Curley at her interview and therefore requires a needs of Improvement um developing rating overall um this is Mr

Corey Dr Curley has assembled a team of hardworking experienced assistant superintendents each member of the central office is dedicated to the needs of our local floriva community most of her team have given our school districts many years of service Dr curlyy herself has been in leadership position since 2011 working hard and building relationship ship with our local leaders as well as her strong support with desie

and that was a score of proficient uh Mr Das score of needs Improvement actively conspires with others to obstruct certain school committee members and their requests for information undermining the agenda and opposing the priorities of the people of the city of Fall River is not transparent with the entire committee and the public with sharing information engaged in un professional conduct with

the chair of the special education committee on December 11th 2024 does not recognize the right of individual school committee members to request information freely within their duties releases information only the superintendent believes is important the voters of forover trust our members to be in this position to have the most knowledgeable information to make informed decisions that best impact the

students and the taxpayers of this city does not recognize the right of subcommittees to request information without the whole committee voting on information requests which will lead to delays in serving the students of our great City and actively undermines the rule of law if there is not a quick turnaround in the short term I recommend we move into a new Administration not politically connected to the city we

need to improve drastically and quickly as a district overall Bobby B I want to stop by saying it is far too early to give and provide a fair assessment of how the superintendent has performed many of the questions are listed as needs Improvement are proficient because in my humble opinion I think collectively we have work to do I believe she has shown both um she is um sorry I believe she has shown she is

both capable and competent to perform the duties of her role in various areas but I think we have to be Innovative and bold in our approach it is evident that she has a strong belief in high expectations and achievement for students in the district but also need to be more Equitable in the practices as as District that is a diverse as a district that's diverse as ours when we discuss cultural proficiency there is

room for growth in ensuring that policies and practices enable effective interaction among staff members and students and our culturally diverse environment I encourage the superintendent to continue exploring professional development opportunities and engaging with our Educators and the community to enhance this aspect of her leadership this should be reflected in all our schools and in the FL of a

district not just a few it's imperative to develop in all areas across the district and work towards building an even more inclusive culturally proficient Community reflect on the superintendent short time as a leader of the district when focusing on performance in the area of family and Community engagement we have to continue Contin to strengthen our relationship with the community and families and

create an inclusive environment for families and Community stakeholders we have to continue to create initiatives and recognize the importance of diverse voices in shaping the educational experience for all students it's important to increase parent participation in meetings and school events including school committee meeting and Civic engagement leadership has laid a solid framework for family

and Community engagement by continuing to expand effort efforts leadership will evaluate our District's performance even further creating an inclusive environment that supports the diverse needs of our families one moment Miss larvey Dr Curley was hired as the superintendent of the Fall River Public Schools in June 2024 Dr curle has served the district effectively in many leadership roles has

worked in our district for many years and in many capacities for this reason I feel she entered her superintendent role with a clear understanding of the unique challenges and strengths of our school district and Community while Dr Curley does come into her role as superintendent with much fora Public School experience I'm going to need more than five months to assess her work as a

firsttime superintendent she needs um she needs time to develop plans and begin implementing the changes to effectively lead our district to achieve its educational goals Foster a positive culture and improve outcomes for student staff and the community during her last 5 months I have been impressed with her leadership her confidence her attempts to address many issues and some being external

circumstances that have been inherited from previous administrations although Dr Curley has only been superintendent for a short time I'm very pleased with her performance to date I am confident that she is essential in fostering collaboration ensuring effective decision making and in achieving our goals um one moment me okay so this is my comments um this evaluation on Dr Curley consists of six

months of her work as superintendent of the four of public schools the evaluation has been modified to suit the short period of time that is contained in this evaluation Dr curlyy has served the district for many years in different roles as a result she is aware of the obstacles the district faces and the needs that we currently have this knowledge does not mean that the task of

improvement is easy however in the last 6 months I've seen Dr Curley moving in the right direction this Committee Member finds a superintendent proficient in many areas I believe Dr curly is dedicated to Quality instruction and high expectations in the classroom I have seen this as a member of the instructional subcommittee as well as the full committee she is currently addressing the need for new competency

determinations due to mcast no longer being a requirement there are big changes that are happening and through dedication for our students and she's handling them I feel in a timely manner management and operations are areas that need Improvement due to the current situation most of which was inherited by the current Administration but nonetheless concerning this member does believe that uh Dr Curley has put a

priority on health and safety and remedying the situations of mold and ventilation issues however this is a this needs to be a continued process as we have a way to go to ensure all our buildings are safe for our staff and students there have also been budget concerns regarding overspending on playgrounds which directly impact plans for expansion of prek although these are not situations the superintendent caused

they are certainly areas in which we need Improvement to prevent the same concerns happening in the future I believe Dr Curley to be a person who does provide a strong and welcoming leadership style I have seen her engage stakeholders and Community Community Partners in a professional manner to help Foster our shared goals of Student Success I have also witnessed commitment to ensure that our staff and Educators

share that same passion for high standards and achievement Dr Curley unfortunately did begin her role under scrutiny and criticism by some members although disagreement is natural and often necessary this Committee Member feels that there have been many occasions in which the superintendent has been spoken to or treated extremely unprofessionally it is the opinion of this member that

our current District leader is not only up against the many tasks required to improve the for of school systems but also navigating a working relationship with this committee I applaud her for her fair and when needed strong leadership I see that she may have to find different ways to meet the needs of all committee members however it should be said that this member has always had

informative and successful conversations with Dr Curley and I look forward to our continued important work and in helping in any way I can um also just to throw out the numbers for standards so we can quantify um I had said as as you um heard earlier right so needs Improvement would be 2.0 to 2.9 proficient being 3.0 to 3.9 exemplary being 4 standard one she received a grade of

2.85 standard 2 a grade of 2.85 standard three 2.85 and standard 4 2.85 um so needs Improvement on the higher end of needs Improvement closer to proficient so we certainly wish her all the luck and and support that I'm sure I speak on behalf of the whole committee that we we we will support her um so that we can see success of Fall River I have nothing else unless anybody

has any questions for me Mr chairman Mr aier did the mayor submit one I did I I was telling him I don't think she read it I didn't know if I missed it no mine just said way too early his he said initial initial he said initial assessment very preliminary excellent start he handw wrote it and to be honest when I first looked at it it his handwriting isn't isn't as and the

rating oh exemp would you like me to go through everyone's rating sir I heard you saying it about everybody else I was I'm sorry yes I did so the May Exemplar actually didn't everybody's waiting I I I should though I can do that I don't know if I did did I you did I okay all right if I didn't I'll happily repeat but no all right any questions or anything for

me okay okay one uh can I make one comment Mr uh Madam superintendent I think what would be helpful for us moving forward is when we look at how we uh as a school committee evaluate you because you're the only person that we evaluate we have to go by the rubric and we have to go by needs Improvement proficient and all that stuff I would like to get some sort of um if you have

them or create them with your team how do you and your team evaluate staff relative to needs Improvement proficient exemplary so that we can get some guidance as we go because now we're going to do this again one year from now so we have plenty of time to do this but when I look at some of the things that we have to go through if we've never done an evaluation of Staff we could be

looking at things in a totally different way how we evaluate with you and you as staff so for instance a new staff member um in the school new teacher or whatever in their first six months in the role would never get an exemplary because that's just that doesn't that's not how it works but we don't necessarily know that if you don't do this for a um a regular practice so if you could get

something along the way talk to your team and come up with some kind of you might already have documents where you say to the staff this is how you evaluate this is what a rubric is this is how we attack eval valuating the staff so that we can kind of model that behavior when we evaluate you just a suggestion thank you I yield anything further Miss ly uh Mr AGA you mentioned

practice um I believe outside of school department in regular business World somebody gets hired they usually don't get an evaluation until 12 months later between 9 and 12 months later I mean to be fair uh towards Dr curlyy this was five months you know and I'm not saying I mean whether whoever had their own opinions I personally this member thought it was way too early to um evaluate I know we were meeting uh desie

guidelines and this guideline and that guideline but I just um I don't think it's a bad idea to see how evaluations are uh are happening throughout the district but I do believe we have to follow the Desi guideline is that accurate right we have to follow the Desi um evaluation procedure I don't I don't I don't believe we do I talked to um masc and that's why mine was exemplary and I also

think my comments were were uh too early I just kept writing too early on most of the standards I didn't feel comfortable I asked um Glenn coocher and he said you guys should have probably done an 18 monther and I said well the will of the committee was we do five and he goes that seems Tad quick I thought it was um I think from what I've seen the superintendent has been exemplary in her

dealings with both this committee and the uh staff in the district um whether it was negotiations visiting a school and I see where she'll go from there but um I just think it was way way too quick I do respect the will of the committee they wanted to do it so we did it and now we'll move on to a complete evaluation going forward anything further on this Mr agier yes so the reason why I mentioned

this so there is such a thing in the dec as a superintendent rubric like we have one for administrative school-based administrators we have them for teachers when you look at that you have to take that into consideration when you're evaluating a teacher you take consideration the teacher rubric and what the language indicates when you talk about how you rate somebody in this case everyone on this table would

understand that superintendent is only in the job for 5 months or 6 months she's clearly in a developing stage of her superintendency but when we look at the rubric and it says Needs Improvement slash developing it says performance on a standard is below the requirements of a standard or overall but it's not consistent to be unsatisfactory improvements needed so that's what we call developing so if we had a teacher

we would do that this is the reason why I'm asking for that information proficient means it's fully satisfactory no issues across the board relative to the entire rubric exemplary says a rating of exemplary indicates it significantly exceeds proficient and could serve as a model of practice regionally or Statewide she's only been in for six months that's my point so if we get something from the administration to say

when we evaluate a first year teacher for the whole year you're very rarely going to get if ever exemplary how we can do that in 6 months here is the is the problem so what I'm suggesting is moving forward we get what they're doing so we can kind of mirror what it is because if I'm a teacher out there looking at how I get evaluated by the principles they might be busting

their butt doing everything and they say well the school committee can rate the superintendent based on this why am I getting a needs Improvement that's all I'm saying I think it's it's a good practice we got one year to figure it out and I think that that's going to be important the other thing is that the deese doesn't require uh exactly what is here one of the things that I think we

need to add is there's in the past been sections whether it's in goals or in the evaluation relations with the school committee should be somewhere in in the combination of the rubric and our evaluation I think that's important so we can comment on it but it's not here so I think we have some work to do via the evaluation subcommittee over the next year and I would hope that they

don't meet only a month before or a month after this is due we need to get the meetings ahead of time so we can plan this a little better with that I yeld thank you m lar so just Dr curlyy if a teacher was hired the same uh timeline as you say June July when are they evaluated for the first time any any staff member no I I mean I

if you're when you're a new when you're new to the role I mean here in Faller over and everywhere across the state um there's a you know you're on a a a one-year plan there's a formative eval and then there's an eval at the end of the year which is in June but there are timelines you have to meet prior to the end of the school year correct all right

thank you are you yield all right do I have a motion to second on approving the evaluations we do not we motion approve second I have Mr Mr agar Mr Cory Deb please call the r Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr D yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kouan yes 1213 is discussion to vote to approve the Surplus athletic equipment and uniforms as presented by Ken Pico the Chief

Operating Officer motion approve of this question second I have have a motion to approve and a second and a question for Mr Agia just uh when I look at this it says this uh some uniforms or whatever so I get the idea that they they're old and they need to be turned out so the only question I have and you probably don't have this information but it might be something that you or the superintendent

would have to get are they whole uh sets of uniforms so if we require if we have systems in place to make sure we collect everything so if it's a baseball team and there's 18 members I'm assuming that this list has 18 shirts because we have to whatever maybe 17 or something through uh attrition but I don't know it's not necessarily for this but I think it's a bigger question of how are we managing

all of our equipment across the whole system so that if it came time to this and you only had let's say you had two baseball uniforms from a certain Year my question would be where's the rest of them you understand what I'm saying sure so I I I don't even have a a clue as to to how I could possibly answer that um because the conversation hasn't been had between um the athletic director and

myself what I can tell you is that the the amount of uniforms that I have are in the hundreds if not thousands of separate pieces um that have moved along with dery um um I don't think they moved from the original dery to the new dery so I don't think we have them that age but I know we have them for most of the last I'm going to say 20 years we have

jerseys separate pieces um of different uniforms listed in just about every sport yep I understand I'm not looking for you to get I don't think that's really under your purview I think it's you're here because you probably have to store the stuff is that why you're doing it I'm I'm trying to get them out of my way correct so I guess the question would be through the superintendent through the athletic department or

whatever to try to figure out an answer to that case in point you just indicated that there's stuff there from 20 years ago well I've been on this committee not 20 years and I've had to take a vote to get Surplus equipment so that only tells me when we took it last time we took half or a third there's got to be a better system in place to say we buy a

new set of uh uniforms this is how we get it so you don't have this so I'm not giving you a hard time about it understand I think to the superintendent I think it's something that the committee should get on across from K to 12 now we have elementary and middle how is it that we have uniforms how are we collecting them and we don't have unlimited money to just keep buying them

so come up with a show us what the system is I guess so that we can have this rolling quicker than 20 years sure thank you I we have a motion in a second on the equipment oh miss larvey oh Mr Pico yes number 14 from the 1986 girls softball team put I already put it aside thank you it's already Deb please call the role Mr AO yes Mr

Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yeah Miss larv yes Miss Pereira yes mayor kugan yes hey you expect us to believe he graduated 20 years ago I said 86 we're better at math 86 motion to approve second 12.14 that's 12.14 is a discussion and vote to approv service we go I have I have a motion second any discussion Deb call the role Please Mr aam yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory

yes Mr lar yes M Pereira yeah yes mayor kugan yep 12:15 discussion and vote to approve the capital Improvement plan is presented by Ken Pico the Chief Operating Officer Mr Pico motion approve second second I have a motion a second one question Mr agar question uh I'm assuming that this is a thorough uh you know you've gone through it to know you thre everything out there in this plan

yes and there are no police cruises on this list so the uh the issue of uh the HVAC um audit that we're doing that doesn't necessar you have 2.3 million per year right so I basically it's a placeholder that's all I could possibly do at this time because you know we're not at that level yet um we did um when we went with the city quite some time ago we had

projected that in order to solve some of those issues we need $2 million a year um the 2.3 represents what we could possibly you know work we could possibly do in a year across the district depending on uh how old our building is and what um the hvc needs technically are because some of it is controls some of it is actually equipment and heavy lifts and if we got a big $50

million um price tag coming out of the audit this is not included here no and and if the if the price tag is a 50 if the $50 million um it would never it would never be a onetime you know uh attempt at it because we couldn't do that kind of work and still operate the buildings so whatever comes out of this um the instructions to um the company um that that ends up with doing

this work would be simply that the work has to be done in a in a manner to keep a building open um and operational and whatever method and means they could come up with um to do that work would be what we'd be looking for and to find out again what's the cause and my last question is I and I've said this the last time at the subcommittee the we're still operating under the

$150,000 and below is US $150,000 above is a city expense so unless this committee change unless this committee says otherwise thank you I yeld anything further de call the r Please Mr a yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M lar yes M perero yes M kugan yes 1215 I'm sorry 1216 is the second read and vote to approve the second quar transfer is presented by Kevin almeer Chief Financial Officer motion to approve

second I have a motion and second any questions for Mr almea hearing none Mr chairman Mr AAR go ahead please I don't have any specific questions just uh in I believe it's this one where there was um various schools that had different shortfalls or uh budgetary things and I did speak to the superintendent earlier today to voice uh some my concerns so I don't want to go into them all here my question along the

way is just when we did the budget originally yeah I think we had a lot of um some of these things we weren't necessarily told some things you didn't know and some things change so I guess that uh and I'm not looking for an answer now but the mechanism of how did we get to two three months from now we missed this one or we did that one um and I know things happen but this this

is a big number number for the second quarter so that's really my only thought is just around minimizing that in the future and I think when we have tighter budgets it's probably going to yeah automatically do that but um as I was going through it there just seemed to be a lot of so just so just just to explain the biggest one Mr Agia the the $2 million in in sped so that's a cause of

the the contracts with the agencies and so we have the budgets within the centers for the varying positions and so when we pay the agencies we're paying them out of the sped Department because most of that is sped staff associated with sped PR professionals and things like that and so that we we we tie up the money within the cost centers for the schools because that's where the positions are we're always trying to

hire so because we're not able to hire we're doing it through the agency it's then coming out of the sped department and so Mo a lot of that money is coming is moving to the sped department just to fill that fill that void and so that's on the big one just as an example no I I get it I just uh I I think the timing is like where I was coming from so we for

instance in the you know I mean the first quarter didn't really start at the start of school so you don't know but at the time of budgeting we have some in here from schools like we didn't and I'm quoting it something about uh we missed a couple of teachers at the school something and I get understand things happen but I think the more that we scrutin that granularly earlier on we're

not going to have some of those things is my only concern I think the other piece too to all this is just the ongoing negotiations that we've had and you know it's it's kind of played into knowing the full details for the transfer so just yeah and I I think that's fine the uh only other thing on the transfers is the issue of title one which we talked about shifting some

funds and I don't think that's what this report necessarily is but I'd be curious of any of those things between meetings or whatever when okay where did the money come from here to Title One or or that because uh we're going to be tight next year I think I said that once or twice but thank you I understood any more questions uh de could you please call the RO Mr AGA yes

Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvey yes M Pera yes may kugan yes 1217 is discussion and vote to approve the second quarter revolving fund is presented by Kevin alove I have a motion to Second any discussion on the second quarter revolving fund hearing none Deb would you please call the role Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Mr larav yes M Pereira yes mayor kugan

yes 1218 is a discussion and vote to approve the year-to-date budget report as presented by Kevin alme so here's the report uh we're in pretty good we're in we're in good shape for this year uh projected out all the cost centers as I have done uh for the last several quarters uh since we went to the cost center method um and I'm just requesting your approval tonight Mr chair Mo to approve with a

question Mr dis second I have a motion a second Mr Das thank you um and I ask this um a prior and um I don't know if it was um sent recently um but if we can get actually let me ask this do we have a like like a fiscal forecast a 5ye threee fc I have a preliminary one that I did back in back in uh July that's

what I have and um may I ask when you would expect update that and when I have a chance after the probably after the budget's done okay um and the committee can be provided that when it's when it's ready sure do you project going the next three years we're going to run into any issues at what the current funding level that we have I have no idea Mr Das I I I

believe we'll be fine for the next couple years with the student Opportunity Act um after two after two years after the next two years and who knows what's going to happen at the state legislature and whether or not be fully funded and what's going to happen we'll we'll see when the time comes but to the best of my knowledge yes for the next three so after the two years like

you don't see any deficits right as of right now no okay how you thinkk you I know Mr oh you all set I'm Mr agar just uh one of the things that uh I want to point out just for the edification of the public is the line that says the last several years including most recently we provided Care's Esser report showing where we stood as of this time all funds have been expended to date and

will no longer be provided moving forward I think that's important for people to realize that that's over we have no more money we spent it all we did I think we did some good things with it but there's not a pocket of Esser funds anywhere agre so when I keep on saying we're going to be tight with money we don't have an Esser fund uh so I just want to make sure that people are

aware of that thank you AEL okay do I have a motion a second on that you want to call the role please sure M Dr yes Mr bayy yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes M Pereira yes mayy kugan yes item 13 is for your information the retirements the appointments regretfully the people that passed away uh the resignations can I get a motion a second on those motion

accept and place on file motion second second Deb call the role Please Mr agya yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M larvi yes Miss Perera mayor kougan yes uh item number 14 new business any new business to come before the committee Mr chairman Mr ago I mentioned this in a prior meeting but I do think it's something that we should vote on is that when we have have a situation where we

have a school committee member that cannot make a subcommittee meeting that that school Committee Member should be able to get a replacement from the committee to attend that meeting so I'd like to make that in a form of a motion again so that we won't be faced with uh having meetings where something happens and we can't actually have a full sub committee okay this is just voluntary

correct voluntary so if I can't make it I call Tom you make can you cover me he can cover me but it's legal right now we can't do that so I think it's a good policy yep voluntary asking someone to cover the committee I don't have any problem with that we got a motion a second Deb you want to call the rooll Mr agam yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das

yes Mr Cory I had a on on this motion from Mr Agia yes okay I one question what about the possibility of zooming in if we're like out of state or something like that still is in you can still do that if if you couldn't Zoom or do it on your own you could call one of us and say hey can you cover me for the day right yes okay yes Miss lar yes Miss

Pereira yes mayor kougan yes I have S for new business what do you got um I would like to um recommend that this committee heading into the the new year uh go through the mass Association of school committees training second um I think it's very important that we all take it I'd like to head in the right direction everybody be on board um we have Mr Das who has not been through

that training um I would like uh to pick a date where we would all have to attend and make it mandatory so I'd like to make a motion that uh this committee uh take the masc training for school committees um as soon as maybe March at the latest second I I can I have a question yes can we do it on Saturday morning do whatever date we can all is that okay I mean

that's better for you Kev we don't do it during the week I I I I'm not doing a Saturday morning I work overtime on Saturdays okay sorry what's a good time what's a good day then there's a freak occurrence but I'm H I'll happily do it any other day though okay we can do it in the evening then yeah we can figure it out you don't need I don't do you need to be there everybody

should I'll go thank you okay let's just pick a date and we'll get in touch with the committee can I get a vote on this I mean we don't need a vote on this go ahead Mr Agia so we already have to by law go to the training when we get when we get elected so I don't I think this is redundant and Overkill uh the other thing is that we have uh and this is not

a reflection on you Mr chairman but the they don't actually have one for a chairman to run a training on having being a chairman of a school committee so uh I just think it's what we we follow what the law is and we everybody does that if Mr Das has never done done it it's required of the law that he does it but I don't understand why we would go and get the same exact training well

the thing then you you know you bring up a good point but if if if we bring down Glenn coocher to do a training and it's on an evening night when people can go like Shel said hour yeah 5 to 7 5:30 to 7 and everybody can go if they can make it okay fine all right so it's voluntary no yeah but you can't why what happens if someone doesn't go

we pick another date I think everybody should go to the training refresher Overkill okay vote no all right so we have a motion second problem not going okay I know I know we have a motion in a second on going to the meeting um Deb call the rooll Mr AGA no Mr Bailey no Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss lar yes Miss Perera yes mayor kugan yes all right Bruce do we have a reason to

go into executive session there there would mayor uh if I could read them off please masteral laws chapter 3A section 21A 7 to review and approve the executive session minutes for December 9 2024 regular school committee meeting mtion Law chapter 38 section 2187 to review the and approve the executive session minutes for January 2nd 2025 special meeting of the school committee National laws chapter 38

section 2183 to discuss strategy collector Bing uh including hearing grievances relative to All Professional teaching employees of forward School System including coaches Title One teachers nurses occupational and physical therapist and specialist in the teaching profession represented by the for educators Association as a chair determined that an open session may have a detrimental impact on a bargaining

position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 2183 to discuss strategy with the respective collective bargaining relative to all administrators and employees represented by the forward administrators Association as the chair has determined that open procession May have a detrimental impact on the Bing position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 2183 discuss strategy

of the expect collective bargaining relative to all civil C civil clerical employees the forward school system represented by the forward Department of Civil Service clerical employees Association as the chair has determined that no possession may have a detrimental impact on a baring position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to colletive

bargaining including hearing grievances relative to all par professional employees for a school system represented by the for Federation of par professionals as a chair has determined that open session may have detrimental impact on a bing position of the committee M general laws chapter 38 section 21 21 A3 and section 21 A7 to discuss a pending settlement agreement and in order to discuss

strategy with respect to litigation and comply with student record laws as the chair has determined that open session may have a detrimental impact on the litigating position of the committee Mass general laws chapter 38 section 2186 to review a proposed amendment to the lease agreement for the property at 2501 South Main Street between the forer Redevelopment Authority and the City of

Fall River for River School Department as the chair has determined that open session may have detrimental impact on the Bing position of the committee we would reconvene the may may not be statements at that time Madam Vice chair what go ahead thank you um and just looking at all these I just one issue with the last one and I understand the open meeting law does allow us to go into executive session regarding um

proposed um the discuss um leases to property however the main reason we always go into executive session litigation negotiations this last item right here is between a public entity and a public entity and I as one member believe that the public interest outweighs any executive session so I'd like to make a motion that we discuss the last item of executive session in public he made a motion there a second second

question Mr ago I thought we paid this whole lease off already they're paying it off tomorrow night it's on the city council oh you guys paid the lease off no doubt but it's being transferred tomorrow night I'm saying it like it just if I'm look if I'm in the public and we've had this debate in a public meeting one time we said we took some money and I was kind of upset that

somebody took it and paid it down without permission but separate from that we said in a public meeting we bought it we paid it so now we see on an executive session item we're going into to negotiate a different part of a lease it begs the question of what is going on I don't I don't know what this is I'm with you what is this this would this is a something that has come down from the

the city um Law Department to bring before the the committee because there's a change in the lease in terms of of an amendment to the lease and the committee has a right to go into executive session to hear what that amendment is and to discuss it and to take a vote on it also to come back out out here and to actually State what that vote is and to discuss the matter okay

and and the mayor doesn't know about it no I I think what this is Mr um agar is tomorrow night I believe the sale of the U building is going to be consummated at the city council for the dollar the lease has already been cleared up I got to believe this is housekeeping but I don't know it's just strictly legal from the Law Department that's all it is that's all it is fine I

withdraw my second it withraw a second so we have a sec we have a motion for Mr Das anything anybody interested let's clean this up and then we can come back out and make an announcement Mr Das anything further can I get a motion a second to go into executive session into executive session de please call the roll Mr AG yes Mr Bailey yes Mr D right okay Mr Cory Miss Lar Miss Lar Miss

Lar Miss Pereira yes mayor kugan yes I hate when de yells at me well you got to pay attention

session Deb call the r Please Mr agam here Mr Bailey here Mr D here Mr Cory here miss larvie here miss Pereira here Maric hugan yep anything further to come before the committee yes mayor I'd like to make a motion uh to approve the executive session minutes for December 9th at uh the regular school committee meeting second I have a motion to second on the school committee minutes any

discussion Deb please call the r Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey yes Mr D yes Mr Cory yes Mr lar yes M Pera yes mayor kugan yes like to yep Mr Mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve the executive session minutes for January 2nd 2025 for the special meeting of the school committee can I get a second a second I have a motion to Second any discussion D please call the RO on those yes Mr

Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes M ly yes M Pereira yes mayor kugan yes anything further no sir motion toour no we don't need it oh we don't okay all right motion to adjourn second de call the roll we don't need a vote on the oh no wait wait wait hold on hold on he said you did yeah oh not to that one yes Mr Mayor I need to make make a motion to accept

the proposed amendment to the lease agreement for property of 2501 South Main Street uh between the Fall River Redevelopment Authority in the city of Fall River and Fall River School Department second I have a motion to Second any discussion Deb call the roll for the record Mr can somebody please explain what this is we asked we said we were going to be transparent I can give my own two cents if you

want it's a good deal we actually own the building there's no money coming there's nothing controversial we actually going to own the building and that's a good thing thank you Mr agar Deb please call the rooll Mr agar yes Mr Bailey yes Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes Miss Pereira yes mayor mayor kugan yes any further motion to adour Second all in favor I I oppose unanimous let's go