I'd like to call to order the Wednesday March 19th special meeting of the far of a school committee Deb would you please call the role Mr AG here Mr Bailey Mr Das here Mr Cory here miss lvy here M perara here
mayor kugan here salute to the flag 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 where's
my pursuant to the open meeting law any person make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledge
and permissible uh we have nobody signed up for Citizens input so we'll go right into the agenda um last night um Mr agar got unexpectedly called away so we're going to bring back facilities and operations
cuz he had a few questions uh we're asking everyone that came to please give us a little grace period here um so Mr uh agar can get his questions about the budget resolved Mr agar yes thank you mayor I appreciate it the
uh similar questions on the uh any additions and subtractions uh on the budget and I did look at the 105 pages that Mr um Pico had sent us uh we got the late in the day yesterday so just
had a few um questions and um Mr Pacho on the additions that were listed um my phone uh when I look at operating additions I don't see anything on this list that was
added but there was some things in the 105 pages that looked like there were budget requests that were um were made can you just take us through that or sure do you have it do you have any in
particular well I'm looking at uh the first one is security so on the first uh piece that um we had received talked about security items for the school year and there's a radio budget request 60,000 yes and I don't know if that's
buried within the budget I didn't get into that deep or where does that uh where does that lie now and so some of those items will be will be uh picked up within the operating budget um I'm not quite sure if we're
going to have that one particular item for all of the replacement of the 60 and I'm not quite sure uh at this particular time if we decided um that we were going to see what we had for inventory um within the
the district as we do have new radios um that we have not distributed yet and then we were looking to be sure that we had a stock of radios um to go across we've added some uh items like outside play areas um with radios so if if a
teacher is out there with students they have you know an opportunity to talk back and forth with the school in case there was an incident so those are items that we normally wouldn't Supply and that we're going to start supplying as part of a security measure so so I'm as I'm reading through
the narrative it says 60,000 um I guess I'm did we increase wherever this money is going to come from or is it allotted within or do you not have to provide that to the administration when you do the
budget maybe that's a Mr almea question I'm not sure but so that that purchase is something that I'm going to try to fund through ends of the Year monies if available uh I I did not include it in the budget and what you have in the budget
is accounted for based on historical yes spending so this is sort of a request that wasn't met based on funding so correct I guess my I guess I know the answer to this is that all departments that requested something that in like
this should be on the unfunded list for us to sort of see uh what is it I don't know I'm I'm probably going to have a few more of the same questions in this but when I look at unfunded positions in the whole budget I think it should be all departments unfunded positions schools
departments and the like so um I appreciate your honesty on that the M yeah that I mean that that's not a position it's it's radio so there's going to be equipment in here throughout this 105 pages that we're not you know
fulfilling I understand you know what I'm saying so I mean I I don't believe that because of the uniqueness of facilities and operations the majority of my budget outside of personnel which is not a lot of asks um is going to be some heavy duty items some the capital
plan in itself yep I totally get it so that's why I asked Mr almea the question of is all of the budgeted money in your department accounted for and he answered affirmative yes so to me that means when you all sat down to go over the budget
you told them all of this stuff cuz I'm sure they saw all what we see exactly they said well we can fund x amount I just don't see and the school committee doesn't see what is the um what was the Fallout of that you know so uh it's no fault of anybody it's just that if we're going to budget if I was
wanted to advocate for this particular item for you and your department I really have no mechanism to do that because I could say oh well they're just going to fund it some other way or something so sure uh I'm not being critical it's just a fact of what it is but when I'm looking at the language and
uh and I'm assuming this comes from the director of security that we currently have no dispatch and or reporting system for security so I this is the second the second bullet you know the first one was the radios yes but the second bullet
about uh a systemwide reporting $100,000 um begs a lot of questions of where this goes and I'm assuming that this is probably not funded it's a program it's it's it's an individualized program for this what we're asking um to be totally
honest we are PR we are going to try and build this within the system whether it be through Google Docs or something that we can work with uh and give that you know a try for for this coming year um some of that work John has already
started doing um but um we will move forward with that and um if it works the way we think it's going to work then we will stay with that and if not we will come back to the committee um later on yeah I I think when I see the thing it
says that there's no system uh reporting um though we do turn over student this this uh when we do turn over students to an admin they are doing whatever documentation the admin is doing security has no reports of its offices placing their hands on students is something that alarms me when I read
it because that that that can't be true so obviously that would be reported that would be something that we would have in X2 um saying that say has to be some you know so as I'm reading this I'm saying this can't be true that we don't
document that ex there's no way that's true but it's here yes which is alarming that somebody put it in here that's the part that is is uh so that 100,000 is sort of we're not going to need it the hope is we or you work yes and Mr
farious on whatever they exct incident IQ for instance I think incident IQ that they use for that department could have done a lot of what we paid the rightly for like some of you know so I think we we have to figure out instead of just
keep on getting new uh programs the um on security I think in the budget you had vacancies we do so some of that is some of that obviously is going to be fixed with the new contract um it's tough to
to recruit people for what we were paying yep I get it so when you when you're looking at a budget that that's somewhat finite in the resources if we have let's say six vacancies and we increase by 18 in the prior years the security or considerable number at what
point do we look at it and say maybe the real number and the good safe number is whatever a reduction of three or two whatever it is was there any Talk Amongst the administration on reducing based on if we've never had a full compliment and we're not hearing that
it's totally dangerous are we going to ever think of so if I if I could with that I I believe that there was an initiative at some point for us to be sure that we had a security person in all buildings that hasn't happened yet and that basically
our elementaries don't necessarily have someone some do some don't um for obvious reasons I won't mention which ones but we we do believe that there was a point where we were ready to do that and that was if you total up all of the
positions it would give us exactly that uh positions and and some buildings um we'd have a few uh people other than the high schools yeah but was it discussions at all about not so when we have schools up here they say well we had a vacant position doesn't necessarily we needed
we we eliminate it is there any talk of that are we going to try to be full compliment on I I'm to be totally honest we haven't had a full compliment we don't know what a full compliment looks like and the fact that we do have major turnover in the department based on
salary um we um we would like to have the opportunity to see if we can stabilize the security people that we have and then start from there and work into that I I would not say that we should reduce the numbers that we
currently have right now that's my opinion yeah no I understand the um when let me see what the next one is the campus services yes I see a lot of things on uh which I think is what you mentioned the pictures of vehicles and
the capital Improvement so I think some of this is capital Improvement plan yes things but I recall we spent a lot of money on uh supplies and trucks and all that stuff so this is in addition to everything that we already purchased or have we not purchased what we so we've
purchased everything that was was approved by the committee last year um the additional vehicle is um to replace a vehicle that we've just at the last maybe two School meet committee meetings
ago we um surplused one vehicle um it was no longer um worth keeping because of the shape it was in this is to replace that vehicle that's in the budget this one is not in the budget currently no we're going to see again um as as Mr uh as Mr Alida said that we're
going to see where we uh end up this year and if there are funds this is not in FY in FY 205 26 I'm sorry yeah I think if we can get as we go forward a list of those things so that we can be aware of it sure um as you know we have
a small part of money that we can the committee can determine whether we think we should pay for things but without a comprehensive list it's hard to just pick oh well that sounds like a sounds like a plan today and then tomorrow there's something else the next one in your item is transportation and I
apologize I didn't hear anything yesterday relative to Transportation but was the issue um addressed with uh the as the cow flies issue and the it was not it was not was it discussed it was
not so this is the budget um on the agenda is later on a vote to approve the public schools draft Transportation budget in the tune of 13,118 320 4 so I would like to
ask how much of that money is going to be affected by the decision that we have to make I I've I've seen 2 million somewhere so the decision to change over the distance is that what you're referring to yeah however that resolves
itself it's it could be the equivalent of a $2 million difference and and we know about it we've known about it at the last facilities meeting I ask for it to be on the full Comm committee so we could vote and have a a set number we didn't do any of those things so now we're here going to vote on this number
but it's not a real number so there are some things that we've that we're doing internally uh with Transportation obviously with the administration um to alleviate not necessarily the as the
crow flies piece um but other other pickups other ways to reduce some of our um costs we run a lot of buses that don't necessarily have full loads um based on the fact that uh they run out of time before they run out of space on
the distance um so we're addressing that piece first that's that's an easy piece to address or easier I should say um and we're working with um the um special ed Department to be sure that um we're
being cognizant of of what we're trying to do and making sure that it's still meets the requirements that the department has laid out um that's one of the pieces that we're we're doing to hopefully offset some of these costs if at the time when this is presented to
the committee if the committee does not decide to um to do that particular piece then um we will we'll have to make some other adjustments uh some of the um some of the pieces would be whether or not we
grandfather people into the current system and then new new um writers we yep changed the system um which was brought up at the at the meeting also uh on the subcommittee meeting side um to see if that would
what those numbers would look like um I know that we've um Scots folks you Brian Michael AAC a few others have met to look at some of these things and that work is ongoing yeah no I I understand that it just to me it's very clear that
this number is not real and I don't know if that means it's not real with because it's already an increase uh we haven't ever heard from the Transportation uh coordinator on any of the you know and I don't know if she was here yesterday and you know if she's not
here today so be it but we haven't heard from her on what's Happening we you know we're hearing from you and I understand that but this number is not real and we should be getting the issue addressed before we post to the public this is the total because the total is not going to
be 13 million to guarantee that's not the number so she um she was here yesterday I'm not sure if Deb is here she is if if Deb you can come down if you could please and Deb has basically been working on this since we received um
correspondence uh from desie on the um as the crow flies is what we see we know when that was roughly like what around when I want to tell you that I was on the uh on the grounds of tany putting
the um looking at the um playground when it happened so it would have to be prior to that I wish I could put a date on it it was before the summer or was it was it was no it was after summer we were um we were already in school and we're working on that playground so I want to
say p September October got itob October November thank you Million number that you're seeing um is the number if we keep transporting the same number of students that we currently transport to date Dad could you speak into bring the microphone to
you so that number that Mr Alita put into the budget is if we continue to transport the same number of students that we currently have on our buses that number would be the correct number and out of that number that we transport do you roughly because you've been
crunching the numbers do you know how many roughly or how much money we spend on voluntary Transportation special cases whatever you call there's a word for it I can't think of the hardship Transportation hardships favers whatever you call it none is it a lot we do have
hardship Transportation but we there's no additional cost to the district those are either transported by our couriers or on existing Vehicles y so when we look at eligibility for transport in a regular school bus Y and I know I've said that we pay for somebody to go from that side of the because we don't have
correct the lines drawn properly and all that stuff is there any additional people that families that get to ride a bus for a special reason so we have the no rooman District students that you referenced um we have hardship Transportation students that
you reference we have the L students that are going from City to from one end of the city to the other um special ed cases where we transport from Bay Village to Sylvia yep yeah know those the law I'm just mean some that if we could cut back on some uh there's
nowhere else I have literally cut everything that I could possibly cut y literally I would say that if we get a a bus or two or whatever added it's a lot of money correct and we don't have the money if this so this number gives you
no play at all and I think that's the point is I'm trying to get that so now what do you think it would cost if we did as the C Flies what is the estimate was it 2 million or is am I mistaken with the $2 million increase the 2 million was my original um figure that I
had given to Dr Curley in fear that it would get up to 2 million after looking at the numbers and seeing exactly what could be cut in other areas I would say the max would be around 3/4 of a million dollars you're looking at probably addition of seven
buses if we don't change the mileage and the 2 million that I was referring to is already built in here that's the increase from what is the increase from last year to this year it's not 2 million from last year to this year yeah
from 23 24 to 24 25 yeah I no I mean in in this budget I'm saying this proposed number that's on the agenda is it a lot more than last year yes how much is that plus 2 plus Bon yes 2 plus million yes 2 plus million that's why I'm getting a 2 million I read I read it somewhere y so
you're saying even with you doing some cutting and everything else somewhere else right that's just Cost of Living that's the new contracts the new price of the buses for the upcoming year because we're going from a 5year contract to all new contracts for this and you're saying that at best it's
going to be a $750,000 increase increase if we don't change mileage because one mile as a crow flies equals out to about a mile and a half walking distance so if we do 1 mile crowly now and we say 1 mile walking distance you're going to have an
additional rather large group at some schools that now qualify for transportation that never did before and I've said publicly I'm not voting to cut transportation from anybody uh so with your comment that 750,000 is the number truth and advertising I think we should add 750,000 to this number so I'll make
a motion that we add $750,000 to the transportation number so that is closer to reality for the public edification second we have a motion a second I um Mr Pico I did not want to participate
because I had the opportunity last night but the 13 million is your best guess at this time um what happens if you guess short and Mr what Mr agar is saying is right then um and and I think it's happened before then we go hat in hand
to the city council and ask for more money this our best obviously this is our best guesstimate on the increase plus and can I just can I just address Transportation real quick so transportation is in the budget for a
total of and it's going to be higher because it's there's funding in other areas so the total transportation budget is just under 16 million it is 15, 876,00 uh 1, 49507 is going to come out a circuit
breaker uh 1 million 348 169 is going to come out of the mckin vento fund leaving the balance that Mr aiar referenced of$ 13 million at 13,118 324 so I just wanted to give that perspective just okay so that we're on
the same page and how much of that number of 16 million includes the 750,000 the director just mentioned it doesn't how can you say that again again please it does not it does not include the 750 no so in my sorry Mr Mayor do you Mr may had the floor so U yeah I
would I'm going to stick with the number they gave us and again if this happens um again I I know the taxpayers are very generous in the city of Fall River to help the schools so I believe we can go back to the um School uh to the city council and get
the money that's additional I think we should stick with what the U people study this every day put in the budget at this time and uh stay at the 13 million but I know there's a motion a second so we can vote on it Mr AA so the reason why I I said that is I think that
when we do a a a notice to the public we should tell them what we know and what we know at the time because the school committee has not addressed the issue that I asked us to do on March 10th and was denied by the administration to put it on for a vote what we're doing today
by voting for this number is giving a fake number what we know right now by this young lady just stating it with all the cuts that she can make it's a still a $750,000 increase based on the regulation and the guidance that came
down whatever that is from the ESC so we're given a number knowing that it's going to be $750,000 so let's give the real number now if a month from now whenever we have the hearing and have the information and the committee says we're going to vote
to cut transportation from students that already have it so we won't need the 750,000 once that vote happens when this gets official then that number would be reduced but what we're doing is saying oh well let let's just pigeon hole us so that we have to make a decision to say
oh we can't go to them afterwards and add 750 because we already gave this number you said the number and I trust what you're saying and I trust that you've done everything you can to get what you got to get out of it so why would we as a school committee say no we don't trust what saying let's just not
add the 750 but it might come up later and we'll deal with it later at that time to me it's the that's backwards what we're going to tell the public is what we should tell them is the accurate number and if the committee votes to take Transportation away from students that currently have it that's a decision the committee is going to make but it
certainly didn't get done before this particular vote I yield again again the number that was put on the agenda I have total confidence in our team down there and if there's a mistake I know we'll fix to make sure we help the kids but I believe the taxpayers are making enough
of a contribution to school at this time and giving another 3/4 of a million dollar um that might not that might be needed might not be needed is not responsible at this time so I think we should call the rooll and go with a vote another another member has his hand
up oh I'm sorry Mr Das thank you Mr go ahead thank you um as we briefly discussed and maybe I'm just um full of High Hopes but however I really do believe this is an unfunded mandate and if the city we took a vote everyone
voted unanimously to assure that city council looks into this and I really hope the city council takes up the mantle files an unfunded mandate petition andon Mr D on the motion you said that that's that's on the motion on the motion we got to vote on Mr Ria's
motion yes on the on up on Transportation I thought you were talking about unfunded mandates for transportation okay but we talked about that we're going forward with that last night we talked about that yeah right and I'm I'm just stating that
this the 750,000 we're adding is not going to in my opinion in the future cost the taxpayers anything because I think we're going to be successful as City in file an unfunded mandate petition and as you said with Mr TBO today hopefully the the government will
fund the item in the budget and it won't cost the taxpayers any anything going forward in the future I thank you m d d call the roll Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr uh Das yes Mr
Cory no M lar no Miss Perera yes mayor kugan no the motion does not pass Mr Agia the um uh Vans I saw in here there's a request for a van is that in the budget
it is not where does the money come out of uh Transportation bands so we would normally fund it like we meaning the district fund the Vans not the city the Vans are used for transportation but they're also used for
our work as couriers so the the we've bought vans in the in the past using our funds how much percentage you think is that I don't know what this break is I don't know what break down is yeah wouldn't it be logical to have uh
Transportation wherever we pay for transportation out of fund some of those vans out of this out of this number or like uh your salary comes out of Transportation line right so all the salaries come out of the transportation
line H half of the couriers yes and DEP St salary so half so you already have determined what percentage of a salary comes out of Transportation what comes out of the budget what is that percentage when you get a van that they use for transportation what is that percentage it should be 50/50 is it
50/50 in the past we've purchased the Vans before so we count 50% of the salary but we pay 100% of the of the van not out of the transportation revolving account or whatever the account is you know that that to me is a problem okay
because technically speaking if it's if we spend $200,000 in a year in transportation that number needs to go up by 200,000 but we I appreciate my colleagues that voted for the 750 here's another example that
we need to add to the transportation truth in advertising the number is if she needs a new van do you need a new van could use one yeah and why would you say that like based on what the van's probably not in good shape right M too
old mileage needs to be salvaged needs to be the same thing we just heard about we're going to have a truck so we're going to purchase a truck because it's too old and all that so why would we not purchase a new van to pick up children that's needed that's in this document that's on is that on the
unfunded list nope I think we have some issues in transportation and I'm concerned about the cost I'm concerned about how we're doing this because we could solve some of the issues we could by redrawing the
lines that we were told was going to happen last March it could have solved a major issue it could have solved maybe $2 million at least we could have absorbed the increase that the city has to pay so when it's convenient the mayor says well we can't take money out of the
taxpayers because of this or that but when I try to make a complaint to say why are we not redrawing the lines like we're supposed to the mayor doesn't support that and other members don't support support that but you can't have it both ways we we could save money in transportation but nobody wants to make
those decisions so then the transportation is going to keep going through the roof and now we find out that when you get a van we pay 100% And the city gets doesn't have to pay it it's just I I I think we got to look at it um the next one up is
nutrition thank you nutrition uh on the nutrition account is there any issues uh with the audit uh the city does on on nutrition no do we have any concerns or anything no does it say anything in there about uh we have too much money that we have too much money
we've been told in the past that we have too much money yes and what does the most recent audit say nothing it's it's never been a finding it's just they we've been told that we should begin to decrease the balance that's in that account so it's not an audit finding it's just sort of a suggestion just like
a recommendation that we get a more than healthy account yes the um could we get a cop of that sure because I know we see it on when we study the city council agendas as one of my colleagues did and picked it up so they city does an audit
and comes up that says there's nutrition in it but we shouldn't be finding out information from a colleague doing his due diligence looking at city council agendas if there's stuff in there that's audited the department we should be getting copies of that from the school administration just my opinion uh the
additional positions in nutrition yes utility workers I I'm concerned about that and can you just take us through that sure actually I will ask um Mr cting and Mr Roso to come
down and on the or chout for nutrition it says the uh supervisor and then it says the director so I'm assuming that the director Mr cting yes on the but he doesn't work for us he does not but he
is in charge of culinary of our nutrition program so whether he works for us or not as a material he's on the AUG chop because he is he is in by title for us running the Nutrition
department I I guess it's talking probably language or something but ultimately if he's the director he should be able to discipline anybody that he has to true that why would that be true that's we we know that everyone here knows that he's not an employee and
we don't let that happen why would that be a good practice is my point so we have was a good practice I didn't say it was a good practice what I said was is that we don't allow that to happen Mr cting if he has an issue brings it to me brings
it to Jose depending on who it is and then we handle that discipline piece because as you just said he's not an employee he is running the program he is running a very successful program a program we have no issues with for the
last nine 10 years and I'm not suggesting there is what I'm just suggesting is as a district I'm not sure it's a good practice is there any other director superintendent Curley that does not work for the school department that runs any Department in this District anybody that runs a department
works for the school department under you does this gentleman work work under you mhm so I'm running the department that's not the question superintendent kley does Mr cting work for you as a superintendent uh think he's a
contracted service yes it's a contracted service I would say that he does the way any of our other contracted services do ultimately we are can you look at the uh a chart and see what it says for this position sure
so it's listed as a like in one terms of H one of the Departments under Ken Mr Pico right along with transportation and security and maintenance and rest and does everyone else on that ARA work for you as a superintendent well
yes so I just think that's something to look at I don't think there's issues I'm not trying to say that I think I think organizationally I think that's something for you to look at because we shouldn't have a person who's considered the director that can make decisions with all of us whether he has to go to Mr Pacho or not we don't have a director
of anything that doesn't report to you we don't have a contractor that works for groundskeeping that doesn't work for you all employees work under you except for this gentleman who works for a private company but He's listed as the Director it's just confusing and I think at some point it can get you in a
quagmire uh is what I would say the um new positions uh Mr patrio the rationale for the additions and maybe if they want to answer what so for the documents that you have that were given to you the rationale is there basically by
population of the school is to looking for the new positions I I will let them expound upon that but that is the rational that the larger schools um with the more activities in the cafeterias are requiring um more
leads in the uh in the kitchens m d are we speaking to the utility positions yes have Jose speak to that hello check all right so yeah as I laid out in the form that everyone should
have a copy of in front of them uh the ask is for three new full-time positions the reason for those positions are the uh guidelines that were set up before I took the position over this current utility supervisor position where enrollment rates of 600 or more received a full-time utility employee uh there
are schools here that I listed we have Carlton bis uh fonsica as well as Spencer bordon bordon being the exception at an enrollment rate of 573 the other two far exceeding the 600 pupil enrollment rate that was set up so
that's the justification for asking for three full-time positions coupled with the fact that the schools are no longer serving as places where kids go and learn and eat lunch and leave there are various programs happening at any of the number of schools at any point of the
day in the morning and in the afternoon so placing a part-time utility employee in vas that does 709 students and expecting them to maintain cleanliness in a cafeteria setting before and after
morning programs and afternoon program prams in 4 hours is a very big ask any any questions so when you I guess the current um the hour was a 7 to four yes sir for
the cafeteria workers or utility workers yes and so you have one person at each all of the cook Kitchen schools have a full-time utility employee uh any school that is not a cooked kitchen but has high enrollment r rates gets a full-time utility employee as well 7:00
a.m. to 4:00 p.m. yes and then where did these additions come in I'm trying to figure out from the current where why are we adding three positions because there I know you're trying to get rid of some part- timers and do that but what is it going to look like at the end where so current
currently right now what I was cleared for were 11 full-time utility positions and 17 part-time utility positions my proposal is to drop the part-time positions to 14 and increase the full-time positions to
14 does that make sense yeah I was doing a quick math in my head I apologize yeah I'm adding one two three you have 10 on the list I just got today yes you said 10 not 11 are you approve for 11 I'm I'm good for 11 I can
fill 11 fulls are you the 11th you no no no it's it's a floating position so it's not listed attached to a specific building okay but there's only 10 names on this is what I'm saying you have vacancy he's he's actually listed on the right hand side in one of the green
columns I'm just not I'm just not seeing it so you have an 11 see a full a full-time employees yes yeah and then in the writing you say here that you can't clean so are you saying that we're not we're not clean even with this I didn't state that anywhere in writing that we
can't clean it says the current Staffing levels are insufficient to maintain optimal cleanliness and sanitation standards at these high enrollment locations absolutely yes so currently the standard that I have set out for my department we're not meeting those
standards even with with a parttime utility employee that walks into Carlton Bava school after there being morning daycare and they have 4 hours to put the cafeteria back in order from morning daycare and then handle the lunches and
get the place back in Ship Shape before the evening daycare comes in and then no one cleans up after the evening daycare so right now a part-time utility employee has a static time of 10 to2 that's their window they can't come in earlier they can't they can't leave
later they're blocked for four hours of pay a day and by whose choice is that I I didn't set the guidelines sir so you have a ver school you have a 7 to four worker in that second shift person yeah so you're saying the second shift should be a different
time what I'm saying is the list you're looking at right now is me being creative with employees and having to put one of my full-time float positions into VIIs because I need a body there full-time but the school isn't currently slated for a full-time utility person so
I'm asking you to tell me that it's okay for me to staff someone there and then I'll hire a full-time utility person and then I can have that floating body back but you still going if you have hire a full-time person 700 to 4: you're not going to solve your issue are you going to hire them in different hours
why wouldn't I solve the issue well you just said after they day at the end nobody cleans correct because right now all that I'm allowed to do is place a part-time utility person there in their hours are 10 to 2 so they walk in they need to clean up from the daycare in the
morning but lunch is starting 10:20 10:30 so then they need to handle lunch clean up after lunch and then we have an evening daycare that comes in and you tell me that these people work all day and you they monitor yes so you check them make sure that they're
working full the whole yes I've also provided the school committee various checklists of how utility employees run their day-to-day um those are checked I've developed training programs for this unit it's all there in writing and I can provide it again to you all if you'd like and before you came in who
clean those kitchens and how long did it take them uh I don't know I don't know I don't know before I came seems like Mr cting has answer we we started Mr Pico can correct me if I'm wrong the utility
position it was 3 to four years ago um so we had brought in some of former custodians that switched over to utility so we had and we still have a few of those but then we hired a staff that was
working in his in bious we put 4 hours but we found out that's just not enough for one one 4our partt time to clean that cuz the the enrollment is High um there is a lot of functions going on so what where Jose is going with that is to
pull back that part-time and put a full-timer in 7 to four which would cover the whole calf and kitchen so we were covering the utility workers but since Jose has joined us he has really developed the program in the last he's been here about
a year and a half y I'm just not convinced that we need to make the change personally I'm not convinced that uh I think we're over uh we're over staffed compared to what we were we needed to do something different but I I think that we need to
take a hard look at it before we start adding uh more positions but in nutrition is there any other increases other than the convergent it's on the revolving addition so you have a couple of cooks but three utility workers and the there's no other changes no we're
just looking to add three full-time Cooks that's the only other addition yep and um are we fully reimbursing the district for everything that we can on uh from the nutrition account yes so everything that that we can possibly charge out through the nutrition account
we are legitimate legitimate costs and that Vans you move food and all that stuff they pay for that out of the nutrition yes count and all the benefits are finally coming out of there yes as well all of the yes yeah I just uh I think when we talked at about the brightly and all that stuff I think
it'll be good for us to see similar to what you submitted for what the people do all day so that we can understand that they're truly needed and until that time I'm not going to be supporting those the um thank you for the nutrition the van that we uh the truck that we
just talked about who is that is that a worker truck the truck that we talked about for the um that we want to purchase it's it's a work truck it's not a we don't have supervisor Vehicles there's nobody supervisors don't get vehicles and um the in the budget that I
saw I know the school committee voted to remove all the leads but I see leads in in here and U I don't believe the school committee voted on the leads but um I we we that lead is we have two leads total
in um the maintenance department we have a center lead and a grounds lead those are the only two leads we have there are no other leads in any of our well maintenance we definitely have a difference of uh we have seniors we have seniors y in the schools which are
technically leads um we definitely have a difference of uh opinion on that okay I know that the committee voted to eliminate All Leads across all uh departments and uh that should be removed from the from the budget as well
is there any other additions or anything that you in your department no there's no staff up or down no thank you I yield okay Mr Mayor last night I just had some
followup questions based off Mr aars I won't be I won't be long we had an opportunity last time go go ahead Z just please try to be brief thank you thank you um just few questions um on nutrition um the individual that that was just here before I believe he was at
the facilities and not the last facilities subcommittee my yes um on the the new work order software yes um he he's the individual who um is supposed to train all different departments why why is that why don't we have a specific
person per department so who who would we have to do that work repeat that yeah who who would be that person that that would come to mind to do that work I in the department um we have people who do work that may not necessarily be
in their job description um to help out Mr raposo is one of those people he's not paid extra to do that um he's um extremely talented in what he does and he's got a a um a very good um method of
delivery that is easily understood by uh our employees which is why I had a conversation with him and he agreed to do that work so he is a person that we're using as a trainer there is nobody
in particular in our fno that you know um does that kind of work okay and just last two questions I was just going to ask the questions during um when the full budget comes up because I was considering some reductions um and I
understand and it was before my time that we had a reorg facilities um and I figured what a reorg when you had many different positions um dired positions um administrative positions the contracted services line item the 29
million do you think we're too relyant on contracted Services 2.9 yes million the 2.9 Million yes um I don't have any room to cut that at all I that that is uh the contracted
services are some of our HVAC contractors and other items that we absolutely need in the district we have a very large district with very small amount of employees maintenance department in this district has 14 employees to take care of a little over 2 million
square feet a building that is terribly under staff however when I say that I say we are doing what we have to do with those employees they're working very hard every day to do the day-to-day operations which would be impossible for
us to do through subcontract work but through the contract work is work that we need to have done in very large scales um both pm M work and installation work and emergency repairs and that's what's um funded out of that
2.9 Million there is there is no room for cuts there okay and um I'll consider a motion later we can maybe continue this last question just for right now um overtime for um the 400,000 line item who is that for again is that custodians
custodial that could be custodians um is that that's not used for other departments like other departments use that over time for their own no that's theirs okay you you think that's um I saw that number and obviously um looking at that one the others there's a there's a big so basically um you're looking at
100 a little above a 100 custodians um to cover the overtime a lot of those custodians are longtime employees of the school department so between the vacation time that they have personal time um some sick time um those all of those
positions go covered and those that that overtime is used for that any overtime that we use for um events for instance if there's something going on in our schools and it's on an off hour where we don't have custodians available that over time is paid through school use but
day-to-day operation overtime is paid out of that account okay I I'll save my questions for now thank you okay with that thank you Mr Pico I want to thank the schools for their patience but we did want to give uh one of the members the opportunity because they did get
called out last night and again I apologize um first up is fansa elementary school fansa elementary school come on down there Dr Cobb does anybody have any questions for
fans Elementary School I do want to note uh I'm glad to see your attendance is going in the right direction that's very very positive and uh all we need to do is have us sitting there in June and I'll come by thank you go ahead Miss
larvey Hi how are you good I just uh want to know how your transition's been from Spencer bordon to fansa and I want to thank you for everything you're doing at at fanska it's appreciated thank you um well I'm in year one and a half now
um it it's been you know last year was getting to know the school the staff the students um I think we're making some good Headway this year we we're able to R retain about 95% of Staff which is huge we're almost fully staffed and we're rocking and rolling good good to
hear anything further fansa Mr Agia just the additions and um conversions sure you talk to those sure so um I did ask for a few conversions um first a wellness teacher um to a grade one
teacher so we currently have four main mainstream kindergartens that will roll up to four mainstream first grades um we only have three mainstream first grades right now so that's that conversion um and when we look at Wellness you know I think originally that position was
created to do some of the work that our cell curriculum positive action is doing now in classrooms um also a technology teacher converted to a stem teacher um we will be transitioning to open sad the new science curriculum next year so
that's a way to get some extra science minutes into our school day um also I think the tech position was created before we were one to one Chromebooks and a lot of that technology work is now done integrated into subjects and
classrooms um the last conversion was our redesign coach to an L teacher so our L population has risen um we're almost to about 50% L students right now we've had a 10% % increase this year um
right now we have 50 students sitting in kindergarten um that will be transitioning to first grade really increasing the case load of our L teachers um all the other grades hover around 30 students per L mainstream teacher so that was the ask there um
also the redesign coach is sort of a unique position in the district I think the only one left um and that was also part of fans's Plan before there were three Vice principes so I I believe the three Vice principles and myself can absorb um the current duties of the
redesign coach um in addition there is an addition of a first grade par so that first grade classroom um would need a first grade par with it yeah the uh when you look at the uh I think you're converting somebody for an ESL teacher
correct and then on the unfunded list you have a teacher elll mainstream what is that it's not funded it's not it's not funded so that was based so if I look at my projections in kindergarten this year um we had 50 L students so
there'll be 50 in first grade next year I think that Target in kindergarten is sort of a moving Target right now um we could have 50 L students we could have 20 25 L students so um do I think we might hit 50 students in K again I I
certainly do um but I think you know the the district looking at whether that's a moving Target or not um but if you um it sounded like you said you knew that you had 50 already I have 50 this year that are moving on to first grade yes so increasing the cas you think you're
going to get a duplicate who's going to service them in first do you have enough that's one of the conversions yes so you have a an L teacher for each grade we will next year y so who Services K currently now um we do some push in um
but certainly I think looking at the needs of the students in kindergarten 46 of those those 50 are coded as foundational which is the the highest level of need I think we'd like to see um increased service in kindergarten um which is why I had asked for two L
teachers and you're not getting them so you're not going to I'm getting one not two for grade one that person will work between first grade and kindergarten so they're going to do half and half you think that's sufficient probably not because you asked for it I'm the um I just think
when look at uh on the unfunded list um schools that have the profile that your school has as well as the intervention from the state and correct scrutiny I personally wouldn't be leaving those positions on the unfunded list as one member uh we can take that
up at a at at a later date is there anything else in your um report that you'd like to mention NOP I that covers it all I do think that you uh mentioned the three Vice principles and you said that working out well that's it is what we had passed last year to give you the same uh as everyone
else and um I just think you have a lot of work to do but I would encourage you to keep keep up with the good work thank you thank you um Mr Cory then Mr D so Miss Cobb I see that we we have three adjustment counselors and three seaon as well as Behavior therapists so
I'm just curious as to what it's like there you know on a day-to-day basis how many how many fires are you putting out are there any social group groups in action at the school yeah so so actually we have four School adjustment counselors and I believe four caison and a behavior therapist so the way the cell
support system works at fona is they work in pods or teams um three teams So within those teams is a vice principal and a mix of um cell staff um those teams work with two grade levels each and they follow those students so they get to build those relationships so they
know the kids they know the kids they know the kids and I would say um what has happened because we've been able to build up those teams is it's not that kids aren't coming to school with issues or there aren't fire is going on
right sometimes but I think the staff and the cell teams their ability to support those students um has really um been remarkable so you have people pushing into classrooms you have people running groups um I was looking we have
27 Satchel groups going on right now at the school 27 27 yep between the school adjustment counselors and the c groups the groups so I think are they like lunch bunches or are they I mean they take place at different parts different times during the day um but I think because the team
is so robust and is working so well together part of that is helping to put out fires but part of it is pushing into classrooms and doing some more preventative work and doing groups and and that sort of thing I'm I'm curious is it helping to build tolerance among
the student body it is is it is yep tolerance is a tough thing to teach it takes a long time for some kids um but we see students really trying to use the tools in their tool belts the tools that our cell staff has worked so hard with them um to teach them to use and just
like anything else sometimes that takes a lot of practice but we're seeing impr yeah it's always a work in progress I just hope that you guys always keep your eyes on the ball in that aspect in running the school thank you I yield thank you Mr Das thank you I agree with my colleague Mr agar I agree this
position just from what you just said shouldn't be on the not prioritized for funding list so I like to make a motion that we move the position to enrollment dependent I didn't hear it already mov I'll repeat that second what you talking about okay Mr Das I'm sorry I didn't
understand what you said could you please repeat it I apologize um I wish to um the motion I made was to move the the position from not prioritized to enrollment dependent what what would that do I just saw I'm clear there there's a list that
that's enrollment dependent so it would be funded if um there's the proper en enrollment for the position so based on the enrollment we'll approve the position where did that come from um I believe the superintendent
provide us a list of positions that are enrollment dependent and um we the position right now that's not prioritized the elll position I'm just making a motion to move it from there to the enrollment dependent list Mr AA Mr almea can you explain what
that means I sent the email so I'll explain it if you don't mind Dr K could you explain that um sure so we had a um there was a request from a member of the committee I had sent there was a request a first request that said um what can
you be clear about what you're not what you do don't think should be funded because I had at the last meeting I said yes there are things that people asked for that I no I don't necessarily think need to be funded and so then there was clarification someone asked for clarification I provided that in an
email um not prior prioritized for funding and then then there was a second then there was another question like can you be clear so I ended up sending a list saying here are some things that are dependent on enrollment and then there
were still some positions that um that weren't dependent on enrollment I still just was not prioritizing them for funding so there were positions from dery high school that were going that were identified as dependent on
enrollment um I think there was they may have been some other ESL positions but this wasn't one this was one that I I didn't put in the category of dependent on enrollment I saw it as a um um like a a program enhancement and not
completely dependent on oh but if we go over this number we're going to need you know an extra teacher kind of thing so so I'm clear so Mr Das your motion is if she has X number students that need a teacher you want that that teacher ready
to go correct saying it right correct Mr Mayor and and just if I can add to the motion as well as the superintendent just said there are two elll positions right now dery that are in that enrollment dependent position I think it's only fair and the right thing to do that we have that position oh Mr just Mr
almea what I was meaning by that was budgetarily if I which I've asked are the budget that we have you add up all the numbers it gets to our number so if we have 10 positions whatever that as on that number of uh uh enrollment
dependent where does that money come from so so I would start with that $500,000 that we have in the unallocated money there that the school committee has is you know with this providing authority to use to come up you know to
create these positions uh and if additional further money is needed then I would have to look further in the budget to potentially cut somewhere else to fund everything that's need right so I think part of that first part of that is a problem for me in that we were told
that we have $500,000 allotment so that we're not just sitting here wasting our time time so if we're going to spend that I I imagine that by the end of the night that 500,000 is gone because we're going to make motions I'm assuming to spend it so if that's the case hypothetically where is the money coming
from for the currently on on that list that superintendent just mentioned where is that money coming from I know you said Cuts but it doesn't give a sense of uh a good feeling to know we have positions in that are dependent upon enrollment that we're probably going to need some but we don't have money to pay
it am I wrong or am I just at this time you're not yeah you're right so that that would be my only concern but I do agree with the motion to put it on it sounds like from Principal Cobb that this is needed but we're going to have other principles come down and we're going to say the same thing 500,000 goes
real quick it's my only thought thanks I yeld so we still have the motion I mean uh Mr Agia talked me into changeing my vote I'll go I don't know what you're doing but I'm with you um let's go on that vote please we have a motion a second this is to move the position to
which category enrollment enrollment dependence okay yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory no Miss larv no Miss Perera
abstain Mary cookan no be honest the motion did not pass Mr chairman Mr AA just uh two more questions um sorry that that vote didn't go that way but it's not based on your presentation and the facts that's for
sure the uh on your sheet it says operational needs and one says space to mainstream students mid year can you explain what that means yep um so it hasn't been as much of a problem this year but historically it has been so students who are in our foundational L
classrooms um based on midyear data sometimes we can move them from that foundational classroom into a mainstream class um in the past and it has happened once or twice this year some of our mainstream classrooms are already at pretty high numbers so that is only
happening one in third grade this year um but let's say there's already 28 kids in our mainstream classrooms and we have I don't know several students we want to move out sometimes that can make the number very high so I've said repeatedly
at this uh meet these meetings we have a class-size crisis across this District and this is an example of it in my opinion uh do the class sizes in your building affect your ability to service
special education students in inclusive settings no but I do not have any um special education um special programming so in a regular class you have plenty of inclusion teachers we do and 26 27 kids
in a class yep so right now we only have two classes at fanska that are at 28 or above most are hovering around 25 um some of the work that happened last year opening westall really did alleviate some of the numbers at fanska so at the
27 you said we have one class at 278 we have um one at 29 and one at 28 and would you think that class is a crisis that particular class room no 28 29 is okay no but certainly I I agree that a number of 25 2 is much more um of course
yeah yeah but when do you get to the point of you think that it's a crisis or like a real big real big deal that you can't service the kids if you have 29 kids in third grade in an inclusion class are you going to tell me that you can service those kids properly with
those numbers it is not an inclusion classroom it's a mainstream classroom um but certainly that is a high number I I was just saying hypothetically if you had an inclusion class with 28 kids it's a problem you don't have it thank God yeah thank you I yield you
okay uh thank you f next school up the Green Elementary um uh thank you Dr dun uh you to also deserve kudos for your attendance uh that's tremendous I was in there not
that long ago and it seemed like the place was popping along so congratulations so much that's significant movement great great teamwork on that work on some other stuff and we're ready to go anybody have any questions for uh Dr
Don Mr Cory I just have uh in the form of a comment um I'm really happy that you were at fansa previous now miss carb is at F good and both of you are helping to raise the bar in each one of those tools
and uh I I just have to tip my hat and say that I know that budgetarily we're always um dealing with just enough money in our budget year to year to year but you guys are making some magic happen and I took my cap thank you I yield
anything further for green Mr agel just can you talk about the increases uh or decreases whatever was in so I so at this point there's an additional first grade classroom added to the budget along with the par professionals so much
like uh what um Mrs Cobb just said about the kindergarten integration of the foundational students or or the MLL students generally speaking so last year we had a foundational kindergarten classroom we do not have that this year
so those students we have five kindergarten classrooms we have approximately 45 students uh we had 41 I think when I did the budget but we're about 45 now uh we have we've continued to receive kindergarten students that are
foundational kids the idea is not to put them back into a foundational classroom at first grade to fully mainstream them so we would potentially have an additional first grade classroom for those for for all students and then
uh subsequent is you'd have to likely theoretically theoretically I I think it just it is really dependent on the enrollment we're we're currently sitting at 776 students at Green um so I think last year at this time we were about
802 so we've lost maybe about a classroom amount of students but those foundational classrooms at the early grade levels first grade and second grade are currently sitting at 28 students so we we always have an influx of of foundational L's they don't start
out full but they end up always full um over the course of the year did you say 28 students in what grades in first grade and second grade foundational classroom so those are newcomer classrooms both of those classrooms are right now at 28
students in each one in each one so you have uh and that's in what grade first grade and second grade and I would say that's a class siiz crisis well well that's the cap I believe um
and I'll I'll defer to the MLL people but that that is usually what the cap is is 28 students in those foundational classrooms yes and they have a teacher and a par professional we had authorize to make sure we have a par yes absolutely but that must be a heck of a
tough place to uh you know I mean I I will say that the um the staff in those two classrooms have been now there for 3 years so they are um very well worked in foundational like what the needs of a student in a foundational classroom needs they are not brand new teachers
any longer so um they're they're doing it but it is 28 kids is a lot it is yeah the uh when I'm looking at the uh Staffing instructors you intervent talk about interventions need to coach we um
I don't have it in front of me but your a chart of either department head coaches or we have four we have no coaches we have four inter interventionists um to ELA to um to math and so yes we need we need to utilize
those interventionists in a way that is helping to coach teachers we have a lot of new teachers I think this year we have 39 teachers under three year like they're still in their first three years by next year it would be 25 but yes that that is it's a big
school um 37 classrooms it's a large school in and we have one Ela department head and one math department head so the idea would be to absolutely help have those interventionists helped to coach teachers yes yeah the uh for the district uh question is the information
we just had from the last school was it was and the vote went down but the position was not funded on the it sounds like a very similar situation that principal dun's talking about what we just talked about with the kids that are in I think you said it was 50 or so and then you're not sure what it's going to
be next year the in the regular kindergarten classrooms yes they're they're L students but they're not in a foundational L classroom in kindergarten any longer it's just a regular mainstream classroom and maybe you can articulate to me what why is this on the
additions and the other ones on them maybe um Let Me Take A yeah I I'll find it in the oh the grade one the grade one oh okay same like so the can you guys hear me so
the guidance from desie is no longer that kindergarteners receive Direct Services from an ESL teacher that that changed in 2024 the guidance is that prek and kindergarten receive a consult model Maybe some
pushin Services the idea is that a languager environment is something that all kindergarten students should have so they are to be integrated with which is why we don't have foundational K anymore they are to be integrated with mainstream students and that
kindergarten teachers by the nature of what kindergarten instruction is should be well-versed in providing language Rich environments both green and fansa who have large numbers of foundational students also have coaches who can support those kindergarten
teachers in ensuring that there is a language Rich environment which is why Dr Curley is saying that that feels like a program enhancement which is true it's a great enhancement to have but it's not necessarily a priority position when we
talk about compliance in students receiving Direct Services whereas the positions like say at dery are Direct Services to students that are required so the principal was up he saying was asking for something that's not recommended it
is absolutely recommended more services for L's are always recommended it's just a matter of you know money is finite and so that is why that lands it on a not priority position so as a director of Els do you think that's a something that
we should aspire to it's absolutely something we should aspire to of course I'm going to say we have to meet minimum compliance for all students before we go for program enhancements and across the district is there any of those positions that are not meeting minimum compliance
no the one that principal cob asked for I believe Kate would have to speak to this but I believe that that would leave fonsica as the the most staffed in terms of no I'm saying it it went down it's not on the list what she was recommended didn't get approved
correct and so no one else is get no one else is getting that right at this moment in the current iteration of the budget no one else is getting that does does Miss Cobb have the most L's does she have a large program yes would it be beneficial for her school absolutely do
I have other places that like dery that also need teachers yes can we fund everybody possibly not well I think we just wanted the reason why I'm asking those questions is because if we have issues with those achievement for those
children we should know what it is and what it's not so if it's it's an ideal situation like you said it's in a program enhancement I would like to enhance the program so I think getting the information is good my only question was if it was happening other places that would not make sense so we shouldn't be having budgets where one
school gets one thing and other people or gets denied and somebody else does so I appreciate the information thank you iel anything further thank you thank you green next up lerno Elementary Dr Simpson
also congratulations on your attendance movement thank you it's been across the district it's uh very positive steps nice job I anybody have any questions foral Mr Das thank you um just
want to just quickly start have you um asked for all the positions that you have in here is all that you asked for correct yes you don't need any other positions at at this time uh we feel that we're we're okay with our uh
maintaining our existing Staffing um if the opportunity just want to uh say I appreciate everyone that was involved in negotiations one of the things that was important for us at lero was to try and sustain our positions I know as a collective effort so my position
principle is to try and sustain uh our existing positions for long term um I know that the raises that are going to support our our members and hope hopefully keep all of our hardworking teachers power professionals Etc at um
so thank you for that that that was that was okay that was your answer there's no other positions that you need whatsoever you um you never ask or that that'll go for every principle going forward no one asked for any other other positions so for this year we we did not ask for
additional positions we strongly uh advocated for sustaining and maintaining uh the positions that we have uh in my tenure we've um added three specialed inclusion teachers one MLL transitional
teacher three Lea zans one school adjustment counselor three grade one power professionals and two department heads which I am very grateful for in terms of additional Staffing we and myself as
leader want to continue to um ensure that we're maximizing these POS positions to their efficacy so that we can um you know have the best school environment that we can okay in the future if you ever wanted a new position you feel um you feel you're okay to ask
very much so yes okay I you thank you Mr D anything further for L Turnal Mr agar so not only did I guess you're not ask for anything you you actually cut your budget so is that not on your um did you
voluntarily cut your budget can you uh just be more specific please here under operational uh reductions it says a lero ISL is going to be moving to westol correct that that was a a district based decision to support
westall Elementary School and you don't need it because you just said that you you were advocating during the budget and all this stuff for making sure that you maintained all of your uh workers so as I was seeing that I'm saying to myself okay so he was okay
with what he had yeah but now you know you lost a position and didn't have much of a choice there was a decision that was made for the district I trust my colleagues and you know support westall uh you I don't see your uh the package
you know I just see the some conversions iSell and some leads so you cut $77,000 and uh I guess you could just you took a cut this year I guess um the one thing is
you had a slide in here we had just heard from the um Nutrition department the first thing that stops out of me is family budget comments and whether this is right it is it's what's staring me in the face here school lunches the lunches are terrible a lot of kids aren't eating until they get home quality of food
should be a priority because kids work better when they are eating Quality Foods so anybody can type whatever they want in it can you just comment on where this went once you receive this because you probably addressed it I'm guessing correct yeah so um my goal was to um get
feedback from parents our school Comm Community um so I sent surveys to the uh amilies to staff um I tried to synthesize um you know feedback that we received and these were some general comments that we received it was one
comment um so brought it to um the budget budget meeting um with the District staff and when you met with the director of nutrition what did he say Hey Kevin is this a budget question it's in the
budget paperwork I'm reading from the document he gave for the budget that's backup this is part of his budget presentation I think this is about food though is it do you want to say it says no I didn't say it says family budget comments I understand I understand but I mean it's not really about budget it's about food so someone could write
something sir this says here what Turnal budget meeting right correct is this your document it is did you submit it as part of this budget process I did yes I did so I'm asking you a question based on page three correct the question is if you got a comment like this yeah what did Mr cting say related to this issue I
did not have a meeting yet with Mr cting about the that family conf I would personally encourage a superintendent to explain to you to do that so that you can either refute this or what because I it it just doesn't make sense why uh you
know why that would be uh at the end of the day so you did take a cut in uh the budget I would say class size is that an issue for you at your school is are you concerned about your class sizes currently we're in I'd say a good position position we're under um the
requirement um which is what we're at 28 are you up against 28 in a couple of classes yeah but overall we're in a a good position and I just would say whether it's this school or the next we have a class siiz crisis we can't
service kids properly in special education inclusion classes when the numbers are 28 students in for of them and I yield thank you thank you okay thank you uh Mr Simpson I got to go out of order a little bit we got to accommodate a young ladies's little
birthday party so I'd like to call um westall Elementary School next please sorry Sylvia first year down there Mr Leman so um how things going excellent thank you any questions for Mr
Leman how's the first year for you is it's been awesome family's been great pto's been great staff um and just happy to be back overall good vibe in the school great Vibe that's the most important thing that's what carries it a lot of positivity and a lot of
teamwork any other questions for Mr uh how about your wish list you got any wishes that you need from us you know uh we have three new positions transferring over um I think those were really uh be impactful at
West Hall and help uh be our students needs thank you Mr Cory Mr agar so on the operating additions can you just talk about the need for those yeah so step one's off a student need and really digging into the data whether it's or
academic I did do a schoolwide comparison of similar size schools to see what the other two smaller district schools have and that's where I came up with those five additional requests can you just uh yeah they were
in ela intervention is a math intervention is an Ela power math power and a student adjustment counselor and I maybe I'm missing it but I've seen three yeah one was in liaison
in ISL liaison and a par interventionist three I just you said five y so five requests yes and to Mr Cory's point on the wish list we I don't have the
unfunded positions which is what we consider the wish list I not seeing your anything from you on here Dr Curley I would say that I agree with you it's not there and I'm not sure I can't
answer right now why the request doesn't show up on that list Mr elme I I thought we had an agreement on all the positions for westall and I did not add the two additional positions as I thought the three positions were
sufficient but I will add them but and that's more or less why I didn't I add anything to the wish list what was that that's why I didn't add anything answer anything else to the wish list when Mr Cory asked me I was pretty content and do believe those three positions R
really assist in the progress of West Hall so the only thing I would ask is I'm I'm looking at that this is the what we were given yes um yes presentation template or whatever they call it and um you talk about tany and the other
schools having a similar outcome is it in here that you're saying that you asked for a um coach or something I asked for a um math and Eli interventionist right now we currently have an Ela coach and a math coach who
do assist with interventions yep and you're saying that you asked the administration for a math and Ela coach no I asked them for a math and Ela interventionist sorry it's okay in in a
par that aligned with both of them yep I would just give feedback to the administration that in this document it doesn't say that either so I'm concerned that we're not getting all of the information but I do appreciate you advocating for your school and we can probably add it to the unfunded list so we can get a good
picture of it how about class size for your school is it because uh it's similar to what everyone else said uh most grades are pretty good our Ks are pretty high we we're at that number at 28 first grade's pretty high 27 and 26 the other grades are all uh very kind
numbers yeah I think whether it's your school or the next school I think we have a crisis on class size 28 students in a first grade classroom kindergarten class any classroom in for over where the needs we have is too high thank you sir I yield thank you anything further
so you can get a birthday party thank you thank you have a good night uh next up is the syvia elementary school good evening hello again uh which is a pattern across the district that I have to compliment
everybody that helped on your attendance again is bumping in the same in the very very positive direction thank you it's great to see it's one of the things we've always gotten criticized for but it's uh across the board in most schools and it's U it's significant
so with that does anybody have any questions for the syia elementary school and Dr Lens go ahead Mr Ang the uh on the I only see the list on the unfunded positions of you having a request for a psychologist
yeah a school-based psychologist sure um my seven years here we have not had a psychologist dedicated just to Sylvia um and with that time restraint the majority of work that they're doing is testing analyzing data
uh supporting with writing IEPs uh by asking for a school-based psychologist it could become more uh an integral part of specialed teams uh supporting teachers with certain profiles of Learners um they are also mental health experts which could benefit um our
school support our staff and our students uh I would tend to agree with you on that position so uh I would ask Dr Curley to convene a um at the next Special
Education subcommittee meeting that we have the topic of psychologist be one of the agenda items U what this gentleman is referring to I think makes sense but we also need to look at how we work our systems so what we currently have we need to do a full analysis of it and I'm
of the belief that the assistant superintendent for special education who is in charge of the psychologists and psychometrist across the district needs to weigh in and we need to revamp what we're doing and we need to do a better job with it across all schools so I'd ask that that be on one of the attenders
the uh you had reductions and I would just ask about how that was uh how that came about was it just um are you overfunded in you have losing a technology
teacher and uh Power professional so yeah so those those are district decisions but um in terms of the technology teacher we did add a stem coach uh we've had a stem coach to the last three years who does take on part of the technology um support in our
building uh We've also really pushed for our teachers to own the digital literacy standards and teach them in the classroom so with those two things in place the technology piece is still at a at a high level even with that reduction so what does the current teacher in
technology do all day she is working in the library so she's half librarian half technology teacher um she supports students with Library skills um she also supports with research um and in an Essence co- tees with some of the
teachers on research projects and the library is going to close the library is not going to close so how does that work we are probably going to assign a pair of professionals to support with the library piece of
it um can't say I agree with that but the district I think should um look at this again it doesn't say be a teacher technology 50% Library 50% truth and advertising because I don't I think that
libraries are important in elementary school so I think we should just get the full breadth of what's happening so U you think you can do without it they had a meeting obviously with you about it but you're reducing a power professional you're going to have other power I don't know your staff to know I don't think
you have a lot of power professionals just hanging around ready to do something different so I'd like to get a report at some point on how that's going to work as well thank you are you Mr chairman anything further just just briefly Mr Lind I noticed you u in your
staff it's a school school adjustment counselor and aison and a behavior therapist I notice additional positions like that at the other schools are you is this is this adequate for Sylvia so we have three sacks three
layons and a behavior therapist um very similar to uh what was described at fansa they each take uh they all groups they work in uh grade level bands as teams um they also use Satchel data to inform their groups okay I'm sorry I
misread this I I saw one block for school adjustment counselor but it's I just noticed the number three very very small print under it so you do have three School adjustment counselors that answers my question thank you you're welcome anything further Mr Das thank
you just to piggy back on my colleague Mr agar questions um the power so you're okay with losing that power position the one that's limit that's being moved to westall we can we can absorb it we have the the staff we have a full staff that can support with um
with that transition yes okay and when um when did those conversations start like last year or just more recent recently at my budget meeting okay and so as long as you feel your your confident in it um okay how you thank
you uh further thank you Mr lens next school up uh Spencer bordon Eric Bradley Mr chair may I ask a question about something that happened before related to the ELO and uh
Foundation numbers we were talking about if somebody can need to be prepared to give an answer relative to the um the new contract that caps at 25 we strive to cap at 25 for those classes I just would like at some point before the end of the meeting somebody to address that
issue if we're taking that into consideration thank you are you okay thank you Mr Mr Das thank you I guess I'll um I'll start with I know I visited about eight months ago um how's the situation with the mold I'm sorry
the situation with the mold is that a budget question Mr Das yeah I want to make sure um the school has enough money to help with any issues REM mode yeah got the budget question motion to appeal the ruling of
the chair second you need a two-thirds vote for that right Mr I think you need a two3 I I believe I believe a 2/3 for an objection I believe a motion to appeal is a majority
okay motion to appeal Ming the chair I just think we're talking about um mold should be talking about what they're doing with the kids but that's okay Mr chairman Mr agar just uh so I seconded the motion because I just want to make sure that we're consistent yeah so if we
um if we can say that we're going to be consistent the rest of this evening holding people to speak to just the budget items I withdraw my second if you agree to that I will I will do that from now on Mr I will withdraw my second on this issue just we're going to stay on the budget numbers Mr Agia is correct
thank you um can I I have a second line can I asked about other items on the budget a budget question go right ahead thank you um so I see you have um two um special education pairs
eliminated I was wondering if you could speak with about that uh yes so that's a reduction in two uh uh what we call sort of float Paras uh so our substantially separate classrooms which we have nine of um are still fully staffed those are
two um float pairs that support in different classrooms as needed throughout the course of the day uh they fill Gap where we have them um so those are a reduction for us um but similar to U Mr lent uh we're well staffed around that to support that moving forward
without those positions okay um and so these were these flowed around to different classrooms um like do you have like grade wait what grade levels were so our substantially separate classrooms go uh K through five it's all K through okay
um so if so I guess you feel that this can be absorbed yes okay are you anything further Mr AGA the uh I relative to that question on the reducing of the Paris for the has
that conversation happened across the assistant superintendent for special ed and the superintendent so as part of our as part of the budget process yes the assistant superintendent was at all of the um budget meetings so yes part of the conversation is that a universal has
everybody agree to that that I have concern uh for one how we uh staff those rooms I know it says vacant and it sounds like maybe it's because they were vacant I just don't think that we currently in the current budget have
extra special education self-contained power Professionals for the some of the uh most vulnerable students in the district I don't think that we have an extra somebody can tell me otherwise if we did we should have cut it long ago then but I'm not comfortable saying we're going to reduce those two people
maybe somebody can articulate if that's agreed upon or is that just it's vacant so it sounds easy I I don't know can somebody please answer the question Madam superintendent sure I'll I mean I think um the most basic answer is in the
when we have something like a float par that is additional hand on deck and not something that's um necessary in terms of running the daily classroom but maybe is needed and it's gone unfilled and
those classrooms are still running successfully then there's evidence there that the additional open positions aren't needed that's the most basic answer I could so as far as the special education
component we don't need a float power in any building for special eded self-contained classrooms there might I I I don't know if the in some buildings I think potentially we could make a case that because of the the needs in a
particular building the type of classroom it is the number of students I think you could also make a case that a float par professional is needed so I think it was this was case specific that it was not a necessary um
position at the school yeah thank you at your school sir and these two these classrooms have you ever had a day where there's not enough power Professionals in the classroom so on you know in any given week we have absences for medical reasons for staff for family onuses for
staff illnesses so uh we do have to get creative like all schools with filling those holes each morning um so that is a place for sure where uh the float pair professionals would support and would assist um that being said we have some flexibility um both with some general
education Paras as well as a number of Administrators uh seaons and sacks who are able to fill some of those gaps on sort of like a rotating schedule when it comes to a situation where we're we're short uh which I believe again I know my
colleagues also on any given day we we sort of pitch that together but um that's sort of but it's never we we don't go under staffed we make the whole we make it work it's very difficult to staff a full classroom in those classrooms and hearing you say that you
would potentially take a sack and put them in there to cover for a power professional on a rotation on a rotation yeah for a break yeah as far as I'm concerned not one day should that should happen and now we're cutting two floaters it makes no sense can I please call uh Miss obenchain to ask her a
question has they ever been filled these floaters you've been there two years 3 years yeah they have have they ever been filled yes yeah and in those times what do they do uh were they not needed as I described um would cover uh different needs in a given classroom depending on
enrollment depending on student needs at a certain time they would cover breaks for staff that type of thing thank you Miss chain I'm sure you could I just comment Mr AGA sure please so when I look at the budget there are
nine self-contained rooms we have 18 par is when you count the C and a power we have two classroom inclusion Paras there and we have 18 oneon-one
Paris at at Spencer Bard okay so at any given time in those classrooms there are times where you have five and six Paras in a classroom in in those in that school I understand so there is a lot of par professional support in that school I
absence we every every school deals with absences and I am aware of the situation across all the schools but when we're talking about trying to balance a budget and doing the best job that we can when you're talking about float power
professionals that is an extra and you know while the last several years we we've had them in the budget I do feel that that is an extra that we could potentially do with them I can understand I mean that's you're basically arguing the point that we have too many poers it and I can appreciate
that you're the finance guide that's what you got to say I've asked Miss obenchain to say why realistically theoretically in the classroom what does that look like because I work in a school and I know what it's like to have that issue so I don't I just don't feel comfortable with it Miss open chain is
going to hopefully be honest and just say yes or no and as a as the Director if she says yeah I think they're extra I'll say I'll keep quiet but I honestly want somebody to say that we don't need those positions that's all that's all I'm looking
for if I'm being honest I cannot say we don't need any specialized positions in this District our students are extremely needy and in without the right staff to support them it's very hard to meet the needs
especially in elementary school Spencer bordon has our one of our prep programs which um is for students that are medically fragile they require one-on-one support in addition to whatever extra hands are in a classroom
in order for safety in order for transport in order for feeding toileting all of those so I would expect spener boarding to have a high number of par professionals those Paras are not available at all to support support anyone else unless that child is absent
also unfortunately Spencer bordon has had vacancies for teachers so the Paris are actually serving in several of our sub separate programs as as teachers so that takes them away and we don't fill those other positions right so when we
think about the district's vision for inclusion opportunities for students Spencer bordon has a group of our substantially separate strand in our stride program that we are looking to and they're doing a great job of
inclusion Readiness and getting them into the generaliz classroom in front of certified you know teachers for me to say Mr Bradley and his team don't need two additional Powers if they have two grade level Powers they have K through five in their
building I can't say that do I understand what um Mr almea is saying right now when it comes to budget and having to make decisions and prioritize sure I do but in good conscience as a special ed director when I want to meet
the needs of all the students in Fall River I just can't say sure cut par professionals I do think we need to relook at our Paris and see how we are assigning them to our special ed teachers and how do we build that team more so our special ed teachers feel
like they have the support they need from a par so they can do the additional specialized instruction or paperwork or attend a meeting and know the kids are still getting support thank you so uh I mean I think it's pretty clear uh
to me anyway when you just look at the sit current situation budgetarily so you have a budgeted teacher and how many substantially separate rooms is are the Paris teaching a class uh currently it's in two of our nine two two of our nine yes so let's
say teacher makes 880,000 each that's 160,000 in the budget and if you have a teacher Aid teach in the class what do they get 35,000 round numbers that's 70,000 so that's $90,000 savings at your
school by having Paris teach then the person that was a par that back filled that we not filling who would fill that position because that's another 35,000 that we would save so if we don't backfill the position who is the par in the room that's helping the children out
of the most vulnerable population and where's that money so just your own two at your school sir the your two special education subpar classrooms have saved the district $200,000 by filling them with not that
you're not trying to fill it you know but that's happening all over the district so here we are we're spending 200k and then we're not going to fund two floaters in my view the floer would be who would backfill that position because they're filling in my opinion so
to be to be fair Mr agar too I believe and I have to ask Mr Bradley because I can't keep it all straight but do you have agency staff working at Spencer bordon right now uh we could only have one agency staff that does take obviously it's more money for an agency staff so it does take some of the the
money that if we had our own staff right the moral of the story is there's no doubt in my mind that this is needed budgetarily these two positions are needed to stay in the budget and we can find the money to do it I make a motion that we re take these off the reductions
and put them into Spencer bordon second I have a motion to second on adding two pars back at Spencer Borton okay Deb call the r can I make a comment oh I'm sorry Mr D good thank you on the on the motion um this began to
hear Mr agar and Harry Miss obain um I think it's very important that we do everything we can to support our assistant superintendent in special education within the fall of our Public Schools I had a brother that attended Spencer board as well so I do understand
um how this is needed and so I think this is a no-brainer vote so I'm ready to vote I yeld go ahead de cwell Mr AG yes Mr Bailey Mr di yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv
yes Miss Perera mayor kugan yes Mr chairman Mr Mr ago uh Mr open chain i s I apologize I wasn't here yesterday to hear the presentation but I think what you've just said is very on point where way I think we need to go with special education we need to do things different
and when we hired you uh however many years ago it seems like already one of the things that I asked you was not only about the budget but we have to support you with the budget but we need some bold initiatives and and I think that you're ready I looked at your PowerPoint there's things in there that said what you need to do you need to have the
ability ility and the superintendent needs to allow you to have the ability to make the changes that are necessary and it's incumbent upon this committee to allow you as the Director who I think is doing a great job and you're trying your best to make some changes in order for us to move this system forward we
have to approve and allow you to do those things so I appreciate you being honest sometimes it's not easy uh to do but we definitely need to do some things differently and I'm hoping that we have the subcommittee meeting where we can discuss your entire package thank you I anything further thank you um tany
Elementary School up next good evening uh Mr brat good evening any questions for the tany elementary school on the budget Mr AGA are you on any of these sheets the additions subtractions conversions at all so in my budget
proposal I uh originally asked foral with the aison um over the past school year we've had a bunch of changes back in October we had an unfilled uh technology teacher position
and we had an increase in mlls so I had requested and and school committee had approved to convert that to an MLL teacher So currently I just filled my fourth grade teacher has become my MLL teacher and I have a par that's become the fourth grade teacher
and I recently had an opening in a fifth grade classroom and we have now filled that so A bunch of my openings are now full um in working with my principal partnership and doing our principal meetings I'm actually looking to um
cancel my request for the seaon I believe analyzing what we have going on I think we can make some structural changes that will free up my sacks to give them the time to meet the needs of our students um I'm a firm believer that all the students of Fall River are all
of our students so hearing the needs across the district I would like to make sure that that money is available for the schools that need it more right now thank you when did that happen which part the part that year withdrawing your it's happening right
now so it hasn't happened before my you should have a budget proposal with me asking for Ana Zone yep I'm saying right now at this meeting after working with Dr bronhard Dr Curley
looking at how I can make some changes here at tany I believe that the money knowing that we only have $500,000 to meet the needs of people in their wish list um withdrawing my request yeah I understand what you're saying and and I appreciate the fact that you're being honest about it and all that stuff where
I'm getting at is why am I finding out about it as a school committee member right now at the budget hearing so you've obviously had conversations with Dr bronhard as you just said and Dr Curley related to withdrawing this so at that point some of those conversations happen this week yep that's fine so
that's why I figured this would be an appropriate time I'm blaming you sir I'm really not I think when I look at the numbers you still have two School adjustment counselors right correct and you have how many students 281 that tells me right off the bat and I've said the same thing last year and I've said it again when we look at the
chart all across 281 students and you have two School adjustment councils full that's some great number numers I I agree so personally I would have said that leison probably shouldn't have been here from the start right but we made this budget proposal a while ago and
I've been digging in deeper and looking at ways I can help out and I'm that's why I'm withdrawing but when you did the budget presentation sir you had two School adjustment counselors right right that's what I'm saying so all I'm suggesting is that if
there's conversations that happened with the administration to say there's been a change princip from tany is withdrawing hisa on I just I found out about it right now it's my only point do you have I thought this would be the appropriate time I'm sorry no no you don't have to be sorry the MLL you had mentioned that
you had a teacher in the um so we so we converted the technology teacher into the MLL teacher is that relative to what I just mentioned about the striving to be at 25 is that the type of class that that's referring to no this is we don't we didn't have MLL support for our
building and we have right now now currently 21 students that required support and you think that's working out fine it's just starting yep thank you I Y Mr Das um just to piggyback on my
colleagues questions um when did that decision be made like do you have a day that decision was made to withdraw no it's a process originally I wanted it I made an argument for it I've been reflective I've been analyzing my systems and I think I can make changes
that there's other greater needs in the system okay and I'm just trying to figure out um what day you decide to um not decide that I decided to tell you today right you decided to tell us today but when did you decide that this was no longer a
priority it's a work in progress I I don't know what to tell you all right I I just I understand that and and again no no blame to you I just want to make sure that all our principles feel um they can come to us if and I'm I'm not saying you're not however I'm just
saying a general comment I want to make sure all our principles feel they can come before us and I will say the position was more of a wish list it's it's not a dire need so when I see a lot of the dire needs across the system those are the ones that need to be fixed first okay okay so you weren't you weren't pressured to remove the position
absolutely not if anything I feel super supported Mr on on the budget please okay I yield thank you thank you thank you next up Mr Mr chairman I have one more comment for the principal Mr BR one more question uh Mr anger has a question I'm
sorry it's not a question it's just a comment and a thought so sure uh what I would say Sir is please don't take offense to us asking questions I'm I'm totally not I appreciate the honesty of where you're at with the two sacks you know and and upon reflection uh you came
up with this but let's just be honest I asked you the question you had a conversation with the super assistant superintendent and the superintendent about it so when I asked when I stated that we should get to know that wasn't from you sir I just want to make sure it's clear that you know that okay had nothing to do with you all I'm saying is
from you had a conversation but when some of these conversations happen this week there's no other time to notify you ahead of time I don't I don't understand yeah I'm not asking you sir I'm not saying that it's your role to tell us you had they're hearing about it for the first time that I'm officially
withdrawing my request right now okay that's different than what you just said earlier that's all thank you are y I'm sorry I wasn't here yeah that's okay we're on to the next school vus Veris Elementary School come on down there Dr
witty I'm going to try to stay on the budget please like Mr AAR asked us to welcome uh you Dr witty uh do we have any questions for the Bas on the budget Miss
laravie try to do this without coughing okay so um just question on the the you know movement of so what's going to happen with the uh math department head now is that the department head position that's
opening because of the transition actually we have an Ela department head opening right now where I'm asking to convert the two Department well I mean I don't know the Lo how we logistically said it but what I'm basically doing is my two department heads are becoming a
vice principal okay so you don't need a math department head is that what well the vice principal would be of academics so she would be taking care of the math as well as the ELA you're double dipping with the math genius got it okay I
was does any other school do that um it's it's not well I mean I used to work at Sylvia I mean I was VI principal at Sylvia we had a similar system when I was at Sylvia but it was termed a DE um right but she would be a vice
principal okay but you're not worried at all that the math I'm not um because we've been with it's it's been a couple months now that um we've had this structure in place because our Ela Department had had stepped down uh and we are experiencing um more cohesion
more focused more targeted instructional um professional development than we've had in in quite some time uh so we're finding we're building up our our coaches to take on more of the load and more of the responsibility um and it
it's going very very well so we're not nervous about making that shift okay I'll yield for that thank you m then then you Mr Cory after Mr thank you and obviously um just want to get an
understanding on um we have a elementary school here that could potentially have three new Vice principles um is that uh consistent around the district I'm not sure what the question is three new Vice principles no I'm sorry I'll I'll rephrase do most
elementary schools have three Vice principles most of them no um C could you then um a principal speak to um the need for a new vice principal position sure most don't but vus is a very large Elementary School I
I think we're at 718 today um and we have two Vice principles currently two DHS we're asking for those two DHS to be more or less a vice principal there are other schools in the district large elementary schools such as ours
that do have three Vice principls okay and um to my colleague's point about the math coach so there there with this budget if this is approved like this um you wouldn't have a math department head no I have a math coach I would have a vice principal in
charge of academics okay you think you're in the future you're going to need that math department head again the current system that we have right now is working very well um my expertise and my master's degree is in math so I've been working very closely
um as well and right now we have a great team and it's working well and that's the same team that we'll have in place next year so I'm very confident about it I I appreciate that thank you I guess I'm looking at more of the big picture because I know you said you're an expert in math 5 10 years from now the next
princip and vice principal may not be so I'm trying to make sure the structures right down the right down the board I've thought of that as well I have um but we do have a robust coaching and interventionist group as well the vice principal of academics I mean it it
might seem sort of out of the box um but what we're finding is it's working very well very very well okay and um the there was a trying to the title one the therapy Behavior position move
to um n ELC could you explain that that's a district move that was a what that's a district move the position um to the Early Learning Center that so that was oh okay um superintendent you know where that was moved to uh the
Early Learning Center OH the early okay okay um so you're okay so that's where I was confused because I didn't know the position was being moved to you or it was being taken away from you um so he is being taken away from you um but
however do you see a need for for that position the th a behavior therapist um that particular position no not currently okay so if we if we use some of our unallotted funds to put that
in you you you wouldn't be in favor of that I know I had actually asked to convert that position originally to um something else so no I wouldn't be in favor of that okay I I yield thank you
anything further for um Mr Cory then Mr Ed I've had the opportunity to work at your school and I want to praise you just for hanging in there you've been with us for so long you've been consistent across the board year after year old Mr you have a lot of patience
and uh for one for one Committee Member up here I'm sorry I'm sorry Mr Cor no on the budget I'm grateful I was concerned about the position of the social worker just want to be U what's the difference between that and what you're doing with
school adjust we house the reach program at our school which is um classrooms for students with social emotional disabilities uh she works closely with those classrooms actually she works only with those classrooms um in those families yeah you're happy with and and
the other thing is uh the Dual language program I noticed that you bulking that up a little bit budgetarily that's good and I know I spoke with lisy yesterday and I'm very happy to see that program prospering thank you I yield Mr Agia the
uh under the document here it says a considerations we close the special education SE each classroom um do you have is that a multiple classrooms like what does that mean relative to the whole
program um well this year we have four classrooms at the B for the reach program this year one of the classrooms um we were unable to fill a teaching vacancy and our numbers were such that we could disperse those students into the other three classrooms rather than
have them go without a classroom teacher um so that classroom has been vacant for the year and when you put considerations what is that is that the reason why the behavior therapist was moved no the behavior therapist actually doesn't work with those classrooms
so I I guess I mean we have to move at some point we have to move people to try to do what what are you losing by not having that behavior therapist and what is the effect of that going to be in your school um I I think it will just maybe
shift some of the work onto our aons who are doing they're basically our First Responders so our classrooms that need um assistance thisal relay on and their behavior therapist will be dispersed to those classrooms so we'll just have to
restructure it in a way that they have a few more classrooms to answer to yeah I think uh I think I mentioned this at the last meeting a lot of times we get uh complaints relative to different schools and not everybody always calls us the compliment school so I'm not passing
judgment on it but is is the Vera school Under Control the kids have like I'm giving you an opportunity to kind of say what is happening in the day-to-day I don't get a chance to go there I work in a school so how is it going day-to-day at the varus relative to when I look at that cut of the behavior therapist I'm
saying if we already get some some complaints that things not necessarily smooth now we get rid of a position that's why I'm asking this relative to the budget right um well maybe I'm biased but I think our school's a wonderful place it's absolutely under control every day we of course we're Far
River Urban school with behavioral challenges for our students and yeah once in a while we have some issues I don't think that's uh unique to the VIIs in forer that's for sure yeah so I'm just concerned about it but we know we have to cut something just speaking of
that educationally I I know you're at a relatively low percentage in the um overall scores with desie um a lot of work to do when you start to look at the elll in ela intervention is the math and removing some of those positions that
also gives me heartache to to wonder like how is that working and I I'm assuming that you have the support of the administration to do that but your model is nothing like other schools and that to me is a little bit
worrisome um um I'll push back on that a little bit it is actually very similar to what Sylvia school has very very similar they as far as the structures they do not have department heads no and and how many interventionist do they have I'm not sure of the number of interventionists that they have have but
I'm saying for the administrative structure it's it's very similar to us so when you look at your school I'm looking at three Ela and one math and that's it you don't have anybody else doing department head coaching work
right and uh may ask superintendent if she can comment on that or have somebody comment on the structure of that school to make sure that it's enough and appropriate for making the gains that we need to make relative to the low achievement
level yeah I think that um the the rationale the argument that um principal witty made tonight in terms of what what they're seeing out of the current structure in the absence of an Ela Department share um having that math
department Share work across two departments and and the success that they're finding in terms of the support um across the content areas the cohesion in the messaging um we decided that we would we
would support it um she does have experience in a similar model because she was at Sylvia felt like it was a strong one it was an opportunity to you know try out a a different model for theis um in a way that was you know
recommended by the principal and we talked through the fact that um you know it was a little bit different but there is you know she does have Ela in math um coach interventionist positions in The District in the school and felt that the
structure could um would support the learning of students and teachers any assistant superintendent agrees what was that the assistant superintendent agrees yes um you know principal witty advocated for this model drawing on her
previous experience um and so we've supported that that structure in her building and I guess I think my colleague asked the question so if she's not the principle anymore guarantee they coming back here for a department head an additional
department head in my opinion and that's happened over the years here so I just think it's going to happen that okay we'll try this model but we don't have it quite frankly I've advocated last year for three Vice principles at that school anyway and I've said it at last year's meeting and I'll say it again
today if the schools when we look at the chart across the schools 800 700 how many you got a lot of students right 720 yeah so every school that has 720 students should have three Vice principes it's an no-brainer but we now have to do some kind of match inations
with department heads and coaches and this and that to give her the three depart three Vice principles that she should have as a baseline structure and and I it is what it is we don't have all the money I'm just telling you ahead of time I think I'm concerned about the
schools that all are in 12% 7% 3% very concerned about it and when we start to make all these different changes I hope we get results someday so I yield thank you very much U Mr Das thank you um how much um was that position the behavior
therapist like in terms of salary it's a teachers scale it's about 70,000 70 would there um and I don't know if um Mr obain would have an opinion on this um
could you see a need for a floating behavioral therapist that can go to um the school when necessary and across the district Mr Das she asked for what she needs Miss obain is sped you're trying
to add jobs that no one asked for I think it's a very important position what is the behavior she she said she's fine without it she's a principal okay all right I you Mr chairman Mr M sorry I had a question so
the behavior therapist that's moving to the Early Learning Center did the Early Learning Center present something on that yesterday that I missed uh the Early Learning Center wasn't asked any questions I don't believe yesterday so they have an addition of something but nobody asked the question can I just ask
you uh what that is is this um person just moving over to that position is it it's not vacant it's transferring the position if there's a person in the position I'm saying so they're we're transferring the skill set of that individual is working with Early
Childhood students like they're going because the person is a behavior therapist who has been working in a school with students K to five and we think it's a good fit to have it just automatically transfer I'm assuming yes the um and the reason why I
ask it is if they those positions become vacant and I believe we've also stated that we're not creating Behavior therapist positions moving forward we grandfather people in we not adding any more Behavior therapist in the district and that's a statement that everyone knows so just frood for thought the um
other one about converting to a dual language uh I'm losing the wording whatever it says a coordinator coordinator du can can you describe what is dual language or structure because $100,000
position sure that's for that I'm just trying to figure out how sure that position is currently in the l department um there's somebody who's in that position but is currently split between our dual language program and some other programming at the Middle
School uh so she will be solely at the Varys and that person is I haven't seen the program but they'll be on here somewhere because it's now yours like I don't see any dual language on here at all um I I think I I'm sorry is that my
presentation or the district or chart this is uh for Vera school so I think it's the districts it's the districts okay um my or chart did have it on it uh but it no it's not on that one no because it was a district position
no right so it really shouldn't be saying uh I I just I think somebody's got to comment on it sure so in order to um really grow that program and support that program we do need someone who um that's their responsibility all day long
um as I came into this role this year um we've had to make some adjustments we did have a uh as you know the MLL department has currently two PE two coordinators for the district in terms of the orc structure um under the director and with those two coordinators um I did have to meet with Lisa to
address the need of Veris and place one of those two coordinators for the district the only two that we have um nearly full-time at Bas to support that program to continue to grow the Dual language um one of the unique needs there is we do have uh instruction that is in Spanish um so we do need someone
that also can evaluate teachers in Spanish because they're teaching in Spanish as well um and so um as we continue our goal is and our vision would be to continue to grow this program and so as this person um comes on board in this position this program would grow through fifth grade hopefully
through Middle School this person would really be um you know spearheading that and if down the road we ever chose to expand or entertain um additional dle programming it would fall um in this person's responsibility yeah and relative to that uh you probably don't
have that number but what is the amount of money that we spend on the Dual language program and what are the effects of that program being at this particular School relative to class size movement of students uh movement of Staff like what I know we had an issue with it was like a log Jam because we
had uh you know every year it gets bigger but I can pull the stuff I know uh Miss zagarella shared some uh a one pager on dle um maybe a couple months ago but I can go back to that and add to it um but I know we shared that with the committee so I can I can get you some information
on that and what effect does it have on vas's enrollment what is the effect of the Dual language program on the vus overall enrollment where kids can come and go kids that live in the district are they prohibited from going there because classes are full creating
domino effect additional money in transportation all that stuff is that a real issue I can get that information for you thank you I would I would like to see a full reporting of what it is dual language is I think a good program everybody likes it but we also have to
balance as everyone is saying we hear in some ways we want programs that are uh whatever the terminology was a a um a luxury or something additional you know if how much money is this program costing us and what are the effects of it and we have to do a solid analysis of
it so I'd appreciate any info thank you ield okay thank you Miss witty next up is the um Watson Elementary School nice being here the other
day the kids love the uh reading right any questions on the budget for the Watson Elementary School Mr Das thank you you um so the I'm assuming it was the district move to move one of your SE Liaisons to West doll um what's
going to be the negative detriment um because of that we talked about that as a um uh as an admin team uh we are going to just restructure how we utilize our academic Paras um there's going to be there's going to be have to there's going to have to be people to support
lunch and recess Duty our Sachs will take more of the Satchel group that we have going on um I do have two sacks in the building and one other scle is on so we'll just have to divvy up the responsibilities okay and um starts at
56,000 something we could definitely consider i y for now thank you Mr D anything further for Watson Mr agar just uh I don't have it in front of me but what is the class uh the school size uh as of today
284 so um my I guess my concern is just that uh when you look at equality as we just mentioned with the tany you know it's very similar size School different demographic but it they have two
councilors uh I see the structure at Watson as being very uh high for supports MH and over the years we haven't had we haven't been here for a long time but we haven't seen the results for the money that we're
investing in that so I guess they like you said you it says here you have twoa is and so you Curr only have three are you moving one or is that no I'll I'll be left with one so you'll be left one of them is moving to westall all right because it says two one here but the I just think for the low number of
students the um needs of the school whatever I think we should and I said this over and over for several years already we need to take a bold look in doing something different with our buildings our buildings are information U Mr just on my on my screen right here it shows the two and then one is
highlighted on mine that shows um one move the West off okay yep so you're going to n have one so my point is just that we have an issue uh the school has an issue has had an issue for a long time we have a class siiz crisis across
the district we need to have hard conversations about what are we going to do because we can't keep I know I I think you're leaving or I am yeah so uh whoever's going to be there in the future it it's just something I think we
need to address and I'm not put trying to put you on the spot I'm just stating facts and the fact is is that that school costs a lot of money per pupil for what we're getting as results so budgetarily I don't know that we could um we should take a hot look at it other
places are getting cut other places are getting reductions and the structure that we have at that school is way too much for The Limited um achievement level as well as the students so I really think we need to take a hard look at it with that are you thank you
anything further for Watson thank you thank you so much uh next up is the Doran Community School nice attendance job there Mr Souza any questions on the budget very nice any questions on the
budget Mr Das thank you um so I I see if few of your positions are being moved at par um an STL and instructional um that that is a lot to take from a community school in my opinion um is
there what out of those three Mr Das two positions are being eliminated it's the two uh sped power professionals it's the selfcontained oh my my my apologies um I just wanted to clear that up that's all thank no thank you for that
um so all right so even now seeing those two um those two removed um you just talk about how that could um the negative impacts in that maybe we could potentially help you um much like oh well much much like uh Mr Bradley had
mentioned previously uh we are fully staffed in our reach program uh we have three substantially separate classrooms these are two floating power professional positions um it's a
district decision but we are fully compliant okay man lastly um I mistakenly took your visitors pass so I'll make sure to hand that back soon certainly would love to have it back thank you I you anything further for Doran Mr haa thank
you there's not a lot on here addition subtractions and it's good the um comment I want to make on the float of poers is basically the same as what I said before I think um I think there's a different profile of the classrooms that your your reach classrooms are different
than I think what uh Spencer bordon was talking about uh but I do think that there's a need for floater uh par professionals uh to be working so I make a motion that we take these two float of power professionals and assign them to
uh special education in the district so that they can uh put them wherever they feel that they need second Mr AGA sorry you want to put these two back in the budget as float is it any school they needed in under assistant superintendent Oben chain we
definitely have a need for based on the last conversation so rather than Mr Su is saying that his reach program is full and they don't have the same uh profile of needs that the Spencer bordon could have so what I'm proposing is that we take the two floa Paras at the Doran
School and assign them to the office of the assistant superintendent for special education so that she can have them working and she can place them wherever she feels the need is at any given time based on any issue that she wants it's given her the access to um utilize
them here she comes next year we'll just get your recliner up here confy I'm so sorry I stepped out so I did not hear this the first Mr Mr agar has a basic request the two we were
cutting at Doran he wants to give them to you to assign throughout the district as needed special education power as floter yeah because she's going to float them to wherever she needs I think it makes more sense to do it at the district level than the School Mr
Suz is saying that his reach program is full and fully staffed so typically I would say no if it was a similar population as fence of ORD and I would say we should put them back at the dooran he's indicating that it's a different profile I know that assistant superintendent obenchain has needs
across the district so having her have access to districtwide float of pars that she can plug in in a moment's notice emergency levels kids come in whatever to support the sub separate rooms is what I'm advocating for okay we got a motion a second go ahead
uh M Deb Please Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr D yes Mr Cory yes M lvy yes Miss Perera mayor cougan yep thank you a uh anything
further thank you Doran thank you nice work Miss oen next up is the Henry Lloyd community schol Henry Lloyd Community School Miss Daniels again nice work on the attendance we' love to see in those
numbers anybody have any questions on the budget for Miss Daniels at the Henry Lord Community School Mr AGA same as uh on the charts that we're referring to the GI uh wish list or are you adding uh subtracting or you just have the positions that I see
on the unfunded positions um just the two unfunded just can you talk about the need uh for those two positions yes um So currently you know we house uh the strip programs we also have the sub
separate intensive um ASD programs we are we are a full inclusion school that means we include not only our multilingual learners but also special special ed um as well and so right now in 4 through 8 we have um our special education teachers with a 20 plus case
load um and we're getting more and more students with significant needs and need grid C Services that's pretty much the ma maximum service level and that becomes more difficult and what happens then those students um end up being
placed in sub separate our goal at Henry Lord is to keep our students in the inclusion class classroom and not having them in sub separate um this year the district placed a stride program in our school which is a partial inclusion program that has been very successful we
had started the year with 10 we moved to 18 and we have more students who are capable um in the ASD program to be included in the partial and receive General Ed education instructors so we right now um in seventh and eighth
grades we have one teacher serving um two grades um and so we we really need that special education teacher to support those PR services but also when we include those students from The Stride program um because of the
shortage in ASD and not having pairs that those students need to be included with an adult and so our inclusion teachers are also taking on um helping support those students when they're included in the special um special needs classroom so the when you said it was
the stride program yes is that just for K to5 yes that is K to5 so that's sort of the uh Elementary School request would be for that program to assist with that program somehow and you manage it however well
that program right now um when they're included like apparel or apparel goes in but the apparel obviously is not a trained trained teacher of so they are included with the rest of our inclusion special education students so we have
already those students who are um in the inclusion classroom and then those students that are partial inclusion come from stride so you're adding those stride students to an already um heavy case load of inclusion students and right now there's really no other adult
that comes with those students who when they're included in stride so that falls on that special education to do her case load and try to support those students and so we we want to do the program right and do full inclusion and co- teing right and that those that would take the burden off of our special
education teachers with who already have a 20K slow without those stride students I couldn't I couldn't agree more I think the inclusion and your subpar is important across the district and I know Miss obenchain is working on that but uh when you have students that are included
into the regular classroom uh the class size is 20 21 like low class sizes what what are the numbers when they try to include uh these subst substantially separate student students in the classroom so um we we have to look at
that carefully they are not on on those those class rosters that they're included in they're not included on the class rosters because they have a teacher of record so we have to look very carefully at where those those classes are our class sizes are um fairly large there are some grades
already at 28 so we have to be very strategic and how how and and where in the parts of the day that we include them but no the class is are not 21 if you have 28 students if I'm hearing this right filling up your classes and then
we try to include students which we should do which is a worthy goal how do you put them in there make them go to 30 um and some incidents not quite 30 but it may Max them out to 28 we may have to um which is why we needed two
additional teachers because that will help us um take some services off of those teachers um but we make it work we usually try what we do is we try to keep those numbers low in those classrooms but of of course we can't control our enrollment as you can see our enrollment
has increased by 10% each year we're at 830 students and so yes what we do is we try to look strategic during the day of when we can include those students but then there are sometimes that we can't um there's some students that we have to
kind of hold um from including um because of the the class side number but we usually when we do a inclusion from stride we it's a very strict protocol and so we look um throughout the day when is the best time where they can be
serviced um where it won't put a maximum burden on the classroom so when you look at your strand of ASD classrooms which I think is a lot of students yes we have 11 classrooms who in the other side of the budget supports those students so you when you had mentioned
like a a par whoever goes in who on the regular red budget side supports those children to be included in the classroom you have extra staff that can do this work so no that's why we're asking for the two to to help support um doing more
of that that type of inclusion right now when those um stride students go there is a pairer that goes with them from the ASD program but right now do we have anybody on a general Ed no that's why we're our special education in inclusion
teachers have to kind of um help and when a par professional goes to support the kids they're not in the classroom with the other children that they basically should be supporting so the Staffing is down one in order to get them to go in correct uh I think it's a to me it's a a no-brainer and we need to
I think we need to do this and I think we need to support these uh two programs so I make a motion that we put these on the uh funded list these two positions second with a question Mr D um thank you so on the motion so I
see the two positions and I wholeheartly agree with what you just said um so they're enrollment dependent so the way I look at this list and I have the prioritize for funding I have the enrollment list and then I have the not prioritize I like to look at it as like
prioritized it's um Heaven enrollment you're in purgatory and then um not prioritized it's help but so the enrollment dependent so those positions so those positions right there so we never voted to put those on
enrollment dependent so they are already in the budget um if they're pending enrollment into the to the classrooms they're not so these enrollment dependent positions are not in the budget
currently those are the positions that those are part of the positions that are on the wish list see now I'm very confused when when these lists gone out and we got them at all different times um I I was always under so just so just to go over what
we've done the last two days so in the last two days we voted uh there was a vote made to add a teacher of Visual Arts at RPA we in this budget had reduced four Paris two at Spencer bordon and two at
Doran which we are putting back in the budget and with this vote it would be an additional two SP inclusion teachers one at the elementary and one at the middle school level at Henry Lord so a total
of seven positions what's the dollar amount on that here and if we go over about 350 350 okay thanks so so I just want to be really clear that um for the enrollment
dependent one of the things I said when we when we did the budget presentation and these positions that were um wishlist you know they hadn't been funded yet and we held the $500,000 um in a budget line I talked
that day about kind of enrollment shifts in general so when even this piece right here could speak to enrollment shifts in terms of regular Ed enrollment or special ed enrollment or really any enrollment where we might look to
convert some positions a little bit down the road as we get closer to the end of the year or even you know last year we had a spike in enrollment at a couple of grades we realized it over the summer and then saw very low enrollment um in kindergarten at a couple of schools and
we closed 2K classrooms and we opened a second grade and a third grade classroom so I I do expect that there will there could be some movement so this enrollment dependent piece you know attached to the Henry Lord positions as well as some others it was a little bit
of a watch and see and I and I and I think there is still a possibility although I mean the the committee will do what they wish that that budget item that budget line item right now that has $500,000 in it or maybe $150,000 right
now that there would still be some opportunity to leave $150,000 on that line so that as we get you know closer to the end of the year into the summer into the new school year there would be an opportunity to identify the the thing that we need and
it could be another position at dery and it could be one or both of you know you know the positions at Henry Lord um I I just want to say I my understanding was that we didn't have to spend identify earmark the $500,000 all
$500,000 right now so that's where I had put some things on the enrollment dependent list right and I understand that last part but um I I guess it was just more the way this was um handed I'm just speaking for myself the way this was handed out in in different emails I
I just think it could have been explained a little bit more clearly CU I I was maybe just myself I was always under the impression that that these enrollment dependent items were earmarked thankfully we haven't had any enrollment dependent items yesterday um
but today we have um we're going to have dery soon but we have the Henry Lord positions right now so I'm in more support of Mr agar's motion now I was under the impression oh maybe it'll just be on enrollment however they're e marked and I just wish um it was explained differently but I you I'll
take responsibility for that okay I did the unfunded list I left $500,000 up for it discussion I got a question from a member of the committee about superintendent exactly which positions
do you think shouldn't be funded I sent a list and uh maybe a couple days went by or whatever it was and I got a separate request that was sent just to me um I did not realize the rest of the committee wasn't on it it was a request
from one Committee Member can you give some details about the other positions I sent a a piece that said um prioritized and I sent another list that said enrollment dependent and then it was suggested to me that I send
it to the whole committee I said sure I didn't realize I hadn't sent it to the whole committee so I'm sure it could have been confusing over the last couple of days but and I'll take responsibility for that moving forward if we do the budget this way next year I'll be sure
to identify everything on the wish list and then offer my priority list okay Mr Agia so uh what I think is not confusing in any way and I want to give you credit for that mam principal so we as a district
have been talking about in special education taking the outrageous number of substantially separate classrooms that are not doing inclusion and deal with it and deal with it in in the appropriate way for the needs of the children so miss openen Chain's taken
the lead on that I see your your writing here of this document and it states substantially separate pushing into inclusion we currently have District stride program classrooms these students are included in the classroom during some academic blocks this is difficult to support due to the large class sizes
of 28 students when they are included which you just articulated it says it right here in writing flip the page to the middle school special education to try to do partial inclusion for students at Henry Lord which I think we all should strive to do it says we have at
least four Rising fifth graders with cognitive and neurological disabilities who require between 90 and 120 Minutes of Direct Services from a special educator we have kept them in inclusion because we believe they will be better served in an sub than in a subpar room
but we need a special education teacher to provide the partial inclusion supports for the upcoming year so that the rest of the case load can still get their services that's that's what it states here it next bullet says these students amongst others will have to move back to sub separate if we can't
provide partial inclusion Services next year it's very clear the elementary one says the same thing it talks about the services it's an analysis that you have done with your team with the special education department to say why we need these positions this is what we call a no-brainer and when we get to the end of
the day if we don't want to do inclusion let's just say it if we want to do it right it's going to cost money I'm in total support of it we'll get the money and if we go over the $500,000 I'd be happy to have the exercise to figure out where we're going to find the money from other stuff because nobody's telling me
we don't have money built within this budget to spend so please let's be real this is a great presentation on a program that should be a model across all schools to fund inclusion properly with that I yield and thank you so we have a motion a
second on um on what two positions Deb is special ed inclusion teachers Henry L at Henry L to add them to the budget correct yep from the unfunded wish list yep yeah two positions from the enrollment dependent Mr Mayor
enrollment dependent yeah well they were on the original enrollment dependent y okay unfunded okay Mr di um just going to throw it out there if I can make an amendment to the motion that instead of taking it out the
$500 unitemized that we take it out of um contracted services for facilities and operation anybody want to second that one um contractor services in facilities and operation I believe has 2.3 2.6 million 2.9 2.9 Million um and
we're going to be taking um with this um 100 40,000 so I'll make that's my amend I'll clarify my amendment that we take 140,000 out of the 2.9 Million for contracted services for facilities and
operations do I have a second hearing none we'll go back to Mr uh roll Mr um agar's original motion D give it a call Mr AG yes Mr
Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yes m larv yes Miss Pereira mayor kouan yep yep anything further for Henry Lloyd hearing none actually one question okay Mr uh Mr Agia this might not be a Henry Lord
question but it might be something Mr bacho can handle the playground that's inside of the uh Courtyard or whatever is there any money scheduled for replacing that where children get injured and like I don't know if that's in his budget or in your budget but
I know that it's been an issue so if we can get either some Mr Pico's coming up so I think he has an answer you all set there Mr Daniels okay Cho's taking care of this playground currently we don't have funds
available for that particular item um so we would be um we do have a few items on Capital on a capital list that item is on the um on the capital expense the $111
million Capital expense yep the only thing I would ask is that U we we have limited money I totally understand that I think that at one point you might have sent us a um I would ask for like a survey of all the playgrounds and where they're at whatever yes when I asked
that question was more so some of the things we can do in housee we have nine members of the grounds now and things like that so was meant for the we can do some of those things in house but when I look at the Henry Lord and they have the lip that goes this High and the kid falls and hits the their head on the
other thing and gets hurt and you know that's just we got to figure that out almost like an emergency repair doesn't have to be like the $700,000 playground but I think the surfacing that needs to be on the list and when you look at all some of the other places Spencer bordon has a slide you slide down the end of
this bottom of the slide at the bottom of the slide is an iron pie that pops out of the slide so any child that comes down the slide is going to hit the uh metal piece things like that so I know there's not enough money but if you can keep that on the radar abut appreciate it thank you I
yield thank you uh next up is dery high school come on down there Dr Stevens again I see your attendance is going in the right direction keep plugging let's see if we got any questions for dery Miss
lar so just a little bit about CTE um how many kids in CTE right students I should say in CTE oh she is here I know she's here 893 893 893
893 so I I think the dialogue I want to start the conversation is I was hoping to see an assistant director for CTE I actually thought the numbers requested I mean I actually thought the numbers go
much lower than that we have a lot of schools many schools uh the elementaries the community schools with 700 students 800 students and we have a CTE program that's just blowing up right because
we're doing a lot of good things in that program so I guess I just want to have a conversation on like what the the thought process was and if there is a thought on the table if there's been conversations about moving in that
direction to get some you know extra help in that department so I wouldn't say that it's something we've never talked about I would say in full transparency it's not something that we prioritized as part of the discussion this year in full transparency again just kind of knowing the circumstances
that um we're living in so it just was so right now you don't think there's a need for I certainly wouldn't say I don't think that there's a need but prioritize correct all right if that dis can I ask you miss Sylvia to weigh in on
that sorry no it's fine good thing I went to the gym this morning um do I think there's a need um yeah I think there's a need we are blowing up we're getting faster we got 20% of our seniors in Co-op it's
getting bigger but I also realize that um we haven't had an informal discussion about it this year because we do know the financial state of the of the district right so is it something that 800 allow me to interrupt that 800 number I thought it was going to be about 400 or 500 but that also includes
Discovery just so you're aware right okay okay that that includes Discovery so right I mean I I think everybody's doing great over there I was just you know it was out there I've been thinking about it because I know the work that's going in to that program and um if we
want to keep up the momentum I was just wondering where the thought process was with that with a position to you know I think formal conversations down the road will be had right but I I'll yield for now okay Mr Das thank you um can I ask Mr O chain a
question relative to special education at derky get another chair thank you so um I see two teacher positions for self-contained classrooms and um one par am I correct um yes yes
what's what's the difference um between the self-contained classrooms and the um inclusion classrooms so an inclusion classroom will have typically developing students so you know students that don't have any disabilities with students who do have
disabilities and a substantially separate classroom has only students eligible for special education so only students with disabilities in them okay and you and and you're on board with um the amount of self-contained classrooms you don't think think you think there
should be more inclusion or across the district 116 special educa uh substantially separate classrooms is a lot for a district our size um so I do think that there's room to grow as far as looking
at the barriers that um hinder students with disabilities participation in the general education setting with their peers that is least restrictive and that is the law so we have to do across the district I have to say Becca is fantastic if you don't know Rebecca gray
but she has my special education supervisor at dery and she has done a fantastic job about including um our students in high school for sure okay well that's all I have thank you okay anybody you have anything
further Mr agier so I see on the um a few things but on the additional list there's a a considerable amount of elll mainstream um teachers special ed teacher and that so I think that's a
need uh I think we had a conversation last budget cycle about whether we had vacant positions that couldn't be filled and whether we should fill them it probably all kind of mixes together I'm guessing uh but that's still almost $400,000 in additional um program
programming at dery and on the reductions I think you might have one of the art teachers is going to a district sort of position is there any other reductions from dery budgetarily that I'm either missing
or um I I did mention the I did mention the um the second shift manager position I'm not 1,00% where things stand with that but that was the only one that we had talked about in that
capacity and um can anybody help me on that is that not on the list anywhere or is that that position is one of the positions that have been reduced this year in the current year yes so that's why it's not on here because it's already gone correct so I guess that's
already gone sorry if that was news to you but um so when I when I look at uh obviously there's tremendous amount of students there you have a lot of needs all that uh when I look at the document you know the PowerPoint that you gave or whatever
it's on you talked about some staffing structures and some cing needs one of the needs is a special education van uh I'm curious where that's gone with um the transportation department we had a conversation earlier about transportation for students where who
pays it and has there been any conversations about that van so that band would be specific to the young adult program um to help students get into the community more help with internships getting them out into the community to go to the grocery store we do work closely with the transportation
and they're helping us out one day a week to help take students out but this would allow for something more consistent I'm sure they couldn't hear you I don't I was having a hard time um so the van would allow it to be more consistent us to go out and allow students get into the community in our
18 to 22 program hopefully get them some internships we go grocery shopping we go over the BCC things like that if we could just ask the administration to report back on if that's even a possibility or fair enough the um other things on
here were some conversion it says conjoining of positions um were those not uh so I guess what I'm what I'm asking is you have a list in addition to the
400,000 roughly additions you have three or $400,000 on the wish list that's not funded but then there's strategic allocation of resources that I don't believe is acted on to do this but maybe I'm
missing it no so just for context when I had included those in the budget presentation to share with um Dr Curley and the assistant superintendent just to kind of process or vet through ideas um when thinking
about potential conversions or um room where there would be uh flexibility per se or so that those were not definite in any sense of the word or something that we wanted to not have they were just topics of discussion you know but when I
look at it I I I just look at what's here and uh like for instance the site facilitator for programs is still here which tells me there was a disconnect in that was not even if it's not in the budget currently it shouldn't even been listed on the budget uh suggestions
because it's already gone and that savings ISU somewhere else but the other positions that are here um I guess are rather than have the unfunded positions here you're choosing to keep the what potentially could be the allocation of cuts com combining of
positions that are on this sheet rather than the positions that are on the wish list is that safe to say yes so the wish list is like secondary this is where you'd rather not make these Cuts so that you can leave these on the wish list is I guess well I
think in planning for that meeting it's you don't know yet what's going to be on a wish list and what's not do you get what I'm saying so it's you put the these were put down before I knew what was going to be put on a wish list MH so as I I hear so as principal once you saw
the wish list there things on the wish list that you would therefore say you know I i' rather have taken that conversion of these other two positions and get the wish list item have you had that kind of internal discussion is it even open to you as an option uh you
know it was so recent that and truthfully I was just sitting there thinking I wonder if that's a you know I'm hopeful that's a conversation that we can have to talk about what on the wish list might take priority over some of these things listed fair enough I think that's something that we have time
to do but it can't just be because things happen you know I think you should be open to hey this is what I think I'd rather combine these two positions and get gain the position on the wish list just because they made it doesn't mean we can't change it the superintendent can't change it so I do think that there needs to be some
flexibility sure um one of the things on the um uh budget that um I didn't get a chance to talk about was Athletics at the high school so what Athletics Athletics at the high school sorry so relative to your school so we have uh an
athletic director and an assistant athletic director I've advocated for three years now that element and Middle School sports has taken on a life of its own with uh um with the needs of running those programs and in the past we've had one
athletic director and we've had support staff hire a person to work the door or help out or whatever in collaboration with the plethora of of Administrators that you have in your building so I want to make a motion that we take the uh assistant athletic director and create a
position called trans convert that position to an elementary and middle school athletic director and I think that's a good conversion because for the district's sake and I think you can still work it with your current situation so I want to make that in form of a motion to convert
that I have a motion second go ahead I um I I know she uh the person doing the job isn't she already doing the work of the middle school right is that is that accurate is that
that's accurate that is accurate okay thank yeah that is already been done Mr agar go Mr Mr agar so I think what's happened though is uh how do you call it you can't serve two principles or whatever you know so technically speaking she's housed at the high school
as the person so I think we are trying to get one person to do all these things and she is doing the middle school program quite well she's doing the elementary school program quite well but she cannot one person cannot do all of those things properly while expanding
those programs in the elementary and middle school while at the same time being an assistant athletic director when it's convenient at the night at the high school trying to do this and that like for instance the high school has a position called uh and it's paid per season to wash clothes and collect
uniforms you know it's a position under the athletic department okay who does that work and what stien do they get for doing that at the elementary and middle school I can answer that for you no one because the person who's in the position as the assistant athletic director of
the high school is now also responsible for making sure that the elementary and middle schools have uniforms and the like she gets no extra stiping they but we have a stipended position every quarter to make sure that we're collecting the uniforms washing the uniforms we don't have that at the elementary and middle school so what I'm
saying is it's already a position that's being done it's sort of it makes sense to put the person in charge of running those programs and at the end of the day when you have to hire a part-time person like you do quarterly for helping the uh Sports you you have the ability to do
that but right now we're having a person in too many different places my intention is to kind of call it like we see it that the person is the athletic director for those two positions uh at their middle and elementary school I think it makes sense I understand I I
just want to I I want to be clear Mr ha I I go to the middle and elementary games I don't know that I've ever seen you at one but they do run well and the person does do a good job and I believe that that was part of the responsibilities when we hired the person and I look I'm looking at what
she's making now and it's a substantial salary I mean I don't know if I ever made that as a vice principal and if she needs someone um for these other duties that you're talking about I mean I don't have a problem with bringing in another assistant coach or somebody to support
her but I don't I don't think we have to make it that formal it's working well right now because I'm I'm at those games I go to the Middle School championships in the elementary school and the cross country and everything and it works well it's I'm there I don't know if you've been there I haven't seen you go ahead
well first off I don't think it's a reflection on on me negatively that I haven't been there to those meetings I apologize got no no no let's just say let's just call it like I see it I'm just going to call it like I see it yeah you see I do have a 2 and a halfy old baby at home that I take care of on the
weekends so I don't have a chance to go like you do to these events so don't try to make a experss to that fact that I shouldn't have a say as a school committee member on what's happening because I don't get a chance to go that's unfair and it's inappropriate to hint that but with that
said when you look at the situation the person is doing too many different jobs the person is doing the middle school job great they're doing the elementary school great has there has been issues relative to the principles at the schools not collecting the
uniforms Dr kly knows about this situation would you would you like to expound on the fact that the problems that we've had with collecting uniforms because we don't have a person in charge of those elementary and middle school programs sure I mean I and I've had this
conversation um where we've you know we've purchased uniforms and then there's another request why why are we getting these requests people aren't returning the uniforms I think that I do think there has to be better communication um with the with the
coaches I think that it is their respons responsibility just like it is um at the high school that I believe the coaches collect uniforms I know that we do employ a person there is a stipend for someone who washes practice uniforms for football and things like that but I
think that's program specific I'm not sure and I don't know that that person is the same person who collects uniforms at the end you could cor I really I honestly don't know I thought the position was literally someone who launders uh uniforms for those for practice I is like football where we're
not expecting the kids to take that stuff home um every day so um I I don't I don't doubt that um you know the person um would need assistance I do think that as soon as you are in a position where you're doing all of the things um adding something like also
being responsible for uniforms whatever it is I do wonder if it's a situation where we might stien someone to do that work and I say that just because there's this element of regardless of a person um you know title or salary or whatever it is at some point there just becomes
too many hours in the day not enough days in the week to to do it all and I so I wonder if that might be something that I I don't know but um I haven't had this kind of conversation before so I'll be honest with you I haven't I haven't really and I mentioned it last year to
Mrs Pon who thought it was a great idea at the budget time but it just didn't make it so it's not something that I'm just raising out of the out of the blue I do know there's issues with for instance the uniforms referees all of the like that's going on when when we have a situation where we have a 100 uniforms
given to a a teacher a principal of a school and when that principal only returns 20 of those uniforms that's a waste of money and what it is is that we're not actually having somebody in charge of managing it so what I'm trying to do here is to say truth and advertising the person is in charge of those programs she should be able to all
day work with what we currently have but also expand into the schools to increase those things so it really just makes sense it's not anything that's uh uh because I don't get a chance to go on a on a Saturday to see the games it has nothing to do with it but it's a good
management it's good government to make sure that we have a person that's running the things doing it it's a union position if we vote to do this then they they would have to negotiate it with the Union to say where does this fit in the salary structure it's not some this isn't complicated this is clear uh
common sense that's what it it takes and I think when regardless of this I think we should get a full report of what's happening what's the history of it and then we can see what does the current athletic director do what do the supports that come in so we can manage it that's what we should be doing is asking those questions so I'd ask my
colleagues to support it this to me is a a really a no-brainer Mr ly yeah so quickly did we say that the High School coaches are collecting the uniforms right now I I shouldn't speak in my mind that's what what happens but I'm not positive who is responsible at the end
of a season to collect uniforms um I'm not sure I I shouldn't have spoken it's just what I think happens yeah I consciously I don't think I'm going to vote Yes on this right now until we get more information on what the structure
is so I'll just leave it at that um I yield I do want to comment on what Mr agar said what I was trying to make the point was that I go to the I go to the events so I can see firsthand I don't have to have someone tell me I'm
standing there sometimes with Dr J or with uh with anybody that goes I see what goes on those programs are well run they do a great job with the kids and if someone needs to get someone to pick up uniforms or something then they should come down and ask us for it but I don't
know about creating I mean this this this person's making a lot of money right now like I said more than I made when I was a VI principal so my position is firsthand knowledge sometimes does help and I'm there whatever Mr agar's constraints are on going to events I
that's not between me to pick with him my point is when you go you see how things run you have the ability to comment that's all I was doing was commenting as someone that goes Mr Agia so when you look at those games that you're saying I didn't go to so I shouldn't have a say what days say that
Mr AGA don't put words in my mouth cuz you're can I ask you what day those games are on huh can I ask you what day of the week those games are on those games are during uh Saturday mornings particularly the elementary uh sometimes the playoffs are on a Thursday night at dery um I've seen an elementary playoff
I think at dery uh at a night also so they they bounce and cross country is usually Saturday morning too so Dr Curley can you tell me who else Works six days a week doing this work um I know the yeah I mean the athletic trainer you get the idea you
get the idea it's a it's a difficult thing and we we've we've talked about this with other positions as well because it's not a position that is this you know 8 to four 7 to3 kind of position it is a position that does have responsibilities six days a week there
could be responsibilities you know over breaks there are so it is a it is a very different kind of position and so I I do think it just warrants a closer look at it um yeah I I hadn't thought about it to beon I just think that when you look at you know six days a week you're
looking at evenings you're looking at responsibility make sure that the equipment is in making sure that you know I I think it's something that definitely warrants a a a position that is very much solidified into the the role and I
brought up the issue of the uniforms not for any other reason in that it we waste money if we have to keep on replacing them so as we look at I know the mayor keeps saying that this position makes a lot of money and more money than he's ever made as a vice principal this is a union position negotiated with the union
and that's where the salary is so it's irrelevant whether this person makes so-called a lot of money it's irrelevant what I think is is this is a personal decision by the mayor to not want to give this person the position it's personal and with that I yield I rest my
case it is personal with you thank you let's have the vote Mr Mayor oh Mr D sorry just a question on the motion um would it if anyone has the answer would it cost more money to expand this position as Mr aguar was saying or to create a whole new position for
collecting uh uniforms I think that that would be the stien position we talked about but at this time Mr agar's motion does not address a a stien position I I think my my I believe it would just cost more money to create a whole new position with Benefits I agree Mr agar I think this is
the good government vote that we should be taking okay let's give it a vote oh Mr hand up just uh to my colleague's point so when you look at uh stiens that come out uh seasonal Mr Al media you might be able to talk to this so is
there a stien for equipment manager the high school there is yes how much does that cost it's 3500 a quarter I believe so yes whatever it is let's just say that's 3500 per season three seasons that's $110,000 that we pay right now in addition so what I'm suggesting is
rather than have us say we're going to pay somebody else $10,000 to assist with this stuff good government is we don't we don't have to pay anything else we make this position be in charge of both of those and you don't need to have a equipment manager maybe we got to look at whether we need a
$3,500 stipend for somebody to wash clothes as Dr Curley said or whatever and I appreciate you want to look into it but this actually would be a savings towards the so-called absorbent salary that Mr Mayor wants to keep saying about this position I'm not advocating that we hire anybody else or spend any more
money cost neutral put the person where they belong so that they can do the job and with that I yield you want to give it a call Deb Please Mr AA yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory no Mr larvi no M
Pereira mayor kugan no anything further for dery Mr Mayor Mr Das um I'd like to make a motion that we add the teacher special education position um from the enrollment dependent and add it into the budget
using our allotment can you repeat that Mr dice yes um the dery teacher special education position um I'd like to make a motion that we add that into um our unallocated allotment I don't know what
he uh hearing no second Mr AA actually uh it's not for dery so I de said something after dery what it's not for dery I just have something after dery oh okay hearing none anything further for
dery okay thank you guys thank you now Mr Mayor yes Mr reer so uh I wasn't here yesterday and I think the pay center was on the um list I don't know if they spoke but I do have a few questions for the pay center director uh Pace was yesterday but um
there were no questions and um M Cudo wasn't here okay thank you uh I don't see anything from Pace on the um things we've been talking about the wish list the conversions list or anything uh in your budget uh
proposal or presentation of whatever happened with the budget were you asking for any positions do you need any positions where are you currently at with your Staffing um well if I had to say if I had a wish list it would definitely be you know to
to look at our clerks and potentially at a clerk if you know the money was there what's happened is in the past couple of years can you talk closer to sure the families that are coming in have different needs have more needs um if I
look at enrollment um registrations in the last year or so we've had about 3,000 a th000 of those were students from outside the US so we're spending um I'm collecting data on how much time we
spend with each registration and the average is at about an hour per family where in the past it was half hour so families are just needing a lot more support um around getting on the computer getting Services before they
start school getting all their documents in um setting up appointments for vaccines or doctors um applying for Mass Health SNAP benefits those kinds of things so um you know the need is there
there are days that some of our clerks don't have time for a lunch so if I had to ask for anything it would be that um you know in you know in a wish list it would also be more space uh for families when they come in so private space when
we meet with families is a challenge at PACE it's very loud um there's not a lot of private space so if we're meeting with the family my office we don't really have other private space you know when families are coming in talking about some you know real needs and
issues can you talk more about that so I've been there I think once or twice but is it because the the walls are cubicles and they don't go to the thing or is it the um material in the walls like what is the reason why it's not personal private space yeah it's it's
all of that so walls are very thin we have um cubicles so there's no you know privacy with families um and many times when we we have families coming in they're talking about you know some pretty uh SI significant traumas when
we're looking at um you know getting records from other schools from other countries um you know families talking about what their living situation is and really working with them around you know applying for um services in the
community you know there's not a lot of privacy and I I think with I don't think there's money in the budget necessarily for that but what I would ask is that we have a facility subcommittee meeting over the next several months to months to look at that issue to see if there is
something that we can either do to create a couple of different spaces or just to to map out what's happening there because I don't think the PACE Center is going anywhere and we're looking at expanding the pace uh prek area so I think it's incumbent upon us to have a subcommittee meeting to talk
about that um when you talk about the needs of the students that are coming in has that been consistent uh you know basically that those thousand students that you talked about uh is it only in September or is this sort of rolling so so it's rolling through the year um I
think that if we look at Trends we've definitely um gotten more and more you know elll students or newcomer students um in the past couple of years than you know what I've seen um as director um and we can can see that in our numbers
right when we look at our foundation numbers those those have increase in El students um you know when I ran a report in the last year we had 3,000 registrations a thousand of those were from outside you know the US that that's
significant that's a third um so I and when you do that do you work with translators that have to come in or do you have your own no I have my own so I only hire people who are bilingual or trilingual um we have pocket talk which
is devices so if there's ever um you know somebody who comes in that we don't have the language capacity we utilize those um um devices on a daily basis so all of
my staff has those including our security staff at the door so we're able to communicate with all families yeah so you mentioned security so what does it look like in the building for security is the front door have a um camera like we have in all the schools are we having
cameras inside of the PACE Center do you have walkie-talkies that communicate with stuff yeah so we there are cameras um there's no walkie-talkies um so yeah we we do have a security guide from a contracted
agency that that's there at the door I think I mean it's in a different part of the budget relative to walkie-talkies that we talked about so I think that should also will be on the list to make sure that we're safe uh Mr alme a a clerical position uh what would that amount to uh 35 to
40,000 for a first step 34,000 34 35 to 40,000 35 4 all right I I think the numbers indicate such and I think Miss uh Kudo just explained how we have the need at the school so I make a motion that we add a $35,000 clerk to the PACE
Center second I I got a question um is that all you need down there right now sin yeah I mean I think that would be that would be a huge help and where are they going to be when you come in the pce and I'm saying where you sitting or yeah so it's
at the two First rooms on the left where all those cubicles are okay I have a motion a second oh absolutely M superintendent to weigh in on this please sure thank you the need
yeah I mean I think that we have um um you know we've talked a lot you know over time in you know including this year about the amount of traffic um that comes through the pace and um you know
like I have with others I I believe there's a need right so just like I believe that every principal who asked for something there were a few exceptions but that there was a need I do believe that there's a need and so if it's you know if it's the will of the committee to fund it you know we fund it
I will say and I'm sure it might be a question that people are wondering um you know why there's this you know why there's an expression tonight I will say that we did something a little bit different this year in that we um did
not meet with every you know Department um across the board a lot of it C was what came through um the central office staff that oversees multiple departments um and I think there were convers you know there were conversations had but um
Miss Kudo did not have an opportunity to sit at the table with um me and the whole team in the way that um principles did and so I think that that's why um there hadn't really been more discussion around this okay we have a motion in a second on adding a clerk at the pace Deb
would you please call the role Mr AG yes Mr Bailey Mr D yes Mr Cory yes Miss larv yes Miss Perera Mar kugan yes yes
okay at this time I'll go to item um 3.2 a vote to approve the for public school fiscal year 2026 budget draft operational budget in the amount of 197
m837 2110 for the purpose of the public release in preparation for the public hearing scheduled for Monday April 14th 2025 motion to approve with a question I have a motion do I have a second I have a motion a second with a question Mr Das
thank you Mr am how much do we have left in the um unallocated fund from the Motions we made yesterday and today I believe I believe 115,000 I believe is what's left at the moment and um we don't use that money what would
happen with it it would just would it go back to the city or would the the administration the money is budgeted so the money would stay in the superintendent's budget and it could be allocated at a further at a later date okay um going to make a motion um there
is a motion I'm going to make thank you I'm going to make an amendment to that motion um I hope to get a second for discussion purposes because I think it's really important and um so I'd like to make a motion that we allocate up to 70,000 to conduct an audit of facilities
and operations second any discussion on that motion Mr Mayor Mr D thank you so school committee was promised last year an audit in return for support for
reorganization go ahead I'm sorry thank you um for reorganization of facilities and operations a reorg that's added multiple positions to that department that audit has not arrived yet in this budget we're still I my opinion I don't
believe um we're at Max efficiency we're still relying on millions of dollars and contracted services and I believe more of this work should be done inhouse I believe a forensic audit or any audit will ensure that facilities and operations is um there is due diligence
there needs to be a review of their inter internal controls compliance verification make sure we're in compliance and that we're assuring public accountability so I hope to receive the support of my colleagues on this and again it is just what we were
promised from the former superintendent and it's important that we do this especially that we're approving a new budget and there hasn't been any work done towards that audit yet I yield yield uh yes U Mr Mr Curley oh so I just
wanted to say that it two well two things one that I still believe you know my understanding is that what was um promised by the former superintendent was to have a review done by the Collins Center and that review and the second
thing is that review is scheduled um for the first week in April May I respond mayor Mr Das I'm sorry thank you um I I I don't think review goes far enough enough I believe we need a full audit i
c i can I I mean can I ask a question like what what what to be audited because the review will take a look at the structure of the department all of the processes of the department um and we'll get feedback on that so what
else it would the audit entail internal controls compliance verification um say that again I'm sorry I can't internal controls and compliance verification can can you tell me what internal controls means yes to make sure we're abiding by
policy to make sure there is a good chain of command and make sure yeah just make sure we have a good chain of command I didn't I can yeah I I just I I don't know I'd like an opportunity just to use those words with with the Colin Center because I think that that is the
kind of thing that they're coming in to do I super I I would just I was under the impression there were um it it was um a review and I don't know I have to go back and look to the minutes I I I did not think that's um yeah there might just be some confusion on my part as
well so that's I'm just I'm I want to be clear I'm not going to support this um we'll let the c s to do their work first and if um anybody on the committee we've been through this recently has specific allegations uh make sure you write them out forward them to the uh for forward
them to me and I'll make sure uh we have someone look at them and go forward from there um anybody anything further Deb could you call the role on Mr das's Amendment sure Mr AGA yes Mr Bailey Mr
Das yes Mr Cory no Mr larv no M Pereira mayor kugan no Mr Mayor Mr Agia so uh I wasn't able to be here yesterday for the uh human resource discussion uh I think it was from what I could tell uh at
least a discussion about recruiting and I think the um I've been very uh critical of the fact that we didn't audit uh of Human Resources 2018 we still haven't followed through with the um recommendations of that uh
several superintendents have come and gone we still haven't done it um it it to me it's a no-brainer that we have an issue that we do not recruit properly we do not currently have a high functioning
human resource department to do all the work that's needed in order to get the Department running properly as well as recruiting people it takes a lot of time to recruit it takes a lot of time to get people to apply here uh promoted here and all that stuff we need an HR
recruiter in the HR department this organization we're going to spend a budget of $197 million that we're going to approve in a couple minutes and we don't even have a recruiter that's been recommended by us by something that we actually paid money for we paid money in
2018 to have somebody look at it we continually say we don't have uh we have too many vacancies we don't have people coming in to apply for these jobs but let's not wait I think I heard yesterday let's wait for another year let's wait for another year we don't have time for
a dress rehearsal on getting people in here to work and support our schools so I'd like to make a motion that we add a HR recruiter at the rate of $75,000 out of this money and move forward with this long long long awaited
position second with a question go ahead Mr Das thank you and I I do support Mr agar's initiative um that was something I brought up when um HR was here yesterday and I I discussed um that we there there was a position
created however it's not solely for recruitment um I'm assuming my colleague wants to position solely for Recruitment and that was my vision as well so I do support this position so um if I can just ask the HR Director just um re
rehashing my comments from yesterday this position that is created that you said is hybrid for recruitment can you just talk discuss that one more time the HR coordinator position correct uh yes what exactly are you looking me for me to discuss description
job description uh I don't have in front of me uh I think we went over it yesterday there are recruitment pieces to that job description that's my colleague wasn't here that's why I I know we discussed it but that's why I'm asking again I understand I based on his comment I believe that he viewed the uh the school
committee last night he said I made a comment about waiting a year what I said last night and just Mr agar just for your uh edification since you weren't here um I didn't think it'd be proper for me to recommend hiring new staff at this point when I haven't had the chance to fully flesh out my team um I I still
stand by that think that we can do the work with the people that we have um I also don't think that it would be fiscally responsible for us just to throw money at a position Without Really figuring out where the need is um I also don't think that this committee has given me the time to really do that work as director I just started in July um so
that's kind of my my position at this point I I also would like to push back I think a comment was made that human resource department um is not high functioning I would absolutely say that I disagree with that I think um my team does a tremendous job okay thank you Mr
Cory then Mr AGA U Mr L um given given the current state of HR right now and you say it's a high functioning Department uh down the road according to Mr agah's motion do you would you maybe
see a need for a recruitment specialist in HR potentially yeah absolutely I I will say though and and I think I mentioned this yesterday um recruiting works really well when you have a large pool what we're seeing is a
dwindling pool of of Educators um I think a number that I heard recently was uh the percentage of um college students uh that are actually going towards education has dropped from I think 30% to somewhere in the 5 to 10%
range uh I believe that is nationally um so I I mean we don't have the people out there which is a challenge um so again that's why one of the reasons just throwing money at a position I don't know is fiscally responsible at this time point of order I I just don't
believe it's appropriate that excuse me Mr I had the point of order Mr I Mr Mayor I have a point of order I'm allowed to interrupt what a point of order what's the point of order the HR Director should not be calling this committee fiscally irresponsible and then that's not no no that's that's totally appropriate Mr Das that's not a
point of order let Mr Cory finish so Mr L so if if if Trends change then you may see the potential for a position like this yesterday I asked you about maybe some candidates that present
with life experience could you reiterate that point to me again right now yeah I I I think uh it's looking outside of the box and figuring out you know all the different areas that we could sort of advertise and recruit from um some of those being sort of those non-traditional routes for people going
to education we obviously know that we have people that you know go to to colleges and universities they become education Majors they know that they're going to become uh Educators I think we have a lot of people that get into various jobs and um positions that are not education related that after a while
say you know what I don't want to do this and I want to do something else and education is a a great Avenue for them so I think uh like you talked about Mr Corey um tapping into those people and and figuring out ways that we can support them and get them licensed and sort of get them into a pathway where do you you see that pool of candidates
potentially growing in the future yeah you know I I I think so um I think the challenge is drawing people into education um that's always a challenge you know um people that are are shifting sort of their you know industry or maybe looking for a change um selling you know
why education and and particularly Fall River is is the place for them I think that's something that we you know kind of need to work on I I am I am intrigued by uh Mr aia's motion I think it's I think it's a good motion and you're asking us to potentially Maybe hold off
on it until you get a better view of your department when you exactly what I'm asking for when do you think you might be able to present us with that point of view I mean I I think from what I understood um just you know this being the first year in the school department is budget talks typically start
happening in the fall uh October sometime around that I I think by that time I would absolutely have an idea of whether or not this position is needed um my fear would be this position gets added and then I'm right back here um being bombarded with questions about why
we don't have every single one of our positions filled because we gave you a recruiter last year and why didn't that solve all the issues I don't think it's that simple is I guess my point okay thank you I Mr Mr Ria yeah so uh I'll say the same comment I just made relative to uh someone
else we don't have time for a dress rehearsal again you've been here since July which I think is a long time to get your feet wet and understand what's going on I can totally disagree that we have a high functioning HR department you can and I disagree with your assessment that's fine and it's my turn
to talk and what I'm saying is I don't think we've had one before you came here I've said the same comment before you came sir now that you've been here for a certain number of time we just now are filling a position that whatever the position you're just saying you filled
and whatever else we don't have a fully functioning high functioning HR department independently ask the question to any of the directors and principles that work in Fall River Public Schools and ask them without anybody looking over their head to say
whether we have strong needs to over overhaul some of the systems that we have in place in HR you not unanimously but you're going to have the great majority say absolutely we do we have I be one of those people I agree right so what I'm saying is it's not high
functioning that's not function only on you sir but it's not we need to have system in place you also need to have the proper amount of positions under your control that you can actually do some of the work so what I'm advocating for is actually to give you a $75,000 position that should have been in since
2018 now when we do this process and we say okay we we're looking for a recruiter we create the position now you work on it and say I'm not getting the right candidate at that point but we have a $75,000 allotment that's in the budget which this budget starts July 1
so now you're going to have a $75,000 allotment that's want to allow you to say to Dr Curley and her team hey you know what we we've got the $75,000 in our budget which we have and we're trying to I'm trying to make a motion to give you $75,000 in a position that
between now and July 1 you say recruit is not out there but what I do need after talking to my team over the last three months is we need this position we need to create an opportunity for you to have another position in the thing you can't do all the things that you need to do now I appreciate what you're saying
that that you agree that we need to overhaul some things I'm trying to advocate for you to get a $75,000 position the easiest way to do that is by looking at the audit that we did in the recommendations from that audit now you could say after we do this if we hopefully vote to approve it you know
what I looked at it we don't need that we need something else so I think the point is it's not a matter of you have to pigeon hole to this but you we have to in this budget a lot for $75,000 to be in your particular staff you could come back to us after that money there
cost neutral and say you know what I need an extra clerk for 35,000 I need two clerks for 35,000 to do a lot of the stuff so my people that have paid a little more whatever it is but right now you can't do that because you don't have any extra money in the budget so I'm
advocating for $75,000 for this position Dr Curley can change that as with your recommendation over the next three months this budget starts July one I'm actually trying to help you sir I'm not trying to be critical we need to move I think everyone would agree we need to do things differently we got to think outside the box all those things I'm
trying to give you a $75,000 position and I ask my colleagues to support it for that reason a lot the money and then over the next several months we can change it if you want to call it something different with that I yield yeah I got to make it clear I'm not voting for this at all uh that's up to you Mr L to come to us when you need the
position we're here once a month um looking at the P paper my position on recruiting and the for schools is this committee made the biggest recruitment help we could give you when we raise the salaries to something near a semi-competitive level for years Fall
River was behind the eight ball lowest lowest lowest we're giving you a shot I wish you nothing but the best I know we have the best facilities around we got a tremendous staff and it's going to be up to you to bring them in I'll support Mr agar and his assistant when you come
down to us and say this is a hell of a fight we need help but you're going to have the opportunity to say that not one of us up here and that's when I'll come forward and I'll second his I'll second his motion but we're we're trying to bring our salaries up we're trying to improve our facilities we're trying to
improve our professional development let's give it a shot for a little while is all you're saying absolutely thank you Miss Miss larvey so Mr agar you weren't here yesterday uh I started off the
conversation with Mr L uh asking him cuz my opinion is um or was until I spoke with Mr L that we were lacking in staff I looked around uh the the greater Far Over area and and Brockton Taunton and I
I really uh did a dive into what their HR departments looked like and how they were structured and I was the first one to ask him last night uh how do you feel about that do you need help why aren you asking for anything blah blah blah so his answer is the same as he had last
night he does need a little more time and I'm going to respect that even though I was the first one to hop on him about you know the the size of our H HR department but I'm not there we're not there we're not in your office and if
you say you are doing okay right now and you are operating and you are functional I just trust you are going to come to us in the future and and request the position positions that you need so if you say you need more time you need more
time and I respect that thank you well but we did but we did add a position last night that you asked for yeah so we're giving you one right there we're moving in the right direction Mr Mr Das thank you um and again um the second with my colleague I seconded a motion to
help you as well and I understand you are new to the position I I I will take Mr agar's um years of experience on the committee and seeing the prior to you lack of um being able to recruit I'll
take that word that advice and that experience over basically anything when we're talking about recruitment it's very important that we get more Educators into the fall of public schools everyday Educators and the everyday staff and so I think it's a no-brainer boat and happy to support it
but again it's really I think everyone on the stage here is trying to help you out so I just want to make sure you understand that so I you oh Mr AGA so two things uh superintendent Curley would you say that you're are comfortable with the performance of our
human resource department at the present time I'm not really sure that's I mean I guess I'm not I'm not sure what you're looking for here do I think that we could do better in all of our departments I will say yes this question was specific to the he I know it was and
I don't think it's a fair question okay so you it's a department of five people so if I say yes I I mean I think that I will say this we just hired someone last week we
haven't had a full compliment of people here until last week so if in my opinion if we've had difficulties meeting whatever expectations people have I would attribute it to the fact that we have been short staffed and now
that we have people in place we we will get to assess better where we are we have done a heck of a job I think that we have seen great Improvement um over the course of this year and I would expect that to keep getting better and I
think that the addition of a person um to fill an existing position it's like it was already a position we knew we needed and it wasn't filled um previously and it's really no disrespect to the person um the job description is you know has a lot of items and that
person was asked to do one thing on a very long list and in recruiting for this position Mr L was you know very pointed in looking to identify a person who could do more of the other stuff
including the recruitment work and I think we have found that in a person and I think that we just I I understand what you're saying you don't want to slow roll things we don't have time for a dress rehear so but we we are so different now as a district than we were in 2018 when the um when the re
recommendation was made for talent recruitment because Mr Lally said this last night he said it again today the there was Talent out there that we just couldn't get our hands on um every and and we were getting potentially other
districts um we we recruited some really high quality people and then we had to fill in the gaps potentially or with people who weren't as high quality I think we are well positioned now to attract high quality people of course we
do have an issue with the fact that there just aren't many at all there aren't enough to go around there um Mr Roso took an opportunity last night to join Mr L to talk about what some of the expanded recruitment efforts look like
we need to see what that looks like I appreciate the O I understand what you're saying I I think there there is this opportunity to advertise a position see what we get we might figure out number one we can't even find someone to do the work or we might figure out um
you know as we are interviewing people that maybe we don't need the position whatever it is I would I would like to take the opportunity to see what kind of traction we can get with our current plans and um and then move forward from
there so when I asked the question about uh whether you're comfortable with the performance I I don't think it's an unfair question I think it's a pretty easy question to ask well it requires me to evaluate a very small Department publicly and I feel like that is not and
and it's not I I don't know I I I think a good answer would have been what Mr L said he gave a I think a pretty good answer is that he knows that there's systems that need to be improved and they're working on them I think that would be fine so when I look at it what is the position that you're referring to that you just filled Human Resources
coordinator coordinator and that's sort of the lower middle end of your the coordinator is the higher paid person or the lower PID uh lower manager I think is the the higher paid person who so your HR manager is a person who has been here for a while uh that position from
my understanding was about a year ago we hired that person maybe just about a year ago yeah last February March 24 so she's been here a while the position that we're talking about here is this the position where the person was getting paid by the school district to work to live in Portugal over the summer
I don't think we pay anyone to live elsewhere I I think there was an agreement worked out where um this person was unable to asking for clity so we had I I'll give some clarity so because it happened before Mr L arrived we had someone resign a
position um that was happened that coincided with a resignation of the Human Resources Director so we were down two people we contracted with that person to continue providing some of um
the work remotely it wouldn't have mattered if the person were in like the south end of the city or Somerset or Portugal or wherever she was I'm going to be honest with you I'm not sure exactly where she was um I'm sure I knew at the time but I don't remember and she
fulfilled part of that responsibility that was necessary in terms of onboarding people getting them in our system for evaluations getting them into uh our system for you know um absence management and things like that it was that she was doing one piece of a job
and she was doing it remotely and that's position you were just talking about that they only did one of a what would have been a variety and she did that from Portugal living in Portugal which makes me just concerned and it was before your time but it makes me concerned for how the heck do we allow somebody to live in Portugal and get
paid like they're working here I just don't see it we don't have a policy for work from home I've already asked that question so my concerns when I say we don't have a functioning department is not only there these are the things that have been going on separate from that the budget allocation for human resources and I think Miss lar talked to
this is that when you look around we are not funding our HR department properly period it's not even close other places have a lot more uh staff or resources dollars put in so it's it that's why I say this is a no-brainer we have to give
more resources to the HR department we see multiple times executive session let's talk about somebody's salary oh I want to compare my salary to the person that lives in this thing or that department if we compare HR here and your salary for the amount of work
that's here it is dire in Dire Straits for needing more positions so I'm voting for it if it goes down so be it I'm still going to support in the future we need more positions whether it's no I'm not it's just a fact but that I yeld Mr Mr Corey so
um I do like the nature of Mr aga's motion Mr L because it speaks to a potential need within the department but I do respect where the chairman and the superintendent are coming from they're both career
Educators um having been career Educators they have a deep inside view of the needs that the district is in right now and leading the district and I do have to admit that our district has made some phenomenal gains in a short
amount of time and I'm really proud of the gains I know there's several reasons for that to happen uh and I'm glad that we're talking about this now to lays a focus the needs for human resources but I I will respect their and defer to
their decision to wait along with yourself you guys are the leaders here uh but I really look forward to a robust discussion on this very issue in the upcoming months as you know we really lays a focus on the needs of HR but I
did want to ask uh assistant superintendent Roso on the international teacher partnership program uh assistant superintendent how many how many people do you think that might affect just a a ballhouse
figure what we proposed um and was passed was to recruit an additional 10 teachers um C currently um I would have to get I want to say we probably have five right now um but this would recruit may be growing to even larger numbers in
that down the road potentially as we as we connected at at subcommittee um also to start to recruit from different countries um you know one of the grow obviously we have Portuguese as a language so there could potentially be a partnership with Brazil um but right now you know we're expanding the pilot from
what it currently is right now uh is your vision for these teachers from foreign countries maybe to help with our El students is that where they may be directed the most so one of the interesting things about the partnership is that these are experienced teachers
that are coming here so it's they are experienced teachers already which is great so some of them may have taught mathematics could be science so I think what we would do is now that we that that um passed right that that uh proposal um we would go back and look at our really high needs openings I know
for sure um they can certainly support our dual language program our ESL openings um but then beyond that I think for instance we know that Science and Math teachers um can be a challenge special education teachers um and we might be able to find F folks um who
have that expertise as well thank you thank you a on the motion Deb can you give it a call please on Mr a uh agar's motion to 75,000 to Mr L I mean to Human Resources I'm sorry Mr yes Mr Bailey Mr
Das yes Mr Cory no M larvey no M Pereira M hugan no now on the original motion for the budget do we have a we have a motion in second yes Mr Mayor Mr Das um I'd like to make a motion and an
amendment huh I'd like to make an amendment to the motion that the general classroom supplies line item in the school committee budget of um 20575 be deleted that's the sandwiches
that we waste and I quite frankly think we don't need them what what does anybody want to second the motion by second can can you reiterate the wants to get rid of the 2500 bucks we spend on sandwiches for our meetings we don't
spend 2500 mr5 a month it's it's a CL it's a supply line it's got $2,500 in it the the amount is $45 a month it's under $600 for the year within that line item so there are other supplies that are
purchased throughout the year yeah it's okay but we probably spent four or500 on sandwiches Mr Mr Das thank you again I'm will to limit the motion because if there's other items in in the line item however we get every
single meeting we get this big tray of these big like Gourmet Sandwiches half of them no it's not a f half of them go to waste and we should be more frugal with the expenses are you doing this to be funny yeah I'm not I have the floor
I'm when people laugh I a natural tendency that I laugh it's not I just more of a nervous expression to bring pizzas in I don't know we who was going to pay for those myself okay Mr Mr yeah I didn't know yeah so I think my colleague raises a I think a valid
question and I think if it's $600 I think we should just say that making a motion to do away with sandwiches at the school committee meetings it's going to save $600 but it's also symbolic of that we got to look at every expenditure in the budget so $600 for us to have sandwiches after school after a meeting
or during a meeting is a waste of $600 quite frankly it's not going to bring back positions but if we start to look granularly at each of those things I think that's the issue so the real motion should just be and it doesn't even need to be it just says whoever is ordering the sandwiches don't order any sandwiches I went through this 20 years
ago when Nick fiser was using sweds Cafe to spend money and at that time we voted to get rid of the sandwiches all of a sudden the sandwiches come back it's $600 but it's symbolic of the fact that we need to look granularly at every expense so motions are not motions I would encourage somebody to either if
you want to get sandwiches let's put a vote on the next meeting to say whether we want the $600 for sandwiches I withdraw my amendment I can't take it uh okay so there's no motion now right Mr D I withdraw my okay so we're back to the budget yes public release again this is
for the roll call April 14th 2025 public release dab give it a call Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey Mr Di no Mr Cory voting just for the to budget Mr Cory that am to release so we can be
yes in preparation for the public yes I vote Yes okay Miss larvi yes Miss Perera mayor kugan yes 3.3 is a vote to approve the public school fiscal year draft Transportation
budget in the amount of 13,118 324 motion to approve for the purpose of public releas on April 14th I have a motion second I have a motion to Second discussion Mr Agia I'm going to be voting no on this for the reasons that
we talked about earlier I don't think it's sufficient uh we know we're going to need more money uh to put in I think it's irresponsible to be actually presenting something to the public that we know is absolutely not going to be the number and we didn't do our due diligence with the transportation I don't want to belabor the point but the
fact of the matter is is we should have addressed all the transportation issues that we've known about since the summer relative to the how the crow flies in the 1.5 miles before this even got done this is backwards this is wrong and I'm voting no I yield Mr Mr chair Mr T I I
thought my colleague would um make an amendment to this um that's why I made the motion originally but I do agree wholeheartedly with his comments though I withdraw my motion I'll make a motion okay I have a motion and I have a second Deb Mr Cory
made okay I have a motion a second call the Ro on the transportation budget Please Mr no Mr Bailey Mr D no Mr Cory yes Mr lar yes Miss perrera May kugan yes point of parliamentary
inquiry yes Mr D does that vote require a majority of two3 vote refer to M uh attorney aside majority vote okay thank you um I guess we're going to withdraw the
request for executive session tonight motion to adjourn Mr chairman mot to motion to adjourn in a second Mr on the motion to adjourn uh it's on the motion to scratch the uh executive session can we get an explanation for the edification of the public uh there was
of what of the motion there was a question on the date again I believe it was submitted I think we were okay but I don't want to get into that again we we voted things last time so we'll hold for the next meeting so we had an amended we had a budget uh a an agenda item an
agenda filled out and then somehow it two items got on the agenda within the 48 hours that we just had that issue uh I asked earlier today I asked earlier today just so it's for the edification of yourself and the others for some clarification on it so that we would get into the same mess I don't believe we
heard anything unless somebody sent me an email while the meeting is going on but I asked the question of why did we get this so we're not in the same mess again and now it's just kind of glossed over that I just don't understand we we have a vote Mr uh but not I mean you know it was on the agenda can
we refer to uh attorney Assad please okay executive session was put on the agenda yesterday though not executive it was a um we talking about are we are you talking about executive session yeah just are we it was amended amend
uh executive session uh was put on as a result of some matters that were believed to be uh within the 48 hour period uh that would be under new business uh this is not going forward
for a couple of reasons one is that this is a special meeting that's basically on the budget as a result uh new matters could not be taken uh up that were not part of the budget process
um and that is the reason uh that they they're not going forward uh today okay so I have a motion on and a second on ajour on that issue just uh we have to do a better job of our agendas the 48
hour timeline the communication with the attorney before things get on an agenda this does not look good for us running the meetings and putting things on taking them off and we we got to do better our yield thank you vote on the RO call to dismiss I mean to adjourn Mr
D has a comment on a motion to adjourn yeah yes it's an explanation to the um to that point as well um this morning I was um going through the city website doing my D on the motion toour you you we just allowed an explanation on the reason why we're not
going to an executive session he's going to comment as to why the agenda wasn't on the city's website oh is that what it is cuz he emailed earlier today making everybody that that's his comment so earlier this morning I was doing my due diligence um and there's an open meeting
law requirement that the agenda revised agenda needs to be posted and I believe that if we took the city we we have the ability to post it on the city website so the requirement is that agendas go on the city's website um I do know that we
received the um the revised agenda when I looked through I noticed the revised agenda was not on the city's website um and so that's why open meeting law wise we should not act on these items because
the public only sees the original agenda not the revised one I have no idea who's fault it was I have no idea whatsoever it could have possibly been on the city Side their their fault because they didn't add it it could have just been a simple mistake such as that we don't
know I don't want to point figures when I noticed it I didn't want to get falsely accused by my colleague on my right of hiding things again so I made sure to email the committee right away and there we are i d call the roll
please Mr Agia yes Mr Bailey Mr Das yes Mr Cory yep Miss larv yes Miss Pereira mayor kugan yes adjourned