Methuen School Committee 8-11-2025

001[Music] The opportunity came up to launch the double office move home with my family and Millennium supported me through that whole process. They put [Music] Good evening. The school committee business workshop executive session of August 11th, 2025 will now come to order. This meeting is being recorded and will be made available for viewing on the Mthuan Public Schools website. Secretary, would you please call the role? >> Present. >> Here. All are present. We need a motion and a second to accept the amended agenda for August 11, 2025 as presented. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion is from member Shabilia. The second is from member Daglio. Uh now at this point I'll entertain discussion but first we need a motion and a second to amend the agenda for tonight's meeting to move 6 C to

0022B and move 6G to 6 AAA. >> So moved. >> So we have the motion from the vice chair. The second is from member Donovan. All those in favor of the amendment >> say I. Uh >> opposed. All right. The agenda has been uh amended. We need a motion and a second to accept the amended agenda now for August 11, 2025 as amended. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from member Shabilia. The second is from member Daglio. Any discussion? >> Member Maxwell. >> Did you want to know the why behind it? Oh, I thought you wanted to know the why behind the amendment. Um I just wanted to mention the um I know that there are three items on this agenda that I had requested a special meeting for and I just wanted to

003say that um when it comes to the staffing and the um job descriptions and the audit update, I really wanted a separate meeting, a special meeting for that because I think that they require a lot more time and to give them the attention they deserve, I think it would have been u much better to put them in a meeting that's not going to be a 4-hour meeting. So, I just wanted to make that known. Thank you. >> Thank you, Member Maxwell. Any other discussion? If not, we'll vote. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. The eyes have it. So, our agenda has been accepted. will rise now for the flag salute >> to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisibley and

004justice for all. >> Please remain standing for a moment of silence for David O'Harn who passed following a courageous battle with cancer. Dave was a proud graduate of Mthuan High School. He was a Mthuan High School athletics hall of fame inductee, a Mthuan High School counselor, and the head coach of the varsity girls Red Rangers hockey team. Moreover, he was the proud father of Meline, a graduate of the Methuan High School class of 2021, Riley, a graduate of the Mthuan High School class of 2024, and Kendall, who will be a Methuan High School senior this year. Thank you. We're on now to public participation. Thank you. We'll begin with Maria Figueroa. I think my voice doesn't carry over. I think it carries over pretty well. Good evening everyone. My name is Maria Figureroa. I live

005at Ten Hughes Road in Mthuan. I am a grandmother of two young boys at the Tenny Grammar School. I'd like to share my concerns on disinformation, transparency, and accountability. The need for us to recognize that when not aligned, it negatively impacts public trust. We fail our students and educators when we are not taking proactive measures or seeking strategies to properly address specific instances that may arise. When our established school district and elected committee members who are a trusted source are not equipped to address, identify or properly evaluate the district's overall immediate needs. It can be seen as a deliberate falsehood aimed at deceiving our beloved community, especially when there are no consequences for poor work ethics or integrity. I ask that clear communication channels continue to be developed, that these channels ensure and support all

006stakeholders, including students, caregivers, and staff, that that they are all well-informed, engaged, and well represented. We must establish policies that are aligned with the understanding that clear expectations for committee members, administrators, and its staff are all vested in achieving educational goals that adhere to policies. Only then will we foster trust, improve decision-making, and create a more informed and engaged school community in the face of evolving information landscapes. Our community needs trust. Trust needs proof. Proof calls for action and much needed transformation. We pay attention to actions, not words. We hear what you say, but we see how you act. Thank you. >> Next, we'll hear from John Drew. Good evening, everybody. My name is John Drew. live at Six Spring Valley Road in Mthuan. I am a homeowner, a taxpayer, a parent, and in transparency,

007I'm a candidate for city council at large. But tonight, I'm here wearing my master plumber hat. I have over 20 years in the trade. I'm a master plumber in multiple states and working on schools, hospitals, laboratories, and large commercial projects. It's been kind of my my life for the last 20 years. So, when I speak about water safety, and it's based on hands-on experience and clear understanding of what the law requires. Tonight, you'll be voting to add language to the school handbooks to comply with Mahoud v. Taylor Supreme Court decision. And I agree, if it's the law, it's required, then we must do it. But if we're going to follow the law in this area, we should follow it in every area. Especially when it comes to the system that protects the health of our

008students, staff, and the community as a whole. That's why my focus tonight is on backflow prevention and potable water safety. Very riveting stuff. Uh a backwater valve or pretor is a mechanical device that stops contamination, stops water from flowing backward into the clean water supply. Without it or if it fails, dirty water from janitor sinks, dishwashers, heating systems, and chemical cleaning stations can be pulled back into the same pipes that feed our drinking system and our kitchen faucets. Here's how that happens. If there's a sudden drop in pressure, like if a line breaks in the street or if a fire hydrant goes off, it creates a suction and we'll pull the water back in a vacuum. So, if there's a hose that's in a bucket of soapy mop water or chemical station that's connected or

009any sort of bacteria, it will get back into the pipes that serve the entire building. Um, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection regulates and requires that we these devices be tested every six months to a year. And depending on the type of hazard level, that's what's required. But those tests haven't been happening here. And I know that because many of these devices weren't installed until recently, and some of them are still pending. That means for years, our schools have operated without its critical safeguard. The law also says these devices must be installed by a licensed plumber with a permit pulled, the devices registered with the board of health, and the testing performed by a licensed testing agent. That process ensures the work is inspected, documented, and without permits, there's no accountability, no inspection, no guarantee the

010devices will function when they're most needed. And this ties directly into tonight's wellness policy vote, which has a line in there that states, "Pottable water refill stations are available at no cost to students in the schools throughout the district at meal times and throughout the day. Students are encouraged to refill their water bottles. On paper, that's excellent. But I have a few important questions for you guys. If you guys can take note of this. Are the water refill stations, drinking fountains actually available and working in every school right now? How often are the filters in those fountains replaced? Is there a written maintenance schedule for those filters just as there must be for the back backflow prevention testing? Will we be doing testing of all the schools of the water quality to ensure that they

011are safe before school opens in two and a half weeks? And have the permits all been pulled for these backflow preventers to be installed and have they all been inspected? Because without the schedule and documentation available could mean the fountains have been broken for a few months. Filtered could mean the filter's been expired for a year. And safe could mean that it's just assuming that it's safe. We wouldn't accept that kind of assumption for the backflow prevention devices and we shouldn't accept it for the water our students drink every single day. So my message I guess is kind of simple. If we're going to follow the law for the curriculum, we must follow it for every building system. That means proper installation, proper permitting, proper maintenance schedules, and transparent documentation. Safe drinking water in every

012school isn't just a line in the policy. It's a daily obligation and it is the law. Our students health depends on it and our community's trust depends on it or demands it. Sorry, read that wrong. Um, couple other quick items. The solar I know is on there tonight. Um, just want to make sure that the roof ages are kind of brought up when you guys discuss that and who would be responsible if a panel needs to be moved. Um, I know that I had to talk about my roof being redone and that's going to cost me a lot of money to move my panels off. So, just want to talk that tonight. Um, also the Ranger Club salaries. I see you guys did some due diligence on the um, market value. I think we might

013be still a little too low. I know we're in a financial straight, but I think those hourly rate should be brought up a little bit to help us attract some some better or good talent, not better. Um and before I close, I want to make one request uh regarding the discussion that will take place tonight about the curriculum. Um these topics can be deeply personal and can spark strong feelings. Whatever anyone's stance, including my own, u I believe every person deserves to be spoken to with dignity and respect. Uh this is not a liberal issue or a conservative issue. It's about people, our community, and the example that we set for our students. How we handle this conversation will say a lot about our priorities and how we treat each other. Thank you. Lastly, we

014have Alejandro Bayas. My name is Alejandro Bayz. I live on 152 Center Street. Good evening, members of the school committee. Madam Superintendent and my neighbors, I'm not here tonight to offer my personal evaluation of the superintendent. That's your job as my elected officials. I'm here to share a set of facts that put into perspective how skewed this evaluation process has been. For those watching at home, Desi outlines the process clearly. In the fall, the superintendent completes a self assessment, sets goals, and presents a plan for the year. The school committee is supposed to discuss those goals, approve them, and choose six to eight indicators that will hold the superintendent accountable. Midyear, there's an informal but public review, and at the end of the year, a formal written evaluation. On October 15th of this last year,

015you received a packet with a template evaluation and Dr. Kuang's recommended goals and initiatives and indicators. Here's what was approved. Under the standard of instructional leadership, instruction and curriculum were were chosen as indicators. Under management and operations, environment and scheduling/information systems were chosen as indicators. Under family and in community engagement, the indicators of engagement and communication were chosen. And finally, under the standard of professional culture, cultural proficiency and continuous learning were chosen as indicators. What was left out? Managing conflict, HR management and development, family concerns, and assessments. Areas I'd argue are among the most in need of evaluation. The issue isn't that you approved her recommendations. It's that there was no discussion of adjust or adjustments. So in practice, the superintendent designed her own evaluation. when Desessie 603 and the code chapter 35 states that

016the school committee has full autonomy during this process. Now I will say you talked about the evaluation and her goals which was great but never about the specific evaluating criteria. Okay, let's give the benefit of the doubt and say that there was an objective process or evaluation built. But to grade that fairly, you'd still need full evidence and not just numbers, but the story and context behind them. What you had are charts, graphs, uh improvements, or stagnant uh processes and and and progress that showcase outcomes, but without the deeper picture. Meanwhile, an operations and cultural audit sent out in September and due in January still hasn't been released because of grammatical edits. That audit contains essential data about the superintendent's performance this year. Yet, it's missing from your evaluation. Just so that we're clear, the

017language of this audit is that it's supposed to examine the current state of Mthuan public schools, drawing on, yes, 2023, 2024, but also 2024 and 2025. until that audit is public. Here's some context you might be missing. On indeed.com, our district has averaged two stars in the last two years. A July 2020 25 review is titled, quote, "Terrible administration." Quote, "Our faculty's issues have been on the news like Boston Channel 5 in late 2024, mice infestations, mold, unsafe classrooms, and now again this summer, we have similar rodent issues." A letter from former IT employee detailing inappropriate pressures put on him to do acts outside the scope of his job. And the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination has at least one active case against the district. One review, one complaint, one headlined, and no audit alone. They

018stand as outliers and data points, but together they show a pattern in a data set. So here's where we stand. You allowed the superintendent to set her own evaluation criteria and completed that evaluation without all the official facts. Now, I believe you know the reality of what students, families, educators, and community members are experiencing. But without asking the right questions, even the right answers can't be processed properly. It's like if a teacher designed a major project but never dispersed a rubric or if a teacher gave a out a test and when grading realized the answer key had different questions from said test. Like I said at the beginning, I'm not here to judge the superintendent. I'm here to question the evaluation process itself. Next time, let's ask harder questions, choose indicators that cover Mthuan's essential

019areas of leadership, and make accountability more than just a word. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak? Hello, I am Kelsey Shabilia. Um, full disclosure, I'm married to that Shabilia. Um, and I live at 22 Riverview A. I wasn't certain if I was going to speak tonight, so I didn't write anything down, but I feel compelled to do so. Um, I know that tonight you need to uh make a vote on the language for the opt out policy for people who are seeking a religious exemption for not exposing their children to LGBTQ plus curriculum. And that is what I'd like to speak about. I had gone back and forth about whether I wanted to speak about how you're defining religious freedom, how you're defining the role of public

020school, all of that. And I decided to keep it simple. Those things are going to be decided by the Supreme Court. They're going to be decided by Desessie. What you're all responsible for here is academic success. Right? That's the job of the school committee to ensure that our kids are successful academically. I can tell you as a licensed independent clinical social worker that a child who doesn't feel safe is not going to learn how to read. A child who doesn't feel safe and supported and loved is not going to be able to learn math or Spanish or anything else that we want them to learn. And you might be thinking, what does this have to do with those children? Representation matters. And I want to give you a very concrete example. I read to my

021children's class last year this book. It's called Two Pirates and One Robot. It's a cute STEM book about a boy and a girl in a robot who are in a in a spaceship and they have to use math to figure out how to save the the spaceship. Right? When I opened this book and I explained here are the different parts of the spaceship and here are the characters. Flatsom is the boy, Jetum is the girl, she's the captain, and he's the crew and Lean is the the robot. The class spent five minutes going, "The girl is the captain. Wait, the boy's not the captain. The girl's the captain." I did not see that coming. I did not expect that to be the reaction. But that's what happens when kids aren't exposed to representation to different

022people in different roles that they're not used to seeing on a regular basis. When that comes to LGBTQ plus curriculum, kids need to see themselves and their families and they need to see families they've never seen before. And it's not to say you have to be gay, you have to be trans. It's to say that gay people are real. Transgender people have existed since the dawn of human beings. And so as a public school, I feel it is our job to ensure that people understand the world around them. And that includes people. And so while you can opt out of reading these books, you can't opt out of your child ending up gay or ending up transgender. You can't opt out of them sitting next to a child who is gay or transgender or comes

023from a gay or transgender family. That is reality. And so by shielding your children, our children, our community from reality, you're creating state sanctioned bigotry. In kindergarten, my child came home and said, "So and so told me that I can't like this a person of the same gender or I'll go to hell." I didn't talk to the teacher. I didn't say, "Don't be friends with that girl." I said, "You know what? Some people believe that and some people learn that. That's not what we believe in our house. But it's okay for them to believe that. It's not okay for them to be mean. It's not okay for them to make a child feel bad. And I want to implore us all to encourage these conversations, to not shield people, children from reality, but to encourage

024respectful conversations. It's okay if you don't agree or if you think it's wrong. It's not okay to be mean. But if we allow this opt out, children will be segregated in the classroom. And those children are going to feel that. And it's not only going to hurt the kids that are non-gender conforming or queer or anything else, but it's going to hurt the kids who are being taught that those children are different in a bad way. It's going to hurt those children who are being taught that. and then are gay. The second leading cause of death amongst youth is suicide. Queer youth are at four times more likely to die by suicide than their peers. Every 45 seconds, an LGBTQIA plus youth considers suicide. That's not something I'm okay with. And that's not something that's

025going to boost our reading scores or our MCCAST or any other things that we are all working towards. So I implore you to vote no. Even if Desi is pushing it, the Supreme Court, stand up, say no. And in in most stances, I would say, you know what, it's it's an opt out. We can deal with it. We can have conversations. But context is everything. This isn't going to go away. This isn't going to get easier. This isn't going to get lighter. It's going to get worse. And I'm asking you all to please stand up now. Don't wait until we can't. Thank you. [Applause] >> Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak? If not, we'll close public participation. Uh just for future reference, if you cannot make a meeting in

026person for public participation, you can send an email to Martha S. So Royce at massir oisthuan.k12.mma us before 3 p.m. on the day of school committee meeting. At this point, we're moving on now with our amended agenda. Uh now here is 6C. Uh we need a motion and a second to approve moving forward with the select solar panel project for the tenny CGS and Tim schools. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from member Shabilia, second from the vice chair. Uh we'll begin with discussion. Um I think it might be good to probably bring up the representative from select to share uh some information with us and we'll go from there. Want me to introduce the Do you want me to introduce sort of? >> So, um, just to introduce for the, uh, whole committee,

027the mayor, uh, has had some conversation, uh, over the past twoish months. Uh, bringing us back together to have a conversation about solar panels. Uh, we were having this conversation about a year ago. That process unfortunately was very rushed. uh and we didn't we weren't able to see that whole process through at a school level or a city level. Um so I think with time on our side uh we started having conversations in late May early June. The building subcommittee uh amongst you all had a conversation a few weeks ago. Uh David and his colleague did come to share sort of where we are and our thoughts to move forward. Uh, and there's there are uh financial incentives to this, which I think is what uh I know for myself and the mayor, we're hoping

028to have some of those opportunities to increase our financial incentives for the schools. Um, so we we want to take this opportunity again, we're looking at some different variations than we did a year ago uh when we had this conversation. So, and for you know what I hope is obvious reasons, the CGS and the Tenny roofs are new. the Timony roof and the project we'll talk about because that's contingent upon certain things happening. Um, but you know, we were able to see again David and his colleague at the subcommittee. He also came to the city to talk about it with the city team. Uh, so this is a a larger conversation uh at the city level because those are city-owned buildings, but we need to all be in lock step with uh being able to

029move this project forward. So that's why the motion is the way it is today in order to move this conversation uh if there is support of the committee uh to move this conversation for the mayor and the chair of the city council to then have the conversations at the city level about this project uh because there are potential implications immediately uh and that could imp you know uh impact FY26 uh certainly FY27 with the timeline that um David will share today. So, just to give it some context about why we're here having this conversation a year and a few months later than we were last year, but we're in a very different place, I think, with understanding, with process, um, you know, and how we want to move forward. >> It's all yours. >> There

030we go. >> That's better. Um, thank you for the introduction and uh for having me on the agenda so early um in the evening. And I think um you have the packet. Is it on the screens or it's >> not on the screen? >> That's okay. I just wanted to >> Yeah, I mean I I I really can I think verbally go through some of the key points. Um >> school committee has it. >> Yeah, it's in the agenda packet. So um yeah, I think a couple things to note. Um these three schools um the Tenny uh the comprehensive grammar and the tim um are selected and we've been focused on because um all three of them we're pleased to to share I think as of May have received what's called the interconnection services agreement

031or ISA from national grid which is uh the electric utility for all three um which is essentially the green light from the utility standpoint to construct a system um and tie it behind, you know, the electric meter for each building. It's um it's been quite a a long road to get there. Um we actually applied for that interconnection services agreement way back in late 2023. Um and it was uh all all three of these projects were kind of waiting behind what's known as a group study. It's a an engineering study that National Grid was doing of many prospective um projects in this area. So, we got the good news in the in the spring that we would um be allowed to construct these um in pretty short order. So, um what really remains is um

032you know the approval of this body as well as um you know the city council next if this were to go forward uh at this meeting in terms of contracting these projects. Um and uh then getting ready for installation and um as the superintendent noted um you know installation timelines can vary but uh it is certainly plausible that we could have you know systems on the roof by the end of the year except for the Timony which we can uh you know deal with as a separate um kind of topic with the roof needing replacement there. But uh for the other two, you know, certainly having a project on the roof um by the end of the year is still feasible and having it turned on by early 2026 is uh is is likely if

033that you know we achieve that first goal. So I think you know could certainly impact your you know second half of uh the current fiscal year right um in terms of the savings which would be great uh for the district. So I think um you know someone brought it up during in public comment too the roofing um kind of consideration. So we know that the tenny and the CGS schools have uh almost brand new roofs um you know two or two years or less uh which is a great time to install a system. You do want with these being 20-year agreements um where select our company would be you know selling the energy from the systems to the district um you want to know that the system can remain on the roof for 20 years

034without u needing a large scale kind of replacement of the roof um which would require moving equipment around um as as I've noted. So those two are in great shape uh as far as their their expected lifespan. The timony is um kind of on the upper other end of the spectrum. It needs replacement before we would ever uh consider putting a solar project on and uh that is considered in the the contract documents where it kind of notes that one of the things that would need to happen first is replace a roof and make it ready for a solar system. So it is certainly on our radar. um you know whether that happens in the summer of 26 or the summer of 27. I think either scenario um would be um you know feasible and

035the sooner the better in terms of savings potential but we certainly have um the ability to kind of put the projects on you know pause or that particular Timony project on pause for for as long as necessary to get the roof done. But um so we've taken that into account. I think um the uh the numbers that you were shown in the agenda packet were the same ones that we looked at on uh July 22nd at the facility subcommittee meeting um with several members of the committee here. And they've actually gotten uh better, which is uh I don't get to say that all that often. Um but the reason is um the numbers that you saw on the 22nd of July were based on the smart program that is current and in effect. Um it's

036a state incentive program that basically provides um you know a monetary incentive to the owner of the system which in this case would be select our company um to produce clean energy for 20 years. So um the new iteration of that program they're referring to as smart 3.0 0 is not yet available, but we'll um become open to applications on October 15th in just a couple of months. Um and we're already, you know, queuing up applications for these projects to go into that. Um they're of such a size that they're actually kind of like there's a set aside, they will get incentives. It will not be competitive with other uh projects and it's uh quite a bit more generous than the current um smart incentive. So, we've been in an environment for the last five

037or so years at least of declining incentives, but now we're about to go um up in incentives from the state, which is great news for these projects because they're eligible and they should absolutely receive this higher incentive. And that means again we get that incentive but we have to um lower your electricity rates the power purchase agreement rates uh proportionally um because we're bound by the the terms of the power options um uh procurement which is essentially a competitive procurement we want in advance to be able to do projects like these with municipalities, other state agencies, public entities. Um, so essentially, yeah, we get more support from the state, it it gets passed on to the district as savings via a lower purchase, uh, rate for the electricity. So, um, I did send out, you

038know, I think it was just probably after the deadline to include in this new, uh, for this meeting's packet, but essentially, yeah, >> I'm sorry. We're gonna we're gonna show the new one. >> Oh, cool. All right. >> Yeah, >> it's got the new column of numbers. Yeah. And I think >> that Yeah. >> No. So the new column he's gonna show you. We asked to have him put in like what's the uh annual for each school so that we had a better understanding. It's not in the packet that's in front of you. I'm going to have to show it right now so you guys see it. This is what he sent me. >> Yeah. So it that's the the effect of that smart incentive coming into play uh with the you know you can

039see there's lower rates kind of shown per project throughout but it's you know going from you know 4.1 million kind of net over 20 year savings across the three to a little more than than 5.5 million. So a nice increase. Um and then annual we just did an average annual you know we're around 275,000 per year average savings. you'll see a little bit lower than that at the start um because we're assuming that the electric rates that you're avoiding paying to the utility have you know will escalate over time 3% a year. So the savings sort of 20 years out are the highest than you know nominal terms but um but that's the average 20-y year. Um so that's great news. uh we you know I think um that's pretty much uh I think a

040lot of the important material I think that just to kind of compare I think I was here back in last June 2024 um you know what's different this time obviously is we're talking about projects that actually have interconnection approval last time we were under um some time pressure from the utility itself about you know do you want to go forward with a study so that you can see if you can get interconnection ction approval on two different projects, right? It was the nine nine branch and the uh uh Marsh School. Uh so yeah, we're in we're in a green light environment here now with the utility, which is great. And uh we're just looking for um I guess a green light at the school committee and city council and we're always a green light um

041ready to build projects on, you know, rooftops that are that are eligible, which uh these are. So >> this at this point I would add I believe the engineering uh folks have been out to all three sites and that is concluded as well as your safety team. Is that my understanding that? >> Yes. So the structural engineer uh you know as a contractor you know it's a third party public u professional engineer that uh visited each of the schools wrote up a report. Um there there was a report issued for all three. Um I think we are we're pretty close to finishing our redesigns. just a few things change, but size-wise, I think we're going to end up in just about the same place that we are on this uh on these slides. But, um,

042we'll, you know, finish that up before, you know, we're in final contracting and in hopefully a few, you know, weeks or a month or so. But, um, the other thing about, yeah, safety, we have an in-house safety officer that, uh, that's all he does is, uh, make safety plans for installations. So, you know, he works closely with our we have a project manager. Um, we actually have a a pre-installation project manager who kind of works with uh, you know, Bruce Stella and the facilities team. Um, once the projects have been contracted to come up with a, you know, day of, you know, start of installation plan. This is all after the city permits, the projects, electrical and building permits. So, there's there's quite a few things that we need to cover. Um, but they're all

043part of the standard process. We would have a project manager um, from select dealing with each project. probably the same person for all three um just for efficiency sake and then a safety officer that's approved a safety plan for the installation. You'll likely see some you know temporary safety rail on the roof but it comes off afterwards and that type of thing. So um and then yeah we've talked I think about personnel and you know the fact that we you know select is one of our largest you know markets is really the public education. So we're in schools um pretty much every day and know the whole u you know corey checking procedures and our our teams are experienced with all that. So whatever um is required by law or even required by the schools

044you know beyond that is um something we can accommodate. >> Before we open this up I just want to mention uh briefly that this conversation with select and superintendent myself and other city officials has been ongoing now for the past couple of months. And I think that this conversation, while it was rushed, while there were concerns last year, I think that now we are in the midst of a much different context than we were in uh last year, namely by way of the need to identify new ways of saving money with the goal not necessarily of taking dollars off the table, but really to free up money for uh preserving uh teacher uh salaries and the like going forward. especially as we look out at fiscal year 27 and beyond. And so, uh, just in

045terms of this conversation, I think this is a great opportunity for us to, uh, proceed with additional conversations on this issue, bring it before the city council as well, but ultimately aim to achieve some, uh, much needed uh, capacity expansion, so to speak, for our schools. With that, I'll open it up for discussion. member Maxwell. >> So, I have a couple questions. I know that the Tenny um roof and the CGS roof have been um replaced, but I know last year at one point the Tenny roof had some issues and was leaking um or there needed to be a repair or maybe that was the CGS. I know one of the two schools had we were talking about it having a new roof and it needed um repairs. Um, has that has has those repairs

046taken place and have they been inspected to know like so we know that those roofs can in fact support the solar system? Uh, the solar Yeah, the solar system. >> Yep. >> Um, just sounded weird. Um, and then my other question is, um, I'm under the impression that if we have a roofer go on the roof to, let's say, shovel snow or whatever, it voids the warranty of the solar panels. Um, so, you know, that would be of concern to me. And then the last thing I would mention is I know you said that these last for 20 years, and it's a 20 year kind of package, but what happens at the end of 20 years? Where do these where do these broken systems go? Where do where does it go? >> Yep. >> Briefly,

047I just want to mention one other thing before the answers provided. I I forgot to mention this very important point regarding namely the Timony roof. So, uh, this is an opportunity if we were to hypothetically move forward with having the, uh, solar panel, um, project underway within the city, it opens the city up for the opportunity to seek grant funding for various capital projects, especially in the context of, say, a new roof that would uh, be involved here. And so we've begun the process of uh trying to identify potential grant opportunities as it relates to uh being able to replace the Timony roof but utilizing grant funds that would be opened up as a result of this. And uh we're still in the process of trying to finalize exactly what that would look like. But

048potentially we could be in the market to have a total replacement of the Timony roof via grant funds as a result of this. I don't want to speak to that as a guarantee. we of course would have to uh ultimately be approved for uh that grant funding. However, this opens the door to that. Just wanted to share that. >> Yeah. So, I think I heard two questions. One um about sort of, you know, snow and shoveling around the arrays. Um with that one, we did actually talk about that a little bit at the facility subcommittee and I said I would go kind of check with the team what we've seen in the past. to know um you typically would be well I had a question I guess about you know I think this was in

049maybe 2015 during this the snow mageddon winter where there was kind of repeated heavy snows storms and it just accumulated on the roof um where you know was there I think there's certainly a scenario if you had enough snow and it was like above what the uh the code sort of anticipated in terms of weight um which I think is very rare nowadays but um could, you know, theoretically happen. You might have a structural engineer on behalf of the school say, "Hey, look, there's a, you know, you're above what the code anticipated, what the building is, you know, designed to hold and you need to remove some weight." So, it could happen, I think it's incredibly unlikely, but if it were to happen, there's a couple things to keep in mind. One is the solar

050arrays um won't be covering 100% of the roof surface. There'll be, you know, pathways. There will be um certainly areas around the edges um and in some cases like CGS I think in particular there's just large areas of the roof that don't have solar panels on them because they weren't um they really weren't qualified in by the structural engineer and we hadn't really anticipated putting panels there anyways. But so those areas that don't have solar panels would be probably the first and easiest ones if you needed to shovel for some reason to just get rid of some snow weight. Um if you needed to go beyond that and it was within the sort of area that the solar panels are in because it's a power purchase agreement, we own the system. Um it would be

051our our job to respond to any kind of emergency um you know call that you might get from you know your structural engineer saying and it probably you probably would have some notice because it would be like not the first storm of the season but maybe the third or fourth or fifth where you know there's a lot of accumulation. But but that we could yeah in an emergency situation like that where someone's with a you know with the authority to say you need to shed weight we can go in there and remove some snow if we had to. Um but we would want to do it just because it's the you know a system that we know how to work around. We would definitely shut it down electrically before we did anything like that. Um

052but it's something that could be addressed. The warranties, you don't need to really you don't need to worry about those as long as you don't have your own staff touching the array because the warranties are all something we, you know, as a system owner, we have to worry about um manufacturer warranties and using them, you know, if we need to replace panels. Um it's really the risk is on us as the owner of the system um to deal with all that. But we just ask, you know, it's in the contract. It's like that we're the only ones that get to touch the system. Um, and you had a question about I think the what happens at the end of the 20-year term. So, yes, by the sort of standard provision would be at the end

053of the 20 years is it's our job to it's our obligation uh legally to come take it all off the roof. So, what we do with it is really, you know, up to us. I mean, there's there's panel recycling uh available. there's ways of, you know, selling it into the secondary market to other countries that um might find it useful even, you know, panels still work after 20 years. A lot of times they just don't produce as much electricity as they did at the beginning of their life and that's that's typical expected, but uh they can still be useful. So there's a lot of ways we can we can remarket, we can recycle, but uh you don't have any cost at the end of the term. Um you could also you could also uh mutually

054agree with us to extend the term for four five more years. Um, I think you'd have to, you know, get a pretty good sense of if your roof is able to go five more years without concern before you would do that. So, that's why we go with 20 years. It tends to be sort of like a a good alignment with the roof time, the roof lifetime, sorry. Um, so, but there's some options. Yeah. >> So, within that time frame, well, so let me back up. So, just to give you an idea, snow on the roof is 20 pounds per cubic square foot. So that's about 20,000 lbs on just a moderate size house. Um, so shoveling off the roof is always a good idea, especially being a flat roof and with old buildings, we need

055to keep an eye on that. But as far as the like extended five years, I I would just ask if if within that 20 years we do need to replace the roof, do you come take off the panels and then reapply the panels? If within that 20 years we need a new roof. >> Yeah, we would. I mean, it's it's we're trying to pick roofs that are able to go the 20-year term without doing that because it is, as someone, I think earlier said, it's it's there's a cost to doing that, and it would not be our cost. It would be the district's cost if you had to have us remove systems. So, we have an entire uh maintenance team that out of Hopkin uh Mass that can do that. It's a special services project

056we call it. >> Super expensive, right? >> Yeah, it can be. So, I mean, it might involve moving the panels to a different area of the roof that's open, or it might involve taking them off the roof entirely and then putting them back on. But either way, it's a lot of labor. It's really there might be some new materials involved, but most of it's labor time. Um, it has to be done, you know, as you can imagine, very safely organized manner, and it's just it's a project. So, um, we that's why we're really hoping to pick roofs like the Tenny and the CGS Whoops. to install on this year while they're, you know, still extremely new. Um, and they really should be lasting you 25 to 30 years, not just 20. Um, and so I

057think, you know, certainly the the roofer that installed it is, um, I think going to be, you know, comfortable with with it. And we we install on roofs that are older. Um, we do go up, you know, into the 8 10 year old range, but it it's really at the kind of the discretion of the roofer and the owner of the building and us alto together. But two and two year old roofers are prime targets. So you know >> so who does the inspection? Just one more question. Sorry. Who does the inspection on the roof to make sure that it is in fact like even though it's new that it is in fact safe to do it? >> The city inspector or like you have an inspector. >> So when you say safe, there's there's

058kind of a couple aspects. There's structural safe which is that we have done done that through a contractor a a professional engineer that has to basically we submit it with the permit package. Um we have a structural affidavit saying this uh it's really breaks it down by region of the roof. So there might be many roofs within especially a school like Tim I know there's like multiple different structural roofs um different parts of the building and they all have different like maximum additional weight carrying uh capacity. So basically they're they're saying well you're already going to no I've never seen any structural engineer assume that snow is getting shoveled off the roof. The assumption is it's staying on the roof no matter what. Um and it would only have to be you know it's like

059an emergency measure. But then they're saying well if the worst case scenario came to pass with the snow um and other other loads that are already on the roof like the HVAC systems um here's how much more you can put on with the solar system all in. And it's it depends on the roof, but it tends to come in between like three pounds and like 20 pounds per square foot. It really depends on how new the building is, the way it was engineered, but sometimes it's it's not a lot that we can put on. So, we have to take that into account the designs. Um, and we get a very detailed, you know, engineered design from our racking manufacturer um that shows exactly how many ballast blocks, the kind of concrete blocks that we can

060put in each place. And sometimes we can't put as many as we, you know, might otherwise. uh because of the the structural constraints. Um but that all just goes into the application for the building permit. So the city of Mthan's you know called the authority having jurisdiction or AHA will be the one to say this this passes muster with the code. Um they might have some feedback but it usually goes through pretty smoothly because we've kind of figured that all in ahead of time. But um so that's sa that's really like the safety as if uh you might be thinking of you know the membrane itself in terms of the roof membrane. it's water tightness and all that. Um, we've we've been on the roofs recently actually. I think we did a revisit with our

061our team just to look at um the electrical room and the roof and we would we certainly we're not roofer, you know, we're not roofing contractors, but we make note if we see like major issues, you got, you know, big pond here and uh or something. We didn't see anything um on those the two new ones, right? The Timony we wouldn't touch right now, you know, for anything because it needs to be replaced and we all know that. So, um, the, uh, I think if you want any additional sort of, um, I guess certainty that you're looking for, you you could get from your current roofing consultant or from, you know, Bruce Bruce Stella's team. But I think they've all gotten, you know, comfortable with that, those two. Um, there is a there is a

062a definite process that we're going to go through though with you have active warranties on the Timmy, I'm sorry, on the Tenny and the CGS from whichever manufacturer. I forget if it's Firestone or one of those. uh membrane manufacturer. So, that's the warranty that we we're pledging to keep intact. So, we're we're going to go through a paperwork process with that manufacturer and say, "Here's what the plan is. This is what the ballast plan looks like." Um and get their sign off in advance to say, "Okay, you can do all that. Um you just need to tell us, you know, when you're done." and they may require a uh an inspection post installation so that they can sign off and say everything was done um up to our you know specifications and your roof warranty

063is all good. Uh we've never had a roof warranty be voided by anything we've done. Um so that's part of the standard. You know we want you to have what you what you have enforced now be survive the installation and go go to the term that you have it for. So, >> vice chair. >> Um, I just have one question when it comes to snow. Um, so I know just on my own home, um, my solar panel panels after it snows as they warm up, all the snow comes crashing down at the same time, literally broke my patio table in half with the weight of the snow. So, what kind of protections are we going to have that when that happens, when are and if there's somebody walking by, like are we going to have

064something that makes sure that that snow is not going to hurt somebody? >> Yeah. So, so pretty easy on these three roofs because they are they're pure flat roofs. There's like a onederee pitch maybe for drainage. Um, so our panels are going to be tilted 5 to 10 degrees to the south or thereabouts south. Um, so there there won't be any way for the snow to get off the edge of the roof because we're also have we have to set back from the edge of the roof. Um, I believe on these it's six feet. So you're going to get sliding off the panels hopefully because that helps boost production that day. But it's going to go like to the bottom of the panel and just sit there. Um, it can't get to the edge of

065the roof. But um yeah, if we do it on on asphalt shingled roofs, uh I don't know if you really have any of those, but if you did, we would put snow guards or something like that if it's a walkway. Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yep. Member Wlette. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um initially, Branch Street was part of the initial proposal. Why was that taken off the the table? And is that something maybe down in the future if we are agreeable as a community if we enjoy the savings is that something as a part of maybe a second wave Branch Street could be reintroduced. Um, I know we had some initial concerns and I think the committee served its purpose and it was revisited by the mayor and I think the fact that

066we're getting additional savings uh prove the worth of those initial conversations and going back to the well so to speak, but um obviously I don't want to put words in your mouth, but Branch Street um it was taken off the the table. Um is it something that might be revisited in the future? Yeah, I I definitely think it could be revisited. Um I'd love to see it revisited. We had uh for those maybe well just refresh uh my memory of it's pretty pretty fresh. Uh the nine branch street we had originally proposed a canopy system in the parking lot um that you can you know park your car under. Um that was the lion share of it and then there was also like a rooftop system on both roofs actually the main headquarters building and

067then like the gym next to it. Um, so altogether it was like it was over 500 kilowatts, which is bigger than the three we're talking about here by a little bit. But, um, I think what we learned was that the roofs are actually more midlife um, at least the main headquarters roof. So, they're not the best candidates for all the reasons we just talked about because there's a substantial risk you would have to like take the panels off the roof in 10 years or something. We don't really want to have to do that. So, but I would say that the canopy by itself is a pretty good sized um, great size system. And so I think doing a canopy if um you know if the district feels comfortable with the layout and there might be

068like a repaving project I think maybe in the works or something ahead of time. It's not not really just whatever whatever the site needs um from your point of view. Um the good news is that this new smart incentive I was talking about u you would there's a what they call an adder for canopies where they give you even more money because canopies are more expensive to construct but then they give you more incentive to do it. So it's uh it's a better incentive for canopies than what we currently have again. So um I do think it would be yeah financially quite a a boon for u for the district and as you know covered parking and just a lot of benefits to it. But uh the main the main steps with that one is

069um we basically we about a year ago decided to not pay into this impact study that the utility wanted to do. I'm not sure if we applied again um if they would require that impact study or not. They might. Um I say probably a good chance they would. Um and we would just want to be in a position so that we don't kind of do a repeat of last time where we probably would contract it before we um apply in for interconnection because we think we'll get interconnection at some point. We just might have to pay a pretty, you know, steep fee to to go through that process and we would like to be under contract before we um kind of commit that money. um was kind of the conversation last time. So it would

070be yeah it would be starting from you know scratch on the interconnection but I think you could probably get an interconnection approval by early next year if we started you know say this fall um and I think yeah it's I I think part of it was simplicity of just bringing you three projects that are already got you know interconnection approval their rooftops their schools just kind of keep that simple so we can get something kind of formalized um and get started on those but if there's appetite for a canopy Um, I'm more than happy to to refresh that with the new incentive and kind of include that. It would it would follow on a different track though because it doesn't have interconnection approval yet. Um, so it take a little longer with the utility. That's

071all. But I do Yeah, I think it's a a good project there. Member Shibilia, >> the engineer reports that you folks had put together, will those reports say in the instance of a snowageddon, at what point we should be reaching out to you folks should shoveling need to occur. >> So, I think the what the we can share the reports. Um, I think we're having a conversation right now with with them about a couple a couple details. Um, but we can share them. They usually I've not seen them say explicitly like this is what you would do if you get you know snow above a certain amount but they do imply I mean they say that this is like say you know for example you can have five pounds per square foot of additional load

072from the solar array. It does suggest that sort of if you were to exceed the snow um they're looking at current code, right? So current current code actually I think they just updated it in June. Um it it has a number for snow um on a flat roof because the presumption is again it's just sitting there. It's not going to slide off the roof. Um so I think yeah the the implication would be if you're doing it if there's a calculate this this engineer that we hired for this job would not be sort of retained for the entire entirety of the 20 years. But if you I think that would be the triggers. If it says someone mentioned a number before if it's 20 pounds per square foot for snow load presumed and you have

073cumulative snowstorms that can be kind of estimated at 25 or or even getting close to 20, right? Even if you're at 18 and it's like the next one might do it, then I think there would be a case yeah to uh you know have an engineer say look you got to you got to shed some weight at least in parts of the roof. Right. Some parts are stronger than others. So >> right. I just think that we as a district should be aware that if we have that perfect storm >> Yeah. >> that like you had in 2015 >> that we know that we need to reach out to you guys and orchestrate that operation. Shovel it out. >> Yeah. >> Because that could that would be a that would be a bummer. >> Yeah.

074I did talk with our team. I we have an emergency, you know, number where you can call us if there's something that comes up after hours. I think >> Yeah. But I'm thinking like proactively. I don't want to be calling your emergency line. Correct. Because if we're calling your emergency line, the snow is now in the building instead of on top of the building. >> But they don't shovel it. >> They would come out and shovel it. >> Yeah. I mean, I like I said, I don't I don't know of any example where we've had to do that before, but if it were like, hey, you got to get weight off the roof. >> They need to protect their >> We could shovel. Yeah. There's there's space between the panel rows. It's not something we've

075had to do, but it could feasibly be done. And we would um I think, you know, again, look to remove it from pathways first. open areas first and then if we had to go between rows um but we just want would want our team doing it so that there's no sort of you know >> right >> damage done inadvertently that kind of thing >> and uh one question I got which I know you and I talked about during the subcommittee meeting was that there was a a resident who reached out wanted to know because mo like many of us who have residential solar panels >> they're bolted into our roofs. >> Yeah. >> These are not bolted into the roof. These ballusters are on the roof. They're they're held down by these block this blocking

076system. They're not going to blow off. They're not per perforating the roof in any way. So, I was trying to explain that to her and figured you would be better to do that than uh >> Sure. I will take the opportunity to kind of put some nuance to that. And um we talked about this at the facility subcommittee. So, actually I think there is an image in >> Yeah. So if you have that slide that shows a solar, you know, racking system and then there's some equipment on the right side that is different. So essentially the stuff on the left where it's the rack, you can see that's an aluminum, you know, engineered rack that holds the panels up at 5 to 10 degree tilts depending on the final racking solution we select. Um, most

077of it is what we call ballasted and ballast are those u concrete blocks. They're not, you know, off-the-shelf kind of random cinder blocks, but they're very, you know, specifically engineered to to last for 20 plus years. And um we don't have any issues with them. But the the structural report is what's going to basically say, okay, there's a couple there's a couple constraints. So the the code is going to say you need to have this much wind loading, what they call wind loading factored into your model. um wind loading has gotten the new code I think in Janu in June basically says that we're having stronger storms right so we have more higher higher wind speeds gusts and that that means that solar systems or anything else on the roof for that matter has to

078be there has to be more downforce to make sure it doesn't blow off the roof because that should never happen right that's the engineering kind of problem they're solving so there's two ways to do downforce is the gravity which is you know ballasted block and we try to do that wherever wherever we can. The pro the the only constraint though is that structural engineers are going to say you might not be able to put as much ballast block as you would need um in this area of the roof because it can only take 5 pounds per square foot and you you know if you were just doing ballast block you might need seven pounds per square foot in this area. So how do we make up the difference? It's going to be with a mechanical

079attachment. So that's what the thing on the right is typ that's a typical design of it. But it's again it's not it's not an improvised thing that's done sort of on the fly. It's all kind of uh designed and approved ahead of time with again the roofing manufacturer so that your warranty isn't affected. Um and it is, you know, highly waterproof. It has it has a housing. There's going to be some anchors inside the housing. Then they smother it with sealant and then they put that plastic cap with a gasket around it and tighten it down. So it's like nothing's getting in there. And I would say that we really have to do this on almost all flat roof buildings now. It's it's very rare uh that we see like a flat roof building of

080any kind, especially a school because you're in the highest uh insurance companies have these like risk categories and they they really want um you know schools not to be like overburdened with stuff on on the roof beyond a certain point more than they might for some other facility like a warehouse or something where they're a little more lenient because there's no kids inside. So it it makes sense from a risk perspective that they do that, but it means that a lot of times we do end up with some attachments. So I think we're, you know, we're probably going to see a few attachments. They're they tend to be in kind of like the extremities of the array, right? Not in the middle of the roof as much. It it depends on the roof, but again,

081this is kind of the fine engineering that goes on between the structural engineer, the ballast uh plan designer with the racking company. our team to an extent, but we kind of are just kind of officiating that and then and then your um your building inspector kind of having the final say on like does this all check out. So that's that's kind of how it's going to shake out is uh I do expect some attachments, but we don't know the final amount yet, but it won't it won't impact your roof. Um and it's kind of it's the norm these days. So, but unlike yeah on a roof on a you're talking about like a residential home usually asphalt shingle it's every single attachment point is through the roof and those aren't supposed to leak either if

082they're done correctly. So, you know, you got to trust your contractor. And we, you know, no, we're the number one installer in Massachusetts. We just got the solar power award for that. We've done uh and we do a lot of flat roofs. That's kind of our bread and butter. So, we're um we're highly experienced with this arrangement. Yeah. Member Donovan, >> if you could just uh review for us a potential um timeline and any impact on learning and life going on within the buildings. >> Sure. So timelines uh you know there's definitely a few uh variables but I would say um you know to be determined but the city council is going to need to take a vote and then we'll execute agreements. Um what's already in play right now what's happening is that that

083structural kind of analysis is wrapping up. Any redesigns are wrapping up. Uh but once we get the actual, you know, contract signed, that's when we'll go into permitting. Um where we'll submit the permits to the city. Um the cost of that has already been factored into the PPA, the power purchase agreement rates. So that's not kind of an additional thing at all. Um depending on, you know, most permitting offices, I say four to six weeks at the most typically for for building permits. Um we got electrical permits as well. Um, and equipment wise, I mean, we're already procured on we have stuff in warehouses um, ready to go. Um, the some of the the AC gear, the the alternating current electrical stuff may, you know, typically be special order, but that might be um a

084couple of months out. So, we'll be looking to schedule something to to install as soon as we know um we've got teams available, we've got the equipment ready to go, and we've got the permit. So, it's really permits is typically the thing that we're waiting on. Um I would say in terms of yeah, we've definitely communicated a lot with with the district with Superintendent Kong about any concerns around disruption. Um but yeah, again, we do install on roofs in schools a lot. Um, I think one thing we've mentioned is probably the the thing the day when there's the most sort of stuff moving around is typically the load the load in day because we will use not a crane on these but a extending arm to try to uh to put all the equipment on

085the roof um so that it can then be kind of shuffled around by people. Um, so that that part of loading the roof really you shouldn't hear much at all, but we're happy to do on a Saturday. Um, or on a vacation day and it probably be, you know, Saturday in the fall, hopefully late fall, I'm thinking is, uh, you know, hopefully still a feasible timeline. So, could be, you know, pre-Thanksgiving or a little after, but we certainly really like finishing things, you know, mechanically before the end of the year for a lot of reasons. And you know, that would be once it's put together, uh, there might be some electrical stuff going on, uh, with our electricians and the wiring, uh, the final wiring. Um, but we, you know, a lot of the the

086equipment would already be on the roof. And then, uh, once we're all wired up, we would apply for what's called permission to operate from the utility, which that can take a couple of months depending on, you know, um, exactly how how much work they have at the time. But yeah, I think a nice goal would be, you know, have these up and running say, you know, by the end of the first quarter of of 26, like March. Um could be sooner. You know, we'd love to see it sooner so you get savings earlier, but um there's not that much sun in February and and January compared to March. So March is a good, you know, a time to get up and running if you're going to catch uh the springtime production. So >> Okay. And

087and as a followup, you're talking about scheduling. Um the big beautiful bill did change and we talked about it briefly. I wonder if it did change >> um a lot around clean energy, solar energy. >> Do we have to worry about any timelines or procurement or lose will we be losing anything if we're not on top of this? >> Yeah, I would say um we're still waiting for that executive order. um that uh the president he you know ordered the order was on July 7th which was three days after the bill actually got signed into law and uh he said he wanted the treasury secretary to produce new regulations by 40 within 45 days which would be August 21st. So we you know it could be um it could be next week sometime when we

088actually know what what uh the new regulations are. I think that the Tenny and the CGS really are not gonna I can't guarantee anything, but they they would not under the current bill that was passed on on the 4th of July, they would not have be impacted at all because it says that if if a system can be placed in service and the the switch has been flipped, energy is flowing and by the end of 2027 calendar year, it it is eligible for the current incentives that we've already projected out, the 30% tax credits that we we get that we can used to lower the rate. Um, so that's a long runway. You know, we hope to place in service by, you know, again, March 2026 would be nice um and and plausible. So, you've

089definitely got plenty of runway there. I think with the Timony, um there's, you know, certainly a scenario there where if you if you say if you were replacing the roof in 2026 summer, then no problem, right? If you're replacing in the summer of 2027, we would we would be needing to carefully manage the clock there potentially because we'd want to start installation probably September 1st or something, you know, right right as fast as we can once the roof is done to place it in service. There is another maneuver that I don't want to drone on too long here, but there what what the executive order is probably going to change or almost certainly will change is how projects can be what they call safe harbored which would mean how do you lock in the current

090federal incentive for up to four years which would take us out until like you know probably 2030 and we hope that's not necessary for the Tim but I guess you know it's plausible um and that the rules around that right now it's like we would just have to spend 5% of the value of the project on equipment which we kind of already have in warehouse and we we have a process for that and they might change it so that it's more than that. It could be 50%. It could be you actually have to physically start construction or it could be anywhere in between. So um I think we'll have to wait and see um exactly you know what what we're up against with the Timony project but I I would say right now you've got

091multiple different ways to get get the incentive that we showed already with Tim. Um and you know that may change in the next week or so. But um you know what we have been talking with some you know districts about if they're ready is you know executing agreements PPAs the definitive you know contracts before that new guidance comes out because it might become effective immediately. Um, so but we I really didn't, you know, in the spirit of not rushing people towards, you know, making decisions like before they're really ready. We didn't really contemplate the city council doing that sort of before August 21st certainly. So I think I think you're still going to have a lot of different ways to make the Timn project. Even without the tax credit, you're still gonna you would still

092save money. Obviously, you'd rather have the tax credit because you save a lot more money. Um, but u you know >> Okay. Yeah, there there's some moving parts, but your first two projects are definitely I think uh in the clear. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Do we have any other questions from the committee? >> If not, we'll take a roll call vote to move this conversation forward. >> Member Daglio, >> yes. >> Member Dunovan, >> yes. >> Member Keegan, >> yes. >> Member Maxwell, >> no. >> Member Shabilia, >> yes. Member Wlette, >> yes. >> Mayor Borgad, >> yes. >> Six, yes, one no. >> Great. Thank you. >> Passes. >> On to the approval of minutes. We need a motion and a second to approve the minutes of June 26, 2025. >> So

093moved. >> Second. >> Motion from member Shabilia. Second from the vice chair. Discussion. Member Maxwell. Um, I did let Martha know already, but I I will just be voting um present on the uh meeting minutes because I didn't get them in the printed packet that I received. So, that's the only reason I'm voting present. I just wanted to make that clear. >> Thank you. Any other discussion? If not, we'll vote. All those in favor? >> I opposed. >> We have the we'll have present vote from member Maxwell. Yes. >> All right. Uh those minutes are approved. Next, we need a motion and a second to approve the policy subcommittee minutes of July 1st, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from member Shabilia. The second is from member Daglio. Discussion. >> So discussion. All

094those in favor? >> I >> opposed. The eyes have it. We'll record. Member Maxwell is present. Uh we need a motion and a second to approve the policy subcommittee minutes of July 22nd, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from member Shibelio. Second is from member Daglio. discussion. There's no discussion. We'll vote. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. The eyes have it. Member Maxwell voting present. We need a motion in a second to approve the policy subcommittee minutes of July 30th, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion for member Shibelia. Second from member Daglio. Discussion. All right, we'll vote. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. The eyes have it. Member Maxwell voting present. Uh we need a motion and a second to approve the policy subcommittee minutes of August

0956, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from member Shabilia. Second from member Daglio. Uh discussion. So discussion will vote. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. You guys have it. Member Maxwell present. And then we have uh motion and second needed for the approval of the facilities and building subcommittee minutes of July 22nd, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from member Shabilia. Second for member Daglio. Any discussion? There's no discussion. We'll vote. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. The eyes have it. Mayor Maxwell is present. We'll move on now to staff reports. First up, we have uh the health task force update. Uh I'll allow the of course the superintendent to share some additional information. However, I'll uh kick things off if that's okay. Uh just with a

096quick update. Uh so over the course of the summer I've convened a meeting of the health and safety task force on an ongoing basis including the uh lead custodian at the Timn as well as uh representatives from the school committee here the school administration as well as the director of health human services and inspections uh one of the health inspectors for the city his name is Darren D as well as DPW director Pat Bower. We've had representation as well from the office of state representative Ryan Hamilton. And the purpose of uh these meetings of course on an ongoing basis as we began them uh late last year, early this year uh is to really follow up on the uh ever growing continuous task list as it relates to projects involving uh measures uh regarding health

097and safety in our school buildings. And uh as a result of these meetings, we've had uh as I've referenced, increased collaboration from various departments on the city side, namely health, human services, and inspections as well as DPW. Uh, one of the areas that I'd like to highlight is the uh, continued discussion we're having regarding a perspective framework moving forward as it relates to facilities management with an assist from the city, namely in the context of uh, external needs on uh, school grounds. freeing up uh funding, of course, that would be used potentially for landscaping contractors and the like, but also freeing up the need for custodians to spend any degree of time outside of the schools and away from tasks that are directly related to keeping the schools clean. And so, uh, we've begun to

098have that level of increased collaboration. I think it's been a generally positive conversation, namely in the context of DPW and their assistance with uh the school facilities uh efforts as well as the continued input and involvement of the uh health inspectors. they've been uh intimately involved with uh this group, but also with uh the process of ensuring that our buildings are uh ready ultimately in time for day one later in the month. And so that process is ongoing. Uh we're going to be having another meeting this Thursday at 3:00 at city hall. Uh I forgot to mention as well, we also have as part of the committee uh members of uh our actual the teaching staff. We have teacher from the Timony, the Tenny uh as well as the Marsh. Yes. And then we also

099have >> union representation by way of uh teachers from the CGS. So we do have a pretty wide array of participants uh taking part in these discussions and ongoing follow-ups. So uh I would say at this point uh we continue to move in a positive direction. And I think there are still areas where uh we need to uh of course follow through and maintain, but I am largely pleased with the progress thus far and we'll continue to keep the committee posted. With that, I'll invite the superintendent to share any other information. >> Well, thank you. That was pretty comprehensive. Um so the memo that you have here is really a culmination of those meetings um that member Donovan, member Shabilia and the mayor have been in as well as Ian and myself and other staff

100members and as the mayor said other members of the community and the teachers union, teachers um in the buildings and etc. It's been a large group. I think uh for me I know the past two meetings have been uh probably the most productive in the sense of we're actually uh it we all felt uh really good walking out of there meaning everybody was in a place of we all knew what we needed to do to move forward. I think it's been there's it's largely complicated. However, uh just the fact that this has pretty much been all that Ian and I have done all summer has helped us be able to focus on these plans and execute and follow through and you know communicate with city folks. Um Darren uh was going to join us tonight

101but was unable and so I do hope that he is going to be able to join us at another meeting. The mayor and I will follow up on that. I think he has been uh exceptional working with us this summer in really trying to uh help us get the exterior of our buildings ready to go and pointing out things that uh just you know nobody here has an eye for what he is pointing out and every time he comes he does find some new things new holes and things like that. Um so you know the what I have in front of you are specific to uh buildings which right now right the tenny was in the forefront so that's on the front page. Um the timony also there are specific items there. Uh again for

102all buildings actually there are a level of specificity. I think the really um productive part of our last few meetings was that we do have I did finally meet uh Mark Jordan. I I'm not quite sure what his title is. >> Superintendent of Environmental Management. >> Perfect. Uh a wonderful gentleman who is helping us with the exterior and the tree cutings of the tenny and the Timony. Uh they are almost done with the tenny. Uh the Timony has some work being done by a contract right now for the trees in the courtyard which those are incredibly problematic. They are uh you know dying. They have been leaning over the roofs. They're getting too close to windows, things like that. They are becoming bridges for um critters. So uh we're having some support in helping to

103clean out the courtyards. Uh and then uh his team will come in also to the Tim. Those are the two priority schools to get the exterior really cleaned well uh before the opening of school. And then the high school is our next we have a priority list going. Um you know and it is uh we're all up against a challenge of the fact that you know he doesn't have a full crew every day either and is working with the city. So they're doing us a real um you know collaborative service and favor here by getting some of these things done which is again the tenny looks exceptional already. uh but they have some additional work they want to do on the lower school side. So uh we're happy that that is progressing. Uh Darren, we

104have scheduled monthly meetings, walkthroughs in all the buildings with Darren who is giving his time to do that with us so that we can have with the supervising principles, the senior custodian Ian andor myself. I'm not, you know, we're trying to do this. I'm not sure we can both be there all the time, but uh I have put those in everybody's calendar for the remainder of the school year. All six buildings. Um this isn't just going to be two buildings. It'll be all six buildings to keep us on a regular schedule. Uh so again, just the appreciation of uh the support. I think we probably have more steel wool in three of our buildings right now than I've ever seen in my life. Um but you know, the buildings are old. There's just there is

105a every time we go in and turn a corner, there's something else, right, that we see or a foundation or something of that nature. I think um there was a pretty lengthy discussion. I wasn't there. Uh the DPW director and Darren, I'm not sure if Ian wasn't at this one, but really talking about sort of like just when the buildings were built, the tenny in particular, right? some of the outside structures that just don't make sense to some of the issues we're having now 15 20 years later the way the water is um you know coming off of drains and things like that. So there are some other things that other people have different eyes for that we just don't um and so I think that has been very helpful and productive. Um we did

106send out the staff letter to all the teachers. I think uh we shared that with you. That was a a priority topic in one of our health task force meetings. Uh as we start getting these schedules and start getting these buildings in a place where we have exclusion measures in place, cleaning protocols in place, different crews switching crews different times. Um, you know, we want to start the year to make sure that we're all doing our part, you know, so that we don't have uh some of those things that have been outlined in the board of health reports plus the state reports. Again, those state reports were only in two buildings, but they apply to all of our schools. Um, you know, for air quality, sanitation, this isn't just about pest management or cleanliness. There's

107other things that go into that, too, to make sure that our kids are not uh exposed to other things. So, uh, that was pretty comprehensive. The union, uh, was involved. The teachers were involved in helping to reddraft that letter. So, that went out. Uh, all the buildings, uh, are open for opportunities for staff to come in if they would like. If they don't, they have the first three weeks of school to be able to do that. Uh, by contract, we do open the buildings two weeks prior to school opening. So, we we just have the opportunity to open it a little sooner. Uh, and knowing that we're not quite finished, right? is that we're not quite finished with all of the classrooms, especially the tenny uh where we had summer programs just ending last week.

108So, there are some classrooms that are being cleaned out now. So, uh I all the principles and secretaries are fielding phone calls and letting people come in and out as they need to. Uh great ghosts all over the the the building so people can throw things out. Um so that's happening right now. Um I won't speak. Uh the mayor mentioned some conversation about just sort of larger plans. I know member Donovan and member mayor I mean mayor Buggard spoke of that at the health task for me task force meeting meeting with folks in Andover. Uh and then I also offered uh you know we're still in some conversation right now about a pest management company. Right now we do have pest so we're continuing to use pest end but we have some things in the

109work. I think the city is looking for some additional quotes to get somebody in with us. Uh I know Darren had some suggestions. Um you know, it's just a matter of us making phone calls. That is going to cost us some money to do that. So we want to make sure we're not paying Pest End uh on a contract and inviting other people in and paying that. So that's a work in progress. Until then, we are still using Pest End as our company. Um and member Wlette specifically requested this, but I wanted to attach it for everybody. uh what pest end has done at each of our locations um since December I believe is what we asked them to do. Um so we attached that here as well so you can see what they have

110added what they gave us what they were asked to do um at those points. So I do think that we are in uh a a much different place than we were three, four, five, six months ago. Again, we have some different protocols and processes in place that will be in place in all five schools. Um, some different conversations we're having with senior custodians and principles and moving forward. >> Before we entertain questions, I just want to add just a couple of additional updates on top of that. So um just to set clear defined expectations as it relates to some of these reforms that we are bringing about. I just want us to remain cognizant of the fact that over the course of the budget preparation process earlier this year. I know we had issues that

111we discussed at length in the context of the school district. Uh but on the city side as well, I I thought it was clear about this, but just to reiterate on uh the city side of the ledger, I largely had to level fund uh virtually every department across the board, including DPW. So it's not as if they have an increase in personnel that they're using to help us with. Uh so this is something that uh is a series of uh changes that will take time, additional investment and I don't want to say that we're going to be uh where we want to be overnight or even in the next few months. It is going to be a longer process. However, uh one thought that I had was to designate as a point person Darren uh

112himself who is of course as I've referenced one of the health inspectors. I think it's fitting for somebody with his experience, not to mention uh his experience with going into our schools and conducting uh those inspections that uh previously brought a lot of these issues to light. You know, working with him on uh trying to point us in the right direction, I think is smart. So, we're doing that going forward. Uh I also want to mention something and this is a great point that had been brought up in public participation. Uh so as the superintendent referenced as of late the focus has been on trying to uh in essence draw back the vegetation around the buildings simply because uh due to uh various issues as it relates to uh entryways for critters into the buildings.

113One of the most significant catalysts is the fact that we have uh these trees and the like right up against the building. And so that is an open invitation for critters to enter. And so a key part of this as the superintendent referenced is trying to uh cut those back uh and remove uh some entirely. Now regarding uh the public participation comment uh this is relative to the backflow issue. Uh so this is something that Darren had identified uh in uh several previous inspections of the schools. And so I don't want to speak out of turn as it relates to where those projects stand at this point. Perhaps we can have a more comprehensive update on the backflow issue at the next meeting, but nevertheless, my commitment has been uh obviously we need to have

114all of these things uh permitted and uh relying on the plumbing inspectors and the like. And so we're going to be doing, however, something a little different. Typically, I know uh Mr. Gossman in the past, you would go to the city uh with this uh need to, you know, get permitting taken care of and then the schools would be charged for those permits. I think it's a little silly for the city to be charging the schools ultimately for that. So, I'm waving the fees for the permits. Uh I I'd like to see them get done obviously with every project, but it's something that I don't think the schools uh should have to pay for. Uh so we can keep uh the public posted on that but I just wanted to throw that out there and

115we can continue to discuss that uh in the future. >> So we if I can can I update that? >> Absolutely. >> We we did put it in here. So the Tenny and Tim have completely been installed by our plumber permits. All um I think we've asked Darren if he wanted to come in and look, but he'll do that the next time he comes and walks through. Um High School CGS Marsh and Brand Street are work in progress. They've been ordered. Uh they're not they're pretty comprehensive items uh large complex. Um so hoses are disconnected basically in in until those valves come in. So that's what we are doing at this point. So there's no um connected hoses to any unsafe uh spaces at this point. Um and we hope that all of those come

116in. We have the same plumber who we have contracted that will be installing all of those and has worked with the plumber from the city as well to make sure those are doing accurate. I also have an update. I know I put on here there's uh one of the other conversations that we had uh was the need for new backboards in the the uh cabinets in the classrooms. uh that is a that is a little bit more widespread than just Tenny and Timnney, but those are the two schools we're focusing on because that becomes a space where uh any mice or rodents can get into the classrooms. And so we're doing all this prevention if we don't close all of those. Um that has been incredibly time intensive for our staff to rebuild those backboards.

117It's not as easy as uh just putting some backboards there and stapling it in. Uh those cabinets, if you've ever looked or the next time you go into a classroom, uh that's always where the univvent is. The cabinet goes from window to the end. So, you have to actually remove the top. You know, it's a little bit more comprehensive than than a simple fix in an hour. However, uh we were uh hoping that the DPW might be able to help us with that. Um but we do have a team of our staff who have continued to work uh on those backboards. So um all of the backboards that were needing to be replaced are completely done at the tenny at this time. Uh and I have 13 rooms left at the Timony. So we have

118over 50 classrooms that have been completely done uh with full backboards and ceiling. So again that is something that we feel good about getting into the opening days. uh we will have to continue that you know that that is again I expect this all to be done to open but now we're going to go to the marsh and see what backboards need to be replaced there the CGS right we're not having the internal uh pest issue at those two schools but we don't want it either right so it'll be a work in progress but it takes four to six hours for one of our maintenance employees to actually do one classroom uh so again it's just time intensive but they've been working uh over hours and they've been trying to go through in the weekends

119when they assigned buildings to do that. So, we've made some good headway on that. And that is as of today. I had the two seniors update that for me tonight. I was going to give a sheet to Darren, but I will email that to him so he has that update. Something that he wanted to know. >> Great. And then just a few last updates as well. I want to mention I referenced how I level funded DPW. However, we have numerous additions to the city's fiscal year 26 capital improvement plan that are uh included uh in the context of expanding the capacity of DPW to take on some of these more facilities related functions uh including uh various types of landscaping equipment and the like that haven't been updated or um I guess added to their

120inventory in several years. So, we're making that change. But regarding the schools specifically in the CIP this year, uh we're including funding uh to replace the fire alarm system at the marsh, which is something that is a major concern. We want to get that taken care of before we have any issues. Uh speaking of the marsh, we have funding for the boiler project uh that will commence. And then also uh we're continuing to follow through with the commitment to include a carveout in the CIP for the classroom carpet replacement project over the next several years. So that funding is in there as well as a general uh carveout for preventative maintenance. Uh this is in the context of municipal uh property. Uh that would certainly include the schools. And so this came up in our

121conversation with the town manager of Andover. In Andover, they carve out at this point $2 million annually in their CIP for preventative maintenance. And uh we have historically not had any specific carveout for that. So we're beginning the process of taking the baby step of at least including $500,000 to begin with. And then going forward uh as part of this uh partnership between the city and the schools relative to facilities uh I want to build out a very specific framework uh going forward that outlines what the partnership looks like. There have been some things in practice that we've been trying out and so we'll continue to monitor the results of that but uh namely help us to build that framework going forward. So with that we can take some questions. Member Shabilia. So fir first

122and foremost I think it's worth noting that what we're doing as a team the superintendent the mayor the school committee the board of health the methan education association and parents and all these people that we have at that conference room table on the second floor of city hall that's never happened before this is not anything that has ever happened in ever I wanted to say in the 30 some odd but ever, right? Well, I'm looking at you because you've you you've been in the district, you know, I'm you're I'm hoping looking at you for validation. Um it's never happened. So, this is this is a step in the right direction. And we've all heard about, you know, the wall between city and school and I want to commend the mayor and the superintendent and by

123proxy some of us for helping and what you guys are doing to work to overcome that and get through that. I think bringing in the DPW to help with the city uh to help with the schools is a fantastic idea and I I have been very critical of the DPW in the past, but there's a lot that they can offer that the city can benefit from. not the schools that the city overall, especially when the mayor has to sit down again in what feels like only a few minutes to do a budget again. It's there's so much there. And then working with Darren and Heidi who take a beating at the table down the street because they have a bad reputation for being tough in the community because it's literally their job to keep us

124alive so we don't get poisoned at a restaurant. They've been fantastic to work with and I just first want to get that out there. Um the the letter went out about the rugs and I don't want to speak for everybody else but I know that I got >> several um sad angry pick your adjective messages from teachers because the rug is the community of the classroom and we you know you were in the room we had these conversations and even talking to my own children about it like that's where they go they have their rug spot and they have their rug buddy and it's next to them on the rug and like I know know that there was some discussion about alternatives. >> Yes. >> Has there been any progress with that? >> Yes. Done.

125So, um, yes, we know that the rugs are going to be a loss and, uh, recognizing that, I think, you know, for me, I think Darren actually said it the best at the last task force task force meeting is we need to do this now because this is where we are. >> Yeah. That doesn't mean we're going to be in the same place a year or two from now and can relook at things when other systems are in place. But right now, the amount of money and time to expend on those rugs that I love dearly and everybody around me will confirm that. Uh I I just I don't know how to do that right now. Right. It it it's just not going to work for us to keep those rugs in the elementary. Um,

126so Ian actually has already um purchased our alternative for every single K4 classroom uh with a vendor who uh he knows so he's helping us out. Um but it's going to be a similar uh that does everybody understand like know what a stadium seat is? The stadium seats that you had the square squishies? >> Oh yeah. Yeah. >> Like a stadium seat, right? Like you would take it and sit on it so it's soft. So it's going to look like that. They're going to be blue. They have a white M on it, so it's identifiable that it's ours. Everybody will get those in their classrooms. So, we have 3,000 coming, Ian. >> 2,700 coming uh that that we are pretty sure will be here uh before school starts with no problems. Um and so and

127believe it or not, the cost of those uh were far less than the cost of rugs in even half of one building. So uh again, we're getting a good deal. We think it's a good uh alternative. It's a comfortable uh seating arrangement and we're offering it to all of the classrooms. So there is some place that the kids will have that they can actually sit comfortably on the floor. They're easy to wipe. Um, we were told the material uh is not uh insoluble totally, which to get that we'd have to pay even more money. Uh, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars. However, it's like the um like the reusable like market basket bags is kind of what he described to us on the phone. So easily to clean and wipe, >> right, with, you

128know, it's easy to clean and wipe and they wouldn't remain on the floor. The point is that they're not they would they have a little handle. They would pick them up. The kids would put them in a box when they're not being used on the floor. The kids aren't on the floor all day. Uh so it's when they are on the floor. So we do have an alternative. We think it's a good one. It was financial in our range of what we could do um to make sure that we had that opportunity to our for our classrooms and kids. And we again I think Darren said it right. I did add that to the letter that this can be revisited. This isn't forever. But where we are right now, I mean, every more so for

129the air quality, uh, you know, they really honed in on the fact that the stuffed animals, the carpets, those are not good for our kids. So, uh, right now we need to get, you know, some of those things removed. I mean, I can't tell you some of the classrooms that had uh we have a lot of sort of the younger elementary with bins and baskets of squish mellows and pillows that kids are just using and reusing and retouching and retouching and that's we just we can't have that, right? I don't think that, you know, we're not being very conscious about taking those home teachers taking those home and washing them, right? We're not doing that all the time. So, uh, I think this for us, as we talked about at the health task force meeting,

130this is our reset, right? Let's reset, put everything in place to do the best we can for pest management, for sanitation, for uh cleanliness, for air quality, reset. Right? There are definitely then we'll know what those issues are. Um, right, we need to remove those cabinets away from the air intake, which we found those were all over the place after CO. those are pushed up against wall. People don't realize what we're where they're putting things that it really matters to what's happening in the room. So again, this is a reset. Uh and so the rugs aren't gone forever and eternity. I just think it's right now. This is what we have to do. Um and we'll be able to revisit it. I'm very confident we'll be able to revisit it in another year or two.

131>> I think that's good news and I think people are looking forward to that. Um, transitioning quickly to the overflow and the comments that were made earlier. I know the mayor had hit on some of my points. Um, if these things are supposed to be checked, I just want to make sure we're doing whatever it is we're supposed to do, whatever it is we got to do to keep the plumbing inspector and Darren happy. >> Let's just make sure we're doing that. And then, um, when Mr. And Drew was speaking, he mentioned water testing, which got me thinking, >> and I know that there was a >> local establishment not too long ago that was flagged for its drinking water issues. Have we done drinking water testing in our fountains? >> Yes, we're required to.

132>> We are. When was the last time we did it? >> Is it annually? >> Is it a yearly thing? Is it >> The city has a a schedule. They come around to all our buildings and take samples. Okay. So, um, I'd have to ask the water department, but they they they come in and out of our buildings and do sampling all the time. >> All right. >> I'd say probably quarterly. >> Quarterly. Okay. >> And I'm sure if there was a problem, someone would have >> jumped up on the table. >> Everyone would hear about it. >> Fantastic. Um, and then my last comment is on Pest End. Um, I know that we are in the process of looking. Uh, I think that we have been the mail train for Pest for far too

133long. Um, they have done oodles and oodles of things, but it's all reactive. Nothing on here. We go back a few months to the the hole in the side of the Tim that we closed up that that was what were they building a lakehouse? Oh, like it's where what are they doing? I Whatever we need to do to get another vendor. I mean, I I think that we've given these guys enough money and we I I don't I don't know if someone's going to be better, but this is ultra reactive and we we have to try something new because what they're doing is not working and they just keep doing it over. This is literally the definition of insanity. So, I would hope that we could I know that you've got nothing else to do,

134Ian. So, in your free time, I would love to see uh the the pest RFP or the pest bid or whatever the process is that has to happen there. >> I think we're getting Mayor, did you mayor, did you say the procurement was looking for quotes, right? At this point, I think the cost of it is we're looking for >> multiple city side. So, the issue that we have is that recently we brought in a new vendor at the PD. They've been having some pretty crazy uh issues and the new vendor has been outstanding at the PD. The issue is that they're not on the state bid list right now. >> So uh in Andover there was a recommendation uh to look into a company called Walt Ampest. They used them in Andover and they're

135generally pleased. Uh so we do have some options and there are some options on the bid list. So it's a matter of getting the specs together and proceeding with that. more to share on Thursday. >> And I think for us it's having Darren involved. I think we've realized right that that we're asking a group to do something and we're expecting things to be done. >> Um, you know, but his knowledge has definitely been really just me myself this summer being able to be at all of these places with him and spend the time. >> His knowledge is uh really important. So any vendor that I'd have in, I'd kind of want him with them to walk around to see if they're worth, you know, any change for us. Um, and again, I think Darren has

136been just very willing and and wanting to do those things with us right now, which has been very helpful. >> Just don't tell him we are going to dinner. >> Yeah. Right. Right. Well, no, I have to ask him before I go because I won't go if he says no. No, I just I think that it it's again the the tide has turned with like we're executing now and we're finding these spots that are actually making a difference and you know we're going to I mean he went with us to the Timony and the Tenny uh this summer with Ian and myself and the principles and the seniors and uh was pretty amazed at the the lack of um I I shouldn't have said it that way but the lack of rodent you know sightings

137uh that's happened in a short period of time. I mean, a little bit longer for the Tiffany obviously, but I mean, and every time he walks into that building, we find another holes, you know, another crevice or hole that could be fixed, but um what's that? >> The mice are going to create new ways to get into the building. >> Right. Right. you know, so I think all those measures. Uh we're we're testing out some indoor uh new door sweeps for the inside to see if those will be helpful at all for us instead of those, you know, industrial ones for the exterior. So, we have Doug and Rich trying some of those out. Um so, I just I think that has been again the most helpful right now. So, progress indeed. Uh but now

138we're working to like, okay, now that we have things a little more under control, now we can look at the fine details of let's get the exterior cleaned. Let's make sure that we have, you know, certain cocking on the outside filled, things like that that I think we're again to starting to see those things happen with people all around us is uh incredibly helpful and productive. >> All right, we'll go right around. Member Daglio. So to to start off with the pest um I what member Shabillia said reactive the reason for that is they have a book and there's we're supposed to document which rooms have sightings of mice in those rooms. When the pest people come in they check the book but I've been there several times. It's been empty. They've been empty. The

139last time I was at the tenny, it was completely empty. The custodian didn't even know what the book was used for. Okay, that's a fact. So, and also when they do fill out a report, they leave recommendations. I have a recommendation here from 732025. They said, "Opening under the door, maintenance hall loading dock. Please install door suite and make sure the door seals tightly." Which Ian did we do that >> the question? >> Yes. >> Okay. That was a high customer u responsibility. The date when it was issued was 5162023 and it was reissued at 732025. So that was recommended for two years. Okay. To put the door suite underneath that hallway. Second was the lower school playground door opening under door. Please install door sweep and make sure the door is sealed tightly. High

140customer priority. Do we do that? Do we end up doing that? >> Can I explain something before you go through all of them? >> Okay. >> Um cuz they don't take them off the list. And that's the fight I'm having with them now. That one you just read about the hallway door. >> Um I called them and I said, "I told you to go to the tenny and put all the sweeps on." They said, "We did." I said, 'Well, you're you got it on the report that says it wasn't done, and it hasn't been done. So, new reports, you're going to see those starting to fall off, and they're starting to take them off, but they haven't. They've been just leaving stuff on there, which makes it look like it's not being addressed, >> which

141which by the way, if that's true, then >> and the calf calf doors are all set. >> Okay. Because this one said 68 2023 and then reinstated 51205. So that's why I'm asking yeah >> these recommendations and if they're not taking it off right well in these task force meetings why isn't pest sending a representative to these task force meetings to have those discussions I feel like if the task force is doing that the pest company should also be in I just feel like they're getting shortsighted when I've looked at reports where recommendations for over the years which for years they were asking looking for those and I think member Wlette looked at the pest in and things weren't getting done and Darren will actually seek to that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So to blame

142pest then and I also have another report that they requested exterior um um um mice traps all around the building but because of regulations the facilities director rejected it saying that he did not want to put it because then they would have to send notices out to parents. That's what I I have an email. I'm happy to share it with people. Uh what? >> Yeah. So, so at the end of the day, I just feel like pests is getting the rod end of the stick here where it's easy to blame them when they have a process. And when I opened up the book, where I saw mice droppings all over the place, there was nothing put in the book. So, they're going to open up the book, they don't see it, so they're going to

143do the exterior. they're going to do their basic basic um because they can't go through every room in the building with two people. That's just that's impossible. So by them having knowing which rooms to go to, they could go right into the room which which can I ask the question um the document that we received about the new maintenance uh the new uh process that we're having for the tenant cleaning there's nothing from principal hill or up is who is responsible for those pest and reports. So, do you want to talk about your Google form? >> Which past end report you referring to? >> The book. >> There's a sighting. >> Okay. The book is obsolete. >> Throw the book out. >> Okay. Um, there's an online form. All teachers, all staff members already have

144access to it. Um, it's actually on the website underneath staff and faculty. It's called um public schools pest sighting. Okay. All you have to do is they answer three simple questions. What did you see? Did you see mouse poop? Did you see a mouse? Did you see something else? Where did you see it? And tell us exactly where it is so that we can make sure we clean it. That populates one large spreadsheet for the district which >> we can >> I share with whoever Darren I shared it with um the health department um so that they can see it in real time and it also separates it out by school. So when Pestn shows up at a school, they've been instructed, the head custodians have been instructed to print out that spreadsheet for their

145school and hand it to the past guy. So he has what they're seeing, where they're seeing it. They can address the areas. The Tim did something very similar last year. Worked really well. We've we've uh adopted it across the district. >> Perfect. So how is pest in performing since we've had that doc? Well, nothing's happened yet because nobody's there. I mean, we've only had it at I mean, the tenny's been the only one in session for the summer in the high school. >> So, the thing I'm looking at before we go out and put out to bid, I feel like you should keep the process because I've talked to a lot and I've talked to Adam, the owner of Beston, and he is an amazing person. He's willing to work with us. He's always said

146that he's willing to work with us. So, I feel like with this process in place, before we start going out to bid, I think we should give them a shot. uh for for following a better process because I just feel like with me and uh member Wlette has looked at the pests reports for years. They've been requesting us to do jobs and we just didn't do it. So that's that's my my main concern about that. also uh because I haven't been able to ask uh these questions when it says here responsibilities um um who it says here even under the current um facilities director weekly walkthroughs to building with senior custodian principal and facilities director. So is now Bruce Stella no longer the facilities director? >> No, he is. So on his thing it's it

147says it says he walks with the facilities director walkthroughs in your oversight plan. That's why I was confused. That's and that's that to me is >> think of that's a typo. >> Okay. Well I just didn't Yeah. So >> it's listed him twice. >> Okay. And so with that being said, why is he not in the task force meetings? He's the facilities director. He should be involved in the facilities. >> He has come a few times. >> He's invited to He does come when he's a when he's available. He does. >> Isn't he supposed to again asking questions here? Community coordinating with rodent control measures. I know that's under Ian, but that's a facilities director's job. He should be coordinating with rodent and for the facilities also ensuring that any need materials for repair are

148ordered. I feel like that's a facilities director's job. I feel like Ian's taking on the facilities director's job when he's >> not facil right now. He's overseeing all the maintenance. So he's overseeing those guys who are putting in the backboards, doing all that stuff. He's overseeing the the hot water heater over at the CGS. Is there's >> there's projects that are non-stop. I'm trying to think there's something just broke at the Tim. Um >> something cooling >> the abatement and the carpeting. >> Yeah, the abatement and the carpeting at the Tim. He's >> he's involved with that, the tiling. So he he's focusing on getting the buildings as fixed as possible and getting those projects done so school can start. And I'm making phone calls when I need to call past end. I'm going on

149Amazon and ordering traps or whatever we need so that he's not sitting at his desk looking on Amazon for for stuff. >> Oh, this a quick question. when custodian staff is also short-handed because I know the week after we went in uh the new head custodian was the only person in the building >> uh at the tenny >> I've asked several custodians who's in charge when you need extra staffing to go to and again I I've heard mixed messages one says Ian one says Bruce Stellar person said to me we don't have a process so at the end of the day what I'm very concerned concerned especially the week after we had that whole issue there was one person at the tenny and that guy was all by himself overwhelmed what process it doesn't even

150h like there's no process where they can call up as head custodians and say hey I need someone and what guarantees are they getting staff that day who's in charge of calling other principles hey can you send guys over who who what's the proc process of that when they're short-handed. >> Well, I can tell you I've instructed all the senior custodians all year that if you're short a guy at night and you have somebody who's willing to stay an extra four hours for overtime to get as much done as they can of that section, do that. They've been doing that. They've been putting people in on overtime on Saturdays to come in and do sections they couldn't get done. Um, so I I instructed the seniors and they're doing that. They've also called back some

151of the people who have retired uh for four hours at a out of whack. Come in, help clean the classrooms first thing in the morning or in the afternoon. >> Uh, and what happens if they don't get them? Like, what happens if nobody comes in and there's one person there? >> Where would you like me to go get them? I I I'm just asking the question, what is because I don't want that senior custodian end up getting blamed for something for being one man crew trying to clean this whole building up. I'm I'm just very concerned what the process is. Is there anything that person can do or again I don't like but that's what I'm saying. And also, why are they calling you? Like, why are you in charge of custodians now? Like, I

152just don't understand. >> Right now, I'm overseeing finance and operations. So, I work very closely with HR. She knows who's applied. She's knows what positions are being filled. She knows who we can call in for substitutes if we need them. Um, there's not a ton of people we can call in for substitutes. That's why we keep going back to the retired people. We know that they're they've been um their background checks are already in payroll, etc. >> Okay. All right. Thank you, >> Member Maxwell. We'll go around the table. >> So, I have a few things and I'm sure it's not going to be well received, but um I'm just gonna I'm just going to start. Um so, just to go off of Brian, I mean, Bruce is the director of facilities. Back in August

153of 2022, there was a meeting where you asked for director of facilities and assistant director of facilities because uh Bruce was going to be now the project manager so that he could be paid with SR3 funds. I'm assuming that he went back to the director of facilities because we got rid of the assistant director of facilities. And as as far as I'm concerned, um I mean he's the director of facilities. It's in his contract. His job description says what he's supposed to do. Ian's job description says what he's supposed to do. The um the fact that the senior custodians and some of the other regular custodian crews are taking the fall for facilities shortcomings is is very saddening because I think that if they had the help they re needed then they wouldn't be at

154fault. um and and let go or or whatever. >> That's on us. >> Yeah, I know. And we're making jokes about it. So, um not sure why the director of facilities isn't a part of the monthly walkthroughs. Um however, we've been having monthly walkthroughs for years. Um and I don't know why none of this has been seen by, you know, maintenance facilities, superintendent, whoever. I'm not sure what's going on. Back in August of 2022, um Brandy, you you did say that you've been the people here in the maintenance and and facilities department have been here for 30 years. So, no, we don't need manuals because they all know how to do it. We don't have a system where people are checking in in the morning. We don't have a system where they're checking out at

155the end of the day. We don't have a system where there's a checklist saying your job is to do ABC D by the time you're supposed to leave. We have that. It's just not getting done. That's not a custodial problem. That's a managerial problem. And the custodians are taking the hit for it. So, I think that we're, you know, blaming the people on the bottom when really it has a lot to do with the people on the top not doing their jobs. As far as the stadium seats, um I had a stadium seat in my backyard for the longest time. It had a squirrel's nest in it. So when we are telling teachers that they can't have pillows and stuffed animals in their room, but we are buying 30 stadium seats for kids to sit

156in K through four. That's a little ridiculous. Um the backflow the back the backflow preventers those have been backordered for what seems like a year and a half now. So I don't know how long that's going to take. But um I don't know the the other thing I mean Dan you had said something like whatever the health department says we should just do. It's not about the health department it's about the schools it's about the students the airflow we continuously talk about the air flow and how um you know it's it's bad in the schools and open the windows and I know it's going to cost us more money because of the heating and the AC and all that. Open the windows. That's how you're going to get good air flow. Um, the letter that

157was sent out to staff, I don't know why there wasn't a stipen offered for them to come in because I mean, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't just volunteer my time to come in and clean a room that should already be cleaned. Um the back in August of 2022 it was um it you know Brandy had said we know when we come to you in fiscal year 25 there's going to be a complete restruction of maintenance because we will be losing people and how do we replace that and what kind of things do we need to have in place at that time. It's 2025 and we still don't have a plan. >> I presented it to you at the um the budget. It's I didn't get it. I mean, that's, you know, we

158presented that option to you, but >> we can work with Bruce over the next two years to see what the needs are in the districts for maintenance and facilities and management. It sounds to me like Bruce is non-existent here. So, um, with the walkthroughs, the facilities, I've been on a walkth through myself. I know that when rooms are checked off as completed, they actually weren't completed. It was disgusting walking through the tenny. We have we have we have items on this list that we're supposed to be replacing ceiling tiles and I sit here and there's three ceiling tiles out of you know the high school media center. So I don't know. It's just it's a lot. It's a lot to you we also talked about trees. I know there's a city ordinance when you take

159out a tree we have to replace them with two trees. Where is that coming in? Um, I just I just want to stop with the jokes and stop making it's not funny that like our schools are in disarray. It's not funny that our schools are like in deplorable conditions. It's not funny and it's not the custodians problem if I'm being honest. There are four people that are cleaning buildings. I'm not surprised that they are they get messy. I'm not I'm not I The problems that we have now are the problems that we had three years ago and nothing has changed and no one's being held accountable except these poor custodians that break their backs trying to get work done just to be met with a bunch of administrative issues. So if we want to get

160on top of things, I think that we need to have a sign in and sign out. We need to have a checklist for maintenance. We need to hold man managerial positions accountable. And I mean, you've been on walkthroughs with TNTP for two years now. You didn't notice that the buildings were gross, you know. So, I don't know if if we're looking at pointing the finger, I'm not pointing the finger at Joe Schmo, the senior custodian at the Tenny. I'm pointing the finger at the director of facilities. And if not him, then it's got to be your responsibility because it's your job to oversee everything. So, I don't know. That's where I stand. I had a few questions. I'm not sure if anybody wants to answer them, but I I think this is definitely not a

161custodial issue and it's definitely an administrative issue and we need to start having that conversation instead of having a conversation that's just all laughs and giggles and let's appease the board of health. It's not I'm not I'm not on board for that. So, >> shut down >> and as they should. >> That's why you I don't I don't want to just appease them. I want to fix the issue. >> Maintain need to maintain order. >> Vice chair. >> Um during the budget cycle, we had allocated $150,000 to extraordinary maintenance. How much of that budget do we have left going into the school year? And how do we plan to maintain anything when I'm guessing there's nothing left? If you give me two minutes, I'll look. >> Um, and the other question I have is with

162the stadium seats when the when they're not in use, do we have we purchased um some sort of airtight, mouseetight buckets to put them in as opposed to you said boxes, but I'm picturing cardboard box, not plastic. >> Yeah, I think that's next on our to-do list. Okay. the number of bins. I don't know what size they're actually going to be. I think we want to see what size so that each classroom can have stackable waterproof >> containers. That would be next on our list. >> Okay. Because I can just imagine having them piled somewhere and well, it's going to be >> right. No, off the ground. Yep. >> Okay. >> Good question. >> It's not pulling up very easily. >> I will get it to you by the end of the meeting though. >>

163Thank you. Timber Willlet. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I I think the overriding document that was like a glaring red flag to me was the inspection report of June 26 and you had an outside inspector say repeatedly, where are the door sweeps that were recommended in the past? So there's your linkage, your pest reports with June 26 inspection report from an outside entity for the city of Mthuan. Okay, that's your smoking gun. So there's a silo mentality that I think is finally after two years is starting to break down and we're starting to have meetings and cooperation and an understanding that with the cooperation of the mayor who's who's constantly in the schools with his team that there's a cry for help that we need a DPW in to assist us. And I have no

164problem saying that. And if we have to put the DPW in charge of the services of the schools, I don't have a problem approving that. Okay. I didn't in a prior meeting focus on certain schools versus the the tenny was the the biggest glaring uh issue. Um the CGS had no um major issues. the the Marsh and the McDthan High School uh were making major improvements and then you yourself said the Timny had made major improvements. So the focus was on on the tenny. So everybody woke up and marshaled all their resources to the the tenny and it might have been focused on one or two individuals and everybody just glombmed on those individuals and said well that wasn't my responsibility you know I could be the the main principal and associate principal right that's

165not my responsibility that's somebody else's responsibility and we operate under a silo mentality the the walls have to be broken down. Now, I'm not sure. I know it was talked about at the prior meeting. Have we inspected all of the schools at this stage? Like a reinspection? Has that been accomplished? >> Those are ongoing. The focus is on will be furnished with those reports. Uh again, finally after after two years, we have something that's going to be posted electronic reporting system. Now, are you included in that reporting system, Mr. Mayor? Because I would love to have those reports automatically go to your office like a a click it, fix it. Those reports should be going automatically to your domain because ultimately you are going to be fielding the calls about the schools. you're the one

166that authorized DPW to come into our schools and clean up these messes. Um, the DPW have done fantastic work and there was also something in terms of the landscaping contract. I don't think we have a landscaping contract because we don't have the resources as a school system to we have a landscaping contract. Okay. So what happened with that? If we had DPW doing the work outside or we had the custodians doing the work outside, what happened with that landscaping contract or it wasn't funded but something transpired? So if we had a landscaping contract, who was responsible for that and how much did that cost? because I was told that we had a depletion of a landscaping account that we could not have people do landscaping work and that at the last second we had needed

167DPW to do all this exterior work and they've done a fantastic job a herculean task and again the the the way that the Tim was set up um was absolutely asinine it's like Willy Wonka in a chocolate factory to have trees in a courtyard that was completely enclosed to have a tree inside a building. And I know member Maxwell and myself went to the the the Timony, right? And they were doing like a triage as we were in the building and you could smell the water intruding into the classrooms. Now, I can't blame at the moment in time the senior custodian because he was the one thrusting into a situation to prop up a a failing system. And that's why I think we have right now is a failing system. So, if we acknowledge that

168and ask for as much outside help as possible and I know member Shabilia talked about years of neglect. Okay. I think the mission of this school committee over the past two years is that we acknowledge the problems that have fested for years and we confront them. Okay? We document them. We improve the system. We break down the silo mentality. We have a a better ticket system. if someone reports something that they're not going to be vilified. We we're working with the teachers and DPW and the mayor's office and the school committee that we have these reports furnished to us, but I don't I'm not interested in having a a fall person or or fall guys in terms of a company because I reviewed those pest and reports. So, I go back again to June 26,

169the inspection report, which clearly stated door sweeps were not installed as per prior recommendations. So, when you have a government entity that fails in its responsibility and we're elected officials, we either clean up the mess or prepare for somebody else to to come in. And I I know I'm dedicated to that. And I know the mayor's dedicated to that with every fiber of my being, but at least acknowledge those prior pest and reports. Acknowledge that the system is failing and that we need to continue to uh have accountability and responsibility to the process. Thank you. >> Thank you, member Willlette. Uh before we continue, I just want to state something for the record just to clarify expectations. So right now in terms of DPW's capacity, DPW as we sit here does not have the capacity

170to take on the custodial aspect inside of the buildings. That's something that we really need to focus on in terms of our custodians. What I'm thinking is that having DPW's help, especially from a ground standpoint outside the building, that will uh help to free up uh capacity for the custodians to remain indoors focusing on uh cleaning and not on the other ancillary uh projects so to speak. I just wanted to state that for the record so we can clarify those expectations in terms of DPW. Member Donovan, you have anything? >> Sorry. Thank you. Okay. So, just three things. I think it would be really helpful to have building inspector D, if he does come because he knows more about mice than any person I've ever met. Um, and I think, um, he'd be able to

171address some of the concerns. Um, I look forward to his I look forward to having him join us. He has a really good view of what's going on in the building. Um, and I do hope, mayor, that meeting with Andover was just so enlightening, how they identified maintenance and DPW as two different entities and how we could save money and, you know, build relationship between municipal and city side. But I thought their approach was pretty sharp in terms of procurement, in terms of work orders. Um, you know, I didn't know we had three electricians on the city side and none on the school side. So, I it's time. I I think we're all in agreement there. Um, but what I'm really and I hope if there's anything I think we as a committee could do

172to facilitate that, I don't know anyone who would be well, we'd certainly welcome the questions, but it would be the best way to proceed. and the custodial staff worked under the maintenance staff but in Andover but you know they are a different community but what I'm really concerned about is looking forward when the schools open um and when basketball season starts and our gyms are in use that's when we really talked about problems last year because the custodians are often pulled away to work with our visitors to the schools specifically it's the Tenny the Tim um those are the big heavy hitters that are used so much by community groups and the custodians will often be called to open the doors if there's an issue, if there's kids wandering the building. Um, so I don't

173know what we can do to be proactive to make sure we have enough bodies that we have people available to empty trash at night instead of making sure the basketball teams have what they need. >> And it looks like Mr. Well, I would love to have a facility subcommittee meeting to discuss exactly that. Okay. >> Uh cuz we cannot continue to pull our custodians during the week to watch kids run up and down the hallway with basketballs. Um I don't know if we can rely on outside people to monitor our hallways for us or we have to come up with some kind of a >> in between solution. But we need to come up with a solution for that. So, I would love to meet with the subcommittee and maybe throw some stuff across against

174the wall and see what sticks. >> Can I share a thought that just popped into mind? I haven't vetted this with anybody on the school side, but something to keep uh I guess at the forefront of our discussion. So, at the city level, uh now granted of course folks would need to be cied etc. However, we have in the city a senior tax workoff program. So, if we do have any type of function that may require say not somebody with any type of technical expertise, but simply somebody there to help monitor um say folks in the building in cases like that, we do have a program where we could potentially put folks uh to work uh in that regard. Of course, there'd be multiple security considerations and quarry checks and the like, but something to

175keep in mind that we do have multiple avenues if we need extra help. >> Mr. Goss, do you know when gym season opens in our schools or after school hour gym? You know, people using our our gyms. >> Um, they want it ASAP. >> Okay. um tomorrow >> because that could be pretty intense with people banging on the door at 4:00 to come in and the custodians are trying to, you know, empty the trash and do all that stuff. We expect them to do. >> Okay, let's set up a meeting. Okay, thank you. >> So, before we move on, >> important conversation. We can have a second round. >> I do. >> Yes. >> Okay. Well, you you pointed, but I we never quite got there. I do want to echo and call out something

176member Wlette said. When they moved the new head custodian over to the tim things started to turn around. To member Maxwell's point, that is management. There was an administrative problem. A new manager came in and now things are ticking up at the Tim. I know that there were issues that we are not going to be aware of because we are not involved in staffing at the tenny. There were rumblings. There were conversations. It's rumor. But I know that there was a change in staffing there. I assume that there were issues. There are managers in those buildings. Those managers are responsible for their team. I go to work tomorrow. I am responsible for my team. I have a boss and my boss has a boss. My boss's boss is not going to get yelled at if

177I screw up or my team screws up. I'm going to get yelled at because I am the frontline manager. >> Unless you continue to do the program, >> but then they come to me and I get fired, >> right? >> Which is what happened. Somebody at the tenny is no longer there. >> They there is these changes. We've learned tonight that some of these pestend invoices may be inaccurate, which is a completely different problem. We I assume we have to sign off on these invoices when they come in. There's no sign off. I don't have to approve or not approve. I mean, we we get them electronically. They are now mailed to the PR, which they were not before. They were they're now emailed to the principal, the head custodian, myself, Mr. Stella. If they're

178not correct, we should be rejecting them if >> Go ahead. >> I don't disagree. It's just I >> I know it's not you, but that should be the direction >> in the building. >> Yes. >> To to melio's point. If in 2023 it said do door sweeps and you said, "Hey guys, do door sweeps." And we paid them to do door sweeps and they did door sweeps, >> take it off the damn invoice. >> And if they didn't, deny the next invoice. I will say when I do see things come in like those specific things, I pick up the phone right there and I call and say, "Hey, I know last Saturday I paid you to come do door sweeps and now you're telling me I need door sweeps." He goes, "Oh, that's just left

179on." I'm like, >> "Then deny the invoice." >> Well, your tech guy is has to take it off. >> Right. The quickest way to make a vendor comply is to not pay them. And I I I know because I've I've done it, especially when there's an error on an invoice. And that is an error on an invoice. And then I guess my next question to you is when was the last time you were on the roof with your head in a condenser of whatever it is called up there. I'm going somewhere with this. Play along. >> Uh when was the last time I was on the roof? >> When was the last time you were on the roof or in a or in a in a a a boiler room welding something or >> Well,

180I was in the boiler room Thursday at the m. >> Were you welding? >> I wasn't welding. Um I was on the roof at the marsh. Was it in the winter with the mayor? >> Yes, we were on the roof together. >> Heard about that. DJ's not allowed on roofs anymore. >> No more roofs. >> How many managers, and maybe member Dunovan and the mayor can chime in when they met with the DPW and the town administrator in Andover. Do they have someone who oversees their their custodial staff? Because Bruce is not a manager. He may be entitled, but he is doing the work. >> That's cool. Our job description says we are legislators, but you and others consistently cross that border into wanting to be executives. So, who cares what job descriptions say? We

181don't get to choose which ones we want, >> right? >> One person at a time. >> That's the thing. Like if if we want to say we want to hold someone responsible, then we need to pull Bruce off of jobs and he needs to be a manager. We can't expect him to be the guy who swoops in to rewire this furnace or to weld this boiler or to Frankenstein this water heater because we don't have any money and we need to maggyver our things back together because Mthuan's held together by duct tape and prayers and then get mad because he's not managing the the the folks at the Timony. We either need to pull him off or acknowledge that he's out there doing because we can't get our stuff together from an economic development issue

182and a cash flow issue to hire appropriately. That's where we're at. So, I know everyone wants to find a scapegoat and Bruce is the devil and Dr. Kuang's the devil and DJ's the de everyone's the devil. Everyone's the guilty and everyone's to blame. But no one has stepped back and said, "Where have we been for the last 10 years?" member Daglio loves to tell us how he's been on the school committee for almost six years now and that's great you've done a lot of wonder I'm using you as an example hold on a second you continue >> all these great things but like we've we've consistently said and I've consistently heard at budget time it's short and it's going to continue to be short and you've heard that every single year we can't blame someone

183because they're running around trying to save us because we can't get out of our own damn ways. We need to decide as a body and as an administration, do we need Bruce on a roof in a boiler room or do we need Bruce managing the department? And if whatever that decision be it is and then the issue falls to Ian to rub his pennies together and then we have to go to the mayor and the city council and and and beg and plead because you can't continue to burn the candle at both ends. It's not realistic. And basic third grade math tells you there is only so much time in a day. So, if we want to continue to burn anybody out, then we need to either hire more people or we need to reallocate

184our resources. That's it. >> All right. Just keep in mind this is good. >> So, so two things. Um, well, three things. First, I'm actually going to defend the administration for a second. Um because we really even though the pest reports go back about 3 years. Well the the health inspection before Darren and Heidi I have reports where literally 6 months prior to um Heidi and and Darren going into the schools. The formal health inspector gave us a facilities report that says facility great. Good. Okay. What you like? Yeah, ju just trying to check and and defend. So, and at the same time, prior to this, um even up to about a year ago, Dr. Kuang never received a health inspection report. Correct, Dr. Kuang. Like, you never received a health inspection report. >> Something

185that I normally receive. >> So, when Darren and Heidi finally hit us with the first violations, it was only given to one person. both two and I'm not gonna say it, but Dr. Kong wasn't one of them. So, how could also Dr. Kuang do anything when she wasn't even receiving the health inspection reports? And then I have a whole list of emails where the health inspections were saying, "We need a plan. We need a plan. We need a plan." But guess who was never on that email? Was Dr. Kong. there was only a few people that were on that email. All right? And it's all public record. So, it got to the point where there was one email like in May where they finally tagged you and said, "We need a master plan. We've been

186asking for a master plan and there was no master plan given." All right? And then they finally gave a master plan. Things were getting done. But what happened was when the door sweeps and everything was put in, they ate through the door sweeps. And what ended up happening was when September of last year came along, September 16th, which we were hit with the mayor's passing away, it was it was within 5 days after this inspection where we got hit with so many violations there which led to this whole thing erupting. So I will defend even though but again no even Dr. Kuang wasn't even receiving the pest in reports and and I don't want to throw member Dunovan under the bus but no no no quick question did you when you were at the time

187did you ever like got the like pest in reports as a principal? >> So my >> not to my recollection occasionally I would meet with the past end. >> Yeah. So at the end of the day the pestants were left with the head custodian >> and etc like what the so that was another problem even when you look at those situations when you have health inspectors giving you good reviews and then literally five months later getting hit with violations but then nobody's paying attention to the pestant reports at the same time cuz the member will will agree even though the health inspection reports were coming back good the pestant reports were coming back terrible and that's where I look at things where it was left with two three people and that's where I look at

188things and I and I get what membership bill is saying he utilizing resources I I get it but when you take on the responsibilities and you say you can do it which membershill when I'm a teacher and I take on three four different projects I I Look at my principal. If I can't do it, I go and tell them. I say, "I can't do it." All right. It's Sometimes you got to you have to admit, hey, I'm overwhelmed. I need help. >> Sometimes you don't make a choice. >> But then you know what? then that's on that's on the higherups now because if someone's asking for help and the higher management's not doing it but again but when nobody's coming to us because I only see two three here no I don't if I'm a

189teacher if I need help I go right to my principal I go to right to my supervisor that is no excuses you should be coming to your body and saying I need help All right. So, that's that's all that's all I'm going to say. But also, quick one more question. When it comes to the permits, so we were we getting charged >> in the past. Yes. >> Okay. >> Well, they would charge the vendor, but when the vendor invoiced us, they would include that as part of their bill. >> Okay. Because I talked to Joe, the plumber, and he let me know that he had to pay for permits, >> right? And I we have had this conversation before and I I thought it had been fixed, but I think there was a little miscommunication

190somewhere and I think they apply for it online which makes it even more difficult to get it waved. >> Um so I don't exactly know the process they're using now, but I I trust that the mayor has it taken care of. >> And are we going to get reburd? I'd have to look into that and confirm, but anything that I get by way of a waiver request regarding anything relative to the school permits, I I grant that. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Maxwell. Um, so, uh, it was said, I don't remember who said it, but it was said that the, you know, the Timmy had gotten a new senior custodian and and they did and he's great, but you know, the senior custodian that was there previously, it was not that he was let go.

191He is just a district physician. Now, um the fifth grade at the Timney, I did I did want to ask about this. Um they had to completely pack up their rooms for the rug removal and I know that those rooms aren't done yet. My concern is that the asbestous is airborne and it doesn't it's it doesn't become non-airborne until it's in undisturbed ear. So, when are those rugs going to be pulled up? Those rugs have been pulled out of all the rooms that have to be abated. >> Uhhuh. >> Um the embaitment's done. The abatement company is out of there. Um those rooms were like clean rooms. I don't know if you've ever seen an abatement done. It was kind of freaky with all the plastic and they seal off everything. Um they did a

192really good job. They're out of there. The tiling company now is in there doing the tiles. They'll be done for the beginning of school >> um tiling those rooms that were >> sit in their rooms. >> What's that? When do the teachers get back to set up their rooms that they had to completely >> I believe they're already starting to move furniture back into some of the rooms. I don't know which rooms are fifth grade. I don't know if fifth grade rooms were ones that had to be abated or not. >> They did. Yeah, >> they're downstairs. >> They did have to be abated. >> It's the downstairs. So, those are Oh, they're downstairs. So, they're they're working on tile on those now. >> They're working as fast as they can. >> Yeah. I don't

193>> that glue is not um smelly. >> The company that's doing the abatement is required by law. I think I actually I shouldn't say by law, but they're the ones who are actually doing the air quality. They can't leave the room until they're done. >> Yeah. And then the tile people, different people are coming into tile when the room is clear. I just want to make sure that the fifth grade teachers have the same um um time to set up their room before they're not there. >> I mean, they may not. I mean, and just again, we're doing everything we can to try to make sure that they can, but this is we need to get this part done. So, we'll do everything we can to make sure that we put everything everything right now

194in all of the abated rooms is in the big gym. >> But they're done. The abatement is done. It's >> the abatement is done. It's the tiling right now. So, I think those the classrooms upstairs, I think is what Ian was referring to, are all done. So, those the furniture is probably being moved back in and they'll be fine. It's the downstairs, which is where the fifth grade is. Okay. >> Um that is just probably going to be another week or so before they can actually go back in. >> Vice Chair, >> so I feel like a lot of the responsibility is on the fact that we are not funding our maintenance. We are not funding our janitorial staff. We're not funding it. I mean, Dr. Kong came to us with a plan for restructuring

195the entire thing, and we couldn't fund it, and we voted no to it. So, you know, there's there's no money to do this. And yes, we want to save teachers, which we did our the best we could, and we still had to cut teachers. But the reality of it is is that we don't have the money to do the facilities. We don't have the money to have the managers be a position by itself like it should be. We don't have the staff. We are running our staff ragged. They are they're spread so thin. We don't pay them anywhere near what surrounding communities pay. People are leaving in droves to go to Lel because they pay more. So this is all it comes down to a budget issue and we don't have the money. And so

196we can sit here and criticize all of these people who are working their butts off for next to nothing and doing everything they can and these people are so committed to our community and we can sit here and destroy them and have them leave too. um you know or we can take the blame for the fact that we don't have fully funded schools and we've we don't have the money to do it. So we have to accept the fact that the schools aren't going to be perfect. We have to accept the fact that the facilities aren't going to be clean all the time. We have to accept the fact that we have large buildings and large buildings have mice. That's just a reality. And so is it do we want to mitigate the fact that

197we have mice? Yes, of course we do. But the reality of it is they're large buildings. There's going to be mice. So, you know, it's great that we can try to, you know, make Bruce the fall guy, but the reality of it is is we're not funding the positions and we're not funding the buildings and we haven't been. And she tried to restructure this year just like she said she was going to do and we said no. And so, it's on us. It's not on her. Any other discussion? >> Just very quickly, I know for a fact reports collected dust and weren't dispersed to the right individuals. That has nothing to do with manpower, that's that's a silo mentality and we have to eradicate that. So to to justify what we're doing in the schools

198over the last two years because of a manpower issue, that's inexcusable. Now, we've made significant improvements, and I applaud the mayor for involving DPW, and he did clarify, and I was already on board, is that the exterior landscaping needed to be tackled. the exterior trees and foliage and some of the interior items needed to be tackled. I think the outreach maybe to the vocational school and doing some of the the work and approaching Lowe's and Home Depot for donation of u supplies. That's something that we should brooach. I think that was something that the health task force and I know member Dagalio and I talked about that in the past. I think again acknowledge the issues, work on a plan, make sure as many people are notified as possible, and don't let the reports collect

199dust going down the line. Thank you. >> Any other discussion? If not, we'll move on. Uh, superintendent, I'll invite you to start the discussion regarding the grammar school scheduling update. >> Thank you. So in your packet there's a um a memo. This is request of uh member Maxwell. Um but some other folks had asked about scheduling and how are we doing after the budget and losing positions and what were we working on. So uh I asked Dr. Glosski to present a memo on some details of fact. Uh I would tell you that right now these are still being inputed in infinite campus uh because of the late start in actually creating the budget with a final number of staff. Uh the APs got a late start on this. So uh I do have a letter

200going out to families last year. It went out last week. this year. It's going to go out this week uh because I just needed a better handle on when the portal is going to open for um for our uh student schedules. And so uh that will be going out to families if not tomorrow uh definitely by Wednesday afternoon um so that everybody knows when those schedules will be out and information. So without um I I without further ado, uh I'll just give it over to Dr. Gowski to go through um this is very detailed. So, uh, if there are questions about it, I think a lot of what, uh, is here has always been in the forefront of making sure that students at all four schools receive access and similar, um, in schedules as best

201we can so that one school is not getting more science than the next school. That has never been our intent. Uh, so there are minutes to time on learning that Dr. Golovski has put together with explanation of why we have certain times for certain courses which hopefully will make sense to all of you. Uh the specialist was probably the most challenging. That's where you're going to see some of the most nuanced uh schedules as they uh come out for students because of the different staffing and specials at the Martian CGS versus Tenny Tim uh what we lost and how we had to sort of re um you know align the specialist schedule during the day. So that's all in here. Dr. Gowski. >> Sure. Thank you. Um so the the question initially was about the

202process and how schedules are made. Um so I I'll just go over that briefly. Um it's also highlighted in your memo. So uh we we had a convening with the associate principles, supervising principles, Dr. Kong and myself. um and and I gave the associate principles scheduling guidelines that were based on um the recommended time allocations for different lessons and subject areas to be executed. Um and so that is shown on the screen here. Um the outline of of which program would need uh which number of minutes in which grade. Um and then also uh calculating the uh minutes for the wind block, lunch, snack, specialist periods um and a lot of this is contractual um in terms of the recess time which I'll get to later. So I did tell associate principles um because they

203have different variables within their buildings whether it be number of cafeterias or recess spaces um related service providers service delivery u reading specialists um even even the teaming structures within grades whether they're operating with a two three four five person team um will change how the schedule rotates I told the associate principles that they had the flexibility to arrange those blocks um in areas or patterns that they saw fit to make sure that all students were able to receive their services so long as these guidelines were met um within the span of a couple of minutes or so. And you'll see on the memo um that I gave to you with the detailed information, the bolden numbers point to the range of minutes that each student across the district will spend in that subject area.

204So you'll see there's a a range of a couple minutes here or there. Um and that's based on the flexibility that was needed dependent on on different school buildings. um throughout the year. Last year, associate principles came to me with recommendations or suggestions that teachers were bringing to them, things that they didn't particularly like about the arrangement of their schedule. Um and so they certainly considered those elements to the extent possible in terms of arranging the order of classes. Um that being said, due to the time constraint of many of these um programs and lessons, there's only so much arranging that can be done. Um, and I I will tell you the associate principles and the building administrative teams spent hours puzzling and designing and redesigning to ultimately come out with what they feel will

205be the best schedule for students. Um, so I thank them for that work there. Um, just a couple highlights here. Um, you'll notice that in kindergarten there is a 35inut um, snack period in the morning. Now that's contractual. So there's the 20 minute recess that's hooked on to that 15-minute snack in the morning. Also additional um 20 minute recess abudding lunch and that's been past practice but is now memorialized in the teacher contract. Um so you'll see that there. Um you'll notice now that all students have access to art classes. Um that hadn't been the case um for students who had been selecting band or chorus in years prior. So now everyone has access to art. Um and then the second page of this memo talks about the specialist rotations. Um and I I'll say

206this is the place where we got most creative. Um, we tried rotations from 4 days to um, eight days to 10 days and really tried to to figure out what was best for students while being mindful of the number of class meetings so that they're able to accomplish, what teachers hope to accomplish, and what the curriculum is generally mapped for. um while also giving students ample opportunity to make choices and try what they're interested in, particularly in the areas of um music. Upper school is particularly complicated. Um that's the the segment of time where students are able to choose band or a chorus or general music. Um and that leads to some complications in the rotations. Um, and I did want to describe too, you'll see the the row called flex, um, where there's there's

207some instances where general music students have flex days, and those will be additional class meeting times spent in art, PE, or health. So, for instance, um, that will be prescheduled and not a surprise to any teacher. The decision will be made in consultation with the associate principal where perhaps their flex days for trimester 1 will be spent in one subject area and then a different subject area on trimester 2. Um in one school building some specialist teachers um and and associate principles have talked about the opportunity for interdisciplinary projects and have been excited about that in the flex days. Um and so those flex days are just what they are. um but will be pre-planned as well. And I think that's generally the overview um of how students will be spending their days. >> So

208before we take questions, uh we need a motion and a second to extend past 9:00. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from the vice chair, second from membershelia. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? The eyes have going past nine. questions about report member Maxwell. >> Um, so when I had first originally um requested this be on the agenda, I really was talking about the um the daily schedule and not so much um the district's schedule, which is I mean this is great. This is great to see and and be able to put our eyes on, but I I really had more um more focused questions like um I know you said you had spoken to like the APs last year and you guys um couldn't accommodate the schedule last year,

209which makes sense. It was last minute so it couldn't be done. Um but this year it was supposed to be looked into. And when it comes to like kids being dropped off late, Mark tardy, um, they're going straight to specials, so they don't necessarily get to eat as if they would if they were on time. No morning meeting, so there's no time to check in with students. There's not like, you know, that's not a good way for them to start their day. Teachers on morning duty. They're not back into their rooms on time. There's no travel time. Um there's also lunch and recess and where the recess I guess teachers have to pick up their students from lunch and recess. Um so their lunch is actually cut short because they have to pick up their

210students. Um reading and writing somehow there's four hours of that. Um combining social studies and science. I don't know if we went if we got away from that this year. It looks like we did. Um, and then the the trails curriculum that's taught by home room teachers. Um, and then I I wanted to touch on just lunch because I think that 20 minutes of eating and 20 minutes of recess is just not enough time for kids to actually sit down and eat or play with their friends. Um, um, there was one other thing I wanted to ask about though. Um, oh, like for instance, last year I know that my my daughter was in eighth grade and their lunch was the very last lunch of the day when they're the first ones in the building,

211you know? So, they're waiting until, I don't know, 1:30 to eat and it's that's a long day with no stack. Upper school doesn't get snack. So, has any of that been reconfigured and thought about? And do they get snack? I mean, it's a really long day to go without snack. I know they are 12, 13. They should be able to like control it, but they're hungry. >> You know, the the upper school students don't have snack. They do have the the breakfast offering. Um, but I will say >> lunch times proved to be tricky for us for a lot of the reasons you talked about, making sure we have enough teachers on duty, making sure everyone has ample lunchtime coverage. Um, and so we went back and forth um, in several different arrangements. Um, schools

212were really good about sharing ideas about what they're doing for coverage. Um, some of the the the um, aspects you talked about came up in our meeting. Um, some schools talked about the tardiness being an issue and especially if they're going to a specialist class, the transition of getting the student there, but also if there's a core academic course starting the day, the student missing instruction or if you're starting with when the student missing potentially their service. So, it it's a rock in a hard place on that one. Um, and because >> more time in the morning where they could have like a meeting like a like a meeting, a morning check-in almost, if you will, like an extra 15 minutes. >> So, can I just comment for a second? So, I just I want

213to be careful a little bit here because this conversation is so going to get into the weeds of what we do with our teams because we have exactly six hours a day, so much time for lunch, time that has to be on academics. Like everything that you brought up is everything that our team looks at in great detail to try to do the best that we can to make sure that it fits the required contractual obligations for teachers and lunch and who's going to supervise kids at recess cuz having an hour lunch and recess sounds great except who's going to do that and where are all the kids going to go when I have nine grade levels that have to eat lunch and have recess, right? All those things are critical and I'm happy that

214you brought those up. I I just also want to say that that wasn't the request you asked us for. It was very specific to how we came up with it. That's why we provided this tonight. >> So, if there's other things that maybe you want to have a conversation with us about that would answer some of those questions, maybe that makes more sense. I just think this we're going to get into the weeds of administrative stuff with like passing time and lunchtime and who picks up their kids. I'm just not sure that's appropriate for this uh conversation. I I don't want to stop it, but I just I think there's a lot of details that probably Lisa and myself can sit with you and kind of talk through so you see the complexity of it

215differently than not here when we have a really long agenda too. Yeah. I think my only point in bringing it up was just that it's been a year and I wanted to make sure that these issues were addressed and managed. You know what I mean? That that's my only >> I think Dr. Labsy brought it up. I mean, we met for two and a half hours maybe in my office when we had staffing when we had all the APs and principles like in the district not on vacation that day and just said here are like where is everybody in there thinking, right? We did a sort of a check-in with everybody based on the staff that you have. Grade level teachers matter when you're talking about specials and when you're talking about lunches, right? So,

216it's like every nuance is a little different in every school. Um, and then what are our non-negotiables, which I mean I went back in my drive every every year we have non-negotiables of how many minutes we want in each subject area, how many minutes we want for lunch and recess, right? What are our non-negotiables so that a fifth grader at the Timony is getting the same academic time, the same lunch times time-wise, right? Like in that six-hour day that the kid at the Marsh and the CGS are getting, right? So, uh there's just there's so many variables that play into schedules. We'd be happy. Uh I've been doing it for 24 years in this district. Be happy to sit down and just talk through some but some of those things were absolutely discussed with the

217EPS in that meeting that you brought up on your list. Good. >> Some fixable, some not. Right. So like some things are going to be better than others. There always has to be a grade level that has specials first block. So we're never going to fix that entirely. There's just there's those things with nine grade levels. And again, how do we make sure that each block of time is filled? Uh so some nuances that are tough. >> We'll move on now to the staffing update. >> Sure. >> So I added uh this is a list that um is being shared right now with uh HR, myself, uh some other district leaders. So I actually think this has changed that for the better since uh I put this in there on Thursday. Um, but as you

218can see, um, and the parentheses next to the program assistance is the number of them. So, if I added them individually, this would be a longer memo. Uh, so we still have quite a few uh, subsparings for program assistance at the marsh and the preschool in the early >> Yep. >> That says 504, >> right? Well, she just said that's the number of I'm sorry. Yeah, I know the 504 is because the reason they have the one one. So like the 11 I'm sorry the other ones that say it's a one one so that one doesn't count but the like lower school pathway sub separate that says 11 >> and then two and then a six and then a three and then a five and then on the other side that has 11. So the

219foundation subsparate those are my subseppparate classrooms that you know we saw the same pattern last year. Uh, believe it or not, we're in a better place, but as I shared with all of you, right, a contract, a good contract doesn't fix the problem that I don't have enough people in the world who wants these jobs. Um, so, uh, that's, you know, we're working through some of that. Colleen, Gina, and I are going to be meeting later this week to make some final decisions. Um, I do think uh one of the things that we're going to have to do uh and Colleen and Ian are going to work on this as well is the money that we have budgeted for these positions exactly in the budget at some point here to open the year. We have

220to we have to pull that money and say what is the priority the oneto ones for us are probably going to be the priority right positions how do we fill those and and ask contracted service providers to fill those except we have a I mean we had a finite amount of money last year but even more so finite this year right so what does that look like to be able to provide the services combine different staff or programs so we're going to be doing that you know beginning at the end of this week and next week because we have to make those final decisions before we open school for staff. So, we're still, you know, we're still interviewing, we're still looking for staff. Um, we're coming up with creative ways, but that's that's going to

221be the next step for us for staffing. >> Questions? >> I don't know if there's questions about >> member Maxwell. >> I'm sorry. I just have one question, of course. Um, >> and I know you've explained it to me before, so just bear with me, but the two school psychologists, I know it says district next to one at the marsh. So, will they just be housed at the marsh? >> Yeah. So, typically we have a home school for some for folks who are districtwide. Okay. >> So, they know where they're getting, you know, like their mail, their paychecks, all that stuff. Go to one school and they have an office typically in that school. But the district-wide one is going to spend more time potentially in one building than the other, but they're going to

222have to go to the other schools to test. That one's been open since last year. We never did fill that even last year. So for the psychologist uh there we have folks who helped us last year because we were in the same position. Uh and all four of those folks that helped us last year outside consultants not necessarily contracted service but in independent consultants as well are all willing to help us again. So we're we're happy Gina did report that to us that all four have said we'll we'll stay on and help for next year. Uh, right. We we would like to hire them full-time, but they all have some different things going on in their lives. Um, so we're again, we'll be sort of pulling ourselves together and making some decisions about how we're

223going to support. And again, most of this is related service and special education. So, we keep taking it down. We do all the tricks. We keep taking it down, putting it back up, reposting it so it pops up in people's school springs. Um, you know, we've we've contacted uh I'm in contact directly myself with UMass LOL, uh, some folks at Marramac, Rivier. I mean, we're trying to contact kind of everybody to see what we have available around us. So, still a work in progress. >> Any other questions? >> Member Donovan. >> So, the um PA openings are a little bit worrisome. >> Um, do we are our BBEs in place? I mean, not that we have enough PBEs, but >> so they'll probably slip into some of those. >> We're hoping that won't be the

224case, but >> it could be to get us open. Yes. >> Okay. And you did mention some of these positions. Look, >> because we have less BBEs, remember, right? We cut our BB. So, we have less BBEs than than in previous years. So, we will likely not be able to >> pull as many to fill in these spots. So, again, we're going to look at the the money that we have budgeted for these positions that have been approved in the operating budget. What's the cumulative amount? Look at the priorities. That's what's on the docket next for Colleen and Gina and I to sit down and >> Okay. And some of these positions, as you noted, they seem to be a few that were open for last year. >> Yep. >> Okay. So, the school sites

225in particular, >> school sites, we're just not getting any applicants at all. And >> is there any way I I we may have discussed this and forgive me if I brought it up before. Is there any way we just use those consultants and and stop looking for school sites, you know, because it just seems like we're chasing our tail with them. >> Yeah. I mean, I think this is this is year two of having multiple openings that we just aren't get it's not even that we have applicants and they're not certifi I mean we just don't have applicants. Nobody's even applying for these jobs. Um, so, so yeah, I mean, I think we're going to have to restructure a lot of things. If we're going into year two and we have a decent contract for

226both, again, it's not the contract that's going to find the actual people, right? We're going to keep people, which is good, and we're getting more people. Believe it or not, this is in a better place than we were this meeting last year. >> Yeah. >> Um, with openings. So, again, it's just reooking at how can we restructure. We're gonna have staff in subsepparate at the marsh and the the uh branch street overseeing two classrooms. Again, we're working with the union, but we're in a better place with how what we can do to make that a much smoother transition. So, you know, we we've been having those conversations all summer as well. >> So, to get back to my question, at some point, do you think >> Yeah, we probably will have to restructure how we

227even look at it. Yeah. >> Yeah. I know there used to be a pipeline from Northeastern or BEu with the school sites. >> Yeah, I think TUS I think has a good program. I think they have a good program. BU I'm not sure but >> I think it was TUS. >> I think Mr. Cracker, you know, advocates all over a lot of those Boston schools filter right into BPS, Boston public schools. And so it's hard to get those folks back out. But >> Okay. Well, thank you. Have we Okay, one last thing. Didn't we get a big push a few years ago when you posted on our the the communications the principal sent home saying, you know, we have job openings. >> Well, it's definitely in my newsletter going home this week. >> I mean,

228I put it at the end saying we're still looking. Here's the link to, you know, our employment. So, I'm I'm that's the last bullet on my letter to all the whole district. So, I'm hoping folks, you know, just re recirculate that, you know, share it back out. We're still looking for support staff. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Gotcha. >> Any other questions? If not, we'll move on to old business and other pending matters on the agenda. We have none. Uh, next under new business, we need a motion and a second to approve the wellness policy. This will be the first read. >> So, moved. >> Motion from the vice chair, second from member Daglio. Discussion. Vice Chair. >> Um after reading the the wellness policy, um my biggest concern is that um there is

229nothing in there and I when my children were young, it was there that recess could not be taken away as a punishment. Um it got taken out somewhere along the line. It is not back in there and I have a real problem with that. Um, so I know I for one want to make a friendly amendment to add that line back in to the wellness policy. >> Is there a second? >> I'll second it. >> All right. So, we have the motion from the vice chair and the second from member Shibilia. This is for the proposed friendly amendment discussion regarding the proposed amendment. We'll hear from Let's hear from the second and then we'll hear from member Dagio, member Max. So the second was primarily for the conversation and I know that member Keegan and

230I have had this conversation over the past past couple of days. My concern is where do we have the line for training and discretion? As a child, and I'm sure this is going to come as a shock to many of you, but I lost my fair share of recess, which doesn't surprise me. There were some of them I probably 100% deserve to lose. Now, should we be taking away recess from the kid on the IEP, you know, who had a I don't I don't know the appropriate word, had an episode and I don't know did did something. No, there is another appropriate mechanism for dealing with that behavior. Taking recess away is not. But taking that leverage away from a teacher whether or not they exercise that oper that option the threat that is there

231to show children that you know this is why you have to behave. We talk and you see in the news and we see on Facebook that the ability to discipline is so small and being able to take away recess under the right circumstances. I think is important, but I also don't know how you police that. >> Well, oh, may I respond? >> Yeah. Yeah, go for it. >> Because I think uh I don't disagree with uh either of you at this point. We had it sort of memorialized and then we do it and then we don't do it and now it's not really written anywhere anymore. So, I'm I'm not opposed to having it in writing in this policy, which is where it lived in in previous years. Um, I think the discretion comes that

232it needs to be uh I think the the conversations I've had with the administrators is it can't be sort of the re the place where kids are being punished, right? So, if something happens in the classroom, they can't get recess taken away. But if the problem is happening at recess or they're being aggressive at recess, that's where I have a conversation with the APs and the principles that are like, "Wait, I'm keeping the kid who's the aggress, you know, like having a problem, right, a a behavior problem, if you would, at recess." And so, doesn't that make sense that I'm like keeping that kid away from that negative situation that's happening in that space? So I think you know those are some of the conversations that I'm having with the principles about that and I

233think that is not a teacher discretion that's a that's an administrative discretion about impeding what is that discipline that's happening for the kid who's being referred to because of x y and z. If we draw a hard line in this policy, that discretion is removed, >> right? And how do we how do we how do we provide that so it's it doesn't become the easiest way, right? Because I think that's also part of it. It's an easy way to be like, well, I'm going to take away recess for 5 days. You're like, wait, what? Right? So, but if there is a problem that's happening at recess and we need to remove that student because they are that privilege of being able to play, they're not handling that correct. Whatever. I'm simplifying all of it, >>

234right? >> Um, you know, that may be appropriate. How do we memorialize situational uh pieces? I'm not quite sure. That's really not I don't know how we like say that. But so, okay, I hear what you're saying and I really truly do. >> But if a kid is misbehaving in ELA, are you going to take ELA away from the kid? >> And I and I say that not tongue and cheek, but seriously, because our kids have 20 minutes a day to learn how to use social skills. And recess is the only time that those kids have a chance to practice those skills. and every other part of the day is completely structured. So if we're if we're taking those 20 minutes away when they're practicing those skills and it's the only time of the day

235that they get to practice those skills, it's a subject for a lot of kids. And so to say, "Oh, well, if recess is the problem, we take it away." Well, then I say, "Then if ELA is the problem, we're going to take ELA away." And that's crazy. You would never do that. And so it shouldn't be looked at any differently than ELA because for some kids social skills are more important than ELA sometimes. >> Yeah. >> Member Daga member Maxwell. So, this is when I'm going to go to a person that's in the classroom, which we do take recess away. And it's to the extreme where it starts with you lose 10 minutes. You're going to lose half of recess. So, you have your 10 minutes of your social skills. It's gets to the point

236where the disruptive behavior is constantly in that classroom where we go, okay, now you lost recess for the full day. And then if it goes further, you get a detention. The reason why I I agree with they need that's why when I take recess away, it's always 10 minutes unless it gets to the point where I have to do a write up to the dean of discipline and then he decides, "Nope, you're going to lose recess for the rest of the day." But I'm allowed to take at least half of their recess away when they're disruptive in my classroom. The thing I like about that is it has control of my classroom in the sense of the kids know that I'm can take away half their recess and which allows classroom management to proceed in

237a certain way. Now to remember Shabil's point there there are kids on IEPs but at the same time you might give that kid again every kid's different way I work with it I go go for a walk go take a five minute break if the if the p if that student continues to be disruptive then I send them to the dean of discipline and they get their recess taken away because it's now gotten three four warnings to the point where it's like okay we're going to call your mom and your mom decides okay and a lot of times parents go take his recess away absolutely I think a lot of the problems and I and I was also going to discuss this with policy where it comes to detention where everything's falling on administrators if

238you want teachers to have control of their classrooms they should have discretion of maybe giving a detention or giving a lunch detention however They're responsible. Same thing with me in my school. If I give a detention, I'm staying after school. I'm not giving it to someone else. I'm you gave that classroom without the dean of discipline. You're staying after school. But you have to notify everybody. Notify the parents and I do say, "Okay, your son has a detention for this reason." And if they disagree, then it goes to the dean of discipline. So like there are processes and mechanisms and I totally get what you're saying, but you need the teachers to have the ability to discipline kids that they're being disruptive in the classroom. That's that's how learning has to work. If you don't

239if a kid causes disruption in the classroom, then guess what? Every other kid goes, "He can get away with it. I can get away with it." And then it's a cycle. So that's just my opinion. I get both sides. I'm just saying from a third the the person that's in the classroom and I get I know a lot of teachers at home will agree with me. I think taking we all got our lunch recesses taken away but I think half of it I'm willing to compromise in certain degrees with 10 minutes or half of it. So that's all. >> Member Maxwell. >> So I am on board for um the amendment. However, um it's concerning to me that we're talking about this wellness policy when we already have a wellness policy ADF that we're approving

240tonight. So, I'm confused at which policy we are talking about because the one that is being presented right now, that one's very wordy and there's a lot to it. the one that we got from MASC that we're approving tonight will contradict it. >> And everything that's in MASC's policy is in the policy that was created um by these people. Sorry. Um but it's less wordy and it's more to the point. >> So good point. >> Yeah. It's concerning that no one else noticed that. >> I'm good point. I'm just going to let Mr. Friday bring like tell you sort of how this was developed and the approval process at the state level and then we can make a decision about MASC versus this one. >> Hi everybody. I think everybody knows me. I'm Bob Fatty

241uh food service director. Um I don't think that you um know Brenda Noon. Um she is the assistant food service director. She's been with us for a year now. Uh she's been a huge asset. Um registered dietician. um she's great to have on board on staff. So, um she's been she's played a crucial role in um in this whole process. Um so, just to give you some background, um back in January, we applied for um it's a uh it's called the Massachusetts School Wellness Coaching Program. And the reason why we did that, it's it's um it's sponsored by the John Stalker Institute out of Frammingham State College. and Desi. Um, not every school district is accepted. First year, two years ago, we we tried and we weren't accepted. Um, the program is very hard to

242get into. We did get into it. We um, you know, we went through everything, all the different meetings, got the certification. Um and so the reason for that is is because the current policy that we have online now um was actually revised in 2021. So DESIE requires every 3 years to do an evaluation of the policy. There's a huge criteria that we have to go through. So, this program assigns you a wellness coach. Um, that's a professor at Firmingham State College. Um, we do monthly meetings. She was part of our uh wellness committee meetings that we had. Um, Brenda made some phone calls. We got the the um the original wellness committee back together. Um we did send out different um emails to like guidance counselors like we're looking for students to get involved too.

243Um we weren't able to to get students. Um so we went with the existing um wellness committee. Like I said we we did the whole uh evaluation that took gosh that took a couple hours to go through our wellness policy. um it identified where we didn't meet the new requirements for wellness policy um and where we did um where we didn't outweighed where we you know the ones that we did meet the requirements. Um so basically what we did was we took we were going to the committee was going to re you know to look at and make modifications to the existing policy. It was determined that because it was so involved and it was so peacemeal and was so wordy, the original one, um that we would start from scratch using the evaluation format

244to hit every single topic. Okay. So now, so we did a draft that goes back to Frammingham State College. They review it. They give us some feedback. We go back to the committee. We make the changes. And then the way the process works is once uh uh the John Stalker Institute approves it or reviews it and approves then it goes on to desi in this department within DESIE that also reviewed it. They had one change I believe that they wanted to add. Um and then so Nicole Goodman that works at Desi she approved it uh or reviewed it not approved. So, it was to get it ready for for the school committee to approve. So, that's how we got here tonight. So, I hope that answers the question. I don't know about the other policy

245you're that you're speaking about. Um, >> yeah, it's a new policy um that MASC came, you know, brought to the subcommittee. The problem I have is the wellness committee doesn't create policy. The the wellness committee is in charge of the implementation and evaluation of the policy. Um, so I think that the policy that MASC is it's it's by law. It's it has everything in the policy that the wellness committee um suggested um and then some. So um I mean I I know in your um specific policy it mentioned celebrations and the fact that absolutely no celebrations. However, in the MASC um policy that they suggested um refreshments served at party celebrations and meetings during the school day, it actually can happen. Um so I I mean unless I'm wrong, MASC does things through by law.

246Um, so I I would just hope that we can with Lor's friendly amendment approve the original policy that we've been working with MASC4 only because it has everything that the wellness committee did suggest in theirs with a few changes. Um, and again, wellness committee doesn't create policy. They just um implement it and evaluate it. So I >> I know when Jeff Osgood was here um I believe when the he was the the chair I believe that he they created that last policy. >> Correct. So I >> So I would suggest if if instead of putting the friendly amendment on this we unless well no because if if if we're going to accept MASSE then you would reject this policy >> correct >> and vote no on it and then on the MASC >> then you

247can make the friendly amendment. That would be my s unless people are deciding to vote on this one. A yes, then I would suggest we put the friendly amendment on. But I I'm going to go with the MASC. >> So we have an active motion on the floor. There's been a second. So we need a vote on the friendly amendment and then we'll see where that lies >> unless she removes it. >> Yeah. >> Can tell you I'm going to table it. Okay. >> Well, so just a minute. We we're have we have the motion about the friendly amendment on the floor. >> She's about to remove. >> Okay. So, we're withdrawing. >> I'll withdraw. >> And I'm going to make a motion to table the wellness policy presented as well as the section within

248the MASC packet. So that way both wellness policies are tabled together. So that counts as a first read for this. It'll count as a first read for that. and we can revisit it next week when we have more time in two weeks when we have more time. >> So, just to be clear though, we're only talking about >> we're talking about 6G on the agenda, which is this wellness policy aspect. >> Yes. >> So, we'll get to anything else down the road. Okay. >> And we can we can uh visit this potentially tomorrow in our subcommittee policy subcommittee meeting. >> We have that tomorrow. So, that would be great. We can ask Alicia. >> Yeah. >> The questions. Yes. >> All right. So the the friendly amendment has been withdrawn. Now we have a motion

249on the floor to table this. Do we have the second? >> Seconds from member Daglio. All those in favor of tableabling the wellness policy. >> I >> opposed. The eyes have it. So that's tabled. >> We now need a motion and a second to approve the uh PK through 8 handbook and the 9 through 12 handbook. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from the vice chair. Second from member Daglio. discussion member Maxwell. >> Um, so I I am going to say uh no on the approval of the handbook only because there is that amendment that needs to be made that um we haven't had a discussion on um for the Supreme Court ruling. Um and >> that's this. >> Yeah. >> Oh. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, I thought we were just approving the

250whole handbook. >> No, no, no. We're discussing >> We are with the amendment. That's exactly what we're doing. We're approving the whole handbook >> with this amendment >> with the added language that I put on the memo. >> Correct. >> Because I have to do that or you have to do that, >> right? >> I don't need to be spoken down to, but >> read the packet. >> Definitely read the packet. >> All right. Let's keep let's keep order. Um, so it says, "Consistent with Massachusetts regulations, the Methuan Schools through its curricula and materials encourages respect for the human and civil rights of all individuals regardless of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation in accordance with district guidelines. Families may request information from the building principle on available accommodations related

251to the curriculum content. My only concern with this is that nowhere in this does it say that this is based off of a religious exemption." Um, and I think that if we're going to say that people or families are able to opt out of a certain curriculum, then we should offer that to all of our families because with this inclusion process of it's against your religion, you're excluding people who don't practice a religion. Um and and people have different beliefs whether it's moral beliefs, religious beliefs, um you know, there are different beliefs and and I think that if we're going to offer an opt- out option, it needs to be across the board. I think that if we're going to talk about curriculum, um I've never on in my time here approved an LGBTQ curriculum.

252I'm not sure if anybody else could give me the date of when that was approved. So right now the district doesn't even have an LGBTQ curriculum. So I'm not sure why we would even have to be voting on this. That's not the policy that we're interjecting. This is and in this it does not say based off of religious exemption. So that would be my only um point of that. That's the only thing I wanted to bring up. I I will be a no um on the whole handbook just based off of us not accommodating all of our students. We're just accommodating one. I think it's I think to say that we're going to honor something based off of religion and exclude things like Christmas and Halloween and Easter and all of those things because we

253can't practice certain religions. I think that we're excluding an entire um uh population of people. I don't know. So, so that's why I I will vote no. >> I think would it be helpful if Dr. Gabsky and I go through the document that we added so that people who are watching know what we're talking about? >> Probably a good idea. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, um, there's a memo that I emailed to you, but we put it on your table as additional information, which I think is helpful, and I apologize because I know that there was information sent out from MASSE to probably all of you. And so, uh, just again for all of you and for the public watching, I think it's important for people to know what we're talking about and where this

254the italics language came from that we're asking to be put in the uh, handbook at this point. Um, but maybe Lisa, if you want to start and then I'll jump in. uh and it's a Supreme Court ruling decision that we are looking at right now with no additional uh we don't have uh you know any other uh guidelines or information from like Desi or our own state um attorney general at this point. So uh this is why this language is being recommended at this time so that we comply with a Supreme Court ruling that is national. This is not a state ruling. Um, sure. So, I'll do my my best to accurately um summarize the ruling um and the situation. So essentially there was a district in Maryland um who in their um younger elementary

255grades had introduced um inclusive curricula um specifically LGBTQ curricula in the form of story books um in which there weren't just characters for representation um but thematically um and with the intent of the lesson related to topics and themes of LGBTQ Q um community and belief. Now um initially the school had notified families prior to the introduction of each book and offered opt out options. As time went on, they stopped doing that and that's when um a group of parents came together and started to move it um through the chain of courts. two lower courts um refused to to grant the injunction um and say that the school needed to in fact notify families and offer the opt out. And what the Supreme Court case did was to say just that. Um and so I

256included in this most recent information here um like the superintendent said, there isn't any um specific guidance um from the federal or state in terms of Massachusetts um government at this point as to how it should be handled. So what the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent along with MASC um and then every um school law firm in the state of Massachusetts convened and to agree upon this language um which is suggested to be part of the handbook. Um and what they agreed on until there is clearer direction um is that it needs to be very clear to teachers, administrators, parents, families in the district what this actually means, what the ruling says that they are entitled to and how to go about doing that. Um and so I I wrote in this memo um that

257it's it's not um a matter of of representation. it really comes down to the intent of the lesson and the depth to which um thematically related topics are discussed. So, um it could be some examples might be um the analysis of a poem at the high school level and then really specific prompts asking potentially a student to consider um the speaker's um point of view as maybe their identity or outlook changed over time. I'm just saying that might be an example of of something that a teacher would need to notify a family of um and if the family felt as though they wanted to opt out based on their religious beliefs. Um it suggested that they would then need to contact the building principal. And it's very clear in many in many um spots it

258says in writing communicate that their wish to opt out is due to their religious belief which would then go to the decision maker from the principal. Um Dr. Kang had suggested that that be someone like me in my role. Um and then it's also stated very clearly in the guidance that was developed most recently by that group in Massachusetts that legal counsel is um contacted or referenced to make sure that we are following the appropriate protocol because there are spots as you could imagine where there is some level of subjectivity um in terms of um sincere religious belief which is phrased as such and also intent of the lesson and um the content itself. So, um that's where we are now. Um in terms of that, >> so just to clarify for discussion, my understanding

259is that there aren't any other broad changes to the handbook. It's simply an adjustment to reflect the Supreme Court case. Member Daglio. So the question I I have that's where I got confused with this this this law where they said a designated person like so if I say I'm religious I send it to you >> but then you send it to a legal counsel is there a chance that that legal counsel says well my religious beliefs doesn't fit that for me to opt out of the situation >> I mean I can't tell you yes or no but there's there's is likely not. I mean, this is why this is going to get this is why this is the recommendation right now and that we consult with legal counsel. >> Uh because who who am I

260to question somebody's religious belief, right? If it's explained and there has to be one person who hears the same stories and makes the same kind of decision-making protocol, that's what we're looking for. >> Yeah. Remember, to answer your question, >> it happens now. I mean, it happens now. I' I've been following this and there are already planned appeals because who is going to be out there to object to somebody's religious views? What defines curriculum? There are a thousand issues and there are already groups out there planning to appeal this. It'll get appealed. Some of them will win, some of them will lose. Who knows what's going to happen? This whole thing is from a legal perspective halfbaked because the Supreme Court doesn't know what curriculum means. >> They don't apply it the same way the

261people in classrooms like you as a teacher would apply it. >> It's just real. >> So unfortunately and I I ever since we learned about this what was it Wednesday from well I learned about it Wednesday from Alicia during our call. I've been listening to a bunch of these legal podcasts trying to learn about it because I have an opinion. >> But everybody says this is going to change several times over the next couple of months because there are going to be appeals to several aspects of it. Win or lose. I mean, who knows? But I think it's too soon to tell. And there are going there's going to be a lot of litigation that comes out of it. So, a lot of it's going to be conjecture and hypothetical until that all settles. And

262I think in the in the meantime of all of that, this is we're trying to put something in place that is making sure that we, you know, are protecting what we're supposed to do, have a protocol in place, uh, to be able to move forward. >> When you look at it, who like >> Yeah. So like, like I said, thank you, members, because when I read it, I was like, well, I should be able just to say it's my religious belief. I don't want my kid to learn it. And then there shouldn't be any discussion like that's how because of the first amendment like freedom of religion. So when I heard this that's why I'm I'm asking these questions because the way it looks like a person could determine well yeah but that doesn't fit

263with your religious belief. That's that's the way I looked at it. Um, but overall I I I look at the situation and the opt out. I I I do believe in it in the sense of a parent should be making that decision >> right >> at the end of the day. And I get it and and and and to go off of what members Shabil's wife said, I totally get about bullying and acceptance and all that. And I said, and it and again, I don't want to go against what she's saying, but I feel like even if they're being taught that, what we should be really teaching them is how to respect other people. Like in the No, no, no. But what I'm saying, I'm just going off of of of and again if Kelsey

264said that I just took what she said and um and I feel like even if you teach someone this in a classroom, what they are being taught at home overwhelms what's happening in the classroom because that's who's raising them. you can at the end of the day I think it's more of like you just need to accept people who they are and I think we've learned that growing up and I think we've come far but the real problem is in and I get it mental health and I and I understand that because I deal with it with elementary and middle school kids the problem is is not teaching them the curriculum of well these people are this way and these people are that it's the bullying needs to stop and there needs to be more

265discipline with dealing with bullying and I feel like the state of Massachusetts has fallen away by the wayside when it comes to bullying. I think they need to be more severe on it. I think I think at the end of the day police should be automatically involved now instead of going through a whole little process. I feel like that's where and again that's my opinion and I that's where I stand on the issue but at the end of the day I I totally get what this is a very difficult subject um to some people at home and here but I feel like there are more major factors involved than you teaching a lesson and it's going to make everybody get along. it's more what's happening at the house that's gonna define that student too. >>

266So just to share some thoughts about how to you know I guess guide this discussion. So I think the intent of the administration is to establish a defined protocol based on the current law of the land as it exists today as we head into the new school year. just to share a brief thought um about this and I know it's it's a very personal emotional uh type of conversation uh that is being had out there in the country about issues like this right now. For me as a parent, when it comes to raising my child, I believe in the importance of emphasizing concepts like inclusion, diversity, empathy, compassion, and community. Uh I don't believe that we should be dictating necessarily to kids uh what to believe, but I believe that the concepts that I just

267mentioned are important in the context of showing our kids how to think critically about the world around them. And uh as parents, the choices that my wife and I make about our child's education, uh decisions that we make together, uh they may not be the same choices that other parents might make. And so I think the the challenge in front of us, some may say that uh inclusion and enhanced parental involvement are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, so to speak. I disagree with that. I actually think that they are not uh mutually exclusive. I think that we can have this culture of inclusion in our schools while also involving parents more. And this brought up a thought that I had today and actually uh connected with member Wlette about this. So in in

268New York City, mind you, I I just said in New York City, they actually have uh a mechanism by which they uh I guess go out of their way to advertise the various options that parents have as it relates to involvement with their kids. In New York City, of all places, they have what they call a parents bill of rights. the opportunity for a district to just be fully transparent about uh what children are learning in the classroom and the various options that are available from a parental standpoint. And so I think there's there's a a creative way for us to balance uh this conversation in a way that makes sense all around while uh living within uh the law of the land as it exists today and establishing a protocol uh going forward so

269that we have something in place. I I believe that's the heart of the administration and so I just wanted to share that as part of maybe a way to help guide the conversation. Do we have member Willlette? >> Thank you. And again I broached the topic of having a parents bill of rights and something that uh I commend you for uh initiating a draft of that proposal. Um and my concern always is when we have the sex education It's strictly an opt out option. Religion is never invoked in that. So that's part of Massachusetts state law is that when it involves human sexuality and a parent decides they want to opt out. It has nothing to do with religion. >> Right? >> So I think this issue gets clouded because ultimately it's the parent that

270will make the decision. Now, I have to emphasize respectfully is that I have my kids participate in sex education. I have no problem with age appropriate curriculum. So, I don't want to be grouped with um religious fanatics or people that have a narrow uh viewpoint. I have a deep respect for that community. My best friend out of high school came out to me in a very difficult time at Central Catholic. So I don't want to hear anybody come back to me that because I have a certain viewpoint about supporting parents who might want to opt out that somehow I engage in bigotry. That's far from the situation. What I'm concerned about is that the parents are losing their rights to educate their children and sometimes the children don't have the option to go to private

271and parochial schools and to me ultimately it's not about uh religion because sometimes I have concerns about religion and I hope that there is an ultimate universal morality that we accept people who are different than us and it's a journey And we take it based on Martin Luther King. We judge based on the content of a person's character, not the color of their skin, not their sexual orientation, not their gender identity. So it it is a balancing act and we have to find a middle path and I think that parents bill of rights is something that we should explore. But again, if you look at the sexual education law of Massachusetts, there's an opt out provision. parents are notified. It has nothing to do with religion. >> Mhm. >> So the same thing should be

272applied here. Now, if that gets tested by uh the Massachusetts government, which can't even approve an audit of the legislature, I don't have a problem having as a test case because ultimately, if you look at the language, it talks about human sexuality and curriculum in that community talks about human sexuality to a certain extent and that's their identity and I can respect that, but ultimately there's an opt out provision that has nothing to do with religion. So that's my uh two cents. Thank you. >> Member Shibilia, >> we need to make sure that we are all on the same page. What we are voting on is to include language because of a Supreme Court case that says we need to give parents the right to opt out of curriculum that is LGBTQ for religious purposes.

273>> Doesn't say that. I understand that I can read too, remember? >> But that's what it is being directed of us by the Supreme Court. A bunch of groups got together and put together this language. Member Maxwell was going to be shocked, but I agree with her. I think the language is garbage. It doesn't say what it's supposed to say. Also, Miss Golovski, do we teach evolution in our science classes? Yes, there's >> Are we going to opt out of that for religious reasons, too? >> No. >> Because that's that's anti- relligion. Are we going to One of the books that was stated in that case was the uh the >> prince >> the prince in the uh what was the prince prince in the night which I have at home and I I forgot

274on the desk when I left >> and the whole story is the prince's family is trying to find him a a nice princess and he can't find one that speaks to him. And then there's a dragon and the knight comes in and slays the dragon and the prince falls in love with the knight and they ride off and they're happily ever after. >> Oh, now I ruined the ending for you. Sorry. The prince and the knight live happily ever after. Do we have to remove that book from our classrooms now because the books are going to make the people gay? But that's that's what this case says. That's what all of the legal scholars are talking about. [Laughter] >> West Virginia Legal School, Harvard Legal Review, that's what that's what they're saying. I'm not making

275it up. I'm I'm I just repeat things. >> So, it it's not a matter of removing or changing our curriculum. >> It's pretending that this is asking us to transgender people don't exist. send a notification to to families. And then the language that we're looking at here, if you're specific to what we're looking to to suggest and add to the handbook, it talks about through curricular materials, MDOM public schools engages respect for human the human and civil rights of all individuals and then later that families may request information from the building principal on available accommodations. not promising anything of the sort but just making it um transparent to all families that of course please feel free to ask whether or not it will be granted I don't know but also like you can learn more

276about what your student is learning in class >> so a very >> but what what we're doing here is getting rid of the inclusion of a good portion of our population to just pretend they don't exist >> that's Yeah, I was even thinking, you know, I was speaking a lot with um department chairs and supervisors because there's a lot to our curriculum. There's the core curriculum, there's supplementary pieces, there's optional pieces, and I wanted to make sure that I had a good sense of all the tools that even are suggested within a curriculum. Um and Roger Lanfest, who's our social studies um department chair at the high school, brought up this elective class we call our story, which centers the history and stories of marginalized groups. And so there's a unit on LGBTQ in terms

277of um historical content, civil rights, McCarthyism, hate crime, gender identity, and also other historically marginalized groups um black Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and those are units of study that students can choose to delve into. So really something that we appreciate in the district, I think we could all agree, is the diversity that we have here. Um, and this it this case very clearly says that it's not um an opt out of experiencing diversity and being around diverse peers and engaging in that representation. And where it gets to that that um I'll say what could be a muddy piece is if there's amendment or court cases supreme court cases are discuss discussed regularly in social studies classes is that something that we would notify of or not and where does the line become drawn so I

278think the language that's suggested is just saying that there there can be a discussion with your bu building principal about content if you're concerned and teachers will have notified you, which is historical historical practice at the high school if there's an element of even a novel that we we suspect students may find triggering. There may be a letter that goes home to notify parents, hey, we're going to be reading this novel. Uh there's a couple paragraphs on this topic. If this is concerning to you, reach out. We might be able to offer a supplement, things like that. So, that that is past practice. singling out I think this one um demographic of our student population is what's what's I think troubling some of the members. >> I also want to share that so attorney Joyce

279uh was involved in helping to write this and I did have some contact with him. Um they of course support the language because it is a little muddy and could change. Um, but they also are here to make sure that our school committees are doing what we're supposed to do so that we follow some of the rules we're supposed to follow. Um, they are also um working on some internal letters and protocols for us too that would help us uh when we're notifying families of the curriculum and you know internally how are we making those decisions and making those calls. I just want to put that out there because I did have some communication with him after Wednesday. Hypothetically, what happens if the body votes no? >> Um, I mean, if the body votes no,

280I guess there I would be very uh I'd probably still have to do it unless the your body I mean, if you guys vote no and then we do nothing, we do nothing, I guess. But then it's got to be clear that the body has instructed me uh to not execute any further. I would imagine. I mean, I don't that's putting that's putting us and you guys probably in a precarious position. >> The other thing to keep in mind, too, is that in the event of successful appeals and any changes to that, you know, we >> we >> I mean, as long as I think ultimately the the point is to stay in keep asking and nothing. Biden administration had title nine regulations that were nullified by uh further court decisions and by the incoming

281administration. So this is a still a fluid situation. Okay. So we will adapt connection. >> Absolutely. >> No, I said I don't understand your connection. >> Okay. We had to rush to approve Biden's Title 9 regulations. It was like it was going to be the end of the world if we didn't approve Biden's Title 9 regulations which were then partially nullified by further uh court decision and then when the incoming administration came in they removed the rest of that uh executive order. So I operate again from the premise that either you have the Supreme Court make a decision or you have an act of Congress. When you have these executive orders, I warned that we shouldn't be rushing down that path because things are change and things become fluid. This could be the same thing.

282My original premise still remains. >> Sexual education in Massachusetts has an opt out. Has nothing to do with religion. It it fords it to the parents. The same thing should apply here. But, you know, it's up to the body. But there's a big difference between executing on Title Nine, which is sexual harassment protections in our buildings versus >> Well, yes, >> but further marginalizing a group of people who again going to your opinion and I'm starting to get sick of it because I try to be like I can I was trying to be respectful of everybody's opinion, right? I'm not marginalizing anyone. >> Can I say something? >> We need to keep order. We need everybody to respect each other's speaking time. Uh just to clarify the motion. So in going through the agenda, I

283just want to clarify that the agenda states that this is approval of the PK through8 handbook and 9 through2 handbook. That is the motion that I read into the record. Just to clarify what we're talking about here, this is a motion to approve the PK through8 and 9 through 12 handbooks as currently posted with the one addition of the language needed to comply with the recent Supreme Court ruling in Machmood versus Taylor. The secretary provided me with the clarification just to state for the record ultimately to clarify what we're doing here. Um, so what we need to do at this point is do we have any other further discussion? >> Yes, >> member Donovan. >> Yeah, I now I'm really in those muddy waters. So the language we are discussing is the italic, right? And

284that is it. >> That's the only language >> that is. >> But I have a followup >> that No, but >> but that is it. So when I look at this and I go, okay, you know, it's nothing, >> pardon me, >> purposely ambiguous. >> Yeah. Um, that's where I I that's where I struggle, but I understand there is a reason why ambiguity can be a productive thing as we continue down this road. Okay. I just needed to clarify that. Thank you, >> member Maxwell. >> Okay, so when we were in the subcommittee meeting, we did ask the question of, you know, in this policy, it says nothing about opting out due to religion. The response to that was, I have to follow that by law so that when parents ask specifically about the material

285and we go through the process and the material is that they don't want their child exposed to the LGBTQ related, then Lisa or we have to come up with an alternative. The law is that I have to do that. We have to give parents the permission, the understanding that they have to ask. And I can't just guess. If we have kids continuously opting out of public school curriculum, I'm going to have to pull in wonders and stories. And now the teachers are going to have two kids who have the opt out of whatever their story and reading is for their actual curriculum that we have and figure out an alternative. There's just going to be a lot of work with this and how it goes. So unless a parent knows that they have to ask

286and that it's a religious exemption, it's that's the only problem I have with this. I don't even have a problem with the wording. I don't I have a problem with that. We're saying that it is and that part she you know the other thing that was said is that is that part is a procedural part and that's why it's not in the policy. So if if that's the case, then we need to talk about this wording because I would I would much rather approve a policy that says that our parents can opt out and it has nothing to do with religious exemption. Yes, by law we have to offer it as a religious exemption, but why can't we take it one step further and allow an opt-in for people that don't want this um taught

287or whatever to their kids. We do it with sexed. We do it with mental health opt outs. We we do offer opt outs. So I'm not sure why this one specifically is the one that we're going to say, well this one has to be a religious exemption. That's the only problem I have with this. That's all. >> So I I totally agree that it should be for both options religious and the opt out. But the way it works if that's the federal law, the state law, >> but we're offering it. >> Okay, I'm just explain. >> Okay, and anybody could correct me on this. The way it works, the federal law for this specific topic is this is the law. The state can't over the federal law and add on to that law. They can

288only go if the law was uh Why is it backwards? Because the state can't do more than the federal law. >> No, but we could do an addition to the federal law. >> To this law? Probably not. No. No. Because that's what the Supreme Court said. But I totally agree with you. It should be allowed with the option. But we're voting on >> Well, that's procedural. It's not in the >> But what I'm agreeing with you on is how is the procedure going to go? Because people might not know of this option. Like let's be real like and not many people are watching these meetings. Okay. So what is the procedure of how you going to release this to the public right before school starts? Are you going to go like through through the campus

289or how is that going to go too? Because I think that's also your concern is people not getting the notification that they have this option cuz kids you bring a permission slip home. We all know kids throw it in their bag and they go, "I'm not going to give it to my parents." Like, I deal with it all the time. So, is there going to be a permission slip? That's another right. Is that one of your concerns, too? >> I think that the whole point is it's in the handbook. So, when parents ask, we'll answer. And they I I should say I mean, this happens already. This is why like >> every school district does this already. When parents call us and ask about our curriculum, there are things that we do accommodate based on

290different things, ideologies, religion. We do that already. >> So, I don't I don't uh foresee any additional >> like notice. It's in the handbook. If parents have concerns and issues about a particular topic, they absolutely will be asking us for that. I'm also looking at the time. Mayor, >> do we have any other discussion? So, we're going to take a yes or no vote on the proposed language regarding the accommodations. >> Mayor, who gave the motion in the second? I'm sorry, I missed it. Was there one? >> The folks who did that, we'll have to refresh my memory. >> Voting on the italic. >> I'm sorry. >> The folks who did that, I I at this point, I didn't take a note of who did that. believe it was member Keegan who motioned and I

291seconded it. >> Yes, me vice chair Keegan and then member Shabilia. >> Uh we'll take a roll call vote on uh this measure. >> Member Daglio, >> no. >> Member Dunovan, >> yes. >> Member Keegan, >> yes. >> Member Maxwell, >> no. >> Member Shabilia, >> no. >> Member Willlette, >> no. >> Mayor Borod >> to adopt this a yes. The measure fails. Next, we're on to um the Crest board member and delegate uh measure here for fiscal year 26. We need a motion in a second. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion from member Daglio, second from member Shabilia. Discussion. >> Quick question. Does it have And I'm not saying it shouldn't, but does it have to be Brandy or or >> be one of you? >> Oh, okay. But there's a lot of

292meeting. >> It's either me or a school committee member. Gotcha. >> Is my understanding. I There are a few school committee members on the board of 16. The rest are superintendent. I don't think there there's any other like school administrator on it. Any other questions? All right. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. The eyes have it. Uh, we are now moving on. >> Mayor, I I'm so sorry. We actually have to end the meeting cuz it's 10:00. So, um, everything else that's on the agenda at this point will be moved to, uh, August 25th, but uh, we do have to have an executive session tonight. So, if we close it, let the kids leave. They're the ones that need to leave at 10:00. >> Um, Colleen and I will have a quick executive

293session with you. >> Okay. >> And then again, all of this will just be I just made sure there's nothing timely. I mean like that will prevent us from opening school. All the contracts and and these can be done on August 25th. So we'll just lift this and put it on that agenda. >> Okay. So at this point um what I will do is we're going to fast forward uh to the executive session. So with no further business to discuss as it relates to tonight agenda with everything else move to the following meeting. We need a motion and a second to adjourn the business workshop session of the Maduan school committee. >> So moved >> for August 11, 2025 and enter into executive session. We have the motion from member Zaglio. >> Second. >> The

294second is from the vice chair pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 38 section 213 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body. and the chair so declares unit B. Uh we will not reconvene into the open session at the conclusion of the executive session. Uh we'll take a roll call to enter executive session. >> Member Zaglio, >> yes. >> Dunovan, >> yes. >> Member Keegan, >> yes. >> Member Maxwell, >> yes. >> Member Shabilia, >> yes. >> Member Wlette, >> yes. >> Mayor Boragan, >> yes. Unanimous. >> So the time is 10:02. Our open meeting is adjourned. We'll now enter executive session. >> Good night, Muan. [Music]