School Committee Meeting: March 6, 2025

001[Music] all right good evening and welcome to this school committee meeting uh sorry this scheduled meeting of the Milford school committee today is Thursday March 6 2025 and this meeting is being broadcast and recorded by Milford TV copies can be obtained at the request of this board or through central office we'll start tonight with announcements correspondence and distribution if any member have any of those right I just have one piece to share um which I will not share much on because we have an update coming on it but I did receive one email related to the roof in this facility um from the parents of one student here um we'll get into that in agenda item three so I won't get into it further at this current time um if there is nothing else that

002would bring us to invitation to speak you did go ahead I did sorry uh this weekend um um M kathon which is coached by my wife um they actually did their their their state um competition at MIT so the kids got to spend the entire day wandering around MIT and um they they had a apparently great experience and um again Milford placed and you know we're competing against the you know the the the west and all the really competitive districts we do very very very well so congratulations to the team very nice all right I'm going to slow down for a second anything else I know it's copy today all right now we'll move on to invitation to speak please come on up so while you're settling in at either one of those chairs um

003just let you know invitation to speak is a public feedback to the school committee allowing members to listen and understand Community concerns it's not intended for debate and the speaker should provide their name and keep their comments to three minutes or less um unless otherwise extended by the chair the full policy can be read under file be DH which is on our district website so hi thank you for coming and thank you for joining us hello my name is cathine Reed I actually have a student at Milford High I do see MHS roof update on the docket um I'm actually here to voice my concern about that I did see the news article so I am rather concerned after also seeing my son's attendance record that the roof is affecting his health um he has

004been six several times this year and I do not think it's a coincidence due to the roof issue in the harsh winter that we've had I am kind of puzzled to see how long this has been and how bad it has gotten I see the buckets around the facility and I'm rather appalled so I just came here today because I'd like to get some answers on what's going to go towards that roof update um I know that there was according to my son there was a uh debate on a new high school being built somewhere down the line of future however um I'm concerned with the next two years of him attending and the roof being kind of an issue at hand and needing what I would consider immediate repair okay thank you anything else

005you like to share um no again you guys have that on the docket I'm here to just try to get the information and try to relay on what's going to be done because unfortunately I do think that the roof issue is affecting health concerns as well as children getting sick because they shouldn't be exposed to leaking reeks or mold in the building of course that's something that they come into you know a thousand plus kids come into this building a day and that they should not be exposed to what could be harmful to their own health all right thank you for sharing your statements thank you thanks for coming thank you all right that will bring us to my next point which is right into an MHS roof update so let me just grab some

006extra notes here all right so yesterday Chris and I met with the facilities director and with Dr cona we had an emergency longrange planning and Facilities meeting um in part to discuss what's been going on with the roof here so just a um timeline of events I guess a rough timeline events of what we discussed so as we all know the roof began leaking uh once the ice and the snow from the previous snowstorm started melting and that started last week the facilities director uh became in contact with the Board of Health on Thursday which was the 27th and then the fire department as well and their role of Public Safety um also got involved with the facilities director in terms of what's going on here so earlier this week with the ice and snow

007being melted the facilities director uh members of no fire department and two separate roofing contractors including the one that's provided warranty work for us in the past was here and they did survey the roof um there were necessary repairs that were uncovered and some of those repairs were made by the facilities team others were identified as being outside of their abilities and will require a contractor so that's why we had those two contractors here um on site the director is director of facilities is working to G at least one more quote um for the typical process of getting three in terms of what has to be done so I can share based on the two pieces of information we have from one um one organization that is local I believe and one being the vendor

008we've always used that I believe installed the roof and has warrantied it we're looking at a ballpark number and this is not a quoted number at any means but around1 125,000 for specific localized repairs to the pieces that we're leaking in the section just outside here and the section over the front of the building um and one of the companies did give us a quote all the way up to what it would cost to just outright replace the roof in those two sections that is upwards of $2.3 billion for I don't have a percentage but two small sections of the roof so uh essentially the point of sharing that with everyone is that at the moment we are looking at every option on the table um on what to do with this so a couple

009other important pieces to share um the Milford Fire Department did have a couple concerns um with safety those concerns surrounded two light fixtures that were in close proximity to the leaks um the response to that which they approved was the electrician shutting those or disconnecting those pictures and and making those those pieces safe for now um the Board of Health and the director of facilities have been speaking again they were involved uh in talks on Thursday they spoke I believe over the weekend and the Board of Health has also come on site um as of yesterday in the communications with the Board of Health and with our facilities director the Board of Health stated that there was no need to perform any air quality testing in this building due to the leaks so um we're

010following their lead obviously because they are the ones that are the experts in some of that stuff so uh the only other piece that I would add that I didn't have in my notes initially was that we did check in with the fac the facilities director today based on the rain we had last night as we all saw when we walked in there are more buckets out there so um some of the damage that occurred from that ice melting refreezing over the weekend and then finally melting again is still there so um he was on the roof again with a contractor today to revisit and I I do know that um he told Chris and I that obviously what it rains they get fresh evidence of specifically where some of these problems are and they

011were looking at that as well so I'm going to stop there that was the highlight of where we are so in short we need to get a contractor come in here and at a minimum correct the specific damage which is something that we have done in the past over and over again there's been leaks identified contractors come in to repair them new leaks show up the contractor comes back in to repair them and it's the cycle we've been in do you have more to share I do on the update of course away so I think yeah everybody had received a few emails from me this week and kind of did a did a history lesson um so I'm just going to I'll read through some of those points just more for the in the sense

012of the viewing audience and then it may spearhead some more some more questions from our group but uh as we know the roof was installed in uh 2003 by trimco um and it cost us uh three around $3.1 million it is a ballast roof since then you know uh you know the roof had a 20-year warranty so that's when the discussion started just prior to that to 2023 where we'd hit that 20-year Mark so some of the past meetings in the history so in the winter of 21 and 22 there were leaks so in the spring of 22 uh school committee uh called for the leaks log from from tremco in the spring of 22 school committee discussed extending the warranty with tremco um and then we all because we had looked at those logs

013and then in June uh June 16th of 22 the superintendent sent an email to school committee about the roof so again we've we've talked about this this isn't anything new that I think everybody needs to to kind of understand like we are aware of this we we uh were hopeful that the leaks were being fixed right kind of a lot of that's out of our control we're just we get reports um so the superintendent sent that sent the email on June um at that time Rob Quinn who was our facilities director at the time was uh currently working to develop an extended warranty agreement um you know I was asked to go up on the roof CU I was chair at the time I just didn't see at any benefit right it's it's a it's

014a balance roof they were going to show me work that's done on a roof uh even with my engineering degree I I understand it's I wasn't going to offer anything more than agreeing with someone and just kind of shake my head like yeah that's where leak it so I didn't do that I know that was and I think a few of you had asked if I actually had done that so um during that time awing and the front front lobby had issues which we're seeing still um and the hopes at that time were because our roof was still under warranty right because this is in 22 they would be addressed by the roof Warranty vendor okay from there in July 20th of 22 the facility subcommittee met with trem code to discuss the the roof

015itself trco stated in that meeting the roof was watertight all right that's in the meeting minutes uh work was done on the roof section over the MHS reference uh entrance all right there was ponding occurring that was fixed obviously that's one of the areas that's still leaking right and this was in July of 22 um you know tremco did state that additional roof work was needed to be proactive with it and uh they also uh you know recommended that we do some testing of different areas of the roof to make sure that water didn't come through and basically cause any type of of damage in there so you know I think part of that again this this group re received information that the roof was watertight that's what frco had that was our vendor right

016so we can only go by what we are told on that obviously we do see that there's leaks but you know we we look towards our facilities Department um you know we' we've talked about this topic many times again they said that the ponding wasn't an issue anymore but there was some proactive work that needed to be done last part of it was in December of 23 uh the superintendent sent us an email indicating Lukes leaks in the uh roof again um and then that one let's see I'm sorry that one yeah several sections of the building had multiple leaks and this was after a significant storm in the area you know there was the e-wing the bwing uh the Jim Lobby so there was extensive amounts of leaks in that so again nothing new

017as Matt said this most recent one fire department came in to investigate they didn't have any concerns other than the two light fixtures Board of Health's been here they you know Carlos has been in touch with them they don't have any concerns they've giving it the all clear doesn't mean that we as this committee we can pursue other avenues if we so so deem right so if we feel like air quality is going to be an issue and we want to check that box off and and going through that maybe we do that's a discussion so I guess yeah what are our next steps you know and I'll look at everybody else if they want to add anything or asked questions in regards to yesterday's meeting but I think you know yesterday's meeting was you

018know you know it was beneficial and it kind of went back to and I and I fed this information to Carlos so Carlos is aware of a lot of the history and just you know trying to work with Carlos to uh be as proactive as possible yeah thank you just to add to what excuse me to add what Chris to what Chris said um and Chris provided us with a lot of background information some of which I had I don't know that I could have ever found it as quickly as he did but there's a couple of points here um one of them being that we left it a couple of years ago that the administration and the facilities director was going to um look into and and affect the extended warranty which never happened

019now an extended warranty doesn't stop a leak but it it it deals with it when it happens that that never happened I don't know why um I don't know if somebody deemed it wasn't necessary or if it was overlooked um and I just totally lost my second train of thought um oh it was about the testing there was there was testing suggested and recommended and it was it's in one of these minutes that Chris sent over that the the tremco people suggested test testing the moisture content in the insulation that's on the roof below you know below the waterproof layer and based on those results to I guess pretty much develop an action plan and decide whether it needs a refurb or replacement or spot um correct me if I'm wrong spot repairs and I

020don't to my knowledge that never happened either so effectively we've had all these problems and it's never been dealt with by facilities or our Administration and I I do want to qualify that our new facilities director was not here during most of that time I don't know if he was ever brought up to speed on these reports I suspect that he wasn't um you know we've had mild Winters the last two years I think he was only here for one of them so you know an incident happened nobody expressed the urgency and or or or the history of of this and so I'm not looking to lay blame on anybody but there's certainly there's been a lot of people that have been remiss and the responsibility on dealing with this and and maybe myself too

021and maybe some of us here but we're not operational we we give guidance we give direction and if it falls on deaf ears it falls on deaf ears so we we're now you know despite all of that history we're left with a massively leaking roof and how are we going to go forward and I don't know how we're going to go forward with that I'm looking for further discussion from this committee and and facilities and administration we were given a heat map from 202 correct is is that the testing that you're talking about it's over there I can bring that over can you around that identifies number one the two spots that we're talking about in terms of an AER aerial view of um of this building but the heat map something I don't necessarily

022fully understand other than that may been may have been that moisture content test um that was before me on the facility so I just the first time I've seen it I don't know if that is part of the assessment that that you're referencing um but that's just another question of what was done with this information once it was obtained so I I hadn't seen this but or if I did I forgot about it to be totally honest so that was new to you too and we got that handed to us yesterday correct that so I wasn't there yesterday so no I understand um I meant Chris so that was something that was uncovered by Carlos and his investigation of this roof when this problem started so Carlos being our current faciliity director so um is

023there a date on this 2022 yeah so that was so that came from that that came as part of that string of emails right it was just never presented to us which is kind of okay we don't need every bit of information it was presented to somebody and apparently there was no I think this brings up the the continued question that you have which is you know something was done by a professional and that did not manifest into further discussion and planning that we're aware of so um to Circle this uh I guess back around a bit though the and even just to comment on on the previous speaker we talk a lot about a new building and we are planning a new building and that will be happening but that quite frankly means absolutely

024nothing to anyone above sixth grade because they're not going to see it and they still have to come in here every day and learn and have a comfortable environment so um where we stand right now with the current problem is I think a two it's a two-part discussion it's a long-term discussion about what we realistically need to have this roof be as leak free as possible between now and the time that this building is no longer used and the other piece is where we left off uh yesterday's meeting Chris and I left off yesterday's meeting which is essentially the the longrange planning subcommittee directing Administration and the facilities director to go get another quote or two to get a few more professional opinions on what the best plan of action is because again this roof

025is 202 23 years old so it can't be expected to be perfect but the question is what do we do what what's the professional opinion of roofers not you know mechanical engineers and Computer Guys of what needs to be done to make this facility as as dry as possible for the next four years so yeah one more thing to add is I Carlos had those same minutes uh from that July 20th meeting I sent those to Carlos because those had all the contact information or the the individuals we spoke to at tremco the individuals that Carlos spoke to most recently were different different individuals so he can now try to maybe connect some dots where people that worked here in the past to the people that are working here now from trco um hopefully trco

026can work with us on something like that but there is also a local vendor as Matt said that is willing to to work for us in off the cuff uh at a a much re more reasonable rate which is good so we we just ask them again to get a a third quote that way we can kind of compare the two just since they're so drastically different but uh I think the good news or the news that like Matt had said is yeah we're being proactive in wanting to fix this we we know that it that there's you know this the roof is leaking the ceilings there's waterfalls going on here there's buckets all over the place and it's just not a good learning environment like I don't do not deny that and I I

027know that all of you probably would agree with me on that and we want this fixed um I think the only other thing I would add is it's a ballast roof so the roofs a sense covered with with B which is like rocks so you can't necessarily see the membrane and the cracks underneath so in order to inspect it you have to move all the Ballance out of the way inspect it and move the Ballance back uh so it's the the inspection process would be expensive in in itself too so and that's just the roof that we have um so obviously you know Carlos knows about it so hopefully he can kind of work through a better inspection process and to make sure that we can budget it appropriately so thank you uh I want

028to thank our speaker I think um as it can be hard to come here and come to these meetings and I think it's super important that we hear from people about concerns certainly we're well aware of this one um but just wanted to thank you for raising it to our attention in the manner in which you did from my perspective Matt there's three issues it's health safety and financial so from a health standpoint I completely respect the board of Health's opinion I am completely not satisfied with that answer so I'd like to make a motion that we have an air quality test done I've actually reached out to the board of house one individual specifically who said he would contact the State and have them come and do inspection if that's not taken care of

029in the next two weeks I would like to make sure that we personally are ensuring that that's done I send one of the individual I love most in this world to this building every day and I know thousands of other residents also do and I think we should have that test completed okay that's my health motion um on the safety front I just want to thank God motion yes can we can we work let's I don't lose that up to $5,000 to have an air quality test on okay to the extent it's not already organized in the near future fut because I think it's going to be taken care of and we won't need when did you talk to that person today this afternoon right who would do this inspection Megan uh the state would

030send out their public their Department of Public Heth okay okay and and that's something we we can pay the state to come and do that so my understanding is Tak care of my understanding is it will be taken care of by the state John I would make a motion if it's not that we would fund it y okay so we motion again to um have an air quality test done up to $5,000 if we have to pay for it second by Michael all in favor how wasy one thank you thank you Megan on the yep no problem on the safety front just want to say thanks for all the Outreach I think it's super important to have the right people coming in and looking so it seems like at the moment that's covered so appreciate

031the facility's continued work to make sure no one's slipping falling Etc um and then on the financial front mat I guess my my question is should we be talking about a warrant article to help cover this because Town meeting's coming up and so there's work that's going to need to be done I don't want to get a new roof that's to me not fiscally responsible but we should figure out what is the scope do and just in the next month if we want to actually bring an article forward to fund that so I I can ask Z okay the deadline they gave everyone pass oh sorry okay but when I talked to him okay to what Michael just said it's a loose deadline so I would we want to frame one up now I was

032just say when I talk to him about the budget stuff tomorrow I will ask him his recommendations it may be put a blank one forward so the placeholder is there and you can always take it up do I want to make a motion to move a warn article forward that supports some scope of work for roof repairs at MHS amount to be determined second for discussion discussion so I agree it is it is a loose deadline on these on on the um warrant articles we don't we don't even know what we would ask for today but I would I would I do support um supporting this article for some kind of funding we just don't know what we need yet and and you know we now we have the evaluation from 3 years ago 2

033and a half years ago um but I I guess this doesn't really fall into this specific discussion but I like to the point of Megan of the article but we have a roof that was you know an 18year life expectancy and now we're looking at it being in six years if we have a new high school and that this new high school or this addition might still have the same roof because it might go outwards it might go left right front and center but not go up so we we might still need a roof on this building um and now now we're going to be 10 years past a life expectancy and I I think that yeah I think every I think they should have been addressed long ago and it's it hasn't been but

034we can't go backwards so we need to go forward with this so I I totally support this but I just want to provide some justification and quickly add on to the the roof needing repairs because just for everybody's information the cost to replace to replace the roof would be around $10 million so so obviously with that school renovation newness whatever it is looming a $10 million investment would be very significant but yeah and that was 22 prices right so but to allocate funds to fix what we currently have and make it more robust for the students that are here I think is a great idea um so we back when we're discussing this one of the thoughts was we would have a um we we we couldn't do the warranty for whatever reason but we

035would fix that needed so I think the intent was and I think we talked about it every year we would put some money in the budget to have allocated to fix the roof and I think we need to start to put that into the budget it's a number 20 grand 30 grand just a placeholder um every year until you know new school comes so just my thoughts in discussion is that a capital article just to clarify okay that was just something we can discuss MH and I do I recall that specific discussion and and in some parts I think I'll say that we we missed keeping on it because I think we had some nicer weather and less snow and it didn't necessarily hit us and then we had boilers fail and our attention shifted

036so um we did have that discussion and I from what I recall we never really got the feedback we were looking for which was estimates on what this would cost so we would know how much to put aside yeah okay just in a bucket so I think that that's obviously an excellent decision to a discussion to have too I would just add that my recol recollection is that we were going to extend the warranty and the administration didn't do that whether it was facilities or central office or something else it was never our intent we never consciously said let's not renew the warranty we'll fix it out of budget or we we it's it's more cost effective to pay for the repairs we we didn't get to that discussion until it was like oh no

037we didn't renew the warranty and or extend the warranty and it was too late so that's when the let's put some money at side every year cuz we know it's going to keep leaking and then you know maybe again maybe I was remissed maybe others were we didn't put that in the budget maybe it was a a fairly dry winter the last two years and so yeah we we own this though we have we have a leaky roof so what are we going to do right we can't go on like this there another motion no no that we're still on that motion the motion oh sorry I apologize this is just discussion we have a motion in a second discussion's fine motion was made by Megan to draft an article related to repairing the roof

038as a placeholder for this Springtown meeting who was the second second blind Michael is the discussion complete on this piece all right all in favor yes thank you all right Brandon anything else um I I I everyone's statement right I mean it's obviously unacceptable um that we have the situation um we made decisions uh as a town as a committee in the past to see how long we can limp this along and now we're at a really literal breaking point which is fine we're going to fix it um I think you know part of our Outreach to the community um needs to address this what we're talking about tonight um in a way that everyone understands that hey we're taking this very seriously um we are being proactive while being as fiscally responsible as we

039can so we're trying to balance all of it um I know it gets a little crazy on social media sites but you know I think we need to be a little bit more active I think Josh's message this past Friday was it um was good I think we need a little bit more of it to be perfectly honest so I'd like to see more communication about this issue as we go forward um with each you know new Milestone that we accomplish um given up to the community so the the air quality results should be immediately released to the community uh when we sign a contract to do this work should be released to the community so so as transparent as we possibly can be but this should be addressed um and I do you know

040obviously take responsibility being in the seat um and uh you know we owe it to our students to fix this I'll say one thing real quick I would remind everybody present and watching that um you don't know the leak until it actually starts melting right and so once it starts melting you have to let the the the water um leave and dry before it can be fixed so um you know we should be maintaining this every year however you don't find a leak until it actually starts leaking so that's also part of the problem you don't know until you know the ice starts melting and then you know starts raing down so I'm glad we're um putting somebody into the budget to move this forward yeah I I agree with what Mike said and I

041I think I kind of said it earlier the warranty wasn't going to fix the leaks it was going to repair the leaks after they happened but we didn't follow through with this this this document here with the with the moisture content test and being proactive then when they realized I I I haven't even digested this cuz I just I'm looking over Chris's shoulder but this never came to us right so we we didn't as a district perform as we said we were going to perform back in 2022 and look at the moisture content and then decide what to do with the roof maybe back then it was X number of dollars to do that 50% cost repair we didn't do that we can't go back in time but we we didn't really Embrace this so

042of speak is okay when it leaks we're going to have to fix it [Music] we at least this committee didn't do that somebody maybe somebody did but this committee didn't do that and I'm not trying to push the responsibility or the blame off but I'm just trying to explain it to to anybody who is not as in tune as we are this this was everybody dropped the ball here period and my just my opinion I'm not speaking for anybody else here thank you all right just going to repeat the tasks I have on my list here so that we uh we're good to go so we have two motions that were approved um for air quality testing so um I will serle that one back to the director of facilities and administration to say I

043know we asked Board of Health if it needed to be done and they said no now we're going to tell them we want to do it um and then see what the process is with the state or again if we have to do it ourselves the other one was getting an article Direct drafted as soon as possible and over to town hall related to what could potentially cost us money to repair the roof and we are still obviously waiting for the director facilities to also have additional quotes on what the actual repairs look like I I just kind of want to add I guess based on hearing hearing how you just presented this and I don't disagree with anything but we're not operational in in in a general sense we don't get into this the

044the students in the education on a on a granular daily level but we are responsible for all of these school facility buildings as as a school committee so I I guess I'm a little more tense and and um focused on this is this is this is one of our select roles you know along with budget and policy but we we have a certain level of responsibility we don't we don't direct the maintenance team what to do but we have a responsibility to keep these buildings um in in in good condition so um Direct indirectly it's it's it's this is one of our few roles so I I don't want to be remiss in that it's it's um it hits home to me yeah you're right this is this is on I think the full leadership

045group as a committee Administration and we can't direct that it's it's a team effort through the administration but I don't want to be like oh we just yeah we suggest this we we need to be a little bit more integrally involved which we have been which is why we have a more active facility subcommittee which is a new name from The Long range educational plan facilities whatever it was called earlier but um no this this just hits home for me so yeah just to clarify the the we in my statement there where we don't have Administration here right now so I'm I'm volunteering to make sure they hear what we said immediately so um but they can act on that so I'll let them know all right I'm kidding you can thank you all right

046so I think that wraps up this discussion for now um I fully intend on keeping this as a line item on this agenda for the near future so we can have regular updates and carry on as we need to so that will not come off take a breath now um let's move on to Let's skip over four for a moment and knock out some of these other ones that I think we should be able to pass through quickly um before we have another deep in depth conversation so let's go to agenda item five which is The NPS policy adoption this was a um this is a minor um policy change uh we added to the policy that John and I kind of dug into year and a half ago oh just just for clarification we're

047talking about file bdfb which is community use program policy yeah um it's just adding there um that the community use director will be creating a handbook and presenting that to us yearly for approval um that's the intent so um minor change any discussion on that idea I see that okay brings us to action so motion to approve the new changes to file policy file bdfb motion by Chris second by Robin just quickly discussion thank you Mike for uh working with the community use director Chris Burns I'm not sure if was this the entire committee if so uh or entire subcommittee so I appreciate the U the work on this as we continue to refine the policies any further discussion yeah I'll just I'll just add Michael's done a lot of work with the community use

048um programs and policies and I I just want to express appreciation for that too I think we've we've come a long way in in um clarifying A lot of aspects excellent thank you all right motion by Chris second by Robin all in favor unanimous thank you all right request for outof State travel so we have something here um related to the nassp annual conference in Seattle from July 11th to 13th 2025 there's a link on that information in the packet um Dr Arland was planning on being here but I understand that he's under the weather so he's not I have a statement from him that I can share that hopefully will clarify any questions that come up so it states that this is an annual conference for the National Association of Secondary School principles it's

049the leading Professional Organization for High School principles in the United States the conference will provide an opportunity to engage leading Scholars and practitioners on a range of topics including instructional Leadership School climate student wellness and organizational development is this for him to go this is for Josh to go yes I'll make a motion to approve the travel MK motion by Megan to approve second second by Michael any discussion on that just quickly I think it just shows that Josh is always continuing to to improve his leadership with professional development in in conferences like this so certainly in support of it excellent I see no other discussion all in favor unanimous thank you all right on to the consent agenda so I'm going to strike approval of warrants from this list and the reason for that

050is that they were printed in uh given to us before the superintendent had a chance to certify him himself because he is traveling this week as well so we will not have that included so tonight's consent agenda is going to include the following the approval of minutes from the February 27th 2025 regular session meeting and the February 27 2025 executive session which is approval only a professional development in the amount of $3,094 um and there's a personal update tucked in there as well that we'll get voted on for fun can you pull the first you want me to pull out the Personnel update if possible sure why not I apologize also but there's a track change in the February 27th meeting minutes I don't think we're going to approve those just yet there's a question

051on uh section three I think we should just resolve that okay sorry let me just look at what we looking here sry oh in the red sorry Pi a motion with an edit uh we could do a motion with an edit if anyone knows the answer to that I did no I did abstain you did abstain okay there we go all right so let me start that one over so we're striking approval of warrant and we're striking person Prof sorry update um okay so what a red line the consent agenda is going to include the approval of minutes for February 27th 2025 regular session and the approval only of the February 27th 2025 executive session Rel as well as professional development for $394 and everybody saw the change so we'll do with that all right

052motion by Brendan second by Robin all in favor two thank you all right let me catch up play this consent J really saves a lot of time I really honestly it shortens the that's about all that's been doing for us was it worth the idea um all right uh subcommittee updates I'll throw that out there really quickly obviously facilities met there was one other topic on there that I can give a high level or you can give a high level go for it and then I'll fill in the blanks all right so the high level on the other topic that we talked about was related to the Stacy heating so we've uh obviously worked on the boilers there's still some heating issues in certain classrooms um the facility subcommittee met and one of the directives

053was to get an outside vendor to come in and just assess the overall heating we have high tech brand new boilers we have some new controls we have some controls that are older than I am um we're trying to figure out what's going on there Chris again in his infinite umle thing and research this history lessons he's pulled uh he's pulled Town council's history class out of his pocket um uncovered some stuff that was done in 2019 and approved in terms of uh review of the system and controls and some money that was set aside for control uh replacement more information that was seemingly new to the facilities director um so there was some investigation going back to try to determine what was done with that so that was one piece that came out of

054it um the other piece is that there was leftover money from an article that was related to the boilers at Stacy and the discussion circled around a bit of whether or not some of that money can be used for other HVAC components pieces um that seemed to be a little bit up in the air on some of the stuff we wanted to do in terms of a engineering study which is is called out in the article um replacing an HVAC unit in the auditorium to help with the heating and cooling in there may or may not fit so there's some more discussion that has to happen but uh the facilities director is gathering multiple quotes on an engineering study at a minimum for the controls and the heating system at Stacy and we need to

055get some clarification on whether or not that can include electrical and plumbing in terms of like all of the core systems I miss anything no uh I'll just add yeah thank you for that update on that part of it again I sat there too and did the digging and I think as Matt said the the most glaring piece of information was the $92,000 that was allocated at the uh fall of a 2019 town meeting right and and that was the as it was worded in town meeting the last phase of a fiveyear uh fiveyear process of upgrading the HVAC equipment controls and software um I know there's been some questions and concerns that nothing's been done at Stacy this actually tells a little bit different story at least that's what we've been told so again

056going back to about 2014 to 2015 ending in 2019 at for $992,000 they were work done at Stacy and we just did we just invested $1.2 million in the heating system so um old building I and and I don't disagree that things are not functioning as we had hoped in that building right now so as Matt said we told Carlos or not not told excuse me we asked Carlos hey can you go back let's look at what was done during that time frame so that way we can get a better understanding what was done what still still not working right now so that way again we can formulate a plan to to fix those parts that are not working so again there's a lot more information to uncover um and our hope is that we

057can uncover that information and really tell a story of what we've done and again what we still need to do s so um I I did miss the past several facility subcommittee meetings um but I was there at the meeting in over over the winter break and what I asked for and and in some of this I had not recognized that we had that money that was appropriated in 2019 and it wasn't fully expended as far as I know right I'm not sure on that uh I don't think it was in 2019 far predates our new facilities director but what I'm looking for as as one member of of the committee in the facility subcommittee member uh and the facility subcommittee is an answer on what's it going to take to get this system working

058the way it was designed in 1995 or 1996 when this building was was renovated um I hear a lot of chatter about oh we can put you know a new energy management system in and we can do this and the pneumatic controls are failing well what's it going to take to get it working the way it was designed let's start that's my Benchmark that's what's that's that's the question I asked I don't have that answer yet I think I don't know that our facilities team can do it inhouse and that's okay but let's get some answers to this not let's not throw money at a problem I mean when when when your car doesn't work and your backyard mechanic you don't just start changing parts well you might but that's probably not the most the

059effective way to approach a problem can we can we clearly identify this problem or these problems or this multitude of problems whether it's undiz pipes pumps that are failing pneumatic controls that aren't working what is it because you know we got a lot of stories that day and I wasn't very happy with the way the conversation was going which was oh well this takes a lot of time and that costs a lot of money can you just give us an explanation to the committee and let us decide as a a committee and a community on how to get the heat working in one of our five or six major schools I lost count of six right six buildings five buildings five buildings now uh six schools but I'm sorry I'm getting a little frustrated and

060we haven't got that yet and I know it's not I know it may be something that our facilities team can't deliver inhouse and if they can there on other problems as well obviously here but can we we we need to fully understand things in order to figure out how to move forward and I'm you know I'm very frustrated and you know it's clearly not going to get fixed this year they've gone through the worst part of the Season at Stacy you know the the oldest part of the season but this is just unacceptable I keep saying things are unacceptable it seems to be a recurring theme here but yet we have no choice so it becomes acceptable so we I'm just highly frustrated that's but but I see a path to resolution just somebody needs

061to start that that effort right to to wrap this obviously me a lot more meetings to have um in fact Mr Wilson kindly gave me quite the list this morning of of what our next topics are going to be including this so um we're waiting for that first step of what do we need to do so we can plan for that as well so any other fac sorry no more facilities any other subcommittee updates nothing else met okay thank you and thanks for that John we'll uh obviously be addressing more of this in the future if I can just add one thing it might just be that given everything that's going on we we might have too heavy of an ask for our three-man facility department so we might have do a committee need to

062decide to commission a investigation evaluation something else some group come back in a meeting or two and make a motion to do something right like I agree with you like if we can't do it just the motion to get a quote for a contract and come in right all right let's get done we can do that all right so that brings us back to agenda item four so let's Circle back to that one now um all right let me just get my I know it's up here so we're going to discuss the superintendent transition that sits in front of us now the last meeting Dr Mcintyre noted that he has plans to retire at the end of next school year which is uh the summer of 2026 um and as he stated and we'll talk

063a little bit more here uh the goal with this transition is to do something slightly different than what tends to be normal in the education field I think as we've all witnessed which is generally a retirement and they have a small transition maybe at the end of the year and then they walk away um and that's been the goal throughout uh the discussions that Michael and I have had and that we've brought updates to the committee on which is that a a longer term transition plan um is going to support Milford Public Schools through a variety of incredibly important initiatives that we have going on right now I'll just list some of those major ones including an msba project obviously to repl the high school we're looking to implement a new Ela curriculum at the

064K5 level pending the FY 26 budget we are in technically I believe in year two year one or year two of ela curriculum in Stacy um and we're year three of IM am math at at the kindergarten level so that is um those those are major things that are impacting two of the three massive pillars of Education that we have up in the air right now so um I'm I'm comfortable saying saying that this group felt that there was absolutely no room for a pause in Focus or progress while shifting to any sort of new leadership which is why an extended transition with Dr Mcintyre is going to benefit our community the most So the plan in front of us today obviously States number one that at the be the end beginning at the end

065of this current school year Dr Mcintyre is going to step back as superintendent and transition to that support role so um and that's going to happen over the course of about a year leading up to his retirement which in anyone's mind is then going to make the next obvious question come up as who's the next superintendent of our district what are we going to do with that so in preparation for this discussion and and during our ongoing discussions in general related to this topic I did reach out to masc so anyone who watches has probably heard that term but for anyone who doesn't know it it's the Massachusetts Association of school committees um one of the things that they provide the Commonwealth is a service that you can pay for where they will come in

066um and assist and somewhat run the process of finding candidates to be a superintendent and how to hire them what that whole process looks like they also give great advice so I did spend some time speaking to Tracy Novak which is our regional director I believe she's based out of Worcester um while she did offer to come in and speak directly to the full committee as a presentation she also shared her thoughts on what this should look like and I figured that we could start with me sharing those with you guys um essentially she explained the systematic approach that masc uses which generally suggests breaking the process up into chunks um or stages and they always recommend working in an inside out manner to identify candidates um what they mean by that is first start

067in-house there's nobody who understands your needs and what you're going through better than the people that are already living them so start there and then progress outward and build a candidate pool of people you're looking for U obviously one thing she wanted to share was that the further out you get the more expensive it gets in terms of searches and postings and consultants and all of that piece as well um she also made it very clear that one of the reasons one of the main reasons that they work in an inside out manner is that more often than not if a qualified candidate is inh house they end up being the higher at the end of the process and essentially what she was getting at is districts at times will spend lots and lots of

068money to guide gather this massive compilation of resumés and do all these interviews and the person that they hired was sitting right there the whole thing so uh something that she wanted to share and make a big point on so with that advice with that advice at hand um I decided to structure our discussion tonight essentially to follow the lead of M see so I believe that the best thing we can do right now is start internal and work our way out and see where this discussion goes so what I'd like to do is turn it over to everyone and we'll take all the time we need for people to share their thoughts one at a time um and i' certainly would like everyone to share their personal opinions on how this transition is set

069up and how you believe it should play out and then obviously whether or not you believe that there is an internal candidate that is worth standing up potentially for this position so I'll stop talking for now you want to start sure thank you um so first of all I you know I I do want to point out that you know Kevin is uh he's been with our district for 11 years about and he was superintendent for nine he's one of the longest serving superintendents that we've had um in like the past 40 or so so years so you know uh congratulations to him on his his uh soon to be retirement that's great um you know as far as you know what we should do do next I uh I I like the idea of

070looking in and then looking out and um you know putting some thought into this you know I I obviously the internal hire would be um less disruptive to the district um it would be obviously a um smoother transition uh less costly etc etc and you know we we do have an assistant superintendent who's been training for this job for quite a number of years and he's been in our district for like 25 years so I think we need to have a serious U discussion on focusing on the assistant superintendent just like you know the police and fire do you know they they tend to promote their deputies um those positions are training to take over as you know the leader of the district so I think it makes perfect sense for us to you know

071look inside first uh before we even think about going outside um the idea of going outside to me is you know you meet some random people for four or five hours and they're putting on their their best show for you and you know versus somebody who you've you know been in the district for 20 plus years and who's competent and trusted and does a good job so personally I I'm a fan of you know looking inside first so my two thoughts I definitely support the looking inside Matt obviously as a member of this community quite biased and thinking that we have the best people so um definitely would like to start there the one piece that I don't want to get lost in this process is our discussion and when I say our I mean

072the school committee parents students the community what do we want in a superintendent because I think we should take the time to think about that before we fully complete a process that identifies an individual and so just taking the time in the process to make sure what are identifying our needs is a piece that I would just like to see included and I appreciate certainly all of Dr McIntyre's work with us over you know the last more than a decade and really appreciate that he's giving us time to figure all this out because as you alluded to we have a lot going on and so it's great that we'll be able to navigate this transition in a productive manner uh in the the best way for our students and staff so I have a lot

073of thoughts about the process I think M's point though is very important so before kind of going too far down I don't know if folks would entertain even tonight just taking a moment and starting to think about what are some of our priorities for the next superintendent because I do think it's difficult to have a discussion fully about what we envision and what that would look like without knowing what our district goals are so that that's something that if we have space tonight I would love to have part of that conversation too um hearing what you're saying though I think one thing that stands out from what you said at the beginning Matt that I think we need to really be considerate of is that it it's a prolonged retirement in in a sense in

074that uh or prolonged transition to retirement I should say so uh Dr Mcintyre is at the end of this year it sounds like transitioning to a different type of role so we will need somebody to replace that role at the conclusion of this year however he's going to remain on staff so I think that that puts us in a really unique position and and we should consider that and what his role may look like next year too and considering who the next person would be so I guess I don't have a formalized this is where I'm going yet I think these are the the topics that I almost want to discuss a little more yeah I wrote wrote down a few thoughts just to kind of collect my thoughts here so uh first I'd like

075to thank Dr Mcintyre for his several decades of service to public education uh I think one theme that Dr Mcintyre has had is um the the main goal of delivering the highest education possible to our students um on the outside Milford Public Schools can seem like a pretty challenging district and as you can tell from our meeting tonight it is uh but that's not a bad thing um our challenges range um from who we are as a community um which is a you know a broad and diverse community that we have um but this is not something to fear it's actually something to embrace uh these train these traits are a point of strength and I think Dr Mcintyre over the 10 plus years he's been here um has uh shown a lot of empathy

076and Grace uh through his uh role here um it's truly accomplishment he's gotten this far and I wish him and his family a long and healthy retirement uh for us as a committee um this is another important Milestone that we get to have a decision on and I'm excited for it um as we've all alluded to there's a lot of uh balls in the air and we should um take this decision um with all the merits that we're trying to uphold of what this means for us as a as a community um you know I think you know as we are the steward of the largest town budget um in the most important industry the town of Milford produces uh we should consider these options that are before us with great care um I think

077as Matt alluded to with the conversation um at the state level uh looking in makes the most sense uh for lots of different reasons and I really would like to start there uh to Megan and Robins point I think you're both correct that we need to Define this process a little bit to make sure the community is involved um and uh really make this a um a lasting pick so um I pretty much agree with everything Michael said for for a change um usually it takes us a long time to get there but um I I think I think I I I'm in favor of looking internally first and foremost I think that when you when you promote internally right we had we had we had two recent uh examples on the town side we

078had the fire chief that was promoted internally and the one predating him and the one preceding him and then we have a police chief search committee that looked you know Nationwide and promoted ended up promoting from within so I I think we have we probably have one or more people here that are imminently qualified to to succeed Dr Mcintyre I think that the like Michael said I think four or five was in an interview we might have a 100 people that interview phenomenally but there's the part that we're never going to get to know until somebody's here for a year or two or three and there's the part that it's going to take them a year or two or three to learn which is knowing the student body knowing the families knowing the needs knowing

079the staff uh and other Personnel obviously you have to be imminently qualified you know so but I think I think I'm not not think I'm sure we have a number of people here that could already fit that role so I I I am in favor of looking internally however that process plays out as opposed to doing a nationwide search out of the gate I agree with everybody that um yeah certainly the the looking internally as everybody spoke to I think is is a is a great starting point I think it's important to have conversations with any internal candidates to know that are internal candidates um are they ambitious to to apply for the job right I think that as we just stated that that would be our first spot as John just stated too you

080know you do a nationwide search you know you have to learn you have to try to get to know somebody in a very very short amount of time um and there are individuals that we interact with on every other week that you know we know kind of how they interact with us and they know we know kind of what their outlook on education is but we can always dive into more specifics with these different individuals that might be interested in the job so um you know certainly I guess you know do we open how I guess how are we advertising I guess that's the next question maybe that just goes back to you Matt by taking your notes from there but uh like I said I I agree with the internal side of it and

081then I'll go back to you Matt maybe just talk process sure so I'll just quickly throw my thoughts on internal versus external to and I would say that I I lean internally as well and again not only do I like the lengthy transition for the reasons that I stated before right we're we're I'm trying to find the appropriate word here hang where're making giant changes to two major pillars of Education in math and literacy um and I think that we owe it to the families of our kids at at every level from K through 12 not to waste any of their time with any staff shifts and I know last year we delayed that literacy change K through five because of the cost and because of the budget constraints and that bothered me personally knowing

082that you know we learned 50% of kids in K through2 are reading below a grade level and we had to wait a year and that to me felt like wasting a year of their education when they could be trying something else that has to be better than what we're doing so I don't want any drawn out out search to waste time and I don't want a short transition that will leave things unattended to impact their education so I think that this lengthy transition with Dr mcy staying on in a reduced role is a good thing because you have somebody who spent 10 years here who knows what we're doing now who can continue to make sure there's focus on this stuff while whoever the due person is that comes in sits down and settles in

083um the other reason why I like the idea of looking internally obviously is uh it's a kind of a two-part thing the candidate pool I think we've seen has been shrinking we've hired some principles when I first sat down we had 27 resumes to go through and the second time we had eight and that's at the principal level it's even worse at the at the upper level in District leadership and what concerns me even more obviously is any transition of any kind in these positions brings on some level of risk where you don't know if they've never done the job before if they've never done the job before in this scenario you know another experience so there's always some risk of something coming in and we all know that milford's a unique District in the

084Commonwealth we're we're one of what is it 15 to 20 that have the demographic makeup we have and that have seen such a high shift in high needs and all those other pieces so our candidate pool is going to be even smaller because personally I would have a hard time accepting somebody who came from a place that didn't experience the challenges that we have here they're not going to know how to handle this and that is the kind of of education and time wasting that I would not be comfortable with putting putting on our families so um so I do support looking inside and I do support the uh obviously the lengthy transition so I wanted to go back to of the thoughts that you guys brought up about identifying the needs and and push

085back in a way on that because we have a strategic plan in place a district strategic plan that was built on the backs of us and administration and all the staff and that to me is the definition of the needs that we have and that doesn't change with leadership it doesn't matter if it's talked McIntyre it doesn't matter who's sitting in that seat we decided as a group and as a community that that's how we want to move forward so the person that takes over has to be someone that moves our strategic plan forward for me that's the start and end of the needs so we can circle around if you'd like get to discuss that piece so let's let's this process is working and I don't have to keep doing this so easy if

086you guys want to talk in terms of needs go ahead and let's see um a few thoughts I had um one I do like the idea of the assistant superintendent now in in the future being trained to take over as a superintendent right I I generally I love that model I like how the police do it I like how the fire does it I always assumed when I came on school committee that that's what the assistant super superintendent did they're training to take over that job right um so that's my my thoughts here but to make point you know what do we want in the superintendent so I jotted some things down um so so when I think of like um our current this is it is superintendent um strategic planning right he talks about

087the Strategic plan all the time right so I'm like that's that that's a big one and I mostly agree with you Matt we might set it but we still want somebody who Embraces it right and so I think I think that's really important um student centered Focus you know I think clearly yeah he's great um you know Resource Management fiscal responsibility I think that's why you know um if you ever seen uh our business manager and the assistant superent work together they work really well together right so you lean on the strengths that you don't have right um Community engagement and stakehold stakeholder uh collaboration so I think that's a big one for the superintendent um and then uh data driven decision- making right and so even today talking about um what's the data platform

088open architect open architect comes up all the time right so I I think I I agree I think we do need to have an idea of what do we want um I think for me being on school committee the number one thing that I want is that when I ask for information that we get it right and um you know just knowing that we have this kind of new central office and I mean even today getting that list of Grants I forgot I asked for it three weeks ago and I think Meg reached out hey did did did you ever get that I was like oh wait shoot and then boom there it is Page n and that's collaboration right and so I was like that's so refreshing to make sure we so I I

089think that's super important um as far as your question about what we do with like the new assistant superintendent right I think that's a decision we make after we figure out what to do and then that person is helping us figure out what is needed next right do we need another assistant superintendent do we need a a director of curriculum first or do we need whatever like I I don't have a an answer for that but I I would like for that person to you know tell us and work with us what we need and this is really good timing because we're in budget season so if we need to start to carve some money out now is the time to do this right so you those are my thoughts um I also like the

090idea of you know in when Matt says we're looking inside I think the more granular is you look inside if you have a person if you don't you look inside you have a pool of people and then you start and and and then you go out right again we have an assistant superintendent so I think that that needs to be seriously discussed I'm in favor of that obviously I would be L to see you know Craig be our our next superintendent for those reasons um and lastly I think because makees point we have a great District we have great teachers it sends a message to the district that we promote within if you are um you know doing your job you're excelling and you're welcome and we want to keep that Community going so I

091I don't know I think it's a win-win-win everywhere so I um that's my two thoughts before want to a clarifying question that popped up you talked about the transition and what that role looks like were you you speaking of hiring a new assistant superintendent or were you talking about what Dr Mcintyre is going to so what Dr McIntyre's role would be and think just keeping in the back of my mind what potential impact that could have on the budget okay so I I do I do want to um in terms of budget talks I think you're right what what does that do in terms of budget do we need an assistance to or not what the role is though I think it's important to know that that we only have a handful of positions that

092we have a say in so what that role becomes is going to be the responsibility of what the new superintendent decides to make them so to that point if their decision is they're going to be the assistant superintendent then we don't have anything to fil the decision is I'm just making things up you're going to do X Y and Z projects and we still need this right that's a discussion that I think we have to have in a way but also isn't ours you know what I mean it's being that we're right on the line of budget time now is the time to make the decision on money but also so we may not have somebody in place for weeks months or until the end of the year so some assumptions will have to be

093made but I think overall um we're not going to have a lot of say on what they do in general more to what Michael just said we may have to put placeholders in there to say here's some money to do something leadership so my take mt is we are a committee of seven so we seven individuals who have seven you know different opinions my personal belief and I believe we all share this is I an elected member of this community and so I think given that we don't have to pick superintendents every year which is a very good thing because we wouldn't be very productive I do think it's worth taking a moment and pausing and getting input from a broader group in terms of the key attributes that we're looking for certainly executing on

094the Strategic plan that we have all approved as important but I actually think it's a unique opportunity to hear from folks and find a way to embed that in the process I'm fully supportive of appointing an interim candidate through the end of the year that we would give an opportunity to do the job but that you know if we're looking at the assistant superintendent for example we do not do his current evaluation so when we say he's excelling I also think it's important that we have an opportunity for additional feedback in the process can I just get clarity on so we're talking about the inome so you were thinking in terms super for the I think we should clarify the process right earlier Point kind of where we want to go yeah absolutely um so

095this is my thought about Community involvement but in a little bit of a different way so I hear whatever saying about looking inward first and I I don't disagree with that we are a Comm we are a committee of seven and we represent the bradder community that being said I do like having the ability to have a community Forum having just other community members being able to be part of the process some of my thoughts my questions were thinking about again like I said having a superintendent remaining on after in in the district after they've left that role is a little bit unique and I think it's a positive thing echoing exactly what you said Matt but I do think it is a little bit unique and so for me thinking about looking in but

096also wanting to give the community the opportunity to be part of just the discussion the decision- making do I think that it's worth us putting the resources into a nationwide search not necessarily that's not something I necessarily would advocate for but do I think doing something small locally that the community can have input on and have open forums I don't think that's a bad idea and while we're figuring it out if we did want to appoint someone in the interim I also would be in support of that but I just want to keep our thoughts open about how we can get feedback and just be sure that the person we're elevating in this role or the person we're bringing into this role absolutely is the best person for the Milford Public Schools yeah I think

097the theme of the night is transparency right transparency with the roof transparency with the heating system at Stacy um transparency with this process it would be a terrible Miss to not include the community in some fashion it does not have to be this long drawn out process I mean it we have the first person I don't know how many months actually comes to invitation to speak which I really do appreciate you you have no idea how much it like actually makes my heart Happy um because it's really easy to go on a message board and trash all of us in this room and other people in the town but to show up and actually voice your opinion as incredibly valued and um I like to see the opportunity for other people in the town because

098this is really only this one week ago Dr Mcintyre announced his um his uh retirement so I I think we need to give the community a little bit of time to digest this in the sense of hey this is happening and we're not just making this decision in a back room here so um some type of public forum with a timeline I think makes institution so I I kind of want to backtrack to a discussion a couple minutes ago as far as like we're in budget season and what are we going to are we going to appoint a new superintendent or an interim or whatever else and are we going to have a an assistant we you know we we have Dr Mcintyre staying on in a supportive role in a certain for a certain

099amount of time in a certain number of hours but I think we have to budget that we can't put a no matter who it is a new superintendent here with no assist assistant superintendent no director of curriculum or something else I think we need to at least budget for it may we don't fill it but I I think that's you know and I think to Michael's Point Now's the Time um as far as an interim um I I I don't have I I I don't think that's a good decision we need to whether it takes a month or or two months or 3 months or four months we need to find a new superintendent and interim is it it it's just undermining the entire District in my opinion um I I do a favor as

100I said earlier in my last go around I do favor looking at the internal candidates I don't know if the process is to post it and see who we get for applicants or how we go forward I know that's maybe not going to be the favor of everybody at this table but I you know I still want to look internally because I think we have again a number of people here that could do this job and could do it very well um I also think we've identified some problems in the past here that um people that have been in the district will will have a different perception on how to move forward back to me to you um I guess going back to the community involvement part of it um I guess put you on

101the spot do you have any thoughts on like steps as it a form obviously I wouldn't expect a like tried andr answer right now but you know are you just looking that we would sit in the room here and and have individuals come in and just kind of create dialogue with us so efficiency matters to me Chris right I don't think we want this to take six months I'm also very sensitive we're in the middle of budget season as Matt alluded to we have huge initiates going on so I want to be respectful of everyone's time certainly but I think just providing an opportunity for folks to submit that voice so if we came up with a survey that we sent to folks where they could submit input for Robin's point if we also hosted

102an opportunity for people to come together you have two chances for people to give you input maybe people take advantage maybe they don't but at least you've created the option um so something that is simplistic but yet creates that we give visibility too that provides the opportunity where I was going be in favor of that too I think it's a good idea again like you said it's the transparency component right and and it gives people that that form to be able to interact with us which as Brendan just said doesn't necessarily happen very often if at all um so yeah certainly would be in support of that as long as yeah we can kind of you know I don't want to say squeeze it in between all the other budget stuff and everybody else's uh

103their time but yeah I think it would be important to to be able to do that to ensure that yeah the community does have a voice in this so um can I keep going yeah all right then shifting gears Robin to your to your point about um I guess objectives right I you know when I look at the Strategic objectives that Mike brought up does that fulfill does that satisfy what you're thinking or would you think that we need to expand on that or does again or does that kind of check that box off per se that for what we're looking for yeah I mean I think we like we talked about we have the Strategic plan right like Matt brought up a really good point and Mike did as well but I guess just

104for me like when you're thinking of the superintendent of schools um I just want to make sure their Vision aligns with the what our vision is right or what the community's greater vision is for for Milford So to that point depending on how this process goes if there are internal candidates obviously they it's not going to be a checkbox like just as we just said the our assistant superintendent if he says yeah I'm ready for the job I don't think it's going to be all right it's yours right there is still a level of understanding that there's seven of us here that need we need that confidence that you're ready to take that next step right we need to engage with any individual to be able to ask questions and gain and gain that confidence

105too so I think with that yeah certainly we can talk through the Strategic plans but if there are other aspects you know whoever it is from my seat I know that one of my big questions is going to be what would you different do differently facilities wise right I mean that's just very a very simple generic question if it's an internal candidate if it's an external candidate it would bring that person kind of up the speed of what's been going on and see what their management style was so yeah there's there is more I would agree than just a strategic plan that kind of focuses a lot on the educational value of our students but you know there's also the the the structural component that I look at too so certainly c yeah I just

106want to add like when we talk about Community engagement and if we parallel that with the notion that we may have multiple qualified internal candidates they've been engaged the any internal candidate has been highly engaged with the community for a number of years right we we we will know what we're getting if we're interviewing an internal candidate and again I I can think of a number off my head I won't certainly won't use any names but I I I don't know how much more engaged you can get with a candidate than having somebody that's been here for a number of years right so that's essentially the direction I was going I'm going to share one thing that I saw when I was doing some research and then get to my comments um I'm not I

107want to make it clear I'm not against Community engagement but I don't agree with the placement of it meaning let's shift gears for a second think about the building project one of the main reasons that there was a drive to keep the building Community down is because if you ask 25 people what color to paint to school you're going to talk for four years on what color so Community engagement is important and I think that people should be able to voice their opinion but first and foremost we were elected number one to hire and fire the superintendent now that doesn't mean it's solely our decision but it is our decision I believe to stand up the criteria for what we're looking for if we open up a forum and ask the community what they ideally

108see or want out of the superintendent we are going to get if everybody shows up because to your point you're the first in my 10 months as chair not just two um so we either are going to get nobody to show up or we're going to get massive amounts of information right and what I learned during the um the research with masc their their General flow is that you compile your criteria whether it's based on your um your committee discussions based on your strategic plan whatever it is you decide where you're going to look internal vocal external you bring in a candidate pool you filter through it and then they bring the committee in usually to have Forum discussions number one to get to know the individual because to John's Point generally these people that

109are applying are not known to the community and um what I think we learned watching some of the other stuff in places like lemonster and what not last year they also the Committees also use those forums as I don't want to call them interviews but as ways to hear questions framed differently and responses and interactions done to where they can take that information and leverage it towards the decision that they're going to make on what IND they're going to hire so um I guess I'm looking for a little more clar clarification when you guys talk about Community engagement are you are you talking about essentially talking to people about what they want to see in the next superintendent or are we talking about leveraging them in terms of interacting with the candidates that may be

110the best suited for this are we still going around in that's working for everybody fine yeah um so um I really don't like the idea of a Dr I don't think we need it um July 1 is a date so we have plenty of time right so I also kind of I think John kind of said it um again we have this structure in place and to say to the person who made take that position oh we're going to make you interim hold while we go do some other things that just that's weird to me I'd rather go through a shorter process to get to where we're gone I um in talking to Town Council M MC looking at other schools I watched um some interviews last year when the remote and um so as

111Matt said we are the the people elected to you know hire fire manage superintendent great um we can solicit Community feedback whatever we want for things right and that makes sense too um but from a a process perspective I guess what we need to decide is one we can hire who we want so like the process We could decide tonight this is the person right we could decide hey we want to spend a couple more meetings to talk about what we want a superintendent just to make sure that you the the the person who are thinking about might might fit it or do we want to start to open it up and I and I'm um I guess I'm concerned when we start to open it up that now turns into a whole process right

112and we want to waste that time when we generally have an idea you know um that we do have some qualified people internal right and so I want to be mindful and going back to public comment I I think there's really good um times for public comment right and I'm um this is I I'm confused on what the public comment would would do right so to Matt's point we would ask the public for some information now if we were going to create like uh you know a a nationwide search and we would bring a search committee in and that would be mix of people that makes sense to me 100% because now it's a net new person and we want to get a whole bunch of different opinions on this person who I've never met

113um but in this case I'm not sure we're asking the the the public who's not intimately involved in these discussions to participate without a clear end state so I don't understand um what would we what would be asking how we would feed that into the process to make a better decision I guess is what I'm saying I'm not compl against it I just um I don't know I want to be careful about not turning this into a six-month process and I as soon as we start going down that path I'm thinking this is a long process now so I apologize to be but your comment reminded me of something that I always told by the M masc rep which is while we are not at the end of the window hiring superintendent we are really

114close to when she would say if you don't have a plan now you're not going to have one until next year um more than a half dozen districts have already made their decision and there are three or four that are in their finalist round including Malo who has their two finalist announced um so just keep that in mind too I know that probably should have made my list of important updates but uh when I talked to her two weeks ago I believe her comment was that I wouldn't tell you to hurry up yet but we're not far from that state so just to keep that in in anybody's mind to so Michael's last comment clarified something for me so I would like to make a motion that we do not go down the interim superintendent

115path and we just move this process forward to find a full-time superintendent so just to like take that off the table is one thing second this should be easy Mo my Megan to not follow um an interm tag option second by Michael so we don't need to talk about that anymore okay so that's one thing so good so um fire with motion the commentary on the feedback for me and going to be like transparency right brenon this is one thing that has irritated me Mt the entire time I've sat in this role the one thing I've tried to continually push for and we've never made happen is to get staff feedback on the superintendent evaluation and it drives me I'm upset that we don't find a way to do that because I think it's a

116really valuable piece of the process so at a minimum I would like to see some feedback in what the team of however many hundreds that you know report eventually into this individual value are looking for think that we need as part of this process so when I say community you know I do think more broadly but at a minimum I would like to see that be embedded in this so I think that that is an excellent clarification um are we allowed to do that well here's I was say not on the person Michael it's on the role what do we I think this I think the struggle right to what you're saying and the challenge that we've always faced is our role and our communication responsibility is to superintendent it is not to directly interface

117with staff on things like which is I think the gray area that while um while the I was losing my mind what the rule is what the regulation change was while that the line drawn in the sand between operations and school committee is very helpful in a lot of ways this is one of those ways where it makes it hard to do the job early so I agree with you that that is something that has always made it hard um if we had a willing to do that if it was agreed as part of the process it was explained to me it could be done and we just have never mechanically gotten all the way through that so it's just something I think is important yeah and I'm going to stop C that's right so

118especially and this is just my opinion but considering especially inm is off the table which fine with that I voted in favor of that too um I don't know that we lose anything by having it be a posted position locally for 10 days just to see if we get any other applicants and if we did and the committee liked multiple people people at that point I think what you were referring to like the community form like they do in lemonster that would make sense if we had multiple candidates that we thought could equally do the job well so in that situation I think I still would want a community form if we had the need to we could post it and just one internal candidate could apply and nobody else and that's very possible too

119I just in my opinion I don't think we lose anything by posting it locally especially soon if we're trying to get the process going what we gain the opportunity for either someone else internally or in the local community that we might not even know could be in the applicant pool that would be a good [Music] F sorry I'm just noting down that definition I think that again that was a we're we're getting there we're getting there going around in the community think with with staff and maybe that's the place it's your idea like identify first and then do it open it up like I guess locally would just be like posting here and then we just see what happens so again there's no as you stated there is no as M told me no legal

120requirement for us to do anything outside of have this discussion in public so we can choose 10 days five days direct higher it's literally what we decide as a group and the only reason I said 10 days was I think that's standard for what we do in the district yeah it's like 10 or 14 or something can I just ask a question and I'm sorry because I was coughing I couldn't hear robing my own coffin but you you're you're saying we might or we could or we should post the position internally for 10 days and see what what comes from that I would I just I couldn't hear you no I was suggesting and I can tell you myt so I was in suggesting just if we had an opening for a principal or in

121how we would post that same mechanism follow just what we normally do for procedure and my intent is that one there could be someone in the community that doesn't work in the schools that we're not aware of but two it does make all Milford Public School staff aware that this is an open position and would give anyone the opportunity to apply for it that that was I kind of almost said the same thing earlier like do we post it internally I thought I did anyways it like it was a question on how do we proceed but be fine that I thought I just heard something um May made motion so it really sounds like good job um it sounds like the decision points are do we just go hire somebody right now now mean like

122the next week or do we go ahead and post something and then see what happens so I I think really that's the decision point right here let's pause right there for a second so I can this I just wanted to that's what I'm hearing yeah and I think that's something that you leing your stay oh welcome sorry welcome yeah for for as much as yeah we talked about just you know or the initial focus on internal it certainly would be in our best interest to at least expand the the initial search from internal to at least to see what candidates would come in the great part is we can get a th000 resumés and just move them to the side and just say no we have an internal candidate or we can take a th000

123resumés and and take time and go through them just to see if there is an individual there that that Sparks our interest that we would want to talk to so I don't see that being um a negative part of it obviously it creates a little bit more work but that's what we signed up for and that's what we get paid the big bucks for here right you know so big s for anybody watching we don't get paid any that aoke we get warm water from the um all right so bringing this focus in to your point I'm starting to get a little bit you know engineer diagramm over here on my paper but I'm let's figure that decision out do we want to discuss internal candidates on our own and what we want to do

124with them or do we want to post well in the process that you talking I think it's we want to talk about the assistant position to superintendent or posted when I say internal candidates do we want to discuss the obvious one that's qualified or do we want to post it and see who else fits the same Mo first and foremost we need to know if that any internal candidates are willing to apply for the job and are qualified to hold the position right exactly so there is that PES seem this seems kind of maybe I'm oversimplifying but why don't we post it internally see who applies we might have one we might have 10 I we're not going to have 100 internally and um bring it uh whatever it is whether s days 10 days

125bring bring it to uh to the next meeting to review and and when we say post internally we're not posting it internally we're just posting it on our website on our on our website techically posting it to FL f for still but we're just that's not what I was taking from that I was taking them posting it like internally okay just mean to current Cent current current School Personnel so it's all right number one it's clearly want to see if that's legal I'm not I mean I'm not they have done that with positions before that wasn't what I was advocating for I was saying internal stuff as well as others inunity so that's where your analogy of a thousand resumes right yeah sorry I shouldn't and let our community know it's posted and then if

126somebody from Florida finds it then they find so just so I can keep I'm I'm not in favor of that I'm favor of looking at internal candidates first just so I can keep us on track here it seems like we're in can we're canidate what maybe all night is not for me um it seems as though we are in favor of at a minimum opening it up to see if there are other individuals who may be interested in this position other than the obvious assistant superintendent we have now so the question right now is are we asking that of internal candidates only or are we asking it of internal involement to me there's no difference between local and Florida where we just said Florida right as soon as it if it's not internal to Milford

127Public School staff then it's open to the cloud of the internet and anyone can apply from anywhere and that will be a decision down the road on what we choose to review as applicants I would think I think I set a question there but I don't know I'll make a motion and we post the position for whatever the typical time is 10 or 14 days and just post it and see what happens and I think that gives additional validation that if we end up with an interal candidate but the internal candidate is the best person for the job so I don't see any harm in doing that I'll second that can we post it tomorrow discussion yeah post it yeah post it immed all right so 10 days Sure hold on motion by Megan to

128post with the the time frame is open right now to post 10 to 14 days the Min time frame required required hold on but there is no minimum according to our chair I was I was told that the minimum that we I think to Robin point before she was in what we do with all the other position the precedent we have put forward for open positions this is so much easier minutes changed answers given immediately okay do we want to go with 10 then yeah 10 all right so the motion is to post the opening for 10 days second by consecutive days or business days 10 days I would say 10 days business contract stat 10 10 days okay all right you want amend the motion do you follow 10 we will post position for

12910 consecutive days thank you I'll second discussion yes discussion go ahead do we have a boilerplate great question job poting from the masc that is ready to rock and roll here great or do we need to be very specific to the Milford Public Schools um that's the next as I look over towards the person that's going to post it I have prior posting to see it yeah so I would you let chair and vice chair go through it first so we does have to come back I was trying to speak okay no great Point that's I was just kind of say that same thing but we'll work with less yeah do we need to amend that yeah so I will make a motion that we post a position for the superintendent of schools for 10

130consecutive days as may need to be modified um in collaboration with the chair and vice chair I'll second she's better at this down um motion by Megan second by Brendan any more discussion John okay I just want to be on the record for saying I think I I'm obviously much more in favor of looking internally before looking at outside candidates for all of the reasons that were stated here we could have you know you can have a you know you can have four highly qualified superintend tendance and one fits really well in you know a neighboring Town Holliston or hopkington one fits really well in Framingham one fits really well in Weston and there's so much to this job that is specific and unique to Milford that I I I think we want I would

131want to exhaust our pool here rather than look for like to Michael's point a four or five hour interview process from somebody we've never met before but so for that reason I'm in favor of looking internally first but that's not the motion on the table but I wanted to qualify that with the discussion okay the only other thing I would add to that discussion before we carry on with that decision is that um I'll double check but I believe don't quote me yet that the the first step to reviewing those applications would be a lot like what we did with the school business administrator where that is an executive session thing where we can sit down and review what was given so um depending upon when we get it posted timeline we should be able

132to do an executive session next meeting to review any appliations that came in and then we would then bring forward the ones that we deemed worthy that's not appropriate qualified or worth having a further disc so if I if I can ask a question on the process we going to get we going to take that meeting to get every resume and if we have a 100 we're going to look at it that night or we going to have a screening committee I think I think we have to I think we have to have every single resume that night I think the discussion would come up for that I think to your point if I mean we can't if if this is our if this is our higher of seven we can't have two no disrespect

133to you and Michael to weed out if we get 100 resumes 100 that night and we can I think um receive the resumés in advance we certainly can't discuss them but that gives us a day or two to the the yes individually digest the thank you for clarify the the point that I think is important to make is number one I don't know what the rues in terms of whether it's all or not I think this is an all decision the whole way all seven have to be involved um whether or not we create a screening committee that breaks that pile up and brings other people in to help I think it's a decision we can make if we get people I was process as a business exactly well um yeah I would say that

134it would be it would be a dis a discussion if there's any discussion about them that has to happen executive session yes we are allowed to review what comes in ahead of time on our own we just can't talk about it as we know agre um and then if we have 100 we may be there all night or we may break that up into multiple meetings to tackle it but that's a that's a future problem yeah uh depending on what that application pool looks like okay motion by Megan second by Brandon all in favor on posting [Music] okay I believe we pause at that moment I think we can any more thoughts but I think the decision- making stops currently unless there's more you want us to look into let me think sure sorry no

135that's okay still we're still ahead of schedule gener we're done AR we um no I lost my thought so okay all right so we will try to do what we have to to get it posted and then or do we want to communicate this to like do we want to send out an email like at all Dr announc his retirement that's I would assume we get emailed out to the district and we and like the posting the posting is here we'll consult with our expert on what Happ the normal process we'll figure out the proper communication for how that goes that seems like that is an excellent thing to slide into one of the weekly emails it may be a little late for that considering it's thday but we can always send special ones that

136don't cost anything um all right hold on there was something else we not do future agenda items thank you any future agenda items other we have more facilities discussions actually well yeah that would be the one thing is just to to make sure that we capture facilities um and more discussions there I know that'll it'll more start with subcommittee but but I know that the rest of the committee will be very interested in on what's being discussed right I just layer on to that M can we just ensure that we're factoring in the capital plan I feel like we haven't necessarily done an update of that with all anything that Carlos may have identified just to make sure that that iteration is also happening we started that discussion but we didn't really get just as

137it's happening that that can be I do believe that we sat that so we will we're going to sit down and try to I think organize the thoughts appropriately thank you um and as I noted before we will keep the roof as a standing agenda item for the foreseeable future so that anything that comes up we can just openly talk about and we don't have to worry about messing piece up so just note that down all right anything else no all right motion to adjourn so mov motion by Michael second by Robin all in favor thank you I thought you weren't going to say yes good night