Southbridge School Committee: 1-14-2025

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[0:11] Good evening. I would like to call this meeting of the Southbridge School Committee to order at 7 o'clock, Tuesday, January 14th. I will go ahead and do roll call, Brittany Davison.
[0:22] President, Karla De La Cruz-Davila.
[0:25] President.
[0:26] Frank Ketsvinsky.
[0:28] President, and Martina Shea.
[0:30] President.
[0:31] We move on to agenda item number two, the Pledge of Allegiance.
[0:42] United States of America and to the Republic for religious stands.
[0:47] One nation under God, individual, individual, individual, individual, individual, individual, and justice are all.
[0:58] Before we move on to the next agenda item,
[1:01] I would like to make a couple of comments here.
[1:06] I think I can speak for the school committee when I say that our hearts and
[1:09] prayers go out to the family of officer Reddick who passed away earlier this week.
[1:17] He spent more than 21 years serving the town of Southbridge as a canine officer.
[1:24] And has also helped out tremendously with the cops and kids program.
[1:27] He was a dedicated and passionate individual within law enforcement, and his personality resonated throughout the community.
[1:36] And he also lent his services to the town of Charlton, so they were also able to experience the passion and compassion that Officer Redic had.
[1:47] Also, unfortunately, we had Mr. Shaw has resigned from the school committee effective one January 2nd.
[1:56] as his wife of 67 years passed away.
[2:00] So I ask that we observe a moment of silence for officer Reddick and Mrs. Shaw at this time.
[2:19] Thank you.
[2:22] We will go ahead and move on to agenda item number three to approve the minutes from the December 10th, 2024 meeting.
[2:43] Do I have a motion to approve the minutes?
[2:46] So moved.
[2:46] Do I have a second?
[2:48] Second.
[2:49] Any corrections or additions?
[2:55] I will say under chairman's announcements.
[2:57] It is representative Marcy, not representative March, so we will have that corrected for published.
[3:11] All those in favor to approve the minutes as adjusted, any opposed?
[3:19] I abstain, that wasn't at the meeting.
[3:24] So we have four yeas and one abstention, the approval passes.
[3:30] I did watch the meeting, it was very good.
[3:33] Dr. Balotter's presentation was excellent.
[3:36] Thank you.
[3:37] Moving on to agenda item number four, chairman's announcements.
[3:40] First and foremost, again, just Mr. John Shaw submitted a signed letter of resignation to the town clerk in the town manager's office on January 3rd.
[3:51] Also, Ms. Kathy Lopriori has also submitted her letter of resignation yesterday at noon time.
[3:59] So I would like to thank both of them for their service.
[4:03] Mr. Shaw has been dedicated to the community of Southwest Bridge for the vast majority of his life.
[4:08] He has always had a passion for education and a passion to engage and help those around him wherever necessary as a man of faith in his later years after serving in education for well over 30 years.
[4:26] He has been a very impactful member of not only the school committee, but the community as a whole.
[4:32] And Ms. Kathy, I've worked with Ms. LaPriori for the better part of the last five years, even though she's only served on the board for three.
[4:41] You can check any video going back for as long as we've been recording meetings.
[4:44] And I'm pretty sure you can see Ms. LaPriori out there in the audience in one seat or another.
[4:49] to have her up here on the day of serving with the Southridge School Committee and trying to bring a positive impact and a positive message about the good things that are going on in the district.
[4:58] That was her primary goal during her service and trying to develop positive relationships not only with the other members but also the community and the school as a whole.
[5:12] Both members will be greatly missed, Miss La Prairie and Mr. Shaw did very well with us, and we hope the best and wish nothing but the best for them in their time thereafter.
[5:27] And personally speaking, my heart goes out to Mr. Shaw, he's been involved for so long, and he's a great man.
[5:37] So, also wanted to announce that we had our norm setting protocol training this past weekend.
[5:49] As mentioned in an earlier meeting, we were creating an operating protocols ad hoc subcommittee.
[5:56] That committee is now up and running with Carla as the chair and
[6:01] in Britain and Frank are the two other members.
[6:05] They will meet and collaborate to get us operating protocols to be able to vote on for the board as a whole.
[6:12] Also, we will have a special joint town council and school committee meeting coming up on February 3rd to appoint two new members to fill the two seats that are currently vacant.
[6:25] Anybody interested?
[6:26] Go ahead and submit a letter of interest into town manager's office.
[6:29] You have until January 30th to submit those letters of interest.
[6:35] I will say that I think we've made phenomenal progress, especially with the discussion during
[6:41] the norm setting protocols training.
[6:43] I think it should a lot of light on what's necessary in order for a board to self-govern.
[6:48] And the document that is put into place, we received examples from other boards that were
[6:56] I signed by the superintendent as well as other members that they would operate under for that coming year.
[7:04] I appreciate Miss Novick for coming out on a snowy Saturday to be able to spend time and
[7:11] give us the necessary tools we need to go ahead and continue to have this board.
[7:16] The subcommittee present a completed document for approval and adoption.
[7:24] I do want to make comments.
[7:27] Lastly, I do want to make comment in regards to a quote from the Worcester Telegram and Gazette with Dr. Valar.
[7:36] Obviously, it's pretty well known what was said, it was discussed at last night's meeting.
[7:42] I will say that Dr. Valar did reach out to me today and did want to discuss this and provide some more context.
[7:51] He did elaborate that this was a quote from, that was a reprint from a previous article in September
[7:58] and he was very opening to discuss it and ignore this was made, he sent in the email communication.
[8:06] He said prior, he said that this quote was made much earlier than the year prior to the progress that you and the school committee have made in our agreement to meet regularly.
[8:16] So there is, you know, I look forward to meeting with him and discussing things with him tomorrow.
[8:21] I think we, you know, at the end of the day hearing negative comments like that is disheartening.
[8:27] And, you know, it is also still our job to collaborate.
[8:32] And though it may be difficult, that's the main goal is to develop a collaborative relationship.
[8:38] But I'm not saying that the quote will make it easy.
[8:41] But hopefully, after a discussion tomorrow, we can provide some more context and at the end of the day the comments may have do not create policy that improves student outcomes.
[8:54] It does not create more in the budget, it does not create a curriculum, it is just in an it's print in an article at the end of the day we have to continue with the plan that we adopted.
[9:07] which part of the huge part of that plan is to collaborate with the district.
[9:14] And it is hard as it is, we need to continue to move forward and
[9:20] put our best foot forward to be as collaborative as possible.
[9:24] And I believe that everybody on this board has put their best foot forward tenfold,
[9:30] then boards prior to develop that collaborative relationship.
[9:35] I think there's more collaboration between the district and the school committee.
[9:40] As we sit here tonight, and there has been in the previous five years I've been on this board.
[9:45] And that's testament to the people that sit up on this day, as well as Mr. Shaw, Ms. Lopperiori.
[9:51] They also did put in their time and effort to develop a collaborative relationship.
[9:56] And though the comments are disheartening, it doesn't change the mission.
[10:00] Our job is still our job, we have to follow the plan that we adopted and put our best foot forward and move past this.
[10:10] There's more important things that we have to focus on as a board than what was reprinted in a news article after all of the progress that we have made.
[10:22] Actually, the Vice Chair and I were discussing since our last meeting with the commissioner, as a school committee we've taken charting the course.
[10:30] We have done our operating protocols training also.
[10:34] We've held, we have been holding a meeting pretty consistently every two weeks, whereas this board at one point was holding a meeting once every quarter.
[10:44] I think that this board has made great progress, and we're on the right track, we do not need to let this derail us, because we are doing the right thing and at the end of the day, that will come to light.
[10:59] and we will continue to make outstanding progress like we have and you know, it was the shame to hear some members of the town council make negative comments, but at the end of the day that is their chair's responsibility to conduct that meeting within order and it is my job to make sure that we conduct ourselves within order we will just maintain focus on that moving forward.
[11:28] I will move on to agenda item number five.
[11:32] Is there any member of the public who would like to speak to the school committee regarding something not on this evening's agenda?
[11:42] Please step up to the podium.
[11:48] Before I let you speak, or just let you know that you will have three minutes to speak.
[11:52] And if you could just say your name and your relationship to the district for the record.
[11:57] My name is Brianna, and I live in town, and I also did attend the Southridge Public School District to myself as a child.
[12:07] So I'm here tonight to share my story, not only as a former school attendee, but as a mother.
[12:16] Picture yourself as a new parent.
[12:20] Milestones that your child usually would hit don't hit the way that they normally would.
[12:25] Unfamiliar behavior starts to take over your child and big emotions become bigger than
[12:30] expected.
[12:31] This leads you to a devastating diagnosis that most parents don't want to hear.
[12:35] Level 3 Autism Spectrum Disorder A diagnosis that's a life sentence
[12:39] to severe reactions and increased risk of mistreatment, misunderstandings become daily life.
[12:46] Let's take it a step further and fast forward to, as a small child, as the parent you have
[12:51] fought for the absolute best for this child.
[12:54] nothing stops you out of district placements, therapy, everything, and then one day it's all shaken
[13:00] up, removing the routine and insured stability by an entity that has never met your child,
[13:08] let alone do they attend their actual school? How can that be? I'm sure it's mostly your
[13:15] questions. The answer is transportation is what is left with the school district, not the
[13:20] sending school that my child attends.
[13:24] This district does not have enough knowledge or expertise on this diagnosis and
[13:28] this disability to be able to remove my child's only means to and
[13:32] act to access to a special education guaranteed to him by law.
[13:37] My child's world was forever impacted by the decisions made by Southbridge Public Schools.
[13:42] In July and incident involving a town's person and a clerical error from Southbridge Public School,
[13:47] removed his core transporting from his daily life.
[13:49] The proper accommodations were requested, and pleased to revert the decision to the original staff was met with a firm no.
[13:57] E-mails continue, tears, anxiety, and financial ruin eventually sets in as this takes one parent out of the workforce to transport this child to school.
[14:08] Regression starts to set in as the routine changes set further.
[14:12] Urgent care trips do to increase self-indulatory holes in the walls because of the same reason.
[14:17] and increasing medications to age stabilization.
[14:21] And then it guilt fills my chest washing, my child's suffer.
[14:24] Moving into recent events due to this financial ruin, I was forced into the workforce again,
[14:31] and it's forced me to allow another van with another transport team to transport my child to a school.
[14:38] Within the first day complaints from the van staff ensued along with questionable conduct from
[14:43] said staff. Eventually they refused to take them to school altogether. This causes, this causes,
[14:52] because this is a cause for concern for not only his mental health but his medical stress. I ask you,
[14:58] Would you allow your child to be arrested?
[15:00] abstain, in transportation, causing him to scream so hard that blood vessels burst in his face, I, for one, won't.
[15:11] This is now a requirement that that has been placed on us by the school district.
[15:16] Today my child has missed several days of school, life-changing OT, speech therapy, and ABA provided all by his special education provider.
[15:23] May I ask you to pause for a moment.
[15:25] Her three minutes has expired.
[15:26] Do I have a motion to extend the speaker's time?
[15:28] So moved.
[15:29] Do I have a second?
[15:29] Second.
[15:30] All of those in favor?
[15:31] Any opposed?
[15:32] The motion carries.
[15:33] Please continue.
[15:34] Despite testimony from beloved staff at my child's school of attendance, data providing
[15:39] emotional damage, several offered training and accommodation requests, verbal agreements
[15:46] from previous van staff to come back to this to his van transportation, and video footage
[15:51] the current staff's questionable conduct and treatment of my child were all met with the same conclusion.
[15:58] Refusal for advocacy to return to his original staff and also requiring a four-point
[16:03] restraint in order for him to transport.
[16:05] I have continued my efforts with the superintendent of schools in hopes to gain a resolution,
[16:10] and I will stand with my child and all the special needs kids in this district,
[16:14] suffering similar situations.
[16:16] I advocate for specialized training for all van staff, more power for the school of attendance in the event of out of district placements, and a firm veto power for parents.
[16:26] It's always run in this system and until it ran into me.
[16:30] I won't allow this any further.
[16:33] And with that.
[16:35] Thank you.
[16:40] Are there any other members of the public who would like to speak to the school committee regarding something not on this evening's agenda?
[16:50] Seeing none, we'll go ahead and move on to agenda item number six.
[16:53] Discussion on progress, meeting expectations outlined in the desi plan to build school committee capacity.
[17:00] I believe I started over here last time, so I'm going to start over here.
[17:06] Ms. Shea.
[17:07] We did have our meeting Saturday morning, which was very productive.
[17:12] It's very good for us to spend some time together in a less formal setting to actually get to know each other.
[17:21] Because if we're going to work together, we have to work with each other.
[17:28] We were led by our Massachusetts Association of School Committees,
[17:34] local representative, her name is Tracey Novick, and she led us through every step,
[17:41] answered all of our questions.
[17:44] We also had hoped to get the financial training.
[17:48] but because we were so involved in the discussions on Saturday morning that we've postponed to that, and hopefully she's going to present the financial picture of how finances are done for school systems here at a regular school committee meeting.
[18:09] Also, Brittany and I are going to meet with Dr. Valar on Friday at 1 o'clock.
[18:20] Mr. Kempinski.
[18:22] Apart from the meetings we held together as a group, I don't have anything further.
[18:28] I think it's been moving in the right direction, has been spoken.
[18:35] Just, you have to be satisfied with these baby steps, work with what you have, and work within the parameters given.
[18:44] And that's the way we'll be judged at the moment is following those guidelines.
[18:48] So that's that's where we are and I don't have a problem with moving forward in that way and because we've already all agreed to so
[19:09] So yeah, so I just wanted to quickly say
[19:13] Thinking John Shaw and capital apriori for their services with us
[19:17] they will be missed and I'm thankful that they were they took part in everything and even though
[19:26] Kathy didn't get to finish she did was present at all the meetings she was present at
[19:31] our council meeting she was present at all the trainings so I do appreciate both of their efforts
[19:37] and just wanted to say that.
[19:41] After we did our norms meeting on Saturday we the chair announced
[19:47] the operating protocols ad hoc subcommittee, where myself, Frank and
[19:54] Brittany are going to be part of that committee.
[19:58] And we actually scheduled it for February 22nd at 6 p.m.
[20:04] TBD, where it's going to be right now, right?
[20:07] It's going to be here, but location wise, I'm not sure yet, we're waiting on that.
[20:12] That, Brittany and I did go visit the middle school, December 13th.
[20:18] I thought it was excellence, I enjoyed going into each of the classrooms.
[20:25] I thought it was, yeah, it was good.
[20:29] Then I do have to give a shout out to two community leaders.
[20:35] They actually came out to the training on Saturday, which shows a lot about them.
[20:42] for just stopping in, so to Maria Torres and to Norma Tinsnik.
[20:51] Thank you for being there, it just shows, you know, your interest in the school committee.
[20:55] And I personally am thankful for your dedication in being here and
[21:01] actually normals here tonight as well.
[21:03] So it just shows a lot about her wanting to run for school committee.
[21:07] So I appreciate you being here tonight as well.
[21:11] Brittany and I presented to the town councillors on 12-16.
[21:15] The presentation was outlining the desi plan
[21:19] that we have currently going on
[21:20] and we just gave them a brief update on that.
[21:25] Then I've had meetings with not only Brittany,
[21:29] but with like future candidates
[21:32] are by weekly meetings with Juan and Andrew,
[21:36] meeting with Dr. Valar as well,
[21:38] have been very consistent.
[21:42] Brittany and I also met with the chair of the town councillor, Scott Lazo, and the town manager as we've been collaborating very well with them, of course Andrew as well.
[21:54] I'm just trying to show Dessie and I guess the world that we're here to collaborate and make a difference and show that we are here to collaborate with the town councillor's slash school committee members.
[22:11] So we had two trainings.
[22:16] One was this past Saturday, and then the last one was 1214.
[22:22] And then I did go to the CPAC meeting to just be there to support our liaison.
[22:29] Brittany was there as well.
[22:33] And then I think that's everything, actually.
[22:36] Yeah. And again, we've been meeting, even today, we met with one and then Thursday we're meeting with Dr.
[22:44] Valar. So we've been pretty much doing a lot of meetings because we're really, I feel,
[22:50] dedicated to what we want to do, which is eventually get out of receivership and we want to make sure
[22:56] that we're taking all the proper steps from the desi plan to get that accomplished. Thank you.
[23:04] Last was certainly not our C-FAC liaison, Ms. Davis.
[23:08] Thank you.
[23:09] So Carla already mentioned a lot of the things that we do together, because it's usually
[23:13] her and I, just to elaborate a little bit on our visit to the middle school.
[23:18] It was great meeting the principal, being able to see the science class and the different
[23:22] projects that they're doing and how they engage the students.
[23:27] I really enjoyed watching their reading program in which they have like different blocks throughout
[23:32] about the day where they have every student no matter what class you're in, read a book
[23:36] whichever is in their skill level.
[23:38] And then at the end of the book, they write a report and then certain reports are chosen
[23:43] to present to the class as a whole, like the whole like eighth grade or whatever, so I thought
[23:48] that was really great.
[23:50] We did meet with Scott and Jack to talk about like the norms a little bit and then the plan
[23:55] was to set up a joint sort of special training, which will happen after we get the two new
[24:01] members, so TBD for that as well.
[24:06] We attended it to MISC trainings.
[24:08] We did do the presentation on 12-16, and I appreciated the town council's thoughtful comments,
[24:15] an encouragement for the work that we're doing, which was also mentioned last night in regards
[24:19] to the comments and the article, so I appreciated the acknowledgement of the work that we are
[24:24] doing and the praise that we have gotten not only from town council but also other people
[24:28] in the community.
[24:30] I did attend the CPAC meeting last night, there was a few new members than there were
[24:36] the last meeting, so that's, I'm looking at that as progress as well, Karen, who is the
[24:42] Director of the Special Education Program here in Southbridge, was also in attendance.
[24:47] She offered some information on ways that the members could contact the Federation to
[24:52] get further training to better understand what the roles are for the CPAC board so that
[24:57] But still in progress, the hope is by next meeting in February, that some of the people who have been in attendance will be ready to kind of acknowledge what roles they're interested in and finally establish a board and be able to move forward with that.
[25:12] The meeting date for that is February 10th, time and location still to be determined.
[25:18] And upcoming, I have a meeting Friday with Martina and Dr. Valar talk a little bit more about the budget and some other things on what we decide.
[25:26] maybe I'm Cass, I'm Hartina, I had mentioned, we have our meeting next Wednesday for the ad hoc committee to set our norms.
[25:35] And then Carla and I have two school visits scheduled, the 24th and then February 7th, and then we'll only have one school left to visit out of all of them, so that's all.
[25:49] I would like to add one thing, Chairman, if I could.
[25:51] But certainly a lot of times we hear about how terrible condition our schools are in and I'd like to say that
[26:00] Going around to the schools our schools are
[26:04] Well-maintained they're getting old but they are well-maintained the high school
[26:10] I was surprised how clean it was and how open to the community it was the basketball team was meeting one day when we were there and
[26:19] And there was a dance recital another day.
[26:23] So the schools are being used and they are they're looking very good
[26:30] for the age that they are.
[26:32] The high school obviously isn't that old, but the elementary school.
[26:35] They look really warm and inviting.
[26:39] And it particularly liked going through the I would think we were on the middle school side
[26:46] With all the pictures of the students who were stars of the month it made you feel like this was a nice place to be and they value their students.
[27:02] And I will kind of wrap it up here so this since our last school committee meeting.
[27:09] We the school committee has conducted two training sessions.
[27:13] Our next meeting with the commissioner is going to be on Thursday February 6th.
[27:20] We met with Dr. Valar last week, I believe it was.
[27:24] Yes, last week.
[27:26] We met with Dr. Valar last week.
[27:28] We had discussion on getting the special school committee meeting scheduled where the town council chairman and the town manager would be reviewing the structure of an agenda and rules of order.
[27:43] That meeting has unfortunately since been postponed due to the loss of two members.
[27:48] We also did meet with Juan today, also just to kind of do a minor discussion for the school community meeting this evening.
[27:59] Carlin and I also did meet for about an hour and a half just prior to this school community meeting.
[28:05] We have agreed to establish a regular that, try this again.
[28:09] We have agreed to establish a regular meeting schedule just between the two of us to make sure that we are
[28:17] moving forward as necessary. I did want to kind of use this opportunity also to
[28:24] discuss the progress meeting the expectations as a whole.
[28:29] May we adopted the desi plan as a school committee?
[28:35] We advised the commissioner in our July meeting that it has been approved with the new board.
[28:45] So from scratch in July to six months later by the end of December, into the beginning
[28:52] of January, according to the steps that were outlined as we continue to move forward with
[29:00] the operating protocols ad hoc subcommittee, once they have a final document to present
[29:06] to the school committee for approval, just to inform the community of kind of the weight
[29:11] of this, this will be the first policy vote outside of adopting the desi plan that the
[29:17] school committee would have taken in nine years.
[29:20] So we are about to take action for the first time in quite some time.
[29:25] We have also, the members have worked actively as they have been describing over the last six months, have worked actively to meet with elected leaders, as well as with people in the administration of the school district, as well as each other, to establish a collaborative, to establish norms for communicating between school committee members, local elected officials and the receiver.
[29:49] Dr. Rodriguez has been very vital in the communications between school committee members and whoever they have reached out to be a town councillor or member of the administration.
[30:00] He has been crucial in the progress that we have been making, though he's not here this evening. I don't think I can thank Dr. Rodriguez enough for his coaching and his support, but I'll continue to do so until I'm blue in the face.
[30:15] He's also, and that's all of this is phase one, at least from our discussion at Carlin, I just had, as well as reviewing what we have done previously.
[30:28] Obviously, we are coming towards the end of phase one, which I think within our first year completing a phase was exactly the goal and the expectation moving forward.
[30:41] So we did get off to a slow start.
[30:43] We have been guns blazing ever since as a body, so that is in totality the progress we have made so far since outlining the desi plan.
[30:52] We've gone from having a meeting every other month to, now we're having meetings every other week.
[31:00] And though some of them are trainings, the commitment has been bar none.
[31:05] We haven't had one training session that has not been in full attendance of the school committee, which is fantastic.
[31:13] So we will update the committee as after the meeting with the commissioner on where we stand.
[31:22] And hopefully we just have nothing but good news, but in the meantime, I would continue to encourage to reach out and meet with the receiver as well as other members of the town council.
[31:34] It is coming up to budget season in one of the things that we do are chartered to do in this desi plan is to advocate for additional resources and advocate for the budget.
[31:45] With that being said, I will move on to our next agenda item, agenda item number seven, our next scheduled meeting.
[31:53] Our next scheduled meeting will be February 11th, and the reason why I kind of transitioned is because the expectation, just need confirmation with Miss Novick, is to conduct the chapter 70 on 70 training during our regularly scheduled school committee meeting.
[32:11] However, just to make sure that we conclude our business within the same time frame we usually do,
[32:18] I am looking to schedule that beginning of that school committee meeting for 530.
[32:23] Obviously, we will reach out moving forward, making sure that's going to work for not only Miss Novick but also the other members of the board.
[32:29] And once that determination has been made, that meeting will be posted to the public.
[32:34] And I will inform the school committee once that concrete time has been set.
[32:38] That 530 is not set in stone. That's just a proposed time. So, with that being said, do I have a motion to adjourn?
[32:47] So moved.
[32:48] Do I have a second?
[32:49] Second.
[32:50] All of those in favor.
[32:51] Any opposed?
[32:53] The vote is unanimous of all present. This meeting is adjourned.