School Committee - Grafton Public Schools - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call the meeting to order with a roll call vote, or a roll call aye. Laura? Aye. Rebecca?

Aye.

Christy? Aye. Stella? Aye. Leora Brom, aye. Okay, we are all here and the meeting is in session.

Jay, I'm going to basically turn it over to you. All right. So we've got two principal appointments that I'm putting before you guys tonight. We'll start with North Grafton Elementary School. That one's fairly straightforward. I think, as you know, Julie Flynn, who was a longtime principal, I think 11 or 12 years at North Grafton Elementary, is moving into the open assistant special education position.

Um, and that position was vacated in June.

So in June, right before the school year ended, uh, Chris left us, Julie applied for, and was appointed to that position. Given that June timing, it was too late to do a full search. You typically do a full search for a principal ideally in February. Um, but typically no later than, than April, if you can possibly avoid it. Um, lucky for us, we had. Melissa Johnson, who was and has been our preschool coordinator there, licensed to be a principal and aspired to go into elementary principalship. So kind of a great fit. So given the timing, I promoted her or I'm looking to appoint her as the interim principal. Next January, so January of 2027, I'll be meeting with the North Grafton Elementary School staff, and we'll go through our typical search process, late winter, early spring, and have hopefully a permanent appointment to put before you next spring. So that's the first one. Any questions on that?

Christy?

So Dr. Cummings, so that was not posted at all, correct?

Correct. And the plan, Jay, is to post it when we go through the formal search.

Oh, yeah. In that typical search process, you post a few different places, you advertise, you get the word out. We form a hiring subcommittee, includes staff, sometimes administrators. Certainly a couple of central office people at the very least and parents, sometimes community members as well. And then they come up with finalists. We do site visits, meetings with different cohorts at the school. Sometimes we do site visits to wherever they are, depending on the job and what position they're in. And then we make an appointment.

Any further questions or a follow-up?

Yeah, so to follow up on that, so our policy GCE, professional staff recruiting, posting for vacancies, it clearly states that openings in school will be posted in sufficient time before the position is filled to permit current employees to submit applications. It does not anywhere in that policy state that at any time we can forego that posting.

Okay. I did.

Chris, did you have a suggestion or?

Well, I mean, I don't know. It's just as the school committee, we just have to enforce our policies. We don't just have policies just for the sake of having policies. I guess to the committee, what does the committee think?

It's certainly atypical that in 16 years, I may have said this, but we've never not had a full process, nor have we had to do an intro.

Yeah.

It's certainly not typical, but neither is making a replacement in mid-June. Laura.

You're on mute.

I know. I know. God.

Yeah, thank you. And yep, thanks, Christy, for being diligent about our policy. I think, for me, it is a test on, there's always like the why and the how and what are these policies for and This is like an interim position or or even not, if you were just trying to hire somebody that you think is the best candidate for the job and we might lose them. Otherwise, I think to me, it's a chance to go back to the policy and revise and see if it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, then it's not a great job. policy? Do I wish, you know, maybe we could have thought of that when we were revising it or when we were looking at it? Absolutely. You know, is it the best practice? No. Is it affirming students? No. um and do i trust that you can make a really great hire um for the school absolutely i'm thrilled that julie's staying with the um district and is able to move into a role and melissa we're not losing her as well um so to me that i always like to look at you know justification for things um so I would be happy to pull the policy with Stella and we can take a look at it. And maybe we should have added in some sort of language to make it work better for you. And, you know, in the future, you know, we should have flagged it earlier, but that's my thought.

Anyone have anything else? Christine.

Yeah, I appreciate what Laura's saying, and I understand that this is an interim position, and I understand that portion of it. The other thing I do understand is that when we create these policies, and when we went through this quite diligently, this was an MASC policy. The entire committee agreed to it. It kind of is counterintuitive to adjust policies when they don't fit our needs in that exact moment. The reason the policy exists is to ensure that all jobs are posted, that all employees are given the opportunity to apply for these jobs. This is not willy-nilly type thing, and I understand with the interim position. I just want to state that I don't think it's good practice for the school committee in general to make a policy and then, because today it doesn't fit us, we change it to fit the needs instead of adhering to what the policy is.

I hear you. I also think that policies aren't there are different philosophies around policy. I think that a lot of, I mean, we're in a people business with people. And so rigid policies sometimes bend a little bit again, interim position, um, You know, I hear what you're saying. I agree with you. Every time something comes up, I mean, that's how we ended up with the Frankenstein policy book we had before. Every time something came up, we changed a policy or made a policy. So I agree with you that we shouldn't be in the business of just whenever something comes up, we change the policy handbook. I also think we have to be a little flexible when a situation like this arises, right? We had two, and we haven't gotten to the second one yet, but we had two positions that we had to fill sort of out of cycle, right? Out of the normal way of doing things. So there also needs to be some grace and flexibility. And Dr. Cummings is here to sort of explain the process and what happened. And so I feel like we can work with that. Laura, it looked like you had your hand raised.

I did, but both Stella and Rebecca do too, I think. And you actually said kind of what I was saying. I mean, you know, it's like being a parent, right? Going back on the rules. And I totally understand and agree with that. I guess, you know, as a committee, we can also decide if this is worth, you know, I don't know, any kind of consequences for Dr. Cummings. I personally am not recommending those. So to me, I also like to look at the policies in practice that I'm creating. Yes, we did it as a committee. And if they're not working, sometimes it's a chance to... They're not written in stone. That's all I'm thinking. And if people don't agree and they're like, hey, we don't like these, then... We don't have to agree, and I do like going with MAC's policies, and you're right. It's how we got Frankenstein policy, so I appreciate that reminder, but I'll shut up.

Rebecca.

I just sort of wanted to say, sort of similar to what you were saying, Leora, but I feel like there has to be a balance between if a situation comes up that kind of is counter to our current policy, we need to be able to weigh whether we follow that policy to the letter, or if in this instance it makes sense to revisit the policy. And it's sort of like good parenting, right? It's like you can make rules. And if you realize that those rules aren't working for your family, you're going to like relook at them. And I feel like we need to make sure we're keeping our sort of both of those things happening simultaneously, where we're evaluating the policy for, for why we picked it in the first place, why we all agreed to it. And then also looking at like, oh, this is a circumstance we didn't consider. And, you know, do we want to revise that policy? So just keeping a balance there. That's all.

Stella? Thank you. No, I think Chrissy brings up a good point, but I think because of the cycle of the school year where, you know, where it was late in June, you know, Dr. Cummings had to pivot and, you know, and put somebody into that position, which, you know, Melissa seems to have, you know, good leadership, you know, aspiring to be a principal, already being certified for a principal. So, you know, I'm excited that she'll be able to step in that role and then do the search, you know, when you, you know, in the late winter, spring, you know, for that role. So I think we just have to pivot a little bit, you know, on our policies, like Laura was saying, like sometimes they may not work entirely for every situation because every situation is different. But I think, you know, for North Grafton, I think it's a good choice to move forward with.

I think ultimately, at least from my perspective, the policies are important. I am not diminishing them in any way. But the most important thing is student outcomes. And we've filled the need quickly with somebody known to the district, somebody known to the school community, and somebody that's qualified to do it. So I take your point, Christy. I think in this case, it's going to be rectified when we do the actual search because Melissa is serving as an interim.

Yeah.

So I don't know if anybody has anything else. Otherwise, I'll take a motion on her appointment.

I'd like to make a motion to vote, I guess, vote on the contract for North Grafton Elementary School principal, interim principal. Second.

Motion made and seconded. Anything else? Okay. Okay. Seeing nothing else, I'll do a roll call vote on this. Laura? Aye. Rebecca? Aye. Christy? Aye. Stella? Aye. Leora? Aye. Okay, great. Unanimous.

Great. May I keep going?

Yep, please.

Okay. You thought that was... challenging. The South Grafton principal appointment that I'm putting before you tonight, I'm going to speak to you in general sense, and of course, take any and all questions. It was far more challenging. In a lot of ways, it came just a couple weeks after trying to manage the North Grafton piece. And it's definitely one of the most, you pay me to make hard decisions, and it was one of the more difficult decisions I've had to make in in a long time. It was unique. Again, I'm repeating myself, but I think it's important that I've been doing this for the town for 16 years, and we've never not done the full search piece. But in early July, I had one-on-one discussions with Melissa Wallace, who's been with us. We just finished our fourth year with Melissa. She's been a tremendous principal at South Grafton Elementary School. Over the past year, she's dealt with some personal and family issues that she's tried to wade through those and balance those, and we all have our own issues. I'm not going to go into any more depth than that, but some significant challenges were before us, and she did her very best in partnership with a great staff at South Grafton Elementary School, Michelle Honault, probably the best school running secretary ever, a real team effort. But we supported Melissa, she had the support from her school, and we managed a difficult year. To her credit, in early July, we had a couple discussions where she expanded on the personal issues that I was already aware of. It was obviously in the past year having some impact on her work, and she saw that as potentially worsening as opposed to, you know, we've all been through things that if you can just make it a month, you're good. The The forecast, like looking ahead, it was it wasn't massively brighter anytime soon. And to her credit, she wanted to speak to me about it. And we talked about. how we were going to support her, manage her, you know, just help support the school in that position through the upcoming school year. During one of those discussions, it occurred to me that I had known that Melissa Wallace, before coming to us for years, had been in a different district and out of, I'm sorry, preschool coordinator. Obviously, with the relatively recent move for Melissa Johnson, we had that open. So that led to a discussion where if there's a world in which I could make that move happen, would that be of interest? And the issues at hand were significant enough that Melissa had planned. She's got two years left in our contract. And no matter if she was going to be principal in a different position, no matter what, she was going to work for one more year and then look to do something different. And I give her great credit for that. Like she was gonna continue to kind of tough it out and make it work for us. While the preschool coordinator position is not an easy position, it's super important, very challenging. It simply doesn't lack the scope that a building principal position has. It just doesn't. So thinking about it, this is in, I'm making up the date, but after maybe July 10th, it was towards the beginning of July that we're having these discussions. It was obviously way too late to have a process. Again, you would do February, March, maybe April, May if you had to. Anybody who's applying wasn't able to get a job there. I just wouldn't do it. We would cobble something together and I would spend time over there and we would somehow make it work. rather than doing a false search. We didn't have anybody internal at the school that was licensed and had voiced a readiness to do what we had just set up, doing something similar to what we had set up with Melissa Johnson. I knew of two people personally that just doing this for a long time in different districts that I had long thought would be excellent principals in Grafton. both with elementary experience. I met with both, talked through their candidacy, if the position, if I did decide to make that move. One, Juliana, who I'm putting before you tonight, I thought, and believe in 100% that she will be a phenomenal addition to South Grafton Elementary School and the district as a whole. If I thought it was anybody less than somebody who I thought would be fantastic, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So fundamentally at hand, I was faced with, do we do our best to, again, support and couple together a year with a principal who was dealing with some outside challenges, or do I go ahead and make an appointment? Time was obviously working against us tremendously by that time we're talking mid July and on the principal level in almost any school by August 1st, you need to be hitting the ground running. And So I needed to act quickly. Um, if there was a way to get parental input, staff input, you name it. If I could do any kind of semblance of a, a real authentic process, of course I would have, I've never not done that, but faced with this decision, I gave it a few days thought and obviously made the decision to move forward, uh, with the recommendation. Um, I'm hopeful that for the rest of my career, I don't have to make an appointment. On my own, again, it's not something I like to do at all. But given the situation at hand, and of course, I know I've worked with Melissa and we've talked through a number of things. I fully believe that I made a good decision. I think that South Grafton Elementary School, as a result of that, will be in an even better place. And I have zero doubt that Melissa Wallace won't excel as the preschool coordinator for the upcoming year. And I can take any question you might have.

Leora? Leora, you're muted.

I was wondering why Laura wasn't responding to my calling on her. Laura? You had your hand up earlier, so.

I did. Jay Halfway answered my question. So thank you for this, Jay. I mean, you know, we're doing our due diligence just to ask the questions because it is a big change, right? And it does go against our internal policy. My question for you, I guess, and I have no doubt in my mind that this is a great candidate. I looked at her resume. You know, I trust you and all of that. And I also... When you said you weren't aware of anyone internally who had the license, who might be interested, can you just talk a little bit more about that? And the reason why I'm asking is because a lot of times, people. Um, and I'm going through this. It's funny because I'm actually going through something very similar with another board I'm on for an executive search. So the, some of the same questions have been coming up. So it's top of my mind, but, um, You know, equity wise, a lot of times people won't step up. You know, they need to either they need an invitation or they won't raise their hand or something. And I was wondering, like, how how are you sure that nobody you would know how people have the right certifications? Am I making sense?

Yeah, you are. I think Melissa Johnson's a good example. For a couple of years, she has talked openly with me. We've met about her aspirations, be it in Grafton or elsewhere. I'd support her in her development. I knew she had the licensure, et cetera. If Melissa wasn't based out of that school, Like say she was a we have middle school, high school, other elementary people in different schools that are fully certified. They're almost in that not pipeline for administration, but be it Grafton or otherwise, just because you're certified. We that just doesn't exist at South Grafton. I wouldn't if somebody I would not have. If somebody was interested in another school that had kind of kept it quiet, but they had the licensure, I 100% of the time would not have gone in that direction. And we would have stayed with making the most of Melissa in that position.

Can I ask why? Because they had... Wouldn't you want somebody, like, let's say it was somebody in North Street Elementary, for instance.

I wouldn't have done that. So somebody who's never been, for sure, has never been a principal, never been an administrator, is in the same district, but changing schools.

I got you.

So that's the key. No ramp up. You're just diving in. It would have to be somebody that had experience, right?

Thank you. You answered my question.

Or interim. You could do that. Interim's not ideal either. I mean, most interims, if you don't have somebody internal that knows that school really well. I mean, you'll read about, you know, interim principle here. That's usually based on some sort of emergency.

Yeah.

They're just treading water. We could have treaded water for a year. Melissa could have done that too. And to her credit, she said, I'll do that. And we were ready to support her, et cetera. She was game for that. Like, I can't under, I can't understate that enough. She was, or overstate that enough. She was great with, with that, but, It's not easy. We did that at the high school. It's no surprise, and she's very open about it, that this past year, Deb Goodwill, dealing with some significant medical challenges, we have cobbled together as best we could. We have an interim doing two jobs. He's interim, and we just hit the lottery with Paul Majorano. But it takes, it's behind the scenes, it's exhausting, and it's just not of the same quality. A year in a kid's life to me, that's a lot.

Yeah, no, I agree. And I was just, I was going to say that, I mean, especially in those schools, like the kids are only there for two years. So it is so impactful. My question, you answered it, was the experience piece. which makes so much more sense to me because my thought was, so you'll bring somebody out of district in, but you wouldn't look at somebody in district. But now that makes a lot more sense to me. So I appreciate your answer. And I have to say, I think we've done such a good job of cobbling together in things. I really am glad we're not. And we're moving forward to stop doing that because I think people have been overstressed and overworked and doing many different jobs at once. And it looks like it's a big puzzle and we're getting good people in the right pieces. So I thank you for that. And thanks for answering my questions. I appreciate it so much.

Christine.

Well, I guess to kind of piggyback on Laura. So, Dr. Cummings, you're saying you wouldn't consider somebody within the district with licensures that's not at that school. But to go back again to policy GCE. professional staff recruiting and posting of vacancies, recruitment procedures will not overlook the talents and potentials of individuals already employed by the district. Any current employee may apply for any position for which they have licensure and meet other state requirements. we cannot discriminate against somebody within the district because they're not at that building.

There's no way in which that would... Sure, if we posted, anybody could and we could interview them. I'm just cutting to the chase and telling you we wouldn't hire somebody that has zero experience to jump on board on August 1st. There's zero chance we would do the cobble route. We just would.

Now, again, we're totally disregarding our policy. Yes, punish me for that.

But my job is to make decisions and put the best people in front of, with our, supporting our staff and in front of kids. I'm going to do that every day of the week. And it stinks. The easy thing would have been to, and Melissa would have done it. We could have just survived the year. I don't doubt your motivation.

Dr. Cummings, I don't doubt your motivation. I'm just trying to understand why processes are not being adhered to. Because beyond that process, in that policy, we have GCF policy on staff hiring, where it says administrators responsible for hiring a staff member, you being the superintendent to hire principals for the building is directed to establish a representative screening committee. And I understand what you're saying, but we can't just keep like, well, we're not going to hear to this policy this one time and this one policy this one time. We're building up policies here that we're not adhering to.

So same policies.

Different policies. Two policies on this one. One policy on the last one.

And actually... Is there like a pattern? Or is two the pattern?

There's a pattern of apparently not adhering to policy when we're doing... staffing. And then my other question is in regards to this entire process that we're at right now, the employment of principals. It clearly states that the principals shall be employed by the district under said contract shall be submitted to the school committee for their approval on all terms concerning compensation benefits prior to the presentation of the contract of employment to the principal. Both of these positions, both that North Grafton and South Grafton have formally been announced that these people are principals. It's on the website, on South Grafton School's website of the new principal. So this entire process just seems like, at this point, rubber stamping and not adhering to policy.

Okay. On that latter point, the announcement, I'll take fault for it. Melissa and I had our signals crossed a little bit the day that I emailed staff wanting to tell them first, I didn't send anything out to parents or the community waiting until we didn't have a date, but after this would be when I would typically do it. We just got our signals crossed and Melissa put what I thought was an email to staff, she sent it out to staff and parents. I reacted to that by reaching out to Juliana and saying, okay, that was not intentional, but that went out. And then she followed up with whatever she put out to parents. But that wasn't by design.

Can I keep? But I guess, Dr. Cummings, we have received a lot of correspondence in regards to the entire process of this. It seems as though the process was not adhered to for which the policies that we hold.

Correct.

Yes. In addition to that, with the position that we're looking at now, you've added an ELL coordinator stipend. Again, that is another position that was not posted for. And in addition to that, that's a new position that, again, another policy states would have to come in front of the school committee before that position is even determined or presented or let alone posted, hired for.

We can certainly reframe it. It doesn't have to be a standalone position. It can be assisting Jen Mannion, who by default, it has just fallen onto her plate, but not utilizing... an individual who was the assistant director of ELL for the city of Worcester with our growing ELL program that Jen Manion would, without a doubt and without remorse, tell you we are doing our best to just kind of wing it. She brings, that's like not putting Michael Jordan in the pickup game. She's going to work an additional 19 days and for that work, receive a stipend.

but wouldn't we post for that even internally? We have ELL people within our district. Shouldn't they be granted the opportunity for that stipend just as anybody else would?

Okay, I'll definitely consider that going forward.

Laura. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, Christy.

So I think we need to just, I think kind of the trains left the barn or that, wow, I messed that up completely here. It's with the horse and the horse is at the station. Wow. This is like, it's like PTSD COVID right now. But my thought really is we need to just, just, I think as a group, right. We're professionals, we're grownups. We need to just think about like, and now that Laura's here for HR, I'm assuming she will be doing most of the hiring and posting moving forward. Just what can we do to really adhere? I mean, I think. we did approve the policies. I do think they make sense. Make sure, you know, what could we all do differently? Like, there seems like you were moving very quickly. You want to keep the people you have. You wanted to not lose this great hire, all of these things. So I just think we need to figure out what next steps are and to make sure that going forward. And I mean, this seems like it's been kind of a one-off. I mean, I've worked with you for a long time and it I can't really remember a time that this didn't happen. So I give you, you know, I, I give grace, but it is good to think about like, are we have so many, I don't know. I just, I get like, we have always talked about this. Right. And that's why we cut them down. We have so many policies. Are they not accessible? Like you're not going to check. I know you, you're not going to be like, let me check the policy book before I do something. So I guess we just need to make sure that people are doing everything what they're supposed to be doing and, and do we need a process here or just how we can move forward, I guess, because I think at this point, right, we're not going to go back and tell her, well, I'm personally not interested in telling her she's not hired, but we all can acknowledge that yet the steps weren't followed. We didn't get the things first, which I, you know, we do, we are supposed to look over things. So just, you know, what do we do next? That's all is my, where I am, but I am certainly open to other people.

I think you make a good point, Laura. We have a new HR person on board. She's extremely professional. She's worked in a much larger district. She brings incredible experience, specific HR experience. I think that is going to clean up a lot of these things. And yeah, I agree with you. I think it's... appropriate and professional to acknowledge that we didn't follow the process. It's also appropriate and professional to talk about the uniqueness of this situation and to, again, put students first in terms of what is the best outcome for the school and what do we need to do moving forward to ensure that we're following policy. Anyone else have a comment or want to make the motion or both? Christy.

Yeah, I just like in regards to the contract itself, Dr. Cummings, when reading the contract, this is not the typical template that we have used in the past.

Can you speak to that?

My understanding is, I've only been here a month and I'm blaming her, but wonderful Laura Cahill has been working with Sharon and on a regular, maybe every year, every other year, we end up sending whatever template we're using to legal counsel. They update it and give it back to us. And that's what we use.

So to that, well, number one, I'd like to ask the committee something, but before I get to that, it states that one of the major differences in this contract is regards to hours. It states that a typical day is eight hours. Our past contracts never had that in it. And now in this, which I would like to consider that the school committee removed this entire portion and post this part separately, the ELL portion, as that does not need to be combined into one contract. If it stays in this contract, it states 19 days. Does that, that she would have to work 19 days for the stipend, correct? Is that like today's the day or is that by hours? Is that 19 times eight hours, like 160 some odd? Today's the day.

Jen is still going to be the day-to-day do oversight because obviously she can't be a principal and then work on a given Tuesday at the high school with an ELL teacher. So it's going to be coordinated typically on vacations and during the school year and during the summer.

So that does not mean that we're just adding three quarters of an hour to each one of the working days to create that 19 days. And how did you come up with that stipend amount, $12,000 for 19 days?

I don't remember the math behind it. This individual is taking, even with additional work, taking a pay cut to come to Grafton. We were trying to be as competitive as possible.

Okay. And when we're speaking of pay cuts, when you spoke of Melissa Wallace changing positions to being demoted down to the preschool coordinator, is that a change in pay?

No, she will have, we're going to modify, basically she's going to resign from her existing contract, which has two years on it. And she will work the same year, the school year plus 20 at the same rate of pay for one year. I know you didn't mean it like that, but I want to be crystal clear that for everything I explained, it's a change in position.

I would like to ask the school committee, I don't know, I guess, I don't know the order, Leora, whether to take the motion or not, but you can say what you wish, that we take the ELL portion out of this at the very least. This should be posted. It should have been brought to us as a new position or new stipend to the committee for policy. It should be posted so that internal and external candidates have a chance to do it. It does not need to be part of the principal contract.

I would say what is that emotion that we are you moving?

Yes, I'm making a motion to remove that section from the contract.

Okay, does that get a second? I can't advance the motion without a second. Christy.

I'll second it. Sorry. I didn't realize I was looking at the contract and didn't know. Okay. I'll second it. Cause I do want to just discuss this further. Let's good.

I'm happy to discuss it.

Yeah. I just, I, um, I was hoping other people would discuss it for me.

Okay, so I don't see this in any other principal contracts. Nowhere in any other contract have I seen come across with Grafton Public Schools where it includes the mention of a stipend.

That's sort of secondary.

So why have you done it for this?

This is a very unique skill set, and it's a very legitimate need that we have. Strengthen us. It Obviously, she wants the additional work and we desperately need that work.

So is her employment here contingent on that?

On whose end? On her end.

You mean like she won't do it without that?

She will not become principal if she does not receive that additional $12,000.

I can't speak to her. I haven't had that conversation with her. I'd assume if... She's going to, if it's not 222 days and everything that's in that contract, if I'm going to substantially change that, I would assume that that's not going to be positively received. Sure.

Right. Well, I'm just asking the committee because I don't see this in any other contract. There appears to be no precedent for that and no urgency in which that part of this contract be done prior to August 1st, such as the principal portion is. So I don't see why we would not adhere to policy, multiple policies in regards to that position.

Laura, go ahead. Thank you.

Well, my thought is this. It's similar a little bit to what we added to Frank. I think we gave him the additional stipend when he was stepping up last year. So I do think it's not the same, but there is some precedent. I'm reading between the lines, and I think it's probably worded differently. But if Jay had added that, whatever, $12,000 into the salary, then we would obviously be questioning why she's making so much more money. XYZ. He's thinking creatively on how he can give somebody more money, but make them work for it. And taking a skillset that is amazing to have. Again, I, I, What gives me pause is, yeah, there could be people that we don't know that might also have wanted this position and also would want the extra money. And that concerns me a little bit about our current employees. But I also am concerned that it's almost a little... that will lose a candidate as well. I think that is a real concern. So it's difficult, which is why I wanted to discuss more.

Well, and it's not just losing the candidate, but losing that particular skill set. I mean, having served as somebody driving ELL programs in Worcester, which is a community that has a lot of ELL learners, I just, yeah, I'd hate to not have that skill set and experience join the district.

Yeah. I'm just nervous of losing the morale of current employees and the faith of the public by not adhering to policies. So, I mean, I, I, Nobody thinks she wouldn't get that job, but why wouldn't we go through the proper channels?

Yes. And I think though she's going to bail if she, she's not, she's going to bail if she suddenly gets this, it's the partly the money I'm guessing. So to then have her interview for a job that she was already told she had, it's... Not a great way to start. No, it's a bad look. This is a bad look in general if I, you know, was her watching. So I think we're in a little bit of... A barn? A pickle. A pickle, I was going to say. A pickle.

Christy, I know you have your hand up. Rebecca has waited and hasn't spoken yet on this topic. So I'm going to give it to her and then come back to you, Christy. Go ahead, Rebecca.

Thank you. I don't want to discount the skill set of the people that we have in our district at all. But if there was someone who had this level of ELL experience, Jay would have tapped to them already. So that's where I'm like, if we lose this, we're not getting it back and we are so fortunate. So I agree, this is not ideal. None of this is ideal, but I also, time is very, very short, days short from where we need this to be. And that's my feeling.

Stella, did you have anything? Thank you. On the topic, go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to also, I think Rebecca put it very well. I was excited when I saw Juliana's resume, you know, she's worked at, you know, previous principal positions, Worcester, the ELL experience, I think makes a great package. So I know this is an ideal and, you know, Christy brings up the policies again. But I do think that we would be losing a tremendous asset to the district that I'm not very comfortable, like, you know, Not putting her forward. So I would really want to, you know, see this move forward. I know it's not ideal, you know, kind of doing this in the dark. You know, we've received correspondences and I do feel for that. But I think we just don't have the time. August 1st is literally Saturday. You know, we need to hit the ground running. to make this a great school year. South Grafton only has, if you're not in pre-K, you're only there for two years. So these two years, we need to make them the best for the students there. So I would like to see Juliana be put forward with both principal and ELL. Thank you. Jay, if you want to respond to that.

Not so much that. If If the ELL piece is a, if the committee deems that as a significant roadblock, the other way to move forward would be that total compensation for principal and extend the number of days by those 19 days to, I think it would be 222 in total. And then internally, those extra days, that's what we she's talented in countless ways and a fantastic leader. But that nobody can very few people in the state can probably match where she is with ELL. So whether it's appointed or not, or even part of the contract, we could do it that way as well. So it wouldn't delineate that it's ELL. We don't have to mention that at all. It's going to be whatever the number was and that number of days. And I can state in there those 19 days will be directed by the superintendent. That's an easy change to make and one that I know she'd be agreeable to.

Okay. Christy? So, Dr. Cummings, so now you're stating that you would change that to be that her employment would be $141,000, which is, just to be clear, last one was what, $120,000? What is the, in this contract? In terms of $120,000.

What's this one?

South Grafton. South Grafton. The interim one's 120. This contract is not for 120. This contract is for 129, 127. What is it? I can't. I don't know what happened to me. 129. It's for 129. So the interim was 127. I mean 120. This one's 129 plus 12.

That's 141. So you...

that's that does not make me feel better in any way because then we're looking at raises on top of 141 which we didn't even speak to what how that how raises would work as regards to a stipend in addition We have there's reason for equal opportunity acts and for employment. I get that we somebody fell into your lap and and she seems like a great candidate. I'm not disregarding that. But we as a committee. have a duty to allow for equal opportunity to these types of positions. That's why we have policies for this type of thing exactly. The amount of correspondence we've received as a committee on this exceeds any correspondence I've seen on this committee. Like, individually I've received correspondence in emails to the committee we've received correspondence, correct? We have 20-something people logged into this meeting. We never have this many people unless it's about the override. I'm just stating we need to adhere to policy. And I don't think making a salary at 141 when the previous, both of those elementary school initial contracts were for 125 for Julie and for Melissa Wallace.

Also, it's not apples to apples. It's 19 fewer days just to be $12,000 for 19 days.

I understand. So I just don't that. I guess we're bringing up two questions now. How would salary increases work in regards to stipends? Do you typically increase stipends when salaries are increased? I don't see that we do, because stipends are typically tied to the teacher contracts, which are laid out. This entire thing of the stipend is very odd. Because the thing with Frank was on a temporary basis as well. That was when he was filling in for you as superintendent. This seems ELL is not going away.

Oh, correct.

This is not a temporary position. This is a stipend. This is a totally new created stipend. Yeah. I'm very concerned at how this entire thing was done.

Okay.

I guess I just come back to, you know, yes, everything about this is out of the ordinary and there are a lot of questions about compensation and increases for sure. Christy, I don't discount those at all. I also kind of go back to our mission as to like what is best for the students and the families and the school. And I am very concerned about the timeframe if we go back to the drawing board, I just am. Um, I don't know if the solution is a shorter timeframe for the contract. See how it goes. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's also going to be a deal breaker for a tremendous candidate that we would be missing, but Jay, I'd love to know your thoughts on that.

Yeah. I wouldn't recommend that. I think any substantial change I would, if I were in her shoes, I'd obviously, um, Of course. Be concerned or however you want to put it.

Yep.

Laura, I'd like you to add.

Yeah, I did. I had a couple questions and thoughts. One was, I did want to clarify or get an answer to the raises, because as we discussed a lot, we haven't moved stipends. So is her, would her compensation be based on her, I'm assuming it would be really based on her base salary that she would get a raise on that. And then the stipend per se would be, can stay the same until we raise other people's stipends, right? It wouldn't be a total package or would it be? And have you thought of that?

I think what you said is along the lines of my thinking, I haven't jumped too far ahead. Obviously we haven't even started the school year, nevermind talked about 28 increases, but what you said, I believe would hold true.

OK, well, I would want probably that maybe added in just because I do think that is important because it is a larger salary combined. I also want to point just mentioned to the committee as we are very fortunate that we don't have although we don't have we've had a lot of internal movement. We haven't gone out. And I think people are going to be sticker shocked when they find out what people are asking for jobs. And we're seeing that in that, like I mentioned to that other executive board that I'm on. you don't get to go backwards. Like even if it's somebody, you know, our salary range, we're going to have to think about that in the future anyway, just an FYI, it's been on my mind. So I guess wrapping that thought up, I would want to kind of separate it out.

I can add that tomorrow.

Yeah. If that's how we decide to go.

Thanks. I do like that solution. Yeah. separating it out in language in the contract that it's not part of the court compensation. Christy.

I just want to point out, I guess, that resulting from this kind of shuffling of principles and everything and to kind of like Laura's point, the total difference is approximately $48,000 that we're going to be spending in compensation in salary to what we had budgeted by adding this ELL position, by not changing some pays, by raising. So this is not at a cost. Again, I'm going to point back to policy GCE, which is another section. And it says that professional employees will extend a wide variety of educational institutes. Like a wide search will happen. I understand that this candidate is a good candidate. I don't disregard that. My question is, it's somebody that you knew, which you already stated.

No, no, I knew of her. I'd never met her. This isn't like, I know that will, I get how it all works. And that will become that. We were best friends or something. I had never met her. I used to teach and was a principal in Framingham. She was a principal in Framingham. After I was there, I knew her through others. I never had met her personally.

But it comes through your personal connections. I mean, you don't know what somebody looking for a job in Newton has for a background or what somebody in Weston has for a background or somebody in North Adams has for a background. Like to say that this is a once in a million is not really, we don't know that because we didn't do a search.

One, it's July. It's July. There is no world in which we would do a full search in July, period. Number two. that's huge. I think you're also, when you hire me, good, bad, or indifferent, part of that is the experience and the fact that I've been in education since I was 21 and I'm old now. And yeah, I know a lot of people. I know good people who I trust. And that network has value. If I was brand new, there's no way we'd be here tonight, good or bad. But I think that's a good thing.

It's just not providing equal opportunity. That's all I'm saying.

Sure. And I told you that I told everybody this. What we're talking about tonight are the first times. Well, one was interim, but certainly the first time for a full principal position that we've done this in 16 years. That's a long time and many, many hires, most of which have been really, really good.

But Dr. Cummings, you say like searches typically happen in the winter. For example, we just hired a vice principal at the middle school.

Yeah, I'm talking about principals, the very good and excellent principals. I promise you are not looking for a job unless there's some very strange circumstance in July. I couldn't be more positive of that.

I don't doubt your insight. I'm just stating that you don't know if you don't try. And there's reasons that policies are in place. And it's not as though we posted it for two weeks and then nobody appeared and then we got you have this person. Nothing was posted.

Right, because it would have been over. We had a tiny, tiny window to make a hard decision. And I made it and I'll take any follow up from.

Sorry, one more thing on this. This all came out on Thursday after our school committee meeting on Wednesday. This was not brought up Wednesday evening at our school committee meeting. And it could have been. On Thursday morning, you said this when this kind of transpired. It seems odd that this was not brought up.

I wouldn't announce to staff or anybody else anything through a school committee meeting. Something like that. I wouldn't announce it there.

I understand that, but we could have looked at this contract prior to a full announcement to the district.

I met with Juliana on that. I think it was that Wednesday was the second meeting I had with her. I mean, it's a big deal on her end, leaving her position. for this one. That wasn't like she was, you know, people aren't knocking down the doors to be a principal in Grafton. I wish they were.

So it- Point of order, Madam Chair. We have a motion on the table and we're supposed to be discussing that motion right now. And I do think there's some additional things that we can continue to discuss. Afterwards, but let's focus on that, I think. And then I would like to say continue. If that's okay, I have something else I'd like to add.

Okay. So the motion on the table is to remove the stipend and the ELL position completely from the contract and post that position. Is that accurate, Christy, who made the motion?

Yes. And I do apologize. I did get off topic. Sorry about that.

Laura, I appreciate you getting us back on track. Thank you. All right. So the motion is made and seconded. Unless somebody has something else specific to the motion, I'm ready for a vote. All right. Roll call vote on the motion. Laura?

Nay.

Rebecca? Nay. Stella? Nay. Christy? Aye.

the rna and then madam chair so i i'm i feel like i'm this it seems like we need to have a bigger discussion about some things um and i'm not really sure quite sure how to go about it tonight because this um things have been brought up, right? So I'm not sure what our next steps are. I don't want to sit here going back and forth with Jay. I don't know what I'm asking. Maybe I shouldn't have talked. I'm just concerned on what outcome, what do we want from this? So that motion, we still haven't hired her officially. Yeah, sorry.

I'm going to stop. No, I just want to summarize. So I think that we do have to have a larger sort of There's two pieces, right? There's compensation in general is going to continue to be an issue for us that we have to discuss. What's our philosophy around compensation for principals and others? And then there is the policy and process discussion, which I think we've all acknowledged we need to tighten up outside of this situation or in addition to this situation. But I think the short-term next step is Jay's looking for us to approve or not approve a contract, right? So I think that's the purpose of this call. And beyond that, we probably have larger discussions to have. Is that accurate for folks? Yeah. Okay.

And we do have some questions in the Q&A. I don't know if we're taking them or not. I just wanted to call them out. I do see them.

Why is the new, I guess, Jay, this is one I think you could answer. Why is the new South Grafton principal not being named on an interim basis? This would allow for the community to get to know her before we formally offer the position.

Yeah, nobody... I shouldn't say nobody, but I'm going to go ahead and say nobody of with that top level kind of experience and background is going to forfeit their professional license or professional status at whatever district they're in, the position that they're succeeding at to go to a maybe position for one year. You just never, ever see it. And that's why.

Consulting or you're retired. You're retired and you do it.

Yeah. Like treading water. You see that, but there's just no way. Um, And we just didn't have the same scenario that we did at North Grafton.

Right. It's different than someone internally stepping up.

Correct. Like Melissa, I don't even know if she'll apply for the full position. But if she decides not to, or it's just not the best fit for whatever reason, she has a position to go back to. in that we set it up in a way that Melissa Wallace, if we move forward, would be in that position for just one year.

Dr. Cummings, but it's not unheard of that we have somebody as an interim that comes from outside. Like we had Kevin Carney, he was supposed to be interim. He ended up being here for, what, a couple of years, but he wasn't, he had retired or whatnot.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's not an unheard of thing that you have somebody

No, going back to the point about knowing somebody, I had worked with him before I had known him for, he was basically helping me out through just a professional relationship. We were in a jam and he came in to help us out. If we didn't have that connection, he wasn't a known quantity, I probably would have gone in a different direction there.

Right. Did anyone have anything else on the contract as a whole? Or want to make a motion?

Well, there's another question in the Q&A. Is Dr. Cummings going to answer that one?

Can you read it? I don't see it.

No, no, no.

I would recommend it. I feel like there's some harmful language in that. I just I'm uncomfortable having a discussion like this without the person here. I know. And I just think this is kind of gross. I know we're public and all of that. And I just I think we're already putting a bad look on anything coming into this structure. So I would prefer we didn't read that question.

We don't have to take a question and answer.

And I do think I understand what it's being asked. And we again, like Leora said, we do need to look at salaries and things. But basically, it's because she's under contract. She has a contract that she's signed.

Right. Negotiation conversations that shouldn't happen. Sorry.

I got fired up a little bit. You know me. Emotional. I'm trying to find the wording. For what? Well, to make a motion. Oh.

Just one more thing. Leora, we had said that the purpose is to vote on these contracts. I just want to be 100% transparent that our role as school committee members is to make sure that our policies are being adhered to and that we set them, we vote on them, we make sure that they're adhered to. So I just wanted to note that.

Okay. That is policy is one of our roles. Yes.

So I think that's something we discussed at our goal meeting and some things. I think we have some bigger things to talk about. And I also think there's just some different philosophies a little bit on that.

So, Madam Chair, I would like to make a motion.

Oh, God, now, of course, my computer is like, I like, oh, you guys could see. I would like to make a motion to accept the contract between the Grafton Public Schools, Grafton School Committee and Juliana Castle Marcos as presented. Okay. Second.

Motion made and seconded. Any additional commentary before we vote, Christy?

Dr. Cummings, Laura had mentioned earlier that she wanted to have it somewhere noted in the contract that the $12,000 stipend is not part of salary increases. Are you going to add that?

I will. Thank you, Christy.

I amend my motion as edited per our discussion. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. With nothing further, I will take a roll call vote. Laura Often. Aye. Rebecca Soko.

Aye.

Christy Kielbazinski. Nay. Stella Dekas. Aye. Leora Brum. Aye. Okay. Um, the only other thing we wanted to talk about was, um, our future schedule and setting up, um. Workshops through Christy, you had suggested to me that our committee could use a financial workshop. So I don't know if you want to speak to that.

Yes, I've spoken with Tracy Novak. No, no, Vic. I always call it. No, back. No, Vic. Uh, and it's been suggested that. for all committee members to sort of have the same knowledge that we have a workshop, that MASC offers this, that she's willing to come in in the fall. When I spoke with Leora, we spoke about this just briefly. You also spoke with Tracy, correct? And that we could maybe combine this with the other workshop, or is that what you were saying? Or was it- No, no. No, no, not combining, okay. But that we... So I'd like to get this kind of on the books for the fall because if we wait till our next school committee meeting to kind of talk about this, we'll be pushing this out really till the winter at that point because we don't meet again till September 9th as an open meeting like this.

So Tracy forwarded to me the questions you had asked her and her response back to you saying, well, you know, with all these questions, maybe everybody should have the opportunity to ask questions and we should do it in a workshop format. So I guess I'd back up before the committee kind of takes this up as a, you know, is this something we want to do? sort of what's the, what kind of concern was, you asked a lot of questions about the general fund versus revolvers and understanding that. So what's kind, is there a concern that's driving this? Where's that coming from?

Well, I mean, I think we could discuss this in budget subcommittee, but I think that the entire committee is not really on the same page as far as what it is, our responsibilities as a committee in regards to the finances of the district and how that lies. And I don't think it would be harmful in any manner for us to have a workshop from the MASC person to come out and speak with us in regards to that. It could only help our work as a committee. Laura?

Yeah, I'm always happy for more professional development. I don't like how that... I'm glad you clarified on that, on what was actually said. I also just want to mention that in the last meeting, I also requested some workshops, one on negotiations, which got kind of dismissed on people saying they didn't think they needed it, and then one on our goal setting, which all should happen in the fall. So... um one-off and tracy on different um i don't love that so maybe you could reach out with her and tell her that we have all of these three and maybe it's a half day like they all need to be done in the fall um we need to set our goals we need to prepare for negotiations and absolutely um or maybe we just all go to one of the um uh charting the courses together or something too that they already do if people are concerned that they um don't think we know our roles i think we interpret the roles differently just as though people interpret laws differently and that's what makes humans so awesome and that's what makes us have great discussions because we all come out of them with different thoughts so um I am either happy to go to a charting of the course again or happy to do whatever works for you guys and Tracy, but I would like all three.

So when I followed up with Tracy after Christy suggested this to me, I mentioned the goal setting specifically as something that was a high priority and also did mention the negotiations. She is happy to do what works for us and what we prioritize. So that is the benefit of our membership in Tracy. In MASC, I do actually love the idea of us doing a charting the course together. Whether we end up having a financial workshop or not, I think that's a wonderful thing that I think would be a good sort of committee cohesiveness and good reminders for everybody. So I want to definitely put a pin in that and figure out if we can do that. You know, Christy had very specific financial ideas and reporting questions, which I'm not sure are going to be in the charting the course. And others of us may have questions. Yeah, I never think any professional development is a bad thing for us. No.

I think it's great. And we get it for free. It's part of it. I mean, I think it's perfect. It's just timing. So we could either do like, I think it depends on Tracy's schedules and our own schedules. I know the fall is crazy. So actually when I threw out like a weekend day, that kind of made me, I want to walk that back. But maybe we do like get them on, you know, month by month. you know, just get them scheduled quickly would be best, I think.

Right. Madam Chair. Yeah. Well, as much as I enjoyed the charting the course, I think that I don't mind going to that again. I just think like, for example, when we were talking about the goal setting and all of that, it's much, it would be much more beneficial to us as a committee. If we just have Tracy with just our committee versus with all brand new people to school committees, like you were really not going to be able to ask the questions of people who have been on committees for years. That's more geared towards somebody who's brand new coming onto a committee and Like, welcome, you're a school committee member. I agree.

You had just mentioned that people didn't seem to understand our role. And I think that is addressed in charting the course. But I absolutely think that we it's great to have that kind of thing.

Yeah, I mean, I would be on board with what Laura was saying and have like a half day come in to Grafton for a half day type course. you know, team building type thing where we speak directly with Tracy on these three different topics, the financials, the negotiations and the goals.

I think that's more than a half day, I'm sorry.

Or whatever, or multiple times, or she comes in multiple times, but I think it would be much more beneficial to us on the Grafton School Committee to have that kind of individualized versus a charting the course, but whatever you guys want to do.

I think it's two different things, right? I think Laura was responding to your saying, like, that you don't feel that we all understand our roles, which...

I apologize if that's how that came off. That's not what I was intended. It's just, I just want to make sure, like... We have different interpretations of some things and for everybody to have all the same knowledge given at the exact same time would be very beneficial to everybody.

I think a big part of what I want to do with these sessions is for us to build sort of a common set of goals and processes and guiding principles, right? So, yes. All right. So are we in agreement? I'm going to work with Tracy's schedule to try to get that all three of these are of priority to us. Okay. Anybody have anything else before we adjourn? You're on mute, Laura.

I was just going to add that maybe negotiations could be toward the end just because we'll start those a little later as discussed.

Okay. I appreciate that.

I just would like to note that Leora and I were supposed to have a subcommittee meeting this evening. It was supposed to take place at 630. Obviously, that has not happened, and we'll be postponing that meeting. I have been in the HR room. Nobody has shown up, Leora. I don't know if you'd believe this or not, but nobody showed up to this meeting.

Our budget subcommittees meetings are rocking, people. You should come.

Right. I know I look like I'm in a prison, but I am in our HR room.

Awesome. All right. With that, I'll take a motion to adjourn.

Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. Second.

Motion made and seconded. Laura Often. Aye. Rebecca Soko.

Aye.

Krista Kilbazinski.

Aye.

Stella Dekas.

Aye.

Leora Brom. Aye. With that, we are adjourned. Good night, everybody. Thank you for tuning in.