MINUTES Providence School Department

797 Westminster Street Providence, RI 02903 FEBRUARY 13, 2017

CONVENE MEETING

1. Call to Order – 6:31 p.m. - Due to the fact that President Hemond had a previous engagement and was going to be late, Board Member Santow conducted the meeting for him

Board Members Present: Mark Santow, Lorraine Lalli, Muyideen Ibiyemi, Nina Pande, JR Neville Songwe, Diagneris Garcia, Robert Gondola, Kinzel Thomas, Nicholas Hemond

2. School Board Organizational Meeting – Election of Officers

PRESIDENT – Nicholas Hemond A Motion was made to nominate Nicholas Hemond for President MSV – Pande, Lalli

Another Motion was made to approve the nomination MSV – Pande, Lalli (7-0) UNANIMOUS DECISION – MOTION APPROVED

VICE-PRESIDENT – Nina Pande A Motion was made to nominate Nina Pande for Vice-President MSV – Gondola, Santow Another Motion was made to approve the nomination MSV - (7-0) UNANIMOUS DECISION – MOTION APPROVED

SECRETARY – Robert Gondola A Motion was made to nominate Robert Gondola for Secretary MSV – Pande, Santow Another was made to approve the nomination MSV – Pande, Santow (7-0) UNANIMOUS DECISION - MOTION APPROVED

COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS Policy Committee – Mark Santow, Lorraine Lalli, Diagneris Garcia and Nicholas Hemond

Finance Committee – Nina Pande, Muyideen, Robert Gondola and Nicholas Hemond Health & Wellness - Robert Gondola

Board Member Muyideen Ibiyemi arrived at 6:35 p.m.

APPROVE AGENDA

3. Approve Agenda A Motion was made to approve the agenda as presented

MSV – Santow, Lalli (8-0) MOTION APPROVED PUBLIC COMMENT

4. Right to be Heard • Kim Greenberg – Hello, my name is Kim Greenberg and I had been a volunteer

with Aspiring Minds, shall I begin? • Mark Santow – Yes, you have 3 minutes. • Kim Greenberg – Well that is why I was doing it quick. My name is Kim

Greenberg and I had been a volunteer with Aspiring Minds for almost 5 years without incident or conflict of teacher, principal or student until November of last year. I have an envelope filled with just some of the thank you notes I received over the years from the students because of my relationship with the children was so appreciated as I appreciate my time with them as well. Starting at the beginning of this year, I have witnessed a 2nd grade teacher Rosemary Morrow on each of my visits to the school to be inappropriate with the children with her tone and demands of them and on Thursday, November 3, 2016, I hear blood curdling screaming coming from her classroom which was coming from her and a student, when I opened up her door to see what was happening Ms. Morrow separated from the child and went back to the rest of the classroom to teach leaving the child who just had a screaming match hyperventilating at his desk, I then put my hands on his shoulder, asked him to breathe with me, told him I cared and loved him and I was sorry for what just happened. Once he calmed down, I left the room and went back to Ms. Partridge’s class and I told Ms. Partridge what has just happened and I informed her that I would be contacting the Principal Cindy I did and Cindy asked me to write a letter of my experience so she could share with the proper people. I did write the letter and delivered as requested to Cindy and

from there everything got switched up with Ms. Truce, from Cindy which resulted with a phone call from Inspiring Minds for me not to return to the school to volunteer. I have since had numerous meetings with Dottie Smith, Inspiring Minds and the Superintendent and I have made too many phone calls without getting a response, written many letters without correspondence back. My meetings with the Superintendent were unproductive and he did not follow-up with what he told me in my first meeting, our first meeting. What has brought me here tonight is after I read the article Dan McGovern wrote about Achievement First and read contradictions to my experience from quotes of Chris Maher, I called Ken Wagner’s office and was told to come to this meeting because that was the proper step. I also have calls out to the Mayor’s Office, Dan McGowan and the Teachers Union with my experience.

• Vice-President Pande – I am actually going to ask that Jen, do you just want to take her name down for information, thank you.

• Mark Santow – Next is School Board Comments SCHOOL BOARD COMMENTS

5. School Board Comments • Superintendent Maher – I will be very brief. First of all, welcome to Kinzel

Thomas to the Board and also congratulate the reappointed Board Members and our new leadership and then also just very briefly take a moment to let everyone know we did lose a member of the PPSD family over the weekend. We had a young child at Pleasant View who lost her life due to some medical complications so my thoughts and prayers go out to the family as well.

• Mark Santow – Do we have any School Board comments? • Lorraine Lalli – Thank you. I just want to say briefly that his weekend I had the

opportunity to attend the State Championship Wrestling Match in Cumberland and I only went most of the day on Saturday but it was great to see our Community Partner Beat the Streets with so many students from 3 middle schools competing and my understanding is that 6 of middle school students actually competed on the 2nd day for the State Championship and 1 student finished 2nd in the state. It was just really remarkable that so many of the students have wrestled before middle school and some of them were 1st year wrestlers so I just really want to commend our Community Partner Beat the Streets wrestling for just doing an outstanding job and for the students to be there all day literally from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. without a lot of supervision and they had a lot of time on their own and just conducted themselves so well and

handled the victories and defeats with grace and I think it’s just a really productive partnership so I wanted to recognize them.

• Robert Gondola – Lorraine, do the girls also wrestle too? • Lorraine Lalli – They do! It’s great and the range in wrestling at the middle

school goes from 70 lbs. little little boys and girls all the way up to 180 lbs. and one of the wrestlers who went for the State Championship was in the 180 lbs. weight class so it’s great to see boys and girls, mostly boys but some feisty young ladies.

• Vice-President Pande – Mr. Santow if I may, more of a housekeeping matter, I just wanted to alert the Board to a Finance Committee Meeting that has been scheduled for tomorrow night and we are doing that because next week is a holiday and we wanted to make sure that we look at contracts and I know that there are some ordinance matters, some adjustments for budgets that need to go in so if you are able to make it tomorrow, we’ve adjusted the time to 5:30 p.m. again, if you are available I encourage you to attend and we meet right here.

CONSENT AGENDA

6. Minutes 1-23-17 7. Personnel Actions 8. Home School Candidates

Items 6, 7 and 8 were taken in block form MSV – Pande, Gondola (8-0) MOTION APPROVED

REPORT ON PERSONNEL

9. Supervisor of Special Education – 12 Month Non-Union Position – Kellie Girard – Effective: 2/14/17; Salary: $98,874.00 MSV – Pande, Lalli (8-0) MOTION APPROVED

10. Young/Woods Elementary School – Acting Principal – Cheryl Merola – Effective: 2/1/17; Salary: $113,240.00 MSV – Pande, Lalli (8-0) MOTION APPROVED

11. Director of Operations & Student Support Services – Facilities, Safety and Athletics – Jason Menard – Effective: 2/27/17; Salary: $107,842.00 MSV – Pande, Lalli (8-0) MOTION APPROVED

ACTION ITEMS

12. Request for Denial of Home School Candidates MSV –Pande, Lalli (8-0) MOTION APPROVED

RETIREMENTS & RESIGNATIONS

13. Retirements & Resignations 6:51 p.m. – A Motion was made to enter into Executive Session Pursuant to RIGL 42-46-5(a)(1)Personnel; RIGL 42-46-5(a)(9)Level B Grievances MSV – Gondola, Pande (8-0) MOTION APPROVED Board President Hemond arrived to the meeting at 6:55 p.m. All parties discussed in Executive Session were notified prior to the meeting EXECUTIVE SESSION

14. Executive Session Pursuant to RIGL 42-46-5(a)(1)Personnel; RIGL 42-46-5(a)(9)Level B Grievances

REPORT ON EXECUTIVE SESSION VOTES 15. Report on Executive Session Votes – There were 5 votes taken

• Two votes taken to affirm the Superintendent’s Recommendation regarding the Non-

Renewals MSV – Pande, Gondola (9-0) UNANIMOUS DECISION – MOTION APPROVED

• One vote was taken to Uphold the Superintendent’s Recommendation to deny the grievance in its entirety MSV – Pande, Gondola (9-0) UNANIMOUS DECISION – MOTION APPROVED

• One vote was taken to Uphold the Superintendent’s Recommendation to deny the grievance and remove the letter from the personnel file MSV – Pande, Gondola (9-0) UNANIMOUS DECISION – MOTION APPROVED

• One Vote taken to Seal the Minutes MSV – Pande, Gondola (9-0) UNANIMOUS DECISION – MOTION APPROVED A Motion was made to come out of Executive Session MSV – Pande, Gondola (9-0) MOTION APPROVED

A Motion was made to adjourn the meeting MSV – Gondola, Santow (9-0) MOTION APPROVED ADJOURN

16. The meeting adjourned at 8:16 p.m.