Rochester School Committee member Sharon Hartley expressed concern over the posting of a new kindergarten teacher position at Rochester Memorial School over the summer before the School Committee was contacted for approval.
During the September 3 meeting, Hartley brought up a discussion about the district’s policy for hiring new positions, and Superintendent Doug White addressed her concern.
Before the start of the school year, White said the administration began researching how it could hire a new kindergarten teacher to fill a sudden opening. The position was posted, however, before a School Committee meeting could be held, White acknowledged. In response, Hartley referred to the new position policy by memory recollection.
“It was at least implied that the positions are officially presented and identified and created by the School Committee,” said Hartley. “Therefore, the School Committee should know before any positions are … posted.” There is always the case of an emergency, said Hartley, “But in this case, it was not an emergency.”
White assured Hartley that, in the future, he would approach similar situations “in an honest and respectful way,” and to make sure it never happens again. He said there was no intent to keep the committee uninformed of the new position, but he said he understands the confusion it has caused.
“Here on out, nothing will be posted until there’s an approval from the School Committee,” White said. School Committee Chairman Tina Rood added, specifically, “For a new position.”
White said the position was added after the fiscal year 2016 budget was finalized and before a School Committee meeting was held to discuss the matter.
“The bump in the road is when we can’t communicate with the community in this case,” said Hartley. “So that causes difficulty.”
Rood replied, “It’s unusual, the summer is a very unusual time for all of us. It’s not a time we generally meet.”
School Committee member Jennifer Kulak acknowledged that, although the adopted policy was not followed, she did not interpret as great a concern as Hartley did.
“We are in the luxury at this age of electronic communication,” said Hartley, “so just to encourage all of us to use electronic communication as best we can … just to ensure we all know things.”
Also during the meeting, just as he had explained to Marion residents and School Committee members the night before, School Business Administrator Patrick Spencer told Rochester residents and the School Committee that inspection reports on the district’s school bus transportation company Braga Transportation appeared more serious than they actually were.
A 50 percent fail rate for the school bus transportation company seems high, explained Spencer, but factor in that the Fall River division office had a higher rate of failure of its bus fleet than Rochester and the urgency diminishes somewhat. A Braga division in Mattapoisett services Rochester Public Schools, said Spencer, which is under a different management than Fall River.
Of the 28 busses at the Mattapoisett division, 12 failed, but 10 of those failed busses had only minor problems that were fixable before the state inspector left the scene.
“I don’t take any failure lightly,” said Spencer, “but there were some minor [issues] … and all busses passed the inspection within a couple days.”
All busses were within acceptable range before the first day of school on September 1, and Spencer said he was comfortable with the results.
“Our main concern is the safety of our students, and to make sure all busses on the road are up to code and are safe,” said Spencer. “I don’t want people to be nervous or not know what’s going on…. We’re aware of it and we’re on top of it and all the busses have passed inspection.”
The next meeting of the Rochester School Committee is scheduled for October 1 at 6:30 pm at the Rochester Town Hall.
By Jean Perry
