Gloucester School Committee - Personnel Subcommittee, Oct. 8, 2026

William Melvin Okay.

There you go.

William Melvin Yep, I'd like to call this meeting of the Personnel Subcommittee to order. Do I need to read the preamble, I suppose? Does it… does it matter?

Kathleen Clancy public.

William Melvin Nobody's watching it, so… Okay. So we have, Reports, deliberations, discussions, and actions. Review and discuss updated job descriptions for three individuals' non-union contracts.

Yes. Turn it over to the.

William Melvin Superintendent.

Yep, so it's actually going to be 1 for now. I'm… Starting to make changes, but going slow to go fast. So it's kind of changed a little bit since I've talked to you, so we're going to talk about one today. And so, I want to talk about, it should be in your packet, what the current job descri… or job… title is a Pre-K-5 Special Education Program Coordinator. Rachel Clemenzi holds that position. It's not actually the position she is… So she's been acting as the out-of-district coordinator for the last year, but I can't find a change in her title from the Pre-K to 5, so her contract says this. So she's been acting a little in…

As a, out-of-district coordinator, but that's the position I'm talking about changing. Okay.

William Melvin Yep.

So you should have that old job description in your packet and also the new one. And I would like to have her job title changed or the job title of this position changed to Assistant Director of Special Education. It broadens the scope of what she can do. It may… and it gives, more… More working power in a department that we clearly have been putting a lot of money into, and time, and energy, and a great need to improve Both the delivery of our instruction, the strength of our programs, and, you know, the coordination of both in and out of districts. She'll continue to oversee those things. But, you know, when she's… if she's bringing a student back, she needs to have a really strong grasp of our current programs. I want her more involved in that, with our related service providers and so forth.

So the job description that I am proposing is for the assistant director of special education. She would report directly to our director of special education. And the overarching idea, just to almost simplify it, is for Mike Jarvis to continue to be the director where he is You know, overseeing the entire department, of course, but big picture and boots on the ground implementation would be more of the assistant director, or additional. Mike still will be in classrooms, still will be in programs, still will be very much involved. This would give us more manpower to really, make some changes that we need to do.

Heather Dagle Great. Sorry, hold on.

Okay.

Heather Dagle 8.

I don't know if you want me to go through, you know, she'll help out with compliance Instructional leadership and supervision. What you're gonna hear as I start to, share more and more about what I'm finding. In my entry plan is the need for additional supervision, meaning evaluations and accountability of our staff. This would build the capacity for us to be able to do that. You're gonna hear that theme over and over again, all fall, all winter. I'm gonna keep saying we need more accountability. And then she'll help with programs and operations, she'll help a little bit with fiscal and grant. Mike Jarvis obviously would really oversee that, but she would be in the know of that. Some community engagement, and so forth, so…

I don't know if you have questions, or…

Heather Dagle No, sounds good.

William Melvin Yeah, I think… no, I mean, just a quick… sorry. So the new position… the new title gives her the… Authority, or the… she can do those things that you're talking about now, is that correct, Amy?

Yes, and I started a little… I had, this… this Monday, I had her meeting with a school psychologist. We have, we're… down a school psychologist, and we have one leaving, so there's some maneuvering we need to do, operational, to make sure we're using them as efficiently as possible, and I'm kind of… I tasked Rachel to kind of oversee that and work with them.

Heather Dagle So.

That's… we're starting to dabble in this, but I'd like to make it official, where she can have, she's extremely talented and, can really I'd like to use her… I don't feel like she's being used to the most of her capacity.

Heather Dagle Okay.

Broaden her scope.

William Melvin Kath, what do you got? Any questions or Heather?

Kathleen Clancy Heather was saying something.

William Melvin Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Heather Dagle Oh, I was just. Oh, it's okay, don't worry about it. So she's already doing most of this. Is this going to change her pay as well? It should not be.

She's doing most of it. She's doing some of it now. I would like to broaden it again. At this point, it's not changing her pay. She's aware of that. I can't… there's no money. Next year… next year, if, her increase was slightly higher because of this, that's to be determined, but. It… this does… it really has no budgetary impact right now.

Heather Dagle Okay, she's okay doing it without the… increasing her pay.

She's very much eager to learn and grow her profession.

Heather Dagle Awesome. Okay, that's it.

Kathleen Clancy Yeah, so the only comment I'm gonna make is that, it's not the title necessarily that gives her the authority, it's this… it's the bulk of what is now in here, so that it's very clear for. for the special education department, as well as other people that interact with special education, as to what her role is all-encompassing. I think one of the key things is the evaluations, which, you know, we know we're always, you know, our administrators are really always tap to… get around to doing them, as… with the frequency and the, and the focus. So that is very important, support for Mike to have as well, I think.

And an example is, if we look at Beeman with one administrator in the building, she has more than 40 evaluations she has to do every year. That's a tremendous load for somebody that's running a building, building community, driving instruction, all the things. So if we could have maybe a service provider, related service provider, fall under an assistant director or something like that, it would… it would lighten the load. It'll have a ripple effect of making… of allowing our other administrators to be more effective as well.

William Melvin Mmm. Yeah. Yep, yep, makes perfect sense. And I'm asking this question only because I'm curious more than anything else, but at no point. At no point do we open this… she's got the position, we're just changing the title. But we don't open this up for other people to apply for this position, right?

So, it's… it's a title change. I'm not looking to open it up. I… I don't know how the committee feels.

William Melvin Not either. I just kind of asking more than anything else. From a I just I guess I'm asking from a procedural standpoint, if her responsibilities are changing, does that mean we have to open it up or anything?

Well, the other thing is, she signed a 3-year contract with Ben in June.

William Melvin Okay.

So we she's obligated a job for the next three years. So so we're changing her title as far as that's concerned.

William Melvin Yep, yep.

Heather Dagle Yeah.

Kathleen Clancy Yeah, and I think, it's not a new position, it's an evolved… it's an evolving job description, which I think, sometimes we don't… adjust our job descriptions as people kind of migrate to taking on different responsibilities, so they… it's just not clear it's in their job description, so I think this is good practice to have our job descriptions reflect what somebody is actually doing and responsible for. So that we don't say, oh, okay, someone left. Let's re, let's evaluate the position. Right? Right. So this is it. Right.

William Melvin Right, right. That's a great point, Kath, because some of the contract negotiations we've gone through, we've spent more time on defining what the job is and rewriting the job description than anything else, so that's a good point. Okay, is that it? Any other questions? Comments? No? No.

Kathleen Clancy I move that we accept… that we, recommend to the full committee to approve The… Job description for Assistant Director of Special Education as presented.

Heather Dagle Second.

William Melvin Roll… do we have to do a roll call vote? Me too. Yeah, roll call vote. Chairperson Clancy?

Kathleen Clancy Yes.

William Melvin Ms. Dagle?

Heather Dagle Yes.

William Melvin And Mr. Melvin is a yes as well.

Kathleen Clancy Okay.

Thank you.

William Melvin Okay.

Kathleen Clancy How come we haven't heard from Billy during this meeting?

William Melvin Because he's not here today. My house has become like a little daycare. I'm ready to…

Kathleen Clancy Yeah.

William Melvin Nice to have a date. Nice to have nice for me to have a day off. So.

Heather Dagle I Sure.

Kathleen Clancy Motion to adjourn.

William Melvin Second? All in favor?

Kathleen Clancy Yes.

William Melvin Aye, aye.

Heather Dagle Have a lovely day, everybody!

Kathleen Clancy Enjoying.

William Melvin Thanks, everybody. Thanks.

Thank you very much.

William Melvin Yep. All right.

Bye.