The Plympton School Committee met on Monday, July 12. Dennett Elementary School Principal Peter Veneto gave a buildings and grounds update describing the playground project as “ongoing.” He said they had a meeting the previous week during which colors were finalized. Veneto also said that they were told that everything would be shipped out to the school in about five weeks. “So that’s very real and very happening,” Veneto said.

He also provided an update on the siding project on the western facing wall of the building (the cafeteria wall) also referring to it as “ongoing.” Veneto said that the school has also had some paving, sealing, and line-striping done. “I did drive by there and see the driveway all one color for a change,” Chair of the School Committee Jon Wilhelmsen joked. Additionally, 15 trees have been removed from the property to assist with the solar project. Wilhelmsen elaborated that taking down the trees not only helps with the solar project but also with protecting the building. “Every one that came down was within striking distance of the building,” he explained. Regarding the solar project, Wilhelmsen also said that an engineer looked at the roof and reported no issues from their perspective. He said they are hopeful that the project can be completed before the start of the school year. Some weatherization has also been done to the building to make it more efficient.

Jason Fraser provided the legislative update. “Quite typically, we didn’t end the fiscal year with a state budget but this morning Governor Baker should have arrived at his office with a budget from both sides of the legislature for $48.1 billion,” Fraser said. Fraser said extra revenue was set aside for future obligations. He told the Committee that $250,000,000 was set aside for unfunded pension liabilities. He also said that a $350,000,000 trust fund was created to support the Student Opportunity Act.

Fraser told the Committee that the Superintendent’s Association started their in-person Executive Institute and MASC (The Massachusetts Association of School Committees) will also be having a summer institute. The two topics covered at the MASC Institute include wrap around services which are those that extend beyond the typical school day and how to maximize federal funds without creating a fiscal cliff. “It’s going to help us lay the groundwork for the November joint conference that we hold down in Hyannis between the Superintendents and the School Committees,” Fraser explained. He said the event would be a hybrid one so that anyone without the ability to make it to Hyannis, or for those still uncomfortable with in-person gatherings, could still attend.

Principal Veneto also provided the school update beginning by saying he was interviewing for three positions right now including an aide, a math interventionist, and a building-based substitute. He said that there were “amazing” people who had applied for the various openings. Fraser asked Veneto if they were looking for a fully certified teacher for the building-based substitute position and Veneto confirmed that they were. “Not only have things been busy on the physical plant, but we’ve been doing a lot of virtual interviews as well,” Veneto said speaking to all of the physical projects currently underway on Dennett grounds.

Director of Business Services Christine Healy provided an end-of-year update. “We’ve had some highs and some lows and all of those have been reflected in the budget,” Healy told the Committee. She said there were savings in the substitute line since they struggled to find a building-based sub during the year. Other savings were found in tuition and workshop lines. There were also savings in the regular-day and homeless transportation lines of the budget totaling approximately $9,000. She also said that surprisingly there were $5,000 in utilities savings. Healy told the Committee that one deficit was in the maintenance of building area. “We are fortunate enough to have funds transferred from the town into that line at special town meeting. Some of the funds came from special education and some from out of district vocational,” she said. Things that were able to be done included fully funding the SPED Stabilization Fund, the balance of the work on the fire suppression system, finish the tree removal project, and make the driveway repairs. Additionally, there is a surplus of $46,693 for special education. There is another surplus in out of district vocational of $33,843; Healy said that was after a transfer of just over $41,000 at special town meeting. Healy said $113,416.13 would be returned to the town. She said that a number of fees associated with the playground would be paid for out of the surpluses including wood chips and swing mats. The Committee voted unanimously to accept the closeout as presented by Healy.

Superintendent Proulx also provided a district update. Proulx said that the Kingston Board of Health has asked the nurse leader to advertise a vaccination clinic that’s going to be held at Kingston Intermediate School for residents of Duxbury, Halifax, Kingston, and Plympton ages 12 and over. She said information regarding specific dates will be forthcoming. Regarding MCAS results, she said accountability standings would remain from the 2019 school year.

“For the fall, schools will be required to be in-person, full-time, five days a week; all DESE health and safety requirements will be lifted – this includes physical distancing. The Department of Education will collaborate with the Department of Health to issue any additional health and safety recommendations over the summer and we will provide any updates to you as soon as we receive them,” Proulx explained. Proulx also told the Committee that there were a number of summer learning activities available including an accelerated summer learning academy for students entering Grades 3-6. The Academy will include ELA, math, and social/emotional learning. There is also a Silver Lake Middle School Enhancement program for students in Grades 7 and 8. “It’s a great way to look at accelerating the learning as opposed to remediation which we know oftentimes just further exacerbates the problem or widens the gap for students who may be having difficulties,” Proulx said.

Proulx also said that the Silver Lake Regional School Committee was interested in exploring a change to school start times but wanted to know the thoughts of the elementary school committees before proceeding too far. “I think we’ve seen more communities make these changes since we last did this,” Wilhelmsen said regarding some exploration they had done into the matter in years prior. “It was about five years ago… and we had a tremendous response from the community when we surveyed them on their preferences and ironically it was about fifty-fifty about keeping the times the way they were and changing the times,” Fraser elaborated. He continued, “But all of the research out there, all of the brain-based research does show that later start times for our adolescents and high school-based population is beneficial in reducing accidents on the way to school, improving SAT and test scores, GPAs, and just also with their mental health.” He also said that the State is looking into setting up a formal commission to investigate the matter and then send dictates down to districts. “I think if we examine it for ourselves, we’ll have a little bit more control over how this ends up looking for our district,” Fraser told the Committee. Wilhelmsen said that if there were any Plympton Elementary School Committee members interested in volunteering on the regional study into the matter, they should let himself and Proulx know.

Proulx also provided an Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) update as Assistant Superintendent Ryan Lynch was not in attendance. Proulx said that Plympton was awarded $85,841 from the ESSER II fund. Proulx said that allowable activities for the ESSER II grant include but are not limited to evidence-based approaches to address unfinished teaching and learning, high quality instructional materials using the CURATE tool on the Department of Education site, early literacy programming, K-12 math skill building, planning and implementing summer learning programming, and after school programming. She said social and emotional programming was another major area and a minimum of $10,000 must be committed to mental health services. The total ESSER II allocation for the Silver Lake District is $543,721. Fraser pointed out that that money is aside from ESSER III which he described as “substantially larger.” Fraser said he would like to see these one-time funds used to examine and implement a cohesive approach to social and emotional learning.

Wilhelmsen ended the meeting by announcing some important dates including the first day of school which is scheduled for September 1. He called it as late as it can possibly be.” Other notable dates include the next School Committee meeting which is scheduled for September 20. He did note that some interim meetings may be necessary during the summer as certain things need to be addressed in a timely manner.

After interviewing four candidates for Halifax Town Counsel Friday morning, the board voted at their Tuesday night’s meeting to hire the Boston firm of Brooks & DeRensis. Selectmen Gordon Andrews and Ashley DiSesa  voted for Brooks & DeRensis,. Garron wanted to retain Attorney Larry Mayo and voted “no” on appointing Brooks & DeRensis.

The Halifax Board of Selectmen met in-person on Friday morning June 25 during which time they held interviews with four different candidates for Town Counsel.

The first interview was with Paul R. DeRensis. DeRensis began by saying, “I have a history of service to the town going back twenty years; I think I met Troy way, way back… I’ve been serving the town ever since in various capacities… I like the people that I work with, I’ve liked the town, I’ve liked the feel of the town.” He went on to describe his firm as “practical,” “loyal,” and “caring.” He said he has served as a town counsel continuously since 1986. He said that what makes him unique is that he has also been a Select Board member for 9 terms and 27 years. Prior to that he served on the Planning Board and Finance Committee in his own town. DeRensis said that he is also a former president of the Massachusetts Select Board Association. Additionally, he has ten years’ experience on the MMA Board of Directors. “I’ve been an advisor on local affairs to two governors – Deval Patrick and Charlie Baker,” he told the Selectmen. He said that he brings a combination of town counsel experience and an understanding of what it is like to be sitting on the same side of the table as the Selectmen. He confirmed that his firm has a number of lawyers. An associate at his firm also spoke. Leonard Kopelman, who grew the firm KP Law, said that he had previously served as town counsel for Hanson, Pembroke, Carver, Kingston, Rockland, Plymouth, and Lakeville.

Selectman Chair Gordon Andrews asked how many clients they have in the area at this moment. DeRensis said they are very choosy about their clients. He listed several towns including Cohasset that he is currently serving as town counsel for. Selectman Troy Garron asked, “Why should we choose you?” The simple answer given was “because we care” and “I know how to get it done.” Town Administrator Charlie Seelig asked about their preferences for going about giving legal counsel asking if other town Boards and Committees should go through what he called a legal gatekeeper first. DeRensis said that they prefer to use a request for legal services (RLS) and have it signed off on by either a member of the Board of Selectmen or the Town Administrator.

Next to interview was the firm Mead, Talerman & Costa. Partners Lisa Mead, Jason Talerman, and Katherine Feodoroff were all present. Mead, who is a former Mayor of Newburyport, said their firm was formed in 2004 as a municipal law firm that focused mostly on land use law. Mead said that when she was the Mayor, she would often have the City Solicitor come in to work with department heads so there was some cohesion within the legal department and they were “part of the team.” She said that when they created the firm, they aimed to do so in the same way. Mead said that in 2007 they got their first town counsel job with the town of Ashland. “We now represent 23 municipalities as town counsel,” Mead said. She said the goal of their firm is to provide preventative services to a municipality rather than merely acting in a reactionary manner.

Talerman also spoke saying that he is Town Moderator in his town. “Like Lisa, I felt that we should be, again, fostering that team approach,” he explained. He said that they hope to foster an approach where the town would go to counsel before a problem arises to avoid the most expensive option which is litigation. He explained their financial approach saying they provide “this uniform series of contracts and other documents so to help on the contracts or the day-to-day administrative stuff; the rest of it was we developed a series of flat fees… there is tons of shades of gray… but what they are is you have kind of a measurement of what the expected legal budget would be.” “It accomplishes two things, one it provides uniformity and predictability… you pay us a set amount every month,” he continued. He said that financially it all levels out as some months it benefits the firm and other months the town.

Feodoroff also spoke saying that when she was brought on board, she was the Senior Assistant Solicitor in Brockton. “The idea was to broaden the practice to make it a comprehensive, all inclusive firm because in the city of Brockton… I was the lead counsel for all our labor employment matters so I took on that role here,” she explained. She said she also handles marijuana cases.

“I don’t understand, you’re doing so well, why do you want Halifax, why do you want to be counsel here?” Garron asked. “This is going to sound a little geeky, but we really like this stuff,” Talerman said. Mead said they don’t want to sit on their laurels and noted they want to take on more communities. Newest member of the Board of Selectmen Ashley DiSesa asked how accessible the firm would be to the town. Mead said, “One of the things I think that is a hallmark of our firm is our responsiveness.” She went on to say that the town would be assigned a lead attorney as well as a backup. DiSesa also asked how they would like to receive requests for their services from the town. Talerman called it an internal issue saying that there were shades of gray regarding that issue for each of the towns they currently represent. “We are most betrothed to the Select Board,” he did note.

Next to interview was Jason M. Rawlins of Rawlins|Asack LLC. Rawlins acknowledged the prestige of the previous firms to interview before him but said, “I’m a very different situation. I am what I would consider to be truly a local, town attorney.” He continued, “This building is on 499 Plymouth St., I actually grew up at 1115 Plymouth St.” He said he is an active member of the Halifax community and has been volunteering with the senior center for over ten years. He said his wife and father-in-law both work with him. Rawlins said he is currently the town attorney for Bridgewater. He stressed the importance of personal relationships in his work as well as being part of the community. He called his resume extensive saying it would speak for itself. He stressed his differences with the big firms saying how accessible he is and that it would always be him to answer the phone.

Seelig asked what his strategy would be for defending town officials when he knows that those officials have taken actions that he would not have recommended or even actions that are illegal. Rawlins said that his job is to defend the action. “I zealously defend whoever my client is,” he told the Board and Seelig. “My job is to not judge the situation,” he continued.

The final interviewee was Lawrence P. Mayo, the current Town Counsel for Halifax. Mayo has been the Town Counsel for the past 11 years. “I would like to continue the relationship with Halifax; general, municipal, and state government law is my forte I would say; it’s one of the principal components of my practice,” he explained. Mayo previously worked as Assistant Corporation Counsel for the city of Boston for 4 or 5 years. Once he started his own firm, he said he took on a number of municipal clients including but not limited to the city of Lawrence and the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission. “In representing all of these different governmental clients I’ve been responsible, if you will, for advising and representing these different entities.” He said he has handled both complex as well as mundane issues across a variety of governmental areas. “What you have to do as good legal counsel is provide good, accurate, and fair advice, not advice that the particular individual may find most appealing to him or her,” Mayo said. Mayo said that Halifax is the only town that he currently represents. Asked how accessible he is, he said, “I like to think I’m very accessible.”

Andrews asked Mayo how he thought communication could be improved with Town Counsel. “If and when a particular Board member contacts me, it’s made clear whether they are contacting me for purposes of representing the Board… or are they contacting me for purposes of discussing something they need personal guidance on in the realm of their official capacity, of course,” Mayo said. He said it’s important to him to know if a member is contacting him more on an individual basis or as a representative of a Board. Asked about the separation of legal counsel in town, Mayo said “with respect to, in particular, real estate counsel and town counsel… it could be more advantageous to have it wrapped up within one particular entity.”  Asked how he has benefitted the town, Mayo said he believes he is good with prioritizing what needs to be done as well as having an open line of communication.

The Board decided to hold off on voting until the following Tuesday’s meeting. DiSesa said that would allow them to check references.