Special Committee on Health, Opportunity, Prosperity & Education (HOPE) REGULAR MEETING

Good evening everyone. I would like to call the special committee on health opportunity prosperity education also known as hope for Monday 07/13/2026. Madam clerk please recall the roll.

Chairman Beechado, vice chairwoman Peterson? Present. Councilor Indaba is absent. Councilor Royas is absent. Councilor Sanchez?

Three present, two absent. You have a quorum.

Thank you madam clerk. Can you please read the first item on the agenda?

Item one, an ordinance amending article two of chapter 21 of the code of ordinances reforming the procurement process for PPSD purchases.

Thank you. Just for the for the members, we have a couple of letters that were submitted to us from the Department of One from the Department of Education Department of Elementary and Secondary Education the Deputy deputy commissioner Drew Edelson and also from the superintendent mister and doctor Javier Montagnes. I would like to also recognize our colleague Jill Davidson Councilwoman Jill Davidson and I would like to recognize her to provide some remarks in reference to this ordinance as you chair the the task force committee.

Yes. I'm not going to repeat word for word what I said at the public comment, but I do want to, you know, sort of first thank the folks who did speak at public comment and sent in public comment. I think that, you know, to the extent that there may be, you know, sort of concerns about this ordinance, I think that those concerns simply reflect what their next steps are gonna be. We may not, you know, sort of like, we we I in other words, I think that we have made a tremendous change to a difficult process. And I'm truly grateful for everybody's consultation along the way.

I also would you know, I am certainly committed, and I, you know, hope that my colleagues on the Hope Committee are committed to continue, to continue to think about ways that we can change the way we do work here in Providence to best support teaching and learning in our schools, full stop, whatever that means. It may not continue to relate to procurement, we may continue to think about ways to change that process, but I would really am committed to expanding this conversation to think about all of the different ways that we can be thoughtful about how our schools can improve and what our legislative role is in that. So, you know, I think that, you know, more to come, but this is a critical first step, and I'm very grateful for the Hope Committee for hearing this ordinance and, you know, would like to ask for your support so that this one specific but meaningful thing, buying goods and services and getting them into our schools can be a little bit easier for everybody involved. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any questions from the committee? Some comments. Councilor Davidson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much, Councilor Davidson, for all your hard work to bring a group of folks together around the table to tackle this very important challenge that has existed in PPSD historically. That's no surprise to anyone. And in the sense of continuing the work, we're fully committed, all 15 city councilors.

But matter of fact is schools is gonna start within a little more than two months. And we have the city council, the mayor's office and the province school board in agreement on a very important issue right now in July. So I think that speaks volume to the leadership and the collaborative work. I know Sheila and President Stevens and Courtney Chief Hawkins here also played a huge role in that. But this is the type of energy we need to be pushing forward throughout the return of local control.

While some things aren't gonna be perfect, we all need to put students and families and teachers at the forefront of anything that we're doing, and this is a good first step. I also wanna state, we received testimony from the Providence Public School superintendent and one of the deputy commissioners at Wright. It has some interesting language in these letters. And I'm really disappointed that themselves or no representatives from their office came to this public committee hearing to be available for any questions or comments. But I'll leave it at that.

We can reach out to them directly, but this is what public services is having these public conversations, having this dialogue here in public. So anyone could participate in here. But we'll leave it at that. I just wanna say thank you for your leadership on this. I'm excited to continue this work.

This has been one of the biggest challenging situations as a public servant here in State Providence is the challenges that exist in our Providence Public School District. But I think this is the start of a new chapter. Everyone's excited. We're all more than willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that our students and families and teachers have all the support and resources that they need, whether it's financial, moral, spiritually. I was talking to another school board member and he's planning on getting some costumes to go to the football games at Hope High School.

And that's what this is all about, is making the tough but right decisions, but also being involved in the extracurricular activities as community members. We all need to be giving our 150% when it comes to our students. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Sanchez, Councilwoman Shelly Peterson.

Thank you, I just wanted to echo the sentiments of my fellow councilor. I think councilwoman Davidson, what you did in a short amount of time spoke volumes about how all of us want to make sure that we step up for the kids in our community. And a collective decision based on a very pragmatic approach to this seems like the next logical step. And so I really want to applaud you for putting this forward and everybody within that working group because the conversation around around our schools is clearly not over. We have, much to what you said, counselor, we have a beautiful opportunity.

This is kind of fresh start for us to be able to really sit down and hone in and prioritize the needs of our students. That's, I think, the one true thing that we can agree on is that it's putting students first. And so I really want to applaud not only you, Counselor Davidson, but everybody within that working group that did take the time and was very pragmatic in this approach of doing these things. And the only thing that I wanna make sure that I do state on record is I believe I really believe that when we have these opportunities to to try something, to see, we should also take the step extra and revisit when it comes to a year or two, whatever it might be down the line, to really see where we are and how successful it has become or if we actually need to do more. And so I just wanna put on record that I am as fully supportive of this as I think anybody else would be, but also I do wanna be able to engage in the opportunity to step to to see where we can do even more or we could do better if we need to.

I just think that that's a very realistic approach of how we do things or how we should do things to prioritize what's going on in the school department. So that's my thing. Thank you again. This is a really great step forward.

Thank you, Councilwoman, for those.

Chairman, may I add one more thing?

Yes. Thank you. Councilwoman Thank you.

Just wanted to follow-up on councilwoman Peterson's point. I'm glad you raised that because I could not agree more. This is not meant to represent an endpoint, and I think that one thing that we need to consider as a council is how we are going to collaborate with other stakeholders moving forward to evaluate this this ordinance and its impacts, and again, sort of identify other issues where the city council can make a meaningful difference and support sort of the direction of Providence Public Schools to create the best conditions for teaching and learning for all of our students. So whether that is within the Hope Committee or sort of another committee that includes some external stakeholders, I would like to follow-up on Councilwoman Peters, the point that I want to put on the record that this is something extremely important. And when we come back from recess, I'd like to pick up that point and sort of figure out what, you know, that body or entity could be, whether it's a sort of committee that includes all stakeholders that doesn't exist yet or, you know, some other structure.

Just wanna sort of put plant that flag in the sand and say we gotta keep going. I also would just wanna finish my remarks by noting from councilor Sanchez. You mentioned the need to be joyful in all of this, and I totally agree. Like, that without a sense of joy and optimism and love for the young people of this city, none of this matters. This is a way to express faith in the adults in the system, but we need to do the same for the every single young person in the Providence Public Schools.

They need to know that we have their backs. So whatever and I'm not sure that this ordinance, however important we think it is, is gonna matter. So I just wanna also say to you, and I will say on Thursday to all of our colleagues, we need to express that. We need to show up when schools open up again. We need to show up for freshman orientation for our high schools, for back to school nights, for whatever it is.

And we're invited. I just implore you to say yes to that invitation. Show up at our schools, be supportive, listen to families and spread a little of that joy because that's going to make a huge difference in all of us being able to come together and have a great school system. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Dilsson. I do have a couple of questions before saying my last some remarks. Can you just expand a little bit of what was the composition of the workforce I mean the work group? I know some members are here from the administration if you're able to.

Sure. The working group, which was like which was officially titled the know I captured it here. The sorry. I'm not finding it on my I mean oh, PPSD Local Governance Working Group. So that working group met five times between March and June.

We did not go in with the with the intention necessarily to sort of solve the procurement problem. Instead, we started in a wide group of stakeholders, again, including not only, you know, the entities that have mentioned here in type, but, again, the Providence Teachers Union leadership, parent leadership, and student representation. We also had, you know, the representatives from the mayor's office, Councilor Arroyo from City Council sat on along with me. We had a very wide range of, and obviously, Rhode Island Department of Education. So we had a lot of perspectives in that room.

Started out by sort of level setting. What is it we would like to get done? And I really kept at the center of that, not what we can get done, anything related to the schools, but specifically what the city council could have some influence on. And so some of it was a little bit of an education piece. Policy staffer Miguel Young, while he was with this body, you know, did an overview with the group of what the city council does and what we can do in this circumstance.

By the second meeting, the group had identified procurement as the challenge that we wanted to solve, and we went on from there. Different stakeholders had different presentations about what they would like to see, what they thought was possible, the changes that we wanted to see. And ultimately, we had a by ahead of our final meeting in June, we had and I really wanna, you know, sort of specifically thank Sheila Dormandy and Courtney Hawkins, who along with President Stevens of the school board and Steve Williamson, who's the chair of the school board's finance committee, we all sat down together and hammered it out. We figured out within the limits of both state law and the city charter what we could get done that would make a meaningful and substantive difference. I also really wanna thank Jeff Dana and the city councilor's office who spent a whole lot of time looking at what was possible in this scenario.

And again, there's so much that we want, but we have state law guiding what is possible, and then we have the city charter. And because we have a school board that is equally composed of elected and appointed members, we are sort of guided by both. And I know that Jeff can answer any specific questions about that if you have them. So we had to sort of look at both and chart a we have pretty narrow course in between. I think within this, and you heard some in the tonight and some of the written testimony, there are opportunities for future change, but those are gonna have to be done by charter revision, not by ordinance.

And there's we're still gonna know, we really haven't tested the legal model of this school board. So we're gonna have to be really thoughtful about sort of paying again, paying attention to both parts of the law the city law and the state law and figure out what prevails in which circumstance but that isn't meant to say we're done that's just meant to say those are some of the things that surfaced during the working group that we're gonna have to pay attention to

Thank you. Just a follow-up. Thank you for that overview and also recognizing the work that the working group did. And the reason I'm gonna follow-up with these is that there's two letters that at the appropriate time we'll enter into the record if we need to but there was a letter from the deputy commissioner Drew Edelson and also the superintendent of the province school Doctor. Javier Montanez being a little bit critical or at least expressing that more needs to be done and ensuring that making sure that that process of procurement and also so it doesn't go back to the ninety seven days as the John Hopkins report indicated.

Can you speak a little bit about that? I know that they submitted the letter they're not here but I know the president of the private school board is here and he expressed a strong support for this ordinance. Can you just speak, were they part of also these discussions?

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, again, do not necessarily share the perspectives that is in that public comment. But, you know, I do understand what they are saying. And I think that, you know, I appreciate that Deputy Commissioner Eccleson and superintendent Montanias both sort of say we have more work to be done. That's another way to say that perhaps this ordinance in their view doesn't go far enough.

However, as I just said, it goes about as far as it can given our current circumstances. Absent charter change, we cannot enact some of the requests that they are making. So I love that they are pointing to what is possible. I agree. We have to keep going.

But in our current circumstances, I think I would assert that doing something substantial is meaningful. Doing something awesome and, you know, perfect would be great. But that is not the world we're living in right now. As much as I would like to enact some of the changes, I also would like to take a little bit of issue in some of the comments, particularly in Superintendent Matanya's letter. He may not have, you know, he asserted that because there is going to be a school department purchasing agent, that constitutes more delay.

It absolutely does not and should not. That person is going to be appointed, ideally, somebody I mean, that he chooses that we, that the mayor's office and the city council all can agree on. We want this process to work efficiently. The city charter requires that that person be appointed. But we're not trying to sort of put in a roadblock or an obstacle with that.

We would like this process to work as smoothly as possible. So I am quite confident that the process will work much more quickly. I do not share the sort of dismal view that is expressed in those letters. I appreciate that they share their comments. And again, I think I choose to view that as a roadmap for what is to come.

Thank you very much for providing that. I think it was important to have that. And I too recognize that when we're in working groups or committee not the whole committee most of the time agree on the solutions, right? Members? And so one of the things that gets highlighted especially under this committee and thank you for your leadership and really stepping up right away when you got elected and took on the role of the working group to when we were going to receive the schools back to Providence and thank goodness that the governor, Governor McKee heard us through the efforts of all of us, the mayor's office, Sheila Dormany and all the team in the city council, we've been advocating for a couple of years now and finally we got them.

We just want to make sure that the voices are really heard. And I know that through this process and we got the news that we were going to receive the schools back. Some people may feel that perhaps we're rushing this too fast but I wanna make sure that this committee and through the work, the partnership that the administration and all of us in the City Council and also with the leadership of the Providence School Board that we're collaborative working together to ensure that that process is as transparent as possible, that all voices are heard and I know councilwoman Davison, your leadership as a mother and also having kids in the public school system as myself growing up and seeing how the school system has been failing a lot of our kids particularly when it came to kids of color. And we still have much more to go. And I want to make sure that through this committee and through the working group and the administration that it's clear that we want to make sure that we want to have our parents, our community voices heard but also here and through your leadership making sure that all these things are taken into account and that is provided a transparent process which we have But we wanna make sure that all voices are heard.

And so for the next several months and years to come, we want to make sure that all the school board members and the parents and the kids and the youth can feel comfortable coming through these doors, whether at the school board, whether here in these chambers, but also through the administration to ensure that their voices are heard. And I wanted to thank you for their leadership and we look forward to continue to hear from your working group as you continue to bring that information before us. So thank you for your leadership on that. Any further comments on the ordinance? Seeing none, is there a motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

The motion has been made by councilwoman Shelly Peterson to approve the ordinance before us and it has been seconded by councilman Sanchez. Any further discussion? Seeing none all those in favor? Aye. Excuse me?

Hold on a second. We're not done yet. Yes. Thank you. It's been seconded and voted.

The motion carries. The motion passes. Any further business? Seeing none, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved.

It has been moved and second. All those in favor? The ayes have it. The motion carries. This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you very much.