In a 3-2 vote Tuesday, the Warwick School Committee saw a quiet but dramatic shakeup in leadership, as Shaun Galligan replaced David Testa as School Committee Chair.

Galligan  was backed by Leah Hazelwood and Michelle Kirby-Chapman, all three of whom were elected to the board in 2022.  Testa received the support of fellow longtime member Karen Bachus.

Testa was nominated as Vice Chair by Hazelwood following the vote, but he declined nomination, withdrawing his name. Hazelwood was unanimously nominated as Vice Chair herself shortly thereafter, and Kirby-Chapman was unanimously nominated as clerk.

In a text to the newspaper  for a story in the Dec. 28 edition, Mayor Frank Picozzi, a former School Committee Chair himself, said he didn’t believe the one year Galligan spent on the school committee was enough experience to rise to the level of chair.

“The school department is currently in contract negotiations and making plans for the two new high schools, so I think continuity in leadership is very important right now,” Picozzi said prior to the vote. “With that said, whoever is elected chair will have my full support and cooperation.”

Galligan said following the meeting that he was planning on making changes to the makeups of subcommittees later this week, but wanted to make sure he discussed the changes with his colleagues before making the decisions official.

The meeting also saw another instance of the 3-2 voting bloc to table a vote on disseminating the 2024 Rhode Island Student Survey until next month’s meeting.

The survey, conducted from January to May, is anonymous and asks students in middle and high schools throughout the state questions related to substance abuse, bullying and students’ mental health.

Kirby-Chapman, Hazelwood and Galligan questioned rolling the survey out without first showing parents questions included in the survey.

“I would think it’s important that the parents see it before they roll it out,” Hazelwood said. “We think all the parents know this- they do not know. It’s not horrible to ask if it’s OK before we proceed… I would want the parents to have the opportunity to speak for their children before this survey goes out.”

Testa and Bachus said that they trusted the school’s administration to not roll the survey out directly following the approval without informing parents. They were additionally supported by a parent speaking in the meeting’s public comment, who claimed it was a “logical fallacy” to delay the survey for the reasons that Hazelwood claimed.

“Being a parent does not make one an expert in epidemiology, or substance abuse, or psychiatry or any of those things,” Jeremy Langill, the parent of a first-grader said. “I know the impulse to launch a YouTube video for an hour and that suddenly makes someone an expert, but that’s not how it works. I trust the institutions that we have in place to make a decision.”

In other meeting news, Director of Facilities and Operations Kevin Oliver reported that the cost of replacing the HVAC system in Warwick Veterans Middle School had risen by $60,000.

The money was unbudgeted and not covered by insurance or a warranty, according to Oliver, but a necessary cost for repairs. The total cost of the HVAC repairs at Vets is currently $110,000, and Oliver said he was unsure whether the cost would rise again.

“We’re at the point with this project that we continually find things wrong,” Oliver said.

The committee approved six new district policies on physical, mental and sexual abuse prevention, accomplishment reporting, the budgeting system, budget planning, budget adoption and rental and service charges.

In addition, they voted unanimously to create a new position in Warwick Public Schools’ Finance Department- the Grants and Bonds Finance Manager, which Director of Finance Brandon Bohl said would help better organize his department.

While the position was not budgeted, Bohl said that he expects the role not to pull from the schools’ general fund, saying that the district “should not be paying for it.”

“Initially, for me, I did have reservations on this position, given that the Building Committee is in the process of also acquiring an Assistant Director of Capital and Construction Projects, and I saw similarities between job positions,” Galligan said. “However, after speaking with Mr. Bohl today… I feel much more confident in moving forward with this.”

Superintendent Lynn Dambruch also reported that the number of chronically absent students in the city had seen a significant drop from the previous year, from 45% to 32% district-wide.

Dambruch congratulated Cedar Hill, Warwick Neck and Greenwood elementary schools for having the lowest rates of chronic absenteeism in the district.