GREENFIELD — After a tumultuous fiscal year 2026 budget season left City Council and the Greenfield School Department with a strained relationship, School Committee members spent time at last week’s meeting debating whether to have interim Superintendent Roland Joyal Jr. attend the upcoming City Council meeting.
Mayor Ginny Desorgher, who also serves on the School Committee, made a motion to send Joyal to the Dec. 17 meeting. Although the vote initially resulted in a tie, members later voted 5-2 to send Joyal to the meeting alongside committee member Melodie Goodwin.
Although “communications from Superintendent of Schools and School Committee” before a period of questioning is outlined in Chapter 565, Rule 8 of city code as part of the mandatory structure of a City Council meeting, some School Committee members expressed dismay with the council’s previous lines of questioning and considered withdrawing from the meetings.
“At every regular meeting of the City Council, the order of business shall be as follows: … (5) Communications from Superintendent of Schools and School Committee (10 minutes) (5a) Questions from the Council for Superintendent of Schools and School Committee,” Chapter 565, Rule 8 of city code states.
School Committee Chair Glenn Johnson-Mussad, attending the final meeting of his term, suggested that committee members vote to suggest that Joyal attend the meeting remotely to provide a presentation — an idea that member Elizabeth DeNeeve said she agreed with, noting that the superintendent is not employed by City Council.
DeNeeve also expressed frustration with the fact that the superintendent has to give a report not only to the School Committee, but also to City Council.
“I also took this class in Hyannis, the City Council relations class,” DeNeeve said. “[The person who led the class] very sternly looked me in the eye and said, ‘Are you the employer of record of the superintendent or is City Council the employer of record of the superintendent,’ and they urged us to be cognizant of that.”
Desorgher also explained to DeNeeve that just as committee members may not be available to attend City Council meetings, councilors and community members may not be able to attend every School Committee meeting.
Johnson-Mussad pointed out that while the council can vote to approve ordinances requiring the School Department to report to, and answer the questions of, City Council, School Committee cannot pass similar local legislation — a fact that he referred to as being a “confusing power dynamic.”
In response, Goodwin, complimenting Johnson-Mussad on his “rebel” spirit, pointed out that he has also expressed a will to bring the council and committee together to work collaboratively.
Goodwin asked the chair to make a “strong recommendation” in favor of either rebellion against City Council or collaboration with it. Johnson-Mussad clarified that his hesitancy to send School Department members to City Council came not out of rebellion, but defense from the council’s tense lines of questioning during the fiscal year 2026 budget process.
“I’m really not proposing rebellion at all. What I’m saying is, in a good working relationship, both parties recognize each other’s autonomy and authority and respect,” Johnson-Mussad said. “My initial foray into this was reactive and it came after a time of intense struggle and difficulty, and being raked over the coals myself, but in particular, watching our business manager and our superintendent get raked over the coals at those meetings one week after being raked over the coals by us.”
After arguing that he believes it’s the School Committee’s “job to rake [City Council] over the coals” about budgetary processes, and the council’s job to simply give the School Committee “a number” for how much the Greenfield School Department will be funded, Johnson-Mussad said he hopes the two governmental bodies can come together and create a “mutually respectful cooperative relationship.”
School Committee member Kathryn Martini proposed waiting until January, at which point both the committee and council will have undergone a change in leadership with new members sworn in, before sending Joyal to “waste his time” at this week’s council meeting. She said she hopes that both bodies will have worked out “a set of mutual expectations” by then and protect Joyal’s “longevity” with the School Department by “protecting [his] time.”
Member Ann Childs, on the other hand, noted that the superintendent had not yet presented accountability data to City Council, commenting that “if someone’s going to give you a platform, you should use it.” The data, from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, includes information on the Greenfield School Department’s performance toward improvement targets.
DeNeeve, Johnson-Mussad and Martini all voted “no” on the motion to send Joyal to this week’s City Council meeting, with Vice Chair Stacey Sexton, Childs and Desorgher voting in favor of it. With Goodwin abstaining from voting, the motion tied 3-3 and went into a second round of discussion.
“I voted ‘yes’ and I intend to vote ‘yes’ again because I am of a similar mind of, ‘If we have the platform, let’s use it,’ especially if we’re essentially doing a PR blitz here to lay some groundwork for a more positive budget session,” Sexton said. “That is my singular goal and they (members of City Council) like Roland, they really do.”
Desorgher, urging the committee to vote “yes,” said she felt the School Department’s absence from City Council’s December meeting would be seen as a “snub” to the council and might hurt the two bodies’ chances of building a positive relationship.
Childs echoed the mayor’s remarks, adding that a presentation of the School Department’s accountability data will bring the council good news.
“Why don’t we end the year on a high point? We’ve got great data about the growth that the schools have had,” she said. “I would rather end on a high point, end with a positive interaction, rather than just turning down an invitation.”
DeNeeve, on the other hand, characterized City Council’s questions for the School Department at the Nov. 19 meeting as being “abusive.”
“I watched the City Council meeting and if I had been treated that way, I would not want to return,” DeNeeve said. “It was appalling.”
DeNeeve, in an interview on Tuesday, clarified that that she was referring to a councilor’s use of profanity during a disagreement on Open Meeting Law, and a line of questioning later in the meeting that she felt was aggressive. Councilors at the Nov. 19 meeting asked Sexton and Joyal to give a general update on new events and programs in the schools, to provide an update on the search for the district’s new superintendent, to provide explanation about declining enrollment and large class sizes, and to clarify whether there had been staff shortages at the middle and elementary school levels.
After Desorgher’s original motion was amended to include Goodwin’s accompaniment of Joyal at the Dec. 17 meeting, it passed 5-2, with Martini and DeNeeve voting “no.”