Chair Jen Blum announced at the Sept. 24 meeting of the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School Committee that the committee will formalize the Gray’s Pool subcommittee’s purpose, charge and timeline after an open-meeting law complaint was filed. The committee voted to approve the subcommittee’s purpose, tasks, charge and timeline and to appoint seven community members to the panel.

The complaint, filed in August by Margaret French, chair of the Town of Freetown finance committee, alleged the subcommittee had not been properly formed and that a meeting had not been published within 48 hours. Blum said the district consulted the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) and district legal counsel and “we do not feel as we did anything wrong,” but the committee will formalize the subcommittee’s structure to avoid further complaints.

The subcommittee’s stated purpose is to review, evaluate and make recommendations to the full school committee based on an engineering study. Its tasks include evaluating pool use — student programming, athletics and community use — and exploring funding options, grants and partnerships to support operations and improvements. The committee’s timeline sets an initial report of preliminary findings to the full school committee no later than January 2026 and a final report with proposed long-term strategies and funding considerations by April 2026.

The school committee appointed Tim Emery (Freetown), Crystal Ing (Lakeville), Lisa Pacheco (Freetown), Diane Topanga (Freetown), Kristen Moreau (Lakeville), Lauren Beagan (Lakeville) and Sarah Dudley (Freetown). The committee chair said the appointments will be sent to each town clerk for swearing-in, pending the school committee’s vote that night.

Members expressed frustration that the complaint was filed instead of being raised directly with committee members. Member Courtney Brightman asked why the committee was adopting changes if it believed it had done nothing wrong; Blum replied she preferred formalizing the process to avoid further open-meeting law enforcement costs and to “create peace.” Member Steve Sylvia said the “real issue here is the pool” and urged the committee to move quickly to get a sound recommendation from stakeholders.

Formal actions recorded at the meeting included a motion and vote to approve the subcommittee’s purpose, task, charge and timeline and a separate vote to appoint the seven named community members. Both measures passed by majority votes during the meeting. The committee also noted that the subcommittee had already been formally established by a unanimous 7–0–0 vote on March 12, 2025; the current vote ratified its charge and schedule.

The subcommittee will provide regular written updates to the full committee and present findings and recommendations for action. The school committee said it will review the subcommittee’s recommendations in April 2026 and decide next steps, including whether to implement recommendations or continue the subcommittee’s work.

Clarifying details recorded at the meeting include the subcommittee’s January 2026 preliminary-report deadline and April 2026 final-report deadline; that the March 12, 2025 formation vote was 7–0–0; and that the appointments will be processed through town clerks and include an official swearing-in.

The committee’s decision to formalize the subcommittee came amid disagreement about whether prior practice required the formal appointments. The district said MASC guidance and its legal review had not required the change, but the committee chose to adopt the explicit process to avoid future open-meeting-law disputes and associated costs to the district.

The committee did not set additional implementation details for pool work at the Sept. 24 meeting beyond the membership and timeline; the appointed subcommittee will meet and set its own schedule for stakeholder engagement and for reviewing the engineering study.