WINDHAM CENTRAL SUPERVISORY UNION BOARD OF DIRECTORS REORGANIZATION MEETING Wednesday, March 25, 2009 Marlboro Elementary School Attending: WCSU: Wendy Houlihan, Abby Dillon, Steven John, Matt Martyn, Frank Rucker Tina Shakespeare Brookline: Lee Anne Parker, Dan Seiden, April Wellman Dover: Laura Sibilia, Rich Werner Jamaica: Wesley Ameden, Jeff Buffum, Drew Hamilton, Dale West L&G: Rob Litchfield ,Emily Long, Susan Misnick Marlboro: Augusta Bartlett, Lauren Poster, Andy Reichsman Newfane: Kim Colligan, Kim Friedman, Ken McFadden Townshend: David Dezendorf, Kathy Hege, Craig Hunt, Deborah Legott,(Townshend Elementary School) Wardsboro: Laurel Cashman, Mary Gene Landeryou Windham: Elizabeth McDonald, Alison Trowbridge Brattleboro Reformer: Jaime Cone Call to Order: Wendy called the meeting to order at 6:30pm. Election of Officers: Chair: Alison nominated Rich Werner.  All voted in favor with Rich abstaining. Vice Chair: Lauren nominated Emily Long.  All voted in favor, with Emily abstaining. Clerk: Alison nominated David Dezendorf. He declined. Kathy Hege volunteered.  Alison nominated Kathy Hege, and all voted in favor, with Kathy abstaining. Authorized Signatures: Generally officers of the Board.  Alison moved that the three officers of the Board be authorized signatures, Jeff Buffum seconded, and all voted in favor. Paper of Record: Emily moved to make the Brattleboro Reformer to be paper of record. Alison seconded the motion and all voted in favor. Meeting Times/Dates: Last Wednesday of the month has been reserved.  Next meeting is May 27 (in Windham at 7pm), next meetings to be scheduled at that meeting.  Emily moved to set meetings as needed.  Alison seconded and all voted in favor. Treasurer: In the past this has been Frank Rucker.  Alison moved that Frank Rucker be the treasurer. Susan seconded.  A Board member asked whether there was any conflict of interest in having a WCSU staff member serve as treasurer of the superboard.  This has been discussed in the past, and has been cleared with the DOE, which sees no conflict.  All voted in favor. Assistant Treasurer: Terry Fletcher is currently serving. Emily moved to have Terry Fletcher serve as assistant treasurer. Rob Litchfield seconded.  Again, she is a WCSU employee.  There are safeguards in place, extensive audit to be sure no one absconds with money.  There is a procedure form explaining differentiation of duties.  Frank will provide copies to any interested parties.  All voted in favor of the motion. Surety Bond Amount: David Dezendorf moved to set surety bond amounts as follows: $1000 for Board Members, $5,000 for Treasurers, $100,000 for Business Manager and employee dishonesty. Alison seconded the motion and all voted in favor.       School Board Negotiations Council: Under Act 82, we have to have one negotiation group for all of Windham Central.  Have to appoint a negotiation council, which gives authority to other groups to negotiate on their behalf.  Dover is currently negotiating, this body would have to give Dover group the authority to proceed.  Marlboro and Windham teachers aren’t unionized.  Need one person from each Board.  Emily moved to make the chair of each board, with the exception of Windham, Marlboro, Winhall, and Stratton, representatives to the WCSU negotiations council  Laurel seconded.  In response to a question, Rich clarified that the council will be reorganized at the annual reorganization meeting. All voted in favor with Alison and Lauren abstaining. Authority to Accept Grants: Emily moved to authorize the superintendent to accept grants for Windham Central SU.  Andy seconded the motion, and all voted in favor. Approval of Minutes:  Jeff moved to approve the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting on 1/29/09. (The  meeting was to discuss preparation of a contract.) Lauren seconded.  All voted in favor.  David moved to approve the minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting on 12/10/08 in Brookline.  Lauren seconded the motion.  Copies of minutes were available for review.  All voted in favor. Members of the Public: none Additions/Deletions to the Agenda: add under new business, review of proposed law from Windham Southwest to see if WCSU would support it. New Business NECAP scores: Wendy distributed NECAP data to Board members for review.  She pointed to the WCSU core values to keep in mind during review of data.  Data provided consisted of four years of writing and math, one year of science.  NECAP tests are aligned with the GEs, are good assessments, and provide feedback about the curricula.  More detail is available for review at individual school levels. Wendy noted the need to keep in mind socioeconomic data when reviewing. Wendy distributed a questionnaire for groups to discuss: what stands out, what patterns are visible, what questions are raised.  There was time for small groups to review and then the group came back together for discussion Discussion/Debrief: Things noticed: averages were consistent by year over the content areas—for example, in 2005 in reading and writing and math very similar within a school, with changes from year to year.  Cohort of students in a given year most indicative to how school performs.  District-wide improvement over last year’s totals. Big anomaly between highs and lows—knowing that these are just one class, vs. class groups—some classes are really small. Patterns: lack of patterns, except consistency across content area within a given year. Only way to see progress is to look at graduating class year, and see how a group performs over time. Wendy pointed out that this  is why MAP testing is useful, since it can actually measure one kid’s progress during a given school year.  Smaller schools have huge ups and downs from year to year, indicting that statistically speaking these are really hard to use—difficult to draw statistically relevant conclusions. Suggestions: put number of students in each bar graph, to give some idea what is being reviewed—this is possible for individual boards.  DOE Web site does add up numbers at the bottom.  Question about the writing portion: fewer students take this, but percentages are much lower—does this reflect less WCSU support for writing? No.  Tina provides lots of support in writing—in fact it has been identified in the action plans of some schools, and these data provide information to inform those goals.  Tina noted that a writing test at the beginning of 5th grade really shows what’s been happening in prior year, and this is being prioritized now more than in the past.   Tina distributed some information on the writing curriculum, what goals are for students by the end of 6th grade, with specific skills K-6.  Tina outlined district work on writing curriculum, benchmarks, rubrics.  Wendy and Tina reviewed the professional development work being done with professional learning communities as a model of ongoing professional development. One Board member suggested a separate middle school meeting with Marlboro and L&G, which Wendy noted for next year. Board members indicated they liked this method of reviewing versus the slides/presentation model used in previous years.  Wendy noted this for next year’s meeting.  Rich asked for additional data to be included: student/staff ratio, per-pupil spending, aids, existence of a preschool.  He noted that this would be very helpful at budget time.  There was brief discussion of achievement gap connected with socioeconomic standing, and with gender. Board members would like to hear from Central Office staff what they see as the stories behind these data: socioeconomic concerns, central office support, etc.  This would be important to review at individual board meetings. Agency Fund Approval: Agency Fund: To allow WCSU to hire PE, music, case mgt, PT, OT, nursing, counseling, etc. that are shared by district schools.  Vote will be on the $529,218.  Frank outlined changes from previous iteration. Updated PT and OT statistics that compute the allocation of costs—number of students being shared, pro rata based on student population per town.  Total expenses same as December, but allocation to each school changed.  Other change: in art program—Wardsboro uses same person to provide library services, and has a half-day reduction in FTE, so cost and distribution reflect that change.  Alison moved to expend $529,218 for agency fund items. Lauren seconded, and all voted in favor. Medicaid:Emily moved to expend $217,500 for medicaid expenses.  Jeff seconded.  Alison noted she thought money came in from medicaid.  Frank indicated that yes, about $177,000 is projected in revenue.  The program is run through the SU, so there are systems admin and clerical costs.  Expenses to the SU are revenues to individual schools.  This is a projection, tends to vary quite a bit, depending on medicaid eligible students in the district.  Medicaid grant is specifically identified in school action plans to support student learning.  All voted in favor. EPSDT: This is small grant—Frank noted that he was projecting lower revenue, based on statistics on services provided to students.  This grant primarily supports nursing services.  Dover and Marlboro have been added this year.  There was brief discussion of the reporting process.  Alison moved to approve $38,000 for EPSD.  Rob seconded and all voted in favor. Explorer Camp:  Abby coordinates this program during summer.  It is largely self-funded—schools are billed for students attending who are on an IEP.  Emily moved to approve $37,400 for Explorer Camp. Ken seconded, and all voted in favor. A Board member asked about the process for LEAs to request use of stimulus funds.  Money has arrived, but Title I allocations will not be by request; there is no news yet on the discretionary part of this.  Wendy will keep Boards informed. 2009-2010 School Calendar: Wendy reported that the districts are required by law to have a regional calendar, to coordinate with the Career Tech center.  Commissioner is collecting these, and following up to be sure this coordination is in place.  WCSU has more student days, so has required number of common days attending school.  Administrators have reviewed this, prof. devt, staff in many cases. Could be an informational item, since this is legal item.(No vote.)  Southeast superintendents’ group  reviews this.  If there are items this board would like to see on the next calendar, input should be to the superintendent by the first fall.  This should be discussed in September, to put on fall agenda.  Question about number of days: if 175 is state law, why do we have 180?  This is based on negotiated agreement, to build in room for snow days.  There will be further discussion in September. Contracts: The Central Office has eliminated two position, created one new one: office manager.  There was brief discussion about this.  The spending for the new position in the budget—this is to approve offering the contracts to specific individuals.  Alison moved to approve, Laura seconded.  Lauren asked that on behalf of the Board, Wendy thank Ruth Ann for her service.  All voted in favor. Dover School Board request to negotiate a new teacher contract: On behalf of the negotiating council, Kathy Hege moved to approve Dover’s request to negotiate a new teacher contract.  Kim Friedman seconded.  Negotiation council members (five) voted in favor. Governance Discussion: Kim Friedman and Alison reported they had been discussing reviewing the governance structure of the SU, given recent turnover in superintendents.  They noted concerns about sustainability in the superintendent position, given number of meetings to attend, lack of consistency between individual schools, difficulty of recruiting board members.  The suggestion was to get a group of people to research possible options, present back to the Board.  Rich indicated that a subcommittee could be formed, to warn meetings, take minutes, no action, no hiring, no money to spend, but research and report to the Board.  The Board can give a charge.  Discussion about what would be makeup of committee, and need for clear goal.  Kim moved to create a subcommittee to research alternate governance structures for WCSU for WCSU Board consideration. Emily seconded.  There was more discussion about the need for this review and what, exactly would be the charge of the committee.  In response to questions, Wendy indicated that she did think it would be useful to look at this, and that she was aware of possible other options used by other SUs that would be worth looking at, while maintaining the uniqueness of each school.  Frank Rucker noted that as the mission of the SU is to provide educational leadership, six superintendents in such a short number of years challenges the stability of the Central Office to provide leadership, creates a drag on efficiency.   All voted in favor of the motion.  After discussion of how to form the committee, it was decided that Wendy will send out an e-mail with date of first meeting, individual boards will send people to that first meeting, makeup to be determined at first meeting. Rich informed the Board that Ed Metcalf, the Chairman of the Twin Valley Board, had approached him to ask for WCSU support for proposed legislation intended to provide incentives to schools and districts looking at consolidation. After discussion of pros and cons, Lee Anne Parker moved to ask the superintendent to write a letter on behalf of WCSU asking that the bill be considered in the legislature.  Ken seconded.  There was further discussion, then a voice vote, the result of which was unclear.  A show of hands showed the motion passing 14 in favor to 6 against. Old Business: Strategic Planning Next Steps: Strategic planning process needs to continue, Wendy will transition to Steven.  Wendy asked for one more meeting prior to July 1.  This will be warned as a superboard meeting, but will move forward regardless of attendance, as no action will be taken.  Meeting will be held April 29, at 7pm. Executive Session: Kathy moved to go into executive session at 8:57 for discussion of the superintendent evaluation.  David seconded the motion.  At 9:33, Rob Litchfield moved to come out of executive session, Emily Long seconded, and all voted in favor. Kim Friedman moved to offer Steven John a two-year contract ending June 30, 2011.  Kim Colligan seconded and all voted in favor. Craig Hunt moved and Laura seconded that original wording of section 4(b) not be changed.  All voted in favor. David D. moved that the date in section 4(a) be April 15.  Laurel Beth seconded.  All voted in favor. Emily made a motion to add to The second year to be negotiated prior to April 1, 2010” to section 5 (shown as section #7 on “changes/ additions to the Superintendent contact sheet that was passed out).  Lauren seconded.  All voted in Favor. Wesley moved and Craig  seconded that we use the wording in the proposal from Steven John in regards to half the premium be paid to the employee if they do not utilize the district health insurance policy.  This motion failed.   Andy moved that if an employee opts out of the insurance plan offered because they are covered by another health insurance plan the employer will pay to the insurance provider in an amount not to exceed 50% of the benefit to cover co-pays or deductibles.  Lauren seconded the motion.  After some discussion the vote was five in favor and the rest against so the motion failed. Wendy Houlihan then left the meeting.  David moved that to go into executive session for employee evaluation and Andy seconded at 9:50 pm. At 10:03pm Laurel moved to come out of executive session and Emily seconded.  All voted in favor.  Laurel moved and Andy seconded that the Officers meet and write the evaluation and review it with the Superintendent.  All voted in favor. Adjournment: Kim moved and Kim seconded that to adjourn at 10:05 pm. All in favor. Next Meeting: Annual meeting: 7:00 p.m. May 27, 2009  Windham Elementary School  The Commissioner is scheduled at this time to attend this meeting. Respectfully submitted, Tara Meinhard