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Where Children Learn to Soar and Dreams Take Flight |
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W“Unofficial Minutes” for March 16, 2005
Meeting Held at Thatcher Brook Primary
School Library
The meeting was called to order at 6:03 by WWSU Superintendent of Schools, Bob McNamara. In attendance were the following:
School Board: Dale Smeltzer, Michael Roche, Susan Flynn, Sherry Ziemke and Dawn Poitras
Administration: Barbara Tomasi-Gay, Don Schneider, Ken Page, Bob McNamara and Edie Beatty
Public and Guests: Jessica Diem
Superintendent McNamara opened this Board Reorganization Meeting by calling for nominations for chair of the Waterbury-Duxbury School Board. It was moved by Susan Flynn and seconded by Sherry Ziemke to nominate Dale Smeltzer as chair of the W-D School Board. This was approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
Dale Smeltzer then assumed the role as Chair. She nominated Susan Flynn as vice chair. This was seconded by Michael Roche and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
Susan Flynn, Mike Roche and Dale Smeltzer were all nominated to be representatives to the Washington West School Board. Sherry Ziemke and Dawn Poitras were also nominated to serve as alternate representatives in case the appointed reps were unable to attend. This was moved by Sherry Ziemke and seconded by Susan Flynn and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
Susan Flynn nominated Dale Smeltzer to serve on the Washington West Executive Board. This was seconded by Sherry Ziemke and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
Susan Flynn nominated Kevin Hamilton to serve as Waterbury-Duxbury Truant Officer. This was seconded by Mike Roche and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
The Board set their regular meeting times to be the first and third Thursday of each month at 6:00 p.m. This was motioned by Susan Flynn, seconded by Sherry Ziemke and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
Susan Flynn motioned to designate the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus as the newspaper of record. This was seconded by Sherry Ziemke and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
Sherry Ziemke motioned and it was seconded by Dawn Poitras to authorize Susan Flynn, or Michael Roche as her alternate, to review and sign Board Financial Orders on behalf of the School Board prior to the regularly-scheduled meetings and to report the information at the next meeting for inclusion in the minutes. This was approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
There were no comments from the public.
Discussion Items
A. Review of Board Primary R&R’s (condensed onto handout from full W-D R&R’s)
· Mike Roche asked about board goals. Dale Smeltzer said that we’ll do the review of the Board’s Roles and Responsibilities now and that we’ll look at school board goals in April.
· Ken Page agreed to e-mail the school mission and vision statement to the school board members.
· Dale Smeltzer said that she has been the board member who works on policy and that someone else should consider taking this over after this year.
· Dale suggested that it makes sense to decide on goals yearly right after the organization meeting rather than waiting until summer, as has previously been the case. She asked the Board members to review the full Roles & Responsibilities before the second meeting in April to think about whether the board needed to have goals in all the categories currently listed in the R&R statement about setting goals. The Custodial Maintenance Escrow Fund was renamed to be the Short-Term Maintenance Line Item. That and the Building Reserve Fund should include mention of operating under a plan. Michael Roche agreed to take over Jeff Larkin’s role as the board person who takes the lead on the Short Term Maintenance Line and the Building Reserve Fund and other building roles. This led Dale to ask the board if they were agreeable to following up on the previous intention of having Susan Flynn take Jeff Larkin’s position as School Board Representative on the Thatcher Brook Building Committee, and the board concurred.
B. TBPS Renovations
· Don Schneider gave a Thatcher Brook Renovations update. He reported that there were three candidates for Clerk of the Works and that interviews would be scheduled. He announced that he and Brad Gresham would be going to visit the construction project at Cambridge Elementary School, who is also using DEW for Construction Management Services.
C. Effectiveness of DRA Follow-up
· Barbara Tomasi-Gay gave the Board an update on the progress of students identified from the DRA results. Barbara showed her research on the effects of intervention that is occurring, and that was compiled with the help of special educator Jessica Diem and WWSU Curriculum Director Edie Beatty. The graph on Intervention Successes showed steady progress for those students who had previously been identified as not meeting standards prior to the grade two Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA). Follow-up on students not meeting the DRA standard showed continued improvement in achievement that was at least parallel with their peers in the following years.
Ken Page distributed financial updates for both the TBPS construction project and our regular Waterbury-Duxbury financials. He said that things are still extremely tight with a combined positive fund balance of $23,643 at this point. There were not food service financials available. Dale Smeltzer asked for a review of W-D financials and remaining spending needs for the second meeting in April, and as planned, the full food service financials for the second meeting in May, citing the need to make some timely decisions about the food service debt.
Regarding meeting dates, the Board decided by consensus to move the April 20th meeting to April 27, to avoid the spring break week during which some board members and administrators will be away.
Under other business, Ken Page presented the Board with a letter from Andrew Matt, a Boy Scout and Harwood student from Waterbury who is proposing for his Eagle project to clean up the dump area located near the far back of the CBMS property.
Ken Page also passed around a letter from Technology Coordinator, Eric Hall requesting paternity leave when his new baby arrives in late May.
Under Action items, Susan Flynn moved to approve the minutes as printed for the March 2, 2006 meeting. This was seconded by Michael Roche and approved 5-0-0. In addition, Susan Flynn moved to approve the minutes from the Annual Meeting on March 5, 2006. This was seconded by Dale Smeltzer and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
Regarding the request for the Eagle Scout project, it was proposed to allow Andrew Matt to continue with his plan “if it (area to be cleaned up) is deemed to be on school property.” This was moved by Susan Flynn, seconded by Sherry Ziemke and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
The Board took action to approve the Crossett Brook 8th grade French Trip annual end-of-the year trip to Montreal. This was motioned by Susan Flynn, seconded by Sherry Ziemke and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
Under personnel, it was moved by Michael Roche, seconded by Susan Flynn and approved on a 5-0-0 vote to accept the resignation of CBMS Instructional Assistant Brandy Pombar and the hiring of Diane LaRock as the new CBMS Instructional Assistant.
Bob McNamara announced that there would be a new school board member orientation session on April 3 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at the Washington West Supervisory Union Office. He also shared with the board the tools he has used to gather input for administrative evaluations. He said that he took input from school board members, a compilation of comments from teaching staff and met with focus groups at each of our schools.
At 7:47, Susan Flynn moved, seconded by Sherry Ziemke and approved unanimously to go into Executive Session for the purpose of discussing teaching contracts. At 7:53, the board agreed by consensus to come out of executive session (with action taken later in the meeting).
At 7:53, Susan Flynn again moved, seconded by Michael Roche and approved unanimously to go into Executive Session this time for the purpose of discussing administrative contracts. At 8:35, the board agreed by consensus to leave Executive Session.
Susan Flynn moved and it was seconded by Michael Roche to approve the slate of teaching contracts presented in Executive Session. This was approved on a 5-0-0 vote. Further, it was moved by Susan Flynn and seconded by Sherry Ziemke to approve the administrative contracts as presented in Executive session. This was approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
At 8:35, there was a motion by Susan Flynn to adjourn. This was seconded by Michael Roche and approved on a 5-0-0 vote.
These minutes are in my opinion substantively correct.
Respectively submitted,
Ken Page
Clerk, pro-tem