TAMWORTH SCHOOL BOARD APPROVED MINUTES JULY 19, 2012

Transcription

1 TAMWORTH SCHOOL BOARD APPROVED MINUTES JULY 19, 2012 Board members attending: Chairperson Jack Waldron, Carolyn Hemingway, Marie Labrie, Coey Littlefield, Charlie Pugh Others attending: Superintendent Louis Goscinski, Principal Rob Troon, Mike O Neil, MRI, Consultant Michael Lancor CALL TO ORDER: Board Chair Jack Waldron called the meeting to order at 5:30 PM. All present pledged allegiance to the flag. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Charlie Pugh moved to approve the agenda and Marie Labrie seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Charlie Pugh moved to approve the minutes of June 21, 2012, and Marie Labrie seconded the motion. On line 92 online greeting should be changed to online grading system. On line 155 Paul Chance should be changed to Paul Chant. On line 97 Charlie should be changed to Charlie McNevich. With these changes, the motion to approve the minutes passed unanimously and the minutes were approved and accepted. GENERAL ITEMS A. Other Matters: Superintendent Lou Goscinski explained that Other Matters would be on the meeting agendas as a placeholder in case a parent or other visitor came to a school board meeting and wanted to discuss something. CHAIRPERSON S REPORT: A. FY 14 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP): Chair Jack Waldron said he and Principal Rob Troon had met this week and reviewed where we are in relation to the CIP. The CIP shows what we approved last year and sent to CIP Committee. Jack summarized which of the proposed projects had been completed: the water coolers were done and everything completed but the countertops. The emergency generator was done. The work on the HVAC was intended to increase stack height due to carbon monoxide issues, but it turned out that ductwork had to be worked on because of incorrect installation and the $8,000 will be moved over to the FY column. Student lockers were cut from the budget due to cost pressures. Jack said we got some repairs done last year on the roof and Rob did not get good reviews on its condition. He said we decided to go ahead with as laid out here. Jack said we are going to try to do the roof repairs right out of the budget rather than in a warrant article. Superintendent Goscinski pointed out that we are trying to coordinate with the town. Principal Troon said we would like to start replacing the student lockers but we voted it out this year due to a tight budget, but next June if we have it, it would be great to Page 1 of 9

2 put in another $5,000 so we d have $10,000 for lockers. Jack Waldron mentioned the importance of school security and having a secure front door. He said next year we want to start looking at options. Jack noted that we have a special education capital reserve fund and a building renovation and emergency capital reserve fund, which we pulled $25,000 out of this year. He said we need to have some sort of flexibility with some capital reserve. He said the town puts $150,000 in an emergency account which is not dedicated to anything; that s their way of dealing with it. He said we will bring something back for a vote in the August meeting. B. Calendar: (1) Next scheduled school board meeting: August 16, Meetings will remain on the third Thursday of the month C. Other Matters: Jack Waldron mentioned that he would like to see spreadsheets in Excel and not PDF. There was a discussion of whether the board preferred getting several different attachments or one folder with everything in it. Lou said if a board member would like a file, he wouldn t mind ing that, but he keeps track of who gets what. He said if he sends out a packet in PDF, no one can manipulate that, and he preferred to do that to preserve the board s integrity. Jack Waldron said we could think about a zipped folder with all documents that could be sent to board members who wanted individual files. Rob Troon noted that last month or the month before we talked about how he could get his Principal s Report in there as well as a PDF document to get posted with the minutes. Charlie Pugh said the most important thing to him is that it all comes at once and on time. SPECIAL EDUCATION ADMINISTRATOR S REPORT: Lou Goscinski said that Student Services Director Raina Chick did not have a report and was excused for this meeting. FINANCE MANAGER S REPORT: A Budget Expenditure and Revenue Reports: Mike O Neil said everyone knew it was a tight year. He said planning was done to try to maintain the budget balance and he congratulated Rob Troon for that effort. He said on the revenue side we were a little short of expectations. He said we didn t get $25,000 for the student who didn t attend in this budget year and we made it up out of catastrophic funds. He said receivables is high because of the $27,000 transferred to Food Service from the General Fund which has not been done yet. He said we got a projected fund balance of $ Jack Waldron said that going forward he would like to get an understanding of how grants like the IDEA grant figure into accounting. Mike said Raina Chick can look across districts and determine how it gets spent, but it is hard for her at the beginning of the year to determine that. Lou Goscinski said to get control over the IDEA grant you would have to commit to using it for personnel; right now it s based on shifting needs. He said we talked today about getting together with Raina and trying to do some forecasting; maybe at the joint board level. Charlie Page 2 of 9

3 asked Mike when he expected to have this firmed up. Mike said at the August meeting he would hope the board would have most of it. B. FY 12 Fund Equity Estimate: Lou said we need the Fund Equity Report to be on the next agenda. C. FY 11 Audit Status Report: Mike O Neil said auditors have most of the information they require. He said because of teachers contacts and change in staff, the audit got pushed aside for a while. He said his goal is to get the auditors in here to finish one year and do all the pretesting on the next year and that will happen in August. He said we ve been working hard on keeping reconciliations up to date, and September 15 is a realistic goal. September 1 is a tough deadline to make. He said our friends at the state will look at it and have questions and it will go back and forth. He said we need to make sure everything is done by October 1 because that is when they start making appointments for tax rates, and we should be ready to set an appointment for a tax rate by then. D. MS 24 & 25 Status Report: Jack Waldron said we realize this is just a place holder because we don t have this yet. He explained that MS 24 is the projected revenue for next year and MS 25 is what was actually spent last year. Mike O Neil said we have to do that to get to one number, which is the fund balance number. E. Lease Agreement for Computers: Mike O Neil said we only budget one year at a time, even though it s a multi-year agreement. He said they require a purchase order for the whole value of the lease. He said he issues a purchase order for the whole amount; he pays the first year s payment and then closes the purchase order. He said this is not the lease, this is the Financial Services Agreement and the proposal. He said there is a clause in here called the Covenant, stating that if the district is unable to raise the funds they take the equipment back. Rob Troon said he was told by Apple and the other vendors that if something like that happened they would rather push the lease off a year rather than get equipment back. F. TEA salary Increase : Lou Goscinski said he asked Mike O Neil to put together some information to let the board know what the cost would be, a total of $13,000. It was noted that the warrant article will reflect a shortfall in the and years. Charlie said in the future when it says these are the increases based on the contract, this has to be done more accurately. Jack Waldron said the stipends were considered to be increases. He said from the teacher s perspective it wasn t an increase in the next year. He said stipends should only be in there for the year. Page 3 of 9

4 PRINCIPAL S REPORT: A School Calendar Revisions for Board Approval: Principal Rob Troon said we were to bring this back to have the board approve the changed calendar. Charlie Pugh moved to approve the changes to the calendar, and Marie Labrie seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. B. Student Handbook Update: Rob said the final draft was done and it has gone to press. No action needed by the board. C. Vandalism Incident: Rob said a more accurate description would be some damage caused to the building based on some mischief. He said this was caused by five former Brett students who were trying to get on the roof and as they were trying to pull up on a light, it pulled off the wall. He said the kids involved were very fortunate that the light didn t come crashing down and that nobody got electrocuted. He said the camera caught all the kids and the police were called. He said some of the parents will help repair the damage and it will all be fixed and not cost us anything. Board members were happy with that arrangement. D. Ready! For Kindergarten: Rob said this is a fantastic program that we got a grant for this year. He said it came in April and we re squeezing a year s worth of classes into a very short time, with a total of 36 families participating. He said we got 70 seats so we will have the ability to run it again this coming year even though we won t get the grant again. E. Playground Swing Sets Update: Rob said he contacted a dozen or more companies and it boiled down to five that he got estimates from and he s talking to another one. He said there is a person in Freedom who is willing to come over here and do some of the work and the biggest savings are with him. He said he would like to move forward with this company; it s all within the $7,000. He said he is looking for a date in August and he would like to have the board authorize him to get the site worked on because we re getting it done for free. He said there may be just a cost for the fill. Jack Waldron said Rob and the PTA will organize a volunteer day to create the footings environment for the swings. Carolyn Hemingway moved to move forward with the playground swing set project. Coey Littlefield seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. F. Summer Institute: Rob said 16 students are participating. He said next spring we ll bring John Marlowe in again to explain how this helps to eliminate the summer slide. G. SAU Items in Storage Sheds: Rob said things have been in storage since September the year before last, when the SAU office moved from their previous location. He said Page 4 of 9

5 it takes up half the space in the custodian s area and after being sorted though, what is left can go to the dump. Lou confirmed that there is nothing of value in storage. He said he would bring this to the SAU joint board. H. Other Matters: Rob said he met a local summer resident, Kevin Mahoney, who teaches in Massachusetts, who is an elementary school math specialist and doctoral candidate, who is tutoring local nine- and ten-year olds here and who specializes in using Singapore math. Rob said he was finding that a lot of schools in New Hampshire, as they are analyzing performance data, are using Singapore math, in which everything has to do with bars and ratios. He said he contacted a number of parents of kids who are coming into the fourth and fifth grades to see if they were interested in contacting Mr. Mahoney. He said he is not doing any selection process. He said we have a handful of kids here that are participating and some home schooled kids too, and as a thank you Mr. Mahoney is willing to come into the school and do a workshop for teachers for free. He said a side benefit is the strengths that the kids are learning. He said he will be interested to see how they do on the NECAP. Board members expressed an interest in learning about Singapore math. Jack Waldron said some members of the community mentioned to him that there is a religious group using the school building on Sundays to hold services. He said we went through the building use policies and we found that there is no violation of church and state; they are treated like any other nonprofit group. He said however we should not have them on the sign outside; they should bring their own sign. SUPERINTENDENT S REPORT: A. Approval of District Data Analysis Committee: Consultant Mike Lancor said he has been spending some time developing and understanding and interpreting data. He said there is quite a bit of student data, including NECAP, and it is important to look at this over a period of time, say two to four years. But he said if you re going to do a crucial analysis you look at more than student data. He said for example, there are more effective school surveys. He said a survey is an instrument that is based on seven correlates of effective schools. He said you are getting feedback that allows you to draw some conclusions as to strengths and weaknesses so you can come up with some action plans. He said the next step would be to decide what actions to take and what procedures to put in place. He said if the concept looks good, the board should decide who you want serving on this committee. After a discussion of possible participants in the committee, Lou Goscinski summarized the board s decision to have the committee made up of two students, six staff members, two board members, three parents/community members, the Principal, Mike Lancor, and Lou Goscinski, for a total of 16. Mike said we are targeting January 30 to get the work done. Marie Labrie said she thought it would be helpful to have a student who remembers details Page 5 of 9

6 about his or her experience at Brett, even a freshman, someone who recalls more specific details. Marie Labrie moved to approve the District Data Analysis Committee as described by Superintendent Goscinski. Carolyn Hemingway seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. B. Approval to Expend Funds on Effective School Surveys: Mike Lancor said an overview was done on effective school surveys, and the cost would be less than $900, based on the number of students, parents, and staff that would be participating He said if all three districts were involved and it was done on an SAU basis it would be a shared expense based on the size of the school. Lou noted that the money would have to come from the districts. Rob said this would take the place of money set aside for strategic planning. Marie Labrie moved to move forward to expend up to $900 on effective school surveys. Coey Littlefield seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. C. Primex Correspondence: Mike O Neil said Primex entered into a risk pool practice and we got basically 100% of our premium back. No action needed by the board. D. Special Education Capital Reserve: Lou Goscinski said even if we had money we couldn t put it in capital reserve because there was no warrant article. After discussion Lou said there is no need for action tonight until we get further information. E. Improvements to SAU Office: Thanks to Custodial Staff: Lou said a door with a window was put in thanks to Rob Troon and the custodial staff. Other improvements were made in other areas. He said Carol Pike had an idea to paint the door and have younger kids put handprints on it. He said SAU staff members are very happy about the changes. He said he would report at the joint board meeting on some ADA concerns about an emergency exit in the back. F. Summer Curriculum Work: Rob said the three Principals, Student Services Director Raina Chick, and Consultant Mike Lancor met to plan the first days around English Language Arts and came up with an agenda, which was handed out to the board. He said we have two days set, August 30 and 31, and we having nine teachers coming in. SCHOOL BOARD BUSINESS Old Business A. School Board Policies: Second Reading Page 6 of 9

7 (1) Policy DO: Uncollected Food Service Accounts: Marie Labrie moved to accept Policy DO as a second reading. Coey Littlefield seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. (2) Policy DP: Fund Balance: Marie Labrie moved to accept Policy DP as a second reading. Coey Littlefield seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Charlie Pugh said the original talk with the Policy Committee was that they were going to be able to do some fast-tracking so when we got the first reading it should be pretty well tuned up and we should be able to approve on the second reading. Lou Goscinski said he would have to read up on policy readings. B. SAU #13 Withdrawal Study Committee Update: Charlie Pugh said we are trying to get a meeting going early next week. He said the first meeting goes to the senior member and then a chair is appointed. C. Team Leaders: Reminder to Discuss at August Board Meeting New Business A. School District Deputy Treasurer Nomination: Board Approval: Carolyn Hemingway moved to approve Jill Lavoie s appointment of Crosby Kennett as Deputy Treasurer. Charlie Pugh seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. B. Personnel Nominations: Board Approval: Lou Goscinski made the following nominations: Jamie Killeen, Junior High Soccer Coach David Silvia, Junior High Baseball Coach Dennis O Neil, Junior High Baseball Coach Scott Eldridge, Junior High Softball Coach Ken Janos, Junior High Softball Coach Kerry Brooks, Athletic Director Charlie Pugh moved to approve the nominations and Marie Labrie seconded the motion. Marie asked if there was a job description for the athletic director. Rob Troon indicated that he had a job description for this position and Lou said he thought the board would have a right to take a look it. Jack Waldron asked to pull that nomination and take a look at the job description. Charlie Pugh s motion was amended and the nomination of Kerry Brooks as Athletic Director was pulled. With this change, the motion was approved unanimously. Page 7 of 9

8 SCHOOL BOARD COMMITTEE REPORTS: Lou Goscinski will present the reports at the next meeting. PUBLIC INPUT: None NON-PUBLIC SESSION: Charlie Pugh moved to go to non-public session to act upon matters pertaining to RSA 91 A:3 II (a), The dismissal, promotion or compensation of any public employee or the investigation of any charges against him, unless the employee affected (1) has a right to a meeting and, (2) requests that the meeting be open, in which case the request shall be granted; RSA 91 A:3 II (c), Matters which, if discussed in public, would likely affect adversely the reputation of any person, other than a member of the body or agency itself, unless such person requests an open meeting; and RSA 91-A:2 I (b), Strategy or negotiations with respect to collective bargaining. Marie Labrie seconded the motion. On a roll call vote the board entered non-public session at 7:52 PM. Jack Waldron Aye Carolyn Hemingway Aye Marie Labrie Aye Coey Littlefield Aye Charlie Pugh Aye The Ayes have it. 1) The board reviewed and discussed a Memorandum of Understanding between the and the TEA-NEA. 2) The board discussed leadership for the Tamworth School District and the involvement of the new Superintendent. 3) The board reviewed Superintendent Goals for the School Year. Marie Labrie moved to return to public session. Carolyn Hemingway seconded the motion. On a roll call vote, the board returned to public session at 9:04 PM. Carolyn Hemingway Aye Marie Labrie Aye Nicole Littlefield Aye Charlie Pugh Aye Jack Waldron Aye The Ayes have it. Action Taken As A Result Of Non-Public Session: Charlie Pugh moved to approve the Memorandum of Understanding between the and the TEA-NEA. Coey Littlefield seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Jack Waldron, Board Chair, signed the document. Page 8 of 9

9 Marie Labrie moved to approve Superintendent Goals for the School Year. Coey Littlefield seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Jack Waldron, Board Chair, signed the document. Carolyn Hemingway moved to adjourn, seconded by Marie Labrie. The motion passed unanimously. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 9:06 PM. Meeting, Approved Minutes Respectfully Submitted, Patricia Ambrose, Recording Secretary Page 9 of 9