BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington           Stockbridge        West Stockbridge

 SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

DISTRICT OFFICES- Stockbridge – Professional Development Room

 June 16, 2016 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

School Committee:   S. Bannon,  R. Dohoney, J. St. Peter, W. Fields,  K. Piasecki, F. Clark, C. Shelton, A. Potter,  D. Weston

  Administration:        P. Dillon, S. Harrison

 Staff/Public:      M. Berle, B. Doren, M. Young, S. Soule, J. Briggs, Eileen Mooney, David Adler, Stephanie Adler

Absent:   R. Bradway

List of Documents Distributed:

January 28, 2016 agenda; January 28, 2016 Minutes; March 10, 2016 Minutes;April 14, 2016 Minutes;SC Memo for Reallocations

Monument Valley Program Review June 2016; June 16, 2016 Personnel Report; Ant. of Rev. FY17

 RECORDER NOTE: Meeting attended by recorder and minutes transcribed, after the fact, from DVD provided by CTSB . Length of meeting: 1hr 52min

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 CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order @ 7:00pm

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PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

The listing of agenda items are those reasonably anticipated by the chair, which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed, and other items not listed may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. This meeting is being recorded by CTSB and will be broadcast at a later date. Minutes will be transcribed and made public, as well as added to our website, www.bhrsd.org once approved.

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MINUTES

BHRSD School Committee Meeting Minutes:

 January 28, 2016; March 10, 2016; April 14, 2016

Motion to approve minutes: D.Weston   Seconded: W.Fields      Approved: Unanimous

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TREASURER’S REPORT  -None

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SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT

GOOD NEWS ITEM(S)

Muddy Brook Elementary School (MBE)

M.Berle, Principal:

  • -Every grade level has invited families in the last two weeks for Showcase and student work
  • -celebrating move update for the fourth grade
  • -Third and fourth grade concert last week was Michael Gillespie’s last one- moving to high school band director. Wonderful concert.
  • -Three staff retiring: Sue MacVeety- over 30 years teaching, Susan Ebitz- 34 years teaching, Jessica Redman – many years.
  • -Drumming today with the fourth grade followed with an All-School performance after

Monument Valley Middle School (DBM)

B.Doren, Principal:

  • -Middle School graduation was last night: wonderful ceremony, great celebration of the students, favorite part: eighth graders write essays about what they believe in.
  • – 8th grade awards breakfast this morning, put on by seventh grade parents where the teachers that -yesterday had a field day at the school: bring some water elements, kids have a great time
  • -7th grade: finished Berkshire History Integrated Unit – students produced a field guide to Berkshire county & history ;Trip to Bartholomew’s Cobble; Trip to Boston: science museums, duck tour
  • -6th grade: lots of community work; Jiminy Peak doing adventure learning/challenges; field day at French Park
  • -5th grade: community activity, science doing nature field guides with major technology- students make videos for field guide with iPad apps -fun technology integration between the library and science teacher
  • -Step-up day activities- 4th graders come to meet the 4th grade teachers. 4th grade teachers meet with 5th grade teachers to share “tone” of class. Last week and this week doing tours and orientation for fourth grade parents

Monument Mountain Regional High School (MMRHS)

M.Young, Principal:

  • High school- Picture in today’s Eagle science teachers awarded materials and purchase money purchase for science curriculum products. Awarded 28 color graphing calculators and a $3,250 gift certificate to Fisher Scientific for supplies
  • -Michael Gillespie joining Monument next year as band director
  • -Emily Olds leaving MMRHS to join MBE ELL teacher.
  • -Final assessments for grades 9-11. Assessments range from more traditional objective end-of-semester-exams to presentations and reflections on what’s been studied throughout the year.
  • -Spring sports: worth mentioning- 2 track relay teams, girls 4×4 & boys 4×1, broke school records this year.
  • -Teachers who are lined up to engage in the summer fellowship work. First session on Monday/ Tuesday: creating new units of study, revamping units of study already in place.
  • -Mike Rosenthal and Matt Wohl: working for the last couple of months with a race focus group with students designing events for next year & designing a seminar-type course around race/power/oppression/rebellion/humanities.
  • -Thank Mike Powell, Guidance Department Project Leader: working since March to create master schedule for next year to make sure students can get into courses that they want w/ fewest number of student conflicts for possible. Preliminary schedules will be mailed to students over next few weeks.
  • -Teachers leaving for summer knowing what they’re teaching in September- plenty of time to prepare
  • -MMRHS hosting the relay for life June 24th @ 6pm on main athletic field behind school
  • -Underclassmen awards assembly (student recognition assembly): calling names and handing out certificates for top of class and blending with highlighting events throughout the year with videos -wonderful graduation and a successful prom

Superintendent:

P.Dillon:  Today officially joined Berkshire Taconic Board. It’ll be interesting & sharing w/ them our education thinking & lots of opportunities to learn from an interesting group of people. First board meeting this afternoon & will attend meetings ~3x/yr.

REQUESTS:

  • Appointment of District Treasurer – FY17 Richard Jette- State Law Requires a District Treasurer

Motion to approve district treasurer FY17 Richard Jette: C.Shelton    Seconded: D.Weston       Approved: 1 Abstention: R.Dohoney / All others Approved

  • Motion to Approve FY 17 RAN Borrowing;

The district treasurer is hereby authorized, and under the provisions of General Laws, Chapter 71,  Section 16(g), as amended by Chapter 134 of the Act of 1972, to borrow money from time to time in anticipation of revenue and  to issue a note or notes effective July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017.

Motion to approve: C.Shelton   Seconded: A.Potter   Approved: Unanimous

D.Weston: More money in E&D would reduce our need to do this?

S.Harrison: It would reduce our need and it would reduce the amount of time we would need to borrow for and the amount we’d need to borrow.

UPDATES:

  • Monument Valley Programmatic Review;

B.Doren, DBM Principal:

Overview:

-Instruction around student support- highlighting the shifting school demographics, how we responded to some of the needs and the next steps.

-School improvement plan: the shifting of instructions to be more student centered, everyone engaging in projects, understanding how students are learning and if all students are learning. Making a connection to

real-world application and transfer of understanding for high school readiness.

-Parts of the student improvement plan is students support: building up positive and progressive school culture. Working with students to be able to have them be more part of their lives and having teachers be able to

work with all types of students.

-Curriculum instruction: performance assessments, different academic and exploratory areas to have a larger assessments to really measure understanding & to get students involved/excited about learning. Alignment for students going from 5-6, 6-7, 7-8 in mathematics, science,  social studies PE are making progress growing and not having a disjointed experience.

-Restorative practices and circles.

-Farm to School

-Feedback: from students about their experiences &  faculty about what they really are proud of, being a DBM teacher and what can be done to better the educational community at DBM

Q&A:

A.Potter: More info on Restorative Practices in relation to curriculum

B.Doren: State doesn’t test/evaluate how restorative practices/ social-emotional but it is really important that our students learn to be whole people, not just mathematicians, researchers, athletes. Big part of curriculum, (which comes from the elementary school) is to prepare students to be healthy: nutritional, physical, mental and emotional health. Saw need to build a tighter culture between students-to-students and students-to-adults using restorative practice: simply is to get together in circles often and talk things through. Once a week students & advisors “circle up” for ~1/2hr to talk about important-to-them issues. Builds skills on attentive listening, honest talk, and translates into the classroom for teaching and resolving student/student or student/teacher conflict (restorative part). Implementation of social / emotional curriculum but then also makes learning happen for all students. PARENTS: Parents are really excited about it. In collaboration with Multicultural Bridge worked to to explain the format and the process to parents. A lot of parents came out, sat them down in circles and they talked. They loved it. There’s always going to be mixed reactions in a community of people, but we’re working in a community that creates safety for all.

R.Dohoney: Examples of the rubrics used but don’t fully understand. Explain how one would be

Implemented?

B.Doren: Rubrics are performance descriptives, examples of the work to be achieved. Literacy: Teachers use The Six Traits of Writing to really help students develop their writing craft/skills. GOAL: Each quarter, one piece of writing developed from brainstorming to drafting to editing to the finished product.

Each of those pieces went into a portfolio, around January students collected their best writing, looked at them, read the rubric and evaluated themselves on how their work compared: where they are now compared to where they want to be in their writing and how they plan to grow for June. Can discuss with teacher and then in June and they can see areas of growth and areas for further growth.

R.Dohoney: Good information for parents, as a parent. Sharing this info w parents?

B.Doren: One of the documents in packet is a description of each of the performance assessments. It’s ready for printing and will be sharing those in the fall. Then will share rubric info later with parents; what is a rubric and how it applies.

R.Dohoney: 92 students currently enrolled in 5th grade with 107-110 in other classes. Expect more enrollment for the 6th grade next year?

B.Doren:No. Even at 92, it’s a major over-enrollment. Set up for much lower numbers and the higher grades, with even higher numbers, make it very tough. Open for 5th grade choice enrollment for next year, shy of 70 now. Next year: 120-125 for 7th. Exceptionally too large class & will require resource shifting.

R.Dohoney: Report Card section of report: the difference between Math and English

B.Doren: Lots of testing in middle school: 10 of the 17 BHRSD assessments happen grades 5-8 AND 4 math achievement tests (which measure progress/growth).We’re really focused on math and math instruction for past two or three years. Would like to see better results and standardized assessment but we’ve been working actually a lot of other things like performance assessments, benchmarks and screening, writing, mathematics, and things that aren’t evaluated in PARCC exam. ELA has been solid over the years, in math it’s a slower improvement. “The PARCC is something that we’re moving along with slowly. Focusing on performance assessments, our benchmarking and screening and working on the actual standards and some of the curriculum based measures that we’ve really been developing, especially focusing our highest achieving and highest needs students. I feel good about a lot of that, unfortunately that doesn’t show up in the report card because it isn’t assessed by PARCC. PARCC doesn’t measure DBM’s program; PARCC only measures part of DBM’s program.  We value what the PARCC measures, but we don’t teach to the test at DBM. We don’t teach what will improve our test scores.”

R.Dohoney: Is Technology no longer its own separate program but rather integrated into other subjects?

B.Doren: Yes. Two areas of where it’s privileged; Library/Media Studies and Design Program, but technology is really embedded in all the classrooms/areas of study. We have really adequate technology resources. Try to keep most of the technology use and resource based projects in school to prevent the technology divide with students and their potential lack of resources at home.

R.Dohoney: Restorative Practices section: reference to our relationship with the Brien Center. What is that relationship?

B.Doren: We have a former relationship w Brien Center by necessity. We have a lot of needs for faculty development. They play an even bigger role in terms of working some of our high risk kids and high schools families in terms of intensive care coordination program. Provide a lot of one-on-one therapy for students. Very involved right now. Not a “partner” but we just found ourselves collaborating a lot because they do lots of things that we need to do with our diversifying demographics.

D.Weston: Co-teaching? Special education /regular education co-teaching model: still being used and where used and how much of that is currently happening?

B.Doren: Co-teaching more now than several years ago. When I first came on I really pushed the co-teaching model. One of the exceptional co-teachers said, “Co-teaching is really hard.” To be a professional in the same space, it takes a lot of planning it’s intense but it’s best for students. When I first started I really pushed teachers to do that to expose practice, for teachers to collaborate in one curriculum. We pulled back from because it was so hard and we had students who have significant needs. Then we really focused on a parallel curriculum model. We practiced both co-teaching and parallel teaching.  Now have strong pockets of co-teaching and subject educated (Math, Reading, Emotional Disabilities) SPED teacher. Classes can be formed now with a SPED teacher who specializes in literacy with students of similar needs.

F.Clark: How does DBM help students transition from the “general education” of MBE to the “intense requirements” of classes at MMRHS?

B.Doren: The big transition is more 6th to 7th because 5th & 6th is an upper-elementary program. 7th & 8th is more departmentalized classes and more Junior High program. 8th grade teachers are very aware of MMRHS curriculum, so preparation is intentional. A lot of coordination with the High School for preparing students. With MBE, We have thoughtful integration of skills and bridging to DBM with teachers and specialty staff.

W.Fields: Teacher’s Comments Section indicates daily schedule and behavior management as problems.

B.Doren: Schedule was a problem more in exploratory and performance music. A lot of work was done will help from Josh Briggs. Problem with Academic program, meaning 225 minutes per week spent on core academics is standard, we were down to under 200 minutes in some academics and it wasn’t enough- wasn’t up to standard. Some mistakes were made trying to work the scheduling around and it was hardest felt by the exploratory team.

Behavioral management: due to changing demographics. We don’t have the support resources we really need. Working on it. Getting a new clinician to help. Implemented Restorative Practices. Some would like to see more consequences for behavior but that doesn’t work as well anymore due to changing demographics. Big focus: half of professional learning for next year is focused on this; bringing in experts to work with staff to teach them the skill they need to work with trauma-informed instruction and the changing demographics of our schools. State doesn’t test social-emotional learning but it’s important.

W.Fields: Data section: looking for the number of external and internal suspensions.

B.Doren: State average is 7 in total/yr.; less internal suspensions and many more external suspensions. DBM had 3 or 4 internal suspensions, and no external suspensions. DBM doesn’t external suspend, as a policy, because it leads to more suspensions. Internal allows for therapeutic interventions and support with student & families.

W.Fields: Restorative Practices impact?

B.Doren: Huge impact. 1) to talk about problems, 2) restoring the problems. Behavior consequences do still happen but now we’re working both options instead of either/or.

W.Fields: Aside from the budget, what would be the two main challenges that your staff and yourself face at the middle school?

B.Doren: Social-emotional learning  and responding to the changing demographics and also respond to the changing nature of what it means to be I think a professional and citizen in the world with 21st Century skills. We’re really being hampered by the 19th century Carnegie Unit with the idea of English, math, science, social studies, art. We already know that doesn’t work, we know we need to be integrated, we need to prepare students to be creative and be critical thinkers.

A.Potter: Social wealth and welfare of students. Programs involved?

B.Doren: Trying to keep kids in programming not to adjust program to give kids less. Keep the high quality of curriculum instruction, which means to keep kids healthy and engaged you have to give them more support (rather than support and have less expectations). Having high expectations for all students: the state calls it “Teaching All Students” so that’s required us to try harder and build more resources.

Partnerships/Programs: Project Connection- big impact on a lot of students: happy to be in school, being able to address some of their needs after school by making connections will home.

Others: Brien Center, Macony Pediatrics, DCF, Sexual health and wellness, Mentoring Programs (w/Berkshire South & Parent Mentor Program, Student Mentor Program),

  • Summer Professional Development:

Joshua Briggs, Director of Learning and PD:

Summer Curriculum Fellowships: combination of targeted work developing needs of study, performance assessment, coursework. Based on the needs of each building. Summers allow for a step back to look at curriculum and targeted professional development for our schools and move things forwards so we’re ready for Fall.

MBE: Curriculum: developing new units or moving units, work on the science curriculum & integrating with the reading units, targeted course work to improve math curriculum and more robust responsive classrooms.  Supporting new teachers and coursework in our curriculum: getting up to speed on how our curriculum works by taking these online courses and in-person courses so that when they come in Fall they are speaking a common language with their mentors and teams.

DBM:  Stipend work- end of the summer, bringing back as many teachers as possible to be working together before the school starts.

MMRHS: Group meeting in June. Teachers talk about summer work: a complete unit of study or focus on performance assessment. At the end of summer- meet again to present out.

A key part of  all this curriculum work is there needs to be outcome. All work is presented back to the principles, myself and the school community at the end of the summer to see direction.  Very similar to previous work, really responsive to teacher’s need.

F.Clark: We get a lot of value of money to stipends. I just want to emphasize that because it doesn’t cost us a lot but the amount of work, the amount of dedication from our staff and from our teachers to come back during their break to work on things to make the school year

better is quite remarkable.

  • Southern Berkshire Shaker Mountain, Lee & Farmington River:

P.Dillon: Steve Soules and Joshua Briggs organized a workshop on Alice. Info?

J.Briggs: As we discussed w/SC while ago, we’re changing our safety approach,shifting away from shelter place towards ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate)  Training instructor led classes provide preparation and a plan for individuals and organizations on how to more proactively handle the threat of an aggressive intruder or active shooter event. Whether it is an attack by an individual person or by an international group of professionals intent on conveying a political message through violence, ALICE Training option based tactics have become the accepted response, versus the traditional “lockdown only” approach. Source: AliceTraining.com

Chosen members from each of the schools did this intensive 2-day workshop.  They’re going to be the leaders next year and implementing this with full staff. First step in a progressive roll-out we’re taking part in. Ten people total;  Steve is a trainer and has summer plans in terms of working closely with different police chiefs and fire to schedule time to get staff up to speed very quickly.

P.Dillon: Superintendents met a couple days (Tuesday).

-Working with Joshua Shaw and he’s to do an audit of the five remaining districts. Looking at shifts to make, give feedback, interview all technology staff to see what we can do across all the districts, conducted mostly over summer;

check hardware, computer relationships. Provide an early draft, get feedback, make changes and do formal presentation in December. When done in Lee, he saved them $100,000 and made them much more efficient. BHRSD is in a better place so not expected that we’ll realize that kind of savings but there are real opportunities across the district’s.

-Planning some additional work with the six districts around grant writing together and see if, as a group

of consortium, we are eligible for additional funding.

-Sharing Professional Development: particularly in low incidence areas; Ex. Our health teacher joins with their health teaches to do meaningful professional development.

Since our last meeting I went to a meeting up in New Ashford: they hired a consultant to do an audit of of their operations. They have some operational challenges that we’re eager to help them resolve.

Farmington River and Lee: continue the conversations with shared services. Tuition agreement with Farmington River goes through FY18

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 SUB-COMMITTEE REPORTS

 Policy Sub Committee- S.Bannon: no meeting scheduled

 Building and Grounds Sub Committee- J.St.Peter: met earlier today, small housekeeping stuff: some broken windows in the middle school from throwing stones; pet issues and chicken issues in elementary school; lunch in the high school affecting the carpets but nothing significant. Big thing was the five-year plan we’d like direction from the community as a whole as to what we want to do regarding the high school. We want to schedule a Meet & Confer and spend a couple hours just on direction; when issues come up is it a fix-it-as-we-go-along, doing minor renovations- what exactly do you want us to do this subcommittee. Regarding Renov plans, Steve going to put in an estimate for asbestos abatement at all 3 schools.

W.Fields: Regarding pets in the building- there were guidelines that are followed by something and not by others and it was my suggestion to give to the policy sub to create an actual policy, making it easier to reference and follow.

 Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee- D.Weston: waiting for some info from Peter and then will meet later in the summer and report back.

Technology Sub Committee- P.Dillon: Dave is putting together a report and will finish and share with Tech Sub-Comm late summer, then after revisions it will be brought to the Committee as a whole.

Finance Sub Committee- R.Dohoney: didn’t meet but looking for late July meeting

          Regional Agreement Amendment Sub Committee- S.Bannon: Meets next Tuesday 6/21/16 at 6:00pm at District Office

        District Consolidation & Sharing Sub-Committee- S.Bannon: no new meeting

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PERSONNEL REPORT-

  • Certified Appointment(s): N/A
  • Non-Renewal: N/A
  • Resignation(s): Rob Putnam- tentative upon accepting next position.

Matt Boudreaux-MMRHS para resigned

  • Extra-Curricular Appointment(s): N/A

 Name                                                         Position                                                             Fund                Salary/Stipend

                                                                                                                          Source             Effective Date:

Certified Appointment(s):
Sabourin, JuliaGrade 2 Elementary Teacher – Muddy BrookEffective  8/29/16 @ MA+30 Step 8 ($59,040) pending approval of add’l credits

(replace – Sarah DiFazio)

Non-Renewal(s):
Bates, OdessaParaprofessional – Monument ValleyEffective – 06/07/16
Resignation:
Putnam, RobertMusic Teacher – Monument ValleyTentative – 6/30/16
Boudreau, MathieuParaprofessional – Monument Mountain5/6/16
Extra-Curricular Appointment(s):

(all 2015-2016 unless otherwise noted)

 
Arnold, DianeDress-Up Dance Co-Organizer Stipend: $237.00
Koldys, RandyDress-Up Dance Co-OrganizerStipend: $237.00

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BUSINESS OPERATION –  End of FY Expense Reallocations- attached

S.Harrison:

In addition to the transfer report, quarterly reallocations are done, most are pretty standard; Ex- first two are taking salaries from the operating budget and moving them into grants. At budget time, rarely know what grant amounts are and we talked about having the personnel in the operating budget in case either the grants didn’t come through (unsure on kindergarten grant) or what the amount was. I am recommending per our previous discussion that we reallocate salaries up to the amount that we have for the grant.

#3)  Circuit breaker reimbursements that we received for high-cost special ed services. They’re the foundation amount and we have to be 4x above the foundation, which is over $40,000 this year. The district has to assume the 1st cost, then we get a percentage reimbursement for the cost about that. Unknown every year; ranges from 40-75%. We typically budget in the operating budget and then transfer to the revolving circuit breaker fund.

#4)Regional transportation revolving fund which allows us to put excess above what we budgeted from the regional transportation reimbursement into this revolving fund. The advantage of putting it into the revolving fund and using it in the subsequent year is it helps us to even out those years when we don’t get the amount of reimbursement that we anticipate.

E-rate rate is an amount we get from the telecommunication companies known as SL fund (Schools and Library fund). We have to file forms usually in January-February. Our consultant works with us and it’s a big process. Unknown every year but this year we expect about $56,000. The fees paid on that is to the consultant. The federal regulations change regularly and it’s the FCC paperwork.

The school committee has to make a decision on school choice shortfall; budget deficit of $71,677. Recommendation is we take it from the revolving fund because have additional revenue of $43,000.

D.Weston: Make motion to use an additional amount from the tuition and revolving fund to cover the shortfall from the budgeted revenue from choice     Seconded: W.Fields Approved:  Unanimously

Items 1-7 of the End of FY Expense Reallocations Motion:

W.Fields moves to approve the reallocation items 1 through 7 as above defined     Seconded: C.Shelton    Approved:  By Majority    Opposed: F.Clark       

One final request for revenue to go back into the regional transportation revolving account. Looking for school committee approval to put any excess of the budget amount in FY16 for transportation reimbursement into the transportation revolving fund. Expected to be just over $100,000 additional, but won’t know exactly until i get the revenue as of June 30, 2016.

D.Weston made motion that additional regional transportation reimbursement revenue from the state, above budget amount of $557,460.00 be deposited in the regional transportation revolving fund.     Seconded: W.Fields   Approved: Unanimously

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EDUCATION NEWS– None

_________________________________                    _____________________________________________

 OLD BUSINESS– None

 ________     ____________________________________________________________                                         

NEW BUSINESS– None

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PUBLIC COMMENT

Eileen Mooney: Request some information about broken windows. What were the consequences for breaking the windows? Was there a punishment?

R.Dohoney: Not appropriate to talk about a specific incident or student.

P.Dillon: Typically what would happen if there’s damage to property, we’d investigate, have conversations with whoever did the damage (parents, students, staff), get some context, try to determine whether was an intentional act or accidental act. Then look at the cost of repairing or replacing whatever was damaged. If several people were acting together to cause damage, they might split the bill. Occasionally there might be something that happens where something gets broken and it wasn’t intentional, just something happened and that would be different.

David & Stephanie Adler, Stockbridge residents:

High School Policy Manual- GPA used to determine valedictorian and salutatorian for the graduating class and placement on the Honor and High Honor Rolls. Directly affected our daughter this year. I think that the policy is old and vague and pre-dates anybody here who went to this high school. This policy doesn’t take into account a lot of things that go on now that were never considered back then This policy doesn’t take into account students who graduate early or might take classes @ Simon’s Rock or BCC, doesn’t take into account how many years a student needs to be the graduating class or how many credits are taken at MMRHS.  I just think that maybe it’s time to take a look at how its figure this out: whether weighted or unweighted (weighted scores probably not a consideration when policy written) or AP classes.  This policy talks about also when grades are determined (after the second, or third quarter, after the whole year).

F.Clark: Maybe getting away from the terms valedictorian and salutatorian is the way to go. We need to revisit and consult with our faculty, which is where I think this belongs, to get them to think about some other way of making determinations.

S.Bannon: Maybe MaryAnn can bring something to a future policy committee meeting.

Maybe some recommendations since tomorrow is the last day of school, so faculty opinion will be hard to get.

M. Young: We look at this every year and we realized we have to get our attention on this and work with SC to change. We have talked about moving away from GPA for determining who speaks of graduation, there will always be class rank- there’s no way around that- there is always a weighted and unweighted classroom so that peace is always going to be there but how we use it is the important determination. The other piece that adds to the need for clarification is our practices and changed. In Massachusetts the valedictorian of every high school is eligible for full tuition scholarship at a Massachusetts State College or University; one more element to why we need to be really clear on how we make these determinations. There no “policy” regarding this, there is only a school practice.

S.Bannon: Maybe creating a policy regarding this would be best for everyone to follow; being clear and available for all.

M.Young: We’ll bring something to the policy committee, we should establish or at least have some guidelines by early fall so that the graduating class knows early on how determinations are made. Bring to committee what other county and state schools are doing to establish valedictorian.

J.St.Peter: Historically, something like this happened 18-20 years ago so it is a repeatable issue that should be addressed and committee should do what they think is fair.

R.Dohoney: I was not affected by this policy.

_______________________________________________                                            ______________

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION- None

S.Bannon calls for motion to adjourn

Moved: A.Potter     Seconded: W.Fields   Approved: Unanimously

Public Session Adjourned at 8:52pm

Submitted by:     Rebecca Burcher, Recorder

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Rebecca Burcher, Recorder

 

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School Committee Secretary