BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington                   Stockbridge                West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Regular Meeting

Monument Mountain Regional High School – Library

September 6, 2018 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

School Committee:                S. Bannon, A. Potter, A. Hutchinson, S. Stephen,  J. St. Peter, B. Fields, K. Piasecki, D. Singer, D. Weston

Administration:                      P. Dillon, S. Harrison

Staff/Public:                           B. Doren, T. Lee, D. Wine,  K. Farina, D. Long, S. Flynn, P. Falkowski

Absent:                                   R. Dohoney

List of Documents Distributed:

August 23, 2018 School Committee Meeting Minutes

RECORDER NOTE:  Meeting attended by recorder and minutes transcribed during the meeting and after the fact from live recording provided by CTSB.  Length of meeting:    hr, 55 minutes.

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order immediately at 7pm.

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, Committee Recorder, members of the public with prior Chair permission 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.

MINUTES:

August 23, 2018 School Committee Meeting Minutes

MOTION TO APPROVE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES OF MEETING OF AUGUST 23, 2018 – A. POTTER                 SECONDED:  B. FIELDS           ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS 

TREASURER’S REPORT:

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT:

  • Good News (See Below)
  • Introductions:
    • Sean Flynn, Coordinator of Career, Vocational & Technical Education (CVTE) & Internship Programs – P. Dillon – I can’t image that there is anybody in this room that doesn’t know Sean Flynn. Welcome Sean.  Sean is our new Director of CVTE and Internship program.  I asked Sean to come and talk a little bit about the program and the neat work he will be doing.  Flynn – I am looking forward to taking on the challenge you have provided for us as a district for the first time in a long time to genuinely look closely at our career, vocational and technical programs as well as the overall approach we will be taking with career development and readiness.  We have been doing a lot of initial work to uncover what some of the directions we should be going in.  First and foremost, my priority is to try to get a good handle on the expectations of both at the state and federal level in terms of coming into compliance with our career, vocations and technical education standards then also building in more quality into our internship program providing more of any opportunity to students on a weekly basis, establishing goals, having much more of a comprehensive curriculum around that as well.  Relative to the future and moving forward, the pieces that we are looking at are how do we evolve CVTE into the 21st Century lens?  These programs were built and developed and grown in the later part of the 20th century from the time the building was built then over time and eventually things evolved, our economy evolved, our industries evolved, globalization has made a huge impact; so we have gone from having a slow gradual change to one that is changing quickly.  How do we better prepare our students for those types of things knowing that there are jobs they could potentially hold that we haven’t even heard of yet.  How can we use CVTE to help drive that?  How can we make sure the skills are available to help them build that so those programs are making a difference for them.  The big difference that we are going to have to look for and getting our heads around is the days of approaching whether students are going to be college bound or not.  Everybody is going to ultimately be able to have a sustainable life will need to be lifelong learners which is a big buzzword but they are going to need to be ready to adapt quickly to take on new technology and feel confident that they can go into new situations, new environments and feel they have the capacity to learn and to take on new challenges that may come out of nowhere for them or come very quickly.  We need to look at ways we can bridge the academic with the applied and making sure the kids are able to start making better connections between what they are learning in a classroom setting and how those things are being applied on a day in and day out basis in a variety of different careers.  The CVTE programs tend to be the most robust programs in terms of the expectations and what you are preparing those students for.  Does it make sense for us to stay Chapter 74 or not then we need look at, if we are not, Chapter 74, how can be begin to shape those differently given who we are and where we are going.  With that in mind, the other pieces we have already taken on, Kristi Farina and myself are currently writing and applying for an innovative pathway grant through the state in which there have been three areas that have been determined to be emerging industry needs to Berkshire County.  The first is health care and that is the one we feel we have the infrastructure already in place here to start to offer some sort of pathway approach via our science department in which students would be expected to take two academically oriented with some sort of technical skills that would lead toward them pursuing the medical field in some capacity.  We have on board Berkshire Community College and we have a meeting with them on Monday to talk with them about them offering two courses to just our students that they would take while they are in high school that would allow them to continue to pursue that pathway.  Fairview Hospital has agreed to be our community partner in that endeavor as well.  They would be committed to a 100 hour internship for any student that is pursuing that pathway.  We have been very fortunate that we have good partnerships with BCC and Fairview for years now but we are hoping to better define that and have a better way in which to communicate that to parents and families much earlier in their experience.   The other two pathways we will be working on as well are an advanced manufacturing and again BCC could be our post-secondary partner and we could do conversations with the new Berkshire Innovation Center/Voight Tech is on board and will be working with us on that endeavor.  Obviously hospitality, we are anticipating again working with BCC and looking at what the South County center is going to look like and Main Street Hospitality at the Red Lion Inn we already have a great relationship with them and they are going to be on board to support us as well.  We are going to look toward growing experiences here that have a little more hiring feel to them.  We are not sure where we are going yet so a big part of what I will be expected to do after having a number of conversations with Doug is to go and see programs; see who is doing really extraordinary work.  We have been in conversation already to go visit McCann Tech and Taconic.  We need to look at places that have similar and diverse demographics that we have.  We are not 100% vocational programs and we are not really rural.  We are not also suburban and not urban so we have to find places that have similar profile to us that we can get a sense of how they are doing it so that we can use that as a model.  A. Potter – are we talking to Railroad Street in terms of their hospitality.  S. Flynn – we helped build those programs as a need for students and they will definitely be in conversations both in terms of that program and others they are already doing.  We want to make sure they are involved.  They are a huge part of this.  D. Singer – do you have some new ideas for the internship program?  S. Flynn – at this point, internships have been driven by one on one piecemeal approach but what we would like to do is build them into a pathway driven experience so the senior experience they have can be built off the previous experiences they had in high school.  We would like to get kids out sooner to get a taste of the work environment so they are maybe job shadowing as a sophomore until the get a chance see what is out there and what is expected of them.  That part of it would be earlier exposure.  Then the pieces I think we need to do a better job with is helping them develop career readiness skills before they go out on an internship so they feel like they are ready to take on responsibilities and following through in a professional work setting.  We need to support them on a consistent basis and doing career readiness activities ie building a resume, doing some different types of surveys, some soft skills and some clarity of the strengths they would bring into any kind of work environment and using that as a platform.  Finally, a way to build into more academic skills into the experience of the internship like a project at the end or providing a paper with would write but making sure we are imbedding more academic experiences and skills into the internship experience.
    • Peter Falkowski, High School Assistant Principal – P. Dillon – Peter comes to us having been at Taconic for quite a number of years, then from the Nessacus principal in this first year there, so we are happy to have him here. Falkowski – it is great to be back in a high school.  When I think about the first athletic meeting when I had an opportunity to get up and speak, we expected a small number to show up then here we are in the cafeteria with people crowding in.  From there the hunger that our students have, exceeded our expectations and are telling us what they want next.  It has been awesome.  We asked for 12 students to help the freshman on the first day and we had 30 that filled our seats, stood up to behind each other and created a lane for the kids when they came to get their t-shirts.  There were high fives, fist bumps and that really speaks to this community and a lot of the resources we have here.  The kids that I speak to, obviously there are kids that come to my office from time to time for all different reasons, but even the kids that come to my office that are expecting a little discipline because they messed up are still gearing up.  I had to speak to a few kids today about restorative practices and joining a circle that we are going to do for the first time on Tuesday and I was so impressed at the questions they asked about it.  Certainly, they went grudgingly and may not be a comfortable experience at first but the intellectual curiosity from top to bottom in our school is second to none and I am blown away by that.  I come from Taconic High School for most of my career.  I have done everything with clubs up to running a radio station at Taconic and I will think I can put together a rocking playlist.  I have had the opportunity to serve children in all sorts of different roles be it in a club, advising, sports, as an assistant principal, principal, dean of students, summer school; which is where I met my wife oddly enough, so I have a lot of positive experiences but most important after 15 years, there has been on loss of energy toward students in this community and I hope to serve for a very long time.  Restorative practices just to get into it a bit, is something that I believe in and something that I arrived at later in may career at Taconic.  We were doing some thing that we felt weren’t working and we wanted to change thing up as a team and we found the restorative practices allows all students to think and talk and most importantly heal.  Building those small communities in Monument around those larger communities is going to be a lot of fun.  This year it is going to happen in my office first thing and that is going to be the top priority.  This is going to really reshape what I do as an assistant principal so that people see that I take restorative approaches when I am at the door greeting kids, when they are getting off the bus or when they have an issue that needs to be rectified.  That is going to be the approach we take.  The middle school has been doing it and doing it well for quite some time.  Miles and I have had some great conversations about unifying the middle school and the high school to really create some unifying opportunities for kids so when they come to Monument Mountain it still feels like Berkshire Hills Regional School District.   I already see an incredible passion among our staff.  The content knowledge in the building is incredible and when kids get to sit in front of these teachers and are willing to change and adjust as they do, it is just an amazing example for kids.  I really appreciate the flexibility and the resources they bring.  A partnership with the Railroad Street Youth Project came together in about two weeks.  We wanted to put together something like a smoking cessation program for kids who are having issues either with vaping or any way you can take nicotine in, we want to be able to say to that they we don’t allow that here but we are going to try to help you quit it.  We are going to try to meet you halfway and work with you.  I think kids have appreciated that so far and that partnerships with Railroad Street has really come together quickly.  The general sense of team in our office is going to grow as we round out our office staff.  Doug sets a great example in our office of who we are, what we are about and how we are going to work together to make sure practices work.  I am thrilled to be here.
  • Requested Votes:
    • Appoint District Treasurer – July 1, 2018 – June 30, 2019 – MOTION TO APPOINT RICHARD JETTE, CPA, AS THE DISTRICT TREASURER FOR FISCAL YEAR JULY 1, 2018 TO JUNE 30, 2019 – D. WESTON SECONDED           POTTER                ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS
    • Appoint School Committee Recorder – July 2, 2018 – June 30, 2019 – MOTION TO APPOINT CHRISTINE KELLY AS SCHOOL COMMITTEE RECORDED FOR FISCAL YEAR JULY 2, 2018 TO JUNE 30, 2019 – A. POTTER SECONDED:  FIELDS                ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS
    • Designate the District’s Webpage as the Alternative Method of Notice/Primary Posting Site for Berkshire Hills Regional School District Postings:
      • Calendar for Posted Meetings: (https://www.bhrsd.org/calendar)
      • Employment Opportunities (https://www.bhrsd.org/category/hr/employment) – P. Dillon – I will give a little context; because regional school districts are quasi-municipal bodies, there are two ways we can post our meetings. One way is to post within the district and to send notices to all our member towns.  Another way to designate the regional district’s website as the place of official posting.  This came up because a couple of weeks ago, we had a meeting and we wanted to change the location of the meeting and because of the timing of that, we were unable to do it.  My recommendation would be, and we got this from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, is to make the district’s website our office posting site and then we would also share that with all the towns rather than having it the way it is now.  It is a small technical change but I recommend we do it.  MOTION TO DESIGNATION THE DISTRICT’S WEBPAGE AS THE ALTERNATIVE METHOD OF NOTICE/PRIMARY POSTING SITE FOR BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT – A. POTTER              SECONDED:  FIELDS           ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS
    • Updates:
      • Security & Safety – P. Dillon – every meeting we said we would give an update on safety and security. The quick story is we are making progress and are working closely with the Great Barrington Police and the Massachusetts State Police around this.  It looks like the south county districts will hold some kind of safety meeting and we are waiting for formal announcement around that date but there is interest in bringing at least three people who were working at Sandy Hook to come and do a general talk with the public around that.  I think it will be hosted at the Lee auditorium.  I will get more information.  One person was a staff person, one was a parent and one was the police chief.

Good News:

  1. Lee, Principal; Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School– We have had a real good start to the school year; very smooth. Kids seem very happy to be back.  Teachers are doing a great job building really strong classroom communities and personally, I am very happy to be back in a school with kids and teachers doing this work again.  Peter asked us to report out tonight on some current information about enrollment.  Enrollment as of today for PK through 4 starts at 327 students.  That breaks down to two pre-kdg classrooms with about 10 students in each; one early-k classroom with 18 students; four kdg classrooms operating this year.  Their class sizes are currently 15-16; we do have one section that is a little bit lower enrolled at 13 based on some students we were anticipating that did not arrive.  I will talk about that in a minute.  We have three first grade sections and they range from 17-19 students; three second grade sections with 16-17 in each; we have four third section and they are solidly at 18 student each; we have four fourth grade sections with a smaller section of 13-16 in each.  In general I would like to say that these class sizes being under 20 and significantly under 20 in some instances are really favorable and conducive to the work that teachers and students are going to do.  Peter asked me to talk a little bit about new choice.  We have 13 new choice students enrolled throughout all of our grades.  Reflecting on some of our class sizes and a report put out by the superintendent’s office today about pending choice applications, I approved the enrollment of two new applications for a kindergarten section which would bring all of those sections up to the same size of 16 students in each class, if these students do ultimately enroll.  I have also approved an additional fourth grade application and that application will come with a sibling entering first grade so we could have four new additional choice students joining us if these families decide they would like to enroll at this time.
  1. Doren, Principal: Du Bois Regional Middle School – We have had a great start to the school year. A lot of great energy in the school and a lot of the work the teams have been doing through the years is starting to pay off in terms of the work we do around student culture and advisory.  We have made some major shifts coming into this year with teams and team composition.  It has really paid off and teachers are investing in starting the school year off right.  They talked with the kids about what their vision is for the school year, finding about them, taking tours, doing team activities and building group culture.  In particular that was a big shift in the 7th and 8th grades.  5th and 6th always take is slow.  This year we have two new ⅞ teams and they took the first two days to partially to introduce the kids to their classes.  The idea was to get the kids invested in and understanding that they were something more than just students running through classes.  5th grade did what they traditionally do; bring the kids in, do the tour of the building, go over expectations, walking kids to and from classes and very quickly kids have settled in.  6th grade did what they do every year and spends a day or two slow then on Friday took a hike up Monument Mountain.  It was a wonderful experience for the kids.  They have lunch up there and come down they are a well formed 6th grade.  I am very appreciative of Miles Wheat, my assistant principal for leading advisory.  It is the restorative work that really brings a nice ecos for the kids.  We also kicked off Friday with an all school to welcome our new 5th graders from Farmington River and choice students as well as those that have moved into the district over the summer.

We are slightly under enrolled.  We are in full enrollment for 6th grade; actually we are overenrolled there.  Our target numbers are about 80 in 5th grade, 85 in 6th; we look to get about 100 once Farmington River comes in.  5th grade and 8th grade are slightly under enrolled by one or two students.  It is our 7th grade that has a significant drop which we are looking to build in with choice.  We are probably a little above 80 instead of 100.  What is nice about that is we have had an over enrollment in the 7th grade and 8th grade for several years; we had a bubble come through in past years with 122 8th graders last year which made a massive 9th grade class as well.  Our place three years have been well overenrolled in the 7th and 8th grade.  Class sizes have been bursting so it is quite nice for the 7th and 8th grade team to get to this place where they actually have reasonable sized classes.

  1. Dillon on behalf of D. Wine, Principal: Monument Mountain Regional High School – We have full enrollment at 530. 9th grade is 149; 10th grade is 127; 11th is 108 and 141 for 12th and our extra year is 5. We have started with a whole new administrative team.  We began with our first day of freshmen and we were hoping to get 12 students to help us in National Honor Society and school government and we had 30 show up.  This summer we spent some time talking to students about becoming leaders and becoming envolved in their schools and that happened with the 30 showing up.  The excitement is really there.  We have a tailgate tomorrow for the football game started by the student government and you might image that bothers everyone because that isn’t usually what we do so we have to create all of these new procedures  which we like to say is a fun problem to have.  Wednesday of next week, there are four different events happening here.  We are going to have a much larger tailgate bringing in fun and games for students to have.  It was great listening to one of our students council presidents get up today and speak about being there, what they needed to do, talked to parents, etc.  That was our goal.  One Tuesday we had a club fair.  During lunch we set that up.  We signed up a number of people.  We are looking for more leadership and involvement from our students.  For example, an athletic council that doesn’t exist, had 24 students interested.   They are beginning to get excited about being involved.  We have homecoming already planned for September 29th.  We have a pep rally on September 25th where we are inviting the elementary and middle schools.  We will have all three at the football field.  As you notice, they have their actually Monument Mountain colors; not their colors so we are going to try to make everyone a spartan; that is our goal.  We want to make sure we do something to involve all students so students feel a part of the entire district.  We will be taking a lead on that.  Our students are loving it.

We are going to have student surveys of every class.  Every teacher will have one class where they will have a student survey.  It is called Tripod Survey out of Harvard.  Students give feedback on what they consider the seven successful C’s of a good classroom.  So that teachers can begin to understand how students perceive what happens there.  All of us go in and observe a class and see what happens but what students perceive is just as important and some would argue more important.  We are going to begin to provide that to our faculty and one of the goals they will set professionally will be on trying to improve that perception.  So, if a student perceives for example that as I manage a classroom I let people slip a little bit.  That maybe something that I will set as a goal to be a little more clear on things that I want to do.  With instructional leads we will be able to have more data, teachers will be able to see the data and not just MCAS numbers.  There are also other things we are going to provide it for.  I am really excited for it.  They are intrigued.  You will hear from two new people at the high school and how we are working together to bring our team together.  We believe October 1st when we get our other secretary, we will finally be a full time in the front office.  It has taken us a little but but we are excited.

Sub-Committee Reports:

  • Policy Sub Committee: N/A
  • Building and Grounds Subcommittee: St. Peter – we met earlier today.  We talked about all the summer work that Steve and his great crew did.  With the money set aside for the science labs, we were able to refurbish three of the labs, ceiling tiles, light fixtures; the labs look great.  We are still waiting on some of the furniture but it should be here by the end of this month.  It was money well spent.  If you have a chance to look at the labs, please do.  Also, the art rooms got new light fixtures and the main office and the guidance office area had ceiling tiles replaces, light fixtures, painting, etc.  We are doing as much as we can with the building to make it pleasurable and a good learning experience for kids.  Furniture was purchased for all three buildings.  Heat pumps for the middle school for the heat and air conditioning which is part of the normal maintenance cycles.  At the high school, new security doors have been installed at the front entrance and the bus platform.  The first set of doors you can come through, the locks are on the second set of doors so it allows people to come in to get out of the elements and they are linked into the main desk and they have security cameras.  An access point as put on at the bus platform so you can buzz in from there.  Over the summer, the boys bathroom was made handicapped accessible at the high school.  The girl’s bathroom was as well; there was a little privacy concern there but we are still in the process to proceed with that and balance the privacy concern and the privacy issue.  That should be done by next summer.  We discussed the goals this coming year around school maintenance and the heat pumps.  We are looking to do the same door security at the middle and elementary school and adding an access point at the back of the middle school as people do use the back door there.  The auto shop at the high school, one of the lifts was broken so we are in the process of getting a new one.  That is going to be paid through a grant which is nice and that is going to be installed soon.  Paul Gibbons mentioned that we keep in mind both the tennis courts and the track are past the 25 year mark going on 30 and both of those will need some serious work done talking in the hundreds of thousand of dollars.  Those issues should be looked at and possible set up revolving funds…P. Dillon – they were both recently resurfaced.  J. St. Peter – but that is just the top layer.  We could probably do it one or two more times but at some point in the next decade or so we won’t just be able to do that; we would have to do the whole base layer.  It is out there.
  • Superintendent’s Evaluation Subcommittee: We are waiting to get back the final draft from Doreen.  We will present that next time.
  • Technology Subcommittee: N/A
  • Finance Subcommittee: We had a meeting outline expenses and shifts in resources that may take place (inaudible)
  • District Consolidation and Sharing Subcommittee: Bannon – we had a meeting yesterday with Southern Berkshire, Lee and Lenox at Southern Berkshire.  There was a variety of topics but one overarching theme is we as a school district need to make a decision in the next couple of months if we want to stay a part of this or not.  What is intriguing is we don’t seem to have any direction.  We need to find some direction with these four towns.  We need to hire a consultant to give us some direction to move this along to see where we are going.  This is the third committee in the last couple of years that we have gone to meetings with and it is nice to talk about low hanging fruit but we are running out of low hanging fruit and we need to decide where we are going with this.  There is no reason to put our energy into this if we aren’t going anywhere.  We all have nice discussions but there has to be more to it than that.  Hopefully my message was heard and hopefully the next meeting with have some direction and focus.
  • Next Steps Sub-Committee: We met August 28th.  We settled in.  We rehashed some of the battles of the past and came out with a consensus that we have to have timelines.  There was a suggestion made that we start looking at specific dates in the next few months with a report due to this committee by probably the middle of June with a recommendation to this committee.  We bounced around a lot of different ideas in regards to why the two projects failed.  Peter, Paul and I, are going to be meeting in the next few weeks to setup – we want a survey and what the perceptions were from people who have not been apart of this in the past and that makes up a majority of the group.  I believe there is only Rich Bradway, Paul Gibbons and that was it.  There is really only one person from last time.  Peter suggested a survey to find out what were the strengths and weaknesses of the previous projects.  We are going to meeting October 2nd.  All of our meeting will be at MMRHS in the student center.  The tour made an impact on quite a lot of people who had not been involved in the school.  It gave new people from West Stockbridge and Stockbridge an idea of the complexity of the building and the problems we face and we have to look at do we renovate, do we build new, do we renovate and do new or start all over with a new building.  St. Peter – in regard to the heat wave, it has been borderline difficult in some of these classrooms.  It has been a battle.  We have tough teachers, tough kids but it is less than ideal trying to learn in those conditions.  We only have 36 weeks in the year and these were less than ideal conditions.  I am not quite sure at the other two schools but I haven’t heard any problems.    It does impact.  One week is a big deal for learning in adversity learning conditions.  We have to do the best we can to provide them with conditions and it needs to be recognized and addressed.  B. Fields – a shout out to the team Steve has working for him.  One teacher described the crew that did the work in the high school with a huge list and basically everything was done.  The teacher described them as saints because they did so much as were so willing to cooperate with teachers.  I think a good shout out for Steve and his crew is deserved from this committee as a huge amount of work was accomplished this summer in this building.

Personnel Report:  P. Dillon

  • Long-Term Substitute Appointment(s)
  • Non-Certified Appointment(s)
  • Re-assignment(s)
  • Resignation(s)
  • Retirement(s)
  • Extra-Curricular Appointment(s)
    
Long-Term Substitute Appointment(s):   
Martin, DennisLong-Term Substitute – CVTE Business – MMRHS Effective 8/27/18 @ per diem of

BA Step 1 ($220.08) (until a permanent teacher is appointed. 

 (replaces Christopher Unsworth).

Non-Certified Appointment(s):   
    
Schneider, AllisonParaprofessional – MB Effective 8/27/18 @$12.25/hr./6 ½ hr./day (Workday 7/hr./day)

(new position)

    
Loy, HopeFood Services – Helper Effective 8/23/18 @$12/00/hr./7hrs./day

(replaces Angel Linsey-Negrich)

    
Cormier, HunterParaprofessional – MV Effective 8/27/18 @$12.25/hr./6 ½ hr./day (Workday 7/hr./day)

(replaces William Brown)

    
Race, ShaundraParaprofessional – MB Effective 8/27/18 @$12.25/hr./6 ½ hr./day (Workday 7/hr./day)

(new position)

    
Pegorari, DeniseParaprofessional – MB Effective 8/27/18 @$12.25/hr./6 ½ hr./day (Workday 7/hr./day)

(Alex MacDonald)

    
McCarroll, SusanFood Services – Helper Effective 8/23/18 @$12.00/hr./7hrs./day

(replaces Jeri McCarthy)

    
Vargas, CarmenParaprofessional – MB Effective 8/27/18 @$12.25/hr./6 ½ hr./day (Workday 7/hr./day)

(new position)

Re-assignment(s):   
Flynn, SeanCoordinator-CVTE Effective 8/27/18 @ current rate of pay (new position)
Resignation(s):   
Halla, ElizabethParaprofessional – MV Effective 8/24/18
    
Extra-Curricular Appointment(s)

(all 2018-2019 unless otherwise noted)

   
    
Kelly, ChristineWellness Coordinator – District Stipend:  $1,500
Ecklund, EricBoys Football Assistant Coach – MMRHS Stipend:  $2,566
Shimmon, RyanBoys Football Assistant Coach – MMRHS Stipend:  $2,566
Locke, EdGolf Head Coach – MMRHS Stipend: $4,108
Fisher, AllisonCurriculum:  5th grade Social Studies: New MA Standard Alignment – Middle School Stipend:  $500
LeTellier, LiseCurriculum: 7th & 8th grade Science NGSS Alignment – Middle School Stipend:  $500
Chiavacci, LynnCurriculum: 7th & 8th grade Science NGSS Alignment – Middle School Stipend: $500
Rueger, CathyCurriculum:  7th & 8th Grade Math Curriculum Alignment – Middle School Stipend:  $500
Erickson, FredCurriculum:  7th & 8th Grade Math Curriculum Alignment – Middle School Stipend:  $500
Rueger, CathyCurriculum:  8th Grade Geometry Course Development – Middle School Stipend:  $500
Manzolini, KerryBrainWorks – Elementary School Stipend:  $1000
    
    

Business Operation: 

Education News: 

Old Business: 

New Business:

  • Approval of Resolutions Relevant to Legislature’s Failure to Revise Foundation Budget Formula – P. Dillon – we have a letter from the chair of the Pittsfield School Committee sharing a motion asking the Berkshire delegation to request a change in the archaic formula. Our motion is similar to theirs.  Sharon wrote it a bit better.  The quick story is the state has had this outdated formula forever which doesn’t take into account many of the costs.  There has been a budget review commission.  They made a whole lot of recommendations and the state is dragging their feet on implementing those recommendations.  The implementation of those recommendations would be expensive but at the end of the day the investment in the kids and the commonwealth so many people believe it makes sense for the state to move forward and the intent of this resolution is for our school committee and for that matter every other school committee in Berkshire County to have this be a priority and we would like to change.  You have a copy of the resolution in the packet and if you support it before you leave tonight, if everybody could sign it and we will submit it along with many of the other resolutions that the state should meet its obligations.  MOTION THAT THE BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL DISTRICT SCHOOL COMMITTEE RESOLVES:  That the General Court, in approving an FY 2019 budget for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, has violated the public trust by failing to revise the foundation budget funding for Massachusetts public school districts, and that this inaction constitutes a failure to recognize the ever greater financial pressure on all communities such as our member owns of Great Barrington, Stockbridge and West Stockbridge, which jeopardizes the quality and comprehensiveness of the District’s educational programming, through the continuation of an outdated and underfunded foundation budget formula and inadequate Chapter 70 funding; therefore that the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee urgently requests that the Berkshire County legislative delegation make the constructive revision of the now-archaic foundation budget formula its top priority for the FY 2020 – A. Potter                    Seconded:  Fields                   Resolved by:  Unanimous
  • Public Comment
  • Written Communication

MOTION TO ADJOURN – A. POTTER                 SECONDED:  J. ST. PETER                       ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS  

The next school committee meeting will be held on September 27, 2018 – Regular Meeting, Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School, Library, 7pm

Meeting Adjourned at 7:55pm

Submitted by:   Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary