Summary of Nov. 9th school board meeting

[lee...@optonline.net]

 

The school board met on Wed., November 9, 2011 and here are the highlights.

Mrs. Casey, the Nursing Services Director, did a brief presentation of her nursing services plan. She made reference to a power point presentation, but none was shared publicly. I am assuming that something in printed form was provided to the board. Therefore, anyone interested in the plan could contact Ron Sanasac to request a copy under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). I don't know what the report would include, but I presume it would have the configuration of the number and type of nurses at each school, a list of services each is capable of providing and perhaps a listing of the number and type of visits to the nurses' offices broken down by school. I seem to recall previous years' reports being given this way.

Mrs. Casey did report that new Registered Professional Nurses, part-time, were added to assist the certified school nurses with health care services, but she did not say where they are located or if they "float" throughout the district as needed.

I believe either Mrs. Casey or Dr. Golden made mention of increasing challenges faced by our school nurses due to the increased number of special education students, both our own resident students and tuition students that attend from out-of-district, as well as the inclusion population.

Next, Mrs. Moore, Supervisor of ESL, Basic Skills, REACH, T-1, and State and Federal Programs, did a presentation on the most recent NJASK results. The report was very well articulated, and lengthy (by its nature), so I cannot address every issue. Notably, however, was Mrs. Moore's statement that if any 1 of the 6 subgroups into which our children are separated for reporting purposes fails to achieve a "proficient" (passing) rating in a given school, the entire school fails to achieve Annual Yearly Progress (AYP). You will see if you go to either of these links at the NJ Dept. of Ed., none of our middle schools achieved AYP, along with a few elementary schools:

http://www.nj.gov/education/title1/accountability/ayp/1112/profiles/ayp/25_profiles.pdf, http://www.nj.gov/education/title1/accountability/ayp/1112/ (schools that missed AYP).

Mrs. Moore essentially stated that our students in grades 3-8 outperformed the State and other school districts in our same socioeconomic designation, known as District Factor Group (DFG) FG (the lowest DFG being A and the highest being I), as well as the next two higher DFGs, GH and I, in many cases particularly in Math achievement.

Mrs. Moore shared that the NJASK is more of an annual performance assessment, meaning how the students performed last year across the state, versus a growth model of assessment, like the MAP tests the district requires twice annually, that shows how individual students are progressing year to year. I prefer the growth model and I sensed that Mrs. Moore did also. She also mentioned that NJ is part of a group that is working toward developing an adaptive computer based growth model to be used in the future in place of the NJASK (I recall something along the lines of the PARK assessment). As Trenton begins to consider tenure and teacher evaluation reform based on student academic growth, such an assessment takes on even greater significance.

As I said, there was much too much data in Mrs. Moore's report to do justice to here, but the power point will be made available on the district website and is worth looking act, along with a replay of the meeting videotape, by visiting www.howelltv.org.

Tim O'Brien asked Mrs. Moore if she had the data on student performance within our school district broken down by school so that any concerns in performance could be addressed at that level. Dr. Golden responded that they do look at the results school by school and that they have noticed some pockets of lower performance and have met with the building administration/staff at those buildings to figure out what, if anything particular, caused the dips in performance.

Mrs. Moore stated she feels that, with the hiring of a new subject area supervisor and the implementation of new curriculum, test scores should begin to trend back up.

Mr. Isola presented an enrollment report, noting that our current enrollments are less than the demographer predicted in his March 2007 report.

Under the new Anti-Bullying Law, Dr. Golden is required to report incidents of harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) that occur from the prior board meeting to the next. She reported that 14 HIB reports were made and investigated and, of them, 7 were found to have evidence of HIB and 7 were unfounded. The remark was made that the law has a laudable intent but that it is an extremely administratively onerous process where "most of the time is spent on reporting than on prevention" of HIB.

From the Finance Committee, we learned that the $1.3M in State Aid that Gov. Christie returned to the district and that the board elected to dedicate to taxpayer relief is still intact and that the administration does not foresee that money being invaded for any purpose other than tax relief. Mr. Miller asked if formal board motion was needed to secure that purpose and he was told that it was not, though one could have been made. No such motion was made.

In total, Mr. Sanasac reports the district has about $2.7M in surplus in addition to the $1.3M set aside for taxpayer relief. He would never recommend dipping too deeply into that reserve, but it is there for use so the $1.3M should be safe.

Tim O'Brien asked, as he has in years passed, where we stand in terms of the general tax levy. Mr. Sanasac said that they are currently looking at putting a budget together with no increase in the general tax levy, a promise made by this board during the last budget cycle as its starting point for each budget preparation. The $1.3M would be accounted for in that budget as relief to taxpayers and then adjustments made for receipt of State Aid, which the board doesn't usually learn about until February of each year.

The board is looking to have a tentative budget by Feb. 2012 and Finance continues to meet to develop the budget, minutes and supporting documentation for which meetings are posted on the district website.

The board and the teachers' union have not reached an agreement yet but have moved forward in the process to the point known as fact finding. In fact finding, a representative of the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC), who is independent of both parties, reviews the parties' proposals, cost estimates and other documentation supporting each side's position on the new contract and makes "findings of fact" about those proposals as well as non-binding recommendations. I believe that, once the fact finder's report is completed, it is a public document, available to anyone, presumably along with the parties' proposals.

There used to be a part of the negotiating process known as "last best offer." What that meant was, when the parties declared to PERC that they were at a negotiating impasse, the board could unilaterally impose its last best offer upon the union and would not be considered engaging in an illegal, unfair labor practice. In 2003, a multi-year "pilot" piece of legislation did away with last best offer. There is movement among school boards to bring last best offer back but, at present, it is not available to school boards.

The board approved a refunding bond ordinance authorizing the refunding of $2.245M of the the $3.63M school refunding bonds issued on March 1, 2003. For further information on this, contact Mr. Sanasac.

Dr. Levine raised the issue of written board goals. He expressed concern that the board has not adopted written goals in the 7 months since reorganization and asked that the policy committee draft new/amending language to the Bylaws saying the board will propose draft goals not later than one month following the annual reorganization meeting (held within the first two weeks following the annual election) and adopt final goals not later than two months following reorganization.

The board approved the motion after discussion that, while no written goals exist and have not always existed under previous boards, this board articulated its goals at reorganization or shortly thereafter; namely, to restore programs to kids (a student-centered budget plan) and to keep taxes flat (a zero-based budgeting process). The board is meeting these goals, as evidenced by the restoration of board funded after school programs and late busing, the rehiring of staff, including nursing and guidance personnel as well as classroom teachers, all with no general fund levy tax increase last year or presently contemplated for next year.

Dr. Levine also discussed his desire to have all matters, particularly financial, turned over to committees for discussion, in lieu of action at the dais during a meeting. He did not offer a motion on this so no action was taken.

Those are the highlights. Wishing you all well.

Amy Fankhauser