081495 Bedford Central School board Minutes

MINUTES OF THE SPECIAL MEETING
OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION
MONDAY AUGUST 14, 1995
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

The Special Meeting of the Board of Education of Bedford Central School District was held on Monday, August 14, 1995, in the Administration Building. The meeting was called to order by Mrs. Karen Akst Schecter, President at 7:05 P.M..

Present were: Mrs. Karen Akst Schecter, President; Ms. Deborah Ellis Timberlake, Vice-President; Mr. Robert Frisch, Mr. James Markowski, Dr. Herbert Nieburg, Mr. Burt Solomon.

Absent was: Ms. Betsy Hauck

Also present were: Dr. Bruce L. Dennis, Superintendent of Schools; Dr. Marjorie Castro, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction; Mrs. Verna Carr, Clerk and 8 visitors.

Also absent were: Dr. Susanne Abbott, Director of Special Services, Mr. Mark Betz, Assistant Superintendent for Business.

BOARD ANNOUNCEmENTS

Mrs. Schecter announced that the results of the Exit Poll will be presented at the September 13th Board meeting and the Demographic Study will be presented at the September 27th Board meeting.

Dr. Nieburg had a comment about the Health Services Annual Report 199495. He was upset by how late the coaches handed in their medical clearances. He asked if this was normal and can something be done about it.

Dr. Dennis said that he will look into it, but the students should not be playing sports and to his knowledge are not playing sports without medical clearance.

BOARD GOALS..FQ$ 1995-96 SCHOOL YEAR

Mrs. Schecter said that there were a couple of themes mentioned on everyone's goals list, long range planning, curriculum, publicity, diversity. She commented that the Board had decided to shorten the goals list this year and have tasks and goals.

Dr. Dennis said that sometimes the Board puts so much on their plate, that the number of things that we give equal priority to is so large and when you add to that, the number of things that happen over which you can not exercise the control that you would like, that it is sometimes not clear enough to him, the Administrators and the Board itself, what it is

we consider to be important. Mr. Markowski made reference last year about the large number of goals and that the Board would be better off identifying a smaller number of goals. Long range planning was a reoccurring theme and there are a number of things that are happening this year, that makes that extremely important: the demographic study, long range budget planning and curriculum.

Mr. Markowski said that the goal is long range planning and the distinction between the goal and the task. It makes sense to define what the parameters are that people envision being accomplished. Otherwise, you will have some open-ended objectives that can be satisfied 7 or 8 different ways. You also need specific guidance on how the goal is going to be accomplished.

Dr. Dennis added that we need to measure whether we have achieved what we set out to do. It can clearly be defined how ambitious we want to be, what types of tasks we are going to accomplish and the outcomes. Mr. Markowski added that there should also be a time table. Mr. Frisch said that to have a plan to work from, makes a big difference and timing decided what in the plan gets addressed.

Dr. Dennis said that in terms of priority, we need to examine the demographic projections and develop a clear view of what the housing needs will be for the population anticipated in the next 3 years. To do this, we will need professional consultation with an architect/facilities planner. We need to develop a facilities plan and be done in time for the budget cycle. This has to happen in the Fall or early winter.

Dawn Sangrey said that she and Linda de Menocal have been working on the tabulation of the Exit Poll since late June. They are both very surprised at how long it is taking to do it, but they are very close to being finished and hope to have it in the Board's hands, in the next 2 weeks, a preliminary written report. The report will also contain some remarks about the merits of things and some recommendations. They hope that the Board will find them useful.

She said that one of the things that is making it so slow going, is that 50% of the questionnaires had some kind of written comments on them, many of them with paragraphs and pages. They decided to reproduce a great many of them for the Board.

Dr. Nieburg thanked Mrs. Sangrey and Mrs. de Menocal for the work that they are doing in tabulating the results of the Exit Poll.

CURRICULUM ISSUES

Dr. Dennis said that a lot has been accomplished in a short time, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Castro. The nature of the work that we have engaged in has been successful because it has been heavily collaborative, involving the teachers who are going to be implementing the curriculum and the design of it.

He offered a caution about the notion of "let's develop and implement it and see how we are doing all in one year". It is really not consistent with the approach we have taken. He thinks that the district will yield the greatest benefits by developing a Language Arts Framework this year and implementing it in 1995-96.

Dr. Castro said that the whole Framework is completed and she passed a copy of the Framework Binder around for the Board members see. The second piece to go into the binder will be the assessment, which will be in the form of standardize testing, paper and pencil test and performance types of indicators, such as student writings. She said that a Framework without an assessment is not very worthwhile.

In addition, there needs to be appropriate staff development. Our staff has very different points in all of this. Some of the recent graduates are very up on the research and new techniques and some are not. Some of the long term teachers are highly experienced in these areas and some are still approaching these areas the way they did many years ago.

Mrs. Schecter asked if she is working in all the subject areas. Dr. Castro replied that she is, in the middle and high school. In the elementary school, the same teacher teaches all subjects, so Language Arts and Math were chosen first.

Mr. Markowski commented that the first thing to do is to make a determination as to what the priority is as to which subjects are going to be concentrated on in developing a curriculum.

Dr. Dennis said that Language Arts and Math have been identified as having the highest priority.

In 1995-96, implement the Language Arts Framework that has been developed; develop the assessment piece; December/January, complete the elementary school Math Framework; late Fall, begin to develop the assessments and complete them by the Spring; update the Language Art test and begin to implement the Math Framework sometime during the 1995-96 school year. Also begin to study elementary Science, with the goal of having curriculum writing done during the Summer of 1996. In 1996-97, implement and monitor the elementary school Math and Language Arts curriculum Frameworks and provide continuous staff development; complete the Science curriculum writing; begin to develop the Science assessments and implementation of the program; start to study Social Studies.

In 1997-98, continued implementation and staff development in Math, Language Arts and Science; evaluation of the programs; implement the Social Studies curriculum; begin to develop the assessments.

He said that there is a limited amount of time that we can take teachers out of the classroom to do this work before their absence is felt. Dr. Castro said that we had teachers mapping what they were doing the whole year, by using the helping teachers to take all the information and put it into a format by grade level, before we took them out of the classroom

for one and a half days. Then we used after school time.

Mr. Markowski asked what is the general approach to developing the curriculum. Dr. Castro replied that a lot of research is done. We look at materials used and where things are introduced. We sent for research and curriculum guides from our local districts, but we did not see much out there that impressed us. We also wrote to the National Counsel of Teachers of English and asked them what was the best.

Mrs. Schecter asked where does technology skills fall into curriculum. Dr. Castro said that we need to have separate technology goals for each grade level. They will be identified and where they fall into curriculum.

Mr. Frisch asked is there a preliminary release of these Frameworks going to the teachers about what the consensus is of the group and start to implement prior to the Framework Binder.

Dr. Castro said that couple of things were done:

· We had teachers from every school and grade level.

· We used pyramiding (reporting back to other teachers).

· Sent out drafts of the documents.

· Teachers sent back comments and they were discussed at the meetings and all meeting are open.

Mr. Markowski viewed the curriculum development the most important priority that we have. It goes to the core of what we are about and also sets the framework for improving the quality of education.

Mrs. Schecter said that she would like to have more discussions like this on a regular basis, to understand what kind of changes we are seeing, where we are lacking, where we are really good and what changes Dr. Castro hopes to implement. Dr. Castro said that we need to do what we did at the PRES again at a Board meeting.

Mr. Markowski added that in consistent with being a high priority, we can put muscle behind it and make decisions in terms of where time gets allocated. It would be appropriate to have more involvement of the Superintendent in that project because education is his forte.

Dr. Dennis said that if the Board spends their time talking about these things, then people will regard it as having that level of importance to the Board. Dr. Castro added that if you want an alive curriculum, you have to keep looking at it, evaluating it and it has to be on-going.

Dr. Nieburg said that the Board members are lay people, not educators. He would like to see this year, instead of going over everything that needs to be done, to have a general discussion, where Dr. Castro tells the Board what needs to be done curriculum-wise, go ahead and do it, then it gets presented.

Dr. Castro said that she would like time to educate the Board as to what is going on curriculum-wise, keeping it simple. It is important, as we finish the Frameworks, to report to the Board

.Mr. Markowski suggested that it would be helpful if the basic objectives of each subject is summarized on one sheet of paper and a time table as to what is to be accomplished. Dr. Dennis suggested putting it in the Newsletter and have it available in all the school buildings. Dr. Castro said that the teachers would like to do something for the parents.

Dr. Dennis said that in the middle and high schools, all the department began mapping activities last year and will complete the first draft of the Math Framework by August; define the Math and Language Arts assessments; complete the Foreign Language Framework by this year and complete the middle school Science and Social Studies by August of 1996.

Mr. Markowski offered a thought. He said that it is fair for the Board to set approaches for curriculum areas, one of which is having a heavy emphasis in Language Arts, on writing and student's written English. It is within our limited scope of expertise to make judgements like this educationally.

Dr. Castro said that some teachers feel that we do not teach grammar anymore and it is very definitively being written into the Framework at the middle and high school. Dr. Dennis added that he is considering offering an in-service course for the staff.

Dr. Nieburg asked what happens to the exception, the bell shape curve, those who are communicating well, but not at the level of exception. Dr. Castro said that they do not have to be exceptional, but we do want to have a standard.

Mr. Frisch asked what resources are available to implement, is it enough to do it in the time frame and if you had more, could you do it faster. Dr. Castro said that we do not have enough books in all the classrooms and we have to continue to add to the libraries. Writing should be done on the computer, but that is not possible at this time.

COMMUNICATIONS

Mrs. Schecter asked if we are communicating what we are doing, well enough and should we have this as a goal. It was on everyone's goals list.

Dr. Nieburg said that he thinks the district does not do enough in terms of maximizing what we are doing and what we can do. He is not sure why that is. He has a sense, that what is made known is a lot of the negatives and not the positives. His concern is that we need to do something to adequately portray what we are doing and who we are, as a district. If that means we need to get professional help, then the Board needs to talk about this.

Mr. Frisch said that the districts that we think of as exceptional, probably do some kind of public relations work that we do not do. There are many ways that other districts lay out things that we do not know because we are not in the public relation business. There maybe many districts that do not have anything near what we are setting up to do.

Mrs. Schecter said that she was approached by someone who represented some people who are in the public relation business. This person begged that the Board "bite the bullet" and invest in a professional person to come in and evaluate what message we are getting across at Board meetings and in the Newsletter. Is it the right message and is it accurate? If not, what can we do to make sure it is accurate? She said that she would fight for a professional person to come in.

She went on to say that we fill up our agenda with things that are important, that need to be attended to right then and there. But by failing to include things (example, curriculum mapping), it is out of sight, out of mind. People do not know what is going on.

Dr. Nieburg feels that our budget was poorly represented last year. The people who were the "nay sayers" got their message out and in a number of ways. He does not think that the Board did, we did not maximize on it. Also not a lot of people are privy to information that the Board presents at meetings. The more educated people are about what is going on, the more people know what is happening.

Dr. Dennis said that the more broadly the information gets disseminated, the more you have to be careful of the way meetings are conducted. There has been a lot of negative characterizing about what happens at the meetings. And part of that is legitimate exchange of diverse opinions and discourse which is appropriate. But it gets picked up in the media, who love to make "hay" out of things that appear to be confrontation. We have begun to see repercussions of this, our hiring practices and people taking positions in other districts.

He is ambivalent about taping the Board meetings because of a lot of what happens at the meetings, he is glad only the people in the room see. It is not that the message should not get communicated more broadly, it should. But we have to be careful about the message we are sending out.

Mr. Markowski said that he agreed with Dr. Nieburg and suggested that televising Board meetings would have a positive effect and he explained why:

· People will be much more sensitive about the things that get said and communicate better.

· The development of curriculum information will be spread more widely.

· You will get to people quickly by responding to problems in a constructive way.

· Send out surveys to see what the satisfaction level is.

Mrs. Schecter said that she agreed with Mr. Markowski, but that does not go far enough. She said that we are at a point where people just do not

know what is going on here, the technology presentations drove that home. The technology committee went everywhere with the presentation and no one came out to the meetings. We have to find a better way to let people know what we are doing. She would push to bring some one in, at least for a short time, to evaluate what we are doing. Dr. Castro noted that our technology plan is now being implemented and used by other school districts. We get request for it every week.

Ms. Timberlake said that we need to reach out to the community and inform them of the things that we are doing. Mr. Markowski said that the simple common sense approach works best. You need to have a core story line and the curriculum development is a good starting point. Dr. Nieburg said that curriculum is not the first thing that they ask about when people are thinking of moving into the district. They want to know how many kids were busted last year; what is the drug story, then they go on to talk about the other issues. With the rumor mill in this district, we need to do a lot of damage control, when little things get tremendously blown out of proportion.

Mrs. Schecter said that someone asked her why the Board did not take advantage of town meetings to hand out information about the schools. That is a totally different audience. To do this will cost money and is so labor intensive and messy to control, that we will need someone to do it.

Mr. Solomon said that he thinks that the Board would be flushing their money down the toilet, getting a professional to come into the district because there is not a darn thing a professional can do for the district. You have an organized core of people, who are interested in spreading negative information and no public relations person in the world can counteract that effectively.

Our image in the other school districts is a lot better than it is in our own district. There are people in the district that tear us down to their own ends and eventually it is going to "seep out" into other districts and he does not think that the Board can stop it.

He went on to say that as far as televising the board meeting, it is fine with him, but it is naive to think that is going to impose a code of conduct on people. We have to continue to address the public relations issue and work at it and do the best that we can. He would vote against spending one nickel on an outside person because it is a total waste of money. There is nothing an outside person can do that this Board can not do ourselves.

He also pointed out that we are restricted by the kinds of media we have that services our community. People read the N.Y. Times, Wall Street Journal and watch the N.Y. television stations. The local media is only supplementary to all of this.

Ms. Timberlake asked Mr. Solomon what can the Board do better than a

professional. Mr. Frisch asked if we are trying to negate or enhance what we all ready have that is not getting out there.

Mrs. Schecter said that there is a certain perception and/or people out there, that no matter what we do, we are not going to change their minds. There is a huge amount of ignorance out there and a selective use of information. We have things that are not getting out and that is what we need to do.

Mr. Solomon said that some of the ignorance is by design. There is misinformation put out, the information is corrected and the mis-information continues to be put out. That is deliberate. You can not educate people who do not want to be educated.

Ms. Timberlake said that consistently weekly efforts will have to be made by the Board or what is the point. To do it sporadically, is not going to attack the issues.

Dr. Nieburg said that he is in favor of getting a consultant, to give the Board some additional ideas that we have not thought about or things that we can do creatively. It has to be consistent.

Mr. Markowski commented that there also has to be a consistent theme and not have too many messages going out at the same time. The basic message gets lost.

Mr. Frisch said that he would like to pursue getting a consultant, to see what we are doing because he is not so sure that we are doing as much as we can do consistently.

Mrs. Schecter suggested that after the Exit Poll and Demographic Study presentation in September, that an extra meeting be scheduled in October to continue the Board's goal workshop. The date will be October 2nd at 7:15 P.M..

In addition to this, the Board's Retreat scheduled for September 9th, will have to be postponed, Ms. Timberlake will not be able to attend on that date.

Mr. Markowski suggested that for the next workshop, that the Board select the goals that they are going to be focusing on, in terms of tasks. He said that they should be identified, put in order of priority, refine the list, figure out which task should be part of the goal and set a time table that is appropriate for these tasks.

Dr. Dennis said that we do not want to wait until everything is written out in a nice form before we start to look at these issues.

DIVERSITY ISSUES

Dr. Dennis said that we need to do things to sensitize our staff. It is important to convey to our staff, that we want to have a high level of expectation for all children. There is an assumption that some children, as they enter the system, may not be able to achieve to the same level as other children. The district has changed for many people who have taught here for many years. It is not enough to say that the children are not like the children who use to be here. We have to deal with the children who are here and be cognizant of all of our approaches. He went on to say that people from The Equity Assistance Center, NYU will spend the morning of August 23rd with us at the Administrative Council Workshop and returning on October 23rd, to provide in-service training for our entire faculty. We will also look at the last part of the Diversity Report in September.

Ms. Timberlake said that there have been things that have come up in the last several months, that has raised the sensitivity issue. These issues need to be addressed on an on-going basis at board meetings and in the schools.

Mr. Markowski said that what need to be kept in mind, is what is to be accomplished. This is a more difficult area in some ways, more fuzzy. This issue covers many topics. It would be helpful, that some focus be kept on what is to be accomplished by addressing this issue.

Ms. Timberlake said that students need to feel safe and comfortable when they come to school and not hurt by feelings and actions of students.

Mrs. Schecter read a list of tasks to accomplished for the 1995-96 school year, some of them left from last year:

· Get through the budget season.

· Finish the Policy Manual.

· Monitor the high school Guidance reorganization.

· Continue to evaluate the 9th grade program reorganization.

· Monitor and evaluate the inclusion program.

· Continue to monitor and find out what the impacts are of the site teams and Compact For Learning, including the district goals implementation.

· Make some kind of decision about the Technology Plan.

· Gentlemen's Agreement

She asked Dr. Castro if the technology committee had met at all and are they prepared to share with the Board, what they would like to see. Dr. Castro replied that the committee has met, but they want some direction from the Board. They also hope that there are comments on the Exit Poll about the Technology Plan.

Dr. Dennis said that a number of districts around the country (Ossining was one of them) are doing focus group exercises, to reach out to their communities, inviting a mixture of people to come in for discussions. The discussions are lead by a focus group leader. They have found that people appreciate being contacted and you get a broad base of information from the community that goes beyond a survey.

Dr. Castro said that you would have to balance the group with senior citizens, parents, people with children in school, people that do not have children school, etc.

Mrs. Schecter recapped the goals that were discussed at this workshop:

· Long range planning, which encompasses demographics and facilities, budget, curriculum

· Public relations and publicity

· Diversity and sensitivity

· Technology

Upon a motion by Dr, Nieburg and seconded by Ms. Timberlake, the Special

Meeting was adjourned at 9:02 P.M. to Executive Session, to discuss a

series of personnel matters. Yes 6

No 0 Motion carried.

The Special Meeting was re-opened and called to order by Mrs. Schecter at 9:15 P.M..

Mrs. Schecter announced that there is a vacancy on the BOCES Board because someone has resigned. The election is on October 10th, but the nominations have to be submitted by September 11th. Lois Vetere and Wayne Engle had asked that the BCSD join 2 other school districts and nominate Sally Lewis, who lost to Wayne Engle in the last BOCES election.

Mr. Markowski moved and Dr. Nieburg seconded the motion to nominate Mrs. Sally Lewis as a candidate to fill the vacancy on the BOCES Board. Yes 6

No 0 Motion carried.

PUBLIC FORUM

Joe Sachs commented that the goals that were mentioned deserved a lot more attention than the discussion that took place at this meeting. He said that the technology plan needs to be put in the long range planning and a lot of improvement need'to be done, in terms of support from the district and the Board for the site base teams and Compact committee. He also mentioned that he is in the process of starting up a public access computer bulletin board system and is interested in providing it to anyone who calls in with any information that the Board or the district would like to make available.

The Special Meeting adjourned at 9:20 P.M.. Respectfully submitted,