TOWN OF ROCKY HILL
BOARD OF EDUCATION
MEETING OF
Members Present: Nadine Bell (Chairperson)
Kirk
Bostwick (Arrived at
Neil Geldof
Charles McMonigle
Francis Palazzolo
Anne Schmidt
Catherine Vargas
Jennifer Viggiano-Grosse
Members Absent: Peter Arico
A meeting of the Board of Education was held on
PLEDGE OF
ALLEGIANCE
The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
Chairperson Bell introduced Mayor Cusano and Councilor Lionetti, and thanked them for coming to the meeting.
APPROVAL OF
MINUTES
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mr. Palazzolo, to accept the minutes
of the
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mr. Palazzolo, to accept the minutes
of the
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mr. McMonigle, to accept the minutes
of the
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mr. Palazzolo, to accept the minutes
of the
FAVOR:
ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mr. Palazzolo, to accept the minutes
of the
FAVOR:
ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mrs. Viggiano-Grosse, to accept the minutes
of the
FAVOR:
ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mr. Palazzolo, to accept the minutes
of the
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Chairperson Bell said that the meeting was going to continue now with audience participation, and correspondence.
AUDIENCE
PARTICIPATION
RHTA Liaison Committee
There was no report.
Student
Representatives
Karina Charleston, and Andrew Vollaro, Stevens /Moser schools representatives, reported on K-5 and what is being learned.
Alex Fulco, representative from the West Hill Student Council, spoke about what K-5 and what is being learned.
Holly Curtis, and Jackie Elliott, representatives of
Michelle Riccio,
Meeting Open to the
Public
There was no one from the public wishing to address the Board on any item not on the agenda.
CORRESPONDENCE
Dr. Vautour said the first item of correspondence was
addressed to the students of
(There was a motion to recess at
1. Consent Calendar
The consent calendar included field trips (
Moved by Mrs. Viggiano-Grosse, seconded by Mrs. Schmidt, to accept the consent
calendar of February 17, 2005.
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
COMMITTEE REPORTS
2. Personnel and Negotiations
Mr. McMonigle reported they are currently in negotiations with the paraprofessionals’ bargaining unit, and they will soon be in negotiations with the cafeteria workers’, nurses’, and the teachers’ bargaining units.
3. Policy
No report.
4. Finance
Mrs. Schmidt stated the Finance Committee, meeting as the Board as a whole, recently completed its first “go around” with the Board of Education budget for presentation to the Town Manager. The superintendent presented them with a budget of $23,700,004. The Board of Education members carefully scrutinized, and reviewed the Superintendent’s Proposed Budget during four budget workshops. They reviewed their mission and vision statements, compared their standards, and reviewed their guidelines in order to achieve a budget that will sustain and forward the academic quality and excellence, as well as provide challenging and academic programs for the students. Mrs. Schmidt said they believe they have accomplished all of this through very careful realignment of staff, and assets. They plan to maintain extracurricular activities for the students. The Board of Education ended up cutting $346,468 from the Superintendent’s Proposed Budget. The budget given to the Town Manager totals $23,353,536. The total increase over the previous year is $1,383,909, or a 6.3% increase. Mrs. Schmidt thanked the administrators, Mr. Turansky, Dr. Vautour, and Donna Wadstrup. Chairperson Bell thanked the Finance Committee, under the leadership of Mrs. Schmidt, for the highly organized meetings held, and due diligence they had.
5. Curriculum
No report.
6. Professional Development
Mrs. Viggiano-Grosse said Mrs. Boutilier would be giving the
report this evening. Mrs. Boutilier said
the Professional Development Committee met last week to begin looking at time
utilization. They developed a survey
that was e-mailed to CREC and
7. Facilities
Chairperson Bell said Mr. Bostwick is delayed, and if he comes to this Board of Education meeting later this evening, he can give the Facilities Committee report.
8. Technology
No report.
9. Transportation/Accommodations
No report.
OLD BUSINESS
None
NEW BUSINESS
10. National Board Certification
Chairperson Bell asked for a motion to table this item, because it will be discussed at a later date.
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mrs. Viggiano-Grosse to table Item
#10, National Board Certification.
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
11.
CMT
Report
Ms. Levy gave a brief report about the most recent set of CMT results, and Dr. Vautour said he is quite pleased with these results.
Ms. Levy said a few weeks ago she
spoke to the Board of Education about the No Child Left Behind requirements,
and she spoke about 100% of all of the students being at least at the
proficiency level by 2013-2014. In the
State of
Ms. Levy said it was important to note that the CMT 3 began in the year 2000, and in 2004 the last administration of the CMT 3 was given because this is the last year that the CMT will be administered in the fall. Beginning in the 2005-06 school year, the CMT will be administered in the spring along with the CAPT. She said the CMT will be a completely new generation with new standards. She said some good scores were achieved in the fourth, sixth, and eighth grades. In March 2005, ERG D and State data will be given so that Rocky Hill can do a more in depth comparison of how Rocky Hill is doing compared with ERG D towns and the State. Mrs. Boutilier and Ms. Levy called some of the towns they know in the State, and it appears Rocky Hill has improved with ERG D, and the scores seem to be very comparable with the scores of the towns called.
Ms. Levy said 4th grade math the goal range was 73% of the students scoring at the goal. In reading, 64.2% of students were within the goal, and in writing 75.7% were within the goal. She said it is difficult to compare scores from one year to another because items change. She said adequate yearly progress (AYP) is derived in the areas of math and reading, but not in writing. For grade 6 74.8% of the students were within goal for math, n reading, 75.9% were within goal, and in writing 80.5% were within goal range. In grade 8 in math 71.3% of the students were within goal, and in reading 86.5% were within goal (which constitutes a tremendous amount of growth, because last year in reading there were only 80% of the students within goal). In writing 79.8% of 8th grade students were within goal.
In grade 4 math when AYP is looked at, the target score for NCLB in proficiency is 65%. 4th grade students scored 93.7% proficient. In 4th grade reading the target score for NCLB is 57% proficiency, and Rocky Hill scored 79.2%.
Rocky Hill doesn’t have comparisons of the ERG D and State scores. In 4th grade math, 12 out of 193 students scored in the basic and below basic level, and many of these students have already been identified, and their needs have been identified so that Rocky Hill is leaving no child behind. For male and female comparisons, females are scoring higher than males in a number of areas, and Ms. Levy said this will be looked into.
Ms. Levy said teachers will not only be paying close attention to the students who are in the advanced range and who they will be trying to move up to Level 5, but teachers will also be paying attention to students who are scoring in the basic and below basic range so that these students can be moved to the proficiency range.
Ms. Levy said it doesn’t matter if the student is a special education student, at-risk, or is an English language learner. It will be important to look at the individual student and that individual student’s programs accordingly.
Ms. Levy said 8th grade math scores are slightly lower than last year. They are just beginning to do studies to see what the reasons might be. It is important to note that most of the 8th grade students are at goal and above-goal range.
In looking at the scores Ms. Levy said teachers are to be commended compared to what the prior scores were, and teachers are all trying to strive towards 100% proficiency. Ms. Levy said as soon as the rest of the data is in, she will give a more in-depth study.
Dr. Vautour said Ms. Levy showed results of one of the most difficult tests administered in the country. The results shown suggest that 80% to 90% of Rocky Hill students at each grade level and in each subject area are demonstrating proficiency. Dr. Vautour said the way No Child Left Behind has been structured within the next three years more than likely Rocky Hill will fail AYP and be subjected to some sort of measures by the federal government. Dr. Vautour said he is saying this because more than likely the special education students will not be able to achieve AYP under the existing testing format, and if a subpopulation of more than forty students fails AYP, then the district fails AYP. Dr. Vautour said virtually all school systems will fail.
Mrs. Schmidt asked when this testing moves to the spring, if all grade levels would be tested, or if it was going to be 4th, 6th, and 8th grade. Dr. Vautour responded as it stands now it would be grades three through eight. Mrs. Schmidt said when looking at the bar charts in Ms. Levy’s presentation, the class of 2003 showed up as the anomaly, and she was wondering what happened to the this class. Dr. Vautour said this class was subjected to rescoring, and there were all sorts of difficulties. Ms. Levy said these test scores didn’t actually arrive until after the school year was over.
Chairperson Bell said it is her understanding that 8th grade CMT results are used as a component of placement decisions for high school. She asked now that the test is going to be administered in March, when the scores are expected to be achieved, and in lieu of using CMTs if some other method will to be used to place students in proper high school classes. Ms. Levy said this will definitely be looked into. There will be other classroom performance indicators, and they will be able to look at CMT scores from prior years to see if there is a trend in addition to classroom performance and teacher recommendation. Dr. Vautour said conversations will be held with middle school teachers as to how to compensate for a lack of a critical piece of data.
12.
Curriculum
Mapping
Mrs. Boutilier said approximately one year ago she shared with the Board of Education a new direction that was going to be taken with regards to curriculum review processing, and this was the curriculum mapping process. She said the original thoughts with regards to curriculum mapping have proven to be true. Curriculum mapping is a written process that details what is actually taught, and when it is taught in a teacher’s classroom. This written process does not detail how something is taught because that is up to teacher creativity and decision-making. It is a collaborative process, because once a teacher details in a calendar format what and when is going to be taught, the next step is to have conversations with colleagues to find out if what is being taught by one teacher matches the other teachers, and if it is within the same timeframe. One of the goals is that students have similar sets of skills and content delivered to them in terms of instruction, regardless of whose classroom the students are sitting in. Curriculum mapping does, from a district-wide perspective, determine gaps or redundancies in each grade.
Mrs. Boutilier gave each Board member a copy of a real curriculum map done by one of the high school teachers who teaches a music technology course, detailed the content and skills each student who participates in this course will obtain. Also detailed in this map is a column as to how the students are assessed to find out if the skills and content have been integrated. The curriculum map also has included any resources or technology that the students will be using as a part of their participation in the class, and the last column on this map is designed for each subject area to use in whatever manner they would like. The two phases of curriculum mapping are horizontal and vertical mapping. Horizontal mapping is where teachers detail what they are teaching, and then conversations take place among teachers from similar disciplines or a similar grade level. Vertical mapping is the second stage, and Rocky Hill is still a couple of years away from that stage. Some teachers will have to be taken off-line to look at what is happening in grades K through 12 in science for example. The particular piece of software that has been chosen for this stage will allow an analysis to be done very quickly.
Mrs. Boutilier said curriculum mapping is teacher-driven. Each teacher writes what goes on in their classroom. The teacher’s first task is to create a map in each of the subject areas being taught. The teacher then needs to discuss what they are doing in their classroom with their peers, they need to reach consensus so that there is consistency, and then they make changes. Teachers also have to participate in discussions among colleagues in the district. Teachers also make revisions to their maps on an ongoing basis. In the forefront are the needs of the students. She said the timelines match the curriculum review cycle, and six disciplines have begun the review process. For the most part professional development time has been used.
Mrs. Boutilier believes a fine job has been done with regards to curriculum mapping and this will take the school system to a new level.
Dr. Vautour said he and Ms. Green had conversations for several years about the concept of curriculum mapping. He said with technology now, it will be much easier to allow the computer to do the cross referencing, and sorting, as well as detailing the curriculum of K through 12 across the disciplines, so that significant strides can be made.
Mrs. Viggiano-Grosse said this is an excellent example of why collaboration with teachers is very important.
13. Grant Summaries
Mrs. Boutilier said in December she shared with the Board of
Education three grants that the Rocky Hill Schools received. She is happy to be back now with more
information about competitive grants that has been given to the Rocky Hill. The first is a technology grant available
from the State in the amount of $44,560 to provide infrastructure hardware so
that the speed of the middle and high schools internet/net-working connections
can be increased. Mr. Ames will take the
switches being replaced with these faster switches and redeploy them in the
elementary schools. All schools will be
able to have faster internet access and networking speeds. Two grants were applied for by individual
teachers, and each of them was for $2,500 from Best Buy. Marlene Grower will use her grant for had a
sister school project with schools in
14. School Calendar 2005-2006
Dr. Vautour said it was originally intended to have the school calendar out at least two months ago, but there was uncertainty as to when the administration of the new generation of the CMT and the CAPT would occur in the spring of 2006. He said he requests approval of the school calendar if the Board sees fit, but he issues a caveat that there is still not a definitive statement from the Commissioner as to the administration of the CMT and CAPT, nor has the legislature approved the dates. He believes the tests will be administered during the last two weeks of March, and the make-up tests will be held during the first two weeks of April.
Mrs. Schmidt asked if in the worst case scenario, if the tests are administered during the week that spring break is supposed to be, and some students already had made plans to go away during the school vacation, could those particular students make up the tests. Dr. Vautour said those students would be held harmless in terms of high school attendance policy for example. He said it is not clear if the Commissioner should pick the week of spring break if there are any contingency plans in terms of make-up tests. He also said if spring break is chosen, then school districts could find themselves failing AYP on the basis of student participation. Chairperson Bell asked if there would be some type of memo that would be attached to the calendars going home with the students that would explain what Dr. Vautour just said, and he said there would be. Dr. Vautour has spoken with Dr. Larson, Executive Director of CAPSS, and he asked him to convey to Commissioner Sternberg the need to identify the test dates and realize that most districts have already committed themselves for the school vacation dates because parents have to be able to plan in advance.
Moved by Mrs. Schmidt, seconded by Mr. McMonigle to adopt the 2005-2006
School Calendar as illustrated by Dr. Vautour’s memo.
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
15. NCLB CORRESPONDENCE
Dr. Vautour said Commissioner Sternberg issued a memo to the
new Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings detailing six points that she
felt should be considered by the federal government. The first is that
The second point is the millions of dollars it would cost to create tests for grades 3, 5, and 7 could be better used to address the instructional needs of students.
The third point is
The fourth point is
The fifth point is with respect to students who speak a
language other than English when they come to the Rocky Hill. These students are called ELLs (English
Language Learners). NCLB requires these
students be assessed in their first year relative to their proficiency in
English utilizing the CMT. The federal government
realizes this could pose a hardship, and would allow for the students to be
tested in their native languages.
The final point is that NCLB should focus on supports rather than penalties. She gives four specific examples of supports that would better suit the agenda of NCLB, and said they are preschool, family resource centers, incentives to retain the best and brightest of teachers in the neediest of schools, and a longer school day/year.
Dr. Vautour hopes the response will be favorable and as these are significant and positive measures to improve NCLB.
16. Executive Session (Student
discipline)
17. Executive Session (Interim
Evaluation of Superintendent of Schools)
Moved by Mrs. Viggiano-Grosse, seconded by Mrs. Schmidt, at
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
(No guests were invited into executive session.)
Kirk Bostwick (Arrived at
Moved by Mrs. Viggiano-Grosse, seconded by Mrs. Schmidt, to adjourn the
executive session at
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Moved by Mrs. Vargas, seconded by Mrs. Schmidt to approve the
disciplinary action recommended by the Superintendent of Schools (this occurred
during the regularly scheduled meeting of the Board which reconvened at
FAVOR:
ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Moved by Mrs. Vargas, seconded by Mrs. Schmidt, to adjourn the
regularly scheduled Meeting of the Board of Education at
FAVOR: ALL
MOTION CARRIED
Respectfully submitted,
Jo-Anne Booth
Recording Secretary
Accepted by: _____________________________ Date: _________________________