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MINUTES
WATERTOWN BOARD OF EDUCATION REGULAR MEETING
Watertown High School
Technology Center
Monday, November 24, 2008 – 7:30 PM
Members Present: Joseph Apicella
Gina Calabrese, Chairman
Mary Colangelo, Secretary
Kevin Killeen
Thomas Lambert
Mary Dzioba
Richard Mazzamaro, Vice Chairman
Others Present: Karen Baldwin, Superintendent of Schools
Thad Hasbrouck, Director of Curriculum
Shirley Oliver – Interim Director of Budget
Gary Miller – Interim Director of District Operations
Richard Mastroianni, Student Council Representative
Matt Geary – Principal, Watertown High School
Marc Balanda – Vice Principal, Watertown High School
Nancy Toomey – Assistant Principal, Watertown High
Lisa Guerrera – Teacher, WHS
Jenna Larkin – School Counseling Coordinator
Monica Kreuzer – Science Coordinator
Colleen Spieler – English Coordinator
Linda Bartholomeo – Art Coordinator
Mary Jane Miller – French Teacher – W.H.S.
Janet Bloemker – Family & Consumer Science Coordinator
Tom Matthews – Tech Ed Teacher
Marylou Kuegler – Social Studies
Michael Magas
James Perrucci, Town Times
Absent: Janice Pond
Todd Griffin
A. Convene Regular Meeting - 7:30 PM
B. Salute to the Flag
Ms. Calabrese led the Pledge of Allegiance.
C. Report from Student Council Representative – Richard Mastroianni
Good Evening, everyone, members of the board, Madam Chair, Superintendent Baldwin. As most people are busy with the holiday season, there are only a few major events going on during the next few weeks. However, I know that I have been personally looking forward to these for some time as well as my classmates. I believe last time we met, I mentioned the senior girls powder puff game which will be held at Watertown High School’s field tomorrow evening. The team consists of 19 students, all of which have been practicing extremely hard in order to play a fun and exciting game against Torrington. I spoke with many of our team members. Their emotions ranged from extreme anticipation to major anxiety and they have reason for this too, because this year, the winner will receive a handmade custom trophy. This is the first year that that’s done.
Next, the annual bonfire will be held on Wednesday evening. A few local businesses have donated wooden pallets to burn. They’re much safer and easier to clean up afterwards as well. They also burn much longer. The student council appreciates the support of these local businesses and we’re anticipating a great turnout for this event, as well.
Finally, tomorrow is the last day homecoming tickets will be sold. This year’s theme is “A night in Paris”. The dance will held on December 6th in the cafeteria from 7:00 to 11:00 p.m.. Decorations are already being handmade by the art students of Watertown High School, and of course, whatever they come up with will be great.
As everyone knows, tonight is the last night that we’ll meet before Thanksgiving. I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday and as Thanksgiving quickly approaches, I know the staff and students are highly anticipating the much deserved break. I wish them a safe and good holiday as well. Thank you.
D. Public Participation
None
E. Budget Summary – (Information Only – No Action Required)
The Budget Summary is in the board member’s packets for information. Are there and questions or comments in regards to the budget summary this evening?
Ms. Colangelo: I’d just like to thank the superintendent for the explanation in the memo that she supplied.
Ms. Baldwin: You’re very welcome. It might be appropriate at this time, I did put at every board member’s seat a memorandum from Shirley Oliver indicating budget status as of this point in our fiscal year, and it highlights expenditure categories where we’re performing well and also expenditure categories that we continue to monitor at this early juncture, and I will give Shirley the opportunity to speak with you and just sort of walk you through the highlights of that memorandum.
Ms. Oliver: Overall, we’re in good fiscal standing. First of all, certified and non-certified personnel are strong and that’s primarily due to the interim status of several positions. Although the substitute account is historically under-funded, I’ll continue to track the expenditures of that account. It’s far too early to accurately project overall salaries and wages, but at the moment, it looks good, it’s strong. Utilities look good. Gary Miller is tracking utilities at present and projecting potential savings there. Gary met with Sprint Nextel regarding phone service and expecting to receive credits for services in that area. There’s also erate money available and if that’s needed, that can cover some of those expenses. We spoke about the tax book account. We did some investigating and found that there was an error in the budge process when the cuts were made. Finally, in light of the current budget crisis facing the state, we should anticipate a reduction in the level of funding of the excess cost frame for the special education students. Funding will drop from 100% to 90% reimbursement, and this will likely affect our current operating budget, but at the moment, it looks like we’ll have some areas of savings that can help with those costs. As we move further along in the fiscal year, we’ll have a better idea of where we stand and be able to accurately forecast our budget status. Does anyone have any questions?
Ms. Colangelo: Thank you for the input.
F. Committee Reports:
1. Advertising Committee – Mary Colangelo: no report
2. Athletics Committee – Joseph Apicella: no report
3. Budget Committee – Thomas Lambert: Looking forward to our first meeting coming up December 10th.
4. Curriculum & Instruction Committee – Kevin Killeen: no report
5. Facilities Committee – Richard Mazzamaro: no report
6. Policy and Labor Committee – Mary Colangelo: Policy and Labor Committee will be meeting December 3rd at 6 pm at John Trumbull Conference room.
7. Cablevision – Mary Dzioba: no report
8. PBC Representative – Richard Mazzamaro: I do have a report this evening. I attended the Public Building Committee meeting on Wednesday, November 19th and Mr. Joe Vetro gave a short update on the Swift Middle School which is essentially complete, however, they’re still working off a short punch list of items. Mr. Vetro characterized them as owner issues. Some are just a minor (inaudible) that take place of tearing up of paper and like that and some others are O&G issues such shaving doors and adjusting windows, that kind of thing. Nothing major at all, so they will clear up in the next couple of weeks. As been reported, also, Joe Vetro is now back as project manager here at Watertown High School and he gave his report on the project. His report is as follows: The foundation excavation, area a, which is the new media center is started. Foundation excavation, area b, the pool area, is complete and the foundation backfill is started. The north parking lot installation sub-base has started, which hopefully will help us on the mud situation. O & G was hoping to have temporary pavement down within the next couple of weeks because the (inaudible) shut down very soon. In the area of the new media center, energy and architectural (inaudible) is on going. Building removal is complete and HVAC ductwork and heat pipework is 95% complete. Plumbing workers have started and courtyard demolition has started as well as the electrical and the plumbing roughings in the pool area and (inaudible) architectural demolition is on going and plumbing and electrical roughings has also started.
At Judson, Mr. Mark Sadenski was introduced as the new permanent project manager for that project. He submitted his report and that went as follows: The exterior window abatement is scheduled for late November, early December 2008. Richards Corporation, the site contractor is working on excavation of walls and footing of area a and G & R (inaudible), the plumbing contractor is doing demolition of miscellaneous plumbing in areas b and c. Underground plumbing has begun in area and will begin in areas b and c this week. (Inaudible) contractors performed miscellaneous demolition as well as the electrical contractor. Interior demolition of areas b and c will be complete by November 28th. Footing and walls have begun in area a and should be completed by early December 2008. And lastly, Mr. Freddy Khericha, Kaestle Boos Associates commented on two different projects. First, at Polk, he just had a general comment that the project is moving forward and very smoothly regarding the 500 year flood plan. He also commented that Chief Larry Black, as far as the high school goes, is looking for remotes to be installed in the all the emergency vehicles. They have some already, but for the new light that is going to go out at the parking lot, they would like to be able to, in an emergency situation, hit the remote, have that light turn green in their direction for safety purposes. KBA is investigating the cost of that. That’s it.
Ms. Calabrese: Thank you very much.
9. Education Connection Representative – Janice Pond
Ms. Calabrese: Mrs. Pond is not here this evening.
G. Communications - Secretary
None this evening.
H. Minutes
1. Regular Board of Education Meeting – November 10, 2008
MOTION made by Ms. Colangelo, sec. Mr. Lambert
Text of Motion: To approve the Minutes of the Regular Board of
Education Meeting of November 10, 2008
Opposed: None
Abstained: Mr. Killeen
Vote: Motion Carried (6-0-1)
I. Superintendent's Recommendations and Report
Ms. Baldwin: Thank you very much. As you can see under item number 1, the appointments that have taken place since our last meeting. Those appointments are primarily in Special Education support service mode.
1. Appointments – (Information Only – No Action Required)
a. Ms. Margaret Ardizzoni to the position of Resource Program Paraprofessional (Category #2 – Special Ed Program) at Swift Middle School starting November 12, 2008, for 6.0 hours paid per day, at an hourly rate of $12.23.
b. Ms. Patricia LeClerc to the position of Computer Lab Paraprofessional (Category #4 – Computer Technology) at Swift Middle School starting November 12, 2008, for 6.0 hours paid per day, at an hourly rate of $12.23.
c. Ms. Melissa Noel to the position of One to One Paraprofessional (Category #1 – One to One Special Ed Program) at Swift Middle School starting November 12, 2008, for 22.0 hours paid per week, at an hourly rate of $12.23.
2. Three School Project Update – (Information Only – No Action Required)
Administration will present an update on the three school project.
Ms. Baldwin: The Three School Project Update, Mr. Mazzamaro gave a very conclusive update as a member of the Public Building Committee liaison, so he hit every bullet item that I was going to speak to so I think that that’s complete. I would just take this opportunity to remind the board that today, at Judson, that is located at Heminway Park School, we did implement a revised traffic flow plan in terms of transportation to and from school with our buses and with our parent drop off and parents were cooperative and supportive, although there is some concern of the distance that children are traveling from that ower lot on Deland Field to the steps that lead up to the Heminway Park School, and so we are looking at the possibility of creating a little more space for parents to drive up so that their children will be closer to the steps but we have to make sure that any steps that we take there are safe, that children won’t be walking in harm’s way if we try and get them closer with all the motor vehicle traffic down there. It is a work in progress. I would categorize today as largely successful. First Student did not have an issue at all in this traffic flow plan and we’re pleased by that. And we’re continuing to work with parents and be responsive to try and figure out the safest way to get children in and out of that building. I just wanted to update the board on that.
At this point, we have the opportunity to hear from Mr Geary and the high school leadership team on the NEASC report and update. As board members are aware, the curriculum and instruction sub-committee of the board has been briefed by Mr. Geary in terms of the next steps in changing graduation requirements, as well as taking a look at enhancing the expectations in our curriculum and revising our mission statement and academic expectations at Watertown High School. I also want to take the opportunity to thank all of the teacher leaders who are here this evening and Mr. Balanda, Mrs. Toomey. This is really symbolic all the way around of what leadership capacity means in schools and our opportunity to extend the leadership reach of the high school administration. We can’t do this work without teacher leaders, and so these are important leadership positions that bridge the gap between administration and teaching practice in the classroom. Really this NEASC update really focuses on teaching practice, and so the work that you do is critical to our next steps and so I want to thank you and acknowledge your hard work and efforts and continued efforts because this is a long road. We’re very excited about the changes and the progress that we made thus far, and we’re looking forward to this report from Mr. Geary.
3. NEASC Report Update – (Information Only – No Action Required)
Mr. Matthew Geary, Principal Watertown High School, will give an update on NEASC.
Mr. Geary: Like Karen said, this entire, all the information you’re going to get tonight has been worked on by the people sitting here along with members of their department. We could not get to this without their help, so I’m going to introduce them and I’m going to give them (inaudible) and each of them will sort of tell you the part they had in this. You know Nancy Toomey and Marc Balanda, the assistant principals who are handing out packets, Tom Matthews is our Tech Ed department coordinator, Jan Bloemker is our Family Consumer Science Coordinator. Mary Jane Miller is here for World Language, Mary Lou Kuegler from Social Studies, Colleen Spieler from English, Lisa Guerrera from Math, Jenna Larkin from the School Counseling department, Monica Kruezer from Science, Linda Bartholomeo from Art. So we do have a good group of people here to sort of give you a description of what’s going on. I’ll just give you the background on NEASC. I picked this slide because I think that it sort of optimizes what we’re trying to at the high school. It’s from Time Magazine from a few years ago. It talks about kids leaping across disciplines in order to bring about breakthroughs and that, I think as we prepare students to go to college and eventually into the workforce, we have identified what we believe to be the ten most important expectations we’ll have of them and you’ll hear tonight that many people in many departments have worked together across disciplines because these skills are relevant in all areas, not just individual ones. I thought that was sort of a relevant quote from Time Magazine. It shows you how we’re going into the 21st century educationally at least.
So anyhow, the reason why we’re here, I think that NEASC, a lot of places, they look at NEASC and they go, oh no, we have to go through NEASC. But NEASC really gives you an opportunity to examine practice and look at what you value in a school and how it all connects together. I think that sometimes we’re working on so many different things and they’re all sort of out there and you want them tied together. What NEASC tells us is that, really they should all be linked to our mission statement and there is a special progress report due on February 1st. As board members know, we’re on warning for curriculum and for community resources for learning and so my presentation for tonight along with department leaders will focus primarily on curriculum, because to be honest with you, other than the building being completed, which will happen eventually, we’ve been told by NEASC that we should not expect to come off of warning for community resources for learning until the completion of the building. We’ve sent them, obviously, drawings and plans. We said, you know, we’re well underway with this project, but they said no, we’re going to wait and make sure it gets completed. Our focus, right now is curriculum, although there will be building renovation information included in the February report. Essentially, what we’re focused on here, is the curriculum guide, and how it ties everything together. So, when we sought to revise curriculum before we got into that, we wanted to go back and look at what really drives our program. So, to do that we had to look at our academic, civic and social expectations for student learning, which we did with the people sitting in here and their department. It would make no sense to revise curriculum without keeping our core values or rechecking our core values and keeping those in mind. We did go back and do that. Then we revised curriculum. The third piece of this is how we report student progress, and so NEASC will want a sample curriculum guide along with some information we’re going to give you today and then a sample report card, which we’ve worked on to revise. We’ll continue to work on it as we switch to administrative data base systems, but in the meantime, we’ve worked on this.
Just to give you an idea of how this worked out, the people here will talk to you about the (inaudible). Essentially, the leadership team, comprised of myself, administrators, department leaders, teachers, students, parents, non-certified staff with a secretary on there with a para-professional. They took a look at our current mission statement, along with the academic, civic and social expectations, just to make sure that we’re still focused on those goals. We found that, really, the expectations that as they were set, were good expectations. One of the biggest things, is to figure how kids are doing to meet these expectations. And so, we really wanted to make them a little more specific because when you say a kid can communicate, well that entails writing, reading and presentation. We thought, we’ll separate those out. So the changes you’re going to hear about tonight are not great changes to what we do, but they are a little more specific. There are ten expectations and each of the people here will tell you where they input. The leadership team looked at the expectations, we looked at the school wide rubrics, and we thought, if we’re going to have these school wide rubrics to standardize how we assess students, they should be usable and teachers should feel comfortable using them, students should see them in classes and they should really be a way for us to use our assessments that we’ve developed in addition to state and national assessments to tell us how kids are doing. Then, we’re supposed to do it yearly, we can do it much more often to measure student progress and how kids improve. You’ll see that. So once you see the revisions (next slide), we’ve come up with ten academic expectations. I’ll direct you to the first packet there on top that has the academic expectation reporting matrix and we’re just going to take you through that. I’ll take you through the first one and then give you off to some people. The reporting matrix basically tells you on the front page which departments are responsible for which expectation. You see there are ten there on the left, and every department is responsible for critical thinking because, when you talk to business owners and people outside, they tell us that we want kids who can think critically and problem solve and so we do too. You’ll see every department does that and I won’t go through the other ones, my colleagues do that, but if you flip the page, I’m going to take you through the critical thinking rubric. Critical thinking is our focus school-wide in the high school this year. Across the disciplines, teachers are working together to develop assessments that require students to think critically. I think that when we sat down to do this beginning in August, we maybe thought that we were pushing kids to think critically, but when we examined our practice, we found that we asked kids to understand things and we asked kids to apply what they know, we maybe came up a little bit short as far as asking kids to analyze something, or evaluate situations, or synthesize material. We really are trying to focus on the higher end or difficult skills with our students. That stuff you’ll hear as we go out through the evening, we have looked at the data that we’ve cleaned from this information, these assessments that we’ve built. And the hope is to use that information along with some strategies to help kids improve their skills. So, if you look at the critical thinking skills rubric, the front page there, is just a narrative. We score kids on a scale, 3,2,1,0; exemplary, proficient, develop and deficient and those bullet points, if your son or daughter ever got a 3, that’s what they were able to do. That’s not a user-friendly piece of information for kids and we wanted kids to be able to look at these things, so if you flip the page, that information is available on a grid. So, that when you score a student’s assessment, I’ll show you some assessments, kids could really see which part of it they fell short on and we wanted them to be able to understand. We wanted them to see it across disciplines. The group rubric is generic enough that it is used across disciplines and kids have seen it sort of over and over and that’s what we wanted. I’ll just take you through a few samples that are in here. The first sample you see in color there, is the art sample from critical thinking. And if you have questions on any of these after, I couldn’t tell you which one is not the Picasso, but I’m sure Linda can. So if you have questions after, she’ll be happy to answer them. The first one basically, in our class, if you flip the page, it asked kids to apply what they know about Picasso. It asks them to explain why they know it, it asks them to tell us a little bit about why did you identify the other five as being works of Picasso, taking the work to display in their home and what the top qualities of that are and then changing what Picasso did to a different period in our history. So it isn’t just picking which one is Picasso, It’s why and stretching it even further. So that’s our goal, there. The next sample, Farewell to Violet, is actually, the story is released from the CAPT, so I gave you the story, in case you needed something to read, it’s an OK story. We want to make sure that our kids come in with a good steady writing foundation and that we can help them to get better. These CAPT questions, which are the next pages there, you see the blank lines, those questions lend themselves to understand, what does the kid think about the story, do they have ideas or thoughts, what do you think, which is fine, it’s a good questions, but it’s sort of the entry point. The next question is to take a look at a quote from the story and explain what it means. To apply what they know about the story to these quotes and then the next question asks about what the story projects about people in general. And so that’s can you analyze what the story is about, make the connection about what you’re reading and what sort of society in general has in mind. The fourth question there is to evaluate. Is this a good piece of literature. You see right there in the CAPT questions, understanding, application, analysis and evaluation. And important as the CAPT test is to us, and it is important, we also want kids to go beyond. Eventually, we want to say our CAPT scores are great and now we’re moving forward. We’re a little ways off from that we’re certainly pushing in that direction. The last question there asks the student to rewrite the end of the story. It allows the kid to be creative and to come up with something on their own from what they know. That’s not a CAPT question, it’s our question and probably that’s the one we’re most proud of. So that’s that. You see that those five processes across disciplines. The next assignment is a poster from health, and again it talks about advertising and how it influences kids and same thing, you have a basic understanding of what they’re reading, application level of posters, analysis by describing techniques used in ads, can they figure out the hook, what they’re trying to be convinced of, they have to create their own ad, based on that and then evaluate the effectiveness of the message in the ad. You see that the five things that are sort of the core.
The next example is from science. It’s a synthetic polymer lab. It also starts off as a CAPT released item and we’ve added to it. Essentially, the goal is for students to figure out which of those four websites is reliable. We know there is, we think like, billions of websites, like 20 million new websites being created a day, makes you wonder what people are doing. We know that there is all kinds of information out there and you can find pretty much anything you want to support any theory you have, so we want kids to be able to pick out reliable information. We give them four choices. We’ve shown them how to decide if something is reliable and they have to explain, based on the criteria provided, which is the most reliable, as you see the evaluation there. And then we say, well that’s great, we’ve taught them how to do this, but they’re not always going to have somebody hand you four websites. You’re going to have to go out and look and find one for yourself. So we said, find one for yourself and tell us if that’s reliable. Now we’re going to consider a problem. We’re going to look at wastes that comes from school lunches. You analyze that problem, should we continue with paper products or should we go to actual utensils that we wash. So that’s the fourth question. The fifth question is, maybe that’s not the right solution, not the right answer. What is a better way and again, they create their own thing. So that’s in science.
In tech ed, you see with circuits and understanding different kinds of circuits and applying them to different situations. Why would you use a particular circuit, and which path would the electricity take. If something happens to a circuit, what is the next reaction, and then figure out how you would use these in your house. Again, in every discipline, we’re just trying to push beyond there.
And the last example you see there is the math example. We’re trying to, while drilling practice is, of course, important in math, there’s much more out there to it. You see here, with the dog pen, you’re trying to draw dimensions of a pen and draw a picture of what a pen looks like. You’re trying to figure out what’s the biggest area a pen can have. You’re trying to figure out, what if you throw into the mix, a circular pen and then you want to create your own dog house. Again, we’re just trying to get the kids to do these skills across disciplines. So I’m going to step aside now and let Marc Balanda and Linda Bartholomeo explain the reading expectation and examples.
Mr. Balanda: As you can see, the second academic expectation says read actively and critically in a variety of situations. We found last year, when I first came on staff, Matt, myself and Mrs. Toomey, when she came on staff eventually, we looked at our reading scores for our CAPT, particularly the reading for information section and it showed that only 36% of our students were at goal reading for information. It sounded like something that was relatively basic and that was assumed in a lot of disciplines that our students, of course, read for information. Mr. Geary wasn’t going to take that 36% of our students, only 36% of our students read for information. We created a reading initiative last year and essentially, that’s the rubric that you see before you for the second expectation, is really developed from the CAPT test, the reading for information section. We actually took the actual rubric that is used to score student responses in the test given every spring and we used that as a basis for creating some of the assessments that we started to give throughout the year. You’ll see that it’s broken up into basically two different sections, developing and interpretation and also taking a critical stance. Those are two very important things that we wanted to make sure our students would be able to do and we spent a lot of time and I think you would say it’s a little painstaking at times, but we came together as a faculty and we realized that this could be done across disciplines and as a result, our CAPT results this year were 10% higher, so it showed dramatic improvement. I’m going to pass the microphone over to Mrs. Bartholomeo who is going to talk about the art aspect, one of the staples we used.
Mrs. Bartholomeo: When we were looking at this in our department, reading is something that, believe it or not, we do a lot of it in art and we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, we just wanted to incorporate it into what we already did. If you look at the Esher rubric and the assessment here, first of all we were thinking that, yes we agreed, they didn’t just have to read for factual information, but how to apply it and in art, this is something we do all the time. It’s the right and left brain tandem effort to make creative thinkers. On this, what we did, is we had them read an article. We always incorporate the reading either online, if they would be doing research in the writing lab or doing an article with scholastic magazine about an artist, with each unit. They would the articles, we would encourage them to reread also, we have other pre-reading strategies to get them ready to get the most out of the article and then here you see the format. We made most of our assessments CAPT like. At the beginning, they’re actually answering factual information and if you noticed here, we found our kids had a lot of trouble with, were the ones the except. Like number two where it says, which of the following statements is not true. They had a hard time with that so they have been seeing these a lot whenever we give these assessments and they’re getting used to them. All of the following are true about Esher’s optical art except, so we’re seeing an improvement there and I think you’re going to see beyond the 10% this year. And the final two questions ask the student to apply what they read, taking a critical stance and backing it up with information from the article, both implicit and explicit in the article. Forcing them to be better writers, too. Same point, we tell them you have to back up what you say and the results we’ve been seeing are getting better and better each time they do it.
Mr. Balanda: I’m just going to flip through the article about Poda the Impossible as we go on to the last section, we’ll talk about for reading for information. I think what you’ll see as everybody gets up and talks tonight is that this looks different in every classroom, but at the same time, it’s authentic. It’s imbedded in the curriculum. It’s not a separate, let’s take 20 minutes and talk about reading, and then go back to what we’re teaching. It’s imbedded seamlessly into the curriculum and I think that’s really one of the most important things and I think was one of the hardest things for the staff to really get into to doing but we got right on board and you’ll see, I know Ms. Bartholomeo picked up one point, she talked about writing as well, and the reading scores. That’s what we focused on last year. We saw a 12% increase in writing, as a result. That’s kind of an added benefit. Math, of course, Mr. Geary’s favorite, What you’ll see here and it’s broken up into two sections and again, like I said it looks different than everything else. The first part talks about the value of a car and there’s really some mathematical problem solving involved in this particular assessment where students have to evaluate the value of a car and how it decreases over time. That’s the mathematical component. They’re doing their calculations. But then, if you turn to the second page, now that gas prices have gone down, it’s a little less relevant, but the article’s about SUV sales running out of gas and so the students read an article that was published July 28, 2008, so it’s very recent, very relevant, you know the Smart Cars, I don’t know if I would want to drive one, but there’s a picture of one there. And the students read through information about that and talk about, start taking critical stances. Should your friend buy the Honda Civic or the Ford Explorer? And why. It’s not just read the article and kind of agree with it. What would you do and why? So like I said, it looks different, discipline to discipline, but you know, we really get the point across with math.
The next section, number 3 on board, is writing effectively in all curricular areas and to speak to that is Marylou Kuegler. She’s going to speak from the Social Studies department, and Colleen Spieler from the English Department.
Ms. Kuegler: (inaudible) third expectation is write effectively in all curricular areas and you should have in your packet the writing rubric that we developed between the two of us using not just the CAPT as a model but also other standardized writing rubrics and what we did was piece together one that took our students beyond just preparing them for the CAPT , but also getting them ready, so they could write an interdisciplinary settings no matter where, high school and beyond. Spending a good many afternoons together, we were able to put together an actual rubric and sat down with all of the teachers in both of our departments to go through and fine tune it. We appreciate having that time together. It meant a great deal to us and it has turned into a piece that we’re all very comfortable using. Primarily, the three subject areas that are responsible for reporting student progress, are English, Social Studies and World Language. You can see that on the chart that Matt gave you at the beginning. However, the rubric’s that’s been developed is being used in all subject areas. It’s part of our repertoire, we want to keep on our desks and most of us have it on our web pages as well so if students who are working on an assignment they’ve been handed the rubric, but they can also access it if they don’t have a copy of it and things like that. We developed the rubric because we wanted to be able to use it in multiple subject areas. And so if you look at it and you say, well this isn’t something that you could use for social studies, I assure you that it is and the goal is for this particular rubric is so we can assure that all of students have been taught the same writing process and have the same standard of expectation of what good writing looks like. For example, if you look at the packet you can see the different assignments that you have there, there’s an English and two Social Studies assignments and Colleen and I talked about whether, we could give you any number of different assignments, but what you see is in Social Studies, there’s a ninth grade assignment and then there is 12th grade psychology writing assignment, so you can see it is multi-disciplinary. And then also, there is the English 10th grade one that is standardized to look an awful lot like the CAPT. I’ll leave that discussion and a little bit more to Colleen.
Ms. Spieler: The English Department is currently rewriting the freshman and the sophomore curriculum and we are working on standardizing our assessments and instruction and we did, very nicely, we have a new textbook for the freshmen and hopefully, we will be able to adopt the textbook for the sophomore year for the next year and we are using the writing curriculum as part of our standardization. We also had the opportunity just recently to work with the middle school and a consultant to work on curriculum. We are trying to bring our practices that we have for what we’re doing here at the high school, that we have a bridge between the junior high and the high school, so we’re bringing everything together, as well. We are looking, as you can see, with the rubric that we have here, even though we have one in place, we know that things can change, and so we are very well aware that we might need to improve or that we might want to add to the rubric. We know some of the areas that we would be looking at and one would be to add citations and work cited page when it’s necessary such as when we’re writing research papers and we have that information or when we need to have things cited. Also, this particular rubric can be modified so it can be used for other genres such as persuasive essay and comparison contrast essay. And on the rubric, we not only set it up with the 3,2,1 section, but we also set it up so that some of the teachers if they need to and if they want to use numerical grading, we put that in as well. We tried to make it user friendly for everyone.
Mr. Geary: To talk about the fourth expectation, which is presentation, is Monica Kreuzer from Science and Mary Jane Miller from World Language. This expectation, I think that the entire staff agreed was important. I’m not sure that anyone necessarily wanted to take time away from their curriculum to do this because it does require kids to get up and present things, so you’ll see that they found sort of a nifty way incorporate it into the curriculum in both areas, so that it doesn’t take away time, in fact it enhances what’s going on in the class, because kids are teaching other kids about the subject matter.
Ms. Kreuzer: Good Evening. We are two departments that came together, World Language and Science. You would think that they are two opposing departments and came up with a general rubric that the entire faculty could use, so it’s very difficult. We would go back and forth and argue a little bit. If you look at the rubric, it talks about how the student must have masterful control of their content, that they should present clearly, that they should use proper grammar and language, that they should speak appropriately and be enthusiastic, and that they should have some speaking aids. So, in science, we did many projects, so it wasn’t very hard for us to adopt this. We have a couple of examples here. If you look, the first assignment is an enzyme project This is a lab that we always did every year, it’s a CAPT lab. Instead of them having to do a lab report, they are now becoming enzyme marketers. They have to market their enzyme instead of writing a lab report. And so this is only one part of the rubric, we just can’t grade on this, although it is beautiful. They have to be enthusiastic, some kids were bringing in apple juice and sharing it with the class and some people made DVD’s. I had one group of kids who made a song. One boy played the guitar, the other sang, they made lyrics, it’s quite interesting. So this is just one example. If you turn the page to the other example, the atom project. This is where one kid always picks an element, they normally make a poster. This is a freshman, she made a t-shirt, she came in, took off her coat and underneath was her prop that she used for her presentation. Showed that she had the element helium, attached to this were two balloons to her and on the back, she had her atomic structure and it’s hard not to get distracted by the prop part, so all the other part of the rubric helps you control that. Now MaryJane will speak for World Language.
Ms. Miller: Prior to the development of these rubrics, the school wide rubrics, the department rubrics, four language teachers all had to make a rubric for this, you had to make a rubric for that, and so then we started working on the department. Then as you were told, at eventually the science and world language department came together and developed one which has worked extraordinarily well for us. This particular academic expectation for us is probably very very important because to speak a language is to speak. So with my French 3 classes, I often do a project on The Little Prince, the French Honors class and the culmination of it, the students get together in groups and pairs and take a chapter a piece and in each group, there would be a little prince there would be one of the character that he meets on one of the pl(inaudible) that they go to. This story has all kinds of very interesting people and each one of these people tell a message to the little prince so each student, they write a skit about a potential meeting between the two of them. They have to first learn how to speak the story, and in this particular story, you’ll notice that (inaudible). Many of the words of The Little Prince are silent, they’re not spoken. They don’t really read every single thing that’s going on. They have to feel it from the emotions and from the actions, etc. They get to do this production and incorporating it in the feelings of these characters. They have to write it, they have to learn it, memorize it and they have to present it to the class and so this particular rubric, that we have devised enables me to be able to grade them. One child may be very strong in oral annunciation, another one is very strong in another aspect. The way this is divided between the content, the presentation, the language and speech, it gives me the ability to not just give one grade, and say, ok, you have an 85. It gives me lots of ways to grade each child. These are the things that are so important to us in any of the language speaking. The content, do they know what they’re saying, do they know what they’re talking about? How do they present it, is it logical? How is the grammar, how is their pronunciation? The speech, are they poised, are they nervous? (whispering – are they talking like this), etc. So, the development of these rubrics for our department has been a godsend and they are working very very well and I think the neatest thing is, I was doing a little presentation with my 2’s today. They had to pick a famous French person and talk about them and I brought out the rubric and the kids had already seen it in other classes, so it’s working very well across the disciplines. Thank you.
Mr. Geary: The fifth expectation is the employ mathematical problem solving skills. And this, being a former math teacher, this is my favorite expectation. But also, I’m probably the hardest on these people with the assessments they turned in so Lisa Guerrera is going to explain those.
Ms. Guerrera: Like Mr. Geary said, not only do we want to a lot of (inaudible) with the students, we want them to be able to take those concepts, apply them to other areas and explain what their answer means. I got an answer, but what does it mean? The math department uses the problem solving skills rubric which is just the Math CAPT rubric. There’s three performance indicators, understanding, application of process, and computation and communication. It’s on a 3 point scale, 3,2,1,0, 3 being exemplary, 2 proficient, 1 developing and 0 deficient. The math department has been creating uniformed assessments that can be assessed by this rubric to ensure that students are achieving at all levels. There are three assessments included in the packet. For the first questions, students need show their understanding of their use of a basic formula, their concept to answer the question and following questions, 2 or 3 questions, they need to take a formula concept and apply it to a particular situation. The third part of the rubric assesses their computation and how their expressed in a coherent way that they know what their answer means in that situation for the problem.
Mr. Geary: You have samples of the Math samples that you can look at. The sixth expectation is to apply technology to acquire process and impart information and again, everybody sort of agrees, in this society the ability to use technology is key for what we are trying to do. Mrs. Toomey is going to explain this rubric and a few samples.
Mrs. Toomey: As Mr. Geary said, technology is very important, especially now, the new building, we’re going to have a brand new tech room and more up to date technology. In order to apply technology, we felt that it was important that students know how to acquire, process and impart information. So as far as acquiring information, it’s important that students know how to find the information through the use of different types of technology. So it could be not only just computers, but also things like tools, a pencil is technology, calculators and use this information to find solutions. Acquiring is very important. The second part is process. What do you do with the information that you find? Not all the information that you find is reliable and accurate and are there any bias. So a student needs to be able to do that in order to process the information that they acquire. The last part that’s very important is impart the information. You may find lots of different types of information, you may be able to process it, but can you tell everyone else about what you found? That’s a very important part in the use of technology. So how well does the student present the information that they have found, relevant and accurate, and it can be used in many different ways. Is that information communicated clearly and so that’s what we use the rubric for.
Mr. Geary: The seventh expectation, this might have been the trickiest one right now, because we want students to develop, understand and appreciate skills in both fine and practical arts. This initially had to do with just fine arts, but everyone who goes to the high school does not take fine arts so you can’t have that in your mission statement unless everyone is going to be exposed. We had to develop a rubric that could measure how a cake looked, versus how a shelf looked, versus how a painting looked so it had to be pretty general. We will let these people tell you about the fun they had doing this. So, Janet Blanc will tell you about foods.
Ms. Blanc: As Matt said, the fine and practical arts is probably the most diverse of all of these particular areas. The performance indicators on this one would include understanding, technical skill, craftsmanship and appreciation. Marc Balanda can attest to the fact that I hunted down many people looking for input on this because when you’re a department of one, it’s hard to brainstorm alone. I scoured the halls sometimes. What I found was Matt finally granted permission for us to clarify our own areas. If you look at mine under understanding it says product, table, lab. I teach foods for those of you who don’t know. What’s the product look like, what did the table look like, how well did they do in their actual lab planning. The technical part of this would include safety and sanitation and recipes and measuring because you need to be very accurate and precise with these areas. Craftsmanship was probably the one that was most difficult for me to understand and basically you’re talking about what the student made and then if there was in fact something that was invented and created for that particular lab. That would be the time when this rubric would be used for that particular lab. For example, on the next page in your packet, think it’s the next page, we just finished our party lab and party lab found, oh what fun that is. We actually incorporate table setting, manners, etiquette, that kind of thing and that is a part of their grade. The last part is the appreciation and having them be able to answer the question of what went well in this lab for you and why do you think it went well and then what was a problem that you encountered and why do you think it was a problem, and a step further than that, what would you do to not have that problem occur the next time? Thank you.
Mr. Matthews: Hi, I’m Tom Matthews, I’m the tech ed teacher here at the high school. I can use this assessment to assess the students with a house building exercise that we do. What the students start out doing is planning. This is one of my students who is planning a house and if we take a look down at the next one, the technical skill. She has it designed on the computer now, where she will eventually then blow it up so the technical skill is using the program and knowing something about designing the house. Then we blow it up into a larger floor plan here and then eventually the craftsmanship that I would put in would be the model making. And then the appreciation of it, I could ask the student, justify why you chose a certain siding, or the type of roof you have so they can actually defend why they chose a certain building material or there’s a whole bunch I can talk to you all day about it.
Mr. Geary: The eight expectation has to do with the sciences, particularly lab work. I’ll let Monica explain the standardized lab work.
Ms. Kreuzer: This is probably the oldest rubric in the school. This rubric was developed by the State of Connecticut back in the early nineties when CAPT came about and we have been using this rubric since 1997 since I’ve been here when students write a lab report. In establishing our curriculum guides that we’re making for NEASC, which was a great thing to do this summer, we as a department, the biology teachers specifically and the chemistry teachers and the integrated science teachers, we have established who’s doing what lab and we’re all doing this lab, so in the first semester, there are three mandatory labs that we all do, we all know what the common answers are going to be and when we use this rubric, we are scoring them correctly. Same thing in the second semester. So if you look at this rubric, it’s the same format as all the others, but we didn’t find that to be very useful, so if you look at the very last page after the PH lab, it will show you the rubric that we use, that the students get back when they have an assignment. They need to define the problem. If you were to ever to see CAPT, the experiment questions on the CAPT, it asks them to define the problem with the independent and the dependent variable. Can they design the experiment, do they have the materials in there, how do they analyze data, making graphs and tables and charts and then drawing conclusion. We felt that the conclusion is the most important part of the lab report. If you notice, that’s 40% of the grade and pretty user friendly,.
Ms. Kuegler: The ninth academic expectation addresses the issue of students knowledge of world cultures and examining their world and the world community. It is obviously specific to social studies but can be applied in multiple areas as subject permit as they’re required. You can see the rubric that we developed actually, Matt and I spent a good deal of time talking about this one as there are 16 state standards for social studies. The idea of developing a rubric that measures 16 different strands is a bit of a nightmare. What we did was that we really culled it down to what are the immediate skills that our students need to have, understanding historical influences, understanding cultural influences and then finally, making the connection to America and the world today. And by putting those pieces together, it’s accepted and expected that our students would, for example, under cultural influences that you can see, that they study history, religion, economics, geography, government. They also study, it says there, or other areas, sociology, the history of non Western civilizations, architecture, mythology, etc. From there, we’ve been developing activities, it’s interesting because sometimes it’s hard for us to determine whether we want to use the writing rubric or whether we want to use this global rubric and so we’ve developed two sets of standards, two sets of activities that measure different things. We have writing that specifically deals with just developing the writing skills, but then we have the global awareness assessment as well, not that we would ever ignore the writing, but the students are aware that we’re focusing specifically on their analysis. So for example in your packet, you can see an assessment, this is actually a writing assessment that the students were given. What it has is a problem. We know that as historians and sociologists that societies collapse. That’s a concept. So what are the causes of that will affect societies but then also, if you can identify with what those causes are, what can you learn from what’s happened other places. The students are required to prepare an essay, and again, this is where it becomes difficult, do you want to use the writing rubric or the global. They have to choose at least one civilization that we’ve studied during the course of the year and then identify what are the reasons why that society collapsed. From there, they then have to look at common characteristics of the modern world, specifically the United States and apply an understanding of those characteristics. What do we know, for example, if economics is an issue, what can we identify as economic causes of the fall of the Roman Empire and how do they apply to America today. And then their final portion of this which is really critical thinking, again, we’ve called together lots of different parts is that they have to make a recommendation to the President of the United States, of how would you avoid the consequences that you can see happening to other civilizations so that we can avoid those things happening today. We have standardized a number of these assessments so that our students in social studies, 9 – 12 are doing these types of activities and right now we’re in the process of gathering the data so that we can improve on them and make sure that they are doing what we want them to do. The other thing that you can see is that the student receives this assignment, they receive the rubric, but the rubric has been modified specifically so that the student has it in front of them, so for example, in this case, it says, in this case, collapse of civilization. We don’t want them to get off track and get on the wrong discussion, so we’re narrowing the focus for them and then making sure that they’re able to apply and that happens in each one of these cases. Thank you.
Mrs. Toomey: And this is number 10, make appropriate choices in dealing with health, wellness and physical fitness. And this is probably one of the most difficult ones to write because how do you measure that. The rubric that we came up with was divided into four different sections. Under health, how well do students use decision making skills to make healthy choices. And there are four different categories. We have wellness, how well do students acquire and assess and use health information to promote wellness. Then under physical fitness, how well do students maintain healthy standards of physical fitness and then we also have goal setting. How well do students use goal setting skills towards healthy, physical, active lifestyles. We do have an example of 12th grade and this is part of their health maintenance evaluation. The students are picking out three habits that they have, three bad habits and choose one that they would most likely change and clearly define it and they have to go through a process of examining it and developing a behavioral contract to help break that bad habit and they have to implement it and evaluate the content. Again, this really addresses something that may not necessarily be academic, but is an important part of a student’s education process.
Mr. Geary: So that takes you through the ten expectations and how they were developed and what went into them. Basically we’ve done all this work related to these ten things we think are important. You’ll see later on tonight, there is an attached item about graduation requirements. I had the good fortune to talk to Policy & Labor and Curriculum & Instruction a couple of weeks ago. Essentially, we’d like to align graduation requirements with these ten standards. Currently, there are standards in math and writing and I think when we come to you and show you the CAPT scores, you can see clearly that kids are focused on math and writing because those are required for graduation whereas there’s less sort of initiative taken in science and reading, so we’d like to add graduation standards in reading and science that align with the rubrics that we talked about while keeping the community service requirement and technology as well. So that’s what we’re looking to do. Once that gets done, it will go into effect for next year’s freshmen, if the board approves that and we will have graduation standards in these categories separate from the credit requirement for graduation. So we’re just looking to take it up a notch and hold our kids to the high standards that we really need to be holding them to.
The last change was sort of reinforced and I just got some good news from the state on this today actually. Currently our kids are required to take 3.5 social studies credits which is fine, we like social studies. But at the moment they take one year of US I, one year of US II, and then half a year of civics, which is a little bit over the top with looking at American History, so we would like to be able to allow them to have a little more flexibility to look at other cultures or nations or areas, like psychology or sociology, so our proposal is to scale that back just slightly and keep the 3.5 credits in social studies, allow kids to take 1 full credit in US History I. Allow kids to take 1 credit in US History in Government and then 1 credit in 20th century American History and keep the .5 credits, but it wouldn’t necessarily have to be civics. We think we really want diverse learners, we want kids to know about other cultures, and we think that 2 years of US History is sufficient. So that’s what we’re asking for tonight, is a modification of the civics requirement. Again this wouldn’t take effect until the class of 2013. But the State of Connecticut does require that the kids do take a course in government, a semester course, or at least .5 credits in government and we have actually written a letter to Dan Greg who oversees that for the state and he has responded to that as yes, the state would ok this kind of setup where in sophomore year, if you choose US Government as one semester and US History as second semester, it’s OK with the state, there. So that’s the civics end of this.
We took all of these expectations and we got down to what NEASC asks us to do which is take your curriculum guides and make them usable for teachers and tie in all the parts that are there. I gave them a curriculum guide because I like evidence and I won’t go through with you page by page, but it’s a math curriculum guide, so it’s a fun thing to look through, and essentially tying all these things together is not as simple as it sounds. There’s a lot of things to tie together. So we have the expectations, which are the core of what we do and then the state has standards that we’re required to follow. We’ve created, sort of overarching essential questions which are sort of thought provoking, things a kid would want to consider, sort of make it more interesting, big ideas, as well as specific objectives and focus questions for the units. NEASC also noted they would like to see instructional strategy and sample activities. If you look at the curriculum guide, I’m not going to go all the way through, the seventh page in is a grid. Unit 1, sideways, and these grids we worked very hard to tie all of this stuff together. NEASC appreciated that we had all these things, but how do you possibly use that if you look behind you, there is the music department’s essential questions hanging in the classrooms for teachers to refer to. You could see here, it ties the content which is aligned with state standards to focus questions, which are aligned with the essential questions. You see objectives there, uniform assessments and suggested activities. This really is designed to be usable for teachers. It’s not something you take off a shelf once, maybe never, you want people to use this and not continue to have to reinvent the wheel every time. So that’s our curriculum guide so you can see that and those will be going to NEASC. I didn’t give you all the activities because they’re much thicker. Those will go to NEASC in February as well.
The last thing is you have to be able to measure student progress. We live in an era where we want to see what the data is telling us. This month’s Education Leadership magazine is all about data and clearly data is important. We’re looking at test scores, but we also want to make sure that we’re doing our part during the school sort of routine to measure data and report it to parents. I’ve give you a little brochure because the report card is getting more and more complex as you want to measure these things. Basically, if you look at the inside, it shows you what a new report card will look like. You’re always going to have a grade in the class, there’s no doubt about that. We also want to pinpoint, what are kids doing well so that when we tie this to graduation requirements, we can say the kid met the requirement or this student is not as ready to go. This way we would mediate and you’ve heard before about data teams. We have data teams at the high school that look at how many kids scored a 2, how can we move those guys to 3, what about the people who are at 0 or 1. This is really designed to report specific information to parents and then it has an explanation. This was also a NEASC request, but it is a beneficial step to add. At the end of the day (inaudible) measures student progress. It’s nice to have activities and good assessments and we do, but we want to be able to measure how well our students are doing. We know that every kid that leaves Watertown High School has experienced a rigorous curriculum and has gone through and meets these ten expectations and so that is the final part of the presentation. We do want to hold kids to high standards, we do want to offer them opportunities and we do want them to reach across disciplines and to stretch their minds. We appreciate, I know it got a little long here, we appreciate your time listening to all of the presentation. Again, it wouldn’t be possible without these people and the 85 other people that are behind them that aren’t here tonight. So thank you.
Ms. Baldwin: I also just want to point out to the board before our next presentation that if you can just reflect back on this listened to regarding this update on our expectations, I think you’ll notice persistence. The positive messages that you heard from each department leader, this is evidence that this work is real, is authentic. There is ownership to this work and that even the pupils are working everyday in the classroom to assist their teachers in the department in making this come alive and so this is exciting work what I would categorize as changed leadership and systemic change and this also well timed as we move forward in our deliberations for our 2009-2010 operation budget, because clearly, we need resources to continue to do this fine work and to expand the opportunities for Watertown High School so all of this that we have to act on this evening, I think built some positive momentum as we move forward with the development of our operating budget. I want to thank each member of the high school team for a very thoughtful and wholesome presentation this evening. And I want to point out at one time I think I heard Mr. Geary use the word nifty, and it wasn’t related to the math rubric, either. You can tell that people have some excitement around this. At this time, I’d like to ask Mr. Gary Miller, our Interim Director of Operations to present an update of our 403B plan. It’s important that the board recognize the timeline that we have to act and become compliant with the regulations, so I’ll turn this over to Mr. Miller.
4. 403(b) Plan Revised IRS Legislation Requirement – (Information Only – No Action Required)
Mr. Gary Miller, Interim Director of District Operations, will give a presentation on the 403(b) Plan Revised IRS Legislation Requirement.
Mr. Miller: Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to speak to the Policy and Labor Committee about this and we agreed that I would do the presentation tonight. This is an IRS regulation that’s been in the works for about a year and we’re rapidly reaching the deadline. The closer we get to the deadline, the more things are changing to help prevent us from meeting this deadline. We’re going to continue to march forward as if we were going to do it. The things that we need to do to meet this deadline are, the biggest thing is to have the board of education adopt a written plan for the 403B tax shelter annuity plan that you currently have available to your employees in the Town of Watertown. We’re going to get a lot of help writing that plan. It’s going to be a fairly generic plan, partly because we’ve got a lot of work that we’re in the process of doing and a considerable amount of work ahead. In addition to having a written plan, we have to have all the vendors, the approved vendors that will be on the approved vendor list in your plan. They have to sign an information sharing agreement with us, which means they’re willing to share information with us, which previously we hadn’t really had the access to, but we were required to administer. The second thing is, because we have chosen to go with Plan With Ease as our third party administrator, all these vendors will also have to sign an agreement with Plan With Ease that they’re willing to share information electronically, so that if employees, if they need to do a loan or some other activity during the time of this investment, they’ll be able to go in with Plan with Ease, Plan with Ease will have up to date information as to how much they have invested, what’s available, what their options are, so there’s a number of things going on. Most of the vendors have already got involved and are getting on board. Some companies are being very slow in this process, some are not ready to do this yet or don’t have the capability to do it yet, so we’re all in the midst of people trying to position themselves. As a result of that, the vendor list we have now is 14 vendors, some of them are mutual funds, some of them are all varieties of different investment options. We have 164 employees that are currently participating in that. Because we’ve moved on, we’re moving to a third party platform, which means that we are basically outsourcing the administration of this because we just don’t have the ability to do it well and meet all of IRS’s guidelines by ourselves. As I mentioned to the committee earlier, we’ve interviewed 2 vendors and the reason we limited it to two is because we looked at two that wouldn’t charge us anything. One of them had an exclusivity option that we didn’t find attractive and so we along with about 100 other school districts in Connecticut and many school districts around the nation have decided to go with ING and their subsidiary Plan With Ease, which is actually is the platform that will collect all this information and be accessible to employees. They’ll also feed us information. The key component with this, no cost to the board of ed, and one that I felt was very important was that no pass through of cost to employees. Basically, with what we have in place now, with the exception of some vendors that will go away, is that it’s going to look like it pretty much does now to the employee.
The vendor list is going to shrink, and the reason it’s going to shrink a bit is some vendors are just getting flat out of the 403B business. Many of those are mutual fund companies. They just don’t have the ability to share real time information on their own. They’re just not equipped. Many cases, they’re just not ready to meet this January 1 deadline. They may eventually be able to do it, in which case we’d happily take them back on as an approved vendor, but at the moment, many of them are just not ready. What are the next steps? At the December 8th board meeting, I will hopefully, assuming that everything falls into place here, be bringing you a written plan for you to adopt and will hopefully get it out to you in advance. It’s going to be a lot of boiler plate language, most of it you’re probably not going to understand, unless you’re a tax accountant or an investment counselor, but we’re going to explain as much as we can to you. We’re going to try and keep it very “vanilla”, by that I mean basically follow the guidelines that basically all the school districts around the state are also adopting. We’re going to kind of leave things alone. If the providers allow for hardship loans and early withdrawals, things like that, we’re going to allow for that. We’re not going to add any constraints we don’t already have in place. The purpose of the plan is that we have to have a written plan. We’ll basically do that, have a written plan that describes in many cases what we’re already doing. At the same time, we thought it would be a good idea to bring to you the CASBO, CASBO is the Connecticut Association of School Business Officials, which about year or so ago, developed a 457 plan. 457 is another kind of tax shelter annuity that many school districts have and municipalities can also have 457. And although we currently don’t have any providers that have 457, many of the providers that we have can provide 457 investment in addition to the 403B investment. So that works for some of your high earners, the supersavers that need the maximum of the 403B program. It isn’t enough for them, they need to shelter more income. So the 457 plan would help them do that. And also for the wage earners, that work for the board of ed, the 457 plan is a really more appropriate plan for them than the 403B plan. 403B, you have to wait until your 59 ½ to get anything out of it. 457, you leave employment, you take your money with you. It would be a better vehicle for many of our employees. We would just do that over time, but we would like to have the board adopt both plans, both the 403B written plan and the 457 written plan. Because we get the regulations out of the way and we’re fine. Now as late as Friday afternoon, we had a whole other wrinkle. AS I mentioned to you on a previous slide, many of the mutual fund companies were going to fall by the wayside in this process. The 403B fund source, they’ve been around awhile, but they became available to us as a 403B provider. They actually handle 20,000 mutual funds and they are a platform in that they have a relationship with all the different mutual fund companies. So that if, let’s say if I have American funds, I’m dealing with a particular investment provider, American Funds happens to be one of the companies that is willing to sign an information share agreement, but they’re not willing to sign the electronic sharing agreement, so I couldn’t put my money in them, because we can’t have them in our plan, but they’re a mutual fund company. If we have 403B Fund Source as one of my vendors, I can go to my agent and say, hey listen, I’m working for the Watertown Board of Ed, I still want to contribute to American Funds and here’s how we’re going to do it because you have a relationship with Fund Source, Plan With Ease has a relationship with Fund Source, nothing is going to change with me, other than how my money gets to American Funds. It’s a very nice vehicle. It will make this process, virtually seamless for the employees. They’re going to have to maybe have a conversation with their investment counselor, the agent that handles their product, but for the most part, it’s going to be very seamless. So, once you’ve approved this plan on the 8th, we’re still going to continue to pursue vendors that have fallen by the wayside and try to get everybody back aboard. In that process, we’re talking to employees, there’s a few employees, I’ve had to write letters to and say the provider you had, they’re getting out and here’s what your options are going to be. We’re going to have a lot of questions. We’re going to be sending another letter out to employees over the next week. Writing lots of letters to providers and fingers crossed, be ready to bring you a written plan on the 8th of December, because it’s your last meeting before the 1st of January, so we don’t have a lot of options. I’d be happy to entertain any questions that you have.
Mr. Lambert: If we recommend a (inaudible) plan and that company or mutual fund organization or whoever they are, goes belly up, do we have any liability?
Mr. Miller: No, the advantage of the 403B plan is that it is an employee directed plan. We define the list of approved vendors and actually the IRS is no helping us do that. It’s up to you as an employee which one you want to participate with, if you want to participate at all. Our only liability is that we properly tax you. We try not to exceed your maximum limits because again, that effects our matching responsibility with IRS, to match the FICA, medicare. Other than that, we really don’t have any responsibility. 457, however, is a little different because we specify which plans that you can invest in and you have a little bit more of a fiduciary responsibility, but not significant enough, particularly. If companies on our vendor list, provide 457, we’re going to say fine. Because the investment is going to go through the TPA. You make all the arrangements, and so we could probably have 4 or 5 457 plan providers and then maybe 6 – 10 403B. I think it will provide a good opportunity for the employees and everybody, hopefully, will come out of this happy, and that’s really been our goal. We’ve involved the unions in this process, trying to make it an employee program. We want employees to feel comfortable.
Mr. Killeen: I have a question pertaining to the TPA. Since I wasn’t at the prior meeting, it might be simple to answer. What was the criteria for choosing the TPA and how was it ultimately derived for approval?
Mr. Miller: CASBO, Connecticut Associates of School Business Organization, back when this first program came out, looked at a large number, I think 10 – 12 companies that were interested in getting into the third party administrator business and they had a whole set of criteria that worked with attorneys and investment buyers to look at and develop a criteria. They ended up interviewing all of those companies and they narrowed it down to 3 companies, 2 or which have charges, one that does not. That met a couple of different sets of criteria, so that districts could choose whether to follow the CASBO’s recommendations or not. It gave districts some options. So in trying to keep this at zero cost, we zeroed in on ING, we also did interview one provider, but that provider was exclusive which would mean that all the investments that everybody has now would have to change. Everybody would have to reenroll in this exclusive plan and nobody seemed to have any interest in doing that. We are considering having that particular vendor added as a potential approved vendor for somebody who’s interested in that kind of investment, they could do that, but it wouldn’t affect any of the other employees. That was really the primary criteria.
Mr. Killeen: Our choice has to be aligned with the state teacher’s…
Mr. Miller: No, not at all. It happens that the provider that we’re picking, runs the state teacher’s 403B program and the state’s 403B program.
Mr. Killeen: One final question. Was this something that was approved by the board selection, ING. Was that covered in the prior meeting? We covered the basis for selecting that and we didn’t really feel that that particular choice warranted board action. That was really administrative, it was like outsourcing any other vendor that we might choose to use to provide us information. The key there was cost, and you would include that as part of your approval of the plan to use.
Ms. Baldwin: I would even add that experience in doing this work. ING is in 100 districts. They have the manpower to be a third party administrator in Watertown. They have the experience and the know- how and they were quite persuasive. I don’t think it’s a mistake that they call their implementation Plan With Ease. That we have move forward to meet these regulations and that the program that they have, Plan With Ease has been developed to assists districts in doing this and we can be compliant without major burdens on boards of education across the state and across the country. I think ING was quite compelling in their presentation as opposed to, in our circumstance, the other vendor that we met with. That would have been a challenge on top of the exclusivity issue, that presented itself there. CASBO in trying to find a third party administrator did go out with an RFP and ten companies responded to that RFP. CASBO betted those ten and got it down to three. ING was one of the three and again, we interviewed ING with union representatives present as well and other vendors. Again, cost was an issue. We did not want to pass along costs to employees, nor did we want to assume any financial responsibility at the board level. All of that came into account and certainly, ING was the most impressive and we’re confident in that recommendation to you as we try and move forward to be compliant January 1.
Mr. Killeen: Thanks for your response. Thank you.
5. High School Graduation Requirements – First Reading
At a joint meeting of the Policy & Labor Committee and the Curriculum & Instruction Committee on November 10, 2008, the committees reviewed revisions to the High School Graduation Requirements Policy. The policy is presented to the Board for the first reading tonight. (Please see Attachment A.)
Ms. Baldwin: Item 5 here, is just a first reading of the high graduation requirements. This is attachment A in your board folder that you received. It was summarized tonight by Mr. Geary. I think if board members have questions, now would be a great time to ask them because Matt is still here and Marc is here and certainly their presentation is foremost in your mind and remember that this is to go into effect for class of 2013.
Mr. Mazzamaro: One question. A lot of the presentations focused on the kids actually doing the presentations in class. Some kids, no matter what group you are, are extremely shy. I forget who it was who said, we were focusing on the whispering, could someone who is actually very smart but who is just extremely shy be penalized because they are extremely shy?
Mr. Geary: I think the way you work with that student is that you allow that kid to come after school and do that presentation for a small group of teachers to begin with and hopefully, eventually, you get that person to do it in front of the class. They will make exceptions for kids who cannot get up in front of the room. A lot of times, it’s after school, just to start and then they sort of ease them back into the room if possible.
Mr. Hasbrouck: I think what you’ll see, is that students do that increasing frequency, they gain a comfort level and I can think back to a number of students who were painfully shy in freshmen year and just to be asked yes or no in class, they would want to just crawl under the desk. By senior year, leading the class in a debate and being very articulate and very appropriate in what they were doing in presenting. That’s a growth that comes out of that experience.
Ms. Baldwin: any other questions regarding the high school graduation requirements?
6. Student Artwork
Ms. Baldwin: I’m going to move forward to acknowledge the wonderful student artwork that’s present here this evening from all our young artists in the Watertown public schools. It is tremendous and again, this is a wonderful display of what our standards are of the continuum of expectations, performance expectations and the strength of our curriculum and I think this is one of the easiest ways to understand rubrics and performance assessments and it makes thinking about math and science instruction that much easier when you can see the depth of growth here. So I would like to acknowledge all of our fine young artists.
The artwork that is on display this evening was done by the following young artists:
Jillian Nugai -Kindergarten, John Trumbull Primary School
Ashley Czujak -Grade 1, John Trumbull Primary School
Kyle Rimick -Grade 2, John Trumbull Primary School
Kayla Bromley -Grade 3, Judson School
Isabella Orsini -Grade 4, Judson School
Nicole Neurakis -Grade 5, Polk School
Jenna Carpino -Grade 6, Swift Middle School
Jillian Noseworthy -Grade 7, Swift Middle School
Melissa Brown -Art 1, Watertown High School
Tom Swarkowicz -Art 2, Watertown High School
Brooke Grenier -Art 2, Watertown High School
Jeffrey Sparano -Art 3, Watertown High School
Demosthenes Gakidis –Art 3, Watertown High School
J. Report from the Chairman
Ms. Calabrese: On Monday evening, November 17th, the Town Council unanimously approved the contract settlement between the Watertown Board of Education and the Watertown Education Association. I would like to thank board members Rich Mazzamaro, Ms. Pond and Tom Lambert as well as Superintendent Karen Baldwin for their hard work and stamina during a very long but productive mediation. And I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving as we enter this holiday season.
K. Action Items – Adoption of Items to be Approved by Consent
1. Consideration of the Approval of the Watertown High School Mission Statement
At a joint meeting of the Policy & Labor Committee and the Curriculum & Instruction Committee on November 10, 2008, the Committees approved of revisions to the Watertown High School Mission Statement and present it to the full Board for approval tonight. (See Attachment B.)
MOTION: Ms. Colangelo, sec. Mr. Mazzamaro
It is recommended that the Board approve of revisions to the Watertown High School Mission Statement.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
3. Consideration of the Approval of Acceptance of Gift
MOTION: Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. Ms. Colangelo
Ms. LuAnn Cogliser, Library Media Specialist at Watertown High School, wishes to donate the H.W. Wilson Senior High School Library Catalog, 16th ed., and the five-volume set of The Encyclopedia of World War I, with a total value of $585.00 to the library at Watertown High School.
It is recommended that the Board accept this generous gift and a letter of thanks to be sent to the donor.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
4. Consideration of the Approval of the Acceptance of AT&T Foundation Grant
MOTION: Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. Mr. Killeen
We are pleased to report that the AT&T Foundation Grant written and submitted on September 29, 2008, has been approved for the amount of $10,000. The purpose and goal of the grant is to improve the school performance of students identified to be at-risk of dropping out. The high school administration will identify up to twenty students in grades nine and ten who are at risk of dropping out. Teacher-certified tutors will be hired to work with students to improve academic performance and develop daily goals for success. Small group counseling will provide students with skills to make better behavioral decisions.
The grant was prepared by Thad Hasbrouck, Director of Curriculum and Professional Services.
It is recommended that the Board of Education accept the $10,000 grant award from the AT&T Foundation.
Discussion: Mr. Killeen: I would just like to say thank you to Mr. Hasbrouck for his good work of bringing the district a nice grant.
Ms. Baldwin: If I could, I would also like to acknowledge State Representative Sean Williams who was also very helpful in drawing our attention to grant opportunity and I think was instrumental in helping us to see success in this as well.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
5. Consideration of the Approval of the Termination of Contract Between the Board of Education and O&G Industries for the Construction Management of the Polk Elementary School Project
MOTION: Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. Mr. Lambert
It is recommended that the Board take action to approve of the termination of contract between the Watertown Board of Education and O&G Industries for the Construction Management of the Polk Elementary School Project.
Discussion: Mr. Killeen: I’d like some background on that motion.
Ms. Baldwin: I sent to you a letter in the Friday packet explaining that we have had meetings with the Town Manager, with Kaestle Boos Associates, also with (inaudible) costs on the Polk project using the general contracting model versus a construction management model. Ultimately when the board engaged O & G to the construction management company for this school’s renovation project, it was a very complex renovation project, specifically as it pertains to the phasing. When we first engaged in a construction management operation, we were looking at having 3rd and 4th graders in their home schools while construction was taking place. We were looking at 5th graders being out and a very aggressive phasing process with children in the building which would require the expertise of the skill set of a construction management firm such as O & G and so the board very wisely went forward with that model. In light of the delays of the Polk project because of the issues with the 500 year flood plain, it is very clear that we are at a different point in this project and that the update that I provided the board in terms of the analysis from Leech Consulting indicates that there are very clear and real savings moving towards a general contractor and that in light of the fact that this is a limited budget, 12 million dollars, and a tight budget, it is wise for us to consider moving to a general contracting model so that we can move forward in a timely fashion, hopefully in a cost effective fashion which will allow us to perhaps to put some monies back in over time once we get started. So we have received indication from Brian Holmes, the president of O & G, that he has received our letter of notice, pending board approval and town council approval and he was understandable of the decision. I just received that via facsimile today from Brian Holmes. So that’s really what prompted us was the work from Leech Consulting and KBA to help us better realize some potential savings through a general contractor.
Mr. Killeen: Thank you for reading that into the record.
Ms. Colangelo: Am I clear that it would be about $500,000 in savings estimated?
Ms. Baldwin: That’s what we’re estimating at this point. If you recall in that document that I sent to you, there’s a term called escalation costs and very clearly in the general contracting model, we identified what those escalation costs are in the proposal from O & G and the construction management model, it’s not identified and it’s very real. It will cost. There is an escalation cost moving forward from the time of bidding and so we anticipate that it’s at least as much as what the general contractor has put forward therefore the bottom line appears to be approximately a half million dollars.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
6. Discussion and Possible Action of the Possible Use of Heminway Park School for Swing Space for Polk School Grades 3-5 for the 2009-2010 School Year
Ms. Baldwin: If I could help the board with this. In the past the board discussed this when moving Judson to Heminway and ultimately the request did go the town council for approval. What I’m envisioning under this item number 5 would be that certainly we can discuss if you have questions about the transition from Polk to Heminway, but that a motion be made to authorize the Superintendent to write a letter to the Town Manager requesting the use of Heminway Park School for the 2009-2010 school year. I’m envisioning something along those lines so we can move this forward.
Ms. Calabrese: OK, so first we would be specifically asking for a motion to discuss this?
Ms. Baldwin: I think it’s just a discussion.
Ms. Calabrese: Just discussion.
Ms. Baldwin: At the board level, we are at the planning process in anticipation of a successful move of Polk to Heminway Park. I think we’ve learned this year, under probably under the most adverse conditions possible we were able to relocate 3 through 5 school and have it up and running on the first day at the wonderful Heminway park School and so now, on November 24th in anticipation of moving in July, I think we are well ahead of the curve and much better situated to do if possible an even more thoughtful job of transitioning children from Polk to Heminway Park. It is complex, there’s a lot of elements in place here, beyond what we learned through the Judson move. Part of the complexity is Polk enrollment is greater than Judson, so there we continue to look at space needs at Heminway Park and how to deliver our high quality curriculum there. We believe we can do that. It’s complex in terms of busing. If you think about where Polk is located and the number of buses we have already to bring children to Polk, one of the things that will likely happen, pending approval of this is that the board will likely violate its own transportation policy as it pertains to busing through district lines. Because Heminway Park is on the other side of town. There are challenges that we need to consider and talk about and figure out in a thoughtful way for the 2009-2010 school year. We also through our budget process, we are working very quickly with first Student to get a estimate of the number of buses we will need because there are walkers at Polk who won’t be walkers to Heminway Park. So I dare caution the board that as strong a move as this is, a positive move and in the best interest of children and the program, I do believe there will most likely be a cost associated with this move, specifically for Polk as it pertains to transportation. We don’t have that information, but it’s important for the board to be aware of it.
Ms. Colangelo: We could always waive the policy to accommodate this, but I think it’s probably a good move overall if we could do it cost effectively.
Mr. Mazzamaro: We had some cost increase as well. We had transportation, but there was a tradeoff I believe, by not having all the kids at the school.
Mr. Killeen: The projections for fuel costs, I don’t see how they could be done accurately at this time, but we have…
Mr. Miller: We’re already locked in, if I could interject, for diesel, oil and gasoline for next year. We locked in last week.
Mr. Killeen: On diesel fuel for the buses?
Mr. Miller: Yes, through the consortium that the town and the board of ed participate with. We locked in to 2.45 for heating oil, 2.63 for diesel and I don’t know the gasoline price, but something in that range.
Ms. Colangelo: Doesn’t that have to come to the board for approval?
Mr. Miller: I think it already has.
Mr. Killeen: We approved the consortium.
Mr. Miller: It’s actually over a dollar less than what we’re paying this year for heating oil.
Ms. Baldwin: Are there any other questions related to the possible action of using Heminway park for Polk School?
MOTION: Ms. Colangelo, sec. Mr. Lambert
Ms. Colangelo: I make a motion that the Board authorize the superintendent to write a letter to the Town Manager to allow the use of Heminway Park School for Polk students for 2009-2010 school year.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
L. Future Agenda Items and Board Members’ Comments
Mr. Mazzamaro: I just have one, I don’t know if anyone had a chance to look at the newsletter that came out. Outstanding job. My wife loved it, the kids brought it home. I think it’s a great piece.
Mr. Killeen: Madam Chair, in years passed, we’ve done board member’s board goals and objectives for the new year. We’d like to entertain that as a agenda item either in December or January.
Ms. Calabrese: Sure, thank you.
Ms. Colangelo: I’d like to make one comment with that. We’ve done board goals and objectives, but we’ve never evaluated ourselves and I think if we’re going to do goals, let’s plan for evaluations.
Ms. Calabrese: I just wanted to thank Mr. Geary and the administration at the high school and all the teachers one more time. Really a great job, magnificent job, lots of great work, a lot of depth. I’m very proud to see what kind of excellent work was done. I think that anybody who sees that presentation would know the thoughtfulness and the effort that is being put into this. It’s just a great job.
Ms. Dzioba: Just a follow up on that. I enjoyed tonight’s presentation, and I just have a request for the next time you do this, can you put in a cheat sheet and we can check our answers as (inaudible).
M. Public Participation
Michael Magas: Michael Magas, 46 Mount Fair Drive, Watertown. I’ll be less than 60 seconds. I would like to thank Ms. Baldwin or Mr. Geary. I’ve asked questions at a board meeting a few times ago and I made a call to the high school and they were quick with their responses and actually called by home and I appreciate that. Thank you. As we were sitting here going through some of the things for the hard work that you put in for NEASC, tremendous with all the rubrics. The one question that I did have is that I noticed on two of the rubrics, you do have a section for student self assessment. Are you going to implement student self assessment on the majority of the rubrics? And another thing is I know there will be different teachers using these rubrics and you have a (inaudible) performance indicators, will you allow line items for teachers to add their own criteria or performance indicators? That’s all I have. Thank you.
N. Executive Session
MOTION: Mr. Killeen, sec. Mr. Lambert
To go into executive session with the board members and the superintendent at 9:20 pm.
Personnel Matters
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
The meeting came out of executive session at 9:45 p.m.
O. Adjournment
MOTION: Mr. Mazzamaro, sec. Mr. Killeen
To adjourn the meeting at 9:45 pm.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 p.m.
Submitted by:
Mary Colangelo, Board Secretary
Patricia Barber, Board Clerk
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