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Watertown Board of Education
Special Meeting
(Meeting Postponed from February 26, 2007)
Minutes
Meeting Date: February 28,2007
Meeting Time: 7:30 p.m.
Meeting Place: Watertown High Technology Center
Members Present: Ms. Mary Dzioba, Board Chairperson
Mr. Richard Mazzamaro, Board Vice Chairperson
Mr. Todd Griffin, Board Secretary
Ms. Gina Calabrese, Board Member
Ms. Mary Colangelo, Board Member
Mr. Kevin Killeen, Board Member
Mr. Thomas Lambert, Board Member
Dr. Joseph Erardi Jr., Superintendent of Schools
Ms. Amelia Grover, Dir. of Budget and Financial Planning
Ms. Betsy Hackett, Director of Special Services
Mr. Todd LoFrese, Director of Operations
Dr. Philip Pelosi, Assistant Superintendent of Schools
Ms. Kace DuPlissie, PTO Representative
Mr. William Zeman, W.H.S. Student Representative
Absent: Mr. Chris Lafferty, Board Member
Ms. Joanne Pannone, Board Member
Press: Jim Taylor, Town Times
Jonathon Shugarts, Waterbury Republican-American
Guests: Thad Hasbrouck, Fred Kericha, Patricia Corvello, Matthew Geary, Michael Gaydos, Marylu Lerz, Emily Judd, Fran Palmer, Sandra Greenwood, Whitey Greenwood, Melissa Navarra, Charlie Beliveau, Mattthew Sheeks, Adrianna Albini, Elizabeth Carolan, Jared Jacovich and Bob Fortier.
A. Convene Regular Meeting - 7:33 PM
Ms. Dzioba convened the Regular Board of Education meeting at 7:30 p.m.
B. Salute to the Flag
Ms. Dzioba led the Salute to the Flag
C. Recognition
Ms. Dzioba turned the meeting over to Dr. Erardi for student recognition.
Dr. Erardi: Before we move to our three High School students, I would like to share with the Board of Education that one of our artists that we recognized a few weeks ago, Jenna Reeser. Jenna can you stand please. Jenna is here this evening because she was invited to view her work with her Mom. Jenna is a third grade student at Polk School and Jenna I know that within the letter that I sent you, the Board of Education is very proud of not only your artwork but all the work that you do. Congratulations to you and we want to say thank you for being here.
Applause
Dr. Erardi: We have three high school students that we would like to recognize for being scholar athletes in the fall athletic season.
Dr. Erardi called the students listed forward to receive certificates.
Dr. Erardi: Adrianna and Elizabeth were recognized as outstanding swimmers and outstanding scholars. Adrianna is a junior at Watertown High School and Elizabeth is a graduating senior heading for higher education and aspiring to work in speech therapy. Matthew Sheeks will be returning as a Senior football player next year and is also being recognized as a scholar athlete at Watertown High School. Congratulations to all three
Applause
The Board of Education would like to recognize three Watertown High School student athletes who were recently honored by the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper:
Adrianna Albini, grade 11 - swimming
Elizabeth Carolan, grade 12 - swimming
Matthew Sheeks, grade 11 - football
Meeting suspended at 7:35 p.m. for a brief recess
Meeting reconvened at 7:38 p.m.
D. Public Participation
Bob Fortier, Tower Road, Watertown
I understand that you are not going to vote on the issue of opening the rear emergency exit at the High School. Most of the neighbors couldn’t make it because of the schedule change so I got elected to bring a couple of issues that left out at the last meeting. I don’t know if the school or the Police Department is enforcing the no parking at the top of Tower Road. Maybe the students have mentioned it to their rides but all it has done is push the traffic farther down the road. Another issue that was brought up was from April to November half of the houses on the road have a landscaping service, taking into effect the school summer break, there are going to be weeks when you find a truck and a trailer parked on the road. That in it self is going to close a way down. Somebody mentioned garbage pails on windy days, they are left in the street all day long until the homeowner comes home and brings them back in.
One thing I wanted to ask you, I don’t know if you have an answer tonight, was this ever a legal exit for vehicles to be using? Does anybody know?
Ms. Dzioba: Yes, it was.
Mr. Fortier: That was a question that they wanted me to ask. Do you know why it was closed in the first time? I know why it has been closed for the last seven years. I have seen these issue and I know they haven’t been addressed so I didn’t know the initial reason for closing or if anybody happened to know?
Dr. Erardi: Mr. Fortier what the Board directs the Superintendent to do, I am writing down your questions, I will respond to you in writing and I will share the answers with the Board and then publicly through the secretary at our next meeting. I will get a copy to you.
Mr. Fortier: Thank you. And I wanted to thank, I think it was Mr. Lafferty, he is not here this evening, but he took the time and effort to go over there and witness a dismissal of the school. I think that if that is all it takes; any of the Board members could come over and see what a safety issue it really is. I welcome any of you in my house, in my driveway any day, I have no problem. I do have one picture, two vehicles parked on the road, they are not moving. It shows the street and how it narrows at the top, even more so, so I don’t know where students can walk. These are vehicles parked, not moving side by side, there are some more pictures that other neighbors had, my schedule enabled me to get some afternoon pictures, I am going to try and get some of the students walking two or three abreast down the road. Just to give you an idea of what it will be like for vehicles to travel on the street.
Jared Jacovich, 41 Pheasant Ridge Drive, Watertown
On the subject of Tower Road, I don’t have anything prepared, just a few things that would like to sort of rebut from the gentleman over there. On the fact that it is not wide enough for students to walk, the first three feet I think it is of a person’s lawn is public property, so people can use that for walking. Lastly I think you have all heard the safety issues and such about the main road out of the school not being wide enough, not allowing for people to get out there fast enough or safety vehicles being able to get in, in the event of an emergency. That is all. Thank you.
Report from Student Council Representative – Mr. William Zeman
Mr. Zeman: Thank you, a couple of things, one little thing and then one big thing. Rehearsals formally started last week for “Anything Goes” the High School Musical, May 10th, 11th and 12th. This is actually why I am going to duck out as soon as this report is over. It is looking to be a great show already, one of our best, as the weeks come I will be saying that over and over and over again. May 10th, 11th and 12th, keep it engrained in your minds.
I would like to continue with something I was doing before the whole Tower Road thing started, where I was sort of highlighting the different aspects of school life at Watertown High School. One thing I would like to focus on tonight if I might is a particular class at the High School. They way it was always explained to me was that at school you learn stuff and then the rest of your life you did it, over and over again. But there are some classes at Watertown High School that are trying to counter this trend and I would like to focus on one in particular called Interdepartmental Publishing. It is run by Mr. Zoni and Mrs. Monti-Bovi so it is combining both the English portion of journalism along with the actual nuts and bolts of getting things to look nice so that you don’t just have a paragraph and people don’t want to read that. Most classes at the High School are held every other day, Publishing is held every single day, every lunch block, it counts as two credits. It is structured as Mrs. Monti-Bovi explained it, like a business. They send memos out whenever they want to do an interview, they conduct the interviews professionally, they have little name badges. They have production meetings periodically as they are going through their work. All work has to get done during what Mrs. Monti-Bovi calls “office hours”, in other words they are not allowed to bring it home, they have to do it during class, so they have to manage their time. They don’t just do regular projects, they also, most of you get the Indian Info, that is published by Interdepartmental Publishing. It is their monthly project, they have to run it completely like a business, they have to issue as I said memos to get interviews, they have to take notes, they have to compare and contrast, they have to edit. It is really impressive. It is just another way of allowing for real world experience while still being in an academic environment. Other classes are beginning to be considered along that line, I believe Mrs. Goldfarb is starting the planning stages of something similar to Interdepartmental Publishing for television next year. Sadly it will replace the Indian Inquisitor with William Zeman and Drew Vansteenbergen. I can see Dr. Erardi is really, really excited at that point. Laughter. I think it is just a great way to get some real world experience while working in an academic setting, I think it is worth the recognition. Thank you.
Report from PTA/PTO Liaison – Ms. Kace DuPlissie
Ms. DuPlissie: I have got one thing here from Polk School. On March 1st, which is tomorrow evening between 6:30 and 8:00 PM they are going to have an evening of storytelling with storyteller Tom Lee. The children will come in their pajamas and bring a blanket and read and do book swaps and have fun. Also the CMTs at Polk start next week so the regular scheduled classroom will not be in full force for the next two weeks. I also would like to introduce Melissa Navarra from Heminway Parent Group, she is here to give a brief explanation of what is going on at her school.
Ms. Navarra: I would just like to share with you what the Heminway Parents group has been doing this year. In the fall we had two assemblies, we had the Free Style Repertoire Theater, which is an improve theater group. The children were able to participate and had a lot of fun with that. We also had a recent graduate of WESCONN, a Jazz guitar major, he brought different types of guitars and played several styles of music. He talked about the history of the guitar and how rock music evolved. The kids really enjoyed that, he had a question and answer period and that was fun. Also this fall we purchased a much-needed stereo system for the music room. They weren’t able to listen to any music during class at all, except through the computer, which wasn’t working out very well, they needed that. We also purchased some playground equipment, balls, hoola hoops, things like that, for the children to play with at recess. Also within the past month our school camera stopped working so we bought a new camera. In February the school trip, they went to New London to see a theater production, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and afterwards they went to the Mystic Aquarium for a scavenger hunt. Also we have three reward nights every year, at the end of each marking period we have one. We another one coming up in March, we have a DJ, a game room, face painting, nachos, door prize for items that were donated by the parents and also local businesses. We just booked three more assemblies, we have in March the Brazilian dancers coming, in April we have a poet, David Zucker, he is a lot of fun, he gets the kids really excited about poetry. I saw him when he recited the Jaberwalkie and he acted it out, it was an amazing thing to see, so I think the kids will really enjoy him. In May we have Antonio Rocca, he is a storyteller and a mime. I was worried that 6th graders we too old for a storyteller but he, when I saw him I was caught up in the story myself and was sort of crying, he was really good. We have a book fair in April, it is a half price book fair, we don’t make any profit on it, but the kids will be able to get a lot of books. The only other thing I have, is we have had a few fundraisers this year but we have a new one coming out this week. We have pewter ornaments of Heminway Park School, it has Heminway Park School in one side and has Watertown High School on the other school. We also have shelf sitters, flat wooden cut out buildings that are Heminway Park School painted really pretty, both of these have the dates on them, closing in 2008. That is all the news I have, thank you.
E. Budget Summary – (Information Only – No Action Required)
Ms. Dzioba: Budget summary is in the packet for all Board Members. You can contact the Superintendent or Amelia with your questions.
F. Committee Reports:
1. Advertising Committee, Todd Griffin, Chair
Mr. Griffin: There is no report this evening
2. Athletics Committee, Chris Lafferty, Chair
Absent - No Report
3. Budget Committee, Todd Griffin, Chair
Mr. Griffin: As we finished our round of three budget workshops I would just like to thank everybody that put the time and effort into coming to the workshops, getting all the information and providing us with the feedback and questions that we had asked. This is a very critical time of year for us and with that we also look to put our best foot forward. With the work that was done today with Amelia and Dr. Erardi, I am going to be handing out a new proposed worksheet that brings our budget back down to 6.41% that reflects a savings of $26,000 in our health insurance costs. This is going to come up for discussion later but I wanted to hand this out now (See Attachment A) so that you all have a copy of it. Thank you very much.
4. Curriculum & Instruction Committee, Gina Calabrese, Chair
Ms. Calabrese: There is no report this evening
5. Facilities Committee, Rich Mazzamaro, Chair
Mr. Mazzamaro: There is no report this evening
6. Policy and Labor Committee, Mary Colangelo, Chair
Ms. Colangelo: There is no report this evening
7. Cablevision, Kevin Killeen, Chair
Mr. Killeen: No report this evening
8. PBC Representative, Rich Mazzamaro
Mr. Mazzamaro: Just a short report, I attended the Public Buildings Committee Meeting on February 20th and Mr. Joe Vitro from O & G Industries gave his monthly update on the Swift Renovation Project. He commented on area A, which would be the addition, the exterior is 99% complete except for wash down. The interior masonry is 98% complete, interior framing is 98% complete, sheet rock and taping is 95% complete on the 2nd and 3rd floors, and painting is approximately 75% complete on the 2nd and 3rd floors. The ceiling brick installation is about 70% complete and electrical and mechanic rough ins are complete on the third floor with electrical and mechanical rough ins complete on the 2nd floor. The area with the auxiliary gym, the exterior veneer is complete except wash down and the roof installation is complete, window installation is complete and the electrical rough ins are ongoing. (Inaudible) are complete and the heating system rough ins are 90% complete at this time as well. The Public Building Committee also had a walk through this afternoon to tour the progress to date.
Ms. Dzioba: How does it look?
Mr. Mazzamaro: I wasn’t able to go but I think Mr. Lambert did.
Mr. Lambert: We had a walk through today at 3:30 and Joe Vitro showed us through the building. Everything looks just great especially the sheet rocking and taping, it is nice to see that getting done with painting the doorways. The only thing that wasn’t worked on, was in progress was the elevator and some of the stair appointments but generally quite a bit of progress has been made since the last time we had the walk through so I am very pleased with what we saw.
9. Education Connection Representative, Mary Dzioba
Ms. Dzioba: There is no report this evening.
G. Communications – Secretary
Mr. Griffin: There are no communications this evening
H. Minutes
1. Regular Board of Education Meeting – February 12, 2007
Motion Presented by Mr. Griffin seconded by Mr. Mazzamaro to accept the Regular Board of Education Meeting Minutes of February 12, 2007.
Motion Passed
(5-In Favor, 0-Opposed, 2 Abstained)
In Favor: Ms. Calabrese, Ms. Colangelo, Mr. Killeen, Mr. Lambert, and Mr. Mazzamaro
Abstained: Ms. Dzioba and Mr. Griffin
I. Superintendent's Recommendations and Report
Dr. Erardi: A very brief report this evening. The first item is appointments for the past few weeks. I don’t know if Board Members have any questions in regards to Item #1.
The Board had no questions regarding Item #1
1. Appointments – (Information Only – No Action Required)
a. Mr. Keith Borkowski to the position of Boys’ Basketball Coach at Swift Middle School for the 2006-2007 school year at a contractual stipend of $2,131.00 payable at the end of the season.
b. Mr. Joseph Giannelli to the position of Girls’ Basketball Coach at Swift Middle School for the 2006-2007 school year at a contractual stipend of $2,131.00 payable at the end of the season.
c. Ms. Diane Valunas to the position of Cheerleading Coach at Swift Middle School for the 2006-2007 school year at a contractual stipend of $1,881.00 payable at the end of the season.
d. Ms. Karen Sturges to the position of One to One Special Ed Program paraprofessional at Polk School starting February 12, 2007 for 22.0 paid hours per week at an hourly rate of $11.82.
e. Mr. Sean Sossei to the position of Network Coordinator for the Watertown School District starting February 26, 2007, work schedule to follow the school calendar plus five additional days prior to the opening of school, at a salary of $24,920.00 prorated. Work hours will be determined by the Director of Operations.
Dr. Erardi: We will move on, the last item on the Superintendent’s report is an item that we felt was important
for the Board of Education to see the big picture because you had a lot of these small snapshots. The Board has
endured a number of new initiatives at the High School through curriculum and instruction, through the Board
at large and there is a summative report prepared this evening by the High School administration that I
thought the Board of Education, certainly our viewing audience as well as attendants this evening an
opportunity to get a sense of the dynamic changes that have taken place at Watertown High School. On that
note, Mr. Hasbrouck, Mr. Geary and Mr. Gaydos.
Mr. Hasbrouck: Thank you Dr. Erardi, I am excited to be able be here this evening with both Mr. Geary and
Mr. Gaydos, Assistant Principals to share with you the new initiatives that we have planned for next year. As
Dr. Erardi said, you have seen it in bits and pieces, you get this evening, I think, a better flavor when you see it
in its totality. Each of us will have a piece of the presentation, talking to you about specific entities that we
have ready to roll for next year or are in the process of having set to go for September of next year. Before I
begin that however, I want to take a moment to share with you a presentation that we gave to the eight grade
parents at Swift Middle School earlier in the month in the new auditorium, the newly refurbished and beautiful
looking auditorium. If you haven’t seen it, it certainly makes the renovation process in its first stages begin to
come to life wonderfully. But that aside, we shared with them a presentation that Mr. Geary put together very
creatively, identifying our mission statement. You have seen it, we have talked about it, you’ve read it, I think
this presentation will highlight to you that truly day to day we live the mission statement at Watertown High
School. Following that Mr. Geary will present some information as will Mr. Gaydos about some of the projects
that we have on the docket, I'll come back with some additional ones and bring closure in just a few more
minutes.
Mr. Geary gave a PowerPoint presentation for the audience.
Mr. Geary: Like Mr. Hasbrouck said that is what we played for the 8th grade students, we did an assembly
with them to talk up Watertown High and then that night we talked to parents after we showed it to them. We
didn’t want to just read them the mission statement, that would be kind of boring. What I need to talk to you
tonight about are two different, new programs that are here. I just want to say before I start that although I am
here and Mr. Hasbrouck is here, and Mr. Gaydos is here explaining these initiatives, they are due in large part to
the staff at the High School. All of these things that you are going to hear about were put together by
committees of staff members who rise to the occasion any time we ask them to help out or start something that
will make the High School better. I just wanted to make sure I stated that before we started. One of the things
that I have been able to be involved in is some new 9th grade initiatives and some reorganization of the 9th grade
program.
(Referring to the power point presentation) So we have a couple new initiatives and I think that we sort of
hit every kid with the new initiatives, I hope that we have hit every level kid. If you look at the next one, the
first program is something that we already have, it is our sort of traditional Watertown High School program. It
is for students that maybe excel at Social Studies and English and so they want to take honors, those are not as
good at Math and Science and they can take the college level prep there. So this is the traditional Watertown
High School program that we have been using a lot, because it works for some kids so there is no reason to
change the entire program when it is effective for some students. The second initiative is the college prep team,
which what we are going to do next year, and I know you have heard about this. We had a lot help from the
C & I committee of the Board and going through these initiatives and gaining their support is really greatly
appreciated. What we are doing with the college prep is we are taking about 80-85 students at the college prep,
which is our level 2, and they will be teamed. There will four academic teachers, a special education teacher
and what we have done is they will meet every day at the end of the day. So it gives the teachers the flexibility
in terms of length of time, because as you know our typical blocks are 80 minutes, which a lot of our freshman
find quite long. So we will be able to do some 80 minute blocks or if they wanted to do four 40 minute blocks
they could do that because of they way the schedule will be structured. Also in the schedule there will be some
time for teacher planning. So the way kids can be placed on the team is through Swift counselor
recommendation. We met with, Marylu Lerz and I met with the teachers at Swift and went through sort of the
criteria, what kind of kids we are looking for them to recommend. Also by parent request, we had a number of
parents after the parent program, which was well attended, in the beautiful new auditorium, who asked about the
college prep team. In the event that we get too many people requesting we will do it by lottery. Every kid on
the team will take World History and English, Earth Science and Algebra 1, so these are all college prep classes.
They will have a study hall monitored by one of their team teachers which is not what it is now, right now it sort
of is luck of the draw, so we thought that would be helpful. There will be a special education teacher on the
team for support and really the collaboration of teachers, what works with this kid, what works with that kid,
this student is acting up in my class, well what can we do? That is a key part of this. Same thing I talked about
already, the flexibility of time. Also with the team approach you can sort of stretch across disciplines and I
think that is really important, especially today where we are certainly not in isolation in four academic subjects,
there is all kinds of cross discipline work going on. You see it on the CAPT test, you see it in life and so that is
important. We will be able to talk to parents a little more frequently and things like that. So that is for sort of
the middle kid.
The third option for the top student is something called the Honors Cohort, which for right now we are currently
accepting applications for. These students will take all honors classes and it is a little bit different then our
traditional program. They will take Honors English, Honors World History and then really the nuts and bolts of
it is that they will take Honors Biology as freshman which is not what they would normally take, they would
normally take Honors Earth Science. By taking Honors Biology as a freshman they will have the opportunity
to take AP Chemistry as sophomores. To provide the math needed for AP Chem they will take Honors
Geometry and Honors Algebra 2 as freshman. So it is a very, very rigorous program, they will also be taking
an Honors World Language class. Basically what we want to do is we want our kids to be able to get into the
top schools that they want to get into. We wanted to have some Advanced Placement credit when they go there.
We just want them overall to have a rigorous experience. You see at the bottom there, one Interdisciplinary
project per quarter, same thing a big focus on Interdisciplinary. As you know Will talked about
interdepartmental publishing, it is another example with American Studies Junior Year. So we’re really going
toward interdisciplinary work here at the High School. You see their independent research project, it is just a
step up from our Honors program now.
The nice thing about this, I hope you can see from there, is that the students here can take up to I believe 12 AP
classes in their high school career. It might be a few additional if you are really ambitious and you want to take
a couple languages or something like that. You see that as sophomores they take AP Chemistry and then junior
year AP Calculus, AP Biology, AP US History and then senior year AP English, AP Stats, AP Government, you
also have AP Psychology which it is not on there. AP Latin, the Honors Spanish and French both prepare kids
for the AP exam, it is a two-year sequence. You can walk out of here with several credits towards college
which I am not suggesting that kids miss a year of college, because I would have never wanted to do that
myself. But it does give them flexibility to take courses that they might not otherwise get to take at a college.
In terms of new courses we spent a lot of time in each department sort of reworking our program of studies and
looking at what new courses could we add with the staffing that we have. One course that isn’t on here is AP
US History but I put it on the previous slide that is why I didn’t put it on here. But AP US History is new next
year for juniors and then these other programs, same thing, we are trying to hit every kid. So we did it in the
Freshman program, here we have added introduction to television production, which we have the beautiful
studio and we want to use it for a course, so that there. I think that will be a very popular course. Jazz Ensemble
is new, we don’t have that currently, (inaudible) does it but it out of class time right now so that will be a class.
The two band technique courses, right now it is one course, so you have advanced kids and introductory kids in
the same room which makes it difficult, so this will be two different classes. If you want to learn a new
instrument as a freshman you can. That certainly is for musically inclined kids.
Spanish 4, Cultural Communications is again something for the mid-level kid. Right now if you want to take a
fourth year of Spanish it is at an honors level. So this is a course for the mid-level kid who maybe the grammar
and all that isn’t so important but being able to speak the language and talk about different cultures and issues.
Just from looking at the curriculum guide this is going to be really exciting course. We are happy to have this
one.
The last two there are courses (College Prep English 3 & College Prep US History 2) that right now, as juniors,
we offer American Studies to our college prep level kids. When you do that and if you are having a problem
with English as a sophomore or History as a sophomore you automatically used to move down in both those
classes because American Studies is both. So to prevent the kid who maybe didn’t do so well in English but did
quite well in US History 1 from having to drop down a level, we added these two courses. So again they are
more for the mid-level kid who if we are going to improve in bringing the school along those are the kids we
really need to help out. I am going to turn it over Mr. Gaydos now to talk about Virtual High School which is
another new opportunity.
Mr. Gaydos: (Referring to the power point presentation) Another exciting portion of our curriculum guide is going to be VHS or Virtual High School. Thanks to the efforts of a lot individuals we are going to be able to offer online courses to students at WHS starting next year. The online courses essentially are going to increase the elective offerings that the students here will have. Currently we will not allow students to take graduation requirements via the online course, if there are some extenuating circumstances our independent study committee will visit that and make the decision to allow students to do that if needed. They will receive the same amount of credit for courses that they have taken here which will be ½ credit for a one-semester course and a full credit for a full year course. As I might have mentioned earlier, they are going to register for the course via independent study forms and the independent study committee will determine which students are allowed to take those classes.
As we enter into this we are going to be what is called a full participation school. VHS offers a variety of programs and what is going to best suit our needs is being a full participation school, that means one of our faculty members here will be a VHS instructor and we have selected Mike Watson. He is going to be an instructor of BioTechnology and essentially he is going to, for one period of the day, be a Virtual High School Instructor. He will be available for kids all over the world, not necessarily just here. But again that is going to allow us to offer more students the option to take a VHS course. We are going to be allowed to offer 25 students each semester, that is over 50 a year, the opportunity to take these courses. The last slide which might be a little on the small side is the offerings, the elective offerings, for VHS and if you would like to check out the website it is GOVHS.org. I have also printed out the course offerings for this year, the 06-07 year if you would like to take a closer look at that (See Attachment B). VHS, by the way, was paid for by the same kind people that paid for the technology center. So we appreciate everything they have done for us, we don’t know how we would be able to do these things without them, so we are really appreciative of that.
Another initiative that we have, again with a great deal of staff assistance, all department chairs and every staff member who teaches an Advanced Placement course is on the advanced placement committee. This sort of started from the Board of Ed strategic plan. It talks about by the end of 2007 all students who need to take an AP course will be able to. So we are working towards that, that is where this came from. Basically taking a look at the program, we are looking at what our courses do now, are there some we should add, like we added Advanced Placement US History, which was missing from our program. We really want to improve our current courses also in addition to adding some along the way. I won’t read them to you but I just wanted to thank the good people who have given a lot of time to this committee. Basically we wanted to make sure that the courses that we are offering, the Advanced Placement courses, are true Advanced Placement courses, that they are rigorous, that they align with the College Board expectations for the AP courses, so we are taking a look at that. Like I said we did replace the Honors US History with AP US History, we are also talking about, we have a course called Behavioral Studies, making that Advanced Placement Psychology, so that has been done. Again this is for next year, we have Conservation, which is a science course, we are talking about converting some of them, not all of them to AP Environmental Science, which is sort of a new and exciting AP Science course. Again sort of further down the road, we have Honors Civics right now we are talking about sort of stepping it up and adding AP Civics. Right now we have Spanish 4/5 and French 4/5 which we prepare students for the AP Exams in a two-year cycle so we are going to look at those. They are not titled AP which is sort of an important thing for kids applying to college, so we will keep looking at that. The committee felt that class size, which is reasonable right now for AP classes, we need to keep the classes down. It is a tremendous amount of work, you need one on one interaction between the student and the teacher, you need to have small groups for discussions so they felt that was really important. The other thing that a lot of students sort of miss is that the courses that lead you to an AP course so that you don’t throw the kid into an AP class and so go, we are going to take sort of a backward approach there. We are looking at the AP course and then we will examine the courses that precede it so that we know our kids are ready for these courses. Again they all have mandatory summer assignments now for students that are coming into the course. It is a college level course and quite honestly in some of the science courses and a like you wouldn’t get through the curriculum without a summer assignment, so there has to be a summer assignment. One thing we do very well here is professional development, that is true because of Tony Antonucci, but again we want anyone who is going to teach an AP course to be at a workshop. And that you go to a refresher workshop every once and a while because they always change the test, they are always changing and you pick up new strategies from college level schools. The biggest thing we are doing this year is called the AP course audit. What happened is that the College Board sort of got sick of people putting AP this and AP that and not teaching an AP course. So now every High School in the country who offers and Advanced Placement course has to complete this audit form and it includes sending in you syllabus and some sample assignments and things like that so it can be a very time consuming process. We are in the midst of it now, we have some professional development days coming up in March and people will be working on this. We will submit it to the College Board electronically this summer, they will review the syllabus for each course and then they will decide if it is an approved AP or not. They will send a list to the colleges, so you could have AP Calculus from here but if it is not on the College Board list, it is not really going to mean much to the colleges. So this is a really important process and it is something that is brand new this year, never been done before. So we will be focused primarily on this for the rest of this school year.
That is it for me, thank you very much for the support you have given us and helping us with the initiatives.
Mr. Hasbrouck: And in case we haven’t been busy enough, we are in the midst of discussions with Naugatuck Valley Community College. Earlier in the month Sharon Beech, our Director of the Counseling Department, and I met with the Dean of Academic Affairs, the Dean of Students and the Dean of Business and Industry Programming to talk about different ways in which Watertown High School can have a relationship with Naugatuck Valley Community College which would benefit our students in one of several ways. The first is to continue with and expand our Tech Prep program. In summary what we do, we have certain courses in our program aligned with the course at Naugatuck Valley Community College, it is taught here, students that opt to can take the course here at Watertown High School for both high school credit and credit at Naugatuck Valley Community College. We currently have two courses which have been articulated between the two schools, they are Keyboarding and Business Law and we are looking to expand those, on the short term Accounting and CAD and then a variety of other areas in succeeding years.
Another program that the Naugatuck Valley Community College has obtained, it is called a STEM grant, if refers to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They offer to High School students at no cost other than the textbook and getting too and from their campus, courses in these areas. Obviously they would not be courses that we offer. We are in the process of discussing with them what courses our students will be able to take at Naugatuck Valley Community College. One of the advantages for them frankly, they admit their mid to late afternoon is a slow time in their scheduling and they would love to have our students come and take courses there. In effect this becomes a win-win program. Again they would receive credit here on their High School transcript and completing the course at Naugatuck Valley Community College successfully would (inaudible) at grade and credit there, so it would be a dual credit program. We are looking at about 8 different strands of courses that really reach across a spectrum of our students, Early Childhood, Computers, Networking, Criminal Justice, Engineering, Horticulture, Landscaping, Automotive Technician and Hospitality Management. If you have been by their campus, on the top of the hill is a brand new automotive building being built which is scheduled to be opened in the fall and it will have state of the art programming. Some of our kids can get involved in that, and it is a program we don’t offer. It would be a wonderful hook for the student for whom school is difficult and yet that is a particular interest we can, if not in vocation at least in avocation. So we are exploring those opportunities with the school.
Lastly, in an ongoing process and something that you will be hearing about, the entire faculty is taking a look at our program under the guise, under the auspices of Watertown High School 2010. Later on this evening you will be discussing a building project, being the optimist, that moves forward and successfully moves onto design and development and construction phases, it should be open, this building should be opened as new, renovated as new, in the year 2010. If we have a new building and new programs in a state of the art facility, what should our curriculum look like to also be state of the art? So we will be bringing back to you in succeeding months, our ideas of what our program should look like three years from now and how we can get there year by year, step by step. So when a new building opens, a new program is there for our students. I thank you for your time, I hope that you can share with us the excitement that we have about the many new programs. If there are any questions you have I would be happy to answer those.
The Board had no questioned regarding Item #2
2. 2007-2008 Programming at Watertown High School
The Watertown High School Administrative Team will present an overview of new initiatives which will be implemented in the Fall of 2007. The initiatives include an overview of the Ninth Grade Team for At-Risk Students, the Ninth Grade Honors Cohort, New Courses, Virtual High School and other salient initiatives.
Dr. Erardi: That concludes the Superintendent’s Report.
J. Report from the Chairman
Ms. Dzioba: My report tonight, as was mentioned before, our budget is on the agenda tonight for us to send to the Town Council so Board Members the fun begins trying to get it through along with (inaudible) to the public. I would just like to take a moment to thank Thad, Matt Geary and Michael Gaydos for their hard work and their wonderful presentation. They are a fine example of the people who in the school system go above and beyond and really put their heart and soul into bringing innovative programs to our schools at all grade levels. Sometimes they just don’t get appreciated enough and we don’t always get many opportunities or we don’t say it enough how much we do appreciate everybody’s effort in the school system for bringing these programs to us and to keep the current ones going. I would like to thank the PTAs and the PTOs again you are very generous, you are very hard working and without you our budget would be larger. You certainly bring all the enrichment programs to our schools and we do very much appreciate your work.
K. Action Items – Adoption of Items to be Approved by Consent
Ms. Dzioba: Consideration of the Approval of Additional Access for Facilitation of High School Afternoon Traffic, this was tabled on February 12th for more information and I don’t believe we have had that information provided.
Dr. Erardi: No Mrs. Dzioba what took place was that the Police Commission initially postponed their meeting because of weather and then cancelled their meeting and we are back on their agenda in March.
Ms. Dzioba: So with the Board’s agreement it will be tabled until we get the information that was requested last meeting.
a. Consideration of the Approval of Additional Access for Facilitation of High School Afternoon
Traffic
Additional Access for facilitation of high school afternoon traffic is presented this evening for
the second reading and for Board approval.
This item was tabled
b. Consideration of the Approval of the Three School Study Update – Second Reading
At the Facilities Committee meeting on February 1, 2007, the Committee endorsed a three-school study and presented it to the full Board at its meeting on February 12, 2007 for the first reading.
It is presented for the second reading tonight and for full Board approval.
It is recommended that the Board approve of the three-school study as presented.
Motion presented by Mr. Mazzamaro, seconded by Mr. Griffin to approve of the three-school study as
presented.
Discussion:
Ms. Dzioba: The sheet that was just handed out, Todd has more information. (See Attachment C)
Mr. LoFrese: Good evening I will speak to the sheet that was passed out. The document before you outlines the cost of the proposed addition and renovation at two different grant level funding. At the current grant level funding of 56% and then also at next years preliminary grant level funding of 60.71%. There is one other bit of information that Board Members need to be aware of which is Governor Rell has proposed under the current budget to do a reduction across the board of all reimbursement for school building projects. The current scale of reimbursements for affluent to towns that are less affluent ranges from 20-80%, the proposed budget from Governor Rell would reduce that to 15-65%. So although the numbers before are accurate as of current law there is some proposals on board that may change that, just some information that you need to be aware of. Also in the audience this evening is Mr. Fred Kericha from Kaestle Boos Associates, so if there are any questions that need answers, the architect is here to represent them.
Mr. Mazzamaro: I have a question. If this is approved, that the Board approves it and the Town Council approves it, how would this law effect either one of these? If we were to get in by June 30th, would we be assured either one of the reimbursement percentages?
Mr. LoFrese: There is some confusion and I spoke with Mr. David Wedge who heads up the Facilities unit in Hartford. The current law as proposed has a conflict with an existing law as far as the date of funding authorization versus the date of the grant application, so that would need to be clarified in Hartford by the lawmakers before I could speak to that.
Mr. Mazzamaro: Because the new law wouldn’t go into effect probably until what October 1st or July 1st, either one?
Mr. LoFrese: Correct, what the new law states is that any project engages on General Assembly authorization, not project funding, however in the school construction grant process everything is based on the funding authorization date. So there is some conflict between the two laws that needs to get fixed.
Dr. Erardi: Just a question that I would like to share with the High School Administration. Mr. Hasbrouck there was a question that was brought to the attention of the Board in regards to the schematic that was, the simulation that was shared at the last meeting. You spoke to it to a degree with the 2010 study. Could you share with the Board your thoughts with the Greenhouse that is proposed within the project and how that would be used in 2010.
Mr. Hasbrouck: As you are probably aware, in the current courtyard there is a greenhouse and several different groups, notably the conservation class, use it and also to some extent Biology classes. That would be continued in the new greenhouse up above, particularly if we are increasing our AP program offerings. If we go with the AP Environmental Studies, AP Biology and any of the other AP Sciences that have any kind of botanical references, the greenhouse would be an integral part of that program.
Motion Passed Unanimously
(7-In Favor, 0-Opposed, 0-Abstained)
c. Consideration of the Approval of Acceptance of Gifts
The Watertown Music Booster Association would like to donate:
1.) A portable CED/radio/tape player with an estimated value of $200.00 purchased through a grant from the Jimmy Jam Fund;
2.) A Super-scope PSD 300 Dual Drive CD Recorder and CD Player with an estimated value of $699.00 purchased through a grant from the Jimmy Jam Fund;
3.) An amplifier valued at $350.00 purchased from monies raised from concerts, membership and especially the Citrus Fruit Sale;
4.) A ½ size violin valued at $150.00 for the Strings Program purchased from monies raised from concerts, membership and especially the Citrus Fruit Sale;
5.) The purchase of a set of Chrome Orchestral Chimes valued at $3,800.00 purchased through a grant from the Thomaston Savings Bank Foundation and the Watertown Foundation.
It is recommended that the Board accept these generous donations and letters of thanks to be sent to the donors.
Motion presented by Mr. Mazzamaro, seconded by Mr. Griffin to accept these generous donations and letters of thanks to be sent to the donors.
Discussion:
Mr. Killeen: We often are given gifts and I know that it is genuinely accepted with great appreciation. I would just like to make it a matter of record how appreciative the educational community is for the involvement of those who do the things that they do that help take the edge off of some of these educational needs. Without it we would not receive the advantages through education for some of our students. So I think it is deeply recognized and appreciated by all members of the Board.
Motion Passed Unanimously
(7-In Favor, 0-Opposed, 0-Abstained)
d. Discussion and Approval of Proposed 2007-2008 Budget
A copy of the Board of Education’s proposed budget for 2007-2008 is attached for discussion and action. The proposed 2007-2008 budget must be provided to the Town by Thursday, March 1, 2007.
Motion presented by Mr. Griffin, seconded by Mr. Mazzamaro to approve of the proposed budget for 2007-
2008 as presented.
Discussion:
Dr. Erardi: Ms. Dzioba, Mrs. Grover is prepared this evening to share with the Board a few minor changes that has toke place since our last budget meeting.
Mrs. Grover: On the sheet that Mr. Griffin passed out you’ll notice that there, first in the 06-07 budget, the bottom line number is different. What was prepared for you and what was attached to your agenda, the bottom line 06-07 budget is $31,911,549 that was incorrect. The numbers were taken off the budget summary sheet that is normally attached to your agenda. We discovered an error today in, there was a glitch in our main frame computer, so the budget that was approved by the Town last year is what is on the sheet that was passed out to you tonight, it is $31,910,549. That is one change on that sheet.
The second change is we met with the Blue Cross Blue Shield representatives today and we were able to reduce our Blue Cross by $26, 031, so that is reflect in your Object 200, Employee benefits. It reduces the budget to a 6.41% increase rather than the 6.49%.
Ms. Dzioba: Do Board Members have any questions or things for discussion?
The Board had no questions regarding the budget
Ms. Dzioba: The administration worked very hard on this, a lot of people put in extra hours, several extra hours on this and it is greatly appreciated by the Board that it is so well presented to us. Thank you again to all that were involved.
Motion Passed Unanimously
(7-In Favor, 0-Opposed, 0-Abstained)
L. Future Agenda Items and Board Members’ Comments
Dr. Pelosi: I am not a Board Member but I was just wondering if the approval of a grant.
Dr. Erardi: Dr. Pelosi, the issue that was brought this evening is because although this is a regular meeting it is
a special date so you are not allowed to add an agenda item
Mr. Mazzamaro: Again I wanted to thank everybody involved with preparing the budget over the last several months. I just one reminder too, again this year the increase still only touches on a lot of the NEASC requirements. A lot of the requirements, they are needed in all of the schools, but especially Watertown High School. We are in the second year of at least (inaudible) catch up period with NEASC. Thank you everybody for your hard work.
Ms. Dzioba: It really is needed in this budget which represents (inaudible). The presentations of the programs that we saw at Watertown High School, the majority of that is donated funds which is again the reason why we are allowed to do that and because of the hard work involved here and the generous volunteers we have.
M. Public Participation
Fran Palmer, 22 Middlebury Road, Watertown
First I would like to speak to you as a parent of a past Watertown High School student. Will mentioned the interdepartmental publishing class, my son was fortunate to be a part of it when he was here at Watertown High School, he graduated in 2004. He found through this interdepartmental publishing class, ways of applying different things that he learned in all of his other classes. He still uses a lot of the skills that he learned in that class. It is one class that he keeps saying that it is one thing that he took that was very, very beneficial for him in his High School career and his college career.
I would like to change hats to President of Watertown Music Booster Association and thank you for your acceptance of the items that were on the agenda tonight. Our purpose as an organization is to support the music programs system wide. We are fortunate to get financial support from other organizations within our community like Watertown Foundation, The Thomaston Savings Bank Foundation, and the Jimmy Jamm fund and others to help us meet our goals. With these funds that we obtained we are able to purchase things for the music department. We would like to remind you as a Board that all of these things that we purchases would be useless without a music program. We also wanted to sort of remind you that the music program over the last few years has lost three teachers. As you had stated that in your priorities you wanted to return at least one of these teachers back into the music program and we hope that you will continue toward that effort. We also thank you for your support as a Board for the music department and again thank you for accepting our gifts.
N. Executive Session
Pending Litigation – Judson Boilers
Personnel Matter – Nurses’ Negotiations
Motion presented by Mr. Griffin, seconded by Mr. Mazzamaro to enter into Executive Session with Dr. Erardi, Legal Council, Mrs. Grover, Mr. LoFrese, Mrs. Hackett, Mr. Beliveau and all Board Members listed as present.
Motion Passed Unanimously
(7-In Favor, 0-Opposed, 0-Abstained)
Executive Session convened at 8:40 p.m.
Executive Session ended at 9:30 p.m.
O. Adjournment
Motion presented by Mr. Killeen, seconded by Mr. Lambert to adjourn the Regular Board of Education Meeting of February 28, 2007.
Motion Passed Unanimously
(7-In Favor, 0-Opposed, 0-Abstained)
Meeting adjourned at 9:30 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted by
Todd Griffin, Board Secretary
Bonnie Goulet, Board Clerk
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