Meeting

Date:

6/15/06

Minutes Submitted On:

6/18/06

Board Attendees:

Ellen Pratt (EP), Anne Fines (AF), Virginia Scholl (VS), Peter May (PM), Benjamin Cragin (BC)

Administration Attendees:

Ron Stahley (RS), Amelia Stone (AS)

Community Attendees:

Beckie Coffey, Ea Maples, Sarah Baker-Turrell

                       

Location:

Putney Public Library

Meeting called to order at:

3:40 pm

Meeting called to order by:

PM

Finish time:

6 pm

 

Note: This was a special board meeting held to discuss Board goals for the upcoming year.

 

At 3:41 pm PM moved to enter Executive Session to discuss a personnel matter. BC seconded the motion. It was approved. The Board completed Executive Session at 4:13 pm.

 

Agenda:

 

PM suggested that we use the meeting to set Board Goals and Objectives for the upcoming year.  We want to identify both programmatic and administrative goals.  These goals would be addressed in some way at every meeting. If we need to, we’ll establish committees to do more work on them.  In June 2007 we’ll assess how we are doing in meeting the goals.  We also want to discuss what worked, what didn’t work this past year.  If we have time, we want to also identify big picture trends and challenges (e.g. declining enrollment) for the upcoming year(s).

 

1.       Past year evaluation

 

What worked: PM’s leadership, running of meetings, handling of discussions.  The pacing of the budget process was pretty good-we didn’t feel rushed through the process. Holding a special meeting on the primary grade configurations was a good idea.

 

What didn’t work: Rushing through agenda items at the end of the meeting. Suggestion to speak up and possibly table items that feel rushed for another meeting.  The discussion about the primary grade classroom configuration felt like it was a surprise. Need to get a better handle on the number of incoming kindergartners. Need a better discussion of the ramifications of full-day kindergarten. AS suggests that staff/administration talk about this.

 

What needs to be changed: PM suggested getting to the Administrator’s reports earlier in the meetings. The Board should discuss student achievement at every meeting.  AF suggested that we ask staff to regularly make presentations on curriculum and educational issues at Board meetings.  We need more discussion of budget items e.g. expenses and revenues so that we can make sound decisions at budget time. AS suggests that we look at program elements and where expenses are rising (e.g. special education) to see how/whether we can realize savings.

 

2.     Administrative Goals for the upcoming year:

 

PM: that we focus on curriculum and educational issues.  We need to be better at limiting discussion of administrative matters, which are not under the Board’s purview.

Where possible, when there’s a substantive issue on the table and where materials are going to be available, that they be sent out to board members ahead of time.  If possible, the clerk will send links to the materials (if they’re available on line) with the meeting minutes. If hard copies are available, they will be included with the meeting minutes in the board binder (in the PCS Secretary’s office).

 

Minutes: That we put “hot issues” later on the agenda so that community members can attend for the discussion.  Try to include in the minutes the time that we would start discussing the “hot topics”.   Could put a notice on iPutney.com that people can get on the listserve to receive minutes.

 

3.       Programmatic Goals

 

The board brainstormed the following programmatic goals for the upcoming year:

 

a.                     Increased Enrichment activities including foreign language instruction: The board expressed its concern that all students be challenged to learn. We have an excellent special education program but we’re lacking in enrichment curriculum.  At a prior meeting the board had discussed their interest in having foreign language instruction at the school. Ron Stahley had reported on a program in Brattleboro that uses SIT interns to teach foreign language in the schools.  Today, Amelia Stone expressed her concern that SIT have the capacity to put the interns in the school.  The board talked about needing to have outcomes for the instruction and adequate supervision of the interns.  The idea of PCS sharing the cost of the foreign language teacher with another school was brought up.

 

b.                   Early Education: The board reiterated its desire to continue exploring how we might work with local child care programs to include the 3 and 4 year Putney children in the school census, thus enabling the school to draw down Public Education funds.

 

c.                    Community Foundation/creative financing: There has been discussion in the community about creating an endowment for the school.  AF spoke to limiting the endowment to the school. That an endowment fund for the school be created—not an endowment for the community.  EP expressed her desire for the board to continue to learn more about ways to creatively finance school programs. For example, at the last board meeting we learned more about the use of Medicaid funding and the potential for using Medicaid funds to finance early education programming.

 

d.                   Increasing volunteerism in the school: BC talked about a school in Ft. Collins, CO which has a good volunteer program. It will take coordination with the staff for the program to work.  AS: we need to build the culture in the school for volunteerism.

 

e.                    After-hours programming with a late bus: The school should be used as much as possible. Because so many students need after-school child care, it makes sense to have more programming available during the after-school hours. If we were able to run a later bus, we might be able to attract more students to the after-school programs.

 

f.                     Health education: AS expressed her desire for Increasing/integrating health education into the curriculum.

 

The board members voted for their top 3 programmatic priorities.  The following topics received the most votes: Increasing volunteerism in the school; increasing enrichment activities; exploring the creation of a school endowment.  The board reaffirmed its commitment to early education and agreed that it would continue to learn more about creative financing.

 

We will put these discussion items on upcoming meeting agendas.

 

At its next meeting the board will discuss how to flesh out the “School Board Goal Development Matrix” which helps to define the action steps/objectives, success indicator/benchmarks, who’s responsible for reporting, planning completion date or reporting intervals, resources needed (financial, human, time).

 

4.       Trends

 The Board tabled discussion of trends.

 

The next board meeting will be July 20 at 4:30 pm.

 

Respectfully submitted by: Board Clerk

This represents my understanding of this meeting.  If you have any changes, please submit them at the next board meeting.