Town of Carver, MA - SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES 11-13-2006

Megan Hurlburt and Brittany Sherwood were present to report the following by class: Freshman: raking leaves at South Meadow Village as a community service effort; Sophomores: fundraising with cheesecake sales and sweatshirts; Juniors: hosting annual Spaghetti Dinner, Nov. 15^th - $7 all you can eat; completed Yankee Candle fundraiser; and organized the first annual craft fair; Seniors: hosted a successful Homecoming event – King: Cory Sinnott and Queen: Megan McLaughlin. Seniors are organizing a competition between grades for food drive. Student Council had a successful cookie dough fundraiser, First Lock-in was held for student council members and it will be an annual event, Trick or Treated for canned goods throughout the community, sent reps to SEMASC at Apponequet H.S. and have honored Health, Computer Sciences and Art teachers this month.

Mary Kaminski made a motion to accept October 16, 2006 joint meeting minutes with Selectmen and Regular Session minutes as written, Randy Webster second. All in favor. Mary Kaminski made a motion to accept October 24, 2006 meeting minutes, Randy Webster second. Three in favor, one abstention.

A. Recognitions – Congratulations to the 21 newly inducted members of the National Honor Society. The culinary arts class prepared a wonderful feast of pastries for the event attended by parents and sponsors (teachers, coaches, mentors). The Middle School, under the direction of Sue Pasillo from the Art Department, continued their tradition of the Haunted Hallways event (despite horrible weather) which contributed approximately $2400 to the Daria Amaral Scholarship Fund. Thanks also to the Carver Fire Department for the time volunteered for the Haunted Hallways event in making sure all paper/wood products were fire safe. The Homecoming Game and Dance was a success and students were commended for their good sportsmanship.

C. Curriculum and Benchmark Project – Vertical teams, by discipline, have been formed in conjunction with Curriculum Team Leaders and Department Chairs. The Vertical Teams will draft benchmarks for what each student should know and to what extent by the end of each year by subject. This document will be used by teachers grade K-12 and will be accessible for parents. The Curriculum Team Leaders, under the supervision of the superintendent, are preparing the first of two newsletters which will be bulk mailed to the community in early December.

D. Professional Development – November 27, 2006 will be a full day professional development event for faculty. This will be a follow up to work started in October for Literacy across the district. A needs assessment is being conducted with faculty for offerings for Spring and Summer, especially tapping the talents of our in-house staff.

E. Comprehensive Program Review and EQA – The Office for Educational Quality and Accountability sent a letter informing us of information/check-list which will be required for the upcoming audit which is a federally requirement of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The audit date has not yet been set but will probably be next fall to early winter. Approximately 6 weeks before the audit, Carver will forward copies of the requested documents to EQA, then a team will come to visit for up to four days interviewing faculty, staff, town hall, school committee, classroom visits, review finance documents. Scores will be determined by points for paperwork, interviews and submissions. The superintendent will receive a report to which she can review and respond to any questions/concerns, etc. About 20% of the document is how you perform on Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), this is Tier I. Tier II covers leadership, governance, curriculum, instruction and finances. The comprehensive report will give no commendations but will help with improvement for the district.

Coordinated Program Review from the Mass Dept of Education, separate audit process, will also take place next fall to review Special Education programs, ELL and Title I. Also they will check how we have implemented our Wellness Policy.

F. Highly Qualified Status Changes – Personnel files have been reviewed and meetings with staff have taken place updates staff and answer questions on these changes. Part of NCLB are requirements that every teacher in the nation will attain the status of Highly Qualified. Every state developed a HOUSSE (High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation) Plan to outline the steps for teachers to meet HQT standards. The deadline for meeting those standards was originally set for July 1, 2006 and then extended to July 1, 2007. Since July 1, 2006, each state has received notification on whether or not the HOUSSE Plan for Any teacher that did not reach HQ status by July 1, 2006 will be required to meet HQ status under a revised HOUSSE Plan. This requires that all teachers without HQ status take the MTEL licensing exam in their subject or grade level.

A. Policy Actions: Discussion of draft of Fundraising Policy (two separate policies). There are several types of fundraisers – Type I: student activities with staff advising students; Type 2: PTO/Boosters Clubs, without student leadership and Type 3: charitable contributions. The types of fundraisers, when they occur and a tracking to make sure the money follows through with each class were discussed. A 30 day in advance notice had been proposed, in order to get a month’s snapshot of fundraising across the district. Mary Kaminski requested the timeline be changed to two (2) weeks. Matt Gillis spoke to the accounting practices being used to track our school accounts. Mary Kaminksi also spoke about the concern of including verbiage to avoid the conflict surrounding individuals (employees) making a profit from the fundraiser. Kay Spencer suggested the idea of the information being placed on Event Keeper/website for the community to be aware of these upcoming fundraisers.

B. Budget Calendars for FY 08 were presented. The Superintendent and Business Manager will be meeting with Scott McCaig, representative from the Finance Committee to review budget timetable. After revisions to this timeline, this information will be placed on Virtual Town Hall. The biggest change is that instead of presenting the line item budget in January, it would be presented in February when more information was available from the State. This would hopefully avoid major revisions. During a meeting with the Town Department Heads, including Rick LaFond, Town Administrator; the superintendent asked if it would be possible to consider moving the Annual Town Meeting to May instead of June. This request was met favorably and the change would assist in everyone in having a smoother budget process/decision.

C. Rental Options for Ben Ellis Building - An e-mail was received by Matt Gillis, Director of Business and Finance from Bay State Community Services requesting the committee re-evaluate their request to use the Ben Ellis Building for their program. They indicated they had received state funding and the Department of Corrections would pay for renovations to the building. Liz Sorrell asked if the Committee wanted the representatives to attend a future School Committee meeting to present more details. The Committee was not encouraged to honor the request. Randy Webster felt the approach by Bay State was not complete and well thought out. Both Randy and Al Spicer were inclined not to go forward with Bay State using the building. Mary Kaminski suggested the Committee might inquire with the Select Board for their opinions and Kay Spencer wanted more details. The Committee decided asked Matt Gillis to inform Bay State that their request was denied.

D. Silver Lake District Suspension Policy -Sue Drew had previously submitted this information for discussion. This program was pulled together at Silver Lake through Safe and Drug Free School money and the fact their faculty had one assigned duty period per day in their contract. It is a wonderful idea because it assists with reducing dropouts but currently we do not have the financial or employee resources to support this. Maureen Gaughan and Liz Sorrell have been meeting with the Principals regarding reports indicating a student who is retained twice has little to no chance or graduating so early on intervention plans are being investigated.