PRESENT: Clint Hanson, Gerry Fleury, Ry Weisiger, Tom Serafin, Rick Mitchell, Mona Kraus, Susanne Whitbeck, Sandy Valine (recording secretary), Deb Bulkley, Janice Plourde, Linda Beaudoin, Tom Haley, Michael Reardon, Erika Hargreaves
1. CALL TO
ORDER
Chair Clint Hanson called the meeting to order in the
Teachers’ Room at PA at
2. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING
A motion to approve the minutes of the Aug. 16 meeting was made by Mr. Fleury and seconded by Mr. Weisiger.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
3. IMMEDIATE BUSINESS
A. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS None at this time
B. TRANSPORTATION UPDATE
Mr. Haley reported in response to questions surrounding the
Buck St./Wilkins/Smith Ave area sidewalks and transportation issues. The town
does not intend to replace the sidewalk, and eventually will do away with the
rest of the sidewalks- sidewalk end at
He also presented a sketch of the area to the board to illustrate the bus stop issue/request. Revisit with the Bus Coordinator Linda Beaudoin.
There may need to be a request for students to cross
The parent request is for an additional bus stop at
A motion to approve the request for the additional bus stop was made by Mr. Fleury and seconded by Mr. Mitchell.
Mrs. Beaudoin- .3 of a mile would add probably 5 minutes
however there is a concern about going onto
There was discussion related to the current route and location of stops.
Essentially, this is a request to add a K-4 stop both morning and afternoon.
Is there is enough time to do this? Mrs. Beaudoin reported that she would have to
move pick up time from
during the winter.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
Mrs. B will establish one stop on
There has been no formal request for another bus issue or additional information provided to the board.
A motion to approve the new stops listed above was made by Mr. Weisiger and seconded by Mr. Fleury.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
C. OPENING OF SCHOOL REPORT
School opened.
Mr. Reardon: interesting work was done over the summer.
18 teachers attended the Education by Design mini course sponsored
by
One day conferences based on the Six Traits (writing), Essential Questions, as well as a couple of others were well attended and productive.
Hurricane Katrina- participating in various activities. All monies to Red Cross, Backpacks and school supplies are being collected.
Silent Sustained Reading Days have started at PA.
School focus this year will be to cut down on the number of tardies- incentive plans are being discussed. The school will be becoming more stringent in expectations. Run ID cards through machine which prints out detentions, photo, etc. when students come in late. This will be one way to track the number of students who are tardy.
Overall the school is off to a great start.
PA is aiming to decrease number of tardies by 10% quarter.
Enrollment is in the 1030s at this point.
Ms. Bulkley: opened school and things are going REALLY well.
New teachers have jumped right in and are doing a great job.
Biggest problems are in the area of technology: not able to save documents, and the computers seem to be having a great deal of difficulty and are extremely slow.
MAPs testing will be beginning soon.
Switched out servers. This was supposed to make things better- it did not. All machines are cleaned out over the summer. New equipment purchased Pentium 3 machines. Technology folks are aware of it and working hard to address the problems.
Enrollment is at 370 students.
Ms. Whitbeck:
Enrollment is at 475 students 93 kindergartners and 100 first graders.
Ran multi-day kindergarten orientation for three weeks this summer. A much smoother opening was noted. Each kindergarten class had ˝ of the students for the first 2 days. This helped with their transition to school as well.
Jen Ginn painted and spruced up the entrance to the
Opening days- went well. Bus runs went well.
New students to the district with some challenging family dynamics have continued to enroll.
Tardiness is also an issue at the elementary schools. Ms. Whitbeck has seen children and parents finishing homework coming down the hill from the parking lot when they are arriving after the bell has rung.
We have great kids, and the school appears to be going well.
General Comments:
Measured Products is the company that designed and is distributing the test. It has gone through a validation process. The test was designed for RI, VT, and NH Test has not been normed.
Kids who do not participate in the Pushing Limits are often the kids who need to, although there are many great kids who did not participate and do very well.
Open House schedule: Hill- 9/15 and PA 9/22
D. CONSENT AGENDA
A motion to authorize a staff computer purchase program was made by Mr. Fleury and seconded by Mr. Mitchell.
Purchase computers at a group purchase price. The computers include desktops/laptops. This program will allow staff to purchase on a time payment plan. Participation has been steady. 10-15 staff per year participate in this type of program. The board has authorized this type of program several times during the last few years.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
A motion to grant the request for a non-resident enrollment was made by Mr. Fleury and seconded by Mr. Serafin.
If the family is not actually in residence in 60 days the board will need to revisit this request.
The motion was amended to include 60 days from today as the duration of the approval. Mr. Fleury and Mr. Serafin approved the
amendment.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
A motion to approve the goals as presented was made by Mr. Fleury and seconded by Mr. Mitchell.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
4. OLD/UNFINISHED BUSINESS
A. MAINTENANCE DIRECTOR
We had a search for a new Director of maintenance. The committee agonized through the process. They talked with several candidates. Found an individual with a lot of experience, very familiar with Human Resource Issues, engineering, buildings, supervision, etc. Copies of resumes were distributed to the board members.
Business administrator and Supt. also met with this person. No reservations about the potential hire.
Looking for and seemed to have found an extraordinary candidate. There were 40 applicants, and 8 were interviewed.
A motion to authorize the superintendent to move through the process to hire this individual within the budget and salary packets as presented in discussions.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
B. POLICY REVIEW
A motion to approve the Homeless Students Policy was made by Mr. Fleury and Mr. Mitchell.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
A motion to approve the Student Absences and Excuses Policy was made by Mr. Fleury and seconded by Mr. Weisiger.
ALL IN FAVOR
THE MOTION CARRIED
NEW POLICY:
This policy is required by new legislation. Every school district has to have a policy, but schools are not required to do anything else about the policy. There are no actions to the school districts to implement or actuate the policy.
Final action will be taken at the next board meeting.
Send Concerns/Suggestions to Tom ASAP.
C. CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN
The board was asked to provide input on the CIP.
Tom Serafin is the school board representative to this committee.
Track at PA (resurfaced track every five years to top grade). There is a big expense to this. Mr. Reardon will discuss this with the track installation company.
The funding mechanism for the CIP is a constant struggle.
5. NEW BUSINESS
A. PROGRAM REPORTS
Historically there have been educational program reports presented to the board throughout the year.
Get in touch with Tom about other topics of interest.
B. ACCOUNT STATUS
Concerns about the total number of funds- 70 at PA and the controls that are in place.
Auditor should look at the accounts again. The board would like a letter of opinion by the auditor. Are there suggestions to improve the tracking or organization of the funds?
Know why the funds exist and how they are being used, but there are concerns about the overall number and types of balances.
6. OTHER BUSINESS
A. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
Ms. Plourde: Shocked (pleasantly) with how good the school
looked with the new paint and figures at the
7. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at
8. NEXT SCHEDULED MEETINGS
9/27 School Board Meeting
9/29 AREA School Board 7 PM PA
8. INFORMATIONAL
ITEMS
TRS programs/events end prior to dusk.
There are rec programs that are also using the fields.
A good deal of information has been passed onto the school nurses and in turn, passed on to families.
Friday is Constitution Day. Activities have been planned in every classroom at TRS. Board is invited to attend. The teachers at TRS have thoroughly engaged this topic in their classrooms and have been very excited to try new ideas.