Present: Chairperson Peg Stewart, Jeff Loller, Elaine Carpenter, Robin Freeman, Adam Benay, Ben Langelier, Armando Vilaseca, Scott Lang, Thomas Walsh, Lisa Delorme
Public: none
1.Call to Order -Peg Stewart called the meeting to order at 6:30 PM.
2.Consent Agenda
Minutes
-Regular Meeting: August 11, 2008
Correspondence – Armando shared a letter from Nancy Mead regarding the benefit of now having a trainer at the football games.
Jeff Loller moved to accept the Consent Agenda and Robin Freeman seconded. Passed unanimously.
3.Public Comment – none
4.Reports –
a.Principals
Elementary
The new school year is off to a great start. Our inservice days were productive and innovative. The feedback from the teachers concerning our day at the Essex Rink was positive. On the Tuesday before the first day of school we had a consultant lead us through a process of looking at our student data with the emphasis on literacy. As a result, we began setting the course for literacy development for the year. Many of these literacy targets will be addressed this year as we participate in the Literacy Leadership Initiative (LLI). BFA Fairfax currently has eight participants in this year long literacy development process. Our role as literacy leaders is to set the course as well as maintain the momentum of literacy initiatives. Two consultants from LLI will support this process by working in the schools for up to ten days this year.
One of my goals for the next few weeks is to get the kindergarten committee up and running. My understanding is that the purpose of this committee is to explore the concept of full day kindergarten and to come to the school board with a recommendation in October.
Lisa Delorme
Principal
Upcoming special events:
Open House- September 25th from 6:30-8:00
School Pictures- September 30th
Middle School
The beginning of the school year has gone smoothly. The students and staff are settling into their routines. I could not be more impressed with the demonstrations of flexibility and cooperation regarding the new procedures for addressing students with life threatening allergens. I want to thank all of the office and building and grounds staff for all the great work this summer preparing for the 2008-2009 school year. They completed an enormous amount of work in a short period of time.
We held a “Back to School” night on Monday, August 25. This event provides an opportunity for students and parents to meet their new teachers, see classrooms, and ask questions.
The sixth grade team is off and running. They are preparing for the annual hikes up Mt. Mansfield on September 26 and October 3. This is always an outstanding and active learning opportunity.
The seventh grade team is busy establishing a new team of Fairfax and Fletcher students. They will attend the Bolton Adventure Center on September 16 and will participate in team building and individual activities that allow each student an opportunity to challenge themselves in a unique environment.
The eighth grade team quickly settled back into their well established routines. They have picked up where they left off last year.
Cross Country and soccer are underway. Students seem excited to get outside and enjoy the remaining days of summer.
Open House is Thursday, September, 25 from 6:30-8:00 pm.
Reminder, check out the Mandala at the top of the Middle School stairs. Marc Choiniere, Cynthia Pease and our students did an unbelievable job.
Respectfully,
Thomas Walsh
High School
We have gotten off to a very smooth start. I have met with students in all grades to discuss our expectations, focusing on bullying and harassment, electronic devices, student dress and food.
At in service, our Differentiated Instruction/Understanding by Design teacher leaders led us through some review of where we have been on our journey and Mary Lynn Riggs and I tried to tie together the use of data and the relationship between researched based teaching practices, our teacher supervision and evaluation model and improved student performance and learning. It is empowering to look at our data and see that in the area we focused on as a school; literacy, we have nearly reversed our poor reading comprehension scores which indicated only 29% of our students achieved or exceeded the standard in 2003 to 69% in 2008. There also has been strong improvement in our low socio economic sub group.
Since our ban on food being eaten in the hallways, the building has stayed much cleaner. What we did not anticipate was that by closing off hallways and most classrooms to students as places to eat, the high school lunches are both somewhat crowded. We clearly had been missing a number of students in past years during the lunch periods.
Our three new teachers at the high school have settled right in and have earned praise from many students. I want to thank the students who participated in the interview process in hiring these teachers for their insight.
Fall sports are well under way.
Students with classes in the ’43 wing and their teachers have shown great patience with the final stages of the brick project. The workers from Liszt have been very responsive to our requests to keep the learning environment focused and uninterrupted. Their work really looks good.
I will be forming a committee to look at graduation for this year. We hope to explore all of the options that might be available. Currently, I have penciled in Saturday, June 13 or 20 in the morning as the tentative time.
Although we have not had an applicant for the position of parking lot attendant yet, about ninety percent of the vehicles in the large parking lot were registered at the end of last week. Students have until September 12 to register their vehicles. The visitor parking spaces have been well respected.
Open House is September 25th.
b.Financial – The auditors are coming next week to conduct the audit. Their report will need to be accepted at the next meeting.
c.School Board Members
Ben Langelier reported on football.
Adam Benay reported that students have adapted to the new food rules and parking rules. He also reported on soccer.
Elaine Carpenter reported that the building looked wonderful at the opening of school. She expressed interest in knowing the percentage of free and reduced lunch students at BFA. Elaine questioned the details on the 6th grade’s Mansfield hike. She also questioned whether a parking attendant has been hired. Scott replied that one has not yet been hired. He has been monitoring the lot. The school has issued the town office 4 spaces in the school lot.
Jeff Loller reported on soccer. He noticed that the daily announcements were now emailed and it was stated that they soon will be posted to the website also. The XC path is nearing completion.
Peg Stewart reported that 65% of high school students are participating in fall co curricular activities.
5.Old Business
a.Field Scheduling – A meeting has taken place regarding the scheduling of field use between the school and the recreation department. A number of items were discussed at the meeting; requests for the fields, mapping out the usage, maintenance and the purchasing of goal posts. It was noted that November to March is limited for space due to the school usage. The parties will meet again to work through more details.
6.New Business
a.Library Presentation – Joy Mercer, director of Library Services, was present to give an overview on the changes that have been happening at the library over the last few years.
b.Updates on School Building – Tom Walsh reported on some efficiency upgrades in the building. Motion detectors for lighting have been installed. The school has not had to pay for these upgrades as they are paid for by the surcharge on everyone’s bill. The repointing project is nearing completion. They will do an acid wash after completion to make the work more uniform. The project has remained under budget.
c.Transportation Contract Questions – Armando would like to investigate the cost difference between keeping the bus fleet vs. contracting out the buses. Peg stated that such a report was previously done. She will give a copy to Armando and they will decide if a new investigation should be done. This discussion was tabled until Armando can review the report.
d.The shed on School Street was cleaned out. The building will have to be demolished. The land doesn’t belong to the school but the building does and if it is to be rebuilt it will have to be done within a year. Armando recommended having the lawyer do a title search to see who owns the property before any decisions are made.
7. Other – Peg requested that the board members review the policy section of their manual and see if anything needs changed or revised.
8. Policies
a.Volunteers Policy
b.Animal Dissection Policy
c.Student Medication Policy
Action: Jeff Loller motioned to approve the Volunteers Policy, the Animal Dissection Policy and the Student Medication Policy. Elaine Carpenter seconded and all approved.
9.The Board entered Executive Session at 8:50PM and exited at 9:25PM. No action taken.
