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The January 11, 2006 Board of Education meeting was scheduled for 7:30pm in
the Administration Building, the actual meeting began around 7:50pm. Due
to the large number of people attending the meeting, Karen Markeloff asked
district personnel to make their seats available for students and residents
attending the meeting. Board Members Merritt, Bogle, Charter, Jefferson and Staino were present, ex-offico
member Superintendent Watson was not present and Assistant Superintendent Karen
Markeloff was acting Superintendent in place of Mr. Watson.
Quite a few district employees addressed the board during the Citizen
Comments on Agenda Items and spoke about safety and security.
Specifically, Poughkeepsie High School was reported to have had a number of
incidents in recent days. Ken Barger a teacher at PHS commented that the
building is down to one Peace and Order employee from the four the building
started with in September. Several employees mentioned classrooms without
functional locks and the security risks involved.
- The Personnel and Consent were passed in a 5-0 vote. Items 2b and 4a were withdrawn from the Personnel agenda. The
resolution for Items 4B2 and H4 were withdrawn as well.
- Resolutions #06-134 through #06-137 were added to the agenda and passed.
During the open Citizen Comments and Inquiries period a number of speakers
addressed the Board regarding the recent settlement agreement with
Superintendent Watson. At one point when Jerry Ciminello had finished
addressing the Board and Board President Stan Merritt attempted to respond there
were raised voices between Mr. Ciminello and Mr. Merritt as Jerry Ciminello
returned to the microphone. Resident Edwin McNiff called for the Board to
request an investigation by the Attorney Generals Office to clear the
"cloud" over the community. Mr. McNiff believed that an investigation
clearing the Board would be able to resolve the community issues over the
agreement while preserving the privacy of Executive Session matters.
Felicia Watson spoke in support of Superintendent Watson and his
accomplishments. Shirl Susser, a parent, spoke about the murals in the music
wing. Resolution #06-130 accepted a donation of $2,000 from Vassar College
to pay for the four murals, three of which are already completed. There
will be a ceremony on January 26, 2006. Barry Kauffman spoke about five
teachers that received partnership grants of $2,000 each (I believe these were
from Staples). Linda Flanigan the After School Program Director talked
about an After-School/Out of School Program Fair going on during lunch on
January 17-19 at PHS.
This meeting contained a Workshop and the below items all
were part of the Workshop.
Focus Superintendent Search Discussion
Focus Consulting was present at the meeting to make a presentation regarding the
Superintendent search they have been
hired to perform. Owners Vincent Beni and Dudley Hare spoke to the
Board and residents regarding the search procedure. Both are veteran
teachers and superintendents with a combined total of 40 years of superintendent
experience. They have been in business for 8 years and completed 60
successful superintendent searches most recently in Washingtonville and New Paltz. Based on the information to date they recommend an experienced
superintendent. It is their intent to begin the process by advertising
their presence and desire to meet with all identifiable groups during
early February to collect information and determine what qualities would be
required by a superintendent in the PCSD. They would then present their finding
to the Board and begin recruiting candidates. Their goal would be to get
30 applications and present 5-8 candidates to the Board. Two rounds of
interviews are anticipated to reduce the selection to one candidate by April.
Contract negotiations would then take place with hopes that a replacement would
be in place by July 1, 2006. The recruiting and Board interviews would be
conducted in a confidential fashion. Carol Bogle asked what other options
were available. Vincent Beni said that given the shortage of
Superintendents, confidentially was necessary to encourage candidates to apply
and that without confidentiality the district would have an extremely smaller
candidate pool. All Board members agreed that confidentially was necessary
to attract the best candidate.
Safety and Security
Editors note: I missed the beginning of the Safety and Security discussion as I
left the room to talk to the representatives from Focus Consulting. When I
returned Carol Bogle was asking why the student ID cards for PHS students were
not distributed after Christmas break as had been previously planned.
Karen Markeloff said some issues were still being resolved regarding the ID
cards. There was a discussion of Resolution #06-134 (which passed) that
authorized the hiring of up to four off duty police officers for PHS. The
Resolution called for an hourly rate not to exceed $35/hour and limited the
dates of service from 01/13/06 through 01/24/06. Greg Charter pointed out
that we could hire two Peace and Order employees for this rate and Karen
Markeloff responded that $35/hour was the maximum and the District expects to
pay less than that amount. There was discussion that the Board is
expecting a report regarding closing the campus by 01/27/06 and Mr. Merritt
asked if the report could be received in time for the January 25 Board meeting.
Karen Markeloff was unsure if that could be accomplished. Several speakers
at the beginning of the meeting spoke of classrooms without working locks.
A discussion of this revealed that these classrooms were apparently in the areas
of new construction and that this work was probably the responsibility of the
contractor. Mr. Merritt pointed out that regardless the situation had to
be rectified. The Board asked for a report back on the situation and for
remedial action to be taken if repairs could not be done in a timely manner by
the contractor. The Board asked for a study hall report and for a summary
of the open/closed campus survey results.
2006-2007 Budget Calendar
The discussion of the budget calendar was initially sidetracked as Business
Manager Jeff Baker asked for some leeway to bring current budget matters to the
Board's attention. Karen Markeloff asked that this matter be handled
internally and that communication be through the Superintendent. Since Mr.
Baker is considered district staff, all communication between Mr. Baker and the
Board normally goes through the Superintendent. The Board however asked
Mr. Baker to continue. Mr. Baker said that he was "frustrated" and
"concerned" and they the district had added many additional positions and taken
on additional expenditures that were not in the original budget. Positions
were added and that funds were not assigned to cover the cost of the positions
and that some positions intended to be paid for with grant money were ineligible
to be paid for with the specified grants. In the end the Board drafted and
passed Resolution #06-138 instructing the Superintendent to include a budget
status report in the next Board packet. The topic changed to a
conversation regarding the energy budget and conservation. There was a
discussion about open classroom windows and turning down the thermostats in
school buildings. There was mention of a conversation from October in
which Superintendent Watson stated that classroom temperature was his decision
(as long as the temperature is at or above the state mandated 65 degrees).
Carol Bogle reminded everyone that it had been implied that the Board was
micromanaging but she didn't understand why the thermostats hadn't been turned
down. Once back on topic, Jeff Baker explained that the budget process
starts in October with a request that the building principals submit their
budgets. Staff projections which are a much larger portion of the budget
are normally handled within Human Resources but with no director of Human
Resources Mr. Baker asked who would be doing this analysis. The Board
stated that Don Rothman hired as the Board Budget Consultant would be handling
this. It is anticipated that Mr. Rothman will be starting next week as
Budget Consultant and as previously approved by the Board as Interim
Superintendent on February 9, 2006.
Staffing Report Format
The Board requested several reports to assist in the budget process. A
staff list containing all employees, assigned building, grade, title and salary,
a breakdown of the count of students per grade and class and a copy of the
master schedule for PHS and PMS. Ellen Staino said she expected that this
budget may take more work and that the Board should anticipate scheduling
additional meetings dedicated to the budget.
Quarterly Report Format
The Board discussed changes to the Quarterly Report format used by all
principals. The reports are presented to the Board of Education and
changes to the format has been an ongoing discussion.
The Board then resumed the regular meeting and modified an existing
resolution to also remove James Wellock from the Audit Committee and to pass
Resolution #06-138, mentioned above, to instruct the Superintendent to include a
Budget Status Report in the next Board packet.
The Board then passed a resolution to return to Executive Session.
Board President Stan Merritt informed me that if the Board did return and vote
in would only be on "housekeeping" matters. Given that is was almost
11:00pm I did not stay.
I did speak to Board Clerk Maria McCabe and was told that she left the
meeting at 12:20 while the Board was still in Executive Session. Attempts
to reach Stan Merritt have been unsuccessful.
Updated 02-14-06: There are two documents representing the minutes of this
meeting. The first (labelled Minutes I) was taken by Maria McCabe
and covers the meeting up until the Board voted to enter a second Executive
Session at 10:45pm. When the Board exited Executive Session at 12:30am
Beth Sims began to take the minutes. The second set of minutes begins at
this point and continues until the end of the meeting.
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