Board of Education December Meeting

The Board of Ed held their regular meeting on Tuesday night. Amid other business, the discussion covered the new student enrichment program and the proposal for redistricting the elementary schools. The meeting was held at the council chambers at City Hall, in front of an audience of a few dozen people, including parents, students, and district employees -- it was not televised.

PROBE vs. SCHOOL-WIDE ENRICHMENT
Many parents have been wondering about the future of special programs for top-tier learners. When the school budget was trimmed for this year, the PROBE program was eliminated. PROBE had long been the district's gifted and talented program, focusing on 4th and 5th graders who were identified by state standards. After the retirements of key PROBE staff, the district decided to review their methods of enrichment. According to Assistant Superintendent Barbara Senges, the elementary principals and teachers decided they would like a school-wide enrichment model that could serve all the students in a school. Central office has been working to design the new program, and schools will begin to see new enrichment activities starting in January.

The basic outline of the program includes:
•the part-time K-8 Enrichment Coordinator Hank Stockmal (he also serves as the part-time middle school MIST -- that's Math Instructional Support Teacher). Mr. Stockmal will visit each elementary school twice a month to work with 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, and to offer some afterschool programming.
•hiring "Creative Learning Facilitators" at each elementary school, typically a current classroom teacher who would receive an extra stipend to work with classroom teachers to differentiate instruction for top-tier learners. The "CLF" would also offer weekly afterschool enrichment. These positions are currently in the interview phase, and will likely be in place by the new year.
•all of the above staff would work on developing units and materials that could be used by all classroom teachers to offer more enrichment, and then offering assistance in implementing those new activities.
•these offerings will differ slightly at each school, as the principals have control on the scheduling of the enrichment activities.
•a big change from the former PROBE program is that kids do not have to be identified as "gifted and talented" to participate. They might excel in just one subject.
•at the middle school level, kids can participate in special math programs such as "Odyssey of the Mind".

REDISTRICTING, RACIAL IMBALANCE AND A MACDONOUGH MAGNET

The other big topic of discussion at the meeting was what to do with the information that consultant JCJ Architects has supplied about the capacity and enrollment at our schools. Middletown is currently under a directive from the state to come up with a plan to improve the racial balance at our schools, or suffer their interference. The JCJ report was intended to address this issue, as well as looking at whether any of our schools were crowded or underused.

First, a brief background on the problem of racial imbalance: Middletown's school kids are 43% minority. State law, as influenced by the Sheff v. O'Neill case, requires that each individual school should be within 25% of that average, and that any school more than 15% off the average should be put on notice. On the last reporting date, Macdonough was a few tenths of a percentage point over 25%. The school district is supposed to file a report by February 1st, 2010, outlining our proposal on how to resolve the imbalance.

The JCJ report primarily consists of an analysis of the size and capacity of each school, plus an outline of current busing patterns which force many children to go to a school that is not the closest one to their home. The reason for those convoluted bus routes, which Middletown families have tolerated for the last 10 years or so, is that our school district has been trying to resolve the problem of racial imbalance in our schools by busing certain neighborhoods around to wherever their particular demographic was most needed. Aside from the high busing costs of this strategy, it carries a questionable educational and negative community impact on the neediest kids. I would be delighted to see this system retired.

In its place, JCJ has proposed 19 changes to the current enrollment boundaries for each school, and if you haven't taken a look, you should go to this Eye post or read the report itself on the school website, and check the list and the map. Under these changes, the district looks more like a patchwork quilt, and less like a pop art painting -- it's a return to community/neighborhood schools. For example, the Stonycrest apartments on Newfield Street would move from Macdonough (more than a mile away) back to Spencer (just a few blocks away). But some of the changes may need a more nuanced review -- especially when you consider that the proposal puts Macdonough further out of racial balance, and puts Moody at risk of imbalance in the other direction.

Several school board members questioned the thoroughness of the report, and Superintendent Frechette confirmed that JCJ will be providing some additional information that was requested, without extra charge. One of the requests was to provide the numbers of economically disadvantaged kids that would attend each school under the proposal. I'll note that Macdonough currently has 80% of its children in the "Free/Reduced Lunch/Economic Disadvantage" category, the next highest school is Bielefield at 45%, and all the other schools have fewer than 40%. If the 19 enrollment changes are implemented, then those numbers increase at Macdonough (these numbers were updated at 9:20 am 12/10).

To sum up, the 19 enrollment changes - however sensible - do not solve the racial imbalance. As a possible solution, JCJ points out that the state would allow us to create a magnet school at Macdonough, opening enough seats to students from outside the neighborhood to help bring the school closer to the town average (this would also mean that Maconough would not have enough seats for all North End children - some would have be bused out of the neighborhood). JCJ also suggested that afterschool or Saturday enrichment programs might appease the state, though little detail was offered on that option.

To wrestle with the details of the proposed redistricting and the possible creation of a magnet school, the Board voted to create an ad-hoc committee which will likely meet every week for the next month or two. The committee, which will be appointed by Chair Ted Raczka, will include 3 Board members, 3 parents, 3 teachers and 4 community members, and possibly a few others that I failed to write down.

I can't leave this topic without putting on my Macdonough PTA hat for a moment to say that those of us at Macdonough do not have a problem with the racial balance of our school - we think it's perfectly balanced (approximately 1/3 caucasian, 1/3 african american, and 1/3 all kinds of other people). And we are very happy with the progress our school has made and is still making. But unfortunately, Middletown is required to follow the law and change the makeup of our student body. As we acknowledge this reality, the Macdonough community is trying to be an active part of finding a solution that isn't a negative for North End families.

OTHER BOARD OF ED BUSINESS

The Board took care of some other business, which I will try to convey with more brevity:
•Middletown High math teacher Steven Lecky received the Board's congratulations on receiving the Robert A. Rosenbaum award.
•The library at Farm Hill School will be named for long-time teacher and lover of books, Clara Sanders.
•The superintendent presented the statistical enrollment projection through 2019, which is updated annually. The report predicted a few spikes in the years ahead - and the information was considered in the JCJ report.
•The meeting on December 22 will start with a workshop from CAPPS/CABE about Board roles and responsibilities. This was not a popular suggestion with Board members Corinne Gill and Sheila Daniels who are seeking more input on how workshop speakers and topics are chosen.
•The district has updated its policy on dispensing medications to students, and one-on-one paraprofessionals will now be trained for that task.

CONSPIRACY AT CITY HALL? "BOARD BROADCAST-GATE"

A final bit of intrigue was raised at the meeting's close, with a discussion of where board meetings should be held and why the current meeting was "off the air". One of the advantages of meeting at the council chambers is the excellent video and sound systems for live broadcast on Channel 19. Unfortunately, Tuesday's meeting had no sound, and was not broadcast. Apparently, the custodial staff was not easily located at the beginning of the meeting, and perhaps was not aware that a key was needed by the Board of Ed to access the broadcast equipment. For some of the Board members, who were unaware that the custodian was on the premises after all, there seemed to be a concern that the Board of Ed is less than welcome at the council chambers. In addition, the Board is split on how important it is to broadcast all of their meetings, including workshops. After a vote, it was decided that the next meeting will be held at the Board of Ed offices on Hunting Hill Avenue, where the main item of business is to receive the Superintendent's proposed budget. That meeting, on December 22nd, will not be televised.