Board of Ed Meeting Highlights School District Dilemma

At Tuesday night's regular Board of Education meeting (1/26/10), excitement over the newly expanded summer enrichment program quickly turned to controversy over a report due on the State Commissioner's desk by Friday afternoon.

First the good news:

Last year's Summer Enrichment Program serviced approximately 80 students district-wide. Thanks to a series of grants, Title I funds, and stimulus funds, this summer Middletown will spend approximately $180,000 on a 5 week, all day Summer Enrichment Program that can accommodate up to 400 students. Asst. Superintendent Barbara Senges told the BOE that she hopes to hire 31 teachers to run the program, and that children will be bused and breakfast and lunch will be served. This program will be "by invitation only" to those children identified as "at risk readers," (by virtue of their CMT scores) and it will be no cost for those children who are currently eligible for reduced cost or free lunch. The cost will be $250 for 5 weeks for those children not eligible for the reduced cost/free lunch program. Senges also told the BOE that she plans to keep class sizes to about 12 students per class, and that she's worked out a deal with the YMCA, the Circus program and the City Arts program so that children can attend both programs during the day.


This new Enrichment Program will run at Bielefield, Macdonough and Wesley Schools starting July 6 and ending Aug 5 (a total of 23 days). Park and Rec will run programs at all the other schools, so all school buildings will be used this summer. Senges thanked Ken Jackson, the Director of Facilities, for the hard work his department will have to undertake to make these spaces available for the upcoming summer.

As the meeting progressed, a few notable issues were mentioned:

• There are lights missing as one travels from MHS to the athletic complex. BOE Chairman Ted Raczka asked Ken Jackson why those lights are still missing after two years, worrying about the potential safety issue if fans can't see icy sidewalks in the dark. Jackson replied that it was the City's responsibility to finish this part of the project, that there was a problem with the light bulbs, and that it will probably be 6-8 weeks until this is resolved. Raczka was clearly unhappy with this answer, and he commented that "someone needs to tell someone to get busy and get this done..."


• Raczka also gave Transportation Director Mike Milardo a packet of information about New Britain getting the first hybrid bus in the State of CT, and he wanted Milardo to get busy on getting Middletown TWO buses for next year. (Note: New Britain did get State grant monies as part of this process, but it wasn't clear how much hybrid buses might cost Middletown.)


• BOE member Corinne Gill asked the other board members to attend the PTA meetings at their sponsor schools. She handed out a list of the meeting days and times. (Note: if a BOE member shows up at your PTA meeting, please post a comment to this article and let us know!)

When it came time for discussion regarding the District Feasibility Study, a particular report due to the State Commissioner of Education by this Friday (1/29/10) caused much consternation between Superintendent Michael Frechette and various BOE members. Long story short: Middletown was notified a year ago that Macdonough Elementary School is out of compliance with Sheff v. O'Neil (with regard to racial balance compared to the District average), and was given 6 months to fill a plan with the State to correct the imbalance. A 6-month extension was given in August because of the on-going JCJ study, which accounts for tomorrow's deadline.

The problem is that JCJ submitted its final report in December, and the BOE then decided to create an Ad Hoc committee to study a number of issues: redistricting, the socio-economic implications of redistricting, Moody's overcrowding, Macdonough's racial imbalance, possible preschool consolidation, Macdonough as a magnet school, and so on. That committee just got started about two weeks ago, and for obvious reasons, no recommendations have come back to the board.

So, while the Superintendent has to file a report tomorrow, he really has nothing to report because the BOE hasn't been given any recommendations nor has it made any decisions. However, Dr. Frechette asked permission to file a report that would talk about consolidation of the preschool program, re-drawing districting lines, and research into the resulting socio-economic impacts of re-districting.

This request did not sit well with many board members: there was no draft of the report to review, and several members commented that submitting a report before the Ad Hoc committee work was finished could be perceived as a big waste of everyone's time. Board Member Renee Johnson-Thornton was especially concerned that the magnet school option for Macdonough seemed to be off the table. Frechette responded that Middletown has a 3-year District Improvement Plan on file with the State, as required by No Child Left Behind and Middletown's identification as a district needing improvement. There isn't time or money to re-train teachers at Macdonough in a magnet school model when they've already made so many changes to comply with the district improvement plan.

In the end, the board voted to allow Dr. Frechette to submit the report he described, but only with specific instructions that the report would state that should the BOE come up with a better plan later, it would have the right to re-file with the State.

The BOE then went into Executive Session to discuss litigation and the Superintendent's Mid-Year Evaluation.

NOTE: The full Ad Hoc committee was meeting this evening, so more specific details will be covered in a separate EYE posting.

Commentary: I found it most peculiar that the State is requiring a plan that outlines how Middletown plans to address the racial imbalance issues at Macdonough, but the BOE and Superintendent talked about everything else OTHER than that simple issue. Of course nothing is simple, so I don't mean it in that way...I guess I'm just puzzled that there doesn't seem to be a clear list of priorities that defines what action we take when. I know for sure that the BOE was highly disappointed that the $138,000 they paid JCJ Architecture DIDN'T get them a solution they could implement immediately (and this probably explains our deadline problems...). Yes, we have racial balance issues and we have attendance boundary issues and when you start changing something in one place it messes with something somewhere else. However, we have to start SOMEWHERE at SOMETIME, and we are required to comply with Sheff v. O'Neil, and attendance boundary can't be drawn without regard to racial balance considerations, so I guess we have to start there. It would be lovely to draw lines to minimize transportation costs, but we already know we can't do it that way. I don't think a Saturday Magnet program at Macdonough is going to relieve the State's requirements, so we have to settle down and start the hard work of drawing lines and working from there.