Board of Ed Meets

Reading scores are solidly up in our schools. Writing and math…not so much.

That’s the condensed version of the presentation on CMT scores at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting.

Assistant Superintendent Barbara Senges walked the Board through the results for the 3rd through 8th grade CMT scores, comparing this year to previous years. Fortunately, the data can be isolated to show just the kids who were in Middletown every year, as opposed to those who moved into the district. For example, the "matched" group of kids who were here from third to sixth grades showed a gain from 68 to 80 percent proficiency in reading during that time.

Scores at 6th, 7th and 8th grade level are less impressive, and she outlined a number of initiatives that are designed to fix that, such as extending the relatively successful elementary writing program into the middle school years. And there continue to be significant achievement gaps for the "subgroups", which means kids who are minorities, special education or low-income, although in some cases, we are doing better than other towns in closing those disparities. The full analysis of Middletown's scores will soon be available at www.middletownschools.org.

After the 70-minute presentation, the Board moved through a number of other topics of interest.

REDISTRICTING AND RACIAL IMBALANCE
First some background: Middletown is required to adopt a plan on how to resolve the racial imbalance in our schools. The state law stipulates that no individual school can be more the 25% above or below the average number of minority students in the district, and Middletown has been guilty of "racial imbalance" for some time. That is, in fact, one of the reasons why the Board hired JCJ Architects to study the capacity of all the buildings in the district and the demographics of the students. Last Spring, JCJ held a number of school/community meetings and studied the physical capacity and limitations of all the school buildings. At this meeting, the Board learned that representatives from JCJ are assessing the transportation costs that might result from redistricting students. The Board expects to hear proposed solutions from JCJ in October or November, and the state has given Middletown an extension until February 6, 2010 to submit their racial imbalance plan.

THE BUDGET PROCESS
Both Ryan Kennedy and Renee Johnson-Thornton – two of the newer board members – spoke about the need to improve the clarity and depth of the board’s annual process for setting a budget. As Renee put it, this is the time of year -- before budget season starts -- when we should be setting ourselves up for a more successful budget process than we've had in recent years. After the topic was put on the table, the budget committee (through its chair Jay Keiser) offered to use its monthly reporting time to highlight a different section of the district's expenditures at each meeting. Over time, this should help Board members develop a better understanding of the details of the budget. The question of how to improve the timeline for budget decisions was less satisfactorily resolved, and both Renee and Ryan spoke about the public frustration on this issue. The Board is required to submit a proposed budget to the Council by March 1st, and must then adjust their budget to the final amount approved by the Council in late Spring. Renee spoke about the possibility of taking more time to develop three potential budgets, high, medium and low, so that more thought can be put into the impact of cuts and better communication can take place between the Board and the Superintendent about how to prioritize limited resources.

CHANGES AT CENTRAL OFFICE
Superintendent Frechette pointed out that there are five fewer administrators this year, and some changes were needed in the physical layout of Central Office to make the remaining staff more efficient. After an 8-month planning phase, the summer renovations included grouping like services in a single area, such as payroll, insurance and contracts, making it easier to get similar kinds of business done. Also, he pointed out that nearly all the work was done in house and was not excessively expensive. Another management change was to standardize the staff lunch hour from noon to 1 pm – although there will still always be a limited staff available to answer the phone and help the public during that hour.

MIDDLETOWN HIGH NOT DONE YET
Although the new Middletown High got through its first year, there are still a few outstanding construction issues, such as acoustical problems in the science labs due to poorly placed HVAC equipment, and problems with the pool lighting and the auditorium seats. After being questioned by the Board, Director of Facilities Ken Jackson reassured everyone that these issues are raised at each Wednesday's project meeting, and they are continuing to work toward resolution before the building will be recommended for acceptance of completion.


MEETING LOCATIONS AND TELEVISION
The Board meeting ended with a hearty debate about where meetings should be held - not just for the sake of convenient location but because options for televising the meetings are limited. At the new High School, meetings can be broadcast live on Channel 19 from the cafeteria, and that's where they are typically held. But problems have been cited with the sound quality, and when the microphones are just right for the in-house audience, they are sometimes inaudible to the folks at home. Chairman Raczka suggested that meetings return to the Junior High, where meetings can be taped for later playback. But that would represent a step backwards in public access, in the eyes of Communications Chair Corinne Gill, whose committee has worked hard to bring live coverage to the Board of Ed proceedings. Ryan Kennedy took the common sense perspective that Board of Ed meetings should simply be held at the Council Chambers at City Hall, which were designed for live playback. A few experienced Board members voiced their concern that education meetings might get bumped at the last minute if the Council wanted to use their chambers for special business. In the end, it was agreed that the Communications committee will review the options for locations, particularly with regard to the Council Chamber option.

This reporter would like to endorse the idea that meetings should always be held at the same location, at the same time, since I spent the first half-hour of this meeting driving -- the usual location at Middletown High did not have any sort of notice that the meeting would be held at the Board of Ed offices on Hunting Hill Avenue, where, I might add, there are no facilities for recording the meeting.