Franklin: Town Council meeting video replay available for Nov 2, 2022

The video of the Town Council meeting Wednesday evening is available for replay on YouTube.  Video Link -> https://youtu.be/CqUQ6OxjMj4

Note: apologies for the intermittent blacking out of the screen early in the meeting. Being addressed to ensure no re-occurrence. 

The agenda and documents for this session can be found -> 

https://www.franklinma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif6896/f/agendas/november_2_town_council_meeting.pdf

Chief Lynch with the recent accreditation plaque

Franklin Police to Participate in Accreditation Assessment

Chief Lynch is pleased to announce that a team of assessors from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission is scheduled to arrive on June 22, 2022, to begin examining various aspects of the Franklin Police Department’s policies and procedures, operations and facilities.  

Verification by the Assessment Team that the Department meets the Commission’s standards is part of a voluntary process to gain state Accreditation -- a self-initiated evaluation process by which police departments strive to meet and maintain standards that have been established for the profession, by the profession.

The Massachusetts Police Accreditation Program consists of 257 mandatory standards as well as 125 optional standards.  In order to achieve accreditation status, the Department must meet all applicable mandatory standards as well as 60% of the optional standards.  

Achieving Accreditation is a highly prized recognition of law enforcement professional excellence.  Anyone interested in learning more about this program is invited to contact Chief Lynch or the Department’s Accreditation Manager, Deputy Chief James West.

Franklin Police to Participate in Accreditation Assessment

Shared from Town of Franklin Police Dept Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/franklinmapolice/posts/pfbid0zSjibhAXftcqbQVhtJoobt4WHdsx77Zy2Ex4eN169RQeX6F78ULy71rZhLEuiWqSl

NEASC Update to the School Committee

Superintendent Maureen Sabolinski provides an update on the NEASC accreditation process. The high school which had been on 'warning status' (from 1996) until the new building opened is now up for its first site visit and accreditation in the new building.

The presentation deck used is as follows:

Franklin Public Schools: NEASC Update to School Committee from Franklin Matters

March 12-15, 2017 will be the site visit
all this will be in preparation for the site visit

the accreditation report will likely be issued approx 6 months after the site visit and is delivered to the School Committee

the NEASC visit is looked at as a partnership between the Central Office and community in support of the High School. It is a peer review and validation of our K-12 educational process here in Franklin

it is an aspiration as the NEAC standards are higher than the common core

the site visit was supposed to be scheduled for last fall. IT was rescheduled as the building was just opening. NEASC agreed to the reschedule as it made sense to have been in the building for more than the year.

In the News - accreditation, override

Franklin High to keep accreditation

from The Milford Daily News News RSS by Ashley Studley/Daily News staff

Franklin officials seek $3 million override

from The Milford Daily News News RSS by Ashley Studley/Daily News staff

For additional information on the Town Council meeting Apr 28, 2010
http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2010/04/town-council-042810.html


 Franklin, MA

"We're feeling very positive"

The association, an accreditation service that sets standards for more than 2,000 schools, evaluates schools every 10 years. In its last full review, the association gave Franklin High School a warning in 2005 because of its limited handicapped access, which does not meet state and federal law.

"The warning status is really only about the facility," said Superintendent Maureen Sabolinski. "It has nothing to do with education." 

Read the full article about the FHS accreditation in the Milford Daily News here

The accreditation was disclosed at the Dec 8, 2009 School Committee meeting

Live reporting - Information matters

Letter received from NEASC continuing accreditation for Franklin High School

Principal Peter Light was creative to re-invent the high school within the budget considerations. Accreditation is a ten year cycle. A self-study is prepared and then updated with a visit from NEASC. We have been on a warning status due to budget problems. We have been providing status reports yearly. We submitted this last status late as the budget had been approved late. We feel pretty confident as we move forward. We are seeing a doubling of usage for the library/resource center under the new configuration.

We still have $38,000 for subscriptions to periodicals and other materials to keep our collection current.

We have basically four major things left to respond to, the four items are related to the renovation of the building.

We'll start the process five years out for the next accreditation cycle.

Glynn - congratulations and thank you!

Building Committee meeting on Dec 14th to move forward on the project to hire the OPM and hire the architect.

Accreditation - more kindergartens earn the mark!

FRANKLIN -

John F. Kennedy and the F.X. O’Regan Early Childhood Development Center are one of the first early childhood programs to earn accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the nation’s leading organization of early childhood professionals.

"We’re proud to have earned the mark of quality from NAEYC, and to be recognized for our commitment to reaching the highest professional standards," said principals Joan Toye and Karen Seyfried. "NAEYC Accreditation lets families in our community know that children in our program are getting the best care and early learning experiences possible."

read the full article in the Franklin Gazette here

I recall that Oak St Elementary School's kindergarten actually achieved this NAEYC certification first in the new process. Check out the announcement from last year and here.

I think it is more impressive that many of the Franklin schools have accreditation than which one was first.

Recap of School Budget situation

The School Committee meeting on 2/26/08 was long and eventful. The audio sections for the meeting are available here.

If you can't spend three hours listening to the meeting, you can skip to the appropriate section to get the original voices for the following items:

• Franklin is receiving $2.4 M from the Dept. of Education, effectively a 9% increase over FY08 for the schools
• The Town, however, is planning for the schools to only receive a 1.5% increase in funding over FY08 which results in the expected layoffs of 45 teachers, increased busing fees, and increased class sizes.
• Rep Vallee does a wonderful job obtaining money for Franklin but it won't last forever.
• The High School renovation options cost $90-100 million which is cheaper than building a new school which would cost $120-130 million.
• The FHS accreditation is on "warning" status now due to the inaction in addressing the high school facility shortcomings. This was expected.
• The Forensic Report has triggered a number of actions by the School Dept amongst them cost center based budgets (each school is now a cost center), improved accounting of funds in the budget, and interviews for a new finance director were scheduled for 2/27/08.
• The KCD Policy passed by a vote of 6-1 which now requires all donations to be applied to non-operating expenses and rejects funds previously targeted for specific operational efforts (i.e. the Brick classroom).
• The communications campaign about the real health issues amongst the Franklin school population as reported in the MetroWest Survey is about to begin with a gathering of representatives from the various groups and organizations in the town. The report will be reviewed in that forum. That group will then make plans for communicating and taking action to address the issues.

FHS Accreditation Warning Received (audio)

During the Superintendent's Report, Wayne Ogden talks about the warning letter received by the High School from the accreditation body due to the lack of progress being made on the issues with the facility that were brought up previously.

If progress is not made, the next step would be "probation" and the final step could be removal of accreditation from the high school.

The School Committee is looking to form a building committee in the next several weeks.

Time: 12 minutes, 25 seconds



MP3 File