School Committee - Agenda - 9/08/09

1. Routine Business

Citizen’s Comments
Review of Agenda
Minutes: I recommend approval of the minutes from the August 25, 2009 School Committee Meeting.
Payment of Bills Mr. Kelly
Payroll Ms. Armenio

FHS Student Representatives – Welcome to the new student representatives: Zach Price (President of Senior Class) and Christie Gianetti (Student Government President)

Correspondence

1. Budget to Actual
2. Letter from Kristen Redpath (donation)

2. Guests/Presentations


a. School Improvement Plans

• Horace Mann Middle School – Dr. Anne Bergen
• Remington Middle School – Paul Peri
• Annie Sullivan Middle School – Beth Wittcoff
• Franklin High School – Peter Light

3. Discussion Only Items

• Facilities Update
• Transportation Update
• H1N1 Update
• Superintendent’s Goals

4. Action Items

1. I recommend adoption of Horace Mann Middle School’s School Improvement Plan
2. I recommend adoption of Remington Middle School’s School Improvement Plan
3. I recommend adoption of Annie Sullivan Middle School’s School Improvement Plan
4. I recommend adoption of Franklin High School’s School Improvement Plan
5. I recommend acceptance of a check for $554.22 from the Tri County Partnership as credit for Life Fair for the FHS gift account
6. I recommend acceptance of a check for $100.00 from Kristen Redpath in memory of her late husband, Donald Redpath, for the FHS Science Department.

5. Information Matters

Superintendent’s Report

1.  News You Can Use
2. Back to School Update
3. Enrollment Comparison
4. Preliminary AYP Update

School Committee Sub-Committee Reports
School Committee Liaison Reports

6. New Business
To discuss future business that may be brought before the School Committee.

7. Executive Session
Contractual Negotiations

8. Adjourn

Chamber Job Fair 9/13-14

The United Regional Chamber of Commerce is pleased to announce:

Job Search Sunday, September 13th 12:30pm – 5:00pm 
Career Fair Monday, September 14th 10am - 4pm

Where:
At Living Waters Church, 15 John L. Dietsche Blvd, North Attleboro MA.


Do you or someone you know need help finding a job?  Then you are welcome to these FREE EVENTS.

Job Search Sunday will offer career development courses like:

• Resume Writing
• Interviewing Skills 
• Using Social Media to Network (by Tricia White of the Mass Small Business Development Center at 1:30pm)

Career Fair Monday will include companies who are actively hiring and seminars on "Staying Motivated While Unemployed."

Keynote speakers Include:

• Ann Crawford , Life Coach 11:30am
• Bill Napolitano, Institute for Business Excellence 1:00pm

To register for this click here


For additional information contact

Jen Osojnicki at the United Chamber, 508.695.6011, jen@unitedregionalchamber.com

Where do you put open space on the budget priority listing?

Currently, the Department of Public Works is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of all town parks, recreation areas and School grounds. The Recreation Department is responsible for scheduling the use of the Town of Franklin athletic fields and facilities. Recreation Department Director, Ryan Jette indicated that it is a difficult challenge to maintain all the open space and recreation areas in Town and there is not adequate staffing for the upkeep.

The Conservation Department maintains a list of open space and conservation sites in Franklin. The current level of staffing for the management and maintenance of open space is not satisfactory, there is insufficient staff and resources to complete routine property inspections and maintenance. Issues such as hiring a forester to oversee the cutting of the Town Forest have proven challenging for the Conservation Commission due to a lack of funding.

If the Town continues to obtain additional open space and recreation areas, there will likely be issues providing sufficient upkeep due to a lack of funds and staffing available to provide upkeep of the sites.

As the Town Council candidates declare themselves for election this November, this would be a good topic on which to find out where they stand.

While the Town has a number of budget needs (the school department is the single biggest item of our Town budget), where open space management sits amongst the priority list would be important to understand.

For additional information on the Open Space and Recreation Plan, read the full report on the Town web site here (PDF)

http://franklinma.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/FranklinMA_Planning/2008plan

In the News - FHS GPA,

Franklin High School tosses old GPA system

from The Milford Daily News Homepage RSS by Angel Roy, Daily News staff

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The GPA changes covered in this article were discussed at length in the School Committee meeting on 7/21/09. You can review the live reporting from that meeting here.

Election "line up" card - updated

A phone call to the Town Clerk's office resulted in a number of updates as we head into this Labor Day weekend.

Prior updates can be found here and here

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Table below shows the positions available for election this November.

The Candidates column initially showed just the incumbents.
Those who have confirmed taking out papers are marked with a * and bold.
New candidates have their name in bold with -new.
The incumbents who have confirmed not to be running again have been marked in red text.
The existing position holders who have not yet taken out papers are listed for reference to keep track of the "line up card"

So what does this tell us?
We need more candidates! The only election competition is for the Board of Health position.

Name	# of Openings	Candidates	Term of Office
Board of Assessors	1 Position (For 4 years)	Robert Avakian*	2009 to 2013
Board of Health	1 Position (For 4 years)	Bruce Hunchard* Koren Kanadanian-new	2009 to 2013
Planning Board	2 Position (For 4 years)	Anthony Padula*	2009 to 2013
	* 1Vacant	Joseph Halligan-new	2009 to 2013
Planning Board (Associate)	* 1 vacant position (For 4 Years)		2009 to 2013
Town Council	9 Positions (For 2 Years)	Joseph McGann	2009 to 2011
		Deborah Bartlett - not running again
		R. Scott Mason*
		Christopher Feeley
		Judith Pond Pfeffer*
		Thomas Doak - not running again
		Shannon Zollo*
		Robert Vallee*
		Stephen Whalen
		Glenn Jones- new Daniel Ballinger-new Bryce Kuchs - new Robert Avakian - new Matthew Kelly (switch from School Committee)
School Committee	7 Positions (For 2 Years)	Cora Armenio	2009 to 2011
		Susan Rohrbach*
		Paula Mullen*
		Edward Cafasso*
		Roberta Trahan*
		Matthew Kelly - switch to Town Council
		Jeffrey Roy* William Glynn - new

Bang for your buck

The Boston Globe "G" section has an interesting table depicting the performance of school districts (according to MCAS scores of the 4th and 10th grades) compared to the assessed home value. Franklin is amongst the top.

No real surprises there. Steve Whalen had put together a similar table and now that table is part of the Financial Planning Committee's report.

If the tax rate was use instead of assessed home values, Franklin would rise higher on the chart.

View the full chart here in the Globe

View the Financial Planning Committee report here

In the News - online interaction, 'treeted' stormwater

Franklin may outlaw student-teacher interaction online

from The Milford Daily News News RSS by Angel Roy/Daily News staff

For the live reporting notes of this discussion from the School Committee meeting on August 25th click here

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Tree to help eliminate pollution in Franklin

from The Milford Daily News News RSS by Angel Roy/Daily News staff