The Brick Task Force presents their report (photo)
Brick report intro (audio)
Brick report presentation (audio)
As additional sections of the audio from the meeting are prepared, they will be posted here.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Brick Task Force Report Intro (audio)
Franklin School Commitee Chairman Jeffrey Roy with introductory remarks before the task force made their presentation.
Time: 3 minutes, 33 seconds
MP3 File
Time: 3 minutes, 33 seconds
MP3 File
Brick Task Force Presentation
Members of the Brick Task Force made their presentation to the School Committee meeting Tuesday, January 8th.
Their report can be found here.
Audio files from the presentation and question answer period will be made available here during the week.
Per Chairman Jeffrey Roy before the presentation was received: The School Committee would not be taking a vote or action on the report tonight. Any decision on the Brick classroom will be "resolved in due course during the budget process".
Level service, school job cuts in the news around the state
Level-service budgets may no longer be practical
| MEDWAY - As they start preparing for the next fiscal year, town officials said yesterday the level-service budgets they have used the past few years are hurting municipal services. |
Welcome to Lawrence's budget woes
| More than 40 city workers were laid off last month to close a budget deficit. Then the outgoing City Council failed to approve new tax rates and declined to raise the water rates before leaving office. Now the city assessor... |
Job cuts announced for Salem's schools
| The equivalent of about 80 full-time Salem Public School jobs need to be cut as a result of a $4.7 million deficit caused by underbudgeting and a former business manager's practice of paying old bills out of the current year's budget, Superintendent William J. Cameron Jr. said last night. |
Help is needed for the 4th of July
Yes, the call for help is going out. The long time volunteer effort from Deborah Pellegri and Charles Oteri has come to an end. They are both stepping aside from their leadership roles in coordinating the 4th of July celebration for Franklin.
For more than two decades, Pellegri has served as either the chairwoman or a co-chairwoman of the town's Fourth of July celebration, begun in 1982 to provide a family venue for the holiday to keep the community's children safe. Last year, the six-day event included fireworks, a parade and daily entertainment, and was touted in Family Circle magazine when Franklin was named one of the top 10 places in the country to raise children.
But during a November thank-you party for volunteers, Pellegri announced she would no longer be organizing the event, sponsored the past three years by the town's Lions Club. Oteri, a fellow Lions officer, followed suit, leaving the celebration without leadership or a sponsor.
"We're ready to retire," Pellegri said, agreeing with Oteri that it was time for new blood.
"Fresh ideas," Oteri added.
To that end, Pellegri and Oteri plan to hold an information session Jan. 17 at 7 p.m. in Town Hall for members from other clubs willing to take over their duties.
Read the full article by Michael Morton in the Milford daily News.
If you can step forward as a volunteer, consider attending the information session on January 17th.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Educational Quality Accountability results coming 1/22/08
From the Franklin School Committee blog:
In April and May 2007, the Massachusetts Office of Educational Quality and Accountability (EQA) conducted an independent examination of the Franklin Public Schools for the period of 2004–2006. The EQA analyzed Franklin students’ performance on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests and identified how students in general and in subgroups were performing. The EQA examined critical factors that affected student performance in six major areas: leadership, governance, and communication; curriculum and instruction; assessment and evaluation; human resource management and professional development; access, participation, and student academic support; and financial and asset management.
On Tuesday, January 22, 2008, the audit report will be presented to the School Committee.
and:
And:The state report finds that, on average, three-fourths of all students in Franklin attained proficiency on the 2006 MCAS tests, much more than that statewide. More than four-fifths of Franklin students attained proficiency in English language arts (ELA), more than two-thirds of Franklin students attained proficiency in math, and nearly two-thirds of Franklin students attained proficiency in science and technology/engineering (STE). Ninety-seven percent of the Class of 2006 attained a Competency Determination.
The report also pointed to shortfalls in school funding, which was “insufficient” to fully fund costs associated with increased enrollment, additional special-education teachers, contractual salary increases, and utilities. But the report praised Franklin for passing a $2.7 million property tax increase last spring, which “solidified the community’s commitment to the school district and the educational needs of the children in Franklin.”
The EQA was created by the Massachusetts Legislature in July of 2000, to provide independent and objective programmatic and financial audits of the 350-plus school districts which serve the cities and towns of Massachusetts. The agency is the accountability component of the Education Reform Act of 1993, and was envisioned in that legislation. The complete standards can be read by clicking here.
The full 28 page EQA report on Franklin can be read by clicking here.
Mark your calendar for the Jan 22nd meeting!
Holliston tackles teenage substance abuse
The Boston Globe reports that Holliston is tackling the recent survey results on teenage substance abuse. Franklin's School Committee received a similar report recently. The School Department has not completely spread the information in this report. Please be aware that information sessions will be held via PCC and other channels in the near future. The police chief is also reported to come to the School Committee to provide the "town impact" side of the information.Ellen Freedman, coordinator of Holliston's Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Initiative, says she is encouraged by parents' response to last month's presentation of a survey that showed they underestimate marijuana use and binge drinking among local teenagers.
Rather than responding with denial, she said, parents have said they want to work together to curb the behavior.
Freedman said they applied the survey results to their own situation. "I don't think there was quite as much denial as 'This information is going to help me talk to my kids.' "
Within Franklin, while "the budget, budget, budget" is very important, the reason the budget is important is that much of the money is used for educational purposes, like this!
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Where in Franklin? #26 Picture 2
Maybe the first picture did not reveal enough detail to help you figure out where the topped spire brick was located.
Maybe this second chance will help you!
Brick Report - scheduled for Tuesday
The Brick School Task Force will present its report to the School Committee on Tuesday, January 8, 2008. The group, which has been working diligently since July, has produced a four inch thick binder full of information and data on the school and issues presented by the charge.Read the remainder of the post on the School Committee blog.
The task force report is available here.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Task force wants Brick to stay open
A task force mulling the fate of the Red Brick School recommended last night to keep the historic building open, with supporters gaining the majority but failing to convince other members.
Red Brick Task Force members Francis Molla, Paula Sandham, Joseph Kapples and Town Clerk Deborah Pellegri all voted in favor of the school. But Paula Scafati recommended that it be closed because of her continued concern over future funding and accessibility for the physically disabled, while Kevin Walsh, Carole Geer and Lisa Oxford abstained from voting.
"I came in here with an open mind, contrary to what people think, what I've heard around town," Scafati said.
Walsh said he abstained from the vote because the Brick School Association, a nonprofit group that has promised money for future school operations, declined to provide financial information he asked for. Geer and Oxford, meanwhile, did not offer an explanation but might do so before the task force goes before the School Committee Tuesday.
4-1 with three abstentions.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Out of Africa, and on a mission
Gabriel Dut Bethou doesn't take his education for granted, nor the knowledge that he'll have enough to eat when he wakes up each morning.
Bethou, 23, is one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan," a name given to the thousands of youths who were displaced or orphaned in the Second Sudanese Civil War, which broke out in 1983 and lasted until January 2005.
Thanks to the United Nations and the International Rescue Committee, Bethou was able to come to America in June 2001. He now works in Dean College's information technology department, and is enrolled in a program that allows students to attend classes at Dean for credit toward a four-year degree at Suffolk University.
Read more of Gabriel's story here in this Boston Globe article.
We're not alone
Across the Commonwealth, cities and towns are considering laying off staff, cutting services, and preparing to make cuts to school sports programs as they struggle to close multimillion-dollar budget deficits in the coming fiscal year. Some municipalities are once again considering property tax overrides, even though voters in a majority of towns have rejected tax increases over the last two years.
And it could get worse, officials say, if a state budget deficit projected at more than $1 billion in fiscal 2009 gives communities even fewer dollars to pay for the services that people have come to expect.
"The writing on the wall, to me, is that we shouldn't be looking to the state for any additional aid, so it's a little sobering," said Tom Koch, who will be sworn in as Quincy's mayor next Monday. "It's a challenge to run local government without hitting the citizenry for increases in taxes, and that's always going to be a challenge, whether it's Quincy or Weymouth or Boston or wherever you go."
The remainder of the Boston Globe article continues here.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Where in Franklin? #26
Where in Franklin? Answer #25
Ken Norman hinted that this building would be quite busy today as the children returned to school from their winter break.
The answer to picture #25 is the Davis Thayer Elementary School. The original doorway pictured was partially re-done when the modular rooms were added on.
There are a number of these modular rooms added to existing schools. They will need to be replaced. A line item for their replacement was put on the Town Council meeting capital requirements outlook as discussed in the 12/19/07 meeting.
If you missed the meeting (and the re-broadcast via local cable) you can still listen to the meeting at this link here. The meeting is broken up into sections so you can get to listen to the part you want to.
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