The collection of live reporting from the School Committee meeting on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 can be found here
Franklin, MA
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Museum opens May 15th and 16th
The renovated museum opens on Saturday from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM and again on Sunday from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Franklin, MA
Franklin, MA
DPW Open House - May 15th
DPW Open House on Saturday, May 15th from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Franklin, MA
Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io
Franklin, MA
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Live reporting - Closing items
5. Information Matters
Superintendent’s Report
a. Enrollment Comparison for April 2009-2010
Superintendent’s Report
a. Enrollment Comparison for April 2009-2010
b. Bullying Law - law did pass, we want to approach this systemically, summer will be busy
c. School Choice
already covered above
School Committee Sub-Committee Reports
space needs meet before this, looking at ways to develop a capacity plan for the schools
School Committee Liaison Reports
interested firms will be touring the building this month, the MSBA has a specific process with not a lot of discretion
need to designate three representatives for the design selection process
School Committee, Superintendent, Building Committee all get one choice each
By Feb/Mar 2011 we should have a good sense of options for the high school and a good sense of what it will cost.
Sometime Sep-Nov 2011 we should have a vote to fund the project, with a 40-60 percent reimbursement by the state
Tom Mercer will be here for the June 8th meeting
6. New Business
To discuss future business that may be brought before the School Committee.
foreign language course to be added to future agenda
7. Executive Session
Contractual Negotiations
no intention to return to open meeting
passed 7-0
Franklin, MA
c. School Choice
already covered above
School Committee Sub-Committee Reports
space needs meet before this, looking at ways to develop a capacity plan for the schools
School Committee Liaison Reports
interested firms will be touring the building this month, the MSBA has a specific process with not a lot of discretion
need to designate three representatives for the design selection process
School Committee, Superintendent, Building Committee all get one choice each
By Feb/Mar 2011 we should have a good sense of options for the high school and a good sense of what it will cost.
Sometime Sep-Nov 2011 we should have a vote to fund the project, with a 40-60 percent reimbursement by the state
Tom Mercer will be here for the June 8th meeting
6. New Business
To discuss future business that may be brought before the School Committee.
foreign language course to be added to future agenda
7. Executive Session
Contractual Negotiations
no intention to return to open meeting
passed 7-0
Franklin, MA
Live reporting - Action items
4. Action Items
a. I recommend approval of the request of Anne Bergen for the field trip to Roger Williams Zoo on June 10, 2010 as detailed.
b. I recommend acceptance of the donation of $500.00 from the Keller PCC for field trips for Keller students. motion to approve, 7-0
c. I recommend not participating in the school choice program for the 2010-2011 school year. motion to approve, 7-0
d. recommend acceptance of the MSBA project enrollment report
Roy - a three page letter determining appropriate enrollment, State looking for commitment to a design limiting to 1650. Conflict with prior enrollment projections showing 1800.
Sabolinski - enrollment projection, architect hired, study designed and feasibility study can then proceed. The MSBA collects data from every district. First number from them was in the 1500's, Met with them to review the numbers, provided additional data for their evaluations, outstanding building permits, etc. this results in the increase to 1650. Any further hold up holds the whole schedule.
There might be an opportunity to get the number up as the project gets underway but that is not guaranteed. The data is updated annually.
Cafasso - the issue with MSBA is how much of a building they will create as that is where the cost is
motion to approve, 7-0
Franklin, MA
a. I recommend approval of the request of Anne Bergen for the field trip to Roger Williams Zoo on June 10, 2010 as detailed.
motion to approve, 7-0
b. I recommend acceptance of the donation of $500.00 from the Keller PCC for field trips for Keller students. motion to approve, 7-0
c. I recommend not participating in the school choice program for the 2010-2011 school year. motion to approve, 7-0
d. recommend acceptance of the MSBA project enrollment report
Roy - a three page letter determining appropriate enrollment, State looking for commitment to a design limiting to 1650. Conflict with prior enrollment projections showing 1800.
Sabolinski - enrollment projection, architect hired, study designed and feasibility study can then proceed. The MSBA collects data from every district. First number from them was in the 1500's, Met with them to review the numbers, provided additional data for their evaluations, outstanding building permits, etc. this results in the increase to 1650. Any further hold up holds the whole schedule.
There might be an opportunity to get the number up as the project gets underway but that is not guaranteed. The data is updated annually.
Cafasso - the issue with MSBA is how much of a building they will create as that is where the cost is
motion to approve, 7-0
Franklin, MA
Live reporting - Discussion only items
3. Discussion Only Items
School Choice
need to let DESE know if we will continue by June 1
we have 39 currently, the question is whether to open up additional seats available
Principals have recommended not to do so given the flexible budgetary arrangements
not a prudent choice to make at this time
In 2007, we had 76 students generating $5,000 per seat
in addition to loosing teachers, we are loosing revenue
56 for 2008, 2009, and currently 39
We haven't been able to allow staff to bring their children to the district
Is it fair to say, the only way to resume this program would be to increase teachers?
Yes, you need to look at the class size and down the road for the cohort factor
Principals conducted the survey to determine no space K-12
First Reading - Policy JJFG Disposition of Student Activity Accounthow to handle the money for each class, as the seniors graduate they are no longer part of the district
the funds would need to be kept in an account with a different tax ID than part of the Franklin Schools
motion to move to second reading, passed 7-0
Further FY11 Budget Discussion
Glynn
PCC meeting at Kennedy
shortened elementary day might be in the morning as a delayed start or early dismissal
Sabolinski - the principals actually came up with the alternatives, the morning actually works a little better
Glynn - what about parents going to work, how would they be covered
Sabolinski - we could use the Solutions program
Franklin, MA
the funds would need to be kept in an account with a different tax ID than part of the Franklin Schools
motion to move to second reading, passed 7-0
Further FY11 Budget Discussion
Glynn
PCC meeting at Kennedy
shortened elementary day might be in the morning as a delayed start or early dismissal
Sabolinski - the principals actually came up with the alternatives, the morning actually works a little better
Glynn - what about parents going to work, how would they be covered
Sabolinski - we could use the Solutions program
Franklin, MA
Live reporting - DESE report
2. Guests/Presentations
a. DESE Coordinated Program Review ReportSally Winslow and Michele Kingsland-Smith
review done every six years with a mid-cycle review every three years
The coordinated review covers three areas:
preliminary data submitted before an onsite visit which occurred during the week of 12/8/2009
exit interview upon leaving
draft corrective action plan (CAP) provided, being worked on now
Commendable 3
Implemented 55
Partially 1
Not Impl 0
9 out of 90 areas are partially implemented and are now areas of focus
Handbooks are not readily available in languages other than English
need translation in the five major languages for the Franklin district
ELE findings
spent time researching K12 curriculum, will be purchasing a copy this June
teacher from Seekonk coming into provide some experience teaching K through high school
478 teachers and administrators, 102 at this time have already received the training, 4 have received all levels of the training
Instructional Grouping
Students do not receive recommended number of hours of English Language Development (ELD) instruction to limitations of current delivery model
need to develop a system of oral and written translations, explored with other districts to see how they handle this
surprised by FHS students were not receiving credit for ELD instruction
Licensure requirements
District does not have a policy for determining the literacy and fluency of teachers
does not need to be a school committee policy but does need to be written, e.g. new hires would be part of an oral interview, as well as a written response (writing sample), incorporate the communications home and the annual reviews to include to cover this requirement
Professional Development Requirements
a multi-year plan is in place to meet the requirements
Program Evaluation
District has not conducted periodic evaluations of the effectiveness of its ELE program in developing students English language skills and meaningful participation in the education program
Records of LEP students
in the random sample taken, there were some records missing
Corrective Action Plan (CAP) due May 18th
have 1 calendar year to be 100% compliant
SE, CR, ELE supervisors are conferring to coordinate all the actions
The DESE recognizes that the 478 teachers/administrators will not be completely trained in the period, the plan needs to be in place and making progress
actually 416 teachers, 36 long term subs counted per DESE, 26 administrators
Cafasso
thanks for the effort and level of detail in this report
the only area where we have been lacking
Kingsland-Smith
we have 23 different languages in the district
The top 5 non-English languages: Spanish, Portugese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tuluga (an Indian dialect)
Rohrbach
we added the 1.5 positions, did DESE have any recommendation on staff?
Kingsland-Smith
no, the program is actually more important than the numbers of staff
the curriculum and environment (i.e. professional development)
Sabolinski
DESE did say we should add a minimum of 2, we couldn't do that
We did add .5 last December, we are adding the other 1.5 now, together these steps have shown DESE that we are heading in the right direction, otherwise we would have been less compliant than we are
Glynn
Can you tell me how a teacher can help a student access the curriculum
Kingsland-Smith
I can try, Category 1 - you need to try to help someone identify strategies to learn, Cagegory 2 - build vocabulary, Category 3 - how to assess students on their English proficiency, Category 4 a great deal of vocabulary development and visual cues to connect the language with what they already know
Glynn
How is this going to work with increases in class size?
Kingsland-Smith
Your concern is the driving force behind the DESE requiring all the teachers to be prepared for all four categories. These kids need to have equal access. This is going to be a challenge.
Category 1 is a two day training, Category 2 and 4 are four day classes with course credit
Glynn
do the guidelines still work for teacher student ratio under these new guidelines? Rhetorical question for now.
Roy
These are statutory requirements? Sound expensive, how much of this is reimbursed by the State and Federal government/
Kingsland-Smith
zero
Sabolinski
When I had asked Sally, Beth and Michelle to put this together, it was a real opportunity, they came together quickly and have done very well
Franklin, MA
a. DESE Coordinated Program Review ReportSally Winslow and Michele Kingsland-Smith
review done every six years with a mid-cycle review every three years
The coordinated review covers three areas:
- Civil Rights (CR)
- Special Education (SE)
- English Learner Education (ELE)
preliminary data submitted before an onsite visit which occurred during the week of 12/8/2009
exit interview upon leaving
draft corrective action plan (CAP) provided, being worked on now
Commendable 3
Implemented 55
Partially 1
Not Impl 0
9 out of 90 areas are partially implemented and are now areas of focus
Handbooks are not readily available in languages other than English
need translation in the five major languages for the Franklin district
ELE findings
- District does not have an ESL curriculum based upon MA English Language Proficiency Benchmarks and Outcomes (ELPBO)
- Amounts of ESL instruction far below ESE recommended hours
- LEP Students do not receive sheltered content instruction; all teachers of LEP students have not completed all levels of SEI professional development
spent time researching K12 curriculum, will be purchasing a copy this June
teacher from Seekonk coming into provide some experience teaching K through high school
478 teachers and administrators, 102 at this time have already received the training, 4 have received all levels of the training
Instructional Grouping
Students do not receive recommended number of hours of English Language Development (ELD) instruction to limitations of current delivery model
need to develop a system of oral and written translations, explored with other districts to see how they handle this
surprised by FHS students were not receiving credit for ELD instruction
Licensure requirements
District does not have a policy for determining the literacy and fluency of teachers
does not need to be a school committee policy but does need to be written, e.g. new hires would be part of an oral interview, as well as a written response (writing sample), incorporate the communications home and the annual reviews to include to cover this requirement
Professional Development Requirements
a multi-year plan is in place to meet the requirements
Program Evaluation
District has not conducted periodic evaluations of the effectiveness of its ELE program in developing students English language skills and meaningful participation in the education program
Records of LEP students
in the random sample taken, there were some records missing
Corrective Action Plan (CAP) due May 18th
have 1 calendar year to be 100% compliant
SE, CR, ELE supervisors are conferring to coordinate all the actions
The DESE recognizes that the 478 teachers/administrators will not be completely trained in the period, the plan needs to be in place and making progress
actually 416 teachers, 36 long term subs counted per DESE, 26 administrators
Cafasso
thanks for the effort and level of detail in this report
the only area where we have been lacking
Kingsland-Smith
we have 23 different languages in the district
The top 5 non-English languages: Spanish, Portugese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tuluga (an Indian dialect)
Rohrbach
we added the 1.5 positions, did DESE have any recommendation on staff?
Kingsland-Smith
no, the program is actually more important than the numbers of staff
the curriculum and environment (i.e. professional development)
Sabolinski
DESE did say we should add a minimum of 2, we couldn't do that
We did add .5 last December, we are adding the other 1.5 now, together these steps have shown DESE that we are heading in the right direction, otherwise we would have been less compliant than we are
Glynn
Can you tell me how a teacher can help a student access the curriculum
Kingsland-Smith
I can try, Category 1 - you need to try to help someone identify strategies to learn, Cagegory 2 - build vocabulary, Category 3 - how to assess students on their English proficiency, Category 4 a great deal of vocabulary development and visual cues to connect the language with what they already know
Glynn
How is this going to work with increases in class size?
Kingsland-Smith
Your concern is the driving force behind the DESE requiring all the teachers to be prepared for all four categories. These kids need to have equal access. This is going to be a challenge.
Category 1 is a two day training, Category 2 and 4 are four day classes with course credit
Glynn
do the guidelines still work for teacher student ratio under these new guidelines? Rhetorical question for now.
Roy
These are statutory requirements? Sound expensive, how much of this is reimbursed by the State and Federal government/
Kingsland-Smith
zero
Sabolinski
When I had asked Sally, Beth and Michelle to put this together, it was a real opportunity, they came together quickly and have done very well
Franklin, MA
Live reporting - School Committee
Present: Douglas, Cafasso, Rohrbach, Mullen, Roy, Trahan, Glynn
Absent: none
1. Routine Business
Citizen’s Comments
Review of Agenda - adding MSBA letter being added as an action item
Minutes: I recommend approval of the Open Session minutes from the April 27, 2010 School Committee Meeting. motion to approve, passed 7-0
Payment of Bills - Mr. Glynn motion to approve, passed 7-0
Payroll - Mrs. Douglas
FHS Student Representatives
What does OSKEY stand for - "Our School Key"
Night of the Arts at the high school at 7:00 PM, art show in the hall, all the bands and chorus will perform as well
Pat Slight - went in early for cross country
was well prepared for school, tested out of some Math classes
He did watch some meetings, couldn't top Brittany's return to the School Committee meeting
He is now class president
Franklin, MA
Absent: none
1. Routine Business
Citizen’s Comments
Review of Agenda - adding MSBA letter being added as an action item
Minutes: I recommend approval of the Open Session minutes from the April 27, 2010 School Committee Meeting. motion to approve, passed 7-0
Payment of Bills - Mr. Glynn motion to approve, passed 7-0
Payroll - Mrs. Douglas
FHS Student Representatives
What does OSKEY stand for - "Our School Key"
Night of the Arts at the high school at 7:00 PM, art show in the hall, all the bands and chorus will perform as well
Pat Slight - went in early for cross country
was well prepared for school, tested out of some Math classes
He did watch some meetings, couldn't top Brittany's return to the School Committee meeting
He is now class president
Franklin, MA
Override History updated
I met with Treasure/Collector Jim Dacey today to get into some of the stories around the overrides and debt exclusions. I ended up making an update to the spreadsheets to correct:
The history now shows only one override has passed of 6 put forward with the 7th override scheduled for June 8, 2010.
The updated spreadsheet can be found here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkwjbnXDBhczdDVWaFU0N2ZsTEE2TUVuWHk5NURvQWc&hl=en
Franklin, MA
- one typo (5/22/1998 should have been 5/2/1998)
- changed 6 election categories from "overrides" to "capital exclusions". All 6 occurred in 1991.
The history now shows only one override has passed of 6 put forward with the 7th override scheduled for June 8, 2010.
The updated spreadsheet can be found here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkwjbnXDBhczdDVWaFU0N2ZsTEE2TUVuWHk5NURvQWc&hl=en
Franklin, MA
Franklin, MA: Fire Dept presentation
This is the presentation document used by Chief Gary McCarraher and Paul Sharpe, Jr for the Budget Hearing at the Finance Committee meeting on May 10, 2010:
The discussion notes as captured live during the meeting can be found here:
http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2010/05/live-reporting-finance-committee_10.html
The discussion notes as captured live during the meeting can be found here:
http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2010/05/live-reporting-finance-committee_10.html
Reminder: Special Election - Precinct 2, 3, 4 only
SPECIAL STATE ELECTION
May 11th
Precincts 2-3-4 only
Franklin High School
6:00am – 8:00pm
If you have any questions please call
Deborah L. Pellegri, CMC
Town Clerk/Election Administrator 508-520-4900
Finance Committee 05/10/10
The collection of posts that were live reported from the Finance Committee meeting on Monday, May 10th can be found here:
Franklin, MA
Franklin, MA
Franklin Food Pantry - Stamp Out Hunger drive
About 40 volunteers got really organized to help the Franklin Food Pantry to process the receipts from the US Post Office letter carriers on Saturday, May 8th. As the letter carriers finished their routes, they drove by the Food Pantry to drop off the bags of food items they collected. Prompted by post cards and TV advertisements, as well as word of mouth, Franklin residents left out bags of non-perishable food to be donated.
With the new Food Pantry location in the middle of downtown, it was a convenient drive through operation. The trucks pulled up. A group took out all the bags of food stuffs.
Individual bags were put into letter boxes.
The bags and boxes were weighted.
The bags/boxes were opened and checked for "freshness dates". The good items were passed along to the sorters. The older items went into a waste box. Items that could not be determined by date when into a 'check later' box.
The sorters put like items together.
"flats" of similar items then stocked the shelves.
The shelves were completely empty early Saturday afternoon and filled up as the processing took place.
For those who did leave out a donation, the letter carriers left a thank you card:
Thanks to the many hands for helping to process over 5.000 pounds of food!
Strictly speaking, since the food was handled going in and then the spoils (waste) was handled again going out, we did go over 5,000. Which also excludes the multiple touches on a single item as it moved along the process.
Visit the Franklin Food Pantry online here: http://franklinfoodpantry.org/
With the new Food Pantry location in the middle of downtown, it was a convenient drive through operation. The trucks pulled up. A group took out all the bags of food stuffs.
Individual bags were put into letter boxes.
The bags and boxes were weighted.
The bags/boxes were opened and checked for "freshness dates". The good items were passed along to the sorters. The older items went into a waste box. Items that could not be determined by date when into a 'check later' box.
The sorters put like items together.
"flats" of similar items then stocked the shelves.
The shelves were completely empty early Saturday afternoon and filled up as the processing took place.
For those who did leave out a donation, the letter carriers left a thank you card:
Thanks to the many hands for helping to process over 5.000 pounds of food!
| Weight In | 4746.7 | ||
| Spoils | 877.2 | 18.48% | |
| Net | 3869.5 |
Strictly speaking, since the food was handled going in and then the spoils (waste) was handled again going out, we did go over 5,000. Which also excludes the multiple touches on a single item as it moved along the process.
Visit the Franklin Food Pantry online here: http://franklinfoodpantry.org/
Election costs reimbursed
Franklin will get about $12,000 back from the State for their costs in running the special election on Dec 8th and Jan 19th.
The full article can be found in the Milford Daily News here
http://www.milforddailynews.com/newsnow/x1920415040/Local-towns-get-money-back-for-special-election
Franklin, MA
The full article can be found in the Milford Daily News here
http://www.milforddailynews.com/newsnow/x1920415040/Local-towns-get-money-back-for-special-election
Franklin, MA
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