Live reporting - Closing

School Committee Sub-Committee Reports

Space Needs subcommittee met today, meeting again, Oct 5th

getting data needed on the facilities from Mike D'Angelo

School Committee Liaison Reports
none

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

Rohrbach - congratulations to Jeff Roy and Jeff Nutting for successfully completing their PanMass Challenge ride

7. Executive Session
Contractual Negotiations


Motion to enter execution session, no intention to return to open meeting, passed 7-0



Franklin, MA

Live reporting - Superintendent update

3. Discussion Only Items - none

4. Action Items - none

5. Information Matters

Superintendent’s Report
a. MSBA Update 
architect negotiations underway

b. Personnel Update
still looking to fulfill some positions


c. Schedules / Teacher Assignments
should be out next week, been getting phone calls on teacher assignments

d. Center For American Progress

Franklin selected as a spotlight district for ROI.

Selected by a Washington, DC think-tank

used a variety of data to per pupil numbers, from state websites, and national databases, took out Special Ed costs, looked at AP scores

looked at 15,000 districts

e. New Staff Orientation (8/24, 25, 26 – RMS 8:00 A.M.)

we have had a lot of personnel changes over the summer
OT/PT consultants were hired instead of being outsources via the collaborative
three new health PE teachers, foreign language teachers moved to the high school
unexpected resignations during the summer
7 teachers were non-renewed who were not performing up to district standards during their 1-2-or 3 year before they obtained their professional status


enrollments continuing to grow, 20 this week alone
6th grade classes are at 28-29


f. Foreign Language Technology Presentation
met with Rosetta Stone
maybe able to utilize in a future budget year


g. Proposed School Committee Presentations 2010-11

very general outline on forthcoming presentations (to be shared post meeting)


Meeting with committee on full-day vs. half-day kindergarten
should be ready to report in January

Rohrbach - some people don't realize how much the administration does to help

Glynn - do you think there is an opportunity to help the foreign language situation we have?
Sabolinski - Kristy and Michelle are looking at that, once the students come back we want to get a survey out to see how many students would be interested.


Franklin, MA

Live reporting - District Improvement Plan

2. Guests/Presentations

b. District Improvement Plan

Sally Winslow (asst Superintendent), Maureen Sabolinski (Superintendent), Michele Kingsland-Smith

The document being discussed was posted earlier and can be found here
http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2010/08/franklin-ma-public-schools-district.html

1st goal - page 4

From the Strategic Plan they developed the first DIP
Next year, to continue the evolution of the planning process, the whole team will be here to present

developing district wide benchmarks for writing for each grade level
writing expectations in the sense of genre themes (friendly letter, list, story, etc.)

Inching towards 2014, where every student should be at 100%
while we are a high performing district, our growth rate is slowing
in the next MCAS cycle, the bar will be raised higher

Will need to update this for the new core standards that MA just accepted

2nd goal - page 5

Learning how to use the data
Learning walks, how can we work together to be better
a departure in culture, empowering our teachers and teacher leaders
need to develop a communication plan, how it should be communicated out

3rd goal - page 6

Sally - updated to include other data sources
K-12 health wellness added
MA bullying prevention requirements, evidence based
develop curriculum with kids participation
using the open circle as more a proactive than reactive tool
utilize the bullying task force to help in this area

4th goal - page 7

updating the emergency plans to account for staffing changes, new principals
training for all staff required by the MA bullying requirements
attempting to do similar to the Ethics regulations, PowerPoint, and sign-off

Q - Glynn - Does DESE provide training materials?
Winslow - They did provide some at the training but they are supposed to be supplying more
Sabolinski - We are so far ahead of other districts, we would likely take what DESE provides and customize it to our needs, we are poised to use open circle having used it for 10 years

Q - Glynn - is there any quantitative measure to this?
Sabolinski - there will be, there is not yet currently, DESE hasn't established the source yet, the timeline is for September, so we are awaiting their guidelines, we do anticipate having additional data points to work with

5th goal - page 8

Leveraging positive relationships with Dean College to expand in this area
Healthy futures with the Y, Miriam spent time in Boston on the nutrition conference, helping student makes better decisions

6th goal - page 8

Our community resources are dwindling

Evaluation resources are more structure to provide implementation status

Added an observation check list to set some consistent instructional expectations across the district
minimal instructional info for lesson plans

I add that wile the Strategic Plan (which I had helped to work on with the Steering Committee) has come a long way, it is really being fleshed out nicely. The community relationship section is lacking however, we (the big group 'we') have an issue with getting sufficient funding. One commenter already asked where the PCC's were? We should add something more in this section. Specifically to engage the community.


Franklin, MA

Live reporting - 5 minute recess

5 minute recess to allow the principals to clear the room and the remainder of the meeting to continue


Franklin, MA

Live reporting - Middle Schools/ High School

continuing the

2. Guests/Presentations
a. School Handbooks - Middle School Principals

similar updates, effort to work together on getting the handbooks more user friendly and equitable
recognizing that going green has been bringing good benefits, not just financially

There are very much consistent with quality handbooks that you would see anywhere else

----

Derek Folan, Asst Principal, representing the High School

This year was much more of a tune up for the handbook
Kept notes during the year on parent questions and from other events that occurred during the year
Change to more explicit language to help explain the policy

College visits
verbal request before May 1 okay, post May 1 - requires Asst Principal approval
found a few students making college visits after they had already committed to a college

Absences
when the number is exceeded per term, the student is in jeopardy of loosing credit for that course that term
Lays out the what the guidance and appeal process is
going to use Plato an online tool for credit recovery of classes missed to earn credit back
if the student doesn't pass the Plato option, then the student would have to re-take the course
Plato covers the core courses (math science, etc.) other courses could be designed and added by the teachers

Discipline
Data on class cutting jumped dramatically, used social suspension as required

Dismissals from school
nothing new here, some pieces made more explicit for parents.

Per notes from the year, added cheat sheets, notes, etc.

Q - Cafasso - "What is unauthorized collaboration on an assignment?" can you give an example
This came from a specific instance, a collaborative project worked together on the data but the report had to be individually written.

Q - Cafasso - how do you define unauthorized use of computers?
The students were to research and provide definitions and terms on their own

Q - Cafasso - Do you use a scanning tool to find plagiarism?
Yes, "Turn it in dot com. Primarily to scan the English writing projects.

Q - Cafasso - Do you think there is
We try to teach them to use these devices responsibly. Cell phone use policy changes worked nicely.

Academic Assistance
moving the tutoring to the tech center to make it more visible

Due Process Rights and Procedures
this change was done across the board in the district based upon advice from the school district's Attorney
teachers can authorize use of devices for educational purposes after conversation with an Asst Principal; the conversation is more to alert the Asst Principal into the specific and accepted use of such devices and circumstances

high school used the middle school template for the bullying/cyberbullying

Q - Cafasso - Can we get a full and finished copy?
Yes, that would be easy.

Sabolinski - at the next meeting you'll be asked to vote to accept these handbooks as part of the action items
I'd like to compliment the high school, they are getting away from punitive measures and they are making progress, student dropouts are down, student discipline is down, they are helping to form young adults to make good choices.

Add the requirement for a "Constitution Day" to the handbooks


Franklin, MA

Live reporting - Elementary principals

2. Guests/Presentations
a. School Handbooks - Principals




Sally Winslow - provided an overview on handbooks
All the Elementary school principals, and Karen Seyfried (ECDC)

Statement in five major native languages present in the district
Documents to be converted to HTML format which will enable an automatic selection of language
Student friendly language
consistent policies across the schools
policy on early childhood school readiness added
new policy on bullying/cyberbulling added to the handbooks
principals work on this effort to apply it to each of the levels within the district

I reported on my survey results of the handbooks on the websites this afternoon.
They were all found but some were called "family", some "student", some had the school name and one had "parent"
Could there be some consistency in the naming of them; perhaps using the school name to reflect some of the specialization that each does.



Franklin, MA

Live reporting - School Committee

Present: Douglas, Cafasso, Rohrbach, Mullen, Roy, Trahan, Glynn
Absent: none

1. Routine Business

Citizen’s Comments - none

Review of Agenda - no adjustments

Minutes: I recommend approval of the minutes from the Executive Session and Open Session of the July 20, 2010 School Committee Meeting.

Motion to approve, passed 6-0 (1 abstain)

Payment of Bills - Mr. Glynn
Motion to approve, passed 7-0

Payroll - Mrs. Douglas

FHS Student Representatives


Correspondence: none



Franklin, MA