March 11, 2009 at 7:00 PM - Regular Meeting Template

Rationale: 

Rationale:  February's Employees of the Month, Alan Messier and William Guillot, should be at the meeting for the Board members to recognize.

Rationale:  Friends of Learning in Killingly is a philanthropic initiative created by the KHS Class of 1966.  Janice Ahola-Sidaway, founder of FOLK, and a representative from Greater Worcester Community Foundation will be present to announce the awards of the grant recipients for 2009.  There is a celebration before the board meeting at 6:00 p.m. at the town hall.  Refreshments will be served.

Rationale:  Marilyn Oat will report on the KMS news.

Rationale:  Ben will share the draft District Technology Plan for July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2012.  The district's Technology Committee has been hard at work on revising our current plan since early in the school year.  These triennial plans are required by the State Department of Education so that they can qualify for Federal technology funding; they must have approved plans from every district in the state.

The plan (and format) is similar in many ways to the one approved by the Board three years ago, updated for our current status.  The process has three parts:
   - plan development, supported by EASTCONN
   - plan review by EASTCONN for completeness
   - plan approval by the BOE
We are then required to submit the approved plan to SDE no later than June 15.

The goal tonight is to introduce the plan to the Board; approval of the plan will be on the April agenda.

One caveat: as you review the plan, understand that the budget presented is an estimate only, completely subject to annual Board budget allocations.  All members of the Technology Committee recognize this; included in that section is the following note: "The yearly budget charts below describe our best estimate regarding the funding requested to implement the Killingly School District’s Long Range Technology Plan from July 2009 through June 2012.  The information contained in these budget charts is meant to serve as a guide for planning future district budgets.  By approving the newly revised Killingly School District’s Long Range Technology Plan, the Board of Education is approving the tech plan in concept with the understanding that action items will be accomplished based on each year’s funding level."

Rationale: 

Rationale:  Attached is an updated budget timeline produced by Bruce Benway.  Please take note of the various meeting dates when the Town Council will be considering the budget. 

Rationale:  I am pleased to report that the SDE has informed us that we are one of twenty-five districts previously in Needs Intervention to meet the requirements as outlined in the P.J. Settlement Agreement.  As a result, we will not be required to submit additional data.  Kudos to Bonnie, Jackie and their staff for all their hard work!

Rationale:  With the snow day this past week, the last day of school for this year is now Friday, June 19 - the same day as high school graduation.  Hopefully, the weather gods will cooperate and we'll not need any more snow days.

Regarding the 2009-2010 calendar, I will not have a draft calendar for Board review until sometime in April as we wait for Gilbane to update the construction timeline at the end of the winter.  Attached is the approved EASTCONN regional calendar which we always use as a base for designing our calendar.  I am reasonably confident that our proposed calendar for next year will align with the EASTCONN calendar for the start date, and Christmas and February vacations.  April vacation is the unknown for us - we will need to align with the move into the new building.  And that will impact the last day of school.

Rationale:  Approval of Consent Agenda items include:

a. approval of regular meeting minutes of February 11, 2009 and February 25, 2009
b. approval of payment of bills for the year 2008-2009 year in February in the amount of $992,214.31
c. approval of Employee of the Month
d. approval of Interdistrict Cooperative Grant

Rationale:  The Town moved the public hearing date from April 9 to April 7.  That will require the Board to change the meeting that was scheduled for April 7.

Rationale:  At it's special meeting on March 4, The Board reviewed the base budget, reductions and decision packages recommended by the Fiscal Committee.  Please forward any additional questions to me so that we can be prepared to address those at this meeting.  The Board must adopt the budget this evening so that is can be forwarded to the Town Manager by March 15 (March 13, this year) as required by the Town Charter.

Rationale: 

Research tells us that taking AP Exams and courses in high school helps students complete their bachelor’s degree on time, which is something most students no longer accomplish.  By facilitating on-time degree completion, AP allows students and their families to reduce the likelihood of incurring expenses related to a fifth or sixth year in college.  AP has also emerged as an important factor in college scholarship decisions.