April 13, 2011 at 7:00 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Rationale:  The past three years, Ken has served as our Region VI Vice President and our Regional Secretary for three years before that. This year he ran for President-elect of our National Organization, against a candidate from California. After Ken put together campaign material, and spent the last week talking with people from all over the United States, Ken was elected as the National President Elect for the NAAE. This is a three year term-President Elect.

Rationale:  Our deep appreciation goes to Christine Vaccariello for her dedication and patient commitment to this tedious and physically demanding project.  In order to complete the tagging, Christine actually had to move every book in the library.  Each book had to be taken from its shelf, placed on a cart, and wheeled to the circulation desk.  The barcode had to be scanned, and a security tag had to be programmed and placed in the book before it was returned to its shelf.   Having to do this for nearly 17,000 items was a daunting task, but Christine completed it in addition to her regular library duties without complaint. We can't begin to express our respect for Christine and her conscientious, untiring work ethic.  We are grateful that she works with us in the high school library!

Rationale:  Members of the Killingly community are encouraged to share their thoughts with the Board of Education and are invited to do so during this segment of the meeting.  When appropriate to do so, members of the Board and the administration may respond to comments. However, in consideration of those in attendance and in an effort to proceed in a timely manner, follow-up discussion may need to take place outside of the meeting setting.

Rationale:  Killingly High School will host the 85th New England Music Festival in March, 2012.  The festival brings 500 student musicians and their teachers from Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut for three days of band, orchestra and choral rehearsals culminating with two Saturday concerts at the new Killingly High School.  KHS is a 30+ year participant, but has never hosted the event; the opening of our new high school is the perfect opportunity for us to do so.  Pam Rodgers and Jeff Ethier will coordinate all the work that needs to be accomplished for the festival to be a success, including housing, meals, and facility coordination

Rationale:  We have the opportunity to place an EASTCONN Head Start classroom at the high school, in the child development classroom in the northwest corner of the building.  A collaboration between KPS and EASTCONN would provide a number of advantages:

- support our UCONN Human Development/Lifespan Development course
- provide young children for observation by and interaction with our students, without the need to recruit
- maximize productive use of the space
- possible expansion of Head Start, increasing number of high quality pre-school slots available in the community
- improve coordination between high school child development courses, Head Start, Goodyear and kindergarten.

We want to introduce the concept for Board feedback, with approval at the May meeting.  Besides Board approval, there are a number of other logistical challenges that must be overcome, such as  Head Start governing board approval, and funding for modifications to the space to meet federal requirements.

Rationale:  The Town Council will continue to review the general government budget and work towards finalizing and adopting a budget to present at the Town Meeting on May 2.  They have scheduled their review meetings during the next two weeks, with a final date for adoption no later than April 21.  There is also the Public Hearing on the budget on Thursday, April 14 at KHS.

Rationale:  Our supplemental appropriation request for $103,203 for snow removal from the school roofs is scheduled for a town meeting and vote during the Town Council meeting on April 12.  I will report on the results.

Rationale:  With the passing of Barbara Otero, the board must determine the future of our food services program.  We have temporarily hired an interim manager to complete the school year.  Moving forward, there are three options: hire a new food services director and keep the entire program and management in-house; contract out the management and supervision of the program but retain control of our other employees, purchasing and day to day operations; or fully contract out the program.

Contracting of any services requires a bid process defined by the SDE and takes 60-90 days to complete.  I would recommend the board create an ad hoc committee to study the alternatives and quickly make a recommendation to the board so we are ready for the 2011-12 school year.

Rationale:  payment of bills for the 2010-11 year in March in the amount of  $1,475,822.33

Rationale:  Killingly Public School's Summer Feed Program is one we have run for the past fifteen years. This is a federally funded program run through the State Dept. of Education, Child Nutrition Unit with absolutely no cost to us.
During the Summer Feed Program of 2009/10 we fed approximately 300 Killingly children per day for 5 weeks. Throughout the years we have noted the extreme need for summer meals for our children and the need has become far greater than ever.

The current 7 sites we feed includes: Robinwood Apartments, Owen Bell Park Recreation, Dempsey Regional Camp Quinebaug, SCORE, Quebec Square, Goodyear/FRC and an open site in Davis Park. All these meals are served to children between the ages of 0-18 at no cost to them.

With the economic times as they are the need to reach out to those in need continues to grow. This year approximately 48% of our students qualify for free or reduced meals, justifying the need to continue to run a summer feed program.

Board approval of the program is necessary for participation.

Rationale:  Last month the Board reviewed a draft of the 2011-12 school calendar.  The calendar conforms with the EASTCONN regional calendar for the start of the school year and all major holidays, which will maximize transportation savings across the region.

The only change to the calendar was the rescheduling of several ERD days to accommodate the date for hosting NEMFA.

Rationale:  Alexis and I have held several meetings subsequent to their presentation to the Board with Tom Dooley, Director of Parks & Rec, and Melissa Phillips, Chairperson of the Recreation Commission, to ascertain the feasibility of housing Camp Wallaby at KCS this summer.  The meetings were frank and covered many issues of mutual concern.  After consulting with Joan Gardner and Paul Mailhot, and adjustments to the program made by P&R,  we believe that we can host Camp Wallaby at KCS with minimal disruption to the regular summer cleaning and maintenance at the school.  Attached are the notes from our final meeting, summarizing the operational agreements we reached.

I would recommend that the Board approve this partnership with the Recreation Commission for this summer only.  At the completion of the camp program, we will assess its impact on our summer schedule and report back to the board.

Rationale:  Two of the three teachers non-renewed by the Board at the March 23 meeting have since decided to resign.  In deference to their wishes, I would recommend that the Board rescind their prior action and expunge the record.