October 10, 2012 at 7:00 PM - October 10 2012 Regular BOE Meeting

Rationale: 

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: 

Rationale:  Per the conversation with Town Council on October 2, 2012 at the Joint Meeting of the BOE and the Town Council I recommend that the BOE support the Central Office Relocation by transferring no more than $36, 350 for the furnishings portion of the costs with the remainder, approximately, $60,000, anticipated from the Town Council by the end of November.  The funds would come from the Teacher Salary line item due to recent breakage from retirements.

Rationale:  The Danielson Rotary Club is sponsoring the 29th Annual Teacher of the Year Banquet for Killingly, Brooklyn and Ellis Tech on Thursday, November 1 at 6:00 p.m. at the Imperial Room. Board members are encouraged to attend this festive evening. Please let Keely know if you'd like to attend.

Rationale:  This past summer, the State Board of Education adopted new guidelines for teacher and administrator evaluation and support.  The guidelines are attached. 

The state has also developed a model that districts can utilize if they so choose.  This model, called the System for Educator Evaluation and Development, or SEED, is being piloted this year. 

All districts must align their evaluation and support plans to meet the state guidelines.  Districts can opt to utilize all, part, or none of the state model in their plan, as long as the plan that they implement meets the state guidelines. 

Districts must implement their new evaluation and support plan beginning in the 2013 - 2014 school year. 

Rationale:  We received feedback from the CT SDE regarding our Alliance District application.  We have been asked to make some minor revisions and will resubmit the proposal. 

Rationale:  KHS Full time Speech-Language Pathologist Recommendation

Caseload:  The caseload would consist of approximately 30 students (20 high school and 10 8th graders at KIS) with diagnoses ranging from Speech and Language impaired, emotionally disturbed, autism, hearing impairment, and cerebral palsy.  There are also 2 students who are English Language Learners on the caseload.

Hours of Service:  A majority of the students receive 30 minutes of service per week, with the exception of 3 students who receive an hour of speech/language per week.

Meetings:Each of the students on the caseload has an annual review, which is approximately 3-4 hours of time per student when considering testing, consulting and report writing.

Consultation:  Some of the high school students require classroom accommodations for diagnoses that include, but not limited to, central auditory processing disorder.  Meeting with regular education teachers and special education teachers to discuss these accommodations is necessary to make sure strategies are being implemented in the classroom.  Consultation with regular education teachers is necessary for generalization of skills (i.e. using classroom materials opposed to worksheets to help with comprehension) having time in the schedule to manage this workload responsibility is crucial.

Having an additional full time SLP to service the high school and some middle school students would allow for the opportunity for the current KIS SLP to remain in compliance with all IEP's.

Funding for this position will come from the teacher's salary line item as we have hired a number of new teachers below the level of those that recently retired.

In addition we are currently paying EASTCONN, $600/day, two days a week to just fill some gaps in order to prevent a compliance situation.  If a new position exists then this would be removed immediately upon hiring the new staff member.

Rationale:  There are some changes to the annual draft calendar. Second meetings of the month, previously reserved for Lighthouse Training will now focus on one or two agenda items that the Board Chair and Superintendent deem important to discuss. Although it is necessarry to have certain and specific agenda items annually on the calendar, i.e., field trip requests, district school calendars, CMT/CAPT, budget adoptions. The calendar is more or less to keep us on track and a reminder of annual items that should be discussed and reviewed. The agenda items can changed as needed.  Also, administrative reports will be more flexible in respect to monthly scheduled reports. Instead, administrators will be asked to share important information/events as it arises and to share the information at Board meetings.

Rationale:  October 1 is the official date for reporting student enrollment to the state for all state reports, ECS aid, and projections. Attached is a report showing the October 1, 2011 enrollment compared to October 1, 2012.

Rationale:  This action is necessary should the board want to appoint a voting delegate to the Delegate Assembly at the CABE/Capss Convention in November. The Assembly is held the day before the convention starts which would be Thursday, November 15. In the past, the board has also selected an alternative.