January 7, 2015 at 6:30 PM - Regular Board of Education Meeting

Rationale:  Tim King and some members of the newly crowned state champion football team will be present so that the Board can recognize them for this honor.

Rationale:  Please note the personnel report as you will find updated employee information reflected in it.

Please take note of the January enrollment report. We have a total of 1,354 students (in-house) enrolled. As a part of our budget development process and in terms of long range planning, we have updated our staffing proposals based on the current and projected enrollments. 
Congratulations to our LOLHS Mock Trial Team as they were Regional Champions in their first year of competition!  In a stunning victory, the first year team won both of their trials and beat out 10 other teams to advance to the quarter finals on January 26th along with Mercy High School.

As noted in an e-mail to the Board in December, we have been recognized in a number of very positive articles in The Day newspaper.  The content of these articles was varied demonstrating our success in a wide range of activities from athletics to pro active discipline measures.  We even made the front page of the paper with a wonderful article on our winter choral concert where we performed the work of a local composer.  Congratulations to all involved in this positive recognition of our schools.

As a reminder, please clear your schedule for the next three Wednesday evenings.  We have our annual budget workshops beginning next week when the principals will present their school budgets.  I have attached the budget calendar as a reminder of the schedule for the next couple of months.

In other budget news, we had a very successful final borrowing for the high school project.  On December 16 we had our bid opening for $5 million in bonds and $1.5 million in short term notes.  Due to our strong Aa1 rating from Moody's, we have borrowed the 5 million at the low rate of 2.58% over 20 years.  Our short term note rate for the 1.5 million is .424%.  These put us in a great position for future budgets in terms of debt service costs. 

Rationale:  Mrs. McCalla will provide a year to date budget status report as well as a contingency fund report.  

Rationale:  Mr. Rhodes and members of our technology team will provide an update on the status of our technology planning.

Rationale:  The Board of Education meeting schedule for the 2015-2016 school year is enclosed. The schedule remains the same as it has been with meetings scheduled for the first Wednesday of each month. This schedule must be posted in the town halls this month and, therefore, requires Board action for approval to post.

Rationale:  See attached resolution for the Lyme School Roof Replacement Project which requires Board approval.

Rationale:  Increasing the number of security cameras is part of the 14-15 Facilities Capital Projects budget. These cameras will be installed at Mile Creek School, Center School, the Middle School, and Lyme Consolidated School. Once they are installed, we will have security camera coverage of our school hallways, outside doors and elementary school playgrounds.

See attached detail supplied by John Rhodes.

Rationale:  The proposed 2015-16 school calendar is attached for approval and therefore requires Board action.  As previously noted, with the new regional requirements, there is little flexibility in this decision.  This requires Board action.

Rationale:  The Board will conduct the Superintendent’s mid-year review which takes place via an informal feedback session to assess mid-year performance

Rationale:  The Board will review pending litigation.