January 10, 2007 at 7:00 PM - Regular Board of Education Meeting

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Rationale:  Joseph Fleming's first day at Killingly High School will be on Thursday, January 4.  He will be briefed by Mary Christian whose last day of work is Friday, January 5.

Rationale:  Richard Murray will be asking the Board to honor this month's volunteer.

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Rationale:  An updated budget calendar will be distributed.  Fiscal Committee meeting dates need to be established.

Rationale:  Lynda Fosco will be at the meeting to give a brief report on the Head Start program.

Rationale:  Barbara Otero will be giving a brief report on the status of the food services program, updating her report from October 2005 and including the impact of catering for Head Start.

Rationale:  Although we have not received the State Department of Education's projection for comparison purposes, NESDEC has provided us with enrollment projections for next year.  Overall, projected enrollments are flat showing no signficant increase or decrease in student population.

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Rationale:  The preliminary proposal for a Middle College Magnet High School was shared with the Board at its November 1 meeting, a follow up to the multi-district forum held on October 5 at QVCC.  The conceptual proposal anticipates a collaborative project with the Windham, Plainfield, Putnam, Thompson and Killingly Public Schools and QVCC as partners.  Since that meeting, two planning committees have been convened to develop the operational plan: governance and policy, and curriculum and instruction.  A complete operational plan must be submitted to SDE by October 2007, in anticipation of a school opening in September 2008.

At this point in the process, a commitment of the BOE is necessary to indicate the district's willingness to participate in the development of the operational plan.  The planning team is also requesting a financial commitment of $1,000 to defray development costs.

Rationale:  One of the Board's significant goals this year was to develop a newsletter that would share school district activities with the entire community.  First Experience Communications, a communications and public relations firm with more than twenty years of experience (much of it working with school districts throughout Connecticut), is wiling to work with us to meet the Board's goal to improve communications with all stakeholder groups in the community.  As a first step, they would like to meet with a subcommittee of the board to plan the first newsletter and a survey instrument that would be included.

In accordance with Policy #9132, the BOE Chair appoints  members to committees.  If you are interested in serving on this committee, please let Mr. Murray know so that he can appoint the committee at this meeting.

Rationale:  It has come to our attention that many seniors have not completed the two sub-tasks in PGR #1 listed above.  This is the first senior class required to meet this particular requirement.  Since it is unlikely that a procedure can be created to successfully meet the needs of most students, we recommend that the Board exempt the Class of 2007 from this requirement.