Our gymnastics team took home State Championship honors. They won the Class S title. Coached by Robin Deary-Fillmore, this gritty and tenacious group of young ladies put on quite a performance at the state championship. Members of the Killingly team were Lexi Gevry, Lexi Mazzarella, Taylor Mazzarella, Hailey Cummings, Donna Candilloro, and Julia Connolly. Additional Killingly honors included a second place finish in the ECC and a fifth place finish in the State Open. We should be very proud of their accomplishments.

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.

EA Aschenbrenner, EASTCONN's director of early childhood initiatives, will report on the first year of the Headstart classroom located in KHS and the collaboration between high school and Headstart staff.

Mike Vose and Andy Rockett will address the Status of the Freshman Center, and Preparations for the 2012-13 school year.

A reminder of key dates:

- Thursday, April 12:  Public Hearing
- Monday, May 7:       Town Meeting
- Tuesday, May 15:     Referendum

The Town Council will be determining what budget to send to Town Meeting during the week following the public hearing.

As you know, Governor Malloy declared that 2012 is the year of education.  His proposals were represented in the original draft of SB24.  The General Assembly's Education Committee has made modifications to the draft and voted it out of committee.  The Appropriations Committee made additional changes.  I will review the status of the bill and some of it's more significant elements, and briefly discuss some components of the SDE NCLB waiver application to the Federal DOE.

We have almost completed negotiations with the IA group, and will start negotiations with the Secretaries/Custodians, Nurses, and Transportation groups on April 30.  The Negotiations Committee needs to meet to give the negotiations team parameters and authority.

Board members were given copies of the Research and Recommendations report from the Commission a few weeks ago.  They will be briefly reviewed.  If you have any questions, please let me know.

 approval of... 
 
a. Fiscal and Special Minutes from March 7, 2012

b. March 14, 2012 Minutes

c. March 28, 2012 Minutes

d. Special Joint Meeting  with Town Council Minutes from  March 31, 2012

e. payment of bills for the month of March 2012, in the amount of $1,396,450.60

f. Checks issued in March 2012

g. April EOM Nominee(s)

h.  Summer Food Program

i.  Year to Date Financial Report

was not attached at the March 14 meeting

Summer Food Program Killingly Public School's Summer Feed Program is one we have run for the past sixteen years. This is a federally funded program run through the State Department of Education Child Nutrition Unit with absolutely no cost to us.

During the Summer Feed Program of 2011 we fed on average 380 Killingly children per day for 5 weeks, serving almost 11,000 meals. 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 11 sites we feed include: Robinwood Apartments, Owen Bell Park Recreation, Camp Wallaby, 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.

At the last Board meeting, the Board was asked to consider converting the last student day of this school year from a student attendance day to a professional development day for staff. Presently the last day of school for students is Monday, June 18; for teachers it is Tuesday, June 19. [High school graduation is Friday, June 22.] The administrative team believes that the last day for students, being on a Monday, would have minimal educational value for students, but would have great value as professional development days. Killingly has 184 student attendance days, in excess of the state required 180. In the past, the Board has been willing to convert days when the last day is a Monday.

Principals will be working on plans for the two days; they will be shared at the May board meeting.

Upon review of the 2012-13 calendar the Board approved last month, we realized that when we made October 9 a professional development day, we did not move a student attendance day to June.  Consequently, the last day of school is June 14 (not June 13).  The Board must re-approve the calendar with the change.