by David Flint
More than a year and a half after Toni Diamond retired as Superintendent of the Berlin School District the School Board is taking steps to find a permanent replacement. At the Board meeting Tuesday evening the Board heard presentations from a consulting firm and from Questar III regarding initiating and carrying out a Superintendent search. Both made note of the fact that it’s a tight market right now for school leadership positions. A typical pool size currently for Superintendents is about 20 candidates.
Bill Silky and Phil Martin from Costallo & Silky Educational Consultants gave a rundown on their company which they said had over 20 years experience in statewide searches. They provided the Board with information on Superintendent salaries in surrounding districts as well as salaries advertised in the past year. The firm would work with the Board to determine desired attributes, develop a brochure, involve stakeholders, find, screen and interview candidates and develop a contract. A typical search and hiring process would take four to five months and would cost about $15,000.
James Baldwin, District Superintendent of Questar III BOCES, said that Questar would work with the Board to design a process that meets the needs of the community. They would develop an attractive brochure, search for candidates, work with stakeholder groups and work up an interview process. Some searches have been completed in eight weeks, but they usually take a number of months. Questar does not charge for these services. The District would pay only for printing and for advertising, a matter of a few thousand dollars. Baldwin emphasized that stakeholders do not rank candidates and the final decision is totally the Board’s to make. He urged the Board to think seriously about the particular challenges they face and the qualifications desired in a Superintendent. “If you are not convinced,” he said, “don’t hire! It’s no favor to you or to them.”
Questar III Update
Baldwin also provided the Board with an update on all of Questar III’s services and philosophy. Questar III serves 23 school districts in Rensselaer, Columbia and Greene Counties and is one of 37 BOCES districts in the State. Some 250 instructional and support services are developed in collaboration with the member school districts.
Baldwin noted that while Career and Technical Education (CTE) graduation rates are 90%, regional graduation rates in general education have plateaued at about the 82% level. He feels this is not acceptable, and Questar is looking for solutions with alternative forms of education.
Responding to a question from Board Member Tom Morelli about how ready our graduates are to compete in the global economy, Baldwin said that business people in the area feel that college graduates as well as high school graduates in general are lacking the skills necessary to work as a team, make presentations effectively or work in inter-group analysis. Baldwin pointed to middle school where students tend to start tuning out. Performance in middle school, he said, is a good predictor of what will happen in high school. To reform high schools, he said, we need to replicate models like the Tech Valley High School and some of what goes on in CTE. We also need to take a close look at middle schools and determine how better to engage students in active learning pursuits. Middle schools, he said, are operating pretty much as they were back in the 60s, yet the students’ life experiences have changed drastically. Today’s middle school works for some but for too many, used to exponentially changing technology, our ability to keep up has been much strained.
Grafton Transition And Budget Considerations
Board Member Beverly Stewart brought up the question of transitioning Grafton students to Berlin Elementary School which is tentatively planned for the fall of 2010. It would be “more than a tight squeeze,” she said, especially since some resource rooms including music and computer lab will already have been lost with the addition of Stephentown students in the coming year. Interim Superintendent Charlotte Gregory responded that the music room would not be displaced with the Stephentown transition and the reason for eliminating the computer lab was because teachers wanted more computers in the classrooms. But Stewart recalled that just three months ago the Board was agreeing that they needed six new classrooms at Berlin to meet basic requirements for accommodating Stephentown and Grafton and they had also talked about the need for top notch music and art programs. Stewart did not understand how they could be told now that they can do it without spending the $3.2 million that was projected earlier. Moving Grafton in 2010, she concluded, is a bad idea that would have a negative impact on all the students. She suggested that the Board determine how well the Stephentown transition goes before making definite plans to move Grafton as well. Board President Frank Zwack responded that a lot of tough choices are being made at this time all across the State. “There are just so many tax dollars to go around. We will have to make educationally based compromises. We can’t afford everything,” he said. Board Member Don French agreed but said there are certain areas out of bounds, for example, “putting kids into a school that’s not big enough,” he said. Board Member Julie Darling suggested that construction to get the Berlin building into ADA compliance should be completed before Grafton is moved. “We need a quiet, safe school. I’m concerned about closing Grafton too soon.”
Morelli agreed that the Board might be “getting ahead of ourselves.” He felt that the savings from closing Stephentown should be verified before going ahead with Grafton. Stephentown, he said, was being asked to give up their school but the current state of the budget indicates that they will be asked to pay higher taxes on top of that.
Morelli estimated there was a $750,000 budget gap that needed to be filled. “We haven’t gone deep enough in the budget to figure out where the waste is,” he said. Morelli also objected that there had been no response from the CSEA or the teachers union or from the administration staff either as to how they proposed to help with the budget gap. Gregory cautioned that union negotiations should not be discussed in open session, but Morelli was adamant that, “We have a large problem, and I’m not feeling that we have been engaged.”
Action Deferred For Better Budget Info
Several Action Items were deferred until the workshop meeting on March 31 when it is expected there might be better information of what aid is to be expected from the State. One was expenditure of $100,000 received from a legislative item grant for a Distance Learning project. Most of that would go to set up the hardware, but it is unclear what future costs might be to maintain it or whether the school’s bandwidth can accommodate it. The administration was asked to complete an overall study of the District’s technology platform by March 31.
Approval was also deferred for three propositions to be presented to the voters in May: a school bus purchase including two vans and three 65-passenger buses for a total of $1,385,000; a $100,000 capital project proposition for ADA compliance construction at Berlin Elementary School, and a capital project in the amount of $1,385,000 also for ADA compliance work at Berlin Elementary to be aided with State Excel funds.
Investment Policy
Interim Business Administrator Scott Hunter reported that the investment policy of the District had been reviewed by BOCES and found to be sound and in compliance with all laws and regulations. The policy, however, calls for diversification, and Hunter said the District had no means to diversify until they joined the cooperative investment organization MBIA/NYCLASS last month.
Hunter said that in response to a request from the Board he had invited the Bank of America to speak to the Board. They had declined but agreed to a teleconference that included Board Member Liz Miller. Bank officials said that liquidity of the District’s assets invested with them was assured. They agreed that diversification was important and had no problem with the District moving some assets to MBIA/NYCLASS.
Morelli noted that liquidity with Bank of America CDs was assured, and he tried to pin down what the decision making process of the Business Office would be for transferring assets to the cooperative. Hunter said the Treasurer would make those decisions. He eventually agreed to provide a written outline for the process to be followed in diversification.
Geometry & Algebra
Math Coordinator Lauren Nichols presented an update on geometry and algebra. Diagnostic and placement tests in integrated algebra indicate that 54% are on or above course level, 35% need some extra help and 11% need more intensive help from academic intervention services (AIS). The test results show what areas need improvement, such as operations with fractions and percent proportions. The implications for the Middle School are that more attention needs to be paid to mastery of basic number concepts representing fractions and decimals, greatest common factors and plotting points on a coordinate plane.
In the first year of the implementation of the geometry course, Nichols reported that diagnostic test results were “bleak,” showing that 10% of students need some extra help and 90% need more intensive help at the AIS level. A geometry practice test produced results not as bad – 56% met or exceeded the learning standards and 43% met the learning standards partially. Nichols said that specific intervention would include correcting the test together with students and re-teaching the concepts, re-evaluating students and providing additional help daily during study hall, the last 20 minutes of lunch and in the planning period.
Inauguration Trip
Representatives from among the 40 students who travelled to Washington D.C. in January to witness the Inauguration of President Obama made a presentation to the Board about their trip. Among the students were Student Council President John Zwack, Rachel Barnum, Nicholas Despart, Erika Pelletier, Arizona Martigali, Taylor Mazzeo, Kirstin Hodges, Deanna Nash, Kasey Day and Shawn Vasilatos. The students recounted their visits to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Monument, the Museums of Natural History and American History, Arlington Cemetery and the Butterfly Garden. But above all they conveyed how impressed they were witnessing history in the Inauguration of the nation’s first African-American President. As Erika Pelletier put it, “Obama chose hope over fear,” inspiring the students with hope, though warning that there would be hard days and change would take time. Kasey Day said it was, “The most amazing experience of my life.” And Shawn Vasilatos said that while he had his differences with Obama, he yet felt inspired listening to him speak.
Students Against Destructive Decisions
Members of the group Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) along with School Nurse Teacher Kellie Kaschak made a dramatic presentation to the Board on “Building a Stronger Community.” The students included senior Brad Deyo and freshmen Tim Hogan and Marissa Sweener. Kaschak said the overarching goal of the group is to have the community be aware that there is a problem in the community with alcohol, tobacco and drug use among youth.
Data from a survey they showed indicate that more than half of Berlin tenth and twelfth-graders and more than 30% of eighth-graders had used alcohol in the past 30 days, and this rate exceeds the rate for Rensselaer County as a whole. Cigarette use in the Berlin schools far exceeds the County rate with past 30-day use of 17%, 23% and 25% in eighth, tenth and twelfth grades versus 7%, 10% and 18% county-wide. Also astonishing in these survey results is the use of marijuana in eighth grade (17%) and tenth grade (35%), versus about 6% and 19% county-wide.
The students listed risk factors and preventive factors that work together and contribute to youths’ decision to use alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. These factors include rewards or lack thereof for participation in community activities, feeling bonded or not to the neighborhood, presence or lack of community based activities for youth, perceived availability of drugs, parental attitudes about drugs and community laws and standards that may or may not be favorable toward drug use. SADD believes that by joining together as a community we can strengthen our foundation and increase healthy behaviors among our youth. To that end they are planning a Town Hall Meeting probably somewhere in Berlin in early April.
Upcoming Meetings
The Board set budget workshop meetings for Tuesday, March 31, at 7 pm and Thursday, April 9, at 6:30 pm. They set their next regular meeting for Tuesday, April 21, at 7 pm.