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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-01-06-SC-minSC Meeting 1/6/09 page #1 LEXINGTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Lexington Town Office Building, Selectmen’s Meeting Room 1625 Massachusetts Avenue Present: Superintendent Paul Ash, School Committee Chair Helen Cohen, School Committee Members Rod Cole, Margaret Coppe, Tom Diaz, Ravi Sakhuja and student representative Gloria Park. The minutes were taken by Leora Tec. The meeting was convened at 7:43 p.m. I. Call to Order and Welcome II. Discussion Items FY10 Budget by the School Committee 1. PreK-12 Special Education Budgets, Including Out-of-District Budget Paul Ash: Another meeting regarding the Fiske ILP program will take place in Linda Chase’s office. Parents are invited to attend that meeting. We will first talk about changes in the program, then about moving the program from Fiske to Bridge. These are two different issues. Dr. Ash introduced the topic of changing the program at Fiske and stressed it is about improving the program for children, not about financial constraints. Afterwards the details about the changes in the ILP program and other Special Education programs were presented by Linda Chase, Director of Student Services; Liz Billings-Fouhy, Supervisor of Early Childhood Education; Laura Dudley, Board Certified Behavior Analyst serving as BCBA/Data Specialist; and Martha Bakken, K-8 Supervisor of Student Services. There were questions from the Committee. Dr. Ash discussed the proposal of moving the ILP program from Fiske to Bridge, noting that no superintendent relishes the idea of making children move from one school to another. You redistrict only when you really have no choice. Fiske has simply become too crowded. There were questions from the Committee. There were several comments from the audience regarding the inadvisability of moving the ILP children from Fiske to Bridge. SC Meeting 1/6/09 page # 2 Dr. Ash responded briefly to some of the comments. Helen Cohen thanked the parents who spoke and encouraged them to continue to be part of the dialogue. There were further questions from the audience and responses from the Committee including student representative Gloria Park. There were more questions and comments on the special education program from the audience. 2. Department of Public Facilities The report was presented by Patrick Goddard, Director of Public Facilities. He gave both an overview of the organization currently in place in the Department of Public Facilities as well as the proposed FY 10 operating budget for the department. There were questions and comments from the Committee. Tom Diaz and Ravi Sakhuja will attend the PBC meeting on the 13th to hear about the master plan. III. Motion to Adjourn (Diaz, Cole). The motion passed 5-0.