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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-05-25-SC-min SC Meeting 5/25/10 page # 1 LEXINGTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING Tuesday, May 25, 2010 Lexington Town Office Building, Selectmen's Meeting Room 1625 Massachusetts Avenue Present: Superintendent Paul Ash, School Committee Chair Margaret Coppe, School Committee Members Sandro Alessandrini, Jessie Steigerwald and Mary Ann Stewart. Minutes were taken by Leora Tec. The meeting was convened at 7:34 p.m. I. Call to Order and Welcome (Margaret Coppe) School Committee member Rod Cole is out of town and not present. II. Superintendent’s Announcements 1. The last day of school for students is June 22, 2010 which will be a half-day. IV. Members’ Reports / Members’ Concerns Margaret Coppe: The LHS Pops will perform this Thursday and Friday at LHS. Town celebrations for Memorial Day will start at 10:00 at Muzzey. Discovery Day will be this Saturday from 10-3 p.m. LHS graduation will take place on Sunday, June 6th at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell. Jessie Steigerwald: Thanks to the Youth Services Commission for organizing the cyber bullying talk. There was a great turnout. V. Discussion 1. Report of the English Language Arts Curriculum Review Committee — Year 1 Curriculum Review. Introduced by Carol Pilarski, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development. Presented by Kathy McCarthy K-5 Department Head for Literacy and facilitator for the curriculum review committee. More than 40 people have been involved in this Committee. After her introduction, Ms. McCarthy spoke about grades K-8 followed by JoAnn Kilpatrick, LHS English Department Chair who discussed grades 9-12. Ms. McCarthy then spoke about Atlas Rubicon and steps going forward. There were comments and questions from the Committee. There were comments and questions from the audience. SC Meeting 5/25/10 page # 2 2. School Committee Input on the Selectmen's FY 11 Goals The School Committee received a request from The Board of Selectmen for input on their goals. Paul Ash suggested a joint goal to support the town-wide effort to improve safety across the town through adopting a comprehensive incident command structure through the REMS program [Readiness Emergency Management System] that is being funded through a federal grant. Several other suggestions were made by Committee members. Several agreed that the funding for the debt exclusion question should be among the Board of Selectmen goals. School Committee chair Margaret Coppe will send the suggestions by email to the Board of Selectmen. VI. Action Items: 1. Vote to Approve the Expenditure of Surplus FY 2010 Funds. Dr. Ash explained this item. We have returned $3.7 million dollars to the general fund for FY ’07,’08 and ’09 through energy conservation, reducing SPED costs and putting certain bidding practices into place. We will be officially closing the books on FY ’08 and 09 and will be returning an additional $1.3 million dollars to the town. We will save $400K on the regional transportation program which we have implemented. We should have a surplus of approximately $1.1 million dollars this year. We are therefore in a position to purchase textbooks, supplies and materials that we have been doing without. There were questions and comments from the Committee, some of which were addressed by Thomas Plati, Director of Education Technology and Assessment and Mary Ellen Dunn, Assistant Superintendent of Business and Finance. There were comments from the audience. The question of equity regarding Elmos purchased by the Fiske PTA was raised by Jessie Steigerwald. She suggested a discussion regarding this at the next meeting, including a report from Thomas Plati on which schools own what technology. Motion to approve the expenditure of $706,196 for supplies, equipment, textbooks and services (Steigerwald, Stewart). The motion passed 4-0. 3. Vote to Approve School Committee Minutes of March 31, 2010 4. Vote to Approve School Committee Minutes of April 5, 2010 5. Vote to Approve School Committee Minutes of April 12, 2010 6. Vote to Approve School Committee Minutes of April 26, 2010 7. Vote to Approve School Committee Minutes of April 27, 2010 SC Meeting 5/25/10 page # 3 Motion to approve School Committee minutes of March 31, 2010; April 5, 2010; April 12, 2010, April 26, 2010 and April 27, 2010 (Alessandrini, Stewart). The motion passed 4-0. VII. Motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing negotiations not to return to public session (Steigerwald, Alessandrini). Alessandrini-aye; Coppe-aye; Steigerwald-aye and Stewart-aye.