Georgia Board of School Directors

October 18, 2005 at 6:00 pm

Regular Meeting

 

Minutes

 

Board Present:                Doug Bergstrom, Dan Harvey, Ron King

Administrators:                Phil Higgins, Frank Calano, Flora Hurteau

Others:                             Wendy Larose, Transcriptionist; Cyndie Bourgea, Videographer

 1.             Call to Order       

The meeting was called to order at 6:08.                                                                                                                                                                                

 

2.             Consent Agenda                                   

Minutes:                          The minutes from September 20th and October 4th were presented. 

Reports:                Reports were presented by principals, Flora Hurteau and Frank Calano. 

ACTION:     Dan Harvey moved to approve the minutes and reports, seconded by Ron King. The motion was approved unanimously.

3.             General Public Comments     

                        There were no public comments.

4.             Old Business                                                                                                                                                 

a.     Approve Audit

Dan asked Chris Sumner if she saw any unusual aspects of the audit.  There were no surprises. 

ACTION:            Ron King moved to approve audit as presented, seconded by Dan Harvey.  The motion was approved unanimously.

5.             New Business                                                                                                                                                 

a.         Special Education

Adrienne Fisher submitted a report on Special Services to the Board.  She gave an overview of the report, which included the Board’s Policy Role for Special Education.  There was discussion of the Medicaid billing process.  Frank noted that they are trying not to use the resources from Medicaid for personnel, but for resources for the students. 

b.         Service Plan, Child Find, School Board’s Role, etc.

Adrienne highlighted the Childcount report included in the report.  Dan Harvey asked why, if Childcount is increasing so minutely, are expenditures increasing so much?  Where are the increases coming from?  Chris said it was from outplacements.  Adrienne review additional outplacement costs for high school students.  These costs are above the cost of the base tuition.  Adrienne reviewed guidelines for Temporary Support Assistants.  The goal is to have the students be as independent as possible. 

 

c.                        Community Relations Team:

Community Relations Team Report:  Flora gave report.  Team met last week.  Edmund Wilcox joined them for the evening.  Offered great points on getting seniors involved in the budget meeting.  Discussion on how to get seniors in building other than at budget time and many options were suggested.  Community Volunteer Coordinator will work on senior database in addition to student. 

 

6.             School Budget FY2007                     

a.     Draft Budget Overview

Phil gave an overview on what administration recommends in the budget to carry out action plan.  Doug would like to set up a separate meeting next week to go over budget in more detail.  Doug wanted to go over some new ways he learned at VSBA on how to deal with the budget.  Meeting is set for Thursday, 10/27 at 6:00 p.m.  Flora distributed a copy of a memo that went to teachers about how to prepare for the budget. The middle school dealt with a similar process.  The middle school is more departmentalized, whereas elementary is more grade level.  Chris Sumner reviewed school budget assumptions that have been set for the 2006-2007 school year.  Chris passed out a preliminary budget of which Flora and Frank gave an overview. Flora’s review focused on the full day vs. half day kindergarten program.  They propose implementing two full day and three half day sessions.  Flora will bring back more information on a long-range plan for the K program. 

 

7.             Policies                                                                                                                                                    

a.         The following policies were tabled until the next meeting:

i.            Student Records Policy – 2nd Reading

ii.            Student Surveys Policy – 2nd Reading

iii.            Transportation Policy – 1st  Reading

 

8.             Upcoming Meetings                                                                                                                 

Next Regular Meeting: November 1st, 2005 at 6:00 PM, Georgia School Library

 

9.   Adjournment          

            ACTION:   Dan Harvey moved to adjourn, seconded by Ron King.  The motion was approved unanimously.