Board of Education Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes

August 21, 2008

ATTENDANCE: Shirley Mosby, Chair; Glenn Iannaccone, Bruce Kimmel, Rosa Murray

STAFF: Anthony Daddona

OTHERS: Carol, Diane

CALL TO ORDER

Ms. Mosby called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

[From line 5 to Line 156, the tape was blank except for the sound of a vacuum cleaner]

The following correction was noted:

Please correct all reference to “Glen” throughout the document to “Glenn”

Page 4, paragraph 1, please change “Mr. Daddona explained that the directors were the ones that developed the curriculum” to “Mr. Daddona explained that the instructional specialists were the ones that developed the curriculum”

Page 2, last paragraph, please correct Mr. Kimmel’s statement to “Mr. Kimmel questioned whether five years teaching experience was sufficient for the position being discussed.”

** MR. IANNACCONE MOVED TO ACCEPT THE MINUTES AS CORRECTED. ** MR. KIMMEL SECONDED. ** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

DISCUSSION

Title One

Mr. Daddona then distributed reports that Ms. Mosby had requested and stated that the reports were prepared with all the information available and to the best knowledge that they had. He then reviewed the Title One funding and requirements. The District has decentralized the funding, which allows the principals of the various schools to spend the funds. He then asked Carol to review the portion of the report regarding the expenditures of the funding.

Carol greeted the Committee and said that if more data or information was needed after the presentation, she would be happy to come back to report to the Committee. She explained that the Title One funds are based on the number of schools that have the free lunch program. There are nine schools that receive Title One and three schools that are not eligible for funding: Naramack, Columbus, and Rowayton.

Mr. Kimmel asked if the records were complete, if the three schools would qualify. Carol said that she believed that was true, but qualified this with the statement that all of the students who would be eligible for the free lunch program would have to enroll for the program. The District has made a strong effort to enroll as many students as possible this year. Mr. Daddona said that there is only a set amount of funding and that the State determines how much that funding will be. The total amount of funding is then equally divided by the number of qualifying schools.

Carol then reviewed how the Title One funding must be spent, including 10% for professional development; 1% for parental involvement; and 20% of the grant is set aside School Choice and Supplemental Educational Services. Mr. Kimmel asked if the Supplemental Services were provided by a third party. Carol explained that because the District is a District in Need of Improvement, State approved third party vendors must be used to provide the supplemental services. Discussion then followed about this.

Carol explained that with the decentralized Title One funding program, the individual school principals determine what the best use of the funds will be based on the goals of the school. She informed the Committee that there was a reduction in grant funding and that the Early Reading Success Grant was discontinued State wide, which accounted for 1.1 million dollars. These funds were used to pay for the literacy specialists. Discussion about this then followed.

Carol then reviewed the building based allocations and the benefits to the various schools. After talking to various other colleagues in other Districts, Carol informed the Board that Norwalk was unique in allowing the individual schools to determine how the Title One funds are spent. Often the schools that do not qualify for Title One funding feel that they can not benefit from things that happen at other schools. If the funding was centralized, all the grants could be leveraged and used in a holistic way.

Mr. Daddona then reviewed the history of how the funding was moved from being centralized to being turned over to the individual schools. Carol commented that with centralized distribution, there could be resource sharing and other benefits District wide, such as District strategies, where everyone benefits. Carol said that she believed that over time, transferring the distribution of the funding back to the Central Office would be a positive move because it would allow the Central Office to view the District as a whole. By starting with a District wide project, the process could be initiated.

Mr. Daddona said that he agreed with Carol in that it would not be a good idea to move directly back to centralized funding. However, with the CALI model, the District will be focused in on several non-negotiable goals for the various schools, which will lead towards a more centralized approach. Discussion about this followed.

Carol pointed out that there would be some constraints this year and said that each request for services and professional development would have to be reviewed carefully to insure that the District has the funding to match the appropriate dollar amounts. It will also be important to review the Grants Office and evaluate who is responsible for the tracking of the matching funds. Currently, the Grants Office is focused on compliance issues, and often not looking at the big picture.

Mr. Daddona pointed out that the principals try to protect their schools because of the scarcity of funds. By using the CALI team leaders to coordinate the overall projects, this may help facilitate the transfer of the funding back to the Central Office. The discussion then moved to the various school district goals. It was pointed out that the goals of the District will be part of the school growth plan, which has not been the case previously.

Mr. Daddona said that the various schools had been involved in setting the school growth plans. Strategies have to be backed by data, and that the resources will be allocated this accordingly. The biggest resource for the various schools is time. Mr. Daddona then reviewed the roles of the faculty meetings, the mini-facility meetings and instructional meetings.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Daddona then went on to give an overview of the professional development funding report. Ms. Mosby had requested that the expenditures for professional development for the last three years be presented along with the allocations for this current school year. All of this funding comes out of grant funding. Carol explained that she had compiled a table that showed three years of funding and three years of allocation. She then proceeded to review the information on this chart with the Committee. Some of the items that the funding is used for includes: curriculum, consultants, substitutes, and other items needed for professional development. She added that the literacy specialists were no longer paid for from the previous grant that had been available state wide, so they were now paid for from Professional Development.

The discussion then moved to Title 2A funding, a federal grant for corporate development. Title One funding starts in September and goes through to the following September, which allows for expenses over the summer like summer programs.

In the past, some of the carry over was redistributed to the schools and some funding was given to non-Title One schools for professional development.

Carol reviewed the programs that were presented in the past for the District in Professional Development. Discussion followed on this, priority standards and the DRA results.

Ms. Murray asked about how the District was going to integrate the new procedures at the beginning of the school year. She pointed out that this would be a major shift for the veteran teachers. Mr. Daddona said that he had to submit a report on September 15th that listed all the data teams at the individual schools. This has never been done. He also cautioned the Board that major results would be apparent in two or three years.

Mr. Daddona explained that many of schools had registered for the CALI model professional development. The District will only have to pay for the coverage in the classroom while the teachers are taking these workshops. Ms. Mosby expressed concerns about the fact that Nathan Hale was not signed up for any CALI workshops. Mr. Daddona reported that he had a call in to Mr. McCain about this.

Mr. Kimmel had questions about the substitute teachers. Mr. Daddona said that this had been evaluated when Ms. Lang was managing the department. It became apparent that hiring substitutes was the most cost effective. A discussion about possible alternative options to this then followed.

Mr. Daddona explained that last year’s district data team met four times, but Mr. Daddona said he felt that the data teams should meet once a month to stay focused. Based on this, Mr. Daddona asked the State for five additional days because of the changes in the administrative offices. He said that he had just received permission to have ten days for data team meetings. Mr. Daddona said that he would be setting a committee of teachers and administrators that would be working with the district data team on district development.

REPORT ON CNT SCORES FOR THE MIDDLE SCHOOLS

Mr. Daddona then distributed copies of a report containing data on the CNT test scores. He pointed out that there were many factors that had to be considered when looking at the figures, such as where a particular school started, what the demographics for that school were and how much progress has been made. The vertical scales show where the schools started and demonstrates how much progress has been made. These scales focus on the level of understanding, not on the proficiency scales.

Mr. Daddona then reviewed the data information with the Committee. Diane pointed out what the measure of growth was and explained that the vertical scales being used over time would track the growth pattern accurately. Mr. Daddona explained that based on the data, the four middle schools are all growing. Discussion about the data illustrated by the vertical scales then followed.

Ms. Murray expressed concern about the fact that there is a middle school that does not have a sub-group. She then asked about a meeting with elementary principals where there were concerns expressed about schools that were not as diverse as others in the district. Diane explained that the AYP reports combined grades 6-8, the only subgroup that was not represented in all the middle schools was the ELLs. Every Norwalk middle school in Norwalk has had African Americans subgroups, Hispanic subgroups, free & reduced lunch subgroups and Special Education subgroups for the past three years. Two or three of the middle schools have had the ELL subgroups. When the data is evaluated by individual grades, the number of students does not meet the criteria, but when combined with other grades, the subgroups are evident. Ms. Murray said that she could not believe that there was a grade in Norwalk that would not meet the demographic requirements. Discussion followed about the actual figures and how many children took the math test at Nathan Hale in the report.

The discussion then moved to sending out letters regarding school choice. Mr. Daddona said that there were four schools that would have the option of sending their children to another school. However, the letters can not be sent out until the State formally announces that the schools are on the list.

ADJOURNMENT

** MR. IANNACCONE MOVED TO ADJOURN. ** MR. KIMMEL SECONDED. ** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

The meeting adjourned at 10:07 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharon L. Soltes Telesco Secretarial Services

Category: Committee Minutes