newburghedinfo

On Wednesday January 11, 2012, at 3:30PM there was a Special meeting of the Newburgh School District Board of Education.

Eight of nine BOE members attended: Fucheck, McAfee, Levinstein, Lewis, Prokosch, Resch, Vesely, and Woodhull. Superintendent of Schools Pizzo and Clerk of the Board Botsford were also present. Board member Giudice was absent.

The BOE adopted revised policy 5200 Comprehensive Student Attendance and 6653 Audit Committee on two readings. The attendance policy change allows building principals to recognize "valid exceptional circumstances" that qualify as an excused absence. The BOE also awarded a contract for plumbing in connection with the GAMS Science rooms' alterations.

The meeting was over in about three minutes. Here's the video:

Following this meeting the BOE had another meeting, a "retreat" with two NYSSBA consultants, which was not open to the public. The Board chose not to provide any information to the public about this event or its purpose.

The people from NYSSBA were Barry Entwistle, Director of Leadership Development (who wrote an article about the usefulness of retreats in 2008) and Jay Worona, NYSSBA General Counsel.

There was a meeting of the NECSD Compact Central Committee on January 6 at 6:30PM at Balmville School. The main presentation at the meeting was from four teachers who described their use of Moodle, a web site development tool. Their presentation was enthusiastically received.

Click through for notes.

There was a Newburgh School District Curriculum Committee meeting last Tuesday. Most of the meeting was an update about curriculum development efforts. There was a demo of the Rubicon Atlas software which some teachers in the district have been trying out.

Click through for the notes.

In an excellent article in the New York Times last week, Michael Winerip presented a 10 Years of Assessing Students With Scientific Exactitude--a synopsis of NYSED's recent testing efforts. It's difficult to fully enjoy Winerip's wit because the story presented is so sad--false hopes and failure at every turn.

In the last decade, we have emerged from the Education Stone Age. No longer must we rely on primitive tools like teachers and principals to assess children's academic progress. Thanks to the best education minds in Washington, Albany and Lower Manhattan, we now have finely calibrated state tests aligned with the highest academic standards. What follows is a look back at New York's long march to a new age of accountability.

DECEMBER 2002 The state's education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, reports to the state Regents: "Students are learning more than ever. Student achievement has improved in relation to the standards over recent years and continues to do so."

JANUARY 2003 New York becomes one of the first five states to have its testing system approved by federal officials under the new No Child Left Behind law. The Princeton Review rates New York's assessment program No. 1 in the country.

SPRING 2003 Teachers from around New York complain that the state's scoring of newly developed high school tests is out of whack, with biology and earth science tests being too easy and the physics test too hard. The state Council of School Superintendents finds the physics scores so unreliable, it sends a letter to colleges for the first time in its history urging them to disregard the test result. Dr. Mills does not flinch, calling the tests "statistically sound" and "in accordance with nationally accepted standards."

JUNE 2003 Scores on the state algebra test are so poorly calibrated that 70 percent of seniors fail. After a statewide outcry, officials agree to throw out the results. The Princeton Review says that ranking New York first was a mistake. "We're going to have to come up with a fiasco index for a state like New York that messes up a lot of people's lives," a spokesman says.

...

On the Newburgh School District "Contact Information" webpage it looks like the new director job descriptions have gotten mixed up. The page says:

...
Bilingual Education, ESL and Foreign Language, Carmen A. Vazqueztell
...
Social Studies and Accelerated Learning, George Teasdale
...

What was discussed at the BOE workshop meeting and approved at the Dec BOE meeting was to have "Bilingual Education, ESL and Accelerated Learning" and "Social Studies and Foreign Language".

Video of the December 20, 2011 Newburgh School District Board of Education meeting is up. There are embedded players on this page or here are links to view at YouTube: excerpt 1, excerpt 2, and the full meeting.

At the December 2011 Newburgh School District BOE meeting last night:

• There was recognition for the fifth grade math team and for the retirement of District Photographer and AV Expert Greg Thompson.
• The Board President praised the quality and accomplishments of the NFA Career and Technical Ed Program and the elementary IB program at Horizons. She said these programs had impressed visiting education experts.
• A resolution to approve the job description for Executive Principal of NFA was separated from being grouped with revised job descriptions for "Director of Social Studies Education and Foreign Language", and "Director of Bilingual Education and Accelerated Learning Programs". One board member voted no on the Exec Principal job desc.
• Meeting minutes for Sept and Oct regular meetings, and for three Special Meetings in November were approved. They will probably be on the district website soon.
• During public comments, teacher Ms. Hutchinson again expressed concern for the affect of the new attendance policies on participation in the Girls to Ladies club. She explained that there has been a real case of a student who it is the goal of the club to help, being turned away because of the attendance policy.
• A retired police sergeant with experience working with schools expressed support for the Girls to Ladies club. He said that students who find ways to participate are much less likely to run into trouble with the law.
• Former BOE member Grace Bowles took issue with the Executive Principal job description.
• Most agenda items were approved routinely. A couple of HR items (each was "an aggreement with an employee") were tabled for discussion in executive session. The meeting went to executive session after less than an hour.
• After about 90 minutes in executive session, the board approved one of the two HR items that had been tabled earlier. The other remained tabled.

Video will probably be up on Friday.

The Newburgh School District Policy Committee on Wednesday, Dec 14. Most of the meeting was spent reviewing the district attendance policy. Several suggestions were made by a trio of administrators from NFA. They recommended that absence notes be accepted up to five school days after return to school, that the acceptable reasons for excused absences be clarified and expanded, and there the be an appeals policy to handle exceptional situations. More details in the policy meeting notes

The NECSD BOE Workshop meeting on Tuesday December 13 was preceded by a "Public Hearing on the Contract for Excellence Program". The hearing just consisted of a reading of what was printed in one of the PDF documents linked to in an earlier post.

At the workshop meeting Linda Bakst from NYSSBA gave a presentation about the Dignity for All Students Act; there were the usual construction updates and presentation of items to be voted upon at the December 20 BOE meeting. The Assistant Superintendant of HR mentioned that updated job descriptions for some Director positions and a job description for the Executive Principal position are expected to be on the agenda for Dec 20.

Click through for more details.

Before the Board Workshop meeting this evening at 7PM there will be a Public Hearing on the Contract for Excellence. The Contract for Excellence is a NYSED funding program, through which NECSD receives about $10 million. The agenda of the meeting lists three items: presentation of the 2011-2012 contract for excellence, public discussion and comment, and adjourn the public hearing.

There are two documents on the district website which provide a little information about the program. They are both linked near the top of this Codes, Policies, & Plans page. The Narratives document says in part:

As a result of closing some schools our strategy of class size reduction has been impacted. Other areas that were impacted were
extended school year programs for K-2, the elimination of math and literacy coaches, the elimination of young parents program
and leadership coaches.

The spreadsheet document lists allocations of funds for individual schools by categories such as "Time on Task", "Class Size Reduction", "HS or MS Restructuring", etc.

There was a Newburgh School District Curriculum Committee meeting last Tuesday. There were two main topics of discussion: piloting a single sex classroom environment and an update on the literacy framework initiative.

Click through for the notes.

The addendum to the Superintendent's contract approved by the Newburgh School District BOE on October 25, allows the Superintendent to "liquidate" up to 38 unused vacation days. If "liquidate" means to receive payment for, then the Superintendent may be receiving up to $27,700. For details, and info about many other contracts the Newburgh District has entered into, please see the contracts page. As always, any corrections are appreciated.

YNN has a video follow-up about the Girls to Ladies club.

THRecord has an article about Tom Fitzgerald's charter school efforts.

NYT reports New York State's Testing Director Resigns after announcing and then retracting plans for longer tests for 3-8 graders. Nearly four hours for ELA...

The Newburgh School District website posted the December meeting schedule on time (before the first of the month), and even included the first two meetings in January. Curriculum Committee meeting is today at 4 PM.

Video of the November 29,2011 Newburgh School District Board of Education meeting is up. There's an embedded player here on this page or you can go directly to the video on YouTube.

I will add some index information later.

The November regular BOE meeting was this Tuesday at the library auditorium. There were about 60 people in the audience. Presentations included a grant from Toshiba, an energy presentation, and information about the Dignity for All Act. There was a statement by the school district attorney about the basketball attendance issue. There were also several public comments about various topics--including strong criticism of the search process for the Executive Principal position.

Click through for the November BOE meeting notes.

Here is video of school district attorney Shaw's report on the basketball attendance investigation that was given at last night's BOE meeting. There is coverage of the meeting at the THRecord site, NFA final class-cutting report names no names. Notes and additional videos from this meeting will be posted soon.

There was a Newburgh School District BOE workshop meeting on Tuesday, November 22. This meeting was held in the Newburgh Free Library Auditorium. There was an audience of around ten people, but chairs for many more. There is a Regular BOE meeting tonight at which these items are likely to be voted on.

Click through for the November 2011 BOE workshop meeting notes.

The Newburgh School District website Human Resources page says "No current openings" (except for some internal School Violence Prevention postings with a closing date of November 9).

However, another website lists a Technology Teacher position at TH and a Special Ed position at Heritage. Both are described with a start date of 11/22/2011 and an application deadline of 11/30/2011. These jobs are also listed on the OLAS website: Special Ed, Technology Ed.

On Tuesday November 22, following a Newburgh School District BOE Workshop Meeting there was a Special Meeting. It began with an executive session. The BOE reconvened and unanimously agreed to discontinue the suspension of an employee. The employee had been suspended at this meeting. I believe this means that Ms. Bunce is no longer suspended.

Here's video of the special meeting:

The Record, Sentinel, and Mid Hudson Times all published a letter by Newburgh Superintendent of Schools Pizzo in response to a letter that was published in the Sentinel. The original letter is not easy to find online so here are copies of both. It's a bit surprising that the original letter warranted reply, also that the Superintendent's letter repeatedly refers to the Board of Education in the first person. For bonus points, spot the inappropriate apostrophe.