Education Committee Meeting Minutes: February 27, 2007

Meeting opened with a discussion of the article in the Bennington Banner on Saturday, February 24-25, 2007. Committee members were extremely disappointed in the wording presented by the Banner and the inference that the CDC budget and the MAU budget were tied together. The CDC and MAU are two separate entities. The CDC Administration and Finance Committee worked very hard to keep the budget increase to a minimal amount. Approval was given by the committee to respond by letter to the Bennington Banner concerning this article. D.Oyama and F. Lamb are to be appraised of this approval immediately.

Superintendent Evaluation Tool

Committee reviewed several styles of evaluations which led to several areas of interest. Questions asked included: When is contract up? What services and duties are we REALLY paying for and what things are not being done? Past and present duties of C.O. were examined. The need for more thorough explanations should be expressed and satisfied. The question “What do we want from a superintendent ?” was presented. Some suggestions in the past have been promised, but not acted upon. The committee would like to see a weekly or monthly article in the Banner concerning the CDC. They would like to see a site dedicated to CDC on CAT-TV. There were many questions on the 3 year comparison for SVSU Purchased Services Charges. The committee decided to study the information presented and meet again soon, (between 3 /12 & 3/16) to implement an evaluation tool for the full board to approve.

Discussion developed concerning the lowering of graduation requirements by MAU. Education Committee is very disappointed in the current levels and will be researching how to return the standards to a higher level.


Enrollment Issues

The committee would like to create a ” vision”, by working and researching issues with the D.O.E. and the State Legislature. Many topics were discussed: procedure for becoming a 2 year high school with diploma; legal process involved; charter school system; program development; input from advisory boards and faculty.


Meeting adjourned at 8:15.pm