Board Expectations appear for all Trustees to review at all Board of Trustee meetings.

None.

The Director's Report appears in the Board Packet. Time was allowed in the meeting for questions. 

EBradley: Will the school psychologist only be doing testing? She will be doing testing and meeting with the team. She is a part time hire.

ATing: How will MCAS scores be released? KKuse: However DESE tells us to. There will be trainings soon and then it will be known. DHerrera: Once you have your information, Exec Committee can help you with

KKuse: Tomorrow, Lydia Sisson, KKuse and Micheal Esenberg (?) are meeting about a grant from Project Greenschools for the outdoor space. They would like to do a check presentation at the school in October. 

It is the Board's job to approve the plan or send it back.

Discussion. 

ATing: Some of the measures seemed to be hard to acheive. But as long as the teachers are aware of them, we can be successful. ESimone: It does seem to be achievable. NDurkee: It doesn't feel like it doesn't give teachers a lot of flexibility if students have anxiety, there are points in the rubric that seem hard at that level. It's hard to bring this up now, but if there's a way to unlink the rubric, it could be really helpful. ESimone: Not 100% of students have to get 3.5. DHerrera: There's also an expectation of the teachers to educate the panelists on the rubric.

Vote is postponed due to consideration of wording change in the policy. It will be presented at the next Board of Trustees meeting.

Last year, former school director Jonnie Lyn Evans reported out on the data.

NDurkee reviewed the data and summarized it at a high level. Many comments expressed gratitude. Most narrative comments came through highlighting the strengths of RVCS.

Feedback that was constructive was taken into consideration follows:

Themes:

Time in the classroom should be increased.

Placed based education takes too much time away from typical classroom learning, especially when added to early release Wednesdays, portfolio half days, etc. Scheduling seems to be an issue.

Teachers should communicate before students fall behind. Parents don't have a sense of progress until progress reports come out. Proactive communication would be appreciated.

Math curriculum needs improvement. Language skills mentioned less so.

ERankin: How was the response rate compared to other years? ESimone: A little lower than the year before.

ESimone: Math Curriculum, did you see any correlation with grade levels? NDurkee: I didn't capture that here. I can look into that.

DHerrera: Pointed out the area in the Accountability plan that correlates to School Climate and Family Engagement questions in the caregiver survey. It is no longer in the survey, so now it falls back on the Director.

NDurkee: Moving the Caregiver Survey out of the purview of the committee was never discussed in the Accountability Committee, to no longer administer the Caregiver Survey. We'll need to talk about this in the committee. Disagrees that the survey should no longer live in Accountability.

Next meeting will focus on the Director's Goals and review of the Master Policy.

If you are interested, please feel free to attend on October 9, 2024, 7 pm.

Current focus is the year end audit. The committee plans to have drafts for the next Board of Trustees meeting. All in all, we are in the same position as we expected to be. Everything seems to be in line with no major issues.

MCAS data will likely push out until October.

In October, the committee wIll likely look at screener data and the Montessori Audit Review and revisit the Caregiver Survey.

JNickerson: What is the Superintendent Checklist? DHerrera: It is a list of items that schools need to send in along with dates for compliance. Not all items apply to RVCS.

The committee is looking at updating the board bylaws in regards to inclusivity. Updating the bylaws takes a lot of effort and paperwork. Asks other committee heads if there are other updates they'd suggest. Please bring those updates to ATing.

Please also review committee descriptions for updates.

Board goals were discussed at the retreat. We'll discuss how that can be tracked so they can be acheived.

This year we need to have an internal review in preparation for next year's external audit. DHerrara: Who does the exteral audit? ATing: We're trying to arrange that now. 

The committee is not ready to reveal the entire plan for the Charting the Course campaign. The committee is also finalizing their calendar for the year.

DHerrera: Is the committee looking for more members? ERankin: Yes. Parent representation would be great.

ERankin: Please support the Read-a-Thon. Opportunities for ad space would be wonderful.

None.