Four new administrators were welcomed by the Old Rochester Regional School Committee at their first meeting of the 2012-2013 academic year on Wednesday, September 12. The new Facilities Director, Eugene Jones, and District Technology Director, Ryan McGee, were on hand to present their reports at the beginning of the meeting, while the new School Business Administrator, Catherine Antonellis, accepted well-wishes from the Committee before taking her permitted leave from the meeting.
“I believe she will be a benefit,” said Superintendent Douglas White. “I welcome her as the new School Business Administrator.”
“I look forward to working with all of you and meeting you personally,” Antonellis told the Committee.
The new Cross-District ELL Specialist, Teeh Mazzoni, was not present at the meeting but has not yet begun her duties at ORR. She will transition into her new role starting Monday.
“We had a full vetting of many candidates during the summer,” said the Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Elise Frangos, also thanking the number of individuals who served on the hiring committee.
In addition to the four administrators, there are ten new teachers serving the Old Rochester Regional School District this academic year.
“This summer we had an August teacher induction day,” White said in his report.
Frangos, in her report and later discourse on the 2012-2013 professional development plan, explained the nature of the new teacher induction program.
“We assign one colleague to serve as a mentor for the duration of the year,” Frangos said. The mentor and mentee are required to keep a log detailing their 16 hours of mentorship, in addition to meeting once a month to discuss topics of mutual interest.
“The log is confidential. All I look for is the collection of hours and the nature of the meetings,” Frangos said.
The professional development plan, a 60-page document from which Frangos culled excerpts for discussion, emphasizes the Common Core requirements and takes a new look at forming relationships between the schools in the district.
“We’re set up against a backdrop of really cultivated educational change. [The intent] is to keep teachers up to the minute on instructional techniques,” Frangos said.
Besides organizing workshops, Frangos is creating professional learning communities for job-alike teachers in the different Tri-Town schools. The physical education teachers, for example, would be in a professional learning community, as would the art teachers and other teachers who are the only one in their school. Frangos offers the communities as a cure to loneliness in the district.
In other business, White presented the new Superintendent Evaluation, which is a five-step process beginning with a self-evaluation. In the next step, White would meet with the school committees. The third step, implementation, would require the amassing and study of evidential support that White is meeting the goals for each school committee. Finally, there would be a cumulative evaluation not unlike the previous Superintendent Evaluation.
“It’s a rubric with different criteria from what you’ve used to evaluate me in the past,” White said.
In the Principal’s Report for ORRJHS, Kevin Brogioli asked the Committee to consider a change regarding the cost of intramural sports. Currently, there is a $75 rate per intramural season. Brogioli asked the Committee to change these fees to an annual $25 due, with an additional $50 for traveling teams.
“We’ve been having trouble funding coaches and consequently, many teams haven’t started their seasons,” Brogioli explained the situation.
The Committee voted in favor of the change.
Also in the Junior High news, Brogioli sought approval from the Committee for an alternative Survival trip. Survival, a popular week-long camping trip for seventh graders, excludes students who have received disciplinary actions. Brogioli hopes to institute a two-day camping trip for a target group of male students, described to have respect and authority issues, to be chaperoned by himself, ORRHS Assistant Principal Michael Parker and Mattapoisett Police Officer Mitchell Suzan. The trip, which would require the students to write a self-reflection and form relationships with both each other and the adults, would ease their transition into the high school.
“I’m confident of our ability to get them to work on small group goals,” Brogioli said, stressing that these students were good kids.
Chairperson Peter Bangs questioned how the Committee would respond to probable claims from parents that the trip would reward bad behavior.
Frangos answered that the trip could be tried as a pilot program, possibly increasing over time to include other groups of students and offer an alternative to physical education.
In ORRHS Principal Michael Devoll’s report, the student body is currently quantified as 713 students, of whom 47 are school-choice. However, one school-choice slot has opened this week as a student chose not to come to ORR. Devoll said that he is addressing the situation by calling the next student on the wait list.
“I’ve always thought 700 was a healthy number,” Devoll said regarding the statistics.
Devoll also spoke about the retirement of Estela Johnston, a Spanish teacher, whose last class is Friday.
“Traditionally, the teacher would be here to be honored, but she could not attend,” Devoll said. Instead, Johnston will attend the October 10 meeting.
Also from Devoll’s report, the ORR Swim Team is doing well in its fundraising, having already met its goals for this year. Furthermore, Devoll said the pool time might cost less than originally anticipated.
Finally, Devoll announced the fall play and spring musical, which will be Romeo and Juliet and Oklahoma!, respectively.
The Committee, after a brief discussion, voted to retract its requirement to approve school plays, provided that the school continue to announce their season to the Committee, as well as disclaim the age-appropriateness of the shows to the public.
After a discussion of the low enrollment in the Tri-Town Early Childhood Preschool Program, the Committee voted to make an exception from the enrollment criteria for two children, ages 2 years and 9 months, who have IEPs. Normally, enrollment in the preschool is limited to three and four year-olds. The exception, provided for by state legislation, will only occur for this academic year.
Currently, ORRHS is working on an advertising campaign to bolster the preschool’s enrollment, which is at less than half. In addition to a public announcement airing on local television, Devoll will make arrangements for a banner to be hung outside the school.
In its other business, the Committee discussed the use of both Galileo (a diagnostic testing system) and SchoolDude, a maintenance and technology computer program. A long testing window for Galileo will allow teachers of ELA, science and mathematics to frequently assess their success in the classroom, leaving plenty of time for MCAS preparation. SchoolDude will allow teachers to request room maintenance or technological help without resorting to the hallway hailing of district custodians and technology staff.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the Committee accepted the open comments from Colin Everett, President of the Old Rochester Professional Educators Association.
“It occurred to me,” Everett said, “that it’s been 11 months. In the past 11 months, we only negotiated twice. We wanted to negotiate in the fall, we wanted to negotiate in the winter, we wanted to negotiate in the spring.”
Everett assessed the Association’s membership as eager for a resolution. “The only way is to negotiate it,” he said.
Everett concluded his comments by expressing his concerns for the expense of delaying negotiations. “I think it owes to both parties to negotiate. Going through the state, it’s going to cost the district, it’s going to cost the Association.”
The next meeting of the Old Rochester Regional School Committee will be on Wednesday, October 10 in the School Committee Conference Room in the Superintendent’s Office.
By Anne Smith