HANOVER SCHOOL BOARD
REGULAR MEETING
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2005
7:00 P.M., HANOVER HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY
Minutes
Present: Board Members Asmus, Bruce, Chamberlin, Goodman, Pilchman, Segal; Administrators Gersen, Aubin, Weissmann, Williams; and several members of the public
1. Call to order
Chair Segal called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
2. Approval of Minutes
Kari Asmus moved and John Chamberlin seconded a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of December 8, 2004 and the nonpublic session of December 8, as submitted. The motion passed unanimously.
3. Agenda Review/additional items
The Chair reordered the agenda as follows: Review budget proposal; Review and discuss French Proposal; Chair’s report; Discussion of warrant articles; and Discussion of voting options.
4. Review Budget Proposal
a) Assistant Superintendent for Business John Aubin, distributed a Budget Change Sheet to board members and administrators. Mr. Aubin explained the six changes on the sheet, which reduce the district assessment total, as reported on 1/05/2005, from $8, 938,410 to $8,815, 120, and which result in a 1.8% increase in taxes instead of the previously indicated 2.79% increase. There was discussion about the impact of the fuel tank maintenance expense, the amount the district received in federal and state grant money, and the state established per pupil costs of education. Mr. Aubin will provide these numbers to Board members. Bruce Williams clarified the total number of educational assistants in each classroom and John Aubin reviewed the likely expenses for the remainder of this school year, and how these compared to the proposed budget figures for 2005-2006. Chair Segal thanked Mr. Williams for reexamining the budget figures in order to locate further reductions.
b) Assistant Superintendent for Special Education, Jane Weissman, also distributed a revised budget sheet, which reduced the increase in special education from $207,000, as presented on January 5, 2005, to $148,000. Ms. Weissman and Mr. Aubin were able to realize the change through reductions in personnel costs. Ms. Weissman responded to questions about the cost of hiring specialists versus contracting with specialists, the ratio of special education assistants to students at Ray, and the fact that the Hanover budget includes the costs for special education students enrolled at the Richmond and Hanover High Schools. Ms. Weissman also pointed out the difficulty of writing a special education budget in January when IEPs are written/developed in April, May and even June.
5. Review and Discussion of French Proposal
Bill Mlacak and several interested parents made a brief presentation on their proposal to institute French instruction beginning in grade one. Board members discussed the proposal at length, raining questions about the desired amount of instruction time (in minutes/week and days/year), the recent introduction of Spanish in the middle school, the feasibility of adding a new program to the district given the current budget constraints and the restraints placed on district faculty to not create new programs. Mr. Williams reported on his findings about the impact of early elementary foreign language programs. He emphasized that he needed time to determine his staff’s commitment to the proposal, especially how the early grade level teachers would address the loss of 100 minutes of instruction in other topics should French language instruction be instituted in grades 1-3. After this discussion Chair Segal asked the board to give the parent committee some indication of whether their proposal is feasible, and if so, when it could be initiated.
John Chamberlin moved and Kari Asmus seconded a motion to ask the administration to study and report to the School Board next fall (2005) how the Ray School could implement a grade 1-3 foreign language program and what the impact of that program would be on the other academic subjects.
Members of the parent committee objected to the use of “foreign” instead of “French” in the motion. Members of the board indicated that the study done by the administration should determine whether French is the language to begin early. Members also assured the parent committee that they were fully aware of the parent committee’s desire that the language of choice be French. Chair Segal indicated that she could not support the motion as stated as it did not recognize the parent committee’s efforts to bring the French Proposal to the board.
The motion passed in a vote of five (5) in favor and one (1) opposed.
6. Report of Chair:
1. Board Calendar – The Chair announced that the next Board meeting will be Wednesday, January 19, 7:00 p.m. in the Hanover High School Library. This will be the public hearing and budget adoption. The next regular meeting will be on Wednesday, February 9, 7:00 p.m. in the Ray School Multi.
2. District Filings – The chair clarified that there are three (3) 3-year positions and one (1) 1-year position open on the Hanover School Board. The School District also seeks a Moderator to serve one year, a clerk to serve one year and a treasurer to serve one. The filing began today and will extend through 4:30 p.m., Friday, January 21.
3. District Meetings – The Chair announced the following dates for the Annual Hanover School District Meeting:
&Tuesday, March 1, 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., Richmond School Gymnasium, all day voting for Hanover District Officers and the ballot question.
&Wednesday, March 9, 7:00 p.m., Bernice A. Ray School Music Room, Hanover District Meeting with voting on the budget.
7. Discussion of Warrant Articles
A. Bridgman Trust Fund
Ray School Principal, Bruce Williams, distributed a memo to the board outlining four (4) options for the use of funds generated by the Bridgman Trust for fiscal year 2006. Option 4 is a town and college proposal to introduce an after-school program to the town. Town Manager, Julia Griffin, indicated that the proposal is a one-time request for funds to hire an after-school coordinator and to launch the program. Board members discussed whether the proposal satisfies the terms of the Bridgman Trust. Ms. Griffin indicated that insofar as the program would benefit the sixth graders of Hanover, the group most in need of such a program, the proposal does satisfy the terms of the trust. It was suggested that Dave Bradley’s and Mark Severs’, a Bridgman Trust trustee, opinions be procured. Mr. Williams also presented the remaining three options in his memo. Chair Segal indicated that the question in front of the Board is how much money to take out of the Bridgman Trust: 4% of which equals $45,000 and 5% of which equals $56,000. Board members discussed the remaining options. Chair Segal expressed her opposition to the RMS proposal, and Mr. Williams apologized for not having included the full proposals in the board packet. It was suggested that the Bridgman Trust funds be used to fund a pilot program to offer 100minutes of French instruction in grades 1-3. Chair Segal reminded the Board that they need only to determine how much to withdraw from the fund at this time.
Larry Pilchman moved and it was seconded to withdraw a sum of $50,000, which represents 4.5%, from the Bridgman Trust Fund. The motion passed unanimously.
Kari Asmus made a motion, and Dennis Goodman seconded it, to approve $10,000 of the Bridgman Trust Fund for the After-school Committee, with the understanding that the funds will benefit Hanover 6th graders. The motion passed unanimously.
B. Warrant Articles
Superintendent, Wayne Gersen, presented a revised version of the warrant articles which will be acted on at the Wednesday, March 9, 2005 7:00 p,m. meeting of voters of the Hanover School District. The revisions included, where available, amounts to be appropriated and corrected wording. The Board discussed a different order of the warrants grouping them according to their topic. The Board also discussed at length warrants 6 (tax stabilization) and 8 (voting options). Board members requested that John Aubin provide amounts/figures for Article 6 and that their discussion of the article resume once amounts/figures are available. Board members were undecided on whether to keep or delete Article 8.
8. Voting Options
Superintendent Gersen informed Board members that the document authored by members Asmus and Goodman is now on the district website. There will be two public meetings on Tuesday, March 8th (in Hanover) and Wednesday, March 16th (in Etna) to discuss the matter. Chair Segal indicated that next week’s Chair’s report would include an announcement of the upcoming vote option meetings. She asked that members visit the website prior to next week’s meeting, and John Aubin agreed to summarize the document at the same meeting.
9. Other Business
Assistant Superintendent, Jane Weissman, indicated that the Board needs to approve an unpaid leave of absence.
John Chamberlin moved and Kari Asmus seconded a motion to grant an unpaid leave of absence to Jessica Brown for the period beginning January 3, 2005 and ending no later than March 1, 2005. The motion passed unanimously.
10. Adjournment
John Goodman moved and Robert Bruce seconded a motion to adjourn at 10:07 p.m. The motion passed unanimously.
The meeting adjourned at 10:07 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Judith B. Csatari
Substitute, Recording Secretary
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