SAU #70 School Board

Present: Board members Asmus, Bruce, Carpenter, Carter, Chamberlin, Fleischer, Gray, Sachsse (7:11), Williams; Administrators Gersen, Aubin, Gillespie, Finer, Roberts; and approximately 15 members of the public.

1. Call to order

Chair Gray called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m.

2. Approval of Minutes

John Chamberlin moved and Bob Bruce seconded a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of November 13, as submitted. The motion passed unanimously.

3. Reports to the Board

a. Chair’s report – Chair Linda Gray updated the Board with the names of the participants on the Search Committee for the Assistant Superintendent for Student Services and the Quality of Education Committee.

Ms. Gray also reported that she and John Chamberlin were the members of the sub committee reviewing the process and timeline for evaluating the Superintendent. She said they have met and are in the process of developing a timeline that would activate the evaluation process soon after the Board’s March organizational meeting in order to have the evaluation ready for the May meeting. Ms. Gray said that they are also planning to propose revisions to the evaluation form and will be circulating a draft for the Board’s review.

Board member Asmus suggested aligning the approval of the Superintendent’s and Assistant Superintendent’s contracts with the evaluation timeline and suggested that approval of the contracts be deferred from this meeting to the May meeting. Those two items were removed from this meeting agenda and will be acted on in May.

b. Superintendent’s report

K-12 curriculum development process – Superintendent Gersen reviewed the K-12 Curriculum Summary noting that the document outlined the progress each committee has made. He indicated that, with the presentations of the K-12 Science and Art curriculums, only PE, Music, and Technology remain. Dr. Gersen said he will ask Joanne Roberts to give a final report at the end of the year.

Internal review of foreign language – Dr. Gersen reported that he met with Principals Williams and Edson, and language teachers Allison Litten and Kristin Olmstead about offering both French and Spanish beginning at grade 4 and progressing through the grade levels. He also reported that he was gathering data on the impact of introducing Spanish in the Middle School, seeking information on enrollments in the Middle School classes, performance comparisons in Spanish II classes of the High School, and percentage of special education students in middle school French and Spanish. Dr. Gersen said an internal review is taking place to collect data before bringing it to the Board. Board members discussed their concerns about the language offerings and the possibility of inviting Bruce Duncan to a Board meeting to discuss his study. The Board asked for an update in May. A member of the community asked about the request to begin foreign language at the first grade level. Dr. Gersen said that the administration continues to have substantial concerns about the implementation of foreign language at the first grade level and he does not feel that there is Board or community consensus to make this a priority.

4. Business requiring discussion

a. 7-12 Science Curriculum Presentation – Joanne Roberts introduced Sally Hair and Adina Desaulniers who presented the 7-12 Science curriculum and answered questions from the Board.

b. K-12 Art Curriculum – Joanne Roberts introduced Paula Dorr, who presented an overview of the K-12 Art curriculum and answered Board member’s questions.

c. Proposed 2007-08 SAU Budget – Assistant Superintendent for Business, John Aubin, reviewed the revised budget sheets saying that the proposed technology position is the biggest single change in the budget. He said that the revised sheets reflect administrator salary increases of 1.75%, versus an estimated 3.9% in the previous version; and support staff salary increases of 3%, versus the 5.1% in the previous version. The 2007-08 budget now represents a 1.6% increase from the 2006-07 budget.

Technology Supervisor – Dr. Gersen reviewed the Technology Supervisor proposal, which was modified from the last presentation. He said that since the last Board meeting, he has spoken with technology faculty in each building and administrators, to identify needs, responsibilities, and divisions of time required to keep our systems running. This new document is a result of that information gathering. He also said that he has spoken with representatives from the Town of Hanover, SAU 88 (Lebanon) and SAU 6 (Claremont), and a local vendor about a potential partnership to obtain technology services.

Board members expressed support for keeping the money for salary and benefits for this proposed position in the budget, but had many concerns about how to proceed. While some Board members felt that the job description was still too vague, others questioned how much relief this position would offer the technology faculty and where the priorities lie, whether systems maintenance, data processing, program maintenance, etc.

The Board recognized that there are serious problems in the coordination of the technology program and, while support was expressed for putting moneys into the budget for technology, stopped short of approving the money specifically for a technology supervisor. Instead, the Board asked the Superintendent to continue to develop a model that would find the best way to move toward the most critical needs of the program and report back to the Board with a proposal.

5. Public Hearing on proposed 2007-08 SAU Budget in accordance with RSA 194c:10

Chair Gray opened the Public Hearing part of the meeting saying, “I open the Public Hearing on the budget for the SAU #70 School District in accordance with NH RSA 194c:10. Included in the public packets is a line item budget which contains all purposes and amounts of appropriations to be included for proposed 2007-08 expenditures. A notice for this Public Hearing was published in the Valley News on Friday, December 1.” She then asked if there were members of the public wishing to speak.

Kari Asmus reported that the Dresden Finance Committee discussed the proposed budget and tentatively voted to approve it. Dresden Finance Committee Chair Cheryl Lindberg said that the Committee supported the budget pending information about the proposed technology position, and one member of the Committee wanted more comparable data in different categories in the budget.

Mr. Aubin noted that the Board had already discussed the benefit amendments (salary, insurance co-pay) for support staff, but had not decided on the proposal to increase life insurance benefits from $50,000 to 1.5 times the individual’s annual salary. This would increase the budget by $662. The Board added that amount to the budget total.

Chair Gray closed the Public Hearing.

6. Business requiring action

a. Adopt 2007-08 SAU Budget

John Chamberlin moved and Nancy Carter seconded a motion to approve the 2007-08 SAU budget appropriation of $1,067,894. The motion passed unanimously.

7. Adjournment

Stan Williams moved and Mary Sachsse seconded a motion to adjourn at 10:25 p.m. The motion passed unanimously.

The meeting adjourned at 10:25 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary B. Davis

Recording Secretary