The next Board of Ed meeting is “Budget Preview” on Tuesday, January 10, 2012, when the board will discuss “How are we responding to the BoE fiscal question?”
December 30, 2011
by Christine Yeres
• The CEFF committee has chosen three action items. What next?
• How many applicants so far for the two principal positions?
• Does the $3.1 million rollover budget figure include last year’s $4+ million of reserves?
• When will the input from the budget Knowledge Cafe be released?
• In a Jan. 31 meeting, board members will discuss the book Getting to Yes. Good reading for the community?
• In a Jan. 31 meeting, the board of ed will consider a third “Strategic Question” on student wellness, both physical and spiritual
In its December 15 meeting, the Chappaqua Education for the Future committee settled on three areas for improvement for the school district. According to Superintendent Lyn McKay, they are:
(1) moving forward 21st century skills in our schools,
(2) supporting the social and emotional needs of our students, and
(3) exploring ways to ensure students learn in an environment in which they are motivated to take risks.
“Three parents and a teacher are summarizing our work to date,” wrote McKay in an email, “which we will put on the website. We will ask for community input.”
This week, the district’s public information officer, David Hayes, gathered information from several administrators in response to a series of questions from NCNOW:
NCNOW: What will happen next with the CEFF committee and its action items?
Hayes: A small group of four committee members will be working with Eric Byrne in January to pull together information from the three working groups of the CEFF. The work will be shared in January through the CCSD electronic newsletter and will highlight the three areas of focus that we will move forward.
NCNOW: How many applicants for the two principal spots have you received so far?
Hayes: Applications for our principal positions as of 9am on Wednesday, December 21st:
HGHS – 70
RBS - 95
NCNOW: In the board’s scheduled January 10 “Budget Preview,” its agenda question for that evening is “How are we responding to BOE fiscal question?” Will administrators present an ball-park budget or just discuss process? Although it looks as though the tax cap allows $1.9 million additional dollars in the 2012-2013 budget, I’m still confused about the $3.1 rollover budget figure John supplied to NCNOW, and about how the administration arrived at the $1.8 million figure for cuts, since a provisional dollar amount for reserves use hasn’t yet been supplied.
For example, does the $3.1 million figure for rollover assume/include the $4+ million we drew on from reserves last year? If it does not, does that mean that the rollover figure is more like $7.1 million?
Hayes: The January 10 meeting will be to discuss the process and to take a look at where things currently stand since there are still many ‘unknowns’ such as Teachers Retirement System (TRS), Transportation Costs, Special Education Placements, State Aid, Assessed Tax Value, Tax Certiorari Settlements and the Tax Cap Number. The Board meeting on February 28th will be the “Superintendent’s Budget Proposal and Budget Discussion (School Programs and Staffing)” and at that time we should have a better sense as to what the 2012-13 budget will look like.
NCNOW: At the Knowledge Cafe on budget, participants were asked to consider:
1) What specific cuts they would make to arrive at $1.8 million in cuts,
2) What other sources of revenue could they think of, and
3) What is a long-term financial issue that the school district must begin to address now? And, how?
When will the information gathered from participants at the Knowledge Cafe on budget be released?
Hayes: The information gathered at the budget process Knowledge Café was turned over to the Finance Advisory Committee. They are currently in the process of analyzing the information for recurring themes. Since there was a large amount of information collected, the committee expects to have this process completed sometime in January. Once the process is complete, the themes as well as the raw data will be posted on the CCSD web site, etc.
NCNOW: On the board of ed’s January 31 meeting agenda is an item called “Book Study.” The book’s title is Getting to Yes, Negotiating Agreement without Giving In [first published in 1981]. Is this a book board members will read over the holiday and discuss at the January 31 meeting? Do you recommend that community members read the book also?
Hayes: Getting to Yes is an excellent resource for people in all walks of life to learn how to better communicate, collaborate, and negotiate. It is a highly regarded text that our administrative team and Board of Education will be reading and discussing in January. Any community member who is interested in the fine art of communication might find the book to be an interesting read.
NCNOW: That same January 31 meeting lists “Board Discussion: Third Strategic Question.” Is this third question related to (or even the same as) the second CEFF action item, having to do with “social and emotional health” of students? If so, when and how did this issue come to the fore of administrators’ attention?
Hayes: This is just an opportunity for the Board to, should they even chose to do so, initiate a brief discussion regarding whether or not to pursue the possibility of beginning to draft a 3rd strategic question. Various groups have suggested over the past years that creating a third question might be relevant. A third strategic question would not address just social/emotional learning, but the broader realm of wellness and ensuring that students strike a healthy balance in their lives and nourish their bodies and spirits as well as their minds.
To catch up on school board matters, visit NCNOW’s “Schools” page.
Copyright 2012 NewCastleNOW.org