Minutes for the Pelham School Committee Meeting of May 25, 2011

                        Pelham Elementary School Committee Meeting
                                        Thursday, May 5, 2011
Attendance: Debbie Gould (Chair), Kathy Weilerstein, Annie Foley (6:25), Maria Geryk, Lisa Desjarlais (6:30), Ed Martin, Fred Vanderbeck, John Trickey, Debbie Jacque, Beth Graham, JoAnn Smith, public
 

1A. Debbie called the meeting to order at 6:04PM
1B. Agenda Review – Debbie added 4C – long range planning. Kathy added 4G – meeting start time
1C. Meeting minutes from April 7, 2011 were approved.
2. No announcements or public comment
3. Superintendent’s Update: Maria began with a statement of commitment to the Pelham Elementary School (in response to Lisa Desjarlais being a finalist for the Fort River principal position) – see attached.
Refer to document distributed by Maria for details of Supt update.  

•  District‐Wide Safety Tabletop Exercise – Debbie suggested that it would be helpful for parents to be informed about the method/process for information dissemination in case of emergencies.
• Community Mapping Project – Any members of the community that are interested in participating should contact Marta Guevara.
• Volunteer Recognition Celebration – Monday, May 23rd. Lisa will be sending invitations to Pelham folks.
• Tuesday, May 10th – is a JOINT meeting of Amherst, Pelham and Regional – there will be a presentation regarding Special Education services.

Principal’s Update

• 6th Grade graduation will be June 22 at 7PM.
• All teacher evaluations have been completed. 
• A gift of a giant sneaker sculpture was donated to the school from the “Arts & Soles” exhibit in Springfield – (motion to accept the gift passed unanimously).
• Work on curtains for the stage is moving forward. Bruce Klotz has been helping with the research and has offered to install the new curtains when we get them.

4. New & Continuing Business

4A. Quarterly Financial Review ‐ Budget is basically on track. There is a question about the expense/formula used to charge Pelham for the superintendent search. Maria will follow up with Rob and get back to us.

4B. RTI – See handout from JoAnn Smith and Beth Graham. Discussion about the process of gathering information – 3x year; fall/winter/spring. Information includes specific details for each student and charts progress over time. Teachers are receiving training and support in administration, interpretation
and intervention strategies. They will continue to receive support in understanding data, making data based decisions (how to make interventions using the inventories), include challenge material, how and when to provide responsive instruction. Tara Luce (counselor in Fort River) mentioned that the
information from the assessments has already been useful in child study team meetings and will clearly be more valuable when multiple data collection times will provide information about progress over time. Debbie Jacque mentioned the value of having students take an assessment on a computer – the
technology experience itself will serve students well as they are faced with more computer based testing in the future.  There was some conversation regarding the actual procedure for students – including what message they receive about the purpose of the assessment (not test) and what they do
when they complete the assessment (ie – play computer game, leave room etc). This will be revisited at future meetings. MAP is the screening tool piece of RTI.

4C.  Long  Range  Planning  Debbie  Gould  attended  a  meeting  in  Shutesbury  with  Leverett.  The  state continues  to  encourage  regionalization.  In  analysis  of  the  financial  situation  Debbie,  Lisa,  Fred
Vanderbeck (Finance Comm) and John Trickey (Finance Comm) concluded that a “Pelham Only” model is not  viable  in  the  long  term.  It  was  agreed  by  the  School  Committee  that  we  would  like  the  Visioning Committee to focus their efforts on looking at possible regional models – (with Amherst, with the Outer Ring  of  Leverett  and  Shutesbury).  The  commitment  remains  to  maintain  Pelham  Elementary  as  the vibrant school it is and has been. It was decided to provide a Public Forum to discuss this important issue with the school and town community – to give folks information as well as to give people and chance to ask their questions and share their concerns.

4D. School Choice – Given that the decision was made to not move forward with a “Pelham Only” model the  decision  was  made  to  open  spaces  in  the  incoming  Kindergarten  class.  Maria  will  first  contact Amherst  and  Shutesbury  to  see  if  they  have  overflow  issues  that  could  be  helped  by  having  space  in Pelham. If not, the school choice spaces (9)will be posted to the public.

4E. School Committee Membership – There has been an item placed on the Town Warrant to expand the  Pelham  Elementary  School  Committee  from  three  to  five  members.  Ed  Martin  will  check  with  the town lawyer to determine if the Selectboard will be able to appoint members on an interim basis if the article passes.

4F.  Accept gifts – an anonymous donation to the library for $2500 was approved to accept.

4G. Meeting start time – It was agreed that beginning with the June 2nd meeting we will move the start time to 6:30 PM.

5A. Visioning Committee – new charge, see 4C above

5B. Budget Subcommittee – no news

5C. Policy Subcommittee – 1st read on packet next meeting

6A. Calendar review – no news

6B. Items for upcoming meetings: Paras in schools, school survey results, school improvement plan, public forum

Meeting was adjourned at 9:00PM
KW