MINUTES OF THE PATERSON BOARD OF EDUCATION SPECIAL MEETING. March 30, :00 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School

Transcription

1 MINUTES OF THE PATERSON BOARD OF EDUCATION SPECIAL MEETING March 30, :00 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School Presiding: Comm. Errol Kerr, President Present: Ms. Frances Finkelstein, Business Administrator Mark Tabenkin, Esq., General Counsel Comm. Zenaida Almario *Comm. Joseph Atallo *Comm. Theodore Best *Comm. Wendy Guzman Comm. Jonathan Hodges Comm. Danilo Inoa Comm. Waheedah Muhammad Comm. Willa Mae Taylor, Vice President Absent: Dr. Dennis Clancy, Interim State District Superintendent Mr. Mark Kramer, State Monitor The Salute to the Flag was led by Comm. Kerr. Comm. Taylor read the Open Public Meetings Act: The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to insure the right of the public to have advance notice of, and to attend the meetings of the Paterson Public School District, as well as other public bodies at which any business affecting the interest of the public is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this law, the Paterson Public School District has caused notice of this meeting: Special Meeting March 30, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School Preakness Avenue Paterson, New Jersey to be published by having the date, time and place posted in the office of the City Clerk of the City of Paterson, at the entrance of the Paterson Public School offices, and by sending notice of the meeting to the Arab Voice, El Diario, the Italian Voice, the North Jersey Herald News, and the Record. Comm. Hodges: Mr. President, I have questions about having the public comments. Is this going to be for the budget hearing? Comm. Kerr: Just for this session. The budget session will be different. Comm. Hodges: No problem then. Page 1 03/30/09

2 PUBLIC COMMENTS It was moved by Comm. Hodges, seconded by Comm. Taylor that the public comment portion of the meeting be opened. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried. Comm. Kerr: Seeing no one and hearing no one, may I have a motion to close the public portion? It was moved by Comm. Hodges, seconded by Comm. Inoa that the public comment portion of the meeting be closed. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried. *Comm. Guzman enters the meeting at 6:10 p.m. MOTION TO GO INTO CLOSED SESSION TO DISCUSS SUPERINTENDENT S EVALUATION It was moved by Comm. Muhammad, seconded by Comm. Inoa that the Board go into closed session to discuss the Superintendent s evaluation. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried. The Board went into closed session at 6:12 p.m. *Comm. Best enters the meeting during closed session. RECONVENE The Board reconvened the meeting at 7:03 p.m. ROLL CALL Comm. Zenaida Almario *Comm. Joseph Atallo Comm. Theodore Best Comm. Wendy Guzman Comm. Jonathan Hodges Comm. Danilo Inoa Comm. Waheedah Muhammad Comm. Willa Mae Taylor, Vice President Comm. Errol Kerr, President REVIEW OF BOARD SELF EVALUATION Comm. Kerr: I will be turning the meeting over to Ms. Diane Morris from the New Jersey School Boards Association and she will be doing the review of the Board s selfevaluation for us. Ms. Diane Morris: What I d like to call your attention to is the packet that I distributed to you just a short while ago and call your attention to on the right side there s a blue packet stapled and the front page of it says Paterson Board of Education, Self- Evaluation Review It should actually say because that s our school year. If I can ask you then to flip over two pages until you get to the document labeled Chart I. Now, to give everyone an understanding of this process, Board members, as individuals, submitted to my office a completed evaluation document of the Board s responsibilities. With that document, as my secretary collected them, we compiled it into one summary document and that is what I m here to deliver to you tonight that compilation of all Board member input into this process. When the document comes to Page 2 03/30/09

3 me from my secretary it s typically in its compiled version and I take a look at a couple of things. One of the first things I take a look at is if you all recall as part of the evaluation document you were asked to rate on a value or level of importance those major areas of Board responsibilities. In other words, you were to set benchmarks for expected performance or how important a particular area of this evaluation is to the overall governance responsibilities in all nine areas. So I ll call that the benchmark that you ve set for performance or expectations for performance in these particular areas, the nine areas. Then what I do is I take a look at your actual performance and make a comparison through this chart to indicate where the Board set the benchmark for expectation identified as Value and then what the actual Board performance ratings showed. For example, in Chart I that is labeled Board and Value you ll see there are two columns within each of the areas of planning, policy, student achievement, finance, operations, performance, superintendent/board relations, staff/board relations, and community/board relations. For example, in the area of planning, Board performance is above a 3 and just below a three 3.5, which is strong performance as I know it to be or effective performance on this indicator. Also, you ll see the lighter column reflects just below a 4 and a little above a 3.5, which tells me that you have a bit higher expectation for the Board responsibilities in this area. I d like to always see that minor gap. I d like to see the Board raising its expectations on a regular basis so that you re not consistently or constantly exceeding your own expectations for performance but that you re always raising the bar. Do I make sense? Comm. Kerr: Sure. Comm. Taylor: Yes. Ms. Morris: I hope so. So in looking at planning you see a minor gap, which tells me there are opportunities for growth from where you ve set the bar. It s the same in the areas of policy and student achievement, as well as finance. Interesting enough, in the area of Board operations, and those are things like the whole Board responsibilities on a regular basis like teamwork and working together as a group, you are exceeding your benchmark there. If you are going to do it anywhere, this is the place to do it when it comes to working together as a team. It s the same in the area of performance. You can see how very minor that gap is. As it relates to the superintendent/board relationship, under CSA, you can see that you are exactly meeting your own expectations in this area. You are exceeding your expectations in the area of board/staff and you are slightly exceeding your expectations as it relates to the board and the community. If you go on to Chart II on the next page, if you recall completing the evaluation document you were asked to not only rate the Board s overall performance as a whole, but to also rank your individual performance for you, the Board member, as an individual. When I look at this I immediately look to see whether or not there are large gaps between how I rate myself as an individual and how I rate the Board as a whole. Large gaps cause me concern. In other words, they say I m wonderful but the Board isn t doing so great. I see no evidence whatsoever of that so it tells me very much that all of you as individuals are contributing fully to the overall effectiveness of the entire Board. You can see there are very minor gaps between what the overall Board averages identify and that of the individual Board members. There are no gaps that are greater than probably a.5 so I consider that to demonstrate to me that this is a working team, which I believe is very important when it comes to fulfilling your responsibilities as a member of this Board of Education and then as a Board of Education as a whole. You can see the next page is that chart called Quantification of Relative Value. That s what I talked about in setting those benchmarks. I m pleased to see that you ve set very high benchmarks, which again is very positive. As you look through this evaluation, there are a couple of things that I want to call to your attention. Page 3 03/30/09

4 Again, my observations are that overall the Board s performance as it relates to your governance responsibilities are effective, even more than effective. They are actually strong. In addition to looking at that, I d ask that you look at the first page of the charts entitled Planning. I m sorry these are not numbered so I can direct you. If you take a look at Planning, what I want you to notice is how the ratings are clustered. In other words, most of your ratings fall between commendable and good. The Board is very much in agreement of its evaluation of the whole Board. So it s always nice for me and I think it demonstrates where the Board is as a team when you are very clustered on your expectations. What I will be leaving you with tonight is this document. I m not going to walk through each and every page on this, but overall to let you know your effectiveness and governance responsibility as is reflected in this self-evaluation demonstrate to me strong Board performance. You are meeting and exceeding your own expectations. You are contributing fully as individuals to the benefit of the full Board. And you have demonstrated effectiveness throughout this evaluation document. What I think needs to happen is that Board members need an opportunity to review this document and to review the comments. Then we will get to the point of setting goals for not only the district but also for the Board because part of your responsibility as a Board of Education under the QSAC regulations is to have a professional Board improvement plan. So what I would expect is to hear from you between now and probably the May timeframe to come together to take this evaluation after you ve had time to read it all and digest it all and identify a particular area or a couple of particular areas where the Board can experience growth. As I said, there are a lot of comments in here and I think you really need time to read and digest those comments. I don t think we can do them justice here this evening. Are there any questions of me as it relates to the compilation of this evaluation or the overall ratings or anything at all? *Comm. Atallo enters the meeting at 7:12 p.m. Comm. Hodges: I do have a question about points toward our training. This does count toward that, does it not? Ms. Morris: What you are required to do as far as required training Comm. Kerr: Please. I m going to ask the audience to be a little bit more quieter. We are conducting business here and we are hearing chatter and it is very distracting. So I m going to ask you to please be a little quieter for us. Thank you. Ms. Morris: Dr. Hodges, are you asking as to the required training? Comm. Hodges: No. I m talking about points toward a certified Board. We ve had a number of training sessions and you were going to research that. Ms. Morris: I m sorry. I don t have that information with me, but I certainly can do that. Tonight s work, because we re not actually doing work, I m reporting to the Board information, which does not qualify for what we call academy credits. Comm. Hodges: Really? Ms. Morris: Yes. There is no real hands-on work going on here tonight other than my presentation. Now, the work that we did a couple of months ago does qualify for academy credits. What this does is, and it will be reflected in your Board minutes, says that the Board completed the Superintendent evaluation and the Board self-evaluation. That gains you the QSAC monitoring points so that there is no loss there. This puts you in compliance with the New Jersey Department of Education QSAC monitoring. Page 4 03/30/09

5 Comm. Almario: I just want clarification of one thing on Chart I. I know that the light colored one will be for Value, so that will be our expectations. Ms. Morris: Yes. Comm. Almario: Then what actually has taken place based on our opinion is the darker one. So we did very well on staff. By staff we only mean the Board members? Ms. Morris: Are you talking about the Board of Education? Comm. Almario: The Board of Education. Ms. Morris: It s the Board of Education evaluating your level of governance responsibility within that area of staff. If you go to the particular indicators you ll notice exactly what that rating is a reflection of. Comm. Almario: So we did very well on that? Ms. Morris: Yes, you did. Comm. Almario: I have another very quick question. When NJQSAC monitors look at this document, then it will be in our favor then where it says governance Comm. Kerr: I m not hearing you quite well. Comm. Almario: Maybe Comm. Best also might be able to answer this. When the NJQSAC monitors look at this document, it will shed favorable light on the Board as far as governance is concerned? Ms. Morris: NJQSAC does not state that the Board will demonstrate a positive evaluation or a 3.5 on the evaluation scale. What QSAC says is that the Board will participate in a Board self-evaluation on an annual basis and the Board will develop a self-improvement plan. If you go back to the second page of this packet, it s entitled Professional Improvement Plan Synopsis in which I provide to the Board an explanation of the process as well as the meaning of Chart I and Chart II. I identify professional improvement opportunities, that being the nine areas of the self-evaluation, and then indicate a goal that is very generic to all boards, to improve board effectiveness as measured by the board self-evaluation. Then we ll later identify to engage in a Board workshop to: And it s something that once everyone has read this document you really need to have some Board discussion to determine where it is we want to focus. It is always my recommendation that you pick one, no more than two, major area to improve Board governance. I think if you put too much on your plate then in my experience Boards achieve little versus putting something on your plate that you can manage and demonstrate increased performance levels. Comm. Taylor: We are just receiving this? We don t have to write this one up? Comm. Kerr: No. This is for us. Ms. Morris: What you ll notice in the packet is that I ve included some information on the QSAC monitoring as it directly relates to the evaluation, as well as, and I think I ve certainly given this information to the Board before, a 12-month agenda planning document and some additional information on setting goals and vision and action plans. Page 5 03/30/09

6 Again, I suggest that the Board read and digest and identify as a Board, perhaps during one of your work sessions, areas you would like to focus on. Then give me a call and we ll work together to improve your effectiveness in a particular area and develop that professional improvement plan. Comm. Taylor: On the governance piece here where it says the School Board engages in an annual and ongoing evaluative process it says 11. Is that what you were talking about? Ms. Morris: Yes. Comm. Taylor: We get that? Ms. Morris: You get those 11 points, yes. Comm. Taylor: Eleven points? Ms. Morris: Yes. Comm. Taylor: I think that s what Dr. Hodges was asking about. Ms. Morris: Okay. Then I misunderstood. I stand corrected. Comm. Kerr: So that s it, Diane? Ms. Morris: Yes. I want to thank the Board for participating and getting those evaluations into my office and allowing me the opportunity to come out and once again work with all of you. Comm. Kerr: And we want to thank you for your hard work in going through the evaluation and putting it together in such an easy, readable form. I don t believe we could have done it. So we want to thank you and the New Jersey School Boards Association for your work. Thank you, Diane. Ms. Morris: Thank you very much. We ll leave you to your work. It was moved by Comm. Taylor, seconded by Comm. Inoa that the meeting be adjourned. On roll call all members voted in the affirmative. The motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 7:23 p.m. Page 6 03/30/09