November 20, 2015 at 4:00 PM - Superintendent's Weekly Update to the Board of Education

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Please see attached two documents I'll bring to the special board meeting on Monday.  Mary let Jay (ARY) and Jay (Winkelman) know we may have a crowd of people there.  They appreciated the heads up.  Also, just a moment ago Jay Cameron emailed me additional items we asked about after the spec drawing for BP3 were complete and advertised.

I have a busy weekend filled with some needed R&R.  However, please DO NOT hesitate calling, emailing, or texting me questions/concerns about the proposed updated construction budget.  I welcome you to visit with Mary too on Monday.  I don't bother her in the evenings and weekends.

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Please know I did a walk-around of the MS-HS construction site taking pics.  You can find them on the School Facebook Page.  They're admittedly not terribly exciting.  It's a lot of site work and footings & foundation.

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You may hear some questions/concerns about the elementary classroom unit vents.  Please see attached Robbie's response to our shared concerns.

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We had a very large turnout for the trap shooting parent meeting.  We met in the MS-HS Commons for about 45 minutes.  Someone sat at every table and seat.  Several people had to stand along the walls.  We had 93 students sign-up for this new student activity.  That's some positive news!

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I went to the Royalton Community Center for coffee this morning.  I figured I'd take any lashings they wanted to give me for the released tax statements.  To my great surprise they were all really nice to me and didn't beat me up any.  Denny politely asked some good questions and then we moved on to hunting and fishing.

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Please read attached an email between me and an "influential" member of our public.  I removed his identity because I don't believe he intended or wanted me sharing his thoughts with the Board.

What I want you all to realize is everyone's taxes should NOT be higher than what we said during the referendum.  In fact, many should actually see they're lower by a small noticeable amount.

I need to thank Mary for helping me with all of the numbers!

IMPORTANT:  My conversation is definitely different than I'd use with someone else in our community.  We know each other well and therefore there is some personal comments I wouldn't share with other community members with the same questions.  For example, basically saying yup mine too went skyrocket high.   

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Jim, Liz and I recently attended a MSBA session on superintendent evaluations.  We will schedule a time to work on the instrument that can be brought to the full board.  It makes most the sense to use Dr. Robert J Marzano's District Leader Evaluation Model.  It fits the direction MSBA is promoting for superintendent evaluations and aligns to the recently implemented iObservation software we use with our teachers and principals.

iObservation collaberated with Dr. Marzano to develop the new District Leader Evaluation Model based on the most current research into the relationship between district culture and student achievement. The model is the only district leader evaluation framework designed to correspond to both a teacher evaluation and school leader (principal) evaluation framework to maximize impact on raising student achievement.  

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Kevin Rupp said the Board can limit hourly employees to coaching/advising only at the junior high level.  It would have to be discrimination for a reason why the Board cannot.  The reason to not allow hourly employees to be varsity and varsity assistant coaches is budgetary.  It is not because of any person's gender, age, or race.  

With this information it's my recommendation is to limit hourly employees to coaching/advising junior high positions.  Remember the example of a second year assistant coach who would be making approximately $2,000 more than a teacher in the REM contract. This would have the real potential for REM to request/negotiate for several dollars added to the coaching/advising positions.  And we recently just aligned all coaching and advising positions in the middle of other area schools similar in size (student enrollment).        

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Please see below my notes from the conversation with Kevin Rupp.

*  The Board may have a publicized meeting to discuss an employee's performance.
*  The employee can choose to have the meeting open or closed to the public.

Closed Meeting
1.  The employee may or may not be present at the Board's request.  Most oftentimes the Board will have the employee in for questions/comments and then ask them to leave.
2.  The meeting must be recorded.
3.  The employee has a right to request the recorded meeting.  And can disseminate to others if they wish to do so.
4.  The Board must report out a summary at the next board meeting (Kevin helps with this).
5.  The conversation and documents the Board discusses are confidential personnel items that cannot be discussed by board members afterward.

Open Meeting
1.  The Board is able to freely talk/discuss the employee's evaluation.  It is encouraged to conduct a complete evaluation that highlights the good and poor performance.
2.  The employee is able to share his/her thoughts, but cannot move the discussion toward any other District employee's performance (e.g., AD, principal, supt.).
3.  The meeting must be recorded and becomes a public document that can be requested to be heard from anyone in the public.
4.  All Board discussion and documents used during the open meeting become confidential afterward.  The board members cannot discuss them openly anymore like it could during the open meeting.
5.  The news reporter and others from the public attending can report and share anything that happened in the meeting.  Weird but that's what statute allows.   

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Please see attached the confidential personnel item.  I share it with you because if you haven't received phone calls already you likely will this weekend.

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We are getting closer to an agreement with RESP.  Please see attached there latest propsal after we met with them on Tuesday.  We'll discuss it in closed session at the meeting on December 14.

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Kelsie wrote up a situation her and I need your opinion on.  Please read the scenario and give her or I an email or phone call to share your opinion/thoughts.  This is one we'd like your help on.

See you don't rubber stamp all of my thoughts/recommendations.  lol 

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Please see attached the weekly bills for your approval.