August 3, 2011 at 7:00 PM - Special Board of Education Meeting

Rationale:  The Connecticut State Board of Education has notified us that Clara T. O’Connell School is racially imbalanced.  Racial imbalance exists when the proportion of minority students for any school exceeds twenty-five percentage points more than the comparable proportion for the school district.  The comparable proportion is determined by comparing the total number of racial minorities in a school to the district-wide total pupil enrollment in the same grades.  O’Connell School has a minority population of 58.6% and the elementary level minority population is 32.85%.  The Board is required to submit a plan to correct the racial imbalance at O’Connell School.

Rationale:  Several revisions to this policy and regulations are proposed. These include (1) a reduction in the number of credits required for graduation from 26.25 to 25.25 due to the elimination of teaching positions in the elective areas; (2) addition of courses allowed for high school credit, including (a) World Language courses taken privately through a non-profit provider , (b) online courses, (c) Higher Education courses, and (d) Algebra I and Geometry high school courses taken in grades seven and/or eight; and (3) provisions for meeting the graduation requirement in writing and mathematics by English Language Learners.

Rationale:  The recommendation has been made to revise Policy 6146, Graduation Requirements, reducing the number of credits required for graduation from 26.25 to 25.25.  This necessitates revision to the Co-Curricular and Extra-Curricular Policy regarding high school full and partial eligibility for extra-curricular activities.  For a high school student to be eligible to participate in extra-curricular activities, the credit requirement is reduced from 6 to 5.5.  These changes may be found on page 4, item I-2 under full eligibility, and on page 5, item 1 under partial eligibility.

Rationale:  Online courses are an option for students in some situations.  The Bristol Board of Education does not have a policy regarding this.  The provision for providing credit for online courses is included in the proposed revision to Policy 6146, Graduation Requirements.  This policy was developed to address the situations in which students could take online courses.

Rationale:  Michael Audette – West Bristol K-8 School - Principal

Rationale:  The being no other business to come before the Board of Education the meeting should adjourn.