MINUTES OF THE PATERSON BOARD OF EDUCATION REGULAR MEETING November 16, 2011 – 7:14 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School Presiding: Comm. Willa Mae Taylor, President Present: Dr. Donnie Evans, State District Superintendent Dr. Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, Deputy Superintendent Sidney Sayovitz, Esq., General Counsel Comm. Chrystal Cleaves Comm. Errol Kerr Comm. Jonathan Hodges Comm. Alex Mendez, Vice President Comm. Christopher Irving Comm. Pedro Rodriguez Absent: Comm. Wendy Guzman Comm. Kenneth Simmons The Salute to the Flag was led by Genesis Pena, 4th Grade Student, Martin Luther King, Jr. School. 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: Regular Meeting November 16, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School 61-127 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, on the district‟s website, 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. Taylor: Ms. Genesis Pena is a 4th grade student and one of our perfect score recipients and is currently attending Martin Luther King School. She is our only student who has achieved a perfect score in the language arts in the entire district. Ms. Terry Corallo: And she‟s only been in the country for three years. Page 1 11/16/11 Comm. Taylor: Thank you so much. I‟m so happy to hear that information. That means she‟s put a lot of effort forth in learning how to do this. I encourage you to keep doing your studies and I hope to see you when you get ready for college and out of college. PRESENTATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS Students Who Received a Perfect Score on the NJASK Dr. Evans: I have only one item and you introduced the topic a moment ago. That has to do with the youngsters that we recognized earlier this evening. Tonight prior to this meeting the Board of Education proudly recognized 112 Paterson Public School students for having attained perfect scores on specific sections of the 2011 NJASK, which is the New Jersey State Assessment of Skills and Knowledge for grades 3-8. Among the 112 students who were recognized earlier one received a perfect score on language arts, and you just heard her do the salute to the flag, 19 received perfect scores on the science assessment, and seven received perfect scores on both science and math. Of special note we also recognized 21 students who received perfect math scores for two or more consecutive years. I also heard tonight that we had eight students who achieved perfect scores during the past three years. As Superintendent I am thrilled to join our parents, staff, and Board to recognize such outstanding achievement. We must continue to set high expectations for all our students and our staff. I have said many times that it's a new day in Paterson and we will no longer accept excuses for why our students are not achieving. We know that when a child is encouraged to achieve he or she will achieve. Indeed, this is the kind of recognition and ceremony that we need to do more often. We need to increase significantly the numbers of students who are achieving this level of status, whether it's earning perfect scores on NJASK or HSPA or some of the other high stakes tests or other kinds of academic achievements. We really need to let our students know how much we appreciate the work that they did to get there and they should serve as examples for all our students. So thank you. That concludes Presentations and Communications, Madam President. However, I do have one item as part of the Report of State District Superintendent. Comm. Taylor: Dr. Evans, I'd just like to say that the children that have done this and have passed, the 112 students, 13 for two years and eight for three years, we need to get in touch with the schools that have the children that did this and find out what they are doing to make this happen for them and some for more than a year. It happens to them every year. The children that were here last year, some of them were very close to it. We could have had some more. They were very close to perfect scores. They weren‟t quite all perfect. The perfect came to us, but we need to go to the schools and find out what they're doing. For a child that's been here three years, what is she doing so that other children in our system can learn from how she studied in order to get where she is with having a perfect language arts score. REPORT OF STATE DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT Dr. Evans: Coming to the Board, as I speak, is a memo regarding recurring patterns of Board requests. The Board has called to our attention the fact that there are a number of requests that you've made and that we've not been as timely as we'd like to be in getting responses to you. I can sit here and explain over and over again the reasons why when in reality there really is no excuse for being late. We punish our kids for being late, we punish our faculty for being late, and so there really is no excuse for being late. However, some of the requests have involved responses that go beyond our Page 2 11/16/11 capacity to represent them in words only. Some of them require extensive explanation and beg for communication or dialogue between staff and the Board in relation to the information being provided. As a result, we've taken a couple of steps to help close that communications gap and to be more responsive and more timely in getting the responses to you for information that you're requesting. As a result, one of the things that we're going to do and is communicated in the memorandum that you have is in the next four Board workshops, and we're not going to stop at those four if the need goes beyond that, we're purposefully going to include topics unique to the divisions or departments that represent the theme or focus of a number of questions. This afternoon Mrs. Jones and I actually spent a good amount of time going back maybe a year and a half looking at the requests that have come in from the Board and we see some recurring themes emerging over and over again. The information you request may be different, but the themes seem to be consistent. For example, curriculum and instruction is one of those recurring themes with a number of questions evolving around curriculum and curriculum expectations, those kinds of things. So the very first one we're going to do is around curriculum and instruction and provide an overview that's connected to the kinds of things you've been asking for in the past and things you might be asking for as we bring new information to you in that particular area. Then the next month in January facilities and facility issues seem to be a recurring theme in terms of information that has been requested, what is the status of this situation or are there challenges with regards to our grounds, and a number of other issues. So that's going to be the topic of discussion in January, finance in February, and then human resources in March. While I've identified those months, if indeed you as a Board determine that you‟d like for us to reorder the topics that we've identified and have one perhaps that‟s scheduled later to be sooner or vice versa, obviously we will accommodate that. But the point is when you ask for information we need to be getting it to you in a timely manner, but I want to do more than that. I want to not just get you the information, but provide the opportunity for there to be discussion or dialogue between the Board and staff. A second step that we're taking is to do an inventory. I understand we've done inventories in three to five year intervals. Some of the questions that have come forward have to do with how much of this or how much of that – computers, Smart Boards, and those kind of things – do we have. One of the things I've learned is that while we do have a good sense of what we have, we don't have, at least I'm my opinion, an accurate to the computer count across the district of our equipment and other amenities that are required to deliver instruction. So we're going to be letting an RFP out very soon to bring someone in to help us to do a complete inventory and then connected to that provide additional information on reading programs, math programs, the kinds of things that Dr.