MINUTES OF THE PATERSON BOARD OF EDUCATION REGULAR MEETING December 14, 2005 – 7:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy High School Presiding: Comm. Chauncey I. Brown, III, MBM, President Present: Dr. Michael Glascoe, State District Superintendent Mr. Agostino Rottino, Interim Assistant Superintendent of Operations Mr. Sidney Sayovitz, General Counsel Comm. Joseph Atallo Comm. Andre Sayegh Comm. Jonathan Hodges Comm. Lawrence Spagnola Comm. Alonzo Moody Comm. Willa Mae Taylor Comm. Juan Santiago Comm. Daniel Vergara The Salute to the Flag was led by Miss Luthfa Ali, 12th Grade, National Honor Society. Comm. Vergara 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 December 14, 2005 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, and by sending notice of the meeting to Al-Zaman, El Diario, the Italian Voice, the New Jersey Forum, the North Jersey Herald & News, and The Record. Dr. Glascoe: Ladies and gentlemen, children first. (Performance by Academy of Performing Arts Concert Choir) Dr. John Murez: This is the Academy of Performing Arts. We teach children in grades five, six, seven and eight singing, dancing and theater, as well as a whole array of instruments. The song they just sang for you was a medley by Billingsly. The next song is sort of their theme song. It’s called Musica Dei and it’s by Levitz. (Performance by Academy of Performing Arts Concert Choir) Page 1 12/14/05 Dr. Glascoe: Ladies and gentlemen, this wonderful choir from our Performing Arts Academy has performed at Radio City Music Hall, St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, and on the News 12 New Jersey Christmas Show. Last year the Academy of Performing Arts Concert Choir won first place in the WABC Radio Curtis and Kirby Christmas Holiday Competition, and I understand the prize was a 60-inch television set. Ladies and gentlemen, let us give them a big hand. (Performance by Academy of Performing Arts Concert Choir) REPORT OF STATE DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT Dr. Glascoe: I want to commend our Office of Community Service and the Parent Resource Center under the leadership of Anna Taliaferro for their 8th Annual Parent Awareness Day program which was held at Eastside High School on Saturday, December 3. We had a great turnout. I believe the last count was about 700 parents and students also attended. We had workshops. We had lunch. We had a very enthusiastic and electrifying guest speaker, Dr. Donald Clark. So it was a great day. This was the 8th Annual Parent Awareness Day program and this is going to continue. We are going to improve on what we are doing to meet the needs of our parents and our communities. It is a great program. On Friday, December 2 the Paterson Public School District had the rare opportunity of hosting some of America’s most respected artists from hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. Among them were members of a Grammy-nominated Bruce Daggerponce Cajun Band. There were two concert presentations at Eastside High School on that day where students from grades 6-12 were in attendance and the community was also invited to attend. I was there and it was a fantastic program. The band performed Cajun music from Louisiana. This was put on by our diversity committee. They have had many of these kinds of cultural awareness programs throughout the year and we look forward to more. Congratulations and praise is extended to Morgan Williams, an 8th grader attending Norman S. Weir School, upon being featured in the upcoming 2005-2006 edition of “Who’s Who Among Outstanding Middle School Students.” “Who’s Who” recognizes achievements of outstanding middle school students nationwide and only a small percentage are considered of this honor. So we congratulate this fine young man and we congratulate Norman S. Weir as well as our school district. Thank you. The Eastside High School cheerleaders participated in tryouts for the UCA Cheerleading All- Stars. This event draws contestants from all over the country. The winners will participate in the annual holiday Christmas parade in London, England. Congratulations to Monique Mitchell, Tanisha Wells, and Vanessa Farmer for receiving All-Star medals and for being selected to participate in all holiday festivals in London. This is going to occur on December 28 through January 2. Congratulations to those wonderful young ladies. Finally, our School Board President, Comm. Brown, has recommended and I certainly concur that we change the meeting times of our School Board meetings. As you know, we meet two consecutive Wednesdays each month. Comm. Brown has proposed that we move to the first and third Wednesday of each month. I concur with this recommendation and want to move forward with it because it does a couple of things. One, as you know there is a tremendous volume of information for our School Board members to get through from one week to the other. We have our workshop meetings the first Wednesday and on the second Wednesday we have our regular School Board meetings. So with that time frame it does give our Board members additional time to digest the volume of information and certainly be prepared to do what they are elected to do, and that is to work with the school district in governance. In addition to that, it allows our staff ample time to prepare this information. Preparing information from one week to the other does push the staff as well as the School Board. Page 2 12/14/05 So in essence I concur with this recommendation and we would like to move forward with this beginning the first Wednesday in January. Thank you Mr. President, that concludes my comments. REPORT OF BOARD PRESIDENT Comm. Brown: Thank you very much, Dr. Glascoe. First I want to thank all the parents who came out for Parent Awareness Day last Saturday. I also want to thank Ms. Taliaferro’s staff for the great job they have done in preparing and engaging parents in our community. I also would like to apologize for my non-attendance. I had some family challenges with my five-year-old daughter and my thirteen-year-old son and I apologize that I was unable to make it. I also want to congratulate the graduating class this year of Leadership Partners, a yearlong program that is spearheaded by Dr. Fulmore. I also want to thank him for making it here tonight instead of the graduation. Thank you. I also want to announce tonight the formation of our new committees. I am going to let you know who the new chairmen of these committees are and I would like for them to make a few brief comments. As most of you know, I have been a policy- driven or a governance type of individual on how the Board functions and how it does work. In the spirit of trying to move this district back to local control that has been my top priority that I want to accomplish, trying to work as a Board and how we engage with the administration on delivering services and setting the vision for this district so we can move forward. There are four committees that I established. One is the facilities committee that is chaired by Dr. Hodges. He will speak briefly on his committee in few moments. The next committee is the policy committee that is chaired by Comm. Sayegh. We have a human resource committee that is chaired by Comm. Taylor. We also have a joint governance committee that is chaired by myself. After I give my colleagues a chance to speak briefly I will share with you what that joint governance committee’s intent and purpose is. At this time I would like to move the floor and turn it over to the committee chairman of facilities, Dr. Hodges. Comm. Hodges: Good evening. It is very nice to have so many people in attendance. I will look for you to be here next month as well. The facilities committee has a number of extraordinary challenges in front of it. Out of 14 proposed schools we have only two completed in eight years. We have to turn that around. We have to look at finding ways to secure new sites and to monitor the construction process from planning to completion. We additionally need to take a look at maintenance schedules in our current facilities and finding ways to develop new and more effective work order systems that will enable us to address problems very carefully and very quickly. We also want to put together a preventative maintenance schedule that will allow us to eliminate the recurrent problems by being proactive. Those are some of the concerns that we are going to be paying attention to in the facilities committee. We are working jointly with the SCC. Once a month we meet to look at the new buildings that are coming in. That report is forthcoming on a monthly basis to the rest of the Board.