Members Present:  Laura Auger, Deborah Clukey (tardy), Larry Davis, Patricia Davis (left early), Ralph Eastman, Pam Goulette, Patricia Izbicki, Anita Kain, Donna Littlefield, Lorna Marshall, Susan McAvoy, George Nuite, Geraldine Rizzitello, Thomas Ronco, Michelle Ward and Phyllis Watson.

Members Absent:    Brad Coburn and Melissa Douglass

Also Present:          Greg Bellemare, Kevin Jordan, Sara Alberts, Crystal Priest and Paul Stearns.

Call to Order:            The meeting was called to order by Larry Davis at 7:00 P.M.

Approval of Minutes:   A motion was made by Geraldine Rizzitello and seconded by Ralph
                                  Eastman that the minutes of the November 12 meeting be approved.                 
Vote: Yes ~ 15   No ~ 0   Ab. ~ 1

Public Forum:           Two PCHS girls’ varsity soccer players addressed the board in support of girls’ soccer.  Sharon McKusick noted that the parents rose over $3,000 in the effort to support girl’s soccer at PCHS.

Correspondence:     none

Educational Reports:          

Christine LeGore and Merlene Sanborn spoke about the positive influence Warren “Pete” Myrick had on many lives.  They presented the district with a plaque in his honor to be displayed at PCHS.

1.         Adjustments to Agenda:   

2.         Girls’ Varsity Basketball:

A motion was made by Pam Goulette and seconded by Patricia Izbicki that the Board of Directors sanctions Paul Moseley to serve as a volunteer assistant coach for Girls’ Varsity Basketball for the 2003-2004 season.

Vote: Yes ~ 16   No ~ 0   Ab. ~ 0

3.        Policy Development:

A motion was made by Geraldine Rizzitello and seconded by Pam Goulette that the Board of Directors approves a first reading of IJOA and IKE and gives final approval to adopt policies associated with sections IJNDB through IJNDC-R of the new SAD #4 policy book.

Vote: Yes ~ 16   No ~ 0   Ab. ~ 0

4.         Varsity Girls’ Soccer:

A motion was made by Pam Goulette and seconded by Ralph Eastman that the Board of Directors authorizes the funding of the girls’ varsity soccer team at a level of $2,000.

Vote: Yes ~ 12   No ~ 3   Ab. ~ 1

5.         Curriculum Reports:

Policy Committee – Debbie Clukey (chair):

·                     Continued working on “I” Section

·                     Next meeting to be held following the holiday break.

Curriculum Committee – Pam Goulette (chair):

·                     Pam reported that strategies were being developed for implementing mandated plans.

6.         Administrative Reports:

Kevin Jordan (PCHS Principal) reported on the following:

·         Ten member SAT (student assistance team) attended training. 

·         Mitchell Institute survey draft results will be available soon.

·         PCHS students will be developing the county website.

·         Five teachers received Oakgrove Coburn Grants totaling $5,000 for different initiatives.

·         Recognized several students for various helpers.

·         Many schools have visited recently to see the laptops in action.

·         Gates Collaborative Team has met to plan for PCHS’ future.

Greg Bellemare (PCMS Principal) reported on the following:

·           Visitors from Bangkok Thailand to see the laptops.

·           Parent conferences were successful (student led) 89% “liked it a lot”.

·           MEA pilot site for 8^th grade MEA’s.

·           Announced holiday concert.

·           LAS Workshop in Bangor – 8 people attending.

·           Community Service Projects are ongoing for the holiday season.

·           Wellness Committee – District wide exercise forthcoming.

Sara Alberts (Elementary Principal/Special Education Director) reported on the following:

·           A very large turnout attended a successful holiday concert.

·           A parent from the HUGS group volunteered to write a grant for some playground equipment for the McKusick School.

·           There have been several transfers “both in and out” of the district for Special Education Students.  No significant net gain or loss.

Crystal Priest (Technology Coordinator) reported on the following:

Technology Successes

·           Staff Development – ran a full slate of classes during October and November.

·           Email – system is updated, have an email cancellations list set up to notify people by email of school and event cancellations.

·           Powerschool and MEDMS and Standards – about 90% programmed – have a conference call with the Powerschool engineer set up for Friday afternoon.  We are the first school in the state to work on setting up clusters and standards reporting for MEDMS.

Had an interesting visit today with a group from Thailand – are working on some possible long distance projects with this group in the future.

MEA online pilot testing will be taking place this week.

Governor King recognized Guilford at the NH Conference last week as a critical element in the success of the MLTI project.

Technology Glitches

·           Network Issues – Major network problems, primarily at the High School with some also occurring at the Middle School and some affecting the elementary schools.

Twelve known issues in October – with the help of Apple, Precision Consulting and Vicomsoft, we are now down to one known issue.  At this point, all the machines at the high school need to have a couple of preferences changed.  We spent two days before vacation and got ¾ of the machines done.  Mitch said today that the rest of them should be done by this week.  At that point, Vicomsoft can start monitoring the DHCP issue again.  They are currently reprogramming their software to take care of a part of the problem.

·           Firstclass Email – Server crashed in early November.  The backups were also corrupted.  Managed to salvage over 100,000 files and most people could retrieve their old mail if they chose to.  Because she didn’t trust the recovered system, Crystal rebuilt the system from scratch.  The new system is probably about 95% functional at this point.

One of the results of this is that we are on an upgraded version of the system software and the email software that has more capabilities than the old system.

Also, moving forward, Crystal is looking into a different backup and recovery system and will be testing it to make sure that it actually works as advertised.

·           Report Cards – These were delayed – K-8.  The high school ones went out on time.  The K-8 ones will be out the door tomorrow.

The issue revolved around standards based report cards and grades not calculating correctly on the report.

After much investigation, we found that Powerschool was doing what it had been told to do.  We then had to change what we told it to do so it would do what we wanted it to do.

At this point, the system is programmed for T-1 and reports are now correct.  Crystal needs to write up thorough instructions for teachers and then we will need to train teachers on the correct way to set up their grade books for standards based reporting.

·           GSX – Jay has been unable to order repair parts for the past three weeks because of a change made at Apple which removed his privileges.  After a huge amount of time chasing this issue, we finally have him back up and running as of Monday.

·           Web Site – right, haven’t had the time to properly update it.  Have managed to remove the eeeeee’s and remove the bogus Microsoft Word formatting.  Will be turning the updating of the site back over to Roxanne in the next week or so, as soon as I have time to install Rumpus and configure it.

7.         Chairperson's Report: None

8.         Superintendent's Report - Superintendent Stearns discussed the following:

·           TCTC three day 8^th grade experience

·           TCTC may need a roofing project done

·           Jen & Roxanne will be taking vacation the week of December 22^nd

·           Career pathways workshop

·           Support staff intent to negotiate 120 day notice effective December 5^th

·           State Board Meeting

·           EPS (special education, small schools, transportation and tuition)

·           Audit letter enclosed – good clean audit

·           GASB 34 contracting with Valuation Advisory Group

·           Fire Drill Policy – EBCB – “Seacoast Security”

9.         Yearly Evaluation of Superintendent:

A motion was made by Susan McAvoy and seconded by Pam Goulette that the Board of Directors goes into executive session for the purpose of evaluating the Superintendent of Schools.

            Vote: Yes ~ 16   No ~ 0   Ab. ~ 0

          Time In:         8:25                Time Out:       9:56

          Action Taken:

A motion was made by Pam Goulette and seconded by Geraldine Rizzitello that the Board of Directors extends the superintendent’ s contract through June 30^th, 2007.

Vote: Yes ~ 16  No ~ 0   Ab. ~ 0

10.      Adjournment:

Motion made by George Nuite and seconded by Anita Kain to adjourn the meeting at 9:58 p.m.

Vote: Yes ~ 16  No ~ 0   Ab. ~ 0

Respectfully Submitted,

Paul A. Stearns
Superintendent of Schools
SAD #4