Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:04:18 -0500
From: Mia Munn
Subject: notes from the January 9 School board meeting
Part I
My notes on the Monday, January 9, 2012, CCS school board meeting.
There were 12 community members, 2 county commissioners, 2 boy scouts, and a newspaper reporter in attendance.
Public Comment
Three people made public comments.
Bruce Ladd said a group of concerned parents and citizens has been reviewing the district’s finances over the past eight months, with the purpose of assisting the district in avoiding cutting teachers, teacher assistants, and critical programs. They met with Ms. Little three times to get information. They requested but were denied the opportunity to speak with the district’s auditors, so the information they have may not be as complete as it could have been. They requested time to present their findings to the board at tonight’s meeting, but that request was denied.
The alternatives suggested by the board chair, meeting with board members individually or sending them the presentation, were not acceptable because they wanted the public to have access to the information. The group asked the county commissioners if they could make their presentation at the commissioners’ retreat, and they are on the agenda for Thursday, January 12 at 9am. The public and the board are welcome to attend that presentation at Camp Royal.
Jerry Polson said he was speaking for a group of parents concerned about the audit report and the black cloud over the school system. Why was Mr. Strunk added to the district? The board should have asked, how would this benefit CCS? The answer is it doesn’t. The response from our district has been “the board and superintendent didn’t intend to mislead”. The audit report disagrees. How was this not intentional? He was working for the district. There is also a question of insurance fraud. The contract signed by Mr. Logan and Ms. McManus includes a life insurance policy at the cost of $1 per month. I spoke to BCBS, who holds the district’s life insurance policies. They said that a district can’t provide life insurance for someone who is not an employed by the district. They say that is fraud. What the board did was wrong. The superintendent last spring pushed for a quick decision that would have ripped apart this county. He misplaced $700k in the budget this summer. Now there is the potential of a criminal fraud charge. The district has a set of stated beliefs. One of these is “Every behavior has a consequence.” What would the board’s response be if an employee defrauded the district? We’ve had enough of Mr. Logan’s ideas. The board needs to do its job.
I also made the following public comment:
I regret that I feel compelled to speak to the board tonight. I am very concerned about the NC State Auditor’s report that found “THE NORTH CAROLINA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION AND CHATHAM COUNTY SCHOOLS INTENTIONALLY MISREPRESENTED THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER (of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association) TO INCREASE HIS RETIREMENT BENEFITS.”
The board does not seem to be taking this audit finding seriously. Typically, when an auditor makes a serious finding, the response is to say, we accept we did something wrong and we will take steps to avoid this mistake in the future. That has not been this board’s response. It is time for the board to acknowledge its mistake, and to commit to doing better in the future.
The Board has made no public statement about the auditor’s report since it was released in early December. The only public response to the report is Mr. Logan’s statement in the December 22 Chatham News/Record. I believe it is inappropriate for the Superintendent to speak for the district in this matter because the auditor recommends that the board “consider taking disciplinary action against the Superintendent for facilitating the approval of the arrangement.” The board has allowed someone the state
auditor believes is culpable for the board’s improper action to speak for the board. That is unacceptable.
I urge the board to implement all of the report recommendations, including exercising greater due diligence in decision-making in employment and other matters. The board should also investigate the superintendent’s actions to determine if he should be disciplined by the board. The board owes it to the people of Chatham County to investigate fully.
In addition, I urge the board to consider whether the board attorney exercised due diligence in approving this agreement. The auditor’s report is very clear that Mr. Strunk’s contract with the district did not meet the standard to be considered employment. This seems to be a basic legal principle. If the board attorney failed to recognize this, then the board should consider whether he is giving adequate legal advice on other matters..
The Chatham News/Record editorial from December 22, 2011 says that the board’s actions call into question your ability to make sound decisions. As the editorial recommends, the people of Chatham County will be keeping “a close watch on future actions of this board and this superintendent.” The fact that so many community members are here tonight shows that people are taking that recommendation to heart.
Approval of the agenda
At Mr. Logan’s request, an agenda item was added under Old Business, Management letter from the district’s auditors.
Consent Agenda
The board approved the consent agenda, including the personnel agenda.
Reviewing the personnel agenda after the meeting (when it is first available) shows that the Chief Operating Officer Susan Little is retiring effective March 1, 2012. The consent agenda also included approval of amended minutes from last year’s retreat. Last year, the board approved a summary of the retreat with links to the presentations. When the document was migrated to the new website, the links broke, so the minutes no longer showed what occurred at that meeting. The amended minutes include the presentations within the text of the minutes.
http://board-of-education.chatham.k12.nc.us/modules/locker/files/get_group_file.phtml?gid=2348954&fid=14706145&sessionid=fdf2a14640854420d5fc7c33b69b15ec
Eye on Achievement
There was a presentation on the Dual Language program at Siler City Elementary and Chatham Middle, and the plans for a program at North Chatham. The presentation is not yet posted, but I will link to it when it is. In short, the program is very effective.
Ms. Brady-Andrews, principal at SCE (and the person who first proposed a dual language program) gave the bulk of the presentation. This year at SCE, there are 332 in the Dual Language program, including 4 classes each in kindergarten and first grade, and 2 classes each in second through fourth grade. 332 students are in traditional classes. The DL students are 52% Hispanic, 35% Caucasian, and 13% African American. After reaching out to the community, the numbers of African Americans in the program in kindergarten has increased. She showed a slide with the demographics of Siler City over the past 10 years. It was becoming increasingly Hispanic, but since the Dual Language program began in 2005, the numbers of Caucasian and African American students has increased.
The goal of the program is to have academic achievement as good as or better than the state standards. They are succeeding toward that goal. Last year, 3rd graders in the program outperformed other students in the district and the school in both reading and math. 4th graders did better in reading and just slightly lower in math. 5th graders outperformed the district and school in reading, math, and science. The number of AIG students in the DL program has increased.
The program wants high levels of reading listening, speaking, and writing in both English and Spanish. 39% of the DL program students are classified as Limited English Proficiency (LEP), and the numbers of students exiting that status (becoming proficient in English) is increasing. Of 5th graders who had been classified as LEP, 39% of the traditional program students exited that status, while 80% of the DL program students did.
(Another SCE staff member took over at this point.) The school also wanted to test proficiency in Spanish. They checked with other dual language programs in the state, but none was doing testing in Spanish. They found a program sponsored by the Spanish embassy. SCE students took the Stanford Spanish Language Ability test last year. There are 5 levels: pre-emergent, emergent, basic, intermediate, and proficient. 88% of the students scored at the intermediate or proficient levels. They identified some areas that needed to be strengthened and worked on that curriculum last summer.
This year there is a STARS program, where 25 native Spanish speakers from J-M come to the school and tutor Dual language students (native Spanish and native English speakers) in Spanish after school. The school has challenges with finding native Spanish speaking staff members, particularly in special areas like EC and AIG. They also have difficulty finding instructional resources in Spanish (not just translated), and only 8% of the library books are in Spanish. They are applying for certification of the program by the Spanish embassy. Certification would earn them a teacher’s assistant (paid for by Spain) and the students would get certificates of education equivalent to schools in Spain.
Next was a status of the program at Chatham Middle. The first class of 6th graders (who went through the DL program at SCE for 6 years) started at CMS this year. That required a lot of work to find materials in Spanish and to find teachers who were certified in Spanish as well as Science and Language Arts. All instruction for those two subjects is in Spanish this year.
Mr. Aiken gave an update on plans for a DL program at North Chatham. He had not been interested in it until he went to a conference (in Mr. Jordan’s place) about a year ago. When he came back, he looked at the changing demographics at North Chatham, with a marked increase in the Hispanic population over the past 5 years. The achievement gap over the past 6 years has been significant. Different staffing and approaches have not made a difference. An exploratory committee from NCS visited 5 different Dual Language programs. They made 3 recommendations:
• Build the capacity for home/school communication in Spanish
• Build general capacity for teaching LEP students throughout the school
• Start a DL program in August 2012, with a 50/50 model similar to that at SCE, with 2 classes of kindergarten, adding one grade per year.
This is an aggressive timeline, but they think they can do it, and have already identified potential “English World” teachers. The PTA is supportive. There is a lot of parent interest: they anticipate a waiting list the first year, so they are exploring how to select the students.
Mr. Logan commented that the programs have evolved over time, but have not asked for additional funds. Mr. Jordan commented that J-M is already thinking about how to serve this year’s 6th graders at CMS when they get to J-M.
Good News/Announcements
Graduation dates: CCHS – 6/8, evening (not sure of the time – may be 7) at Wicker Center in Sanford
JM – 6/9 10 am, football field
NHS – 6/9 11 am, Carmichael Auditorium, UNC
SAGE – not sure
Mr. Logan said Gov Perdue issued a proclamation making this month School Board Appreciation month, recognizing the thankless task with little compensation. Board members care about young people and the future, and they work hard. There were certificates for the board members.
Mr. Hamm thanked Deb McManus for her many years as board chair, both last year and in her first years on the board. The board made her a gift of her own gavel.