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Odessa-Montour swears in board membersODESSA--The Odessa-Montour board of education held its annual organizational meeting Thursday, July 14, during which it swore in the board members who had been elected May 19.Chris Wood, superintendent, administered the oath of office to Jeff Parmenter, a new board member, as well as to Robert Halpin and Jennifer Mosher, who had been re-elected. Wood also swore in Halpin for his position as president of the board, and Halpin swore in Scott Westervelt, a member of the board, for his position as vice president. Wood gave a report on his hearing the first reading of the new Annual Professional Performance Review, which he said he believed was "trying to get away from testing the kids so much." He said next year, data gathered from observations or walkthroughs would comprise 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation, down from 60 percent. Of those 50 percentage points, 40 would be based off of the building principal's report, and the other 10 would be based off of an independent evaluator's report. The other half of the evaluation will come from state assessments. Wood said he would like to have people from the school district rotate around to evaluate, such as evaluating most of the high school teachers himself. He said it would be best if the district could do as much of the evaluation in-house as possible, unlike other districts, some of which contract the work out to BOCES. According to Wood, the district had no state assessments for some subjects, such as Home and Careers. He said this required teachers to develop their own assessments and get them approved by the superintendent, or purchase assessments from a "third party vendor." Wood said while the latter method is easier, no such assessments are available yet. Wood said he did not know much about how the district should proceed at this point, and he would know more once he received more information and guidance from a training session later this month, as well as once more details for the new APPR plan are finalized. He said the district would have to submit its plan for assessments in September to be able to make it in time for the Nov. 15 deadline, and that failure to do so could potentially prevent the district from getting a state aid increase. "I wish I could give you more answers; I can't," Wood said. "When I can, I'll let you know, and when we have our plan in place, I'll let you know." Wood gave a report on the efforts to repair the damage caused by a car striking the gym building near the end of February, which necessitated replacing a coil in the heating unit and some of the flooring, and repairing the damaged wall. He said the repairs would be complete by the time fall athletics begin Aug. 15. The board is in the process of setting up a Twitter account it can use to communicate with the public about issues, make announcements and other uses, and the account will be ready by Aug. 1. Wood explained Twitter to the board, and said the public will not be able to respond to board tweets. "It's just a way to be able to communicate," he said, "part of the entry plan, which we're going to talk about later, was to communicate more with the community. This is definitely going to hit a certain population of people, and, again, just allow them to know." The board discussed whether and how to change their public comment policy so that it encourages people to sign in, but still allows people to comment on issues brought up during meetings, in addition to questions they have in advance. The current policy allows for two public comment sessions, the second of which is intended for items discussed at the meeting. Charlotte Mosher, a member of the public who attended the meeting, proposed that the board announce how the public comment sections work at the start of each meeting for the sake of those who have not attended school board meetings before, and may not know when and how they can speak to the board. "You're not going to be 100 percent out of the starting gate," she said, "but if people know when they come in that if they want to speak, that they sign something, you're going to capture a good chunk of the people on your first public comment." According to Wood, subsequent school board meetings will no longer be held in Hanlon Conference Room #12, which students will be able to use next year. The new meeting location has not yet been determined. The board voted to go into executive session at 6:59 p.m. to discuss personnel matters, and the meeting adjourned once they were finished. |
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