Board Meeting Dates

Additional Details

Minutes of Policy and Instruction Committee Meeting
November 8, 2011
The Board of Education
Albuquerque Public Schools
A Policy and Instruction Committee Meeting of the Board of Education of Albuquerque Public Schools was held Tuesday, November 8, 2011, beginning at 5:00 PM in the DeLayo-Martin Community Room, Alice and Bruce King Educational Complex, 6400 Uptown NE.
Present: David Peercy, Martin Esquivel, Lorenzo Garcia, Kathy Korte, Analee Maestas, and David Robbins. Absent: Paula Maes
I.
Call to Order – the meeting was called to order at 5:00 p.m.
A.
Adoption of the Policy Agenda and Approval of the Minutes of the October 10, 2011 Policy meeting - Lorenzo Garcia motioned for approval. David Robbins seconded the motion. All were in favor.
II.
Status of Policy and Procedural Directive Revision Project - Carrie Menapace presented. She updated the committee on the each of the sections. Mr. Robbins requested that they receive the policies ahead of time to allow the individual board members time to review the changes. He suggested getting the revised policies perhaps a meeting ahead of time or a month ahead of time. Information should be included in the packets to be reviewed. Questions and discussion followed. Administration indicated the request would not impact them at all. Dr. Peercy said he thought it was important to review the procedural directives to make sure they were in line with the policies. He felt it was important that all should be updated. December, 2012 was the date that was mentioned to have all the policy revisions done.
III.
Consideration for Review and Selection of Option One or Two for the 2012-2013 Traditional Calendar – Winston referred to the handouts. Option one was the calendar suggested by the calendar committee. Winston did not like the proposed calendar because he thought school should not begin this early (August 13). His suggestion was to start school on August 20 and in order to do that they would have to find 5 instructional days. The five days he suggested were: October 12 (Fall break), returning to school on the 3rd of January as opposed to January 8th which adds 3 days, and February 18 (Presidents’ Day). He proposed the changes even though the committee unanimously approved option one for the calendar. Each Board member gave their opinions and asked questions. Some questions asked were: who was on the committee; why do we coincide with the UNM spring break schedule; how many committee meetings did they have. Some concerns were the many short weeks and the higher costs of maintenance; also having only two snow make-up days. Mr. Garcia asked for the logic behind the earlier start date. Ms. Trybus said it was mainly the pay schedule and gave several other reasons. There was a suggestion that it go back to the committee and they take into consideration some of the suggestions presented. Mr. Brooks gave his rationale as to why he thought the calendar should be changed. Ms. Sink, chief academic officer, gave her comments saying the one thing that was hard was that the semesters were unbalanced if starting later and the four day weeks were hard on students and teachers. The general comment was that since there is a committee, the Board should take the committee’s suggested calendar. Ms. Trybus said it was only a recommendation and could be taken back to the committee. Dr. Maestas made a motion to send it back to the committee with the recommendation to involve more
students and parents. David Robbins seconded. Dr. Peercy suggested sending it back with some guidelines. Mr. Brooks suggested that each board member give administration (Ms. Trybus) the name of a parent representative and administration would choose a SuperSAC student from each of the Board member districts. Dr. Peercy suggested adding an amendment to the motion to add the following parameters: provide the superintendent’s suggestions and the Board’s suggestions of starting a week later and moving the April 1st date to the end of May. There was a discussion in regard to snow make-up dates. Dr. Maestas agreed with the amended motion and Mr. Robbins seconded. All were in favor (Mr. Esquivel had left the meeting and therefore did not vote).
IV.
Pre-School Update - Linda began by introducing the presenters. Ms. Heather Vaughn, Early Childhood Coordinator, Kathryn Shull - Special Ed, and Barbara Ruiz - Title I. Ms. Vaughn began by going over the handouts included in the packets. New Mexico is proud of their pre-K programs. It has been a collaborative effort between community schools, PED and the CYFD departments. It has been a very rigorous process in how they oversee the program, how it’s implemented and how they look at each child’s performance. She spoke about the assessments given twice a year and the reports done by UNM. The children come in low and leave high. Ms Vaughn spoke about the Race to the Top Grant. Ms. Shull went over the two programs - Childfind and the Developmental Pre-school. She spoke about the curriculum, the professional development and the developmental hubs (8). Ms. Ruiz gave the background about the Title I Even Start Family Literacy Program. The APS program began 20 years ago and grew from 3 to 13 programs in the district. She went over the qualification guidelines. Questions from Board members followed in regard to funding, who they serve and how they are tracked also about site locations and how they reach out to the community. Discussion in regard to transportation and perhaps having an early childhood center followed. Ms. Sink spoke about funding and the Jump Start program.
V.
Academic Plan Quarterly Reports – Linda Sink began the presentation – the Board and Superintendent had asked for the reports. She went over data contained in the report from this past Spring and Summer. Questions and discussion followed on the different data within the report. Ms. Sink asked what the board would want to see (and not see) in the report. Some suggestions were made in regard to the NAEP scores being included. Discussion on interventions followed. Dr. Maestas said she would really like to see data for all the students all the way back to kindergarten. Discussion on what should be done to close the gap followed. Ms. Sink said she felt the new standards would help in regard to this issue. Mr. Brooks referred to research saying the Pre-K programs were also important. Ms. Maestas suggested looking at funding for the pre-k programs since she felt the state was not going to.
VI.
Future Topics: ROTC Update; Long-term Suspensions (Vision Quest), Standard Based Assessment; Review of the Trademark for High School Logos; Common Core Standards; Public Forum and Board Reports; IB Program Update; Truancy Update; Retention Research.
Dr. Peercy asked that the discussion on the question or concept regarding the pay of the staff while serving in the Legislature be added to the agenda.
VII.
Announcement of the next meeting to be held December 14, 2011, 5:00 p.m. in the DeLayo-Martin Community Room
VIII.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:56 p.m.