Sept. 6, 2017 Organizational Meeting

Agenda

Special Meeting of the Quincy School Committee
Coddington Building
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 5:00 p.m.

  1. Welcome Vice-Chair Bregoli

  2. School Committee ~ District Improvement Plan Connections - Superintendent DeCristofaro
    * Review of Current Subcommittee Goals & Agenda Items (Subcommittee & SLT groups)
    * Subcommittee Chair Goal & Agenda Item Updates

  3. Adjournment/Thank You!

Minutes

Quincy, Massachusetts – – September 6, 2017
Special Meeting of the Quincy School Committee

Special Meeting

A special meeting of the Quincy School Committee was held on Wednesday, September 7, 2017 at the Coddington Building at 5:00 pm. The Superintendent called the roll and present were: Mayor Thomas Koch, Mrs. Kathryn Hubley, Ms. Barbara Isola, Mrs. Emily Lebo, and Mr. Paul Bregoli, Vice Chair.

Vice-Chair Presiding

Mr. DeAmicis and Mrs. Mahoney were absent.

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Also present were: Dr. Richard DeCristofaro, Secretary; Ms. Laura Owens, Clerk; Ms. Sarah Anderson, Ms. Rita Bailey, Mr. Michael Draicchio, Dr. Beth Hallett, Mr. James Mullaney, Deputy Superintendent Kevin Mulvey, Mrs. Maura Papile, Mrs. Erin Perkins, Ms. Madeline Roy, Mr. Keith Segalla, Mr. Kevin Segalla, Mrs. Bridget Vaughan; Quincy Education Association President Allison Cox; and Quincy Parent Advisory Council to Special Education Board members Ms. Debby Nabstedt and Ms. Cassandra Beck.

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Vice-Chair Bregoli welcomed everyone to the Special School Committee meeting and reviewed the meeting purpose.

District Improvement. Plan 2017-2018

Dr. DeCristofaro then spoke about the District Improvement Plan for 2017-2018 reviewing the Design Elements and Frameworks, which document the Key Questions and Indicators, Benchmarks, Sources of Evidence, and Teams responsible for achieving those benchmarks. The District Improvement Plan provides School Committee connections to each of the components, primarily the School and Program Improvement Plans.

The School Committee goal setting process encompasses a review of items currently in Subcommittee and goals and action steps with proposed additional action steps. Dr. DeCristofaro noted that there are many initiatives underway, managed by the members of the Superintendent’s Leadership Team and these will be reviewed at Subcommittee meetings over the course of the year.

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District Improvement Plan ~ School Committee Connections

The School Committee, Superintendent, and Leadership Team members then split up into Subcommittee groups to discuss their goals and to review the items on the Agenda for each Subcommittee.

Each Subcommittee had the opportunity to propose additions and changes to their goals and to set meeting dates. For the Athletics and Budget and Finance Subcommittee, their goals and purposes will remain as presented. Mrs. Lebo requested adding an item about evaluation of coaches to Athletics. For the Facilities and Security Subcommittee, Mrs. Hubley removed the items related to Faxon and Creedon Fields. Mrs. Hubley requested an update on water fixture repairs and summer projects from Public Buildings at the October 16 subcommittee meeting.

For the Health, Transportation and Safety, in Mr. DeAmicis’s absence, Dr. DeCristofaro proposed removing PBIS, Learn to Swim, and Peer Mentoring as these initiatives are in their third and fourth years of implementation. Agenda items for upcoming meetings will focus on Program Improvement Plans (September 27 School Committee); updates on Farm to School, Substance Abuse Awareness, Health & Wellness programs, and Food Services. Mr. Bregoli asked about student awareness of healthy relationships and this will be part of the Wellness programs review. Mrs. Lebo asked for additional information on educational responses to the opioid crisis, this will be provided at an upcoming meeting.

For the Policy Subcommittee, Mr. Bregoli removed advertising/sponsorship opportunities as a separate item. This can be addressed during the ongoing Policy Handbook review that will continue this year. He also removed the review of high school academic and extracurricular programming, noting the work done to ensure parallel opportunities at both high schools. He asked to advance the discussion of the middle school grading system and the definition of Open Forum to an upcoming meeting.

In Mrs. Mahoney’s absence, Mrs. Lebo said that this year, QPAC is working with the Special Education Department to schedule their meetings to coincide with Parent Academies on relevant Special Education topics.

Ms. Isola reported that the Teaching and Learning Subcommittee agreed to the proposed action step regarding monitoring specific initiatives at the subcommittee meetings held on the last Monday of the month beginning in January. SAT scores will be a topic for a fall meeting and Ms. Isola removed MCAS 2.0 as an item from Subcommittee. Changes for Action Step d will be proposed by Ms. Roy.

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Adjournment

On a motion by Ms. Isola, seconded by Mrs. Hubley, the Special School Committee Meeting was adjourned at 6:00 pm. The ayes have it.