Special Meeting of the Board of Trustees

In conjunction with the MCCPS Personnel Committee

May 19, 2008

Minutes

In attendance: 

Board of Trustees

Kay O’Dwyer, Cynthia Canavan, Dr John Sullivan, Pam Wheaton Shorr*, Emil Ronchi*, Robert Sousa*, Christopher Fauci, Nina Cullen Hamzeh.  John McEnaney arrived at 7:40.  Cathy Vaucher arrived at 7:40. 

Personnel Committee

Robert Sousa*, Emil Ronchi*, Pam Wheaton Shorr*, Molly Wolverton, Katie Sullivan. Doug Plympton arrived at 7:45.  Not Present, Mike Ruth.

*Members of both the Board of Trustees and the Personnel Committee

Also in attendance, Dr. Albert F. Argenziano, Interim Managing Director

Location:  Mrs. Miller’s Fourth Grade Classroom at the Marblehead Community Charter Public School, 17 Lime St, Marblehead MA 01945

The Board of Trustee Chair, Ms Kay O’Dwyer opened the meeting at 7:30 P.M.   She noted the sole agenda item of the meeting was to develop a set of goals for the Interim Academic Director for the term of her contract running July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009.  She then recognized the Chair of the Personnel Committee, Mr. Bob Sousa, and requested that he Chair the meeting going forward and to lead the activity for the development of Goals. 

Mr. Sousa began by providing Trustees and Committee members several handouts of examples to consider when developing goals for the Interim Academic Director (attached). He also explained the process that the joint meeting would follow in arriving at those goals.  He reminded the Board that the goals developed had to also reflect the duties detailed in the Interim Academic Director’s contract. (attached) 

Mr. Ronchi noted that the Board should also consider the School’s performance goals as laid out in its approved Accountability Plan (attached). 

The Board and Committee then conducted extensive discussions about potential goals and potential performance indicators for those goals. Through discussion and consensus, the Board and Committee agreed on the following potential goals and indicators.

1. Maintain and improve excellent academic program

1. Possible indicator: Maintain full enrollment through student retention and parent satisfaction.
2. Possible indicator: Measurable improvement on CUE reports, with __% of students ‘proficient’ or demonstrating academic growth.
3. Possible indicator: NWEA testing results/comparisons.

2. Maintain and develop high-level, professional staff

1. Possible indicator: Provide meaningful and productive professional development.

3. Maintain and/or improve upon parent satisfaction
4. Improve community involvement and communication.
5. Build/maintain a culture and mission of innovation, both internally and externally.
6. Ensure that MCCPS is in compliance with all state and federal requirements.
7. Provide a safe school environment.
8. Operate academic program within established budget.

It was noted that all indicators are open to discussion and approval, and are included here as a reference of the discussions only. The Board and Committee did not discuss potential indicators for all goals.

Through consensus, the Board and Committee also agreed on a process for completing the development of performance indicators.  As such, Ms Cullen Hamzeh will take the agreed goals, and in conjunction with the School’s Leadership Team, draft a set of measurable performance indicators.  She will forward those indicators to the Personnel Committee, who will if necessary work with her to refine the indicators.  The Personnel Committee will then present the indicators the full Board of Trustees for their approval no later than July 30, 2008.

At Mr. Sousa’s request, Ms. O’Dwyer resumed her post as Chair for the remainder of the meeting.

Decision:  Mr. McEnaney moved and Mr. Ronchi seconded that the Board of Trustees adopt the following eight goals as the goals of the Interim Academic Director for the term of the contract from July 1 2008 to June 30 2009:

1. Maintain and improve excellent academic program
2. Maintain and develop high-level, professional staff
3. Maintain and/or improve upon parent satisfaction
4. Improve community involvement and communication.
5. Build/maintain a culture and mission of innovation, both internally and externally.
6. Ensure that MCCPS is in compliance with all state and federal requirements.
7. Provide a safe school environment.
8. Operate academic program within established budget.

 Yeas:  7 Nays: 0 Abstain 3 Mr. McEnaney, Mr Fauci, Ms Cullen Hamzeh  Motion Passes

 Action Item: Ms Cullen Hamzeh is to work with the School’s Leadership team to develop on or more measurable indicators for each goal and to report those indicators to the Personnel Committee in enough time to permit the Personnel Committee to review and act on.

Action Item:  The Personnel Committee will secure the Board of Trustee approval on a set of performance indicators agreed to by the Personnel Committee and Ms Cullen Hamzeh no later than July 30, 2008.

Ms Vaucher noted concern that the July 30 date is after the June 30 start of the contract date and that perhaps we should push the date to the end of June.  Ms Cullen Hamzeh acknowledged the concern, but noted that she would be more comfortable with a July 30 deadline given all the other end of school year activities happening. She went on to say that she felt confident that simply having clear goals at this point was a major improvement over the current year and that she would still have the indicators prior to start of next academic year. 

Decision:  Ms Shorr moved and Ms Canavan seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Yeas: 10, Nays, 0  Motion carries.

Ms O’Dwyer adjourned the meeting at 9:23 PM. 

Respectfully Submitted

John T. McEnaney

Clerk

FY 2008-2009

Attendees:  Members of the MCCPS Board of Trustees and the MCCPS Personnel Committee

May 19, 2008, 7:30-9:30 PM, Room 8S, MCCPS

Purpose: Establish 5-6 desirable, achievable and measurable goals for the Marblehead Community Charter Public School Interim Academic Director for academic year 2008-09

Process:

1. Introduction (10 minutes) – Most preparation should have been accomplished prior to the meeting
   
   1. Review agenda
   2. Review purpose (Establish 5-6 desirable, achievable and measurable goals for the Marblehead Community Charter Public School Interim Academic Director for academic year 2008-09)
   3. Review time frames, roles (scribe, timekeeper, facilitator, chair)

2. Goals (90 minutes + whatever we need) Normally, goal establishment is driven by vision/mission.  We will be doing things a little differently and will be establishing goals for the Interim Academic Director by reviewing primarily the contract, job description and other documents. The Personnel Committee quickly brainstormed some broad categories for consideration as goal areas at its last meeting:  Enrollment, Academics, Budget, Fundraising, and Professional Development.  We actually came up with more specific goals, but I’ll leave that for now.  Some of these areas are not currently the responsibility of the Interim Academic Director, so some discussion and clarification will be needed

            Dr. A. suggested looking at the Winthrop, MA superintendent evaluation instrument and possibly using their goal areas including: to improve and increase curriculum, instruction, and assessment; to continue to provide safe and drug-free schools; to improve and increase the use of technology, to improve parent/guardian involvement and communication; to provide meaningful and productive professional development; to hire and retain highly qualified, professional staff.  These areas seem to be more in line with the Interim Academic Director’s contract

            Whatever areas we deem important and whatever goals we establish, it is important that they be related in some way to the MCCPS Interim Academic Director’s job description and contract.  It is also important, that we as a board remember that although we are establishing goals for a school currently lead by an Interim Academic Director, the desired state is to be working toward a permanent HOS.  My suggestion for preparing for the meeting is to review the following documents as thoroughly as possible:

Documents

1.      Interim Academic Director Contract

2.      MCCPS Head of School Job Description

3.      Winthrop Superintendent Evaluation Document

4.      MCCPS Personnel Committee Rubric

 
Next, we should individually identify goal areas (the more specific, the better) we consider critical/important, and we should write them down in preparation for the meeting. 

 a.      Establish one goal statement, that describes what the goal area is meant to accomplish—may not be objective and measurable as stated but could be measured (for example, if a goal is staff development, the goal statement might be “All individuals receive regular, quality training experiences designed to provide them with the competence and loyalty required to retain them as qualified professionals.”  This could be broken down into measurements, but the important point is that all members of the organization will read that the leadership is committed to achieving this statement.  The activities that support achieving the goal will be measurable and concrete).

 b.      Define the strategies  proposed to achieve the goal statement (For example, in staff development, three strategies might be:  develop and implement an orientation checklist that will be completed within 14 days of arrival; review and refine career counseling and mentoring strategies; insure each individual is afforded career pathing as a supervisor within 18 months of arrival)

c.       List the activities that must be accomplished  (for example, “draft checklist,” “train supervisors in the use of checklist,” “establish completion and filing process for checklist,” etc.) for each strategy and identify the responsible person and the expected completion date for each activity

 Hopefully we will get a healthy portion of our agenda accomplished, but at the least, we should begin to develop some direction for our future strategic planning.

Enrollment

·         Work with the Interim Managing Director on strategies for maintaining and stabilizing enrollment

 Budget

·         Understand the finances and budget of MCCPS and work within its guidelines and in accordance with any policies approved by FinCom and/or the Board of Trustees

 Fundraising 

·         Nothing

 To improve and increase curriculum instruction and assessment

·         Supervise all elements of curriculum development and enhancement

·         Manage, direct, and oversee MCCPS’s short and long term academic programs and educational services

·         Understand and follow DOE regulations, state and federal laws, guidelines and other directives, and recommend when necessary appropriate corrective actions and strategies for compliance at MCCPS (maybe work within terms of Charter?)

 To continue to provide safe and drug-free schools

·         Manage and oversee the student disciplinary policies of MCCPS and make appropriate changes to that policy as necessary and needed

·         Oversee student services and reporting to appropriate government agencies

 To improve and increase the use of technology

·         Nothing

 To improve parent/guardian involvement and communication

·         Provide communications to the stakeholder community at least twice a month and work with the Interim Managing Director on strategies for the improvement  of community relations to foster a sense of trust and credibility to the stakeholders and community

·         Attend meetings of the Board of Trustees as an ex officio member of the Board as defined in the By-Laws, and provide monthly reports detailing and updating the status of MCCPS to the Board and Stakeholders

 To provide meaningful and productive professional development

·         Lead the professional development team

 To hire and retain highly qualified, professional staff

·         Provide leadership and guidance to the faculty and staff and evaluate all faculty and staff at least once a year using objective performance based criteria and oversee faculty My Achievement Plan (also known as “MAP” goals)

·         Develop and implement educational and personnel policies for MCCPS in conjunction with Interim Managing Director and amend as needed

Accountability Plan 2007-2010

(6/1/07)