Thursday morning here and time to get things set up for Tuesday night. Remember that I will be out of town Sunday -Monday -Tuesday for the Rural Schools Conference at the Otesaga. Cornelia and Phil will be there to chaperone. We should be back in plenty of time for the meeting....

NON- AGENDA ITEMS:

1.0  SU “vacation”: I was out of town all last week taking a course at Syracuse (8:30 to 5:30 daily plus homework and a 3-hour round trip - some vacation!) I did stop in two or three times to check email and voicemail and make sure the building was still standing. Amazing how well things seem to go without me. Maybe I should stay away more often....

2.0  Capital Project Update: STILL no approval from SED! I was greeted Tuesday with a call from the architect regarding fire code and the lack of fire hydrants around our property. Facilities Planning is holding up the works right now over the fact that they want a fire hydrant within 500 hose-feet of our addition. Closest hydrants are across 96 and one near the north parking lot by the auditorium. I met with Jim Hinman, the Fire Chief, on short notice on Wednesday and with Jack Holley, the water commissioner for the Town of Romulus, and we did two things. We started the ball rolling on getting a hydrant installed behind the gym as quickly and as cheaply as possible. And we drafted a letter from Chief Hinman stating that he was satisfied with the RVFD’s ability to get water to the site of the new construction using tankers and pumpers. That went to the architect yesterday to try to get things moving again. Oh, the wonders of SED!

3.0  Computer Install is going fine. The “terminators” are here disrupting our file server every day, but trying to be as cooperative as possible about letting us get some work done, too. Expected target for conversion to ethernet is still August 4 - something which actually works out well for us around summer school.

4.0  Speaking of summer school. Attached you will find a note from Bob Ike indicating there are 58 students in the 7-12 program and that things are going well. Licette Catania ( Barb’s summer intern) indicates there are 77 kids in K-6 as well. This means we have about one in five kids, roughly 20% of our K-12 population, taking advantage of remedial work this summer! Add to that the dozen kids we have in driver ed in Ovid, and we’re doing pretty darn well at making sure kids have opportunities over the summer. It’s a busy place and that’s good.

5.0  Summer Rec is holding at about 70 participants as well, and new director Amy Keefer reports things are going fine. The 4-Town Mobile Youth Program begins summer session tonight from 3-7 using the gym area so that we can secure them away from the general building during these off hours. Don’t know what those numbers will be like, as they had to shut down early in June and have switched personnel around. I’m not convinced that there will be a high demand based on our inability to effectively let kids know about it before school let out.

6.0  CBO is up and functioning. I visited first thing Tuesday to make certain that we still had people working there for us. All offices are operational, and Donna House was there to help troubleshoot. I signed three inches of POs for Bonnie that she had succeed in printing on her new laser printer and that the teachers had typed in on their machines here before school was out. This helps put us far ahead of others whose clerical staff will need to retype PO’s for weeks yet. ( Also far ahead of where we were the first couple of summers I worked here when Bonnie would be typing data all July).

We’re still working through some communication issues and over the summer we’re having to take turns playing courier, but I’m confident things will work out fine. It will be helpful to have Gary Alger on board soon, too, just to make sure we’re functioning smoothly. Both Bonnie and Gloria seemed to be adjusting well to the change.

7.0  Speaking of changes - As a Board you need to know that one of our employees, Mary Jennings, our attendance clerk, dispatcher and telephone switchboard operator, is struggling with a cancer diagnosis which predominated her last couple weeks of the school year. Mary is very young to have to face this very difficult issue. The diagnosis came up when her leg hurt after carrying some of her stuff from the old transportation office down to the new one. My worker’s comp radar went up, but it wasn’t long before Lieberg referred her to an oncologist to diagnose a tumor in the bone of her leg near the knee. Mary has been trying to come in to finish up attendance stuff for us and we’ve put the phones on automated attendant for the summer. She begins treatment next week to see if chemotherapy will be effective in remitting the tumor. FYI. I am holding on how we may need to replace her in September until Tina and I have a chance to explore possibilities. I am currently leaning toward Sandy Steele subbing in the office for Mary and putting a sub on Sandy’s assigned bus run. I want to preserve Mary’s options for return to work ( she expects if the first treatment shows any efficacy that she will need to do two more 35-day cycles causing her to miss school’s opening), and to also protect Sandy’s rights under the CSEA contract. The balancing act continues...

8.0  Also on the medical front, Ms. Keel, your beloved clerk is all done with doctors for what she expects to be a very long while. Back to work, all issues resolved very happily, and going full speed ahead.

9.0  One of Leanne’s efforts these past two summers has been a grant application for records retention improvements. We just heard last week that her submission has been approved for close to $12,000. Leanne and Terry have been working on a plan to move the vault in the basement to a higher, drier and larger area, and this grant will be the way we afford that effort. Kudos to LK on this one! More details later. Money has to be expended by June 30, 2000.

10.0  State Budget continues to languish. All we can do is try to maintain confidence that we will in fact receive the amount proposed by the governor plus BOCES aid reinstatement. Lacking that, who knows what we’ll have to do to our taxpayers in a month’s time?

11.0  New Commander is taking over as I write this. I skipped the installation ceremony this time. Five kids going to parochial schools from his household leads me to believe we will not have the same working relationship we had with Don Olsen.

12.0  Realtor Lloyd Johnson tells me Aspen will be putting the FLAC Drive units up for sale soon? He seems to think they will be moving quickly on the Ryan homes at about $85,000 a piece with lake privileges. This from the Realtor who is representing the seller of a home Holly and I have put a purchase offer in on just over the line into the Waterloo district. I figure if the deal goes through, I’ll call Randy Bos about changing the district boundaries. Anybody know anyone interested in a house in Lodi Heights?

AGENDA ITEMS:

1.0  Election of Officers for 1999-2000 tops the bill, followed by other appointments of a routine nature. I have tried to recommend Mr. Alger as the person handling signatures necessary for the CBO to operate as efficiently as possible, with most other items remaining the same. The agenda looks worse than it really is; the appointments should go quickly. Mileage reimbursement is up to the federal standard to help standardize things for the CBO, and because we’ve let it slide recently.

2.0  Routine business items should be routine. We will not have warrants in the packet this time in large part due to the move to Waterloo. We should have them on the table for you Tuesday night.

3.0  I have listed discussion of second July meeting because Leanne will be out of town on business on the 27th and I will be out of town on a two-day vacation to the Big Apple for a concert ( Paul Simon and Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden). We can: (1) cancel altogether ( not recommended as there are likely to be bills to pay and maybe an appointment or two to make); (2) meet that night anyway and schedule two presentations - one from Mike and Dave on report card results, regents data, etc.. and one from Barb on the annual special ed review; or (3) change nights. I suggest you do number two above, so long as there is a sufficient number of YOU able to attend. Let’s decide Tuesday.

4.0  School Associations: Four County and Rural Schools are organizations to which we have belonged for all six years I’ve been here. ( Remember I’m on the executive committee of the Board of Directors for Rural Schools - it would VERY embarrassing if you didn’t re-up with them). We also budgeted for rejoining NYSSBA this year - something that we cut in ‘93 and have just now gotten around to putting back in. Most schools belong, they do have a very good conference upstate each year to which some of you might like to go, and it is the “right” thing to do. I suggest we join and see if it IS worth our while

5.0  Allowing me to authorize minor transfers within budget codes is protocol - the big ones come to you so that you know I’m not playing shell games with any large shells.

6.0  ERS still doesn’t have exact language to us for a resolution, so we’re guessing it will be the same as the last time we participated. ERS and TRS ( Employees and Teachers systems require their own special wording). This will allow us to offer the incentive to the CSEA side of the staff, although I’m not certain anyone there will take it.

7.0  Committee appointments may be more important than is often the case. We will be negotiating with CSEA this coming year ( our four-year 2.95% deal expires in June). While I do not anticipate any open hostility, it will take some time and effort to make certain we reach an agreement before the current one expires. Their long-standing desire to institute a pay scale differentiated by job title may make things more cumbersome, although some work has been done through the labor- management relations committee. Also import will be how you wish to handle shared services. We have been invited to meet with folks from South Seneca again, NOT on merger but on sharing services, and we might have some interest in special ed, transportation mechanics, distance learning and other special programs. We could use our Board Shared Services committee for that OR the group we put in place to discuss merger two years ago now. Your call on that one, but Shared Services should not be taken lightly.

8.0  Licette Catania will be present to meet you. Licette is a teacher in Geneva at West Street School doing administrative coursework and a summer internship with Barbara. She lives in Ovid and will be looking for administrative positions soon. She is handling our elementary summer school free of charge.

9.0  Mike will let us know about graduation, summer school, and the like, but will save the powerpoint presentation of our data for late July.

10.0  We have put a revisiting of our music program here- in part so Licette doesn’t need to hear all of our wailing and gnashing of teeth, and in part so we don’t entirely lose the momentum of our last meeting, during which we had a fairly lengthy discussion of alternatives. We had listed 8 such on the board last time and ended up reducing that list to four before the evening was over. The four eliminated were:

Drop Marching Band    Go Optional with Marching with Pete in charge

Maintain status quo    Go to a competition level

We kept as options:

Maintain status quo (requirement) with new person part-time

Go optional with new person part- time

Make Marching Band an Elementary/ Middle Level organization only

Add instructional staff and have them take the marching band

We also added the idea of separate stipends for various music duties and placed in the “parkinglot” competition and Pete and the Band Director stipend.

In doing some homework in old personnel files, Leanne found for me the following. When Tony Mastroleo was hired in 1971, shortly after the Taylor Law required negotiated contracts for teachers, he made $12,181 PLUS $100 as the Band Director. So we know the stipend for extra duties goes back at least that far. We also find in his file a memo from 1972 addressing the “fringe” areas of his job, referring to band rehearsals, uniforms, etc.. It appears that these items refer primarily to those duties associated with a marching band. John Russo took over in 1978 and a memo in his file indicates that in 1981 he received three months worth of Band Director pay prorated at $20.50 per month, leaving in November. No description of job duties is included or referred to in the file.

In checking old contracts we find the first mention of a separate Band Director stipend in 1971, with it jumping to $200 shortly thereafter then incrementally starting in about 1974.

I am also including for your reference a letter Cornelia sent me this past week which might jump start some thought for the rest of us. I did not invite Pete or Betty to this meeting as I thought you might need some time to ruminate aloud about the conversation from last time first. I would be happy to arrange another session ( we had Pete in in August LAST summer), with Betty, too, if she is available. I did discuss the possibility of an additional staff person with her and she seemed genuinely excited, if not hopeful that it might actually come to pass.

I still think you should look at that possibility. #12 below says you can afford it if you choose to, and it is a proactive approach to a transition we’ll need to make sometime. SDM liked it, the music teachers like it, it might mean that we polish our performances at all levels, music is good for kids and the younger the better... there are pros to the argument.

11.0  The program to offer all of our 8th graders credit for completing the studies of Introduction to Occupations requires your approval. Mike presented this last time. Nancy Munn, Bob Kohler and Carol Effraimson ( now Loveland) are on board and we would like to begin in September.

12.0  Bobbie Nelson and Marge Larrabee definitely are taking advantage of the retirement incentive. We’re waiting for word from Bobbi on the effective date she wishes to use. Marge was scheduled to make $58,010 and Bobbi $55,931 for 99-2000. We propose replacing Marge with Sue Schrader at $32,000 and hiring Bobbi back for a maximum she can earn in retirement of $17,000 for a .5 position. Jim Mason would pick up the remaining 1.0 art position. Kate Essom would become a teaching assistant at a maximum of $17,000 she can earn in retirement to do the remedial math that Jim currently does in the other half of his job. No loss in program and we spend close to $48,000 less than we currently do. Bobbi and Marge = $113,971: Sue and Bobbi and Kate together will earn $66, 181. This frees up $48,000 to spend on music or RAITN or both. The money’s already in the budget in teacher salaries, why not put it to good use for things you want to do?

13.0  Donna Morrell wants to go back to school and take an unpaid year off to do so. Craig Stevens broke his shoulder on Father’s Day and has been out of work since.

14.0  Teacher hires: We’ve found a math teacher we like and we want to hire Sue Schrader back into the RCS fold - she worked here before having children and in long-term sub capacities since. ( Another former student of mine from SSCS).

15.0  Adam Furst, former South Seneca student when Holly and I were there, is willing and able to substitute as our mechanic to get us through inspections this summer and hopefully until Craig is back to work. ( Adam has an interview with GM in Rochester on Friday). DOT inspection scheduled for last week has been moved back to next and we think Adam will have us all ready. Tina did a nice job coordinating this for us.

16.0  We know our elementary extracurriculars at this time and the Special Ed pieces we need in place for CSE next year.

You may want an executive session on Superintendent Evaluation. I should have the final missing form in today for tabulation and will include it plus staff comments from my early June payday invitational memo for your perusal. That plus the fact that I intend to blow off the meeting of July 27 says this might be a good time to hash that stuff out (again).

Hope to see you all there for reorg! I’ll try to make you look good at Rural Schools. (send a message to the BOE bulletin board if you get the cahnce before Monday).

CM/CM

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