Memo

NON-AGENDA ITEMS:

1.0 Capital Project is moving along. Allen has drafted contracts for all of the successful bidders and is working on scheduling a meeting with each of them here next week. It IS November already, and none too soon to get down to business. Once we get together we will be able to better determine a timetable for work. I communicated our 7 BOE members versus 6 architects decision on the bronze doorways and we won! I also suggested that they have their color consultant work with me closely on interior choices for flooring, etc.. I will leave my fingerprints on this or be damned.
2.0 RAITN room is functioning. In fact, as part of next Friday's conference day we are planning a series of half-hour conversations over the system with the folks in Rochester about what they can offer any of our grade levels/programs. Now that we have the technology, as with our computers, the challenge lies in putting it to good use. We think the exposure of all of our teachers to the world of virtual fieldtrips and collaborative projects will be a good enticement to get involved. Our first virtual fieldtrip to NASA is scheduled for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving with the 7^th grade science students in Marty Rotz's class. Might be worth coming in for…Liz Larzelere brought a visitor in from NYCC to look at the lab in action today, as they are contemplating a similar installation. How's that for PR - the local college coming to see what you're doing in RCSland.
3.0 Professional Evaluation and Development Committee - members of which you appointed last time - will meet for the first time this afternoon. A dozen people, your three administrators, a parent and a professor, will join seven teachers in deliberating how we wish to meet new state requirements in terms of annual professional evaluations AND how we plan to provide for effective staff development to meet the new standards. Excellent website emerging on this at www/emsc.nysed.gov/development/ in case you want to follow along. Theresa MacCheyne and I will be attending an all day training on this November 17^th in Rochester. This is a major undertaking and will have some budgetary impact in the future -especially in terms of staff development. We will be required to target staff development around student achievement as measured by State test results. We would do that anyway, but the specificity of planning is a bit more formal than we already do. Anyway, you should know that we have begun that process.
4.0 Also in the works in terms of district wide committees is an emergency planning committee in response to the school violence issue around the country. A group of 8 of us got together last week and, using a series of self-evaluative worksheets provided by our insurer, are in the process of assessing what we need to do to improve our capacity as a district to handle emergency situations of a variety of natures. This FYI. It may require you to modify some plans, policies, etc., once we have done some work. More later. This ties in somewhat to the meeting I will have on Monday with Sheriff Fox and the other three schools about the grant money he secured through Senator Nozzolio - you remember - the bigscreen TV violence prevention project in Waterloo and Seneca Falls? Not sure how the remaining $20,000 will be divided if at all, but I'll try to get our share of it.
5.0 Parent Teacher conferences are scheduled for Wednesday next week. This is also report card distribution time for the first quarter. You probably should be reminded of how unusual the Noon to 8 PM thing is for these sorts of things. Our teachers agreed to this before I got here as a means of brining parents into the fold, and it is an excellent outreach effort on their part.
6.0 Superintendent's conference day is scheduled for Friday next week, and will focus on three major areas: RAITN exposure ( sounds like a bad thing, doesn't it?); basic first aid on "What to do 'til Help Arrives" presented by the Red Cross; and faculty meetings by grade-level and department focusing on curriculum standards and our docushare version of what we do when, called K-12 Curriculum at a Glance. Enclosed FYI is a sample of the what the day will look like. I think we'll have three very busy administrators and a whole bunch of very busy teachers - both good things.
7.0 Part of my week is spent on EduTech Steering Committee stuff as I am facilitating that group this year. Meeting tomorrow in Rochester (covers 2 BOCES regions, ours and Genesee Valley). Meeting at our BOCES this past Tuesday to plan for Friday. In case you wonder how I spend my time away from District. Helps keep RCS on the map!
8.0 Mid State Consortium on School finance has proposed an alternate to the state aid formula which is premised on greater equity and fairness. They have provided a worksheet to calculate the impact of their proposal on all districts, and I have Gray working on those numbers now. Will need to see whether we can live with the idea of equity and fairness or not - depending on how it impacts RCS and our taxpayers. Lawsuit brought by NYC and other big districts - Campaign for Fiscal Equity - is having its days in court right now and apparently doing pretty well. I have no doubt that I will see major changes in State Aid formula before I retire.
9.0 Speaking of retiring - plan to move to the lake effective Monday 11/8. New address is 3652 Edgewood Drive, Geneva. New home phone will be 585-4496. Please update your calling lists. Thanks. Note that address is Geneva, not Hilton - FYI.
10.0 Foundation Board of Trustees will meet Thursday, November 11, Veteran's Day, at 7PM in the Board Room. Pete Gregoire will be installed as chair of the group that night. Mike and I will have more to report to you next time out.
11.0 Note please that there is NOTHING about the music program on the agenda. I did post a message on Docushare about it last Wednesday and can only assume at this point that if you want to talk more you will choose to do so. Otherwise I don't want to run the risk of being a deadhorse-beater. After Tuesday's meeting, we may run an ad looking for a part-time, extra curricular marching band director for this spring. That seems to be the only short term solution I can find, and we don't seem to want a long-term one. Your meeting, your call.

AGENDA ITEMS:

1.0 Yearbook Photo is scheduled for this meeting. This means a) show up, b) look nice, and c) smile like you're having fun. Bob Ike will take the shot himself this year as he has other reasons for attending the meeting as you will see. We usually try to do this first thing before we get bloodied or blurry-eyed.
2.0 December meetings would normally include one between Christmas and New Years. I think we can dispense with it and make plans to skip a session if you would like. I'll try to schedule all emergencies for before Christmas or after 2000.
3.0 Tech Prep consortium is something we belong to to help kids get college credit courses and articulated acceptances to technology oriented programs at FLCC. Sally Covert or I have been the reps to the steering committee for these grant funds since Rick Bley left. We should continue to get from it what we can.
4.0 Bob Ike and Sally Covert will be with us for the evening, looking for approval of internships for this spring. Normally this is something I would just do and not ask you about. But, 1) Bob needs something in the way of BOE action for Cortland itself; 2) I will need to be the paper-boss of both as Mike doesn't have the three years of experience the colleges want in a field supervisor; 3) having two interns in one semester is unusual and I didn't want us to get into this without your knowledge and approval. I approve and recommend both. I certainly HOPE you will do the same. Mike and I have spent some time with both Sally and Bob trying to arrange something that will be beneficial not only to them but to the district as well. Both of these people have been excellent employees, both are former students of mine, both are at a point in their coursework for administration where they need a field experience, neither is in a position to give up their paying jobs to do this, and both can arrange their schedules to complete their regular duties for us in addition to the special projects we have lined up. The basic premise is that Sally will work with Mike in the mornings and concentrate on middle level issues and improvements, including a structured program evaluation (remember you sent her to the Middle Level conference last month?). She will continue to do her split School To Work work in the afternoons and evenings. Bob will teach his regular assignment and be done with that each day by 1, at which time he will work with Mike on AD and adult Ed assistance, RAITN, summer school and other tasks. Both of these people will be doing a job and a half, literally, and it will cost the District nothing. Now that we have this all set up, I certainly hope you will accept my recommendation that these be approved. If you have any reservation about any of this PLEASE call me ahead of the meeting and let me try to convince you, so that we may avoid the potential embarassment of bringing these deserving young people to you with a proposal to do extra work at no cost only to have it be rejected. Thank you for that courtesy.
5.0 Shared Services Committee with South Seneca met again this week. They have formed a subcommittee so that Tony Carnevale and I have something to do involving six drivers, a monitor, a mechanic and an administrator from each district to look into increased sharing in transportation. I have arranged for a BOCES facilitator for three morning meetings 11/29, 12/13, and 1/10/2000 of this group. Sounds like fun, no? Right up my English-teacher, high tech alley. Thanks, gang. Special Ed discussion is back to Barb and Karen Corning looking for matches, although somehow it sounds like the unions want to involve more teachers in the discussion first ( just to make sure it's okay with them). This is the feedback I've gotten. Mike and Cornelia may wish to shed more light on the discussions, however.
6.0 Barb and Mike will have reports for you including their read on the test data shown on the enclosed chart. Remember we told you we had our scores and thought they were okay but couldn't tell because we had no comparative data. that came this week and is synopsized for you here. We done good! This data was "embargoed" until Friday 11/5 and might hit the papers this weekend. Thought you'd like to know that we did well compared to others - still performing like the Canandaiguas and the Victors.
7.0 Some redacting and rescinding on your cleaner appointment needs to be done, too. Seems that the dollars weren't worth it to our number on candidate. Add some subs ( former students of mine, too) and we round out the evening.

That should make for a relatively short session. We've told Barney that we don't stay late and don't disagree on issues much and so far we haven't proven either to him.
Maybe tonight we will.

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1.0	Capital Project is moving along. Allen has drafted contracts for all of the successful bidders and is working on scheduling a meeting with each of them here next week. It IS November already, and none too soon to get down to business. Once we get together we will be able to better determine a timetable for work. I communicated our 7 BOE members versus 6 architects decision on the bronze doorways and we won! I also suggested that they have their color consultant work with me closely on interior choices for flooring, etc.. I will leave my fingerprints on this or be damned.
2.0	RAITN room is functioning. In fact, as part of next Friday's conference day we are planning a series of half-hour conversations over the system with the folks in Rochester about what they can offer any of our grade levels/programs. Now that we have the technology, as with our computers, the challenge lies in putting it to good use. We think the exposure of all of our teachers to the world of virtual fieldtrips and collaborative projects will be a good enticement to get involved. Our first virtual fieldtrip to NASA is scheduled for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving with the 7^th grade science students in Marty Rotz's class. Might be worth coming in for…Liz Larzelere brought a visitor in from NYCC to look at the lab in action today, as they are contemplating a similar installation. How's that for PR - the local college coming to see what you're doing in RCSland.
3.0	Professional Evaluation and Development Committee - members of which you appointed last time - will meet for the first time this afternoon. A dozen people, your three administrators, a parent and a professor, will join seven teachers in deliberating how we wish to meet new state requirements in terms of annual professional evaluations AND how we plan to provide for effective staff development to meet the new standards. Excellent website emerging on this at www/emsc.nysed.gov/development/ in case you want to follow along. Theresa MacCheyne and I will be attending an all day training on this November 17^th in Rochester. This is a major undertaking and will have some budgetary impact in the future -especially in terms of staff development. We will be required to target staff development around student achievement as measured by State test results. We would do that anyway, but the specificity of planning is a bit more formal than we already do. Anyway, you should know that we have begun that process.
4.0	Also in the works in terms of district wide committees is an emergency planning committee in response to the school violence issue around the country. A group of 8 of us got together last week and, using a series of self-evaluative worksheets provided by our insurer, are in the process of assessing what we need to do to improve our capacity as a district to handle emergency situations of a variety of natures. This FYI. It may require you to modify some plans, policies, etc., once we have done some work. More later. This ties in somewhat to the meeting I will have on Monday with Sheriff Fox and the other three schools about the grant money he secured through Senator Nozzolio - you remember - the bigscreen TV violence prevention project in Waterloo and Seneca Falls? Not sure how the remaining $20,000 will be divided if at all, but I'll try to get our share of it.
5.0	Parent Teacher conferences are scheduled for Wednesday next week. This is also report card distribution time for the first quarter. You probably should be reminded of how unusual the Noon to 8 PM thing is for these sorts of things. Our teachers agreed to this before I got here as a means of brining parents into the fold, and it is an excellent outreach effort on their part.
6.0	Superintendent's conference day is scheduled for Friday next week, and will focus on three major areas: RAITN exposure ( sounds like a bad thing, doesn't it?); basic first aid on "What to do 'til Help Arrives" presented by the Red Cross; and faculty meetings by grade-level and department focusing on curriculum standards and our docushare version of what we do when, called K-12 Curriculum at a Glance. Enclosed FYI is a sample of the what the day will look like. I think we'll have three very busy administrators and a whole bunch of very busy teachers - both good things.
7.0	Part of my week is spent on EduTech Steering Committee stuff as I am facilitating that group this year. Meeting tomorrow in Rochester (covers 2 BOCES regions, ours and Genesee Valley). Meeting at our BOCES this past Tuesday to plan for Friday. In case you wonder how I spend my time away from District. Helps keep RCS on the map!
8.0	Mid State Consortium on School finance has proposed an alternate to the state aid formula which is premised on greater equity and fairness. They have provided a worksheet to calculate the impact of their proposal on all districts, and I have Gray working on those numbers now. Will need to see whether we can live with the idea of equity and fairness or not - depending on how it impacts RCS and our taxpayers. Lawsuit brought by NYC and other big districts - Campaign for Fiscal Equity - is having its days in court right now and apparently doing pretty well. I have no doubt that I will see major changes in State Aid formula before I retire.
9.0	Speaking of retiring - plan to move to the lake effective Monday 11/8. New address is 3652 Edgewood Drive, Geneva. New home phone will be 585-4496. Please update your calling lists. Thanks. Note that address is Geneva, not Hilton - FYI.
10.0	Foundation Board of Trustees will meet Thursday, November 11, Veteran's Day, at 7PM in the Board Room. Pete Gregoire will be installed as chair of the group that night. Mike and I will have more to report to you next time out.
11.0	Note please that there is NOTHING about the music program on the agenda. I did post a message on Docushare about it last Wednesday and can only assume at this point that if you want to talk more you will choose to do so. Otherwise I don't want to run the risk of being a deadhorse-beater. After Tuesday's meeting, we may run an ad looking for a part-time, extra curricular marching band director for this spring. That seems to be the only short term solution I can find, and we don't seem to want a long-term one. Your meeting, your call.

1.0	Yearbook Photo is scheduled for this meeting. This means a) show up, b) look nice, and c) smile like you're having fun. Bob Ike will take the shot himself this year as he has other reasons for attending the meeting as you will see. We usually try to do this first thing before we get bloodied or blurry-eyed.
2.0	December meetings would normally include one between Christmas and New Years. I think we can dispense with it and make plans to skip a session if you would like. I'll try to schedule all emergencies for before Christmas or after 2000.
3.0	Tech Prep consortium is something we belong to to help kids get college credit courses and articulated acceptances to technology oriented programs at FLCC. Sally Covert or I have been the reps to the steering committee for these grant funds since Rick Bley left. We should continue to get from it what we can.
4.0	Bob Ike and Sally Covert will be with us for the evening, looking for approval of internships for this spring. Normally this is something I would just do and not ask you about. But, 1) Bob needs something in the way of BOE action for Cortland itself; 2) I will need to be the paper-boss of both as Mike doesn't have the three years of experience the colleges want in a field supervisor; 3) having two interns in one semester is unusual and I didn't want us to get into this without your knowledge and approval. I approve and recommend both. I certainly HOPE you will do the same. Mike and I have spent some time with both Sally and Bob trying to arrange something that will be beneficial not only to them but to the district as well. Both of these people have been excellent employees, both are former students of mine, both are at a point in their coursework for administration where they need a field experience, neither is in a position to give up their paying jobs to do this, and both can arrange their schedules to complete their regular duties for us in addition to the special projects we have lined up. The basic premise is that Sally will work with Mike in the mornings and concentrate on middle level issues and improvements, including a structured program evaluation (remember you sent her to the Middle Level conference last month?). She will continue to do her split School To Work work in the afternoons and evenings. Bob will teach his regular assignment and be done with that each day by 1, at which time he will work with Mike on AD and adult Ed assistance, RAITN, summer school and other tasks. Both of these people will be doing a job and a half, literally, and it will cost the District nothing. Now that we have this all set up, I certainly hope you will accept my recommendation that these be approved. If you have any reservation about any of this PLEASE call me ahead of the meeting and let me try to convince you, so that we may avoid the potential embarassment of bringing these deserving young people to you with a proposal to do extra work at no cost only to have it be rejected. Thank you for that courtesy.
5.0	Shared Services Committee with South Seneca met again this week. They have formed a subcommittee so that Tony Carnevale and I have something to do involving six drivers, a monitor, a mechanic and an administrator from each district to look into increased sharing in transportation. I have arranged for a BOCES facilitator for three morning meetings 11/29, 12/13, and 1/10/2000 of this group. Sounds like fun, no? Right up my English-teacher, high tech alley. Thanks, gang. Special Ed discussion is back to Barb and Karen Corning looking for matches, although somehow it sounds like the unions want to involve more teachers in the discussion first ( just to make sure it's okay with them). This is the feedback I've gotten. Mike and Cornelia may wish to shed more light on the discussions, however.
6.0	Barb and Mike will have reports for you including their read on the test data shown on the enclosed chart. Remember we told you we had our scores and thought they were okay but couldn't tell because we had no comparative data. that came this week and is synopsized for you here. We done good! This data was "embargoed" until Friday 11/5 and might hit the papers this weekend. Thought you'd like to know that we did well compared to others - still performing like the Canandaiguas and the Victors.
7.0	Some redacting and rescinding on your cleaner appointment needs to be done, too. Seems that the dollars weren't worth it to our number on candidate. Add some subs ( former students of mine, too) and we round out the evening.