Memo

NON-AGENDA ITEMS:

1.0	Capital project update will be included under agenda items this time as we have a schedule from our most recent contractors meeting which you should be made aware of and which may be of interest to the paper. ( Who knows, now that there's a real reporter assigned to south county, we may have to behave and plan differently).
2.0	RAITN Room was in full swing last Friday for Conference Day, with every teacher k-12 sitting in on one of four sessions of live teleconferencing with Rochester. If you'd like, I can see if I can get somebody there to work some Tuesday night when we're meeting and spend a half-hour talking to you as the folks paying the bill about what we get for our money. Might be interesting. Staff received the sessions very well, and were even told how fortunate they were to be in a school where the Board and administration WANTS them to know about and use the technology. Apparently this is not a universal situation.
3.0	Parent teacher conferences went well on Wednesday. Always a full house in the elementary and becoming increasingly the case in the secondary. We do a pretty good job of making sure parents have the opportunity to meet early on with their child's teacher(s) and establish a relationship that can be mutually beneficial all year. I feel compelled to remind you that the contractual provision for one of our conferences to be noon to 8 was well worth having sought and instituted. We are fortunate to have this set up.
4.0	Friday's conference day was also time well spent. I gave you a copy of the overview of the day last time out, and things clicked as planned. Everybody had a session on "What to do ' til help arrives" from the Red Cross, everybody got to see what RAITN was and how it worked, everybody spent some time on curricular planning issues and everybody was reminded of our pathfindng efforts at using docushare to create an electronic curriculum document. On Monday I checked K-12 Curriculum at a Glance to find 102 new postings! We may be turning the corner on a critical mass here in making this work.
5.0	Looking ahead at what happens 'til we meet again, there will be two meetings of the shared services ad hoc committee on transportation with Jo Slovak facilitating. You might be interested to know that the Seneca Falls BOE has recently sent a letter to Waterloo ( this thru Gary) asking that they have similar discussions focused on a shared transportation facility. Facility is something I will bring up to the RCS/SSCS group, as I do think we need to be planning ahead for long-range needs along these lines. I don't like being solo with a one-person department anywhere, including in a garage removed from sight of most people. Again, Verona has a wonderful model of a shared garage with second shifts and the works. Anne got to see that when we visited their CBO two years ago.
6.0	With regard to the music situation, I continue to field complaints/concerns and to pass those along as appropriate. You should know that I have started with in-house recruiting to take the marching band this spring and have not yet felt the need to run an ad. That will come next. I feel the appropriate step is to secure an acceptable adult willing to take on the challenge before ascertaining the interest level of the kids. Often the person in charge generates interest on their merits (or not). I DO intend to have you consider additional staffing as part of the next budget cycle as my way of not dropping the ball on this developing situation.
7.0	Enclosed you will find a letter to Marie Johnson congratulating her on her involvement at a recent SCT BOCES ( Elmira area) conference presentation. Also enclosed you will find a copy of the brochure pages in reference to a presentation sally covert made recently at a Tech Prep conference. I pass these along to you so that you are aware of the continuing good representation you have in the field as your staff is called upon to present our efforts to others. Kudos to these folks and to you for allowing/encouraging such behaviors. I think it's a sign of a healthy organization!
8.0	$5000 grant in aid. Attached is a fax from Bob Oaks indicating we will get a $5000 grant for whatever we want as part of the Republican pork disseminated through the rank and file members of the assembly. Everybody gets to pass out some warm fuzzies. This is about one-tenth of the money we didn't get in state aid that we planned on. Personally I'd rather see it in the state aid formula than passed out with politian's names attached like advertising. Maybe that's just my cynicism showing… Anyway, didn't want you to read about this in some flier or newspaper without hearing it here first.
9.0	Also enclosed FYI is a fax from Albany about the State-wide distribution of ELA and Math scores we discussed last time out. Remember that we looked pretty good regionally? Well we look pretty good state-wide, too!
10.0	Reminder of Xmas party invite. RFA event is 12/4 at the Crow's nest. Reservations due Tuesday 11/23 cash by Monday 11/29. Always a nice time. Might even stop by the new Manaseri place (same neighborhood) for a pre-dinner cocktail. Copy of RFA flier enclosed again for your use. Let Leanne or me know ahead of meeting so Peg Brady can call in reservations at end of business Tuesday. Thanks.