Memo
To: Members, Board of Education
From: Chris Manaseri
CC: Administrative Team
Date: 11/15/22
Re: Meeting of November 23
Thursday afternoon as we begin to prepare for the only meeting of the month, although with a very busy schedule this may not be finished until Friday PM.
NON-AGENDA ITEMS:
| 1.0 | Capital project will have some implications for the agenda this time out, particularly around the auditorium seating. Other than that, however, you should know that Steve Johnson has been very cooperative in working with us so far on pricing of seats, etc., and that Allen Kosoff brought a color consultant down yesterday to meet with Anne and Mike and me about each of the rooms affected by the project. You can anticpate seeing color swatches for carpeting, paint, seating, plastic laminate, etc based on each room impacted just before Christmas. Even though we are not meeting again this month, I thought many of you might find the time to swing by the building to check these out - I'll even stock up on some eggnog and cookies to make it worth your while. |
| 2.0 | Shared Services Committee met again last night at South Seneca and heard about work on transportation subcommittee and academic intervention. Mike and Barb tell me the meeting went fine, and that the biggest issue is putting the brakes on the transportation group which seems to have taken its task too much to heart. I will meet with them this coming Monday and make certain the message is communicated that their role is advisory only and that they should prepare a list of ideas which should be shared back to the shared services committee and not tackle anything on the list themselves. Next Shared Services is scheduled for January 4 here with distance learning options as a focal point. |
| 3.0 | CBO meeting is scheduled for this coming Tuesday. Gary and I reviewed a few issues regarding same yesterday. We did have a problem with payroll with Bonnie's extended vacation - a problem we have always had, but which should have been corrected through the CBO concept. That is, subs and overtime during the month of November did not get paid. while she was on vacation. Bonnie is able to pre-run payroll for all regular folks, but overtime and substitutes cannot be known ahead. Usually we have lived with this and we thought we would this year, too. However, one of our employees was so incensed over not receiving extra-trip pay (can you tell which department?) that he called the department of labor. They called Gary and said you HAVE to pay subs within two weeks. Long story short, we will need to push the issue of cross-training of CBO personnel in order to avoid this problem next year. Ultimate irony, though, was that there was one person whose pay was not corrected (in error) - it happened to be the person that called the department of labor! |
| 4.0 | I have been out of office much of the week, twice to Syracuse where I was asked to adjudicate some undergraduate projects on designing a model middle school and to critique those proposals to 90 undergraduates (this morning). I was given a $100 honorarium which instead of giving back or refusing, I will funnel to the Foundation. Good PR for the school and $100 in the Foundation's pocket… |
| 5.0 | Also out twice this week related to Edutech Steering Committee - once preparing for meeting and once facilitating it. No money in our pocket for that, but good to be a player among that group. Will also be serving on a committee to explore e-learning options and issues in our area with some of the other folks from this group ( Steve Uebbing included). |
| 6.0 | I did update you each by email about interviewing that I am currently involved with. Nowadays I don't get too excited about anything until it looks like its real, and I wouldn't get too excited about these either just yet. I'll let you know when to panic. |
| 7.0 | Request for Sabbatical attached from Joy Ike means that we will need to have the committee sit down after the first of the year and see about this. We are finishing up the second summer of Jim Delia's granted request this summer which means we do already have sabbatical money in the budget. Joy is particularly interested in curriculum work and we could utilize her time on a K-12 basis effectively should we choose to do so for a semester. No action needed now, just filing the request… |
| 8.0 | Next week brings meetings on CBO, Distance Learning grant, transportation sharing, alternative middle school, program networks, BOCES SDM, and social norms share with HWS. I will be taking a vacation day 12/17 for a full day interview elsewhere. (This so you know how that is handled and so that you know where I am when on payroll versus evening hours. In case that's a question for any of you.) |
| 9.0 | Enclosed correspondence from Mike Masse will appear in some edited form in the NYS School Boards Newspaper. I am the rural superintendent alluded to and you are the Board. FYI. |
| 10.0 | Also enclosed by way of correspondence is a piece by Mike Joseph of Rural Schools on equitability of state funding for schools to appear in NYTimes. FYI. |
| 11.0 | Holiday Concert is Wednesday evening. Hope you can make it there. |
AGENDA ITEMS:
| 1.0 | Routine items should be just that. Warrants will not be in the packet as Gloria was out one full day this week shadowing Mike for her practicum. They will be on the table Tuesday night. |
| 2.0 | Presentation on Proposed New Year's Eve Lock-In. Allan Gelatt will join us with an idea for keeping some of our young people safe and warm and off the streets on January 1, 2000. Only concern would be for the power going out… |
| 3.0 | Major item of discussion and a decision needs to be made regarding seating in the auditorium as part of the capital project. For months now a sample seat has been in the Board Room showing us what a rehab of existing seats would look like. Concern has been expressed by Steve Johnson, the GC, that rehabs are exterior only and that the squeaking that is a problem in the existing seats might not go away with a reupholstery job like it would with new seating. He sought bids from three subs for seat work, for both new seats and rehabs. They are as follows: JM Murray - Rehab $59,850, new seats $92,568: Professional - rehab $72,158, new seats $71,340; and Scholastic -rehab $68,545, new seats $80,715. We used a $37,167 figure for reupholstery only in our budget. So everything is more than we budgeted. (Surprise, right?) The question becomes, how much more than our budget do we wish to spend? (You have the money in unbid masonry rehab - that is not the issue). The issue is do you spend 20 grand more than you thought for a good rehab of 30 year old seats, or do you spend 40 grand more for new ones. The new seat quote from Scholastic is almost competitive with rehab from anybody else and in fact beats their own rehab bid. That says to me that YOU need to decide, not me. So I have asked for samples from all three firms for your perusal Tuesday night. You get to pick whether we redo 30-year-old seating or replace it. In the replacement cost, there may be as much as $10,000 or more for retrofitting the floor holes and patching work as the new seats are wider than the old and will require all new holes for floor bolts. Additionally there would likely be a cost for disposal of the old seats that we do not incur if we're rehabbing them. So - up Professional's new seat cost to at least $82,000 for comparison purposes. I need to call Allen on Wednesday morning with a decision if we want anything installed by March, so put on your decision making caps before you come to the meeting! No matter what we do, we want to be satisfied with the end product as none of us is likely to be involved in redoing it anytime soon. |
| 4.0 | Tax report is all set this time out and payroll paperwork for Alice has been submitted at BOCES. Between STAR and the actual collection we have over 90% of our money in now, up a percent from before STAR kicked in. Alice did tell me that about 80% of our folks are sending money directly to Syracuse as requested with their return envelope. We are currently the only school in the CBO to be using the lock-box, but the other two have expressed interest. Eventually I see us mailing tax bills from there, and having everybody either return them by mail to the lock-box address or paying them in person AT THE CBO, not the school. We're probably a year or two away from that though. |
| 5.0 | We have several small committee reports and an approval of the honor Society annual trip as noted. |
| 6.0 | Personnel matters should be uneventful, and we should all be able to go home early… |
Hope to see everyone for our only December gathering at 7:30 on Tuesday. Please call with any questions.
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