Redistricting committee members wanted

Charles County Public Schools is looking for a few good people to serve on its high school redistricting committee.

The school system will select 10 parents, two each from the elementary and middle school levels, and six from the high schools, to serve on the committee. Additionally, three community members will be selected for the committee, which also includes principals, county government planners and Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) staff. The school system is starting a comprehensive high school redistricting process that will create an attendance zone for the new St. Charles High School and redistribute and balance student populations at all high schools. The redistricting, which will be approved by the summer of 2013, takes effect in August 2014.

Commitment Applicants must agree to fulfill a four- to five-month commitment of attendance at a weekly meeting. The meeting day will be either Tuesday or Wednesday, and is determined after the first meeting and by consensus with the group. The time of all meetings is 6:30-8:30 p.m.

How to apply Elementary, middle and high school principals are now accepting names from parents with interest in serving on the committee. Please call your child's school for the deadline to apply. Community members must not have a child enrolled in any Charles County public school and must fill out an online application at http://www2.ccboe.com/parentscomm/transportation/hsredistricting.cfm, or call 301-934-7221 to receive an application by mail.

The process Each elementary and middle school will submit to the Superintendent the name of one parent to be selected at random from all expressing interest. The name of a parent from each elementary school will be placed in a container and two names will be selected at random from the 21 submissions. Principals from each of the eight middle schools will follow the same process. The name of a parent from each middle school will be submitted to the Superintendent, placed in a container and two names will be selected at random from the eight submissions.

Each high school will accept names of any interested parent and select one name, at random, to serve on the redistricting committee. Each high school will send the name of one representative, and no further drawing will be held at the high school level.

Contact your child's principal to find out the deadline for applying and when the random selection will be made at the school.

Three community members will be selected from applicants. Community members should not have a child enrolled in any Charles County public school and must fill out an application. The application can be completed and submitted online. Applications will also be mailed on request. Only applications received by Oct. 5 will be considered. If more than three names are submitted, the community members will be selected in a public drawing at the Oct. 9 Board meeting.

Selection of committee members Superintendent James E. Richmond and the Board of Education will publicly draw the names of the elementary and middle school parents and the community representatives at the Board's Oct. 9 meeting.

Questions about the process can be sent to redistrict@ccboe.com or call 301-934-7221.

Open forums scheduled to aid in finding new superintendent

The Charles County Board of Education has initiated its search for a new Superintendent of Schools. The superintendent search process is Charles County's first in 17 years. To help facilitate this process, the Charles County Board has contracted the services of the Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE), an agency that specializes in assisting Boards with the consideration of candidates for educational leadership roles.

Open forums for the community will be held at locations throughout the county to help identify the qualities and characteristics residents want for the new superintendent.

The following are the open forum times, dates and locations:

• Oct. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at Henry E. Lackey High School, 3000 Chicamuxen Road, Indian Head, Md., 20640
• Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. at Thomas Stone High School, 3785 Leonardtown Road, Waldorf, Md., 20601
• Oct. 9 at 6:30 p.m. at Piccowaxen Middle School, 12834 Rock Point Road, Newburg, Md., 20664
• Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. at Westlake High School, 3300 Middletown Road, Waldorf, Md., 20603
• Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. at La Plata High School (session open to the public), 6035 Radio Station Road, La Plata, Md., 20646

Participants will be provided a brief presentation about the superintendent search, participate in group discussions and will be asked to answer three questions:

• What do you feel are the most positive things about Charles County and Charles County Public Schools?
• What characteristics and qualifications do you feel a superintendent should possess?
• What challenges do you think the new superintendent will face?

Input from these forums will be compiled, presented to and used by the Board of Education to develop a brochure and advertisement to solicit candidates for the superintendent position. The brochure and advertisement will be posted on our school system website and placed in local, state and national publications.

Individuals or groups that cannot participate in the forums are encouraged to e-mail responses to kblumsack@mabe.org or mail responses to arrive by October 10 to: Kathryn Blumsack, Maryland Association of Boards of Education, 621 Ridgley Avenue, Suite 300, Annapolis, Md., 21201.

School system launches attendance audit at North Point

Charles County Public Schools is launching an attendance audit at North Point High School to ensure students enrolled there live in the North Point attendance zone or in Charles County if they are in a Science, Technology and Industry (STI) program. While the school system routinely investigates questionable attendance issues, this is the first concentrated effort to conduct a formal audit.


Superintendent James E. Richmond said overcrowding strains building capacity in terms of facility and staffing levels, and enrollment at North Point has steadily risen to 2,252 students, which is hundreds more students than the school was designed to handle.

"Despite overcrowding, North Point is managing the challenges and staff continues to provide the students there with quality instructional programs and opportunities. However, as we begin a redistricting process at the high school level, we need to first make sure we are confirming that students in our schools are Charles County residents and that they are attending the proper school," Richmond said.

This is a residency verification pilot program and analysis, and once the North Point student audit is complete, staff could look at other schools, Richmond said.

North Point, which serves as the STI center for Charles County Public Schools, is a comprehensive high school. A designated number of students at the school come from across Charles County and apply for and are accepted in STI programs. The remainder of the student population is zoned to attend North Point. The audit is focusing on the attendance zone population; however, Richmond said staff is looking to ensure students in the STI programs are county residents.
The formal audit supplements daily efforts by schools and the Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) student services department to monitor enrollment numbers and to ensure children are enrolled at the schools they are zoned to attend. During the last two school years, more than 60 out-of-zone students have been removed from North Point following residency investigations. Additionally, according to Patricia Vaira, director of student services, many more students are stopped from enrolling because the school system is taking a closer look at leases and residency verification during the registration process.
A letter from Richmond is going home to North Point parents on Sept. 12 alerting them to the audit and asking for cooperation.
The school system's audit to confirm students' residency status includes, but is not limited to:

• A complete review of all residency documents, including lease agreements and statements of residency;
• Unscheduled home visits to confirm the accuracy of residency documents; and
• A review of publicly available information regarding property ownership.

Parents of students enrolled at North Point under false information can withdrawal their child by Sept. 19 with no questions asked. "I hope parents will respond before we need to take action," Richmond said.
"I heard the complaints during the elementary and middle school redistricting that people feel there are students throughout the county, but particularly on the North Point campus, who are not zoned to attend these schools and are causing overcrowding. I felt we needed to investigate thoroughly those claims," Richmond said.
Students found to be attending the wrong school will be sent to their zoned school or removed from the school system if they are not a resident. Nonresidents will be charged tuition, retroactively, for the time they attended school here. County students attending a school under false information will be ineligible to participate in athletics. "Families providing inaccurate residency information not only overcrowd our schools, but they also put our athletic programs at risk. If we find an out-of-zone student playing on one of our teams, the entire team suffers the consequence for this ineligible player through forfeited games," Richmond said.

Richmond asks anyone with knowledge of a family that is attending school who does not reside in the school's attendance zone to contact the school or anonymously call the school system's fraud hotline at 301-302-8305.

Notes from Board of Education Meeting, 9/11/12

The Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday, September 11 will be re-broadcast on Comcast Channel 96, Verizon FIOS Channel 12 and is available via webstream at http://www.ccboe.com/ . To view the full agenda and the various reports, please visit BoardDocs.

The below notes are my personal notes and are not intended to be all-inclusive or official minutes for the Board of Education meetings and are provided as a request from my supporters and the general public in a personal effort to be more transparent. Although I have diligently tried to make these notes as unbiased and accurate as possible, I am only human and do make mistakes.

Executive session – 12 p.m.

Call to order – 1 p.m.

Pledge of Allegiance – Henry E. Lackey High School's JROTC unit

Superintendent's update to the board - see report

Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE) update  - see report

Correspondence/board member updates

• Bowie - Encourage reading your calendar, wealth of information
• Wade - 911 remembrance; worse than Pearl Harbor
• Pedersen - Update on classroom sizes; flex program in middle schools and middle school schedules
• Cook - Bannister Neighborhood Association looking for used books to use as awards for their one-on-one tutoring program
• Wise - Commissioners' meeting on the 18th; Reaching Out Now hopes to provide Wal-mart gift cards as well as monetary donations to schools; Letter from Commissioner Kelley asking for a joint committee to study school capacity.  Abell & Pedersen volunteered.  Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Summit

Education Association of Charles County update - see report

Student board member's update - see report

Opening of schools - oral report; uneventful

Capital Improvement Program (CIP) update - see report

• Construction of high school has begun; March 2014 completion
• F B Gwynn Center renovation update

Report item: FY 2013 Comprehensive Maintenance Plan - see report

Gifted and talented education policy - see report

• Pedersen - questioning validity of 'flex time'
• Wise - Annotated Code of Maryland states that students are identified by a qualified individual; who identifies our students?
• Bourasso - Committee of teachers and staff

Gifted and Talented Education Month resolution - see report

Policy #5171.1 – Epi-pens - see report

Unfinished business - none

New business

• Resolution for MABE

Motion to accept the resolution by Abell; Second by Cook

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas



Future agenda items - none

Recognition – 4:30 p.m.

• Truth Chapter No. 19, Order of the Eastern Star, Prince Hall Affiliated

Public Forum – 6 p.m.

• Roseman Diaz - Davis to Henson redistricting; students love it but it is extremely crowded.  Already 70 students overcrowded.  Additional developments being built.  Here to advocate for the students and ally with the board.
• Lourdes Sagun - redistricting; students love school; class sizes are still 27-30 students; wants to be involved and on the committee for the high school redistricting

Action items

• Minutes

Motion to accept the June 5 meeting minutes by Pedersen; Second by Cook

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas

Motion to accept the June 28th teleconference by Cook; Second by Pedersen

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas

Motion to accept the August 14th minutes by Abell; Second by Pedersen

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas

Motion to accept the August 14th executive session minutes by Cook; Second by Pedersen

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas

Motion to accept the August 6th & August 14th executive session minutes by Cook; Second by Wade

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas

• Personnel

Motion to accept the personnel by Wade; Second by Personnel

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas

• FY 2014 CIP state and local CIP program

Motion to accept the CIP by Cook; Second by Wade

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas

• Redistricting policies

Motion to accept the redistricting policies as amended by Abell; Second by Pedersen

YES = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; Absent = Lukas

• Recurring resolutions: American Education Week; American Freedom Week; African-American History Month; Career and Technical Education Month; National School Counseling Week; Read Across America; Women's History Month; Fine and Performing Arts Month; Month of the Young Child; National Student Leadership Week; Teacher Appreciation Week; Administrative Professionals Week; Child Nutrition Employee Appreciation Week; National Physical Education and Sport Week; Washington Post Distinguished Educational Leader; Charles County Teacher of the Year; Employees Retirement; and Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award.

Motion to accept the recurring resolutions by Cook; Second by Bowie

YES = Bowie, Cook, Pedersen, Wade, Wise; ABSTAIN = Abell; Absent = Lukas

Adjournment

REMINDER: Board of Education Meeting, 9/11/12

The Board of Education's next monthly meeting is Tuesday, Sept. 11, at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building on Radio Station Road in La Plata. The public portion of the meeting begins at 1 p.m. The meeting is televised live on Comcast Channel 96 and Verizon FiOS Channel 12, and is rebroadcast throughout the week. Board meetings are also streamed live on the school system Web site at http://www2.ccboe.com/boe/live/.

Executive session – 12 p.m.

Call to order – 1 p.m.

Pledge of Allegiance – Henry E. Lackey High School's JROTC unit

 
Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE) update

Superintendent's update to the board

Correspondence/board member updates

Education Association of Charles County update

Student board member's update

Opening of schools

Capital Improvement Program (CIP) update

Report item: FY 2013 Comprehensive Maintenance Plan

Gifted and talented education policy

Gifted and talented education month resolution

Policy #5171.1 – Epi-pens

Unfinished business

 
New business

• Resolution for MABE

Future agenda items

Recognition – 4:30 p.m.

• Truth Chapter No. 19, Order of the Eastern Star, Prince Hall Affiliated

Public Forum – 6 p.m.

Action items

• Minutes
• Personnel
• FY 2014 CIP state and local CIP program
• Redistricting policies
• Recurring resolutions: American Education Week; American Freedom Week; African-American History Month; Career and Technical Education Month; National School Counseling Week; Read Across America; Women's History Month; Fine and Performing Arts Month; Month of the Young Child; National Student Leadership Week; Teacher Appreciation Week; Administrative Professionals Week; Child Nutrition Employee Appreciation Week; National Physical Education and Sport Week; Washington Post Distinguished Educational Leader; Charles County Teacher of the Year; Employees Retirement; and Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award.

Adjournment

Number of Homeschoolers Growing Nationwide

This article was published in May but I believe is very relevant in Charles County today.

Education News
May 21, 2012
Julia Lawrence

Researchers are expecting a surge in the number of students educated at home by their parents over the next ten years as more families spurn public schools.
As the dissatisfaction with the U.S. education system among parents grows, so does the appeal of homeschooling. Since 1999, the number of children who are being homeschooled has increased by 75%. Although currently only 4% of all school children nationwide are educated at home, the number of primary school kids whose parents choose to forgo traditional education is growing seven times faster than the number of kids enrolling in K-12 every year.
Any concerns expressed about the quality of education offered to the kids by their parents can surely be put to rest by the consistently high placement of homeschooled kids on standardized assessment exams. Data shows that those who are independently educated typically score between 65th and 89th percentile on such exams, while those attending traditional schools average on the 50th percentile. Furthermore, the achievement gaps, long plaguing school systems around the country, aren’t present in homeschooling environment. There’s no difference in achievement between sexes, income levels or race/ethnicity.

Read more HERE

Board hopes to announce new superintendent by April

Charles County's Board of Education is starting its search for a new Superintendent of Schools to replace Superintendent James E. Richmond, who has announced he is leaving at the end of the 2012-13 school year.


Consultants from the Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE) met with Board members Tuesday evening to brief them on the search process and to begin developing a timeline. William Middleton, lead MABE consultant, said the search is a "patience-building process that will not happen overnight."

Middleton said MABE conducts a transparent, open and fair process for everyone involved. He said there is a confidentiality protocol used to maintain privacy of applicants unless the Board identifies them as a finalist. At that point, Middleton said, names of finalists are released and publicly vetted.

Part of the process involves public forums to gather input from staff, students and the community. The Board asked MABE to conduct five public forums in different areas of the county. MABE is planning to hold the forums, which are open to the general public, in October. MABE will solicit community input about Charles County Public Schools, what characteristics the public thinks the Board should look for in a superintendent and what challenges the public believes the new superintendent will face. Forums will be announced on the Charles County Public Schools website and in the local media, and sent to community groups.

MABE compiles the community input and provides it to Board members to help them develop the criteria and characteristics they want a new superintendent to possess. The information will be used to develop a brochure and advertisements soliciting superintendent candidates. The Board will nationally advertise the position beginning in November and MABE will start screening applications on Dec. 17. The Board hopes to make a final decision and offer by late April 2013.

"We are looking for a superintendent who will come here and stay here. We will look for someone who will meet your needs and stay for an extended period of time," Middleton said.

Maryland law requires Boards to award a four-year contract, and the new superintendent's term would begin July 1, 2013 and end June 30, 2017.

Tentative Timeline

August 2012

Board meets with MABE consultants to develop timeline and search process.

October 2012

Community residents, students and staff will have the opportunity to share input at five regional public forums. Ideas and opinions from these forums will be incorporated into the brochure and advertisements describing the job opening and used to develop the criteria and characteristics the Board will look for in a new superintendent.

November 2012

Position advertising begins. Brochure and application will be mailed out and posted on the Charles County Public Schools website. Position advertising will be on a local, state and national level.

December 2012

Application review by MABE begins on Dec. 17. Position remains open until filled.

March 2013

Board announces finalists. Candidates visit Charles County and are interviewed by stakeholder focus groups.

April 2013

Board expected to make announcement of final selection by end of month.

July 1, 2013

New superintendent begins.

Richmond notified the Board of Education in April that he does not plan to ask for renewal of his contract in 2013. The 17-year superintendent is a former Maryland Superintendent of the Year and took the top job in Charles County Public Schools in 1996 as interim superintendent. He was appointed to his first four-year term as superintendent in 1997, and he will complete his fourth term in June 2013.

The Board of Education in May voted to contract with MABE to assist with the search for a new superintendent.

Washington Supreme Court rules that school resource officer’s search of student’s locked backpack violated rights against unlawful search and seizure

State of Washington v. Meneese, No. 86203-6 (Wash. Aug. 2, 2012) (majority opinion); (dissenting opinion)


Abstract: In a 7-2 split, the Supreme Court of the State of Washington has ruled that a school resource officer (SRO), who is a member of a local police department, violated a student’s right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure under the federal and state constitutions when he searched the student’s locked backpack after arresting the student and handcuffing him. The court’s majority concluded that the “school search” exception did not apply to the SRO’s search.

The majority reversed the intermediate appellate court’s decision upholding the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress the air pistol discovered during the search. The majority concluded that the “school search” exception to the requirement for a warrant did not apply, because at the time the SRO executed the backpack search, he was acting as a police officer, and not a school official.

Read more HERE

Notes from Board of Education Meeting, 8/14/12

The Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday, August 14 will be re-broadcast on Comcast Channel 96, Verizon FIOS Channel 12 and is available via webstream at http://www.ccboe.com/ . To view the full agenda and the various reports, please visit BoardDocs.

The below notes are my personal notes and are not intended to be all-inclusive or official minutes for the Board of Education meetings and are provided as a request from my supporters and the general public in a personal effort to be more transparent. Although I have diligently tried to make these notes as unbiased and accurate as possible, I am only human and do make mistakes.
Executive Session – 9 a.m.

Call to order – 11 a.m. - Pledge of Allegiance

Superintendent's update - See Report

Correspondence/Board member updates

• Wise - MABE committee member requests

Education Association of Charles County update - See Report

Student Board Member update - See Report

Opening of schools, athletics update - See Report

• Impact testing for athletes.  Computerized test at start of year gives a baseline.  Students will take the test again after an impact/injury.  Will tell doctors whether a students is fully recovered and if they can return to play.
• All coaches required to take a test and have an emergency plan in place
• Cook - impressed with information given on sports night for her son.

CIP update  - See report

• Richmond - why does it cost $200,000 to hook up three schools
• Wise - letter from the board

FY 2014 CIP state and local CIP program - See Report

Redistricting policies - See Report

• Wise - issue with 'desireability to limit the movement of a high school student after initial enrollment
• Abell - change 'limiting' to 'minimizing' in both sentences
• Cook - against having a board member select a person to the committee
• Abell - change wording back to original just with more explanantion about pool of applicants and random drawing

Change of gifted education policy - See Report (Policy 6411.1)

• recommended changes to align county policy with revised state (COMAR) policy

Staffing update

Recurring resolutions: American Education Week; American Freedom Week; African-American History Month; Career and Technical Education Month; National School Counseling Week; Read Across America; Women's History Month; Fine and Performing Arts Month; Month of the Young Child; National Student Leadership Week; Teacher Appreciation Week; Administrative Professionals Week; Child Nutrition Employee Appreciation Week; National Physical Education and Sport Week; Washington Post Distinguished Educational Leader; Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award; Charles County Teacher of the Year; and Employees' Retirement

Unfinished business

• Pedersen - any follow-up on a date to meet with the commisioners
• Wise - new policy in place; we cannot call and request a meeting, have to log online and submit a request; process didn't work; printed and snail mailed.

New business - None

Future agenda items - None

• Wise - Study on high school start times; still working on it
• Bowie - Common core and the waiver and the affect on us; staff working on it
• Pedersen - Safety report form Sheriff Coffey; October meeting

Public Forum – 3:30 p.m. - None

Action items

• Minutes

Abell requests to hold the Exective Session Minutes

until the next meeting since we never received a copy.

Motion to accept the Minutes from 6/14/12 by Lukas; Second by Pedersen

Yes = All

Motion to accept the Minutes from 8/6/12 by Cook; Second by Bowie

Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Wade, Wise; Abstain = Pedersen



• Personnel

Motion to accept Personnel by Abell; Second by Pedersen

Yes = All

Adjournment

REMINDER: Board of Education Meeting, 8/14/12

The Board of Education's next monthly meeting is Tuesday, August 14, at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building on Radio Station Road in La Plata. The public portion of the meeting begins at 11 a.m. and Public Forum is at 3:30 p.m. All Board meetings are televised live on Comcast Channel 96 and Verizon FiOS Channel 12, and rebroadcast throughout the week. Schedules for Channel 96 are available on the Charles County Public Schools website at www2.ccboe.com/publicinfo/channel96/schedule.cfm.


Executive Session – 9 a.m.

Call to order – 11 a.m.

Pledge of Allegiance

Superintendent's update

Correspondence/Board member updates

Education Association of Charles County update

Student Board Member update

Opening of schools, athletics update

CIP update

FY 2014 CIP state and local CIP program

Redistricting policies

Change of gifted education policy

Staffing update

Recurring resolutions: American Education Week; American Freedom Week; African-American History Month; Career and Technical Education Month; National School Counseling Week; Read Across America; Women's History Month; Fine and Performing Arts Month; Month of the Young Child; National Student Leadership Week; Teacher Appreciation Week; Administrative Professionals Week; Child Nutrition Employee Appreciation Week; National Physical Education and Sport Week; Washington Post Distinguished Educational Leader; Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award; Charles County Teacher of the Year; and Employees' Retirement

Unfinished business

New business

Future agenda items

Public Forum – 3:30 p.m.

Action items

• Minutes
• Personnel

Adjournment

School system sponsors bus hotline for parents

Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) is sponsoring a bus hotline for parents to call with questions about school bus routes. Call 301-932-6655 to access the hotline. The hotline is available Aug. 23-24 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Aug. 27-28 from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.


Parents can access bus routes through the School Locator feature available on the CCPS website. School Locator is designed to allow the public to enter an address and see which three schools - elementary, middle and high - an address is zoned for. It also indicates if the address is eligible for bus transportation to a particular school, what the bus number is and where the closest bus stop to the address is located.

School Locator can be accessed at www2.ccboe.com/schoollocator/. Click on Launch Application (Public) to access the system. No password is needed. School Locator uses mapping data from the county and filters it by the system's current school zones.

Additionally, bus stops within established subdivisions are permanently placed at specific locations to ensure consistency and equity among riders and will not be changed. Buses may run later than normal during the first week of school to adjust for changes in routes and/or established stops.

For more information about bus routes, contact your child's school, or the transportation department at ccpstransportation@ccboe.com or 301-934-7262.

Notes from Board of Education Work Session, 8/6/12

The Board of Education Work Session on Monday, August 6 will be re-broadcast on Comcast Channel 96, Verizon FIOS Channel 12 and is available via webstream at http://www.ccboe.com/ . To view the full agenda and the various reports, please visit BoardDocs.
The below notes are my personal notes and are not intended to be all-inclusive or official minutes for the Board of Education meetings and are provided as a request from my supporters and the general public in a personal effort to be more transparent. Although I have diligently tried to make these notes as unbiased and accurate as possible, I am only human and do make mistakes.

Executive session – 5:30 p.m.

Call to order – 6 p.m. - Pledge of Allegiance / Public Forum

Work Session - Redistricting/New high school

• Subcommittee recommendation HERE - some discussion
• Staff presented 4 options on opening enrollment of St. Charles High School - HERE
• Questions?  email redistrict@ccboe.com

Adjournment

Give the Standards Back to the Teachers

Education Week
Published Online: August 2, 2012
Commentary

By John Ewing


A standard is a statement that can be used to judge the quality of a mathematics curriculum or methods of evaluation. Thus, standards are statements about what is valued.

—From 1989 standards released by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

When the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers commissioned a small body of scholars to create national standards for mathematics in spring 2009, it seemed astounding that anyone paid attention. We have been inundated with standards for more than 20 years. A Google search for the phrase “mathematics standards” produces about 300,000 results, many referring to the various NCTM standards; to multiple guides created by individual states, often in conflicting versions; to publishers and software companies; and so forth. Here was one more set of standards, and it was likely irrelevant, people could be forgiven for thinking. But when nearly all the states (at last count, 45 of them, plus the District of Columbia) agreed to adopt both the math and English/language arts standards, people paid attention. This gave those states, if not a common K-12 curriculum, a common foundation for a national curriculum. It was an unexpected opportunity.

Or was it? After two decades of standards, we still wring our hands about student declines, unfocused curricula, and dreadful textbooks. There is little evidence that previous standards substantially improved education, and the fact that we continually replace old standards with new does not suggest success.

Why have previous standards failed? I think the answer is simple and evident: Standards failed because everybody owns them—politicians, administrators, teacher-educators (not to mention policy experts, publishers, and others)—everybody except the people who actually have to implement them, who have to use them as guides for the real work of instruction, and who have to determine whether the standards really are “statements about what is valued.” Teachers have never owned standards.

READ MORE HERE

REMINDER: Board of Education Work Session, 8/6/12

CCPS Press Release
July 24, 2012

The Board of Education of Charles County is holding a work session at 6 p.m., Monday, Aug. 6, at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building in La Plata. The meeting will be aired live on Comcast Channel 96 and Verizon FiOS Channel 12, and streamed on the school system website at http://www2.ccboe.com/boe/live/. The agenda is as follows:

Executive session – 5:30 p.m.

Call to order – 6 p.m.

• Pledge of Allegiance

Public Forum

Work Session

• Redistricting/New high school

Adjournment

Maryland education board gives preliminary approval to student-discipline reforms

Donna St. George
The Washington Post
Published July 24, 2012
 

BALTIMORE — The State Board of Education overwhelmingly approved regulations Tuesday intended to cut back on suspensions, keep students in class and create a less-punitive culture in public schools.

The changes place Maryland among states and school systems at the forefront of a national movement to rethink how students in trouble are punished and whether too many are suspended and expelled for offenses that could be handled in other ways.
But the Maryland action goes further than most initiatives, requiring that the state’s 24 school systems track data to ensure that minority and special education students are not unduly affected by suspensions, expulsions and other disciplinary measures. Disparities would have to be reduced within a year and eliminated within three years.
“It could well be the largest governmental unit that has made this strong a commitment to addressing racial disparities in discipline,” said Russell Skiba, a professor at Indiana University who does research on race and discipline. He called the action “a tremendous step forward.”
The new regulations require local school boards to adopt a rehabilitative philosophy toward discipline and teach students positive behavior. Zero-tolerance policies with automatic consequences would be banned, and long-term suspensions and expulsions are referred to as a last resort.
Read more HERE.
Please note:  With Tuesday’s vote (July 24, 2012), the discipline regulations are considered “published” but require a state review and a 30-day period for additional public comment. The board will then vote on final adoption.

Andrew Hacker, CUNY Professor, Questions Whether Algebra Is Necessary In Schools

Huffington Post
Posted: 07/30/2012 2:08 pm

In a July 28 New York Times op-ed titled “Is Algebra Necessary?” Queens College political science professor emeritus Andrew Hacker questions the role of algebra in American high school education.
He cites the subject as being the main impediment to graduation. According to recent data, one in four ninth graders fail to finish high school. In 2008-09, this number was closer to 34 percent in South Carolina, and 45 percent in Nevada. Hacker writes that most of the educators he has corresponded with identify algebra as the major academic reason for these failures.

READ MORE HERE

Board begins yearlong redistricting process for high schools

CCPS Press ReleaseJuly 24, 2012

When the Board of Education meets on Monday, Aug. 6, it will be the beginning of a yearlong process to review redistricting policies, develop alternatives for redistricting of high school attendance zones, create an attendance zone for the new St. Charles High School and reduce overcrowding in the six existing high schools.

The Board of Education meets at 6 p.m., Aug. 6, at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building in La Plata. The agenda includes discussion on redistricting policies and suggested policy changes developed by a Board committee. Additionally, the Board will begin discussion on which grades are to be included in St. Charles High School when it opens in August 2014. Possible alternatives include opening it as a full high school with grades 9-12; limiting grades to 9-11; limiting grades to 9-10; or opening as a combination middle/high school with grades 7-9. A complete agenda is posted on the school system website at www.ccboe.com.

Redistricting, said Superintendent James E. Richmond, is essential to create an attendance zone for St. Charles High School and to balance enrollments at the six other high schools. St. Charles High School is scheduled to open in August 2014. The school opening was first planned for 2011, but construction has been delayed twice due to economic and funding issues. State and local funding for the $64 million high school has been finalized and construction on the building is set to begin next month.

A Board subcommittee met during the summer to review and develop suggested changes to policy guiding the redistricting process. The Board will review the suggestions as an information item on Aug. 6. When the Board changes policy, it is scrutinized over three meetings: first as an information item, second as a report and third as an action item for a vote. Rule changes are developed by the Superintendent, and provide the process staff follows to implement the Board's policy. Proposed changes to the Board policies include the addition of a third public information session/hearing. The Superintendent has proposed changes to the composition of the redistricting committee. Complete policy change suggestions will be posted with the agenda on BoardDocs July 30.

The tentative high school redistricting timeline is:

August 2012

• Board reviews committee recommendations on redistricting policy; discusses, makes decisions on grades to be included in new high school.

September 2012

• Principals submit redistricting committee nominations
• Board public hearing/information session on high school redistricting

October 2012

• Superintendent selects redistricting committee
• Redistricting committee meets and is given the task

November 2012

• Redistricting committee meeting to develop two alternatives

December 2012

• Redistricting committee meeting to develop two alternatives

January 2013

• Redistricting committee meeting to develop two alternatives

February 2013

• Redistricting committee finalizes two alternatives

March 2013

• Redistricting committee's report presented to the Superintendent's operations group
• Redistricting committee's report publicized and available to the public

April 8, 2013

• Redistricting committee's report presented to the elected Board at the board meeting

April 2013

• Public hearing on committee's alternatives

May 2013

• Superintendent presents his recommendation to elected Board
• Public hearing on Superintendent's recommendation

June 2013

• Elected Board takes action on Superintendent's recommendation
• Redistricting decision occurs one year prior to the opening of St. Charles High School in August 2014. Students affected by the redistricting will change schools in August 2014.

The Board meeting is open to the public and is also televised live on Comcast Channel 96 and Verizon FiOS Channel 12 and streamed live on the school system website at www.ccboe.com. The meeting is rebroadcast throughout the week. Schedules for Channel 96 are available on the Charles County Public Schools website at www2.ccboe.com/publicinfo/channel96/schedule.cfm.

Information about the redistricting will be available throughout the process. All information will be posted on the school system's website, www.ccboe.com, and information flyers will be sent home with elementary students and mailed to middle school parents.

Community input is essential to a successful redistricting. The Superintendent welcomes comments from the public. Comments and suggestions may be shared at public hearings, through e-mail or by letter. E-mails should be sent to redistrict@ccboe.com. Mail letters to Charles County Public Schools, Redistricting, P.O. Box 2770, La Plata, MD 20646.

Study Shows US Students Not Gaining On International Peers

Education NewsTuesday, July 24th, 2012

Although improving academic outcomes of American students compared to their international peers has been the focus of educational efforts of the last two presidential administrations, according to a new study released by Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, the efforts haven’t yet produced encouraging results. Over the past two decades, the American education reform movement gave birth to voucher programs, school choice, charter schools and new teacher evaluation systems that link student test results to tenure and salary decisions, but the PEPG study conclusions seem to indicate that none of these measures have had an impact on student achievement.

On top of the bad news for the US, which the study ranks at about the middle of the pack out of the 49 countries covered by the researchers, the data shows that students from countries both above and below the US are improving at double — and sometimes triple — the rate of American students.

READ MORE HERE

Work-life Balance and Our Outdated School Schedule

Huffington Post
Posted: 07/19/2012 5:08 pm
Jennifer Davis.Co-Founder & President, National Center on Time & Learning


Last weekend, as I balanced spending time with my five-year-old daughter and completing numerous work-related projects, I read "Why Women Still Can't Have it All", the cover article in The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter that is generating lots of buzz. I felt like I was reliving my own life through her words.

Having worked in my early career to advance women in politics and for 10 years in the education policy world of Washington, D.C. -- my last position serving as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Education in the Clinton Administration -- I am a member of the generation of women who were determined to prove that women can have it all.

READ MORE HERE

School is too easy, students report

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
Millions of kids simply don't find school very challenging, a new analysis of federal survey data suggests. The report could spark a debate about whether new academic standards being piloted nationwide might make a difference.

The findings, out today from the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank that champions "progressive ideas," analyze three years of questionnaires from the Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, a national test given each year.

Among the findings:

•37% of fourth-graders say their math work is "often" or "always" too easy;

•57% of eighth-graders say their history work is "often" or "always" too easy;

•39% of 12th-graders say they rarely write about what they read in class.

Read more HERE

Club 2012: Black parents who made sure their sons succeeded in school

The Washington Post
Post Local
By Michael Alison Chandler
Published: June 14, 2012

For six years, their parents had nagged and prodded and pressed them to perform.
Now these African American seniors in Loudoun County were marking the end of high school with a private ceremony organized by their parents, who had banded together back in middle school to make sure their sons made it successfully to graduation day.
“For the last six years, we’ve told you to do more, do better. We’re never satisfied, right?” said John Johnson, an Ashburn father addressing the 18 students in dress shirts and suit jackets in the auditorium at Lunsford Middle School in Chantilly.
“Well, tonight,” he declared, “we are satisfied.”
He flashed through a slide show of the core members’ accomplishments: 100 percent graduation rate, 92 percent enrollment in Advanced Placement classes, a cumulative 3.7 grade-point average and a combined $1.3 million in college scholarships.
Then he estimated, only half jokingly, how much volunteer time the parents seated behind them had invested in their success: 1,173,266 hours.
Read more HERE.

The technology mistake: Confusing access to information with becoming educated

The Washington Post
Post Local
The Answer Sheet, by Valerie Strauss
Posted at 04:00 AM ET, 06/18/2012

This was written by Larry Cuban, a former high school social studies teacher (14 years, including seven at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District), district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, VA) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for more than 20 years. His latest book is “As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin.” This appeared on his blog.

By Larry Cuban
“There won’t be schools in the future …. I think the computer will blow up the school. That is, the school defined as something where there are classes, teachers running exams, people structured in groups by age, following a curriculum—all of that…. But this will happen only in communities of children who have access to computers on a sufficient scale.”

That’s Seymour Papert, cognitive scientist and designer of software application Logo, writing in 1984 about dramatic changes in schooling with the advent of the desktop computer. Nearly 30 years later, the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, spoke at the Association of American Publishers Annual Meeting in 2010 on the national plan for technology. “We have the opportunity to completely reform our nation’s schools. We’re not talking about tinkering around the edges here. We’re talking about a fundamental re-thinking of how our schools function and placing a focus on teaching and learning like never before.”
Claims about the power of new electronic devices to “revolutionize” schooling are a dime a dozen. Yet, if they are nearly worthless, why have smart people said them over and over again?
The answer is deeply embedded in American culture: a love affair with technology as the elixir of everlasting improvement in all things personal and institutional. In the past quarter-century, quasi-miraculous changes have occurred in communication, information accessibility, business and commercial activities, combat operations, medical diagnosis and treatment, and so many other activities. Why not schooling?
Read more HERE.

U. Va. research: Arguing kids could have benefits

Monday - 6/18/2012, 7:57am  ET

By SAMANTHA KOON
The Daily Progress 
WTOP Local VA 

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - Though parents have been teaching their children not to argue with adults for generations, new research from the University of Virginia shows that young teenagers who are taught to argue effectively are more likely to resist peer pressure to use drugs or alcohol later in adolescence.
"It turns out that what goes on in the family is actually a training ground for teens in terms of how to negotiate with other people," said Joseph Allen, a U.Va. psychology professor and the lead author of the study, results of which were published in a recent edition of the journal Child Development.
Allen said that parents are often "scared to death about peer pressure," but also frustrated by argumentative children.
"What we're finding is there's a surprising connection between the two," he said. Allen noted that teens "learn they can be taken seriously" through interactions with their parents.
"Sometimes, it can be counterintuitive to tell parents to let their teens argue with them," said Joanna Chango, a clinical psychology graduate student at UVa who worked on the study. In fact, learning effective argumentation skills can help teenagers learn to "assert themselves and establish a sense of autonomy," she said.
Read more HERE.

Overcrowding at Ballou Graduation Forces Out Some Parents

AND THIS IS JUST ONE OF MANY REASONS WHY WE DON'T HOLD OUR GRADUATIONS OUTDOORS!

View more videos at: http://nbcwashington.com.

Due to bad weather, the ceremony was moved indoors -- but security offers [sic] thought there wasn't enough room for everyone.

Notes from Board of Education Meeting 6/12/12

The Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday, June 12 will be re-broadcast on Comcast Channel 96, Verizon FIOS Channel 12 and is available via webstream at http://www.ccboe.com/ . To view the full agenda and the various reports, please visit BoardDocs.

The below notes are my personal notes and are not intended to be all-inclusive or official minutes for the Board of Education meetings and are provided as a request from my supporters and the general public in a personal effort to be more transparent. Although I have diligently tried to make these notes as unbiased and accurate as possible, I am only human and do make mistakes.

Executive Session – 12 p.m.

Call to order – 1 p.m. - Pledge of Allegiance – Westlake High School's JROTC Unit

• Swearing-in of new Student Board member

Superintendent's update - See update

Correspondence/Board member updates

• Wade - Picnic Building Service Workers
• Bowie - Graduate congratulations; Thank you to teachers & staff; Library in Waldorf opening
• Pedersen - Congratulations to graduates
• Lukas - Thank you to all who support Project Graduation

Education Association of Charles County update

Student Board Member update - See report

Adult Independence Program staff recognition

• Wise - & Cook attended the AIP graduation.  Largest class in history (16)
• Cook - Spoke of how moving the program was and has attended it for many years.  Thank you to staff

CIP update - See report

JROTC - See report

LifeStyles of Charles County - See report; summer meals; bring children to the meals

Budget update - Governor's proposals on budget and county retirement obligations.  On target to reach fund balance.  Funding OPEB is still an issue.

Breakfast participation program - See report; grab & go breakfast; second chance breakfast

Unfinished business - None

New business - None

Future agenda items

• Abell - Research high school start times and see if delaying them based on teenage sleep studies and study habits would be more beneficial to our students

Recognition - 4:30 p.m.

• Students - Hunter Youngblood, 7th grade, Piccowaxen Middle School, first place winner in Major League Baseball's Breaking Barriers essay contest
• Outstanding vice principal award - Caroline Timmons, Vice Principal: T.C. Martin Elementary School
• Outstanding support staff awards - Donald "Bruce" Elliott, food service manager, Westlake High School; LaVerne Hicks, special education instructional assistant, Berry Elementary School; Michael Mickey, network engineer, Jessie L. Starkey Administration Building; Hubert Robey, HVAC mechanic II, Radio Station Road Annex; Connie Bannister, secretary, Mt. Hope/Nanjemoy Elementary School
• Resolution – Charles County Teacher of the Year – Kerrie Seberg, third-grade teacher, William A. Diggs Elementary School
• Employee retirement resolution

Reappointment of Eric Schwartz

Motion to accept the reappointment by Cook; Second by Lukas

Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise

Public Forum – 6 p.m.  - None
Action items

• Minutes
Motion to accept Minutes by Cook; Second by Pedersen
Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise
• Personnel
Motion to accept Personnel by Pedersen; Second by Wade
Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise
• Educational facilities master plan
Motion to accept Educational Facilities Master Plan by Cook; Second by Pedersen
Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise

Adjournment

Ex-Commissioners Point of View on DRRA's and School Allocations

Below you will find a letter submitted to the Charles County Board of Commissioners and copied to the Board of Education by Ex-Commissioner, Murray Levy who is now a Government Relations Consultant with ALEXANDER & CLEAVER, PA. 

Please review and leave your thoughts.


Murray Levy Letter to Commissioners regarding DRRA

REMINDER: Board of Education Meeting, 6/12/12

The Board of Education's next monthly meeting is Tuesday, June 12, at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building on Radio Station Road in La Plata. The public portion of the meeting begins at 1 p.m. and recognition begins at 4:30 p.m. The meeting is televised live on Comcast Channel 96 and Verizon FiOS Channel 12, and is rebroadcast throughout the week. Schedules for Channel 96 are available on the Charles County Public Schools website at www2.ccboe.com/publicinfo/channel96/schedule.cfm.

Executive Session – 12 p.m.

Call to order – 1 p.m.
Pledge of Allegiance – Westlake High School's JROTC Unit
Swearing-in of new Student Board member

Superintendent's updateReports of officers/boards/committees

• Correspondence/Board member updates
• Education Association of Charles County update
• Student Board Member update
• Adult Independence Program staff recognition
• CIP update
• JROTC
• LifeStyles of Charles County
• Budget update
• Breakfast participation program

Unfinished business

New business and future agenda items

• New business
• Future agenda items

Recognition - 4:30 p.m.

• Students
• Employees
• Outstanding vice principal award
• Outstanding support staff awards
• Resolution – Charles County Teacher of the Year – Kerrie Seberg, third-grade teacher, William A. Diggs Elementary School
• Employee retirement resolution

Public Forum – 6 p.m. Action items

• Minutes
• Personnel
• Educational facilities master plan

Adjournment

Board of Education announces public meeting TODAY

The Board of Education of Charles County is holding a public meeting at 5 p.m. today, Tuesday, June 5, in the faculty lounge at North Point High School. The meeting is being held to approve a contract for the guaranteed maximum price to the construction manager at risk (CMR) for St. Charles High School.

CCPS seniors receive nearly $52 million in scholarship offers

Charles County Public Schools honored 2,192 seniors on June 4 and June 5 during graduation ceremonies for six high schools. Students in the Class of 2012 were offered nearly $52 million in scholarships.
Valedictorians and salutatorians were announced last week at awards ceremonies. These positions are determined by students' grade point averages and represent the top academic achievers at each school.

Henry E. Lackey High School's valedictorian is Emily Macri of Nanjemoy and the salutatorian is Crystal Dionisio of Marbury. Macri plans to attend the University of Maryland College Park to study architecture. Dionisio plans to study psychology at Mount St. Mary's University.
La Plata High School's valedictorian is Raleigh Joyner of Charlotte Hall and salutatorian is Casey Rollins of La Plata. Joyner plans to attend the University of Maryland College Park and major in linguistics. Rollins is headed to the University of Virginia where she will major in engineering.

Erica Richardson of La Plata is Maurice J. McDonough High School's valedictorian. She is attending the University of Maryland College Park in the fall to study political science. McDonough has two co-salutatorians – Katie Turner of Newburg and Matthew Haldeman of La Plata. Turner, who has not declared a major, plans to attend the University of Maryland College Park and Haldeman will study physics at Marshall University.

North Point High School has two co-valedictorians – Cayley Dymond and Natalie Griffin, both of Waldorf. Salutatorian is Christopher Hartline of La Plata. Dymond plans to attend Purdue University and major in aerospace engineering. Griffin will attend the University of Maryland College Park and plans to major in journalism and international relations. Hartline plans to major in cellular and molecular biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Representing Thomas Stone High School are Jemm Excelle Dela Cruz of Waldorf as valedictorian and Daryllee Hale of Waldorf as salutatorian. Dela Cruz will attend Georgetown University and plans to study science, technology and international affairs. Hale has not declared a major, but will attend Towson University.

Westlake High School's valedictorian is Felicia Dillard of Waldorf and salutatorian is Misha Stone, also of Waldorf. Dillard plans to major in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. Stone will attend Brown University in the fall and plans to study economics.

2012 graduation numbers by school – (unofficial data as of 6/5/2012)

Henry E. Lackey High School
•Total graduates: 284
•Total scholarship money offered: $5,500,000
La Plata High School
•Total graduates: 341
•Total scholarship money offered: $6,937,688

Maurice J. McDonough High School
•Total graduates: 287
•Total scholarship money offered: $6,502,277

North Point High School
•Total graduates: 542
•Total scholarship money offered: $13,978,586

Thomas Stone High School
•Total graduates: 380
•Total scholarship money offered: $10,396,000
Westlake High School
•Total graduates: 358
•Total scholarship money offered: $8,651,552

Charles County Public Schools Totals
•Total graduates: 2,192
•Total scholarship money offered: $51,966,103

It’s time to drop the college-for-all crusade

Robert J. Samuelson
The Washington Post
Opinion Writer
Published May 27, 2012

The college-for-all crusade has outlived its usefulness. Time to ditch it. Like the crusade to make all Americans homeowners, it’s now doing more harm than good. It looms as the largest mistake in educational policy since World War II, even though higher education’s expansion also ranks as one of America’s great postwar triumphs.
Consider. In 1940, fewer than 5 percent of Americans had a college degree. Going to college was “a privilege reserved for the brightest or the most affluent” high-school graduates, wrote Diane Ravitch in her history of U.S. education, “The Troubled Crusade.” No more. At last count, roughly 40 percent of Americans had some sort of college degree: about 30 percent a bachelor’s degree from a four-year institution; the rest associate degrees from community colleges.
Starting with the GI Bill in 1944, governments at all levels promoted college. From 1947 to 1980, enrollments jumped from 2.3 million to 12.1 million. In the 1940s, private colleges and universities accounted for about half. By the 1980s, state schools — offering heavily subsidized tuitions — represented nearly four-fifths. Aside from a democratic impulse, the surge reflected “the shift in the occupational structure to professional, technical, clerical and managerial work,” noted Ravitch. The economy demanded higher skills; college led to better-paying jobs.
College became the ticket to the middle class, the be-all-and-end-all of K-12 education. If you didn’t go to college, you’d failed. Improving “access” — having more students go to college — drove public policy.
We overdid it. The obsessive faith in college has backfired.
Read more HERE.

Notes from Board of Education Meeting, 5/8/12

The Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday, May 8 will be re-broadcast on Comcast Channel 96, Verizon FIOS Channel 12 and is available via webstream at http://www.ccboe.com/ . To view the full agenda and the various reports, please visit BoardDocs.

The below notes are my personal notes and are not intended to be all-inclusive or official minutes for the Board of Education meetings and are provided as a request from my supporters and the general public in a personal effort to be more transparent. Although I have diligently tried to make these notes as unbiased and accurate as possible, I am only human and do make mistakes.

Executive session – 12 p.m.

Call to order – 1 p.m. - Pledge of Allegiance, North Point High School's JROTC unit

Recognition of student liaisons

Superintendent's update - See report
Correspondence/Board Member updates

• Bowie - NSBA Conference highlights
• Pedersen - NSBA Conference highlights
• Cook - NSBA highlights
• Lukas - DI Competition - congratulations
• Wise - Every 15 Minutes program - support

Education Association of Charles County update - see report
Student Board Member update - see report

CIP update - see report

• Wade - asked Wineland if he is comfortable with the progress of the new high school.
• Wineland - will come back with an answer next month; opening is not in jeopardy at this point

Educational facilities master plan -see report
Title I homeless and dental care projects, partnerships - see report

Unfinished business

• Wise - RFP's for consulting firms research presentation; thinks we should go with MABE.
• Abell - reason MABE is so much cheaper?  due to membership dues and it is a non-profit
• Lukas - can we ask a broad range of companies a list of questions?
• Wade - What are the steps we HAVE to do?
• Cook - What does piggyback mean?
• Balides - ride behind the current RFP; valid way to get things done
• Hettel - it needs to be a consultant for the board and should be kept out of central office and should be kept confidential; recommends a consultant
• Pedersen - concerns on cost in the long run; person who will lead our school system for a very long time; sometimes you have to spend the money to get the cream of the crop.
• Cook - applicants pool change with which consultant is used?
• Lukas - timeline to have consultant confirmed?

Motion to hire MABE as consultants for the Superintendent search by Abell; Second by Cook

Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise

• Abell - K9 dogs in schools?
• Richmond - waiting on a response from Coffey

New business

• Wise - 3 members to work with staff on redistricting policy; Abell, Lukas, Pedersen

Future agenda items - none
Recognition – 4:15 p.m.

• Ruth Ann Hall awards
• Students - Aashka Pate, 5th grade, Academic Achievement, T.C. Martin Elementary School; Lauren O'Neil, 5th grade, Academic Achievement, Walter J. Mitchell Elementary School; Tolani Olaosebikan, 5th grade, Personal Responsibility, Mary B. Neal Elementary School; Emily Rawson, 8th grade, Academic Achievement, Mattawoman Middle School; Shannon Gravette, 12th grade, Career Readiness, North Point High School; Brandon Paulin, 10^th grade, Henry E. Lackey High School, winner in the 2012 National Voice of Democracy’s Audio-Essay Competition
• Employees - Kathryn Stapleson, gifted education resource teacher, Martin; Melissa Walter, instructional specialist, Mitchell; Laurie Silk, secretary, Neal; Andrea Hoover, social studies teacher, Mattawoman; Linda McLaughlin, world language teacher, North Point

Public Forum – 6 p.m.

• Derrick Terry - Superintendent search -- must have a vested interest in students and county and not someone who is an exorbitant spender, have a lavish lifestyle, or interested only in furthering their own career.  Keep public involved.  No consulting firms; use online survey with the public; should be an educator, home grown.  Get rid of perks; promote from within.
• Lourdes Saigon - Relocating -  stop allocating seats we don't have available.  Concerned about high school rezoning and whether Board is going to have the public involved. 
• Roseman Dai - Students moving from Davis to Henson -- concerned that Henson will be at state rated capacity next year and new developments are being built in that vicinity.  What's going to happen next year?  Been attending meetings with commissioners and planning commission.  Please talk to citizens/parents and use them to communicate and communicate with the other boards as well.

Action items

• Minutes
Motion to accept the Minutes by Abell; Second by Pedersen
Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise

Personnel

Motion to accept Personnel by Pedersen; Second by Lukas

Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise

2013-2014 calendar

Motion to accept 2013-2014 Calendar by Pedersen; Second by Wade

Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise

Budget amendment FY 2012

Motion to accept Budget Amendment FY 2012 by Lukas; Second by Wade

Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise

Board Goals

Motion to accept Board Goals FY 2012 by Pedersen; Second by Wade

Yes = Abell, Bowie, Cook, Lukas, Pedersen, Wade, Wise

Adjournment

REMINDER: Board of Education Meeting, May 8, 2012

The Board of Education's next monthly meeting is Tuesday, May 8, at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building on Radio Station Road in La Plata. The public portion of the meeting begins at 1 p.m. and student and staff recognition starts at 4:15 p.m. The meeting is televised live on Comcast Channel 96 and Verizon FiOS Channel 12 and is rebroadcast throughout the week. The meeting is also streamed live on the Charles County Public Schools website. Visit http://www2.ccboe.com/boe/live/ to watch the meeting.


Executive session – 12 p.m.


Call to order – 1 p.m.


Pledge of Allegiance, North Point High School's JROTC unit


Recognition of student liaisons


Superintendent's update
 Correspondence/Board Member updates


Education Association of Charles County update


Student Board Member update


CIP update


Educational facilities master plan


Title I homeless and dental care projects, partnerships


Unfinished business

New business


Future agenda items


Recognition – 4:15 p.m.

• Ruth Ann Hall awards
• Students
• Employees

Public Forum – 6 p.m.


Action items

• Minutes
• Personnel
• 2013-2014 calendar
• Budget amendment FY 2012

Adjournment

CCPS Press Release: Health department, school system investigating tuberculosis case

Posted on May 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM

The Charles County Department of Health has confirmed that a North Point High School student has been diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB) disease. The school system is working with the health department to ensure there is no further risk in the school.
Tuberculosis is a bacterial illness that responds well to proper medical treatment. It is spread through the air, usually by coughing or sneezing. Generally, a person must have prolonged exposure to the person with TB in order to breathe in a sufficient number of TB germs to cause a TB infection. The disease cannot be transmitted by touching someone or by sharing eating utensils.
The health department is working with the school and school system to identify those who should receive TB testing. Classmates, teachers and staff members at North Point who may have had prolonged exposure to the student diagnosed with TB will receive an exposure letter and a TB testing consent form by e-mail and regular mail early next week. The health department will provide free TB tests at North Point to those people identified. North Point parents/guardians who do not receive an exposure letter or e-mail do not need to have their children tested at this time.
Today, North Point is sending home an information letter to all parents as well as a TB fact sheet. Questions can be directed to your family physician or the Charles County Department of Health's Communicable Disease Control Program at 301-609-6900, ext. 6025, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Additional information about tuberculosis is available on the Department of Health website www.charlescountyhealth.org. A fact sheet is also available on the school system website at www.ccboe.com.
Charles County Public Schools provides 26,700 students in grades prekindergarten through 12 with an academically challenging education. Located in Southern Maryland, Charles County Public Schools has 35 caring community schools that offer a technologically advanced, progressive and high quality education that builds character, equips for leadership and prepares students for life, careers and higher education.

The Charles County public school system does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age or disability in its programs, activities or employment practices. For inquiries, please contact Dr. Patricia Vaira, Title IX Coordinator and Section 504 Coordinator (students), or Keith Hettel, Section 504 Coordinator (employees/adults), at Charles County Public Schools, Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building, P.O. Box 2770, La Plata, Maryland 20646; (301) 932-6610/870-3814. For special accommodations call (301) 934-7230 or TDD 1-800-735-2258 two weeks prior to the event.