Board Briefs—JUNE 5, 2007 In This Issue... Public Comments Board Member Reports Highlights from Superintendent's Report Public Hearing for the 2007-2008 Budget EHS Technology Fee     Accreditation Contract School Improvement Plan Resolution of Student Count Audit Consensus

Public Comments
A parent of a Sinclair student and community member addressed the Board concerning the mandatory requirement of Spanish at all grade levels at Englewood Middle School. It was explained that a foreign language was part of the Middle Years Program of International Baccalaureate (IB) requiring 50 hours every year.

Board Member Reports
Education Foundation—Ms. Thompson reported that the foundation has elected officers. Mary Dounay will serve as President, Linda Cohn as 1st Vice President, and Roscoe Davidson as 2nd Vice President with Dr. McCabe continuing in his role as secretary.
Student Government Meetings at EHS—Mr. Gorsky and Ms. Miller announce that the students talked about lanyards with student ID's that all students would wear. This is part of the Positive Behavior Support program and the feedback has been positive.
Posting announcements of scholarships was also discussed. Students want to make available scholorship information by placing announcements on a bulletin board.
EHS Student's fee increase was also discussed.
interviews for teachers included several EHS students. The students were happy to be part of the process. Ms. Eldridge stated she was proud of Linda Torres and the administrators for taking the step to include students.
Ms. Miller Attended the CASB Presidents' Meetings—CHASSA has been asked to be more sensitive to scheduling athletic events that conflict with religious holidays.
Jane Urschel from CASB discussed changes in high school graduation requirements.
Regarding school finance issues the Colorado Legislature would like to have school districts co-host meetings to gain feedback from the community to share at their financial reform committee meeting. Ms. Miller said she had talked to Littleton about co-hosting a meeting.

Highlights from Superintendent's Report
Dr. McCabe said that at the annual CHASSA solo ensemble contest in Greeley Englewood had the highest number of entries and they all placed one or two out of five. ELA Destination Imagination is back from Global's. They placed 17th in their group. Dr. McCabe thanked all the people involved in organization of the recent graduations and the participants; the activities went well. He also reminded the Board that June 12th, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. there would be a "Candidates Night" for anyone interested in running for the Board of Education. The event will be in the RDAB Board Room. Jane Urschel will open the meeting with information on requirements to run, timelines, and procedures. Following will be a question and answer session.

Public Hearing for 2007-2008 Budget
A parent and community member addressed the Board saying her questions revolved around the technology fund and the fee that will be addressed tonight.
Regarding ELA the person pointed out there is a waiting list and the school will hold 75. There are only 60 kids so the teacher ratio is 20 to 1. Her question is why when the district needs more kids are students turned away from ELA. Dr. McCabe said the Board previously made the decision to limit enrollment at ELA to 60.
The parent would also like to see the Englewood Middle School page in the Budget broken out between Flood and Sinclair. Ms. LaPlante said she can do that and appreciates the input that the Financial Advisory Committee has provided.

Another community member informed the Board that she sent a list of questions concerning the Budget to Ms. La Plante and Dr. McCabe. She stated her main concern was that there were "too many chiefs and not enough indians" in the district. There are a lot of non-teaching people and she would like to see the sharing of principals and some of her other ideas considered. Ms. LaPlante said she would forward the email to the Board and that she did answer the questions in an email.

EHS High School Technology Fee 
After much discussion about student fees and what the fee is actually going to be used to purchase, there were questions about the appropriateness of buying document handlers, projectors and smartboards with fee money. Fees are used for consumable items only- for example, toner and paper for printers. The clickers are considered consumable because they wear out. No action was taken and this item was pulled with the Board requesting more details and specifics on what the fee is intended to purchase. This item will be reconsidered on June 19.

Accreditation Contract    
The Board approved the revised Accreditation Contract. Ms. Vedra explained that the current Accreditation Contract was supposed to run from 2000 to 2007, but because the state could not agree on some items, it has been extended to June 30, 2008. Each year this agreement has been updated and is currently dramatically different than the first one. The core beliefs from the past strategic plan have been taken out and inserted were objectives from the Strategic Plan approved in February 2007 and the new Englewood Schools Mission statement.

School Improvement Plans      
Ms. Vedra stated that because the Accreditation Plan drives the School Improvement Plan revisions are now required. Primary changes were adding the language of all of the targeted areas in the curriculum and instructional areas. The goal for this first year is that schools will document what they are doing that is aligned with the targeted areas of strategies and objectives of the strategic plan. School Improvement Plans are provided to the Board for their information but do not need Board approval.

Resolution of Student Count Audit
The Board moved into Executive Session to discuss the student count audit. Upon returning to the Board meeting, the Board tabled the resolution on the student count audit.

Consensus Items
The Board approved the following consensus items:
a. Personnel Recommendations & Addendum   
b. Policy JLCB and JLCB-R Immunization (second reading)
c. Textbook Adoption Prentice Hall Realidades (second reading)

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