Board Meeting Visit No. 3, Essay Example

I attended a board meeting for the Rochester, New York City School District on Thursday, November 19, 2009 and the findings are as follows:

President Evans facilitated the meeting and opened with the Act of Reverence and the Pledge of Allegiance. A motion to approve was brought before the committee for the minutes of the meeting.

Superintendent Brizard gave his formal report on the schools’ agendas. The board reports consisted of standing committee reports by the Committee, Student Reports by the Chairpersons and the President’s Report administered by President Evans.

President Evans discussed the Consideration of the Resolutions for 2009-2010 which included:

Human Capital Initiatives, Procurement and Supply, Information Management, Accountability, Administration, Budget, Educational Facilities and other related to the school systems of the county.

President Evans then motioned to discuss unfinished business from the prior meeting last month.

New Business was motioned for approval on the RCSD Code of Conduct Policy 5300.

Announcement of the next meeting was given to be held on December 17, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.

The meeting was adjourned.

Speakers addressing the meeting were Richard Eaton representing the community in regards to the Teacher Contracts. The focus was on minimizing teacher raises and negotiations.

Two speakers that were not on the discussions for the meeting agenda, Glenny Williams representing parental involvement and Cheryl Marshall representing Title I. funding, discussed pertinent topics that involve improving community involvement within the school system. Both parents insisted on parental involvement with Title I funding, parental involvement with Parent/Teacher Organizations, implementing programs for positive change and parental involvement, making the process easy to understand, streamlining the process for parents to understand and simplifying the process and getting the community involved through marketing processes.

The issues discussed at the meeting on the agenda were the need to improve teacher contracts. The representatives felt that there should be a hold on teacher raises due to the economic status. Teachers’ should have better representation and negotiation skills for future raises included in their contract. This might include arbitration clauses implemented into their contracts. Richard Eaton from the community supported no raise for the teachers until the economy stabilized. However no raise would violate the current contract in force. Other important issues discussed that were not on the agenda were the need to have parental and community involvement in the school systems. The speakers felt that the students would progress with higher scores on standardized tests if the parents would get involved with the daily activities of their studies. This could be accomplished through homework, PTO meetings and in classroom observations by the parents and community members. Supporting exceptionalities are present in that the school board cannot deny teacher raises without undue merit without re-negotiating a new contract. The connection with the class is that if teachers are not being paid properly for their work they may leave the county to find work elsewhere. Further the teachers may not take ownership in the level of teaching skills they provide to the students.

“Widening the Circle: The Power of Inclusive Classrooms strives to open the classrooms up to all children regardless of disability so that all children can learn under the same setting.” (Sapon, 2007).  This mentality is to promote equal learning with no restrictions. “From Disability to Possibility: The Power of Inclusive Classrooms hopes to further the inclusion of disabled children into the classrooms but to establish a mandated protocol of testing which encourages that any child that has the ability to learn in a normal environment must be placed within that environment even if it puts a damper on the other students and teacher.” (Schwartz, 2006). This damper can be restricted with the use of aides which can be funded by the Federal Government. Often semi-disabled students are stuck in disabled classrooms with severely disabled students with no separation and they never get the opportunity to learn to their full potential because of the stereotype that goes with disability and the schools lack of initiative to mandate a separation between levels of disability.

References

Sapon-Shevin, M. (2007). Widening the circle: The power of inclusive classrooms. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Schwarz, P. (2006). From disability to possibility: The power of inclusive classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Rochester, New York City School District Meeting (2009) Thursday, November 19, 2009, 6:30 p.m., Central Office, Rochester, New York.