Due to the election and personal activities, I have been distracted from monitoring the School Board. Not good. What happens on the School Board has a lot to do with why we elect people. So back to business.
In the interest of my personal time, I will not review the October 17, 2007 meeting. Here, however, is a link to the minutes (here). This included a budget review that covered revenues and expenditures for July 1, 2007 through September 30, 2007. Looks like the budget is running a bit in the red; however, the general reserve remains available to cover emergencies if needed.
The November 7th meeting began with a bit of a surprise. Usually, it starts with a prayer with a minister from one of the local churches. This time, however, a Muslim cleric presented the prayer, first in Arabic and then in English. I have to wonder whether it was just coincidence that the next election after this prayer was as far away as it could be. Fortunately, the prayer was an appropriate request for God’s blessing.
Although he has not formally replaced Milt Johns, Gil Trenum, the School Board’s only new member, attended the meeting. After he officially assumes his new post, Trenum will represent the Brentsville District.
Consent Agenda
The Consent Agenda, as usual, included some interesting, if uncontroversial items.
- Transfered $7,054,482 from the available proffer account to the School Division construction account.
- Authorized a bunch of new course offerings effective the 2008-2009 school year:
IB Psychology, Teacher Cadet Internship (Career Pathways – Career Match) Phase 3, IB Spanish A2 HL, AICE Classical Studies I, AICE Psychology, Italian IV
Advanced Placement Music Theory, Algebra, Functions, and Data Analysis.
Citizen Comments
Two people provided comments.
- The first indicated his unhappiness with Math Investigations. He complains that, unlike traditional math, Math Investigations does not provide students with the traditional algorithmic knowledge. Children supposedly come up with their own algorithms. Math Investigations, he said, also does not emphasize sufficient memorization. He also noted a number of school systems where the program is being scrapped.
- The second had a question that he has been unable to get answered. One of the latest political gimmicks is to provide legislation that will demand that we at least spend 65 percent of the school budget in the classroom. When the citizen heard this sound bite, he wondered what percent of the budget for the Prince William County School Division went into the classroom. Neither his school board member or school administration has provided him an answer. During School Board time, Lucas said that the School Division has derived this number before and provided it to a House delegate from our area. She seemed a bit embarrassed she did not have current answer. Apparently, it is not routinely calculated. She asked staff to get board members the number.
Superintendent’s Time
Superintendent Walts provided a briefing on Administrative Succession Planning (here). The name for this briefing is somewhat misleading. At first it sounds like a program designed to train teachers to become administrators, and that in part is what it is (We do not have enough administrative overhead already.). What the objective of the program is, however, is to encourage promotion from within the division, and the scope of the program is a bit larger than just filling administrative positions. If such a program encourages less employee turnover, it will be cost effective.
Prince William County Public Schools Coalition
A representative from the Prince William County Public Schools Coalition provided the board a briefing (see here) on what this group does. Denita Ramirez asked for this briefing. Apparently, Ramirez has a relatively large number of Latinos in her district. When Latino students decided to demonstrate their power (to promote illegal immigrant rights) by absenting themselves school, the School Division initiated Prince William County Public Schools Coalition in an outreach effort to the Latino community. The group consists of School Division staff and members of the community. The group’s immediate goal was to encourage students to stay in school. Ramirez thinks highly enough of the group that she think other districts should emulate it.
Nomination of Board Member for VSBA Regional Office
The School Board approved the nomination of Don Richardson as Vice Chairman of the Virginia School Board Association (VSBA) Northeast Region.
