Newly seated Board of Education member John Vorous brought up a list of topics he and fellow member Laura Roche believe need to be addressed as soon as possible during a segment of the board's Tuesday meeting usually reserved for "Communications."
The topics need to be reviewed, in some cases, reconsidered, and discussed in public "all in an effort to earn back public trust in the Board of Education," said Vorous, who along with Roche and Cody McCubbin were elected to their first term on the education board in November.
Tuesday was the first public meeting of the newly seated board. During that same meeting, .
The list of topics, which he and Roche, the board's newly elected vice chairman collaborated on, was in no particular order, Vorous told board members.
- hire
- Budget transfer policy
- Special education
- Legal fees spent
- Teacher evaluation policy
- Superintendent evaluation policy
- Newtown International Center for Education (Chinese program)
- Reed School
- Professional Learning Communities time spent and agenda for professional development
- Curriculum planning agenda
- Informational Board of Education Calendar dates
- Bullying policies for the new bus contract
- GATES program for gifted students and district goals
- Full-day kindergarten
In some cases, Vorous appeared to be in support of the program, such as NICE, but believed the district needed to do a better job of explaining the goals and particulars of the program to the public.
In other cases, such as the hiring of a public relations firm to help with communication with the public, Vorous said he was opposed to the hiring decision.
Later in the meeting, newly elected Board of Education chairman Debbie Leidlein said that her plan would be to use the next meeting to review the goals for the board and set up action steps for meeting those goals, including forming subcommittees to further investigate.
Clarification: The Newtown International Center for Education was referred to as the "Chinese program" during portions of Tuesday's meeting although the partnership with schools in China only is one part of the program, according to Newtown school officials.
The only thing hiring a public relations team would do for Newtown schools is get more people who want to move here with their children. What we need are more businesses locating here to provide more employment and real career opportunities for the children who are presently here so they don't have to move away to survive. We should have a private or state college here instead of more money infused into the town funded school system. We should have a school, private and/or that teaches computer programming and computer servicing and repairs. That type of education is sorely missing in the United States without unsurmountable student expense to obtain it.
We have had a private operator-owned school bus system that has worked better than nearby town's private bus company systems. As a former user of a very close town's system, I was appalled at the unaddressed trouble on those buses, and the trouble the bus drivers caused for the innocent students when they tried to enforce behavior rules on the bus. One little girl almost got kicked off the buses because when she was being harassed by other students she stood up on the bus. I was never informed by the school system or the bus system about a traumatic incident my child and other students on the bus witnessed between other little students while on the bus that was ongoing. Therefore I was unable to help my child understand or cope with the incidents or drive him to school myself if I felt it had not been controlled. None of this happened on the Newtown bus system where the drivers were our neighbors and owned the buses and evidently succeeded in making sure that "things" didn't happen on their buses due to the lack of or shall I say, lessened severity of reported incidents that could affect the morale of students.
HONESTY IS THE ONLY POLICY The crowds may be on your front lawn very soon and not cheering either!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1dz6_u2JI
So I'm confused, everyone else is allowed to suggest what the BOE should work on except me! Two BOE members, in a private meeting, create a recommended agenda list before they even have their first meeting, but I'm not allowed to comment on the list ( Which they made public on the Patch) or make suggestions. Sounds like a double standard to me. Or perhaps your belief that listening to the public is a good idea has already been short lived. Or perhaps you are wrong and the two BOE members might actually like input from the public on what the important topics are that the BOE should be spending their valuable and limited time on.