Our Board held its regular monthly meeting tonight. Here's a recap of the issues discussed and actions taken on tonight's Agenda.
Our July meeting is the one meeting of the year where we have no special presentations (Employee of the Month, Volunteer of the Month, etc.)
No one spoke during Citizens Participation.
Next we held our second public hearing on After School Child Care.
This hearing is required by law, and as I said last month, in my time on the Board, I do not
believe we have had anyone appear to speak. That was again the case
tonight.
We then proceeded to our liaison reports (each Board member serves in a liaison capacity). As the Board's Legislative Liaison, my report was limited given the focus on the Legislative Agenda (see below). Here are the materials I provided as Technology Liaison. In addition, here are the materials Board Member Wayne Schaper provided in his Facilities Update.
Dr. Keith Haffey, Spring Branch's Executive Director of Accountability and Research, then presented the District's 2008 TAKS results. The District's highlights from these results include improvement in 16 of the 25 performance areas, exceeded exemplary level in social studies in all student groups, narrowed gaps toward exemplary district to 8 or fewer points in reading/ELA (5 to 4 points), math (5 to 4 points), and science (24 to 8 points), and improved commended levels in 18 areas.
Karen Wilson, the District's Associate Superintendent for Finance, presented the District's Quarterly Investment Report.
As the Board's Legislative Liaison, it is my responsibility to work with Dr. Diane Jackson, the District's Executive Director of Policy and Government, to recommend to the Board its Legislative Priorities and Positions. Tonight, we recommended that the District adopt 2 priorities as the primary focus for the 81st Legislative Session beginning in January 2009: Accountability and Finance. We also recommended a number of additional items in the areas of finance, staff, students, community, and governance for the Board as Legislative Positions. After some discussion, the Board approved these recommendations with some modifications to the wording. I will post the Legislative Priorities and Positions in a separate post.
During last month's Regular Monthly meeting and Board Workshop meeting, we spent some time discussing revisions to EIB (Local) Academic Achievement: Homework, i.e., the District's homework policy. Ultimately, the Board decided to reconstitute the Homework Task Force with a new charge (see below), and refer the Policy and my 14 amendments along with the parameters we developed for further consideration. In the interim, tonight the Board voted to adopt revisions to EIB (Local) Academic Achievement: Homework that are designed to further clarify the assignment and use of homework in the District. These revisions simply add to the Policy the items that were already included in the District's Grading Guidelines.
We then had first reading of EGA (Local) Innovative and Academy Programs. We discussed this issue at length during last month's Board Workshop meeting.
Our first action items on the Agenda included the approval of the Budget Status Summary Report with Budget Amendments as of June 30, 2008, and the Facility Improvement Program Monthly Status Report with Project Detail Changes as of June 30, 2008. As we do in every monthly meeting, we also approved the awarding of a variety of contracts (part 1, and part 2).
We then approved the Homework Task Force Resolution and Membership. This vote included a vote on the Resolution for the 2008-2009 Homework Task Force, which includes a deadline for a recommendation to the Board in January 2009, the Task Force's Parameters, and the Task Force membership.
Our next action item tonight was the consideration of potential amendments to EIB (Local) Academic Achievement: Homework.
While I respect the work of the Homework Task Force, which met for over
a year, I believe that there are additional components that should be
included. To be clear, I am not anti-homework. I am, however,
anti-homework that is busy work, or as my fellow Trustee, Dave Converse
put it, "mind-numbing." I also believe that homework, like all of the
things we ask of students in school, should be focused on preparing our
students to be successful in the 21st Century global workforce with all
the skills necessary to do so. As a result, I proposed 14 amendments
to the Policy. After much discussion tonight, and knowing that this
item is on the agenda for tomorrow night for further discussion, this
item was postponed for further consideration until tomorrow.
We approved the Annual Review of the Investment Policy.
Next we considered amendments to EIE (Local) Academic Achievement: Retention and Promotion and FJ (Local) Gifts and Solicitations.
The Board then approved the Legislative Priorities and Positions for the 81st Session of the Texas Legislature discussed above.
We concluded our meeting with the approval of the items on our Consent Agenda (part 1 and part 2).
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