Review Board Notes: http://video.carrollk12.

org/view/CCPS_BM_06152016
Every month there the Board of Education conducts a meeting in the middle
of the month. Their agendas are sent out the Carroll County employees the Friday
after the meeting is complete. Board meeting start at four in the afternoon and
continue until finished. This year Carroll County has had longer board meetings due
to the closure of schools. On June 15th, 2016 the meeting last close to four hours.
There are items that are voted on each meeting. There is also going to be concerns
they have and the public also has.
One of the recurring theme at each board meeting is Personnel. If there is
new personnel in the county or moving positions they will call attention to them in
the beginning. At the board meeting on June 15 th, there was not as many teachers
or ten month employees be called as there were moving and transfers of Principals
and Assistant Principals. With the closures of schools they moved a lot of
Administration around. There was also a big influx of personnel at Central Office
they were calling attention to because of the retirement package they offered.
This board meeting had a special moment of where they announced the fortythird student representative. This was a change in hand for the students. He gets to
be the voice for the students to try and make an impact on the decisions they make.
In the meeting he brings up the previous Representative and what he did and how
he was going to continue their work.
Since this was the last one during the school year, they covered all bids
needed for School Improvements. During the time they talked about Budget
transfers as well. Some of the bids they needed to talk about was the moving of
furniture from the three schools to open schools, door replacements, cars/buses,
heating and A/C units, ice cream, Athletic training, roof replacements, etc. They
talked about piggy backing contacts to try and make them cheaper. For Budget
Transfer the talk about savings in Health Care and moving it to staff budget
(retirement incentives). One of the big questions what Special Education money, as
the board members feel we are also rising the budget in that area and wanted more
of an explanation. One of the board members is asking about rising the overall
special education budget. Since two years ago when we cut 1.5 million dollars out of
the maintenance budget we are also trying to give some of them more money to
improve the project. There are small adjustments in transfers for the budget.
A hot topic of the year is the new committee of Security Advisory Council. Mr.
Williams is the spokesperson for that committee. During the last year they met four
times and were productive on standardizing security procedures such as; access
control and visitor management. At the end of the year they introduced three
recommendations such as the notification system updates, training for an active
shooter, and funding for infrastructure. In order to find more funding, they will make
a plan to put in place. A question was placed about bomb threats and the new
procedures they would like to put into place. They would like to keep students inside
the building for some bomb threats. This way they are not playing into someones
plan. There are steps they need to follow to make sure the students are safe.
Another question brought up why we are going to lockdown automatically. If there is

a second floor active shooter, why are we not getting them out the building on the
first floor? Mr. Williams did not go into too much detail on the protocols for this,
however that we are trying to get more training so that we are not using automatic
lockdowns. Lastly they talked about getting resource officers in each building, and
possible funding.
The next item was school closures. This is not an easy topic for the
board/supervisors to communicate about. The question was brought up about
rumors of where everything is going when schools are closing such as textbooks.
Mrs. Dolch (High School Supervisor) brought to the attention that at the end of
every year the school go through different textbooks to see what has become
outdated. When the textbooks become obsolete, we have other professionals in the
county who find a good place for them to be donated. Mrs. Dolch addressed rumors
of ripping and burning textbooks as well. The use and destination of the books was
a big topic as well. The first county rule is to use inside the county at other schools
or central office.
Mr. Guthrie (superintendent) put in place a Vision 2018, guidelines of what
he would like our county to meet in 2018. Today they were talking about some of
the activities and accomplishments we made towards this vision during the school
year 2015-2016. They took questions they did not discuss every topic, they started
to lay out the future plans. With new board members they are looking to build on
top of this plan that will be a public process. When looking at the items we
accomplished Ms. Rothschild brought up that we need to put in there how effective
we were, how these accomplishments impacted our kids and so on.
Next was a presentation on the new Special Education Multi-State Alternative
Assessment (MSAA). This was presented by Mr. Grey and his team of supervisors.
This presentation to preview what the new assessment will look like next school
year. In order for the students to qualify for this test, they must show a serve
cognitive delay (LFI or certification track). This one to one online test is given to
mimic PARCC. It will cover Reading, Writing, and Math. Writing is a huge component
because not all LFI students are learning how to write down their thoughts instead
they are tracing letters. The adult in the room must be a teacher who has been
trained. The test is given to students in grades 3-8 and 11. The test does have built
in accommodations with changing colors of the screen, text to read ability, etc. In
order to move forward with less mistakes they would like to provide more
professional development for staff members. This would also look at what more the
instructional staff needs to do to help meet the students needs for the assessment.
The board opened the floor for speakers to voice their concerns. It was a
thirty minute questions and answer session for the recent agendas. We had nine
speakers voice concerns about different LGBTQ rights, budget, master agreement,
and school closures. Ms. Cogdale, Mrs. Stoner, Mr. Gibbins communicated concerns
about the rights of the Carroll County LGBTQ students. Ms. Kolaski, Ms. Savicny, and
Ms. Kingsly are running for the open board positions. They were speaking about
budget concerns and how they would impact these and what current board
members need to consider when voting for the budget. There were two citizens who

voiced their concerns on two issues. First Ms. Kelly talked about school closures and
making public the dates of when any equipment was being picked up and moved.
The public was concerned of varies issues that is attached to equipment removal.
Mr. Ward spoke about Manchester Valley and cell phone signal. When MVHS was
built it was built to prevent cell phone signal to be used inside. Being a first
responder is concern is if there is an active shooter or another issue how we would
call 911 or for help in general. Last speaker was Ms. Know, who works for the
American Heart Association. She was present to recognize teachers who work with
the AHA and advocating for cardiovascular health. During this time the new Carroll
County Student Government was introduced and discussed new officers and what
they are working on this summer. There were two associations who spoke and gave
an update on how the year went. CCEA (teachers union) and CASE presidents spoke
on both contract and the highlights of what was accomplished.
During the Actions portion of the meeting the board was voting on approving
or not approving different subjects. Different actions such as the Board Member fees
to national affiliates was pushed to the table until all five board members were
present. Actions such as Revisions to the Middle School Program of Studies was
approved. They also approved transferred the school bus contacts which can help
the final budget. The three that conducted the most time was 8.8 Approval of the
Educational Facilities Master Plan from 2016-2025, 8.9 Approval of the 2016-2017
Pay Rates for Contingent Employment and 8.10 Approval of 2016-2017 Non-Union
Affiliated Employee Salary Scales. They moved and approved these three motions.
The last one was the 8.13 Ratification of the Master Agreement with the CCEA and
Related Memoranda of Understanding. After a long hard fought battle the Board did
approve unanimously to approve this. It was a big moment in the Board meeting.
In part nine of this meeting, is Instructional Reports. The board when through
different councils and committees. They answered questions and talked about
different effects on the committees and advisory groups. This part of the board
meeting went pretty quickly.
As we end all board meeting with Unfinished Business/New Business. Here is
when citizen participation that did not get a chance to speak or did not get to finish
speaking in the earlier question an answer potion. However tonight we did not have
any extra citizen participation.
Overall this meeting got taken in different directions. The citizens wanted to
talk about LGBTQ rights, the board was talking a lot about our accomplishment in
the past school year, and however they were also covering new information for next
year. This meeting was high anticipating the approval of the CCEA Master
Agreement. Once the major topics of accomplishments, improvements and other
items were finished the meeting was able to close. This meeting was the first
meeting in a couple of months which did not have enormous citizen participation. I
learned a great deal of how meeting were ran and how input from the public was
taken. I feel that our board could address issues in a quick manner. They are
knowing the issues are already taking place. After a four hour meeting I also get
that the board is not wanting to take the Q and A session and cause a larger issue.