October 5, 2016 at 6:30 PM - Regular Board of Education Meeting

Rationale: 

Our 2016-2017 Teacher of the Year, Bonnie Ambruso, and our Non-Certified Staff Member of the Year, Dawn Colonni, will be recognized by the Board.

 

Rationale: 

1. Please note the personnel report as you will find a new hire reflected in it.  

2. Please take note of the October enrollment report. We have a total of 1302 students enrolled.  I have requested updated enrollment projections from both NESDEC and Peter Prowda and, upon receipt of those reports, will review them with the enrollment committee. This new information will be examined as it relates to our official enrollment count of October 1. In addition, our October 2016 enrollment report indicates that 79.3% of our students are from Old Lyme, while 20.7% of our students are from Lyme. This is the exact percentage we saw last October when 20.7% were from Lyme and 79.3% were from Old Lyme.  Our billings to the towns are based on an average of the October 1 and April 1 student counts. I have also included information on our out of district student enrollment as was requested last meeting.

4.  As mentioned last month, if you have not signed up for the CABE/CAPSS Convention through Jeanne, please do so.  We have traditionally had a good turnout as it tends to be an interesting and inspiring event. It takes place this year on November 18 and 19.

Rationale:  Mrs. McCalla will provide a year to date budget status report as well as a contingency fund report.

Rationale:  Mr. Wygonik will present our annual high school achievement report.

Rationale: 

The mock trial students would like to attend the Harvard workshop again this year which requires Board approval. 

Information about trip:

Departure: Friday, November 11, from Old Saybrook traveling on Amtrak (leave at 6:00 pm and arrive Boston at 8:00 pm).

The students and chaperones will take public subway to the Courtyard Marriot Cambridge Hotel in Cambridge, MA. 

Stay 2 nights in the hotel; 4 students per room (3 rooms) + one room for adult chaperones.

Harvard provides a shuttle bus from the hotel to the university.

Students are in legal trial workshops all day Saturday and Sunday morning. They compete in a trial on Sunday at 3:00 pm. The workshops are led by Harvard’s mock trial team which is #1 in the nation. 

Return Sunday night, usually arriving at the train station at 11:30 pm. 

The cost is:

Workshop: $150 per student

Train: $80

Hotel: $180 per student (that covers the cost of the chaperone room). 

Students pay for themselves. In the past, donations have been received to offer scholarships or off-set the cost. 

Rationale:  Ms. McCalla will present our recommendation to appropriate a portion of the remaining funds from the 2015-2016 budget to a reserve fund for capital and nonrecurring expenditures. This requires Board action.

Rationale:  We maintain extended warranty service contracts on all of our district wide major network equipment provided by Cisco, HP and VMware. These service contracts are direct from these vendors and provided through our technology service contractor, Connecticut Computer Services. 

Rationale:  The budget calendar for this year has been developed and is attached. While this item does not require action, please review the calendar to ensure your availability for all meetings.  This item is informational only.

Rationale:  The policy committee is recommending the removal and/or revision of some outdated policies which are attached.  These will require Board action.