Public participation? Public participation? ….We don’t need no stinking public participation…. Reply

From todays Republican-American

Full story available at http://rep-am.com

The Region 1 Board of Education and the All Board Chairmen Committee will serve as the initial search committee for a successor to former Region 1 Assistant Superintendent Diane Goncalves. According to the minutes of its Dec. 18 meeting, Region 1 board Chairman Andrea L. Downs cast the lone opposing vote on the motion. Downs had said at a Dec. 10 meeting that the search committee should be expanded, saying: “I don’t think it would serve us well to not include the community members on the search committee.”

Mary Broderick, a consultant with the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education who normally conducts superintendent searches, has been hired to oversee the process.
During earlier discussions, members talked about whether the position should be another assistant superintendent or a director of instruction, which the region has had during periods in the past.

Jonathan Moore, Kent’s representative to the Region 1 board, and Salisbury’s Jennifer Weigel are chairing the search process.

Moore announced at a Dec. 5 meeting that the superintendent’s retirement is likely imminent and that the board should consider hiring someone who would come on board as assistant superintendent and then move to fill the superintendent’s vacancy when that occurs. Superintendent Chamberlain’s current contract runs through June 30, 2016.

She is now serving in both capacities and will do so until the end of this school year.
Moore, when promoting the hiring of Broderick, said she usually conducts superintendent searches, “but we have a potential future superintendent (opening) here.”

It now appears the residents and selectmen in Cornwall are not pleased with the “1/7 Plan” after all… Reply

From todays Republican-American

full story at http://rep-am.com

 

CORNWALL — The matter of equal town assessments for the Region 1 superintendent’s salary and benefits was discussed at Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Selectmen. Commonly referred to as the “one-seventh model,” the plan calls for each of the seven school boards to pay the same amount. Currently all costs for the region are divided proportionately based on enrollment. The change is being proposed by the All Board Chairmen Committee, which believes such a procedure would be more equitable. Its members say the superintendent gives equal amounts of time to each school in the district, including the six elementary schools in the towns of Canaan, Cornwall, Falls Village, Kent, Salisbury and Sharon, as well as Housatonic Valley Regional High School.
IF IMPLEMENTED, the new method would have the larger schools, such as those in Canaan and Salisbury, pay less and the smaller, such as those in Falls Village and Cornwall, pay more. Cornwall would see an increase of $12,000. Resident Joanne P. Wojtusiak asked that the item be placed on the agenda. In beginning the discussion, First Selectman Gordon M. Ridgway noted that the town gets $85,000 per year from the state’s Educational Cost Sharing grant, the lowest grant of any town. Selectman Richard Bramley said he found it interesting that in most cases of expenditures by the board, if there is an increase, everyone pays its share. But in this case, those with the largest weighted vote can force those with the least weighted vote to pay more. “It doesn’t seem fair,” Branley said. “It’s really not a very good model. I also have a difficult time understanding how the superintendent doesn’t spend more time in the bigger schools.”

Hmmmm, food for thought….a breaking news story out of the Region One Board Special Meeting December 5 from Jonathan Moore???!!!! Reply

Jonathan Moore of the Region One Board of Education just mentioned one of the considerations in the possible hiring of a new Assistant Superintendent was

that “it might be time we tackle an issue that is literally right around the corner and that is our current superintendents retirement” …