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A letter to the Editor of The Republican-American by Lou Timolat: Troubling trends in Region 1 school administration Reply

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Troubling trends in Region 1 school administration

I write to address one of several troubling efforts of Region 1 Schools Superintendent Patricia A. Chamberlain to re-engineer the executive structure of the district, as well as municipalities’ operations.

The superintendent seeks to discontinue basing assessments for her pay on student enrollment. Instead, she advocates dividing her pay costs evenly among the district’s seven schools, independent of their sizes or instructional particularities. Ms. Chamberlain’s rational for this scheme is that the descriptive duties of her superintendence are the same for all schools.

This brings to mind personal experience. I once was the chief pilot and director of operations for a small company’s flight department. A friend of mine held the same position for a large international airline. The difference was that he was paid at least 10 times more than I was. Since the descriptive duties were the same, why the difference in pay?

Until now, I would have thought the answer was obvious. Like everyone in leadership or management positions, we were not paid to accomplish the subsidiary tasks of our positions. We were recruited and compensated in accordance with the scale and complexity of our responsibilities. It is not that subsidiary tasks were or are immaterial; the completion of them was a precondition for our being entrusted with our respective responsibilities.

I cannot say whether the above is business school doctrine, but it was understood at every place I have worked, whether I was a boss or reported to a superior.

The current arrangement for the shared cost of employing the Region 1 superintendent is tied to the enrollments of the seven schools. It is, in effect, per capita taxation and is, over time and as a practical matter, one of the fairest and most efficient ways to pay for or distribute resources.

This is why we find it in effect in almost every public or private arena where services are provided to groups of people.

Ordinarily, I would expect the aggregate responsibilities of the superintendent, the most senior and highly paid employee of the school district, to be the basis for his or her salary. I find it sad and disappointing, however, that Ms. Chamberlain has such a diminished perspective of her job that compensation is viewed as a kind of piecework pay for a laundry list of taskings.

Louis G. Timolat

Canaan

The writer is a former first selectman and a current member of the Board of Finance.

This is your chance to help in the selection process for the vacant Region 1 administrative post. Please click on the link and fill out the survey. Reply

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This is your chance to help in the selection process for the vacant Region 1 administrative post. Please click on the (survey) link and fill out the survey. And then show up at one of the two remaining meetings being held Jan. 21 at 5:30 at Housatonic Valley Regional High School and a third meeting is being held Jan. 22 at Cornwall Consolidated School at 6:30 p.m with the consultant hired to help lead the search process.

 

Please Click on the word survey in the notice below to fill out the survey

 

 

Subject: Region One Survey
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 12:26:25 -0500
From: Trudy Allyn <tallyn@salisburycentral.org>
To:

 

The Region One Board of Education and the All Boards Chair Committee’s (ABC) search for a new educational leader is underway (former Assistant Superintendent position).  With a collaborative effort, we’re sure to find the right central office administrator.  Your input will help the search team develop a job description and/or leadership profile for the former position.

Please take a few minutes to complete this brief survey to share your thoughts about the skills, experiences, philosophies, and characteristics desired in our new administrator.

—

Trudy Allyn
Library Media Specialist
Salisbury Central School
P.O. Box 1808
45 Lincoln City Road
Lakeville, CT 06039

Three new course offerings for the next school year at Housatonic Valley Regional High School Reply

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Region 1 Board of Education members have  approved three new course offerings for the next school year at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

Students will be able to enroll in visual storytelling/the graphic novel, which will be a combined art and English class. The curriculum will have them conceptualize, author, edit and create a narrative using words and drawings to tell a story.

Another new course open to students will be environmental history, which examines the realm of environmental studies from 1492 to the present. Combining social studies with agriculture education, the class will explore the interactions between Americans and their environment in hopes of understanding how the physical world — such as flora, fauna, climate, water and soil — has impacted United States history.

The third new class open to students in September will be an introduction to American politics through the Early College Experience program at UConn. Social studies department Chairman Peter Vermilyea said the course will provide a rigorous learning experience for seniors while at the same time enable them to meet state requirements for a semester-long civics course. Those who successfully complete the course with a minimum grade of C will receive three credits in political science from UConn. Topics will focus on the interaction among the American people, the Constitution and the institutions of American government.

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

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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.”