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

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

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

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.”