Study Commissioned on Ad Hoc Recommendation

Set the date for next year’s Annual Meeting for Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at Monona Grove High School.

Discussed President Susan Fox’s newly created website update. The Board would like to have a disclaimer on these updates which indicate that they are not official approved reports of the full board and are not intended to take place of the official minutes. In addition, if there are any opinions within the reports, they are opinions of the President, not the full Board of Education.

Reviewed draft implementation plan of the district goals relative to improvement of student performance.

Budget Deficit – Superintendent Craig Gerlach asked the Board about priorities when making budget cuts. The Board indicated that all things are up for discussion at this point.

Board Policy #114 – Harassment – School Board Members, Volunteers, and Other Community Members of the MGSD. Discussion was tabled for the second time and will be discussed at a later date.

Patti McGinnis has been hired to study whether it is possible to provide 4K-8 education in each community. This was one of the six recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee to Study 4K-8 Grade Configuration. She will present the results of her research in December or January.

The Board conducted a variety of other board business, which can be found in the minutes on the district website.

Annual Meeting

Superintendent’s Report – Craig Gerlach

· The Literacy and Social Studies Task Force is reviewing course alignment with college/career readiness.

· The Gift and Talented Advisory Committee began reviewing district policy.

· The Ad Hoc Committee to Study Grade Configuration for Grades 4K-8 researched district wide facility needs and the School Board approved the committee’s recommendations.

· We have experienced a tremendous increase in the number of children who have applied to enroll which is a good problem to have.

· Our district received a PEP (Physical Education for Progress) Grant for over $460,000 to purchase state of the art fitness equipment for our schools.

· The Board recently created six goals centered on student achievement, continuous school improvement, educational environment and communication.

· Financially, we face many challenges as Wisconsin public schools are experiencing a decrease in per pupil revenue for the first time since the revenue limits were imposed since 1993. With an anticipated budget deficit of more than $604,000, difficult decisions lie ahead for the district.

School Board President’s Report – Susan Fox

· Summarized some of the work done by the advisory standing committees over the previous year and thanked Board members and community representatives for their service.

· Noted the Board’s decision to work without standing committees for 2009-10 in order to avoid redundancy and more efficiently utilize staff resources.

· Teachers are working to align curriculum with the benchmarks measured on tests.

· Noted her posting of summaries of Board meetings on the website as a way to inform community members of Board business in a timely way.

· Copies of the Annual Meeting booklet will be available in the District Office.