The following is Superintendent Brady's email about the Amity Board of Education Meeting.

The Amity Board of Education held its first regular meeting of the school year last night. Highlights of the meeting follow:

1. Principal’s Reports on the opening of school.

Dr. Britton, Dr. Dellinger and Ms. Cutler reported very smooth openings. Each principal commented on the high quality of the new faculty members that have been hired.

At the high school, Dr. Britton welcomed Emily Clark and Ann Wellspeak in English, Christine Young for a French/Latin position, Elena Serapiglia in Spanish, Donald Brechlin for a math assignment and Joanna Najarian-Garb as the new reading teacher/literacy content leader. He also noted that Ms. Jill Polisson, strings teacher, has been assigned full-time to the high school.

Dr. Dellinger welcomed Amy Browning in English, Marissa Manzelli in social studies and Lisa Serio as the new strings teacher who will be working at both middle schools.

Ms. Cutler welcomed Elaine Hashemian for a Spanish position and Sharon Remigio as the new school counselor.

2. Sheila Wycinowski reported on the 2010 Connecticut Mastery Test (grades 7+8) and Connecticut Academic Performance Test (grade 10) Results. The scores in grades 7 are the highest in Amity history. Grade 8 students performed better than they did in grade 7. Year to year growth of the same students is a key indicator of the effectiveness of the academic program.

In grade 10, reading and writing scores were among the highest in Amity’s comparison group. Science improved slightly over last year’s results but both math and science results remain below expectations. We have identified structural anomalies in math where freshmen, sophomores and junior students have been assigned to the same classes. It is very difficult to focus instruction on skills tested on the CAPT when some students in a class won’t be taking it in a given year (freshmen) or have already taken it (juniors). We have identified the group of students who most need attention to skills and competencies assessed on the math subtest of the CAPT and we have created classes of just freshmen and just sophomores. We are now able to focus instruction on CAPT preparation. This is not to say that Amity’s curriculum will be sacrificed. We are taking a balanced approach which incorporates CAPT skills and competencies into areas of the Amity curriculum that are appropriate. Board members expressed their concerns that math and science results were below the high expectations Amity has for student performance.

3. After completion of the 2010-2011 budget, the administration began working on a review of all Amity’s operations to begin to identify areas that might yield greater efficiency from a cost perspective. The initial phase of this review was presented to the Board. It is entitled “Superintendent’s Program Review Report”. This phase of the review takes a historical view of efforts of the past six years to gain efficiencies in expenditures (please open and read the report in the attachment box above). You will find in the report considerable tangible improvements to Amity’s operations that have saved millions of tax payer dollars. It is these efforts that resulted in Amity being identified last year as one of the 20 most efficient school districts in Connecticut by The Connecticut Economy. As we move forward into budget development for the 2011-2012 year, and we look for additional efficiencies, it is important to understand that Amity is already operating in a highly efficient manner. Nevertheless, we will present to the Board at the October regular meeting some tentative ideas for consideration as we consider the 2011-2012 spending plan.

4. The Superintendent informed the Board that Amity will be receiving $112,000 of Federal jobs money. These funds will be needed to help prevent layoffs in the 2011-2012 school year.

5. Dr. Brady congratulated Mr. Rob Kennedy, Director of Amity Creative Theater, for Honorable Mention by the Moss Hart organization for 2009 production of Anne Frank: and Then They Came for Me. This is just the latest in a series of awards and recognitions the Creative Theatre has received under Mr. Kennedy’s leadership.

6. Dr. Brady reported college acceptance data for the class of 2010. Each year we track students applying to the most selective colleges in the country and the percentage who are accepted.

The class of 2010 did extremely well. There were 129 applications to Ivy League schools 19 acceptances were received for a total of 14.7%. Over 60% of applications to highly and most selective colleges were accepted. We do not have comparative data from other high schools since there is no reporting requirement for this data.

7. Mr. Grande reported on the recent Facilities Committee meeting. Highlights included Board support for adding conversion of the choral room to a black box theatre on the five year capital forecast. The administration suggested placement of this work in the 2014-2015 timeframe. Several Board members suggested an earlier time if possible. Upon the recommendation of the Finance Committee, the Board took action to direct the administration to develop a lighting upgrade for sections of the high school that were not upgraded during the new construction. This upgrade would be at no cost to the taxpayers with estimated savings of nearly $900,000 over a ten year period.

The Board discussed roofing at Amity High School. The roof on the older sections of the building is approaching its 20 year lifespan. Director of Facilities Jim Saisa recommended a refurbishment of the roof at an estimated cost of $1.4 million as opposed to $4.0 million for replacement. The roofing work is currently slated for 2012-2013. Mr. Grande recommended that the Board begin to fund this project with any end of year balance being set aside in the capital non-reoccurring expense account after the audit of the 2009-2010 fiscal year is complete. These decisions will not be finalized until January.

Mr. Saisa presented his Facilities Report which documents work done over the summer. This report will be uploaded to the Amity District web site within the next couple of days.

The next regular Board of Education meeting will be held on Monday, October 18th at 6:30 p.m. in the presentation room of the District Offices.

Update: An addition email from Superintendent Brady included the following:

There was an additional highlight at the Board meeting this past Monday which was omitted from the previous report.

Ms. Yvonne Klancko, Director of Amity’s Adult and Continuing Education Program reported on enrollment and revenue for the program over the past three years. Under Ms. Klancko’s direction, the program has experienced significant growth. Enrollment in 2008 was 1,093. In 2010 it was 1,494.

In 2008 the fund balance was $29,287. In 2010 it was $74,705.

The Board expressed appreciation to Ms. Klancko for her efforts.

From Superintendent John J. Brady:

The Amity Board of Education held its last meeting of the 2009-2010 academic year this past Monday. The meeting covered a number of important topics. I will highlight several below.

On Monday, May 3, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. in the Amity High School Cafeteria, the Amity Board of Education (the “Board”) will hold a District Meeting on its proposed 2010-2011 budget. The agenda for the evening will consist of the Board presentation explaining the increases and decreases to the budget. No vote will be taken at this meeting. A budget referendum will be held on Tuesday, May 4, 2010, and voters are encouraged to participate.

Rescheduling due to the 2/10 winter storm has snowballed. None of this is posted yet, but I was granted early warning so that I could put cameras where they need to be. Information is always subject to change.

Superintendent John Brady made the initial presentations of his budget to the Finance Committee and the Board last night. Overall, the Supt's budget for 2010-2011 represents a 2.19% increase over this year's.

The following is an email from the Amity High School News Mailing List:

Good morning Amity and Happy New Year!

The Amity Board of Education held its January meeting last night. What follows are selected highlights from the meeting.

1. The Board received an update on 2010-2011 budget preparations. Dr. Brady informed the Board that the administrative team had been working to keep spending down due to the continued struggling economy. Administrator requests for supplies, equipment and text books were either level with the current year or, in some cases, slightly less. The major costs driving the budget are salaries and new costs for special education programs. To balance the salary increases the Board approved a retirement incentive program for teachers that is designed to encourage twelve retirements. If successful, the program will save over $400,000 next year. The limit of twelve is to ensure that we don’t lose too many of our most expert teachers in one year. This plan will also result in not replacing four of the twelve.

Reducing faculty is a very difficult proposition. I have been working with the high school administration to make certain that reducing four positions will not lead to inordinately large class size increases. Classes affected are projected to not exceed 24 students.

2. Dr. Dellinger reported on a pilot regrouping effort on the Black Team at Bethany. To gather information about grouping in support of the Board of Education goal to evaluate middle school grouping practices, the grade 8 Black Team organized students into heterogeneous groups mixing advanced, comprehensive and core groups. The plan was to conduct a pilot of six weeks duration. It became clear immediately that parents and students had not been informed of this project. The pilot was halted after one week but valuable information about this type of grouping was gained and will be communicated to the middle school committee which is looking at grouping. The committee will reach out to parents and students to improve communication and gather diverse perspectives prior to reinstituting regrouping efforts.

Dr. Brady reported that the State Board of Education voted unanimously last week to encourage Connecticut school districts to eliminate tracking of students. While the elimination of tracking is not a requirement, districts will have to begin reporting on tracking systems and informing parents if their children are in “low” tracks. Districts will also have to inform parents that their children are not being prepared to

Meet requirements for entry into the Connecticut higher education system.

3. Dr. Brady reported that the University of Connecticut publication The Connecticut Economy has identified Amity as one of only twenty-one school districts in Connecticut that are highly efficient. This is compared to 119 districts in the study. The report compared inputs such as teachers and administrators per 100 students with student outcomes such as CMT and SAT scores to arrive at the determination of efficiency. Amity was considered highly efficient because our students have relatively high outcomes even though our staff ratios were modest compared to other districts in the state. For example, Amity had the second lowest ratio of administrators per 100 students in the state.

4. The facilities committee reported that they had received a proposal to site a cell phone tower on the high school campus. Initial revenue would be $21,500 with the potential to grow to an average of $30,000 per year. The Committee did not feel this level of revenue was sufficient to warrant the negative reaction of neighbors and parents whose children would be in close proximity to the tower. The proposal was for a tower that would extend 150-190 feet into the air. The full Board supported the Facilities’ Committee position. There will be no cell tower on the high school campus at this time.

5. The Board received a report of the 2009 audit. Mr. Robert Howard, partner in the auditing firm CCR made a comprehensive report to the Amity Finance Committee meeting which preceded the Board meeting. Chairman of the AFC, Mr. Abbatiello reported to the Board that the audit found the District to have “unqualified clean compliance”. There were very minimal and minor recommendations. Following receipt of the audit, the Board voted to return the following balances to the member towns:

Town of Bethany $ 55,406.00
Town of Orange $119,456.00
Town of Woodbridge $ 86,512.00

The next Board meeting will be on Monday, February 8th at 6:30 pm in the Presentation at the District Offices.

John J. Brady
Superintendent of Schools
Amity Regional School District #5
25 Newton Road
Woodbridge, Connecticut 06525

Phone: 203-397-4861
Fax 203-397-4864
e-mail john.brady@reg5.k12.ct.us
web www.amityregion5.org