Monday, June 24, 2013

School District winds down deliberations for school year

The classes have almost emptied for the year, with just a few things left on the SD52 calendar for June.

The last few items of business, before the launch of summer vacation for the students, a bit of rest for the teachers and the search for a new Superintendent moves forward at the Board level.

With the summer beckoning, the SD52 Board met for their final session of the school year on June 11, outlining by Media release, what they believe were the Highlights of the Board Meeting.

While we wait for the official minutes to be released (May's meeting currently tops the archive page) you can review the thoughts of the Board through their Media release.

It provided an update on the Restitution project, a Camp Jupiter advisory and some background on the District Improvement Contract, currently in its 4th year of the Board's Five year plan.

Than contract is designed to reach the goal of the Board to "Ensure each student successfully completes their educational program with a sense of hope, purpose and control."

Towards the focus of that contract, Board Chair Tina Last received the report with a comment that the "signs of improvement are encouraging and we look forward to further success in the year ahead."

Not mentioned in their Highlights review of June 11th was what appears to have been a controversial motion from Trustee Marty Bowles.

He had put forward a number discussion topics on money saving suggestions that for the most part appear to have been dismissed at the June 11th meeting. Mr. Bowles was not in attendance at the June 11th session to expand on them or to comment on the Board's apparent dismissal of them.

The scope of his proposals was outlined in the Friday edition of the Northern Connector (see here, page nine).

Among the motions reviewed, Bowles had reportedly offered up suggestions regarding out of town conferences that SD Board members attend, limits to Professional Development Days for trustees, issues on the requirements for special needs students and giving the Board a more active role in the movement of administrators at the schools, a suggestion that the Board rejected, suggesting that the last item was the responsibility of the Superintendent of schools alone.

On the topic of Superintendents, in addition to putting a wrap on the deliberations for the 2012-13 school year, some housekeeping took place at the District level, as SD52 made sure somebody had the keys to the office for the summer.

At that final session, the Board of Education named Ms. Sandra Jones at the Acting Superintendent for the District effective on July 1st, outlining her background with the School District since her arrival in the community in 1982.

She accepts the Acting Superintendent role while the School District continues on with their quest for a full time Superintendent to take over from the departing Lynn Hauptman.

The School District did not outline in its press release if Ms. Jones, will be one of the prospects that their executive search group Make a Future is considering. Actually information on that search for a replacement for Ms. Hauptman seems to be rather slow in coming.

A quick scan of the Make A Future website suggests that perhaps they have completed their research on the topic of the SD52 Superintendent's position, as at the moment, the Make a Future careers section only features Teaching and support positions available in SD 52

The School District has not outlined by media release or any other form of communication, what direction they may have given to that search group as to what are the key aspects of local leadership they are looking for.

Leaving a number of questions for parents, teachers and current administration as to what the School District may be looking for.  And whether a combination of administrative experience and local knowledge would be preferable, as opposed to starting fresh with an outside hire with no connection to the current School District landscape.

An update from the School District on the progress of their search for a new superintendent would no doubt be quite welcome from all.

You can review our original item on that search for a new administrator from our May 21st post here.

Our archive of School District 52 items can be found here.


No comments:

Post a Comment