Dear Friends of the Foxborough Public Schools,

Happy New Year!

Please note the change in start time to 6:30 p.m.

 

AGENDA
January 3, 2011
Time   Topic
6:30 p.m. - School Committee
Tour of the YMCA Leadership & Wellness Center
at Foxborough High School
7:00 p.m. - Visitors
7:05 p.m. - Approval of Minutes
7:10 p.m. - YMCA Leadership & Wellness Center at
Foxborough High School
— Mr. Ed Hurley,
—Mr. Jim Downs
7:20 p.m. - FACES Update
— Mr. and Mrs. Jim Freeman
7:30 p.m. - Acceptance of Donation
— Dr. Christopher Martes
7:40 p.m. - District Initiatives Update and Timeline
— Ms. Debbie Spinelli

Galileo Software Presentation
— Ms. Alison Mello
7:55 p.m. - Special Education Programs Update
— Ms. Arlene Grubert
8:10 p.m. -

FY 12 Budget

  • Special Education
    — Ms. Arlene Grubert
  • Elementary Principals
    — Ms. Ingrid Allardi,
    — Ms. Michele McCarthy,
    — Mr. Pete Regan
  • Ahern School Principal
    — Ms. Sue Abrams
  • Foxborough High School Principal
    — Mr. Jeff Theodoss
8:45 p.m. - Second Reading – Policy ADF Wellness
— Ms. Kate Kominsky,
— Ms. Beverley Lord
8:55 p.m. - Draft Bullying Survey
— Dr. Christopher Martes
— Ms. Debbie Spinelli
9:05 p.m. - Superintendent of Schools Search Update
— Ms. Martha Slattery
9:15 p.m. - Other Matters
9:20 p.m. - Executive Session –
To discuss strategies with respect to collective bargaining
if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect
on the bargaining position of the School Committee.

Agenda

The agenda for this back-to-school meeting would seem to be one for heavy lifting. Consistent with the Committee’s expressed need to "market ourselves," the agenda is front-loaded with the YMCA Leadership & Wellness Center and donations. This will occupy 30% of the time allocated for the agenda items. Discussion of next year’s budget, FY12, has been allocated 35 minutes (19%) of meeting time. During these 35 minutes the Special Education program and all the five school buildings are scheduled to discuss their budgets.

While Dr. Kathleen Tyrell was occupying the position of superintendent of schools (1998-2006), Ms. Martha Slattery asked several times for the agenda to be published in The Foxboro Reporter before the meeting. The agenda for this meeting was summarized in the December 30 issue of The Reporter, Wellness center to open at FHS. We hope this represents a step towards greater transparency and a desire to inform the public and not an example of "image-control" attributed to the Foxboro Public Schools and defended by Committee members.

Looking at the copy of the agenda available at Town Hall’s web site, it is impossible to tell when the agenda was received at the Town Clerk’s office. The Reporter would have received it before December 30, when the newspaper was published. The notification to the Outbox subscribers was marked sent on December 30 at 09:57.

The Committee and the School Administration can foster greater public awareness and participation if the practice of publishing the agenda as a prominent article continues even if there are no tours of new facilities or significant donations.

 

Superintendent of Schools Search Update

Towards the end of the agenda, after discussion of budget, the Wellness policy, and the draft of the bullying survey, the Committee has scheduled discussion of the matter that has raised the concern of many in the community: the search for a new superintendent.

The process of searching for a new superintendent has been placed in the hands of Ms. Slattery.

As our readers may remember, it was Ms. Slattery who guided the superintendent search in 2007. From a pool of 14 candidates, the search process resulted in a single candidate, Dr. Martes, being presented to the Committee for approval without public interview or disclosure of any other candidates. By contrast, in 1998 four candidates were identified in the press and three were interviewed in open meeting.

The 2007 search for a superintendent resulted in published concerns of Open Meeting Law violation. Ms. Slattery defended the process she co-chaired under the guidance of Mr. Glenn Koocher:

School superintendent search committee Co-Chairwoman Martha Slattery is defending her group’s decision to withhold the finalist’s name until the school committee interviewed him in public.

Slattery said the search committee acted on the advice of Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.

In a news report last week, a media attorney suggested that school committee members violated the state’s Open Meeting Law, at least in spirit, by refusing to identify the finalist to a reporter.

Framingham Superintendent Christopher Martes later confirmed his candidacy. The school committee appointed Martes after a public interview last Thursday night.
(Gelbwasser, M. Foxboro school official defends search. The Sun Chronicle. April 13, 2007.)

It is notable that Dr. Martes was willing to confirm his status as candidate while Ms. Slattery and the Search Committee withheld the information from the public. The matter of Dr. Martes’ retirement was handled in similar fashion this fall when he confirmed his retirement while the Committee was denying it.

Appropriately or inappropriately, this Committee has chosen to withhold information from the public. Is our community better for this or worse? Does the community agree with the Committee’s claim that when people don’t attend meetings to complaint, it is because things are going well? Or, like the Superintendent’s retirement, are there other significant issues that are being kept from the public’s view?

It is our hope that this School Committee will self-correct, and not wait for public outcry (or law enforcement intervention) to be more open in its discharge of the public’s business.

 

 

 

Respectfully,

Andres Navedo

Deborah Navedo

Foxboro Education Organization