The meeting was delayed by a half-hour because we had a "non-meeting meeting" with Attorney Bill Drescher before the regular school board meeting, and the non-meeting ran longer than expected. A meeting is technically defined by NH RSA 91-A:2, and according to 91-A:2 (c), consultations with legal counsel are by definition not a meeting, so It's not appropriate for me to discuss what was reviewed in the non-meeting.
The regular session was a rather lengthy meeting, and covered a variety of hot topics. We skipped the Superintendent's report this week due to time constraints.
Vote Regarding Sale of Bonds - We passed a formal motion to authorize the sale of bonds for the High School renovation project. We had some trouble a month or two ago where the bond bank had some problems with the wording of the warrant article, but those are all resolved now. Passing this motion will enable the sale of bonds to go forward.
High School Renovation Project - The Phase I track portion of renovation project is progressing well. The first course of pavement was laid this week and the field work is on schedule. We processed a change order to revamp the way the electrical and data feeds to the field are arranged.
Bids were received for the main building renovation portion, or Phase II of the project. We awarded the mechanical and electrical bids at the previous meeting, and we awarded about a dozen additional bids during this meeting. Netting everything out, it appears that we are on budget for the project, with about $250K of contingency still available. This is needed since you never know what you will run into on a renovation project, and we need to be able to cover whatever problems arise during the project.
Policy Reviews - Bert Becker was appointed to the policy committee, replacing Bob Willete who will focus on the Bales study committee. We reviewed 8 policies, moving 4 to a first reading and 4 to a second reading and enactment.
We passed new policy 5095 on Searches of Students, Student's Property and School Owned Property. This policy was modeled after the NH School Board Association model policy. The policy documents current practice, and provides details on what procedures are allowed.
We also passed revised policy 6030 Computer Software and Hardware Policy. The major changes in the policy relate to the use of non-district owned equipment within the district. The main point is that anyone wishing to use non-district equipment must first gain the approval of the Technology Director.
Matt Ballou will soon be installing equipment that will automatically identify new equipment that is added to the network to help to curb any unintentional or intentional violations of this policy.
Budget Items - This was the meat of the meeting. We held a joint meeting with the budget committee on Saturday where the administration reviewed all aspects of the budget. We followed the basic flow that we have developed over the years, and we were able to gain good insight to the budget during the day.
The main problem is that there were a lot of special situations this year, and the budget was higher than desired.
Kindergarten - We first reviewed Kindergarten in some detail, since that is a topic that has a lot of influence on the overall budget. The state committee that is addressing the cost of an adequate education had made some preliminary decisions, and these were discussed at the meeting by Peter Bragdon. Some of the more significant proposals.
- The state will allow districts to delay implementation of public kindergarten by one year. they will need to present a plan to the state showing how they will be implementing it in the following year.
- Kindergarten construction will be eligible for 75% state aid for the portions of the building that are actual classrooms or connecting corridors.
- Kindergarten students will be eligible for 1/2 the adequacy money that is made available to full-time students. This amount is still to be determined, but will be at least $1200 per student according to Peter Bragdon. The Telegraph reported today that it will be at least $1900.
- One of the key drivers of how the state will calculate adequate education cost is the cost of teachers. Some members of the state committee want to set it at the cost of the lowest paid teacher in the state, and others want to set it at the average salary of new teachers in the state. In either case, this will be much less than the average cost of teachers in the state since only a small portion of teachers are new teachers.
- The state authorized 100% of portables for three years to help get the programs started.
Kindergarten delayed - I made a motion to delay the implementation of public kindergarten until 2009. There was some confusion about the motion, and it was not initially supported. We changed the wording slightly, and the motion passed.
Kindergarten Bond Issue - The main issue with implementing kindergarten in Milford is that we need to have a facility to provide the program. There are several options, but the one that makes the most sense to me at this time is what is known as option 3, where we tear down the Bales annex and add a four room addition to Jacques. This is the option that is supported by the district administration.
The advantages of option 3 are that it is relatively low cost ($1.8M), and gets the kindergarten and first grades under the same roof. This eliminates the issues relating to moving across the parking lot to get to the annex as would occur in option 2 (renovating the annex). The downside is that there is little upside space options, and a sustained upturn in enrollments may require a new construction fix at some time in the future. The space looks like it will meet our needs for the near term, and I don't see anything on the horizon that would indicate a large upturn in enrollments. The trend in New Hampshire in recent years has been for declining enrollments, and this should continue, at least for a while.
I had been originally in favor of constructing a new building at Brox (option 4) as the preferred choice for two main reasons. One is that it is the option that provides the most future flexibility. If we get an upturn in enrollments, then we would still have the option to add four classrooms to Jacques to handle the first grade enrollments, and we would be able to add classrooms to the Brox building to handle the kindergarten increases.
The second reason that I supported the Brox construction option is that it is likely that we will get 75% building aid now, but we will only get 30% if we build the same project in the future. The difference in state aid is roughly $2M on the $4.5M Brox construction project. Our portion of the increase from option 3 (Jacques addition) to option 4 (new Brox construction) is roughly $700K. It seemed to me that spending an extra $700K now would be a good investment to save $2M at some time in the future (perhaps 10-15 years down the road. Another way to look at is that we would get four extra classrooms plus some other supporting functions for only $700K. (The Jacques addition is for four classrooms, and the separate Brox building would be eight rooms).
The point that changed my mind on this is that the administration brought some new information to us at the budget meeting last Saturday. It turns out that there a several additional people required to run a separate building instead of just adding on to an existing building. I knew that there would be an additional expense, but I did not expect it to be so high. Adding all the additional support staff for a separate building adds roughly $250K to the operating budget each year. Over 10-15 years, this would add up to $2.5m to $3.8M in additional operational costs, which is more than the $2M savings. Since it is a negative number, we might as well go with the lower cost option and save the money.
There has been some discussion about what will happen if sometime soon we change to full-day kindergarten instead of half-day kindergarten. My response to that is that in my opinion it is very unlikely that the Milford voters would approve a move to full-day kindergarten on their own any time soon, so we should not plan on that as a viable option. On the other side, if the state mandates that we move to full-day kindergarten, then that would be a new mandate, and they would provide funding at that time at some increased level (perhaps the same 75% that is offered now). We would be in the same position as we are now, so there is no reason to plan for it.
I doubt that the state will mandate full-day kindergarten any time soon either. The cost to the state would be very high since there are very few districts currently providing full-day programs. As a rough estimate, if there are 15,000 kindergarten students in the state, and it costs $2500 in adequacy aid to upgrade them from half-day to full-day, then that is an extra $38M for the entire state. They are struggling to make the current situation work, so I doubt that they want to make the cost problem $38M worse.
I made a motion to choose option 3 as our method for implementing public kindergarten in the 09-10 school year. Bert Becker appeared to support the motion, but it did not look like anyone else would support the motion at this time, so I withdrew it. We have some parliamentary rules that make it more difficult to pass something that had already been defeated once, so it is not helpful to have a losing vote on the record.
I am hopeful that we will be able to come up with some sort of a plan that can be supported by a majority of the board. The issue is that we are now legally obligated to provide public kindergarten, and if we choose to ignore that legal requirement, then we could be liable to pay penalties if we are sued by an aggrieved party.
Operating Budget - The administration has done another fine job this year with developing the first draft of the operating budget. They reviewed all the costs and provided forecasts based on reasonable expectations. Their first draft was based on the assumption that we would continue along the same path as we have been following where we make continuous improvements each year with respect to curriculum and programs. The district as a whole has been on the right track for several years, and we have gotten better each year, perhaps not at a rate that everyone would like, but at least at a steady pace that yields positive improvements.
The problem was that the first pass of the budget came in too high relative to what we can afford. A rough rule of thumb that we frequently use is to keep our cost increases to a level not to exceed the inflation rate as measured by the CPI plus the net change in enrollment. The current trailing 12 month CPI is 3.1%, and we expect an enrollment increase of 1.4% for a total target increase of 4.5%.
Peter Bragdon made a motion to bring the increase down to 4.9%. There are some additional special education costs expected next year, with the need for three additional one-on-one associates to meet IEP requirements. Special education costs are mandated by federal law, and we are required to fulfill them. It seems reasonable to allow a slightly higher increase when there are significant increase in special education costs. The net effect of this motion was the creation of the need to identify $400K of cuts to be made to the proposed budget. The administration was tasked with coming back to the next meeting with a prioritized list of cuts to meet the $400K requirement, with the proviso that the cuts not come out of debt service, food service, or fund transfers. The motion passed 5-0.
Even with these cuts, this increase results in a large tax increase. The main factor is that the state had their big increase in adequacy aid this past year, and unless the rules change, the adequacy aid will be the same next year. Since there will not be an increase in state aid, all of the increase in costs will have to be borne by local property taxes. Since the increase will be divided by a smaller base, the percentage increase is higher. The adequacy aid and other revenues source are excluded from the local tax rate calculation.
Now, the state is currently going through their adequacy costing formula and there could be huge shifts in adequacy aid which throw this out the window. We will have to wait and see.
My philosophy is to watch the actual spending closely since that is what we have the most control over. If we manage our spending, then the corresponding taxes will tend to follow over time. Sometimes we make out with revenue sources, like last year where we ended up with a decrease in taxes due to increased state aid. Other times we lose out, such as this year were it looks like there will not be an increase in aid.
Default budget: We received our first draft of the default budget. I haven't had a chance to review it in detail yet, so I don't have a comment on it at this time. As presented, it does not include kindergarten funding. It is not clear to me if kindergarten funding should be in the default budget this year or not since the legal status of the kindergarten mandate for this year is murky at best. It was mandated for the o8-09 school year by the law that passed in June, but the adequacy aid group has indicated that they plan to ask for it to be moved to the 09-10 school year. The question is, do you follow a course of action based on the rules as they currently exist, or do you follow a course of action based on how you think that the rules will end up?
I think that it is clear that it will need to be in the default budget next year since it is very likely that the law will mandate it for that year.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Milford School Board 10/15/07
Superintendent's Report
* The Volunteer New Hampshire Organization named Milford a 2007 Spirit of New Hampshire Program Award Winner. The award will be presented on November 7th at the Grappone Center in Concord, and Governor Lynch will attend the ceremony.
The Volunteer Program Champion Awards recognize outstanding volunteer programs that provide the infrastructure for volunteers to be successful in their service. Awards in the Volunteer Program Champion category recognize excellent program management, fund development efforts that sustain volunteer programs, and commitment of time/resources to engage employees in community volunteer roles.
* Reading information night will be held at the Jacques Memorial School on Thursday 10/18 at 6:30. This will be hosted by the early education literacy team.
* The open houses at each school were completed and all were well attended. The Global Connect telephone messaging service was used to notify parents of the nights, and the notification system seemed to work well.
* Rivier College is sponsoring a professional development program titled "Developing Teacher Leaders of Elementary and Middle School Science" for some of the science teachers in the District.
Project Management Committee
Tom Hurley (Committee Chair) gave an update on the various issues that were addressed at the committee meeting on Thursday. Tom updated all the items that were described in my previous posting. The board approved the fencing and the bleacher recommendations.
ATC Curriculum
Rosie Deloge (Director of Technical Studies) presented the ATC curriculum that was recently developed. This book was the result of a lot of work by various individuals throughout the state. The objective was to develop a common curriculum for many of the ATC's (Applied Technology Center) around the state. Previously each ATC developed their own curriculum for each program, which led to an inability to compare the results from each school.
The new curriculum seems quite good. Each of the 12 program areas has a defined curriculum that is in a structured format.
Kindergarten
The school administration presented the results of their studies on the feasibility of various kindergarten options that are available to us in our efforts to implement public kindergarten as is now required by state law.
Laurie Johnson (Assistant Superintendent of Schools) was the lead presenter of the information, but everyone chimed in as needed.
State Funding
There was a lot of discussion about what are the potential funding sources for the programs from the state. We will not know for some time as to what portions will be funded by the state. Len Mannino seemed pessimistic about the potential for state funding, but based on what I have read about the subject, I am much more optimistic that we can expect to receive significant funding levels for implementation.
The old formula for construction aid for kindergarten start-ups was 75% kindergarten construction funding for the project plus 30% building aid for the portion not funded, for a total of 82.5% aid. It is my opinion that we can expect to receive at least that level of funding, and there is a possibility that it could be even greater.
While there is some debate on this topic, the feeling of many people is that an adequate portion of public kindergarten costs is a new state mandate, and the state constitution requires that all new mandates be funded by the state. I expect that the legislature will decide to 100% fund an "adequate portion" of new kindergarten programs, and that they will be generous with support of construction projects.
Peter Bragdon, who is on the state committee that is working on the funding aspects of an adequate education, seemed to agree with my assessment of the situation, and that there would be some significant level of funding.
Five Options
Five construction options were presented. The start-up costs and annual operating costs for each option were estimated, and the resulting tax impact was also estimated based on various assumptions. Options one to four were for half-day kindergarten and option five was whole-day kindergarten.
We identified some relatively minor items would need additional costing review prior to submitting a warrant article, but the options were developed in enough detail where we can get a fairly good estimate of the tax impacts of the choices.
The four half-day options have similar ongoing costs of about $0.22 per 1,000, or $55.80 for a $250k house. This is net of state adequacy funding of $1,200 per student. The whole-day option is $.86/1,000, or $176.00 for a $250k house.
The main differences in cost are for the construction costs for each option.
These are the options (with tax impacts based on continuation of existing state funding):
1. Jacques 2 Portables - Add two portables containing four classrooms to the rear of the Jacques school. This is the least cost option, but did not get support from any board member. My opinion is that this version is OK as a stopgap measure to enable us to get the program implemented next year if needed, but is not suitable as a long-term solution. Portables are OK when future needs are uncertain, but when it appears that you have a long term need, then it is less costly in the long run to have a long term solution. The construction cost is $190k, or an extra $0.01 on the tax rate for five years, or $2.50 for a $250k house.
2. Renovate Bales Annex - Construction is $1.3M or $0.05 on the tax rate for ten years, or $12.50 on a $250k house. The is the option that I have discussed in the past. It is the least cost option for a semi-permanent solution. The total cost (start-up and operating costs) for this option is about $0.27 per 1000, or $68.30 on a $250k house.
3. Four-room addition to Jacques - This would include tearing down the Bales Annex, and adding a four-room addition to the front end of Jacques. This has the advantage of putting all the students under one roof so they don't have to go outside to move to other areas of the building. The traffic patterns may be better also, but I'm not sure of that. Construction is $1.8M or $0.07 on the tax rate for ten years. Total cost is about $0.29 per 1000, or $73.30 for a $250k house.
4. Stand-alone building on Brox property - This is an eight room stand-alone building on the Brox property near the Heron Pond school. This would include six rooms for kindergarten and two for pre-school. Construction cost is $4.5M, or $0.17 per 1000 on the tax rate for 20 years. Total cost is about $0.39 per 1000, or $98.30 for a $250k house.
5. Full-day stand-alone building on Brox - This is similar to option 4, but is a 14 room building to allow for the full day programs. Construction cost is $10.4M, or $0.39 per 1000 on the tax rate for 20 years. Total cost is about $273.50 for a $250k house.
Options 2 and 3 are lower cost options that provide a solution for the nearer time periods, say perhaps 10 years. At some point the enrollments will rise and further solutions would be required. They do save money in the near term, and it may even extend to longer periods if enrollments rise slowly.
Option 4 costs more now, but provides a longer term solution. It leaves open the option of expanding Jacques or renovating the Annex at some time in the future if the first grade enrollments expand, and the Brox building will be designed to be easily added to if needed.
Option 5 costs the most, but provides for a full-day kindergarten program which is educationally desirable.
In my opinion, although a full-day program is desirable, I think that we should stick with a half-day program for now. We need to walk before we can run, so lets move forward with a half-day program and leave the full-day program discussion for future times.
I think that it probably makes sense to go with the complete new building instead of the renovation/addition options. The stand-alone building gives us more flexibility for future changes. There is also the chance that the state will pay for most or all of it at this time, and this might be a one-time shot at a high funding level for construction. The cost adder of $25 or $30 per household for this option seems like a good value for the future flexibility.
Enrollment Projections
We went over the enrollment projections for next year. We do this at this time each year in preparation for the budget development process. We use average cohort survival rates for most of the estimating, but we use a different process for the R-1 grades. The cohort process seems to work well, but we are less successful at estimating the numbers of students that are enrolling in R-1 for the first time. We reviewed the numbers, and we will formally adopt them at the next meeting.
* The Volunteer New Hampshire Organization named Milford a 2007 Spirit of New Hampshire Program Award Winner. The award will be presented on November 7th at the Grappone Center in Concord, and Governor Lynch will attend the ceremony.
The Volunteer Program Champion Awards recognize outstanding volunteer programs that provide the infrastructure for volunteers to be successful in their service. Awards in the Volunteer Program Champion category recognize excellent program management, fund development efforts that sustain volunteer programs, and commitment of time/resources to engage employees in community volunteer roles.
* Reading information night will be held at the Jacques Memorial School on Thursday 10/18 at 6:30. This will be hosted by the early education literacy team.
* The open houses at each school were completed and all were well attended. The Global Connect telephone messaging service was used to notify parents of the nights, and the notification system seemed to work well.
* Rivier College is sponsoring a professional development program titled "Developing Teacher Leaders of Elementary and Middle School Science" for some of the science teachers in the District.
Project Management Committee
Tom Hurley (Committee Chair) gave an update on the various issues that were addressed at the committee meeting on Thursday. Tom updated all the items that were described in my previous posting. The board approved the fencing and the bleacher recommendations.
ATC Curriculum
Rosie Deloge (Director of Technical Studies) presented the ATC curriculum that was recently developed. This book was the result of a lot of work by various individuals throughout the state. The objective was to develop a common curriculum for many of the ATC's (Applied Technology Center) around the state. Previously each ATC developed their own curriculum for each program, which led to an inability to compare the results from each school.
The new curriculum seems quite good. Each of the 12 program areas has a defined curriculum that is in a structured format.
Kindergarten
The school administration presented the results of their studies on the feasibility of various kindergarten options that are available to us in our efforts to implement public kindergarten as is now required by state law.
Laurie Johnson (Assistant Superintendent of Schools) was the lead presenter of the information, but everyone chimed in as needed.
State Funding
There was a lot of discussion about what are the potential funding sources for the programs from the state. We will not know for some time as to what portions will be funded by the state. Len Mannino seemed pessimistic about the potential for state funding, but based on what I have read about the subject, I am much more optimistic that we can expect to receive significant funding levels for implementation.
The old formula for construction aid for kindergarten start-ups was 75% kindergarten construction funding for the project plus 30% building aid for the portion not funded, for a total of 82.5% aid. It is my opinion that we can expect to receive at least that level of funding, and there is a possibility that it could be even greater.
While there is some debate on this topic, the feeling of many people is that an adequate portion of public kindergarten costs is a new state mandate, and the state constitution requires that all new mandates be funded by the state. I expect that the legislature will decide to 100% fund an "adequate portion" of new kindergarten programs, and that they will be generous with support of construction projects.
Peter Bragdon, who is on the state committee that is working on the funding aspects of an adequate education, seemed to agree with my assessment of the situation, and that there would be some significant level of funding.
Five Options
Five construction options were presented. The start-up costs and annual operating costs for each option were estimated, and the resulting tax impact was also estimated based on various assumptions. Options one to four were for half-day kindergarten and option five was whole-day kindergarten.
We identified some relatively minor items would need additional costing review prior to submitting a warrant article, but the options were developed in enough detail where we can get a fairly good estimate of the tax impacts of the choices.
The four half-day options have similar ongoing costs of about $0.22 per 1,000, or $55.80 for a $250k house. This is net of state adequacy funding of $1,200 per student. The whole-day option is $.86/1,000, or $176.00 for a $250k house.
The main differences in cost are for the construction costs for each option.
These are the options (with tax impacts based on continuation of existing state funding):
1. Jacques 2 Portables - Add two portables containing four classrooms to the rear of the Jacques school. This is the least cost option, but did not get support from any board member. My opinion is that this version is OK as a stopgap measure to enable us to get the program implemented next year if needed, but is not suitable as a long-term solution. Portables are OK when future needs are uncertain, but when it appears that you have a long term need, then it is less costly in the long run to have a long term solution. The construction cost is $190k, or an extra $0.01 on the tax rate for five years, or $2.50 for a $250k house.
2. Renovate Bales Annex - Construction is $1.3M or $0.05 on the tax rate for ten years, or $12.50 on a $250k house. The is the option that I have discussed in the past. It is the least cost option for a semi-permanent solution. The total cost (start-up and operating costs) for this option is about $0.27 per 1000, or $68.30 on a $250k house.
3. Four-room addition to Jacques - This would include tearing down the Bales Annex, and adding a four-room addition to the front end of Jacques. This has the advantage of putting all the students under one roof so they don't have to go outside to move to other areas of the building. The traffic patterns may be better also, but I'm not sure of that. Construction is $1.8M or $0.07 on the tax rate for ten years. Total cost is about $0.29 per 1000, or $73.30 for a $250k house.
4. Stand-alone building on Brox property - This is an eight room stand-alone building on the Brox property near the Heron Pond school. This would include six rooms for kindergarten and two for pre-school. Construction cost is $4.5M, or $0.17 per 1000 on the tax rate for 20 years. Total cost is about $0.39 per 1000, or $98.30 for a $250k house.
5. Full-day stand-alone building on Brox - This is similar to option 4, but is a 14 room building to allow for the full day programs. Construction cost is $10.4M, or $0.39 per 1000 on the tax rate for 20 years. Total cost is about $273.50 for a $250k house.
Options 2 and 3 are lower cost options that provide a solution for the nearer time periods, say perhaps 10 years. At some point the enrollments will rise and further solutions would be required. They do save money in the near term, and it may even extend to longer periods if enrollments rise slowly.
Option 4 costs more now, but provides a longer term solution. It leaves open the option of expanding Jacques or renovating the Annex at some time in the future if the first grade enrollments expand, and the Brox building will be designed to be easily added to if needed.
Option 5 costs the most, but provides for a full-day kindergarten program which is educationally desirable.
In my opinion, although a full-day program is desirable, I think that we should stick with a half-day program for now. We need to walk before we can run, so lets move forward with a half-day program and leave the full-day program discussion for future times.
I think that it probably makes sense to go with the complete new building instead of the renovation/addition options. The stand-alone building gives us more flexibility for future changes. There is also the chance that the state will pay for most or all of it at this time, and this might be a one-time shot at a high funding level for construction. The cost adder of $25 or $30 per household for this option seems like a good value for the future flexibility.
Enrollment Projections
We went over the enrollment projections for next year. We do this at this time each year in preparation for the budget development process. We use average cohort survival rates for most of the estimating, but we use a different process for the R-1 grades. The cohort process seems to work well, but we are less successful at estimating the numbers of students that are enrolling in R-1 for the first time. We reviewed the numbers, and we will formally adopt them at the next meeting.
Friday, October 12, 2007
High School Renovation Project
The MHS Project Management Advisory Committee met last night to review the status of the Milford High School renovation project.
Schedule
Leighton White is making excellent progress on the field work. The weather has been favorable, and the on-site materials have been relatively easy to work with. Everything seems to be tracking on schedule to this point. They are going to go as long as they can before the weather turns against them. They expect to have most of the significant site work done before winter. A couple of big items that will hold until the spring are the top surface on the track and the sod for the fields. One item that might get done this fall or it might wait for the spring is the rough surface underlayment for the track. This will depend on the weather.
Bleachers
The committee reviewed the bids that came in for bleachers. We had long discussions on the pros and cons of the various alternatives, but in the end, we decided to recommend to the School Board that we purchase the seven-year-old used bleachers that came from Adelphi University that are currently being stored in New Jersey. They are available from Seating Solutions. The company is headquartered in Commack, NY, but the bleachers are being stored in Newark, NJ.
As of now, the configuration will consist of seating for roughly 1,000 people on one side only with no visitors side. This is not a final decision, but based on cost issues, it seems like it is the right thing to do. Once we have a better handle on the overall costs for the project, we will revisit this since the general consensus is that breaking up the bleachers into a home and a visitors side is a better alternative.
We have $210k in the budget for bleachers and press box, and this alternative will be about $179k. This savings will help to make up some of the overages that we have seen elsewhere.
Fencing
We received three bids for fencing, and the committee voted to recommend to the School Board that the work be awarded to the low bidder for $47,525. Penney Fence from Londonderry was the low bidder, but I did not find a web site for them.
The fencing budget was $40k, so we are over budget in this area. There were some significant changes to the plan recently where the state environmental review required us to add more fencing around the detention pond and a 12 foot swing gate into the area.
Change Orders
The committee approved two change orders.
1. The water line going down West street is on the west side of the road instead of the east side of the road as shown on the town plans. Leighton White now has to cut across the road to tie into the main to feed the irrigation system. This extra work is going to cost $5,991.
2. The School District decided that we need to increase the size of the manhole access cover to the below ground sprinkler system shut-offs. The old design was a 32" circular egress and the new design is a 36" square opening. The cost for this change is $1,627.
Engineering Oversight
We are not going to hire a clerk of the works for the project (to avoid a $54k cost), and try to seek alternative less expensive options to achieve the same results. Mostly this will consist of Mike Trojano and Bill Cooper spending more time overseeing the project at no added cost, but their knowledge is limited in some areas. We are going to hire Bill Davidson from Meridian Land Services to oversee various aspects of the field construction, including the drainage. They would be doing some of this work as part of their normal part of the process, but this is for additional work that is excluded from their normal scope. We will pay him by the hour, and we capped the expense for him at $6k for now.
Interior Work
Most of the work that will be done on the interior is out for bid now. The bids are due back next week, and the committee will meet again on October 25th to review all the bids. We expect to get bids on all the major items such as mechanical and electrical, but there may be some items that get no-bid by everyone. This is a renovation project that will be a pain for some trades to do because of the timing or access issues that have to be dealt with.
We should have an excellent overall view of the cost of the program at our next meeting. We all have our fingers crossed that the bids will come in low, and we will be able to complete the project as originally planned.
Schedule
Leighton White is making excellent progress on the field work. The weather has been favorable, and the on-site materials have been relatively easy to work with. Everything seems to be tracking on schedule to this point. They are going to go as long as they can before the weather turns against them. They expect to have most of the significant site work done before winter. A couple of big items that will hold until the spring are the top surface on the track and the sod for the fields. One item that might get done this fall or it might wait for the spring is the rough surface underlayment for the track. This will depend on the weather.
Bleachers
The committee reviewed the bids that came in for bleachers. We had long discussions on the pros and cons of the various alternatives, but in the end, we decided to recommend to the School Board that we purchase the seven-year-old used bleachers that came from Adelphi University that are currently being stored in New Jersey. They are available from Seating Solutions. The company is headquartered in Commack, NY, but the bleachers are being stored in Newark, NJ.
As of now, the configuration will consist of seating for roughly 1,000 people on one side only with no visitors side. This is not a final decision, but based on cost issues, it seems like it is the right thing to do. Once we have a better handle on the overall costs for the project, we will revisit this since the general consensus is that breaking up the bleachers into a home and a visitors side is a better alternative.
We have $210k in the budget for bleachers and press box, and this alternative will be about $179k. This savings will help to make up some of the overages that we have seen elsewhere.
Fencing
We received three bids for fencing, and the committee voted to recommend to the School Board that the work be awarded to the low bidder for $47,525. Penney Fence from Londonderry was the low bidder, but I did not find a web site for them.
The fencing budget was $40k, so we are over budget in this area. There were some significant changes to the plan recently where the state environmental review required us to add more fencing around the detention pond and a 12 foot swing gate into the area.
Change Orders
The committee approved two change orders.
1. The water line going down West street is on the west side of the road instead of the east side of the road as shown on the town plans. Leighton White now has to cut across the road to tie into the main to feed the irrigation system. This extra work is going to cost $5,991.
2. The School District decided that we need to increase the size of the manhole access cover to the below ground sprinkler system shut-offs. The old design was a 32" circular egress and the new design is a 36" square opening. The cost for this change is $1,627.
Engineering Oversight
We are not going to hire a clerk of the works for the project (to avoid a $54k cost), and try to seek alternative less expensive options to achieve the same results. Mostly this will consist of Mike Trojano and Bill Cooper spending more time overseeing the project at no added cost, but their knowledge is limited in some areas. We are going to hire Bill Davidson from Meridian Land Services to oversee various aspects of the field construction, including the drainage. They would be doing some of this work as part of their normal part of the process, but this is for additional work that is excluded from their normal scope. We will pay him by the hour, and we capped the expense for him at $6k for now.
Interior Work
Most of the work that will be done on the interior is out for bid now. The bids are due back next week, and the committee will meet again on October 25th to review all the bids. We expect to get bids on all the major items such as mechanical and electrical, but there may be some items that get no-bid by everyone. This is a renovation project that will be a pain for some trades to do because of the timing or access issues that have to be dealt with.
We should have an excellent overall view of the cost of the program at our next meeting. We all have our fingers crossed that the bids will come in low, and we will be able to complete the project as originally planned.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Milford School Board 10/1/07
Superintendent's Report
* Marc Maurais (Athletics Director) announced that Milford High School was one of 24 schools that received the NHIAA/ National Federation of State High School Association Award of Excellence for the previous school year, recognizing that the school did not receive a game disqualification by a player or a coach. The Milford football team also received the Division III Sportsmanship Award, which was selected by the NH Football Officials Association.
* The adult education classes were starting, with 8 to 14 enrolled in Spanish, Photoshop, Excel, and Word. We are restarting adult education this year, and this will be our trial run to see how much interest there will be in the classes.
* The evening classes for High School students in need will start later in the year, perhaps after the holidays. It takes a few months for students to recognize that they need the extra help to make good progress.
* The Freshman Transitions program was held in late September, and was well received by all. Parents and students attended a variety of classes that addressed common problems encountered by students in High School.
High School Renovations
Field work and earth moving by Leighton White has moved into high gear. The weather has been good, and they have made significant progress towards the field portion of the project.
There will be more loam available than originally estimated. This will be discussed at the next Renovations Committee meeting to be held on 10/11, but it is likely that there will be a proposal to sell off some of the excess material. We are going to store some of it on the Brox property for future use, but the amount that will be available will be more than we expect to use in the near future.
2006-2007 Test Scores Presentation
Laurie Johnson (Asst. Superintendent of Schools) gave a very informative presentation on the results from standardized testing during the previous year. The tests that were reviewed were:
NECAP - New England Comprehensive Assessment Program. This is the test used by Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont to calculate the No Child Left Behind scores. It is administered to grades 3-8 and 11 in Reading, Math, and Writing in October, and Science in the Spring. It can take months to get the scoring for this test.
NWEA - North West Evaluation Association. This is a computerized adaptive assessment program that Milford administers in grades 3-8 and in the Sage School, usually 2-3 times per year. There are two tests, one in Reading and one in Math. The results are available right after the test is taken, and this test can be effectively used by teachers to personalize educational plans for students.
SAT - Scholastic Aptitude Test. College entrance exam taken by Juniors and Seniors.
Core Performance Assessments - Local assessments created by Milford teachers to insure that uniform core competency is learned across the various classes that are offered in a subject.
Laurie provided detail explanations on all of these tests, but here are some of the highlights.
No Child Left Behind. The NCLB test results for Milford were generally good for this past year, with one exception. Milford met "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP) in all areas except the Reading portion of the Heron Pond Special Education subgroup. If any Heron Pond subgroup does not meet AYP in Reading next year, then Heron Pond will be designated as a school in need of improvement. There are specific actions that will need to be taken if that occurs.
The NECAP scores that are used to calculate AYP were fairly good this past year. Milford's scores were higher than the state average in all areas except for 3rd grade reading.
NWEA - Milford scored above the national average in Reading, and well above the national average in Math. We are guessing that this indicates that the math curriculum that we instituted several years ago as the first implementation of our ongoing curriculum coordination program has been working well. The reading program is much newer and has not had a chance to work yet.
SAT - SAT scores in 2007 were either at or above the NH state average scores and the National average scores.
Core Assessments - These are new rubrics that are are being created for many classes. There are a few tests in existence today, and they expect to have a full complement by next year.
Jacques Summer School Program
Johanna Johnson (Director of Special Studies) and John Foss (Jacques Memorial School Principal) presented an overview of the summer school program that was held this year for students that were entering Readiness or First grade this fall and who were classified as in need of strategic or intensive support.
The DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) test was used to identify students in need. This is a test that enables a very quick assessment of the relative abilities of early learners. Identified students were given two levels of support. The lowest level was the District provided learning kits to parents to work with their children at home. The kits had various elements, but typically contained games that help students to learn things like letters, shapes and colors.
The more intensive program was a summer school program where the students came to the Jacques School for 1- 4 days per week for about a month.
Johanna and John gave a very detailed review of the activities and results of the summer school which I won't go through here. But netting it all out, it appears that the program was very successful at raising the literacy level of the incoming students. Learning to read is critically important to students, and we need to do all we can to get them started on the right foot. Many of the students were at very low levels of literacy after kindergarten, and after having gone through just one month of intensive summer school, they had made significant progress towards meeting the benchmark levels.
Mason Withdrawal Letter
The town of Mason is still trying to leave the Mascenic School District, and they asked for the Milford School Board to provide a letter indicating our support of the proposal. We voted 5-0 to send a letter stating that we would probably be willing to ask our voters if they would support Mason coming to Milford.
Deanna (Dee-Dee) Carter came to the meeting and expressed her strong disapproval of this idea. She discussed the history of Amherst coming to Milford, and then eventually leaving to go on their own. She warned us to be careful, as there is a lot of undeveloped land in Mason and their population could skyrocket in just a few years.
In my opinion, this is a different situation than what was encountered with Amherst. Amherst was about equal to Milford in size, and Mason is only about 5% the size of Milford. They are currently at about 100 students in grades 6-12, and we should be able to absorb the 12-15 students per grade without too much added cost. They will pay tuition based on a formula that will be roughly $8K per year, and our real added variable costs will be much less than that, perhaps only about half as much. This would be very favorable to the Milford taxpayers.
Report of the Schools Document
This has been finalized and will be distributed. Copies are available at the SAU office if you want one. This is a nice folded document that provides summary information about various items of interest about the District.
Bales Study Committee
Rodny Richey and Lorraine Marchildon were appointed to the Bales Study Committee. They join previously appointed members Ron Carvell, Paula Durand, and Bob Willette.
* Marc Maurais (Athletics Director) announced that Milford High School was one of 24 schools that received the NHIAA/ National Federation of State High School Association Award of Excellence for the previous school year, recognizing that the school did not receive a game disqualification by a player or a coach. The Milford football team also received the Division III Sportsmanship Award, which was selected by the NH Football Officials Association.
* The adult education classes were starting, with 8 to 14 enrolled in Spanish, Photoshop, Excel, and Word. We are restarting adult education this year, and this will be our trial run to see how much interest there will be in the classes.
* The evening classes for High School students in need will start later in the year, perhaps after the holidays. It takes a few months for students to recognize that they need the extra help to make good progress.
* The Freshman Transitions program was held in late September, and was well received by all. Parents and students attended a variety of classes that addressed common problems encountered by students in High School.
High School Renovations
Field work and earth moving by Leighton White has moved into high gear. The weather has been good, and they have made significant progress towards the field portion of the project.
There will be more loam available than originally estimated. This will be discussed at the next Renovations Committee meeting to be held on 10/11, but it is likely that there will be a proposal to sell off some of the excess material. We are going to store some of it on the Brox property for future use, but the amount that will be available will be more than we expect to use in the near future.
2006-2007 Test Scores Presentation
Laurie Johnson (Asst. Superintendent of Schools) gave a very informative presentation on the results from standardized testing during the previous year. The tests that were reviewed were:
NECAP - New England Comprehensive Assessment Program. This is the test used by Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont to calculate the No Child Left Behind scores. It is administered to grades 3-8 and 11 in Reading, Math, and Writing in October, and Science in the Spring. It can take months to get the scoring for this test.
NWEA - North West Evaluation Association. This is a computerized adaptive assessment program that Milford administers in grades 3-8 and in the Sage School, usually 2-3 times per year. There are two tests, one in Reading and one in Math. The results are available right after the test is taken, and this test can be effectively used by teachers to personalize educational plans for students.
SAT - Scholastic Aptitude Test. College entrance exam taken by Juniors and Seniors.
Core Performance Assessments - Local assessments created by Milford teachers to insure that uniform core competency is learned across the various classes that are offered in a subject.
Laurie provided detail explanations on all of these tests, but here are some of the highlights.
No Child Left Behind. The NCLB test results for Milford were generally good for this past year, with one exception. Milford met "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP) in all areas except the Reading portion of the Heron Pond Special Education subgroup. If any Heron Pond subgroup does not meet AYP in Reading next year, then Heron Pond will be designated as a school in need of improvement. There are specific actions that will need to be taken if that occurs.
The NECAP scores that are used to calculate AYP were fairly good this past year. Milford's scores were higher than the state average in all areas except for 3rd grade reading.
NWEA - Milford scored above the national average in Reading, and well above the national average in Math. We are guessing that this indicates that the math curriculum that we instituted several years ago as the first implementation of our ongoing curriculum coordination program has been working well. The reading program is much newer and has not had a chance to work yet.
SAT - SAT scores in 2007 were either at or above the NH state average scores and the National average scores.
Core Assessments - These are new rubrics that are are being created for many classes. There are a few tests in existence today, and they expect to have a full complement by next year.
Jacques Summer School Program
Johanna Johnson (Director of Special Studies) and John Foss (Jacques Memorial School Principal) presented an overview of the summer school program that was held this year for students that were entering Readiness or First grade this fall and who were classified as in need of strategic or intensive support.
The DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) test was used to identify students in need. This is a test that enables a very quick assessment of the relative abilities of early learners. Identified students were given two levels of support. The lowest level was the District provided learning kits to parents to work with their children at home. The kits had various elements, but typically contained games that help students to learn things like letters, shapes and colors.
The more intensive program was a summer school program where the students came to the Jacques School for 1- 4 days per week for about a month.
Johanna and John gave a very detailed review of the activities and results of the summer school which I won't go through here. But netting it all out, it appears that the program was very successful at raising the literacy level of the incoming students. Learning to read is critically important to students, and we need to do all we can to get them started on the right foot. Many of the students were at very low levels of literacy after kindergarten, and after having gone through just one month of intensive summer school, they had made significant progress towards meeting the benchmark levels.
Mason Withdrawal Letter
The town of Mason is still trying to leave the Mascenic School District, and they asked for the Milford School Board to provide a letter indicating our support of the proposal. We voted 5-0 to send a letter stating that we would probably be willing to ask our voters if they would support Mason coming to Milford.
Deanna (Dee-Dee) Carter came to the meeting and expressed her strong disapproval of this idea. She discussed the history of Amherst coming to Milford, and then eventually leaving to go on their own. She warned us to be careful, as there is a lot of undeveloped land in Mason and their population could skyrocket in just a few years.
In my opinion, this is a different situation than what was encountered with Amherst. Amherst was about equal to Milford in size, and Mason is only about 5% the size of Milford. They are currently at about 100 students in grades 6-12, and we should be able to absorb the 12-15 students per grade without too much added cost. They will pay tuition based on a formula that will be roughly $8K per year, and our real added variable costs will be much less than that, perhaps only about half as much. This would be very favorable to the Milford taxpayers.
Report of the Schools Document
This has been finalized and will be distributed. Copies are available at the SAU office if you want one. This is a nice folded document that provides summary information about various items of interest about the District.
Bales Study Committee
Rodny Richey and Lorraine Marchildon were appointed to the Bales Study Committee. They join previously appointed members Ron Carvell, Paula Durand, and Bob Willette.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Pavilions are Popping Up All Over
There are two new pavilions being built in Milford right now, and another one was built last year. These are great examples of projects that get done in town behind the scenes by dedicated citizens, often without town funding.
1. The old pavilion at Keyes field was in bad shape and was torn down a couple of years ago. Through the work of a group of people and the donations of a few, a new pavilion was built and dedicated this year. Some of the key organizations and people were the Trustees of the Keyes Memorial Trust, Milford Lumber Company, Granite State Concrete, Skip Gautier, and Jerry Guthrie. Thanks everyone!
2. The Lions Club is building a pavilion at the MCAA fields on North River Road based on the same plans that were created for the Keyes field pavilion. A major portion of the cost of this pavilion was donated by Peter Leishman in memory of Muzzy Morell. This is the bio of Muzzy that was published in the 2006 town report:
"Arthur J. “Muzzy” Morell Jr. - “A life long resident who gave back to the community he loved so much”
We all mourn the passing of a friend who has touched so many people in this wonderful town. His generosity was felt by so many and went unnoticed by those who honored him with the 2006 Citizen of the Year.
One of the founding members of the Milford Community Athletic Association (MCAA) and was instrumental in creating the Keyes Field Recreation Complex. He was a coach, mentor, friend and Dad who loved sports. He also volunteered many hours to the SHARE program and was known as the “guardian angel”.
Muzzy was a member of the American Legion, Knights of Columbus and the Milford Lions Club who honored him with a Melvin Jones Fellow. He was an Army veteran having served during the Korean War. Over the years he served on various Town committees.
A graduate of Milford High School class of 1947 and a self employed electrician for more than 40 years, you could always find him in service with a smile. His dedication of service and friendship will be surely missed by all."
The construction project is headed by John Miller who has spearheaded all aspects of the project, and has done a great job. Joe Stella has contributed a lot, and a few other Lions have helped out. There will be a dedication ceremony on Sunday October 22nd. Thanks John!
3. Matt Clemens(a senior at Milford High) is building a stage at Keyes field for his Boy Scouts Eagle project. The stage is between the pool and the other pavilion that was recently built. This is an ambitious project for a young man like Matt, and it is a real test of character. He had to decide what to do, develop the plans for the project, gain the proper approvals (which was especially difficult due to all the red tape in town), fund raise all the money for the project, beg for help from lots of people, and do a lot of the work. He is about 75% done on the project, and is planning a dedication concert on Saturday October 21st in the afternoon. Great work Matt!
1. The old pavilion at Keyes field was in bad shape and was torn down a couple of years ago. Through the work of a group of people and the donations of a few, a new pavilion was built and dedicated this year. Some of the key organizations and people were the Trustees of the Keyes Memorial Trust, Milford Lumber Company, Granite State Concrete, Skip Gautier, and Jerry Guthrie. Thanks everyone!
2. The Lions Club is building a pavilion at the MCAA fields on North River Road based on the same plans that were created for the Keyes field pavilion. A major portion of the cost of this pavilion was donated by Peter Leishman in memory of Muzzy Morell. This is the bio of Muzzy that was published in the 2006 town report:"Arthur J. “Muzzy” Morell Jr. - “A life long resident who gave back to the community he loved so much”
We all mourn the passing of a friend who has touched so many people in this wonderful town. His generosity was felt by so many and went unnoticed by those who honored him with the 2006 Citizen of the Year.
One of the founding members of the Milford Community Athletic Association (MCAA) and was instrumental in creating the Keyes Field Recreation Complex. He was a coach, mentor, friend and Dad who loved sports. He also volunteered many hours to the SHARE program and was known as the “guardian angel”.
Muzzy was a member of the American Legion, Knights of Columbus and the Milford Lions Club who honored him with a Melvin Jones Fellow. He was an Army veteran having served during the Korean War. Over the years he served on various Town committees.
A graduate of Milford High School class of 1947 and a self employed electrician for more than 40 years, you could always find him in service with a smile. His dedication of service and friendship will be surely missed by all."
The construction project is headed by John Miller who has spearheaded all aspects of the project, and has done a great job. Joe Stella has contributed a lot, and a few other Lions have helped out. There will be a dedication ceremony on Sunday October 22nd. Thanks John!
3. Matt Clemens(a senior at Milford High) is building a stage at Keyes field for his Boy Scouts Eagle project. The stage is between the pool and the other pavilion that was recently built. This is an ambitious project for a young man like Matt, and it is a real test of character. He had to decide what to do, develop the plans for the project, gain the proper approvals (which was especially difficult due to all the red tape in town), fund raise all the money for the project, beg for help from lots of people, and do a lot of the work. He is about 75% done on the project, and is planning a dedication concert on Saturday October 21st in the afternoon. Great work Matt!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Manifest Educational Hardship
I've been doing some work on the school district policies, and there is one obscure one that I just reviewed I'd like to bring to your attention. This is Milford School District Policy # 5090, Manifest Educational Hardship.
In general, resident students of a New Hampshire school district are assigned to a public school within the district by the Superintendent or his designee.
However, in unusual and extraordinary circumstances, parents or guardians may request a change of assignment to another public school within the district, or to another public school in a another district. When the parent or guardian believes that the assignment which has been made will result in a manifest educational hardship to the student, the School Board will consider these requests, according to the procedures in the policy.
This policy is based upon New Hampshire RSA 193:3 Change of School or Assignment; Manifest Educational Hardship or Best Interest; Excusing Attendance.
There are a bunch of details on how this works, but basically, the idea is that if a student has a problem with their assigned school, then there is a mechanism for the student to move to a different location.
Normally, the sending school board (where the student is first assigned) will review that case and decide whether they will support the change in venue for the student. If the move is approved, then the Superintendent for the sending location will contact a Superintendent for a proposed receiving location to see if the receiving district is willing to accept the student. If the school board for the receiving district approves the request, the the student will move to the new district. The sending district would then pay full tuition to the receiving district for the student.
This is a rare event, but has the potential for being very important to an individual student. Students can have major difficulties with interactions with a particular peer group where a complete divorce from the situation is the best course of action.
It is good for people to know that this process exists. You never know when the need to apply it will arise. A student may have drug, alcohol, or relationship problems that are best addressed by a completely new environment.
In general, resident students of a New Hampshire school district are assigned to a public school within the district by the Superintendent or his designee.
However, in unusual and extraordinary circumstances, parents or guardians may request a change of assignment to another public school within the district, or to another public school in a another district. When the parent or guardian believes that the assignment which has been made will result in a manifest educational hardship to the student, the School Board will consider these requests, according to the procedures in the policy.
This policy is based upon New Hampshire RSA 193:3 Change of School or Assignment; Manifest Educational Hardship or Best Interest; Excusing Attendance.
There are a bunch of details on how this works, but basically, the idea is that if a student has a problem with their assigned school, then there is a mechanism for the student to move to a different location.
Normally, the sending school board (where the student is first assigned) will review that case and decide whether they will support the change in venue for the student. If the move is approved, then the Superintendent for the sending location will contact a Superintendent for a proposed receiving location to see if the receiving district is willing to accept the student. If the school board for the receiving district approves the request, the the student will move to the new district. The sending district would then pay full tuition to the receiving district for the student.
This is a rare event, but has the potential for being very important to an individual student. Students can have major difficulties with interactions with a particular peer group where a complete divorce from the situation is the best course of action.
It is good for people to know that this process exists. You never know when the need to apply it will arise. A student may have drug, alcohol, or relationship problems that are best addressed by a completely new environment.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Stellos Stadium
I went to the Milford High School "Home" football game last weekend that was held at Stellos Stadium near Nashua South High School. I had heard about Stellos Stadium on many occasions, but I had never been there before this game.
I left the game with that dreaded disease, (first described by Freud?), commonly known as "Stadium Envy". Stellos is a great football stadium with every amenity that is needed for a local football game. It has great parking, stands, concessions, lighting, and artificial turf.
The stands in particular were noteworthy. The home stands appear to hold about 2500 people and the visitor stands hold about 500, for a total of about 3,000 seats.
We are upgrading the Milford football facilities, but they will not be anywhere near the class of Stellos. We are hoping to get stands with seating for a total of 1,000 people. This is a far cry from the 3,000 at Stellos. Our field will be sod, which will be an upgrade from the dust bowl that we had previously, but it is not as nice as artificial turf.
Well, I'll just have to get over my Stadium Envy and be happy with what we are getting in Milford. The new track and field will be light-years ahead of what we had before and will be a wonderful improvement for the town. (I can still dream though...)
I left the game with that dreaded disease, (first described by Freud?), commonly known as "Stadium Envy". Stellos is a great football stadium with every amenity that is needed for a local football game. It has great parking, stands, concessions, lighting, and artificial turf.
The stands in particular were noteworthy. The home stands appear to hold about 2500 people and the visitor stands hold about 500, for a total of about 3,000 seats.
We are upgrading the Milford football facilities, but they will not be anywhere near the class of Stellos. We are hoping to get stands with seating for a total of 1,000 people. This is a far cry from the 3,000 at Stellos. Our field will be sod, which will be an upgrade from the dust bowl that we had previously, but it is not as nice as artificial turf.
Well, I'll just have to get over my Stadium Envy and be happy with what we are getting in Milford. The new track and field will be light-years ahead of what we had before and will be a wonderful improvement for the town. (I can still dream though...)
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Milford School Board 9/17/07
Superintendent's Report
* Liz O'Hare and Toby Tarnow are offering a new course for students at the High School that is geared toward creating radio drama shows. The course is called the Riverbend iTheater, and they will be creating radio theater productions at the Amato Performing Arts Center at the Boys and Girls Club. More information on the program can be found if you click this link.
* NECAP testing will occur during the first three weeks of October. A summary of last year's NECAP test results will be presented to the school board within the next month.
* There has been some developments on the issue of the windows at the Heron Pond School. Some of the windows in the original portion of the building are difficult to open, and we have been trying to figure out what to do about the problem since the building was originally built. I have tested roughly 15 windows in different rooms, and I have found that I can open all of them, but they are somewhat difficult to operate. Some of the women teachers do not have the physical strength to open some of the windows since it takes a bit of force, and you usually have to lean over a bit to apply the force. We had determined several years ago that the windows were within spec, but were still more difficult to open than we wanted. Recently I have heard that there are at least a small number of windows that are more difficult to open than others, and they may be out of spec.
The manufacturer of the windows, Mannix Windows from Brentwood, NY, has agreed that the windows are in warranty, and that they are guaranteed to be within opening force specifications, which is a pull of 45 pounds. By coincidence, they have a company representative in the area this week, and he will come to the school and do an inspection on all the windows to see if they are within spec or not. If they are out of spec, then Mannix will bring them back within spec.
The company representative will also provide training to District personnel as to how to adjust the windows. They will also provide information on kits that may be available to retrofit windows that are within spec but still harder to open than what is desired.
* The Mason School District is still looking to leave their current arrangement and send their students to Milford schools instead. They are asking for a letter from our District to the Dept of Education that indicates that we want to have them. We had looked at this in some detail a couple of years ago, and this is a win-win situation. They have slightly less than 100 students in grades 6-12, and we should be able to accommodate them in Milford with minimal impact. They would pay tuition based on a formula, and the tuition payments would be in excess of our incremental costs for educating the students. It is likely that at our next meeting we will authorize the administration to issue the letter that Mason is looking to receive.
Potential Warrant Articles
At the beginning of the budget preparation period each year, we try to identify all the potential warrant articles that may be on the March ballot. Putting this list together helps to insure that we consider each item during the budget preparation, but it does not mean that we will necessarily have each of these warrant articles. These are the potential articles, in no particular order.
* Asking for authorization for Mason or other school districts to send tuition students to Milford schools
* One or more construction requests for the creation of Kindergarten facilities. Possibilities include the renovation of the Bales Annex, new construction on the Brox property, and/or purchase/lease of other unidentified facilities.
* Purchase of the property next to the High School on West Street for use as a parking lot.
* Authorization to sell two building lots off of the Heron Pond site. These lots would be used to build houses by the building trades ATC program.
* Potential contract with classified staff bargaining unit.
Bales Study Committee
Ron Carvell and Paula Durand were appointed to the Bales Study Committee. Bob Willette is the School Board Rep.
High School Renovations
The board voted to award the track surfacing bid to Maine Tennis and Track for $203,045.
Leighton A. White has started construction in a big way on the field. They have torn down the bleachers and have started the dirt work.
Our construction management firm, Turnstone Corporation, is looking into the availability of some used bleachers from Adelphi University on Long Island. They have some bleachers that are relatively new that they have taken down because they are building a new stadium. A lot of details need to be worked out, but if it dows work, then there is the possibility that we could get larger bleachers for the same money they we were planning on spending on new. It is unusual to be able to buy used bleachers in good condition, so it is not even something that we had originally planned on investigating.
* Liz O'Hare and Toby Tarnow are offering a new course for students at the High School that is geared toward creating radio drama shows. The course is called the Riverbend iTheater, and they will be creating radio theater productions at the Amato Performing Arts Center at the Boys and Girls Club. More information on the program can be found if you click this link.
* NECAP testing will occur during the first three weeks of October. A summary of last year's NECAP test results will be presented to the school board within the next month.
* There has been some developments on the issue of the windows at the Heron Pond School. Some of the windows in the original portion of the building are difficult to open, and we have been trying to figure out what to do about the problem since the building was originally built. I have tested roughly 15 windows in different rooms, and I have found that I can open all of them, but they are somewhat difficult to operate. Some of the women teachers do not have the physical strength to open some of the windows since it takes a bit of force, and you usually have to lean over a bit to apply the force. We had determined several years ago that the windows were within spec, but were still more difficult to open than we wanted. Recently I have heard that there are at least a small number of windows that are more difficult to open than others, and they may be out of spec.
The manufacturer of the windows, Mannix Windows from Brentwood, NY, has agreed that the windows are in warranty, and that they are guaranteed to be within opening force specifications, which is a pull of 45 pounds. By coincidence, they have a company representative in the area this week, and he will come to the school and do an inspection on all the windows to see if they are within spec or not. If they are out of spec, then Mannix will bring them back within spec.
The company representative will also provide training to District personnel as to how to adjust the windows. They will also provide information on kits that may be available to retrofit windows that are within spec but still harder to open than what is desired.
* The Mason School District is still looking to leave their current arrangement and send their students to Milford schools instead. They are asking for a letter from our District to the Dept of Education that indicates that we want to have them. We had looked at this in some detail a couple of years ago, and this is a win-win situation. They have slightly less than 100 students in grades 6-12, and we should be able to accommodate them in Milford with minimal impact. They would pay tuition based on a formula, and the tuition payments would be in excess of our incremental costs for educating the students. It is likely that at our next meeting we will authorize the administration to issue the letter that Mason is looking to receive.
Potential Warrant Articles
At the beginning of the budget preparation period each year, we try to identify all the potential warrant articles that may be on the March ballot. Putting this list together helps to insure that we consider each item during the budget preparation, but it does not mean that we will necessarily have each of these warrant articles. These are the potential articles, in no particular order.
* Asking for authorization for Mason or other school districts to send tuition students to Milford schools
* One or more construction requests for the creation of Kindergarten facilities. Possibilities include the renovation of the Bales Annex, new construction on the Brox property, and/or purchase/lease of other unidentified facilities.
* Purchase of the property next to the High School on West Street for use as a parking lot.
* Authorization to sell two building lots off of the Heron Pond site. These lots would be used to build houses by the building trades ATC program.
* Potential contract with classified staff bargaining unit.
Bales Study Committee
Ron Carvell and Paula Durand were appointed to the Bales Study Committee. Bob Willette is the School Board Rep.
High School Renovations
The board voted to award the track surfacing bid to Maine Tennis and Track for $203,045.
Leighton A. White has started construction in a big way on the field. They have torn down the bleachers and have started the dirt work.
Our construction management firm, Turnstone Corporation, is looking into the availability of some used bleachers from Adelphi University on Long Island. They have some bleachers that are relatively new that they have taken down because they are building a new stadium. A lot of details need to be worked out, but if it dows work, then there is the possibility that we could get larger bleachers for the same money they we were planning on spending on new. It is unusual to be able to buy used bleachers in good condition, so it is not even something that we had originally planned on investigating.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Milford School Board 9/4/07
Superintendent's Report
The new school year started last week, and it went very well. The staff was in on Monday and Tuesday with start-up activities, grades K-9 started on Wednesday, and grades 10-12 started on Thursday.
They held the District-wide meeting on Tuesday. Bert Becker and I were able to attend the meeting, and it was quite good. I was impressed with the positive outlook that everyone exhibited during the meting. Everyone seemed to be really looking forward to a new school year and the influx of new students. It is difficult to positively motivate large organizations, and our District appears to have excellent morale. There are a lot of factors that go into this, but I think that some of the major ones are our Superintendent's performance, and the fair contracts that we have with our bargaining units.
The three largest classes in the district are the 6th, 9th, and 10th grades, with all of them over 240 students. The formal enrollment numbers will be presented at the first October board meeting, with the board setting the enrollment projections for the next year's budget at the second October meeting. The numbers can fluctuate during the first few weeks of the year, which is why the state waits until October first summarize the enrollment figures for the entire state.
The calendar that was created by Sue Asselin was distributed to the board. Sue has been creating these calendars for a couple of years, and does a great job of it. She raises the money to produce the calendars by selling ads in the calendars, and she prints enough of them to enable all students in the District to get one. The calendars list all the standard school events for the year, and they are a wonderful tool for keeping track of school activities. We use them at our house, and they work great. Thanks Sue!
Beth Powers (High School English Teacher) received the Champion of Human Rights award about a month ago from the NEA. This was partially due to her support of the Peach jam program in Milford.
The district had received written notice from the state that they felt that our ballot question was not detailed enough, and that we might not be authorized to sell bonds for the high school renovation project. Additional information was provided to the state, including the voter guide that was mailed to all residences in town, and the state decided to allow us to sell bonds. We will need to be more critical with the wording of future articles to insure that we do not get into similar situations.
Adequate Yearly Progress
Laurie Johnson gave a brief overview of the AYP results that had been announced by the state last week. She is going to do a much more in-depth overview within a month or so once she has all the detailed data to summarize.
In short, the District made AYP but the K-8 Reading program did not make AYP. The Heron Pond educational disability sub-group did not make AYP for Reading, and as a result, the entire K-8 program did not make AYP for Reading. If the K-8 Reading program does not make AYP next year, then it will be designated as being in need of improvement.
Buildings and Grounds Reports
Bill Cooper gave his annual report summarizing the B&G activities that occurred during the summer break. He passed out a four page report detailing all the actions, but these are some of the highlights:
* Replaced carpeting and painted in the Front Office areas of the High School, Middle School, and Jacques.
* Remediated Asbestos in 15 rooms in the High School in preparation of the renovations that will mainly occur next summer.
* Installed guard rails at the Middle School and Bales.
* Installed a second culvert at Heron Pond to help drain the pond during very high water events.
* The ball field at Heron Pond is in great shape with new fencing, loam, and seeding. It will be rested this fall and go into heavy use starting next spring. It is expected that the MCAA will be allowed to use it in addition to various school uses.
* There were a series of security camera improvements at most schools.
Budget Process Guidelines and Parameters
Peter Bragdon submitted the budget guidelines that we used last year, with a few slight modifications to make some needed corrections.
We changed it during the meeting to add a reference in the voters guide section that the guide should not include political advertising, except that a free candidate profile section would be allowed, similar to the voters guide that was produced last year.
The new school year started last week, and it went very well. The staff was in on Monday and Tuesday with start-up activities, grades K-9 started on Wednesday, and grades 10-12 started on Thursday.
They held the District-wide meeting on Tuesday. Bert Becker and I were able to attend the meeting, and it was quite good. I was impressed with the positive outlook that everyone exhibited during the meting. Everyone seemed to be really looking forward to a new school year and the influx of new students. It is difficult to positively motivate large organizations, and our District appears to have excellent morale. There are a lot of factors that go into this, but I think that some of the major ones are our Superintendent's performance, and the fair contracts that we have with our bargaining units.
The three largest classes in the district are the 6th, 9th, and 10th grades, with all of them over 240 students. The formal enrollment numbers will be presented at the first October board meeting, with the board setting the enrollment projections for the next year's budget at the second October meeting. The numbers can fluctuate during the first few weeks of the year, which is why the state waits until October first summarize the enrollment figures for the entire state.
The calendar that was created by Sue Asselin was distributed to the board. Sue has been creating these calendars for a couple of years, and does a great job of it. She raises the money to produce the calendars by selling ads in the calendars, and she prints enough of them to enable all students in the District to get one. The calendars list all the standard school events for the year, and they are a wonderful tool for keeping track of school activities. We use them at our house, and they work great. Thanks Sue!
Beth Powers (High School English Teacher) received the Champion of Human Rights award about a month ago from the NEA. This was partially due to her support of the Peach jam program in Milford.
The district had received written notice from the state that they felt that our ballot question was not detailed enough, and that we might not be authorized to sell bonds for the high school renovation project. Additional information was provided to the state, including the voter guide that was mailed to all residences in town, and the state decided to allow us to sell bonds. We will need to be more critical with the wording of future articles to insure that we do not get into similar situations.
Adequate Yearly Progress
Laurie Johnson gave a brief overview of the AYP results that had been announced by the state last week. She is going to do a much more in-depth overview within a month or so once she has all the detailed data to summarize.
In short, the District made AYP but the K-8 Reading program did not make AYP. The Heron Pond educational disability sub-group did not make AYP for Reading, and as a result, the entire K-8 program did not make AYP for Reading. If the K-8 Reading program does not make AYP next year, then it will be designated as being in need of improvement.
Buildings and Grounds Reports
Bill Cooper gave his annual report summarizing the B&G activities that occurred during the summer break. He passed out a four page report detailing all the actions, but these are some of the highlights:
* Replaced carpeting and painted in the Front Office areas of the High School, Middle School, and Jacques.
* Remediated Asbestos in 15 rooms in the High School in preparation of the renovations that will mainly occur next summer.
* Installed guard rails at the Middle School and Bales.
* Installed a second culvert at Heron Pond to help drain the pond during very high water events.
* The ball field at Heron Pond is in great shape with new fencing, loam, and seeding. It will be rested this fall and go into heavy use starting next spring. It is expected that the MCAA will be allowed to use it in addition to various school uses.
* There were a series of security camera improvements at most schools.
Budget Process Guidelines and Parameters
Peter Bragdon submitted the budget guidelines that we used last year, with a few slight modifications to make some needed corrections.
We changed it during the meeting to add a reference in the voters guide section that the guide should not include political advertising, except that a free candidate profile section would be allowed, similar to the voters guide that was produced last year.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Labor Day Parade 2007
The VFW did their usual fine job with this year's Labor Day Parade. The weather was perfect, everything went on time, and there were no big gaps between groups.
The funding for the parade was limited this year due to the VFW gambling crackdown that occurred earlier this year, so they were not able to afford the out-of-town bands that usually show up for the parade. I like having the extra bands, and I hope that they find a way to fund them next year.
There are a few events that go on each year that really make a difference in Milford. These are things like the pumpkin festival, the Fourth of July fireworks, and the Labor Day parade. These are all key contributors to improving the spirit of the town, and as such, they indirectly help to increase the economic vitality of the town. Because they are so important to the town, I think that we should support them at least partially though taxes rather than though private funding. I would be in favor of putting at least partial support of the Labor Day parade on the ballot as a separate warrant article next year to see if others in town agree. It would be a shame if the parade were to disappear due to lack of private funding.
There was a good selection of politicians this year since it is a Presidential primary year. I like having the politicians in the parade, and I'd like to see that continue. There are some people that really don't like having the pol's around, but I think that they add a lot to the mix.
We had two top tier presidential candidates with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, a second tier candidate with Chris Dodd, our Congressman Paul Hodes, and Governor John Lynch as the Grand Marshall of the parade.
I sat in an area with a mix of residents ranging from little kids to seniors. Everyone in our area seemed to really enjoy themselves.
Barack Obama came over to our area to shake hands, and it was really interesting. You could feel the electricity in the air when he came by, with just about everyone getting excited. Mitt Romney also shook hands in our area, but the response was much more muted.
The funding for the parade was limited this year due to the VFW gambling crackdown that occurred earlier this year, so they were not able to afford the out-of-town bands that usually show up for the parade. I like having the extra bands, and I hope that they find a way to fund them next year.
There are a few events that go on each year that really make a difference in Milford. These are things like the pumpkin festival, the Fourth of July fireworks, and the Labor Day parade. These are all key contributors to improving the spirit of the town, and as such, they indirectly help to increase the economic vitality of the town. Because they are so important to the town, I think that we should support them at least partially though taxes rather than though private funding. I would be in favor of putting at least partial support of the Labor Day parade on the ballot as a separate warrant article next year to see if others in town agree. It would be a shame if the parade were to disappear due to lack of private funding.
There was a good selection of politicians this year since it is a Presidential primary year. I like having the politicians in the parade, and I'd like to see that continue. There are some people that really don't like having the pol's around, but I think that they add a lot to the mix.
We had two top tier presidential candidates with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, a second tier candidate with Chris Dodd, our Congressman Paul Hodes, and Governor John Lynch as the Grand Marshall of the parade.
I sat in an area with a mix of residents ranging from little kids to seniors. Everyone in our area seemed to really enjoy themselves.
Barack Obama came over to our area to shake hands, and it was really interesting. You could feel the electricity in the air when he came by, with just about everyone getting excited. Mitt Romney also shook hands in our area, but the response was much more muted.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Milford School Board 8/27/07
High School Renovation Project
The school board met in a special meeting on Monday to review the recommendations of the High School Renovation Committee regarding the bids for the track and field site work.
The board discussed the status of the project and the budget implications of the bids that were higher than expected. Tom Hurley (Committee Chair) updated the board on all the discussions that had gone on at the building committee meeting and the background on all the issues. After all the discussions, the board held two votes.
The board voted 5-0 to award the site work project to Leighton White as per his bid. It is expected that Leighton will start work soon after labor day. Mike Trojano and Bill Cooper will look into the feasibility of doing something with the visitor bleachers (such as moving them to the soccer field), and if it seems viable, to act on the option. If it doesn't appear viable, then they will just be torn down as per the specifications.
The board voted 4-1 (Peter Bragdon in opposition) to authorize the building committee to not hire a Clerk of the Works if the Committee decided not to. This vote allows the building committee to make the decision without having to come back to the School Board for further approval. The vote does not obligate the Committee to not hire a Clerk, but the votes gives it the option to do so.
The board did not act on the award of the track surface bid to Maine Tennis and Track as had been approved by the building committee. The documentation of the bid was not presented at the meeting, and it was felt that it would be better to have the paperwork in front of everyone prior to a vote. This was not a time-critical item like the site-work bid since the track work will not be done until next May or so in any case. The bid information will be summarized and brought to a future meeting for approval.
The cost increase was discussed at length, with the basic consensus being that while it was a problem, it seemed to be of a manageable level given the context of the overall project. We will need to be careful moving forward that we make the proper decisions to keep the project within the overall budget and still have a quality result.
Superintendent Suprenant Contract
The board went into non-public session once the track and field discussion was complete. At the end of the non-public session, it was announced that Superintendent Suprenant and the board had reached agreement on a new three-year contract that is a follow-on to his initial three-year contract that recently ended.
I'd like to publicly thank Superintendent Suprenant for his performance during his first three years with Milford. We have made great progress in that time period, and the Milford School District is in great shape and getting better all the time.
While we don't use these terms to describe it, we have instituted processes that are essentially continuous improvement programs. Continuous improvement as a management philosophy is a prime foundation of quality systems, and we do it well in Milford. An example is our curriculum improvement process that is well entrenched in the district now. Every year we look at portions of the curriculum to plan future changes, we test the options for the changes, and we implement the changes. Each subject area flows thought this process on a regular schedule. This allows us to keep our spending relatively uniform from year to year while at the same time insuring that all aspects of the curriculum are refreshed on a regular planned basis.
We set goals each year, and we measure our progress towards meeting the goals. This closed-loop process helps to insure that we are working on the proper items, that we are coordinating our efforts towards meeting common goals, and that we are communicating our efforts to all interested parties.
The school board met in a special meeting on Monday to review the recommendations of the High School Renovation Committee regarding the bids for the track and field site work.
The board discussed the status of the project and the budget implications of the bids that were higher than expected. Tom Hurley (Committee Chair) updated the board on all the discussions that had gone on at the building committee meeting and the background on all the issues. After all the discussions, the board held two votes.
The board voted 5-0 to award the site work project to Leighton White as per his bid. It is expected that Leighton will start work soon after labor day. Mike Trojano and Bill Cooper will look into the feasibility of doing something with the visitor bleachers (such as moving them to the soccer field), and if it seems viable, to act on the option. If it doesn't appear viable, then they will just be torn down as per the specifications.
The board voted 4-1 (Peter Bragdon in opposition) to authorize the building committee to not hire a Clerk of the Works if the Committee decided not to. This vote allows the building committee to make the decision without having to come back to the School Board for further approval. The vote does not obligate the Committee to not hire a Clerk, but the votes gives it the option to do so.
The board did not act on the award of the track surface bid to Maine Tennis and Track as had been approved by the building committee. The documentation of the bid was not presented at the meeting, and it was felt that it would be better to have the paperwork in front of everyone prior to a vote. This was not a time-critical item like the site-work bid since the track work will not be done until next May or so in any case. The bid information will be summarized and brought to a future meeting for approval.
The cost increase was discussed at length, with the basic consensus being that while it was a problem, it seemed to be of a manageable level given the context of the overall project. We will need to be careful moving forward that we make the proper decisions to keep the project within the overall budget and still have a quality result.
Superintendent Suprenant Contract
The board went into non-public session once the track and field discussion was complete. At the end of the non-public session, it was announced that Superintendent Suprenant and the board had reached agreement on a new three-year contract that is a follow-on to his initial three-year contract that recently ended.
I'd like to publicly thank Superintendent Suprenant for his performance during his first three years with Milford. We have made great progress in that time period, and the Milford School District is in great shape and getting better all the time.
While we don't use these terms to describe it, we have instituted processes that are essentially continuous improvement programs. Continuous improvement as a management philosophy is a prime foundation of quality systems, and we do it well in Milford. An example is our curriculum improvement process that is well entrenched in the district now. Every year we look at portions of the curriculum to plan future changes, we test the options for the changes, and we implement the changes. Each subject area flows thought this process on a regular schedule. This allows us to keep our spending relatively uniform from year to year while at the same time insuring that all aspects of the curriculum are refreshed on a regular planned basis.
We set goals each year, and we measure our progress towards meeting the goals. This closed-loop process helps to insure that we are working on the proper items, that we are coordinating our efforts towards meeting common goals, and that we are communicating our efforts to all interested parties.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Bales Mystery Solved
The mystery of what was behind the Bales Elementary School sign has been solved. The District took down the sign early this week, and this is what they found:
The sign says:
The newly-visible old granite sign is very nice, but I don't think that it will work for us going forward. The building is currently used as a combination middle/high alternative school, and there is a good chance that it will be a multipurpose building at some point in the future.
The school has some nice "bones" to it, and I think that it deserves to have a long future.
We are going to put on a new roof and replace the soffits as a side project of the current High School renovation project that was approved last year. The building needs a lot more to get it usable for a potential long term function. There will be a study committee starting up this fall that will investigate the potential uses for the building, and to guide us in figuring out what should be done with the building.
The sign says:
* MILFORD HIGH SCHOOL *
** 1894 **
** 1894 **
The newly-visible old granite sign is very nice, but I don't think that it will work for us going forward. The building is currently used as a combination middle/high alternative school, and there is a good chance that it will be a multipurpose building at some point in the future.
The school has some nice "bones" to it, and I think that it deserves to have a long future.
We are going to put on a new roof and replace the soffits as a side project of the current High School renovation project that was approved last year. The building needs a lot more to get it usable for a potential long term function. There will be a study committee starting up this fall that will investigate the potential uses for the building, and to guide us in figuring out what should be done with the building.
Friday, August 24, 2007
High School Renovation Project
We held another meeting last night of the High School Renovation Committee. The purpose of the meeting was to review the bids that came in for "Phase 1" of the track portion of the project. Phase 1 is primarily for the site work and field aspects of the project.
In summary, the budget for the track and field portion of the overall project is $945k, not including any contingency funds or other soft costs. Our current best estimate for this portion of the project (including items that were bid and place holders for items that were not bid) is $1,274k, or $328k higher than budgeted.
This was based on awarding the site work contract to Leighton White, who bid roughly $619k for the site work, while the next lowest bid of the five received was roughly $697k for the same work.
It was disappointing to get such bad news right at the start of the project, but I don't think that it is a killer to the overall project. There are some things that we can do to ease the pain.
While we don't really have a good explanation as to why the bids were so much higher than our planning budget that was used for the budget, our best guess is that the drainage portion of the project ended up being much more complicated than originally envisioned. The final design included a new separate retention area for the water overflow whereas the original thought was that we could just use the retention pond just below the Middle School. The elevations were such that the existing area was too high to make it work, so a new retention area closer to West street was needed.
We made a couple of changes to the project during the meeting to help solve this cost problem. We decided to eliminate the Clerk of the Works position to save $54k. (We did not actually vote to do this at the meeting, but it is highly likely that we will do so at a future meeting.) The position is not really required since we decided to go with a Construction Manager arrangement instead of strictly using a general contractor. The Construction Manager and our own on-site personnel will keep tabs on the project instead. Having a Clerk of the Works might be marginally better than not having one, but it doesn't seem like it is worth the $54k that it would cost.
We spent a lot of time talking about track surfaces. The original plan was for a urethane based surface, and that is what was included in the estimate. We decided to change to a red-colored latex surface instead of going with the urethane surface. The information that we had was that the latex surface would probably need more frequent maintenance actions than the urethane, but the maintenance would be less expensive each time. The urethane might last longer than the latex, but no one could give us any hard numbers as to how long either surface would last. Both surfaces come with a five-year warranty, so from that perspective, they are about equal. Changing to red-colored latex saves $52k in installation cost as compared to the urethane. Latex seems to be the surface of choice for high schools in this area, with Bedford and Pinkerton both planning on installing latex for their recent projects.
We talked about using a blue surface instead of red just to get it to match our school colors, but supposedly the blue color fades fairly quickly while the red seems to be relatively color-fast. We were given a list of 11 schools that had a latex track, and 9 were red and 2 were blue. We decided that color-fastness was more important than matching the school colors.
Eliminating the Clerk of the Works, and changing the track to latex saved a total of $106k, bringing our cost problem down to $223k. The contingency on the project is budgeted at 15% of the construction costs. The 15% contingency associated with the $945k is $141k. If we apply all of that contingency to this portion of the project, then that decreases the cost problem down to $82k. One hates to tap into contingency so early in the process, but that is what it is for so we might as well go for it now since it is needed.
There are still a number of items that are in the cost build-up with a place-holder number that is an estimate and not an actual bid. One of the bigger items is the bleachers, with a place-holder number of $150k for a 680 seat bleacher on the home side and a 320 seat bleacher on the visitor side. This compares to the roughly 400 home/200 visitor set-up we have today. This $150k figure may be more or less once the bids come in. If we really needed the savings, then would could downsize the bleachers a bit to save cost. For example, it was estimated that changing to a 560 home/200 visitor set-up would save about $35k.
The committee voted to award the bid to Leighton White and to therefore move ahead with the project using the current designs. We will have to deal with the remaining $82k cost problem in some manner on the project, but we left that task to a later date once we get better figures for the other items.
The School Board will review this on Monday, and make a final decision on whether to award the contract to Leighton White. Assuming they do, then it is likely that Leighton will start work soon after Labor Day, We are going to have one final home football game at home on August 31st, so he can't start before then. There may be other issues that delay him a bit, but the work should begin soon.
In summary, the budget for the track and field portion of the overall project is $945k, not including any contingency funds or other soft costs. Our current best estimate for this portion of the project (including items that were bid and place holders for items that were not bid) is $1,274k, or $328k higher than budgeted.
This was based on awarding the site work contract to Leighton White, who bid roughly $619k for the site work, while the next lowest bid of the five received was roughly $697k for the same work.
It was disappointing to get such bad news right at the start of the project, but I don't think that it is a killer to the overall project. There are some things that we can do to ease the pain.
While we don't really have a good explanation as to why the bids were so much higher than our planning budget that was used for the budget, our best guess is that the drainage portion of the project ended up being much more complicated than originally envisioned. The final design included a new separate retention area for the water overflow whereas the original thought was that we could just use the retention pond just below the Middle School. The elevations were such that the existing area was too high to make it work, so a new retention area closer to West street was needed.
We made a couple of changes to the project during the meeting to help solve this cost problem. We decided to eliminate the Clerk of the Works position to save $54k. (We did not actually vote to do this at the meeting, but it is highly likely that we will do so at a future meeting.) The position is not really required since we decided to go with a Construction Manager arrangement instead of strictly using a general contractor. The Construction Manager and our own on-site personnel will keep tabs on the project instead. Having a Clerk of the Works might be marginally better than not having one, but it doesn't seem like it is worth the $54k that it would cost.
We spent a lot of time talking about track surfaces. The original plan was for a urethane based surface, and that is what was included in the estimate. We decided to change to a red-colored latex surface instead of going with the urethane surface. The information that we had was that the latex surface would probably need more frequent maintenance actions than the urethane, but the maintenance would be less expensive each time. The urethane might last longer than the latex, but no one could give us any hard numbers as to how long either surface would last. Both surfaces come with a five-year warranty, so from that perspective, they are about equal. Changing to red-colored latex saves $52k in installation cost as compared to the urethane. Latex seems to be the surface of choice for high schools in this area, with Bedford and Pinkerton both planning on installing latex for their recent projects.
We talked about using a blue surface instead of red just to get it to match our school colors, but supposedly the blue color fades fairly quickly while the red seems to be relatively color-fast. We were given a list of 11 schools that had a latex track, and 9 were red and 2 were blue. We decided that color-fastness was more important than matching the school colors.
Eliminating the Clerk of the Works, and changing the track to latex saved a total of $106k, bringing our cost problem down to $223k. The contingency on the project is budgeted at 15% of the construction costs. The 15% contingency associated with the $945k is $141k. If we apply all of that contingency to this portion of the project, then that decreases the cost problem down to $82k. One hates to tap into contingency so early in the process, but that is what it is for so we might as well go for it now since it is needed.
There are still a number of items that are in the cost build-up with a place-holder number that is an estimate and not an actual bid. One of the bigger items is the bleachers, with a place-holder number of $150k for a 680 seat bleacher on the home side and a 320 seat bleacher on the visitor side. This compares to the roughly 400 home/200 visitor set-up we have today. This $150k figure may be more or less once the bids come in. If we really needed the savings, then would could downsize the bleachers a bit to save cost. For example, it was estimated that changing to a 560 home/200 visitor set-up would save about $35k.
The committee voted to award the bid to Leighton White and to therefore move ahead with the project using the current designs. We will have to deal with the remaining $82k cost problem in some manner on the project, but we left that task to a later date once we get better figures for the other items.
The School Board will review this on Monday, and make a final decision on whether to award the contract to Leighton White. Assuming they do, then it is likely that Leighton will start work soon after Labor Day, We are going to have one final home football game at home on August 31st, so he can't start before then. There may be other issues that delay him a bit, but the work should begin soon.
Milford one of 10 Coolest Small Towns
Budget Travel Magazine named Milford one of the 10 Coolest Small Towns in America! Go Milford!
Too bad it was Milford, PA.
Milford, PA is a small resort town that seems nice from the write up in their story, but I'll take Milford, NH any day.
I ran across the story because I saw an article that mentioned that Peterborough was also named one of the ten coolest small towns in America. The Budget Travel article talks about how the town is cool because it is kind of artsy. Although I hardly ever go there, I am impressed with Peterborough, and I agree that it is a cool little town.
My grandmother grew up in Peterborough, and I remember some of the stories she told me 40 years ago about her life in Peterborough during the first decades of the 20th century. She was there when cars were rare, roads weren't paved, and you were well off if you were able to go to school up to the eighth grade. People routinely worked long hours for low pay, and struggled to make ends meet. Life is so much easier today, in so many ways, and we don't appreciate how well off we really are now.
Too bad it was Milford, PA.
Milford, PA is a small resort town that seems nice from the write up in their story, but I'll take Milford, NH any day.
I ran across the story because I saw an article that mentioned that Peterborough was also named one of the ten coolest small towns in America. The Budget Travel article talks about how the town is cool because it is kind of artsy. Although I hardly ever go there, I am impressed with Peterborough, and I agree that it is a cool little town.
My grandmother grew up in Peterborough, and I remember some of the stories she told me 40 years ago about her life in Peterborough during the first decades of the 20th century. She was there when cars were rare, roads weren't paved, and you were well off if you were able to go to school up to the eighth grade. People routinely worked long hours for low pay, and struggled to make ends meet. Life is so much easier today, in so many ways, and we don't appreciate how well off we really are now.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Milford School Board 8/20/07
Superintendent's Report
Superintendent Suprenant reviewed some of the activities that occurred during the summer including:
* 339 students attending some sort of summer school program,
* Lots of training was held for various staff members,
* The schools were all cleaned and prepped for the new year,
* Some asbestos at the high school was abated in preparation for the upcoming renovations.
He announced that the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores would be released by the State Dept of Education on Tuesday August 28th.
He issued some press releases to highlight various items. One item in particular that he is trying to promote are the new Evening Community Education programs that will be offered this fall. In summary, there are several courses that will be offered on a tuition basis this fall in the evening at the High School. The courses are:
* Conversational Spanish
* We the People...the Citizen and the Constitution
* Digital Scrap Booking with Photoshop
* Microsoft Word 2003
* Microsoft Excel
More information on these offerings can be found on the school web site.There is a link on that page to a description of the courses, and another link to the registration forms. Most of the courses start on Tuesday October 2nd.
Superintendent Suprenant invited the School Board members to attend the opening session for the staff on Tuesday the 28th. I was able to attend the session last year, and I thought that it was very helpful to hear the messages that were given to everyone. The session is used to try to get everyone on the same page for the year, working towards common goals.
PEG Access
David Kirsch is the new PEG Access Director. PEG is Public, Educational, and Government Cable TV Access. Milford has improved the channel 21 access over the past couple of years, and we are making more progress all the time. Dave has some good ideas on how to improve things, and he will be working to add to the program over time.
Some of the things that we discussed were:
* He is hoping to add sports coverage, but there are a bunch of details that need to be worked out. There is just one true home football game this year, and he is hoping to tape the game and broadcast it on channel 21. One issue is that while it is usually fairly easy to get someone to operate the camera, it is usually very difficult to get a commentator/announcer for the game. Dave is hoping to get someone from the Radio club to act as a commentator during the game.
* Dave talked about some of his previous experiences with other schools, such as in Concord. He said that one of the keys to gaining content is to provide a camera/computer/editing software setup to each school to enable them to create presentations on a regular basis.
* He thought that it might be good to create an overview film for each of the ATC programs. These videos could be shown on CATV, and they could also be shown to prospective students from other districts.
* We discussed how we can try to improve the audio quality of the School Board tapings. There are a few choices: do nothing, get a new microphone/mixer setup (about $5K), move to the Selectmen's Meeting Room where they have set up a decent system, or fix up a place in the school that has an improved setup. I am in favor of fixing up Room 4 in the High School as the designated meeting room, instead of just using the Selectman's Room. The main advantage is that Room 4 seats about 100 people, and the Selectmen's Room only seats about 20. Having seating for 20 people is fine for most meetings, but there are usually several meetings a year where 20 is just not enough.
* Dave mentioned that there are satellite feeds of educational programs that are popular in other Districts. He mentioned Annenberg and NASA as being two that were very good. He is going to look to see if we can add them to Milford.
* The Selectmen's meetings are going to be broadcast live in a month or two. We may be able to do the School Board meetings live also, but that would be for a later date and would require some sort of infrastructure to make it happen.
Policy Review
The Staff Protection policy was postponed pending further review of the implications of paying additional compensation on top of Workers' Compensation payments.
The Daily Physical Activity policy was approved. This policy was required by the state standards that were updated last fall. The basic premise of the policy is that the District will encourage all members of the District community to engage in some sort of daily exercise.
I brought up an issue that had come to light during our discussions last meeting on the Daily Physical Activity Policy. The State mandates minimum expectations for this policy, and we used the State guidelines for our policy. The New Hampshire School Boards Association has a sample policy that is more emphatic on a couple of points. For example, in one spot they use the phrase "Commit adequate resources..." and our policy uses the phrase "Support adequate resources..." for the same section. The policy review committee had mentioned this discrepancy at the last meeting when they were discussing the proposed policy.
I thought that it was a good practice for the policy review committee to bring to light any discrepancies like that, and I thank them for doing so on this policy. I asked that in the future, they continue to bring up any discrepancies that are identified between the proposed policy and the NHSBA sample policy. Also, I asked them to identify any NHSBA sample policies that were reviewed, but the committee decided to not implement. My concern on this is that there are some sample policies that have a political philosophy associated with them that might have varying support by the board as a whole. I would prefer that anything that is controversial be dealt with at the board level, and not be decided by a sub-committee without having an open discussion.
The policy committee is systematically going through our existing policies and updating them as required. I would encourage them to change their process to instead of starting with our policy book, that they use the sample policies from the NHSBA as the starting point to try to find the areas where we are deficient.
The policy review committee has been doing a good job, and they have updated quite a few policies. Sometimes just changing the wording in a very slight manner can have a big effect on on the outcome, so they have had to be very careful as they go through the policies.
Bales School
We decided to remove the "Bales Elementary School" sign from the front of the building. This will eliminate the word Elementary from a sign on a school that is no longer an elementary school. It will also allow us to see what is under the sign, since we don't know for sure what the exact wording is that is there. The best guess is that there is a sign under there that says "Centennial School", but there is a chance that it says "Centennial High School".
We did not rename the building at this time, but we may do that at a future meeting.
High School Renovations
Phase one of the bid items have come back in, and they will be presented to the building committee on Thursday 8/23. According to Mike Trojano, the bids on several of the items came in much higher than originally estimated. We are going to have to deal with this in some manner.
The School Board will have a quick meeting on Monday August 27th to review the Building Committee's recommendation about the bids. The objective is to award the grounds work as soon as possible so construction on the field can be started quickly. We'll have to see where the bids are before we do this, since we need to make sure that the overall renovation project stays on track.
World Language Curriculum
The new curriculum was approved.
Superintendent/District Goals
These were approved. Bob Willette asked (and we approved) that a goal to investigate lengthening the school day be added to the list.
Superintendent Suprenant reviewed some of the activities that occurred during the summer including:
* 339 students attending some sort of summer school program,
* Lots of training was held for various staff members,
* The schools were all cleaned and prepped for the new year,
* Some asbestos at the high school was abated in preparation for the upcoming renovations.
He announced that the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores would be released by the State Dept of Education on Tuesday August 28th.
He issued some press releases to highlight various items. One item in particular that he is trying to promote are the new Evening Community Education programs that will be offered this fall. In summary, there are several courses that will be offered on a tuition basis this fall in the evening at the High School. The courses are:
* Conversational Spanish
* We the People...the Citizen and the Constitution
* Digital Scrap Booking with Photoshop
* Microsoft Word 2003
* Microsoft Excel
More information on these offerings can be found on the school web site.There is a link on that page to a description of the courses, and another link to the registration forms. Most of the courses start on Tuesday October 2nd.
Superintendent Suprenant invited the School Board members to attend the opening session for the staff on Tuesday the 28th. I was able to attend the session last year, and I thought that it was very helpful to hear the messages that were given to everyone. The session is used to try to get everyone on the same page for the year, working towards common goals.
PEG Access
David Kirsch is the new PEG Access Director. PEG is Public, Educational, and Government Cable TV Access. Milford has improved the channel 21 access over the past couple of years, and we are making more progress all the time. Dave has some good ideas on how to improve things, and he will be working to add to the program over time.
Some of the things that we discussed were:
* He is hoping to add sports coverage, but there are a bunch of details that need to be worked out. There is just one true home football game this year, and he is hoping to tape the game and broadcast it on channel 21. One issue is that while it is usually fairly easy to get someone to operate the camera, it is usually very difficult to get a commentator/announcer for the game. Dave is hoping to get someone from the Radio club to act as a commentator during the game.
* Dave talked about some of his previous experiences with other schools, such as in Concord. He said that one of the keys to gaining content is to provide a camera/computer/editing software setup to each school to enable them to create presentations on a regular basis.
* He thought that it might be good to create an overview film for each of the ATC programs. These videos could be shown on CATV, and they could also be shown to prospective students from other districts.
* We discussed how we can try to improve the audio quality of the School Board tapings. There are a few choices: do nothing, get a new microphone/mixer setup (about $5K), move to the Selectmen's Meeting Room where they have set up a decent system, or fix up a place in the school that has an improved setup. I am in favor of fixing up Room 4 in the High School as the designated meeting room, instead of just using the Selectman's Room. The main advantage is that Room 4 seats about 100 people, and the Selectmen's Room only seats about 20. Having seating for 20 people is fine for most meetings, but there are usually several meetings a year where 20 is just not enough.
* Dave mentioned that there are satellite feeds of educational programs that are popular in other Districts. He mentioned Annenberg and NASA as being two that were very good. He is going to look to see if we can add them to Milford.
* The Selectmen's meetings are going to be broadcast live in a month or two. We may be able to do the School Board meetings live also, but that would be for a later date and would require some sort of infrastructure to make it happen.
Policy Review
The Staff Protection policy was postponed pending further review of the implications of paying additional compensation on top of Workers' Compensation payments.
The Daily Physical Activity policy was approved. This policy was required by the state standards that were updated last fall. The basic premise of the policy is that the District will encourage all members of the District community to engage in some sort of daily exercise.
I brought up an issue that had come to light during our discussions last meeting on the Daily Physical Activity Policy. The State mandates minimum expectations for this policy, and we used the State guidelines for our policy. The New Hampshire School Boards Association has a sample policy that is more emphatic on a couple of points. For example, in one spot they use the phrase "Commit adequate resources..." and our policy uses the phrase "Support adequate resources..." for the same section. The policy review committee had mentioned this discrepancy at the last meeting when they were discussing the proposed policy.
I thought that it was a good practice for the policy review committee to bring to light any discrepancies like that, and I thank them for doing so on this policy. I asked that in the future, they continue to bring up any discrepancies that are identified between the proposed policy and the NHSBA sample policy. Also, I asked them to identify any NHSBA sample policies that were reviewed, but the committee decided to not implement. My concern on this is that there are some sample policies that have a political philosophy associated with them that might have varying support by the board as a whole. I would prefer that anything that is controversial be dealt with at the board level, and not be decided by a sub-committee without having an open discussion.
The policy committee is systematically going through our existing policies and updating them as required. I would encourage them to change their process to instead of starting with our policy book, that they use the sample policies from the NHSBA as the starting point to try to find the areas where we are deficient.
The policy review committee has been doing a good job, and they have updated quite a few policies. Sometimes just changing the wording in a very slight manner can have a big effect on on the outcome, so they have had to be very careful as they go through the policies.
Bales School
We decided to remove the "Bales Elementary School" sign from the front of the building. This will eliminate the word Elementary from a sign on a school that is no longer an elementary school. It will also allow us to see what is under the sign, since we don't know for sure what the exact wording is that is there. The best guess is that there is a sign under there that says "Centennial School", but there is a chance that it says "Centennial High School".
We did not rename the building at this time, but we may do that at a future meeting.
High School Renovations
Phase one of the bid items have come back in, and they will be presented to the building committee on Thursday 8/23. According to Mike Trojano, the bids on several of the items came in much higher than originally estimated. We are going to have to deal with this in some manner.
The School Board will have a quick meeting on Monday August 27th to review the Building Committee's recommendation about the bids. The objective is to award the grounds work as soon as possible so construction on the field can be started quickly. We'll have to see where the bids are before we do this, since we need to make sure that the overall renovation project stays on track.
World Language Curriculum
The new curriculum was approved.
Superintendent/District Goals
These were approved. Bob Willette asked (and we approved) that a goal to investigate lengthening the school day be added to the list.
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