Holliston School Committee Meeting Review

Thursday night’s last School Committee meeting of the academic year began with the reappointment of the Chair, Lisa Galeaz, Vice-Chair, Erica Plunkett, and Secretary, Cheryl Kelly.  Sub-committee assignments will likely be discussed at the next meeting.  Superintendent Jackson wished everyone a very happy and safe summer and urged Holliston’s older students, who are enjoying more freedom, to act and drive responsibly, as well as respectfully reminded parents that these same children still need supervision.  Assistant Superintendent Tim Cornely congratulated the class of 2009 and told the upcoming classes that the seniors set a nice model for them.

The first presentation of the evening was the annual reports by the parent groups in town.  Ric Morant, outgoing President of the PTSA, stated that the PTSA is really looking to increase membership and volunteerism in the upcoming year. There is an effort is underway to look at consolidating some of the organizations, while still maintaining autonomy at the school level.  The PTSA Auction, the biggest fundraiser of the year, brought in over $34K this year, exceeding last year, and the PTSA was delighted to be able to award almost $30K in grants.

Donald Gray, presenting for Jayne Jones, President of the Holliston Education Foundation, also reported on a terrific year, with highlights including the community-wide Spelling Bee (which may morph next year into a Trivia Bee), the Spotlight on Excellence Teacher Awards, and the introduction this year of a Teacher Intensive Study Grant.  This summer, one of Holliston’s Elementary Art teachers will be studying how to create and install a student-designed mosaic.  Three HHS science teachers will be heading to the Amazon to participate in an expedition with Earthwatch. The goal is to have students take part possibly as soon as next year.

Karen Berg, outgoing President of the recently renamed Holliston Music and Arts Parents Group, spoke of the newly designed website and calendar which are aimed at increasing communication with the entire community.  The list of fundraisers included the membership drive, the citrus sale, the pizza and cookie dough sale and the Pops concert concessions.  Money raised goes to support teacher grants, and student scholarships.  The list of events this year is even more impressive: Pep Band; Bye Bye Birdie; Celebrate Holliston and Memorial Day performances; school-based concerts; Pops concert; Up the Down Stair Case, Art Saves Lives; and, an evening of Jazz.  All these events are open to the whole community and our fine and performing arts students love to share their talent.

Heather Scaringella and Dianne Durkee, outgoing President and Secretary of Holliston Elementary Parents Organization, reported that the organization’s volunteer base is strong and organized.  HEPO has over 25 committees, ranging from fundraising to enrichment, appropriations to social and family events.  This year, HEPO raised over $44K through 14 different fundraisers.  Next year, HEPO hopes to increase awareness and participation in the SCRIP program, as well as focusing on community outreach and marketing, with a re-postured website and newsflash participation.  Teacher grants from HEPO included: science engineering kits; color scanner; fine motor kits; Response to Intervention training; numerous books; and Jurassic sand. 

Reporting on behalf of the Middle School Parents Group Executive Board, Patty Osten, Dawn Waddell, Denise Cronin, and Kathy Cheever, Erica Plunkett indicated a major focus on supporting the new Adams administrators, Principal Peter Botelho and Assistant Principal John Harutunian.  It has been a strong and collaborative year at Adams, and in addition to furthering the challenging and nurturing academic environment, MSPG is working on creating more social opportunities for our middle schoolers.  Additionally, despite a challenging economic environment, MSPG was able to raise over $18K through their magazine drive.  Besides items annually funded, like Culture Connection, Nature’s Classroom, and Teacher Appreciation week, MSPG was also able to direct money towards the following: a Smartboard; a Mac Notebook for student podcasts; History Alive Social Studies books and curriculum; school newspaper; 8^th grade service and intergenerational day; art supplies; and professional development for teacher summer intensive in Critical Friends Group Coaching.  Lastly, MSPG is delighted to have been able to donate the new RAMS sign at the front of the school. The group hopes it will facilitate communication, while being green, and heighten public awareness of all the wonderful events and activities at the Adams middle school.

Finally, Dr. Jackson reported on behalf of Deb Steiner, Holliston High School Parents Group President.  It was a very active year, with the Teacher Breakfast, Celebrate Holliston, the Holiday Stroll, Christmas Tree sales, Pies, and an evening of Hypnosis.  HHSPG received more grant requests than they could fund, and will next year be focusing on recruitment and membership, and also participating in looking at the consolidation of parent groups.  Parent groups in Holliston raise from $150K-$200K annually, and grant much of the funds raised back to the teachers, schools, students, and curriculum.  It is especially obvious this year that certain things are being funded by parents that should be funded as part of the school budget but simply cannot.  The parent groups and the administration hopes this changes in the very near future.

The final presentation of the evening was by Business Manager Keith Buday and the members of the Wellness Council and a report of their work this year.  Primarily, this was the Wellness Expo, which they hope will become an annual event.  Efforts next year will be aimed at increasing communication and refining the logistics around the event.  Further efforts will be expanding Holliston Unplugged, and looking at the School Lunch Program.

The School Committee voted in Officer Dave Gatchell as the School Attendance Officer for the 2009-2010 school year.

Tim Cornely reported on all the summer curriculum work taking place over July and August, ranging from curriculum documentation in numerous subjects, to curriculum development.  There will be an administrative retreat, and mentor training, new teacher orientation, and of course, opening day for the teachers on August 31.  Please note that the first day of school for students will be Tuesday, September 1, which is over two months from now J

While the end of the school year is always memorable, it is especially so with the news Dr. Jackson shared with the Committee Thursday night. As many of you may know, for the past two years, several classes at the Miller School have been participating in the pilot for Pearson Publishing new enVision math program.  For this participation, Holliston has received hours of professional development, financial reimbursements, texts, manipulatives, a six-year license for online software, independent stipends, etc. Now, through the intensive efforts of Currciulum Coordinator Pat Rourke and our participation in their research program, Holliston has received the 2011 copyright textbooks for the entire grade 1-5 math program.  This state-of-the-art curriculum, aligned to state and national frameworks, totals over $229K and is at no charge Holliston’s taxpayers.   

But there’s more.  Holliston’s K-5 literacy program is currently comprised of individual components in areas such as spelling, phonics, writing, etc.  This is one approach to literacy, while another approach, called an anthology, is from a single vendor and links these components via a unified curriculum and tends to provide more consistency.  These anthologies are typically extremely expensive.  Pearson Publishing has such a program called Reading Street.  It offers daily targeted instruction in all areas of literacy across a range of learners and is almost 70% non-fiction.  The Holliston Public Schools have once again been selected by Pearson to participate in the newest iteration of this curriculum, due out in 2011.  Several classes will be piloting this curriculum, which will culminate prior to 2011 in Pearson providing ALL K-5 Reading Street materials to our Placentino and Miller schools.  This complete program has a an estimated retail value $500K.  Due to the extraordinary efforts of Literacy Curriculum Coordinators Kathy Balcom and Allison Lindstrom, and Pat Rourke in Math, along with the hard work of our classroom teachers who are implementing these new materials and systems, Holliston will be receiving comprehensive and state-of-the-art Math and ELA curricula, worth nearly three-quarters of a million dollars FREE to the community’s taxpayers.  Holliston is only 1 in 8 communities across the country to pilot these programs and the ONLY community in the country to pilot BOTH Math and ELA.  This is an extraordinary accomplishment. It’s good to end the year on such a positive and exciting note, and congratulations to all involved who worked so hard to ensure it.

On behalf of the entire School Committee and the Administration, we wish all families and the community a safe, healthy, happy, and hopefully eventually, sunny and warm, summer.  The next meeting will be on Thursday, July 16.

Erica Plunkett

School Committee Communications Liaison