Board of Ed, School District Set Priorities for Academic Year

The Board of Education reviewed a list of goals for the School District of the Chathams and for the board at its meeting Monday night.

The list of 23 district goals for the current academic year and 19 board goals were compiled from last year's unaccomplished goals and from the board's self-evaluation and the superintendent evaluation.

Goals were presented in a list that evaluators could then vote on for importance. Board member Alan Routh said that eight out of nine board members had completed the evaluation. The list presented Monday showed the priority board members voted on.

Board member Matthew Gilfillan expressed concern that by focusing on only a few main goals "we are doing a disservice to the lower items on the list."

Superintendent James O'Neill responded by saying that over the course of a few years "certain things become a priority" and that if the district were to give equal importance to the top items as well as the lower ones, "it would get so big that it would be unwieldy for us."

The board discussed reordering and combining some of the goals and will vote to adopt the top few in the next meeting.

The top four board goals (out of 19) that the board plans to adopt in the next meeting are:

1. Enact a plan to accommodate our increasing student population.
2. Formalize and implement a year-round public communication plan involving board committees and the administration
3. Conduct an official strategic planning session with board members and the superintendent to assess the board's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats so the board can be proactive and make strategic goals around them.
4. Develop specific strategies to improve the long term financial health of the district.

Some of the items closer to the bottom of the list were: No. 19, "Build a wrestling room," No. 17, "Find or create an indoor facility in Chatham for our hockey players to practice and compete in," and  No. 14, "Create a committee to search for and apply for grants offered by the federal government."

After some discussion the board agreed to vote upon the following five district goals in the next meeting:

1. Develop a five-year proactive plan with contingencies: Predict/anticipate potential gaps and mitigations to resole these gaps (growth of high school enrollment); and pick five biggest challenges over the next five years and develop contingency plans.
2. Formalize and implement a year-round communications plan involving all board committees ad the administration.
3. Continue to address the need to meet AYP for all students, including Special Education students.
4. Include Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) in district goals.
5. Complete all of the necessary information for Quality Single Accountability Continuum (QSAC).

Item No. 4 in the above list was originally No. 9. The original No. 4, "consideration of possible referendum completed," was determined to be a board goal rather than a listed one. The board decided to move No. 9 into the No. 4 slot.

Items at the bottom of the list of district goals were No. 21, "Ice Hockey Rink," No. 22, "Town swimming pool consideration" and No. 23, "Recognize that New Jersey is the second best state in the country in wrestling and that in the last three years (if not longer) colleges recruited more wrestlers from New Jersey than any other state."

QSAC is the State Department of Education's system of evaluating public schools and districts. Each year districts complete a self-evaluation for QSAC.