Migration savings from health insurance: Committee meeting notes

Agenda is here
Boone: positions restored and textbook spending

Biancheria: secondary positions: restores 5 of 5; adds one
Special ed IAs: not placed until we know enrollment
Boone: student attrition and student enrollment determine placement of IAs
Biancheria: 7 positions (13 of 20 that remain): when would you be placing certain schools?
Boone: reviewing now, goal to finish it well before the staff report
how do we determine which IAs come back, asks Biancheria
Luster: did not actually lay off any IAs; waited to lay off in August
none laid off; none know where they will be assigned; normally would do some hiring, not hiring; will have 7 fewer but with no layoffs
Monfredo: is that true of secondary teachers? Yes. "The risk was worth the unemployment savings."
teachers not necessarily going back to the same school; shifts in enrollment
Novick: placement of bilingual office aides?
are we getting novels as part of the books? (this isn't clear...): textbooks (from Mulqueen) going to new APs, new courses, and filling shortages of books
will survey again in the fall to be sure that needs line up with what schools got
Monfredo: plea for nurses
Foley: lauds unions, City Manager for work on getting contracts settled
concerns about compliance on special ed
glad to see some dollars going to non-recurring expenses
"nice spread of the money across the system"
Mayor O'Brien: "when this committee took office, only one union was settled...had a lot of pressure on us to cut a deal...give credit to this committee to stick together to make sure that people were paid fairly, but could restore positions in difficult economic times..."
250,000 teachers losing their jobs across the country
putting us in a position to grow: "For the first time we're finally being able to ask, 'what can we add?'"
"want to see how we can identify some dollars for some training and support for our instructional assistants..."
not the same skills to be an sped IA as a kindergarten IA; provide additional education and support for aides
more financial incentives: "identify a significant amount of money" to make this work
diversification of teacher staff: would like to see identify as priority; make an early offer to them
"be creative and willing to take some bets..."
asks for a working group on the IAs (motion)
O'Connell: are there any new books coming in? Need for review by subcommittee
textbooks have already been reviewed; nothing you haven't already seen (Mulqueen)
O'Connell: asks if there are other needs in schools in terms of placement of office aides; Luster says we've looked whether there are others in the office who speak Spanish
"as we post for vacancies for school secretaries, we are looking for those who language skills"
O'Connell: technology plan: have we made all of the acquisitions in the plan?
Allen: have been able to catch up: 1 to 2 year old computers for $150/monitor
looking at other technology now
O'Connell asks that the three year technology plan be reviewed and updated
O'Brien asks if we could have a one page on what we spent money for technology
Boone asks if we can add it to the opening of school report
wifi capacity in schools; can we include that in the report of what's in schools?
Biancheria asks if it's possible for schools to share positions? We're still down seven positions
Boone points out that the IAs placement is usually driven by student IEPs
in some cases IAs were not supporting students on IEPs
reporting coming back on special education: plan looks at how we address that achievement issue for students
Biancheria asks if this is going to be about our levels of special education numbers being higher than other states; reminder that this was a concern of several members (who'd rather be higher than other states)
Boone: looking at identification issues; making sure that it isn't language issues
"very multifaceted"
Biancheria asks for location of aides and number of IEPs at that school
Boone mentions severity of need varies