We had our normal voting meeting of the Board on Monday night. The agenda is posted here.
First off, the Pledge of Allegiance was led by students from Jefferson Elementary School who then spoke to the Board about one of the character education traits they are learning. This month it was about Honesty. What a great job they did.
In the Board President's report, Mr. Hart spoke of the challenges that will face this district given the current national economic crisis.
In the Superintendent's report, Mr. Allison congratulated the Mt Lebanon High School girls soccer program for an outstanding season. We also heard about an award for teacher Matthew Mikesell for his mock trial of George Washington. Please see this link to learn a bit more about that, including pictures of the students working with Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Max Baer. Great job.
Other things of note at the meeting included:
1) A recommendation by the Audit/Finance Committee to put aside a total of $1.5 million for OPEB liabilities. OPEB is the health care retirement fund that the district funds until retired teachers reach age 65. The $1.5 million will fund approximately 3 years of the trust and will get us through to the next teachers contract. In addition to this outlay, the District needs to continue to fund the OPEB Trust Fund each year. I first posted about this back in June and suggested at the time to fund as much as we could until the end of the current teachers contract.
2) There was also a mention of a proposal I put forth for an additional high school project option. I did talk about this at an Audit/Finance Committee meeting on Thursday in order to get some feedback on the willingness of the Board to pursue this option. It generated a very good discussion at the meeting and I am hopeful I will be able to present something to the public in the next month.
3) The Board voted to extend the contract of our bond underwriters. This did not commit us to anything but it did allow us to keep our options open regarding floating up to $69 million worth of bonds. If we had let this expire then we would be back at square one if we decided to pursue something with regards to bond issuance.
4) The Board voted unanimously to approve the graduation requirements and course offerings for the District. During the discussion meeting the previous week I had asked if there were any adjustments made in light of the State's desire to implement Graduate Competency Exams. The administration was confident that our graduation requirements met or exceeded any criteria that the State might put out and that no changes were necessary due to happenings at the PDE level.
One final note. I am soliciting feedback with regards to meeting dates. At the Reorganization Meeting, the Board will set the schedule for the next year of meetings. As I posted last week, the Commission and the School Board meetings conflict on the 2nd Monday of each month. I am willing to move our meetings to another night or the 1st Monday of the month to accomodate those that want to attend both meetings. It might be more difficult to do than it would seem at first glance, but I wanted to get some feedback from people. Let me know if you have any ideas.
That is it for now. Upcoming meetings are as follows:
December 2, 2008 – 7:30 p.m. Reorganization Meeting
Mt. Lebanon High School Library
December 8, 2008 – 7:30 p.m. Discussion Meeting
Mt. Lebanon High School Library
December 15, 2008 – 7:30 p.m. Regular Meeting
Mt. Lebanon High School Library
Thanks for reading.
James
