Attendance an Issue at School Board Meeting

The Danbury Board of Education met Thursday evening, delayed from Wednesday due to the snowstorm, with six of the 11 members in attendance.

When one left early, the meeting’s quorum was lost, and so then when Dr. Sal Pascarella asked to reschedule a discussion about building use as a workshop meeting, board members wondered whether a quorum (a majority of board members) was required for a workshop.

This led to expressions of annoyance about board members’ absenteeism from meetings and a quarrel over whether Chairman Irving Fox should poll members on their availability before scheduling an extra meeting, which he said he felt he should do.

“I do not believe we need a quorum for a workshop,” said Gladys Cooper, who at the meeting was presented a plaque by Mayor Mark Boughton for 20 years of service on the board. “When we’re having a workshop, we’re not voting on anything.

“I think people have a commitment as an elected official to come to everything they can possibly come to,” Cooper continued, adding that she can‘t come during the day because “those are business hours and I’m lucky to have a job.”

“I just put in 20 hours straight, and I still came,” said Joe Scozzafava, citing Wednesday’s snowstorm.

Fox said voters would notice if members were not in attendance: “This is why we have voting. The public decides based on who is participating.”

But Vice Chair Richard Jannelli disagreed. “I don’t think the public pays attention to who is there,” he said.

Before the quorum was lost, the board went into an executive session, closed to the public and media, to discuss the recent arbitration award for teacher, administrator and secretaries/IT workers’ contracts. After this discussion, the board voted to ratify the contracts.

In other discussion, Deputy Superintendent William Glass briefed the board on the district’s need to form School Governance Councils by November 2011 at three school that were identified by the state for not making Annual Yearly Progress: Danbury High School, the Alternative Center for Excellence (ACE) high school, and Stadley Rough Elementary School.

“The devil is in the details,” Glass said, explaining that since being identified, Stadley Rough has met the achievement requirements, while other schools that might benefit from having advisory councils cannot be included.

Glass and Pascarella plan to work with the state Department of Education to try to improve the process, but, said Pascarella, “The state Department (of Education) is in turmoil and the commissioner has resigned.”

The advisory councils would include parents, teachers and other community members, who would make recommendations to the Board of Education. “They’re advisory to the principal if the principal chooses to be there,” Pascarella said. “They have no function to the board by statute.”

The results of the councils “in a healthy environment,” said Glass, but “The opposite outcome could also play out as well” and it could turn into a “confrontational and potentially destructive” process, depending on the individuals chosen for each council.

Danbury is one of 15 districts around the state required to form these councils, and most of the other districts are being required to do it sooner. “It’s terrible for me to say this, but we can learn from others’ mistakes,” Glass said.

Some board members expressed worry about requiring already struggling schools to form the advisory councils.

“Isn’t that adding more of a burden to the local school?” Jannelli said, adding that legislators need to re-think the process. “This is something that can put us in incredible turmoil.”

Also at Thursday’s meeting, Glass described this year’s programs at the middle and elementary school level for students identified as gifted, after losing the previous program to budget cuts last year. The middle school program is now part of the after-school extended learning program and focuses on science and engineering, and elementary school students from around the city meet on Saturday mornings to depict community issues through “Claymation.”

The board also accepted four donations: Sodexo, the district’s food service provider, donated $17,000- $1,000 to each school- for the Adopt-a-School program; Student Transportation of American donated a bus to be used for literacy outreach; and the Science House Foundation donated four Lego Mindstorm Robotic kits.

Also, the Greek Orthodox Church donated $1,500 to the Family Literacy Center, which the board acknowledged is in danger of losing its federal funding and needs to find replacement funds to stay open.

In attendance at Thursday‘s meeting were board members Joseph Scozzafava, Chairman Irving Fox, Vice Chair Richard Jannelli, Robert Taborsak, Gladys Cooper and Eileen Alberts, who left early.