School Board Reviews Transition Plans and Progress on Buildings and Facilities

The Board of Education has been busy all summer preparing to lead Scarsdale through the 2015-2016 school year with two newly elected Board members, Pamela Fuehrer and Arthur S. Rublin, and a new Board President, Lee Maude. The first regularly scheduled school year meeting occurred on Wednesday morning September 9, 2015. The morning meeting time and mid-week day is part of a new scheduling format introduced this year to offer an opportunity for participation to community members who have been unable to attend Monday evening Board meetings. Also new this year is participation of the Assistant Superintendents (Bernard Josefsberg – Human Resources, Stuart Mattey – Business, Lynne Shain - Instruction) at the Board table for discussion. The benefit of this arrangement, according to Maude is that it "will allow us to have meaningful, authentic, and collaborative conversation and reach consensus among the Board and the Cabinet. "

The Board introduced an operational framework titled "Three Year Transition Plan" from which they will work to complete educational goals and initiatives, complex planning, vast administrative management duties and advocacy. The plan designates eight areas of focus, or Portfolios, as shown below.

• Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction/21st Century Learning
• Construction and Facilities
• Communication, Community Involvement and Political Outreach
• Budget and Finance and Negotiations
• Technology
• Special Education and Pupil Services
• Human Capital and Leadership Development
• BOE Development, Leadership, Succession Planning, and Staff Relationships

Each Portfolio group has a leadership team, sub-goals, timetables, measurements and deliverables. For more detailed information, review the entire document can be here and read our recent interview with Dr. Hagerman here:

At each meeting, after discussing Board administrative business, the Board will work on various aspects of the Transition Plan. During Wednesday morning meetings, the Board will review progress on the Transition Plan followed by an in-depth presentation and discussion about one or two of the eight Portfolio topics. This week's meeting provided updates on work completed over the summer in each Portfolio area followed by a presentation on Construction and Facilities by Stuart Mattey.

Mr. Mattey is new to the district having just taken over the business position from long-term employee and repository of institutional knowledge Linda Purvis. He faced a tremendous amount of work and little time to get up to speed in his new role. He did an impressive job covering the facilities issues, demonstrating familiarity of district history and a firm grasp of the work requirements ahead.

Mattey highlighted a number of important subjects during his presentation including:

• Current and future construction projects with schedules and budget statuses.
• Formation of the District Construction Committee. Membership solicitation letter to community has been sent out. The deadline for applications will be extended in response to requests from community members for more time.
• Personnel additions to the Greenacres Feasibility Committee from school staff, neighborhood association, and PTA for a total of 8 new members (total committee membership will be 18).
• Detailed back-up documentation for the Greenacres Feasibility Study on building conditions, classroom standards and demographics, comparison to other buildings in the district, and general research on classroom size will be made available on the Board of Education website in the next week or two.
• Concerns about the lengthy State Education Department approval process of construction projects and potential adverse impact to current implementation plans.
• A district-wide building condition survey to be completed by architects KG&D over the next few months to become key component for a five-year capital plan.

A final note on Greenacres; the Board acknowledged that there is a lot of community concern and desire for involvement in the decision making process. Once again it was stressed that no decisions have been made about the future of the Greenacres School and the situation will continue to be reviewed in collaboration with all the interested stakeholders.

This meeting can be viewed in its entirety on the Board of Education Video on Demand site here. The next Board of Education meeting will be held on Monday, September 21, 2015.