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Minutes 01-11-01MINUTES OF THE EDUCATION ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING HELD IN THE LIBRARY PROGRAM ROOM, JANUARY 11, 2001 AT 6:00 P.M., BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA PRESENT Also Present Diana Tedtmann, Chair Judith Braswell, Alternate Concepcion Galdos Arlene Greenberg Michael Hazlett Dorothy Howard Rosalind Murray, Alternate (arrived 7p.m.) Virginia Farace, Education Advisory Board Liaison ABSENT Rae Fellows Revia Lee Aly Gore, Student Caroline Roter, Student PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Chair Diana Tedtmann called the meeting to order at 6:10 p.m. and led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Chair Tedtmann welcomed the members of the public in attendance and asked the Board to introduce themselves. II. ROLL CALL The Recording Secretary called the roll and it was declared that a quorum was present. III. MINUTES APPROVAL There were no corrections, additions or deletions to the minutes of December 14, 2000 and Chair Tedtmann declared that the minutes were accepted as written. IV. CHAIR'S REPORT Chair Tedtmann spoke of the agenda for the meeting and the addition of a time range after each topic. It was hoped that this would keep the meeting more focused on the slated agenda. Chair Tedtmann stated that time would be allowed at the end of the meeting to discuss other topics if the Board so desired. Concepcion Galdos was introduced as the new Board member and given a warm welcome. Meeting Minutes ~-- Education Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida January 11,2001 Chair Tedtmann spoke of the desirability of 1) filling Board vacancies with representatives from every segment of the community and 2) coming up with suggestions for ways in which the City Commission could be instrumental in promoting education in Boynton Beach. V. CITY LIAISON'S REPORT Ms. Farace stated that the things she wanted to talk about were on the agenda and she would discuss them as they came up. VI. PUBLIC AUDIENCE No one spoke during public audience. VI. UNFINISHED BUSINESS A. Meeting Day and Time Chair Tedtmann said this issue had come up because one of the student members had a class that conflicted with the Thursday night meeting time. Chair Tedtmann preferred the first Thursday of the month for the meeting. The Board reached consensus on keeping the meeting date and time as the first Thursday of the month at 6:00 p.m. B. Workshop Day and Time After discussion, the Board decided to have a workshop on February 10, 2001 in the Library at 9:00 a.m. At the workshop, goals will be identified, prioritized, and individuals willing to take a leadership on a given issue will take responsibility for particular issues. The Board decided to use the capital initiatives recently adopted by the City Commission as a basis for coming up with suggested educational priorities for the Commission to consider when they revisited their goals for the coming year. C. South County Education Coalition Chair Tedtmann said this item had been in the newspapers under the name of Tri Cities but she was advised that the correct name was South County Education Coalition. She mentioned that their first meeting would be held on February 20, 2001, 6:30 p.m., Old School Square, and would be attended by Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and Boynton Beach. The addition of COBWRA to the attendees was discussed but it was felt that if they were included, West Boca and West Delray would also have to be included and that this would result in an inordinately large group. Mr. Hazlett asked about the current status of the Education Advisory Board in COBWRA? Ms. Farace stated that they had about 20 members but had not actually gotten started as a group. Chair Tedtmann said there was a standing invitation for COBWRA members to attend the Boynton Beach Education Advisory Board meetings and vice versa. 2 Meeting Minutes Education Advisory Board Boyn~on Beach, Florida January 11,2001 Ms. Braswell commented that Citrus Cove was a part of Boynton Beach and not part of Lantana or Lake Worth. Mr. Hazlett and others praised Citrus Cove's principal and felt the Education Advisory Board should promote Citrus Cove. Mr. Hazlett had gone to Citrus Cove to present them with a Recycling Award and noted that the participation by the parents was really exceptional. Ms. Greenberg mentioned that Citrus Cove had been profiled in the day's Sun Sentinel newspaper, and tha! their achievement in [mpreving their test scores was highlighted. Ms. Farace hoped that the workshop being held on February 10 would result in one or two members being willing to take the lead in the South County Coalition. Chair Tedtmann stated that the person(s) would be liaisons between the Coalition and .the Education Advisory Board D. Boundaries Chair Tedtmann announced that the School Board would be having its final public hearing on January 22, 2001 at the Fulton Holland Education Center Board Room. Chair Tedtmann stated that Norm BteshmanF!cschman, President of the COBWRA Education Advisory Board, had advised that they were planning on sending people to the Board meeting from the western communities, especially Citrus CoveCrcc?,, to speak against the boundaries for Congress Middle School. Ms. Farace explained the economic development and diversity ~ssues to him and invited COBWRA to meet with the Education Advisory Board before the School Board meeting on January 22 to try to reach agreement on the issues. She explained that what happened to coastal Boynton Beach would have a definite effect on what happened in western Boynton Beach and that it would be beneficial to both parties to come to an agreemem. Ms. Farace continued, saying that a subcommittee had to be formed to deal with boundary issues and that she and Chair Tedtmann had spoken to the School Board several times. It was time for new people to take an active part in the issue. Mr. Hazlett agreed to get involved and remain involved as long as he remained in the area. Ms. Farace asked Mr. Hazlett to elaborate on his plans for relocating. He said he was planning on consolidating his factory in Winter Haven and the fabrication facility on Congress on some land he purchased in the Melbourne/Merritt Island area. Ms; Farace said his leaving would be a great loss to the Board. Ms. Braswell said Poinciana was currently recruiting for magnet applicants. She was advised that Dr. Johnson on the School Board was taking a look at all the magnet prOgrams and it was not certain if the current magnets would survive. Chair Tedtmann said that the "school of choice" issues were receiving lots of attention at the moment and would be discussed by the Board atthe February 10 workshop. Ms. Farace said that the School Board had put the proposed elementary boundary changes on hold for a year. They are not scheduled to take effect for two years but she said a lot of work remained to be done on this as well as the middle and high school boundaries. She also said that Dr. Robinson wanted the City to seriously consider the Riviera Beach model for the elementary schools. 3 Meeting Minutes Education Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida January 11,2001 Chair Tedtmann discussed the Board's efforts to change the boundaries around the high school so that the people in the Miner and Mentone Road areas could attend the school. They went to bat for these people, suggesting an exchange between this area and a wealthy western area. Ultimately, the San£cnd Castle area was brought into the Boynton Beach boundary area and this would have an effect on the new high school. Mayor Broening tried to address this but Mr. Lynch did not want to discuss anything except the middle school boundary issues. Mayor Broening wrote a letter to Mr. Lynch, asking for a meeting to discuss the issue but this had not taken place yet. Ms. Farace said that in addition, COBWRA took away more of the western community, so Boynton was left with none of the SACS from Miner Road north, which included those Boynton Beach communities on Congress Avenue which represented Boynton's middle to upper class community. On the south end the boundaries were supposed to be the canal south of Golf Road which meant that Boynton would encompass the Village of Golf, Delray Dunes, and Golfview Harbor. That got changed at the request of Tom Lynch to keep Village of Golf at Atlantic High School so they drew the line at Golf Road instead, a little bit north, and this has excluded all of those communities from Boynton Beach. Ms. Farace said they had been looking at having an honors program :at the new high school, with a continuation of the concentration in math, science and technology at the magnet schools. Mr. Hazlett asked if Dr. Cornell was still trying to partner with Motorola and Ms. Farace said he was still working on that. She said ne planned to attend the Board's February meeting and that sometime in the near future he wanted to have a public forum to discuss his plans for the new high school It was decided that a boundary subcommittee meeting needed to be held before the meeting at the School Board on January 22. It was hoped that the COBWRA representative(s) could be included as well. A date and time was set for Thursday, January 18, 2001 in the Library at 4:00 p.m. Ms. Farace said it would be a public meeting and invited any other interested Board members to attend. E. SAC Repo~s Galaxy Elementary Mr. Hazlett said he had not attended the last SAC meeting but he understood that the new principal was doing very well and had just joined the Chamber. Mr. Hazlett also said that he believed Galaxy would be the center of future boundary problems in Boynton. Ms. Galdos said that the parents believed that Galaxy had a very short future and once the new school was built, Galaxy would be demolished: Ms. Farace said this was not true and that demolition was not in the FiveYear Plan. One of Ms. Galdos' friends on the PTA stated the parents were being told this and believed that their children would be going to the new school going up on Congress. Ms. Farace stated that they had asked that Galaxy be put on the remodeling list and that they had asked that a gifted cluster or center be established there. She said that Art Johnson had listened to them and two weeks ago, moved the gifted program from Forest Park to Galaxy because of the community's request. Chair Tedtmann stated that the City had asked for a Pre-K Meeting Minutes Education Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida January 11,2001 program for Galaxy s~nce itwas the only one in Boynton Beach without it. Ms. Braswell said that an Early Intervention program would be very good also. Forest Park Chair Tedtmann stated that Forest Park still had the money in place for a gifted program and nobody had said anything to anyone at Forest Park about not having a gifted program. She said that all that had been said had come from the papers and nothing had been heard from the District. She said they had talked at Forest Park about sharing a gifted teacher. Chair Tedtmann mentioned that both Forest Park and South Tech had asked for assistance from the City in obtaining s~gns giving directions to their schools. Forest Park had asked for a sign on Seacrest and Woolbright telling people how to get to Forest Park. South Tech wants a sign in its new name, South Technical Community High School, and they want it on Woolbright to point people towards their school. Rolling Green Chair Tedtmann reported on Rolling Green. At their last meeting they stated that their Parenting classes were going well, with 35 parents coming in during the day for the classes. Also, they have about 60 students going on the patrol trip to Washington, D.C. and everyone was very excited about it. She said they talked about improving the FCAT scores and told the parents how to do this. She was surprised to learn that they did not have a PTA due to lack of parental involvement. She praised the Rolling Green principal, saying that she was very pro-student and kept the morale up. The principaFs husband also helped her by recruiting students from Florida Atlantic University to come in and do different projects and then come back and teach for them when they graduated. COngress Middle School Ms. Farace said she had missed most of the meetings this last year because of date conflicts with this Board and the boundary meetings but that the School had told her that they felt she was doing better for them by going to the boundary meetings anyway. She mentioned that Congress was going to have an exhibit of moon rocks. She further stated that Congress was watching the boundary issues and their SAC had been an ally on the boundary issue. Congress believed that if the proposal were to be approved at the January 22 meeting, it would represent the best they could have hoped for. Ms. Braswell mentioned that they had also applied for a multi-million magnet grant and were hopeful that they would receive it. Santaluces High School Ms. Fellows was going to report on this but she was not able to be at the meeting. 5 Meeting Minutes Education Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida January11,2001 Christa McAuliffe Middle School Ms. Greenberg reported that she was very impressed with this school and that the faculty was very enthusiastic. They were very excited to be working on a party to be held on January 26 that would feature two astronauts who had walked on the moon. She planned to attend the presentation of the Proclamation to Christa McAuliffe at the City Commission meeting on January 16. She said the principal had initiated the practice of all students and employees of the school wearing identification badges with pictures to highlight the presence at the school of people who did not have a right to be there. Atlantic High School The students were not present to report on this school. South Technical Community High School Chair Tedtmann stated that South Tech was very much in need of facilities. They need a large place where they can gather the entire student body that can double as a gymnasium and they also need a cafeteria facility. They have asked the City for assistance in obtaining these facilities. Ms. Farace asked how this could be done? Chair Tedtmann planned to bring the subject up at the workshop on February 10 to brainstorm for a solution. The Board would be going to the School Board with the needs of the local schools and the School Board would probably look to the City and ask what they had to offer. Chair Tedtmann mentioned that the bus compound may be relocated due to recent serious flooding. This would give South Tech a larger piece of land on which to expand. Rosalind Murray, Alternate, came in at 7 p.m. Poinciana Elementary School Ms. Braswell reported on Poinciana, saying that at the last SAC meeting the School had decided what it wanted to do with the money given them by the State in recognition of their performance in raising their grade. After the faculty and SAC discussed the issue, they broke it down into three categories: 1) Bonus Account, 2) Lead Money, or Technology. They also received money from the District for a K2 initiative for technology so they were putting additional computers in each of the classrooms, giving each classroom a total of 5 to 6 computers. She said they were in the process of accepting magnet applications and she asked the Board for assistance in getting the word out about the applications. She was stretched between being the Magnet Coordinator and the Assistant Principal at the same time and appreciated all assistance. She offered to drop off some applications at the Library and Ms. Farace, Library Director, said that would be fine. Five middle schools had just come to Poinciana and made presentations. The schools were Congress, Middle School of the Arts, Carver, Roosevelt, and JFK. They encouraged their students to put Congress as their first or second choice. Ms. Howard asked if Ms. Braswell could bring some 6 Meeting Minutes Education Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida January 11,2001 applications with her to the next meeting and she would be happy to pass them out to interested parties at her Learning Center. Chair Tedtmann asked if it would be possible to put something in with the City water bills that magnet applications were available at the City Library? Everyone thought this would be a good idea. Ms. Braswell said that February 23, 2001 was the deadline and that if people came in after that it would be too late. Ms. Farace said she would only want to say that magnet applications were available for Congress, Poinciana and South Tech. Mr. Hazlett suggested Ms. Braswell speak to someone at the Chamber about the use of their website. Citrus Cove Ms. Howard said that the December meeting had been cancelled. She also said that most of the parents were excited about the idea of having uniforms. They had a nice holiday celebration and she invited them to attend the Boynton Beach Education Advisory Board's meetings. They had a lot of concerns about school boundaries. New SAC Assignments Chair Tedtmann stated that Forest Park SAC was available and Connie Galdos agreed to take this assignment. Rosalind Murray offered to take Atlantic High School. F. Blue Ribbon Award Chair Tedtmann stated that at the January 16 City Commission meeting, the Mayor would be presenting Christa McAuliffe with a Proclamation that January 21 - 27, 2001 would be Christa McAuliffe Community Middle School Blue Ribbon Celebration Week. VIII. NEW BUSINESS A. Boynton Beach Community High School Ms. Farace said that Dr. Cornell would be attending the Board's regular meeting on February 1. IX. OPEN DISCUSSION Chair Tedtmann mentioned the recent approval of the new charter school in Boynton Beach and that Pamela Owens would be coming to the Board soon with more information. Ms. Owens sent e-mail invitations to all who wanted to attend their meeting on January 30, 2001 from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. at the A.G. Edward Investments Company at 1101 North Congress Avenue, in front of the mall. Mr. Hazlett stated he believed they had lost the building they had targeted due to the high cost of renovating it. He had asked Ms. Owens to discuss their funding and business plan with him. He also believed they were in the process of building an advisory board. Chair Tedtmann spoke of the coming of an auto technology school for disadvantaged and at-risk students to a location near Borton Volvo on U.S. Highway I and that she had been discussing this with an educator in Delray Beach. The educator had not known about this school and expressed a desire for a focal point for educational information for 7 Meeting Minutes Education Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida January 11,2001 the educators in Palm Beach County. Chair Tedtmann spoke of EdVenture to the north of Boynton Beach and many other similar agencies that had to do with education and that it would be a good thing for everyone to be aware of all the various educational programs and facilities in the area. Ms. Braswell stated she wanted to invite Finee Russ to the Education Advisory Board meeting to get some insight into Congress Middle School. She also wanted to invite Janice LaForte from the Equity Opportunities Program who had information on the magnet programs and the School of Choice program that could be useful for the Board. Ms. Farace said that with the emphasis being on the high school, she did not think there would be enough time to devote to the concerns of three schools. Chair Tedtmann suggested that Finee Russ attending the February 1 meeting along with Dr. Cornell would be a great idea but that in the interest of time, Janice LaForte should come to another meeting. Ms. Greenberg mentioned reading in the paper about differences of opinion on the School Board about the necessary qualifications for the next Superintendent of Schools and asked if the Advisory Board was going to take a position on this? She said they were debating whether the Superintendent had to have a background in education and that they were considering bringing in someone with a business background only. Chair Tedtmann said that this could be brought up at the February 10 workshop for discussion. There being no further business to come before the Board, the meeting was duly adjourned at 7:45 p.m. RespecEully submitted, Recording Secretary (two tapes)