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| Madison Metropolitan School District Madison, Wisconsin Art Rainwater, Superintendent | ||
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| BOARD OF EDUCATION Minutes for After School Task Force January 21, 2005 |
Hoyt Building 3802 Regent Street, Room 21 Madison, Wisconsin |
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task force meeting was called to order by Co-Chair Sue Abplanalp at 9:04 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Sue Abplanalp, Janet Dyer, Liz Fritz, Fabiola Hamdan, Sara Jenny, Ed Sadlowski
MEMBERS ABSENT: Laurie Frank, Wendy Rakower
STAFF PRESENT: Barb Lehman - Recording Secretary
Carolyn Hogg was allowed to participate in the meeting in the place of Laurie Frank.
1. Approval of Minutes
It was moved by Janet Dyer and seconded by Liz Fritz to approve the minutes from the January 7, 2005meeting as distributed. Motion unanimously carried by those present.
3. Announcements
There were no announcements.
4. Proposed After School Program Evaluation Form
(Packets included updated principal and parent forms. Copies are attached to the original of these minutes.)
Some further edits were made to the principal and parent forms: Under "Health and Safety" #1 change to "Children feel...." Under "Interactions: Staff and Parents" #1 information is shared with who?
Sara Jenny arrived at this time.
Discussion: Difficult if it is just staff and parents. Things would come up during the quarterly meetings. Under "Staff and Parent Interactions" #7 about children's experiences and development is confusing. #2 gets to it better; take out #1.
Fabiola Hamdan arrived at this time.
Discussion continued: Take out #7. What does #3 mean? Parent has the same one. But the category is staff and parents. Could put it under "Additional Principal Questions:" #9. Put it under Additional Questions--that is where the principal concerns belong. Change to parent concerns. Staff respond (needs to be an "s"). #9 under Additional Questions - should we say my concerns are addressed in a timely manner. There may be other staff concerns in the building. Overkill if a written form for Additional Questions. It is Scantron but the Centers could do that separately if they want. Kurt Kiefer will address these issues for next week. Serving about 1,700 children all together.
FOLLOW UP: Additional information about the cost and timing of the Scantron will be available next week.
5. After School Program Fund 80 Report
Janet Dyer distributed an updated report from the one included in the packet (a copy is attached to the original of these minutes). She reviewed the chart stating that it represented elementary after school child care, including summer programs (which could be taken off). Columns 1-4 showed income or revenue from various sources. MSCR has about $400,000 that offsets its operating budget, including portions of salaries for supervisors of child care programs. The last column showed tax support indicating self-support of 28 percent. The overall goal for MSCR youth programs is 50 percent but that is not expected for the child care programs. Total Fund 80 money for a full year for providing after school, summer programs, and programs when there is no school, and break programs is about $1,064,000.
Discussion: Needed to know this for charge statement #11. Board gives the budget direction.
FOLLOW UP: Share criteria for Dept. of Workforce Development grants and their accessibility to other agencies. Provide the information excluding summer programming.
6. Proposed General Complaint Form regarding Complaints Filed Against After School Programs
(Packets included the district general complaint form. A copy is attached to the original of these minutes.)
Ms. Abplanalp explained that previous discussion indicated a need for the principals to have documentation to share at the quarterly meetings and to use if changing providers. There is Board policy around the use of this form. The Task Force should create the procedure and modify the form. Principals needed a form because the providers have their own.
Discussion: Form is good - title it "After School Complaint Form" and specify that it is to be used by principals. Status information is not needed. More credibility for the principal if the parent fills it out. Recommend using the provider form. Principals need more of a tracking form that would be shared at the meetings. Then when a decision is made about changing providers, they would have uniform documentation. Form must include action taken by the principal. Another form is not needed but just a log that includes dates, a description of the concern or issue, and an outcome. Include the date the issue was communicated to the provider. Date of concern/issue, date of action taken, date of communication, and outcome. Should be specific. Form would be handed to the parent and reviewed and translated.
FOLLOW UP: Ms. Abplanalp will develop the log and bring it to the next meeting.
7. Process and Procedures to Create a Field of Interest Endowment Fund for After School Programs
Ms. Abplanalp researched the information and contacted Jodi Bender-Sweeney from the Foundation who said that after school programming is an exciting new endowment. She called it a Field of Interest form. Other Fields of Interest include homeless, health needs, the School Forest, music, and more, but this would fit that criteria. The fund would need to raise $10,000 then it becomes active. It could be created for use by low-income families then charged to the Advisory Board. More information will be shared at the next meeting.
8. Process and Procedures to Create an After School Program Advisory Board
Ms. Abplanalp consulted with Legal Counsel and with Wendy Rakower. Two ways to create the Board: it could be an arm of the School Board or the After School Task Force could recommend that a joint after school board be created for whatever purposes that are needed. The last task force was an advisory committee and membership included MMSD staff, a principal, a parent, a school board member, a staff person from the City, a provider, and a city council member. Wendy recommended that there be more than one provider on the board. This Task Force would need to look at purpose and membership of such an Advisory Board.
Discussion: The group would be advisory to the School Board and the City Council. Need direction for the forms and records; where the information is going and how it is implemented. Charge statement #10 needs to be answered first. School district and provider should collaborate to ensure access. When there is a waiting list, the principal and provider should meet to resolve. If not, then the Task Force recommends that the newly created Advisory Board support access. There will be space and income issues. The endowment could be used. The purpose could be to field concerns to help ensure access and availability to support providers with supporting child care for all students. Parents need support as well. To ensure and support quality school age child care programming for---then fill in the bullets. Have to state "Regardless of family's ability to pay." That would increase taxes. State that there is a goal to eliminate barriers like income and whatever as opposed to a purpose. Equal accessibility on a space-available basis. Limited number of slots for those that need financial help. Should not be based on whether a program has enough paying families. How to make that happen first-come, first-served. Another bullet would be to facilitate conflict resolution. Could have a broad mission statement.
The Philosophy Statement was reviewed from the Guidelines. The Advisory Board would oversight the Guidelines. The Task Force is revising the Guidelines. Should not pass the revision of the Guidelines to the Advisory Board. The Guidelines need to address the charge statements. Then the oversight committee makes sure the Guidelines are followed. Changing funding, school demographics, etc. can be pulled along by the Advisory Board.
9. Proposed Work Plan to Address the Charge of the After School Task Force
(A copy of the charge statement matrix was included in the packet and is attached to the original of these minutes.)
Ms. Dyer noted that MSCR has begun the process for city accreditation. Should not eliminate a school district program because it is unable to be licensed. Has to provide quality programming and answer to the Board of Education. The accreditation process is just one way to ensure quality. If all the programs use all the same tools for evaluations and get input, then it should not be required to force licensing. Helpful to have that documentation. Need a consistent evaluation form. Program evaluation and how the program is working needs to be consistent. Accreditation and licensing is helpful to everyone and exceptions can be made in order to make comparisons easier. Licensing does not ensure quality, it is just formal documentation. Everyone should be accountable to a higher group; commonality is the Guidelines. There was some discussion about how the Board ensures compliance.
Charge statement #4: Not just licensing but health and families services codes. City licensing is an easy way to have consistent, ongoing evaluations rather than having the Advisory Board individually determine how to evaluate. Could not support the school district programs having to have that process take place when quality is not an issue. Could talk about other areas that need to be consistent. Cannot turn away any child because of other things, this is just one thing. The Advisory Board is going to have to have consistency or it will be an ongoing challenge to evaluate. Do not think that is their charge; using the same tools. It is a matter of trust saying that the school district is fairly and objectively evaluating their programs. The law still says how you do it and the School Board takes the risk. Everyone should be supervised by the same accredited government agency. The school district could voluntarily go through the City's accreditation process as a middle ground; then the reports would be available. Could agree; just don't want it to be required. Process was begun to answer negative press. Could say that school district-sponsored programs will use the same standards and evaluation tools that the City of Madison accreditation process utilizes. Outside programs are required to be licensed and have access to additional funding sources. There are then programmatic differences to the community. Funding became an issue for the City so they trained MSCR staff to evaluate.
Mr. Sadlowski shared an e-mail message he received from Monica Host of the Office of Community Services explaining that the standards are applicable and the school district is not required to have a license but meet the standards. Could state that all programs should be accredited by a government agency and school district-sponsored programs should follow City of Madison guidelines and evaluation processes. Could say "must" instead of "should" and that they are not required to be licensed. Licensing and accreditation are very different processes; accreditation is higher than licensing and there is ongoing monitoring. The difference is that someone from the city would review programs vs. having it done internally. Why would MSCR have to account to another agency when the Board has committed a staff person to doing this?
FOLLOW UP: Include in the next packet the letter that MSCR received from the Office of Community Services. Share a copy of the e-mail Mr. Sadlowski shared from the City of Madison.
Ms. Abplanalp asked that people bring their calendars next time to set up more dates. Recommendations are due the last Monday in February. The Task Force will need to talk about who will be attending that meeting. Ms. Abplanalp noted that all documents would be shared and work would continue on the charge statements. She will bring back the revised evaluation forms and information from Research and Evaluation. Ms. Fritz asked that the charge statements be updated and stamped DRAFT.
The members agreed to allow a public appearance.
2. Public Appearances
Employee of After School, operating budget: asked if MSCR was charged for facility use (they are not). Complaints log issue: ask principals to log compliments too. Accreditation vs. licensing: that statement seems to say that the school district would monitor but did not answer whether or how City accreditation standards would be met. The school would be responsible for monitoring elements of City accreditation. Programs have to use the same tools. Outcomes do not guarantee consistency. Outside agencies coming in to verify might be very good at using the tools but cannot use all the tolls with same eyes; there would not be the capability to compare equally. Matter of trust statement: it would be great but seems like process and impact on providers need consistent validation process. Do not know that the School Board takes the same City of Madison process and looks as closely. Trying to find consistent verification process. Decisions made by principals: the principals would then be making decisions about allocation of tax dollars.
9. Other Business
There was no other business.
10. Adjournment
It was moved by Janet Dyer and seconded by Ed Sadlowski to adjourn the meeting at 11:10 a.m. Motion unanimously carried by those present.
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Previous: 2005-01-07 || After School Task Force || Next: 2005-01-28