Monday evening, the Woodbridge Board of Education held its monthly meeting. It started off with a motion to move briefly into executive session, and it was clarified that technically, it was moving into a non-meeting. With this completed, the board began its regularly scheduled meeting.

The meeting proceeded with the Pledge of Allegiance, a report on correspondence, an opportunity for public comment, and then the consent agenda where the minutes of two previous meetings were approved. This was followed by the Superintendents report. Dr. Stella spoke about a teacher that had recently been to Peru and the presentation by some of the students about the Andes. He mentioned a Skype call with Beecher Road’s sister school that will take place in the Media Center Thursday morning at 7:30.

There was a good discussion about the National Conference of Teachers of Mathematics. Principal Bequary and one of the teachers at the meeting had attended their annual conference and talked about insights gained about how to continue to improve the math program at Beecher Road. Dr. Stella mentioned the school’s tradition of constructivist education.

A Tri-State update, and Strategic School Profile were also discussed and the discussion moved on to the Act on Primary Health Grant application for 2009/2010. $25,000 is being requested for the ‘Project Safe Schools are Friendly Environments’.

Project SAFE promotes a secure and friendly school environment where all students have the opportunity to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically. This goal is accomplished through early intervention when adjustment problems are identified. The Child Associate and the School Psychologist support behavioral goals through PMHP Child-Led Play; Classroom Social Skills and Yoga; and lunch groups. Interventions include partnerships with Parents and school staff. Collaboration with community-based agencies and providers support interventions.

One of Fiona’s best friends comes from a broken family and goes to lunch with her feelings teacher once a week. Fiona and her friend have talked about these lunches and Fiona goes to the lunch on Social Skills and Leadership. She attended this last year and wants to do it again this year. She says the program is well worth it.

The largest budget amount in the request is for Parent Activities and reflects just one part of the important role that Beecher Road plays in the greater Woodbridge Community. This is also reflected in the Parent Teacher Organization report. PTO fundraising is down this year due to weak gift wrap sales and the postponement of the Halloween Hoot, but they remain upbeat for the year.

The next big issue tackled by the Board of Education was a proposal to change the policies about how the Chair of the Board of Education appoints committee members and the chair for each committee. Some members of the board felt slighted by the appointments this year and asked the policy committee to review the policy. The policy committee met on November 12th, and found that the policies of the Woodbridge Board of Education were in line with most other school boards that post their policies on the CABE website and followed acceptable procedures of Roberts Rules of Order.

Dr. Dudley-Smith moved that the recommendation of the policy committee which clarifies and reinforces the chair’s responsibility to designate a chair person for each committee be approved. Mark Livesay, who chairs the policy committee raised a procedural issue that this was not voting on the issue the committee had been charged to report on, and so after a discussion about whether or not the procedural move was really needed, Dr. Dudley-Smith amended her motion to ask the board to vote on the alternative policy proposal which would have given the power to select the chair of the committees to a vote of the committee as a whole. This was then defeated and the original proposal was then voted on and passed.

During the discussion, David Barkin read a long statement about work that he has done on behalf of the committee on facilities related issues. He expressed the belief that he had been passed over as a potential chair of the facilities committee, a position he had asked for, out of punishment by board chairperson McCreven for positions he had taken in the past.

Tom Handler noted that Mr. Barkin’s statement illustrated that one does not need to be chair of a committee to have a strong impact on the direction of the board. I would note that there is a strong reason why people with great subject matter expertise should not be chairs.

I remember years ago hearing about the Peter Principle; "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." The example that I was first presented with also came from elementary schools. It was the story of a kindergarten teacher, who was the best teacher around, whom you might call the subject matter expert, who was promoted to Principal. What made the teacher so effective was her ability to relate to everyone as five year olds. This worked very well in the classroom, but was a disaster in the principal’s office. If anything, there is a strong argument against subject matter experts being made chairs of committees.

After the vote, a brief recess was called, and at this point, Mr. Barkin left the building. He has also left previous Board of Education meetings early, and while there might be some other reasonable excuse, his failure to convey it to the board meeting as a whole makes it look like he is being a sore loser playing the game, “if I can’t be captain, I’m taking my ball and going home”. This behavior has also been exhibited by others who abstain from voting on financial reports after their preferred board member to lead the finance committee was passed over, again, apparently on Peter Principle issues.

The SAFE program helps students learn constructive ways of dealing with disappointments of not getting their ways and dealing with narcissistic injuries. Perhaps some members of the board need to talk about these sorts of issues with a feelings teacher.

The rest of the meeting proceeded smoothly, with good discussions about the cafeteria finances and various proposals to improve operations there.