School Board Meeting Highlights
8-25-15
Agenda:
For a complete agenda, please visit us at:http://www.boarddocs.com/pa/parkland/Board.nsf/Public
All motions were approved.
Hannah Hakim placed 1st in the State and 3rd at Nationals in the History Day Competition
Business Meeting
Student Recognition
History teacher calliope Volikas recognized Hannah Hakim for placing first at the state competition and third in the national competition for her individual performance on the Grimke Sisters who fought for civil rights and to end slavery in the 1800s.
PHS U.S. News and World Report Recognition
Jim Moniz, Principal of Parkland High School, was also recognized as PHS received a Bronze medal ranking from US News and World Report.
To produce the 2015 Best High Schools rankings, U.S. News & World Report ranked schools on these key principles: that a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college bound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show it is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.
Roundtable
Roundtable Comments
The Board wished everyone a great start to the school year. They also congratulated Jim and the PHS staff on the award. Rich thanked Pam, Kelly and Tracy for revising the New Teacher Orientation program who just began a six day orientation program and he also thanked the School Board for the support of the robust program. Mrs. Marcus noted that the first session included a wonderful morning that reiterated the support that the District provides to all new hires and current staff. She commended the administrators and mentors who welcomed new staff.
Board member Rob Cohen expressed concern about how our district can function without a state budget in place citing that we are starting the year off with a shortfall of approximately $27M that was anticipated in state funding. With assumptions not being met, he suggested that the administration review two actions to make sure we are fiscally responsible with tax dollars. The first area he asked administration to investigate is the mandated pass-through of payments to charter schools citing that we are supposed to be given state dollars to pay a portion of the funds for charter operating costs. Since we are not receiving funds from the state, he asked if Parkland can withhold payments. The second area he questioned was with regards to PSERS contributions that employers pay the state and subsequently received about 50% back as a reimbursement. He asked if the Board would consider tasking administrators with examining the legal ramifications of withholding payments. It was noted that PSBA has obtained an opinion that these are two areas of cash flow that we might be able to withhold while we wait for the state budget to pass.