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Nancy's Newsletter
Spring 2009
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Dear
Friends,
Over
the past couple of
months, the Cambridge School Committee has adopted the budget for
FY2010 and
successfully completed our Superintendent search.
As
always, I am awed by the
enthusiasm and interest that the people in our community have towards
education. I heard from literally
hundreds of people during the budget process and Superintendent search
process. The attendance at the town hall
meeting and
the finalists’ interview was amazing. The
feedback on the budget was very helpful, Thank you to all of the people
who got
involved, and I would ask you to please stay involved.
We need you, and, more importantly, our kids
need you.
The Superintendent search was
quite a challenge. The finalists, Dr.
Turk and Dr. Young, were both highly qualified professionals, and the
decision
was difficult. Along with my colleagues,
I spent hours reading resumes, interviewing candidates, researching,
talking to
people, reading e-mails, and all with the intention of picking a
Superintendent
who continue to lead our school system in the direction it needs to go.
As
many of you know I did vote
for Jeff Young, and I
am looking forward to working with him. I
was just appointed the Chair of the Superintendent Transition
Committee, and I
am honored to be leading this committee with my colleagues, Mayor
Denise Simmons
and Joe Grassi. Dr. Young’s first day as
CPS Superintendent is officially July 6, 2009, and he will spend five
days in
May and June visiting Cambridge,
getting acquainted with our community and the people who work in the
school
system. It is my hope that by the end of
the school year, the administration and staff will have had an
opportunity to
meet Dr. Young and begin a positive working relationship with him.
I
would like to take this
opportunity to thank Dr. Turk and her administrative team for all their
accomplishments, hard work, and dedication they have towards our
children. The administration and the
principals are now
a team that works together to improve instruction; we have set the
course for
marked improvement. It is so important
we not lose sight of this achievement. We
must continue to build on our strengths and
the gains that have been
made over the past few years.
I hope
that the
administration, principals, teachers, families and everyone else
connected to
the Cambridge Public Schools will do whatever it takes to ensure we can
achieve
our goals. Success is our collective responsibility.
Challenging times are ahead of us: we will be
faced by serious budget concerns and will need to respond accordingly;
important changes need to be explored for our K-8 structure; and we
need to
review our controlled choice policy. Together,
I believe Dr. Young and Dr. Turk can
take this school system
where it needs to go.
Please let me know if you have
any
thoughts,
suggestions or questions. I am here to
represent you.
Sincerely,
Nancy
P.S.
Check out Teachable Moments and
Chalkboard
Chatter to see what is going on in and out of CPS classrooms.
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In this issue:
SUPERINTENDENT
CONTRACT
The
contract negotiations between the School Committee and Dr. Young went
very
smoothly. On May 7th, the
School
Committee ratified a contract with Dr. Young, and on July 6, 2009, he
will become the Superintendent of the Cambridge Public Schools;
in
addition, he will be officially visiting Cambridge
before the end of the school year.
The
purpose of these five visits is to make sure we have a smooth
transition. Although this is an exciting
time for the
Cambridge Public Schools, there is a great deal of uncertainty because
of the
impending change in leadership. The
Superintendent
Transition Committee and Justin Martin (CPS Director of Information)
have
already met with Dr. Young to plan for the visits, and our goal is to
make sure
Dr. Young learns as much about our community as possible and the people
already
in the school system get to know him as well. Dr.
Young’s first day, May 8th, was
spent meeting with members
of the School Committee and our secretaries. The
remaining 4 days will be spent meeting
administrators and visiting
schools.
The
contract is for 3 years, and if the School Committee intends to renew
Dr.
Young’s contract, we will give him notice one year prior to the July 5,
2012 expiration
date. The School Committee will be
evaluating the Superintendent annually, and in order to foster a
collegial
relationship, Dr. Young will collaborate and consult with the School
Committee
on the goals and evaluation instrument. Dr.
Young’s contract also includes language regarding community involvement
because
we value participation in community activities in order to generate
support for
the Cambridge Public Schools and solicit feedback from the community. Dr. Young has started to attend several
events in the community. Just this week,
I have seen him at the high school and a community fundraiser.
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BUDGET
The
School Committee adopted the FY2010 CPS Budget last month, and on
May, 13th at 6pm, the School
Committee will be meeting with the City Finance Committee at City Hall
to
discuss the CPS Budget.
One
of the questions that I
often hear when it comes to the budget is why can’t the budget document
be more
transparent and user-friendly. In order
for people to understand where the money goes (and it is a lot of
money), it is
important that the document be easy to understand. Luc Schuster and I
are the
co-Chairs of the sub-committee that helped develop the CPS FY2010
budget, and
we have been working with the CPS administration to improve the budget
document
and see this process as on-going. To
that end, Luc and I sponsored the following motion that was passed on
April
14th:
Given that improvements
were made last year and
additional input was received from the community regarding the budget
document,
the School Committee requests that the Superintendent and the staff
review the
document and the valuable feedback from the community with an eye to
making
improvements for FY2011, and report back to the School Committee in
September
for approval.
If you have any suggestions on how to improve
the
budget document, please let me know.
I
do think it is important
to note that the former CPS Chief Financial Officer was on the job for
30 years
and had a certain way of doing things. Now we have a new CFO for the
Cambridge
Public Schools, Claire Spinner, and I believe that she did a great job
during
her first year getting up to speed on the CPS budget and helping to
close a $2
million budget shortfall. She has many ideas on how to improve the
document. Also, Carolyn Turk created a transparent, thoughtful,
and
inclusive budget process which resulted in the gathering of helpful
feedback
and suggestions from folks in the community, and she was true to her
word and
listened. Members of the community have some really good ideas
for
improving the budget document, and we will be tapping into these
resources over
the next coming months.
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CONTROLLED CHOICE
POLICY
The
School Committee will be holding a series of meetings to discuss and
develop
comprehensive recommendations in order to improve the Controlled Choice
policy.
It is important that we take a look at how the Controlled Choice policy
is
working. It has been awhile since we
have examined how well we are accomplishing our goals.
This topic is extremely important and
sensitive because it deals with class and race issues, and we need to
take a
look at how we are educating all children with the possibility of
making some
difficult decisions so that we can better serve our children.
Our
community is one that values both choice and diversity; balancing these
goals
is a delicate process and produces tension that is practically
inevitable. I
hope we have the ability to acknowledge this tension and speak frankly
and
respectfully about it.
All
3 meetings will be in the CRLS media cafeteria from 6pm-8pm
Tuesday, May 12th
Tuesday, May 26th
Tuesday, June 9th
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MAYOR'S BLUE RIBBON
COMMISSION ON MIDDLE SCHOOL YOUTH
Vice-Mayor
Sam Seidel and I are continuing our working on the strategic plan aimed
at
enhancing the out-of school time experience for our 6th, 7th
and 8th graders in Cambridge. Our committee represents many stakeholders
and contributors; including representatives from the School Committee,
City
Council, Cambridge Public Schools, Department of Human Services, the
Cambridge
Police Department, parents and many of our community partners.
No
system can do it alone, and it is important that the School Committee
and City
Council continue to collaborate and communicate with each other. I am proud of the work Sam and I have done to
foster this relationship between the elected officials of Cambridge.
Our
“working mission
statement” is:
The City of Cambridge will
seek to engage middle school
youth in a range of quality after school and summer experiences that
foster
both their present and future learning and life success.
There
are 3 major areas on where we are focusing our work:
1.
Increase
awareness about the benefits of participation in after-school and
summer
programs as well as the availability and range of these activities for
middle
school youth.
2.
Effectively
coordinate information and services across the city; within schools and
community organizations in order to increase middle school access to
and participation
in developmentally appropriate after-school and summer programs and
activities.
3.
Enhance the
quality of programs and activities serving middle school youth by
building from
existing knowledge, strengths and structures.
We are hoping
to complete
our strategic plan by the end of the school year. I
believe that this report will provide Dr.
Young with valuable information that will help him further understand
the
strengths and challenges of our current K-8 system, as well as help us
figure
out how to improve CPS programming for this age group.
We need to be creative with our structure and
develop innovative models to help our young people acquire the
necessary skills
to succeed in the 21st century.
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CAMBRIDGEPORT ENERGY
EFFICIENCY PILOT PROGRAM UPDATE
The Cambridgeport School Energy-Savings
Pilot
Program has begun! Audrey Schulman and
HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team) have collected the school’s energy
data for
the last few years and are figuring out ways to save energy, save money
and
save the climate. The school will be
paid back in the form of credits with the facilities department. In
this way
the school will earn enough to get painted or whatever else it needs.
If the
pilot program works well, hopefully, it could happen in other schools
in Cambridge.
Energy-saving initiatives like this have
been shown to make schools
healthier
places to be in for students, to increase academic achievement by
making the
school more comfortable, and to save enormous money for the school
system and
tax payers. Initiatives like this can also be important teaching
tools,
helping children learn about how their actions affect the planet.
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