MINUTES OF THE PATERSON BOARD OF EDUCATION REGULAR ...

Education officials to make sure they give the backup and support to our localadministrators so they have enough time to plan and don’t get things late, and then weget things late. No one wants to vote on things at the last minute and we don’t want tobe rubber stamps. We are going to refuse to be rubber stamps. We are going to beacknowledged as a responsive, accountable, elected body. To do so we need things ina reasonable amount of time so we can read them, discuss amongst ourselves, and getcomparative data to see what other districts are doing, and as Dr. Glascoe said, tomake sure we are a data-drive school district. But again, I am not throwing this on theadministration here locally because I know the state sends things to them with a veryshort time period to work with. I am fully cognizant of that. But that is my concern. Thisis a resolution calling for $42 million. $42 million here and $42 million there and prettysoon you are talking about some real money. So we need to be accountable and that ismy concern. We are getting things late. I am not saying I disagree with the plan. All Iam saying is I have not really had time to review it. We only go it a few days ago. Thatwas my concern earlier last month with the long-term facility plan. We got it one weekbefore. So that is basically my point and I hope you understand and appreciate thedirection I am coming from. I ask this Board to work collectively to hold theseDepartment of Education officials accountable as well. They want to hold usaccountable? We want to hold them accountable. We need to meet with them, weneed to understand what is going on, and they need to be more responsive to ouradministration locally and getting things to them in a timely manner so they can getthings to us in a timely manner. Thank you.Comm. Sayegh: Thank you, Dr. Atallo. Some of the concerns you raised make thecase for regaining local control all the more compelling.Comm. Hodges: I just wanted to say that Dr. Atallo mentioned data and it was theabsence of data that I found to be the most concerning about this document. I shouldsay there were a number of items in there that I did agree with and I did find compelling.But the absence of data, which as you know is something that Dr. Atallo and I havebeen raving and screaming about for years, continues to be troubling. I am howeverassured by Dr. Glascoe that this will change and he is asking that we support thismeasure because of the necessity of having it be approved by the state. But I ammaking the comments as a preface for why I am unhappy with it but will in fact support itgiven the deficiencies. But we are told data is coming and I will be asking for it again.Comm. Taylor: Yes, I did receive it on the workshop night, but I also read a lot about itbefore that. The information that was given to us by our staff through our StateSuperintendent Dr. Glascoe was an alignment of New Jersey early childhood educationprogram expectations. It had to do with the standards of quality with the core curriculumcontent standards. Our people in our district were asked to align it with the corecurriculum with all the different new schools that we have developed in the last five toseven years. What we asked our staff to do was to coordinate all these different earlyschools and get a curriculum that all could work with. We have not had time to developenough history or backup information. This is what our staff will be doing now. This iswhat we will be looking for. I would just like to let the parents know that the creativecurriculum for early childhood - that is what we call this – is an environmentally-basedactive learning curriculum where children can learn important skills and content anddevelop social competencies. The curriculum shows teachers how to work with childrenat different developmental levels, how to adapt to the environment to make itincreasingly challenging, and how to involve parents in taking an active role in theprogram. The areas that we want to develop in the creative curriculum aresocial/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language. We have them according to thestate standards and our own standards. Most of the time when we work in this districtPage 26 11/9/05