Board Meeting Recap – September 9th

Tonight’s meeting began with a presentation from the Link Crew staff at the High School.  Mr.  Diroff, Ms. Chapman and Mr. Bush shared the philosophy behind the Link Crew program, along with some of the benefits to our students.  This year marked the 5th year of the program in Saline, which has involved over 3,000 students as Link Crew leaders and participants.

Next, we heard from Mr. Jerry Brand, Mr. Bill Spargur and Mr. Ben Schneider from the Granger Construction Company.  They spoke about a staff & student survey they conducted in the fall, 2007 regarding the high school facility.  The  “most liked” areas included the performing arts center, the commons, and the pool.  The concerns included the lack of color and narrow stairwells.

Several business items regarding school operation then followed on the agenda.  The board approved a new district-wide copier lease that will save us $35,000 a year over 4 years.  Two bills related to the Pleasant Ridge project including the playground equipment were approved.  This approval provides for the delivery by the end of this week and installation of he playground equipment beginning on September 18th.

On an exciting note for our students and staff, the board approved a 4 year lease of new computer hardware from Apple.  In total, the lease will include 300 iMacs and MacBooks that will be used throughout the district.  We have also used this lease to leverage Apple to provide us with technical and instructional personnel to support our staff.  This means they will help us set the equipment up and work with staff to ensure we maximize the use to benefit our students at no additional cost.

The board then discussed the evaluation tool that will be used to evaluate my performance.  The draft version that was discussed is modeled after one that was presented at recent the Michigan Association of School Boards conference.

Lastly, we worked on the district goals for the 2008-2009 school year and are set to adopt them at the September 23rd meeting.

The meeting on the 23rd will be a joint meeting between the Saline City Council and the Saline School Board.  This is the first joint meeting between the boards in at least the last 12 years.  It will be a great time for us to discuss shared issues and options for collaboration in the future.