MANCHESTER – Here’s your recap of the Monday, January 22, Board of School Committee meeting. We have been experimenting with different tools to post live updates from the board meetings, and have settled on sharing on X (aka, Twitter) at https://twitter.com/mansd_nh. Those live updates are then compiled into this recap.
Now, onto the meeting. You can find the full agenda at https://5il.co/2cmut – we’ll go through it in order.
Parker-Varney leads the pledge of allegiance
To start of Monday’s meeting, students from Parker Varney School led the pledge of allegiance. Beforehand, students Bria, Nicholas, Angelica and Layla got to meet Mayor Jay Ruais and check out his office. Thank you to Ward 10 Committee Member Joy Senecal for introducing the students, and to Principal Andrew Sims for helping organize.
Central senior recognized
During the recognitions portion of the agenda, the mayor, board and District recognized Central High School Senior Michael Blair, who was one of two New Hampshire students selected for the prestigious (and selective) U.S. Senate Youth Program. For earning the recognition, Blair earned a $10,000 scholarship and will take part in an intensive week-long program in Washington in March. You can read more about the recognition here: https://mansd.org/article/1379741.
District goals progress update
Superintendent Jennifer Chmiel Gillis and members of the District leadership team presented a mid-year update on goals for the 2023-2024 school year. The goals were originally presented to the board in the fall, and after this mid-year update, the leadership team will return in June for an end-of-year update. The goals, all aligned to the strategic plan, include overall district goals, departmental goals, and school goals, known as the ABCs (Attendance, Behavior, Curriculum). Schools have been presenting their ABC plans and progress to board subcommittees throughout the school year. You can find the goals update presentation in the agenda packet: https://5il.co/2cmut.
Action agenda item
Moving on to the action agenda, the sole item – a memorandum of understanding with the school nurses' union – was approved. The agreement relates primarily to hiring nurses on a part-time basis, but also makes a change to salary level for nurses with master’s degrees. The agreement is effective upon signing, and remains in effect through the end of the current contract, which is set to expire on June 30, 2025. More information on the memorandum of understanding is in the meeting agenda: https://5il.co/2cmut.
Consent agenda items
The consent agenda included only the approval of minutes from the January 8 meeting and items from the Finance and Facilities Committee. Most notable in those items relates to the wireless internet networks in schools. Late last year, the District put out a request for proposals (RFP) for a full survey of the wireless networks across all schools. With the board’s approval of the results of that RFP, the District will move forward with this project. This work is part of the District’s overall efforts to ensure the strength, security and stability of our wireless networks. Again, you can find this and other consent agenda items in the meeting packet: https://5il.co/2cmut.
Communications
Finally, in Superintendent’s Communications and Board Member Communications, the District presented two big updates.
The first is that the 2024-2025 high school course catalog has been approved and will be made available soon. As was the case last year, it will be made available both digitally and in print. That will kick off the course selection process during the month of February.
The second update is that the District has secured funding to support one of our high school’s FIRST Robotics teams in the event they qualify for national championships. Recently, one of the teams qualified for such a tournament, but the lack of funding for travel meant the team couldn’t participate.
More information
As a reminder, we share the following week’s Board of School Committee meeting calendar every Friday on our social media channels and on the Live Feed on our main website. All full board meetings take place in the Aldermanic Chambers at City Hall, and are available to watch on Manchester Public TV Channel 22 and streaming at https://www.manchestertv.org/22. Meetings are available on-demand within a few days at https://www.manchestertv.org/od. You can find more information on the Board of School Committee at https://www.mansd.org/o/msd/page/bosc.