Last night’s School Board meeting began at 7 p.m. in the
usual fashion. One notable
difference was the approximately 60 citizens who showed up to witness a
historical decision that had to be made by the School Board under a
federal
mandate.
Because Colonial Beach High School has been deemed a
persistently low achieving school -- “Not in Improvement” Tier II” --
by the Virginia
Department of Education under federal standards, the School Board was
mandated
to choose one of four alternative models designed to improve student
achievement. All of the alternative models were tied to an additional
$350,000
to $500,000 of funding provided under recent federal legislation.
The gravity of the impending decision was noted by School
Board member Wayne Kennedy who expressed his displeasure with recent
newspaper
reports of shortcomings in the school system, while School Board Chair
Tim
Trivett asked for support from the community while “we meet the
challenge and
be successful in all we do.”
Under the federally-mandated School Improvement Program, the
first alternative, the Turnaround Plan, would be to replace the current
Principal, Clint Runyan, and at least half of the high school staff
while implementing a
revised instruction program. The
second alternative, the Restart Plan, would require the town could close
the
high school and reopen under a charter school operator meeting strict
requirements. The third
alternative, the Closure Plan, would mandate closing the high school and
enrolling
students in a nearby district. The fourth and least disruptive
alternative, the
Transformational Plan, would include replacing the current principal,
implementing instructional reform, extending learning and teacher
planning time
and providing operating flexibility and sustained support.
After an hour and a half closed session discussing personnel
matters, School Board members reconvened the open meeting at 10:30 p.m.
Superintendent Donna Power made her
recommendation to the board that the fourth alternative, the
Transformational
Plan, be adopted with submission of a waiver request to the DOE to keep
in
place current high school principal with a probation period of
year.
At 10:39 p.m., after a 9 minute recommendation by
Superintendent Power, board member Mike Looney moved to adopt the
recommendation of Power with Wayne Kennedy seconding the motion. A vote
was taken with Trivett, Looney,
Kennedy and Lyburn voting aye and only Anne Congdon voting nay. When
questioned on her lone nay vote, Congdon replied she “was not happy with
the terms
on the table.”
Read more in the March 17 edition of The Journal.
