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Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Board of Ed takes no action at Tuesday's meeting


The Board of Ed work/study session
was at Hubbard School Auditorium.


Twice, Plainfield School District officials came out to the small audience gathered in the Hubbard School auditorium to tell them the Board was not ready to open the meeting scheduled for 8:00 PM.

Finally, at 9:09, the Board assembled for its public work/study session.

As the evening progressed, it seemed more and more clear that the District is adrift.

Board President Morgan reported that as far as an Interim Superintendent was concerned, several candidates had been identified
, but that no one was "willing to come on board" and that the Board would continue looking.

With regard to a Human Resources director, Morgan reported, the District has received numerous inquiries about the position, but (as was previously stated) none were deemed satisfactory.

I suspect that really good candidates are not applying because the situation in Plainfield is in such obvious flux. It seems likely that senior staffing positions will only become stable once an effective Superintendent is in place.

Following the Board President, Acting Superintendent Caryn Cooper ran through a Powerpoint presentation on this year's QSAC (Quality
Single Accountability Continuum). If you want to understand more, check out the full act on the DOE website here.

Dr. Cooper whisked us through the report's summary (even distilled, the report ran to a four-page, single-spaced printout. Main point: Plainfield struggles to meet expectation with regard to curriculum. This has been noted before -- many times over the years.

One side effect of just doing an overview is that the particular schools that are most troubled are not identified.

I think it is an imperfect tool, but it measures all public school districts with the same yardstick; until something better comes along, Plainfield ought to get cracking on the necessary action steps.

At 9:50 PM, President Morgan made an aside that "no action will be taken tonight," meaning that the contract to hire Leverett Education Consulting for Board would not be taken up.

I presume it also means that the Resolution accepting the Memorandum of Agreement between the District and the Plainfield Education Association will be held in abeyance for the September business meeting.

Several Board of Ed candidates for the November election were present, with some of the asking questions of the Board.


  -- Dan Damon [follow]
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