Files – Concord List

From the Tree Preservation Subcommittee.

• The Tree Preservation Subcommittee Report to the Planning Board, September 27 2016

An email sent to members of the Regional School Committee and other Concord committees about the failed Town Meeting Article 14 to remediate the closed dump by the old high school.

• The Dump Remediation Issue

This year's Town Meeting produced prodigiously, starkly so, in comparison with our broken national legislature. A few of the finer moments are captured as video snippets, here on-site. Enjoy, at the link below.

Especialy, there is a tribute to the Town Moderator of the past six years, who is stepping down. That begins with a remarkable skit by two memebers of the Select Board. Then video from discussion of two Articles celebrates – finally – Town Meeting's advising that we look to the High School grounds for at least some of bus management. Even with one moment of humor ... There is also a lesson in the role of neighbors entrusted to be executive for Town Meeting's legislation.

Enjoy!

• Town Meeting 2016 – Select moments in video

The Belle Hankey case regarding bullying at the high school:

Here find the full court's decision. A reading of this 'Motion and Order' reveals key facts of the case, as well as the law that compelled the decision.

• Hankey Summary Judgement Motion and Order, filed September 30 2015

School Committee evaluations of Diana Rigby, June 2015:

The Concord-Carlisle Regional District School Committee and the Concord School Committee – that is, those members who were in place for the relevant period – make annual evaluation of the CCRSD Superintendent. Here find the 2015 evaluation – all 87 pages, including separate evaluations by individual Committee members and summative evaluation. There are two versions, one for reading and the other to gather quotations from the evaluations if desired.

The first is the 87 pages as a scan of the document. That is the reliably legible version.

For the second, the scan has gone through optical character recognition, OCR. Quality of the orignal scan can limit both OCR legibility and OCR accuracy. Reference to the scan version can of course confirm and, if necessary, make accurate any quotes from the OCR version. Through community effort, this OCR copy is generally pretty reliable.

• CCRSD Superintendent evaluation – June 2015
• CCRSD Superintendent evaluation – June 2015 - OCR'd

Regarding two playing fields at the High School, the Doug White turf fields and the renovated lower fields:

Two separate and distinct InterMunicipal agreements, between the Town of Concord and the Concord-Carlisle Regional School District, govern these fields. Those two separate agreements differ markedly re operational policies.

The file linked here compares the two different policies and identifies suggested revisions to the lower fields Community Use Agreement (CUA). Dean Banfield provided the file.

• Two CCHS playing fields: Comparison of operational policies and suggested revisions – April 9 2015

Regarding student fees for curriculum based events and field trips:

Citizens have now confirmed that Diana Rigby, the School Superintendent, proceeded beyond DOE regulations – after Rigby was told on May 20 by the Department of Education that fees could not be required for curriculum related events.

DOE has said they told CPS there could not be charges for curriculum-based events; there could be 'voluntary contributions' only. After nonetheless first requiring involuntary payments, the Superintendent now seeks to declare them 'voluntary,' well after money was collected. Apparently, she expects the School Committee to vote to accept these as 'donations' at the June 10 School Committee meeting and keep the money in CPS coffers.

The pdf at the link lays out detail.

• Email to School Committee – June 1 2014

Regarding student fees: Two series of email exchanges with the Massachusetts Department of Education.

• CPS fees and computers
• CPS fees and field trips and events

The School’s use of high-price attorneys – when there are quality alternatives for a fraction of the cost – played a part, apparently, in Town Meeting’s recent rejection of the School’s request for an additional $200K. Miguel Echavarri has now written in significant detail on the matter to the School Committee.

In the letter, linked below, you now have the benefit of extensive review, to shine a clear light. You can learn among others the professional specialties of individual attorneys involved, have an opportunity to assess the fit with our schools, particularly compared with specified alternatives. Including also dollar amounts, even legal time spent at Town Meeting.

This precedes questions put directly to the School Committee.

• Letter to School Committee re legal

At Town Meeting, John Boynton commented that, of the citizens with objections, he had seen 'only one' attending the CC at Play meetings. Dean Banfield was that individual, and here are Dean's detailed suggestions on how the design of the fields renovation plan could have been improved.

• CC at Play suggestions

An article regarding the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail, Article 39, is on the Warrant and will come up at Town Meeting. Town Meeting begins tomorrow, Sunday May 4. The file here intends to clear up mis-perceptions about the article.

At the link is a concise statement of facts about Article 39 from the petition author, Sharon McGregor. This appeared in the May 1 Concord Journal as a guest opinion, alongside the opponent’s guest opinion.

• Article 39 – Proponent’s statement of facts

The fields renovation project proposed for the CCHS campus does not appear to benefit all sports interests. In fact based on the information provided in the diagrams linked below, the plan appears to be deleterious to multiple uses on the campus by the primary athletic users, the CCHS teams.

This analysis is provided by Dean Banfield.

[Mass Ethics Commission disclaimer - Dean Banfield is an abutter to the CCHS property. He is also a member of the CPC and NRC committees in Concord. In the matter of CC at Play before both of those boards, Banfield is recused to avoid an appearance of conflict of interest. The opinions he expresses here are his alone as an individual and do not represent the positions of either committee, any other organization, or person.]

• CC at Play Phasing Plan

Concord citizens have been resoundingly clear – now at two Town Meetings – that they want the school buses kept in-house.

Two recent documents reflect on the facts underlying.

• First Student Loses Again
• University Of Minnesota Busing Study – The Impact of Outsourcing

The School Committee has completed its annual review of the Superintendent, Diana Rigby. Click below to find each of the reviews, as written individually by members of the School Committee.

• Philip Benincasa
• Fabian Fondriest
• Pamela Gannon
• Melissa McMorrow
• Jennifer Munn
• Louis Salemy
• Maureen Allaire Spada

In addition, those reviews are also readable on Google drive.

• https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxmhJxFvPDGyNjhxVDlaZm5jTlk&usp=sharing

Thanks to Miguel Echavarri, we now have available an in-depth data analysis of Concord's school finances.

Since the schools spend about 70 percent of the taxes that Concord's citizens pay to the town, understanding how those school monies are spent can be revealing. In this first installment, Miguel presents administrative costs per pupil; he also highlights a notable expense item.

For his analysis, see

• Concord schools: High Admin Costs per Pupil, Excessive Legal Fees, SC Oversight

For his email to the FinCom, transmitting the analysis, see

• M Echavarri to FinCom, June 17 2013

The Concord Carlisle Regional School District's administration costs are among the highest in Massachusetts. One example of this administrative overspending is markedly excessive legal fees the District pays.

What is more, the School Committee is unclear about its oversight role. Is weak SC oversight a key factor in the District's lack of fiscal restraint?

The files lay out this story with full analytic detail, including charts and tables.

TEACHERS MATTER

Next Tuesday, May 14, come support Concord & Concord-Carlisle teachers

• 4:30 at the Flag Pole / Monument Square
• 6:30 at the School Committee meeting

Go here for a pdf you can print, to hand out or put in car windows.

The School Committee, at their February 26 meeting, presented a 40-page rationalization. They had previously refused to consider a place for the buses somewhere on the 94 acres of District land, where they have sole control. In the February 26 meeting, they attempted to make an elaborate excuse for their ongoing refusal – a refusal even to consider using the land entrusted to them.

Here is an analysis of that lengthy apologia, a penetrating review that reveals the actual facts.

• Analysis of presentation

Complete dissection of the school response, to the eleven Journal questions

• The full story (Bill Plummer)
• A quick look (David Allen – annotations are in comment boxes. In Acrobat, mouse over a box to lift its semi-transparency and make legible. If on Mac opening in Preview, be sure the View menu is toggled to show Notes.)

As described re the video critique immediately below (Jan 6), the school finally produced a lengthy response to the Concord Journal's eleven questions. The two pdf's here reveal just how badly the school failed, in fact, to respond – again.

(Perhaps because of outcry at the Dec 11 meeting, where the school response first appeared, the 'final' form of the school document omitted reference to a letter. Here you have both versions. The 'final' is at the first link, omitting the letter; the original is at the second, including the letter.)

Happy New Year! Let it be a year – finally – for some quality in our schools' governance.

As we know, in a headline article around Thanksgiving, the Concord Journal posed eleven questions for our school officials. As reported in the article, this was after repeated attempts by the Journal, to meet with school officials. Finally, some three or so weeks later, December 11, on the document table at a Committee meeting, the School Committee put out a seven-page response.

The Journal has now, in this new year, we learn, begun an eleven-week series. Each week, we learn, will detail one of the questions.

Below, you can preview whether the School Committee, in its belated response, improved any, on its past record of obfuscation. And, you may see why the wish for quality governance, in our new year, is ever poignant.

Here is one person's rip of the response. A rip that boiled up, just reading the piece during the meeting.

As you see, there is both video and a transcript of the video captions.
Mouse over the tabs – Video and Transcript – to open the respective content.