The Morris Jeff Community School Board cancelled their meeting last night. Only three members were able to attend, too few for quorum.
Board members Stacey Gengel, Jolene Jeff and president Aesha Rasheed waited a few minutes, with principal Patricia Perkins and finance and operations director Jared Frank, to confirm the last cancellation. No one could recall ever having had to cancel a meeting for too low of a turnout.
Rasheed described Monday’s development meeting to a reporter. The board holds monthly development meetings to educate members on various topics. Development meetings are now open sessions, so that all board members may attend and comply with public meetings law. This week’s focus had been “DRA,” the school’s method of assessing student progress in reading and math.
After next year, Morris Jeff will transition from LEAP to Common Core testing. With Common Core, questions in each section are cumulative, based on previous answers, rather than isolated. The exam assesses critical thinking, rather than “squeezing more information out of kids.”
The next development meeting will be December 11 at 5:30 p.m., to focus on Special Education.
On November 30, the board will help the school to prepare for a site visit by a program that leads to an international baccalaureate. Members will pose as program representatives, peppering the faculty (and even some students) with questions.
Last night’s board meeting will be rescheduled for December. The board typically does not meet in that month, but the board needs to review a recent financial audit, according to Rasheed.