Caddo district's service contract with charters

The Caddo Parish School Board discussed the service contract with the charter schools -- Linwood and Linear -- last night.

The details of the contract wasn't in my story this morning since it really deserves it's own space. 

The contract (which you can see by clicking here) has some interesting details on how much the district will charge the Recovery School District, which is entering into the contract on the charter's behalf.

But first some background: The charter operators and respective governing boards moved into the school buildings July 1. That is the official day the RSD said they could move in and it's also the day listed on the contracts as the effect date.

The charter groups at Linear and Linwood can choose to have the district supply services such as transportation and food. Or they can choose to go another route. If they did, the contracts are negociated through the RSD.

So this is what's in the contract:

• Food service. The district is charging $1.90 for breakfast and $3.80 for lunch. According to the contract, the prices include "mailing, printing, and processing of student meal applications, assistance in application for free and reduced price meals; provision of at-risk student information for  E-rate Title I, and other grants," among other services.  The district charges its student $1 for breakfast and $1.75 for lunch. For students on free or reduced meal plans, the district charges its students 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch.
• Maintenance. The district is charging $131.309 for a head custodian, assistant custodian and three sweepers. The cost is subject to pay increases. Also under maintenance is $3,000 for an energy manager, $400 for fire alarm inspections, and $3,500 for lawn care.
• Utilities are estimated to be $102,000
• Special education Evaluations. $55/hr for pre-referrals, $600 for inital evaluations, and $350 for re-evaluations.

Here's the link again to see the entire contract.

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On the agenda: Caddo school board meeting

The Caddo Parish School Board is Tuesday and there are lots of items to hear about.

Here's the Cliff Notes version complete with links.

Item 1) How the impact of the minimum wage increase will effect Caddo Parish employees.

The minimum wage increases classified pay for example: subs in nine schools will get paid from $50 to $75. Here's what's in the board packet.

Item 2.) Discussion and vote on the request for a type II charter.

We've written about this before on the blog and we wrote a story about it in the paper. The short verison:
The charter application is being submitted by Eddie Cheathem who wants to open a K-5 school with a $3.5 million budget.

Item 3) Rename Math/Science Middle School to the M. J. Moore Math/Science Middle School, Moore was the Linwood principal who died in Feb.

Item 4) Approval of the contracts for the charter schools. Some of the services the district is providing are buses and lunch services.

We haven't gotten the contract yet though we've asked for it. We'll ask for it again and report back.

School board meeting is at 4:30 Tuesday at the district's offices, 1961 Midway.

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Teachers and $200

Today's story about teachers, the district, and the $200 allotment had some interesting features and additions that you can't find or see easily on our site. So I thought I'd show them to you here since they are an important part of the story.

Here's a link to the Aug. 18 Caddo Parish School Board meeting. It was during this meeting that the school board members approved the item, allowing the district to give teachers $200 purchasing cards at School Aids.

The district will spend $600,000 to give teachers cards from this store.

Here's a link to the copy of the bid on a website called BidSync.

And here's another link to the bid's sign off. This was part of the school board's meeting packet for that day. District officials usually write a paragraph about the outcome of a bid or what they recommend. That memo is usually initaled by all the people involved.

The final link was to a Google map showing the locations of the businesses involved and the school board office. If you click on the dots, more information will pop up including address and phone number.

View Educational supplies in a larger map

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More stuff from the school board meeting

Yesterday's Caddo school board meeting was one of those times when there was more meeting than space in the paper to write about it.

Thank goodness for blogs.

Some items that didn't make it into today's story. includes the number of visits the 20-team consultants would be making. They'll visit 77 times through out the year but they won't all come at once. They'll stagger their visits working with the 29 schools with suspension rates over 15 percent.

The names of those 29 schools were not made available last night but we'll ask the district for the list and their suspension rates.

Robert March, the consultant hired for the Corrective Action Plan, talked about how the suspensions were categorized and among the most cited is disrespect. That could mean several things -- dress code violations, talking back to the teacher, etc.

The CAP came about after six parents with help from the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a complaint with the state department of education in 2006. Here is the original complaint and the original settlement agreement.

This year, the district will have to pay March over $700,000 to execute the plan within the district. Here's a copy of March's contract.

To read a play by play of yesterday's meeting, click here.

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Caddo School Board and the Corrective Action Plan

The Caddo School Board will have a special called meeting on Tuesday. The topic: the Corrective Action Plan.

I'm still doing some reporting to understand it fully since this was before my time. Here's what I know so far:

The purpose of the meeting is to hear an update from Robert March, a nationally certified school psychologist based in Colorado and to take action on the Corrective Action Plan and Budget for 2009-10 and on his interim contract. March is the consultant hired to look at creating an improvement plan for services offered to emotionally and behaviorally disturbed students as part of a 2006 settlement agreement with the state education department.

The Corrective Action Plan, its budget, and March's contract is extensive. From what I've read so far, the district will have to pay Dr. March $736,750 this year for his services. What do said services include? Here's the list:

• On/off site consultation. $198,000 total for on site, $82,500 for offsite
• $96,250 for travel
• $54,000 for data analysis
• $306,000 for enrollment in online professional development

Whenever the topic of the corrective action plan and Dr. March comes up, the board isn't happy.  The last time Dr March visited the board, there was hostility and lots of unanswered questions. We'll see what happens on Tuesday.

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Charter school application

Hello all! Here are the links I promised with the charter school application

Letter of Intent

Type 2 Charter Application

Budget

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