SUNDAY COWARD: What can we do outside of what is already being done? We would like to see what the board can do in involving the community.

SUPT. EVERSLEY: We need to pull in as many partners as we can. How do we build on the things that are already happening in the schools?

With regard to the scores. They are not that great. We are building a protocol for individual school improvement planning. It is important to make sure that what we are doing is in alignment with what our students are being held accountable for producing.

We are not satisfied with the scores. Students are not doing as well as they are intellectually able. Some of our students are doing very well. Some of our students are not doing well. We are not succeeding at the rate in which we should.

JOE CATTANO: When I graduated in 1962 there was a tone in this school district. This was a place where you learned; where you produced; where you worked. As students, we knew what it meant to be students. That tone has been lost.

Students must realize what it means to be a student. If they don’t know that, we have to look to the community and their parents to help them.

MIKE RAAB: I was proud of my grades because I was buckling down. Kids have too many distractions today. (Raab then went on to pick up Cattano’s theme that it is the parents fault that student achievement is so low.)

RON ELLERBE: What was your object in calling this meeting?

MIKE RAAB: We might be changing policy tonight.

JOE CATTANO: Ron, when I saw the scores, I was really pissed off, because my expectation was that the scores were going to improve. There is no dividing line between the street and the school. That’s what I want to see there. Those schools have to be safe and secure. We have been very lax in dealing with that issue.

MIKE RAAB: Let it not be said that we have been lax. We’ve been trying to get this through for almost a year.

JOE CATTANO: I also have a concern if what I am hearing in the community has any degree of truth to it. That is that Sacred Heart, St. Agnes, Trinity and Kellenberg will thank us for our community giving them our best students.

MIKE RAAB: We need to earn a lot of trust again.

RON ELLERBE: I don’t think that hysteria and alarmism is a proper response to some of the articles, because the community sees the board as alarmist and you are going to alarm the community. Clearly, the issues warrant our immediate attention, but I don’t know what your objective is for this meeting tonight. Is it just to share with us your anxiety? What do you want to accomplish at this meeting? What are you going to do?

SUNDAY COWARD: We don’t want to be reactionary. You are not going to get something out of here that is going to change those scores overnight. I know the community is very important.

JOE CATTANO: To be alarmed is not a bad thing. There is a time to be frightened. There is a time to be alarmed. and there is a time to be scared and only a fool doesn’t know when that time is upon you. I am alarmed. I think the community should be alarmed. We can initiate a dialogue about this problem.

RON ELLERBE: I don’t think it’s appropriate to shout fire in a crowded theater unless you have a plan of exit.

JOE CATTANO: If there is a fire in that theater, you better damn well say fire or you’re going to fry in there. To stay with your analogy, there’s been a fire for six years.

RON ELLERBE: All I’m asking is you have a plan of action. You called an emergency meeting. I want to know what your plan of action is. All you’re telling me is some vague things about changing policy tonight and some other stuff. All I’m hearing is some rasotorical rhetoric about your alarming.

JOE CATTANO: Where do all actions come from Ron, out of the sky? They come from people coming together and discussing things. It is something that evolves!

RON ELLERBE: They come from the superintendent and the administrators. They don’t come from you guys beating drums, blowing whistles and waving flags. That’s where they come from.

SUNDAY COWARD: We need to go back to the community.

CARMEN PINEYRO: We need to be concerned about the scores.

SUPT. EVERSLEY: We are looking at how the system can improve. The scores are just a manifestation of a series of other things that don’t work. I want to get at the other things that don’t work.

JOE CATTANO: Systems theory is flawed in a lot of ways. Just realize that it is not the holy grail. We need to look at the disease that sits below.

SUPT. EVERSLEY: You’re talking about education. You’re not talking about me. That’s not my orientation.

RON ELLERBE: Last year or the year before that I requested that the board set goals, things that the board would like to achieve. This board has spent a year putting out fires, going from one emergency to the next. We loose sight of our main goal. The board is afraid to set goals because the board is afraid they may not achieve those goals. I’m challenging this board to set goals.

SUNDAY COWARD: We did start.

RON ELLERBE: You didn’t start. We haven’t done anything.

SUNDAY COWARD: But we are going to.

RON ELLERBE: How the hell are you going to ask anybody to do something, when you don’t have any damn goals for yourself.

SUNDAY COWARD: Ron, we did work on the goals and we had superintendent goals.

RON ELLERBE: You haven’t done anything.

SUNDAY COWARD: Ron, are you listening?

JOE CATTANO: You’re not part of the process. I’m sorry. Mr. Ellerbe is on his own board.

RON ELLERBE: Mr. Ellerbe is a minority within a minority.

JOE CATTANO: Oh, break it off, will you Ron.

RON ELLERBE: You’re afraid of fighting ---

JOE CATTANO: You’re hot air, Ron --

SUNDAY COWARD: Stop. Thank you. My own feeling is we are running around in circles.

RON ELLERBE: I’m putting it to the board again. If you want to reach out to the community --

JOE CATTANO: Are you putting it to us, you included? Or are you just putting it out to us for --

SUNDAY COWARD: (unintelligible) Come on. Oh --

RON ELLERBE: (to Cattano) I don’t want to say how rude you are, but you don’t have to prove it by constantly opening your mouth. All right?

SUNDAY COWARD: Stop. Stop. Take a deep breath. It’s embarrassing.

RON ELLERBE: There is a necessity for a district wide vision statement. We need to include the community in that process. I’m frustrated by this board’s failure to implement these things. I’ve been badgering you and I see no action from this board.

SUNDAY COWARD: And you know what Ron, you --

JOE CATTANO: (Yelling) How long have you been on the board, Ron?

SUNDAY COWARD: Joe. Joe.

MIKE RAAB: Seven years.

SUNDAY COWARD: Ron, you are twenty percent. It needs to be a collective thing. We are a team.