Fergusson Intermediate School

Minutes

Board of Trustees Meeting 26 November at 4.04pm

Present: Wendy Eyles, Jess Setu, Wendy Bartlett, Karyn Thompson,Sheryl Brown, Paul Patterson

Apologies: Stephen Watkinson

In attendance:Nathan Russell (Deputy Principal), Kate Malcolmson (Second Deputy Principal), Sandra Glasgow (Minute Taker)

Minutes of previous meeting:

The minutes of theSeptember 17meeting wereapproved as true and correct.

WendyEyles/Karyn Thompson

The minutes of the October 29 meeting were approved as true and correct

WendyEyles/Karyn Thompson

Matters Arising: None noted

Correspondence:As per published list.

Principal’s Report: The Report is taken as read with further discussion as follows:

  • Paul gave a special acknowledgement to the staff involved in the variety show and will acknowledge them all individually for the excellent job they did in the upcoming newsletter
  • The ERO report has not yet been received but should be arriving any day.

The Principal’s report was accepted.

Chairperson’s Report: The Report is taken as read with further discussion as follows:

  • Wendy thanked Nathan for the information he provided to the Upper Hutt Cluster regarding BYOD and noted that Fergusson, Silverstream, Pinehaven and Trentham are planning on setting up an IT cluster so the skills acquired will flow through with the children to intermediate.

The Chairperson’s report was accepted.

Finance Report: Karyn spoke to this with items of note as follows:

  • Current working capital surplus is $471,947
  • Year to Date surplus is 126,490
  • The 2015 budget will account for some parents not paying the parent donations
  • Uniforms will not be given out in 2015 unless paid for in full to try to combat parents not fully paying for them
  • There is no change to the library expenditure
  • There is no change in curriculum equipment repairs
  • We are still to return $8,877 to the MOE which is excess from the Heating and Electrical upgrade
  • MOE owe us $3,592 for the prefab demolition and reinstatement of driveway.

MOTION: THAT the finance report for October 2014 be approved

Karyn Thompson/Wendy Bartlett

General Business

  • NAG 1 - Curriculum

No current agenda items

  • NAG 2 – Documentation and Review

ERO Visit

The general feeling was that the visit went well. As noted, the report is yet to arrive but Paul warned that it will more than likely be rather bland and to the point.

Special Needs and Learning Support Self Review

Nathan presented what the Board would like to acknowledge as a very informative report outlining the Special Needs and Learning Support achievements/progress for 2014. The report was put together by Nathan, Kate, Sam, Sue and Pat. Discussion was had around the following;

  • Karyn questioned whether it was a negative or positive point that children are at times missing the Maths Support programme to attend other school activities. It was advised that the pros and cons of outside activities need to be weighed up but it is seen as a way of keeping the kids engaged and acknowledged that Intermediates are a very busy time in a child’s life.

Goal 2

There were no amendments suggested to this goal. Paul advised that there is no more Maths PLD funding so sustainability is now the focus. He also advised that Murray Gadd has agreed to work with the school for three days next year (January, end of term 2 and beginning of term 3). Paul is in correspondence with him and a price is yet to come.

  • NAG 3 – Personnel

Ratification of Appointments

MOTION: THAT the Board ratifies the appointment of April Stevens to the permanent scale A teaching position and Geoff Kurton to the one year fixed term maternity leave position in 2015.

Wendy Eyles/Unanimous

Staffing 2015

MOTION: THAT the Board agrees to extended maternity leave as requested by Rachel Van Der Gulik

Wendy Eyles/Karyn Thompson

  • Applications are still coming in for the Food Tech teaching position which closes on Friday. There has only been a small number of applications received so far.
  • Sue’s current full time learning support position will probably change to a 0.6 position and allow only for a morning employee. This should give a surplus of 0.4 which will allow us to keep Pat in her current 0.5 position.
  • The current 2015 roll is sitting at 388. Staffing projections are being based around a roll of 392.
  • With a role of 392, the staffing entitlement will be 21.2-21.3
  • AG 4 – Finance & Property

Website Proposal

Nathan has been investigating options for upgrading the school website and gave a brief report to the Board regarding his findings.

Meetings have been held with Alan Koeninger who created the website for Tawhai School and is the preferred contractor for revamping our website. He gave Nathan two options;

  1. Create a brand new website from scratch (approx $4,700.00 with 30% of his hours donated)
  2. Use a customisable template (approx $2,300.00)

All costs above include training which Nathan will manage.

After outlining all the options, Nathan recommended to the Board that they accept option 1 (brand new website) in the amount of $4,700.00.

MOTION: THAT the Board accepts and approves Nathan’s recommendation to contract Alan Koeninger to create a customized website for Fergusson Intermediate for 2015 to the value of $4,700.00.

Karyn Thompson/Wendy Bartlett

Landscaping Resolution – Refer to email in Board Papers

MOTION: THAT the Board accepts the advice from Callum McKenzie to receive 2k out of the moneys held against Watts and Hughes for completion of the landscaping works and organise the completion ourselves.

Karyn Thompson/Wendy Eyles

  • NAG 5 – Health & Safety

No current agenda items.

  • NAG 6 – Administration

MOTION: THAT the Board agrees for the school to fund $30.00 per person attending the year end staff lunch for food only, the split of which is to be decided. Eg; $20 from Board budget and $10 from Principals budget or full $30 from Board budget.

Karyn Thompson/Wendy Bartlett

Next Meeting: Tuesday 9 December 2014 at 1.30pm
MeetingClosed: 5.58pm
Minutes read and confirmed: / Date: ______