EDUCATION OVERSIGHT BOARD MEETING MINUTES September 15, 2004 - 9:00 A.M Room 412A State Capitol Building Oklahoma City, OK 73105 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Don McCorkell, Kenneth Bridges, Gerald Dickerson, Ron Dryden, Susan Field and Sen. Penny Williams BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT: Patrick Gilmore and Rep. Barbara Staggs OTHER REGULAR ATTENDEES: Office of Accountability Staff: Robert Buswell, Matt Hesser, Jerry Hsieh, Leonard Hall VISITORS: None Call to Order and Roll Call: Mr. McCorkell called the meeting to order at 9:08 a.m. and declared a quorum present. Approval of Minutes: Minutes of the June 23, 2004 meeting were unanimously approved. Status Report on the Oklahoma Educational Indicators Program: Mr. Buswell gave a short presentation related to the press release concerning the Education Oversight Board's "70% Performance Benchmark." Buswell handed out tables listing the schools that had met the benchmark over the last five years. Buswell's presentation led into a lengthy discussion about the accuracy and validity of the state's testing program. Buswell communicated that the 2003 reports had been distributed and that there would be a concerted effort to increase distribution of the documents through the Office's website. Mr. Hsieh went on to report on web activity. Hsieh reported that the Office was averaging 300 documents downloaded every day. The single largest user group was still parents at 44% of all users and the bulk of requests, 60%, came from users within Oklahoma. Mr. Buswell explained that Profiles 2004 was underway. A data request had gone out to the State Department of Education and requests to the other agencies providing data would go out later in the week. Mr. Hesser reminded the Board that this was the time of the year to start thinking about additions to the State Report, or changes to the other reports in the Profiles series. Mr. McCorkell suggested that the Board should have a meeting dedicated to generating a strategic plan for the EOB and Office of Accountability which might then shape the contents of the Office's reports. Board members decided that the October meeting of the Education Oversight Board would function as a board member retreat and would be rescheduled to October 13 and 14. Mr. McCorkell suggested inviting a broad spectrum of educational experts to assist the board in deliberations during the retreat and indicated that he would be willing to host the retreat at Casa Fina International's headquarters in Tulsa. Office of Accountability staff was directed to make arrangements for a board retreat on October 13 & 14, 2004. Status Report on the Oklahoma School Performance Review Program (OSPR): Mr. Buswell distributed the OSPR reports for the Hennessey and Frontier school systems. Buswell stated that the review process could potentially save Hennessey Public Schools more than $700,000 over a five-year period. Buswell explained that the recommendations for Frontier centered on improving operations and school performance, as opposed to saving money, so the estimated savings were only about $200,000. Mr. McCorkell reminded the board that the primary purpose of the performance reviews was to improve school performance. Saving money was not necessarily a primary objective of the program. Buswell went on to say that the review process had started for Stillwater Public Schools. The Office had met with the Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation to look over the review protocols concerning the areas of professional development and the role of principals as instructional leaders. It was decided after looking at the protocols in their entirety, that they did an adequate job of analyzing performance in those two areas. However, after the Stillwater review, OSPR might reorganize the protocols to more clearly state the operational objectives that schools should be striving for in regard to professional development and the role of principals as instructional leaders. Mr. McCorkell felt that it might be helpful to have a review team that consisted of experts from several areas within education in addition to the contractors. He envisioned a team similar to those used on NCATE reviews. Mr. Hesser relayed to the board that the Stillwater RFP had been released on August 23 and that data requests had gone out to both Stillwater PS and the State Department of Education. The start date had been pushed back to November 8, a first draft was due on December 15, a second draft was due on January 20 and the final report should be released on April 04, 2005. Mr. Dickerson stated that Putnam City and Bethany had both expressed an interest in having their districts go through the performance review process, especially if 100% of the cost could be covered by outside sources. Senator Williams took the opportunity to formally thank Mr. McCorkell for donating the 25% match needed for the Ponca City review. The Senator felt that McCorkell had single-handedly broken OSPR out of a logjam and allowed the program to move forward. The Senator felt that without Mr. McCorkell's help, OSPR would not have schools like Stillwater requesting performance reviews and that McCorkell had done a great service to education in the State of Oklahoma through his generosity. The board wholeheartedly agreed with Senator William's comments. Report on Legislation: Mr. Buswell distributed to board members for their perusal highlights of education related legislation from the 2004 legislative session. End-of-Year Expenditure Report for FY-04: Mr. Buswell explained that while the Oklahoma State Regents had been very good to work with, the prorating of costs between the Indicators Program and OSPR may require some additional adjustments. To date, the indicators program had total expenditures of $255,747 for FY-04 with a carryover of roughly $16,000. The OSPR program had expenditures of $281,853 for FY-04 with a carryover of roughly $141, 000. Buswell expected that the prorating process would be further refined during FY-05 and that some additional amounts may be shifted from OSPR to the Indicators program. Year to Date Expenditures Report for FY-05: Mr. Buswell reviewed a year-to-date expenditure report for the Educational Indicators program with board members. In that the Office was only two months into the FY-05 year, there had not been any expenditures beyond fixed costs such as rent, salaries and benefits, etc. Buswell felt that the Office's finances for FY-05 were in good shape. Proposed Budget for FY-06: Mr. Buswell had prepared a proposed budget for FY-2006 for the Office of Accountability. Board members reviewed the budget and discussed several budgetary items. Mr. McCorkell felt that there needed to be more money in the budget for staff travel. He thought it was imperative that staff stay connected with what was happening at the national and regional level concerning education reform. Board members decided to table voting on the FY-2006 budget until the second day of the upcoming retreat. Election of New Officers: Mr. Dickerson nominated Mr. McCorkell to continue as Chair, Mr. Dryden seconded the nomination and the motion carried. Mr. Bridges nominated Mr. Dryden for the position of Vice-Chair, Mrs. Field seconded the nomination and the motion carried. New Business: Senator Williams felt that the EOB should make it a priority to look at the schools that have been identified under No Child Left Behind and look for ways to help those schools improve performance. Announcements: None Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:20 a.m. The minutes of the September 15, 2004 Meeting of the Education Oversight Board were approved as submitted on January 26, 2005