Cuyahoga Falls Board of Education Agrees to Extend Contract with Teachers

The Cuyahoga Falls Board of Education met in executive session three times in Monday’s special meeting before voting to extend the 2010-2011 contract through the school years ending in 2013.

After the third executive session Monday night, the board added a memorandum of understanding between the Cuyahoga Falls Board of Education and the Cuyahoga Falls Education Association to the agenda to enter into a new two-year contract. This essentially extends a contract originated in 2007.

The board voted 4-0 in favor of the memorandum of understanding. (Board member Barbara Gunter had to leave about 9:30 p.m.)  The board and the teachers’ union now must agree to the final terms.

The board met first to discuss whether to accept or appeal a lawsuit filed by former board member Kellie Patterson.

The board voted made no vote in Monday’s meeting regarding the Patterson case.

Summit County Common Pleas Judge Mary Margaret Rowlands ruled on April 20 that Patterson was entitled to more than $30,000 in attorney fees and court costs totaling $785.75.

Patterson had served on the board from 2006 to 2009. She lost re-election in 2009. Patterson filed a complaint in 2008, saying the board violated state sunshine laws. After a series of rulings and appeals, Summit County Common Please Judge Mary Margaret Rowlands ruled in favor of Patterson. After adjournment, Council President Therese Dunphy would only say the board instructed the lawyers to continue working on the case.

The board also held executive session to discuss candidates to replace Superintendent Ed Holland. 

Earlier in the evening, the board also heard a presentation by faculty and students about the district’s 90-10 program. Director of Teaching and Learning Debra McNair and Cuyahoga Falls High School Administrative Principal Anne Alfano led a presentation to the board about the district’s progress in implementing the 90-10 program, a system of grading that places greater emphasis on test performance, but also gives students opportunities for “intervention” when needed and enhancement in other situations.  

The pilot program was launched this year in DeWitt Elementary and in parts of Bolich Middle School and Cuyahoga Falls High School, McNair and Alfano said. It was patterned largely out of Brunswick schools in Medina County, where Alfano had came from. 

“This whole year, with Deb’s help, we’ve just been kind of working the entire pilot,” Alfano said. “We have meetings at least once a month … and so we use that feedback to figure out what are the best parts of it, what aren’t the best parts of it.”

“At DeWitt, the entire staff participated,” McNair said. “At Bolich, a few teachers participated and at the high school a few teachers participated.”

Several teachers described to the board the challenges and successes they experienced in implementing 90-10, and students Tyler Habony and Ashley Lawrence, both seniors and both athletes, described the challenges of  juggling practices and games and struggling to do homework and prepare for test in sometimes-conflicting schedules. The opportunity to make up tests, or even sections of tests, takes a lot of the stress and anxiety out of taking tests, they said.

Board member candidate Mike Penta, a graduate student in sociology at the University of Akron, expressed concern during public comments that college students don’t get second tries and that he believes students too often are not prepared for the rigors of college.

Afterward, McNair and Alfano said Holland had made clear he wanted the program to go forward next year, and they believed they had the support of the board to move forward with it. 

The board recessed for executive session at 7:25 p.m. and remained in executive session until 9:16 p.m. and entered executive session again from 9:23 to 9:58 p.m. The board adjourned at 10:03 p.m. after the vote on contract negotiations.