By Gerald Ochs

By Gerald Ochs

Rappahannock News Writer

Superintendent Dr. David Gangel provided the School Board with a draft “working document” of long-term instructional goals at the Board’s September meeting. This document consists of a first cut of downstream (school year 2006-2007) targets for Standards of Learning (SOL) test pass rates in the elementary, middle, and high schools, and it also provides historical data on student performance on selected measure.

Dr. Gangel stressed “working” nature of this document, and asked for input from the Board’s Program and Planning Committee and the schools’ teachers to help in the process of determining what it will take to achieve the quantitative goals defined.

Simply stated, those quantitative goals are a 100 percent pass rate in the SOL tests, with a variance in the percentage of students who achieve passing grades at the proficient or at the advanced level. It would appear difficult for the School Board, its committees, and the teachers to determine “what it takes to get there.” Financial questions

and answers

In his report, Superintendent Gangel also noted that he provided responses to the financial questions posed by Ron Makela at a previous School Board meeting, and that he “answered as well as I could from my perspective, but it was difficult because many were Board issues.”

Earlier, during the public comments portion of the meeting, Mr. Makela presented the Board with a package of documents that he used to illustrate problems with the responses that he had received. He prefaced his remarks on the financial questions and responses by nothing that there is growing distrust in the community because “things are not being done by policy ... and it’s hard to get that trust back.” Mr. Makela was referring to his contention that compensation of some school administrators and staff is not in accordance with School Board policies, and he began to illustrate by refer