Unapproved Minutes of FCL Joint Board Meeting 4/7/16

Unapproved Minutes of the FCL Joint Board Meeting
April 7, 2016

The meeting was called to order at 6:32 by chair Pat Gallant. In attendance were Debbie Landauer, Joy Mercer, Pat Gallant, Liz Griffin, Janel Gamm, Patti Reaves, John Tague, Scott Mitchell, Kathy Muehl, Lauri Fisher.

There was no public input.
The agenda for the meeting was reviewed and Pat welcomed new member, Kathy Muehl to the Board.
There was no correspondence.
New officers were nominated and elected. Pat and Liz will continue in their roles as chair and secretary.
Debbie has updated the contact list for members of the Board. It is available on Google Docs.

The minutes of the 11/19/15 minutes were read and discussed. Pat G. wished to amend the minutes to clarify the statement regarding School Board policy and the Community Library.
The amendment was briefly discussed and was approved.

The amended statement now reads: Staff will follow school policies in effect as of 11/19/15
for all students and patrons during school library hours. Policy conflicts will be reviewed and resolved by the Joint Board.

Quarterly Reports.
Joy Mercer reported that the students are excited about voting for the Red Clover Book for the year. It is the 20th anniversary of the Red Clover Books and youth have participated in a variety of activities about this event.
Voting will also take place for the DCF book awards, now called Dorothy’s List since the acronym is also used by the Department of Children and Families.
Fifth graders have ‘adopted a shelf,’ and are enthusiastic about keeping it clean and orderly. Decorations have also appeared on their shelves.

Debbie Landauer reported 6 Fairfax Chess Titan members attended the VT State Chess Scholastic Tournament. There were 2 second place wins in the younger division and a 4th place tie in the high school division! The coach is Michael Free-Thall.

She mentioned that 40 new patrons signed up for library cards this quarter. Some of these patrons were participants in the Baby Book Dedication and 13 were at Town Meeting Day.

Zinio is a digital magazine service for which the library now has a subscription. 59 magazine titles are available. In March 88 magazines were checked out.

Library has been very busy and there have been many well attended programs both after school and in the evening.

The library collaborated with the Recreation Department and hosted a craft and hot chocolate event after the Easter Egg Hunt. It was so busy that it will be at least partially held in the multi purpose room next year.

Policy Updates
Scott mentioned that the School Board is updating school policies. He presented four updates covering animal dissection, class size, Board member conflict of interest and genetic harassment.
The Joint Board acknowledged that none of these updates affect the library. The Board would like to be appraised of all updates, however, so that they could determine which, if any, have any affect on the library. The topic, Policy Updates, will be a standing agenda item at future Joint Board meetings.

The architectural planning has been suspended due to Act 46 which may or may not impact the size of the student population at BFA Fairfax. However, the architect spoke to Debbie and Joy about their ideas and needs for using the library space more efficiently, and is studying the library space and its current use to determine how the space can be used better. The whole library staff gave input. He will get back to Debbie and Joy with his ideas.

New Business

The probably 30 year old library blinds are in disrepair and need to be replaced. The cost of replacing them would be split between the Community Library budget and the school library budget.
Lauri Fisher said that she would approach the Select Board to see if they had resources available to help with the purchase.
The plan of action is: Debbie and Joy will inventory the broken blinds; they will check to see if any can be repaired; they will talk with Tod Granger about the possibility of repairs, and they will also seek his help in determining the size and cost of the new blinds needed, and how to get estimates from area companies.

It was mentioned at the last security review that the windows are a weak security point.

The next meetings of the Joint Board are: 10/13/16 and 4/13/17.

Pat requested that school board meeting minutes and agenda be forwarded to her and she can pass them on to other trustees. Scott will talk to the FWSU central office about this.

Other Business

The change in school day hours will affect the Community Library. The school day will now begin at 8:20. Joy, Debbie and Janice discussed the possibility of the Community Library opening at 9. This will effect some library patrons. Further, since the Community Library now opens at 8, there would be a reduction in total Community Library hours by 5 hours.
Further discussion of this change will take place at the May 12 meeting of the Library Trustees.

Scott made a motion to adjourn.
The meeting adjourned at 7:25.

Respectfully submitted,
Elizabeth Griffin