Attendees: Jim Halley, Jonathan Gallishaw, Lee Rabbitt, Mike Shaughnessy, Peter Adamy, Sharon Hussey, Bill Fiske, Jim Monti

Approval of May 9th minutes Minutes were reviewed; motion to accept from Jim Halley, unanimously approved.

New Business

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Unfinished Business

Proposal for recommendation to SLC in regard to SIS Steering Committee RFP and product selection

Sharon presented the following draft as supported by the Executive Committee:

To: The Superintendents' Leadership Council (SLC)

From: Rhode Island Network for Educational Technology, Inc. (RINET)

As you requested, RINET coordinated the activities of the SLC's statewide student information system (SIS) steering committee. The purpose of the steering committee was to investigate the feasibility of selecting a single SIS for school districts that could be implemented centrally. Such an implementation would be most beneficial in addressing new federal requirements in tracking the progress of all students including those students who move between districts.

The following lists steps taken by the steering committee as part of their investigation.

· Developed functional requirements to satisfy district needs

· Developed system requirements to satisfy central implementation and districts' use

· Developed an RFP and published it on RINET's Web site (http://www.ri.net/sisrfp/)

· Sent an RFP directly to 20+ vendors · Received and reviewed responses from 10 vendors.

· Eliminated non-contenders and selected two for final consideration

· Selected for endorsement SchoolMax from Maximus Inc - considered to be 'best of breed', proven, and scalable to statewide implementation

RINET endorses the selection of SchoolMax by the steering committee and supports their evaluation of its superiority in matching the categories described in the RFP.

Motion to accept proposal as is by Mike Shaughnessy.

Discussion items included: Lee remarked that she felt that the wording should say, "RINET awards the bid"

Bill described the analogy between activity between East Bay Collaborative and bid contracts.

Lee stated that, in the case of the East Bay Collaborative, the members of the consortium contract with the vendor, not the consortium.

Bill stated the legal relationship between the members of East Bay Collaborative and the collaborative is different than the relationship between RINET and its members.

Mike suggests that we accept motion as is for the time being, but continue to research the issue.

Jim volunteered his business manager, Joe Quinn, to help us to sort out this problem - and added it would be valuable to define our process for acting as a purchasing agent for the districts.

Jonathan asked about his decision to purchase StarBase and not for SchoolMax and his role as a steering committee member.

Lee described the stated fear of the three adopting districts that a year from now, RINET may choose a product other than SchoolMax. They feel they take on a lot of risk by being early adopters.

Jim Monti stated that we would need to be sensitive to the investment the three districts have made in this process.

Bill says there is no promise of a guaranty here ... the steering committee did not do this by themselves and that if future evaluation proved SchoolMax unsatisfactory, that they also would not want us to adopt a product that fails

Lee agrees that that is why this is positioned as a pilot and will be watched very closely for the way that SPED and other features that were promised are handled.

Mike stated that the goal for RINET should be to see a common SIS among the districts, one that eventually might become a statewide system.

Jim Monti stated that part of the success of RINET has been its support of early adopters of technology.

Bill feels that RINET will be very careful to accommodate these districts in the future.

Motion to accept proposed recommendation to the SLC was unanimously approved.

Jim Halley requested that we set up a subcommittee to investigate how RINET might be set up as a procurement agent. He volunteers Joe Quinn. Should ask a SORICO rep and Jerry Kowalski - maybe business managers.

Reports Performance Review - Pam Christman

Sharon presented the following summary:

Pam and I have completed her second annual review. We reviewed goals from the last review, updated, and set new goals for the coming period.

Pam's performance is best characterized as exceeding expectations - she is a high caliber technology professional with excellent technical and communications skills. She is committed to providing reliable and high quality services to the RINET membership. Her successes in the areas of content filtering, video, and web-based services have contributed to the adoption of ATM and higher bandwidths by the districts. Her understanding of and expertise in information services serves RINET well as we evaluate the potential of adding student information services to our menu of services.

I am recommending an increase in base pay of 5%, representing a 3% cost of living and 2% merit, Pam's next review will take place in February of 2004.

Lee said that the steering committee was impressed with her excellent organizational skills and Jim Halley added that he, too, considers her performance to be excellent.

Discussion

Potential Dates and Format for Annual Retreat

Sharon polled members about potential dates for an annual retreat for strategic planning with Ann Morrissey. Ann has indicated her availability for requested dates of either June 20, or July 18th.

After being updated on the progress made by the RINET BOD since last year, Ann commented that the plan looks good and the proposed agenda for this year is quite appropriate at this point in the process. The proposed agenda is to revisit our goals and objectives and work on the action plan some, if possible.

Members indicated that of the two dates, the July 18th works for all but Jim Halley. July 11th is proposed as an alternative and Sharon will verify Ann's availability for that date and inform BOD members as soon as possible.

Agenda items for future meetings:

· Update on T3 installations

· Process for RINET becoming procurement agent

· Video bridge workshop (passwords)

· Technical Polycom presentation on via-videos and firewalls

Meeting was adjourned at 10:30 am