CENTER CITY COMMITTEE
MEETING MINUTES
January 29, 2002

PRESENT: Brian Baraby, Bob Flynn, Nancy Kleniewski, Janet Leggat, Bill Lipchitz, Joe Lipchitz, Bill McGowan, and Maria Vegar-Borison.

Today's meeting was held at the LSBAC.

Plans for the 30th Anniversary meeting are progressing well, except for the calendar project that has hit a snag. The graphic artist at DPD who was helping with the photographs was in an accident and has been out of work for over a week. He probably will not be able to help with the project and time is running short. It was the consensus of those at the meeting that the calendar done by Bill would work with some minor changes. Bill will attempt to put it together in time for the meeting next week.

Nancy Kleniewski reported that she and Kathy Muldoon have been calling the membership to determine who wanted to continue on the Board. Only two people have requested to have their names removed.

Bill reported that he met with Tom Galligani about the downtown plan and was dismayed to hear that the plan does not appear to be a high priority right now. Tom has been working on it as his time allows but there is no push to get it finished. It was the consensus of the group that the Center City Committee is still very interested in seeing the plan adopted by the City Council and will continue to push for its completion.

Bill McGowan and Maria Vegar-Borison said the School Committee has adopted the policy concerning truancy and it will begin to be implemented in February. They explained that the High School has so many students that a plan has been established to break it down into Academies in which students would be part of a smaller group in a specialty of their choosing. Currently, there are academies of Communications, Engineering, Health and Bio-Sciences, Marketing and Finance, and Fine Arts, with a Public Service Academy in the planning stages. These academies are open to juniors and seniors, along with the Latin Lyceum. Freshmen are grouped into clusters in which English, Social Studies, Science, and Math are taught with some common theme. Currently, sophomores are just attending classes under the previous system.

Nancy mentioned that UMass Lowell has also been experimenting with clustering. She also talked about the Gear Up Program in which the University got a grant to work with students in five middle schools from Enterprise Community neighborhoods, starting in the 5th grade and following them through High School and hopefully, college admission. The students are now in the 8th grade and will be entering High School next year.

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