HANOVER – Back-to-back meetings of the South Shore Tech School Committee and School Building Committee on Wednesday, March 20 updated the ballot timing and reviewed the process for selecting a project construction manager.
During the School Committee’s regular meeting, Superintendent/Direction Dr, Thomas J. Hickey noted Town Meeting season was approaching rapidly for the district as Abington holds its Town Meeting on Monday, April 1 and Scituate’s is on Monday, April 8.
Hickey said his evaluation goals for the year include cyber security, the MSBA process and students receiving third party licenses.
Hickey said he planned to convene with town clerks in district communities on April 24.
“At that meeting, my hope is to get updated feedback from them.” he said, noting he has already received one request to consider moving a January vote to closer to spring 2025. “I asked if that meant something like March or April, the answer was, ‘yes.’ … so we are anywhere from 10 to 12 months from the voters of our district rendering a decision.”
Saturday, March 1 or Saturday, March 8, 2025 are both possible election dates, he said.
“We may see some of our communities, which has nothing to do with us, decide that on the same day to have a separate ballot, ask the sequence of A1) Do you support the vote project? And A2) are you willing to pay for it through a debt exclusion? … That way town financial teams would know where they stand.”
“How do we inform our communities?” Mahoney asked.
Carlson said that, aside from the usual marketing materials such as the use of a website and flyers, talking to people is the best avenue.
“To date, we’ve been trying to go to public meetings and things like that,” Carlson said. “Over the summer, there’s farmer’s markets … having conversations with people, I think will be an important part. … Nobody can advocate for the project, but we can provide facts.”
“What can we do to convince the state [that] the cost of vocational education is a lot more than a traditional regular high school?” Salvucci asked.
Franceschi said a recent project by Tri-County saw discussion of the need to get more vocational representation on the MSBA board.
The Building Committee, on which most of the School Committee also serves, heard a project update from the Construction, according to Manager Jennifer Carlson of LeftField. The Building Committee also voted to appoint OPM representative Carlson, architect representative Carl Franceschi of DRA and awarding authority representatives Hickey and School Committee members Robert Mahoney and Robert Mello to the at-risk prequalification and selection committees.
The state requires those representatives to serve on the committee approving the project moving forward with the procurement process, which the inspector general has approved.
The selection committee reviews the statement of qualifications to decide which are qualified to move on to the next round, conduct interviews and, ultimately votes to award the construction manager’s contract.
Abington School Commitee member Mahoney, of SST Dean of Students Robert Mello, who holds an unrestricted construction supervisors license, were selected based on their construction experience, said Chair Robert Heywood who represents Hanover.
“This is a process that’s based on the qualifications, but we do have to see the price before we do the final ranking,” Carlson said.
The aim is to have the process complete for the SBC to approve the construction manager by May 23.
The construction manager feasibility pre-con fee range, which gets the project through schematic design, is between $55,000 to $65,000 from the $305,565 in remaining uncommitted funds.
Whitman committee representative Dan Salvucci asked when town votes on the new school project would begin.
Bringing them back to the matter of the schematic design, Franceschi noted that, while they are not there yet, they “don’t have to wait around” to take the project to the next level.
“The basic goal of this phase is to describe the scope, the schedule and the budget so by the time we submit again to the state, those three areas are well-defined and everyone is willing to live with it because it really becomes a contract,” he said.
Now that the specific site of the new building is better known, DRA’s engineers can go back to make boring and test kits in more specific locations to know what the soils and ground water is like.
“It’s pretty important information from a design point of view,” Franchesci said.
A traffic engineer will also be more closely studying the traffic flow past the school.
“So basically, we’ll be refining the design,” he said. “There’ll certainly be fine-tuning.”
Mahoney asked when the committee would see a “drop-dead date” when they learn MSBA numbers.
Carlson said the budget is part of the schematic design submission delivered to the MSBA in August and, two weeks later, the whole schematic package, which the MSBA will have two months to provide the numbers. Officially, the date would be around Oct. 30.
Fund-raising runners are matathoners, too
Over the past few months, folks out there may have seen me, and likely a lot of other folks in the area, running at various speeds for various reasons on the streets of Whitman. Me? I’m in the final days of training to run my fourth Boston Marathon, to raise money for Mass General Hospital’s Pediatric Cancer Center. I’m a “charity runner,” which means I earn my place on the course not by speed, but by raising funds. Yesterday, someone on one of the runner’s internet boards asked whether anyone was experiencing derision for being a “charity” runner, as opposed to someone who “qualified” by running.
Well, yeah. I get negative messages about not being qualified… about not being a real runner… about being too fat to do this, and a few folks have gone so far as to say that my, and others of my ilk, running marathons is diminishing the value of the accomplishment for the “real” runners. I brush it off; it happens often enough that I kind of expect it… but I also censor myself a lot, because the underlying feeling with a good number of folks in the running community is, well, I don’t belong.
I’m not saying this comes from the elite runners. It’s more from the “everyday” folks, who have somehow taken it upon themselves to gatekeep the roads as somewhere that a person like me will never belong, regardless of what I do to get there.
Look, I know who I am. I DO own a mirror. I know that I’m likely never going to be a person who finishes a marathon in 2.5 hours, or 3, or even 4 or 5. I know that I’m “buying my way in” to marathon courses by raising money, as opposed to “earning” my way. I’m good with that.
I know some folks who have the financial means to stroke a check for the $7500.00 Boston Athletic Association charity fundraising requirement to get a bib for the run. I know folks who bust their [butt] and struggle and qualify to run because of their sheer physical and mental ability. Every single one of these runners counts, though, and here’s why: Whether you complete a mile in 6 minutes, or 10 minutes, or 14 minutes, it’s the exact same 5,280 feet.
So, sure, the hateful exclusionary stuff bothers me, but I eat it (see what I did there?). It’s exhausting, but when I’m exhausted, physically or mentally or emotionally, in the quiet and solitude of my runs, I call to mind the reason why I will keep showing up:
- My fat old body can still move, and it can do hard things.
- Not every athlete has to fit the mold of looking “athletic” or like a “runner.”
- Even if I finish last, my medal is the same as the folks who are already having a drink at the bar when they drape it around my neck.
And most importantly, every single step I take, in training or on race day, is done to help kids and families who could give a tinker’s damn about how old, or fat, or slow, or old fat and slow, the guy is who helped them out.
I’m old. I’m fat. I’m slow. I run for charity.
Whitman officials foresee ‘drastic cuts’
WHITMAN – Zero raises, layoffs, closing departments, and using more free cash to balance the town budget could be the cost to Whitman of a failure to reach accord on a school budget, according to Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter.
“As I really got into it, I didn’t think that I would have to hit every single one of those to reach the number,” she said. “I had to decimate the budget and the only reason is because of the difference the School [Committee] certified from 5 to 11 percent. Call it what you want, but had they come in at 5 percent I would not be suggesting an override this year.”
She told the Select Board on Tuesday, March 26 that everything is on the table as the town seeks to balance the budget following the School Committee’s vote to certify a $63.5 million level-service budget last week. The Select Board has to vote on whether to place an override on the Town Election ballot at its next meeting, Tuesday, April 9.
“These reductions in the budget are drastic and debilitating to the town if an override is not put forth at the May annual Town Meeting,” Carter said during a joint meeting between the Select Board and the Finance Committee on Tuesday, March 26, as she listed the cuts she had to make as she worked all weekend to balance the fiscal 2025 budget.
“We’re here to listen,” said Finance Chair Rick Anderson, who said his committee had completed its meetings with budget managers of all departments and had scheduled meetings with town boards that night. “I know Mary Beth and [Assistant Town Administrator] Kathy [Keefe] are working very diligently on a challenging budget.”
Carter began by emphasizing her connection and commitment to Whitman schools – and that of her family, from her six siblings to her three children and three grandchildren, who “are or will be attending schools in the district.”
“Four of my siblings have spent their careers in education and administrators at the grade school level, the middle school level and the high school level,” she said. “I’ve always been pro-schools and pro-education, so for anyone to think otherwise, they would be mistaken.”
She said, however, that she is “disheartened” because the efforts of her office to hold meetings between the town and the school district earlier than in past years, failed to have a more positive and collaborative certified operational assessment for Whitman.
“I am only speaking for myself and not for the [Select Board], when I say that I feel that this year and every year going forward, that the district should certify their budget understanding that any amount that the district certifies each year over 5 percent, will need to be placed on an annual Town Meeting warrant as an override article and a subsequent ballot question at the annual Town Election for an operational override for the schools,” she said. “It would simplify the budget process each year for everyone.”
She added it would leave the question of increasing funding for the district up to the voters.
“The town has worked very hard to reduce all department budget requests for fiscal 2025 to ensure that an operational override is not put forth to our taxpayers his year,” Carter said. “I feel that there is, however, some light at the end of the tunnel.”
That light takes the form of an unfunded pension liability the town has been funding through Plymouth County Retirement, expected to be retired in 2029. The expected new annual amount will be “significantly lower than the assessments currently budgeted,” she explained.
In fiscal 2025, however, that assessment is $3,208,051. But by fiscal 2030, Carter hopes $1.5 million of $2.5 million saved will be put toward Whitman’s OPEB liability, allowing the remainder to be used to fund town departments.
But for this year, she painted a bleaker picture.
While the School Committee is charged with putting forth a budget for the district, I am charged with putting forth a budget for the [Select Board] that is balanced and meets the needs of all departments,” she said. That charge takes the shape of two warrant articles for the May Town Meeting.
The budget certified by the School Committee on March 20 with an assessment increase of 11.03 percent to Whitman, Carter said she has been tasked to present a dual budget to Town Meeting – the 5 percent projected increase the town anticipated as a school assessment as a “TA budget” and an 11.03 percent assessment increase offered as an “alternate budget,” reflecting the budget certified by the School Committee.
The alternate budget reflects the “potential impacts and reductions necessary if the district’s certified budget increase is put forth without an override,” Carter said, providing a stark breakdown of what that might mean.
Those cuts would mean “all non-union employee raises were eliminated for fiscal 2025, we laid off the following positions: three police officers, three firefighters, one DPW employee, one employee in the clerk’s office, one employee in the treasurer-collector’s office, one employee in the assessor’s office, two part-time [Council on Aging] employees, our technology specialist, we’ve also added in closing the library,” Carter said. “We also included in that budget, shutting down the Recreation Department.”
Three other full-time town employees would see their jobs cut to part-time hours.
Closing the library would also carry the financial sting of lost state aid as the town would lose its library certification and would need to operate for a full year on reopening in compliance before being certified again. Whitman is expected to receive $40,817 in library state aid for fiscal 2024.
Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski echoed Carter’s connection to the schools.
“I’ve always been a schools guy, also,” he said. “I’m as concerned as she is about what’s going on this year.” A 14-year past member of the School Committee, Kowalski said a sister and his son had also served on the School Committee.
“We are school people and this is a painful year that we’re looking at right now,” he said.
Select Board member Justin Evans commended Carter’s work, noting she had been working all weekend on the budget.
“To balance a budget in just a couple of days …” he said.
Anderson deferred to Kathleen Ottina for the Finance Committee’s position, noting that she has done a lot of work reviewing the school budget.
“There is money to be found in this school budget that does not affect the quality of education for children,” she said, emphasizing that some examples of non-sustainable small class sizes could be adjusted while leaving the ESSER positions alone.
Ottina expressed dismay that an email she sent to school officials with recommendations on non-mandated busing had, so far, gone unanswered. In the letter she identified two items where costs could be trimmed, one of them being non-mandated busing, citing her service for the past two years as a non-voting member of the Regional Agreement Committee.
“My one goal was to have the transportation language in the RA amended to reflect working that would more fairly assess Whitman for non-mandated busing,” she said. “Right now, the School Committee has the ability to just vote busing – mandated or non-mandated – and split it 60-40.”
They could also split it out and bill the towns for their non-mandated busing costs. The current configuration costs Whitman at least $40,000 – or $80,000 in fiscal 2025.
She said that, while considering herself a school advocate, she was disheartened by last Wednesday’s certification vote.
“They didn’t touch a penny,” Ottina said. “They didn’t touch a single item, knowing that both towns are in trouble.”
She likened it almost to a game of “chicken” to see which side blinks first.
“I don’t think we can call for a school override,” she said. “It’s not within our purview. … It’s time to call someone’s bluff.”
She said she could not support the budget as presented by the School Committee.
“They have some work to do,” Ottina said. “If we go to Town Meeting prepared to defend the budgets that our town departments need, and they haven’t made any work to get to the table and negotiate, then I don’t know what happens. … It’s a disaster.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain said it is a difficult conversation.
“Honestly, I think communities are judged by how well they have difficult conversations,” he said. “We’re talking numbers and accounting, but behind those numbers are people.”
His viewpoint was that the School Committee was saying if an override is needed, why not seek a level-service override. He didn’t see it as a way to get a budget passed at the expense of the towns.
“If we just clearly discuss our perspective and lay out what we’re trying to do, it’s a reasonable plan and I’m hoping they get on board with that,” Kain said.
Carter said the only reason she feels an operational override would be needed this year is because of the difference in the 5 percent operating assessment and the 11.03 percent put forward.
“I did what the schools did as well,” she said. “I took everybody who would be laid off or had their positions reduced and I added in [$400,000 in] unemployment costs.”
Carter also asked what departments could do to increase fees. The Fire Department is raising ALS 1 fees, the treasuer/collector is increasing demand fees to $25 from $25, she also asked the Select Board office and Police Department to increase fees as well.
School Committee opts to leave issue to voters
The Whitman-Hanson School committee voted 9-1 on Wednesday, March 20, after impassioned arguments on both sides of the fiscal 2025 budget issue – both in the public comment periods and among themselves – to support the level-service budget of $63,590,845 budget unveiled on Feb. 1.
The figure can be lowered if state adjusts Chapter 70 funds for inflation before Town Meeting. The Committee voted 9-1 against reconsidering the first vote, which would have not allowed them to change the figure later on as they expressed uncertainty about what the effect of such a vote would really be.
A vote to use excess and deficiency to lower assessments can be made at any time before Town Meeting.
The Committee unanimously voted to approve a debt assessment of $251,903 covering the high school and HVAC debt for Hanson and debt assessment of $623,531 the high school debt and a bond anticipation note for the new middle school for Whitman.
The proposed fiscal 2025 budget represents a 4.7 percent ($3,105,687) spending increase because of cost increases, according to Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, who said in February that, if accepted as presented, the budget would set assessment increases as 11.03 percent ($19,695,553) for Whitman and 10.20 percent ($15,325,369) for Hanson. Both assessment figures were cerified as well, by 9-1 votes. Member Fred Small was the dissenting vote in all of them.
The figures were brought before the Committee to start discussion about where and how the budget may be cut. But for Committee member David Forth, there was nothing to discuss, and everything for students to lose [see related story below].
Made atfter a motion by Hanson Committee member Glen DiGravio, the vote now leaves the issue in the hands of the voters.
“We’re here to tonight to push this thing forward because we have to,” he said. “We’ve got to go forward.”
He said, personally, he favored the level-service budget moving on to Town Meeting and the community would vote on it.
“It’s their money,” he said. “We’re like a poorly run business that, without an infusion of cash, we’re going under.”
Whitman Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, in response to a question from Szymaniak, said even with a 5-percent earmark for the school budget, they plan to use $500,000 from free cash to balance the town budget.
“I’m almost there at level, using that with drastic reductions, of course, to what was requested [by town departments],” she said.
Hanson Town Administrator Lisa Green said that, even with a 5.85-percent assessment, her town is almost $1 million in deficit.
“Our free cash is at $1.4 million,” she said. “We would basically need to use most of that. Anything higher than that pretty much is going to wipe out all our free cash and gives us nothing for capital until October. … Regardless of what the schools do, we’re at a deficit on all of those figures [Szymaniak spoke of as assessment formulas], which may mean staff [cuts] on our end, as well.”
Whitman Select Board member Shawn Kain said all three boards are bare-boned and super-efficient, so there is little room for cuts.
“The best thing we can do is get on the same page and move forward together so we can get past this in a way that the community will accept,” he said.
Select Board member Justin Evans said Whitman’s new growth for fiscal 2025 is looking to be $250,000. New growth plus Prop 2 ½ is $1.2 million the current year.
Before the budget discussion a handful of Whitman officials said the 5.58 percent assessment was within a comfortable margin of the 5 percent their Select Board budget line items.
Szymaniak began the budget discussion with a review of where the assessment proposals were left the previous week.
Noting that the level-service budget presented Feb, 2 “didn’t go over well with our communities,” and following cuts proposed the previous week, both towns are earmarking the schools at about a 5 percent assessment increase, which he said presents “ a real challenge to our district budget.”
He thanked both town administrators for providing the district with the budget numbers they are dealing with.
“We might not agree where we’re at right now, but I appreciate the transparency of having some numbers to work with,” Szymaniak said. “I presented the Committee some options for what that would look like if we come down from 5.13 percent.”
He reviewed those options at Wednesday’s meeting, all the way down to a 5.8-percent assessment increase – including the unemployment numbers, which kick in with the new fiscal year on July 1, included in the personnel reductions. If a teacher does not have a position by June 30, the district must begin paying them unemployment compensation until they are called back or secure another job at equal pay to what they are now receiving at W-H.
“We learned that through COVID,” he said. The district was forced to pink-slip 62 people during the fiscal 2021 budget process because that budget – being worked out during the height of the pandemic was fraught with uncertainty. Most returned or found gainful employment elsewhere.
Szymaniak went over his recommendations in the event cuts are necessary, before the Committee discussed them.
To reach the assessments the towns can afford without an override, the district is 5 percent, they have said to Szymaniak and in public meetings.
“My recommendation – if we have to – if this Committee has to move away from the 5.13 percent assessment … I still recommend potentially using one-time funds, using circuit-breaker funds and not replacing five retirements and non-renewals for a total of five positions cut,” he said. That would mean a total cut of $910,500 and make the overall budget – not the assessment – a 4.04 percent increase. It would assess Whitman $19,135,687 (a 7.8 percent increase) and Hanson $14,974,786 (a 7.68 percent increase).
Deeper cuts are “where it gets a little bit uncomfortable” for running the schools effectively and carrying the additional 40-percent cost in the salaries of each person pink-slipped because of the cost of unemployment benefits to the district.
“I had told the Committee, and I shared with the district today, where cuts could come from,” Szymaniak said. “The only place I could take cuts from … I’m looking at Conley, Indian Head [elementary schools], Hanson Middle School, Whitman Middle School at the grade levels. You can probably assume that some of the retirements are coming from the high school because they are getting cuts, as well.”
The cuts could increase class sizes.
Szymaniak said the district has worked hard to serve its students, especially in kindergarten through grade five, which now average classes of 20 pupils and under, and grades six to eight, where classes average 20 to 22. In the high school, classes average between 22 to 25 students.
The cuts would bring the average for every elementary and middle school class to 25 with “hopefully no move-ins.”
He said he had a question from a community member about whether studies have been done on optimal class size.
“Yes, a lot before 2019,” he said. “Nobody’s really talking about that now because kids are different.”
Twenty-five students in a high school class used to be manageable, and while it is still doable now, it’s different, Szymaniak said. That same number, 25, in an elementary classroom was once considered a bit large, but manageable. Today, 20-pupil classrooms are considered challenging.
The district has interventionists, but Assistant Superintendent George Ferro mentioned last week that, where they are progressing and educating all kids, there will be a restructuring of how that happens if there are 25 students in a classroom.
Cuts to bring the assessment increase down to 4.04 percent, if the Committee supported it, would not really affect kindergarten to grade eight students, but high school students somewhat, but he said he gets really nervous about adequately serving students once they go below that percentage for cuts.
“Cutting five positions in the district isn’t awesome,” Szymaniak said. “There are retirements and non-renewals that we could probably get by [with]. It won’t be a tremendous increase in class size; however services will be lost. It’s not level-serviced.”
Excess and deficiency, which is revenue, of which the district is also using $250,000 to support the budget, he reminded the committee.
Szymaniak then listed the effects of each subsequent single percent cut from the assessment increase below 5 percent.
Bringing Whitman’s assessment down to $18,917,397 (6.84 percent assessment) and Hanson’s to $14,838,025 (6.85 percent assessment) would mean layoffs or terminations for seven employees.
The next layer, with total proposed cuts – including use of excess and deficiency and circuit-breaker – reduces the budget by $1,208,700. If the district has to get closer to the 5-percent mark, and Szymaniak’s calculations did not get that far – they went as far as 5.58 percent – because “I stopped there,” he said.
That layer of cuts eliminates an additional 8.5 staff members, but reduces Whitman’s assessment to $18,655,450 (a 5.58 assessment increase) and Hanson’s would be $14,673,972 (5.85 percent assessment). Total reductions in this scenario still puts the W-H school budget at a 2.9 percent overall increase over last year with $1,570,800 – or 20 professional staff member positions – in proposed cuts including the use of excess and deficiency revenues and circuit-breaker funds.
While paraprofessionals are professional staff as well, Szymaniak said he has not looked to making cuts there as yet.
“These are not retirements, these are people,” Szymaniak said, referring to the unemployment implications of those positions.
Committee member Dawn Byers asked Szymaniak if he could tell them what positions are involved with the five retiring staff members.
“I won’t say that at this point, because it’s retirements and non-renewals and replacements of those folks,” he said. “I know who my retirements are and they are retirements in elementary and high school.”
“But, is it a classroom teacher?” Byers asked, noting they could be a school nurse or other staff position.
“They’re all classroom teachers,” Szymaniak said. “I need to have that flexibility in who I need to replace based on who I need next year. I’m looking at five professional positions who are going to be lowest next year.”
“They’re not just retirements, some of them are non-renewals, which some of those people don’t know that yet, so we can’t say their names,” said Chair Beth Stafford. “We can’t say the position because they’ve not been notified.”
She said part of the problem is that some information won’t be available until April 1 or later from people returning who might not want to return from maternity leave or other long-term leave.
“We have to set this at this time,” she said. “Things can change, but we don’t know that and that’s an issue.”
“I’m not trying to be shady, if that’s a word,” Szymaniak said. “I have retirements, and there are some retirements I’m going to fill and there are some retirements I’’m not going to fill. It’s just going to depend on enrollments and what numbers look like as we roll them out and scheduling with each building next year.”
Elizabeth Dagnall, of School Street in Whitman, said she understood the position the school district is in as it tries to balance the budget without crippling an already tight spending plan.
“It’s a gross understatement to say that this budgeting stuff is complex, difficult, [but] the district is making strides that are beginning to have positive impact on each and every student,” she said. “It is imperative to focus on the need for programs like foreign language at the middle school, robotics … as well as keeping the interventions that are currently in place and working.”
She added that above all, it is crucial to work to move the district forward.
“I’m painfully aware that our financial landscape cannot be repaired overnight, nor can town-wide budgeting shortfalls be repaired solely by cutting education or pushing the narrative that investing in our students is problematic while all other spending is justified,” Dagnall said, asking that the committee support a budget that does not cut programs and continues to move the school district forward.
She also took issue with “terminology of a ‘school override’ at a Town Meeting to fix a problem that is not only residing within the school system.”
Whitman Select Board members Justin Evans and Shawn Kain also addressed the budget issue during the public forum.
Evans spoke of last year’s meeting between the two select boards and the School Committee to discuss the use of one-time funding to balance last year’s budget, in which they “agreed to do something different this year.”
“And I think that you have,” he said, noting that, so far Szymaniak has met with both town administrators several times in “productive meetings” since last summer.
Evans also noted during the committee’s budget hearing a couple of weeks ago that Whitman was projecting about $1.2 million in new revenue.
“What I don’t think I said was that, if you assess anything above that number, the FinCom has to balance the budget,” he said. “We have to present a balanced budget to Town Meeting for the town to vote on.”
That budget will show cuts to other departments.
“In that scenario, in all likelihood, I think the selectmen would present an alternative budget alongside, that would show a different number for the schools,” Evans said. “If that happens [we’d] likely want to work with you to present an override that would make up that difference, but we’re in a time crunch.”
The process for presenting an override to the towns would require the Select Board to vote 35 days before an election, which would mean April 12 is the deadline for such a vote.
“To avoid an override and live within Proposition 2 1/2 is going to take cuts from everyone, including Hanson’s town government as well,” he said. “If you think you can live with those cuts, assess a number close to the 5 percent that the towns have both said that they can deal with. If you can’t live with those cuts, it sets the budget higher but let’s set a meeting very soon between the three boards to work out a plan to fund it – likely with an override.”
Kain reminded the Committee of Assistant Superintendent George Ferro using the phrase “moral imperative” when discussing the reasoning behind the use of one-time funds to balance the budget.
“I agree with him,” said Kain, who is also an educator. “I am in the classroom and I do know what it’s like to work with kids who struggled through the pandemic.”
Some of his students are also struggling with the loss of either of – or both – their parents in the opioid epidemic.
“But the question I’d ask you to consider tonight is how to raise those funds,” Kain said, arguing that the best way to accomplish that is to work with the leadership of both towns to coordinate an override for anything above a 5 percent assessment increase.
Memories of an Easter promise
by Linda Ibbitson Hurd
Special to the Express
S hortly after I moved to Halifax in the 1970s, an older couple moved in across the street from me. They were to become very important to my kids and me.
My marriage had broken up and I was alone with two young children. My son Brian was starting second grade and my daughter Heidi was four and also deaf. I was holding down a job so I could keep my house and I needed someone to get my son off to school in the morning and to take Heidi until I got home in the afternoon.
The man and his wife who moved in were friendly and my kids and I liked them right away. Their names were Kitty and Les. They were from the Boston area, Les a retired Respiratory Therapist from the Deaconess hospital and Kitty a seamstress. As we got to know each other and they found out my situation Kitty offered to help with my kids and agreed to the price I could afford to pay.
My ex was not good about keeping in touch with our kids and Heidi especially became attached to Les. Kitty and Les were a couple of color and one Winter morning when my kids and I were in Cumberland Farms on a Sunday picking up a few groceries, Les walked into the store. Heidi spotted him from the back of the store and started running, her blonde ponytails flying out behind her while she yelled as loud as she could, “Dada!” Les kneeled down on one knee and opened his arms as she ran into them for a big hug. He was smiling and chuckling as people were curiously looking on. The memory still touches my heart.
Kitty and Les were good to my kids and they went willingly every weekday morning to their house. As time passed we grew closer to them and I got to know them very well. They became like family to us. Some years later when I married again, they came to my wedding. I met and got to know some of their family, one being a niece of Kitty’s who was a mounted police officer in Boston and patrolled on horseback.
As Les aged, he developed diabetes. He’d walk over to visit me when Kitty was busy with a customer who needed sewing done and begged me to make him a lemon meringue pie. My heart went out to him but I told him I couldn’t because of his health and because it would upset Kitty. What did finally pacify him was being able to have a small dish of ice cream on a regular basis.
As his health declined, I went over to visit with him often. He became like a second father to me, I could talk to him about anything. He eventually needed a hospital bed which was delivered to the house. Kitty took such good care of him and he was able to stay at home with help from a Visiting Nurse.
One morning when I got up I had a sinking feeling something was wrong. I saw one of my neighbors come out of Kitty’s house and he looked sad. As I stepped outside he looked at me, nodding towards Kitty’s house and I went right over. When I went in Kitty was standing beside Les’s bed, tears running down her face. I gave her a big hug and she said Les had just passed.
Every Easter Les gave Kitty an Easter Lily and every year he’d plant it in their front yard in hopes it would bloom the next year. Some bloomed but were scraggly, they never did well. The Easter after Les passed I was in my kitchen when I heard someone calling my name. I looked outside and Kitty was coming up my walk.
“Come, you have to see this, please come!” she said.
She seemed dazed and close to tears. Alarmed, I went with her. As we approached her house a strong scent filled the air and to my amazement her small front yard was filled with beautiful Easter Lilies, all in bloom. She gestured toward the flowers saying, “This is not of this world, do you think this is the sign Les promised me when he got to Heaven?” I told her without a doubt I knew it was.
School panel voices budget concerns
When it came time for the School Committee to discuss budget cuts outlined to meet town financial needs, member David Forth forcefully argued that there was nothing to discuss, and everything for students to lose [see related story].
“What we are looking to do is promote student achievement,” he said. “So, by doing this, by reducing our assessments, by cutting these jobs, we are once again bailing the community out [from] their lack of responsibility and they want to blame the schools … when, really, they are not doing their jobs.”
He said there has been a pattern of the towns failing to invest state funds, as far back as education reform in 1993, to help themselves catch up to where they needed to be in contributions to the schools’ funding formula, while the state did.
“[There has been] a lack of investment in our community that has put us in this situation, whether it is the Great Recession, the opioid epidemic, a pandemic, generations of students are suffering,” Forth said that officials’ actions speak louder than words when services and jobs are cut. “I mean, look at me. … I’m glad to be here, but it should be a little bit disgusting that a student feels they have to run to bring change and, furthermore, that the community that elects them feels they have a better opportunity to bring change than the people who are currently sitting in that seat.”
Pounding the table he implored the committee to make a responsible decision for students.
“That’s our contituents,” he said. “Let’s represent them, let’s respect them. Let’s care about them.”
Member Glen DiGravio said he appreciated Forth’s impassioned plea on behalf of students.
“I hear everything you guys are saying,” he said, also mentioning Dawn Byers’ concerns about class size and Hillary Kniffen’s about programs W-H doesn’t have that other towns do have. “David, I love your passion and I love that you care so much about the kids.”
But, DiGravio noted, they are not elected only by the parents of students, but by elder couples on fixed budgets and residents trying to make mortgage payments.
Member Fred Small had led off the discussion recalling a comment he had made the previous November: “If we want to fix it, we have to fix it right,” he said. “If we needed an override, we needed to have it structured so that it’s not a Band-Aid.”
But he argued that as the budget is now structured, if the town select boards and finance committees have a separate line for an override for the schools’ portion, it is a Band-Aid and the school district is back in the same position without adding the product or the programs it should be doing and let the taxpayers decide.
“They’re the ones footing the bill and its up to us to make the case [that] this is what we should have, this is what we need to have,” he said, ticking off offering such as languages in the middle schools and the robotics program. “But if we’re going to do it, we need to do it right.”
He said his big fear is that people will feel they’ve given the schools money and they’re done for five years.
“The problem isn’t the towns,” he said. “The problem is the state – it’s the way they fund Chapter 70. … It’s a horrible, horrible situation that we’re stuck in.”
Forth said that, while Small made a lot of great points, and reminded the Committee that March 2021 was the only time during his tenure in office that its members unanimously supported the budget after Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak argued that, in the wake of the pandemic as the responsible move. A couple of weeks later, he said, Szymaniak asked “for the sake of partnership” that the committee reduce its assessments by $775,000.
“We took those mental health services – the interventionists – and rolled it into what, at that point in time was ESSER [Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief] II,” Forth said. “State aid, basically.”
That vote failed 6-2-1, and the assessment passed the following week by and 8-2 vote, which Forth opposed because he did not like the idea of using one-time funding to finance the operating budget, knowing the schools would need those positions long-term.
“One of the concerns at that time was that we were putting a Band-Aid on the budget,” Forth recalled.
Last year, the committee voted to roll $500,000 from excess and deficiency over into the budget – another move with which he disagreed.
“I did not show up for that meeting, because it was to my knowledge, and we’ve talked about this publicly that a predetermined deal was made on what that figure should be,” Forth said. “Out of protest, I did not show up to that particular meeting.”
He also took issue with the habit of select boards in particular, to refer to “school overrides” when talking about finances.
“The way I see that is poor public policy on their end and a lack of accountability, because when you’re looking at the excess levy capacity – the 2 ½ that they do not utilize fully – over the last decade, they left – the town of Whitman, in particular – left $4.1 million on the table,” Forth charged. “Even if they collected half of that, we would not be in the position that we are now.”
In 2016, not collecting to capacity led to devastating cuts, and in 2019, 19.2 jobs were cut, leaving teachers crying in hallways and motivating students at the high school to get involved, sending out a district email.
Forth said that none of the School Committee members responded to that email, but a parent did and spoke with the students about the levy, giving the students information they used in interviewing teachers throughout the district.
“The teachers told me they were going on Google to develop their curriculum,” he said. “How quickly we forget it was just a few years ago that teachers did not have the tools they needed to succeed at the earlies levels, building the foundation blocks for our most important assets, our youth – our students.”
While School Committee members are elected by taxpayers and people “old enough to vote,” their constituents are actually the students, Forth said, echoing information underscored to school officials and committee members attended a recent Mass. Association of School Committees meeting.
Forth also spoke about the Madden Report, which is the basis for Whitman’s current budgeting philosophy, and is being adopted in Hanson as well. That report had urged an operational override for Whitman in 2020 or 2021, but that was not done. That override was designed to adequately fund all town departments.
Hanson is not dealing with the need for a $5 million operational override recommendation for the same purpose.
“Next year, when we kick this down the road again, you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves,” Forth said.
Vice Chair Christophe Scriven agreed with Small that it does not make sense to go to an override when “we’re providing a less than level-service budget.”
“It doesn’t make any sense to me to cut this budget and then go and try to fund it through an override,” Scriven said.
“We have difficult decisions to make,” Committee member Dawn Byers said, asking whether the budget aligns with the School Committee’s goals and strategic plan, recalling a report from the previous week when the panel learned that high-quality curriculum had not been invested in from 2001 to 2018.
“We are now faced with going backwards,” she said, noting that when the high school was built in 2005, it was shiny and new but the cracks on the inside – curriculum shortcomings in particular – on the inside were not seen.
She said she also has questions about the budget in terms of finding savings and class size inequity across the district.
“I really want to understand what I’m voting on and what the impact is going to be on the students,” she said, specifically citing which teachers are retiring or facing layoffs.
Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said every principal is responsible for educating students the best that they can, but said the district faces a unique situation with the two middle schools. The staff at Hanson Middle School has teachers in transition – either at the end of their careers or just starting.
That allows a principal, despite the school’s dwindling population, to have veteran teachers teaching more than one subject to reduce class size in grade six. In seventh and eighth grade, split team teaching allows mixing faculty members to also lower class size.
In Whitman, there are high enough student numbers that there are two full teaching teams at every grade.
Scriven noted the committee hires and entrusts a superintendent to work with his staff to make the best decisions they can for the students.
“We aren’t privy, nor should we be, to every individual factor that goes into their decisions,” he said. “We should absolutely continue to advocate for students and the district in general, but we need to understand that we’re not superintendents, or assistant superintendents, we’re School Committee members – and we’re one of a group of 10 and we have to keep that in mind.”
Hillary Kniffen said she finds it dangerous to pit departments against each other, particularly departments that services people who don’t have a voice – which are the kids.
“That’s who we’re representing,” she said. “That’s who we serve.”
She said no teachers were hired to teach with ESSER funds, which were used to fund positions to support kids in the wake of the pandemic that the schools were legally required to hire anyway.
“We’re not asking for an exorbitant budget,” she said. “We don’t have anything extra in our budget to cut.”
Hanson’s override options
HANSON – The “runway’s too short” to land the budgetary plane with an operational override this year, according to officials discussing the fiscal 2025 town budget on the eve of the certification of the W-H regional school budget.
“I think it’s a bit premature for us to zig or zag since we don’t know what the assessment’s going to be set at,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said at the Select Board’s Tuesday, March 19 meeting. “But we certainly need to be ready and be agile, depending on what that amount is set.”
Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan agreed the town’s last override experience demonstrated that it takes a lot of education and groundwork to pass an operational override.
“I don’t think we have time,” he said “You have to make the citizenry aware that, while you’re approving the $5 million [for an operational override], it is the Select Board that decides how much of that is tax. … There’s no bank account where this money is sitting.”
He argued for going for a full operational override next year.
That said, Sullivan said he has done the math and personally has thought “for years, thought we needed a significant override,” to reset town finances.
Stressing that a decision on any form of an override, if any, is needed this year it would have to be a school override, FitzGerald-Kemmett said. She added she had spoken with Whitman Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski and School Committee Chair Beth Stafford this week, telling both chairs where Hanson is at and what the board has discussed in open session – “to the extent that, if the assessment didn’t come down to a point that we had felt comfortable with that we might entertain an override, but if we did, it would probably be a school override.”
By the end of their discussion, the Hanson Select Board reached an unenthusiastic consensus for accepting a 5 percent school assessment increase, but member David George refused to budge from 3.8 percent.
“That, combined with [consultant John] Madden’s presentation to us last week, indicating that next year we would need an operational override, it seemed ill-timed for us to do an operational override this year, with such short notice, such a short runway,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We really need to educate people on what that money would be used for [in] an operational override.”
Even if the board decides to seek an operational override next year, they have a lot of education of the public ahead of them concerning what it means, how it would work, whether to do $5 million up front or break it up into annual overrides, how the average tax bill would be affected, and other issues she argued.
“Like I said, the runway’s too short for us to do an operational override this year.” she said.
Board member Ann Rein urged the board to stick to 5 percent.
“We’re not the only ones that should have to cut budgets,” she said.
FitzGerald-Kemmet agreed.
“I feel 3.8, but I’m going to be reluctantly, saying 5 percent,” Board member Ed Heal said. “But other departments are sticking to 3.8, by the sounds of it on average.”
“Or making a case [for more],” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, something she said the schools should be doing again as they did when Dr. John McEwan and Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner had done.
At a 5 percent assessment increase, Select Board Vice Chair Joe Weeks said there would be just enough free cash to balance the budget with the remaining $44,000 easily wiped out with capital projects.
“No matter how you do the math, it comes out somehow to $1.4 million – which is exactly what we have,” he said.
Sullivan said the Finance Committee was willing to use that figure one more year, yet it would cause the spending of all the town’s free cash.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said Town Administrator Lisa Green and Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf have been thinking through different financial scenarios in preparation for the school budget certification.
“None of them are particularly bright spots,” she said.
Green noted that she and Kinsherf had calculated the effects of the different scenarios Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak outlined March 13 to get a broad picture of the increases and their effects on Hanson and what its budget shortfall might be.
“We don’t know what direction the School Committee is going to go into, but this will give an idea of where we will be should any of these assessments be voted in,” Green said, suggesting that the reduced schedule of the Building Department for a few weeks, due to the prolonged sudden absence of an employee, could offer a vision of what Town Hall could become if the town was forced to cut staff.
Green admitted when asked, that she had not yet discussed the potential for layoffs with department heads as yet.
“I want more information to provide them with,” Green said.
Anticipating that the schools may set a 5-percent increase, Kinscherf said the choice becomes balancing the budget with free cash this year or implementing budget cuts.
“If we have a 5 percent increase with the schools, the town of Hanson will have to use free cash to fund the budget, there’s no doubt about it, unless you want to cut the operational budget,” he said. “We’re either going to use free cash … to get us through one year as another Band-Aid, or do the budget cuts this year.”
If the schools are over 5 percent, Kinsherf said it leads to an override for the amount over the 5 percent. Right now, Hanson has $1.4 million on hand in free cash and there are already $396,000 in expenditures included in the Town Meeting warrant.
“I think we can balance the budget with the approximately $1 million that’s left over,” he said, cautioning it would leave the town with zero. FitzGerald-Kemmett asked about grants or other funding sources could be used to help town finances.
Kinsherf said he and Green were searching past warrant articles for unexpended funds, but warned any money found that way can only be used for capital projects – not to fund the operational budget.
“We’re already putting ourselves in the hole for $1 million next year,” Weeks said. “I feel like we’re just in this hamster wheel of the same conversation every year.”
“We did not have the data to make any decisions last year,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, noting that was when they brought in Madden. “Now we’ve got that. Now, if we don’t act, it’s on us.”
Weeks replied they didn’t need John Madden to go over the numbers.
“We knew this,” he said.
Weeks then asked Sullivan if the Finance Committee supported using free cash that way.
“I know that, while we haven’t voted any actions, I know as a group, we are not fans of using free cash for the operational budget, but we are realists of the fact that sometimes, you’re just not going to get there [otherwise],” he said.
“To me, it’s a school override, and I know some people disagree,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, acknowledging some people see a domino effect happening if it should fail. “But we just can’t keep using free cash.”
“We need to have people understand why we’re doing what we’re doing,” Rein said.
“Personally, it’s just a matter of what [the schools] can justify the spending of,” Weeks said.
COVID still hampers budgets
School Committee on Wednesday, March 13 were meeting to figure out the impacts of financial challenges to the budget exactly four years after the district had to shut down – initially for only two weeks – in 2019 at the beginning the COVID-19 pandemic – a fact pointed to by Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak as that pandemic’s effects are still being felt.
“It was Friday, the 13th, the day before we were supposed to go to the state championship basketball game for the first time ever,” he recalled. “I was on a call with Commissioner Riley of DESE, who was explaining what was happening in terms of COVID [then referred to mainly as the coronavirus].”
At the time, Riley explained that school closings were a local decision/superintendent decision. He then had a conference call with about 25 superintendents from area school districts, who decided to unilaterally close school for two weeks.
“If you remember, then-Gov. Charlie Baker got on the news on Sunday and shut down the commonwealth for three weeks, which then became the rest of the school year,” Szymaniak said. “Since that shutdown and subsequent reopening, the district has employed many measures to deter any learning loss that happened to occur during that period of shutdown and then hybrid learning.”
Szymaniak prefaced his remarks by commenting that, while he does not usually make statements about the budget, he felt the need to do so.
“I want to kind of redefine the narrative and maybe clarify some facts that have been said publicly, and in print, about our district and out finances,” he said. “I’m really proud of where we’re at right now.”
Budget decisions facing the School Committee now include whether to cut staff and how many.
“If we have to cut, we have to cut,” Szymaniak said after outlining the ways the budget would need to be reduced. “I understand that. This is what we’re looking at. The budget that was presented to the committee as far as operations and facilities, we trimmed – we’re not even looking at a 3-percent increase in those line items.”
The Whitman budget earmarked the schools at a 5-percent assessment and Hanson put us where we asked for in the original 5-percent increase overall – closer to a 10-percent increase to their assessment.
The School Committee must decide on the assessments by March 20.
“These are not givens,” he said. “These are not endorsements from the superintendent… but these are realities of where we’re at.”
The district has $760,000 in excess and deficiency this year and, if needed, Szymaniak suggested $250,00 could be used to help close the deficit. Of the additional $720,000 in circuit-breaker, he suggested they take $100,000 from there. Both leave a comfortable amount in reserve in case additional special education are seen next year.
By not replacing non-renewables, retirements totaling a five-position cut another $560,000. Those reductions would reduce the deficit by $910,500. equaling a total increase to the district’s budget to 3.63 percent. The assessment to Whitman in such a scenario would be $7.87 percent and Hanson’s would be 7.68 percent.
“Below that line, and I won’t say I’m comfortable with these cuts, but these would increase some class sizes, especially at the younger grades,” he said noting that unemployment would also need to be calculated where some cuts are concerned.
“We’d be pink-slipping and laying off,” he said. As of April 1, if staff members on long-term leave do not return, the district could see a potential savings of another $100,000.
“But I can’t anticipate or count on that,” he said. By making cuts of about five positions below that could save $350,000, meaning a 3 percent overall budget increase, or a 6.64 percent assessment for Whitman and a 6.69 percent increase to Hanson – total cuts of $1,260,500 or a 5.16 assessment increase to Whitman and 5.51 percent to Hanson. That would cut – with circuit-breaker and excess and deficiency cuts – to $1,696,500.
“We have to go lower because the two towns are giving us are closer to the 5’s, we’d have to look at an additional six staff members,” Szymaniak said for a total of $426,000 or a 2.3 percent increase of the total budget.
To get to the 5.1 percent would take 16 professional position staff cuts, especially in the upper grades, calling for cuts in grade three, four and five teaching positions and bringing class sizes closer to 25.
“We wouldn’t cut any interventionists, they might bump, but that position is needed for [compliance with] the law,” Szymaniak said. “We wouldn’t touch EL staff and special education staff as we need to legally support those students. This is not what I’m asking the Committee to do tonight, but I wanted to foreshadow what is out there.”
Chair Beth Stafford said special ed paraprofessionals and teachers must also be hired for preschool students in need of those services to comply with the law.
“That increases our budget,” she said. “We can’t play with those things and people have to understand that.”
Szymaniak said academics and academic achievement are not always a subject of discussion at School Committee meetings, but he stressed they are seeing gains they haven’t seen before because it is their job.
“We’re supposed to educate kids,” he said. “We do a lot of other stuff. We talk about buses. We talk about safety. All these things are very important, but the bottom line is moms and dads and caregivers send their kids pre-school to [age] 22 for an education.”
While the COVID pandemic was very difficult, because of the stimulus funds they were able to receive and put to good use, they are at the place where academic gains are being seen.
He reminded the Committee and public that the federal government had supplied three different grants: Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) grants I, II and III to support school districts nationwide and support students.
Szymaniak pointed to ESSER funds as a target of criticism.
“There has been talk that ESSER money has been spent on positions that are no longer needed,” he said. “I disagree.”
He stressed that without ESSER funds, the district would have to make difficult decisions to cut positions in past fiscal years to comply with the law and support all students.
“ESSER funds were a tremendous asset to the W-H Regional School District and, in my opinion, we used these funds to put our students and the district in a better position than we were pre-COVID,” Szymaniak said. “However, this committee has reminded me multiple times of the fiscal cliff and the end of ESSER in September 2024.”
Today, the district is, in effect, about $850,000 short in the budget because of this cliff and $500,000 short because we used excess and deficiency [funds] last spring … which correlates to the additional staff we hired during these difficult years and to be compliant with the law.”
He added, however, that during the COVID years, the district also needed to add additional staff to confront another challenge – supporting the growing number of English Language learners who had moved into the school district.
School districts are required by law to hire staff to assist such children.
In 2021, W-H employed 3.5 English Language Learner staff and, by the 2024-25 school year it will have employed 11.
The 2015 Every Student Succeed Act, (ESSA) also found the district deficient by not supplying a multi-teired system of support for all it’s students.
Assistant Superintendent George Ferro and Director of Equity and MTSS Dr. Nicole Semas-Schneeweis had presented a review of the district’s success in helping all students during their report on its midyear assessment data [See related story.]
“Because of our commitment to the interventions and to the interventionists hired to ensure [a multi-tiered support system], our students have not only not regressed, as anticipated, but are progressing better than this district has ever seen,” Szymaniak said.
The district also has “admirable” class sizes in the all grades as a result of the Committee’s commitment to the district and past budgets presented.
“Our students are making academic gains and have their social-emotional needs met because of the prior year’s fiscal commitment made by this Committee,” he said. “I understand that we may need to eliminate or cut positions because the ask of a 5.3 percent overall increase [emphasis his] to the budget is too high for both these towns. I also understand that because we only see a $30 per-pupil increase in Chapter 70 revenue, which equals to $106,000, means that the towns of Whitman and Hanson are asked to absorb the difference, year after year, in our budget difference.”
By relying on the hope that $100,000 from the state each year will lead to imminent cuts in the future, is a “detailed topic for another meeting.”
Szymaniak suggested residents research what their towns spend on education – including vocational education.
Special Olympians impress
It’s so much more than playing sports – or the score in the record books.
W-H students participating in the Special Olympics gave a presentation on the program to the School Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 13. The students earned a bronze medal in basketball (with a record of 6-2) and are now in the midst of floor hockey competition.
During the presentation, the team’s Inclusion ambassador, Eli, said Special Olympics was important for her mental health and social inclusion after students on her old, traditional sports teams had forced her to quit mainstream school sports.
A Hanson resident, Eli plays basketball, floor hockey, track and field, swimming, softball, soccer and flag football.
“I like being a part of Special Olympics because I get to meet new friends that become like family to me,” she said. “I get to play sports and have a chance in them since traditional sports are more difficult for me.”
She had tried traditional school sports but said coaches did not want disabled youths on their teams “because they thought it was not going to help the team in any way.
But Eli said her mom insisted she play, so she did.
“It was difficult to understand the rules and [disabled] athletes were not allowed any accommodations,” she said. “My teammates at the time told me I should just quit and they didn’t want anyone different on the team. That had affected my mental health badly and so, I quit sports, which was a difficult choice to make, since playing sports is how to help my mental health and social skills and try and make new friends,”
Eli said sports help her physically, too.
She joined Special Olympics in 2021 and gained more confidence, which helps her grow as a person.
Special memories from her Special Olympics participation include winning gold for softball, playing at Gillette Stadium and dropping the puck for a Northeastern University men’s hockey team.
“I am really proud of myself for becoming an inclusion ambassador for SOMA (the Special Olympics of Massachusetts) and want to have more people become aware of the Special Olympics so people with disabilities can be given the opportunity to participate in sports [which can] help them grow as a person in many positive ways.”
The basketball team’s Coach Leo said it was the first time the Whitman Panthers participated in that game.
“But we had a great year,” said, noting they collaborated with W-H basketball coaches Bob Rodgers and Tony Costa and their players for drills and practice games with the Whitman Panthers.
George Coffey, who recently retired from Special Olympics, said the towns of Whitman and Hanson have been so supportive of the local organization for about 25 years.
“Where I’ve been the most surprised for the support we’ve received, is – I don’t think you people know how many of the students have been assistant coaches on our teams.” he said. “They just show up and they’re really good.”
One such student, Isabel Baker, who graduated last year and is studying special education in Vermont because of her involvement with the Special Olympics here, is in the process of being hired as an intern at the Vermont Special Olympics organization.
He also noted former W-H special education teacher John Odom, who would switch schools whenever Coffey’s son, Jimmy, changed schools, to help him.
“John is now in the Hall of Fame with Special Olympics and I’m going to guess that no one on the School Committee or the school community is aware of that,” Coffey said. “John is one of my heroes because of this … everything he did was for the kids. He got nothing personally out of it, other than getting tired.”
Chair Beth Stafford confirmed that none of the committee had known about Odom’s Hall of Fame induction.
“We’re very proud to have the Best Buddies program up at the high school, and now we have it at the two middle schools,” Stafford said.
“I want to thank you very much for instilling in these kids the desire to become involved,” Coffey said.
School Committee member Dawn Byers asked what age students have to be to join Special Olympics and how interested families may reach out to join.
Coffey said the Panthers are a senior division program for students, but they can join the program age 6 to learn about the sports and go through pysical conditioning before they can play on a team or in an individual event. The age breakdown for teams is similar to that of a youth soccer program, he said.
The Panthers are 22 and up and was started specifically for former W-H students who had aged out of school programs.
“We’ve got some old people playing,” he joked.
“The more we do for you, the better it is for all of us – and I think it’s great for us, too,” said Committee member Fred Small, adding that he would like to see them come to meetings more often. “Let us share in your glory.”
Coffey went him one better.
The last Special Olympics floor hockey games worldwide will be played on Sunday, April 7.
“I think it would be great if, on the following week … the School Committee came down and played a game of floor hockey against our athletes,” he said.
Eli said she was aware there is unified track at the high school, but said she would like to see uniform sports in all seasons.
“Quite possibly it could be put in a league and we could go against other schools,” she said. “I just want to give more people an opportunity, not just track and field.”
Midyear data shows educational growth
Assistant Superintendent George Ferro and Director of Equity and MTSS Dr. Nicole Semas-Schneeweis reviewed the district’s midyear assessment data during the Wednesday, March13 School Committee meeting.
“I can happily say every class, every section we’re doing better in,” he said of the growth areas. “Please remember that as we talk about budgets, as we talk about things that say, ‘What have we accomplished? What did should we do? Is it because of whether it’s an ESSER issue or not.’ This is education, this is what we do and we’re proud of what we do.”
Reading and math assessments include intervention.
“We’re seeing improvement [in reading] from fall to winter,” Said Semas-Schneeweis of the first full year of a new reading curriculum. Ferro said the same trends were apparent in math.
“The trends are there,” Ferro agreed. “The trends are improving. … spending money to help students learn is not frivolous, it is a moral imperative that we should be doing.”
He said regression recovery in W-H following COVID is “moving faster and farther” than on a state or national basis. While there are students who are behind in both reading and math, there are also students who are on grade level.
“Improvement is improvement, and that’s what’s important,” Stafford said.
Committee member Dawn Byers said that should be better reinforced on data sheets, where color graphs show learners in the red zone are three grades below where they should be, yellow is one grade below and green outlines the degree to which a student is at grade level.
“Let’s keep that in mind,” she said.
“We’ve always had kids who struggled, maybe not this level of struggle because we weren’t in a pandemic, but we didn’t have the data to know for sure who they were or what they needed,” Semas-Schneeweis said. “This data points out exacly.”
Going forward Ferro cited the need for reviewing software as a resource compared to its price, that is expensive; continued participation in DESE’s Instructional Prioritization Institute to close gaps for struggling learners and writing support for all levels.
During the Public Forum, Hanson resident Frank Milisi posed a question about the regional agreement in hopes of helping to alleviate the budget situation.
“I’m not sure it’s legal, I haven’t checked with [town] counsel or the state, but is it possible, in the school regional agreement to assign a set increase to the school budget every year that the towns would be guaranteed to have to fund every year,?” he asked.
He provided the example of a 5-percent increase to the majority town written into the school agreement.
“At that point, the school would know exactly the increase that it’s getting in its budget, the towns would know how to budget for that 5-percent increase of the majority town” he said. “It would provide two things: less angst around budget season … and a way to project into the future revenues that are needed to fund the school and town departments and kind of alleviate the budget situation in both towns.”
Szymaniak noted the regional agreement is under review right now and that suggestion could be brought up between the two towns and counsel.
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