HANSON – Based on the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District budget certified on March 15, Hanson officials have “had to re-adjust some numbers” in the budget.
But working with interim Town accountant Eric Kinsherf, Town Administrator Lisa Green said they were able to bring the deficit down from $1.38 million to $616,000.
“We’re really working diligently to bring our budget down to a balanced budget,” she said.
The Select Board, on Tuesday, March 21 voted to close the warrant for the annual Town Meeting, which will be held on Monday, May 1. Placing and/or recommending those articles completed so far.
“We are in a cash crunch this year,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, who said she has spoken to Whitman Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina about the WHRSD budget.
“They are as concerned as we are with the school assessment being in the 7- to 8-percent [range], when we had very clearly expressed that the absolute maximum that we can pay is a 4-percent increase,” she said. “One of the concerns is that, over the last two years, the district has used one-time money – grant money – in the budget, so when we’re saying it’s a level-funded budget, that’s really not accurate. It’s level-funded plus the grant.”
She argued that keeping the budget at that level was really quite a large increase.
“With our very modest growth that we have in the town, this is beyond unsustainable,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We don’t have any sort of magic pill that’s going to change this.”
She is proposing a joint meeting between just the two select boards to talk about what finances look like for the town meetings and to find a way to speak with a united voice.
“Even with what Ms. Green has told us, that’s a large deficit,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’re all adults and I think we know that means costs need to be cut and there’s only so many ways to do that.”
She said one of the things she has liked seeing this year is the way each town board has been reaching out to their counterparts in Whitman and vice versa “to calibrate.”
“This is the way it needs to be,” she said.
Board member Jim Hickey said, while he wouldn’t suggest leaving the schools out, he supported the two towns talking first and then going to the School Committee.
FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed.
“There are things we’re putting off doing,” she said. “We’re making modest headway, thanks to creativity and grants and hard work, but we can’t gut our town government, we just can’t.”
She also suggested the town has no time at this point to even entertain an override this year.
“The Whitman [Select] Board is a good board,” Vice Chair Joe Weeks. “They’re good people, so I don’t think this is in any way a controversial thing. People elected us to have conversations, especially difficult ones and find solutions, and not just kick the can down the road.”
The minute this year’s problem is solved, he said, they have to get to work on next year’s problems.
The board had voted during the meeting to strike four WHRSD capital requests from the warrant not recommended by the Capital Improvement Committee because the town does not have the funds to address them. The Capital Committee had about $350,000 to fund projects in the warrant.
“We really struggled to prioritize what we could, given that budget,” said Weeks, who serves on the Capital Committee, of the $350,000 they were allocated. “We recommended to the town $313,000 of the $350,000. The reason why we couldn’t get up over $350,000 because there wasn’t something that could bridge the gap in between those and we have a relatively conservative board that didn’t want to over spend what was given to us.”
He said the total cost of all the requests made for capital projects this year was about $25 million, and the committee was only able to spend $313,000.
“We were given line items with no way to prioritize,” said Board member Ed Heal, who also serves on the Captial Committee. He said no explanations about the requests were provided.
FitzGerald-Kemmett also cited a concern over equity in the district that prompted the striking of an article to regarding capital improvement articles at Indian Head School.
“I wouldn’t want Indian Head doing something that we can’t do for the other schools that we have,” she said. “We’re in a budget deficit.”
In other business, Library Director Karen Stolfer gave an update on events and activities to the board, including the application for a construction grant, which will help with the library’s expansion needs.
There is no cost to apply, she said.
Board members voted to support the grant application.
There are two project categories for the 2022-23 grant, small populations [2,500 or less] and standard. Hanson is applying for the latter.
The library’s plans require 16,000 square feet, placing Hanson in the medium tier for their plan developed in 2018. Focused on need this time out, with nine to 10 grants planned, Stolfer said the process will be more competitive this time around.
The grant covers 50 percent of costs up to $100,000 and the town is required to appropriate up to $150,000. A letter of intent is due April 28, with a full application due by May 2024. Schematic designs are due in 2025-26 with construction due for completion in 2029
Stolfer is working on the required statement of need.
“I’m happy to report that people are coming back to the library,” Stolfer said, adding that they are borrowing items and the use of digital resources, which “skyrocketed” during COVID, is continuing. “We’re getting lots of requests from local organizations for our meeting rooms and, of course, one of our biggest draws is our programming.”
A lot of programs are being slated for school vacation week in April, including the annual Family Fun Day on April 21.
She also spoke of the Library of Things, a collection of nontraditional items, including metal detectors, puzzles, a laser levels and Roku streaming sticks that can be checked out.

The School Committee revisited the school choice issue on Wednesday, March 15, voting to accept school choice for all grades except 11 and 12.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said the process would only be open based on student enrollment and class size.
He reported that district legal counsel Andrew Waugh reiterated that all school districts are school choice unless they opt out.”
A tie vote, like the one cast on March 13, would mean W-H is a school choice district “because the School Committee did not make an affirmative vote to opt out,” Szymaniak explained. “We need a 6-4 vote to opt out.”
Waugh made some further recommendations for the committee to consider voting again in hopes of reaching a 6-4 decision to withdraw from K-12 school choice for the school year 2023-24.
The committee again voted 5-5 on the opt-out option.
Waugh further recommended in such an event, that a motion establishing parameters around how the district should participate in school choice.
Szymaniak suggested the motion that the district withdraw from school choice in kindergarten through grade eight, and 11 and 12, while allowing it in grades nine and 10 – and for students in any grade, whose family moves out of the district as school choice – for school year 2023-24.
The committee then voted 9-1 to accept school choice for all grades with the exclusion of grades 11 and 12. Vice Chair Christopher Scriven voted against.
It was an amended motion at the suggestion of member Dawn Byers as questions began popping up about Szymaniak’s suggestion.
Scriven asked what the rationale was in allowing high school freshmen and sophomores but not any other grade, as well as the benefits of doing so and the considerations made in offering it.
“In grades nine and 10, those students have a fresh start in coming to school,” Szymaniak said, just like any other student at the high school. “That’s what we’ve done in the past. In grades 11 and 12 [administrators] have less control of that student, graduating from school.”
Where K-eight is concerned, Szymaniak said there just hasn’t been space for school choice students and the district has been more focused on lowering class sizes in those grades.
“That, for me, facilitates the issue that is most concerning to a lot of us that oppose this,” Scriven said.
Member Hillary Kniffen said if enrollment considerations were a reason for not taking school choice in lower grades, why not allow them in so they could become part of the community, which would negate that concern among opponents of school choice.
“It sounds like we’re talking out of both sides of our mouths,” she said.
Member Dawn Byers moved to amend the motion for school choice to be open to all grades, with a cap per grade based on enrollment.
“I’ve got one seat in second grade, I’ve got four seats in fifth grade, I’ve got seven at ninth-grade … We don’t have to accept 199 kids if they all want to come here,” she said. “We have the control as a district.”
A policy limiting class size could also be used.
Member Beth Stafford said she would prefer to cap it at 10th grade, because of the possibility and incoming student might not have the credits to allow them to graduate on time.
Szymaniak said he would be looking at keeping class sizes to 20 at the elementary grades, 20-23 in middle grades and 25 at the high school, in determining how many school choice students might be allowed in.
“Our high school enrollment this year in grade nine is the lowest we’ve ever had,” Szymaniak said, noting that where they usually have 270 students, this year they are looking at 230.
If the committee voted to open school choice for all grades, he would look at the numbers in order to announce how many students would be accepted and a lottery system would be used.
If students are looking for schools with good sports teams for their school choice plans, the MIAA requires varsity athletes to apply for a waiver and the receiving administrator and athletic director have to sign off on it, or that student-athlete has to sit out the year.
“You can’t deny [acceptance] unless it’s a drugs or weapons violation,” Szymaniak said of students with disciplinary issues. Otherwise districts are not allowed to ask why students are interesting in coming.
“We’re not even supposed to meet with that family prior to,” he said.
WHRHS Principal Dr. Christopher Jones said he is very pro-school choice, as it does a lot for the school, but he asked what consideration is given a parent who wants to choice two kids – one in ninth grade and one in 11th.
“I would tell that parent it’s not an option for that 11th grader,” Szymaniak said.
In other business, Student Advisory Committee members gave a slide presentation on their findings from an outreach survey of students in all five district schools regarding multiple line items in the FY 2024 district school budget.
Students were strongly in favor of some change in start times, with Indian Head students in Hanson supporting an earlier start, Duval students nearly unanimous that some change was needed.
“A majority [of Duval students] informed us that they woke up at 7 a.m., and just watched TV or played video games with the time they had before school started,” the survey found. At Indian Head, “many told us they had busy lives afte school, and it was difficult to get to extra-curricular activities while getting home [from school] around 3:30 p.m., every day.”
Conley students also preferred an earlier start time.
Getting off a school bus in the dark during the winter wan another source of dissatisfaction with the start times.
Opinions were more mixed for Hanson Middle School students, where the older ones preferred an earlier start and younger students preferred a later start time, but there was little demand overall for a change. Whitman Middle School students, meanwhile, were split over a slightly different start time,versus no change.
A majority of high school students supported a later start time.

The School Committee, following its annual public hearing on school choice participation on Wednesday, March 8, tabled action on school choice pending an opinion from counsel on available options after members split down the middle on the issue.
The district must vote by June 1, or it accepts K-12 school choice by default, as, without at least a 6 to 4 vote either way, the district will take part in school choice.
A motion by Committee member Fred Small to accept school choice for grades nine and 10, with kindergarten through grade eight open, at the superintendent’s discretion, only to siblings of those high school students enrolled through the program, was deadlocked 5 to 5.
Voting yes were Small, David Forth, Beth Stafford, Dawn Byers and Steve Bois. Voting against were Christopher Howard, Christopher Scriven, Hillary Kniffen, Glen DiGravio and Michelle Bourgelas.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak noted that school choice is open to all schools and that all school committees must vote to close a district to school choice, or limit its participation, stating their reasons for doing so before June 1. The vote would have to be whether or not to close the district to school choice.
“You’re voting not to do something,” Chair Howard said before the discussion began.
Szymaniak also noted that athletics has also been the subject of conversation centering on school choice in the past, and provided committee members with a list of current choice students, where they are from, the sport they play and which are former W-H students whose families moved out of town, but who wanted to stay to graduate from WHRHS.
“It’s a data point … just to see where we’re at,” he said, adding that, of 45 school choice students, 34 are high school students and 12 are identified as playing a sport.
From a purely financial viewpoint, Whitman Finance Committee member Kathleen Ottina noted district enrollment has gone down 15 percent since school choice was first accepted in 2012. She argued that, eliminating a program that increases enrollment would bring even greater scrutiny on the district budget than they are currently seeing.
“In the past, we’ve closed school choice to every grade, except grades nine and 10 and students who were staying in the district if they chose to move out,” Szymaniak said. “We didn’t have school choice grades one through eight or 11 and 12. We chose to close those grades because of enrollment. Last year we chose to close all grades to the district.”
He added that there are financial implications to the decision before the committee talks about budget or approve an assessment.
Vice Chair Scriven asked, if the district votes against accepting new school choice students, does that mean students whose families move out of the district would be unable to continue attending W-H.
In those cases, Szymaniak said, he would ask the superintendent of the new district if they are willing to pay the costs of such students to continue at W-H.
“They don’t have to,” he said. “If it were choice, they’d have to do that. It would be a conversation [otherwise].”
Szymaniak said he already has a parent asking about that now, but he has held off contacting the Pembroke superintendent until after the committee votes.
Stafford asked about the circumstances of the nine non-high school students now attending W-H schools under previous school choice votes. Szymaniak explained they were in-district students before their families moved.
“That would kind of be a stipulation, I would think, for anything we would do,” she said, but she expressed concern that it was “picking and choosing who gets to stay.”
She said she has heard from a parent with a child in the district now, but they are from a different town – and are on the list, but are not in sports.
“They have a child in seventh or eighth grade and wanted to come but can’t if we vote no and she was very upset about that, because her older child has had a wonderful education here and the other child is not going to [be able to] do that,” Stafford said. “We have a lot more students here [on the list] who came here for a reason other than sports.”
She said committee members have to be careful about arguments that school choice students at WHRHS are taking opportunities for playing sports with kids they grew up with, since the same could be said of high school students whose families move to town when they are in those grades.
“Whenever we discuss things, we have to be careful of our choice of words,” Stafford said. “I don’t even really care about the money issue. My point is, look at all the kids who came just for an education.”
She pointed to girls’ soccer seems to be the main concern regarding soccer, and said no students have been kept out of AP courses because of school choice students.
Kniffen said she spoke about the issue last meeting and stands by her comments, advocating that students moving to W-H in their freshman year, obtain a waiver from the MIAA to be cleared to play a sport.
“Whether we want to admit it or not, sports are the thing that develops culture and community for the students at this school,” she said. While she agreed students weren’t kept out of AP classes, Kniffen said 30 kids in an AP class “isn’t great,” either.
“It is so important that we take care of our own,” she said, noting the district receives $5,000 per school choice student and it costs more per student to provide and education. “It does not provide opportunities, it takes them away.”
Michelle Bourgelas echoed Kniffen’s points.
“We talk a lot about equity,” she said. “How does school choice offer equity to our W-H high school students?”
DiGravio asked if any school choice students had disciplinary problems at their home district schools.
Szymaniak said they have to take the students who apply so long as there are spaces for them under school choice, but said there are “ways to have a conversation with families,” including the requirement that the parents are solely responsible for transporting the students. If there are more students than school choice spaces, a lottery is held.
While there have been school choice students who have posed disciplinary problems, they tend to move back to their home districts.
“In my tenure the number of students presenting disciplinary cases has been slim to none,” Szymaniak said.
Byers, who supports school choice noted that a fair number of W-H sports teams are no-cut, with volley ball – with one school choice student – being an exception.
“It’s the right thing to do to be inclusive,” she said.
Howard’s main concern was that the money coming in with school choice students doesn’t fully cover educational costs.
“When I have students in front of me, I don’t care if you’re from Dighton-Rehoboth, W-H, whatever, I’m going to give it all to you, and I know a lot of people say the same,” said WHEA president and history teacher Kevin Kafka, who noted there are five staff members tied to partial funding through school choice.
Like Stafford, he cautioned people to be very careful in linking a process to a legal process. There have been no investigations or proof that school choice has been used improperly.
Forth, who attended WHRHS with school choice students said such students become part of the community and made an impassioned argument on their behalf.
“They’re not a ‘school-choice kid,’ they’re a Panther,” he said, noting that students also come to W-H via move-ins, the foster care system or McKinney-Vento – which requires homeless students placed in shelters out of town to be transported back at district expense to attend school in their home districts – or English language learners. “They either are impacted by the district, or they contribute … they enrich our experience, they are our peers. They’re not ‘someone from another town.’”
In response to a question from Committee member Small, Szymaniak said school choice students do not have a great impact on class size because the 45 students are spread out across grade levels.
“Class size at the high school is very good with the exception of foreign language,” he said. “I think it’s been a good thing for our school … but I also hear where people are.” He said if a student lost a specific opportunity, such as a part in a school play, as a parent he would be upset.
“To me, this is an issue of community and access,” Scriven said. “The relationships that we nurture, and the people that we interact with on a daily basis in our community really, really matters for a lot. … Kids in our community should be our top priority.”
He argued that it is the average student that is most negatively affected by school choice.
In other business, the committee heard a review of budget numbers, their impact on the district’s hold-harmess status and possible ways to use excess and deficiency funds to improve the towns’ assessment figures. No changes have been made to the budget from the previous week.
“I thought it would take a lot longer to get out of hold harmless than it looks like we’re going to, because we just made up a substantial amount of it in one year alone,” Business Manager John Stanbrook said.
When the district comes out of hold harmless, Chapter 70 funds should increase to the district,” Szymaniak suggested, adding that the district had thought it would take until FY 2028 to get this far. Stanbrook agreed.
“We get credited more [toward emerging from hold harmless] for English language learners, low-income students and [increased] overall enrollment, and from going to half-day kindergarten to full-day K,” Szymaniak said. “There was a definite increase in our foundation budget, which then lowered our hold harmless.”
Howard noted it has decreased from about $4 million to $500,000 to $600,000.
“When we talked about it last year, no one expected a jump that big,” Howard said. “So there’s some cause for optimism going forward.”