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.