Action Items from 10/17/08 Meeting

Action items from 10/17 meeting:

1) Judy Norton (South) will contact the MA Public Charities Division regarding clarification of rules on advocating verses informing for the PTO's ... especially important for 501 c3 organized PTO's. (She volunteered... I'm not dumping it on her : ) )

2) Deb Begos will contact Alison Phalen about school department approved email flyers. A request will be made to send to only one source, PTO or school principal - not both and the suggestion to send from the aps1.net site under a heading of "community notices" will be made with feedback provided to the group when available.

3) In an effort to keep ourselves and our parent groups informed, a one paragraph summary of the weekly SC meeting minutes and agendas will be forwarded to our group for distribution to parents. Deb Begos to start... anyone interested in sharing this?

As stated at the meeting, the main mode of communication for this group will be via email so if there is any news, issues or questions you have to share, please feel free to email the group. We will physically meet again only as needed.

Welcome

Townwide PTO is an organization made up of representatives from each Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) or Parent Advisory Council (PAC) in the public schools of Andover.

The group has three primary goals.
1)Obtaining, exchanging and imparting information to aid in the development and maintenance of a quality educational system.
2)Ascertaining and accurately reflecting the views and concerns of all parents and teachers pertaining to educational matters.
3)Sharing information between the individual PTO and PAC organizations to highlight successful practices and foster the success of each organization.

Members meet to discuss issues related to education and the school community in Andover. Parents or guardians with children in the Andover Public Schools are welcome to join this group, attend a meeting or bring a topic up for discussion with the group. Interested parties should contact their PTO president.

Townwide PTO Meeting Notes - April 11, 2008

Guest Speaker: James Redmond, representing the Life Long Learning Committee of the Andover Historical Society, presented the many educational opportunities available at the society. Along with those programs, comes a need for more volunteers. Jim asked the PTO/PACs to spread the word about the Historical Society’s programs and help recruit volunteers from the parent community.

The Society has helped Wood Hill with their Victorian Days and the Society will work with 5th graders at West EL and High Plain to study Andover’s foods in historic times and based on what crops were available, the students will create cookbooks. With Expanded Learning Time being studied at several schools, the Society could create some enrichment classes for those extra hours. One of Jim’s ideas for the future is to offer a chance to explore the old farms in town.

Current and upcoming programs are:
Main Street – An Architectural Workshop: for 6th – 8th graders during April break.
Magical History Tour of Main Street: Saturday, May 31st
Main Street Memories Exhibit: an exhibit on the history of Main Street businesses
Andover At Work: the traditional 3rd grade field trip during which volunteers dress as 1830s Andover citizens and show their work as housekeeper, shopkeeper, printer, and fire fighter.
2nd Annual Farmer’s Market: Saturdays mid-July through mid-October.
Car Raffle (1981 Mercedes Benz 380 SL coupe convertible): drawing June 15th.

Budget Discussion: Dennis Forgue, new member of the School Committee, gave us an update on the school budget negotiations. There is still the $2.1M gap. The override is not a good option but there is still hope that money from the Phillips and Stabilization funds could be used to close this year’s gap. The School Committee has gone back to look for things that can be trimmed from the school budget. It is unlikely that any agreement will be reached before the April 30th Town Meeting.

Going forward, Dennis stressed that it is extremely important that parents continue their advocacy efforts and that the town boards revive their long term strategic planning work because next year’s deficit is already projected to be $4M to $5M. The strategic planning meetings are open, public meetings and parents should attend in small groups even over this coming summer. Marj asked for a posting of these strategic planning meetings and Dennis will ensure that happens. If we need an override next year, then starting the campaigning work now and getting that override question on next March’s ballot saves the town the cost of a special election after the spring 2009 Town Meeting.
Diane C provided us with a flyer for distribution out to parents before April vacation. The flyer states the reasons why it is important to attend this year’s Town Meeting. An additional flyer will be handed to voters on April 30th with voting instructions… which warrant articles are to fund the school budget. The electronic version of this flyer has already been distributed to the Townwide PTO distribution list of PTO/PAC members. The flyer has been approved by Dr. Bach and stamped copies were given out to attendees.

Townwide PTO members need to network as much as possible in the next two weeks. Forward the flyer to any of your personal networks. Preschools have been approached by the Citizens for Education group to inform those incoming kindergarten parents of the importance of their votes at Town Meeting. Fact remains… only 20% of Andover households have any connection to the schools. How do we convince the other 80% that the proposed cuts are drastic and damaging?

2008-2009 Officers: Townwide PTO is looking for a moderator and a secretary for next school year. If interested in these positions, please email Debbie Begos (dbegos@comcast.net). Denise Nash suggested that Debbie should continue as moderator another year for continuity. Debbie is willing to stay on but she would like others to have a chance to lead the group. Suzanne has already served two years as secretary.

Communications from PTO/PACs: Members needed to leave before we could go around the room for school updates. There was mention of West El’s very successful auction and West El’s Sue Ferronetti has provided the following report:

“The West Elementary PTO hosted an auction last Friday night, April 4th, at Salvatore’s in Lawrence. Two hundred and thirteen parents attended. Thanks to the dedication and commitment of our co-chairs, as well as a committee of over forty parents, we were able to raise $53,000.00!! The money will be spent on a slide for the third grade playground, new racks for the paperback books in the library and technology equipment.

We have one more social/fundraising event remaining this year. Our ice cream social will be held on May 15th. If this event raises the budgeted amount, we should come in right on budget for the 2007/2008 school year.”

From Bancroft, I can report that our Expanded Learning Time committee has invited parents to participate in focus groups on April 15th (K – 2nd) and April 17th (3rd – 5th). An electronic survey is available to parents too. I completed the survey and it asked questions about how my children currently spend their before and after school hours and from a list of possible expanded learning courses and activities, which ones would I rank as my preferred five choices. Bancroft will be hosting their annual Father/Daughter dance on Friday May 2nd and our Science Fair (open to 2nd – 5th) will be Thursday May 8th.

Next Townwide PTO meeting: Wednesday, May 21st at 7pm Notes by Suzanne Hornick

Attendees:
Dennis Forgue, School Committee/Shawsheen Richard Collins, School Committee
Debbie Begos, West Middle/Moderator Marj Andresen, West Middle
Suzanne Hornick, Bancroft/Secretary Denise Bordonaro, AHS
Denise Nash, High Plain Diane Costagliola, AHS
Cindy Cromer, South/Doherty Salina Shah, South
Carol Lowenstein, Sanborn

SCHOOL BUDGET UPDATE

SCHOOL BUDGET - ACTION UPDATE

Despite a series of meetings during the past few weeks, the deficit between the town's "available revenue" budget and the school department's "needs-based" budget remains at $2.1 million. Last week, the Board of Selectmen voted to support the town manager's "available revenue" budget - which does not even allocate enough funding to maintain the services our students currently have. This deficit will result in the elimination of approximately 40 full-time teaching positions in the elementary schools, and the elimination of all athletics and extracurricular activities at the high sc hool.

The selectmen also voted to put forward a $2.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override article at Town Meeting, but did NOT vote to SUPPORT it. The amount of this override would primarily be for school funding. In order for an override to pass, it must FIRST be voted on favorably at Town Meeting, and THEN approved by voters at the polls in a general election. The history of school funding overrides in Andover is not promising. The two school overrides passed at Town Meeting in recent years have FAILED overwhelmingly at the ballot box. The rejection of the Community Preservation Act in last week's town elections is a strong sign that voters are not willing to support an override this year. Unless town leaders actively work together to develop a comprehensive plan for an override to support services for ALL TOWN DEPARTMENTS, a school override is almost certain to fail. We believe that the current override proposal is ill-conceived and not practical.

Negotiations are c ontinuing, and alternative sources of funding, which can be voted for at Town Meeting, are being discussed. One is to use money from the Phillips Academy fund. This fund comes from a voluntary annual contribution from Phillips, and currently has over $1 million available. Another proposal is to use funds from the stabilization fund. Warrant articles to transfer funding from the PA fund and the stabilization fund need to be voted on and passed at Town Meeting.

In order to prevent any cuts in funding for the Andover school system, voters at Town Meeting MUST vote to SUPPORT the superintendent's school department budget number. In the absence of other funding sources, voters MUST ALSO approve the warrant articles to transfer money from the Phillips Academy fund and stabilization fund to the school department.

To guarantee passage of the school department's budget without the cuts that will devastate our schools, hurt our children's education, and lower the desirability o f living in Andover, 2000 parents MUST attend Town Meeting on April 30. We must send a strong message to the entire town that cuts in school funding are NOT acceptable and that we support the school budget proposed by the school superintendent and endorsed by the school committee.

We urge ALL parents to attend Town Meeting on April 30 at 7:00 p.m. at Andover High School. All town PTOs are working to identify babysitters and provide child care for that evening. Teachers are being asked to limit homework assignments that day, so that more students will be available to sit. Please begin to make arrangements for sitters as soon as possible. We will provide more information as it becomes available. We know this will be a long meeting and a late night for our children, but it is critical that parents attend Town Meeting and stay to vote FOR the superintendent's school budget AND the alternative funding proposals necessary to fund it. It is critical for all of us to attend Town Meeting to make sure our voices are heard and our votes counted for maintaining quality education in Andover.

Action Suggestions:

1) Continue writing to members of the board of selectmen, school committee, and finance committee. Emails listed below.

2) Write letters to the Andover Townsman and Lawrence Eagle-Tribune supporting full funding for the school budget.

3) Speak with friends, family and neighbors about the importance of supporting the school budget without cuts.

bmmajor@comcast.net, tteichert@comcast.net, avispoli@comcast.net, jameslyman82@hotmail.com, jstabilejr@comcast.net, fincom@andoverma.gov, ah.barber@att.net, tjamesbwc@comcast.net, asc@debrasilberstein.com, rjcpapa@verizon.net, dforgue@andovernetworking.com

Meeting Minutes for 1/11/2008

Budget: Tony James gave a brief, sobering update on the FY09 school budget using material from Dr. Bach’s preliminary budget presentation which I have since viewed online to more completely summarize here. Dr. Bach has requested $61M in funding which divides out as $48M for personnel and $13M for expenses. This requested budget includes $548,017 for 9.48 new staff positions to meet new needs in Special Education, to keep regular education elementary class sizes within policy range, to provide missing course offerings at the middle and high school levels, and to fund the Grants Coordinator.

Even at level services, the school budget requires $60.5M. There has been progress made to reducing costs such as conserving energy in the schools; the schools are dual fuel equipped and they are now running on a lower priced natural gas contract. There has also been progress in serving more Special Education students at lower cost within our district. However, the cost of supplies and materials has risen 3%, GLEC services will cost 13% more and Special Education Out of District tuition is estimated to increase by 5% not to mention the eventual contract settlement with the teachers’ union.

There is a $2.4M difference in what Dr. Bach has requested and what the Town Manager has allocated to the schools in his budget. If there is no solution to this budget gap, each grade level will be responsible for cutting $800,000 from its funding. At AHS, all athletics would be cut and all stipends to teachers who advise clubs and other after school activities would be eliminated. Class sizes would increase at all grade levels to the maximum allowed and the hours for regular education instructional assistants would be reduced. Supplies and materials would be level funded and user fees (bus and high school parking) would increase.

As for generating new revenue to close the budget gap, talk is turning to increased or additional user fees, an override, and the modified Pay As You Throw program.

Andover is the only Massachusetts community of our level (formerly AAA) that has never passed an operating override. All three town boards knew last year that there was no magic solution left for FY09… next fiscal year will be the start of service reductions if new revenue is not generated.

A private group has formed to explore solutions to the budget crisis and they were scheduled to meet on January 17th. Bill Pennington collected interested Townwide members’ signatures on three budget related warrant articles.

Homework Responses: Over the month of December, PTO/PAC boards were asked to share the one thing their group does well at their school, what they struggle with most, what is their long term goal, and what topic does their group want Townwide to work on.

From the responses, it is clear that communicating with parents, recruiting parents to volunteer for various events, and getting parents to attend PTO/PAC meetings are issues that PTO/PACs struggle with.

Also from the responses, PTO/PAC boards want Townwide to continue to be the place where schools network - sharing their success stories and asking for advice on their challenges. Some PTO/PACs would like to see Townwide become one united voice advocating for the schools.

All of the responses can be viewed on andovertwpto.blogspot.com.

Calendar and Events: Members shared upcoming events at their schools such as Career Night at AHS, Family Nights at High Plain, auction fund-raisers at West EL and Wood Hill, and Wellness Night at West EL. Also, Bancroft will be hosting authors, illustrators, and story tellers over four days in late January/early February for WOW (World of Words) while West EL’s literacy event called WERAWC is scheduled for the second week of March.

Although the School Committee is looking into creating a master event calendar, Townwide is now maintaining its own. Visit andovertwpto.blogspot.com for a listing of upcoming events at all of the schools. This information was initially gathered from school web sites. If events are rescheduled or additional events planned, then please let Townwide know about the change.

Next meeting: Thursday, March 13th at 7pm (subject to change if School Committee adds their own meeting in that room that evening)

Attendees:
Dr. Claudia Bach, Superintendent, Denise Nash, High Plain, Marj Andresen, West Middle, Tony James, School Committee, Tracy Callahan, Sanborn, Barbara Wait, Wood Hill, Richard Collins, School Committee, Dennis Forgue, Shawsheen, Diane Costagliola, AHS, Debbie Begos, Moderator/West Middle, Baljit Jackson, West El,
Denise Bordonaro, AHS, Suzanne Hornick, Secretary/Bancroft, Cyndi Webber, SEPAC, Bill Pennington