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