Nuclear Option & School Daze

Spencer-E. Brookfield voters send 'compromise' budget back to school committee

By Kim Ring, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

SPENCER — Voters from Spencer and East Brookfield on Saturday sent the school budget back to the school committee after offering a compromise of $23,331,558, less than the school department requested, but more than residents have been willing to fund in earlier votes this year.

The new budget figure was approved by a secret ballot vote of 262-197, with far fewer voters than anticipated attending the two-hour session.

Now the budget heads back to the school committee where four members, Vincet Cloutier, Kevin Hayes, Christopher King and Kurt Nordquist, have pledged their support. But that won't be enough for it to pass and prevent a state takeover of the school district.


"I'm not going to decide until I see the cuts," committee member Mary Gershman said, adding that if the cuts have too severe an impact on education, she won't support the lower number.

Committee Chairman John Howard agreed.

Joshua Cote, reached at home after the district meeting, said he, too, wants to review the impact of $700,000 in cuts.

"If it's too much then I'd wonder why we're even doing this," he said.

Mr. Cote had hoped to attend the meeting but was hospitalized during the week and is receiving treatment for a serious health problem. He said he plans to attend Tuesday's school committee meeting if he is well enough.

Initially, voters were set to act on a request from the schools for $24,031,558. Spencer Selectman Gary Woodbury then offered a successful amendment to change the figure to $23,029,219.

Following that vote and some conferring between school officials and Spencer Town Administrator Adam D. Gaudette, Spencer Selectman Donald R. Berthiaume Jr. offered a motion to increase the figure to what was later approved.

Mr. Gaudette said it was becoming apparent that the school committee would likely not vote to accept the $23,029,219 figure. Failure to approve a budget by December would mean the state could take over the district and set a budget.

"Selectmen are not confident there would be ratification by school committee on Tuesday," Mr. Gaudette said. "In the spirit of trying to get to an agreement where there is a combination of sacrifice ... the selectmen felt it necessary to commit more funds."

The new number would mean Spencer would not require a Proposition 2½ override for the current fiscal year, Mr. Gaudette said.

Whether a state takeover of the district would bring a higher or lower budget is debatable, and worrisome to Spencer officials, who said the town would face deep cuts if the requested number of $24,031,558 had passed.

Former Superintendent Ralph Hicks, who said he was "driven out of his job" in the district, warned that the state probably wouldn't care about cuts to municipal services.

"The commissioner of education? He's not going care if your transfer station closes," Mr. Hicks said. "Do you really want the commissioner of education making this decision for you?"

Still, some voters said the higher budget, which comes on the heels of a financial crisis in the district after the fiscal 2013 budget was overspent, is too much for them to afford.

"I'm not in support of any budget that takes away our firemen, our policemen and our library," Spencer Assessor Mary Williams said, chastising teachers who pay a lesser contribution for health insurance then do municipal workers.

But one teacher from David Prouty High School painted a bleak picture of a facility compromised by cutbacks: staff rest rooms have no soap, pupils cannot do laboratory work because class sizes are too large, and educators spend time sweeping the floors of their classrooms.

East Brookfield officials have said they could fund the higher budget request without an override of tax-limiting Proposition 2½, but a member of the finance committee said he would like to see the schools make some cuts, too.

The school committee is set to meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Wire Village School on Paxton Road to discuss the budget and review cuts proposed by interim Superintendent Edward Malvey.

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Local districts discuss idea of virtual school

Kerry O'Brien
News Staff Writer

Nineteen local school districts in the region are part of a discussion to create a regional virtual school for students who opt to take classes online and home school.

“It will be a school that will belong to all the districts,” said Gardner Superintendent Dr. Carol Daring. “It would just be another option for our students.”

Many local districts already offer online courses at various levels, however, with Greenfield Public Schools now offering virtual school, Narragansett Regional School District Superintendent Ruth Miller stated that the districts stand to lose money if students school-choice out for online courses.

“Effectively, it’s a charter school, but it’s not limited to any geographic area,” she said. “It’s all virtual, the kids never go there. They can take students from everyone, and it’s $6,500 for students to go.”

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is also currently accepting applications for a grant program, which will create five virtual high schools in the state. Local superintendents stated they were discussing applying, but discovered that the state program did not offer any funding, and could be restrictive in terms of how the districts decide to operate the virtual school.

 “We want to develop our own virtual school for our 19 districts,” Ms. Miller said. “The biggest thing is we want to create the plan and we want hybrid. We don’t want it to be all online. It’s shown that a full online for young students doesn’t work.”

With CAPS Education Collaborative and FLLAC Collaborative facilitating the discussion between all the communities, administrators are currently planning to open the virtual school up to students as soon as next year.

“We’re trying to flush out as many details as possible because in not too many months, we start budget process,” Dr. Daring said. “Once we identify costs, we want to put in budget, so if we plan now, it’s possible to happen next year. The good thing about joining together is that it is definitely the kind of thing we could share. We’re thinking, why recreate the system multiple times if we can share and split the costs? You wouldn’t have money shift from one school to another.”