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New high school schedule passes, as does proposed budget, at school committee |
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Friday, 06 March 2009 |
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BY ABBY FOX
The high school Tuesday approved a modified block schedule for next school year, so that students will have five, 68-minute classes every day, a change from the current schedule of six, 55-minute classes.
The schedule was achieved to comply with the state mandate that students must receive minimally 330 minutes of instructional time every day. It gives teachers less “duty” time for study halls, which have been eliminated, and more instructional time – so that students get 15 to 20 minutes more from each class per calendar week, Principal Jeanine Nota told the school committee at Tuesday’s meeting.
87.5 percent of the faculty voted for this schedule, she said. It was a victory over last Wednesday, when the originally proposed four-period schedule, that would make each class 84 minutes long, was voted down by the teachers. The student council also didn’t like the idea of classes that long, Nota added.
The other new aspect to the schedule is the state-mandated “advisory” period, where a teacher meets daily with the same group of 10 to 15 students, for fourteen minutes, and continues to meet with them for all of their four years at the high school. The idea is to encourage “personal connection with individual students” in a small group, and “increase availability of the teachers to kids,” said Nota. When school committee members pressed what teachers would actually be doing with the students, she and some teachers replied that activities would vary and that any time teachers spend with students would only benefit them. Superintendent Charlie Meyers said that strong bonds would be forged and teachers would serve as “advocates” for the students, because students don’t always know how to represent themselves.
The class rotation, explained by a chart given to the school committee, where a given class would be taught either three times or four times a week, depending on a week, is flexible enough so sometimes a class will be taught in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, Nota added, which makes a schedule fair, as some students are more alert and productive in the morning, some in the afternoon.
The rotation does pose a problem for the eight or ten students who leave during the day for vocational training at Tollgate or Coventry or another high school, Nota said, but that the school would work that out.
Capitol Improvements
The committee also took a look at Facilities Director Bob Wilmarth’s five-year capitol improvement plan. Meyers thanked him for putting the plan on a schedule, and a time-table, something the district hadn’t had before.
The idea is to put money away for repairs, in case a roof or a boiler, or other expensive thing, needs replacing, without taking funds out of the operating budget. The fund is now about $300,000.
Budget, for now, approved
The committee also approved their proposed $32,644,227 budget to take to the town council, a 2.64-percent increase over last year. The increase pleased the committee, because it came in under the 2.67 percent Town Manager Bill Sequino had asked for. The next day, Director of Administration Maryanne Crawford said there aren’t that many changes between last year and this year – just a difference of $839,264.
“The big thing was not budgeting any increases in salaries,” said Jean Ann Guliano, school committee chair (other than “step increases” mandated by law.)
One of the major cuts, though, is in a vehicle line item, a truck-plow, in the tail end of the budget, which is being reduced from $67,000 to just $5,000.
The committee wants to save $62,000, based on their reasoning that because the town last year took over a lot of the maintenance, as part of consolidation efforts, while some of the school employees continue to help the town with the maintenance, the town should pay the bulk of it out of their vehicle replacement fund. To be continued.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 06 March 2009 )
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