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Date: 5/16/2023
LUDLOW — The School Committee discussed a proposed library policy and updates on staff cuts following Town Meeting at its May 9 meeting.
Superintendent Frank Tiano discussed the Town Meeting articles that were approved relating to the school department.
The town approved the schools’ capital budget requests that will be used to upgrade security systems and other technology at Ludlow High School, Baird Middle School and East Street Elementary School to match the updated security at Harris Brook Elementary School.
Two HVAC systems will also be addressed at Ludlow High School.
The school budget was also approved and will be approximately $35 million which represents a 4.67% increase.
“That is the highest increase we have had in about five years. That is a good trend.” Tiano added.
This approved budget also meant that the school budget did not reach level service meaning there would have to be a reduction in areas including the staff.
At a past School Committee meeting, Tiano recommended a 5% increase which would cut $1.3 million from level services, increase class size and fees, and reduce high school electives, elementary specials, foreign language offerings, and athletic schedules and eliminate 22 full-time employees.
Tiano said, “As our budget is 75% staff, unfortunately we are going to be having layoffs and that is a difficult experience for our staff, for our administration, for everyone apart of Ludlow school community. It is a difficult process.”
According to Tiano, during the budget process, he was able to reduce certain budget areas including $80,000 from transportation. He added that by applying reductions in other areas, he was able to add back a schoolteacher and paraprofessional.
Tiano said he must focus on short-term and long-term goals of the schools when it comes to reducing staff.
He said, “As we heard from Town Meeting, we will probably be making reductions again next year. As we go forward trying to look at where our school system is right now. We are taking a multiyear approach. We don’t want to burden one department over another or one school.”
Board of Selectmen Chair James Gennette talked about the school budget at Town Meeting.
He said, “I really challenged the school over the last couple of years. They are taking a lot of heat from the state, there are a lot of mandates coming down. I am here to hold departments accountable so that is what I did. At this point this is something that needs to happen with the schools. They are up between a rock and a hard place and we are probably going to see another increase next year which is not great because we have to deal with other departments dealing with mandates.
Last year the school was going to have to cut 14 positions before saving money in other areas to only cut seven members of the staff.
Some of the positions that may be cut include staff that is retiring but that means the position will not be replaced.
“When you reduce positions, you reduce the fabric of our school system. As you move through this, we have people who have resigned, people who have retired, people who have left. The actual people who are affected individually may be less but the actual positions that we have are also less and that is felt by the entire school and school community.”
Tiano said that he and his team are working with his team to figure out what areas to cut.
Tiano added, “We want to keep everybody, we would like to keep more people. You look at it starting with the students, looking at programs and then from there the difficult part looking at seven bargaining units, individual contracts, seniority, secondary licensure and so forth.”
Tiano said that he would be working with the staff on May 10 to start discussing some cuts and has not come to any final decision.
He added that he can tell there has been a lot of stress with the staff through the entire process and he hopes he can continue to work with the selectmen to try and continue fixing the budget.
The School Committee urged the superintendent to keep looking at areas to reduce other than the staff and programs.
The School Committee then discussed a proposed library policy.
School Committee Chair Jeffrey Laing said that committee member Joao Dias sent the proposal for a new library policy about a week before the School Committee meeting.
Laing said the current library policy allows parents to challenge what books are available in the school libraries.
Laing added that five or six years ago parents came before the board saying they should have the opportunity to know and limit what books their kids are reading.
This caused Ludlow schools to adopt a new library policy.
Laing said, “I was here during the initial start of this whole thing six years ago. We had parents come in and brought it to our attention that there were books inside of the library that seemed inappropriate for kids in the middle school. The parents read the words in the books, at the time I had two daughters in second and third grade and its disappointing to hear that my kids would be going to middle school and read books that would say these things. It was shocking.”
This caused the creation of a new policy that allows parents to challenge a book and be notified of every single book that is checked out of the library.
Laing added, “So if your son or daughter went to the library and took out a book, you would get an email home stating the name of the book that way you could go and reference and see if it was something that you did not approve of as a parent. We understand that parents do have rights, we created things to allow them to stop kids from getting books they may not approve of. Last I checked, we had one parent who takes this initiative to get an email.”
On May 9, Dias did not read his policy aloud and stated that was something that should be done at the next meeting.
The new policy is available on the School Committee website and lists more definitions, limits different types of books in each school but continues the process of allowing parents and teachers to vote on which books may be allowed.
The policy states that no materials in the elementary school libraries should contain explicit written description of sexual acts or nude intimate parts, implied written description of nude intimate parts, visual or visually implied depictions of sexual acts or simulations of such acts and visual depictions of nude intimate parts or implied nudity.
The middle school and high school restrictions become somewhat more lax based on education purpses.
The School Committee agreed that according to a separate policy, the proposed library policy could not be discussed or questioned until the next meeting.
“Please everyone read it,” Laing added.
Laing said the process the School Committee conducts when they receive a new policy proposal spans over three meetings.
The first meeting took place on May 9 where the School Committee received the proposed policy.
The second meeting allows the public time to view the policy and discuss it further at the School Committee meeting and then the School Committee votes on it during the third meeting.
Laing added that the discussion will take place at its next meeting on May 23 and a vote would take place on June 6.
The current and proposed policy is available on the School Committee website.