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Date: 1/11/2023
LUDLOW – Dr. Frank Tiano is still doing his best to familiarize himself with the Ludlow schools while simultaneously working to improve them after being hired as superintendent on July 1, 2022.
His goals have remained the same since being hired. He wanted to help make the budget process more transparent and build relationships with community members to improve their concerns.
He said those goals will help with the opportunities for Ludlow schools this year.
“We will be starting our strategic planning process at the end of the month. This will evaluate where we are, redeveloping our mission and core values as well as developing our overall goals, values and initiatives over the next three years,” Tiano said.
Not only is a strategic plan something that is required but is something that Tiano sees as important.
“I want to make a three-year plan that focuses on maximizing student achievement. It will include input from multiple stakeholders, reflect our core values and vison, be researched based and data informed, align district, school and educator goals while also providing focus for our financial and human resources,” Tiano said.
Tiano said this plan will guide the professional development and allocation of human and financial resources for the school district.
“It is a great opportunity to reevaluate the direction in which we want to head after the coronavirus pandemic,” Tiano added.
Tiano will use the feedback he receives from stakeholders and the community to help with his strategic planning.
“I wanted to develop a connection with stakeholders throughout the community and be able to view our schools through as many different perspectives as possible. I will provide the school committee with a reflection of the core values, norms, and expectations of our school district as well as use it to plan for the next three years,” Tiano added.
Tiano would like to see these goals reached by this summer.
Tiano said, “Our goals are to have the strategic plan presented to the School Committee by late April so that the district action plans can go into place by June or July. We also want to have a budget that fits the needs of our students and families.”
According to Tiano, a challenge for most schools every year is working with the budget.
Tiano added to make the budget process easier, he has been working hard with the district’s Business Manager Kathy Demetrius to stay on track.
Tiano wanted to revise the budgeting process for the Ludlow school district and stated how he wants the to be more transparent with the whole community to help reflect the School Committee goals.
Tiano has provided the School Committee with budget updates at each of their meetings along with having quarterly meetings with the Board of Selectmen and Town Administrator Marc Strange to keep them in the loop.
Tiano added that the School Committee and Board of Selectmen are proud of this collaboration because of how much of the school budget accounts for in the overall town budget.
A continued challenge that Tiano would like to change is the bus situation at the schools.
“LPVEC [Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative] is our transportation provider and they are short drivers,” Tiano said.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, LPVEC had tiers of drivers according to Tiano.
Tiano said, “Tier one is their full fleet with two to three full-time additional spares to fill in for any driver who called out sick. There are no subs or spares and they are down about 17 drivers. Between combining routes and buses showing up 45 minutes late for school, this is unacceptable.”
Tiano added that he has met with LPVEC to help advertise the need for more drivers to fix the problem and LPVEC plans to up their efforts to recruit drivers.
“The only way we help accomplish these goals and fix these problems are together,” Tiano concluded.