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Date: 4/13/2021
NORTHAMPTON – At the April 8 Northampton School Committee meeting, the committee interviewed a new candidate for the upcoming school business administrator vacancy and approved the fiscal year 2022 (FY22) budget.
After negotiations fell through with the previous candidate for the school business administrator, the committee interviewed Nick Bernier to fill the role once Camie Lamica retires.
“I have been an educator my entire career and taught social studies for 13 years. Five years ago, I became the principal at Robinson Park Elementary School, which is a relatively large elementary school. In my time there I took as particular interest in school finance, especially with the power to allocate resources properly to make sure all students have equitable access,” he said.
After working under Agawam School Business Administrator Robert Clickstein to receive his School Business Administrator license, Bernier said it was time to move forward in his career.
“I decided it was time to take the next step in my career and be involved in school business finance on a more macroscopic level than I already am,” he said.
When asked by committee Vice Chair Lonnie Kaufman how he would handle finances during a financial crisis, Bernier said he would focus on equitable access to education for all students.
“I think it would be wise to anticipate there being a financial downturn in the next three or so years. When that happens, I would work with principals and other central office staff to prioritize what we need to keep and think what we may need to cut if we need to do that,” he said.
“It is very important to keep equitable access to education at the forefront of decisions we make,” he added.
Along with approving Bernier, Superintendent John Provost said he would also like to enter a contract with Lamica to train Bernier one day a week over the next year.
“He has not had this role before so one of the things I think would be essential for him to be successful is to make sure he has the opportunity to be trained by someone with more experience. Camie has agreed to stay on so if we appointed him, I would like to enter into a contract with Camie so she can continue working with him over the course of the next year,” he said.
The committee unanimously agreed to allow Provost to enter contract negotiations with Bernier.
After several committee members raised concerns about a lack of social emotional support for students at Northampton High School (NHS) in the FY22 budget at the March 25 meeting, Provost returned with a new budget with additions for NHS.
“When you get to the high school, we have the same supports at Tier 2 and Tier 3 but there is not formal curriculum at Tier 1. We would like to add resources by saving money in the next budget to purchase and implement a formal social emotional learning at Tier 1, the universal level, which would be provided by all staff at the high school,” he said.
During the discussion, NHS Principal Lori Vaillancourt explained the process in landing on the three potential supports at the high school, which were Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing and Regulation emotions (RULER), Character Strong, and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS).
“The goal was to choose a program that was outcome-driven and with a database so we could measure the work we are doing from the start. We wanted to build a stronger school-wide community and a positive school-wide morale among all of the stakeholders in this curriculum,” she said.
Ultimately, the committee unanimously approved the budget with the anticipation that high school staff and Provost will decide on one of the social emotional support in the future.
During the meeting, the committee also agreed to continue with School Choice for the 2021-2022 school year.
The School Committee next meets on April 22.