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Date: 3/31/2021
NORTHAMPTON – At the Northampton School Committee’s March 25 meeting, the committee spent most of the meeting discussing the budget for the fiscal year 2022 (FY22) before agreeing to continue the discussion at its next meeting.
To start the budget discussion, Superintendent of Schools John Provost said two of the additions to the newest version of the budget included a new late bus and an increase to Clinical and Support Options’ (CSO) therapeutic supports.
“We are now proposing to increase therapeutic supports to be provided by CSO from 1 to 1.6 FTEs (full-time equivalents), that will bring the proposed total contract with CSO to $100,000. We also have a late bus for JFK and the high school for $13,000, this would be the amount to run the bus two days a week at the high school,” he said.
Provost added that the new late bus will run at the same time as elementary late buses and would not be a door to door drop off but would drop students off at different hubs in the city.
Based on the Social, Academic, Emotional Behavior Risk Screening (SAEBRS) results, Provost said the numbers were normal for students at risk for learning or social emotional difficulties.
“In screening results of any kind of multi-tiered system of supports, you would expect to find 20 to 25 percent of students at risk for learning or social emotional difficulties, based on these results we are not seeing abnormally high levels in our high school screening results,” he said.
School Committee member Rebecca Busansky said she was hoping for more mental health support at the high school in the budget.
“I think we had a major mental health issue on our hands before the pandemic at the high school and it is only increasing. I was hoping to see something more global at the high school more along the lines of a social-emotional coach,” she said.
Because of changes in behavior due to the COVID-19 pandemic and feedback from teachers, Provost said the increase of $30,000 to the CSO account was adequate.
“It seems to be adequate for me based on what we are seeing from quantitative data and feedback from staff. We are not seeing a number of behavioral issues that have been present at the school, part of that is because less students are in school and part of that is because we are in COVID protocol’s and everybody’s behavior is different. If that changes, I promise you I will come back and say we need to add,” he said.
Along with the late bus and additional mental health support, Provost said there would also be additional credit recovery opportunities over the summer for failing students.
“We are adding additional recovery classes. Typically, our first semester failures would be around 20 to 30 students, this year it was 30 to 40 students, so there was an uptick there. We are adding credit recovery classes for this summer in the four core areas. We are also adding an acceleration program in pre-calculus to get students ready for calculus in the fall,” he said.
School Committee member Susan Voss said she was in favor of tabling the budget approval to the next meeting to allow for more discussion.
“I just feel like this year especially when so many families are struggling with their kids at school, we need to have time to put this out there, share our concerns, and see what people have to say about it,” she said.
Ultimately, the committee agreed to postpone the vote on the FY22 budget to its next meeting.
During the meeting, the committee also approved resumption to transportation for students in grades 7-12 and agreed to increase the offer by up to $5,000 to Courtney Leborious, who the district is currently in contract negotiations with for the school business administrator position.
The Northampton School Committee next meets on April 8.