School committee allocates funds to popular clubs

Date: 7/6/2010

July5, 2010

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

LONGMEADOW -- The Longmeadow School Committee has decided to extend more than $3,000 in funds to five clubs at the high school for the upcoming school year.

The yoga club, the boys and girls ultimate frisbee clubs, as well as the Interact Club and The Accidentals singing club, were all rewarded a portion of a total of $3,459 in stipends at the committee's June 26 meeting.

School Committee member John J. Fitzgerald told Reminder Publications the money for the stipends was taken from other groups that were dissolved due to lack of membership.

"These are all clubs that have come along over the past couple of years and have become popular," Fitzgerald said. "We were able to reallocate money from clubs that were not as popular or hadn't held meetings at all."

Accoding to Committee Chairman Armand Wray, Longmeadow High School Vice Principal Paul Dunkerley assembled a list of defuct organizations that the funds could be moved from.

"Mr. Dunkerly did a review of the current clubs and looked at the clubs that were inactive," Wray explained. "He made a list of those organizations and where we could reallocate the money from."

According to the Longmeadow High School Web site's list of activities, The Accidentals is an all-female signing ensemble.

The Interact Club is a service oriented student organization. In March, Interact helped sponsor the Longmeadow High School Dance-A-Thon to benefit the Children's Miracle Network and hosted "Longmeadow Idol" in April to raise donations for relief efforts in Haiti and Chile.

Fitzgerald stressed that the money was not from newly acquired funds.

"We'd like to find some [new] money, but this was just a matter of shifting money to clubs that are popular in order for those clubs to have some kind of adult supervision," Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald also addressed the possibility of people questioning why there were funds available for the organizations, but none available for the struggling music programs, which has suffered cuts. The most controversial of the cutbacks is Longmeadow's removal of its instrumental and choral programs at the elementary level.

Fitzgerald stated that the meager amount of funds would not have been enough to supplement the music department's fiscal shortcomings.

"It's a very small amount of money. All told, I think it's only around $3,500," Fitzgerald said. "The music program will require about $45,000."