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Date: 4/12/2022
BELCHERTOWN – With a lengthy docket for its March 29 meeting, the Belchertown School Committee received updates on two audits, discussed the Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) budget and met with state Rep. Jacob Oliveira.
During the meeting, the committee received the results from two audits into the district’s Special Education and English Language Education (ELE) programs. While the district was found to be compliant with Special Education, it was not in compliance for its ELE program, specifically with Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) certifications amongst teachers.
“There was only one finding, a review of documentation and relevant SEI endorsement data indicated that most core academic teachers assigned to provide sheltered English instruction to English learners hold the SEI teacher endorsement but there were some who do not,” Director of Student Services Rebecca Kudron said.
Prior to the findings being released, Kudron said the district began offering a free SEI certification course for teachers and is also expanding its tracking information to make sure teachers are SEI certified. She added that only 45 percent of teachers in the district were SEI certified and eight teachers who had English learners without an SEI certification.
Superintendent Brian Cameron said some of the onus was on teachers for missing the SEI certification because it is required when recertifying a teacher’s license.
“That was part of the problem with this, educators didn’t follow through on the SEI endorsement so a lot of them are scrambling to get the endorsement now. Even though they don’t really need it until recertification, it was a little eye-opener for the district that we are also going to be found in non-compliance if we don’t keep on top of the individuals whether they do it or not,” he said.
Cameron added that the problem arose in older educators because many younger teachers are required to go through SEI certification during school, which also leads to an imbalance with younger, less experienced teachers taking on more sheltered English instruction.
After a meeting with the Finance Committee on March 24, Cameron said the proposed budget would be short by about $540,000. The town was later able to bring that shortfall to about $339,000 by using free cash and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
“There are two paraprofessionals retiring, we are going to move them to ESSER (Elementary nd /secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) III and post both of them as a one-year position to buy some time. The other three positions we identified as going into ESSER III at the $540,000 would stay in the local budget,” he said.
Already coming out of the ESSER funds is the Jabish Brook Middle School assistant principal, contracted mental health workers, contracted nursing staff, information technology staff, a high school special education teacher and more. Cameron added that some of those positions could be cut as needs decrease, specifically with nursing staff as COVID-19 continues to wane.
Along with moving positions into ESSER funds, Cameron said the district would not be filling two retiring educator positions. He added that the administrative team was “okay” with the cuts because it was the best that could be done given the circumstances.
“We have to be careful, because after the ESSER funds are gone, we are going to have that cliff. It is good that we were able to get more funding from the town in the recommendation from the Finance Committee and the town to save some of those positions, but we have to look at the fall down the road,” he said.
Committee Chair Heidi Gutekenst said she was also worried about what will happen when the ESSER funds run out.
“This is terrifying because I know there is going to be a cliff, every year we cut stuff and this stuff is going to be cut. Looking at the budget this year, this is great we can do it this year, even if we may not be able to continually do it,” she said.
Committee member Michael Knapp said he was worried about cuts to professional development (PD) with shrinking staff sizes.
“When the numbers in personnel keep getting reduced, investing in the people you have makes a lot of sense. I do not know the solution for this proposed cut, a 1 percent increase from last year from the overall budget does not leave much space, but I am very worried about it,” he said.
The committee plans officially vote on the budget during its May 3 meeting after a public hearing with the town on April 26.
As part of the committee’s goal to invite elected officials outside of the committee discuss their work, Oliveira discussed what he is working on as it relates to the schools.
While Oliveira said he was in favor of passing the Student Opportunities Act, which has helped with school funding for cities like Holyoke, Springfield and Chicopee, he said he wanted to look into opening that funding for smaller towns like Belchertown and Ludlow.
“One of the reasons why I supported the Student Opportunity Act is that it took 30 years to update that funding formula. Contained within the provisions within the Chapter 70 law, requires the state revisit this in a decade or less,” he said. “I am hoping to re-crack open that formula so we can add investments in all of our school districts.”
Oliveira said one of his other goals is to make sure the Massachusetts School Building authority is properly funded.
“Another big area is making sure the School Building Authority is financed in the proper manner. I think folks here in Belchertown are very interested in making sure that fund is fully funded because the community overwhelmingly voted to reinvest into a feasibility study into Jabish Brook Middle School,” he said.
He added the feasibility study is an important next step when it comes to determining the next step for the middle school project, whether that is renovating the old schools or building a new one.
“This is such an important part of the process because it will help to tell the community where the resources, the amount needs to be spent, where you should be investing, the size of the school you should be building for the future,” Oliveira said. “I can tell you firsthand that it is desperately needed, and I think the community recognized something needs to be done with that middle school.”
The Belchertown School Committee next meets on April 12 and coverage of that meeting will appearing in the April 21 edition of The Reminder.