Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 3/7/2022
BELCHERTOWN – With budget discussions already underway in town, Superintendent Brian Cameron and Interim Business Manager Mark Chapulis presented the preliminary Fiscal Year 2023 budget to the Belchertown School Committee during its March 2 meeting.
Before diving into the full budget discussion Cameron recapped some of the goals of the district’s strategic plan, which includes assessing the climate of the district through surveys, creating new instructional approaches and intervention strategies, developing a capital improvement plan, creating a further focus on support for students, making sure all students are being properly challenged in school and assessing students’ positive engagements with all aspects of school life.
One important part of the budget that Cameron brought up is the continued decline in enrollment.
“As you can see from 2015 to 2021-2022, we are still seeing a decline in enrollment for the Belchertown Public Schools, that has not changed with the work we have done with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), that is still the projection for the next 10 years. Staff is also declining, we used to have eight teachers per grades one through six, now the majority of them have seven, and two have eight,” he said.
While teaching staff numbers have decreased, Cameron said there are different challenges facing students that require more accommodations.
“On the flip side of that, student needs are not getting any easier, we are dealing with a lot of social emotional needs, students who are identified for needing special education services and 504s, there accommodations have become more in depth too,” he said.
Chapulis added that the preliminary budget for FY23 amounts to $31,596,122.
“From FY22 to FY23, compiling information from department heads including salaries, the change to the budget using the level service methodology is a 2.16 percent increase,” he said.
In terms of the budget breakdown, in a packet provided at the meeting, the largest changes in budget would be an increase of over 31 percent for equipment acquisition and replacement line item, which equates to $10,000 and a decrease in the tuition for out of district students line item, which dropped by over 38 percent and just about $250,000.
For new staffing, Cameron said the plan is to hire three staff members out of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, three more out of the 240 Special Education grant and two from requests to the town.
With the special education grant funding, Cameron said the new positions would address needs at the lower grade levels, preschool in particular.
“There is no question that the Belchertown Public Schools needs another full-time preschool program, we are busting at the seams. The number of referrals coming from early intervention are just out of this world. With reassessing our grant purposes and some of the contracted services for out of district placements being down, we would put in one full-time preschool teacher and one full-time one to one intensive needs paraprofessional in the 240 special education group,” he said. “We are having such a number of behaviors at the lower grades we would use the grant to hire a board-certified behavior analyst.”
Cameron added the two requests from the town are for important positions at the high school.
“The last two needs come from a visual arts and technology educator at the high school to meet the requirements of MassCore. Because of the number of special education students at the high school we are looking at a special education teacher to be funded at the Belchertown High School,” he said.
During the public comment section of the meeting, one resident raised her concerns about continuing to wear masks until March 14, as was voted on at the previous meeting, when other districts in the area and around the state were lifting the requirements in accordance with new state and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines.
“I know that the Board of Health has recently ended the town wide mask mandate and I think now is an opportunity for the board itself to reevaluate the decision it made for the March 14 date. At this point I do not see why are continuing this for another two weeks,” she said. “I do not think the science and the data is there to continue. I think now is the time for the School Committee to take recognition of this, do the right thing and end the mask mandate.”
During this time, Committee Chair Heidi Gutekenst said she received a letter from another resident who also wanted to end the mandate immediately.
When the committee moved to its policy discussion for the evening, Gutekenst said she was in favor of keeping the masking policy in place through March 14 instead of lifting it immediately.
“I have heard from people who are petrified of removing the masks, not just teachers but other families. One woman I had a conversation with is full on aware of the fact that they are going to come off but begged me to give her another month and we asked for two more weeks which is seven more days of masking for our students and I am comfortable with that, I think it is a good compromise between the two sides,” she said.
With a unanimous approval to continue the mask mandate in effect until March 14, members of the audience became upset with the committee for their decision, with one person calling the committee “spineless” for the decision.
The Belchertown School Committee next meets on March 15 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the March 24 edition of The Reminder.