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Date: 3/9/2022
HUNTINGTON – Superintendent Kristen Smidy ran her first public hearing on the fiscal 2023 budget on March 2, announcing a 0.48 percent increase of $80,541 in the total budget of $16,747,274.
Smidy said spending is increasing the most in the areas of instructional services, student services, oil and fixed charges.
Gateway expects to receive an additional $22,620, or $30 more per student, in state Chapter 70 aid. Chester School Committee representative Jason Forgue said that per-student increase is low compared to other districts, which he said are in some cases seeing a 40 percent increase. He urged all town officials and administrators to lobby for a fair allocation.
Smidy said the district is looking at the disparity through the Rural School Coalition.
“We’re working on it,” she said.
Smidy said the district used $135,960 from its excess and deficiency fund – akin to a savings account – to reduce the burden on the towns this year. “We can’t keep using this for the budget,” she said, adding, “We can expect rural school aid, but can’t count on it.”
Asked about federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) pandemic-related aid, Smidy said the funds the district has been granted are eligible to be used through 2024. She said they are being careful not to fund expenses that are not sustainable.
“We are currently funding a school adjustment counselor,” Smidy said as an example, saying that after the ESSER funds run out, that person is expected to replace a staff member who will be retiring.
Smidy said the ESSER funds have some limitations on their use, such as they cannot be used for services funded by other federal grants.
She said the district is using the funding for after-school programs and busing which are having huge positive effects, and in this case they are looking for ways to continue funding them.
“We will need to figure out how to keep the program going beyond ESSER,” she said.
Also discussed at the virtual and in-person hearing hosted in the Performing Arts Center, at which representatives from all six member towns participated, were the new March 1 town census numbers, and their impact on the above-minimum contributions by the towns.
The total student population in pre-kindergarten to 12th grade is 742. This number includes 51 students coming into the district through school choice, and 166 outgoing school choice, seven fewer than last year, which include 31 vocational students at Westfield Technical Academy and 39 at Smith Vocational in Northampton.
Thirty-five percent of the students, 282, live in Huntington, while 2 percent, 18 students, live in Middlefield. The remaining students live in Russell (202), Chester (124), Blandford (89) and Montgomery (71).
Chester Selectman Andy Myers asked Smidy to talk about her plans to increase enrollment.
She said that Gateway added a preschool classroom in January for 30 additional students. The district also plans to market its special education programs, which she said have been labeled “exemplary” by the state Department of Education, to attract school choice students.
Smidy said she is in the process of surveying students who are “choicing out” of the district. She said an early look has shown that curriculum options are one of the reasons, and she is hoping to increase those options for students.
The high school will implement a program next year titled “Find Your Grind,” which Principal Jason Finnie said is a career and academic plan that starts students on individual learning plans as early as seventh grade, working with them on a course direction and helping to guide their curriculum choices.
The next budget hearing will take place 45 days before the first annual Town Meeting. Before then, the School Committee will decide on which method of calculating the above minimum contribution they will use, and the numbers will then be sent to the towns to put on their warrants. Also on the town warrants will be the final draft of an updated Regional Agreement.