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New state senator meets with West Springfield School Committee

Date: 3/2/2021

WEST SPRINGFIELD – State Sen. Adam Gomez joined the West Springfield School Committee during a Feb. 23 meeting to discuss the future of schools in the city.

The new state senator, who serves Springfield, West Springfield, and Chicopee, spoke with the committee about specific initiatives that he plans on taking up with the state in the near future.

Part of his legislative agenda that he introduced to the committee involves an initiative to change the certification process for teachers.

“The current test that teachers are required to pass is a certification that has proven to be discriminatory toward teachers of color,” said Gomez.

The other proposal introduced to the committee involves air filtration within schools. The goal of this bill would be to improve the health and safety of public education for students. Because of COVID-19, Gomez hopes that facilities will improve their infrastructure to change the ventilation that comes in and out of schools.

It also requires staff and institutions to monitor students and teachers with possible COVID-19 symptoms.

“I know that West Springfield has done an extraordinary job bringing down and flattening the curve,” said Gomez. “I’m looking in the near future to be able to champion a lot of the issues that are important specific to the students and teachers here in the district.”

Gomez added that he plans on working with school committee and Mayor William Reichelt in the near future to discuss specific issues in the school community, and how to properly address them.

One of the issues brought up during this discussion revolved around the argument regarding vaccines for teachers. Gomez said that he was one of the senators who heavily supported the idea that teachers would be vaccinated in one of the early phases.

“If we’re going to kickstart and bring back our economy, bring back the new normal, I think teachers should’ve been one of the first phases,” said Gomez. “We have moms, dads, caretakers that are at home with children that can’t go to work if the children can’t go back to school.”

Between October 2019 and October 2020, the West Springfield school district saw an enrollment decrease of 300 students due to the pandemic. School Committee member Nancy Farrell said during the meeting that the district hopes to be under the “hold harmless provision” based on what they had for enrollment for 2019.

The hold harmless provision allows school districts to retain the amount of Chapter 70 aid they receive from the state, even if enrollment drops. The provision is included within the Student Opportunity Act (SOA), which officially passed on Nov. 26, and will include $2 billion worth of funding to Mass. schools by 2027.

“Without that held harmless, the Student Opportunity Act is not something that can be promoted as advancing education,” said Superintendent Timothy Connor. “It’s really going to just be put back into the deficit pool to cover what wasn’t inputted into the Chapter 70.”

According to School Committee member William Garvey, the SOA was passed without a funding source at the end of 2020, which causes problems because without that funding source, then Garvey argues that it will be really difficult to get what the SOA is after.

“We fought for many years for SOA,” said Garvey. “You don’t get credit for funding something that passed last year. It should get funded.”

Gomez said that these are issues he plans on taking up with Gov. Charlie Baker in the near future.