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Date: 1/27/2021
HAMPDEN/WILBRAHAM – At a Jan. 21 meeting, the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District brought in Jay Barry, Mac Reid and Steve Hemman from the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS) to present a method for developing a Strategic Plan.
Reid stated that strategic plans drive budget, focus and community involvement. He laid out a two-part plan for the district. The first part would run from January to June 2021, During that time the firm would work with the district to develop a process, gather information and lay the groundwork for the strategic plan.
During part two, from September 2021 to June 2022, Reid said that they would clarify the vision for the district; collect data on its strengths, weaknesses opportunities and threats; conduct community surveys; develop goals and use all of this to create a strategic plan document that can be shared with the community.
Reid said there should be a five-year timeline for the goals and that they should be sustainable, measurable, clear and attainable.
School Committee member Patrick Kiernan balked at the $30,000 price tag that would come with the MARS team’s work and said that the district may not be in a financial position to take on such an expense. Fellow Commimtee Member Sean Kennedy agreed.
Superintendent Al Ganem defended the idea saying that it is a multi-year partnership with an outside entity that has a possibly clearer perspective.
“Every organization needs a strategic plan,” said Committee member Bill Bontempi. “People will often ask which way is the district going and the answer is, ‘we don’t know.’” He said the committee is not equipped to do a strategic plan on its own and insisted that the return on investment is worth it.
Ganem said that once a strategic plan is created, it can be used as a base to be updated for years to come. Bontempi added, “I think it’s the right move and I think it’s absolutely the right time.” The discussion was tabled until the next meeting.
Bontempi suggested the district consider a device insurance plan in which parents have the opportunity to take out insurance on each school device their children use. Those that choose not to buy the insurance would be liable for the entire cost of the device should something happen to it. Committee Chair Sherrill Caruana said that the program would be cost-prohibitive to large families with multiple school-aged children. She put forward the idea of a cap of up to three students per family. Vice Chair Maura Ryan noted that families are no longer just insuring devices for the four years of high school, but from kindergarten through grade 12.
Bontempi stressed that it would be an optional program and said that it would limit liability for the district. He noted that since devices are only meant to last three to four years, the insurance would give the district a steady stream of funding to upgrade the devices.
Director of Finance and Operations Aaron Osbourne noted that the replacement schedule for 600 Chromebooks and 100 iPads each year will cost $215,000. With updated software and IT support that cost increases to about $350,000 per year.
Kiernan supported the insurance as a way to pay for the one-to-one device program. Bontempi suggested that the community could engage in sponsorships for families who could not otherwise afford the program. It was also suggested that COVID-19 funding might be used in the short term. The program will go to the finance committee to be hammered out.
HWRSD has had two cases of COVID-19 since it returned to the hybrid model on Jan. 14. That brings the total September to December case count – both students and staff – to 98. Just 19 of those cases resulted in in-school exposure and none were from in-school transmission, except for a sports team incident in the fall, said Nurse Coordinator Teri Brand.
Kennedy asked Ganem if hybrid students who are home sick but attend classes remotely are marked as absent. Ganem confirmed that they would be because they were not where they were expected. After some back and forth, Ganem was firm that attendance would be too hard to keep track of if students were unexpectedly online some days and in-person others.
Ganem said the administration is considering moving first graders to a four-day in-person schedule. The transition would be similar to the kindergarten model in which as many students as possible were accommodated, but there was a wait-list for the remainder.
The School Committee will conduct a budget roundtable on March 11 with the finance committee from Wilbraham, the advisory committee from Hampden, state Sen. Eric Lesser and state Reps. Brain Ashe and Angelo Puppolo.
School Committee member Michelle Emirzian announced that she will not be running for re-election in the spring.