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Date: 12/14/2023
WILBRAHAM — The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School Committee debated the district’s finances and the move to expand the grades at the high school during its Dec. 7 meeting.
Assistant Superintendent for Finance, Operations and Human Resources Aaron Osborne explained that the district’s overall budget is trending better than last year at this time, but some items have seen an uptick or could otherwise be addressed. For example, he said the district should reevaluate whether the licenses to utilize Zoom are a needed expense now that the district no longer uses it as frequently. Osborne also said costs related to the equity audit and recording meeting minutes have incurred higher costs.
Another factor is utility costs. Osborne said there is an overage on the electricity line item, which he attributed to inflation and an insufficient estimate of electricity usage after a spike in usage in 2021 and 2022 when an equipment malfunction led to the high school’s lights being on continuously.
Osborne said the supplemental state budget that was passed in early December will allow for districts to request financial relief tied to an increase in fiscal year 2023 out-of-district special education placements. School Committee member Sean Kennedy, who recently joined the Massachusetts Association of School Committee’s Legislative Committee, said the consensus was that there would not be “draconian” state budget cuts in 2024.
Osborne said bids for a consulting firm to conduct a capital needs assessment came back “significantly” over the amount authorized by the committee. School Committee member Bill Bontempi noted the “expansive” scope of services in the bids and asked if the district’s facility maintenance staff would be comfortable doing the work in-house.
Osborne said there was “validity” in having an outside party verify the numbers supplied to the towns by the district. School Committee member Michael Tirabassi reminded Bontempi that both towns have expressed a desire to receive information from an outside entity. Kennedy added that the consultant would be able to prioritize the capital needs by urgency and efficiency.
The bids came back at around $50,000. The Minnechaug Regional High School Stabilization Account has a balance of about $450,000, but Osborne said the second-floor railing project will use $160,000 of that.
Bontempi asked, “At what point do we say, ‘We don’t need to spend this much to learn that we have to spend money?’” Kennedy argued that accuracy and a project-triage plan was fiscally responsible.
High School visits
One of the most-voiced oppositions to reconfiguring the school district is the inclusion of eighth grade in the high school. School Committee Chair Michal Boudreau said the Planning Committee, of which she is also a member, visited three high schools on Cape Cod that were structured to include an eighth grade. She explained that each school chose an arrangement right for their community. While one high school integrated students throughout the building, another reserved a wing for grade 8. The schools also made different choices on whether to use middle school schedules for the eighth graders or introduce them to block scheduling.
“We should really be thoughtful and flexible,” in how integration is approached, Boudreau said.
School Committee member Sherrill Caruana said that students and staff at the schools discussed the presence of the younger students among high schoolers. “Each and every time, it benefited them,” she said.
Tirabassi, who had concerns about the integration of the grades, said he felt “positive” after seeing how all the students gained from the five-grade structure. “The situation in [Wilbraham Middle School] is serious,” he said, referring to overcrowding.
Kennedy addressed a concern he has heard from several parents about older students dating the younger ones, or otherwise exposing them to behaviors for which they are not yet ready. When he asked seniors at the schools about this, he said they responded with, “Ew,” and said they were not interested in dating eighth graders. Any opposition at those schools “disappeared within months when [parents] saw how well it was working,” he said.
Kennedy went on to say there are benefits to the structure, including the ability for students to take courses that would not otherwise be available to them. He also said eighth grade could serve as a transitional year so that students could begin ninth grade with a “head start.” School Committee member Richard Rediker agreed that a transition might be helpful.
Bontempi asked if there was any data on academic progress in that transitional year. Provost said the curriculum was found to be more rigorous, although he noted a minority of people said it was “too much rigor, too soon.”
Tirabassi said he felt like the time was coming for decisions to be made, “some of them hard and not always popular.” Boudreau told him the goal was to present a plan at the spring Town Meetings.
Two students spoke during the meeting’s public comment period to oppose inclusion of the eighth grade at the cost of removing special education students from the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative who attend substantially separate classes in space rented at Minnechaug. The roughly 15 students in the LPVEC program come from all seven of the collaborative’s member towns to learn a curriculum that includes life skills, such as how to cook a make a bed. This program “takes up a lot of real estate,” that would been needed to accommodate the eighth graders and the transitional 18-22-year-old program currently housed at Thornton W. Burgess School, Osborne said. Provost said there are similar programs in other member communities into which the students could be relocated.
While the collaborative’s students are not integrated academically, junior Nina Gallagher said there is a social connection, and the collaborative students are integral members of the school community.
They help “make up We Are Chaug,” she said, referencing the school’s motto.
Ian Bonsant, a senior, agreed. He wanted to find a solution that would allow the eighth-grade students to share the school with general education students, the transitional program and the collaborative students. He said it would benefit eighth-grade students to be exposed to people of different abilities. Like Gallagher and Bonsant, other students have attended recent meetings to encourage the School Committee to find a solution that accommodates all groups of students.