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Date: 10/26/2022
AGAWAM – The new director of Agawam’s Adult Education Program is recommending an increase in the enrollment fee to prevent the program from continuing to run a deficit.
“As of right now, I’m going to be running – again – a budget deficit. I can’t make costs with just the enrollment fee at $125 per student,” Mary Bonavita told the Agawam School Committee during a budget presentation at the Oct. 11 meeting.
Bonavita said the primary remedy she’s recommending is to increase the fee to $200. She said a higher increase for the night school program would not be feasible for students the program serves.
Another recommendation is to set up a reduced fee schedule for Agawam students who are in financial need.
“The purpose of this program is to help our nontraditional students. It’s very important to recognize that not every student works in the traditional school setting,” said Bonavita.
The new director has been an AP teacher at Agawam High School for more than 10 years and is co-advisor to the school’s chapter of the National Honor Society.
“Those students have no problems,” she said. But she said working with the night school program has “opened up my eyes to a whole other subgroup of our students who need more support and need help because the day program just isn’t working” for them.
“In my opinion, it’s our goal as educational professionals to help all students in our district, not just the ones at the top,” she said.
Agawam’s night school has two components. The first is degree programs for people who have withdrawn from a full-day program, age 16 or older, and are looking to finish their coursework to get a high school diploma. The second is for currently enrolled students at Agawam High School and other area high schools who might take one or two night classes to fulfill requirements for day-school graduation.
Courses include Algebra I and II, geometry, financial math, U.S. history, biology, earth science, sociology, computer science and English. According to Bonavita, Agawam residents constitute half of the those enrolled in this fall’s semester, and 60 percent are former AHS students.
Bonavita told the committee that based on her research, Agawam may be the only school district in the area offering a night school program open to the public. The only other similar night school programs she found locally are in Enfield, Holyoke, and Springfield, all of which appear to be limited to just their own residents.
She said another way to reduce the budget deficit would be to increase out-of-district enrollments. Bonavita said she could send information to high school guidance offices in the area, post registration information on social media, and on the district’s website. She also wants to explore state aid and educational grants to close the gap.
Bonavita explained to the committee that the $125 tuition fee is not enough to cover the cost to pay five teachers and the stipend for the director. She said the program is supposed to be self-sustaining from its tuition income.
In the fall 2021 semester, under the previous director, there were 28 students enrolled. Income was $3,500, but total costs were $9,183, yielding a deficit of $5,683.
In last spring’s semester, 32 students were enrolled, but income only increased by $500 to $4,000. The deficit was less – $3,203 – as the total cost was reduced to $7,023 because there were only four teachers.
As director, Bonavita currently receives an annual $6,486 stipend, or $3,243 per semester. Teachers receive $33 per hour, as stipulated in their contract. During the last school year, classes met Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Agawam High School from 5 to 8 p.m. for 10 weeks each semester.
This fall, when Bonavita became director, she cut classes by one hour, so they now meet 5 to 7 p.m. with five teachers, some of whom are teaching more than one course. To help reduce staff costs, she is recommending that instructional time remain at 20 hours.
Bonavita said that if a new teacher contract is approved, the hourly rate for teachers will increase to $45, which is the rate she used in her proposed budget. For each semester, five teachers would cost $900 each, a total of $4,500.
Using the current enrollment, she said a $200 course fee would rectify the budget deficit and leave the program with a surplus of nearly $1,000. She added that if the School Committee approves the $200 fee, she proposes using the surplus to restore a secretary stipend that was cut.
“As of 2020, we couldn’t financially support a secretary position, so all tasks to create transcripts and everything else fell onto the director. I think it would be really important to start funding that position again.”
Without a tuition hike, more out-of-district enrollments, or state aid, Bonavita said the program will begin running “massive” deficits.
“If we only have 25 kids, we would need to charge $312 per class – which is astronomically unaffordable for our population of students,” she said. However, she’s “a little concerned” that the current enrollment of 43 students for the fall semester is a one-time spike that won’t be repeated.
“It all has to do with COVID[-19]. So many kids lost credits when we went remote across the region. I have a lot of students from area high schools who just couldn’t maintain graduation requirements. I don’t know if that number is sustainable long term,” she explained.
Following Bonavita’s presentation, Superintendent of Schools Sheila Hoffman explained that the district has been covering deficits with funds from the School Department’s budget.
She added that programs like the night school typically have a revolving fund to collect fees and then use those fees to pay for the program, “and that was happening previously.” Hoffman added that department has been helping to cover costs since the program has been unable to cover them for the last few years,
Committee members asked numerous questions concerning funding the program, future enrollment, the number of staff, and the impact on reducing instruction time, but few specific answers were available at the meeting.
Mayor William Sapelli, who chairs the committee, said there was no urgency to take a vote at the meeting because any changes wouldn’t go into effect until January, for the second semester, “so, we do have some time. I heard the questions. I heard some of the responses. It sounds like we’re looking at a secretary, we’re looking at hours, we’re looking at tuition costs,” he said.
The committee needs to take a closer look at the issues, but without more information, he said they would be “making all sorts of amendments” that evening: “That’s not the way to go.”
Sapelli asked for a motion to table the discussion, which was adopted unanimously. He said there’s a lot that needs to be settled before the committee can vote on the proposed budget.
“I totally agree that we don’t want to do something half-baked if we’re going to offer a course and give students credit,” he said.