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Date: 3/30/2022
EASTHAMPTON – The School Committee voted to approve the proposed fiscal year 2023 (FY23) budget of $18.5 million following a March 22 public hearing.
During her budget presentation, Superintendent Allison LeClair broke down the proposal that recommended a 7.91 percent increase from the FY22 budget after minimal growth in the past three school budgets.
The proposed needs-based essential services budget reflected the needs and priorities as identified by the district and seeks to maintain or improve the level of services provided to Easthampton students, according to LeClair.
When moving into some of the changes coming out of this budget, LeClair reminded those in attendance that the results were from the consolidation of four schools into the new Mountain View school that just opened in January.
“When this building was first being seriously discussed years ago, focus groups were held. It was identified that there would be savings through the consolidation of schools,” said LeClair.
While the superintendent was not in her position in Easthampton during the initial planning stages of the new school building, she said she has notes and documents left from the previous administration backing up her comments. She noted there has been some misinformation about this. Specifically, she noted there was never a guarantee that every position would be maintained, an assertion she said is supported by old notes that indicated there would be a consolidation of positions in the effort to create a new school.
LeClair then noted the district has experienced a “significant” decline in enrollment since FY16 , a trend she said is not exclusive to Easthampton and has been seen at state and national levels. She suggested this may be due to smaller family sizes and more couples waiting to start families than they have historically seen.
While the pandemic initially caused a substantial drop in their enrollment of over 50 students from FY20 to FY21, the schools have been able to hold steady the past two years at over 1,400 students. For FY23, they are currently projecting an enrollment of 1,421.
Because of the consolidation of schools, some reductions of note in the new fiscal year will be the loss of one school administrator, three elementary classroom teachers, and the loss of 9.2 paraeducators in exchange for new professional staff positions.
New positions to be added in the first full year with the new Easthampton school layout will be a new middle school librarian, one full day pre-K teacher that will allow for Easthampton to reintroduce the school service for young children, and one new special education teacher.
“To address social emotional needs, this is one of the areas we feel we need to have for an option to students facing challenges,” LeClair said on pre-K services returning. “This building has the opportunity to help grow programs over time that we could never have dreamed of before. Having a place for a STEM teacher and having an extra pre-K classroom, these are things that were just not part of the plan but now they are.”
These three new positions were created through the shifted elementary paraeducator funding. Through different sources of grant funding, other notable positions the schools will be adding are an elementary school librarian, a new STEM teacher, a social emotional coordinator, and a high school adjustment counselor.
Marin Goldstein, chair of the School Committee’s Finance Subcommittee, shared that when the subcommittee met in the previous weeks working on the budget, that they dug in line by line to understand the budget shifts. He said the consolidation of schools is the key piece in this year’s budget.
“The other piece I want to reemphasize is that there was a lot of communication in the School Committee this year. A lot of people wanted to speak up about funding. Consolidation gives us that opportunity to look at what we really want to do and how we want to offer the best services to our students,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein went on to add that when looking at a five-year overview of the department’s budget, there was zero to little growth in the last few fiscal years due to COVID-19 impacts. Because of this, if you combine the FY23 proposal and its budget growth in the last five years, it helps one understand the natural trajectory of the budget.
“We are up to a 1.79 [percent] growth each year on average and this gets us back in alignment and a healthy space. The large increase puts us back in line with a healthy trajectory,” Goldstein added.
The public hearing was eventually closed before the regular meeting of the Easthampton School Committee began where they would pick back up on the budget discussion and ultimately vote on the proposal.
School Committee member Megan Harvey raised the concern of the cuts to 9.2 paraprofessional positions and asked her fellow members if there was any way to avoid a cut like this in such an important area. LeClair wanted to make clear that with this shifting in positions, no child would be losing their services.
The 9.2 was a more general figure given in terms of the salary paraeducators receive. The superintendent described it as three paraeducator positions equal one special education salary.
Sarah Mochak, director of special education in Easthampton Public Schools, added that reduction would not result in students losing services.
“I think we’ve had a history of relying too heavily on paraeducators and I think that is partly because of the structures of our schools,” Mochak said. “I really truly believe that shifting that money to more specialized staff who have very specific training in education just makes more sense. We are shifting how we’re thinking how to deliver to our students with the most need.”
After further discussion, the School Committee voted to approve the proposed FY23 budget and move it on in the budgeting process. Mayor Nicole LaChapelle abstained from the vote due to her relation in the town’s overall budgeting process.