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Date: 10/27/2022
HAMPDEN/WILBRAHAM – In keeping with goals identified in the Strategic Plan, Director of Curriculum and Instruction Lisa Curtin introduced a structure for the support and implementation of vertically aligned curriculum to the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School Committee at its Oct. 20 meeting.
The U.S. Department of Education defines vertically integrated curriculum as “what students should know progressively across Grades kindergarten through 12, linking concepts from grade to grade.”
Curtin explained that two groups will be established that support vertical alignment for pre-K through grade 12 and beyond using evidence-based systems with responsiveness to all learners. The first is instructional leadership teams (ILT). The ILTs consist of principals, instructional coaches, Curtin and Director of Student Services Gina Roy. The purpose is to provide an overarching level of support for vertical alignment by analyzing data to determine areas of strength and growth, developing support systems to ensure equitable access to curriculum and identifying professional development opportunities that will support alignment.
The ILTs support the curriculum councils, which are comprised of principals, department chairs at the high school level, middle school curriculum coordinators, elementary educators, instructional coaches, Roy and Curtin. A council will be created for each content area – English language arts, math, social studies, science and related arts – and they will work on vertical alignment across grades. Dedicated time for alignment will be folded into the planning structure at each educational level – curriculum planning time at the elementary level, middle school team meetings and high school department meetings.
Superintendent John Provost told the School Committee that the five curriculum councils should include teachers from each school and be open to anyone in the instructional area. He asked that this extra work be compensated with a stipend. “To make it last, we should embed it in the contract,” Provost said. The committee granted him permission to negotiate with the teachers union, the Hampden-Wilbraham Education Association.
Repairs
The Stony Hill School fire alarm system repair bid was awarded to EMH Electrical & Building Services with an initial start date for the end of September. “We felt that was very aggressive, but we really wanted to try to get it done,” said Assistant Superintendent for Finance, Operations and Human Resources Aaron Osborne.
EMH Electrical & Building expected to have the work completed by the end of September, but Osborne said there have been delays in state approval, which has pushed the project back. The fire alarm system must be brought up to code. Osborne later explained to Reminder Publishing, “The work we had in our capital plan was to simply replace the fire panel which we estimated at around $30,000. When the system had an issue in June, the work required to now repair the system increased the scope considerably and included the actual underlying electrical and fire suppression systems, prompting the need to meet codes.” The delays and the fire watch cost the district an additional $1,800. The company is working nights around the school building’s scheduled use, and Osborne said the parts have been installed and the school no longer requires a fire watch.
On the topic of repairs, Osborne said the lighting system at Minnechaug Regional High School has a completion date. After nearly a year of supply chain issues resulting in delayed parts for a proprietary system, the panels and parts have been received. Osborne explained that the system must be brought online one panel at a time and the system is expected to be completely fixed by January. In total, the repair to the system has cost roughly $100,000.
MASC resolutions
School Committee Secretary and liaison to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) Sean Kennedy presented seven resolutions proposed by member districts of the organization.
The first resolution would have supported the Legislature in creating a “sanctuary law” for transgender youth. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been 117 laws introduced in 2022, across 33 states, that restrict bathroom usage, “exclude transgender youth from athletics,” or otherwise restrict school or curriculum based on a student identifying as transgender.
School Committee member Patrick Kiernan said the resolution was a reaction to those bills.
“Except that no such bills have been filed in Massachusetts,” School Committee Vice Chair Maura Ryan pointed out. She said that it is an important discussion, but “there are plenty of other channels to advocate.”
Kennedy said it would express support from the MASC should the state Legislature choose to put forth a sanctuary law, but School Committee member Bill Bontempi said the resolution does not specify what might be in a future law. He expressed concern that the committee’s name might be cited in support of a law with which it would not agree.
“What would you imagine that would be so heinous that you wouldn’t want to vote to help transgender students continue on their journey in their lives to be the true person they see themselves to be?” Kennedy asked Bontempi. The latter responded that he had “no problem with that,” but said there was not enough information on a potential bill, and it was not the proper forum to address the issue.
He followed up, saying there are “gray areas,” and the issue isn’t “an open and shut case.” He mentioned “medical intervention” for transgender youth and said there were consequences to giving children pubertal blockers.
Similar to Ryan and Bontempi, Kiernan said the MASC was not the proper forum for the topic. As he has stated before, Kiernan said the MASC had gotten into political issues and “away from its core mission to support education.”
The committee voted 4-2 against the resolution, with Kennedy and fellow School Committee member Sherrill Caruana voting in the minority.
Two resolutions were voted down as the committee felt they did not address the root cause of school funding challenges. One was a resolution to raise the amount of money that can be put into the Special Education Reserve Fund from 2 percent to 5 percent of annual net school spending, while the other would allow municipalities to establish regional school assessment reserve funds to put money away for lean years.
Osborne likened these moves to “giving a starving man a bag to carry food in. It doesn’t help him feed himself.”
Bontempi agreed the problem with special education was that there was not enough money, and the state should reconfigure how the services are funded. On the topic of a regional school assessment reserve fund, he said Hampden does not leave free cash on hand but instead returns it to the taxpayer. He noted that coronavirus pandemic-era grants are making towns want to “squirrel this money away,” but these years are an exception, and when the grants are gone, the problem will again be one of lacking the funds.
Kennedy pointed out that the district returned $418,000 to the towns in 2020 because the excess and deficiency account contained more than 5 percent of the budget than was allowed. He said the towns could have put that money in a reserve account, but Ryan and Bontempi argued that the towns may not have chosen to do so. On both resolutions, Kennedy was the only member to vote in favor.
The committee voted against a resolution requiring personal literacy class. While Bontempi acknowledged that such a class was discussed when creating the Strategic Plan, he said it would be an unfunded mandate and another class would have to be removed from the offered classes to make room for it in student schedules. Again, Kennedy was the sole yes vote.
As the MASC liaison, Kennedy will take the committee’s votes back to the organization.
Other topics
Finishing a conversation from the Oct. 6 meeting, the committee reviewed the drafted School Committee norms, including a rule that committee members would not engage in text messaging during meetings. At the previous meeting, Kennedy had insisted that receiving texts messages with information from constituents during meetings allowed him to voice more educated and pertinent ideas. Ryan had pointed out that it could be construed as rude and as though the person were not paying attention to those present.
Bontempi, who had not attended the previous meeting, weighed in, saying communication from community members belongs in the public comment period. Bontempi opined that such communication expands the deliberative body to include unelected constituents. Ryan added that MASC trainings are adamant that communications outside public comment should be avoided during meetings, as they are not part of the record and therefore, do not comply with the Open Meeting Law.
Ultimately, the norms were accepted unanimously.
Provost said that he has continued his Entry Plan tour of the district. In the past two weeks, he has spent different days as an eighth and 11th grader. He said there is an emotional warmth in classrooms and mutual respect between students and teachers is a “resource” that is not present in all districts.
The Youth Risk Survey has been completed and Provost shared that “an overwhelming majority of students have at least one adult in the school” with whom they can talk about their problems. The results of the survey will be reviewed at the committee’s next meeting.
Provost also reported that the district’s Safety and Wellness Team has been re-established. At its first meeting, the team analyzed the emergency operations guide and bomb threat protocol, including the use of a tabletop exercise. The team is also planning a family unification drill.