Notes provided by: Colleen Kirby

School Committee Meeting November 25, 2003

Present: School Committee Members Suzanne Owayda, Paul Schlichtman,
Martin Thrope, Jeff Thielman, and Barbara Goodman. Superintendent of
Schools Kay Donovan, Vice-Superintendent Joanne Gurry, Chief Financial
Officer Robert ?, Secretary, and 5 members of public including Mary
Sprague and me from SPOT, and Dick Fanning of the Finance Committee.
This meeting was broadcast live and will be reshown Wed. at 8pm and Mon.
at noon.

There are several Subcommittee meetings coming up on Wednesday starting
at 4pm. Several letters received including one from the Arlington
Cultural Council expressing its concern that there is no visual arts
program at the elementary schools and a petition from Thompson school
elementary students asking to bring back Physical Education classes
twice per week. Suzanne Owayda will go meet with the petition students.

MCAS Scheduling Change.

Superintendent Kay Donovan recommended that on the days that 10th
graders are given MCAS exams that the exams start at the beginning of
the day and that there is a delayed start to the school day for the rest
of the students. Many other high schools are doing this, it allows for
quiet, no bells, use of more classrooms, and makes scheduling easier.
This was adopted and passed unanimously after confirming that there
would be no problem meeting time on learning.

Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) Conference.

Paul Schlichtman, president-elect of MASC attended. He reported on the
resolutions passed (for text of resolutions see
www.masc.org/conf_res.asp ). Several of the resolutions were sponsored
by the Arlington School Committee. One resolution concerns enabling
school committees to better be able to raise local municipal funds if
need be. Another concerns allowing Board of Education members to be
members of school committees or practicing educators and that the Board
is restructured so it can be more accountable. A third resolution
concerns MCAS not being a graduation requirement until problems with it
have been addressed. Another resolution would not allow superintendents
or assistant superintendents to not hold at least a Master's degree.
MASC has resolved to support the Stop the Cuts campaign which includes
closing corporate loopholes and returning the state income tax to what
it was 4 years ago (5.95%). They also call for the federal government
to suspend sanctions against underperforming school districts as long as
they are not providing full funding through the No Child Left Behind
Act. They also resolved to support a moratorium on all Commonwealth
Charter Schools.

In addition Paul informed the committee that there is a proposed
Cambridge Community Charter High School and it was suggested that they
find out more information about this proposed school.

Building Fees Discussion.

Kay Donovan informed the committee that although Arlington has not
raised fees to rent school facilities out other surrounding communities
have doubled rents. Arlington's after school providers are being
charged $50 per month currently and she thought it was reasonable to
change the fees to $10 per day instead. There were also discussion
about raising fees for full day use and cafeteria facilities as well.
And a suggestion that the fee be for 3 hour programs so that we only
need a custodial fee for 4 hours. It was thought that there would need
to be a lead time so any change in fees which may begin in January would
likely be grandfathered in until September for existing contracts.

Martin Thrope wanted to make sure that all direct and indirect costs
were being taken into account in this fee. It was decided to take this
discussion up again at the next meeting.

School Capacity Discussion.

Kay Donovan provided a handout and statistics showing a need for
redistricting in order to even out class sizes and meet class size
goals, as well as to give schools back the classrooms that were designed
to be art rooms, music rooms, special education classrooms and science
rooms. She found that the redistricting would not decrease the total
number of classrooms needed and so would not save money by reducing
teacher numbers. Kay thinks we cannot close an elementary school unless
we give up the art, music, special education and science rooms in all
the schools and then why did we invest in these facilities?

Barbara Goodman said she wanted to have forecasts on the size of classes
we expect in the near and longer term future. She says it doesn't make
sense not to think in the long term since school buildings are built to
last at least 50 years. Jeff Thielman wanted to know how many
classrooms would be needed if we increased our class sizes greater than
20 in K-2 and greater than 23 in 3-5 to see what, if any, savings there
could be. Other school committee members brought up the savings in
costs we will have if there is no Bishop school busing, also savings by
housing BIP in Arlington rather than having to pay other facilities to
teach these children and for their transportation. We do need to make
sure we have some flexibility and chance for the school population to
grow as the elementary school population is increasing. Martin Thrope
says we need a solid cost/benefit analysis if we close a school. Paul
pointed out that our school population is currently small for a town of
this size and we already see the elementary population increasing so we
should be prepared for that to continue. Suzanne pointed out that it is
fiscally prudent to have extra capacity because if we need more space
sometime later it will cost us a lot more. Paul pointed out that we
don't have any available vacant land if we need another school down the
line. Perhaps we can get a short term savings by closing Dallin for 2
years while it is being rebuilt.

John Bilafer sent a letter suggesting ways to fund the Dallin rebuild.
The legislature has restored the School Building Assistance Funds to the
budget. Also the money for METCO to continue has made it into the state
budget recommendation.

It was decided that more information would be brought to the December
9th School Committee meeting.

Capital Budget.

I think they said there were no new projects to be funded in the FY05
budget. Typically 5% of the town budget goes towards capital projects
which includes school projects. It was not clear to me whether the no
new projects included no new Arlington nonschool projects as well. It
was also not clear to me whether this meant the Dallin rebuild was or
was not a new project possibility.

Martin Thrope wanted to know what the cost of not maintaining facilities
was.

Other Business.

A warrant for some amount of money was approved. I did not catch the
amount or what it was for.

A memorandum of understanding was approved to accept money raised by the
Arlington Family Coalition? to be specifically used to help with the
recently gutted ACE program. It was not know how much money was raised.

There will be a Budget and Revenue Task Force committee meeting on
Monday December 1st at 6:30. Several school committee members and Kay
will attend this meeting. This will be an important meeting to attend
as this is what came out of the working Selectmen's meeting last night
in Billerica. It will concern the role of the Selectmen with regards to
fiscal process in the town. Paul Schlichtman thought that the
Selectmen's working meeting was successful and forthright.

These are my notes, taken to best of my ability and are no way official
minutes or notes of any of the boards or individuals sited in my report.
If I got anything wrong please let me know and I'll fix them.

SPOT offers these notes as a service to the community.
SPOT is an organization of concerned parents and community members who are interested in full, equitable and sound financing of our public education.
We regret any errors and omissions.