Pittsfield Superintendent Wants School Officials to Review 'Unfiltered' Budgets
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The School Committee may take a look at the first draft school budgets next year.
Superintendent Jason "Jake" McCandless asked the committee on Thursday night if it would consider a daylong budget hearing during a January workday to review all the principals' budgets.
"I'm taking a page from the mayor's budget book," he said, referring to the marathon meetings when the department budgets have been presented to the City Council.
"The budget request you get from the principals is filtered through Central Office," he said. "I think there might be tremendous value in taking a day ... where the principals came in and presented their needs for our schools."
McCandless said he's in his third budget cycle and seeing repetition in needs in budgets principals are submitting for their schools, needs that have no doubt been popping up in draft budgets for some time but of which the committee may not be cognizant.
These are elements the School Committee should be aware of, before the budgets are pruned to meet budgetary restrictions, he said, and it would provide a high level of transparency.
And not just the committee, but the public at large, as the superintendent anticipates the review being telecast by Pittsfield Community Television. Residents may not want to watch the entire seven hours, McCandless said, but they would have the ability to follow the discussions through repeats of the program.
He asked committee members to contact him if they were interested so the issue could be placed on next week's agenda for a vote. The date is expected to be Wednesday, Jan. 13, with an 8 to 11 session and a noon to 4 session.
"This is a big time commitment, a huge give on your part," he told the committee. "We just think there's a great power in hearing directly from the principals."
In other business, the committee heard from three principals on their school's improvement plans.
Herberg Middle School's Gina Coleman, Taconic's John Vosburgh and Pittsfield High's Matthew Bishop explained how their strategic goals of academic and behavioial interventions aligned with the districtwide plan.
Coleman said the goal is to review processes and create a platform for faculty members to share intervention strategies, "putting a story behind the interventions," and to catalog them to offer more effective choices for teachers.
The school is also encouraging students to do self-assessments to develop behavioral interventions, such as asking them explain what makes them anxious or hesitant.
The anti-bullying program is being returned to the social studies curriculum, from physical education, and teachers are being retrained on curriculum. Coleman said the school is also bringing in more outside experts for professional development, including working on how to educate students with brain trauma.
"As a faculty we know very little on how to educate them," she said, adding that there are fluctuating number of post-concussive students.
Herberg is also instituting a schoolwide program looking at inclusive language as part of its diversity goals; last year it looked at bullying and exclusive language.
Both high schools are having joint faculty meetings to align their curriculums as close as possible.
Vosburgh said Taconic has four goals: working on curriculum alignment and standards, inventorying academic interventions, assessing those interventions on results and focusing professional development workshops on the needs seen within the school.
Interventions are being tiered as 1, 2 or 3, with needing homework help or senior mentor at 1 up to more intensive tutoring or drop-out prevention at 3. One goal is to develop criteria for moving students in and out of tiers in a way that faculty, students and parents understand.
This year's diversity day will take a page from "The Breakfast Club" with students identifying with one of the characters in the film spending time in high school detention.
"We really want the kids this year to reflect on their role in school, how they see themselves fitting into the school in a positive way," Vosburgh said.
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Bishop said PHS' goals are being developed under the school's current reaccreditation process.
"We didn't feel we scaled back in our school improvement plan," he said. "I'm very pleased that we are going to accomplish quite bit."
The strategic goals are similar to Taconic's but there will be a focus on the students falling in Tier 2 interventions, he said, because those students may fly under the radar because they need more help than 1 but don't reach the at-risk level of 3.
The School Council is also looking at the flexibility of the schedule because finding time for providing intervention assistance is a struggle at the high school level.
The school is also partnering with outside groups with its social and cultural programs and is in the second year of a grant on Universal Design for Learning that provides training for teachers on motivating and instructing students along multiple pathways.
Tags: fiscal 2017, Pittsfield School Committee, school budget,
