Adams-Cheshire School District Begins Restructuring Process
ADAMS, Mass. — The Adam-Cheshire Regional School District will use the next year as a "stop gap" as it researches possible reorganization and brings on an interim superintendent.
School Committee member Darlene Rodowicz at Monday's meeting at C.T. Plunkett School said it should begin organizing subcommittees and meetings to decide what changes could be made to the structure of the two-town district to make it economically viable.
The school district is entering fiscal 2017 with a spending plan more than $100,000 less than this year's. The next budget includes more than a dozen staff cuts on top of reductions made to pass this year's budget. Budgets will continue to be affected over the next few years because of state "wealth" calculations for Cheshire's assessment that create a difficult imbalance between the towns' shares of the costs.
School Committee members agreed that it will be a "stop gap" budget that will allow them to meet with the towns and discuss options such as restructuring.
Rodowicz said the committee should reach out to the towns to see how they would like to proceed.
Chairman Paul Butler agreed.
"The budget is done other than going to town meetings and we are ready to get going on it," Butler said. "We need to get the towns involved; we can't be doing this ourselves. It is not an insulated issue."
Butler also asked for the committee's blessing to begin the advertisement process for an interim superintendent.
With the resignation of current Superintendent Kristen Gordon in effect at the end of the school year, the School Committee wants to bring on someone for one year to give it time to conduct a more active search for a permanent superintendent.
Rodowicz said the Audit and Evaluation Subcommittee met with the three principals and were able to find $66,000 more in non-salary cuts. She said this could bring back one to one and a half full-time employees.
"We are going to look at these non-salary cuts and make sure we are comfortable with them before we finalize our list of positions that need to be cut," she said.
A Cheshire Elementary parent brought up concerns over the school's behavior policy that withholds recess from children as a punishment.
He pointed to a state bill passed in 2013 that stated physical activity in school cannot be used as a punishment and schools cannot withhold opportunities for physical activity as a punishment.
The committee members said they would look into it.
Tags: ACRSD, fiscal 2017, school restructuring, superintendent,
