North Adams School Board OKs Trip, Gets Messaged
 The School Committee meets at Conte Middle School on Tuesday night. |
The former McCann School Committee member said he plans to tour all the city's schools in the coming days.
Superintendent James Montepare gave the new mayor, who by city charter is chairman of the board, a very brief update on some of the financial problems facing the school system.
"We've been plagued with problems this year," said Montepare. "The circuit breaker reimbursement rate for the residential schools ... [the state] knocked that back to 40 percent. They were supposed to pay 75 cents on every dollar over teh first $37,000; that cost us about $260,000."
The "circuit breaker" funding is designed to help school systems deal with extraordinary costs of special education for district students being education both inside and outside the school district. Funding for students in specialized residential schools was cut from $215,241,089 to $140,113,160 in the current fiscal year.
Montepare said headway is being made on that item but the school district has also had a large number of employees on medical leave, some quite lengthy.
"We have to pay their salary and hire substitutes to fill their positions," he said. "Those are the two major hurdles we've been challenged with."
Alcombright and board members were given a short presentation on School Messenger, an application that works with the data entered into PowerSchool, a software program the school's been using for several years. PowerSchool allows realtime tracking for both parents and teachers of students' classes, homework, grades and attendance. Parent portals are currently available only at the high school level but should be opened for the sixth and seventh grades soon. The program will eventually extend to the elementary schools.
SchoolMessenger taps into the data filed in PowerSchool to allow almost instant notifications to parents, staff and School Committee members in an emergency. As demonstrated by Ellen Sutherland, assistant to the superintendent, the software allows the user to create a notification list by grade, school, age, gender, activities or any other field index.
Messages can be created by dialing in by phone or typing in a "phonetic message" and selecting a male or female computer voice; they can then be sent by phone, e-mail or text. There's also an option to translate the message into Spanish.
 Ellen Sutherland explains the School Messanger program committee members Lawrence Taft, left, Mark R. Moulton Jr. and John Hockridge. City Councilor Gailanne Cariddi is behind Taft. |
"We can contact 1,600 parents in a minute and a half," said Montepare. The system has been used to inform parents of snow days and emergency half days, such as when the water main broke last year at Drury High School. "I don't want to inundate parent with a lot of phone calls, but it's been a godsend."
It would have come in handy for a mercury spill two years, he said. The administration was criticized for the way students were evacuated from the former Conte Middle School and sent home. While the evacuation itself went smoothly, both parents and students complained about the lack of information.
Spring Break
The committee also approved a field trip for the senior class to Orlando, Fla., from April 30 to May 2. The seemingly simple request took up much of the hourlong meeting as several committee members expressed concern over cost, the flight and the nature of the trip. Mary Lou Accetta was particularly concerned that some students would be left out because of the pricetag.
Vice Chairwoman Heather Putman-Boulger said she was "uneasy about the trip" and pointed to its lack of academic or competitive focus, in contrast to such trips approved for the Drury band and Drama Team. William G. Schrade Jr. agreed, saying "I'm very hesitant. It may come back to bite us ... It's strictly social."
Donna Sadlowski and Michele Boyer-Vivori, senior class advisers, said the tour was through Gerber Tours, a well-known student tour company, and that St. Joseph's High School in Pittsfield had used the tour three times for seniors and planned to do so again in the future. The seniors would fundraise to help pay down the estimated $600 per person cost and Gerber offers scholarships for needy students.
While not academic, the trip brings hundreds of students from across the country together, said the advisers. The three-day trip includes airfare, two nights at a Disney hotel and an all-student day at Universal Studios Theme Park.
"Seeing the world is educational. It doesn't have to be about books; it doesn't have to be about marching," said Lawrence G. Taft. "It's about seeing a part of the world they might never see."
Alcombright said students at McCann most often spoke of the friends and connections they'd made during their trips to compete in SkillsUSA.
Putnam-Boulger recommended that the issue be tabled until February because of the many questions raised. Boyer-Vivori said that would likely be too late to reserve the trip and get a lower price on the flight.
 William G. Schrade Jr. gets a message. |
Schrade made a motion to approve the trip, which passed unanimously. The committee agreed informally to revisit the trip policy because it does not refer to planes.
The board was shown dictionaries for the entire third grade donated by the Elks Club. The Elks have been donating the reference books for years.
The committee went into executive session to discuss strategies pertaining to collective bargaining.
