ADAMS, Mass. — The Adams-Cheshire Regional School District wants to know how it is doing.

 

Superintendent of Schools Robert Putnam told the Selectmen on Wednesday night that the district plans to extend a parents survey through the weekend in hopes of gathering more public input.

 

"I am really hoping that all people will participate because their voices need to be heard if we are going to understand how people are responding to these major changes that we implemented last year," Putnam said. "If we don't know we can't address people's concerns or continue to implement the processes people appreciate."

 

The district underwent a massive reconfiguration in the 2017-2018 school year with the closing of Cheshire Elementary School and the shifting of Grades pre-K through 3 to Hoosac Valley Elementary (C.T. Plunkett) and Grades 4 through 8 to Hoosac Valley High School.

 

Some Cheshire residents and parents were clearly irritated with the closing of their community school  last spring and the move to Plunkett and the high school.

 

Putnam said the surveys are specific to each school and parents are asked to fill out a survey for each of their children.

 

He said there are 13 closed questions and four open questions. 

 

The Hoosac Valley Elementary School survey can be found here, the Hoosac Valley Middle School survey can be found here and the Hoosac Valley High School survey can be found here. 

 

Putnam said so far, he has received 132 responses from Hoosac Valley Elementary, 86 from the middle school and 92 from the high school. Each school has approximately 400 students and he hopes that by extending the survey he can get a few more responses.

 

Selectwoman Christine Hoyt asked if the survey is open to everybody.

 

"I ask because if there are parents who moved their kids out of the district after the school closure would they have the opportunity to provide some feedback as to why they moved out?" she asked.

 

Putnam said the survey is "wide open," however, the questions are pretty specific to the schools. He said after he receives final school choice numbers, he plans to send a survey to parents of students who have left the district.

 

The information gathered from the survey will help inform the rest of the school year the fiscal 2019 budget.

 

Putnam also updated the Selectmen on the superintendent search process that the School Committee hopes to have wrapped up by April.

 

Putnam, who initially came to the district as interim superintendent two years ago, announced in December his intent to retire at the end of this school year.

 

He said the eight-member committee would contain a teacher an administrator as well as two school committee members – one from each member town.

 

A selectman and a resident from each town will also be on the committee and those selections will be up to the town officials.

 

"That's the composition and I would be very much appreciative if you could hopefully next week sometime let me know the people you have chosen," Putnam said. "I wanted to make sure you were aware of that."