Pittsfield School Committee Continues Budget Conversation Ahead of April 26 Vote
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With only a draft spending plan and a short turnaround from the budget workshop, the School Committee has continued informal budget conversation to guide the administration on its final ask.
Members participated in a budget workshops last week, digging into various line items for more than two hours. The committee is expected to adopt a budget on April 26 and have a joint meeting with the City Council no later than June 1.
"I had a fairly lengthy discussion with [Superintendent Joseph Curtis] and [Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Kristen Behnke] about how exactly we should proceed here. We don't have a budget to act on at this point. We have a draft that's been submitted and it doesn't seem to me that we probably ought to be taking votes on parts of the budget," Chair William Cameron said.
"Rather, we should look at the whole budget when it comes up for review and then if there are changes to be made, we could make them."
In March, a $78,310,016 proposal for fiscal 2024 was presented to the committee. It is an 8.17 percent — or $5,911,754 — increase from FY23's budget of $72,398,262 and 83 percent of the increase, about $4.9 million, is allocated for special education instruction and support, Career Technical Education/career pathways, and contractual obligations.
At the beginning of the meeting, President of the United Educators of Pittsfield Melissa Campbell voiced concerns about staffing cuts within the draft budget.
"Our specific concern is the proposed cut of more than 10 full-time teaching positions across the district while at the same time increasing the number of administrators and behavior specialists," she said.
"We've been told that the cut of teachers is necessary because of a change in enrollment. However, from the numbers we gathered from the state, the district has had a change of roughly 60 students over the past year."
Campbell asked why there is a need for increased administrators if there is a decline in enrollment and said the $105,000 proposal for a co-principal at Morningside Community School could fund two teachers who would be working directly with students.
The UEP also provided comment on the increase in teachers of deportment to manage student behaviors.
"We all know that an increase in class size means an increase in behaviors to manage. It's more difficult to manage all students' needs when class sizes and thereby the teacher-student ratio are not carefully considered," Campbell said.
"While we appreciate the attempt to employ staff to help manage student behaviors, we cannot endorse this plan if it means cutting teaching positions, which are the core of any educational system to make this happen. For us, the more simple and effective solution to managing student behaviors is to keep the teacher-student ratio as low as possible."
As a former Reid Middle School teacher, Sara Hathaway emphasized the UEP’s concerns.
"Reid is near and dear to my heart, still, and of course, I'm concerned when I hear teachers making the effort to come to a political group like us and say this is not just a small concern," she said.
Behnke explained that there are reductions in the budget due to enrollment but the district is adding 12.6 teachers that are not teachers of deportment.
"At Reid, it is four teachers lost but when we look at the enrollment at Reid some of the class sizes were particularly small when we were looking at particular class sizes," she said.
The district was also notified that they were awarded a grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that will help support staff positions at the school.
There was also conversation around the interim co-principal position at Morningside, which Curtis defended at a hearing earlier this month.
A near-dire staffing situation triggered the need for a co-principal, Principal Monica Zanin resigned last summer in close proximity to the dean's resignation. There was uncertainty from staff members about leadership and Elizabeth Lamoureaux was appointed as co-principal to Jennifer Teichert.
Deputy Superintendent Marisa Mendonsa explained that both she and Curtis have been co-principals, Curtis the former co-principal of Morningside.
Prior to this model, the school had a principal, an assistant principal, and a dean.
"When I was supporting principals Teichert and Lamoureaux at the beginning of the year over the summer, we really talked about a couple of different ways that you could approach a co-principal model. You can think about buckets of leadership that a principal may have, thinking about student responses to behaviors, curriculum and instruction, operations, family engagement, communications, and then divvy up data based on where you think maybe your strengths may lie," Mendonsa said, adding that Lamoureaux's background in the curriculum department and Teichert's as a strong classroom educator made sense in terms sharing the principalship.
She explained that there are also areas of expertise that they share and they are both learning as they go.
"Morningside has had some transitions in terms of leadership, and so we didn't want to go through another transitional phase," Mendonsa said.
The deputy superintendent added that this partnership is unique because the co-principals are new to the position and have varied skill sets, which provides strength.
Cameron asked if this model was a first choice and Mendonsa explained that after conducting a principal search, it seemed like the best model.
Tags: fiscal 2024, Pittsfield Public Schools, pittsfield_budget,
