Finance Subcommittee Meeting 11/21/24

Minutes of the 

Monson School Committee

Finance Subcommittee Meeting

Date 11-21-24

Present: Karen Nothe-Valley, (Chair), Alison Morgan, Kate Watts, Leigh Zippin, Chris Fontaine

Ms. Nothe-Valley called the meeting to order at  5:01  p.m.

Meeting information: 

FY 2025 expenditures and FY 2026 budget discussion 

First School Quarterly Expense Meeting was held on November 13, 2024 with Jennifer Wolowicz, Town Administrator and Jamie Farnum, Finance Director.

• Discussed historically school choice money has been used for curriculum materials. This has created an issue because it does not accurately reflect true costs to run the school.

• Talked about past practices and how to make things better going forward. 

• When creating the budget, Jennifer and Jamie emphasized that everything coming in must be shown (e.g. school choice, rural aid, grant money, etc.) plus include everything in the operating budget in appropriate line items to meet the goals of the District. 

Kate Watts, Acting Superintendent, reviewed activities in progress. 

Visioning activity: Synthesizing goals with the administration and school principals taking into account where buildings are and where they need to go. It’s an activity considering any projects they want to implement in the future. Each building/dept. created goals/vision to see how they integrate together. They are looking at: 

• Financial impact of each vision.

• Student and attendance data. 

• Items we don’t need to spend money on. 

• Personnel, including strengths and whether there is any movement taking place (e.g., retirements). 

School Committee members asked administration to specifically look at various electronics that are being used to see if we can find any redundancies to remove or reveal other efficiencies without losing necessary functionality. 

There was a snapshot of ECC provided. 

• Looking to restructure leadership at ECC. One principal and no Assistant Principal (current AP $85,00; principal would be approximately $95,000. The current stipend is $12,000). 

• Looking to increase SEL support. Current counselor is .5 possibly increasing to .66 or .75. 

Then a snapshot of GVS provided. 

• Need specialized programming for grade 1 students; hoping to use positions in-house to make that switch. 

• Discussed that grade 5 has 5 homerooms. They are continuing to discuss if they will have 5 homerooms in grade 6.

• Health teaching position is being taught by school counselors right now. This could be a .5 position to address an issue where counselor is unavailable to grades 1-3 students.

• Currently 3 counselors but one is on maternity leave until January. 

Then MHS was discussed with input from Principal Fontaine. 

Engaging School District counsel, staff, community on what MHS should offer and shaping our vision. They drafted a vision of a graduate and umbrella ideas. Looking at needs using the District’s improvement plan, possibly adding programming to bridge pathways to post secondary, such as designated Innovative Careers pathway. Possibly starting with an Engineering pathway that would likely involve taking 5 courses and a Capstone project. 

• We could have early college courses. Collaborate with HCC (free). Right now, there are 5 business courses that could meet this criteria. They hope to pull this together as a business pathway.  HCC gets grant money based on how many articulation agreements they have. The student gets HCC credits. 

• Plan to reach out to UMASS because they have a similar program. They also have a model where they send the school teachers; looking into feasibility and how that would work. 

• Westfield State will not allow our teachers to do it, they have to go to the campus. 

• Intent is to be competitive for job market success. Students could walk out with ½ year to a full year of college credits. 

• Possible new schedule. Researching schedules (8 schools have been called). Found some commonalities and differing formats (e.g., 4 x 4 schedule similar to college semesters). 

• 1-2 teaching positions are needed to have these programs come in. Hoping by 2026-2027 academic year to have 3 pathways. 

• My Capstone (MEFA pathways): college and career planning program. Tries to target kids to where their interests are and not just random classes. This is a free program. 

• Middle school team time is difficult to cover (30 min per day). Right now they are having to use entire building staff to fill holes for this. 

Discussed Special Education. 

• Reviewing student needs and areas where we might need to build out to support them. Behavior supports, VIP (high school vocational independence program), autism supports, etc. 

Discussed Curriculum. 

• ELL program (English Language Learners); offer the seal of biliteracy. This is for students who come into our district with another language of origin and are learning English. They need to be proficient on MCAS and in language of origin (AP exam passed can get the seal). English speakers learning another language can do the same (MCAS, AP exam). Obtain seal on transcript and diploma. DESE sets requirements (districts can opt-in). MHS had this prior to the pandemic (reapplied). Currently offer live Spanish instruction and other languages online. 

  • Financial impact would be the AP exam ($100)

• Always working on curriculum maps; looking to publish by end of year. No budget impact. Curriculum mapping software is paid for.

• Professional development; instructional aides have been receiving Professional Development (PD) from Collaborative. Budgeted by Special Education and Curriculum. The instructional aides like the PD from that vendor for specific PD from that professional. Curriculum implementation PD is typically budgeted with purchase of curriculum. 

• Getting quotes for curriculum software for next year. 

• Sub pay rate; it’s very low; difficult to get enough subs. Current rate $70 without Bachelor’s Degree and $80 with. Seeing if it’s possible to increase this year or wait until next year (e.g., $85 and $95). 

  • The kitchen is also looking to increase their sub rate. Right now $14.25 per hour (work 4-5 hours per day). Lowest paid district staff in the kitchen makes less than $15 an hour. 

  • Other towns: with a Bachelor's Degree in Palmer is $100 per day. 

• Receiving an MTSS grant; for academic, social/emotional and student attendance report. The grant is for $143,420. 

• Rural aid numbers are still not in. 

The meeting was adjourned at 5:59 PM

Documentation for this meeting:

Agenda

Distributed at meeting:  None 

Approved by Committee:

_________________________________________________

Karen Nothe-Valley, Secretary