ConVal School Board members and administrators used their second community forum to make the case for this year’s proposed operating budget and warrant articles, including a $744,112 preschool expansion.
“Not more than 40% of incoming ConVal kindergartners are kindergarten-ready,” said Rich Cahoon of Antrim as he presented the board’s case for expanding the preschool program from five classrooms to eight. In order to address this concern, he said ConVal’s program needs to be expanded to allow room for these students who need it.
Cahoon said the history of ConVal expanding its preschool programming dates back to 2016, when the administration came to the School Board with concerns about kindergarten readiness.
“We were having students showing up unable to recognize letters, unable to draw the connection between letters and sounds and unable to count,” Cahoon said. “The number of private preschool options in the region was decreasing, and we had more and more students showing up who had never had the opportunity to sit in a classroom, or interact with same-age peers in an academic setting.”
He said that as time went on, the district addressed these issues by expanding the program to include more hours, then more days of the week, then expanding the number of classrooms to five. But now the issues have been exacerbated by the pandemic, Cahoon said, and need to be addressed further.
“Having more students that require intervention and support is not just a bad thing for those students, it’s a bad thing for all students,” he said. It divides teachers’ time between struggling students and students who need less-intensive support, and causes the need for remedial intervention all throughout a student’s school career, he said.
“The board and administration recognize that we are asking the voters to make a significant investment,” Cahoon said. “We are prepared to make a commitment regarding the return on that investment. We will commit to the voters that at least 70% of incoming kindergarten students will be kindergarten-ready.”
Some residents in attendance expressed concerns about the expansion, specifically about whether it was actually necessary.
“Is the demand really there?” asked Mackenzie Nichols of Peterborough. “Will the classrooms be full?”
Superintendent Kimberly Rizzo Saunders said that the expansion would create a total of 120 spots, but that if enrollment didn’t meet that number, the district would not hire teachers to cover those spots.
“Every indication is that those 120 spots will fill,” she said.
Another Peterborough resident, Colleen Stone, said preschool should not be a priority for the district.
“I find it real sad that we’ve come to the point of society that we feel that 3- and 4-year-olds have to be in a structured environment,” she said. “This, to me, is day care that we’re all going to pay for. It’s not everybody’s responsibility to pay for pre-K and day care.”
Dennis Calcut from Francestown said it was the district’s responsibility to assess needs and try to provide for them if possible.
“If we’re looking at the development, and a healthy society, we need to have reasonable, appropriate opportunities for families who cannot afford typical pre-K options,” he said.
Cahoon pointed out that the board unanimously supported this expansion measure, and urged voters to consider passing it.
The rest of the budget was presented by Katherine Heck, board member from Greenfield, and Jim Fredrickson, of Sharon.
“The budget is a very complex animal,” said Heck. “We have brought you the most-reasonable budget we could bring you this year given the circumstances that we’re currently living in, especially considering inflation.”
The operating budget came out to $53.7 million, a $1 million increase over last year. According to Heck, significant changes include an increase in transportation cost of $215,000, two new teachers at the high school level for a combined increase of $123,000 and an item for technology replacement at $195,000.
More than 75% of the total cost of the budget is made up of salaries and benefits, Heck said.
“People is what we’re invested in when we educate students,” she said. “We are heavily invested in human capital in the education field.”
Fredrickson also advocated for the proposed collective bargaining agreement reached between the district and the ConVal Educational Association, which will lead to an increase of $877,844 for the first year of its three-year lifespan.
“If that warrant article does not pass, then teachers cannot get a raise,” said Fredrickson. “So I highly encourage voting yes.”
Heck also discussed the other financial warrant articles, including a $100,000 appropriation to start a new trust fund for technology.
“Something the pandemic has taught us is that technology is incredibly important to how we deliver education,” she said. “We have to be able to keep up with that. It is the future, and it is not going away.”
Fredrickson also presented a “Budget 101,” in which he explained elements of how the district calculated its budget and, in particular, how tax rates were calculated. He said that due to the district returning about $4 million in unanticipated funds last year, each town will be paying slightly less this year. But although the district anticipates money being returned to taxpayers each year, residents should not expect this amount in coming years, he said.
“It is not going to happen again,” he said, since this was an unprecedented figure due to a combination of a spending freeze and costs being covered by grant money received by the district. “It should not happen again, if we did a good job on the budget.”
The district’s deliberative session on the budget and warrant articles will be Feb. 8 at 6 p.m., at the ConVal High School gym. Voting will take place on March 8.