During a ConVal deliberative session that resulted in no changes to the warrant, much of the discussion centered around a petition warrant article that would ask the school district to make all teaching and professional learning materials publicly available .
This petition article, which according to Superintendent Kimberly Rizzo Saunders was signed by 26 community members, asks that the learning materials be made available in each of the district’s town libraries.
One of the petitioners, Rita Mattsen of Dublin, spoke on its behalf.
“This article caught my attention because of all the things that have been going on in this whole country, not here in particular, but I can see the potential for there to be a problem with just things coming up,” she said, adding that she was a grandmother, and wanted to be able to access her grandchildren’s educational materials “on my own time” without having to go to the district administration.
“My daughter was in school 40 years ago; we didn’t need to see everything that was in the curriculum but now things are so complex,” she said.
School Board member Katherine Heck of Greenfield, speaking as a taxpayer and not on behalf of the board, pointed out that parents are already able to view materials if they make a request through district administration.
“There are already mechanisms in place for people to review materials,” she said. “Here at ConVal, we are open, and I myself as a parent have taken advantage of using these policies in the past when I wanted to understand what was on there.”
Audience members and the School Board pointed out other issues with the proposal, including feasibility and cost. The article instructs the district to spend $200 to publicize the availability of the materials, but makes no other mention of cost, and School Board Chair Tim Theberge pointed out that the overall expense would likely be much higher. In order to provide to eight libraries the full materials of just one class, he said it would cost at least $500.
“And that’s a cheap one,” he said.
Additional issues included potential copyright infringement and the staff time that would be necessary to gather and distribute these materials, as well as the fact that the district cannot compel town libraries to house the materials in question.
An amendment put forth by Timothy Iwanowicz, a fifth-grade language arts teacher at South Meadow School, would have included a $200,000 appropriation for the purpose of hiring staff to manage the collection, organization and distribution necessary to fulfill the components of the article. The amendment was voted down, and the article will appear as written.
Abby Tucker, the district’s attorney, said that even if the article passes, it legally cannot be enforced as it is advisory in nature, and its logistical issues constitute enough of a reason for the School Board not to comply with its text.
This petition article can be found in almost-identical form on warrants around the country and the state, according to Heck. An identical version of the article is currently on Jaffrey-Rindge’s warrant.
The district’s other warrant articles prompted little to no discussion, including the district’s operating budget of $53.7 million. Board member from Sharon and Budget Committee Chair Jim Fredrickson spoke on the budget, calling it reasonable by its increase of $1 million over last year.
“That’s not a whole lot in this inflationary environment,” he said. “It’s a very well-thought-out, very responsible budget.”
A similar argument about the state of the economy was made by board member Kevin Pobst of Francestown when presenting on the district’s proposed collective bargaining agreement, which would carry a spending increase of $877,844 in the first of its three years, then $737,576 and $714,868 in the second and third years, respectively.
“This is a good contract, especially in this economy,” Pobst said.
The School Board reiterated its case for the article to spend $744,112 on expanding the district’s preschool offerings from five classrooms to eight.
“By our current measures, not more than 40% of incoming ConVal kindergarten students are prepared to succeed in school without significant interventions and support,” said board member Rich Cahoon of Antrim. The expansion, he said, would serve 120 students a year.
“The board and the administration recognize that we are asking the voters to make a significant investment in extended preschool,” Cahoon said. “If this expansion is approved, we will commit to the voters that at least 70% of incoming students will be kindergarten-ready.”
Heck spoke on behalf of an article to establish a technology trust fund with $100,000, stating that in the hopefully unlikely scenario of another pandemic-level shift in how the district delivers education, it would be advantageous for the district to be ready from a technological standpoint.
“Technology is not going away,” she said.
The district’s other articles are to put money into various trust funds from end-of-year fund balance rather than taxation, with $100,000 for the energy trust fund in pursuit of eventually buying out the district’s solar panel contract, $50,000 for the health trust fund and two separate articles for the building capital reserve fund amounting to $500,000 and $250,000 respectively. The split is because these will be funded based on leftover fund balance, and if there is not enough to fund them all, they will be funded in the order they appear on the warrant.
Voting will be held on March 8, with times and locations varying between the nine district towns. Specific information about each town’s voting location and schedule can be found on the ConVal district website, convalsd.net.