The Kingston School Committee met on Tuesday, April 2. It was a packed house with even more attendees joining the meeting virtually.
The Committee opened the meeting to anyone from the public wishing to speak. Carl Pike, who serves on the Finance Committee and is a retired town treasurer, spoke on behalf of the town. Pike said that he has been a huge supporter of the schools and their budgets for years. “We have always, since I’ve been involved, tried to be very conservative in our financial management. We’ve tried to service the various functions of the various departments – the schools – while at the same time thinking about the residents, the annual tax bills, etc… Proposition 2 ½ says that we are able to tax our residents an increase of 2 ½ percent every year. We always hope to get some new growth… so that gives us another percent, so we try to keep the budget increases each year to about 3 ½ percent,” Pike said. He went on to say that the initial goal was to keep each department around a 3 ½ percent increase and noted that most came in under 5 percent. He continued saying that the schools’ budget came in around 15 percent. “We didn’t feel that we could come anywhere near providing 15 percent increase and being fair to other departments, other functions, and to the taxpayers.”
Pike said that after working with the schools, the current increase stands around 11 percent which would result in somewhere around a $400 increase to home property taxes. “In order to balance everything out across the towns, I encourage the School Committee, the School Administration, to work to find some solutions where we continue to provide the education we all want to provide but we find ways to make the numbers balance better. And I assure the parents that are sitting here, there is no one in town government that wants to sacrifice education… we all recognize that education in almost every community in Massachusetts is going to be 50 percent of the town budget,” Pike said.
Former School Committee member of 15 years and current Selectman Eric Crone also addressed the crowd. “One of the issues, obviously, when you’re making cuts, you’re making cuts potentially to programs, making class sizes bigger, or making it less desirable for families to send their kids to our school district,” Crone said. He pointed out that it leaves families with few options including moving or sending their kids to private schools. He noted, however, that charter schools do take money away from the town’s schools. “When that kid leaves our district and goes to the charter school, the amount of money that we lose, the expenses don’t go down, so if we have 10 kids leave and go to the charter school, you can’t lay off a teacher,” he continued.
Another former School Committee member and current Selectman Sheila Vaughn also spoke. “Every year we have to go up and I understand that this year is exponentially harder than most years because there are a lot of changes that we somewhat knew going into it, that it was going to be tough because of the preschool going over to Silver Lake and, again, like Eric said, special education cannot be cut… so when the cuts come, they come from the regular day budget,” Vaughn said. She continued, “We have to fund special education… Kingston has actually done a very good job this year of trying to stay within the budget, but this was mandated because DESE [Department of Education and Secondary Education] needed it to come through.” She implored voters that they need to come out to Town Meeting to make sure that their voices are heard.
President of the Kingston Teacher’s Association, and a 17-year teacher at Kingston Elementary School, Heidi Fox spoke on behalf of the educators of Kingston. “We love our students; we think of them as part of our family. We take pride in providing them with rich, high-quality education and engaging learning experiences. We instill within our students a love of learning, foster the courage to follow their dreams, encourage them to think outside the box and ask questions, and teach them to collaborate and be team players,” she said. Fox continued, “We understand that we are facing financial challenges. We’re all struggling with increased costs, however, by cutting our classroom-based staff, it strips away one of the greatest resources available to these children – their teachers.” She asked them to consider “trimming at the administrative level” rather than from teachers. Her remarks were met with applause.
Superintendent Jill Proulx spoke saying, “As we build these budgets, we had a number of changes that we were required to make and in addition we have been faced with rising costs like many schools throughout the State: inflation, rising costs of out-of-district tuitions, rising costs of transportation, rising costs to everything from paper to the crayons that the kids use. It is all leading to increases in our budgets that we are finding difficult to sustain.” These increases were presented in mid-March at a joint school committee meeting. The revised budget is a result of that meeting.
Director of Finance for Silver Lake, Sarah Hickey, spoke on the revised budget. She said that an additional 240 grant application reduced the budget by $170,944 and additional Circuit Breaker funding reduced it by another $869,655. Additional changes included a reduction of $290,428 from the salary lines and a technology grant that represented a decrease of $70,000. Increases included $413,556 in additional out-of-district tuitions and transportations. There was also an insurance adjustment which represented an increase of over $100,000.
Hickey said that Kingston’s assessment represented over a $4 million increase over the previous fiscal year. The total cost of education in Kingston is $29,818,034 which represents a 5.3 percent increase over fiscal year ’24. “When you look at contractual obligations… that is not just, yes, teachers have contracts and contracts including teachers increased, contractual obligations from my point of view… is the cost for the contract to maintain the elevator in the building… contracts for copy machines and printers,” Hickey explained. “The price for contracts has gone up,” she added.
Proulx said that they would be presenting a tiered approach to budget cuts that evening. Kingston Intermediate Principal Andrew Materna and Kingston Elementary School Principal Kerri Whipple spoke regarding cuts. They said that the first place they looked to make cuts was from supplies and other items that don’t directly affect the student experience. Whipple recommended funding an ELL teacher position from an E.S. fund (emergency shelter funding). Staff cuts include 6 paraprofessionals and 2.9 full-time unit A staff, likely including classroom teachers. Whipple said that despite the cuts, classroom sizes would remain under 30.
Like Whipple, Materna went through the tiered cuts beginning with supplies and materials and moving into staff cuts in Tier 3. If classroom teachers were cut, most class sizes would increase an average of 4 students.
School Committee member Jeanne Coleman said, “I would be comfortable bringing a budget to Town Meeting without any staff cuts and allowing the public to be able to support the staff; I’ve heard from not one person in town that has asked us to cut staff.” She advocated that everyone there that evening show up to Town Meeting to support the budget. Chair Timothy Lewis said he felt that additional cuts could be made to lines such as legal and substitute. “I believe there is other money in this budget we can save,” he told everyone. Coleman made a motion that they approve the revised budget without tier 3 staff cuts. The approved cuts in tiers 1 and 2 represented around $388,000. Lewis said he felt that they should be cutting more than that amount in order to be a good partner with the town.
Coleman noted that many people moved to Kingston for the good school system and that they wanted to be careful not to make cuts that would drastically affect the schools. Coleman also said that they recently did an audit on the central office which found that they were four employees short. “Not only are these administrators doing the work for our district, for Kingston specifically, they are also doing the work for Plympton, Halifax, and Silver Lake… they’re basically working around the clock and we’re already understaffed as it is,” she said.
Someone asked what would trigger a potential teacher cut in the middle of the year. Proulx said, “If we didn’t think we could absorb the areas where we had overspent through other line items, we would need to make a decision. With the budget freeze, sometimes we can’t make up some of those differences… it may or may not be likely which can sometimes trigger the School Committee to consider something like that.” Asked if that had ever happened, Proulx said she has never been a part of such a decision but she is aware it has happened in other school districts.
The motion to pass the budget with only the tier one and tier two cuts was passed with only two no votes. Coleman also made a motion to pass the Kingston School Committee budget for fiscal year ’25 at $14,568,739.78. Like the motion before, it passed 3-2.
The School Committee also held a school choice meeting. “School choice is a program in the Commonwealth where if the School Committee were to vote to approve school choice, we would be required to accept students from other communities,” Chair Timothy Lewis explained. The Committee voted unanimously not to accept school choice.
The Committee also voted to approve a grant of just over $12,000 to be used toward their nutritional program. Proulx said that it would likely be spent to replace outdated equipment.
KIS sixth grade teacher Dave Palana provided a Teacher’s Corner update. He said that the sixth grade took their first ELA MCAS that day and would take the second one the following day. Palana noted that they had the book fair for both KES and KIS. He also told the Committee that they have been trying to increase awareness of recycling through some different initiatives. Finally, Palana said that they have been working on different lessons related to the solar eclipse.
A PTO update was also provided where it was said that some modest funds would be seen from a Whitman-Hanson versus Silver Lake parent hockey game.

The Plympton School Commmittee met Monday, March 25 to discuss the school’s budget and how it pertains to the overall town budget. It was a packed audience. Chair of the School Committee Jason Fraser got things started saying, “I’ve been working very closely with town leadership since late January… for how we were going to handle the increases we were seeing toward the cost of education for our small town… our annual town budget is roughly $13 million and the increases we were seeing for education alone were north of $700,000 in increases.” Fraser continued, “In working with the town they said that they could afford approximately $400,000 in increases meaning that we would have to find a way, between Silver Lake’s budget and Dennett’s budget, to cut over $300,000.” Fraser also said that in a meeting in mid-March, Silver Lake cut approximately $155,000 from Plympton’s portion of that budget. Fraser noted that it would mean the Dennett cutting nearly $170,000 that evening which he said would “include reduction of force to staff members here at the school.”
Fraser said that around 4 p.m. that evening he was approached by the Town Administrator Liz Dennehy who offered one-time funds of $62,000. The funds are American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) revenue replacement. “It will allow us this evening not to have to make any reduction of force and keep our staff whole and complete,” Fraser told the crowd. This declaration was met with rousing applause. “There are still some areas we need to trim back the budget even with the $462,000 the town of Plympton has given us to meet the requirements of our schools to function,” he added.
Superintendent Jill Proulx and Business Director Sarah Hickey led off the budget presentation. Hickey began by outlining the changes to the Plympton budget since they last met in late February and presented the Version II budget. The first change was a REAP grant allocation to offset kindergarten tuition in the amount of $24,217. An increase of $1,103 was added due to shared cost adjustments. Version IV of the budget comes in at $4,089,098 and requires a reduction of $173,565. Hickey also said that there was a 31 percent increase in the assessment for Plympton to Silver Lake. She said that the assessment to Silver Lake plus the Dennett budget, put the total cost of education for Plympton at $7,220,419 or a 5.9 percent increase overall. Fraser noted that they would need support at Town Meeting to pass the budget.
Hickey went over some of the overall increased costs in the FY’ 25 budget including contractual obligations, health insurance, special education tuition and transportation, supplies, and utilities. She noted that contractual obligations are not limited to teachers and staff, but also include other contracted services. “We are responsible to take care of the educational well-being of all students in Plympton regardless of their needs; it’s something that this Committee has always held to both legally, but also morally,” Fraser said. He continued, “And we can see the position that it’s pushing us into with the State not really coming through with it’s side of funding to help support the towns to meet the needs of these children.”
Proulx said that the next steps would be further discussion with the towns. She noted that the Finance Committee was set to meet the following week. She went over proposed cuts including minimal ones to both Principal supply and supplies. The technology line was reduced by $15k as was the curriculum resources line. Other reductions included $14k for the sub line as well as $31,200 from a math interventionist line. The math interventionist position is not yet filled so will not result in a loss of a job. Proulx was asked for a list of items and programs that would be included in the cuts. Programs such as Reading A to Z and Typing Club were reported as proposed cuts. Fraser said that while they don’t normally take private donations for the school’s operating budget, something like that could help offset some of the cuts. Fraser said that while the School Committee doesn’t look forward to taking away any resources from the Plympton students, it does bring some relief knowing no one would be losing their job. He thanked Selectmen Chair Christine Joy, Town Administrator Elizabeth Dennehy, and Finance Committee member Marilyn Browne for working with the schools to get them the $462,000 in increases. The Committee then voted to approve the new version of the budget at $3,975,000.
Once the budget was voted, the Committee took up other business. Fraser said that he met with the Town Manager regarding dogs being allowed on the Dennett property. He said that at this time they are looking into a potential dog park and noted that there was no intent to implement a leash law in town. The town asked the Committee to continue to prohibit dogs from the Dennett property.
Fraser provided the legislative update saying, “we actually made out quite well in Plympton this year with Chapter 70 funding… we received $152,000 more this year than we received last year. One of the ways we’re funding the increases in education we’re seeing here in this town.” He went on to say that it didn’t work out that way for many other towns in the State. He noted that the State is allowing prices of private schools to go up significantly while not supporting local public schools with Chapter 70 funding. “Currently I and colleagues are asking the State of Massachusetts to increase the inflationary index from 1.25 to closer to 4.0,” Fraser said. Fraser said that the per pupil increment for Chapter 70 is currently $30 per pupil, but that it was being requested to increase that to $100 per pupil. He also said they are also asking the State to increase Circuit Breaker funding to 75 percent amongst other things.
Principal Peter Veneto provided a Principal’s Report. He said that the talent show the previous Friday evening was very successful and thanked CASA as well as all of the parent volunteers for their efforts. He noted that after 13 years with Dennett Elementary, paraprofessional Tracie Sweeney accepted a position elsewhere as an adjustment counselor. “Happy for her, very sad for us,” Veneto said. He also told the Committee about report cards, parent-teacher conferences, and the bookfair. Additionally, he said that MCAS season was beginning and said that the fifth grade had a visit from a comfort dog ahead of the exams.
While Assistant Superintendent Ryan Lynch was unable to attend, Superintendent Proulx did tell the Committee on his behalf that he had submitted a copy of the Student Opportunity Act Plan for their review and acceptance. Proulx said that every three years, districts are required to submit an updated plan to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). “Each district is required to identify one to three evidence-based programs they are implementing to close achievement gaps,” Proulx said. A Committee member asked about a position that was being funded through Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER). Fraser explained that ESSER funding is federal funding that exists for just one more year before expiring. Lynch’s proposal included using Student Opportunity Act funds to cover some of those expenses after the additional funding isn’t available any longer through ESSER. Proulx noted that beginning in FY’ 26 they will need to find a different funding source. After significant discussion, the Committee did vote to approve Lynch’s proposed submission with just one member abstaining from the vote.

The Plympton Board of Selectmen met in-person on Monday, March 11 with all three members present.
Selectman John Traynor said that the Board of Health issued a letter stating that the podiatry services for the Council on Aging could not be held at the Town House. “So I think we basically have to go back and have a plan B.” Director of Elder Affairs Colleen Thompson spoke on the matter saying, “I’m a little upset. It never even occurred to me that we would need to speak to the Board of Health. And in my correspondence with Liz [Dennehy] that never came up.” Thompson also said that she felt that the discussions around the services escalated quickly and said that while the Board of Health argues that she didn’t ask their permission, she was not included in the letter they sent despite it directly affecting her department. Thompson called the Board of Health’s arguments “spurious at best” and said that there is little difference between the podiatry services and the blood pressure and sugar and cholesterol checks that are done. “There’s no privacy and there’s medical waste, but we do them because it’s not really a big deal,” Thompson said. She continued saying that there is support from the nurse and noted that the doctor “has done this for years” and knows how to sanitize properly, etc. She spoke with Carver who runs a similar program about shared services, but said it is so popular that they already have a waitlist.
Thompson told the Selectmen, “I think we need to figure out a way to get the seniors more services in Plympton.” She emphasized that more thought needs to be given to how this can be done. She proposed creating a medical room to be used for medical needs. Selectmen Chair Christine Joy told Thompson that the podiatry services are not a “dead issue” saying they just need to find a place better suited to the program. Traynor said that he believes most would prefer a public space over a doctor going into homes due to safety concerns. “Let us take this back and see what we can come up with,” Joy said.
Regarding annual town meeting preparations, Town Administrator Liz Dennehy said, “At this time, we’re actively working with all of the departments on articles, budgets, all of that, so all of that is in full swing.” The annual town meeting warrant closed on the last Monday in March. Regarding budgets, Dennehy also said, “Our financial team internally, we’re all working very hard to figure out our finances going forward and how we might want to structure things and keep our debt at an even level as some of that falls off.”
As customary, the Selectmen discussed their raves for the last few weeks. “I think I have a rave though for the Financial Committee that’s been working on the Fire Station; I think you guys, which is Marilyn Browne from the Finance Committee, Kathryn Shepard, Christine Kelly [Treasurer/Collector], Elizabeth [Dennehy], Lisa Hart [Accountant]… and Jon Wilhelmsen, I think this is kind of outside their normal, everybody’s basically not getting paid, they’re volunteers so I’m very impressed with their willingness to put in time; hopefully it will pay off,” Traynor said.
Joy said that her rave was for Colleen Thompson. “I love that she feels so strongly about this (foot services) that she doesn’t want to let it go. It is an important issue. We just need to find a way to make it work in a suitable location,” Joy said. She continued, “It’s definitely a service that’s needed. If there’s waitlists for other towns than it’s something that we need to offer.”
Traynor proposed reaching out to neighboring towns. “This might be an opportunity for a shared-services grant,” Joy said. Selectman Mark Russo emphasized Joy’s rave for Thompson. His second rave was in regard to shared services saying, “I think we need to continue to always be on the lookout for shared services that might work and might model and bring forth others. I’m glad that comes up and I think that’s one of the ways out of the endless financial struggles the town has.” His final rave was for the “super raw early spring days.” He said that those days really make the later beautiful spring days “all the more wonderful.”

Silver Lake District towns were scrambling after Thursday, March 14th’s meeting with the combined Silver Lake school committees, when they learned that the budget, a “level-services” budget, was going to increase a whopping $6.7 million over last year, due largely to special education increases, including special ed transportation. The new district business manager, Sarah Hickey, presented a two-hour slide show depicting her take on the budget and her new formula for calculating the combined budget and its individual town shares.
As the initial shock subsided, representatives of all the member towns spoke up saying that even if they taxed up to their levy limit, they would not be able to meet the proposed increases, most of which are state mandated, without going back to their towns for overrides.
Jason Fraser, Plympton’s school committee representative on both the elementary and regional committees, as well as the Massachusetts Association of School Committees President-elect, was able to untangle the spaghetti lines and bring some sanity to the situation. Based on his advice, the Regional School Committee and the individual member towns voted to decrease assessments to member towns by $1,605,000 by cutting $855,000 from the budget itself and taking an additional $750,000 by drawing down the Excess and Deficiency (E&D) Fund to offset the assessments of member towns.
Fraser said that he wouldn’t ordinarily suggest using E&D revenues that are set aside to cover unexpected mid-year tuitions and services for special needs students, however this year he said, “as in FY25 we are assuming a large portion of the three towns’ Special Education cost which will make Silver Lake eligible for over $1.1 million in Circuit Breaker revenue starting in FY26. We are fortunate for the stewardship of the past and present Silver Lake School Committee members to have a fully funded and certified E&D fund.”
Significant cuts are now being considered at the local school committee level. “Kingston is looking at between $1 to $1.5 million in cuts. Halifax is considering $300,000 to $700,000 in cuts, and Plympton has proposals for $160,000 in cuts… Silver Lake did acknowledge they may need to cut further at a later meeting date but didn’t want to cut too deep before seeing what the local committees delivered”, Fraser continued. “It is common knowledge that it is far easier to amend a number down at Town Meeting than up. If the burden of cuts is shared as evenly as possible, it is likely Silver Lake will need to come back to the table for some hard conversations and possibly an even harder vote.”
Jon Wilhelmsen, who represented Plympton on the school committee for more than a decade suggests that the budget increase comes down to these items:
• A very significant increase in Special Education (SPED) costs – particularly out-of-district placements, though it would appear there are also increases to the in-district costs that contribute to very significant cost increases district-wide. “…there is literally only so much that the towns can pay to do this and as a result there will need to be cuts to the budgets in each of the three towns as well as at Silver Lake to bring this into fiscal balance.” Citing the upswing in out-of-district services as a major contributor to the cost increase, he hopes that many of these services can be brought back in-district over the next few years to mitigate the long-term impact.
• Sorting the Out-of-District setup –  The district has been set up like this for more than 20 years – and DESE (the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) knew or should have known about it.  DESE also does regular audits of the school programs and until last year, never had any issues with the set up – but none of the prior set-up has a material impact on the $6.7m level-service budget the towns are now facing.
• A largely new central office staff – who in fairness, is learning their role but appear to have a significant issue in communicating effectively. We have spent many weeks talking through the Silver Lake budget and it was only Thursday night that it became clear that SPED costs are largely driving the increases.
“Overall,” Wilhelmsen continued, “it is disappointing to see these numbers, but if that is what they are, then we must work around them for the students, the staff, and the three towns’ residents who have to finance this. It will mean cuts in all the schools as well as increases in budgets. Hopefully this is a high point and that we will see decreases in subsequent years so that we can appropriately restore cuts. I just wish we had gotten to this understanding weeks ago.”
Former school committee member Gordon C. Andrews told The Express, “The biggest issue is 14 students at $980,000, were not factored into this year’s budget …” then an additional 30 students were added for the upcoming budget. “We should not be finding out now the causes of the budget increases, in the middle of March, that the budget is this far out.” An enormous increase has been shown since the first assessment calculation presented in February. “No one understood why the increases were so large and everyone believed it was a mistake in the reallocation of programs from the changes of the regional agreement.”
“Its been talked about – the sustainability of the town of Halifax to afford the rate of growth of Silver Lake has been an issue with the budget was growing ($1 million) year to year, with an assessment of approximately 33%.” Andrews said, “the administration and the town of Halifax should have known the impacts of the enrollment changes and the budgetary cliff that the town was facing even before the increases in special needs education. “I am worried about the students and staff at the elementary school as they will have to take the brunt of the cuts that are required due to the town not understanding the impacts of the enrollment shift at Silver Lake, which was able to be forecast and was previously planned.”
Kingston’s school committee representative said last Thursday they would consider moving their town meeting date to give their town more time to deal with the budget.
To add to the perfect storm of budgetary catastrophe is the lack of the state’s SPED reimbursement formula to accurately take into account the actual rate of inflation, according to the Boston Globe, Tuesday, March 12. According to the Globe, towns statewide are grappling with shortfalls due to the state’s new formula.

The Halifax Elementary School Committee met on Monday, March 4. Superintendent Jill Proulx presented the Version III FY’ 25 budget to the Committee. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) mandated that Silver Lake address what they saw as long -standing structural issues in the way the regional agreement was implemented and as a result the budgets for the three elementary schools and Silver Lake look different than years’ past. Some of the changes over the previous year were that Pre-K will now be a Silver Lake expense, Silver Lake positions in the elementary schools will now become school/town employees, and out-of-district special education tuitions for Pre-K and secondary will also be Silver Lake expenses. Shared-cost positions will now be paid according to percentages in the updated regional agreement. Proulx noted that multiple legal opinions were consulted and agreed on the new agreement.
Changes from the Version II to Version III budgets include removing Pre-K out-of- district tuitions at a savings of $215,990, special education transportation adjustment at a savings of $120,934, special education tuition adjustment of minus $609, and a 240 grant allocation at a savings of $37,205.
Version III of the budget represents a regular day increase of 15 percent or $937,694. Special education tuition and transportation for Grades K through 6 represent a decrease of $2,781,192. Laws said she was concerned about the 15 percent regular day increase even if the overall budget represented a decrease. Proulx also told the Committee that there was one known retirement for FY’ 25. For out of district vocational, Proulx said there would be five placements. She said that they won’t know the exact numbers until April 1.
Regarding what was not included in the updated budget, Proulx said that potential enrollment increases, especially for kindergarten were not updated. A reduction in technology expenditures of $40,571 was not yet reflected. The reduction will be courtesy of a REAP grant.
Proulx also shared with the Committee a draft of the assessments for each of the three towns. Halifax’s share of the assessment in FY’ 24 was $5,582,257 and the FY’ 25 share is $8,918,067. The decrease, however, for Halifax Elementary School in the town’s operating budget is nearly 20 percent. The overall cost to Halifax for education, including Silver Lake regional, is a 10 percent increase. The cost of education to Halifax in FY’24 was $14,858,409 and the cost for FY’ 25 will be $16,350,721.
Proposed costs added to the current version of the budget include a special education teacher at a cost of $65,000, a part-time ESL teacher at a cost of $32,000, and a building substitute at no additional cost. Capital needs for FY’ 25 include water testing and plumbing, student and staff bathroom updates, and bleacher replacements for the gym. The plan for the gym bleachers is to put them on a warrant article at Town Meeting at a cost of $45,000. Regarding a Hero Academy Program proposed by Principal Kayne Beaudry during the last School Committee meeting, Laws said, “I just feel like, at this point, we can’t do anything beyond a level-budget except for the building substitute that doesn’t cost anything. I don’t see how we can entertain anything beyond a level budget especially since we are looking at cuts right now. It’s sad, but it’s where we are.” Proulx pointed out that Kingston does need the ESL teacher and that Halifax may need to look at cutting $32,000 to make space for it. “That would be a civil rights violation if you didn’t fund it,” Proulx said. Assistant Superintendent Ryan Lynch said that contracting the services rather than filling the position could end up costing considerably more than $32,000.
The School Committee voted to ask the Board of Selectmen to push back the timeframe for Town Meeting due to unknowns as well as lingering questions surrounding the school’s budget. Laws pointed out that overall enrollment at both the elementary level as well as Silver Lake Regional are down. She asked what cuts to classrooms might look like. Proulx said, “I think that you would be better served by giving us a dollar amount that you want us to cut, by then asking us to deliberate here in open session.” The dollar amount that was suggested by Town Administrator Cody Haddad for both Halifax Elementary and Silver Lake Regional is $1 million. The Committee came to the consensus that they should attempt to cut their portion of Halifax’s enrollment in Silver Lake which is roughly 32 percent. Proulx said that they would set about cutting $320,000 with the cuts labeled by tiers.
Proulx said that a Plympton School Committee member asked that a new agreement with PAC (Pilgrim Area Collaborative) be presented to the Halifax School Committee. “I’m asking the School Committee to review it and ultimately each school committee would review it and then the Chair would sign it,” she explained. Chair Lauren Laws asked if there was a timeframe and was told it had to be signed by April 30. The Committee agreed to table it until their April 1 meeting.
The issue of whether to distribute natural gas safety materials flyers to students came before the Committee. While not directly an advertisement, the name Eversource does appear throughout the flyer. Included in the distribution would be packets that actually smell like natural gas so students can learn to identify the scent. A Committee member asked if, instead, the information could be disseminated during the Fire Department visit rather than as a flyer promoting a company. Laws voted against distributing the flyer, but the rest of the Committee voted in favor and it passed.
The Committee also discussed advertising on school grounds as a result of a 100 days sign that was put up which shared a QR code. I thought the sign was really nice; it was just the QR code that was questionable, Laws said. Laws asked Beaudry if he attempted to take it down and he said they tried to find out where it came from and called it a “mistake.” Laws said that it was the QR code specifically that violated policy.
An update was given for the DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) Subcommittee. Lori Costa-Cline said they were looking to bring on a DEIB coordinator and asked Assistant Superintendent Ryan Lynch if he could help them with that. Costa-Cline asked Lynch, “What is the process, so we have school policies and district policies so if a school/district policy is violated, how does that interact with the student handbook in terms of like policy violations… the understanding, I think, we both have is we have school policies which gives our school community rights, protections, while they’re in the space of the school… if a violation happens, is there corrective action?” Proulx said that it depends on what is found during the investigation. If bullying is found, then the procedure for that is followed, if harassment is found, then that procedure is followed, etc. Putting it succinctly she said that necessary protocols are followed depending on what could be substantiated.
Beaudry provided a Principal’s Report. He said that School Council met on February 28 with the main focus being handbook revisions. He said a draft proposal would be shared with the Committee during the April 1 meeting. “The water issue, we just sent a notice out today, we’ve been doing monthly updates… so this was the third round of testing that we’ve done and we did find that there were still elevated areas in the building.” He said that they have been flushing the system every day beginning at 5:30 a.m. due to the high lead levels. “That has shown that it does reduce the levels,” Beaudry said. He also said that they have been working on replacing fixtures where the levels continue to be high.
Curriculum Coordinator Melissa Farrell appeared before the Committee to address some concerns over handwriting. She handed out the Committee a printout that included some of the Massachusetts’ frameworks connected to handwriting. She said that the art of handwriting starts in kindergarten with hand strength and noted that they use occupational cards to work on that aspect. She said they spend a minimum of 20 minutes a day working on that type of development. She said they continue to work on letter formation, etc. in first grade, but by second grade there is no official handwriting instruction. “Part of that comes from the idea that just consistent letter formation, letters start from the top, letters start from the top,” Farrell said. Committee member Jessica Page acknowledged that she was the person who brought forth the concern saying that her two young school-aged children (Grades K and 2) are struggling with it and are not appearing to get the instruction outlined by Farrell. “I’m scared that we are cheating our children by moving them past these basic skills too fast,” she said. Beaudry acknowledged that they even see fourth, fifth, and sixth graders that aren’t able to use proper capitalization, etc. He said that himself and the Assistant Principal are aware and talking about what needs to be done in the lower grades to address these issues.

The Kingston Board of Selectmen met on Thursday, Feb. 15. Selectman Don Alcombright joined the meeting remotely.
The Board opened a public hearing for an incident involving a dog that had bitten multiple people. Town Counsel led the hearing asking the dog’s owner to approach the podium to testify. The owner began by telling the Selectmen that her memory has been deteriorating. The dog in question is named Tyson and is a 6-year-old Rottweiler. The owner said that a visiting nurse called her before a visit during which time, the nurse was told to call before coming to the house so that one of her dogs could be confined. The owner told the Selectmen that she has been rescuing Rottweilers for 30 years. The nurse called from the driveway and the owner said that she warned her not to come into the house. The owner said that the nurse proceeded to come into the house regardless during which time she was bit. The owner said she was a visiting nurse herself for 11 years saying, “I wouldn’t walk into someone’s house without them opening the door for me… I could not understand for the life of me what this girl was thinking.”
There was another incident outlined where Tyson bit another person after the owner’s grandson took the dog off its leash. The grandson testified to the incident before breaking down crying saying how sorry he was for what happened. The Selectmen opted to have a brief recess at that point.
The Animal Control Officers testified next. They began by addressing the first incident that took place in October at the owner’s home. They said that the dog was placed in a 10-day quarantine and said that the dog was released without incident following the first incident. She said she reviewed with the owner that the behavior of the dog was alarming and that actions would have to be taken to make sure the dog was put away prior to people coming over the house. The ACO noted that the second incident occurred in January in the Silver Lake Sanctuary. “Again, this was an unprovoked attack,” the ACO said. The dog was quarantined at the shelter this time, rather than at the owner’s home. “The entire time that the dog was there, the dog was agitated… staff could not go near the dog,” she explained. At the time of the release, the fines and fees had not been paid by the owner. At that time, the ACO requested a dangerous dog hearing before the Selectmen. The fines and fees were paid and the dog was released into the owner’s custody. “I just do not feel comfortable with this dog being in the town of Kingston.. this dog is going to bite again and next time it may be a child.,” the ACO said. The ACO outlined her personal experience saying she has been doing this for 16 years and despite trying to be lenient in these cases, the only recommendation for this dog would be to have it humanely euthanized.
Animal Inspector Debra Mueller spoke next. She told the Selectmen, “I just wanted to let you know, it’s 30 years for me. I, of course, have seen the dog a couple of times… we don’t always know what a dog is going to do and we can’t have a conversation with them, but this dog is going to bite again given the opportunity. The conditions in the house appear to me that they have no way to control this dog and the person that would be controlling this dog has to have the physical stature in order to do that.”
The victims were given the option to testify. The victim of the October incident, the visiting nurse, spoke saying that things were misrepresented in the owner’s testimony. The nurse said that she was never told that a dog was dangerous and also said that she was told to meet the owner in the house in a few minutes. She said she waited a few minutes and then went into the house. She said that she did knock but noted that the owner is hard of hearing. The nurse said that the owner came into the room following the biting and told her she had to get out of her house and that she was going to call the cops on her. “She was not nice,” the victim explained. She further said that she was on three weeks of antibiotics and had to have a CT scan due to the bite. “I still have pain from it,” she said.
The second victim from the January incident also testified. He said that he does typically see dogs off leash in the area but noted that typically they are friendly. He described the incident saying, “Now I’m in a position of do I kill this dog? I love dogs, I’ve had them my whole life I don’t want to do this.” He said that when the owner’s grandson called off the dog, however, the dog let go. He noted that the second dog was very calm. The victim said that he was upset that the owner’s grandson wouldn’t give him any personal information beyond his first name and a false phone number. “None of this talking that I was having with him gave me fuzzy feelings that he was telling the truth which is why I called the police,” he explained. The phone number that was given ended up being a phone number for the Duxbury Highway Department. The victim said that if the owner had been forthcoming with him, he wouldn’t have had to reach out to Animal Control. “I’m a pretty tough guy, if that had been a kid, and again, I don’t want to see a dog put down… it’s all about personal responsibility, people have to be responsible for their dogs,” he said. Crone asked about all the dogs the victim sees unleashed and Selectmen Chair Kimberley Emberg noted that according to the bylaws, no dog is allowed off leash in any of the public areas.
The Counsel reviewed the difference between a nuisance dog and a dangerous dog. A dog can be deemed a nuisance dog through excessive barking or posing a threat to livestock, etc. but reasonably justified in their behavior. A dangerous dog is one that attacks without justification causing physical injury or death or behaves in a manner that poses an unjustified imminent threat. The Selectmen agreed that the dog should be deemed a dangerous dog. As a result of finding the dog a dangerous dog, they then needed to select from several possible actions to take. The less severe of which involved keeping the dog confined within the owner’s premises or muzzled when off those premises as well as obtaining liability insurance. The final and most severe of the options presented was the dog be humanely euthanized. The Board voted unanimously in favor of the euthanasia by the end of the day on February 23. Proof of the euthanasia would be required. Selectman Sheila Vaughn said that she is a dog owner and has had Rottweilers as well. She said how sorry she was for all parties involved.
The Selectmen also dealt with the continuation of a separate dog issue from November. Emberg said that at their November 21 meeting they also held a dangerous dog hearing where they voted a dog a nuisance dog. The Board provided 6 conditions that the owner had to comply with within 60 days. The owner sent notification that they are incompliance with the first two conditions but were unable to come into compliance with numbers 3 through 6. The ACO has given the owner a 30-day extension to come into compliance. Emberg said it would be up to the Selectmen whether to grant an extension for getting the necessary insurance as the ACO doesn’t have jurisdiction over that one condition. The owner spoke during the meeting saying that he doesn’t feel he can afford all that is required of him and has concluded that he will need to rehome the dog outside of Kingston. He noted that it was a difficult decision for his family. An attorney for the town said that the order will follow the dog wherever it goes, but that it would be up to the new community to enforce it. The owner was there to find out what disclosures would be appropriate to make to a potential new owner. The Selectmen had the option to file a case in District Court against the owner were he not to obtain the liability insurance. Selectman Eric Crone said he was hesitant to file a case and, instead, would like to authorize extending the compliance deadline in the meanwhile. Hickey recommended putting it on a later Selectmen’s meeting agenda. The Selectmen voted to extend the insurance compliance deadline to March 2.
Emberg said that since Police Chief Maurice Splaine’s contract was coming to an end and they weren’t yet able to appoint a new Chief, they would need to vote on an interim Chief. The Board voted unanimously to appoint Thomas Kelley per Splaine’s recommendation. Emberg thanked Splaine for his years of service to the town which was met with a standing ovation. The new permanent Police Chief is set to start in April.
The Selectmen reviewed the budget which Emberg called “a level services budget.” Emberg said that her only request was that the Selectmen’s column in the budget reflect all the Town Administrator’s recommendations to show that they were aligned. Town Administrator Keith Hickey did have a few proposed reductions including to the employee benefit tuition reimbursement program. He suggested reducing the budgeted amount from $10,000 to $4,000. He also suggested eliminating the brush chipping on Saturdays from the Streets, Trees, and Parks line. The new general fund budget is $55,442,097. Hickey said that the non-school expenditures represent an increase of about 4.5 percent over last year. The Selectmen voted to recommend the general, water, and sewer budgets. Emberg noted that this is just their recommendation, and it is subject to change before appearing on the Town Meeting warrant.
Hickey provided Selectmen with some Town Administrator updates. He told the Selectmen they had three submissions to the request for proposal for legal firms. He said that the Board should hold a special meeting to interview one or more of those firms. He also said that the boat ramp project is set to begin March 1 and run through the end of May. He said the second part of the project will focus on parking. The IT manager for the town will be retiring in July necessitating a search for a new one. Hickey also said that the four new firefighters approved at Town Meeting have been hired. According to Hickey, a Mass Wildlife Habitat Management grant of over $23,000 has been awarded to Kingston to treat invasive aquatic species. The Fire Department was also awarded a $19,000 grant to replace some aging equipment.
“In our last public meeting we discussed creating regulations for a potential new industry within our harbor – sugar kelp farming. The Harbormaster and Shellfish Constable created some draft regulations for our consideration,” Emberg told the other Selectmen. She noted that it was available on their website for the public. The Selectmen voted to approve the regulations with a few amendments.
The Board also approved the beach sticker fees as presented that evening. The Recreation Commission recommended keeping them the same as the previous year though Emberg said that in the future she would like to see the fees increased. The sale of the beach stickers will begin April 1. Shellfish licenses are available starting Friday, March 1.
Emberg said that the Kingston School Committee voted to send a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Association (MSBA) to seek funding to replace the elementary school roof as well as doors and windows. The Selectmen voted unanimously to support the School Committee’s action. Selectman Sheila Vaughn noted that the roof was 27 years old and past its life expectancy. The doors and windows in question are 24 years old.
Emberg said that the continuation of the earth removal public hearing for PK Realty Trust was being moved to March 12 at 6:15. She also told those assembled that after 26 years PACTV had changed their name to the Local Scene beginning in March.
Nomination papers are available in the Town Clerk’s office and are due back by 11:30 am on March 29. The last day to register for the local town election is May 8 and the election is Saturday, May 18. Vacancies on various Boards and Committees include two openings on the Conservation Commission. There is also an opening on the 300th Committee due to a resignation.

Plympton Police Chief Matthew Ahl addressed Plympton selectmen at their in-person meeting Feb. 12 regarding a new regional clinician role.
“We’ve been working for about a year or so trying to get the clinician program off the ground, and I give a lot of credit to the Carver Police Department – they’re the holder of this grant and we’re the beneficiary,” Ahl said. He also told the Selectmen that the grant encompasses Plympton, Carver, Halifax, and Hanson. “So essentially the program is we have a clinician that’s allocated to all four of these departments that rotates through… she’s really there to help mitigate all the things that we see in the streets now… it’s a big push… so with that being said, her ability to go out there and diffuse the situation, speak with parties that are involved whether it be a domestic incident, temporary psychosis, if she has to issue a Section 12… so she’s kind of there on the threshold on the forefront to take that onus off of us as a Police Department and be the health proxy to kind of guide us in our decision and make sure that we’re doing the right thing,” Ahl explained. He told the Selectmen that while they are only about two months into the program, it has been “impactful.” The current contract is for three years, though Ahl said he envisions it being a long-term program. Selectman John Traynor asked if she was also involved with the Fire Department. Ahl said that while she was not, she has been willing to jump in and help in situations involving other departments.
Traynor said, “I think sometimes we think of us as such a small community that we don’t have some of the services that the larger towns offer but that’s not true. These regional associations like you have here, we have the opportunity to reach out and really bring top people in to help out.” Ahl agreed referring to the comfort dog program as another example of community collaboration.
“Sounds really good to me; I like the fact that it’s both proactive but it’s also there situational in the event that you needed somebody,” Joy said. She also asked if something came up in Plympton while the clinician was working in a neighboring town, would it be possible to get her to respond to the incident. Ahl said, “we have an agreement… if there’s something that’s pressing with our community and say that she’s over in Hanson for the day, then we’re going to collaborate and figure out a means to get her from Hanson.”
The Selectmen reviewed a proposed MassDOT Letter to property owners regarding the Winnetuxet Bridge Project. Town Administrator Liz Dennehy told the Selectmen that the letter was drafted by Attorney Jonathan Eichman. Dennehy said, “It’s a required part of the process because we are getting federal aid for the replacement of the bridge. It’s not going to make any notable changes to the property… basically there are two existing utility poles, and the state just needs to – it’s essentially a permanent easement, but because it’s permanent, they just need to take the land by law so that they can access the two poles. The property in question is 1 Pope’s Farm. The Selectmen voted to approve sending the letter.
For Town Administrator’s updates, Dennehy said that they have been busy with the budget process. She also noted that they had quite a few items in correspondence. She said that the Town Clerk was looking for a vote to acknowledge receipt of local election and presidential primary election information as well as the officer positions that will be open on the ballot on May 18. Also included in the vote was acknowledgement and approval of police details for the presidential primary on March 5, the local election on May 18, the state primary election on September 3, and the state presidential election on November 5. The Selectmen voted to approve.
The Selectmen also voted to approve the sale of the Class III and Scrap licenses from Alby’s Salvage to Angels Auto Inc. Alby’s is retaining their Class II license.
Selectman Mark Russo led off the raves talking about the implementation of a community clinician. “I have a feeling this is going to be a cool thing in terms of support at the time of a problem and thwarting more substantial problems later on to the degree that it’s sort of preventative medicine which of course is the best medicine,” Russo said. Joy said her rave was for an article in the Express recognizing three Dennett Elementary boys who put their fire dept. training to use in a fire emergency at home. Plympton’s Fire Dept. honored them as Young Heroes. “What a great story and a fantastic outcome,” Joy said. Selectman John Traynor said he supported Russo’s rave for the new clinician program.

The Halifax School Committee met on Monday, Feb. 5. Chair Lauren Laws called the public budget hearing to order, but no one wished to speak.
Superintendent Jill Proulx gave a presentation on Version 2 of the budget. “You may recall in the last meeting, the School Committee wanted to know what impact it would have if, in fact, we worked into this budget a number of positions that were recommended or requested but that hadn’t been included in the level-services budget,” she told the Committee. She went over some changes from the previous year including that Pre-K is now a Silver Lake expense. Silver Lake special education positions in the elementary schools will now need to become school and town positions. Special education revolving accounts will no longer be necessary. Shared-costs positions will now be paid according to regional agreement percentages.
Increases to the Halifax budget include five paraprofessionals and five full-time speech language pathologists. The shared cost contracts represent nearly a 4 percent increase at $12,789. Decreases to the budget include grant funding covering out-of-district tuitions. Major changes to the Version 2 budget include custodial overtime at an additional $10k, fuel surcharge around a $5k savings, principal requests from the January meeting at plus $112k, and the circuit breaker estimate at a savings of approximately $605k. The regular day budget represents a 16 percent increase of $402,600. The special education and transportation budget represents an 86 percent decrease of $2,381,453. Substitutes and utilities represent a 16 percent decrease of $1,473,784. Most of the increases represent staffing and payroll.
The proposed increases to the Version 2 budget included a part time ESL teacher at a cost of $32,000. “This position would allow for our students to receive the appropriate amount of services as recommended by DESE,”(Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) Proulx said. Also requested was the addition of a building substitute. Another proposal was for Hero Academy which would serve approximately 60 students over the summer and would cost $10k to $15k. It would target at-risk students who are partially meeting expectations as identified by STAR and MCAS testing. Regarding Hero Academy, Beaudry said they are proposing mixed classrooms of two grades each (Grades 1 and 2, Grades 3 and 4, and Grades 5 and 6). Staffing would include three classroom teachers at $4,500, three support staff at $3,600, one site coordinator at $1,800, one nurse at $1,500, and 1 office secretary at $1,200. The program would run for two weeks in August from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and would focus on mathematics and ELA. Committee members asked if staffing would be an issue, but Beaudry felt strongly that it would not. The teachers in attendance at the meeting confirmed that they would be willing to work it. The Committee questioned if the program would need both a site coordinator and a secretary. They also questioned whether support staff was necessary for the pilot year.
Capital needs and accomplishments were also presented. For FY24 these included water testing and plumbing, student and staff bathroom updates, kindergarten playground and mulch, and asphalt completion. For FY25, the bathroom updates would continue as would the water testing and plumbing. Additionally, the gym bleachers need to be replaced at a cost of approximately $45k.
The Committee reviewed their goals which included “continuous improvement in academic success of students that is measurable, data driven, and supports teachers’ abilities to educate.” Laws also said that they would be looking to improve the number of students receiving proficient MCAS scores as well as seeking opportunities to close achievement gaps. Also included was the desire to communicate and work with all stakeholders. There was some discussion about editing the goal pertaining to MCAS. The Committee agreed to change the language to “improve standardized testing performance.”
Youth and Recreation provided an update. Basketball, both recreational and travel, has been going on seven full days a week, all evening during the weekdays and all day long on Saturdays and Sundays. Adult co-ed volleyball is also taking place on Sundays and the public is welcome to attend. Three after school programs are going strong including art, sports, and STEM. The Director of the Halifax Youth and Recreation Department Richard Steele said he wanted to give a big shout out to all the teachers who are supporting the various activities. Steele was also seeking approval to put pickleball court lines in the gym as well as adding new bleachers into the capital plan. The bleachers are currently 30 years old and in rough shape. Steele wishes to start dances back up in March with the intention to split fifth and sixth grade due to chaperone needs and behaviors.
The PTO update included that teachers had donated four baskets for the Mingle and Jingle. Square One art is coming back as a fundraiser.
Kayne Beaudry provided the principal’s report. He said that Student Council met on Jan. 31. He said that the focus of those meetings is to scale back the handbook with the updated one being ready for review in April. He called it a “big overhaul.” Regarding the water issue, Beaudry said they received the results and were meeting that week with the company that handled the testing, the Town Administrator, Proulx, Assistant Superintendent Ryan Lynch, and the Facilities Director. “Hopefully then we’ll have a better plan… what next steps are,” he told the Committee.
Lynch told the Committee he had two updates. The first of which was regarding the vote the Committee took on whether to allow the administration of the VOCAL survey after the MCAS testing. Lynch said that when presented to the other school committees in Silver Lake there was a request that the survey comply with the district’s policy regarding opting out of surveys. Lynch said that they would ensure that the survey was not administered to those students. He said even if the parents had not opted out of the survey, the students would still have the autonomy to choose not to answer questions.
Lynch said that he, Proulx, Beaudry, and Assistant Principal Brian DeSantes met with the Halifax Elementary School Data team on Jan. 5. “We saw the Grade 3 teachers, worked with interventionists and special educators to analyze the STAR and DIBELS data that was taken just before in late December.” He said they are impressed with the teachers’ efforts to analyze the data and work to improve performance.

Starting off the Silver Lake Regional High School School Committee’s January meeting Superintendent Jill Proulx presented senior Alexander Risio with the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents’ Certificate of Academic Excellence. Proulx said of Alex, “He is in the top 5 percent of the class of 2024. Alexander is currently our National Honor Society President, a member of our cross country and track teams, he participates in jazz band and robotics club.
He has worked with Habitat for Humanity since ninth grade, and he cites this as his greatest accomplishment in high school. In April of 2022 he helped renovate a home for a teenager with Stevens Johnson Syndrome… every Saturday Alexander would work on some aspect of the house for the entire day… through this work he was able to gain new experiences in construction.
Alexander believes the most fulfilling aspect of this experience was seeing how the community came together to help another person in need. This is not the first time Alexander has turned a challenge into an opportunity, during the isolation of Covid, Alexander was able to find new hobbies that he believes he would not have discovered otherwise. For example, his passion for 3D modeling and animation… this interest proved so large that he began entering his art into international competitions… Alex intends to major in electrical engineering and computer science when he attends college.”
Proulx introduced the new Preschool Principal Valerie Carlson who told the Committee of a need for a part-time speech language practitioner. “We have found ourselves at the preschool at a place where we have full caseloads; our two speech language pathologists have completely full caseloads and we want to make sure that the children who require services… are receiving those services and we would like to avoid interruption of those services,” Carlson said. She said that they currently have 12 students who they have had to send letters of interruption to due to the staff shortage. She said they were looking for someone to come in one day a week to work with those students which equals an $8,000 increase to the budget at maximum. The School Committee voted to allow them to hire the necessary speech pathologist.
Silver Lake Regional High School Principal Michaela Gill introduced student Connor Doyle who provided a report to the Committee. Doyle highlighted some acts of service by students including the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams visiting Kingston Elementary to read stories to students and help teachers. He also said that the Key Club sponsored a senior Santa gift drive for the homeless. Culinary students baked cookies for Kingston’s Luminary Holiday. Doyle also told the Committee that Silver Lake was nationally recognized as a banner high school for the Special Olympics. “This honor is not just for our Best Buddies unified sports programs; the criteria needed to meet those deserving of this national award requires full school dedication to an inclusive environment,” Doyle said. Committee member Jason Fraser said that he was “extremely proud” of the high school receiving the Special Olympics acknowledgement. Fraser also told Doyle that they are entering into the budget cycle and asked if he would garner feedback from his peers regarding where they would like to see the towns’ dollars and cents spent.
Gill told the Committee that they had three new course proposals including one for the Wellness Department called Unified Wellness. “It would provide an opportunity for students of varying abilities and levels to come together to experience fitness, leadership, sports, and wellness activities. Another new course would be French 3 Honors. The third course would be an AP Seminar course. ELA Coordinator Ashley Ferrara told the Committee that they have AP Language and AP Literature in the curriculum for Grades 11 and 12. “AP Seminar is… only 10 years old… it used to be a course where you could put it in any department, but they’ve since been billing it as an English class… and they’re trying to encourage people to use as the tenth grade curriculum,” Ferrara said. She also said that it wouldn’t require any additional staffing or funding. Gill said that ideally, they are looking at it to be a sophomore class.
Assistant Superintenent Ryan Lynch explained to the Committee a VOCAL survey that is offered at the end of the MCAS. He said it is a 20-minute survey that asks questions regarding environment, whether students feel supported, and if they have dealt with bullying. He said that the State then compiles the data. Lynch said that more than three-quarters of districts throughout the State participate. Fraser said, “I think it would be difficult for us to live up to the letter of our policy, the way that the MCAS puts that out there.” He said that the onus would be on the students, who are minors, to recognize whether or not their parents had opted out of survey taking. Fraser said that professionally he disagreed with not having students take the survey but felt that it violated policy. While not unanimous, the Committee did vote not to allow the survey.
Proulx provided an update beginning with a preliminary budget presentation. She said that the presentation would be based on a level-services budget and that anything beyond that would be presented at the end. Proulx began with some changes to the FY25 budget, including that in the past, out of district tuitions were charged to the elementary budgets and that there were previously Silver Lake special education elementary programs. The new budget includes Pre-K as a Silver Lake expense. Additionally, Silver Lake positions in elementary schools will become school/town employees. Out-of-district special education tuitions for Pre-K and secondary students must be Silver Lake expenses per the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Shared cost positions will be paid according to the regional agreement percentages.
Increases to the budget include $2,579,610 for Pre-K staffing and related costs, Pre-K transportation at $573,166 and out-of-district Pre-K and Grades 7-12 and beyond tuition and transportation at $6,738,777. There is an overall shared costs increase of $154,433 or 7.15 percent. The substitutes line at the middle school will increase by $42k while it will increase by $11k at the high school. Decreases include $377,814 for out-of -district tuitions that will be paid through grant funding. A 262 grant in the amount of $27,000 will be used to offset Pre-K costs. Proulx also noted that they are waiting on DESE to confirm that Circuit Breaker funds can be applied for special education out-of-district tuitions at approximately $900,000 or more.
The total budget represents an increase of 37.3 percent and $11,039,991 more than the previous year. Payroll and benefits account for more than 69.2 percent of the $40,639,990 budget. Individual Principals and department heads went over their specific increases including teaching supplies, transportation, and athletics.
Gill told the Committee that they are looking to hire a full-time ELL (English language learner) teacher as those needs are increasing but said that the $65k cost was not currently in the budget. Fraser said, “we are in the unfortunate situation where we have enough that it’s becoming difficult to handle it locally but not enough to get that support from the State or the feds.”
Costs above what was provided in the budget include one full-time ESL teacher at the high school at $65k and one part-time adjustment counselor at $33k at the middle school. Special education shared cost increases include $10k for the Assistant Director salary line and $105k for an IEP Meeting Supervisor.
A few Committee members, including Chair Paula Hatch, said that the changes to the budget made it difficult for them to ascertain what increases were reasonable versus those that were not. “I think to help me as a committee member is to help me to understand the number mapping more so I can get to the 40 or 41 million…. We need to see what piece of that is legacy Silver Lake… if we hadn’t made changes to the preschool being absorbed into Silver Lake, what would Silver Lake’s budget be in this preliminary document… and then layer onto that the changes to the preschool.” “This was a wonderful overview for the people sitting here and the people watching, it’s just getting us more clarity to the numbers – pre-amended agreement, post-amended agreement,” Hatch added. Proulx clarified that not all the changes are due to the Pre-K agreement saying that others were DESE requirements outside the Pre-K process.
A representative from the Silver Lake Education Association addressed the Committee saying that a silver lining of Covid has been that they were able to do a lot of project-based assessments. He said that he was sitting in on one capstone class where students are working on a better, safer child car seat. He said they were pitching their design implementations to a childcare teacher in the district. He also said that he is happy to see the special attention paid to English language learner students noting that he has 9 of those students in his Intro to Physics course this year.
Fraser provided the Legislative Agent’s update. “I started hearing chatter about 9C cuts right before the December revenue numbers came through; we have not hit revenues a single month this fiscal year at the State level, the projected shortfall is going to be about $1 billion in a $42 billion budget for FY23. Governor Healy did announce some 9C cuts, education was not directly affected,” Fraser explained. “It’s not going to be a year where we see a $750,000 increase in State aid, so we need to be very cautious and careful with any dollars we spend because they are definitely going to come out of the local resources.”
A representative for PAC spoke saying, “There was a cumulative surplus in the budget for PAC of $1.9 million; Silver Lake is not listed among member districts – it’s done town by town, but Halifax is getting $9,000 back roughly, Kingston almost $15,000, and Plympton almost $3,000.”