MONSON — The School Committee met on March 15 to go over a number of topics.

Upcoming Events

Several events are being held including the fundraiser for Special Olympics, which will take place at Main Street Tavern on March 23 at 5 p.m. The 5K Color Run will start and end at Granite Valley on April 1, from 10 a.m. to noon. The Cradles to Crayons Clothing Drive, a part of Project 351, now has donation boxes at Granite Valley and the high school. Preschool screenings will be held April 11 through 13 and kindergarten screenings will be held on April 26 and 27.

Recognition

The Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award was recently given to Amanda Nobbs. This award was chosen by her peers and Superintendent Cheryl Clarke commended it as a great honor to receive and congratulated Nobbs on her accomplishment. Three students from the district who competed in the Reflections will be moving on to the national level. One student placed first place in the photography category at the middle school level, and one high school and one middle school student took first place in visual arts at their grade level.

Students tutoring students program

Caitlin Walker, high school English teacher, created a reading and writing center for “kids tutoring kids” in reading and writing at the high school. Six students stayed after school for training in how to tutor other students and now stay after school to tutor their peers. Positive feedback from students who are being tutored was mentioned, and the committee commended the program for it’s burgeoning success.

Superintendent’s update

Clarke gave the superintendent’s update with several things to report. Clarke said the school resource officer started this week and welcomed them to the district. The Drug Free Communities grant is seeing a collaborative effort between the Quaboag Hills Substance Use Alliance and the district, and Clarke said the district will be administering youth health survey for grades 7-12 soon. This is an anonymous survey generated by the alliance, and the information gathered will be used to compare previous survey results to see where needs are when assessing the grant.

Clarke said that there are now Narcan boxes next to the defibrillators in each school in the district, and Narcan training will be offered soon. The district is coordinating with the Board of Health for all staff to become trained in the use of Narcan, and community members welcome to attend the trainings as well.
The administrative retreat will take place at the high school this year and will address, among other topics, the budget and ESSER funding as well as looking at planning professional development for the year long calendar.

Changes to flag and banner policy

The flag and banner policy was discussed and revisions were made. The committee came to the conclusion it would be best to revise the policy to have all requests brought to the subcommittee first, at which point they will determine if the request meets criteria. If it is determined that all criteria have been met, the subcommittee will then forward requests to the full committee, within five business days, and from there requests will go to a full vote with the whole committee.

Out of state field trip

A request was made by high school English teacher Caitlin Walker to plan a student and staff trip to Walt Disney World in Florida. Walker said that Disney has “reimagined their education programs, and kids can gain experience from a trip to the Disney Imagination Campus, which is only offered to school groups.” Walker said that the Disney program offered workshops in every field from Arts and Humanities through STEM, and that the experiential education would be invaluable for students.

Walker had already started a program at the high school this year called Disney Learning Through Experience, and would like to take students to Disney to build on what they have been learning in the program. Walker proposed the trip for the end of January 2024, and said she hoped it would become an annual trip. Walker proposed the trip length be six days and estimated the cost to be $1,500 per student. The committee approved Walker to begin planning this.

Backpack program

Granite Valley Principal Joseph Trivisonno updated the committee on the Backpack program he is running at Granite Valley. This program is intended to provide additional support to families in need and provides select families with a backpack full of non-perishable food for the weekend on Friday. Trivisonno said he had successfully executed the program with a middle school age group and was testing out how it would work with a kindergarten through grade eight age group.

Trivisonno said the program is only serving five families to start, and has been going on since the middle of February. He said the plan is to see how it goes and look toward possible expansion in the fall. The program, since it is for younger kids, is set up for families to grab and go or if they cannot get to the school, the backpack will be delivered to them, in order to reduce the stigma of younger children feeling different than their peers because they had to bring two backpacks home each weekend. There is a pantry set up at Quarry Hill where people can donate to the program.

Transportation Budget

The committee was presented with the fiscal year 2024 transportation budget, which was reviewed and discussed. A 0.57 percent increase was requested for the operating budget, which Clarke said was much lower than some other local schools.