School Committee announces FY19 district budget

Feb. 15, 2018 | Payton North
payton@thereminder.com

Superintendent Martin O'Shea.
Reminder Publications submitted photo.

LONGMEADOW –  The Longmeadow School Committee recently hosted a public forum where Superintendent Martin O’Shea shared a presentation with those in attendance regarding the School District’s budget for fiscal year 2019, school year 2018-2019.

A few goals that O’Shea noted the district had for the upcoming school year include building the district’s commitment to educational excellence, to develop and allocate a budget that is aligned with School Committee and District improvement goals, to maintain optimal class sizes, to meet contractual obligations and to be responsive to changing enrollment patterns.

“As this first slide suggests, hopefully it’s an indication that we bring this to you as a team, and it’s reflective of a lot of planning and it’s reflective of a lot of administrative dialogue. It’s reflective of our commitment to some specific goals. Certainly the budget is an important way that we commit to the tradition of educational excellence here in Longmeadow,” O’Shea said.

To start off the presentation, he offered a comparison of statistics of Longmeadow school’s to Massachusetts and the United States as a whole.  According to information provided by O’Shea, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations in grades three through eight for ELA, or English Language Arts, is 49 percent, while Longmeadow is at a much higher rate of 70 percent.  In regard to Advanced Placement, or AP exams, any score that is graded as a three or higher is considered passing.  O’Shea reported that in 2017 Advanced Placement exam performance percentages, students scoring a three or higher in the United States as a whole was roughly 57.5 percent, Massachusetts was at 65.7 percent, while Longmeadow High School students were ranked at 88.5 percent passing.  The last statistic offered included the percentage of students who meet or exceed expectations in grades three through eight for math.  In Massachusetts, 48 percent of students meet or exceed expectations in mathematics, whereas in Longmeadow 69 percent meet or exceed.

As O’Shea began to offer the budget, he noted that “special revenue,” which is generally considered federal and state grants or other accounts, is predicted to decrease as a revenue source for the next year.  The charts presented show that there would be a $254,555 increase over Fiscal Year 2018, which he described as a “fairly modest increase of the overall budget.”

On a slide titled “revenue assumptions” O’Shea shared that there would be a $674,257 increase from “town general fund” in fiscal year 2019.  He shared numbers from previous years, including 2018’s $516,349, 2017’s $1,057,999 and 2016’s $718,768, commenting that this year’s dollar amount  “stands in the middle of the past few years trends.”

At around minute eight in the School Committee meeting video which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHknePOZDVA, O’Shea lists what he describes as “necessary reductions” to the budget that he believes the district can make that won’t affect the student experience, including cutting back on out-of-district tuitions.  He also shares “necessary additions” including contractual obligations, additional special education teachers at the elementary level and strengthening high school athletic programming.

“We are proposing a budget that we believe will strengthen our capacity to educate children in their neighborhood schools, this will be a budget that would allow us to better services here in our district students with autism spectrum disorders.  We think that with the investments that we would make in special education services we’d be able to reduce high case loads that we’ll be in a position to ensure that special education teachers are more specialized at particular grade levels,” O’Shea explained. “We think that this investment is a critical component as apart of our effort to be more inclusive, to address the needs of the whole child and that’s something that has been important to us collaboratively here.”

Toward the close of his presentation O’Shea shared enrollment numbers at each grade level for the district. The High School’s 10th grade is the largest in the district, with 260 students.  Grades four through 12 all hover in the 200 to 250-student range.  The elementary level, however, ranges in the mid to upper 100’s.  Presently, preschool enrollment is at a low of 72, and kindergarten enrollment at 173.

After some discussion from the School Committee, the committee moved to approve the three-year district improvement plan and it passed without opposition.

To watch the School Committee meeting, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHknePOZDVA.

Share this: