WILBRAHAM – The Hampden–Wilbraham Regional School Committee met to discuss Minnechaug’s ranking among other school districts and hammer out a rate of acceptance for of out-of-district, known as school-choice, students.

The Committee discussed the district support structure, specifically, the number of administrators and their roles.

“We need a measurement of how we know these administrators are positively impacting our students,” said Committee member  Heather Zanetti. She also suggested the possibility of cutting certain administrator positions, such as, a math coach or a director of curriculum. Superintendent Albert G. Ganem disagreed.

“As Superintendent, I believe I have the appropriate amount of staffing. Our job is to support our teachers,” Ganem said.

Committee Chair Patrick Kiernan reminded everyone that it is not within the purview of the committee to decide which administrative positions they want.

“I applaud your passion,” Committee member William Bontempi told Zanetti, but he felt it was misdirected, saying that lawmakers should be lobbied to increase funds. He called the district, “chronically underfunded.”

“A disproportionate number of communities with high tax rates are west of [Interstate] 495,” Bontempi said, while only nine school districts in Massachusetts’s top 100 districts are located there. Bontempi was citing a U.S. News and World Report released on May 2 that ranked the state’s high schools during the 2016-2017 academic year. In actuality, there are 18 districts in the top 100 that lie outside I-495, although only five of them are located in the Pioneer Valley and the Berkshires. Minnechaug ranked 209. Nearby Longmeadow High School ranked 51. All rankings can be viewed at www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/massachusetts/rankings.

Bontempi called it “shocking” that Minnechaug was in the bottom 50 percent of schools in the state. He said he moved to the area in 2007 for the schools. He said the study should be a wake-up call.

“We can do better. We should do better. It’s time for change,” Bontempi said.

Ganem, who took over as superintendent in 2016, talked about the changes he has made and the implementation of new programs, such as the benchmark assessment and smaller class sizes at the elementary level, instructional coaches, more professional learning for the teachers, and an increased graduation rate, from 94.3 percent in 2016 to 96.6 percent this year.

“We all want good teachers, high performing kids, high performing schools,” said Ganem. He said that he is actively looking at what needs to be done. “We’re a good school district, we can be great.”

Ganem had made a recommendation of accepting eight school-choice students into Green Meadows Elementary School’s first grade in the 2019-2020 academic year. Last year, the district accepted four school-choice students.

Committee member Rita Vail made a motion to reduce that number to three students. Her reasoning was that, traditionally, there was a recommendation by Minnechaug Principal Steve Hale to keep school-choice students at no more than 10 percent of an incoming ninth-grade class. There are 35 students entering first grade at Green Meadows, therefore Vail proposed three students to keep in line with the 10 percent precedent.

Committee member Sean Kennedy pointed out that there are over 180 rising first-grade students across the entire district, which would put the 10 percent mark at 18 students. Zanetti said that there is a risk of enlarged class sizes if more kids move into the district and that it would be wiser to be more conservative with the additional school-choice students.

“There are a lot of houses for sale in Hampden,” Zanetti said, referring to the possibility of these homes being purchased by families with children who would enter the school district. Kennedy disagreed with the premise of Zanetti’s argument, saying that the decision should not be made based on a hypothetical situation.

Committee member Sherrill Caruana said that the decision should be made on the basis of student-to-teacher ratio, rather than the 10 percent level.

Kennedy suggested adding five school-choice students to the current 35 rising first-graders would give each teacher to have 20 students in their class, allowing each class to accept two additional students while keeping to an acceptable student-teacher ratio. The Committee voted to accept this plan.

Mike Roy, the athletic director, addressed the School Committee to update them on the concussion policy.

Roy spoke about the neurocognitive assessments that are used to determine whether an athlete can return to play after an injury. Roy said no one plays, or even practices, without taking one for a baseline.

After an athlete has a head injury, the assessment is retaken before the student is allowed to play again, to make sure there is no lasting injury  Head injuries are tracked through a school nurse software program called SNAP.

Roy said that he originally thought kids would lie and say they were fine so they could keep playing, but he said students are beginning to understand that seriousness of concussions.

“I think that whole mindset is shifting,” said Roy.