NORTHFIELD — Pioneer Valley Regional School Committee approved a financial plan this week for the 2019-2020 school year, complete with costs to individual member towns.
That plan comes with a disclaimer that it could continue to change — maybe until as late as mid-April — although any changes will most likely result in decreases to the towns’ costs, Pioneer Budget Subcommittee Chair Mike Townsley said.
The changes would come from closing either Warwick Community School or Leyden’s Pearl Rhodes Community School or both. Decisions on the closures are expected from the School Committee later this month. Closing either one could free up around $180,000 or $200,000 in the district’s budget, Pioneer Business Manager Tanya Gaylord estimated, but might also require restoring jobs that otherwise would have been cut.
For now, Pioneer is proposing a budget of $14,272,210 — a 1.65-percent increase over this year’s $14,223,865. Administrators and School Committee members have emphasized that, under this plan, the district would be making no cuts to academics, sports or arts.
There are cuts though. The most talked-about ones at recent School Committee meetings have been Dean of Students Cathy Hawkins-Harrison, whose job is beingeliminated, and multiple instructional assistant jobs throughout the district.
If the School Committee ultimately votes against any school closures, the budget stays as-is. But with a closure, Budget Subcommittee Chair Townsley expects that the increase from this year’s budget could go as low as 1 percent, compared to the currently proposed 1.65-percent increase.
A closure would also open the possibility of restoring some of the cut positions. However, Townsley said that restoring the instructional assistants is unlikely. The current cuts were based on conversations between Superintendent Jon Scagel and the school principals about what the district is legally required to provide.
At School Committee meetings, some attendees have protested the cuts to the instructional assistants, characterizing them as reductions to the schools. But Committee Chair Sue O’Reilly-McRae said that classrooms must be considered on a case-by-case basis, and that more adults in the room is not always better.
District-wide, Pioneer has a staff-to-student ratio of about 5:1, which Townsley called “excessive.”
The prospect of restoring the dean of students position was seen more favorably by the committee. Since the cut was worked into the budget, Pioneer Principal Jean Bacon has announced that she will be leaving her job at the end of June. And without Dean of Students Cathy Hawkins-Harrison, that would leave Pioneer with none of the same administrators in the middle-high school next year.
“That would be a continuity in the building that I think would be helpfull,” O’Reilly-McRae said.
Reach Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext 261.