GREENFIELD — The Long-term Facilities Use Advisory Committee has not even begun its work of reviewing the conditions and future needs of Greenfield’s public school buildings, and School Committee members are already considering disbanding it.
School Committee member Melodie Goodwin shared at Wednesday night’s meeting that during a recent meeting of the Community Engagement Subcommittee, members discussed whether the School Committee has too many subcommittees and too many meetings, and whether the work of some committees, such as the Long-term Facilities Use Advisory Committee, should be discussed in full committee meetings instead.
“As a School Committee, we seem to have a lot of subcommittees, and we have a lot of meetings and we’re questioning whether community engagement should be a part of every committee, and why [the Community Engagement Subcommittee] wasn’t charged with having the conversations about redesigning our schools,” Goodwin said. “It feels like we’re not dealing with the issues, which we should be.”
The Long-term Facilities Use Advisory Committee was created by the School Committee at its April meeting, and passed with five members voting in favor, Goodwin abstaining and Mayor Ginny Desorgher absent. Since then, the School Committee designees to the advisory committee — Stacey Sexton, Elizabeth DeNeeve and Melissa McKenzie Webb — have been working to recruit teachers, parents and community members to join the advisory committee.
On Wednesday, Webb shared that the advisory committee has made an outline of what it wishes to accomplish from September through next May, when it hopes to submit a final report outlining the existing conditions of the school buildings and needs for the future.
Advisory committee members indicated that the goal would be to build a new centralized elementary school. Desorgher said the School Department would need to plan what needs to happen leading up to such a proposal, whether it be consolidating or reconfiguring elementary schools, and what maintenance will need to occur in the meantime.
“I hear people talk about a new school, but realistically that’s not going to happen until 2039,” Desorgher said. “I think it would be a good idea having a little plan for what we’re going to do sooner rather than later.”
Webb said that in the advisory committee’s draft agendas, plans include looking at not only potentially building a new school, but also whether it would be beneficial to consolidate existing schools or change the structure so that, rather than sending students to different buildings based on where they live in the city, students would attend school for different grade levels in different buildings.
Goodwin said she was concerned about the purpose of the advisory committee, as she believes planning the future of the district should be a full School Committee project with broader community input, and having an advisory committee handle the work just adds to the number of meetings staff members need to attend.
“We’re burning out superintendents, we’re burning out people going to meetings, and I believe if we’re talking about building a new school or doing anything else, it should be the full committee,” Goodwin said. “It shouldn’t be going to a subcommittee. … I think we should all have an equal voice.”
Desorgher added that she agrees the committee should look to reduce the number of meetings held, as staff time is valuable, and asking staff members, like the superintendent, to attend so many meetings takes away from the time they have to complete other work.
“Most of the time when you’re having a meeting with the school, you’re wanting the superintendent to be there, and there’s really only so many hours in a day,” Desorgher said.
Goodwin is expected to bring a proposal to disband the advisory committee back to the School Committee at next month’s meeting.
“I think another committee isn’t what we need,” Goodwin said.
