At the April 14 regular School Committee (SC) meeting, Superintendent Heather Perry reviewed plans for the four day in-person schooling for grades K-8, which will start on April 29. She also announced that spectators will be permitted at outside athletic events this spring.
Perry expressed her opposition to LD552, a bill before the Maine Legislature, that she believes would cause an unnecessary financial and staffing burden on the district. The requirement for additional parental involvement in Individual Education Programming (IEP) would have a major financial impact and could adversely affect the existing process by which special education staff develop IEPs for students in cooperation with parents.
Requiring more team meetings with parental involvement could result in an unfunded mandate of more than three million dollars for additional staff and for hearings if parents did not agree with changes in an IEP. Later in the meeting, the SC voted 7-0 to approve Perry sending a letter to the local Legislative Delegation urging them to vote against LD552.
Heather Flanders and Cecely Conrad, specialists in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), gave a program overview of their work with English Language Learners (ELL) in the Gorham Schools. Conrad teaches 50 students in the three elementary schools where 20 different languages are spoken in their homes. Thirty students in grades 6-12 are ELL taught by Flanders. The program has grown from a total of 24 students in 2010-11 to the 80 currently served.
Flanders and Conrad conduct home language surveys and develop individualized student plans with teacher and parent input. After extensive testing, students exit the program but are monitored for several years, especially for writing skills. Both teachers expressed how much they enjoyed working with parents and learning about their different cultures.
SC members voted (7-0) to adopt policies on School Properties Disposition and Immunization, stipends for spring coaching personnel, and the FY22 Budget. School Committee members each spoke on the reasons they were supporting the budget. They felt that compromises were necessary to prepare for a return to a five-day schedule in the fall.
As requested by the SC, Perry identified a one-time purchase that could be made with Federal CARES funds that must be spent this year. Using $318,000 of these monies to purchase a new math curriculum that would have been paid over two years took $160,000 out of the FY22 budget.
At the end of the meeting there was discussion about how the SC could be more transparent about COVID-19 cases and quarantines without compromising privacy concerns. They decided to discuss this further at the April 24 workshop.