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Schools

Town Boards Meet to Discuss School Investment Strategy

Avoiding discussion of the current facilities needs, the joint meeting of the Boards of Directors and Education focused on the make-up of the reinvestment committee.

The Board of Directors and Board of Education held a joint meeting Monday evening and discussed the long range plan for district education and facility goals. With the and the possible closing of Nathan Hale School due to an aging heating system, members of both boards expressed urgency, but failed to reach consensus on the composition of a joint planning committee.

The main source of disagreement concerned whether elected officials should serve on the joint committee or whether it should be composed primarily of experts and stakeholders within the community. Interim Superintendent Richard Kisiel and Town General Manager Scott Shanley offered two suggested rosters for the committee, both including elected officials as well as members of the public.

The proposal for the long term plan for investment in the school system over the next decade and next generation consists of four broad goals forming the overall strategy. The reinvestment committee would look at the demographics and alignment of the schools and grade levels over coming years. It would also look at priority investments and other capital improvements over the long term. The committee would initially develop the strategy for the long-term and then advise the boards on tactical implementation of the plan.

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“The affordability piece is an important part of the vision,” said Kisiel, “and the commitment that the community is willing to make in the long term. Whatever the recommendations were in the past, they were educationally motivated decisions, people knew what they wanted to do that was in the best interests of children, but it may not have been in line with what the people in the community could have afforded.”

In an effort to reach a consensus, the meeting took a recess allowing the members of each political party to caucus and discuss their feelings on the committee proposal. The Republicans, whose opinion was expressed by Town Director Cheri Pelletier, recommended a committee free of elected representatives on the grounds that a community based composition would be free of political influence. Pelletier used the Redevelopment Agency's (RDA) membership as a model for the type of joint committee she would like to see formed.

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“Our prior practice has shown us that some committees have gotten political. We are looking to get professional guidance and community guidance. Ultimately, it will be the community that will decide affordability so we do believe wholeheartedly that the community needs to be involved in the committee,” said Pelletier.

Democrats on the other hand proposed a committee comprised of three members of the Board of Directors, three Board of Education members, a member of the building committee, and four representatives from the public. That composition featured more elected officials than either of the two proposals from the Superintendent and General Manager.

“It's gotta be elected members of this board who actually have to vote on these plans, to use these experts to advise us to make these decisions. But not to shirk our responsibility and have a committee that may come up with a wonderful plan that isn't passable,” director Lisa O'Neill said, offering that previous committees that did not include members of the boards produced plans that were defeated at referendums in 1999 and 2003.

“The only way to get this done is for us to dig in our feet, get all the data, work with the experts and ask for all the information we need to make an educated decision,” she said.

All were in agreement that the short term needs of the facilities needed to be addressed as quickly as possible by both boards and by the joint committee once it is constituted. Several members expressed the desire to avoid playing a blame game for past failures, and the discussion focused only on the future plans, barely touching on the .

The respective boards will decide their preference for the constitution of the reinvestment committee at future meetings. A tentative time-line for the committee to present its findings was set for July of 2012. The boards agreed on a working budget of $30,000 for the committee to hire consultants and experts to help create the proposals.

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