Dear Mary,

I am humbled and honored to be a member of the Newburyport School Committee, and serve as the committee’s vice chair. As a School Committee member, within my relations with the community my primary responsibility is to the children. As an elected official, I have been entrusted by the voters with the responsibility to help provide the best education for the children of Newburyport, Massachusetts.

At this time, as I have in the past, I would like to use the Newburyport Blog to share and communicate issues that are most relevant today, and that I am able to appropriately report on.

I would like to start with a detail that you included in the entry posted March 28th, 2007 “Newburyport, School Override.” Your premise that the schools would only benefit from the override for one year, should it be approved by the City Council to be voted on by the citizens of Newburyport, and pass, is incorrect. Please let me offer an explanation.

To use a recent recorded article, I’ll refer to the article in the Newburyport Daily News on Tuesday, March 27, 2007. At the top of the Newburyport page, A-3 there is an article “High School Proposal eliminates more teachers.” In the article there is a “proposed budget of $21,956,582.” Let’s use that number as a base.

That number results from Dr. Lyons restructuring and school reconfiguration plan, to be voted on by the School Committee on April 2, 2007. It reduces the budget deficit that was above $1.5 million dollars. While reducing expenses, it also creates an opportunity to add value to our schools by reengineering our educational programs to improve student achievement. This process would add value to our school district. It would also add value to the educational tax dollar, by reducing costs and adding value. Value equals quality over cost.

The plan also creates a platform from which to raise student achievement and add more value to the educational dollar within five areas of focus:
A Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum
A Best Practices Literacy Program Grades K through 6
Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking across the curriculum for grades 7 through 12
A Redesigned Math Program for Grades 5 through 9
and
A Sustainable Technology Program

The first piece of good news is that the Redesigned Math Program is already built in, through the restructuring. It needs to be. As math achievement in grades 5 through 9 needs improvement, now. This is especially evidenced by middle school MCAS scoring.

As a School Committee we have stated our intent to hear the recommended FY ’08 budget, formally presented. This was completed on Sat. 3/24, at the conclusion of a 51/2 hour meeting, and provides adequate opportunity to invite more public discussion an input during meetings on March 28 & April 2.

Steven P. Cole
Vice Chairman, Newburyport School Committee

(Editor’s Note: Part 1 of a two part post)

The School Committee has been clear that we will vote on the Dr. Lyons’ recommended restructuring and reconfiguration on April 2nd, along with voting on a final override list, on that same evening.

The list is expected to cost $1.63 million dollars, the basis of the override question. We will provide detail to what each item costs, for the City Council, for our April 3rd resubmission of a transfer and order for a special election.

Should that transfer and order pass, should the special election pass an override, those dollars will be added to the school district budget.

The $21,956,582 will have $1.63 million added to it. The total FY ’08 budget will be approximately $23,586.582. I say this as I do not know the exact dollar or penny what $1.63 million will be, could be $1,630,499 for example.

When we go to prepare the FY ’09 budget, it will be based on that number, plus the typical City appropriation of 2.5%. And yes, the property tax increase stays in effect for all property owners in the city, for FY ’08, 09 and for years to come. The hope is that revenue from the state will increase in three years, and revenue from the city will improve as well.

Because we have reduced expenses we will have less cost increase for FY ’09.

Another way to protect against cost increase is to include items in the override such as a technology purchase, and allocate dollars so that the first year purchase has an impact for some of the next year, we take out less that we will need to buy in ’09.

What drives this plan is the state of Massachusetts’ outlook for school funding to be flat for the next three years, including this year. If we didn’t reduce expenses this year, we would not have closed the deficit. If we don’t add value by dollars via an override, we will not be able to add value to our educational programs. Our budget gap would remain wide today, and get wider tomorrow. By approaching it in this way, we reduce expenses, add revenue, which mitigates against a widening gap, and provides a platform to add those items to improve student achievement.

With less expenses we should have less exposure to cost increases. Of course, there will be some, but some of those may be mitigated against by results of the plan, again in reducing expenses.

What I would like to do, over the next few days, would be to provide some clear explanation and detail of what each of the five areas of focus are. I would begin with “A Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum.”

As always, any opinion that I express is my own, and does not necessarily reflect those of the School Committee or any of its individual members.

The explanation detail that I would provide is public knowledge.

I look forward to these opportunities to share this information.

Thanks,
Steven P. Cole
Vice Chairman, Newburyport School Committee

(Editor’s note: Part 2 of a two part post)

(Editor’s note: Since the “whole being sued thing” I have not had a “guest blogger” pretty much since October, and I’ve grown to like it that way. For the moment I’ve removed the “Guidelines and Overview” as well as the “FAQ” page from the Newburyport Blog. I am giving a lot of thought to what the policy of the Newburyport Blog might be. Many thanks to Steven Cole, but I think Mr. Cole will be the last guest blogger, at least for a while, until I figure out what I would like to do. Mary Eaton, editor of the Newburyport Blog.)