Sippican School’s Budget

To the Editor:

We are writing in response to statements quoted in a recent edition of The Wanderer regarding the Sippican School’s budget. We, as parents, are proud of Sippican School and the accomplishments of its students, staff and administration.

Misinformed statements, such as those made by Karen Kevelson at the January 28 finance committee meeting, succeed in making an impression; however, we do not feel it is the most effective way to solve problems and to resolve the issues that arise. The school is committed to working cooperatively with the stakeholders involved in the budget process. Over the next several months, the subcommittee will have a better handle on state funding and enrollment figures that will help them frame the budget to town officials. Representatives of the school will be in attendance at the next finance committee meeting which will take place on February 24.

It has been our observation that the school has consistently been committed to working with the town to devise a school budget that meets the needs of our school while being considerate of those of the other town departments. This has been evidenced in the last two years’ budgets which showed modest increases of 0.5% over the previous year’s budgets. We hardly feel that this was “out of control” as Karen Kevelson stated at the January finance committee meeting.

Since July, Sippican has received 44 new applications of students and has seen the demographic shift from years passed. In turn, Sippican has responded by adding classrooms/teachers where needed as well as putting a successful, self-funded breakfast program in place. Sippican continues to maintain its status as a Level 1 school. Additionally, in 2014, Sippican was one of just over 40 schools to be named a “Commendation School,” which is a high honor bestowed upon us by the state for closing achievement gaps. The school was also recently awarded one of 13 commendation/blue ribbon grants. Although proud of these accomplishments, we continue to look ahead to improving what we do in order to best address the needs of all our students.

Our children are growing up in a changing and more complicated world, and the school has a responsibility to help them to meet these demands. The data that was revealed from last spring’s “youth risk assessment survey” of our junior and senior high school students was frankly disturbing. Included in next year’s budget is a 0.3 health teacher position which came directly out of the work of the Healthy Tri-Town Coalition and their recommendations. The Sippican School is committed to responding in a proactive, rather than a reactive, way as we seek avenues to keep all of its students happy, healthy and safe.

We would like to also publicly thank and recognize the work of our vice principal, Sarah Goerges. As part of the discussion last year regarding shifting the assistant principal from part-time to full-time had nothing to do with the discipline and behavior of children in Marion. The days of the assistant principal only addressing behavioral issues have gone by the wayside. Today’s administrators have a far greater responsibility to ensure that the curriculum being delivered in the classroom is meeting the needs of all students. The additional administrator time is also necessary in order to meet the new teacher evaluation guidelines, to ensure we are in compliance with the teachers’ contract, but more importantly that administrators have time to address the educational need of all students.

We look forward to what the future holds for Sippican, its staff, students and administration.

Respectfully submitted,

Christine Marcolini, Marion

Kate Houdelette, Marion

 

The views expressed in the “Letters to the Editor” column are not necessarily those of The Wanderer, its staff or advertisers. The Wanderer will gladly accept any and all correspondence relating to timely and pertinent issues in the great Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester area, provided they include the author’s name, address and phone number for verification. We cannot publish anonymous, unsigned or unconfirmed submissions. The Wanderer reserves the right to edit, condense and otherwise alter submissions for purposes of clarity and/or spacing considerations. The Wanderer may choose to not run letters that thank businesses, and The Wanderer has the right to edit letters to omit business names. The Wanderer also reserves the right to deny publication of any submitted correspondence.

Leave A Comment...

*