A two-hour-long meeting of the Mattapoisett School Committee on May 4 was about to adjourn when member Shannon Finning felt compelled to share her concerns about racist content recently posted by a current Old Rochester Regional student on the social media app TikTok.
“I’m gravely concerned… clearly there’s more that we need to be doing with our students. Since that info came to light, I’ve been approached by parents of students (also reporting racist behavior)… I don’t think it can wait until we’re back in person,” she said.
As chairperson for the meeting, ORR School Committee Delegate Jim Muse said, “Racism does exist and it’s not something that we can deny, and the appropriate place to discuss that is the Joint Committee. We should be doing it as an entire district. The entire district obviously needs to have further education.”
ORR has a relatively low ratio of minority students when compared to other public high schools on the South Coast.
Students will not return to school this academic year; it is not known if the coronavirus will subside to the degree necessary to allow the 2020-21 academic year to begin on conventional terms.
Meantime, ORR Principal Mike Devoll has landed on the first week of August as Graduation Week. Details are yet to be worked out. On behalf of the committee, Marissa Hughes thanked Tony Tranfaglia and Village Signs for donating signs on all the ORR seniors’ lawns.
In his report to the committee, Superintendent Doug White acknowledged that “We’re in limbo as to the support we’re going to get from the state for our budget,” but said it remains important to move ahead so the town has a budget with which to work.
White made a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, itemizing increases and recommending an overall increase of $171,892 over Fiscal Year 2020, $137,509 of which is allocated for salaries. The 2.39 percent increase will raise the FY20 appropriated budget of $7,185,583 to $7,357,475 for FY21. The total cost of running the district is $7,717,787, offset by $360,312 in grants/awards and circuit breakers (i.e. reimbursements for spending over $45,000 on 64 students on individual education plans).
Three members of the committee approved the FY21 budget as presented, with Finning abstaining.
Based on October 2019 enrollment, Mattapoisett’s total of 436 students includes 69 with disabilities.
Assistant Superintendent Mike Nelson reported that only seven students in grades K through age 21 were educated out-of-district in FY20. “It’s an extreme point of pride. I feel strongly that special-education students should be in community schools,” he said, further projecting five students to receive out-of-district education for the 2020-21 academic year.
After several years of flat enrollment, Mattapoisett Schools Principal Rose Bowman projects three sections of K-6 for FY21, which in the case of Grade 6 is down from four sections. White indicated that no staff reductions are being considered at this time and that teachers can expect to operate at full staff and at normal pay for the next school year.
In her principal’s report, Bowman said that Mattapoisett schools had moved on from the first two phases of remote learning to Phase 3 in which all students receive feedback from their teachers.
Roughly 60 to 70 percent of sixth-graders are getting their school work done on time.
Kevin Tavares, associate principal at Center School, displayed some Kindergarten content online and said his goal is to get those children the same opportunities to learn as the sixth graders.
“One thing that would be really helpful is for families to have explicit outcomes (and) target specifically what progress is prescribed by the end of such a grade,” said Finning, acknowledging the unevenness that comes with an asynchronous structure. “Having somebody who can go in with some uniformity… I think collectively we want to do the right thing by our children.”
Member Carole Clifford said, “I’m really quite pleased with the work the teachers have done at Old Hammondtown because I know it hasn’t been easy.”
White thanked the tech team for its support.
In other business, the committee approved White’s suggestion that the eight available school-choice slots be capped at three for Kindergarten, three for first grade, and two for second grade.
The committee also approved the acceptance of the $4,200 collected via the GoFundMe account that had been set up by Finning in March to support the school lunch and breakfast program and placement of those funds in a school food account.
Muse called it, “another example of the goodness in the hearts of this community… and (I) greatly appreciate the school committee members stepping forward and not thinking about themselves.”
The deadline for applications for help from the ORR Tri-Town Lighthouse Education Fund is May 15.
Mattapoisett School Committee
By Mick Colageo