Government officials from the Tri-Towns have pledged to support an Old Rochester Regional school district level-funded budget increase of $320,000 maximum for FY18. This amount, however, is not nearly enough to cover the ORR budget subcommittee’s level-funded budget increase of $704,516, let alone the budget that the subcommittee feels the school needs – $18,475,627 or an increase of about $834,000.

“The word we keep hearing from the towns is ‘dire,’” said ORR School Committee Chairman Tina Rood. “But I really do believe that it is our job to put forward the needs of our schools.”

The district was hoping to move forward with its five-year capital plan that towns had supported last year, and make the part-time art teacher position a full-time position, while also maintaining the teacher leadership program, late busses for after school activities, and the age 18-22 program established last year.

With the ‘middle road’ level-funded budget, requests such as an additional guidance counselor, social worker, technology upgrades, and a special education coordinator would not be funded. A custodial position would also not be replaced upon retirement this year.

“It does not include any kind of monies for upgrades and improvements at the district,” said Rood. The $320,000 number, she said, “Is not based on need or importance, but ‘just a number.’”

Under the more conservative budget option, the music program, including the band, would be gutted at the junior high. Principal Kevin Brogioli said, “Basically every student in the school moves through this program.”

“Those are the types of things that will not be funded at that $320,000 level,” Rood stated. “That is very disappointing in a district like this with voters who support our schools…. A number that doesn’t even start to cover the updates and things that need to happen at the school.” She continued, “But now you’re talking about the curriculum and the everyday teaching of our students.”

School committee member Heather Burke cautioned, “If we went forward with this requested budget, we would not be doing our service to the students. This type of budget would kick off a death spiral for this school. Honestly, it would gut it. And with that would go housing prices, community involvement, all sorts of dire community ills would start to flood in.”

Burke called the towns’ proposal “misguided.”

“If this is what town authorities are proposing, then I think the communities should evaluate in whom they put their trust,” said Burke. “I understand budgets are tight everywhere,” she continued, adding that a budget like that is like a message that says, “We don’t value education in this community, we don’t care about our children, and I don’t think that’s how the Tri-Town population feels.”

“I can’t even understand a number like this,” said Burke.

In defense of the three towns, School Business Administrator Patrick Spencer said, “They’re dealing with a reality that they have to deal with … a number based on their revenue streams.” He continued, “It’s not just something that they picked willy-nilly out of the air…. I understand what we’re trying to accomplish, but that number was based on information that we have given them. It’s their reality that they’re trying to deal with.”

Spencer said the district’s reality is quite different, and it must find different ways to fund it, recommending that the committee steer the budget more into the ‘middle.’

“We’re trying to be as realistic as we can be,” Spencer said. “Reality is reality, so that’s what we’re dealing with right now.

The committee, under the recommendation of Superintendent Doug White, discussed increasing school choice slots at the two schools, a move away from prior years when the committee headed more towards maintaining the current levels, if not slowly decreasing them.

Brogioli and high school Principal Michael Devoll agreed they could both accommodate 30 to 35 students and still maintain class sizes and programs.

The committee discussed a cap on school choice students, deciding between a max of 105 students and 125.

Right now there are 68 school choice students at ORR junior and high school.

The district is reimbursed $5,000 per student in the program.

The caveat, however, is the district can’t know ahead of time what services, including special education, might be needed as they come into the district, which could increase costs some. Director of Student Services Michael Nelson said that although some percentages of certain programs are reimbursed at the end of the year, 100 percent is not. Nelson stressed he could not predict any increases in student services with school choice.

However, as school committee member James Muse pointed out, “The solution to this budget is not school choice.”

He also emphasized the cultural and social positive impacts that school choice offers.

“We got to find the problem to find the money to do it right no matter what,” said Muse.

“We shouldn’t be using school choice for budget solutions.”

Although 125 school choice students was not the most feasible number, the committee voted unanimously to simply cap the number at 125.

It is, however, as Rood put it, not optimal.

“That is not an optimal world … but it is what we are committed towards,” said Rood. But, just accepting a level-funded budget, she said, “That’s just crazy.”

Rood encouraged supportive residents to speak to their members of town government.

In other matters, the committee denied one senior’s request to bring her 21-year-old boyfriend to the senior prom. The committee considered the student’s request over the past several weeks and ultimately chose to uphold the policy that prohibits anyone 21 or over to attend school events such as prom. The committee did, however, approve the out-of-state prom location venue selection at Belle Mer in Newport, Rhode Island.

The ORR School Committee will meet again at the March 20 budget review meeting at 6:30 pm in the ORRJHS media room, accessible from the double doors behind the school.

By Jean Perry

For a number of years, ORCTV has given Old Rochester Regional High School $74,000 each year to fund a teaching position for TV and video journalism production courses at ORR. That funding will stop for this fiscal year, and ORCTV Executive Director Robert Chiarito says ORCTV, which relocated back to ORR last year, will resume the student programming from a more in-house method.

Some ORR School Committee members seemed shocked by the decision, and some members as well as students worried the quality technology programming that ORCTV had funded up until now would end with it.

School Superintendent Doug White said ORCTV informed the district last year that the funding would cease, but the district had already budgeted for it and included the courses in the program of studies. ORCTV subsequently provided $54,000 last year as a last-time grant payment.

Now White says that he would like to see the district come up with the funding on its own to keep the same TV production and video journalism courses and a school staff member to teach them.

“We would like to see and have the opportunity to continue those opportunities in our schools and within our budget,” said White. “They (ORCTV) no longer would like to offer those dollars to us and look to provide educational television through a different means.”

White said all he could do was talk to Tri-Town selectmen about how the school could fund the position and keep the courses. The hope, he said, is to see the same amount in ORCTV funds go back into the school budget.

“I guess I’m perplexed because of how successful those classes have been with some of our students in the past,” said school committee member Carey Humphrey. “My daughter was a product of that class, and I know what it instills in those students and it’s very, very important … because of what it does to prepare them for the future.”

And if it is the boards of selectmen that provide the funding to ORCTV, said Humphrey, “It sounds like there’s some politics involved.” He added, “It just smells very political to me and it smells like … [someone is] doing this out of spite…”

Fifty-one students signed a petition in support of continuing the TV production and VJ courses, and student Ethan Mort said, “I definitely think a lot of students were inspired by the [program]. I think it would be a huge shame and a huge loss if we were to lose it right now.”

ORR District Video Coordinator Deb Stinson said, as educators, “We’re the ones who should be managing the educational channel.”

For White, it is “the impact of what it’s done for the students of Tri-Town, and what could be lost as a result of that funding mechanism being taken away.”

Chiarito, however, says that students are not losing any of the educational opportunities it once provided; instead, ORCTV is stepping up to offer the programming itself while taking a leadership role in its execution.

Chiarito explained during a phone interview that the funding was never meant to be a permanent source of funding for ORR, and the Old Rochester Regional school district was aware of this.

One of the founding members of ORCTV, Ken Souza, said in a letter addressed to ORCTV Board of Directors President Jay Pateakos that when ORCTV initially moved out from the ORR campus years ago, board member Reg Foster recommended a one-time grant as part of the original contract with the tri-towns to fund a teaching position at the high school as a “good-faith gesture,” wrote Souza.

“This was never intended to be an ongoing or recurrent budget item,” continued Souza.

Somewhere along the line, he said, subsequent ORCTV boards and the high school took that line item for granted, although that was never the intent.

Earlier this school year, ORCTV joined the school’s School to Career Path Program, allowing students the opportunity to come to the ORCTV studio for real-life hands-on learning, work-study, apprenticeships, and career experience.

Half a dozen students right away signed up, according to Chiarito, and by next week they’ll have produced their first weekly program. “And this is something we’re going to expand upon next year.”

“We wanted to reach the kids who are the most interested, who really wanted to further their education and careers and maybe use this stuff in college,” said Chiarito, who feels this type of instruction better prepares students who want to pursue TV careers in college than the ORCTV-funded school courses did.

With students recording school sports games, studio experience behind the camera, as well as graphics, directing, sound, and writing scripts – and whatever the student is interested in, “The level of stuff that they’re getting here is more like a college course,” said Chiarito. “And they’ve really taken to it.”

Next year, ORCTV wants to expand all that to more kids, and ORCTV also has been doing an afterschool club that started around the same time.

“There’s really nothing political about this at all,” said Pateakos in an email. “The grant that ORR had been receiving was never meant to be a permanent thing…. Our Board has decided to move more in-house with educational programming.”

Says Chiarito, “We’re not taking anything away from anybody. We’re just doing it in a different manner.”

“We have a limited budget and [the school district] has one, and we just couldn’t afford it anymore,” said Chiarito.

Most other community TV stations do not offer grants to district schools, according to Chiarito.

“We’re not taking anything away from the kids…. We are offering things to the students and we are hoping that it will be throughout the [entire tri-town] school district…. We really want to make sure that were reaching out to everybody.”

“It’s not a political move whatsoever,” Chiarito continued. “It’s just us trying to get a hold of our budget because we are a small station running five channels and most other stations … they’ve all got four, five or more employees and we’ve been doing this the entire time with two people.”

Students of the newer programming, Chiarito said, are providing him with “extremely positive feedback.”

“The kids love it,” he said. “So far I’m really, really pleased by what I’ve seen. It’s gone beyond my wildest imagination.”

The mainly student-driven program, says Chiarito, is “a really solid program that the school can be proud.”

By Jean Perry