Budgets and Policies Weigh Heavily on School Board Agenda

Budget cuts and policy changes were the main topics on the agenda of the AOS 92’s March school board meeting. Administrators, faculty, and others of Vassalboro, Waterville, and Winslow attended the meeting to discuss the impending changes in the newly formed administrative group.
The meeting began with a review of previous minutes, as well as an overview of awards and activities that had taken place from the last meeting. This included awarding the successful music program in the school systems. Assistant Superintendent Peter Thiboutot talked of the success of K-12 leadership meetings thus far, claiming that the coming together of leaders from all schools has helped lend ideas toward a successful future.
“The meetings have been very informant”, Thiboutot explained.
After the opening duties were completed, the discussion moved quickly into budget talks, as the new AOS has to find a way to work with a larger district while still saving money. With the new budget, Waterville Public Schools alone will be losing approximately $909,000 in revenue, and the AOS as a hole will be losing $1.9 million.
“We need to bring our structure down to something we can manage,” Haley claimed. “We need to make proactive decisions about what resources we do have.”
In order to address these issues, a budget team has been developed to work out the figures. This team is made up of both faculty and administrators from all schools within the system, and holds monthly workshops to hammer out the budget details.
In other business, Waterville Senior High School Assistant Principal Carol Dodge introduced a change in the attendance policy. She explained that a team of faculty wrote a complete rewrite to streamline the policy. In the current policy, students were failing in October due to absences, which meant they would fail for the year. This eliminated the motivation for those students. The new policy would allow for students to make up absences through extra work outside the classroom, to help them get back on track.
“The policy was supported by all but one teacher,” Dodge said. “The object is really to level the playing field, lower dropout rates, and raise the graduation rates. The current policies separate the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Those that ‘have’ can get excuses, but the ‘have nots’ can’t,” explained Dodge.
“I am proud that Waterville is taking the lead in the change in education in the state of Maine,” Pamela Trinward, school board member and state Representative, said.
While the future of education in the state of Maine is currently unknown, the overall feeling of the AOS board members was both optimistic and realistic. The funds are limited, the times are hard, but the determination for success may be just what the district needs to stay on track.