A Message to Faculty, Staff,
Students and Families
While I am certain
that we have faculty, students and families who are opposed to President
Trump's recent executive order and faculty, students and families who support
it, I am equally certain that we have students and faculty who are personally
impacted by it.
Please be alert to the
very real possibility that we will have students in our classes or fellow
faculty members who will be anxious, afraid and/or feeling personally attacked
by the travel ban. At the very minimum, anxiety, fear and a feeling of
being targeted or diminished impede learning, and we all must do our utmost to
take care of our students' and our fellow faculty members' feelings.
I would add for
families that if you have a concern about your child's well-being relative to
this evolving situation, please contact the classroom teacher, school
guidance counselor or administration to let them know.
School Committee Approves FY18
Budget
Last Tuesday, the School Committee voted to approve
a $39,061,561 FY18 budget, which is a $1,320,858 or 3.5% increase over the FY17
budget. Following a multi-month process
that included a line item review of the present budget and a reduction of
$209,080 from the Superintendent’s initial increase request of 4.05%, the final
vote aligned the FY18 budget with the Finance Committee’s 3.5% guideline. Confident that this budget will support the
District’s 2017-2018 educational objectives, we will present the FY budget to
the Finance Committee on February 2.
The principal drivers for the FY18 budget include
our growing student population, expansion of our in-house special education
programs, additional personnel needs to support academic success for all
students, and instructional technology integration. Key among the enrollment-driven needs are additional teachers at Lane and JGMS and added
custodial support for increased space at Lane and Davis; and included among our
special education additions are special educators and teaching assistants for
our SAIL, STEP and Integrated Pre-school programs.
Were it not for the success of these special
education programs and the corresponding savings derived from educating
increasing numbers of students in-house (several million dollars per year), it
is fair to say that we would have found it much more difficult to meet this
year’s guideline.
Governor’s FY18 Budget
Good
news for Bedford out of the Governor’s office.
While there is some controversy
over whether the Governor’s FY18 includes the funding that the Commonwealth’s
schools need to address their many challenges, Bedford is unquestionably the
beneficiary of two of the Governor’s decisions: the increase of Bedford’s
Chapter 70 (Education Foundation Budget) funding by $242,761 and the inclusion
of $513,000 Military Mitigation Aid for the first time in a governor’s budget
request!
Bedford
has had to fight each of the past ten years that the Massachusetts State
Legislature has agreed to channel funding to Bedford to mitigate the fiscal
impact of our Hanscom students, given that the federal government has failed to
adequately meet its obligation. Fully
committed to continuing the relationship with Hanscom AFB that contributes so
much to the unique character of our students’ education, we have fought with
some success to convince Massachusetts lawmakers of the fairness of our
position- that Hanscom contributes $8 billion annually to the region’s economy,
but Bedford alone shoulders the cost of educating its high school age
children. Thanks to a collective effort,
including the relentless advocacy of Representative Ken Gordon and Senator Mike
Barrett, the legislature passed a bill two years ago that made this commitment
permanent, but unfortunately it has nevertheless been subject to the
unpredictability of the annual appropriation. While successful at the end of
the day for each of the past several years, it has taken a lot of time and
energy to see the process through. So Governor Baker’s decision to include it for
the first time in the governor’s budget thankfully makes it all the more
certain that the bill will be funded in FY18. JS
