Draft K-5 Attendance Zone Changes for 2020-21 Announced

As you are likely all aware, the Gorham School Department has been working over the past several years to address issues of growth at the K-5 levels.  Over the past 5 years we have added just under 300 students to our K-5 schools and as you might imagine, that has caused some significant strain on our existing facilities infrastructure across all three of our K-5 schools.  In that same time frame we have struggled with large class sizes and finding spaces in our buildings not only to house classrooms, but also to house the necessary support programs that are required to operate the high quality educational programs that we do.

Last spring, the Gorham School Committee announced a long-term plan to address these issues which involved the following:

-  Build a $2.8 million dollar "Phase I" modular addition onto Narragansett Elementary School to open in the 2020-21 School Year.

-  Shift attendance zones to reduce enrollments at both Great Falls and Village Elementary Schools (to give room to grow, especially at Great Falls) while pointing additional growth towards Narragansett Elementary School.

-  Plan on a Phase II of a modular expansion at Narragansett Elementary School to occur within 3-5 years and a possible Phase III (If needed) modular expansion to occur within the next 10-15 years at the same site to allow for continued growth in our community.  The intention is that NEITHER of these additional phases will involve another shift of attendance zones.

-  Plan a long term, state approved, capital project to build a new K-5 elementary school on the existing Narragansett site to house future growth within the next 10-15 years and beyond in order to address our community's long term needs at these grade levels.

The first phase of this plan, approved by the voters via referendum in June, 2019, allowed for the construction of our modular expansion (Phase I).  This modular expansion is now under construction and on time to open for the 2020-21 school year with 6 new classroom spaces and a brand new cafeteria space at Narragansett.  These spaces will provide the necessary infrastructure to allow for regular instruction to occur, for lunches and gatherings, as well as freeing up valuable gymnasium space for the delivery of physical education classes.

This is all good news, however there are implications for some of our families that cannot be avoided.  The implications are that in order to carry this plan out, we must shift our attendance zones beginning in the 2020-21 school year.  This means that some families will be moving from their current school zone to a new one in order to make all this work.  We have been working over the past several months to decide where best to place these new boundaries in a way that makes sense not only with our current situation, but with our future situation, some of which cannot be clearly anticipated.

In communications this spring, summer and fall, I predicted we would announce these new lines by the end of October to the public.  This blog post will serve to provide this information to our community.  Please know that all families impacted by these changes have already received a memo from myself and direct communications from our building principals and are aware of the fact that they have been impacted by these changes.  After this public notification Mrs. Remick (Principal at Narragansett Elementary School) and the Narragansett School Family will begin to reach out to new families with a welcome letter and important information about Narragansett Elementary School.  This will begin our transition work together and will be our ongoing focus throughout the remainder of the year with much more to come.

Our Target Populations:

Our current projections show that we are anticipating a total K-5 population of 1356 students for the 2020-21 School Year.  Target populations for all three schools are as follows:

Great Falls - 517 (current population is 580)
Narragansett - 409 (current population is 291)
Village Elem. - 429 (current population is 439)

In order to do this, we had to move our attendance zone lines.  Our current attendance zone map is as follows:



Yellow with green icons are Village Elem. students within the Village Elementary School Zone.  Blue with blue icons are Great Falls students within the Great Falls attendance zone and purple with purple icons are Narragansett students in the Narragansett attendance zone.  These original lines were drawn when Great Falls Elementary School was first opened and we first created our three K-5 community schools back in 2011.  Please note that each icon seen does not necessarily represent individual students.  There are often multiple students represented within each icon.

In order to make the population adjustments needed to meet our target populations, we moved the lines for 2020-2021 to the following:



Once again, the yellow represents the Village Attendance zone, blue is Great Falls and the purple is Narragansett.

These lines were adjusted in a manner that allowed us to meet our intended targets while also considering proximity to schools, the future growth of our communities and using "natural" landmarks and roadways to create new boundaries.

As you can see the largest impact to our attendance zone change will be those families located to the left of Gray Road, seen above as blue icons in the now purple Narragansett attendance zone.

This proposed change requires 84 students to be moved from the Great Falls Elementary School attendance zone to Narragansett Elementary School and 9 students from the Village Elementary School attendance zone to Narragansett Elementary School.  By doing this, we are able to meet our targets for each of our three K-5 Schools, provide for continued reasonable classroom student to teacher ratios and provide all three of our schools room to continue to grow as we predict they will.

Next Steps:

I will be meeting with each school's P.I.E. group to personally share information, answer questions and outline more detailed plans for how to move forward.  Dates for these meetings will be as follows:

*  Great Falls Elementary School - November 5 at 6:00 p.m.
*  Village Elementary School - November 13 at 5:30 p.m.
*  Narragansett Elementary School - November 18 at 6:00 p.m.

Narragansett Elementary School Principal, Cynthia Remick, will send out welcome letters to new families and begin to work with families to transition.  These transition activities will continue to be our focus throughout the remainder of the 2019-20 school year to ensure that families feel welcome at their new school.

The Administrative Team will focus on identifying specific staffing needs and staffing assignments for the new classrooms at Narragansett Elementary School to include support staff and other necessary supports for these new classroom spaces.  These changes will be solidified as part of our FY 21 budget development process.

Transition activities will continue throughout the remainder of the 2020-21 School Year and into the summer of 2021.  Specific K-5 classroom placements will be made for all students across the district by June, 2020 and announced to parents.

In Summary:

The entire Gorham School Department administrative team and staff understands the difficult nature of the change we are undertaking for our K-5 learners and their families.  This is not a change we are making lightly.  These changes are being made to address the very real issues associated with our growing student populations that if left unchecked would result in large class sizes and lack of space to effectively operate our educational programs to the high standards we expect.

All three of our K-5 elementary schools are incredible schools filled with incredible staff who care tremendously about every child that graces our hallways.  Our School Committee, our administrative team, our teachers and our support staff as well as our K-5 families stand ready to support those families impacted by this change as we make these necessary transitions.

If anyone has any questions, I encourage them to reach out directly to me via email (heather.perry@gorhamschools.org) or via phone (222-1012).

What is "Aspire Gorham" and Other "Tidbits" of Timely Information

Hard to believe we are already into the month of October!  The school year is already flying by and I haven't even had a chance to "brag" about our opening yet!😀  As a quick means to that end, I wanted to showcase some pictures from our first few weeks of school just so you can get a sense of what a great start to the school year we have had already!

    

          

    

      

I could keep on a going...but I think that is enough to help you get a sense of what a great start to the school year we have had!  I have to admit - my favorite picture above is the one from the "Inn at Village Square" where some of our senior Gorham residents (and GHS Alumni mind you) are giving our present day students some advice on how to start the school year off right (above, third row, left side).  Sage advice indeed!  THANK YOU!

With this blog and with future blogs, my goal will be to highlight in depth one key piece of information and to then share a few additional "tidbits" of information briefly afterwards.  I will use "subheadings" to help folks navigate what can be a pretty long post so readers can skip around and read just what is most interesting to them. 

For this month's blog post - I want to highlight an initiative in Gorham that is officially being launched this year.  This initiative was begun last year as a planning year so we have already accomplished so much.  As always though - there is much more work to do!  The initiative is called "Aspire Gorham".  Below is more information on Aspire Gorham and then under that are some additional "tidbits" so please keep reading!  Thanks!

Aspire Gorham - EVERYONE Has a Story. . . What's Yours?

The first question I get when I bring up this initiative is "What is Aspire Gorham"?  That's a pretty darn good question! 

"Aspire Gorham" is a community-wide initiative to encourage and support aspirations across ALL Gorham students aimed at helping them answer the question:  "What kind of life do you want to have?  What is YOUR 'FUTURE STORY'"? 

Aspire Gorham is a grant funded through a multi-year commitment from the MELMAC Education Foundation in partnership with JMG with decisions about priorities, goals, and funding being made by the Gorham Schools.  It is built on a foundation of success of the "Future Story" project that was started by GHS several years ago.  It focuses on creating partnerships between our schools and businesses and other community organizations to ensure that our conversations with the children of Gorham about their aspirations begin very early (even before Kindergarten) and continue on through grades K-12 and beyond (into our their post-secondary experiences). 

This initiative supports our District's Mission/Vision specifically in the areas of ensuring ALL our students have access to "meaningful real-world learning experiences" and that learning is "extended beyond our classrooms and into our community" for ALL our students.  We are using this initiative to tie all of our work together across grades K-12 and beyond, "connecting the dots" for our children and families between what they are learning in our schools and how it will "Prepare and Inspire" ALL our children for their futures!

As you might imagine, this is a pretty BIG initiative that will be spread out over several years.  In order to accomplish the work, we currently have have three major focus points:

1.  Increasing and encouraging career and college aspirations for ALL students.
2.  Deepening and strengthening connections with business and nonprofit communities in Gorham to increase student access to and participation in real-world learning experiences at all grade levels.
3.  Deepening and strengthening connections with the University of Southern Maine.

We have already accomplished a great deal in all three areas, with more to come!  Here are SOME of our accomplishments to date:

-  We have hired a full time "Career and Community Coordinator" position that is housed at GHS, but works across all K-12 and in the greater community.  Her major focus has been to create those connections between our schools, local businesses and nonprofits and our overall community.
-  We have hired a full time project manager who has worked to help us identify specific goals and action steps broken out by school for year 1 and year 2 of our grant.
-  We have created specific community partnerships to support the work through creation of a steering committee, re-focus on our strong business roundtable work, and creating a college connections committee. 
-  We gave collected baseline data for our first planning year of the grant (which was 2018-19).
-  Last year more than 600 students were involved in creating individual career inventories, 45 guest speakers visited our schools to speak about careers, and more than 20 career focused field experiences were conducted with our students.
-  More than 75 GHS students visited all three of our K-5 schools as part of our "Adopt-a-Classroom" project which has GHS students literally "adopting" K-5 classrooms to share their own aspirations and encourages our K-5 students to create and share theirs!
-  Career Exploration Days were held at several schools with more to come this year!
-  Increased offerings of Dual Enrollment and other early college courses by USM at GHS.  Just the beginning of some great work moving forward so stay tuned here!
-  Purchase of "Naviance" full suite of software for utilization by students in grades 8-12.
-  Strengthening of relationships and initial partnerships with Early Child Care community in Gorham.  One example:  New partnership with Baxter Library called "Littlest Learners Program".
-  Began new partnership with Junior Achievement to ensure all students in grades 2 and 7 across the district receive specific instruction in financial literacy on top of what we already offer to our GHS students.

Note: If you want to know more about our "Adopt-a-Classroom" program, CLICK HERE to view a brief video of our second year of the program (Scroll to bottom of page).

We have SOOOOOOO MUCH MORE planned for the coming year in our three areas of focus but the bottom line is this...in order to truly make aspirations a COMMUNITY WIDE conversation - WE NEED YOUR HELP!  That's right - you!  When we use the phrase:  "Everyone has a story - What's Yours?" it is because we know everyone really does have a story and we want you to share it with our children! 

Of course we'll be reaching out for help with specific activities we want to do this coming year - but in reality the best way you can help is to make aspirations a "regular" conversation with our children.  Now, does that mean we want you to constantly be asking children what they want to be when they grow up?  No, not necessarily...more powerful than asking that question is to be willing to simply SHARE YOUR STORY with our children!  Children need to know that not only do their parents work in really cool and fulfilling jobs, but so do their aunts and uncles, and their neighbors, and their coaches, and their church leaders, etc.!  Children need to know that most of us likely started out thinking we were going to do one thing and then wound up doing something else that was equally if not even more rewarding than we had anticipated.  Children need to know that they do not have to know the answer to the question of "what do you want to be when you grow up", just yet...and that in fact, there are a lot of adults out there right now that may be just figuring that out, or re-figuring that out!  Let's take a little of the pressure off our children to know that answer, and instead help them to understand that their aspirations are THEIR STORIES, created one chapter at a time with often unexpected, yet equally rewarding results!

When you walk into our schools you should see either a banner or a flag (or both) that say "Welcome!  Aspire Gorham:  Everybody has a story. . . what is yours?"  When you see that banner, use it as a conversation starter with your children and start sharing our incredible stories so that they have a model for how to build their own and then stay tuned for more incredible work on this topic to come!

As always - if you have any questions about this initiative (or anything else for that matter) feel free to email (heather.perry@gorhamschools.org) or call me (222-1012) anytime!

Now on to other quick "tidbits" of information!

K-5 Attendance Zone Work:

We are still in the process of drafting out options for new K-5 attendance zone maps that will meet our needs for the next 10+ years here in Gorham.  We are right on track with our intended timeline (at least thus far) with this work.  As a reminder, that timeline for information sharing is as follows:

*  September - October, 2019 - Administration will work to re-draw the lines for our newly proposed attendance zones with the goal of reducing overall enrollments at both Great Falls and Village Elementary School and "pointing" growth towards Narragansett Elem. School.  Once these proposals have been created we will bring them to the Gorham School Committee at their workshop meeting in October for review and approval.  We will then share with K-5 parents by the end of October, 2019.

*  October - December, 2019 - Superintendent Perry will host Forums at each school, visit PIE meetings, and host "Dunk and Discuss" events to give parents who may have questions opportunities to ask and discuss.  Also, during this time Administration will work to identify which staff members would be moving to which locations at each of our K-5 schools so we can identify not only which students and families may be moving, but which staff will be moving and where.  This will allow us to conduct meaningful transition activities over the course of the winter/spring of 2020 for those impacted by these changes.  Staffing decisions will be announced to families by end of December, 2019.

*  January - June, 2020 - Specific transition activities will be hosted by the schools aimed at making sure students and families are familiar with new schools and new staff.  Individual students may not yet be assigned to individual classrooms (which typically does not occur until June's step up day regardless), but families and students will know which schools they will be attending and which teams (grade levels) of teachers they will be working with at each of those schools.  Activities may include (but are not limited to) open houses, informational nights, step up days, game nights, playground tours, family pictures, and more.  The focus will be on building up those new strong relationships so that transitions will be as smooth as possible once they occur.

*  August, 2020 - School will begin.  New placements will be in place and we'll be off to another great school year here in Gorham!

Please know that the Gorham Schools understand that the process of changing attendance zones and possibly having to move children (and their families) from one school to another is no "little" thing.  We spend a lot of time here in Gorham talking about and emphasizing the importance of building strong relationships with our students and their families.  To possibly remove a student (and their family) from a school within which they have likely already fostered strong relationships is not something we do lightly.  The fact of the matter is that this difficult transition must be made so that we can address our growing K-5 populations and keep our overall class sizes at the most optimal learning levels.  

The good news is that all of our K-5 teaching staff are incredibly talented staff who care tremendously about each and every child, and each of our K-5 schools are awesome schools containing unique and engaging learning environments.  Additionally, we are going to take the time necessary to do this work right, with the utmost transparency and with the utmost care - paying special attention to ensuring that these positive relationships are built even in the face of a potential significant change.

Please stay tuned!

Update on Narragansett Modular Expansion Project

So we started with a concept drawing. . .


Then we started digging. . .

And now we are pouring foundations and getting ready for modular buildings!

Pretty cool for sure! 

Bottom line, we are right on schedule as we had hoped to be and things are coming along nicely!  Modulars themselves should be delivered by end of October or early November.  Once delivered, we will place them on foundations and get to work on the connectors and interior work needed to ensure they are fully operational by August, 2020.  We anticipate that this addition will be able to serve our students well for the next 10-15 years!

Update On GHS Building Project

For a copy of the slide presentation given to the Gorham School Committee at their workshop held on Sept. 25, 2019 please CLICK HERE.  Next steps are to go back to the GHS Building Committee to get a specific recommendation from them on which option best meets our needs and to compile a list of capital projects and estimated capital renewal needs for all our K-12 buildings and bring that back to the School Committee for their November, 2019 workshop meeting for further discussion.  At that time, the School Committee will then determine next steps for the project.

Substitutes STILL NEEDED Across All Areas!

Just sharing this flyer from September.  We are especially short on substitutes for our classrooms so if you know of anyone interested, please encourage them to go online (web address is on the flyer or folks can CLICK HERE for the link) and complete an application.  We just recently increased our daily rates and through the FY 21 budget development process will likely be increasing them again for the following school year!

Reminder About How to Know If/When Schools May Close due to Inclement Weather


I know, I know...I shouldn't be thinking these thoughts just yet - but I do remember last year we started earlier than expected here so I wanted to make sure folks were reminded about how to access information about weather-related school closures for the Gorham Schools.  Please CLICK HERE for details and then file it away for hopefully much, much later!😃

IN CLOSING. . . 

As I said earlier, its been a GREAT START to the school year so far in Gorham!  We are so happy to have students back in our schools doing the important work we absolutely LOVE to do!  Of course, a good start isn't all there is to a good school year.  We have much more in store!  In fact, I am aware of not one but TWO very exciting things slated to be announced later in October.  I have to keep them a secret for right now...but I KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE THEM!  Please stay tuned to our social media to find out more! 

Facebook
Twitter

Oh, and remember, each of our school's has their own Facebook Page and/or Twitter account.  Plus some "overachievers" (like GHS) also have instagram!  Just be sure to look for our logo to know its the "official" site for our schools!

MISTAKE WITH POSTED BUS ROUTES for 2019-20

Good morning.
I have been receiving calls and emails recently regarding the 2019-20 Bus routes that were posted on our website last Friday.  There have been lots of great questions and as a result -we have discovered an ERROR in our posted 2019-20 route times that we will be fixing!  The error involves about ten minutes of time due to the fact that our routing software had 7:40 as the arrival time for our MS and HS runs and 8:40 as the arrival time for our Elementary runs.  THIS IS INCORRECT.  The arrival times should have been set as 7:30 for MS and HS and 8:30 for Elementary.  Hence the ten minute difference. 

Unfortunately, routes had been posted to our website with these incorrect times, and the INCORRECT times were also sent to the Gorham times for publication next week. 

However, all is NOT lost!  We will be re-posting route times on our website BY THIS FRIDAY (8/23).  You can get to those new routes by CLICKING HERE(then go to "District Info." and then Bus Routes").  Additionally, since the information had already gone out to the Gorham Times and we cannot undo that - while reading the routes posted in the Gorham Times, you simply need to subtract approximately 10 minutes from each of the times listed to get the correct planned times.
All this being said, please understand that the first few weeks of school are HECTIC as we work our way through the new routes and school schedules.  Please try to ensure children are at the appropriate stops at least 15 minutes early for the first week or so.  Patience is key as we open up a new school year, and this year is no different.  WE APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE and apologize for adding some complexity by inadvertently publishing inaccurate times.

So, to be clear . . .

*  Official start times are as follows:
     -  GMS Start 8:00, End 2:20
     -  GHS Start 7:50, End 2:10
     -  K-5 Schools Start 8:50, End 3:10
*  New Routes will be posted on our website by 8/23
*  If reading Gorham Times, please SUBTRACT 10 minutes from all route times listed (K-12) to get approximate times to begin the year.
*  Please have students at bus stops 15 minutes early for first week or two.
*  MOST K-5 students will arrive at school around 8:30.
*  Breakfast will be offered to K-5 students between 8:30 - 8:50
*  All K-5 schools will offer a morning break for students, either before school or mid-morning.
*  All K-5 schools also have 20 minute lunch recess daily
*  K-5 teachers also use their discretion to take wellness breaks for students throughout the course of the day.

That's what we have for information at this time.  Again, please refer to newly posted runs on Friday using the link above and if you are reading the times in the Gorham Times, subtract 10 minutes to all times listed.

If you have questions, please reach out to your school's office as we don't want Judy at Transportation to be overrun. 

THANK YOU

2019-20 OPENING INFORMATION FOR PARENTS

Hard to believe that another summer has already passed by so quickly!  I have to admit, although I do enjoy the summer time schedule with less night meetings and fewer problems to solve - I wouldn't trade the opening of school for anything!  There is nothing like the sights and sounds associated with great schools and our schools here in Gorham are great!  The smiling faces, the laughter, the murmur of conversations, the clicking of keys on laptop keyboards, the music and art on our stages and the competitions on our athletic fields.  Schools are just too darn quiet in the summer!  I can't wait for them to be ALIVE again with learning so I eagerly await August 26 and 27th when staff return and then August 28 and 29 when students return!

                

As with any new school year there is A LOT to share and talk about in order to ensure everyone is on the same page and the school year gets off to a strong start.  Here goes!

Opening Schedule & New Start/End Times for Schools:


School Office staff and guidance staff will return to schools full time (most have had summer hours) beginning the week before school begins on August 19, 2019.  If you have enrollment questions, or just need information about ANYTHING, please reach out to each school's office during this week and we will be more than happy to assist.  You can find each school's phone number on our website:  www.gorhamschools.org and if you still can't locate phone numbers, just call Rhonda at my office 222-1012 and she can direct you from there as needed.  We want to make sure that any question you have, no matter how small, is answered!

The first day back for new staff hired this past year will be Thursday, August 22 where new staff will meet at central office for training.  Then ALL staff come back from their summer vacations on Monday, August 26th and 27th for two full days of training and work/prep time.

The first day back for students in grades K, 6, and 9 will be Wednesday, August 28, 2019, then ALL STUDENTS begin on Thursday, August 29, 2019.

This year we have changed our start and end times, and I know there was a little confusion with my earlier parent letter (having sent out the wrong draft) so wanted to make sure folks had that information accurately.  Start and end times for each school are as follows:

Great Falls Elem.               Start:  8:50     End:  3:10
Narragansett Elem.            Start:  8:50     End:  3:10
Village Elem.                     Start:  8:50     End:  3:10
Gorham Middle School     Start:  8:00     End:  2:20
Gorham High School         Start:  7:50     End:  2:10

Transportation Policy and Bus Routes:



A copy of our full transportation policy is LINKED HERE, but some highlights include:

Required Walking Distances. . .

*  Students in grades K-5 will not be required to walk more than .3 miles to the nearest bus stop or to school.  In other words, K-5 students who live within .3 miles of a bus stop or a school should be prepared to walk to that stop or to school.

*  Students in grades 6-12 will not be required to walk more than 1 mile to the nearest bus stop or to school.  Again, this means that students in grades 6-12 who live within 1 mile of a bus stop or a school should be prepared to walk to that stop or to school.

Pick up and Drop Off locations. . . 

This policy was revised last year and is essentially the same in that K-12 students are permitted to have up to two pick up locations and up to two drop off locations that follow a consistent daily schedule.  Specifically, each student must select one of the two pick-up locations and one of the two drop-off locations for each day of the week.  The same Monday through Friday schedule will apply throughout the entire school year and alternating weekly schedules and/or daily changes are not permitted.  You can read more by going directly to the policy linked above.

2019-20 Bus Routes. . . 

New bus routes for the 2019-20 School Year will be posted on the district website by August 16 and will also appear in the Gorham Times in their August 23rd edition.  Please review the bus routes when they are posted and if you have questions, call the transportation office at 893-2547.

Learning System Resources:



For parents who would like to better understand our K-12 learning system in Gorham, I would urge you to check out the resources that we have posted on our website (linked above).  Once you are on the district site, please go to "About Us" on the left side of the main page, then click on "Gorham's Learning System" and from there you can navigate to all kinds of information on the right side of the page that I think you will find most helpful.  Of particular interest, are the following items:

*  Gorham's Learning System Handbook
*  Gorham's Grading Guide
*  "One Pager" on Our Learning System
*  "One Pager" on Our 1-4 Grading Scale (used in grades K-8)
*  "One Pager" on our Numeric Grading Scale (used in grades 9-12)
*  Copy of GHS Sample College Transcript

As always, if you have any questions, please reach out to your building principal or to me and we'd be more than happy to answer them!

Importance of Attendance:



Before I transition over to talking about a few important items that we will be focused on for the coming 2019-20 School Year here in Gorham, I did want to take a minute while everyone  is thinking about the opening days of school to promote the importance of school attendance for all children!

Did you know that absenteeism in the first month of school can predict poor attendance throughout the school year?  Did you know that poor attendance can influence whether children read proficiently by the end of third grade?  Did you know that by 6th grade, chronic absenteeism (missing 10% or more of the school year - which in Gorham is a total of 18 days) becomes a leading indicator that students will drop out of high school? Did you know that research shows that a student who is chronically absent performs lower academically than students who are not?

As a school system, WE NEED YOUR HELP!  When you as the parent make school attendance a priority, you help your child get better grades, develop healthy life habits, and have a better chance of graduating from high school ready to successfully meet all the challenges life may have in store for them!  Please help us, help your child to make daily school attendance a priority! THANK YOU!

Important Work in the Coming 2019-20 School Year:


A.L.I.C.E. . . 

As a district, we have several big items that we will be undertaking this year to benefit our students and our community.  The first deals with a topic we take very seriously here in Gorham, our student and staff safety.  As I mentioned in my opening letter, the Gorham Schools has adopted an emergency response protocol called A.L.I.C.E. for use with some specific crisis situations we hope never occur in our schools, but that we must be prepared for nonetheless.  ALICE stands for "Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate". 

During the course of the last school year we trained all K-12 staff in this new model and we are now ready to work on training students and parents about how it works and what to expect.  We will be training K-12 students in this protocol using a three-step approach.  The first step is to simply educate parents and students about ALICE.  The second step involves what we call "table top" discussions with teachers and students on how to use ALICE in specific circumstances and the third involves trainings where students have to make decisions, follow directions, and work through the protocols.  As you might imagine, these trainings will look very different for students in grade K as they might for students in grade 11 or 12.  We will be having an opening "informational night" for interested parents to learn more about ALICE and our plans for training students on Tuesday, August 276, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. at the GMS auditorium.  I would encourage parents who are interested in learning more to attend.

Aspire Gorham. . . 

Over the past several years GHS students have been focused on creating their "Future Stories".  What we've come to realize in this work is that students should begin thinking about their "Future Stories" well before they arrive at GHS!  Conversations with children about their future aspirations should start at an early age and be a conversation among many in the community, not just between parents and children or between guidance counselors and students, but between the entire community and the children who live here.

Aspire Gorham is focused on creating a community wide, Birth to adult, conversation about Aspirations (Our Future Stories).  It is focused on ensuring that students are EXPOSEd to various careers early on, that they get a chance to EXPLORE various careers throughout the course of their education in our schools and that they also get a chance to EXPERIENCE different pathways leaving our schools to pursue their Future stories more deeply.

The Gorham Schools will be launching its first full year of Aspire Gorham work this year.  We begun to create strong partnerships with our early learning community, we have established goals for all our schools (K-12) and we have strengthened relations with Adult Education programs and neighboring postsecondary schools (like USM).  We have some exciting things in store for our students and families this year - so stay tuned to hear more!

K-5 Attendance Zone Changes for 2020-21 School Year. . .

As most of you likely know, the Gorham Schools have been growing over the past few years.  In just the past four years we have added almost 180 students to just our grades K-5 classrooms alone!  As a result we have had to add positions and fill up classroom spaces at all three K-5 Schools.  Our three K-5 schools are now full and we need to figure out a way to continue to grow while keeping the best educational interests of our K-5 students in mind over both the short and long term.

As a means to this end, the Gorham School Committee has developed a long range facilities plan for K-5 that involves a "two-step" process.  The first step was approved by voters in June, 2019 - a modular expansion at Narragansett Elementary School.  The plan here is to reduce enrollments at Great Falls and Village Elementary Schools (to give them room to grow over the next 10-15 years) while pointing as much of the "new growth" towards Narragansett Elementary School.  This plan will result in the creation of three K-5 schools that will eventually have very similar enrollments and the eventual proposal to the state to build on a permanent capital addition to Narragansett Elementary School to house our growing populations for the longer term.

In order to make this plan a reality, a component of this work will be to shift our existing attendance zones so that we can reduce enrollments at Great Falls and Village and point growth towards Narragansett Elem. The School Committee realizes that NO ONE likes to have attendance zones change.  Changing attendance zones will likely mean that students/families that had attended one school for a year or even more, may be asked to attend a different school and no one likes these changes.  We work hard to build a strong "family" culture at each of our schools and when this "family" is interrupted...well no one is happy.  Of course, that doesn't mean we don't do it, because in order to do what is best for our children over the longer term, this piece of unpleasantness is necessary.  Please know that the Gorham Schools are going to work hard with ALL OUR FAMILIES to ensure that the process of shifting attendance zones goes as smoothly as it possibly can with a focus on building and maintaining those strong relationships we are so proud of here in Gorham.

Here's how the timeline for this work will roughly play out so you know what to expect:

*  Summer - September, 2019 Administration will work to re-draw the lines for our newly proposed attendance zones.  Again, the goal is to reduce enrollments at GF and Village and point growth towards Narr. Elem.

*  October, 2019 - Administration will bring draft attendance zone shifts to the School Committee for approval.  Once approved, the new zones will be announced to families.

*  October - December, 2019 - Administration will work to identify which staff members would be moving to which locations in the district AND identify which specific families will be attending which schools for the 2020-21 school year.

*  December, 2019 - Staffing changes will be announced to families.

*  January - June, 2020 - Specific transition activities will be hosted by the school aimed at making sure students and families are familiar with new schools and new staff.  Individual students may not yet be assigned to individual classrooms (which typically isn't announced each year until June's step up day regardless), but families and students will know which schools they will be attending and which teams (grade levels) of teachers they will be working with at each of those schools.  Activities may include open houses, informational nights, step up days, and many more.  The focus will be on building up those new strong relationships so that transitions will be as smooth as possible once they occur.

*  August, 2020 - School will begin.  New placements will be in place.  And then hopefully we won't have to adjust for another 10-15 years!


Well that's enough information for now.  Again, there is just sooooo much going on in our schools!  You can find our district Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as our individual school Facebook and Twitter account links on our webpage.  Also, please call or email any questions you may have.  We want to make sure you are informed as to what is going on because we know that TOGETHER (parents, schools and community) we make an awesome TEAM focused on meeting the needs of All of our unique learners!

See you all soon!

End of Year Information For Parents

Hard to believe we are closing out another incredible year within the Gorham Schools here shortly!  Its been such a great year with so many positive stories and incredible accomplishments by our students and staff.  It would take me too long to list so I won't do that here...but I would encourage you that if you don't already follow us on Facebook or Twitter - YOU SHOULD.  Its the best way to keep up with our very active and talented students and their accomplishments!

I wanted to go over several different items in this blog post so please bear with me.  I will do my best to use subtitles so you can either elect to skip over items, or read this post in "bite-size" chunks.  The first thing I wanted to review with folks is what to expect on June 11's Referendum Vote:

June 11 Referendum Vote:

There are actually THREE questions on this year's ballot related to the schools. . .

The first is our annual budget validation referendum.  The proposed FY 20 budget was unanimously approved last week by the Town Council.  The last step in this process is to have this budget "validated" by voters via referendum.  Voters will be asked to either vote "YES" to validate or approve of the proposed FY 20 budget or to vote "NO" to not validate and therefore not approve of the proposed FY 20 budget.  If the majority of voters vote "YES" the budget has been approved by the School Committee and the Town Council and validated by voters and is good to move forward.  If the majority of voters vote "NO" then the budget has been approved by the School Committee and the Town Council but NOT by the voters which would then require us to "go back to the drawing board" with the School Committee, revise the budget and go through the process all over again until we can pass a budget that is approved by all three bodies (School Committee, Town Council, and validated by voters).  Overall, we believe this is the best possible budget that balances the needs of our seemingly ever growing student population with the needs of our community.  You can find detailed information by going to our website LINKED HERE if you want to learn more.

The second item on the referendum is a vote that is required to be placed on the referendum by state statute every three years.  This question simply asks if voters would like to keep the budget validation process or not.  I will be honest that Gorham has been doing the budget validation process since the 1990's, well ahead of when the state mandated it for schools across the state in the mid 2000's.  If voters vote to keep the validation process things would continue as they have since then.  If voters vote to get rid of the validation process then all that would be required to pass the annual school budget would be a majority vote of the School Committee AND a majority vote of the Town Council.  The validation would simply go away.

The third item on the referendum is a vote to approve of the proposed K-5 Modular expansion at Narragansett Elementary School.  This is a MUCH NEEDED proposal with a tight timeline.  If you want to learn more about the proposal I'd encourage you to watch the video LINKED HERE. 

I realize that there may be parents out there who are pretty nervous about this proposal because they know that connected with this much needed facilities expansion is a planned shift in attendance zones.  I have had many parents reach out with questions about this shift, wanting to know if their child(ren) would be impacted and unfortunately I have had to let parents know that we do not yet know who will be impacted by this change.  We are, however, very mindful of this issue and understand the angst that many parents may be feeling towards a proposal that may shift students from one K-5 school to another.  Please know we would not propose this shift if we did not feel it was absolutely necessary and in the best interest of all K-5 students in Gorham.  The bottom line is this, our existing K-5 facilities (Great Falls, Narragansett and Village) will be full when we begin the 2018-19 school year and we know that in the following year the student population will continue to grow.  This means we will be out of space.  We also know that this growth is not going to stop anytime soon.  It may slow, granted, but there is no anticipation of it stopping.  Therefore, this is not a "short term" problem, but a long term problem which requires a long term plan. 

The plan that has been developed by the School Committee is a mid-range plan AND a long-range plan, one feeding into the other.  The long-range plan requires the need for us to build another major capital expansion (or a new building entirely) in order to account for our continued growth.  However in order to get to this long term solution, we need to develop a mid-range plan because we need state funding to help us achieve our long range goal.  This modular expansion proposal will address the mid-range needs of our K-5 schools while setting us up to achieve our long term goals.  After almost three years of study, the School Committee unanimously supports this proposal and the Town Council unanimously supported placing this question on the June referendum.

I have had parents also ask what would happen if this were referendum were not approved.  The simple answer would be that we would need to re-group and would likely bring this plan back for approval in November.  However, by doing so we are not greatly impacting our timelines for accomplishing the work needed.  The likelihood would then be high that we would need to expend additional unnecessary funds to place a truly temporary modular at one of the schools in order to then go back to this plan for 2021-22.  In the meantime, the likelihood is also high that class sizes would need to increase at this level as this would be the only way to fit more students into the same number of spaces.  None of these alternative would be pleasant. 

Again, we understand the angst that parents may be feeling with this process and so I thought it might also be fruitful to outline the plan we have in place to shift attendance zones for 2020-21.  I hope you will note the timelines, and activities and understand we would be doing this work with intentionality and great care towards ensuring any transitions families must go through are as smooth and thoughtful as possible.

Our Attendance Zone Plan

In an effort to allay some fears, I thought it would be useful to outline the process we would undertake to shift attendance zones for the 2020-21 school year.  Basically, it would be as follows:

Summer - September, 2019 - Administration would work with Municipal planners to identify largest areas of potential growth in Gorham over the next 10-15 years. We would then use this information to re-draw the lines of our three schools attendance zones.  The goal would be to "point" growth towards Narragansett Elementary School while ALSO working to reduce enrollments at Great Falls and Village to give them continued room to grow over the next 10-15 years as well. 

October, 2019 - Proposed New Attendance zones would be announced to families.

November/December, 2019 - School staff and administration would work to identify which staff members would be moving to which locations in the district AND identify which students would be going into which classrooms to begin the 2020-21 school year.

January, 2020 - K-5 Classroom assignments will be announced to families for 2020-21 school year.

January - June, 2020 - Each school will host family nights, open houses, step up days, and many more activities.  These activities will be aimed at allowing families to get to know their child's new placements for the 2020-21 school year and to develop friendships and other relationships with peers and other families in preparation for the new attendance zone shift to occur.

August, 2020 - A special day will be held for any new families to our schools to come visit classrooms, playgrounds, and new teachers prior to the beginning of the school year.

August, 2020 - School will begin.

I hope that you can see that we would take this process very seriously and do all that we could to ensure that necessary transitions occur as smoothly as possible.  One thing that should make all of our parents feel good is that ALL THREE of our K-5 Schools are AWESOME.  They are all three staffed by the most incredible teachers on the face of the planet (sorry I could be a bit biased here), all of whom care tremendously about your children and all of whom will work tirelessly to make sure this transition goes as well as it can possibly go.

I know this is asking a lot of families to support, but as I said earlier...the School Committee believes that this is the best possible solution moving forward and we wouldn't be proposing these changes if we didn't feel as though the alternatives would be much less so.

Last Days and First Days

The last student day for the Gorham Schools will be Tuesday, June 18, 2019.  This will be a HALF DAY of school for students.  Students will be dismissed on that day according to our usual early release schedules at each school.  Teachers will then come over to GMS on the afternoon of June 18 for our district wide staff closing and then they too will be dismissed for the summer.  Our school offices will be open for at least another week at each school so if you need anything that would be the time to reach out.  After the 25th of June our most of our school's offices will be open intermittently during the summer with the exception of GHS whose office is open throughout the summer months along with our central office.  If you get into the summer months and are unsure of school hours, but wish to talk with someone about a question please just reach out to Rhonda Warren (222-1012) at my office and she can direct you from there.

Not that ANYONE will be thinking of this anytime soon, but just so parents are aware, school will re-open again for teachers on August 26 and 27.  Students in grades K,6 and 9 will begin their first student day on August 28, 2019 and then all students will begin on August 29, 2019.  You can find a copy of our district calendar LINKED HERE for reference in planning your upcoming school year.

Next Year's NEW START AND END TIMES Across All Schools

As you can recall, the School Committee voted this spring to extend the student day by 20 minutes at the K-5 level and by 10 minutes at the grades 6-12 level to begin in the 2019-20 school year.  This means that start times at the K-5 Schools will shift and that ending times at all 5 schools will shift.  Official start and end times for the 2019-20 School Year per school are as follows:



As you can see, the school day will officially begin about 10 minutes earlier for our K-5 schools next year and will end about 10 minute later.  For GMS and GHS students, the day will end about 10 minutes later than it has in the past.

Please plan your schedules accordingly and if you have any questions, please reach out to either the Transportation office (893-2547) or my office (222-1012) and we'll be more than happy to answer them for you!

Transportation

As was the case last year, students will need to be "signed up" for pick up and drop off locations in advance of the opening of school.  There will be an online form available for existing families to make adjustments to routes and for new families to sign up.  That form will be posted on our transportation website sometime between now and the end of June.  Please check it out and call with any questions you may have.  The Transportation site is LINKED HERE. 

As was also the case last year, there is a limit to the number of pick up and drop off locations families are allowed.  I would ask that families familiarize themselves with our updated Transportation Policy, LINKED HERE and again, please reach out to my office or transportation if you have questions.

GHS Building Proposal

The work continues to find a way to address the needs of our growing student populations.  At this point, the GHS building committee has worked to reduce the scope of the project to what we feel is the bare minimum that still meets the educational needs of the students while reducing costs.  Revised proposals are currently being estimated and will be ready for review by the committee in late June.  The next step would then be to take that information and share it with the School Committee and to then meet jointly with the Town Council where we will share the revised proposal as well as the results of community input and determine next steps from there.

The likelihood is very high that we will NOT be ready to bring forward an item for the November, 2019 referendum, but this does not mean that the problems have been resolved.  It simply means we continue to do our due diligence so that when something is brought to the voters for approval it will be the RIGHT "something".  Please follow this work on our website (LINKED HERE) and stay tuned!

Athletic Capital Campaign

This work also continues and we have now set a "launch date" for our "Gorham Pride" Campaign.  We will be launching our campaign formally in alignment with this coming fall's Homecoming celebrations.  Please stay tuned for details...we have some very special plans in store and we will be ramping up communications in August!

Closing

I think that is all the essential information for now.  Parents should keep your eyes open on the transportation website for route forms to be completed.  I will send out an email when it is ready.  Families whose students are interested in fall sports should also keep an eye on our website (Athletic Page is LINKED HERE) to get updates on when physicals are required and when fall practices will begin. 

As the summer progresses and you have questions, please reach out to me at 222-1012 or feel free to email me at heather.perry@gorhamschools.org.

THANK YOU FOR ANOTHER GREAT YEAR! 

It is a pleasure to serve this incredible community...#Gorham Pride!☺

K-5 Modular Expansion Project Update

Hard to believe it is already mid-May and we are just weeks away from the close of another incredible school year here in the Gorham Schools.  With the ending of another school year comes the whirlwind of events celebrating the accomplishments of our students, and the hard work that goes into helping students and families transition from one grade to the next and from one school to another. 

FY 20 Proposed Budget Quick "Plug"

Another "not so small" thing that occurs during this time of the year is our school budget approval process.  I am not going to spend a lot of time on this blog post regarding the FY 20 budget, only to say that it has passed the school committee by a vote of 6-1, we have had a very productive budget workshop meeting with the Town Council and it is ready to be voted on by the Town Council on June 4.  If you would like more details on our proposed budget, please visit our web page linked HERE where you can find all the details you can handle!  You can also review the "one-pager" (LINKED HERE) I've put together to communicate the essential pieces of our proposed FY 20 school budget.  Please review and don't forget to get out and VOTE on June 11th!  THANK YOU!

The Proposed K-5 Modular Expansion Project at Narragansett Elementary School. 

SOME CONTEXT FOR WHY WE ARE PROPOSING THIS PROJECT. . . As you know, we've been experiencing significant growth over the past four years, actually increasing by 155 students in grades K-5 alone between 2015 and this school year.  The School Committee has been working over the past 3 years to develop a comprehensive long term facilities strategy/plan to address not only the current growth but the continued projected growth of our K-12 populations here in Gorham.  You can see those projections by CLICKING HERE and you can review a "one-pager" (LINKED HERE) that I put together to explain the K-5 modular project and its need. 

In addition to our facilities needs at the K-5 levels, I'm sure most folks are also fairly familiar with the needs at our High School Level.  To be clear, we will NOT be bringing forward a $97,000,000.00 high school project to the voters as that figure is simply too high, but we are still left with figuring out what we will do to address the needs at this level as well.  Again, I've created a "one-pager" to try and communicate those needs that is LINKED HERE. 

I mention the potential high school project here in order to be clear that due to growth, the community of Gorham is likely going to need to find a way to support TWO capital projects (not one) which plays heavily into our long term planning strategy and is part of the reason why we are electing to do what we want to do with the K-5 modular expansion project.  We are operating under the very likely and well-educated assumption that we will NOT be eligible for state funding for two capital projects. Of the two projects we need, we are more likely to get state funding support for an Elementary capital project than we would be for a high school project (this would take me another 2 blog posts to explain, but please understand we have asked enough questions to believe this to be true).  Therefore, we are looking to position ourselves to locally fund the long term needs at the high school level and to position ourselves at the K-5 level to be approved for a state-funded project.

State-funded projects take time...often as many as 6-8 years from the time an application is even made, and unfortunately the state is likely not to have another application cycle for 2 more years.  Therefore, the project we are suggesting is what we are calling a "mid-range" solution to K-5 growth that will last us 10-15 years whereby at the end of that time frame we would be positioned to build a state-funded capital expansion that would be at least 85% paid for by the State of Maine.  This "mid-range" solution will cost approximately $2.8 million dollars (in FY 20) and another $2.8 million dollars in FY 23 or 24 (depending upon continued growth) but will ultimately save the community upwards of $25 million dollars for a long term solution.   Here's another way to see that same information for those of you that like spreadsheets.  The first spreadsheet illustrates anticipated costs associated with our proposed plan in order to get us from where we are to a true long term solution (a capital expansion at the K-5 level that would house all students anticipated):



Total local costs to get us to the long term solution in this illustration would be $12,630,900.00.

The second spreadsheet illustrates for you the local costs that would be associated if we do not follow this plan, and instead look to do something different in phases like permanent construction at Narragansett in smaller chunks, or even possible renovation of another location with local funds.



Total local costs to get us to the long term solution in this illustration would be $38,543,976.00.

Again, these are illustrations only, so please don't get caught up in the specific dollar figures, but instead, try to focus on the relationships between costs for one plan vs. another.

The key to understanding the differences is that the modular expansion sets us up for an MDOE approved capital project within the next 10-15 years that would be at least 85% funded by the state, whereas other alternatives would place the burden of dealing with short, mid-range, and long term solutions on the backs of our local taxpayers entirely.

An Overview of the Long Range Plan

To make a long story short (I know, too late)...after several years of study, the school committee believes that the most efficient and cost-effective way to move forward and address our issues of growth is as follows:

1.  Maintain our existing K-5 elementary school structures.
2.  Create a "mid-range" expansion of Narragansett Elementary School (which is our largest site) by constructing "Phase I" (Blue part below) of the modular expansion plan during the course of the 2019-20 School Year.
3.  Complete "Phase I" (Blue) of the modular expansion by Spring of 2020.
4.  Spring/Summer of 2020 prepare parents and families for a K-5 attendance zone shift which will occur in order to open the 2020-21 school year.
5.  In Fall of 2020 shift K-5 attendance zones to allow for "room to grow" at Great Falls and Village Elementary Schools while shifting additional growth towards Narragansett Elementary School.  This will in effect create three K-5 schools of approximately the same size.
6.  By 2023-24 we may need to consider adding either all or parts of Phase II (Green) in order to address continued growth.  If we need to, we may at that point bond an additional modular expansion at a relatively similar cost to the first phase. The orange below only illustrates that if our enrollment projections are higher than anticipated, we could simply continue to add on at relatively small costs.
7.  By 2026 we need to have figured out what to do at GHS as it is in this year that growth will reach almost 900 students.
8.  Address GHS building needs by 2026 at a local cost of ????
9.  By 2028-29 be prepared for MDOE supported capital expansion at the K-5 level.

K-5 Attendance Zone Changes Proposed for 2020-21

As you have probably noticed, the proposal for this much needed modular expansion project comes with one other important piece of information.  A change to our current attendance zones for 2020-2021.  I am sure I can hear the collective groan (or possible scream) from parents from here and for that I truly do apologize.  NO ONE enjoys shifting attendance zones...however from time to time it is a necessity and we have reached that time in Gorham's growth that we must consider this.

The reason is that in order to make this a true 10-15 year "fix" for our growth issues, we not only need to expand at Narragansett and shift growth in that direction, but we need to provide some room to grow at the other two schools as well (that are both full).  Since both schools are currently full, the only way to do that is to shift attendance zones.

Now, we all knew this was coming (at least those parents of K-5 students who followed with intent our earlier discussions from 2 years ago regarding the possibility of changing our elementary school configurations).  Our attendance zones have not been adjusted since we originally opened Great Falls Elementary School and with the growth that has occurred, well it clearly hasn't been "evenly spread" across all three attendance zones.

We need to shift our zones so that we can provide more space at Great Falls and Village to continue to grow while also shifting the majority of continued projected growth towards Narragansett.  Our transportation Director (who by the way was the mastermind behind the last attendance zone work that didn't have to change for 10 years - which is incredible) has been hard at work trying to figure out where our new lines should go to create the spaces we need at Great Falls and Village while also encompassing the "hot spots" where we think growth will be at the highest in the future. 

Once the referendum is passed, we will work to get this information to parents as quickly as possible during the 2019-20 school year and communicate that effectively to parents throughout that year so that we are ready to make the shift for the 2020-21 school year, and hopefully NOT have to do it again for another 10 years!

A Frequently Asked Question or Two

This is already a long blog post (once again sorry)... but I did want to address at least one or two of the most frequently asked questions I get from parents and community members. 

Question #1- Why modulars?  Why can't we take that same (or likely a little more $) and sink it into an already existing building like the Little Falls Recreation Center and update that instead? 

Answer #1 - A valid question for sure as it seems that would make at least some sense...but when you lift up the layers of the onion a little more, you begin to see why it would actually be more costly to go this route.

Let's take Little Falls as an example (as its the one I hear the most).  There are currently 6 viable classroom spaces at Little Falls with some other auxiliary spaces.  So the first problem is space.  With 6 classrooms, you can fit approximately 120 students (avg. of 20 per classroom).  A single grade in Gorham right now has an average population of 215 students at the K-5 level.  That means you couldn't fit a whole grade into the school.  This means that you would have to have part of a grade there and the rest of it spread out across the other 3 schools.  Although this would be a bit of a nightmare to figure out with attendance zones, we could likely overcome that hurdle, but by doing so we are creating other consequences such as significantly increasing staffing costs. 

We would now need to split grades across another building.  This would force us to add staffing for allied arts such as Art, Music, PE, and for other support services important to our programs such as for PT, OT, Speech, Social Workers, etc.  We would need an additional administrator, school secretary, another school nurse, and these are just the quick things I can think of off the top of my head.  There would be increased costs for travel for these positions as one small school would not warrant full-time employees in these areas.  Then we would also have to add a cafeteria with cafeteria workers as we would be required to serve both breakfast and lunch to these students.  Then in order to make this work, we'd need to increase more bus routes, add drivers, and we would also need to clean an additional facility which would add costs for maintenance and custodial services. 

In other words, the staffing needs that would be created and would need to exist for the long term would far outweigh the initial upfront costs of the modular expansion where we wouldn't need to add as many staff (I say "as many" because with increasing populations, you will need to add staff...just wouldn't be as many as what you would do if you separate things out into another school). 

Of course, not to mention that if we were really considering Little Falls, we would also displace many senior-oriented programs that are very vested in that building, which is no one's intention.

Question #2:  What kind of modulars are we talking here?  Are these the same things we had 10 years ago?

Answer #2:  NO.  The modulars we are proposing will be connected to the school and to each other.  They will be secure facilities.  They will have access to bathrooms, technology, phones, etc.  All life safety codes such as sprinklers, etc. will be met.  Students will not have to go outside to get to them.  They will truly be connected and built in such a way as to last 10-15 years where previous modulars were put in place for 2-3 year short term fixes.  I am actually making a video to demonstrate this with Georgia at GOCAT and will send the link out as soon as it is completed.

Question #3:  What are the implications if we DO NOT approve this referendum?

Answer #3:  Our student populations are increasing and we are officially out of room at our existing K-5 schools as of next year (2019-20).  If we don't approve of this, we will likely need to add a modular at Great Falls and one at Narragansett in 2020-21 and then keep "piece-mealing" modulars at all three schools at a much greater cost due to inefficiencies of 3 separate sites.  The likelihood is also high that we would have to increase class sizes at the K-5 level to fit more students into the same existing spaces.

Question #4:  Why now?  Can't we wait another year or two?

Answer #4:  Unfortunately, we are out of room now at the elementary schools.  We are cobbling together a few more adjustments for 2019-20, but by 2020-21 we will either have to have a plan ready or we will be increasing class sizes to accommodate student numbers. 

We have to approve the referendum now so that there is the appropriate time to do the site work and other work required to have the expansion operational by the 2020-21 school year.  You can see the timeline by CLICKING HERE.

I could keep going with Q&A but this post is already WAAAAAYYYY TOOOOO LOOOONNNGGG!  Rather than do that I would urge you to reach out to me individually with any questions you may have and I'd be more than happy to answer them.  My email is heather.perry@gorhamschools.org.

THANK YOU!

FY 20 Proposed School Budget Approved by School Committee! On to Town Council!

I wanted to take a quick moment to share an update with folks on the FY 20 Proposed Gorham School Department Budget since we've had some recent changes since my last blog update that impact the overall proposal.

Newly Approved FY 20 Proposed School Budget:

On Wednesday, April 10, 2019 the Gorham School Committee voted 6-1 to approve of the newly revised FY 20 Proposed School Budget.

The proposed FY 20 Budget now totals $41,010,533.00 and represents a 5.31% increase in expenditures over the final approved FY 19 budget of $38,942,505.00.  This proposed budget represents an 8.2% increase in local appropriation need, an overall increase of $1,642,126.00. Assuming General Purpose Aid (State GPA) is finalized at the proposed level, and the actual FY 20 property tax base increases by just $25,000,000.00, the impact of this budget on the mil rate is an estimated increase of 6.6% or $0.79 on the mil.  I fully anticipate that this mil impact will decrease as we get more up to date information from the Town on our tax base increases for FY 20.

The proposed budget is approximately $700,000.00 LESS THAN what I had shared with folks in my last blog. Since my last blog, the School Department received information that our health insurance premiums would remain unchanged for FY 20 (0% increase) which allowed us to reduce approximately $150,000.00 from the budget. Also since my last blog, significant changes were made to our proposed CIPS (Capital Improvement) budget. These changes are a little more complex, so I'll take a moment to explain...

Our originally proposed FY 20 CIPS budget included over $1 million in funds to pay for site work for a proposed modular expansion project at Narragansett Elementary School that is needed to address our increasing enrollments at the K-5 levels. The School Committee had been attempting to pay for the modular expansion solely from "regular budget" funds. Because of this, we had anticipated leasing modular spaces and paying for the site work from the originally proposed FY 20 CIPS budget. However, when we brought the necessary referendum question to the Town Council for approval to be placed on the June ballot, the Town Council voted 4-2 against allowing the referendum question to be placed on the June ballot, explaining that their preference seemed to be that they wanted this expansion to be bonded and for the modulars to be owned by the Town of Gorham vs. leased. We will be meeting with the Town Council jointly on April 26 at 6:30 p.m. to gain clarity on this piece, and to hopefully move forward with the modular expansion as a bonded project. In the meantime, however, it became clear that we no longer needed to place the site work and lease costs in the proposed FY 20 budget because we would either be bonding this project or we wouldn't be doing this project at all (I'll get into the implications of that in a minute). Because of this, we were able to adjust our proposed FY 20 budget and reduce another $560,000.00 from the proposal.

That's the simplified version of how we got to the proposed budget we are at....if you want to learn more, please visit our website LINKED HERE and you can see the original budget presented to the SC, you can watch videos of our budget workshops, and you can see the final proposed budget booklet in much more detail.

Overall, the School Committee and our district leadership team believe that this budget represents the funds necessary to continue to support the high-quality educational services we strive to provide for our community's most precious resource (its children) while balancing the needs of our taxpayers who support our schools.

A Little More On The Proposed K-5 Modular Expansion

I wanted to make sure folks understood a little more about the need for our K-5 Modular Expansion Proposal. PLEASE CLICK HERE to read more detailed information. Bottom line is this. If we don't move forward with this expansion project we will officially be out of classroom space in all 3 elementary schools at the end of the 2019-20 school year. This means that in order to address continued growth from that point forward, we would either need to increase class sizes (putting more students in the same number of classrooms) or we would need to add a modular at Great Falls and then another one at Narragansett and then another one at Village, and, and, and. This would be a haphazard and "piecemeal" approach. The preferred approach is to build on a modular expansion at Narragansett Elementary School in order to prepare for a shift in attendance zones to occur for the 2020-21 School Year. This shift would then direct most of the continued growth towards Narragansett Elem. while reducing some populations from Great Falls and Village giving them additional room to continue to grow. This preferred approach would be a 10-15 year "solution" that would set us up well to then construct a more permanent addition onto Narragansett Elementary School that could be, at least partially, funded by the state. This would provide the long term facilities vision we wish to achieve.

The School Committee will be meeting with the Town Council on April 29 at 6:30 p.m. for a workshop meeting to discuss how to best move forward to address these needs. I will update you once I hear more.

Last Days of School

I just received official word from the MDOE today that they have approved my request to "waive" the use of a school day as a community day due to Pooch's funeral services. I can now share the last day of schools calendar with parents. Here's the plan:

With this one day "waived" we used 6 snow days this year, 5 of which were already planned in our calendar. This means we must make up one full day of school. Because of this, the last student day will now be held on Tuesday, June 18, 2019. This last student day will be an early release-dismissal day. Teaching staff from across the district will then gather in the afternoon for our final luncheon and closing workshop, after which they too will be dismissed for the summer.

So, once again, the last student day will be on Tuesday, June 18, 2019, and students will be dismissed early on this day. If you have questions, please reach out to your school's principal. If you are interested in seeing the 2019-20 School Calendar to start planning for next year...please CLICK HERE.

As always, if you have ANY QUESTIONS regarding the budget (or anything for that matter)...please let me know. You can always reach me via email at heather.perry@gorhamschools.org.

THANK YOU!