Friday April 17 Blog Update

Today is Administrative Assistants Day!  If you want to take a minute and reach out to your school's office assistant, feel free to do so via email...we certainly couldn't run our schools face to face, OR virtually without them!  



This is the last blog update before the April break so I thought I'd keep it pretty light with just a few "serious" pieces...I'll do the serious pieces first, then share some "good stuff" and end with a quick video from me!

School Committee Passes FY 21 Proposed Budget

The Gorham School Committee voted 6-1 on Wednesday night to approve of a proposed FY 21 budget.  Here are some of the significant changes to be found:

Additions:

*  .5 Adaptive PE teacher for Grades K-12
*  School Counselor Position at Narragansett Elem. School
*  Assistant Principal at Narragansett Elem. School
*  Math Lab Teacher at Narragansett Elem. School
*  GMS Health Teacher
*  Speech Therapist (GF/Vil. Elem.)
*  .3 OT (Village)
*  1 Ed. Tech. (FLS Narragansett)
*  Increase School Psychologist to Full Time
*  1 Ed. Tech (Narragansett RR)
*  1 Ed. Tech (GMS FLS)
*  GHS I Pads
*  K-1 I Pads
*  Reveal Math Pilot
*  Additional Funds for Summer School Programming

Reductions:

*  Electricity/Propane Reductions
*  Reduction 1 bus route (unfilled from FY 20)
*  Movement of some CIPS projects into proposed Bond
*  2 Elementary Ed. Techs.

The proposed FY 21 Budget totals $43,101,605.00 and represents a 5.10% increase in expenditures over the final approved FY 20 budget of $41,010,532.00.  This expenditure increase includes an amount of $150,000.00 at the request of the Town Council to establish a reserve account for unfunded summer benefits.  If that figure is subtracted from the proposed budget, the increase would then be $1,941,073.00 or 4.7%. This proposed budget represents a 4.46% increase in local appropriation need, an overall increase of $965,981.00.  Assuming General Purpose Aid (GPA) remains status quo, and the actual FY 21 property tax base increases by just $15,000,000.00, the impact of this budget on the mil rate is an estimated increase of 3.55% or $0.45 on the mil.  This is the lowest requested mil increase from the school department in the last four fiscal years (FY 17 = .87, FY18 = .67, FY 19 = 1.55, FY 20 = .79). 

The next step in the budget process is to deliver the proposed budget to the Town Council by April 22, 2020 to meet charter requirements. Then we have a May 12th scheduled joint budget workshop meeting with the Town Council and a scheduled vote on the total municipal budget by the Town Council on June 2, 2020. At this point that June date MAY change due to requirements of moving the regularly scheduled June referendum to July - so stay tuned as we get closer to June for updates on the timeline.

School Committee Upcoming Meeting Schedule

The next two School Committee meetings are:

*  April 29, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. - Special Meeting
*  May 13, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. - Regular Meeting

You can find Agendas by CLICKING HERE.  At the top of each agenda will be information on how to connect via zoom.

Have you seen these videos from Our Staff?

Just saw a couple of great videos from our staff to students...thought I'd share more broadly...check them out:

*  Village School Message to Students
*  Great Falls "Staying Fit" message to Students

I am also aware of some incredible videos that are being created that are scheduled to come out after the April break - so keep your eyes out for those!

April Break - What to do?

I know many parents may be wondering what they can do with children over the course of the April vacation while "distance learning" takes a little break.  I came across this great resource online that I thought parents might appreciate - its called:  100 things you can do at home while social distancing!  Some really creative ideas!

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/entertainment-news/things-to-do-in-self-quarantine/269-f002dfab-7edb-42cd-bc67-857b671dea1e

Here's another  great resource (more elementary focused) made by one of our teachers for things to do as well...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cflUA5bpezGUry6l4zR6hnxdNnYbFZPiteAXxzaZiO0/edit?usp=sharing

Taking Stock Video from Mrs. Perry

Here's the link to my video...just over 10 minutes - so not too long!  ☺

ENJOY YOUR BREAK...UNPLUG...REFOCUS...SPEND TIME WITH FAMILY...AND COME BACK ON THE 27TH RESTED AND READY FOR THE NEXT LEG OF THE JOURNEY TOGETHER!  GO RAMS!