We have reached the Holiday break! Please allow me to take a moment to wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season as we end 2024 and begin 2025! There is much to share...so on with the pictures and the updates!
Now on to the Updates!
UPDATE ON SUPERINTENDENT'S 2024-2025 GOALS
As a new year is set to start and with it the tradition of new year's resolutions - I thought it might be timely to update everyone on my annual goals and how things are going on the five goals created for the 2024-2025 School Year. Keep in mind that this is not quite the halfway point of the school year (the halfway point will be Jan. 27) so it is perfectly ok if not everything has been met yet!
Below is an overview of each goal. If you want more details on each action step, you can CLICK HERE to view the analysis provided to the Gorham School Committee at their last meeting held on December 11,2024.
For this goal, I have either completed or started approximately 40% of the goal. The Metrics for Success document has been reviewed by the Teaching and Learning Committee, and we have worked to conduct an alignment analysis with our Mission/Vision and Strategic Plan. We have considered the various ways that success can be measured in a school system, and our next steps will be to research how other exemplary districts measure success. After that, we will begin creating recommendations for changes that we believe need to be made to the document that will allow us to measure our success as a district for another 4-5 years.
This goal has taken a slightly different turn than initially anticipated, but it still going well. 100% of the action steps outlined have either been started or completed in a different way than expected. When I first envisioned the work that would need to be done to accomplish this goal, I hadn't considered the possibility of perhaps working with other Greater Sebago Education Alliance (GSEA) education service center members, but that has turned out to be the direction we are headed in for exploration of how to provide these services in our area together. The GSEA has created a working group tasked with defining, outlining, and budgeting for what it COULD look like to share services across multiple SAUs to meet the requirements of this law. So far, we have worked to gather baseline data, set up a site visit to SAUs who are currently providing these services, and set up a meeting with MDOE.
We will continue to plan together to nail down regional services and then plan what needs to be done by each individual SAU to make this happen. One thing that has changed due to this more regional approach is the anticipated timelines. When this goal was envisioned, we thought we might want to jump into the 2nd cohort to begin services in Fall 2025. This has been delayed, and the likelihood is high that we will not formally start picking up these services until Fall of 2027.
The good news is that, by doing this work more regionally, we will likely be able to provide better services at a lower cost. The bad news is that this will delay implementation until the final year allowed by state statute.
This goal has been going well, too. Approximately 88% of the planned action steps for this goal have either been completed or started. We've been making great strides in the work of the Fiscal Sustainability Committee. We have also been communicating a lot more with members of the Gorham community who are not directly associated with the schools. Although more can always be done in this area, we are seeing great success for our students. For example, one creative way that some GHS teachers have created to engage our older citizens with learning with our students has been to develop ways in which aging adults can interact with our students meaningfully. Example 1: GHS English classes studying what it means to live balanced and healthy lifestyles are interviewing aging adults to hear from them. Example 2: GHS math classes reaching out to aging adults to ask for advice on financial planning. What great ways to meaningfully engage our high school students in learning essential life lessons from our older generations! The students have LOVED it, and we've heard equally positive feedback from our community's adults who have participated!
There is always more that can be done in this area, but I am happy with our district's progress in communicating better with the broader community.
For this goal, 100% of the planned action steps have either been completed or started. This year's most significant focus has been increasing student voice. This work began with the completion of the "What I Wish My Peers Knew" activity district-wide during the opening of the school year and has culminated thus far in the participation of over 1,200 students in grades 5-12 in a student voice survey—the results of which will be shared in my next blog in January.
Another focus for the year under this goal has been refreshing our Code of Conduct. This work has gone very well across all five schools, ensuring students know and understand our Code of Conduct, its meaning, and how their actions align with its objectives.
Once again, 100% of this goal's action steps have been completed or started. However, this goal has also taken a slightly different path than initially anticipated. In the early part of the work, it became increasingly clear that we have a strong foundation for strengthening our induction processes. So, rather than spending a significant amount of time working with a stakeholder group, a smaller group was able to get together and map out the items needed to strengthen our retention practices.
You will see much of this work in our FY 26 budget development processes. It will involve some significant shifts at the central office level that we would like to make to emphasize the strength of our human resources. Stay tuned!
HOW ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN MAINE FUNDED BY STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS?
First, it is essential to note that, unlike our personal, business, or municipal budgets, school budgets are limited to just three revenue items, which provide all the funds needed to fund our public schools. Those are:
It is important to also note that we also receive direct funding from the federal government through IDEA or ESEA funds. Still, those funds have specific "strings" attached and must be spent in particular ways related to federal laws. Because of this, the expenditures required for those funds basically "wash out" the revenues received, so I am not including them in this analysis. However, feel free to reach out directly with questions if you have them!
We must build a budget each year whereby our revenue streams match our expenditures. In other words, we can't "go in the hole" each year and must ensure that revenues offset whatever happens to our expenses. With that said, here's a snapshot of the past ten years in dollar figures for each of the three revenue streams listed above:
The Essential Programs and Services (EPS) funding formula governs the state subsidy we receive each year. It is a six-page formula, so it is complex. You can view our most recent 279 print-off by CLICKING HERE. However, the best way I've been able to help folks understand it is to think of it as a scale with two sides, kinda like the image below:
The Allocation side of the formula uses per pupil amounts that add up to a total allocation the state determines is what is "essential" to operate your schools. Mind you, this isn't the actual cost of education, but what the state determines is the min. amount required to meet basic requirements from the state.
The allocation side is then distributed based on the establishment of a min. mil expectation by the state. Each community has to provide a min. mil (portion of their state value) to fund public education. Last year's min. mil was 6.2. This min mil is multiplied by your total community's state property value averaged over the past 3 years. This is similar to the local valuation, but not the same. When the total allocation is multiplied by the min. mil value for each community it is the amount each community must contribute locally to fund public education. Whatever the difference is between that number and the total allocation is what the state pays directly to each community in the form of subsidy.
For example, last year, our total allocation was $39,090,277.29. When we multiplied our state value by the minimum mil expectation, that number came up to $15,259,541.34. This is what the community of Gorham is required to pay to minimally support its public schools and receive state subsidy. The difference between those two numbers is $23,830,735.95, which is what the state pays Gorham in the form of an education subsidy to support public schools.
Yes, each community's subsidy is very different across the state based on these two key factors: Allocation, which is primarily driven by student populations, and Distribution, which is primarily driven by state property values.
Because Gorham is the lowest-valued community in Cumberland County, we receive significant state subsidies. In fact, because of our comparatively lower property values, we are the highest subsidy recipients in the county.
All of this is well and good, however, the EPS subsidy formula needs to have calculations that allow it to keep up with inflation, which we have seen significant amounts of recently. It does not. As a result, even though our state subsidy has gone up each year, the percentage of that compared to our total expenditure budget has decreased. See the graphs below for a ten-year history:
Actual Allocation Graph 2015 - 2024
State Subsidy as Percent of Total Revenue 2015-2024
1. Increase local taxes
2. Increase miscellaneous revenue streams
Unfortunately, our miscellaneous funding streams, even when "maxed out," have only accounted for under 2% of our total budget. The "heavy hitters" are subsidies and local taxes. So, when one goes up or down, the other has to account for the difference to balance out on the revenue side of things.
Recently, we have made a concerted effort to increase our miscellaneous revenues to try and grow this piece of the overall revenue pie and help take some of the pressure off the local taxpayer. You can see this pattern in the chart shared above, whereby in FY 20, we had as little as $184,000.00 and change in the miscellaneous category, but in FY 25, we were able to grow that amount to $828,000.00 and change. Now, some of that is the strategic use of fund balance. Still, some of it is also doing things like adding in revenues for CDS billing, MaineCare Billing, and being an active member in the Greater Sebego Education Alliance - all of which have increased revenues for the Gorham Schools. We will continue to push to grow this part of our revenue stream, but we have only so many "tools" in our allowed "toolbox" to do so.
Please know that we realize that the other conversation we always need to have is about the expenditure side of the balance sheets. We have these yearly as we develop our zero-based school budget. This piece focuses on informing the public about our revenue constraints as a school system and helping people better understand how all this works! Hopefully, this has provided some helpful information, or perhaps it has made you curious and want to ask more questions to better understand.
I encourage anyone with these types of questions to contact me at heather.perry@gorhamschools.org. You can also review THIS SLIDE DECK and/or the recording of the August 26 Fiscal Sustainability Committee meeting to listen to me present this information (and more) to the group. Finally, I encourage folks to follow along with the conversations and meetings held by the School Committee as part of its annual budget process. You can CLICK HERE to do that. Thank you!
WHAT ARE EARLY RELEASE DAYS USED FOR ANYWAY???
Early Release days are an extremely valuable tool for public schools. They provide high-quality professional development opportunities to teachers and support staff, which later translate into improved classroom and school practices to benefit our children.
Any given school year is comprised of 175 student days. Our professional teaching staff have contracts to work 183 days. Of those 8 additional days, two are "flex days" or "give back" days that offset teachers spending time during the week of fall and spring Parent/Teacher conferences. Two full days are for Parent/Teacher conferences, and the other four days are for in-service learning or professional development (PD) days. Of those four days, we use two days to jump-start the school year and ensure we are prepped and ready to go when students arrive each year. Of the other two days, one is in October, and is a shared PD day with other regional school systems. The other day is in November for the elections.
The bottom line is that of the 8 additional teacher days we have to provide teachers with high-quality PD on best instructional practices, refining assessment practices, etc., we only have 2 days per year. Now add in the fact that teachers are required to conduct over 7 hours of mandated training each year on things like sexual harassment, anti-bullying training, suicide prevention training, mandated reporter training, blood-borne pathogen training, etc. (you get the point). That takes up one full day in itself. There needs to be more time for PD, which is where early release days come in.
Early release days provide our teachers and other staff with the high-quality PD they need to be successful in their schools and classrooms with children. Below is just a sample of the different types of learning that has taken place by our teachers so far this year:
PK-5 Grade levels:
*. Time with literacy consultant
*. Safety Care training
*. Lynx Training (safety communications)
*. New staff DEI&B training
*. LETRS Training
*. Pre K For ME Curriculum Training
*. Training for roll out of new Library Software
*. Social skills resources
6-8 Grade levels:
* Safety Care training
*. Lynx Training (safety communication)
*. Data Review
*. Training for roll out of new Library Software
*. New staff DEI&B training
*. Advisory Training
*. Team & PLC level PD
9-12 Grade levels:
*. Safety Care Training
*. Lynx Training (safety communications)
*. New Staff DEI&B training
*. NEASC accreditation work
*. Vision of a Graduate work
*. Training on new library software
*. Department level PD
*. Training on GHS Creates (i pads)
These days also offer important opportunities for Special Education, Multilingual, G&T, and other specialists to get together across the district, where they would otherwise not have the opportunity to share practices and calibrate their work across the schools.
So next time you are wondering what teachers and others are doing during an early release day - know that we are learning and sharpening our practices to benefit the children we serve!
ASPIRE STILL GOING STRONG IN GORHAM!
Aspire Gorham's work is still going strong here in Gorham!
Let me take a moment to remind folks about Aspire Gorham. Aspire is a community-wide initiative encouraging all students to consider their future stories. At the PK-5 level we focus on EXPOSING students to as many different careers as possible so that they can "see" the various possibilities out there for their future success. At the middle school level, we focus on the EXPLORATION of multiple careers. This is where we encourage students to get their hands dirty, to try things out, and to do so without fear of failure. Then, at the grades 9-12 levels, we focus on EXPERIENCING various careers. We want students out doing job shadows, ELOs, CTE programs, apprentice programs, internships, and the like.
At the high school level, we have THREE primary ways students can get involved in career exploration in addition to things like Extended Learning Opportunities (ELOs) or CTE programming. The three major programs at GHS that focus on future story work are:
1. Career X
2. Career Treks
3. Service Treks
Here's a little bit more about each and how they work:
Career X:
Career Treks:
Service Treks:
What incredible ways to help students connect what they are learning in our schools to their aspirations and future career choices in real and meaningful ways!
If you want to learn more about Aspire Gorham, Career X, Career Treks, or Service Treks or are interested in how you and your area business could get involved, please contact Eliza Kenigsberg at eliza.kenigsberg@gorhamschools.org!
NEW YEAR'S GORHAM ACTIVITIES ANNOUNCED!
Below is a note from Patricia and New Year's Gorham! Check out all the great family activities and help our community welcome the new year in with style!
From New Year's Gorham:
The New Year Gorham Committee has changed things up this year to include events for ALL grades and ages. We have added some new events: a silent glow room dance party, the Children’s Museum is participating this year with a play and life size whale display, some comedy (Running With Scissors Improv Group) and the final event… an indoor laser show! We still have a lot of community involved acts as well. Tickets can be purchased through the Recreation Department website or in person the day of the event. We look forward to a spectacular event!
CLICK HERE for the flyer in pdf form or see image below:
That is it for this blog post. The next one will be shared on January 10, 2025. Sharpen up those New Year's resolutions, everyone. Happy Holidays! We'll see you in the new year!☺
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