I attended the School Committee meeting of July 16, 2015. Members of the City Council were in attendance and spoke (Councilor LaPage and Council President Michitson) about the money from the school stabilization account that they had thought they allocated to the School Committee for the purpose hiring one or even two new health teachers for the middle school programs (this is in regards to the concern over drug use within the city). What surprised me was that the School Committee members do not actually have access to this money. “Why?” you may ask. Mayor Fiorentini let the School Committee members know that he alone had the authority to release this money to the School Committee and at this time he does not feel that the use of that money can be warranted for new health teachers when the money may need to be redirected to special education costs.
As you know, I have been on the negotiations committee for over a year now. I sit in those meetings and hear the School Committee members suggest to us to petition the City Council to allocate more funds for much-deserved and needed raises for teachers, secretaries and ESPs. Every time we are in a School Committee meeting or City Council meeting and the subject of teacher negotiations come up, the Mayor has to recuse himself due to his son being a teacher at Haverhill High School. So my questions is this: If he keeps recusing himself when we are talking budgets and he seems to be the individual that is the most active in directing where the funds are going within the city and what amounts the School Committee receives, then where exactly should we be directing our efforts?
As far as I understood, this was a lesson for the City Council to be more specific with where they are allocating funds for the future as the Mayor can move, change, or just sit on the money until he deems appropriate. So semantics will win this round and the City Council will need to learn from this lesson when they want to actually allocate money to the School Committee for a specific agenda.
On another note, the only reference initiated by the School Committee in regards to funding was about a grievance that they recently lost and that it will have a negative financial impact. A suggestion I would have given, had I been allowed to speak, would be to follow the contract in the first place and you won’t have to worry about losing money in arbitration.
Mr. Scully had three items that he focused on:
- Hunking school – Section A going up on schedule
- Walnut Square Garden – grants received
- Student Ranking – yes this is still a very big issue in regards to parents, students and administration. Personally, I can see some points from both sides of this issue. Mr. Wood would like to go to a policy subcommittee.
School choice came up and it was asked to have numbers provided for seats that we allow into our school system as well as the number of students that we lose to school choice. I think that this should only be in regards to the communities that we would have to provide funding to rather than looking at the numbers of students that we lose to private schools. That though is again my thought.
The Committee then entered into executive session and adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa Begley
President – HEA
The sext meeting of the Haverhill School Committee will take place on August 20th, 2015 at City Hall.