Parents can attend any of the following sessions to ask questions and share their goals and concerns for the district. At these sessions, worksheets are available for you to provide confidential feedback. Please make every effort to attend one of these sessions — and bring another parent with you!

• Parents:  Tomorrow, Friday, Jan. 20 at 9 AM at the Hamilton Wenham Public Library
• Parents: Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 7 PM at the Public Library
• Community Members, including parents: Wed. Jan. 25 at 9AM and 7PM at the Public Library

If you prefer email, the district has retained the services of Massachusetts Association of School Committees representative Glenn Koocher as a neutral party to provide guidance and consultation during the search. You can email your thoughts directly to Mr. Koocher in confidence at gkoocher@masc.org.

The superintendent sets the tone for our administrators, our teachers, our students, and the learning environment of our district. Help make sure parents’ opinions and priorities are included in the decision-making process. (Please click here to review SOS’s suggestions for pursuing quality education in our district.)

See you Friday, Tuesday or Wednesday!

Support Our Schools would like to right that balance by urging the community to “Remember the Quality” — both as we begin deliberations on the FY2013 budget, and in going forward with long-term planning.

At a recent SOS meeting, discussion came back time and again to topics concerning quality and leadership.  The list below reflects our shared concerns and priorities.

Curriculum:

Curriculum at All Levels

1. Members are concerned about the strength of our STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) programming, from kindergarten through 12th grade.
2. Members are concerned that we are not adequately meeting the needs of students interested in drafting, mechanical design, and other “hands-on” disciplines, particularly at the middle and high schools.
3. We wonder if we are adequately meeting the needs of gifted/accelerated students, particularly at the elementary and middle school levels,
4. Members would like to see the adoption of a 21st century skills curriculum (collaboration, learning by design, critical thinking), particularly in the middle and elementary schools.
5. Members question whether it’s acceptable that the district offers only one foreign language.
6. We are concerned that the HWRSD offerings in the visual arts and graphic design are insufficient to nurture students talented in these areas.

Curriculum at the High School Level

1. We are concerned that our graduated students have, in recent years, expressed the view that our science programs, particularly laboratory sciences, have not provided sufficient support for a strong start in college in the STEM disciplines.
2. We are concerned that HWRHS does not offer a comparable range of electives as other schools of our size, makeup and achievement.  We are concerned that we do not offer an adequate number of AP opportunities, especially to juniors.

Curriculum at the Middle School Level

1. Members support a return to academic teaching teams to the middle school
2. Members support the restoration of a mechanical/engineering/building/shop type class to the 8th grade curriculum.

Curriculum at the Elementary School Level

1. We are concerned about the lack of Language Arts writing curriculum in the elementary schools.
2. Members are concerned that class sizes in the elementary school may be up against or exceeding district recommendations
3. We are concerned that students in the same grade across elementary schools are not receiving a comparable educational experience.
4. Members would like to understand the status of the math curriculum in the elementary schools and the benefits achieved by standardizing the curriculum in the past few years.

Delivery of Educational Services

1. Members would like to hear from the current administration – interim superintendent, assistant superintendent of learning and student services director — a shared educational vision for our district.  This vision should be articulated to teachers, students and staff, and any gaps in resources and authority needed to ensure that vision is executed should be identified and addressed.
2. We would like to understand whether department heads can ensure their teachers are functioning as a cohesive educational team with shared visions, goals and expectations from 6-12, and whether heads are encouraging and enabling opportunities for cross-departmental learning.
3. We would like to understand whether Wednesday planning time for teachers and staff is being used as effectively as possible.
4. We would like to understand whether HWRSD does an adequate job of identifying and supporting excellent teachers and effectively sharing their talents with their peers.
5. We would like to understand whether expectations of teacher excellence are effectively communicated throughout the organization, and whether there is an adequate process in place for ongoing evaluation of tenured teachers.

Technology:

1. We would like to understand whether our district-wide technology infrastructure is adequate to meet the needs of the administration, students, teachers and parents.
2. We would like to understand whether technological expectations are effectively communicated to teachers.
3. We would like to understand whether teachers who are in need of instruction and support around new technologies are offered adequate opportunities to improve their skills.
4. With the rollout of Edline to the middle and high schools, we would like to understand what the next steps in our district technology plan are.

Organizational structure/operations:

1. We would like to understand whether the current organizational structure – with a superintendent focused on business/finance and responsibility for curriculum placed elsewhere – is working for our district currently and whether this structure is the best way going forward to meet the educational expectations of the community.
2. We would like to understand the articulated requirements for our vacant high school and middle school principal positions, and a timetable for filling these positions.
3. We would like to understand whether there are plans to address our current structure of 100% user fees for sports, arts and educational extracurriculars.

After 20 years, Don Gallant is stepping down from the School Committee. His institutional knowledge and his understanding of educational finance have been assets to our schools and our towns, and we thank him for his service.

That leaves an open seat on the school committee, which by law must be filled by a Wenham resident, to be appointed by the Wenham Board of Selectmen.

This is an excellent opportunity to “try out” a school committee position without having to run a campaign or commit to a three-year term. This position runs only from now until elections in May 2012.

This year is a critical one for our district, and the school committee has important work before it. Please consider stepping up to serve our kids and their schools.

Interested Wenham residents should submit a letter of intent and a brief resume by September 9 to Peter Gray at grayp@hwschools.net.

Preliminary Chapter 70 FY 2012 (Click to enlarge)

HWRSD gets less than half of the amount of state funding provided to the average district in the state. The Chapter 70 formula takes into account aggregate property values and aggregate income levels of the residents of the town supporting a school district.  The State uses this formula to vary funding to school districts greatly — from 100% funding for some districts to as low as 17.5% to others.  In FY 2010 HWRSD received only 20.8% of its foundation budget from the state.  In FY 2011, this translated to state funding for 12.4% of our actual spending, since we spend above the state-mandated minimum.

Forcing a significant portion of school funding onto local revenue sources creates significant inequities in property tax rates.  In 2011, property taxes ranged from $2.13 per $1,000 of assessed value in Chilmark, MA to $19.49 per $1,000 of assessed value in Springfield, MA, a more than 9x spread.   Compared to other states, MA relies heavily on local property taxes to fund its public schools.  The chart below shows that Massachusetts is in the top 10 of all states in terms of the percentage of public school revenue derived from local property taxes.

Percent Public School Funding From Local Revenue (2008 Data) (Click to enlarge)

The overall 52.8% local share of public school funding in Massachusetts is high compared to other states, but as we see in the Chapter 70 chart above, some towns and cities are required to cover much higher percentages, up to 82.5%, of public school expenses.  With the 80% local funding share imposed on HWRSD under Chapter 70, Hamilton and Wenham’s  school funding burden is very high and tax rates will remain higher than average even if the HWRSD spending level were reduced to the state average, or below.

Property tax rates are the result of two factors:

• How much money you need to raise
• The total assessed value of the property to be taxed

Addressing the denominator first:  the total assessed property values in Hamilton and Wenham are not high compared to our population.  Our rural nature, mixed housing stock, high open space and nonprofit land keep this value low. Compared to some other communities, Hamilton and Wenham have:

• Insignificant commercial tax base
• No oceanfront/super-luxury homes
• High untaxed/low taxed non-profit property (e.g., Gordon College, Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Trustees of Reservations, Essex County Greenbelt) agricultural land and government-owned open space (Town parks and Bradley Palmer State Park)

Also, in recent years, the value of taxable property in Hamilton and Wenham has been shrinking.  For example, Hamilton’s FY 2010 equalized valuation (as reported by the MA Department of Revenue) is about $1.5B, while two years earlier it was $1.64B.  This reduction in property values will cause the tax rate to increase even without spending increases.

The amount we need to raise is relatively high in comparison the assessed values:

• Typical population of full time residents, including school children
• Our small town sizes precludes economies of scale in all services (regionalization of Hamilton and Wenham services helps where we do it–for example, could save $500K by merging police alone—but it is not enough)
• We receive very low support from the state for HWRSD (See “Massachusetts Requires Hamilton and Wenham to Pay for 80% of the State Mandated Funding for HWRSD”)

Unlike towns on Cape Cod or the islands, we have mostly a year-round population with resident children to educate.  While we have had a regional school district since 1959, even combined the towns are small:  note that the aggregate assessed values of Hamilton and Wenham are still $200M less than Ipswich.

Putting aside the question of how much we should spend, it is useful to understand the impact that a school spending reduction would have on the tax rates in Hamilton and Wenham. Our tax rates are about 30% above the average MA property tax rate, as shown on this chart:

If HWRSD per pupil spending were decreased by $1.7M, the property tax rates in both towns would be reduced by only 4%. Using the FY 2011 tax rates as a starting point, that means:

• Hamilton tax rate would be $16.23
• Wenham tax rate would be $16.51

This 4% reduction would translate to annual tax reductions on a $400,000 home of:

• $304 in Hamilton
• $265 in Wenham

Greater reductions in school spending would have a proportionate impact on our tax rate.  For example, a $4M reduction in spending in HWRSD (which would take us well below average spending levels) would reduce our tax rates only by 9-10%.

FY 2010 Per Pupil Spending - 328 MA School

But when HWRSD is compared to the average FY 2010 spending of the 25 other schools that made the Boston Magazine’s top public high school list (remember, we were No. 12), HWRSD spent about $840 less per pupil — around median for the group. Cutting $4M out of our school spending, as has been suggested, would take us substantially below average and near the bottom of these comparables.

Boston Magazine's Top 25 - 2010 (Click image to enlarge)

The question becomes, do we want an average school system or a competitive school system?

You can benchmark E&D among all the other regional school districts by determining the percent of their total budget represented by their E&D reserve.  As noted in The Community Connection and the memo from the Department of Revenue on Free Cash (another name for E&D), both posted below, 3% is a recommended minimum level for E&D. State law requires E&D in excess of 5% of the annual budget to be applied against expenses in the following year.   The chart below shows E&D as a percent of the total budget for 59 regional school districts (eliminating those which are technical, agricultural or vocational schools).

DOR certified E&D for FY 2011 as a percent of FY 2010 Spending (Click to enlarge)

The chart was developed using FY 2011 E&D levels reported by the MA Department of Revenue and FY 2010 Total Expenditures reported by the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.  The chart shows that 61% of the districts have E&D at or above 3%. The average E&D level for all districts shown is 3.3%.  HWRSD’s E&D for FY 2011 (the current school year) was 3.4% of its FY 2010 spending, as shown in the chart.  Based on the position of the majority of the Hamilton Selectmen, the School Committee adopted a final FY 2012 budget that has E&D at approximately 2.3% of the budget, which would place us near the bottom quartile of the FY 2011 data.

The 2011/2012 Community Connection, published in April 2011, by the  Town/School Budget Process Committee – (PDF, 11 pages)

Department of Revenue Advice on Free Cash (E&D) – (PDF, 1 page)

Have you noticed the new design? I’ve installed a new theme, much like our old website, just updated for modern browsers.

I’ve been moving my client websites to a new cloud based server in New Jersey.  This new server is at least 6 times faster than the old one, and has an advanced system architecture with a self healing fail-over setup (tech talk that means the site will stay online even if a disc crashes on the server).

If you’ve bookmarked the website you may wish to update it, as it now does not include /wordpress. The old address was www.hwsos.org/wordpress, now all you need to use is www.hwsos.org

Looking for a new header photo

I really like the header photo, but it’s got nothing to do with our community. If you have a photo that you’d like to offer, please send it along. I can edit the photo, it just needs to be high resolution, and will eventually be cropped to 960 x 200 pixels.

Tom Rogers