Vassalboro school budget will not increase town’s tax rate

Vassalboro Community School. (source: jmg.org)

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro School Board members have given preliminary approval to a 2020-21 school budget that, for the second year in a row, will not increase the town’s tax rate.

At the April 14 school board meeting, board members thanked Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer, who in turn thanked staff members at Vassalboro Community School (VCS) and in the regional school consortium and Town Manager Mary Sabins.

At the joint meeting with the budget committee that followed the school soard meeting, board member Jolene Gamage warned budget committee members and people watching the virtual meetings that the flat tax cannot last forever.

“It’s not fair to the kids,” she said, to postpone building maintenance, updated textbooks and other expenditures indefinitely.

Another budget-related issue was discussion of the decision to reduce the Gifted and Talented teacher’s position from five to three days a week. Gamage said she received an email questioning the balance between supporting gifted students and supporting those who qualify for the extra help provided by special education services.

Board Chairman Kevin Levasseur agreed with Gamage that families move to Vassalboro because of its high-quality special education program.

“That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve been for a number of years,” Levasseur said.

Pfeiffer estimates between three and five percent of VCS students are identified as gifted and talented. About 27 percent qualify for special education, he said.

The summary sheet for the overall budget shows almost $1.469 million for special education and more than $3.477 million for VCS (essentially, pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade regular education, including the Gifted and Talented program). The third major category in the $7.967 million dollar budget is tuition, at slightly over $2 million.

In addition to next year’s budget, board members made decisions and heard reports on various school-related activities.

They unanimously approved keeping VCS closed until further notice and resuming in-building classes only when recommended by Governor Janet Mills, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Maine Department of Education (DOE). They hope that classes can reconvene for a day or two this spring to ease the transition into summer vacation and fall classes.

Pfeiffer said after surveying staff members, he recommended that virtual teaching continue through what would have been April vacation. Skipping vacation and other schedule adjustments made it possible to move the last day of classes to Friday, June 5. Board members unanimously approved.

The preliminary 2020-21 calendar has classes beginning Tuesday, Aug. 25. Pfeiffer said the proposed calendar is coordinated with Waterville and Winslow high schools and Erskine Academy.

Principal Megan Allen described some modifications to the virtual learning schedule that started in March. The virtual learning is “basically refining skills” rather than adding new educational content, she said.

Plans for the near future include virtual parent-teacher conferences; making it easier for students to access computers; and distributing a newsletter, both in printed copies around town and on the VCS website. The pre-kindergarten screening originally scheduled for late April is postponed.

Vassalboro school buses are still delivering meals. Assistant Principal Aaron McCullough said on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays volunteers assemble in the VCS kitchen to pack 390 bags with two breakfasts and 390 more with two lunches. Other volunteers ride the bus routes to deliver the free meals wherever a student’s family is waiting.

School board members unanimously approved continued participation in the town’s solar energy project. First intended to create a solar farm somewhere in Vassalboro, the plan is now amended to buy power from a solar development outside town boundaries.

After a special April 20 meeting that included information from and discussion with attorney Aga Dixon, of Drummond Woodsum, the Portland firm consulted by many Maine school officials, school board members did not take the final step of agreeing to a contract to buy solar power. Instead, they plan to hold another special meeting Tuesday evening, April 28.

The next regular Vassalboro School board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday evening, May 19, and is planned as a virtual meeting.