Elementary Class Size to Rise, February Vacation Gone, Gill Resigns From Committee

The average elementary class size will rise to 25 due to a loss of 10 teaching positions district wide.

Seven of those teaching positions will be eliminated from the elementary schools, and three special ed postions will be eliminated.

Administrator Barbara Senges indicated that in K-2, class average would be 22 maximum, with a maximum of 25 at intermediate elementary levels.  An effort will be made to even out the imbalance in class size among schools where Lawrence is currently seeing class sizes of 25 and higher and most classes at Spencer are below 17 students per class.


Lawrence will see an increase of four teaching positions next year, while Spencer will be down three.  In addition Wesley, Snow, and Bielefield will be down one position each.  Farm Hill will lose two positions and Macdonough will gain one.

New School Calendar

After complaints at the last Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Michael Frechette introduced a new compromise school calendar which was passed by the Board in a vote of 4-3.

The new calendar allows for school closing on Voting Day, and for a return to the "normal" Thanksgiving week with full days on Monday and Tuesday, a half day on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday off.

February break will be eliminated and replaced by a five-day weekend surrounding President's Day.

"This will give students and the schools five days off," Frechette said.  However teachers will use one of the days for an in-service conference day.

Board member Sheila Daniels protested the change as an over-reaction to a tough winter and said that the Board should adhere to the three-year calendar it voted in just last year.


Gill Resigns as Chair of Communications Committee

Board member Corrinne Gill resigned as Chair of the Communications Committee after what she contends was a failure, on Board Chair Ted Raczka's part, "to extend to me the respect and common courtesy of any conversation or discussion" in removing Gill as host of the BOE's regular Spotlight on Education cable television show.

In a letter to Raczka, which Gill chastised the chair for not acknowledging, Gill accuses the chairman of making a unilateral decision to remove her from her post as host of the show.

"For more than five years I have diligently worked with integrity and sensitivity to maintain a positive, non-partisan, non-political informative show on a host of subjects," Gill wrote in her letter.  "In all good conscience I cannot be party to supporting dictatorial actions by the chair or putting future efforts in jeopardy."

Gill ended her letter with a formal resignation from the show, and the Communication chair, and resolved, "that I will no longer take any initiative in promoting the role of the Board during Teacher Appreciation Week, or Teacher Retirement recognitions."

In responding to a request from Communication Committee member Ryan Kennedy, Raczka said that he would not have any direction for reappointment's to the Committee until after August.

"Corrine and I don't agree on everything," Raczka said. "Perhaps the summer will heal things."