SELECT BOARD NOTEBOOK:
By NEIL ZOLOT
NORTH READING — The School Committee approved the annual North Reading High School Masquers’ request to hold Haunted Happenings on school grounds on Saturday, Oct. 18 from 5-9 p.m. at its August 25 meeting.
This year some activities previously held on the Batchelder School grounds will be moved to the nearby NRHS baseball field. This is due to the Town Center Sewer District project. (This project will take several municipal buildings in the town center off individual septic systems and connect them to the onsite treatment plant that serves the high school/middle school campus, which has excess capacity. These buildings are: Batchelder School, Flint Memorial Library, Fire/Police station, Third Meeting House/Senior Center, Putnam House and Damon Tavern. The grass field at the Batchelder School will remain off-limits this fall to enable the grass to re-grow.)
Masquers members related their hopes to expand Haunted Happenings into a two-day event, but reported that the contractors, Cushing Entertainment, were unable to accommodate such a plan this year.
The Masquers also received approval for a trip next May to the High School Theatre Sondheim Awards held annually in New Haven, Conn. The cost is estimated to be $400 per student, down from $450 last year. Subsidies from fundraising events had dropped that cost to $365 per student last year. Fundraisers will be held this year to help reduce the cost for students.
The School Committee also approved the quadrennial Performing Arts Department music trip to DisneyWorld in Florida in late April/early May. The cost is expected to be $2,189 per student, up from $1,850 in 2021.
FY27 TENTATIVE
BUDGET SCHEDULE
The School Committee also approved at its August 25 meeting a tentative schedule for the Fiscal Year 2027 budget process.
It will begin with a discussion of goals Sept. 8; principal and department directors’ budget requests will be due Oct. 29; a presentation on large project capital projects is due Nov. 10 followed by a vote on Nov. 24 as well as a discussion of enrollment projections on that date.
Budget requests will be due Dec. 5; a preliminary budget book will be presented to the School and Finance committees in February and March; a public hearing on the budget is slated for April 13 along with workshops on April 13 and 27. The School Committee will vote on the budget at its April 27 meeting and the budget will be presented to the Finance Committee on May 6.
On May 13, the School Committee will vote on the warrant articles it will sponsor at the Annual Town Meeting in June, which is anticipated to be held on June 8.
SCHOOL COMMITTEE GOALS
Discussion of School Committee goals started at the August 25 meeting with the now familiar template of four sections: Leadership and Governance, Financial and Asset Management, the Education Program and Family and Community Relations. “Our goals fit within these categories,” explained Chairman Jeff Friedman.
Goals under Leadership and Governance include continuing professional development and continuing inviting members of the town’s state legislative delegation, House Minority Leader Brad Jones and Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, to School Committee meetings to receive updates on legislation and funding, and to relay the concerns of the District to the legislature. Sen. Tarr and Rep. Jones gave the School Committee a report about funding in the FY26 state budget and future years back on March 24. “We’ll repeat those visits,” Friedman said. “People got a lot out of it.”
Friedman also said the committee will continue to promote multi-board meetings, which often take the form of a tri-committee meeting of the Select Board, School Committee and Finance Committee.
The members also want to continue to pursue the Education Program goal “to implement the steps related to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging,” that is part of “NRPS 2025: A Strategy for the Future.” Friedman called it “an ongoing goal.”
Family and Community Relations goals will include outreach to the community. “We want to be publicly available to answer questions outside the format of School Committee meetings,” Friedman said.
One goal under Finance and Asset Management that the School Committee may not pursue, or pursue as vigorously as in the past, is “exploring opportunities to reduce expenses related to energy costs.” Friedman said the offers from energy providers often do not meet the needs of the school system.
A series of budget goals presented by Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Michael Connelly overlapped with the School Committee goals, but also included clauses to reduce the extracurricular activity user participation fees, kindergarten fees and transportations fees, and to restore positions eliminated in FY25 and FY26.