It’s amazing how fast time has gone by — It’s already halfway through February, six weeks into my second term representing Ward 3 on the Attleboro School Committee — so I thought I’d take some time and let everyone know what I’ve been up to, as well as provide glimpse of my calendar.
Collective Bargaining
The School Committee (and our designated representatives), according to the Attleboro City Charter and Mass General Law, is responsible for engaging in collective bargaining with our unionized employees. Our CBAs are all for three years, so this is the first time I’ve gone through this process, and while I can’t share any information about the in-progress negotiations, I can tell you that it’s been an eye-opening and informative process. Here is some detail about how it works.
Clearly, having all nine Committee members at the table with union representatives at the same time wouldn’t be feasible, so what we do is divide the responsibility so that each union has three Committee members assigned to it, along with the APS Senior Director of Human Resources, the City of Attleboro Director of Budget and Administration, and the City’s Director of Human Resources. Essentially each member is assigned by the Chair to work on negotiation teams for two unions. We meet as needed with each unions’ negotiating team, which consists of union members, leadership, and a union organizer from the Massachusetts Education Association. The meetings are interesting, even though it can make for a busy schedule — for example, now that things are moving along with both unions I’m assigned to, it’s not uncommon for me to have a calendar that looks like this, with three or four School Committee commitments almost every week. I like being busy and I have a lot of respect for everyone involved in both sides of this process, so this is a good thing!
Infrastructure and Facilities
Along with this, our regular cadence of subcommittee meetings has begin. Last week, the Infrastructure and Facilities committee met for the first time this term. I was honored to be elected as Chair of this subcommittee by members Scott Dominici (Ward 6), William Larson (Ward 2) and Jim Poore (Ward 1). This is my first time chairing a subcommittee and I’m excited to get going. A few of the things I’m looking to accomplish, in the short term, are moving our meeting schedule to a predictable bi-monthly cadence and consistently keeping track of progress on all Capital and other in-progress projects and issues.
Policy and Personnel
My work on the Policy and Personnel subcommittee has been the most interesting part of my service so far. From helping to craft the Cell Phone policy and the Library Acquisition Policy, to ensuring our CTE Admissions policies remain compliant with DESE’s shifting regulations, the painstaking work we do touches nearly every area of the Attleboro Public Schools. I know it may seem at SC meetings that our Chair reads off a rapid fire list of mumbo-jumbo acronyms, but I can assure you that we go over every single policy with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that it is either in perfect alignment with the the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) suggested policies, or that all of the differences are defensible, and appropriate to the unique needs and requirements of Attleboro. You can find all of our policies here. The MASC online policy reference bank is here.
School Funding
Once again, the Attleboro Public Schools are facing a critical funding gap. It’s well worth watching Superintendent David Sawyers’ “State of the Schools” remarks from the combined Municipal Council and School Committee meeting on February 2nd. While we have been underfunded for decades—largely, in my view, as an unintended consequence of Proposition 2½ — this year is particularly dire. Due to complexities in the state’s aid contribution formula, we are currently facing a $3,000,000 shortfall just to maintain our current level of service.
For a primer on how this works, you can revisit my “Budget Talk” post from two years ago; while the numbers have changed, the concepts remain the same. It is also important to note that while the schools comprise over 50% of the city budget, Chapter 70 aid from the state represents 32% of the city’s revenue.
I am working closely with my colleagues, our state legislative delegation (Representatives Jim Hawkins and Adam Scanlon and Senator Paul Feeney), and my Ward 3 City Council counterpart, Council President Todd Kobus, to develop a strategy to address these shortfalls. It is a difficult uphill battle.
You can see from that that we are among the best achieving schools in our DART cohort despite being the worst-funded. This doesn’t mean our funding gap isn’t a problem. It means we’re doing what Attleboro has always done: make chicken soup out of nothing. Making sacrifices for the good of our children and doing more with less is a long-standing Attleboro tradition. Imagine for a moment what we could do if that same attitude were combined with even average levels of funding.
Thank you all for your time! I know there are millions of other things you could do besides read a blog post from a School Committee member and I appreciate you. Please — please — please — (please!) reach directly out to me at aaron.bennett@attleboroschools.com or 508-399-1157 with any questions, comments, or corrections. All of these opinions, and any errors I’ve made, are purely my own.
