Following are highlights from the School Committee Meeting of November 17th, 2009

Collicott targeting at risk students earlier – Gerard Schultz, Principal of the Collicott school, and other members of the site Council presented the initatives underway at Collicott to meet the learning needs of all their students. Of primary concern were AYP scores that showed Colliott a little behind. As a result they are implementing a response intervention to target students in the K-2 grades with initial assessment to determine who needs support. The goal is to catch them early and reduce demands that can potentially arise in the later grades. On the brighter side is an extremely well attended pre-school. There are 5 classes that meet for 1/2 a day, 4 days a week. Lastly, the site council is looking for a community member. If you are interested, please contact Principal Schultz.

Consultant on facilities gives thorough exam – According to Superintendent Gormley, the consultant from Andover (Joe Candosa sp?) went over the schools with a fine tooth comb. He has been brought in by the Consolidated Facilities Committee to review the effort Milton is making in that regard (i.e. integrating all or some of the maintenance tasks across all town departments with an eye to reduce cost and improve efficiency).  he covered “evey inch of the buildings and met with every individual” and will be completing a report that he will deliver to the committee in early December.

H1N1 not denting attendence significantly – Attendence at the schools has been fairly normal. However, Cunningham did see a spike in absenteeism. The recommendation is strong that elementary students go to their routine heath provider for seasonal flu vaccine and everyone follow standard health recommendations (i.e. cough inot elbow, wash hands frequently, stay home if ill). Direct impact of H1N1 is hard to know. The state performs the only official reporting. It is possible that most flu cases are H1N1 as we have not yet entered the regular flu season. The spike at Cunningham was 11% as opposed to the average of 0-2%. Committee member Pavlicek reiterated that absenteeism was currently the only meaningful way to look at the issue.

Solar panels coming to Cunningham / Collicott – One bright highlight is that the cost of solar panels being considered for Cunningham / Collicott are well below estimates. It is possible that excess grant money can be applied to additional panels.

Town could be looking down the barrel of another $900K in budget cuts – It is premature to know what the state is going to do in terms of additional cuts to the town. Pavlicek noted that we do not have hard numbers yet as there has been no legislative actions which will not occur for a while. However, the Warrant Committee needs to prepare a budget now in anticipation of that and they are looking at 900k across town services. Regardless of what the specific number is, the news is grim and consistent with comments made by other town officials. At the Board of Selectmen’s meeting on 11/12, Chairman Shields spoke to the need to make the budget their priority. Shields commented, “We are in real trouble.” This came up in a brief discussion of the Governor Stoughton hearing during which Shields said the focus of their efforts short term had to be on the financials. No one disagreed.