Amherst School Committee 11/15/16
Rather than accept the losing vote as an indication that something was not right with the exceedingly expensive building project, three-fifths of the School Committee chose to bitterly blame Town Meeting for not upholding the "will of the people" from last week's ballot vote.
But you have to wonder if those three are math challenged since the two votes mirrored each other almost identically ... except for the outcome.
In 1968 President Johnson beat challenger Gene McCarthy by 7% in the New Hampshire primary but not nearly the margin he should have won by. So he quit the race.
A 50.47% margin is fine when only a majority is required but still, to quote Eric Nakajima, "indicates the town is deeply divided." But when that same measure required 66.67% a razor thin majority is NOT EVEN CLOSE.
In fact even the "popular vote" last Tuesday they are so quick to cite the question DID NOT GET A MAJORITY. Out of the 15,089 votes cast 1,571 (10.4%) left the Mega School question blank. So the overall vote carried by only 45.21% in favor to 44.38% against or less than a majority.
Perhaps Mr. Nakajima is showing his experience with elections. He told his fellow committee members that he voted for the measure in Town Meeting, "but was not surprised by the result".
And now it's time to move forward to address those two buildings shortcomings in a manner that will win broad support.
"Everyone in town owns the solution."
Marla reads SASS statement. Select Board Chair Alisa Brewer sits behind her. Rockwell Town Meeting iconic illustration top right
Marla Goldberg-Jamate read a statement to the Committee during public comment from the winning side, Save Amherst Small Schools:
Click to enlarge/read
Acting Superintendent Mike Morris told the Committee he has ten days to ask the state for an extension but will not since Town Meeting, "Emphatically said no."
And he would start the process to reapply to the MSBA as soon as possible but would do so under the "core program" and not the "accelerated repair program" since both buildings needs extensive work.
Since Wildwood has been updated more over the recent past it may very well be Fort River that will now step up to the plate for MSBA funding. Fort River is in need of a $1+ million roof replacement while Wildwood is in need of a $400,000 new boiler.
Ironically Town Meeting appropriated the $400,000 for the Wildwood boiler a few years ago but then that money was diverted into the $1 million schematic design that came up with the just defeated Mega School.
Vince O'Connor tells School Committee the $350,000 Town Meeting will vote on tonight for DPW schematic design should be redirected to school building issue
62 comments:
That's just great. We already paid for the new boiler but we never got it because the money went towards plans for a school that is now dead.
The note from these SASS people appears to be sane and conciliatory.
The interim superintendent and the school committee need to get their heads out of .. the sand and come up with a renovation or new building plan that is actually SUPPORTED by the community. I’m not sure if the current school leadership is capable of that. Since their plan was defeated they now appear to not want any plan to succeed, very ugly.
After this summer the school leadership is a mess. This TM vote on the building project shows that they have failed on many fronts.
I want to like this Morris guy, if he wants to be the permanent superintendent he’s going to have to decide if he’s more loyal to K. Appy and the pro development wackos, or for improving public education in town. If he’s not up for this, he should step aside with the rest of the big building SC members in the name of effective leadership.
And we need that leadership now, enough of this sour grapes flailing about, it does not inspire confidence.
I think a lot of the complaints on these two schools are greatly exaggerated. A new roof or boiler are not that big an expense. Mold is not only an issue that is treatable, and the mega-school would have been built on the same land possibly creating the same problem. As far as noise, we should look at modifications to some of the classrooms, including adding sound absorbing materials. Yes, we might spend $5 million but we will save many, many millions more. So many of the costs with the mega-school were glossed over in the rush to get approval, including the millions it would take to knock down the existing schools, and the millions it would take to modify Crocker Farm.
Why not accelerated repair? Methinks they STILL intend to demolish and build new.
Wow, seriously? Did Town Meeting really take money slated for new boilers and spend it (and more) on a consultant? Between this debacle and recent payoffs, so much money has been squandered. Time to dump Town Meeting.
I find it interesting that SASS says a dual k-6 school would have been accepted by town and supported in the community.... they were also talking out the other side of their mouth during the campaign that the proposed 2-6 model was one big building housing 750 students with shared spaces.
So if they changed the title of the wings on the schematic design to read K-6 school #1 and K-6 school #2 instead of two 2-6 wings this would fly?! SASS says whatever they want to kill the project. If the SBC brought that proposal forward as the most desirable, I strongly believe we would be in the same situation today by these obstructionists.
They really want 3 small separate schools that continue to divide our relatively small town and continue redistricting and spending resources like water to keep this inflexible structure.
And another lie you spread--- there is no fallback plan at this point. The guaranteed funding from the MSBA is gone in the wind.... we can not get it back until we get reaccepted into their process; probably another 5-10 years down the road. I'm sure once your children have moved out of the elementary schools....
Maria Kopicki, Laura Quilter and Marla Jamate we are all waiting for you to show the golden plan.... you have single handedly destroyed providing complete and accurate information on this project- it's your turn and responsibility to change this course!
10:29- I agree completely.
Anon 10:30--- you obviously have not talked to students or staff who teach in these classrooms every day or have to learn in these subpar environments. A new roof and boiler will be over 2 million dollars alone and actually the proposed school was for the Wildwood site NOT the Fort River site (on a 100 year flood plan) where at FR MOLD does and has existed since it's construction in the 70's. And it is more than just noise in the classrooms.. you have students walking through quad areas to access bathrooms, leave the area or work in small groups. This is distracting to a variety of different learning profiles and difficult for teachers and students to redirect back to their work. I heard a teacher at FR explain they have to plan with the other teachers in the quad on when they will be taking tests vs doing a louder more engaging activity because it can disrupt the other groups.
These pseudo-inteligentsia teachers union hacks on the school board think they know soooooo much better than the common pleb proletariat they rule over..yet it all comes back to the fact-it is NOT these hacks money-but the taxpaying public peoples-that they raid..go figure...!!!
10:47 AM:
Town meeting had nothing to do with creating the new school building plan (referred by some as the mega-school plan) or the 300k payout to Maria G.
Both were initiated and approved by the School Committee, town meeting had ZERO to do with those decisions.
10:47 AM:
Town meeting had nothing to do with creating the new school building plan (referred by some as the mega-school plan) or the 300k payout to Maria G.
Both were initiated and approved by the School Committee, town meeting had ZERO to do with those decisions.
Larry, just a humorous point of order: how do you approve all these comments while flying that drone? You can’t let that thing crash just for maintaining a blog!
The School Committee asked Town Meeting to spend the $300K Wildwood boiler on the Wildwood Rebuilding project. Could Town Meeting now pay for a new boiler for Wildwood out of leftover cash? We ended the fiscal year in July with $1.6 million in the black. Someone could make a motion for that.
Too bad the School Committee or Morris didn't ask tha state for a delay after Geryk left. A great moment to take a pause and reassess. They kept going with an unpopular plan and now the $34 million is gone for now.
Time for leadership to mend the divisions in our town. There are other fixes.
"Maria Kopicki, Laura Quilter and Marla Jamate we are all waiting for you to show the golden plan.... you have single handedly destroyed providing complete and accurate information on this project- it's your turn and responsibility to change this course!"
Ditto times 1,000
Look forward to them leading the charge in 8-10 years for the new building---ha ha, joke is on us.
SASS is clueless, we cannot even apply until 2018. There is a process that the state outlines and a building committee won't be formed until the statement of interest is accepted. That is at least 3 years from now. I appreciate them making the effort but for those of us stuck in these schools, we are going to have some resentment for awhile. Proposals that demonstrate a lack of understanding of the basic process is just salt in the wound.
just a FYI to anon@12:30: FR is still in the pipeline at the MSBA (it was entered soon after WW). Not sure how a plan can be formed around FR, but hope a GOOD one can be envisioned that will be supported by the community. I would say Ms Geryk, the SC and the bldg cmt were the clueless ones, they didn't listen and here we are. I like to think that if Ms Geryk were still SI, that she would have received criticism from the SC on her failure of leadership/vision (but I doubt it) and for ignoring/discounting community voices.
Kudos to Maria Kopicki, Laura Quilter and Marla Jamate. It's not their responsibility to come up with a new plan. The school committee has to come up with a new plan that better fits the community's needs and wants.
Anon 1:16, I second that! People need to start placing the blame where it belongs. The school committee and administration need to be held accountable for their actions. They are the ones who put us in this mess with their poor decisions and failure to listen to the public. And dare I say how manipulative the administration has been since the beginning. Had they approached this the right way, and gotten the community's support, we wouldn't be in this divided predicament. I commend SASS for everything they have done. They were the voice of many parents, educators and residents. Thank you Maria Kopick, Marla Jamate and Laura Quilter.
Three Cheers for Town Meeting!
They accurately represented a divided town, unlike the unanimous views of board and committee "leaders".
I’m sorry, but the School Committee really put the cart before the horse on this one.
Before they committed so much time and money they needed to make sure the community would support this radical ‘BOLD’ plan that would completely re-configure Amherst school.
The superintendent and SC had endless one way ‘info’ sessions, but never solicited real feedback on the new school plan.
The McBassi survey (done back in Jan 2016) was the one anonymous attempt to get real feedback. Katherine Appy didn’t like the results because nobody wanted 750 students in one building, so she and the SC ignored it and pushed ahead with this controversial plan.
Now the SC and Superintendent didn’t get their way on the TM vote so they’re going to trash the whole system.
I’m not impressed.
How does anything actually get done in this town? How does anyone muster the energy to try and move the town forward when a minuscule percent of our town population has the ability to block progress at every turn. The anti-everything cohort in Town Meeting is such a joke.
Calling three-fifths of the school committee math challenged is a farce. Yes this was a close vote, 6627 residents of this town voted YES on Question 5, more than those who voted no. In a simple majority system, the YES vote wins. 7 out of 10 precincts voted a majority YES on Question 5. In a representative Town Meeting system, shouldn't the members represent the will of the majority of their precinct constituents? I say yes, the YES vote wins.
A team of professional educators did an enormous amount of work over many years, trying to ensure that the future of Amherst schools creates a equitable learning environment for all kids. In the end, all that hard work is defeated by just 108 residents voting to give up $34 million, and force 2/3rds of our elementary age kids to stay in subpar schools indefinitely. I just don't see another plan coming along any time soon. What masochist would want to try and do this again when it's going to get picked to bits by the peanut gallery.
And 31 members don't even bother to show up to vote!
anon@3:25: if TM accurately reflect the town-wide vote (a difference of ~0.5%) My math calculations would mean that a SINGLE vote in favor of the article (ie of the apprix 215 TM voters) would have accurately reflected the proportion of the town voters in favor. Hardly an overwhelming decisive figure given the enormous implications of the vote....
Was it true that the casino Russian construction mafia was looking to get a big cut of that $66 million? Don’t make them mad..
I can't argue that it was a overwhelmingly decisive figure, it wasn't. But the majority of voters in Amherst voted to fund the town's portion of the project, with the rest coming from the state. The task before Town Meeting was to vote on whether to appropriate money to build a new school, NOT whether restructuring to a K-1 & 2-6 model was the correct way forward. I believe that is what people voted no on though.
Had the Question 5 vote had a 2/3rds majority in the November 8th election, I have a hard time believing that the result would have caused the naysayers in Town Meeting to vote any differently. It was doomed from the outset. A supermajority seems nearly impossible in this town.
What is the way forward? Are we going to sink millions into these two dying schools? What happens to great teachers who don't want to work in these conditions? It must be demoralizing to be working anywhere other than Crocker Farm today.
1st time in the history of the MSBA that a town meeting has overturned a popular vote! Trying to normalize this is embarrassing. This town is crazy. Well done Laura and Maria.....you've screwed our teachers and a generation of kids.
Yes anon 5:33 many teachers are readying their resumes. Who wants to work in these conditions? One non teacher already put their resume out the night it went down. I won't be at my school too much longer. Others surely to follow.
Did the elevator at Bangs get fixed yet? A priority over DPW!
anon@533: respectfully I disagree. We were asked to support an override to the tune of $67 million (some recouped from MSBA) to build a new g2-6 school (there was no wiggle room on that, no other configuration was going to be possible, that was the commitment and inflexible- it was a g2-6 school). but keep spinning...
!0 months ago- The outcome was already known...
http://onlyintherepublicofamherst.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-very-expensive-consideration.html
Amherst should never have given up Marks Meadows.
Oh, we are going to sink millions upon millions into these schools. What will the number be in 10 years? A hell of a lot.
Who would want to serve on the SASS proposed committee? I watched town meeting last night and Ms. Quilter was so divisive and tried to paint a picture of a stupid opposition and in doing so embarrassed herself. That sort of rhetoric is the same that won trump the national election. I suspect few reasonable people would volunteer to potentially be subject to that sort of rancor if they dare oppose what Ms. Quilter sees as the right way. If she is on the committee count me out.
Our handpicked Building Committee:
http://wildwood.projects.nv5.com/download/wildwood-project-team/Amherst-Wildwood-ES-SBC-9.27.16.PDF
Common sense indicates the MSBA wants school districts to look beyond their town government and school connections to develop a diverse committee.
Community Member does not mean a former or current school committee member.
Amherst has a wealth of individuals that fit MSBA requirements (tap into UMass School of Education and ask residents that teach/ administrate in other districts)
To be honest teachers are a "Dime a Dozen" now a days. All the spoiled ones can leave and be replaced by several more tomorrow.
Sounds like the libertards are at it again. Hey, didn't they do the same thing when their Presidential candidate lost not because of anyone but herself. They think that it deserves changing the constitution. One thing about libertards is true, they sure are sore losers. You lost!!!! Pick yourself up and move on.
"How does anything actually get done in this town? How does anyone muster the energy to try and move the town forward when a minuscule percent of our town population has the ability to block progress at every turn. "
errr... it doesn't. Nothing ever gets done in this town and it never moves forward. It's filled with intellectual morons.
if the consolidation goes forward, especially with the proposed K-1, 2-6 split, I'd expect that a number of great teachers would leave or retire as well. As shown at TM, not all the teachers are a fan of the district's proposal.
TM responded to request by School Committee.
I work at one of the schools and haven't heard one person threaten to leave over the proposed new school. I have heard many many people wonder if another district would be better if they're stuck in these schools for another 8-10 years. How many teachers have requested a transfer from Fort River? 12?
This hasn't happened once in all the MSBA's dealings with districts all over the state. Our town meeting rejected the popular vote, no other district has.......
1st time in the history of the MSBA that a town meeting has overturned a popular vote! Trying to normalize this is embarrassing. This town is crazy. Well done Laura and Maria.....you've screwed our teachers and a generation of kids.
+1
It's filled with intellectual morons.
+1 , SASS?
Funny how Larry can applaud this TM decision (that goes against popular vote) but rail against the very existence of TM as a meaningful decision making body, in general. Hypocritical, perhaps?
years experience-- "I have heard many many people wonder if another district would be better if they're stuck in these schools for another 8-10 years. How many teachers have requested a transfer from Fort River? 12? "
Good luck getting hired if you have more than 3 years experience -- it is far cheaper to hire someone lower on the pay scale.
"These pseudo-inteligentsia teachers union hacks on the school board think they know soooooo much better than the common pleb proletariat they rule over..yet it all comes back to the fact-it is NOT these hacks money-but the taxpaying public peoples-that they raid..go figure...!!!"
Yeah Baby! Teachers Union! Love it! Everybody knows that teachers, like Donald Drumpf, don't pay taxes, and that there are so many billionaire teachers. And you, my little friend, would have done better with your so-called life if you had paid more attention in 2nd grade. Then, maybe, your reading and comprehension skills would be at the level of a sixth grader so you could possibly understand the really complex nature of the school committee, like for example, most of the people on it have no connection to any union, and one is elected by the community members.
Obviously you struggle to read the ballot so you don't even bother to vote. Education is actually all it is cracked up to be. Sucks to be you at this point, so far into your life and still wondering what all the fuss about books is.
Anon @ 10:48 / 10:50 -- Nice try.
Your argument might work better, though, if it weren't for the fact that other districts put the town's Prop 2-1/2 override on the public ballot AFTER the Town Meeting vote -- instead of oddly putting the cheap and hard-to-get-vote AFTER the Town vote. And that's without even considering the student voter effect -- none of the other towns had a 30% student vote to contend with -- students who vote in one election every four years, basically do not engage in Town politics, and had little or no awareness of Question 5. I didn't understand the effects of that decision at the time, and was wrong to not push back against it.
So take your beef to the Select Board, which opted to put the cart before the horse, and showed either politics or poor judgment in putting this issue on this ballot.
Or reflect on the School Committee, which picked the least popular plan, despite the only objective evidence indicating strong unhappiness with the proposal. More than one person pointed out to them that this was a gamble.
The teachers threatening to leave have not learned what a threat really is. Teachers are people, but in education economics, they are a commodity. We are not talking harvard here. This is a very basic education and teacher A vs. Teacher B will make very little difference in most cases. Teacher A is the current Amherst teacher. Teacher B is any of the countless millenials looking for work...and clearly.
Let's remember, parents can always step up and donate more. Many neighbots are forced to pay 1000s for kids they never even meet ajd will likely need more welfare as adults, couldn't a few dozen parents donate a few grand each extra when the school needs 100k for their kids.....or are the parents poor and dumb on the day this comes up. Parents that care can pay far more than taxes, they pay their kid's way.
Perhaps it is time to stop wasting 21k per year per student....get some stable teachers and an insulated steel building so you can have public ed in Amherst for 100 years with little other expense.
To 8:20 pm:
If one of your friends had a child with Down Syndrome, would you be using the term "tard" around him? Or would you be careful because you didn't want to cause him distress? The same thing applies on the internet. Do you really want to be someone who mocks people with disabilities?
You're not just insulting liberals. I'm sure you can find a different way to do that.
I don't think we can put the whole blame for this on town government. It's very difficult to see UMass, Amherst College and Hampshire College building a whole bunch of beautiful modern buildings while we struggle to even build one. It's like watching "Friends" and seeing these beautiful people living the good life while working low-paying jobs - just not realistic for our little town to think it can fund a world-class architectural building like our higher education parasites. Very sad, misplaced priorities in our state government bear great responsibility.
To the previous commenter who blamed libertarians, I don't think that's really fair. Very few in Amherst voted for Gary Johnson; it was not a significant impact on the school vote.
"To be honest teachers are a "Dime a Dozen" now a days. All the spoiled ones can leave and be replaced by several more tomorrow."
Why do you live in Amherst? You know why most people decide they want to try to afford a house in this town? It's the public schools, fool. Go ahead and take a poll. Why would anyone pay such high taxes and bitch about the schools? If you don't like the schools, go find some better ones that will cost you a lot less in taxes. Why not move to Chicopee or Athol or Deerfield? Why do you, my teacher hating friend, pay these high Amherst taxes? You could get so much more for your dollars somewhere else?
I guess one has to be an idiot to live in Amherst, pay the high taxes and bash the public schools since those schools are the main reason your taxes are this high.
And Kelley and his whiny friends have been blowing hard about taxes in this town for decades. Talk about insanity, they keep bitching about the same thing and nothing ever changes. Actually, taxes have gone up, so obviously things are never going to go backward.Do you think taxes are going to decline? When was the last time that happened?
Why don't you get smart and move to a town that is less expensive to live in? What does Amherst have that you like at all? Is there any redeeming quality in this town for all the haters? Smarten up and get the hell out. Your life will improve as you find a more conservative place to live, you'll have more money in your pocket and you'll be doing the rest of us a big favor.
What's pretty obvious is that you didn't want or care to do your homework before spouting off- many school board members represent even active teachers which is illegal on the states conflict of interest laws-all the rest are cherry picked by the teachers union special interest clique cabal-so this begs the question-how could this even pretend to be objective-and why is smartypants lying to us all about this subject ? Come again ???!$&@
Mark Morris should have removed himself as chair of the building committee when he became Acting Superintendent (and especially when he became Interim Superintendent.
Does he feel like he can continue in his role following the Town Meeting vote?
If so- he needs to put on his big boy pants and realize that he represents the whole community- not just his buddies who have the same views he does.
Dear neighbors and Ed, may I suggest we all come together to lower the voting age next time around? This dialogue belongs in middle school.
Love it or leave it?
And...wwwwwwwwwwwhere do you think the money comes from for the shiny, new UMass buildings? Your answer is likely...."The government." And who do you think pays for that big government piggy bank? Take a Civics course! Hold on to your wallet, if you have one. Massachusetts state government grabs from you, too. UMass feeds off that.
Better beware, those piggy banks are not going to get so full in the near future. The American people have had enough of the waste and abuse of government.
Honestly this town and the schools are not half of what they used to be. One example look at all the sports and activities that have been axed from the budget. Even classes at the ARMS AND ARHS not half the options there was 10 and even 25 years ago. Taxes up, educational choices for our children down. Those of you that weren't here to see how great the system used to be really have no idea of the mess we locals, born and bred locals see when we look at the schools and compare our tax bills. Whether you know it or not we are paying more for a lot less !
In June of 2015, Kim Stender and Ron reassured town residents, "Our schools are safe, in very good condition" Not the reason the town chose to apply to MSBA
https://archive.org/details/Voices6815
(04:45)
"And...wwwwwwwwwwwhere do you think the money comes from for the shiny, new UMass buildings? Your answer is likely...."The government." And who do you think pays for that big government piggy bank? Take a Civics course! Hold on to your wallet, if you have one. Massachusetts state government grabs from you, too. UMass feeds off that."
Actually, no.
While the Commonwealth is ultimately liable for the debts of UMass, the shiny new buildings are funded by the ever-increasing price tag of a UMass "education."
There are a lot of cost-shifting arrangements (many of questionable legality) and all kinds of games being played with various trust funds, but it's the students who pay....
Mike Morris is going to watch town meeting to discover the reasons the vote did not pass?
The speakers that night were a small snapshot of the views of TM members -and the larger community who voted "no."
Take the time and steps needed to get input from our entire community. WE need a plan the whole community can (and will) support. Information from SASS is a good starting point.
Previous efforts to reach out missed a large portion of us- We don't have babies, preschoolers or children in the schools. We are not members of TM. We don't live at Applewood, don't go to the senior center and we don't live in an apartment complex.
We are homeowners concerned with the never ending tax increases in Amherst.
We have the highest mill rate in the area- and the select board just approved an increase for next year. To tack on additional dollars each year to tax bills will be a burden to our households- We need to have a say in the decision.
Amherst needs to keep their expenses in check- The building committee needs to keep taxpayers in mind and focus on essentials over extravagance . We don't need a Trump Tower!
So you'll not be voting for Larry's beloved south fire station or new DPW?
Morris is simply a puppet of Maria--always has been and still is--trying to get this mega-warehouse in place as she began. SMH--His superintendency should be as frightening as Trump's presidency. He is unskilled at solving race issues--class issues(ex: The schools were planning to charge a student full price for a freaken' cheese sandwich after that student could not pay for three hot/regular meals--in other words after a student's tab reached three unpaid lunches they would be given a cheese sandwich and billed forthe cost of a regular lunch. Nothing like hammering it down on the poor families in town. That the school committee/superintendent could ever even entertain this idea is disgusting! And please know this is the same person who as principal at Crocker--allowed a lunch a school employee to physically attack two students of color--He said the first time it happened that this school worker had 'no history' of violence.--Can you imagine!? He decided to let her create this history--poor judgement--poor, poor judgement on protecting our children--what else will he show his poor judgement on? And why isn't anyone crying about HIS being the highest paid employee in town? It is all so gross
The poor kids in town are probably on free or reduced lunch so your rant about lunches doesn't even apply to them.
It does apply--If a reduced lunch eater has a tab--this person cannot get a hot meal-- The school will hand them a cheese sandwich--and bill them/family for the regular lunch price. Do the math--free lunch eaters needn't worry--only about the poisons in the foods contaminating their developing bodies--and the chemicals in the milk--twenty one chemcials from the cow to the milk carton. smh--And who gets free/reduced lunches? The elite Amherst Woods residents--Not! Who gives a f*** about killing off poor people? Not the Amherst Schools--this is quite obvious.
"what else will he show his poor judgement on?"
Hopefully this school design fiasco was a wake up call!
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