Dear Ward 7 constituents,
Hope you are enjoying these Winter months and that you're getting out for some fresh air! It sure has been a mild winter. I am inviting you to come chat with myself, Martine Gulick and Kendra Sowers, this coming Saturday, Feb. 8th starting at 9am at The Bagel Cafe at 1127 North Ave. Much has been happening in our schools and in our district.
As you may know, we have finalized our FY21 budget, and I must say that it is a tough budget year. With not many investments in direct instruction and similar ($360k), and a bit of non-instructional reductions ($1.1 million), we are still looking at a large increase in property taxes (7.35%) thus the budget becomes a tough sell. The increase in tax rates is due to increasing costs of wages, health insurance, special education and debt service AND the complicated way that the State of Vermont funds education. The variables contributing to this are the state's education spending, equalized pupil count (BSD's is decreasing by about 50), dollar yield (which reflects amount of money in the Ed fund) and Common Level of Appraisals (a measure of property values in each community), which our city is starting to work on, but our property values have been rated way below market value for years now.
Most of you know that we are searching for a new superintendent to start leading our district on July 1st, 2020. The community and stakeholder input sessions have now been completed (thank you to those of you who attended), with the closing date for applications being this week (2-6-20). Finalist will be selected via a thorough vetting process by March, with their interviews projected to happen immediately after Town Meeting day. Two of our NNE commissioners make up the Superintendent Search Committee, so please come hear about it directly from them.
We are now starting Black History month and our schools are preparing to teach our students about numerous black leaders that have fought for their struggles. In BSD, Black History month will not culminate with February, the district DEALT team is planning a 3rd annual "Beyond Black History month" celebration to happen on Friday, March 13th from 5:30 to 7:30pm at BHS. Please join us for this fun celebration!
At this point we are also searching for two BHS Student Representatives to serve on the School Board. When I first came on the board, there were two student reps who regularly participated in meetings. One of them graduated in spring 2019, and the other stopped attending meetings. These students would represent the BHS student body voice at our month meetings, make themselves available to the student body and improve student communication in all of our 9 schools. Please inform us if you know of an interested BHS student!
See you at The Bagel on Saturday morning!
Cheers,
Monika Ivancic, PhD
Ward 7 School Commissioner
mivancic@bsdvt.org or 540-0830
Feb 1, 10 AM to 5 PM, Feb 2, 2025
Making Vellum Paper Lanterns for WinterludeFeb 2, 2025, 3 to 5 PM
Valentines, Pop-Up Shop & Valentines WorkshopFeb 4, 2025, 12 to 6 PM