School Committee Examines $1.5 Million for New CHS Bathrooms, Security Upgrades, New Kitchen Equipment

Part One of a transcript from the Nov. 5, 2013 Chelmsford School Committee meeting. To see a full video, check out the Chelmsford Telemedia website.

7:00 p.m. to 7:06 p.m. (0:00 to 6:07)

There was a change to the minutes from a previous meeting and student representatives provided updates on what’s going on at Chelmsford’s schools.

Staff also shared positive updates from faculty members.

7:06 p.m. to 7:18 p.m. (6:07 to 18:56)

Since there was no one in the audience, the public comment section was skipped to go to Superintendent Tiano’s update regarding PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) Technology funding.

On Sept. 10, Chelmsford School Department technology director Anne Marie Fiore discovered there would be new costs related to PARCC, and Tiano indicated the district would look to share their “wishlist” with Parent Teacher Organizations in town.

However, Tiano also indicated that money has already been budgeted related to the needs and the wishlist would be related to supplementary items such as cameras and wanted to address feedback given to School Committee chairman Mike Rigney that they were looking for money.

School Committee members discussed funding and PARCC, with School Committee member Nick DiSilvio saying that many districts across the state will have delays with PARCC, and if Chelmsford did not, it could disqualify itself from state aid, particularly due to all the capital needs the district has.

School Committee Barbara Skaar said she would be proud if the resources were available that they were used toward PARCC and the district was prepared.

Tiano and DiSilvio clarified no request had been made for money, but they wanted to clarify that the perception of asking for money was out there and should be addressed.

7:18 p.m. to 7:22 p.m. (18:56 to 22:50)

Chairman Rigney resumed discussion on the 2014-’15 School Year calendar, with Tiano saying it was fairly “vanilla” and it was important to get it in place early for the sake of vacations and professional development days.

The only major change was changing a half day from Oct. 14, 2014 to Oct. 10 2014 for a professional development day since Oct. 10 will be a Friday.

Skaar indicated that it will become more difficult to consolidate vacation days, with Rigney saying the only possible change that could occur regarding vacations and preventing the school year going too late into June was possibly cutting four days from February vacation, which would require consultation with staff.

The calendar was unanimously approved.

7:22 p.m. to 7:44 p.m. (22:50 to 44:34)

Tiano discussed capital budget planning for the next ten years, readdressing DiSilvio’s earlier comments.

Fiore elaborated on a $640,000 figure for technology, saying that $169,000 of that figure was for security-related technology items such as keyless card entry.

Other segments of the overview included $766,714 for renovating bathrooms at Chelmsford High School that hadn’t been updated since 1974, $75,000 for a walk-in at Chelmsford High School and $40,000 for a walk-in at the Parker School

DiSilvio said that between the schools and town, capital expectations were 20 percent over what was expected.

Rigney believed that additional money was needed for food service, despite financial realities and the walk-in requests, which are related to freezers at the schools, saying they were an equivalent of fixing a flat tire.

He elaborated saying there are smaller things in the $100,000 to $150,000 range that can be done within the next year, but they would require focus and assessing priorities, although he recommended the priorities within the $1,521,714 total amount.

“We have a number of needs in the district,” he said. “We’ll have to balance them over the next ten years.”

However, he did not want to put additional things on the list just to remove them later, saying the list was what he thought the School Committee would reasonably expect Town Meeting and the Capital Planning Committee could support.