Schools are ready for Sept. 7 opening
Published on August 23rd, 2006
STONEHAM, MA - - School interiors should be gleaming for students by opening day on September 7, but the same might not be true for the exteriors.
Presenting his annual school readiness report to the School Committee, School Superintendent Dr. Joseph Connelly described how the recent loss of five custodians, due to budget cuts, is impacting the readiness of the school buildings.
"Our priority had to be inside," he said. Head custodians have advised the superintendent that they are on schedule for the building interiors. But regular weeding and mulching has not been kept up due to lack of manpower, prompting Connelly to describe the exteriors as a bit "shabby." Last week, the School Committee directed Connelly to use some overtime hours to help the process along.
"It's going to be difficult to get the schools looking as we like them to look and as they have in the past (on opening day)."
With high school fall sports teams reporting for duty later this week, some of the focus has been shifted to prepping the high school fields.
The good news is volunteer help may be on the way. The Alliance House in Stoneham has offered the services of 10-12 of its students for this week and next, while Verizon is being contacted about its employee community service program.
"We're certainly pursuing every possibility to get the schools looking decent with this lack of manpower."
Connelly was also pleased to announce that all classroom personnel are in place, though some professional and paraprofessional positions remain open, including a speech teacher and one, but possibly two, school psychologist positions.
Newly hired Assistant Superintendent Ann Patriquin began her duties in Stoneham last week. Patriquin signed a three-year contract with the school system and will make $100,000 (prorated) for the 2006-07 school year, $103,000 for '07-08, and $106,000 for '08-09.
But the news wasn't all good on the personnel topic.
"It gives me tremendous disappointment to announce this but Mr. Greg Zammuto, who has been with us for five plus years, has informed us that he is leaving." Connelly acknowledged the move as "good advancement for Greg." Zammuto has accepted a business manager position for a larger town.
"I can't tell you how pleased and proud I am with what Greg has done for us these past five plus years. He's just done a terrific job and we're going to miss him greatly, but I wish him and his family nothing but success and happiness."
Zammuto told the committee that it was a hard decision to leave and thanked Connelly for being a great mentor and friend.
As for replacing Zammuto, Connelly suggested that the School Committee place an ad in the Boston Globe immediately while pursuing once again the topic of consolidating the school and town business manager positions into one.
In other news, the school department inadvertently caused a stir with voters this past school year when it took advantage of some of its most advanced technology to get residents to the polls.
The School Committee, on Monday night, addressed the matter that took place last fall when the school department employed its Connect Ed technology to telephone parents with a reminder of election day poll hours and Town Meeting times. According to Superintendent Connelly, some residents complained that for the school department to do such was "self-serving."
Connect Ed is a service that allows school administrators to record, schedule, send and track personalized voice messages to thousands of students, parents, and staff in minutes. Many citizens have considered the service, which is funded through grants and private donations, an emergency service, and were therefore surprised when it was utilized for political events.
"Connect Ed was never meant to be just an emergency crisis system. It was meant to be a community service system," Connelly said. Notification of school cancellations has been a common use of the system. In the past, similar reminders of voting dates and hours were sent to parents via students in the form of flyers with reminders.
But School Committee Chairman Kristin Russo reported that many complaints she received charged that the using the service in this manner was unfair, since it only targeted a certain subsection of the town's population, public school parents. In addition, many felt flyers were much less invasive than phone calls.
Committee member Maureen Solely sees nothing wrong with using the Connect Ed system this way.
"I see it as a community service," she said, adding that the message merely served as a reminder and not a way to encourage votes for a particular candidate or issue.
Connelly acknowledged the issue as a sensitive one, adding that if such messages were able to be issued town-wide, the problem would be resolved. He also assured the committee that he cleared the use of Connect Ed in this way with the state to be sure it did not conflict with campaign laws.
He further advised that the town is looking into a similar system, such as Reverse 911, that would contact citizens town-wide of community events and issues, but funding of such is yet to be determined.
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