SPSF hands over check to fund Middle School intramurals
Published on December 12th, 2007
STONEHAM, MA - The Stoneham Public Schools Foundation presented a check to the School Committee last week for $3,600 to fund winter intramural sports at the Middle School.
The money is comprised of donations garnered from individuals and businesses by the SPSF whose mission is to build community support for stronger public schools in Stoneham. SPSF board chairman Chris Willard addressed the School Committee at its meeting on Thursday at Robin Hood School.
The SPSF voted in November to fund intramural sports for the Middle School, Willard said. The $3,600 presented on Thursday is expected to cover three winter sports at approximately $1,200 each. With SPSF fundraising efforts continuing to grow, Willard said he hopes to come back before the School Committee in the spring with funds to cover spring intramurals. The goal is to eventually offer five intramural sports at the Middle School per season.
“I can't tell you enough how much we appreciate this on behalf of these children and young people. It keeps so many of them involved...after school and it's a great feeder program for students as they come up to participate in activities in high school,” School Committee chairwoman Maureen Soley said.
If you would like to help the Stoneham Public Schools Foundation support the town's public schools, donations can be made via its website at stonehamspsf.org or by mail at p.o. Box 80301, Stoneham, MA.
The news wasn't all good on the financial front, however, as School Superintendent Dr. Les Olson advised the School Committee that there are areas of great concern in the current budget.
Olson explained that some budget figures were based on assumptions that are not playing out as planned, and could result in a year end deficit.
The first of four areas of concern is oil prices. According to Olson, the FY school budget estimated the price of a gallon of oil at $1.75. Compare that to what oil has actually been coming in at – about $3 per gallon – and it's easy to see a large shortfall on the horizon, about $130,000 in this account alone if the trend continues.
The second area of concern is the out of district tuition budgeted for two student placements for the current year. In actuality, Stoneham is looking at possibly four such placements, which translates to a shortage of $75,000.
The substitute teacher account is causing another headache as long term absences, and therefore long term substitute teacher assignments, are taking a toll on the numbers. Olson said one way the schools will have to deal with this problem is to hire younger and perhaps less expensive teachers to fill some of those vacancies for the balance of the year.
The school lunch program threatens to not meet the financial goals outlined last year.
“I'm not positive at this point that the cafeteria account would be able to absorb health insurance premiums as we projected.” Olson said, explaining that the idea during the budgeting process was for the cafeteria account to cover about $100,000 of health insurance premiums. “If the cafeteria account can't handle that, that will have to be absorbed by the regular operating budget.”
Ideas for maximizing cafeteria revenue continue to be explored including opening the cafeteria after school for the various sports and extracurricular groups to utilize, as well as making vending machines available to students.
The bottom line, Olson said, is that “if every went as wrong as it could in these four areas, we could be looking at a quarter of a million dollar deficit.”
Finally, the School Committee voted in favor of ratifying two contracts on Thursday, the nurses unit and the paraprofessional contract.
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