Town Officials Want a Score Card for the Watertown Schools

The schools receive the biggest piece of the pie – nearly 34 percent – when it comes to the Watertown town budget, and Town Councilors said they want a way to see if their investment is paying off.

Scores from the MCAS exams – the standardized test given to Massachusetts public school students – are available for everyone to see, and remain the only way to measure the Watertown schools, but Town Councilor Vincent Piccirilli said that is not enough.

"(The MCAS) doesn't come close to measuring what a school district does," Piccirilli said. "I would like to see a suite, a range of things. At some point, we are going to want to spend money to add programs. My concern is I want to spend it in the right places."

The Watertown schools use a variety of other measures to determine how students are doing, said Superintendent Jean Fitzgerald, including other tests and other measures to see how well a student has mastered a subject.

Town Counclior Cecilia Lenk suggested that they could use statistics such as graduation rate, the percent going to four year colleges and the number going to two years colleges.

"All we have now is that one number (the MCAS scores) and anecdotes," Lenk said. "You need to come up with a score card. Some will be easy to measure, some might not be so easy to measure."

School Budget

The discussion came up during the Watertown Public School's budget hearing. The schools will receive $35.3 million in Fiscal 2013, which is 3.5 percent or $1.195 million more than this year, Fiscal 2012, said Town Manager Michael Driscoll.

School officials called it a "level service budget," or one which allows the schools to provide the same services and programs as it did the previous year.

School Committee Vice Chairman John Portz said that is an improvement from the past two years. Though they received more money than prior years, in those years the Watertown Schools had to cut jobs and programs due budget shortfalls.

Even with a level service budget, School Committee Chairman Eileen Hsu-Balzer said there are differences in what can be called level.

"One teacher for a class of 27 cannot offer the same personal attention as one teacher with 22 students," Hsu-Balzer said. "One set of text books shared between five classes is not the same as one set for each classroom."

In coming years Hsu-Balzer said she would like to see adding to the schools, rather than just maintaining where they are now.

"It is good we are not making cuts, but I would regret if we were not able to restore valuable programs," she said.