Proposed School Budget Reflects 1.78% Increase

Superintendent Marianne O'Connor presented the school committee with a proposed fiscal 2012 budget at last night's meeting. The $39,982,853 budget is up but 1.78 percent from last year's $39,282,335.

"The factors driving these recommendations are many," O'Connor said. "They are to preserve and maintain the high quality staff, program and facilities; focus on the students by providing reasonable class size and to reduce programs and positions that do not directly advance student achievement; to make an investment in special education program development; and to prioritize spending to provide the best return on the investment for the taxpayer."

According to O'Connor, of the 1.78 percent increase, 1.42 percent is for salaries, the largest line item, and fixed costs. The rest of the increases are due, primarily to program changes and special education reorganization.

"We have four special needs students leaving ," O'Connor said. "They are moving onto were there is not currently a special education program in place. We need to build this for these kids."

Chairman Ilyse Levine-Kanji acknowledged the hours and hours of hard work that the superintendent and many others put into making the budget as appealing as possible, thanking her for her commitment to the task at hand.

"We really have to think about every move we make," O'Connor said. "What we want is to keep teachers in front of our students and it's really tough in this economy."

O'Connor's proposed budget will not require a 2 1/2 override.

In other business, the committee spoke with local dad of five, David Wong about the Mandarin program in the schools. He was speaking in response to the addition of Mandarin to the 7th and 8th grade curriculum at Gibbons Middle School; thereby removing it from the freshmen curriculum at the high school for two years.

Because of this change, two years' worth of kids, will not have the option of Mandarin at the high school without testing into Mandarin II as Mandarin I will not be offered.

"I challenge Westborough to do a better job of promoting the Chinese language program," he said. "Parents may not be aware of how important Chinese is to the future. Chinese is currently the number one language spoken in the world, and I suspect in my lifetime China will be the number one economic power."

O'Connor noted that she is a proponent of Mandarin and is working hard to come up with a program that works for everyone.

"We are trying to create a stronger program with this program change," School Committee member, Stephen Doret said. "We are well aware that there will be two years worth of kids who won't have this opportunity."