forward with additional gifting to B-R
November 24, 2004
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Joseph Gillis Jr.
You can do something!
At last night's Selectmen Meeting, a vote was taken to call for a Special Town Meeting on December 14th at 7:30 pm. The purpose, will be to transfer $184,464 from Surplus Revenue to an account with the purpose of making a Gift/Grant to Bridgewater-Raynham Schools. The specific requirement of the gift is that it be used to fund the hiring of additional teaching staff for the current year at the high school.
The plan is for Raynham to also make a gift of an appropriate percentage (I believe Raynham Selectmen voted similarly at their Tuesday evening meeting, and also called for their Special Town Meeting on December 14) to be able to hire eight teachers. Teachers would be brought back subject to union recall rules, with the intent of hiring 3 for Physical Education, 2 for Foreign Language, 2 for Math and 1 for Special Education.
With the addition of these staff positions, it is anticiapted that the school day will be changed at the high school to end at about 2:00 instead of 1:11. The additional minutes per day, mutliplied by about 110 days left in the school year (if this can begin on about January 3) would result in enough new class hours to bring the B-R High School students above the sate-mandated 990 class hours.
{Note: 12/1/04} -- After watching a video tape of the Superintendent's comments, he stated that this additional gift would bring B-R High close to the 990 hours but to only about 985 hours. This brings me back to my initial question, and one also asked by Bridgewater Selectwoman Lawton as to why the additional minutes are not being investigated. We both have asked why prep time is still set at 45 minutes while the contract states for this year that it only has to be 40 minutes..
