Superintendent's Message
Marc J. Smith - Dennis-Yarmouth Regional Schools
Entry into Spring Break
Hello Dolphin Community,
Today I was fortunate enough to catch an encore performance of our DYHS Winter Percussion and Color Guard as they performed for the students at DYIMS. It was just another reminder of the all the amazing different offerings that we have available for students here in D-Y. Not only that, students really have the opportunity to excel within so many of our offerings... like competing at national competitions. It was also fantastic to see the connections being made between Dolphins across the grades from the high school to the intermediate and middle school.
These two ideas were key strengths that were identified about the district during my entry findings report that I just presented to the School Committee on Monday. If you are interested in seeing the presentation, you can see it here, or if you would like to read the detailed report, you can find that here. The entry process has been extremely enjoyable for me. I have loved getting to know the district and am looking forward to continuing to learn more in the months and years to come.
At the School Committee meeting this week we also discussed two on-going topics that the school community may be interested in. First, is the school budget for next year. At this point, the School Committee has approved it's budget. As I have previously mentioned, the School Committee's budget includes a little over $2 million in staffing reductions in order to ensure we can present a reasonable budget increase to the two towns. We have done this in a thoughtful way that we do not believe will impact educational programming for students next year. This approved budget will still require some action at the town level in both towns. In Dennis, the Select Board and Finance Committee have voted to "raise and appropriate from available funds" all the funds necessary from the school budget. This means they will not seek an override from the voters. The school budget will still need to pass a vote at town meeting in Dennis (May 7). In Yarmouth, the Select Board and Finance Committee have allocated some additional funds to the school budget and will be seeking an $880,000 override from voters. Should the override pass, this will add $.09 per $1,000 to the tax rate or $55.20 per year to the average assessed value home in Yarmouth. The override needs to pass two stages. It needs to pass at Town meeting (April 30) and on a ballot at the Town election on May 21.
At the meeting on Monday, a Committee member asked what would happen if the override does not pass. If the override does not pass, we will need to lower the assessment to Yarmouth by $880,000. We can not lower the assessment to Yarmouth without proportionally reducing the assessment to Dennis as well. The assessment proportion between the two towns is roughly 30% Dennis and 70% Yarmouth. Therefore, in order to reduce the Yarmouth assessment by $880,000 we would need to reduce the Dennis assessment $393,000 for a total budget reduction of $1,273,000. The Committee then asked what the impact of a further nearly $1.3 million dollar reduction would be. While we were not prepared with specifics, we estimated that it would result in approximately another 25 staff positions. We mentioned that we would likely have to impact programs and have to work to protect the "core" (math, science, social studies, ELA). The School Committee asked us to prepare a "Plan B" to present at our next meeting on April 29th.
The second item that we discussed was transportation. I mentioned to the School Committee that we have learned that we are able to transition to a two-tier system (should we decide to) based upon our collection of ridership data. As I previously mentioned, our next step in the process will be to determine if we "should". As noted in my more detailed message on this topic (linked here), we have a challenged in front of us that has many impacts and no solution that is 100% easy. A part of the decision making process about whether or not we "should" go to a two-tier system will require school community input. In the coming weeks, I will be sending out a message linked to a crowd sourcing "survey" tool that will look to capture the sentiments of the community on this issue. Please be on the look out for that and please be sure to share your perspectives at that time.
As we head into the school vacation week, I want to wish everyone a restful and relaxing week. Whether you are getting away, enjoying the time here on the Cape, or going about your normal life, may your days be filled with joy (and fingers crossed some sun).
All the best,
Marc J. Smith, Ed. D.
Superintendent