Shout Outs:
The Georgetown Middle and High School marching band entertained Haverhill on Sunday, November 24th and Merrimac on December 1, 2024 for their Santa Parades! A huge shout out to Daniel Buchner, our new Band Director, our students and families! Thank You for making Georgetown proud.
Rebecca Valeri, 6th grade Art Teacher and her students captured the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Updates:
Curriculum: Our Director of Curriculum, Laurie Greenwood, has added a page on the website that outlines this academic year’s district wide professional development plan. Here is the Link if you would like to review it. We continue to work towards the goal of having High Quality Instructional Materials across all grade levels and content areas. Our next targets for adoption include Biology and High School ELA. As with the last cycle of curriculum evaluation, adoption and implementation our teachers are involved in the process.
Technology: During the November 18, 2024 Select Board meeting the GPS Technology Department outlined a plan to support the town’s technology needs starting in the next fiscal year with transition phase starting in January, 2025. In broad strokes what this means for the school district is an added Level I Technology position that will be funded by the town. We believe this will round out our team and add the missing Help Desk Technology role. This position will be primarily responsible for responding to help desk tickets. For the municipal side of things, this means that they will have access to the school department’s technology team which will help streamline technology and services throughout the town. It is truly a win-win and a great opportunity for the schools and town to build strong partnerships and to work together.
FY2026 Budget Process: The Georgetown Finance Committee met Wednesday, December 4, 2024 to discuss town department budgets for next school year, FY2026. The meeting ended with the Finance Committee planning to submit four (4) budget scenarios to the Select Board for consideration during the FY2026 budget process. The Finance Committee has asked all departments to prepare the following budget scenarios:
- Balanced budget based entirely on forecasted revenues for FY2026. This scenario represents approximately $875,000 in cuts townwide, and will result in significant cuts to staffing and services, including the school department which already reduced spending by $270,000 in FY2025, as compared with FY2024. At this time, it is unclear what the total reduction will be for the school department with this /FY2026 budget scenario.
- Level funded which means spending exactly the same amount in FY2026 as the town spent in FY2025. This scenario currently stands at a deficit of approximately $875,000 as staffing, material, and equipment costs increase each year. Covering this deficit would require an override, and would still cause significant reductions in programs, services, and staffing.
- Level services would require the town residents to vote for an estimated $2.2 million proposition 2 ½ override to offer the same services next year as are offered this year.
- “Preferred budgets” which represent the level of services town departments think is necessary to adequately run their departments. This scenario would require a more significant override and requires more discussion with the Finance Committee.
I will continue to work with Central Office staff and Building Administrators to build and fine tune all budgets over the coming weeks. As decisions and timelines are made I will share information with you.