MANCHESTER – Here’s your recap of the Monday, October 7, Board of School Committee meeting. Due to a light agenda, this recap will be very brief. You can find the agenda for the meeting here: https://5il.co/2y3ib. Video from the meeting will be posted online by Manchester Public Television. As a reminder, we provide live updates from full board meetings at https://x.com/mansd_nh.
Beech Street leads Pledge of Allegiance
On Monday night, students from Beech Street Elementary School joined us to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Beech Street is the second school to do the honors this school year, following Bakersville last month.
Prior to the meeting, students Nayelis, Aubrey, Zoey and Jadiel and their families had the opportunity to meet Mayor Ruais and Board Members Soule and Bonilla in the mayor’s office.
Great job, students, and thanks to Principal Newman for coordinating.
Presentation on Medicare Advantage Renewal
With no recognitions at the meeting, the agenda moved quickly into presentations. Consultant Tom DeLacey was in attendance to talk about the district's renewal of Medicare Advantage for retirees. You can find his slides beginning on Page 1 of the agenda packet: https://5il.co/2y3ib.
Action and consent agendas
There were no items on the action agenda on Monday, and the consent agenda only contained the minutes from the previous board meeting. Those minutes were approved by a voice vote.
Superintendent’s communications
Moving on to superintendent’s communications, Superintendent Chmiel provided an update on student enrollment and class sizes. The district has been regularly providing updates to the board on this topic, relative to the district’s class size policy (link). With the first month of the year complete, enrollment numbers have begun to settle down after fluctuations that are typical for the start of the year.
Superintendent Chmiel told the board that the district team, which has been working closely with our building leaders, has identified four elementary schools – Gossler Park, Jewett Street, McDonough and Weston – that have classes in 3-4 grade levels exceeding the policy capacity of 20 students. While other schools may have 1-2 grade levels exceeding the policy capacity in their classrooms. The team has also identified classrooms at each grade level which have available space for new enrollments. The district team will continue to work with our building leaders to identify where we are near, exceeding or under capacity as a means to identify school assignments for new enrollments.
In review of available room space in our buildings, it was reported that only Northwest and Green Acres have an available room if the district looked to add a teacher. At this time the district is not looking to move any specials to being mobile and traveling to classrooms. The focus will remain on protecting the classroom spaces for our elementary specials classes.
At the middle and high schools, Superintendent Chmiel said the district team is monitoring classes of less than 15 students and more than 25, and exploring ways to add additional staff at some of the middle schools to reduce class sizes in particular in the unified arts sections.
Adjournment
With no further items, the meeting moved to non-public session before later adjourning. The next full meeting of the board is set for October 28.