Pioneer school committee violates regional agreement

Here is our chances to move people into position to help the schools and teachers . Now is our time to get involved . Does anyone know what happen to this so called committee that was suppose to be working  on our behalf?

NORTHFIELD — Due to a mix-up in the election cycle, Pioneer Valley Regional School District’s committee violated the regional agreement its member towns entered into in 1991.
The regional agreement is a document created by the four Pioneer towns — Leyden, Warwick, Bernardston and Northfield — outlining the rules under which the towns will operate by joining the school district together.
“It’s sitting down and saying these are all the things we want to happen in our school district,” Superintendent Ruth Miller explained, adding that all regional school districts have such an agreement.
Under the rules of the agreement, in a given election cycle, two towns will have two members up for election and the other two towns will have one. The towns rotate so that in one election year, Northfield, for example, will have two seats to fill and during the next election cycle will have one.
Under this rotation, in 2016 Northfield and Warwick should have two positions to fill and Leyden and Bernardston should have one. Northfield, Warwick and Leyden have followed the correct rotation. In the case of Bernardston, two members are up for election instead of one, Jim Bell and Debra Gilbert.

“The whole point (of the rotation) is so you don’t have the entire school committee turn over at the same time,” Miller said. “It was pretty smart of whoever wrote (the agreement).”
The superintendent’s office is responsible for tracking the election cycle. Miller said she looked into where the cycle went wrong after the error was brought to her attention by Northfield Finance Committee Chairwoman Lois Stearns.
“In the past, there have been seats that have been empty that were filled mid-cycle,” Miller explained. “It gets a little messy.”
Under the agreement, if a member should resign, the position will be filled by appointment of the moderator of the member town in which the vacancy occurs, and that person will serve only until the next district election. Miller said two different members resigned before completing their term and were replaced by appointment.
“Right in the middle of all that coming and going, things got very complicated,” Miller said. Gilbert’s term, then, is not in fact up until 2018.
The plan to remedy the situation, Miller said, is to have Gilbert continue her term until 2018. Because each Bernardston ballot asks voters to elect two committee members, and no one is running in opposition of Gilbert or Bell, the error does not affect the 2016 election results.
“Because nobody’s running against them, it’s working out OK,” Miller said. “There’s no impact on moving the ballots forward as they are.”
Miller said the mistake is “certainly never going to happen again here.”
“It was a fluke,” she said.
Miller claimed she contacted the Department of Education, which oversees regional agreements, and the office of the Massachusetts Attorney General, who assured her there is no consequence for the error.
“It’s a local issue,” said Christine Lynch, a consultant with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, who oversees regional agreements. “This appears to be a condition that was agreed upon by the members that drafted the agreement. It should be worked out amongst the towns.”
Moving forward, Bernardston will have two seats to fill in 2018, fixing the rotation. Northfield, Leyden and Warwick will continue their correct rotation.
Committee Chairwoman Patricia Shearer and Robin L’Etoile are up for re-election in Northfield, and Northfield Police Chief Robert Leighton is also running for one of the two seats. Sharon Fontaine is up for re-election in Leyden, with no competition. David Young and David Shoemaker are up for re-election in Warwick, with Charles Lisowski also running for one of the two seats.




Again watch the budget  thats coming up and remember next year you lose ALOT of school choice funding  the largest class graduates 2017. As it stands now Vernon is walking away from PVRS and some have already removed kids and ZERO came this year from the 6th / grade class. You will have alot of money to make up that will not be on the books next year . I would suggest Administration starts cutting pay not teachers or programs. This will hurt us next year if we don't.