Are you ready for some football!!~ Update

Today the panthers are home and are getting
ready for the 3rd game of the season against  Ware.
Kick off is at 3 .

Bring your umbrellas and come out and support the boys .

Go get em Panthers !~!

Now a message from Deanna Baker

 Everybody know what day it is. That's right game day for Pioneer Football. Kick off is at 3:00 against Ware. This is a game your going to want to see. Our boys have been working all week on the plays. Our concession stand will have lots of goodies from corn chowder, chili, burgers and hotdogs. To popcorn, brownies and of course candy of all kinds. If your worried about the cold. Don't be we will have steaming hot chocolate. If your unsure of what to do. Come on over to cheer and support our boys to another win. Its going to a be edge of your seat kind of game.

Great job boys! You may not of gotten the win but you held your ground under some bad weather conditions. They were a tough team and so are you , now take from it what  you can and move forward . You got this~!

SC Meeting live on video

This past school committee meeting now on line

https://vimeo.com/184312402

Today in the opinion page

 Well awhile back we informed you about Millers insistence  to read her writings . This also happen in Templeton to the Principal there who took the blame for many of her injustices such as the memorial wall .  This also was done to Mike Duprey  and he refused to do it , and it cost him his job and us a great man. He was also put under the microscope after where all his  writings needed to be approved by Miller including his speech at graduation. None of this written below is a surprise .

Word has it alot of lawyers are involved with Pioneer right now .




Reading Jay Butynski’s column today, I was struck by the fact that both the athletic director and the principal of Pioneer Valley Regional School seemed to be reading scripts.
They were good at it, but it seems more suited to the arts department.
Maybe when lawyers are involved that’s what you get. Seems a bit like copying answers, though.
Another I really appreciated was the helmet sticker issue. This from a school that doesn’t simply have an honor roll. They parse it right to practically the grade point average.
Michael Moore

Orange


We warned you last year and so did the past school Templeton and now we have a SC buried and  don't know how to pull themselves out , so suggestion, BUY HER OUT , nobody will fault you and will actually praise you for  finally standing up to what is right .No body will fault you for a mistake , that happens when you keep trying to bury it .

 Credit to one of our posters for pointing out this article .

Just to much

The amount of money we are paying out is beyond rediculious . How does this make sense when the school's  need money and Teachers are under paid.

We pay the Superintendent -141,000.00
and a Asst Superintendent - 100,000.00
and a Admin Asst to Superintendent - 46,075.00

Than we pay for a FIRST time Principal - 105,000.00 ( what! for a experienced Principal yes, but one with no experience , come on )
Asst Principal salary  - 137,362.00 ( huh? This is what we are paying first timers with no experience?)

Here we already are at = 530,437 .00 Before anything else is even added .


What is wrong with this picture is we have Teachers struggling and who are the heart of the schools who should be making alot more not taking on extra jobs to survive. These numbers above are just not acceptable . Alot of these numbers are not .  Also  I would love to know what her  other expenses are for  10,816.00. 


It also seems we pay an awful lot for Secretaries and yet none of the minutes or pages have been updated.
Also where are the paw-prints ? Why were these not done?  These were done yearly ! Its disgraceful.

In case you missed this pile of BS here it is


NORTHFIELD — More than a month after the last Pioneer Valley Regional School District Committee meeting, members of the public now have answers to some of their most frequently asked questions.
Superintendent Ruth Miller posted on the Pioneer Valley Regional School District’s website outlining what became of a reported $477,487 budget shortfall and whether exit interviews had been conducted with resigning Pioneer employees.
Understanding the finances( She will explain to us what she did not know and an Auditor tells her how to do her job)
Miller came under fire from concerned parents and faculty at the June 23 committee meeting and earlier as a result of an article published by The Recorder on Sept. 14, 2015, which stated Miller, going in her first year, had discovered a significant budget deficit.
Miller said she never used those words to describe the district’s financial situation and the district was not in financial danger. Rather, money had been allotted in different accounts than she had originally expected. ( So pass the buck the newspaper lied and misquoted AGAIN)
“In the past, (the district) put all the expenses into the general fund, but that’s not the way it’s supposed to be done,” she said in a phone interview.

The district operates two separate pools of money: a general fund and a School Choice revolving fund. The School Choice fund, which comes from tuition from out-of-district students, should not be included in the budget presented to the district’s towns, she said, though former superintendents have done so. Not factoring in the School Choice fund would cause it to appear like the district was short on money.( False she did not know how to do school choice and thats what happen , here she tries to AGAIN to discredit Dayle Dorion instead of taking this on herself . We reported this months before it became a news article of what happened check archives).
“I want our account to line up with the requirements of the Department of Education,” Miller said. “That’s the way you’re supposed to do it.”
Miller said she also included facets in the budget that the previous superintendent had not.
“It was just a little murky,” Miller said.( again she tries to build herself up and crush past Admins Very immature and unprofessional  ) “What was unclear was did we have the right amount of expenses coming out and did those expenses balance what the town was going to give us.”( I think after 20 plus year Dayle Dorion knew what she was doing . A couple months in she fails )
Another issue arose because Miller could not factor in anticipated grant funding at the time of the budget’s completion.
“We did not have new grant figures when we completed the budget,” Miller explained. “We always get a special education grant that comes in at around $400,000 … We always know we’re going to get the grant, so we should be fine, but we didn’t know the number at that point.”
The district also regularly receives a Title I grant and an early education grant, Miller continued. However, because grant funding has declined significantly in the past five years, it has become more difficult for administrators to anticipate funding and Miller did not want to incorrectly account for grants.
Miller said Daniel Haynes of Scanlon & Associates completed an audit of the district and found her calculations made sense.
“I spent many hours on understanding the budget, revenues and projected expenses,” Miller said on the district’s website. “I reviewed the auditor’s recommendations and implemented many of them.” * Isn't that  her job??????????
Some of Haynes’ recommendations included separating the School Choice revolving fund from the budget presented to the towns and working to increase the district’s reserves, which have been decreasing each year.
“I made it clear (to the School Committee) … that we would be in OK shape this fiscal year,” Miller said on the website. “But we need to tighten our spending and find inefficiencies. There is just not enough in reserve to continue spending the way we have been able to in the past.”( So we rent a building and pay inexperience Principals and VP enormous salaries? )
One problem, Miller said, is the school lunch fund.
“The school lunch fund is $198,000 in the hole,” she said. “Essentially, we don’t have any reserves. Any amount of money we had left over last year, we needed to apply that to the school lunch fund and it’s still in the negative.” ( Maybe we should do what Turner's h.s Gill-Montague Regional school district did they have free breakfast and lunches for all from a grant)
“Hopefully, at the end of this year, we might be able to get rid of that in its entirety,” she said. Miller has a goal for the district to eventually have 5 percent of its budget in reserve.
Miller said the auditor also recommended enhancing the district’s internal controls in financial reporting.
“My staff and I sat down and we went through every different control that we need and rewrote our control manual,” she said. Such protocols would control the district’s transactions and eliminate fraud.
Exiting faculty On the district website, Miller wrote that “exit interviews have been done for some, but not all of the staff that have left the district.”
Faculty, parents and students had asked that exit interviews be conducted with departing staff members after several announced their resignations from the high school. Pioneer Principal Bill Wehrli, Assistant Principal — and then Acting Principal — Mike Duprey, Computer Network Manager Mike Holloway and Director of Special Education Sharon Jones are four of the long-term staff members to leave the school since fall 2015.
“I think it would appropriate for teachers to do exit interviews with their principals, for administrators to interview with me,” Miller said. “The exit interviews would be conducted by their direct supervisors.”( So we have exit interviews with the VIPER who is the reason they left.. PRICELESS) .
There is currently no format for exit interviews within the district, Miller said, but she intends to have administrators create a process for conducting exit interviews with all staff who redesign  or retire.(One word USELESS)
 This article was written Monday, August 08, 2016, 10 months after her original  when she ran to the newspaper claiming the money was missing .

AGAIN WE NEED TO STAY ON TOP OF THESE BUDGETS ,PLEASE SHARE AND GET THE WORD OUT .

Wait a sec Update 9/27/16 3:15 pm

 I believe thanks to a poster we have much more to this story p what do you think? I will be checking on this and reporting back .


ou can add Dave Hastings to the growing list of Pioneer Valley Regional School coaching casualties who have departed after issues with the administration.
At 5:11 a.m. on Aug. 9, the 15-year Panthers boys’ varsity basketball coach sent an email to Pioneer Principal Jean Bacon announcing his resignation. It marks the third coach who has admitted to walking away because of philosophical differences, joining former football coach Glenn Wilson and field hockey coach Colleen Bannister.
Bacon said she was under the impression that Hastings was leaving because he wanted to watch his two sons play basketball.
“We’ve had conversations, and Mr. Hastings had an excellent record at the school. He was really successful in terms of the team, and my understanding from him was that he submitted a letter of resignation and felt that it was time for him to be more available for his own sons in terms of their on-going athletic careers,” she said.
Hastings disagreed, saying that he not only never said that, but that when he met with Bacon, he expressed his desire to continue coaching at Pioneer. But when he was told that he would once again have to reapply for his coaching position, something that not every coach has to do every year, it was the final straw in his three-year battle to keep his job.

“I resigned based on the principal telling me that they were going to post the job and wanted me to reapply,” Hastings said. “I didn’t feel there was any reason to ask me to reapply. We ended up with one of the best teams in western Mass. last year, so how could that be viewed as negative?”
Consistent with all Massachusetts public high schools, coaches at Pioneer are hired on a year-to-year basis. Many schools also have a policy of asking coaches back after the season, and the same is true at Pioneer, which has a policy to invite coaches back within 45 days of the season’s end. So coaches do not have to go through the hiring process every year. Bacon said that after meeting with Hastings, the decision was made to post the boys’ varsity position, something she said was the case for many — although not all — coaches at the school.
“I just started at Pioneer in July and am trying to figure things out,” Bacon explained. “So I’ve been meeting with a lot of people, and I think with the athletics program, just getting everyone on the same page, has been very important.”
After Hastings resigned, Bacon sent him an email asking him to contact current players and parents about his decision. Included was a draft of what she wanted him to put in the email, including the part about his decision coming in order for him to watch his sons play.( concerning that you would write an email and not allow the coach to write his own..Gotta say Miller is working her magic here with Bacon ) Hastings said he was not comfortable sending that email out, since it was not the truth. Instead, he wrote his own email to parents and players expressing his gratitude for coaching the players over the years, and also acknowledging all of the accomplishments that the team had achieved.
It’s because of those accomplishments that Hastings has difficulty understanding why he has been under a microscope for the past three years. Pioneer Athletic Director Gina Johnson disagreed with Hastings’ opinion that he has been treated differently, and insisted that every coach is held to the same standards.
“We have the same expectations of our coaches as we do our teachers,” she said. “And my expectations of coaches are the same across the board.”
Hastings begged to differ. He points out requirements like having to hand out coaching evaluations to his players each year and to being forced to reapply annually for his job. In his mind, perhaps the most absurd requirement was documenting everything he did at practice and how long he did it. Other coaches at Pioneer said that they never had to do that, and other athletic directors in the area ridiculed at the idea. Johnson said she expected each coach to be able to meet the requirement if asked to do so.
“I’m not going to discuss what for each individual coach the expectation is, but my expectations are the same across the board,” Johnson said. “I ask all my coaches to do the same thing. When they walk into a practice, they need to have a plan. It’s unfair for me to say that I wouldn’t expect to be able to walk into a practice and have that coach be able to hand me their plan. Every coach has been asked to do that, yes.”
If Hastings was in fact being treated differently, the question becomes why, something he has asked himself for the past few years but couldn’t answer definitively. When Johnson was asked to explain, Bacon cut in.
“If you are asking us what are the facts in terms of if there is any different treatment of coaches, I think Gina has answered that,” she said. “The expectations are the same for all our coaches.”
So, then, why did Hastings have to go through hoops other coaches did not, such as reapplying for his job annually? Bacon said that many coaches at the school had to reapply this year but she refused to explain how decisions were made as to who did and who didn’t.
“Those are internal decisions about what’s going on in the school,” Bacon said. “I’m new and I don’t know everybody.”
Bacon and Johnson said they were unable to answer any questions regarding player or parent complaints, although Hastings said he has not had any issues other than one mother upset that her son was not chosen captain. He also handed over a stack of emails from current and former players who wished him well and were shocked to see him leaving. He pointed to a stack of coaching evaluations done anonymously by players (some did reveal their names) last season and not one had a complaint.
Hastings also received the most-recent team evaluation done annually by Johnson and the harshest criticism was that the athletic director did not see the annual growth and improvement she desired. Hastings didn’t accept that complaint and showed numbers from each of the past five years to counter it. Not only did the team see its win totals rise from five in 2010-11 to 16 in 2015-16, but the number of field goals made, 3-pointers made, free throws made and total points displayed an upward trend.
“I think our record and the individual statistics were always improving, and yet I always had to be mindful that I was under the microscope,” Hastings said. “The athletic director was always breathing down my neck ...”
One other possible point of contention was how he handled his son, Brad, over the past three years. Brad Hastings wound up scoring the most points in western Mass. last season, and was third in the state, according to Hastings. At one point, Hastings was on the receiving end of criticism in the form of someone writing “Ball Hog Hastings” on an inspirational sign hung in the locker room. Other coaches in the Hampshire League were anonymously asked their thoughts about how Coach Hastings handled his son and the consensus was that Brad Hastings was not a ball hog, but that he had the pedigree to take and make big shots, and regardless of who he played for, he would have been a go-to scorer.
So what does Hastings think precipitated this treatment he views as unfair?
“I believe Gina Johnson just didn’t like me,” he said. “I’ve said that to her. I said, ‘You just don’t like me, you just don’t like my family.’”
Whatever the reason, Hastings is gone and has already accepted a job as a Keene State College assistant.
Calls to the Pioneer superintendent’s office on Monday afternoon were not returned.
Former Pioneer football coach Glenn Wilson, who resigned following the 2014 season due to his own issues with administration, weighed in on his former colleague Hastings’ situation. Wilson himself battled different administrators, former principal Bill Wehrli and vice principal Mike Duprey, as well as Johnson.
Like Hastings, Wilson said that he felt like he was being micro-managed at all times and had to answer for everything he did. He said that, once, the parents at the school continued a yearly tradition of buying hooded sweatshirts for the student athletes and that he was called onto the carpet for that tradition because he did not get it approved by administration. He explained that it was parent driven, and he did not know he needed administrative approval. He also said that he gave out paw stickers for players to put on their helmets.
“We gave them out for doing great things in the community, classroom and, lastly, on the football field,” Wilson said. “I really believe that community and classroom come first. I was told to take them off with the reason being the “no child left behind” thought process. I told them that I would never embarrass any student athlete but thought players should be recognized for doing great things in the community and classroom.”
Wilson also said that in his final year coaching at Pioneer, the players asked him to try and get a home night game, so he went to to the administration for approval. He was told there were three conditions: no postseason soccer games at the school, borrowing portable uprights from NMH, and getting approval from an opposing team. Wilson met the conditions and had McCann Tech scheduled to play at night, but says when he returned to the administration for final approval, he was informed by the officials that they had changed their collective mind.
“My reasons for resigning were that it just wasn’t enjoyable to coach football at Pioneer anymore,” Wilson said. “It seemed as though I was being brought into the office on a frequent basis for situations that were very unclear to me. After the situation with the night game I sat down and thought long and hard. I enjoyed coaching student-athletes at Pioneer but the administration took the fun away from it.”
Like Hastings, it did not take long for Wilson to find work. He is now in his second year as a Greenfield High School football assistant.
“I am very happy where I am and with the administration in Greenfield,” he explained. “They are very professional and I very much enjoy working with the coaching staff, student athletes and parents in Greenfield. They have really welcomed me here.”












Meg when it comes to Gina she has our support 100%. As for the Administration not gonna happen, sorry. When you come in new we expect changes but not like this.  Our past administration did not deserve what happen to them nor did they deserve to be bullied and not have a SC defend them.  Nor did they have to be degraded and talked badly about  by a Superintendent who has done nothing but bad mouth Dayle Dorion. She has lied to the newspaper not once but three times concerning  the budget , Mike Duprey and Bill Wherli. The SC is well aware of what has been going on  because they were informed and the response they gave back was " What do you want us to do  it will cost 200,000.00  to buy her out"  Ah.. we want you to do your damn jobs! Pioneer has always been Positive, Diverse, and Honorable to a fault. Asked about that now we can not say we have this. You have unhappy students and teachers alike , you have a Principal who out right lied at the Open House , and follows a written directive instead of  her own and running a school. Than you have a VP who we feel is Pioneer material who is a nervous wreck .  Neither Principal nor VP, is ready to be in the positions they were put in. This hurts Pioneer . So please don't add Gina to this list because she is an outstanding Athletic Director who will go to bat for her kids and we all admire and will back her 100%.

Just a heads up to all as well Pat Shearer comes up for reelection this year, lets make it our jobs and responsibility to remove her .




For the past few years, Pioneer Valley Regional athletic director and administration have been put under a microscope and everything negative has been boldly printed throughout The Recorder.
Yes, there are flaws and disagreements within any school system, but I think we forget to acknowledge all the positive aspects that Pioneer Valley has to offer, while there is always another side to every story.
This fall, I will be entering my fifth year of coaching the girls varsity basketball team at Pioneer Valley, and I have enjoyed the experience ever since Day One. Similar to any job, one of the keys to success is open communication and respect. I am responsible for the reputation and success of our team, while I am held accountable to the administration’s expectations. Expectations are made to uphold the integrity and reputation of the school district as a whole.
While the athletic director does set high standards and protocols, they are very simple to follow, especially by using open and honest communication between parents, coaches, players and administration. I have always felt fully supported by Athletic Director Gina Johnson, and I look forward to the continued success of Pioneer Valley athletics. Go Panthers!
Meg Burrington

PVRS Girl’s Varsity Basketball Coach
Northfield

Panthers do it again!! Congrats boys !

Great Job boys and Coach Paul Worth

Panthers grind out 21-6 win

• 
  

NORTHFIELD — The 2016 debut of the “Bryce and Baker” Show couldn’t have gone much better for the Pioneer Regional School football team.
The backfield tandem of junior Bryce Dobosz and senior Josh Baker ran for 266 of the team’s 275 rushing yards as the Panthers made short work of independent foe McCann Vocational Technical School, 21-6, in Northfield Saturday afternoon.
“It felt great to be out there,” Dobosz (24 carries, 193 yards) said of his first game since returning from injury. “I was getting a lot of carries and got a little tired, but the line blocked great and I tried to hit the hole hard.”
That was clearly evident by Pioneer’s first offensive series, which saw Dobosz generate 45 of his team’s 60 yards in a 12-play drive which chewed over five minutes off the clock and ended with an Alex Tyson (five carries, 9 yards) 1-yard quarterback sneak for the touchdown. Wyatt Keith hit the first of his three-extra point kicks on the day to make the score 7-0.
It was also the start of a good day in the pocket for Tyson, who went 5-for-10 passing for 93 yards and did a solid job executing what was clearly an effective game plan offensively.

“I don’t think I threw as well as I could have. I overthrew a couple of times but it’s great having Bryce back in there,” Tyson said. “There are no words to describe what he means to our team.”
Pioneer’s defense was also equal to the task, holding McCann to 67 yards rushing, just 17 of which occurred in an offensively lackluster first half. The Hornets also suffered a blow, losing starting quarterback Mike Ferrara to injury in the second quarter, effectively eliminating McCann’s passing attack for the remainder of the contest.
Pioneer extended the lead when Baker ran it in from 3 yards out with just 35 seconds left in the second quarter. A Keith extra-point kick made the score 14-0 Panthers going into the break.
“Alex and Bryce were solid for sure, but Josh ran the trap very well today, especially in that first half,” said Pioneer coach Paul Worth. “When he runs north and south, he’s tough to stop.”
McCann appeared to mount a semblance of a comeback in the third quarter, when a Baker fumble gave them the ball back at the Pioneer 47. From there, the Hornets generated their best drive of the day, marching 53 yards on 11 plays before Corbin Richardson (11 carries, 47 yards) scored on a 6-yard touchdown run. The highlights of the drive were a pair of 8-yard, fourth-and-long Richardson runs to keep the ball in Hornet hands.
The McCann extra-point kick sailed wide left, keeping the score 21-6. McCann got another chance to tie the score on the next series, but the threat ended on a Dobosz interception, which the Pioneer offense turned into an insurance score four plays later, a Dobosz 1-yard tote.
McCann went three-and-out on the next series, which gave Pioneer the ball back on the Panther 40. Tyson and Co. once again methodically moved the ball downfield, getting as close as the 5 when Worth, in a show of class and sportsmanship, chose instead to have his quarterback take two knees to end the game.
“We had a game plan and the kids executed it,” Worth said. “They understood what had to be done and did it. As a coaching staff, that’s what we are most proud of.”
Pioneer welcomes Ware to town Saturday for a game which could have postseason implications for both teams. Kickoff is at 1 pm.