We have an update

Myself and others find this to be a great idea! Yes, get the parents and community also involved. Parents are concerned and looking into other options to educate their children elsewhere. Students are unhappy with what is happening to their school and teachers and don't like where its headed. In the last two years the spirit of PVRS has sunk drastically and its now at the point of where can I put my child to ensure a better education. Alot of parent are not feeling the 20 plus students per teacher in a classroom or learning over skype which takes away hands on learning. Parents from Vernon are not choosing PVRS after last years fiasco. This loss is huge for PVRS. This year alone PVRS will lose over 500,000.00 ( the equivalent of Superintendent, Asst Superintendent, PVRS Principal and VP salary) That class graduates in less than a month! Have you figured out how your gonna cover  this loss yet? Whoops ! I forgot instead of lowering their wages they fired what 14 teachers?
PVRS in the last year since Miller has come here has taken a downturn that's very concerning.We have said this over and over she is NOT PVRS material anymore than Bacon who she hired is. She has slowly dismantled a high spirited school to one where kids are just not happy about being in a learning environment.  If nothing is done soon, many have given PVRS 2 years before it will close down.
Choices seem evident  on the survival of PVRS.Suggestion beg Duprey to come back and keep Kathy Hawkins Harris and Mr. Killeen.Or say good bye to PVRS and its future.

BERNARDSTON — As Pioneer Valley Regional School District Superintendent Ruth Miller’s second end-of-cycle evaluation approaches, the School Committee has mixed opinions about opening up the evaluation to community input.
School Committee member Sue O’Reilly-McRae proposed expanding the evaluation process, one that is traditionally done solely by School Committee members, to include input from principals, Selectboard and Finance Committee members, parents and other community members.
O’Reilly-McRae said during an April 27 School Committee meeting that she originally pitched the idea to Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, and received positive feedback.
“We would be innovating because the Department of Education is going to give guidelines as to how to improve superintendent evaluations and they haven’t done that yet,” O’Reilly-McRae said.
O’Reilly-McRae said she had already drafted specific forms for community input, and proposed having the forms available to download on the district website or having hard copies available in the four Town Halls. The respondents would be asked to write respectfully and cite evidence to back up their evaluations, O’Reilly-McRae said.

Community members in the audience echoed their support of the idea.
“You need to be working very, very hard to find out what the truth is,” said Barbara Killeen, health and wellness teacher at Pioneer. “And you need to be talking not just around the table amongst yourselves, but to every stakeholder in the district.”

However, there were School Committee members who had reservations.
School Committee member Debra Gilbert said she considered it inappropriate “to go out to the public arena, who hears pieces and parts.”
“I’m uncomfortable about the personal, not-fact-based opinion,” School Committee member Martha Morse agreed.
Still other members backed O’Reilly-McRae’s proposal.
“I think casting a wide net, it makes you more informed,” School Committee member William Wahlstrom argued.
Many of the committee members felt the new process was being rushed, with Gilbert making a motion to push the vote on expanding the evaluations to next year. The majority of the committee voted in favor of Gilbert’s motion, with only three opposed.
Through last year’s evaluation process, 11 committee members rated Miller on a scale that ranged from “unsatisfactory” to “exemplary.” Five, the majority, deemed her performance “proficient.” Two said her performance was “unsatisfactory,” two said it “needs improvement” and another two said it was “exemplary,” resulting in a range of differing opinions.
The School Committee is set to review Miller’s second end-of-cycle evaluation during the May 25 meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. in Pearl Rhodes Elementary School.
You can reach Shelby Ashline at: sashline@recorder.com 413-772-0261, ext. 257

Just a numbers update

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So much lost

A great editorial article, HOWEVER...
For starters, these kids have been fighting for their teachers for two years now, have you had blinders on? These kids were heartbroken over the loss of Mike Duprey and now Kathy Hawkins-Harris and other teachers have just become too much.

Who are you kidding this did not affect that School Committee which by the way is the worst in the history of PVRS, they could care less about these kids or teachers and have proven over and over in the last two years. Instead, this SC approves 100,00.00 salaries for an Asst Superintendent, A first-time Principal and VP, oh and let us not forget Millers 100,000.00 PLUS salary. But hey it about the kids. PLEASE GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES HERE! 
 
 Just don't tell these kids they were heard when you damn well know it is not true, and the destruction of PVRS is evident, it's now a matter of time before its complete destruction.
Kids are looking for a different choices and charter school, Greenfield HS, along with GCC are excellent options. Your hope for students from school choice was completely destroyed last year when you lost Mike Duprey. You got zero for 2018. Your largest school choice class graduates in a few weeks now, that's a LARGE chunk of change you lost. Tell me SC how do your choices and lack of effort look now? Your two biggest mistakes were
1- Hiring Miller- When even the committee you sent to Templeton told you not to hire Miller, but you hired her anyway with no concern for the teachers or students let along a committee you sent.  This will cost you and the destruction has begun. ( you were warned over and over) This is ALL on you SC.
2-Your fatal mistake was Mike Duprey, when you lost him you lost the heart of PVRS and NOTHING will bring that back and that too is on you SC, because he even told you what was going on with Miller and you turned your back on him too. 

 Always in our hearts

SO PLEASE DON'T LIE TO THESE KIDS, THEY ARE NOT THE FOOLS YOU ARE. 

Reformer article starts here


Sometimes you have to stick up for what you believe in and make sure that you’ve been heard. That’s what several Pioneer Valley Regional School students did recently as they defended a dozen of their teachers slated to be laid off in the coming year.
With tears in her eyes, Pioneer senior Annalise Holesovsky stood before the School Committee to explain that students felt they weren’t just losing teachers but also role models who felt like family.
“Losing almost one-third of the school’s faculty is the most damaging thing that could happen to Pioneer,” junior Dana McRae told the School Committee. “Pioneer needs its teachers more than anything else.”
The $14.2 million budget approved by the School Committee for next school year would drop 12 teachers, the dean of students, one custodian and four instructional assistants. Additionally, one district-wide technical support staff member and Librarian Fiona Chevalier would be reduced to half-time. It’s now up to the district’s member towns of Warwick, Northfield, Bernardston and Leyden to decide whether to appropriate their respective shares.
Pioneer’s five-year school improvement plan emphasizes offering more advanced placement and online classes made possible through distance learning technology — an option the school can offer without the expense of full-time faculty on site.

But students weren’t having it.
“I don’t want to take a class with teachers in Japan or India,” said Pioneer junior Alyks Kostecki. “I want to take a class with teachers I know, like Ms. Boulay and Mr. Killeen.”
Kostecki said Pioneer’s teachers “become sanctuaries” for students across social cliques.
The proposed staff and curriculum changes have some students exploring different schools and dual enrollment at Greenfield Community College, the students warned.
“Without these teachers, I would not be who I am today,” added Pioneer senior Amelia Marchand. “To have one-third less love than I have every day is hard to imagine.”
She and others at that public hearing were impassioned defenders of their teachers, and it’s likely no one disputed their assessment of the value of the school’s staff. But for the School Committee and the adults who pay the bills, the analysis involved less sentiment and more spreadsheet.
When the cuts were first proposed in January, Principal Jean Bacon explained that Pioneer’s enrollment had decreased by 25 percent over the past eight years, though few adjustments had been made to staffing levels. Bacon said in the past five years, Pioneer’s enrollment has declined by 140 students, with 409 students at the start of the 2016-2017 school year.
“We just don’t need as many teachers to deliver education to a population that’s 140 less,” the principal contended. It’s hard to dispute the math. In this case there’s a strong common sense argument for downsizing the staff in the face of shrinking enrollments. Exactly how much may be debatable.
As it turns out it may be the students were heard, at least in Northfield, which this week agreed to spend $164,000 more than its finance committee recommended to bolster Pioneer’s budget.
Regardless how this comes out, there are lessons to be learned. It was nice to see students so engaged with their school that they would fight for their teachers. It’s important for them to know they were heard and that their arguments may have swayed the voters in Northfield to squeeze a bit more money from chronically squeezed taxpayers.
But they also might have to learn that despite our best intentions, arguments and appeals, before even the most sympathetic and receptive audience, we don’t always get what we want.
Meanwhile, we hope the voters in the member towns yet to vote will consider the students’ arguments, as did Northfield, in case they can find it in their pocketbooks to meet the students part way.