Pat Shearer, you have balls of steel to actually run for a school committee seat. Do not act like this is NOT your fault the position PVRS is in because it is! Lets review.
When you forced out Dayle Dorion and went on a new Superintendent search instead of doing due diligence on this you chose to just accept Miller because you didn't want to open up another search. YOU were told by your own damn committee not to hire her.
You had the largest turn out of taxpayers and parents show up at Pearl Rhoades in May 2015 telling you to get rid of her. You chose to close your ears to the truth and not listen. You actually had the nerve to give her a raving review when in fact it was all bullshit!
You had Administrators and teachers jumping ship without life jackets, telling you of the abuse they were enduring and AGAIN YOU CHOSE NOT TO LISTEN!
You were warned by Templeton to WATCH YOUR BUDGET .. again you ignored the warnings and you hired Miller as budget/business mgr! WHAT!
You were shown proof of Miller's track record - abusive- unable to lead - blowing up budgets- nuclear options, asked to leave all her past employment and Miller knew she was NOT getting asked back by Templeton. Now, what did you do Pat? You allowed peoples careers to be destroyed, you ignored all warnings that this day was coming and supported this nightmare! Your words were we cannot afford to buy her contract out, well as it looks now it would have been cheaper and saved PVRS if you would have done just that.
You knew that the largest class of school choice was leaving in 2017 - You also were aware that after what happened to Mike Duprey and others school choice was no longer an option with Vernon kids or parents. You did NOTHING to prepare for this, instead, you used VY as an excuse... ah, no..it was the corruption of this school and still, you ignored the warnings.
Pat Shearer and Young are bad for PVRS and should not be voted back in. If you allow this the future destruction of PVRS is on all who voted them in. They are just as guilty as Miller due to they allowed Miller's destruction of our beloved school.
Go over the blog, read the warnings. We foretold this day for over 3 years.
NO TO PAT SHEARER RE-ELECTION TO SCHOOL COMMITTEE.
Few people like to see themselves on the front page of the local newspaper. It often means bad news, and that’s what School Committee members of the Pioneer Valley Regional School District have had to endure in recent weeks. The unfolding of the district’s budget woes has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion: You know what’s coming and you know that people will be hurt.
Moreover, there’s a sense of impending doom among parents in Leyden and Warwick, whose small elementary schools might as well have targets painted on the sides of their buildings. The effects of possible school closures are ubiquitous: Homesellers worry that talk of school closings deter families from moving into town; homebuyers worry about the viability and future quality of the school system; and homeowners calculate the impact on property taxes. Fault lines divide neighbors as the escalating price of educating our children is thrown into high relief.
Leyden’s Pearl Rhodes Elementary School and Warwick’s Community School, with 33 and 51 students, respectively, have the highest per-student costs in the district. According to PVRS district Treasurer Tanya Gaylord’s estimates, Warwick and Leyden’s elementary schools respectively cost about $22,750 and $24,600 per student. Warwick Town Coordinator David Young, who is on the School Committee, said in his own calculations, Warwick Community School’s cost per-pupil is closer to $32,000. Statewide, the average per-pupil cost is about $15,500, according to the Department of Education’s expenditure report of September 2017. In Gaylord’s calculations, Bernardston and Northfield’s elementary schools cost about $16,500 per student, and Pioneer Valley Regional School about $17,500.
In an effort to maintain the status quo, there have been calls for the Selectboards of all four towns to hold Proposition 2½ tax cap override votes. The last time a Proposition 2½ override vote was held in Northfield was 2014, when the Pioneer district was threatened with as many as 46 layoffs, or 25 percent of professional and paraprofessional staff, according to then Superintendant Dayle Doiron. The resulting vote was tied. A recount netted four votes in favor, and the override succeeded — hardly a mandate. That same year, fiscally conservative Bernardston, sick of ever-inflating school costs, looked into leaving the Pioneer Valley Regional School District altogether. Leyden and Warwick have the most at stake, but an override vote solely to save the schools is a tough nut for any town, anywhere, to crack.
There are, however, some areas of agreement in the current situation. In the face of Draconian cuts to music, the arts, sports and extracurricular activities at Pioneer, more parents and residents seem to be wrapping their minds around the loss of the two lowest-enrollment elementary schools — Pearl Rhodes School in Leyden and Warwick Community School. The alternative would be a high school hollowed out by cuts to programs, making it less attractive to School Choice or, indeed, any students.
Finally, per Shearer’s invitation, there is the opportunity to be part of the process by running for a seat on the regional School Committee. There are seats up for re-election in all four towns this fall. To get on the ballot, you have to be a registered voter in your town, pick up a petition form from the district superintendent’s office at Pioneer Valley Regional School, get at least 27 signatures of registered voters in your town, and turn in your petition to your town clerk by 5 p.m., July 24.
Northfield Town Clerk Dan Campbell advises candidates to get extra signatures because those forms are scrutinized by the clerk, whose ruling is in turn validated by two registrars appointed by the town. Signatures that are illegible, or not of registered voters, would be disqualified. Campbell points out that just living in town is not enough — you have to be a registered voter for your petition signature to count.
We second Shearer’s call to run for a School Committee seat. It’s a demanding job, but its members are shaping the future of the district’s schoolchildren. Surely that is worth the commitment.
