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

This blog started last June and it has had an amazing amount of readers for a small school blog.

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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.

RIP PVRS

Well, you were warned and you did not listen. RIP PVRS. I and others as students and parents were blessed to have had the best years. It saddens many of us to see such destruction of a school and all it stood for.
I also have to say this is the most damaging school committee in the history of this school. Your neglect of what PVRS stood for and your lack of consideration for students and teachers is also appalling.Not to mention your laziness concerning how Miller was hired.
It doesn't stop with just them, parents and taxpayers you had a hand in this as well by YOUR SILENCE. You allowed this destruction and you did nothing to stop it.
PVRS HAS LOST IT'S PRIDE!
Losing such great teachers and the Dean of students who kids depended on is a disgrace. But what is worst is what YOU as TAXPAYERS are allowing for salaries! Miller, Bacon, Healey, nor the VPrincipal are worth this unbelievable salary, that could have saved many jobs, and me as a parent do not find having kids learn off of skype as a learning experience a fundamental one for children. Nor having 20 plus kids per Teacher per room a valued learning experience.
You had these kids stand before you crying and telling you how important these teachers were to their education and you heard nothing.
Well hear this, kids in 6th/ grade wanted PVRS as school choice, now you have NONE, parents are looking into charter schools, and other options to remove kids from this school. What happens when you finally wake up and realize your too late?
PVRS is on a downslide and I predict within 5 to 6 years will be closed.

BERNARDSTON — With tears in her eyes, Pioneer Valley Regional School senior Annalise Holesovsky stood before the School Committee and recounted her early days at Pioneer, when she first got to know Dean of Students Cathy Hawkins-Harrison.
Though students had nicknamed her “the hawk,” Holesovsky said she found support through Hawkins-Harrison, who holds one of 18 full-time positions being cut in next school year’s budget.
“I came and she made it comfortable for me,” Holesovsky said. “It wasn’t the hawk, it was my mother … Not only are we losing teachers, but we’re losing our role models.”
Holesovsky was one of several students who stood before the School Committee Thursday night at Bernardston Elementary School to express dissatisfaction with the proposed staff cuts. More than 75 students, parents, faculty and community members crowded into the school cafeteria.
Figures presented at the March 7 School Committee meeting — at which the School Committee approved a $14.2 million budget — indicate Pioneer would lose 12 teachers, the dean of students, one custodian and four instructional assistants. Additionally, one districtwide technical support staff member and Librarian Fiona Chevalier would be reduced to half-time. Pioneer Principal Jean Bacon said previously that there are now 88 total staff members at Pioneer.

“Losing almost one-third of the school’s faculty is the most damaging thing that could happen to Pioneer,” Pioneer junior Dana McRae said before the School Committee. “Pioneer needs its teachers more than anything else … They’re human beings with a wide range of emotions and their lives are being messed with.”
“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.”
When the cuts were first proposed in January, 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, having 409 students at the start of the 2016-2017 school year.
“There’s a big misalignment,” Bacon had said. “We just don’t need as many teachers to deliver education to a population that’s 140 less.”
McRae spoke of a lack of communication regarding staffing and curriculum changes at Pioneer, which he feels has created a “damaged school culture.” For example, the names of teachers who will be laid off have not yet been announced, he said.
“How are we to choose our classes next year when we don’t even know who’s going to be around to teach them?” McRae asked.
Pioneer’s recently adopted five-year School Improvement Plan emphasizes offering more advanced placement and online classes in heterogeneous groups, and the School Committee has discussed employing distance learning, whereby two classrooms in different countries could unite to have class together using audio-video software, like Skype. During Thursday’s meeting, students expressed their preference to keep their current teachers rather than have a more rigorous or more diverse curriculum.
“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.
“They connect with students in no way that teachers from Africa could,” he said.
In response, the school district’s Director of Technology Karen Scanlon said the curriculum changes were “not brought in to replace teachers.”
“It was to give (students) the opportunity to take anything in their interest,” Scanlon said.
The proposed staff and curriculum changes have some students exploring different schools and dual enrollment at Greenfield Community College, the students said.
“I’m disappointed in how Pioneer has changed,” said Pioneer junior Christina Cunningham, a dual enrollment applicant. “A lot of students are going to leave, including me.”
Though the School Committee is aiming to keep a fiscally conservative budget in response to pushback from North County residents, McRae asked the School Committee to reconsider where money is going in the next school year.
“I ask you — what’s more important?” he said. “The school’s budget, or the futures of more than 400 students?”

This message is for Superintendent and School Committee

You know, I and others have tried real hard as to NOT get upset with the school this year, but Miller your making this to damn hard to shut up. 

Maybe you should be reading your own damn contract.

  http://educatorcontracts.doemass.org/file.aspx?fieldno=1&filename=R%3A%5CMass+DOE%5CWebsearch%5CT-PioneerValleyRegional-18.pdf

Lets start with page 23 line G No teacher shall be disciplined, discharged, or denied any professional advantage without just cause.

( Now, we could have a field day with this one alone ) Wehrli, Duprey, Jones...... 

You have a Superintendent hell bent on destroying this school and the pride it once held and stood for and a damn school committee closing its eyes to the destruction. PARENTS AND TAXPAYERS STAND UP AND USE YOUR VOICES! This destruction is real and if you remain silent will destruct.

'Thursday night  the kids stood up and told you what these teachers meant to them , and you sat there with that dumb ass expression on your face and couldn't have cared less because you don't care about the kids, it's about your bottom line and your paychecks in the main office. Your pay and asst. superintendent pay, plus principals and VP, should have gone down, instead, it has risen! Oh, by the way, did you also mention to the SC before you left your last school how your boyfriend got a BIG raise and now has been fired? Let me see his name appear for any PVRS schools and I promise you I will tell everyone your story.

Your destruction is right on schedule and follows you wherever you go, but this school is different and will fight, and trust me this one has just begun. I don't like a bully and you are a bully and it ends now. You want a fight ? Its on .This panther is pissed off!

You have a nice day now.

Pioneer community sings for the Seagos

 Hear it here. Warning tears.

https://soundcloud.com/mandy-leah-oliver/coldplay-tribute-for-the-seago-family


NORTHFIELD — Sitting before her keyboard Wednesday evening, Mandy Oliver played the tune she now knew so well, leading in a group of over 30 Pioneer Valley Regional School students, faculty, parents and community members.
Swinging to the music, the group melodiously sang “Look at the stars, look how they shine for you,” the start of a five-minute song Oliver composed in memory of the five members of the Seago family who died in a house fire in Warwick on March 4.
The loss of Lucinda Seago, 42, and four of her children Peter, 7, Demetria, 9, Martin, 12, and Nicholas, 15, devastated the community, which rallied together in support of the family’s two surviving members, Lucinda’s husband Scott Seago and their daughter Vivian. Having taught Martin and Nicholas in theater classes, Oliver, a fine arts instructor at Pioneer, wanted to do something special in the family’s memory, organizing a community singing event.
Gathering in Pioneer’s gym, community members rehearsed and recorded an arrangement Oliver composed based on words in one of Nicholas’ final creative writing assignments about flying up to the sky, combined with lyrics from three Coldplay songs, including “Yellow” at the suggestion of a student.

http://bit.ly/2phHkki

Many of the students who attended agreed singing can aid in the mourning process.

“It’s a good coping mechanism for some people,” explained Pioneer senior Madison Tyson of Vernon, Vt. “Singing can get their feelings out.”
“Singing’s a good expression and this song represents so many emotions,” elaborated Pioneer sophomore Cambria Johnson of Erving, who was one of Nicholas’ classmates.
The students remembered Nicholas as being smart and confident, and Martin as just beginning to grow comfortable within the Pioneer community.
“He’d always correct our math teacher,” Johnson said of Nicholas. “Nick wasn’t afraid to be himself.”
“Martin was really just starting to come out of his shell,” added Pioneer senior Alisha Mueller of Northfield.
Mueller spoke of the many tears she shed upon first hearing about the fire, and that Nicholas and Martin wouldn’t be returning to school. She wasn’t alone, said Danielle Anderson of Orange, whose daughter Emma Langston got to know Martin through one of Oliver’s classes.
“She had Martin in her class and really had a fondness for him,” Anderson said. “It was really devastating for her to get up one morning and he’s just gone.”
To support her daughter, Anderson attended the community singing event along with her friend Sherri Healy of Greenfield. The musical tribute attracted both those who knew the Seagos well, and those who hadn’t met them but wanted to offer support nonetheless.
“I didn’t know the family, but it’s the community coming together to do something positive,” Healy said. “There’s nothing more positive than singing and music.”
“I feel personally for everyone, so I feel good coming here today,” Tyson said.
Anderson and Healy commented on the “amazing turnout.” The event “went exactly how I hoped, if not more,” Oliver said, after the final recording, one that she plans to send to Scott and Vivian Seago.
“Just whenever the community can come together over music, that’s my goal,” she said. “I think it came out beautiful.”

I call shenanigan's .

What's your take? I call shenanigans. Why not look at other schools? Why not Warwick? What do you think?

NORTHFIELD — Two months after the Pioneer Valley Regional School District’s building and grounds subcommittee approved moving the central offices to Pioneer’s 200 wing, some administrators and School Committee members are having second thoughts.
According to Assistant Superintendent Gail Healy, moving the central offices to rooms 206, 207 and 208 would cost the district over $37,000.
Healy’s figure is based on estimates she received to outfit the three affected rooms with air conditioning, install a doorbell, door release and camera at the nearest side door, install a plug for the photocopier, move the photocopier, construct a sidewalk and stairway to the side door, and purchase dividers to create cubicles within the rooms.
Up until January 2016, the central offices were in three single-story modular buildings behind Pioneer. However, foundation cracks, rust and roof leaks, outdated electrical, communication and alarm systems, and mold in the basements led Pioneer administrators to relocate to the central offices’ current location in a leased 2,806-square-foot space at 168 Main St. in downtown Northfield. The space costs $3,030 a month to lease, a cost that administrators hoped to eliminate after the lease runs out at the end of June.
Initially, rooms 206, 207 and 208 were eyed as a logical new location, until Healy received the cost estimates. However, she and Facilities Director Tim Brandl have two other ideas, which Healy presented to five members of the School Committee and several community members during a tour Thursday.

The second option, which was mentioned during a previous School Committee meeting, involves moving to Pioneer’s second floor and would affect five 400-level rooms, including the current Dean of Students’ office in room 414.
Healy said 414 could possibly be used as the payroll office and 410 could be a meeting room, dividing Technology Services, Special Education and all other offices between three other rooms. The area also includes a closet, two easily accessible bathrooms and a nearby elevator.
“We’re trying to consolidate to take the least amount of space as possible, but we have to split up the departments,” Healy noted.
According to Healy, moving upstairs would represent a significant savings. The rooms are already air conditioned, leaving only the costs to move the photocopier and purchase dividers. The estimates Healy gathered indicate this move should cost about $1,025.
“The pro of upstairs is it’s less expensive,” she said simply.
Air conditioning represents the primary savings. Healy said portable air conditioners are not possible in rooms 206, 207 and 208, and an estimate she received from Arctic Refrigeration Company of Greenfield puts the cost to install air conditioning at $21,600.
However, there is a third option for which Healy hasn’t sought estimates yet. The third option would involve using the Learning Center located in room 272, which already includes three office spaces and is located next to an outside door. Two additional nearby rooms would also be used.
Some of the three rooms have air conditioning, but others do not. Moving forward, Healy said she would seek estimates for moving to the third space.
School Committee members also asked Healy to develop square footage comparisons for the three spaces. She said the issue will be discussed further at the next building and grounds subcommittee meeting.