Last week the School Committee received their copies of the report completed by the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS) regarding the status of the district and issues surrounding sustainability. You may recall that, as part of setting the FY’16 budget, the state mandated this study and made the district allocate $30,000 to fund the study.
The study was completed by a team of retired superintendents as well as a special education director and a technology director. It looked at many different areas that included district capacity, academic programs, regionalization, buildings and grounds, transportation, technology, special education/pupil services, central office/administration, and a report epilogue. The team asked for and reviewed a large number of documents from the district, state data, spent much time in the district visiting buildings, interviewing staff, and reviewing protocols and procedures. We are pleased that the members of this team were able to spend so much time on collecting data for their report and appreciated the diligence, hard work, expertise, and professionalism they brought to this process.
To briefly summarize the study (which will be posted to the district website once the School Committee has accepted the study), the MARS team reviewed all of the aspects of the district, provided many commendations and recommendations, and unearthed very little that we were not already aware of and working on. Overall, the study found that Gateway is run very efficiently, that our grounds and buildings are in good shape, that our staff are high quality and committed to the students and the district, that our costs are well in line with other districts, that we are understaffed in terms of administrators, that we should look to increase our partnerships with the towns, and that we should slow the pace of initiatives and solidify those that are already being implemented. The MARS team did not find any way to significantly reduce costs, spoke of the difficulty of increasing the size of the district, acknowledged that sharing staff (such as curriculum, business manager, technology director, and superintendent) faced significant hurdles, and that the negativity expressed by some town officials towards the schools during budget deliberations had a significant impact on staff morale.
We are pleased with the overall study results and had already been working on resolving a number of issues that the MARS team brought up for recommendations. We also appreciate some of their suggestions to improve facilities, curriculum design, and even those regarding negotiations. Coupled with the existing and ongoing work being done with the Gateway 2025 Project, we feel the district will have an extensive amount of information to assist in revising our long-range strategic planning. We look forward to sharing the full results of the report with the communities and moving forward with implementing many of the recommendations.
