The road ahead...

Summary paragraph: In which Menin looks at the work to be done over the next six months, and reconsiders whether running for re-election to the School Committee was worth the $300 he spent...

Yeah. It was. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, onto the bountiful plate awaiting our meager silverware.

The Revenue Task Force: We have removed nothing from the table, which is now beginning to look like Grandma's house at Thanksgiving. We are looking at new revenues (fees, taxes, over-rides, debt exclusions), budget efficiencies on both the school and city-side, strategic lobbying of the state, a significantly better, more coordinated grant procuring procedure, how property in Newburyport is assessed, movement of the city into the GIF insurance program, the creation of an endowment/or partnership to provide for operating expenses... no decisions have been made, but my best guess is that the Task Force will issue a report suggesting a menu of approaches, calibrated and contingent on each other, to go along with a five year estimate of expenses and potential revenue projections; and that this menu will contain actionable short-term items, and also items that should help us in the future. It will be critical, however, for the City-side of the ledger to do the same or something similar, so that we can address this as a municipality.

Goals: The School Committee needs to adapt a set of goals for the year that are both do-able and measurable. Also, the School Committee needs to work with the Superintendent to set goals for him on which to base the next evaluation.

Teacher Contract: The School Committee needs to negotiate a new contract with the Teacher's Union. Negotiations should begin early in the year, if not before that.

FY '08/'09 Budget: The School Committee, using the Bechtel-Hooper Wicked Cool Forecasting Model for Expenses, will begin work very shortly on producing a one year, then a five year expense projection. That in turn will inform the entire budgeting process, which we have accelerated by four months compared to last year. This will be a difficult budget year; we will need to really look at innovative practices and community partnerships to stabilize our academic situation while we address funding to stabilize, improve and restore.

Ongoing Community Outreach Initiatives: We will need to continue and expand outreach to the entire community, and consider a range of ideas that will enable people to have greater access to the schools themselves, to re-establish them as active stakeholders.

Orient New School Committee Members: The Revenue Task Force has recommended cross-orientation- they send new City Counselors to our orientation, we send new SC members to theirs. We also need to repopulate Sub-Committees, and consider and act on a policy for the creation of a number of advisory Task Forces to help the SC look at potential options for enhancing our programs.

Task Force to Review School Administration: This has been a bugaboo for years; the perception that we are top-heavy administratively. We will, in December, convene a community-based Task Force to look at Administrative functions, how they are assigned, whether what we are doing can be done more efficiently, how our structure compares to other systems relative to their success in student achievement, whether we need additional administrative personnel, whether any additional personnel can be shared within the City or the region. This will require a lot of work over a short period of time; we are hoping to get a report back in time to work the recommendations into the School/City budget. We expect this to be an objective look, and are looking for volunteers in the community who have experience either consulting around management structure, or reconfiguring management structure to make them more efficient. Frankly, we hope this will be a balanced sub-committee; we expect the report will raise some eyebrows either way, but we have to put this issue to bed one way or the other. The parameters of the review are yet to be discussed; I will be advocating that it range from the Superintendent to the Department Chairs.

This is not the agenda for the year; this more likely covers the first 3 months of the year.

Lotta work to do. New energy, clarity and focus on the Committee. Combine that with leadership, and you've got a fighting chance. But let me reinforce a core principle to all of the above-- without a systemic and sustained effort to bring City-side Budget and decision-making processes more in line with those practiced by the School Committee, it's all hat and no cattle. This is a municipal problem, to be solved municipally. The School Committee has demonstrated, over the past five years a willingness to take cuts so deep that it has put the very core of our ability to meet academic needs in jeopardy; no City Department has even come remotely close to matching that willingness to deal with reality.

Municipal problem, municipal solutions. Transparency. Establishing City priorities across the City and School side. Looking for opportunities to centralize or regionalize functions where savings make sense and can be justified.

As one of my favorite guitar Goddesses, Ellen McIlwaine says, "everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die."