Westerly School Committee elects officers and shifts budget meetings to Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m.

Leslie Dunn was nominated and chosen as chair in a poll vote at the start of the Westerly School Committee’s Dec. 4 meeting; the committee subsequently elected Mike Ober as vice chair and Tim Killam as clerk.

Committee procedure for officer elections was laid out at the outset: nominations did not require seconds and each nominee was voted on in turn. After the chair election the new chair conducted nominations for vice chair and clerk and poll votes were taken to confirm the officers.

The committee reviewed and approved a proposed budget calendar that sets the initial district budget due to the town on March 3 and schedules a joint budget meeting with the town council on Dec. 16. During debate members asked whether meeting start times could be adjusted to improve public access. A motion to move budget meetings to Tuesday evenings at 5:30 p.m. was moved, seconded and carried by poll vote; the committee instructed staff to reissue the calendar with the new times.

The committee also approved a consent agenda that included minutes and homeschool approvals. During that discussion members raised concerns about rising homeschool numbers and asked whether exit interviews or additional data-gathering are done; administration said the executive assistant normally handles homeschool paperwork and that the district’s authority over homeschooling choices is limited.

The meeting closed after standard liaison reports and a solicitor’s statement that there were no open-session legal items to report.

Actions recorded at the meeting included poll votes for three officer elections, approval of the budget calendar (with the Tuesday 5:30 p.m. amendment), consent agenda approval and the formal adjournment of the meeting. The committee carried each motion as moved.