Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Elementary Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Elementary principal says field trips return; request for assistant principal, full-time social worker removed from proposed budget
Summary
At the Jan. 14 subcommittee meeting, the elementary school presenter described restored field trips funded in part by PTO, new reading and SEL investments, and said an assistant-principal request and a full-time social-worker request were included then removed from the draft budget; presenters debated staff coverage and resource trade-offs.
The elementary-school presenter reviewed the proposed elementary budget before the East Haddam Business & Planning subcommittee on Jan. 14, highlighting restored field trips, expanded reading resources and social-emotional supports, and staffing requests that were not included in the current draft.
The presenter said field trips that had been cut in the prior year were added back to the elementary budget after PTO support had funded them temporarily. Examples included kindergarten trips to Ray of Light Farm and second-grade visits tied to social-studies curriculum; a Linman Allen Art Museum trip for first grade was discussed as contingent on a grant application.
Curricular investments noted in the presentation included an additional reading specialist (added last year), new universal screeners and intervention materials, and modular classroom arrangements to support differentiated instruction. The presenter pointed to district PBIS activity (about 3,600 behavior acknowledgements) as a metric of schoolwide engagement.
Committee members asked why an assistant-principal line was cut. The presenter explained that the elementary currently has one administrator covering the school and had requested an assistant so that building-level operational demands would not detract from instructional leadership. On mental-health coverage, the presenter had requested a full-time social worker to replace a shared/part-time model so the elementary would have daily in-school social-work coverage; that request was also removed from the proposed budget.
"I put in the request so that I could have somebody here every day," the presenter said of the social-work request, adding that prior staffing models share social-work time among elementary, middle and high schools and that coverage shifts depending on student needs. Committee members and presenters discussed whether adding a full-time social worker would require redistributing existing staff or hiring an additional person; the presenter said the budget request had been for one additional full-time social worker but that line item was currently out of the draft.
Presenters and committee members also noted grant dependencies that can affect staffing and salary totals (for example, a Smart Start grant or other grant funds may reduce district salary costs if awarded). No formal vote was taken; presenters said they would continue refining requests and coordinate distribution of support services across the district.
