Peabody school board members work on reducing budget

PEABODY – With a declining economy and rising costs, School Committee members are diligently working on ways to lower next year’s budget, and their solution just might include the loss of elementary school lunch monitors.With a proposed total operating budget of $60,232,169, up 2.72 percent from last year, spending $100,454 on lunch monitors seems unnecessary to some members.”For 100-something years we never had lunch monitors,” said Committee member and former Peabody teacher Ed Nizwantowski. “Everything went fine without them.”Nizwantowski recalled having spent many lunch hours and recesses monitoring students, a task he said he truly enjoyed, and suggests many other teachers would, too.”I probably looked forward to recess more than the students,” he said. “Some teachers don’t mind?They (get to) see students in a different light.”He proposed the idea of having teachers take on that responsibility once again, for the betterment of both students and teachers.Lunch monitors were first introduced to Peabody elementary schools three years ago in an effort by former Superintendent Nadine Binkley to increase instruction time, said Committee member Dave McGeney. Parents were later hired as monitors to work two hours each day.”We’re looking at the budget from the stand point of ‘Are we using our resources to the best of our capabilities,'” said McGeney, who recommended asking Superintendent Milton Burnett about possible options if the Committee decides to move forward.Committee member Beverly Ann Griffin Dunne would like very much to see teachers replace monitors, as she has never been a fan of the idea, citing issues with contract interpretations. Dunne said that the statement within the teachers’ contract was meant to allow teachers a full half hour of uninterrupted lunch, not to hire outside staff as monitors.”I’ve heard through the years from many teachers that they miss the interaction that they had with the students during lunch and recess,” said Dunne. “This is an issue that comes up quite often with parents?It’s not the issue of time spent, it’s an issue of getting teachers back with kids. That’s what people are talking about.”Not to take away from the people doing the job now, it’s just a philosophical discussion about why teachers were taken away and why people want them back.”Assistant Superintendent Joe Mastrocola supported the Committee’s interest and encouraged them to move forward with it.