Marblehead’s ’09 school budget has room for improvements

MARBLEHEAD – School Business Manager David Keniston wants to make sure voters understand that next year’s school budget will cover some sizeable "small projects."Those projects, listed in a report to the School Committee last week, include building out two new fourth grade classrooms at the Marblehead Village School, building a new office and storage space for the Technology Department at the Marblehead Veterans Middle School and the on-going wall replacement program at the Bell School, where so-called "accordion" walls are being removed and rigid walls installed in their place.Keniston noted that all three projects will be funded from the level-funded maintenance account in the Fiscal 2009 budget.He told the committee that in the era of level-funding maintenance management will follow a standing order: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." So will management in the transportation, custodial, energy and central administration areas.In the special education transportation area Keniston has added funding to purchase a van for in-town students, an area "where we believe the School Department can provide the same or better service at a lower price."He also added $25,000 to the central administration account to cover the start-up of an International Baccalaureate Program, a demanding college preparatory curriculum in the classical liberal arts which was created more than 30 years ago as a common university entrance credential to serve a consortium of nations under the aegis of UNESCO, the program is available today in over 600 schools in over seventy nations.