Lynn School Committee wary of special ed transportation costs

LYNN-Although Tuesday was the first day of the new fiscal year, the School Committee did not pass the 2011 budget at the Finance Sub-Committee meeting on Thursday, but did discuss some of the concerns.Transportation for special education students is a major concern, expressed sub-committee members Vincent Spirito and John Ford.School business manager Kevin McHugh explained the number of children requiring these services changes, sometimes frequently throughout the course of the school year, resulting in changes in spending from month to month.In June there were 153 students who placed outside of the Lynn Public School system. Deputy superintendent Jaye Warry said the city has been able to bring back some students placed outside the school system who have a lesser degree of autism.The majority of the students placed outside of Lynn in schools are those with a hearing disability. Tuition for the alternative schooling comes out of the Lynn Public School’s budget, along with transportation costs.Committee member Donna Coppola expressed her concerns about Lynn not being “aggressive” enough about hunting down payments from other cities who send their children to Lynn schools. Neither Superintendent Catherine Latham or McHugh could quell her fear, though they did say they were going to work on a better way to determine if a student is coming from another city or town upon registration.The budget will be further discussed at the next School Committee meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for July 22.The athletic sub-committee met to discuss adding volleyball to the list of sports for girls, suggested by Lynn Classical High School principal Gene Constantino, LCHS, Lynn English High School and Lynn Vocational Technical Institute. LCHS and LEHS will have both varsity and junior varsity teams due to the large number of girls interested in playing. LVTI will have a junior varsity team.Dennis Thompson, assistant director of curriculum for K-12 Health and Physical Education, assured the committee the cost of team coaches would come out of the current budget. They voted to move the discussion to the next full committee meeting.The Personnel Sub-Committee discussed changes to job postings including the co-op education coordinator (CEC) and the assessment debt service coordinator, the latter position one Latham believes will improve graduation rates.The CEC position is geared toward MCAS and making sure students are being properly put through the appeals process if they do not pass the test in time for graduation. Latham said this had been a problem in one of the schools because the person taking charge of MCAS that year had not done the job in the past. It was also pointed out that teachers taking on this role were not able to perform both jobs to the fullest extent. These topics are still under discussion by the committee.The Building and Grounds Sub-Committee discussed putting St. Jean’s Credit Union into LVTI to replace Saugus Federal Credit Union. St. Jean’s will require a lease agreement, which may mean it would pay a low annual fee. It is possible actual credit union employees will be needed to work with the students.