WARE SCHOOL COMMITTEE NOTEBOOK

By Melissa Fales
Reporter
(mfales@turley.com)

Focused forum re: cell phone use on buses set for Oct. 21

At their Oct. 14 meeting, the Ware School Committee resumed their discussion of whether students should be allowed to use cell phones on school buses. Policy subcommittee member Kara Brown said the current cell phone policy in the student handbook is unclear. She is reviewing other school districts’ cell phone policies to see how they handle the issue.
Brown has also interviewed bus drivers, parents and teens about cell phone use on buses. Brown said the bus drivers offered several reasons against allowing it. She only found one parent who thought allowing cell phone use on buses was a bad idea. “Most of them think it’s their choice as a parent to allow their child to have a cell phone,” said Brown, adding that parents seem to like the idea that their child can reach them quickly. As for the students, “A lot of them didn’t know they weren’t allowed to text on the bus,” said Brown. At the suggestion of Superintendent Mary-Elizabeth Beach, the committee will make the issue of student cell phone use on the school bus the topic of a focused forum to be held at their next meeting, Oct. 21 at 6:30 p.m. All parents and students are invited to attend.

Committee adopts substitute nurse reimbursement

At Beach’s request, the committee voted to adopt a rate of $125 per day for the district’s substitute nurses. Beach explained that the district’s previous rate, instituted at least 2 superintendents ago, was $75 per day. However, 3 years ago the school began paying substitute nurses $125 per day with grant funds that have since run out. She said the district regularly uses the same two substitute nurses and that it’s unreasonable to expect them to now accept $50 less per day. She said other potential substitute nurses wouldn’t accept $75 per day either. She estimated that the district uses a substitute nurse between 6 and 12 days per year, adding that sometimes they are called in to assist with things like vision or scoliosis testing.

Ways to improve transitions between schools suggested

As part of their on-going discussion on how to reverse the trend of students school choicing out of the district, the committee discussed the challenges of students transitioning from elementary school into middle school and from middle school into junior high school.
Brown recounted a conversation she had with a mother of several children in the district who said she was “on the fence” about choicing out. The mother said there were “inconsistencies” between what she was told to expect when her child started Ware Middle School and what actually happened. She felt the information she received at the open house in the spring was somewhat “sugar-coated” and did not adequately prepare her or her child, particularly in terms of discipline and personal responsibility. “That jump from 3rd grade to 4th grade was enormous,” Brown said. Chairman Christopher Desjardins pointed out that there was a different Ware Middle School principal at the time of the spring open house, which might help explain some of the discrepancies.
Committee member Aaron Sawabi added that the 4th grade’s move to WMS two years ago was so recent, the school, teachers and students are still adjusting to the change. He suggested that during the open houses at all schools, the expectations could be spelled out more concretely and written down so everyone understands them.
Stanly M. Koziol Teacher Charlene Desjardins suggested that some parents coddle their children too much. She pointed out that she went through the Ware School system, going from SMK to South Street School to Church Street School without having any orientation ahead of time. “We never had a tour of the building, we never met our teachers ahead of time, yet we survived,” she said. Winslow said some of the onus to help children adapt to new expectation falls on the parents. “Transition is not all on the school,” he said. “Some of that is the parents’ responsibility.”
Beach acknowledged that transitions are a challenge and said she would work with administrators and teachers to see how they might better address them. One suggestion she had was to give the 3rd graders more homework in June to help prepare them for the heavier workload in 4th grade.

School Committee meetings now available online

Ware Community Television’s Stanley Ciukaj announced that streaming video of School Committee meetings and Ware High School football games are now available on the Ware Community Television website at www.waretv.org. The videos are also accessible on the Ware Public Schools website at www.warepublicschools.com. Ciukaj said it takes approximately 12 hours for the videos to appear online.

Recycling event raises $1600

Beach announced that the electronic recycling event held Oct. 3 was a success, with a net profit of approximately $1600 raised for the Technology Department.