Columbine survivor to speak at Stevens

CLAREMONT—The Claremont school board welcomed a new student representative to its Sept. 18 meeting. The student representative is a voluntary position open to students who express interest; he or she serves as a non-voting member of the board.

Tyler Sullivan presented his report as the meeting got underway, announcing events at the elementary schools, middle school and high school.

Sullivan was one of the hosts for a representative from the National Student Voice along with the Nellie Mae Foundation who came to give leadership roundtables/ workshops for the students. “It’s a great opportunity for students to experience leadership in their school,” he said.

On Tuesday, Oct. 1, Sullivan announced, nationally renowned speaker Craig Scott from Value Up will address the high school students at an assembly. Scott is a survivor of the Columbine high school shooting, where he was in the library where 10 students were killed. Craig watched two of his friends be killed on both sides of him. In the short time gap when the shooters left the library, he led a group of ten students out of the library. The following morning he learned his sister Rachel Joy Scott had been the first to be killed. Since then Craig has dedicated his life to telling his and his sister’s story. Craig was appointed to a presidential panel on school safety and has been a consistent voice on preventing violence and suicide.

Sullivan continued with news that on Sept. 26 a group of students are going to a college fair at Southern NH University. Sept. 27 a dance will be sponsored by the 7th grade class.

In other news, the board gratefully voted to accept a grant of $20,000 for the tech center from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation.

In the Superintendent’s report Michael Tempesta gave a presentation on his visit to Dartmouth’s Thayer Center as part of a five-year partnership between Dartmouth College and several local high schools, including three in Vermont. Working with graduate students at the college, a group of educators from the participating schools are coming up with plans for field trips and projects with the students.

“I really gleaned a lot from was hearing the teachers talk at the grad students’ level,” said Tempesta. In addition to help with STEM curricula, the Dartmouth partners “have money to help fund equipment (3D printers) or loan equipment to the schools,” he said. At the Thayer Center there are open tinkering labs, like makerspace rooms for students, where students are free to work on projects as they desire.

Budget limbo

Tempesta also reported on the effect on local schools of the continuing budget at the state level. Gov. Chris Sununu has vetoed the budgets approved by the legislature, which would restore school aid and help local school budgets, causing a budget impasse that has dragged on since the end of June and throwing school districts into doubt as to what their own budgets will look like in the coming year.

The Governor’s budget uses a windfall of tax money to support school capital projects; Sununu’s stance is that one-time money should not be used to support operational expenses. Democrats, on the other hand, complain that the Governor is sustaining a suspension of business taxes at the expense of the schools.

“They’re going to talk about overriding the Governor’s veto, which we would be in favor of in Claremont,” said Tempesta. “It would mean a lot of money would come to us. We don’t know how we’re going to be funded going forward. We do know it’s going to be a significant detriment to us to not know for planning purposes, and to be operating at a quarter of our budget that was promised for the year. It’s a precarious time but we’re hoping this should be resolved in the next couple of months.”

Chairman Frank Sprague said he had read the governor’s letter about school funding. “It looked like a shell game to me,” he said. “With the information he presented I still couldn’t figure it out.”

Sprague continued, “At this point there’s no freeze on the loss of stabilization grants, which is about a quarter million to us… We easily could be looking at $500K or more just to level fund our programs.”

School board member Jason Benware said, basing his estimate on the conditions of the continuing resolution, the district could be close to $900,000 short heading into the next budget year.

New state rules on how schools receive Medicaid reimbursements for Special Education also have the schools in limbo as they wait to see how those rules will affect their funding.