Students are the
driving force behind our budget development process, and, as such, Manchester
Essex has a reputation of strong academic achievement, high quality faculty, a
commitment to small class size and a robust co-curricular program. These factors have made Manchester Essex a
popular place to live and to send children to school! In fact, over the past
six years, the Manchester Essex resident student population has grown 24% or
281 students. This is greater than the
current student population of the Essex Elementary school. At the same time that we have been growing,
our student body has also become more diversified in its needs. According to the Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education, 22.8% or 336
students (the size of the ME Middle School) are identified as “high need.” A student is designated high
need if he or she is identified as low income, ELL (English Language Learner),
former ELL, or a student with disabilities.
While our
primary mission is to deliver a traditional academic program, as a public
school we are a human services provider, responsible for ensuring that all
children can access and progress through the curriculum. Over the past three years, we have worked to
manage class size growth, to maintain our robust program of studies, and to introduce
programs that address the changing needs
of our students, all while maintaining an average annual increase in our assessment
to the towns of 2.0%.
Enrollment Growth
Changing
Student Needs
2013
|
2012
|
2011
|
2010
|
2009
|
|
English Not
First Language
|
1.2%
|
.5%
|
.3%
|
.3%
|
.3%
|
English
Language Learner
|
.8%
|
.3%
|
.3%
|
.2%
|
.2%
|
Low Income
|
8.5%
|
9.7%
|
7.8%
|
3.8%
|
3.6%
|
Free Lunch
|
5.8%
|
6.7%
|
5.6%
|
3%
|
2.7%
|
Reduced
Lunch
|
2.8%
|
3.0%
|
2.2%
|
.8%
|
.9%
|
Students
with Disabilities
|
14.8%
|
15.1%
|
14.9%
|
15.2%
|
15.8%
|
High Need Students
|
22.8%
|
2013 is the first year the designation was
reported.
|
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Notes:
|
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Enrollment
growth and the diversification of the student body are the key factors and
challenges that drive our budget development process this year. To date,
the district has been successful at balancing its goal of addressing the impact
of increased resident enrollment with the need to maintain a low assessment through
a number of measures: tightly managing
budgets, investing Chapter 70 and grant funds in program development to keep
tax dollars in district, using reserve funds and internal reductions to close
budget gaps after a failed override, and reorganizing to achieve
efficiencies.
Although
we continue to seek internal efficiencies in order to maintain class size and
program offerings, we have reached a point where the overarching budgetary
issues must be addressed. We encourage you to visit the MERSD Budget page
(www.mersd.org – Quick Link: Budget) to
review our presentations and to learn more about the goals and the challenges
we are facing. Last week’s Cricket article,
MERSD
Budget Challenges provided an overview of the obstacles we are facing
in the development of the FY15 budget. Through a series of follow-up articles, we
intend to provide residents of Essex and Manchester with greater detail on each
of the issues so that all will have a clear understanding of our challenges in
continuing to provide high quality education services.
We also
hope that you will consider increasing your involvement with the
schools. We welcome your participation and input as we work to make
MERSD a world-class district. A great way to join the conversation and
learn about what's going on is to attend a School Committee
meeting. Here’s a look at the topics that will be addressed in the
next month.
Tuesday,
January 28th
MERMHS Library
|
Full
Business Meeting
|
Tuesday,
February 4th
Essex Elementary
|
FY15
Budget Hearing @ Essex Elementary School
|
