Submitted by Jen Favalora, RSD #17 Board of Education.
(April 6, 2020) — Over the last two weeks, RSD 17 has delivered curriculum assignments to our students through distance learning. We are grateful to our students, family members, and our teachers and staff for their creativity and dedication to make this endeavor work. Despite the health crisis we continue to learn and stay connected.
The Board of Education, along with the Superintendent and Administrators, continue to work on a myriad of issues related to the school building closures and delivering distance learning.. Concurrently, the Board continues its mission to create the 2020/21 annual budget and all other Board business.
Under recent Executive Orders from Governor Lamont, The BoE has been given several directives on how to continue running public meetings and passing a 2019/20 budget:
- Executive Order 7B dictates rules pertaining to “public meetings” and they are now held through video conferences which can be watched live or recorded on our RSD17.org website, and
- Executive Order 7I, has suspended statutes requiring town meetings and referendums, and has ordered town municipalities and BoEs to adopt a budget at the board level, and
- Under Executive Order 7C, the Board has been granted a thirty day extension to complete the 2020/21 budget, and we currently have scheduled a Board budget vote for June 2nd.
While the Board of Education would much prefer to deliver a budget to a community referendum, we accept the responsibility placed upon us. In an effort to pass a budget that reflects the community’s insights and sensibilities, we have scheduled the following meetings to include more touchpoints with the community, the Boards of Finance and the Boards of Selectmen from each town:
Joint BOS & BOF Meetings: April 15, 2020 at 5:30 p.m. & May 20, 2020, at 5:30 p.m.
Community Input Meeting: April 21, 2020, at 7:00 p.m.
Community Input Emails Accepted: April 21st – May 5th
Annual Meeting: May 26, 2020 at 6:30 p.m.
Budget Vote: June 2, 2020
Each of these meetings can be watched in real-time on our Livestream at https://sites.google.com/rsd17.org/rsd-17-boe-stream. Our RSD17.org website will contain up-to-date information including the revised budget schedule, how to participate in the Community Input Meeting, responses to Community Input questions, as well as how to watch Live-Stream and recordings of each meeting.
We encourage all community members to watch the BoE meetings, either live or recorded, offer your email comments and to participate in the process with us. We are grateful for your trust as we move through this process with deliberation and transparency.
