EAST LONGMEADOW PUBLIC SCHOOLS

2006

The 2005-2006 school year proved very successful for all. Our students were involved in many curricular and co-curricular activities. Our staff received several state and national awards for their work in academia. MCAS test results continue to show progressive improvements from year to year. The “stair step” effect of continued progress is evident. Of course, all of our seniors continue to pass the MCAS at 100%.

Our town recognized the demands placed upon our schools and voted in a budget for our schools that allowed us to add a few teachers in high enrollment areas. Our special education enrollment continues to grow and out pace our regular growth rate at times. Clearly, the State Department of Education must reconcile special education expenses and what it is doing to all school budgets across the Commonwealth.

This past year we began another five-year Strategic Plan for our school system. While maintaining ten strategic goals, we are placing additional emphasis on character building in our children. Both our strategic plan and our character traits are all posted on our website. We are finding that many citizens are now accessing information about our schools via our website. The school department maintains our website. We are grateful to the teachers and administrators who do this at no charge to our town.

The School Committee has spent countless hours advocating for children. This year, the School Committee was successful in bringing a budget to our citizens that was progressive and able to maintain quality services to students. Additionally, they were able to successfully lower the athletic fees that are charged to students and families. The town citizens voted in May, at the annual May Town Meeting, to build twelve new classrooms at the elementary schools (4 classrooms at each of the three elementary schools) due to the continued increasing enrollments. The town citizens also passed this with a debt exclusion vote in June. We are appreciative to the town Appropriations Committee and Board of Selectmen for their leadership in these endeavors as well.

Future educational challenges and budget considerations will become paramount with the continued growth of our community and subsequent student population. Our current enrollment is 2,915 students. The graph below shows the past ten years of continuous growth in our school system and community.

Finally, our schools have all developed comprehensive crisis plans. Today’s society is more complex and also more dangerous than ever. We have taken measures to protect our students, staff and schools in light of the many shootings that have garnered the front pages of newspapers and news stations. Our students are the most precious commodity known to this nation- we continue to treat each one as solid gold! For more information on our schools, please visit our web pages at www.eastlongmeadow.org, under “district documents.”