Schools
The Massachusetts House voted 146–5 last week to approve a sweeping $3.65 billion spending package aimed at modernizing every public college and university campus in the state. The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration.
The plan is funded through the 2022 “Millionaire’s Tax,” a voter-...
After listening to emotional testimony from parents, teachers, and even a sixth-grader about devastating school budget cuts, state Senator John Cronin stood before the crowd at a November 21 education funding forum and offered something most politicians never do: permission to be angry.
“As I...
Second in a series on whether towns like ours have any legal or moral path to challenge the state’s broken school funding system.
Before a town can argue fairness, it has to understand the numbers. For Groton and Dunstable, those numbers tell a quiet story of how good intentions hardened into a...
The Florence Roche Elementary School building project will finish $3.1 million under budget, Town Manager Mark Haddad announced at the November 3 Select Board meeting, correcting his earlier estimate of $2 million in savings.
"A little while ago, I told you that the Florence Roche Elementary...
The Groton-Dunstable Regional School Committee opened its October 15 meeting with a tribute to State Senator Edward Kennedy, who passed away October 1 at age 74.
Kennedy served four terms representing the First Middlesex District in the Massachusetts Senate, a district that included Dunstable...
Shorty: Everyone was hoping the school audit would reveal easy savings. Instead, it dropped a quiet bombshell: Groton-Dunstable may already be as lean as it gets. Find out what that means for the year ahead.
Groton-Dunstable residents who hoped an operational audit would reveal easy fixes to...
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Shorty: An independent audit found Groton-Dunstable schools are efficiently run but face a built-in $1–2 million annual deficit. Rising wages and flat revenues create a structural gap, worsened by chronically low state aid—among the lowest in...
This is the third in a five-part series on why the state has failed to solve the funding crisis facing regional school districts — and how delay has become policy.
When a house is on fire, you don’t send a committee to study flammability. You grab a hose. You break down the door. You act.
But...
Shorty: Did you know consultants say closing Dunstable’s only elementary school could save $750,000 a year? Sounds neat on paper, but here’s the catch: the move would shuffle students from kindergarten through eighth grade, push the middle school into new territory, and leave Florence Roche...
If you have a child in public school, chances are you’ve heard the letters I-E-P. They stand for Individualized Education Program, and while the name sounds like government paperwork, the purpose is anything but. An IEP is the roadmap for how a student with a disability will be taught, what extra...