By Diane Baume
Originally posted at Acton Exchange on March 28, 2024.
New Boardwalk Campus Wins Award for Excellence in Energy Design
Boston- based architecture and design firm, Arrowstreet, was recently awarded the 2023 New Construction Design of the Year Energy Excellence Award by Eversource for the design of the Boardwalk Campus building, which houses the Gates and Douglas Elementary Schools and the Carol Huebner Early Childhood Program.
The announcement was made by the School District’s energy manager, Kate Crosby, at the March 21 School Committee meeting. Crosby noted the building is a model for the coming wave of geothermal construction and “over time, will become a much more common type of building.”
The building was designed to be net zero-ready for emissions and water and to achieve an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) performance measure of 23.1. Crosby reported that if the building performs at an EUI of 25 or better in August or September of 2024 when the current 12-month energy tracking period ends, the District will receive an incentive of $175K from Eversource. The building is already outperforming targets.
The District will also be pursuing a 30% tax credit, authorized under the federal Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which prioritizes construction of geothermal systems.
“I’m ecstatic”, said Crosby. “What happens with a building like this is that you model it, and then you construct it, and then you hope like heck that it’s going to perform as it was modeled, and it is performing slightly better than modeled. It’s an extremely prudent decision that the District has made to put up a very high-efficiency building with an air-tight envelope on a super-efficient system that is sipping electricity. Electricity is the most stable and least inflation-prone fuel that we can use. This is a spaceship of a building using electricity at a remarkably low rate, which gives us budget predictability over time and no emissions from the building. It’s a remarkable achievement.”
Update on the Luther Conant Elementary School
The Acton-Boxborough Regional School Committee agreed at its March 21 meeting to not submit a statement of interest in 2024 to the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Core Program, for the Luther Conant Elementary School. The Core Program is a competitive grant for extensive repairs, renovations, additions and new school construction.
The deadline for submission is April 12, 2024.
During deliberations, Committee members considered the impact that delaying action on the Conant building might have on the status of future applications with the Massachusetts School Building Authority and on the cost of construction and bond rates.
The Committee also discussed an anticipated lack of community support for incurring what would be significant required costs if Conant were accepted into the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s process, especially since the School Committee has moved forward with a 2024-25 budget that requires Acton voters to approve an operational override.
At their budget workshop in February, the School Committee committed to studying cost-saving structural changes in school transportation, in-district school choice at the elementary level, and closing an elementary school, all of which require significant community input. Superintendent of Schools Peter Light advised the committee as follows: “By waiting this year and not submitting, you can go through that study process, make a commitment to how you want to organize our elementary schools, and then choose what you want to do with Conant after that. I think community members would see that as a logical process.”
AB Elementary Schools Narrow Achievement Gaps in Early Literacy
Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Deborah Bookis celebrated mid-year assessment results at the March 7 School Committee meeting, linked to an initiative focused on closing early literacy skill gaps for kindergarten students at risk for reading failure.
Results showed that the percentage of kindergarten students who scored significantly below benchmark on an early literacy screener dropped from 15.4% (50 students) at the beginning of the school year to 6.5% (21 students) by mid-year. Bookis shared that nine students of the cohort of 21 still requiring intensive intervention are very close to achieving the mid-year benchmark.
Aggregated results from another reading assessment showed high performance and high growth in all six elementary schools for grades 2-6.
Bookis attributed these successes to the District’s new literacy program embedded in a tiered system of supports and the implementation of state legislation and guidance around early literacy screening. “This is really something to celebrate”, Bookis said. “I want to recognize the collective work of all our educators, school administration, and district leaders who made that happen. These are the results we can achieve for these students when we have the time, structures, systems, supports, and budget.”
The initiative is tied to the District’s goal of increasing the number of students on a pathway to proficiency in literacy and mathematics and fulfills a state mandate called the Student Opportunity Act (SOA). The SOA requires Massachusetts districts to engage in a collaborative, data-driven process to identify areas for improving student achievement outcomes for the lowest performing students and address disparities. Districts are required to submit a new SOA plan to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education every three years.
District to Tackle Chronic Absenteeism
The School Committee voted unanimously at their March 21 meeting to approve a new three-year initiative aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism in Acton-Boxborough for selected, at-risk student populations.
The Massachusetts Department of Education reported in October that approximately one in four students, state-wide, missed 18 or more days of school during the 2022-23 school year.
Chronic absenteeism can significantly, negatively impact academic progress and result in knowledge and skill gaps that can have lifelong negative consequences.
Superintendent of Schools Peter Light, noted that “while state chronic absentee rates have started to come down, AB’s rates have continued to trend upward.”
The focus of the work will include establishing more consistent data collection systems for reporting, recording and responding to chronic absenteeism, increasing communication and engagement between schools and families, and providing staff with opportunities to develop a deeper understanding of the causes of chronic absenteeism.
Respondents from initial survey data identified developing partnerships with students and families, prioritizing students’ physical and mental health, and maintaining a welcoming, safe school culture, as critical to this work.
The initiative is tied to the state-mandated Student Opportunity Act (SOA). School Committee Chair Adam Klein noted at an earlier presentation on March 7 that the Act is an unfunded mandate for Acton-Boxborough. “We are going to expend funds in a tight budget in very important areas which, for other districts, is work that is tied to their receiving additional funds from SOA. We and many other districts which are ineligible for these state funds are nevertheless held accountable for SOA performance. We can and should reach out to our legislators to address this.”
Superintendent of Schools Peter Light added that the District has been careful to “identify priority areas that we plan to do anyway as our SOA plan. We can’t just pick some new, random initiative to start, because there is no money for it.”
School Committee Votes to Withdraw from the Acton Health Insurance Trust
The Acton-Boxborough Regional School Committee voted unanimously at their March 7 business meeting to withdraw from Acton’s Health Insurance Trust effective July 1, 2024 and transition to a new provider, the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association (MIIA) Health Benefits Insurance Trust.
In a separate vote, the Committee unanimously approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Acton-Boxborough Education Association, the Acton-Boxborough Office Support Association, and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local #1703 detailing the transition to the MIIA Health Insurance Trust.
Regarding the transition, Superintendent of Schools Peter Light reported, “While the vote effectively dissolves the Acton Health Insurance Trust, there is a 6-12-month dissolution process to fully pay out claims. We’ve budgeted $600K in the 2024-25 budget as a contingency fund for this purpose, but it is the current hope that the Trust will have built up sufficient funds to cover claims in the run-out period.”
School Committee Votes the Final Budget for 2024-25
At their March 21meeting, the. Acton-Boxborough Regional School Committee voted unanimously to adopt the “A” budget of the Acton-Boxborough Regional School District for the fiscal year July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025 in the amount of $114,380,105, a 7.68% increase.
Acton’s assessment is $79,070,675 and consists of an operating assessment of $73,260,419 and a capital assessment of $5,810,256. Boxborough’s assessment is $15,960,274 and consists of an operational assessment of $14,879,714 and a capital assessment of $1,080,560.
Superintendent Peter Light reminded the Committee that the “A” budget is contingent upon Acton voters passing an operational override at the ballot on April 30th.
In a succession of separate votes, the School Committee approved tuition and fee increases in the “A” budget for preschool and full-day kindergarten tuitions, increased fees for athletics and student parking, and a new activity fee for clubs and student activities at the junior and senior high schools.
Votes were unanimous with the exception of Member Kaja, who opposed the increase in full-day kindergarten tuition, and Member Schwartz, who opposed the increase in athletic fees.
Should Acton voters approve an operational override at the ballot on April 30th, the “A” budget moves forward to Acton and Boxborough Town Meetings for final approval. If the override does not pass at the ballot, the School Committee would immediately reconvene to vote the “B” budget, which reflects the amount that the Town of Acton has available under the levy limit.
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