1975-12-01-SC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Page 226 December. 1, 1975 A regular meeting of the Lexington School Committee came to order at 8:00 p.m. at the Jonas Clarke Junior High School. Present were ( Mesdames Swanson, Berchtold, Messrs. Brown, Rotberg and Wadsworth and student representative Wachman. Also present were Messrs. Spiris, Maclnnes, Monderer, Barstow, Barnes and Miss Quinn. Prior to the commencement of public participation, Mrs. Swanson read the following statement: "I feel at this time I must express my concern over some statements CHAIRMAN'S that have been made that I feel are uninformed or misleading enough STATEMENT to warrant a statement of clarification. The suggestion that Lexington plans to close some schools eventually was originally made about ten years ago and debated on and off ever since. In February, 1974, after months and months of debate, the School Committee voted to hire an architect to do an architectural study of our school facilities. It is now December, 1975, and the School Committee is planning to continue its discussion of the very complex problem of what to do when faced with a declining enroll- ment of well over 40%--from a high of 9609 students in 1969 to a projected 5692 students in 1980 or a decline of almost 4000 stu- dents. At our recent School Committee meeting there was not suggestions at any time by any member that a definite decision relative to closing schools be made in a few weeks. What was discussed was the fact that much work has been done by many people, much discussion has already taken place, the problem has not gone away and the committee was asked by its chairman to readdress itself to the matter. It is necessary at this time for us to restudy the reports submitted to us, discuss these reports further amongst ourselves and with the various committees, determine what additional information we need, plan for an open meeting, set up a schedule to do all these things and arrive at a decision. We had such a schedule worked out for last spring which we changed to allow for further study of various aspects, but the postponement of last spring's schedule did not imply we could avoid addressing ourselves to this matter indefi- nitely. Reference to a December deadline was made regarding the date for filing any capital expenditure plans for the 76-77 budget. This deadline is not established by the School Committee, but by the Town government, and the School Committee members were reminded that if any capital expenditures were planned for 1976-77 they would have to be submitted by December 31. Such proposals can be withdrawn at any time, but it was important for the School Committee to be informed of the December 31 deadline for sub- mission of all requests. (As a matter of fact we have been re- quested for a five-year capital expenditure plan as required by law. ) This might be a good time to make it clear that the School Committee's fiscal autonomy does not extend to capital ex- penditures, and all such expenditures will require approval of the Town Meeting. The Town Government has requested, and justi- fiably so, that they be kept informed of our plans and schedule as the possibility of closing schools does affect the entire com- . munity, and the entire community should be involved and have input into the