Board of Ed discusses budget, textbooks

BERLIN — The Berlin Board of Education went over their plans to present the proposed fiscal year 2013 budget to the public at their meeting on Jan. 19.

Among the topics was which items to include in this year's budget hearing booklet, and the board went page by page through last year's analyzing which information they believe was useful to the public. The only page scrapped was a a revenue comparison graph, which was tossed as “confusing.” A graph outlining how much money from taxes goes to the state and how much of that, if any, comes back to Berlin was added.

Superintendent Corrinne Cascadden said that the board had received a verbal request for a flat line budget from the city, but no formal request in writing had followed. Nicole Plourde, who earlier had been elected board chair, said that she believed a flat line budget would be irresponsible given the cuts that had been made already. Cascadden added that a flat line budget would require $500,000 worth of cuts to compensate for contractual increases. She added that White Mountains Regional School District, which is similar in size to Berlin, but comprised of more communities is proposing an $18.9 million budget. Berlin is proposing a $16.8 million 2012-13 budget, a 3.1 percent increase over last year. According to a budget summary, $448,591 of the $507,526 increase is due to salaries and benefits.

The board also discussed textbooks. Cascadden explained that the district used to look at updating textbooks every 10 years. This may becoming obsolete, she said, as eReaders gain use and some content areas now do without textbooks. She said she would like to see an fell assessment of technology needs once a new IT staffer is on-board to look at appropriating funds there rather than in texts.

Newly sworn in board member Ken Proulx said the state is cautioning against textbooks until the curriculum standards are unified. He explained that 48 states adopted common core standards and now benchmarks will be set and content will be standardized with the rest of the country. As a result, standardized testing locally will be measured nationally rather than just in New England as it is now. These changes were generated at a Governors' Summit, Proulx said.

Board of Education member Louise Valliere asked about use of the old textbooks, specifically in honors and AP math classes and was informed by Berlin High School principal Gary Bisson that teachers have been using binders with new information created for each class. Those have become more of a focus to teach from, he said, with the books on hand in the classroom as an additional resource.