Many of you know we have a wonderful technical school in our own backyard. Shawsheen Valley Technical School serves the communities of Burlington, Bedford, Wilmington, Billerica, and Tewksbury, and as such it has a separate School Committee. The Committee has 10 members, two from each of the towns mentioned above, each serving 3-year terms.
The Shawsheen Tech School Committee has many of the same responsibilities of the Burlington School Committee:
- Budgeting
- Installation and termination of the superintendent
- Setting and reviewing policies, both educational and administrative
- Public relations—keeping staff, students, and citizens informed about the school
The budget works in a really interesting way, considering the number of towns involved: The school administration works to put the school budget together and presents it to the budget subcommittee for approval. The subcommittee takes it to the full School Committee, who approves it and sends it to each town for approval at Town Meeting. If any town votes not to accept the budget (which doesn’t seem like it happens frequently) then it gets kicked back to the School Committee for changes. Capital needs outside the normal operating budget would also go to all five Town Meetings as warrant articles for approval.
In general, towns pay a portion of the budget that is proportional to their share of students at the school.
The Shawsheen Tech School Committee meets once monthly, but there are subcommittees that also meet. When this profile was originally written, the Committee had been focused on choosing a new superintendent. Since that time, Tony McIntosh was named Superintendent-Director.
This is a good place to learn some fundamentals about how school committees operate, in a small but community-coalition-focused environment.
Thanks to Christine Kelly Kim for helping me compile this info. Let me know if I missed anything!
