Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul Freeman delivered an update on the anticipated budget and operations of Guilford’s schools to the Board of Finance (BOF), looking beyond a difficult winter and toward a (hopefully) post-pandemic world of fall 2021 as the town prepares for the 2021-’22 budget season to start in earnest after the holidays.

“It’s either going to be the most boring budget we’ve ever put forward or it’s going to be the most hopeful budget we’ve ever put forward, because it’s going to be about getting back to where we were,” Freeman said. “And depending on how you look at that, that can be looked at as boring and status quo, or that can be looked at as the happiest, brightest moment that we will have seen in something like 18 or 20 months.

“I’m going to view it as the most hopeful budget we’ve ever put forward,” he added.

The BOF and Board of Education (BOE) will receive a first draft of the budget on Jan. 11, 2021, and Freeman said he was not providing exact percentages or dollar amounts for operational costs before then.

Freeman also said that even as the BOE looked to tighten its belt with a “conservative” operational request and won’t look for large new initiatives or adding multiple staff positions, there would be a need for increased mental health supports for students following a harrowing year or more of living through a pandemic, and the district was not looking to increase class sizes or slash huge swaths of programs in 2021 to save money.

That includes adding a mental health focused position at the high school, which Freeman said was in direct response to student struggles and traumas during the pandemic.

“Our kids will be coming off a really complicated year,” he said. “We’re not cutting coaches, we’re not cutting supports to teachers, we’re not increasing class sizes. We’re looking to provide the same high quality service we provided pre-pandemic.”

Freeman said this includes a proposal for increasing art education in elementary schools, which is something parents have lobbied for at least going back to last year. Without offering specifics, Freeman said that would be included in this year’s budget.

As far as other staffing, Freeman said the district only anticipated “moderate” changes after adding a couple teachers, substitutes, and custodians outside of this year’s budget.

“Counting on this vaccine rollout, we are not taking all those positions and building them into next year’s budget request,” Freeman said.

Freeman also said the district likely would find that some of the technology infrastructure and practices discovered through the distance learning experiment would continue to prove important going forward.

“We’re going to look for what we can learn from this experience and what we can hold on to and what we can capitalize on, but likewise we don’t expect that to be a significant investment,” Freeman said.

He also didn’t rule out students and staff still needing to wear masks next fall, but added that also would not come as a significant expense to the district. Outdoor tents purchased for the pandemic could also be used next year, though Business Manager Linda Truduea said the schools might also be able to sell them and recoup some of that investment.

Specific Costs

Freeman also promised “moderate” investments in equity and social justice initiatives, carrying on a commitment the district has made over the last couple years.

A change at the state level likely to affect Guilford’s budget, at least to some degree, is a requirement at the state level that school districts continue to support special education students after they turn 22 years old, a policy he said was enacted due disruption from the pandemic but was unlikely to be reverted.

Those costs can run high on a per-student basis, though the number of students who will be supported for an additional year is relatively small, Freeman said.

Looking at a time period a little closer, Freeman said that classes and programs through summer are likely to remain hybrid in nature, though Freeman said the BOE has also budgeted for significant in-person programming.

And while emphasizing that it is difficult to make any kind of concrete prediction even in ideal circumstances about things like enrollment, Freeman said he anticipated at least a small boost in enrollment due to families who homeschooled during the pandemic or new families moving from New York. He also said a larger number of incoming kindergarten students is expected, as some families almost certainly held their children back during the pandemic.

Capital requests include a new heating and air conditioning system at Guilford Lakes Elementary School at a cost of $2.9 million. That system has failed a handful of times in the last couple years and even though it has performed this year, Freeman said the district “can’t continue to tempt fate.”

He also reminded the BOF and residents that the original plan was to have this item on last year’s budget request, which did not happen due to the inability to hold a budget referendum during the pandemic.

The BOE is also looking to bond for the Guilford High School field and track at a cost of around $2.1 million. Freeman emphasized that those facilities are shared by the town and schools.

Two more unexpected items, a boiler replacement and a failing elevator at A.W. Cox and Melisa Jones Elementary schools, respectively, will also be on the docket this budget season, Freeman said, totaling around $1 million.

Also in the nearer term, Freeman spoke about the first half of 2021, saying the district was still hopeful that all students might return to full five day per-week in person school, while also warning that things were likely to get worse before they got better.

Going into the budget season, with thriftiness likely the theme all around the state, Freeman said he felt that Guilford residents understood the importance of education and that even in the current economic conditions, the town wants to ensure their children are educated and cared for.

“I have to say that in Guilford, the sense that we get is that there is support for the decisions we have to make, that people recognize that the kids need to have safe and healthy schools, that school is important,” he said. “And we don’t feel like we are doing wrong by making sure we are providing those opportunities for our kids.”