GM board discusses budgets, bonds and mascots

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2024 Telegraph Publishing LLC

The Green Mountain Unified School District Board continued last Thursday night discussing the 2025/26 budget with Superintendent Layne Millington and Business Manager Cheryl Hammond. The meeting was held in the Green Mountain High School Library.

Millington outlined a number of actions that may be taken by the next administration in Washington, including the reduction or elimination of a number of funding sources including Title I, II and III, which, respectively,

• help schools support academic achievement among low income students,
• help pay for the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and
• support English language learners.

Millington also expects to see level funding of support of students with disabilities and elimination of funding for social and emotional learning programs along with reductions in funding for school based mental health grants.

Guidance Director Pam O’Neil and Mental Health Clinician Jessica Kessler asked the board to support the school’s wellness program in the face of such cuts. They said that students are learning to self regulate and that improves their ability to learn. O’Neil stressed the importance of keeping the programs in place while noting that budgeting this year is tough.

Board member Kate Lamphere asked if the Green Mountain Union High takes advantage of all the wellness programs that can be reimbursed by the federal government.

“How much are we spending that could be drawn down from Medicaid?” asked Lamphere. That was added to a list of scenarios the board would like to see, including the effect of possible federal cuts on the budget.

Restructuring with a FEMA reimbursement

Twice during the meeting, there was discussion about the possibility of asking voters to approve a bond to for work that the administration has identified to help with restructuring the schools.

As it stands, Cavendish Town Elementary has seen its population shrink, making the school underutilized, while Chester-Andover has been described as overcrowded. Millington told The Telegraph that the board seems to be leaning toward putting a districtwide pre-school in the Cavendish building and constructing a building that would add classroom and office space to CAES.

The Cavendish building would need about $40,000 in changes to make it usable as a pre-school and a new building at CAES, which in November Millington estimated costing around $1 million,  could be 90 percent reimbursable from FEMA. The district would have to bond for the expense and pay for it to be reimbursed. The board asked that the state’s liaison to FEMA come to the next meeting and that CAES Principal Joey Blane also be present to talk about what the school needs in the way of a building.

Progress on a new mascot

Green Mountain Principal John Broadley told the board that the student council was “93 percent” in favor of working on coming up with a new mascot and produced a survey that about 140 students responded to, yielding 14 to 16 possible mascot names. Broadley said the next step would be to form  a committee that would include students, staff, administration and members of the community to narrow the number of mascot candidates to three or four and put those to a vote by the student body.

In an interview with The Telegraph in April, Broadley said that after much controversy, he wanted to give the issue some breathing room before bringing it back up again.

The process does not have a set time limit, Broadley said, adding that they would “get it done in the next semester.”  Once a mascot is selected, he envisions a competition among students to design a logo to go with the name.