Greetings, Dragon Nation! Once again, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you as we get ready for spring.

Last year at about this time I shared with you how we create and manage the budget for our school. It isn’t the most exciting topic for most, but without a budget and its subsequent approval by the Regional School Board, nothing can happen here. Unlike a school district that has a whole budget and finance department, we must do it all by ourselves. The budget is a collaboration between me, the admin team, the department chairs, our community, and our local partner districts.

This year, we anticipate growing our student population by about 14 students. Combined with last year’s increase, we have a need to hire at least two and a half additional teachers as well as replacing our teachers who are retiring. This presents an opportunity to bring on people with new ideas and talents to add to our community. This will also allow us to reduce the number of overages that are currently being taught. Hiring new teachers is one of the better parts of my job!

Equally significant is that we will have the funds to replace at least one and possibly two of our rooftop HVAC units that caused so much misery this past fall. This work will hopefully start this summer and bring some much-needed relief! We reside in a beautiful old historic building, but it certainly has its issues. It is a challenge to keep it up and serviceable for our community.

We are also able to start to close the gap between our teacher salaries and those of our partner districts. It may be shocking for you to learn that all 14 of our partner districts pay their teachers more than we do. We are receiving additional funding from the state’s proposed budget and we also upped tuition collected from the partner districts this year and that will help us to close this gap.

I will be honest. Budgets aren’t a whole lot of fun to create and I personally admire the people that make it look easy. I don’t have a background in finance, so it is a laborious and difficult process. Trying to balance the limited revenue with the wants and needs of the school community is like working a giant puzzle. However, once in a while, I find real satisfaction when we can fund something that is really important to the growth of the school. The budget that is being proposed for approval is one of those examples.

Have a wonderful day, and thanks again to The Jabberwock for giving me this gift of another forum to stay connected with you. Until next time, stay safe, stay strong, and Go Dragons!