Gardner School Committee Met on Monday May 13, 2024
The Gardner MA School Committee Met on Monday May 13, 2024. Complete Agenda and Packet, CLICK HERE. Listen to the meeting on any device, CLICK PLAY.
Robert Swartz detailed progress relating to various projects in the schools. pointing out that some estimated costs have been filled in (see packet). Pictures in the graphic at left show some of the progress. There is a listing of miscellaneous theatrical upgrades for $500,000. “I think everybody on the committee choked on that. So hopefully we’ll get more details as to what that miscellaneous means by next month or so.” Mayor Nicholson added that the City Hall flagpole should be fixed by the end of this week.
Various academic progress was detailed and policies were discussed. Dr. Pellegrino commented on improving attendance and what was discussed at an administrative council meeting, “But just tonight, we were talking about the high school and how the entire MTSS team really focused on improving attendance, and specifically, attendance of students with disabilities. Last year, there were 31 students with disabilities who were chronically absent at the high school. This year, working with the teachers, working with the administrators, everybody pulling together, that number dropped to 12. That’s a big deal, and those numbers sound like small numbers, but they’re huge wins.”
Anne Hurst spoke about Mental Health Month and had some stats on the subject for the meeting: “Thank you to everybody in the district for doing such a phenomenal job. When she was given the presentation and she talked about students with disabilities, you know, and being part of the college program and stuff like that, of course, that’s, you know, yeah. That’s, yeah. I also wanted to just say that May is Mental Health Month. I have a couple of statistics that I have from NAMI, which is the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill. 50% of all lifetime mental illnesses begin by the age of 14 and 75% by the age of 24. One in five U.S. adults experience mental illness each year and only half of them receive treatment. The average delay between the onset of a mental illness symptom and treatment is as high as 11 years. So we need to really recognize and take care of our friends and neighbors and relatives and really, really have mental illness be part of a discussion. I noticed that the trend now with a lot of family physicians is it’s all about the mind and the body and, you know, they’re understanding how that all goes together. And it’s just a really important thing to start really talking about and to never expect that someone’s gonna tell you they’re suffering“