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The Lincoln-Sudbury (L-S) School Committee’s Regional Agreement Review Subcommittee met on Wednesday, February 12, to chart a path for updating the agreement. The agreement has not been updated since the 1980’s – and it has reportedly fallen out of compliance with modern Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) requirements. For context on how much has changed since the 1980’s at L-S, note that students were allowed to smoke on campus in the 1980’s.
The subcommittee discussed a narrow review of the agreement to bring it back into compliance. That would involve getting the full L-S School Committee to charge them with initiating a process that was outlined during the meeting. That process could include engaging with outside experts, DESE, or the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS) to provide guidance on the updates needed to achieve compliance.
The subcommittee also discussed including Select Board representation from both Lincoln and Sudbury in the process, and eventually Town Meeting votes in both towns.
The subcommittee was careful in defining the scope and nature of the updates that may be pursued. There’s some history in Sudbury that may cause concern for Lincoln if the agreement were to be reopened for wholesale renegotiation. (Page 57) The subcommittee, which includes Ravi Simon of Sudbury and Lucy Maulsby of Lincoln, was aligned on the approach and appears to be setting some boundaries for discussions from the outset.
They discussed taking the matter to the full school committee in an upcoming meeting.
Watch this space.
