February 2010

Dear ARHS Parents and Guardians:

For all current 9th, 10th and 11th grade students, course registration for SY 10 -11 will begin on Monday, February 22, 2010. All families should receive a packet of information about course registration in the mail around February 19 - 20. If for some reason you don’t receive it, please call 362-1714. All course registration documents will also be posted on our web site.

My specific purpose with this letter is to explain the relationship between our Program of Studies, as it currently stands, and the FY 11 Regional school district budget.

The cleanest statement I can make about revenue projections for FY 11 is that they are all soft. The projections about the level of aid we can expect from the state continue to move. The override, its size and prospects for passage, are both subject to considerable debate.

As a result, I am reluctant, right now, to restore courses and programs that were on our original lists of cuts. What we have done, at the direction of the School Committee, is re-prioritize our cuts, making it more likely, should revenue projections improve, that electives would be restored before cuts to the academic departments. But even with this re-prioritization, we are unable to say with anything resembling confidence that any of our re-prioritized cuts can actually be restored. And since we cannot, I am unwilling to inflate students’ expectations about the Program of Studies by inserting courses that we might not be able to, ultimately, afford.

I am mindful that a definitive revenue picture will elude us indefinitely. My standard is not this high. I am looking for only a reasonable degree of certainty.

So, on April 5th, the part of the course registration process we refer to as ’verification’ is scheduled to begin. This is where students are given a printout of the courses they registered for in February with the charge of bringing it home for a final review by their parent or guardian.

The override vote is scheduled for March 23. So, by April 5th, we should have a much better sense of our revenue situation. At this point, revenue permitting, we will add back to the Program of Studies the elective courses and programs we are sure we can afford.

During "verification," students will be able to adjust their course selections based on the new restorations. This is an important point. In fact, right now, it is among the top three budget-related questions that I hear daily from people inside and outside of school. I need everyone to appreciate that our Program of Studies is revenue-dependent. If revenue improves, the Program of Studies can expand. The reverse is also true. We are hoping for the best and have made provision in the course registration process for students to select for next year courses that have been restored. Stay tuned.

Please let me know if you have questions or concerns.

Thank you.

Mark Jackson
Principal