Seekonk Voters Save Social Studies Teacher Job

In a show of yellow paper triangles, Seekonk voters saved a middle school social teacher's job and technology in classrooms by approving $82,116 to be allocated from the town's free cash fund toward the school department budget during Monday night's town meeting.

According to Superintendent Madeline Meyer, the school department budget did not include enough money to rehire a middle school social studies teacher next year. A language arts or math teacher would have assumed the position.

One resident asked if the school's accreditation would be affected by the layoff. Moderator Michelle Hines told voters to keep questions on topic.

Another casualty of the budget was technology infrastructure. A fiber optic Internet system was recently installed in the high school. 

Resident Carol Bragg asked if school department staff salaries were funded this year. School committee chairman Mitchell Vieira said school staff contracts were currently in negotiation. Bragg then said town employees went without raises during the last two years and a pay increase for school staff was unfair. Finance committee member Michael Brady chimed in to report that raises to administrators' salaries amounted to thousands of dollars.

"If you look at every budget line item, every administrator's [salary] has been increased by 1 percent," Brady said. "It may be in the contract, but had [they] said they would forego their 1 percent, they would only need $70,000."

Finance committee member Karen Perkins said her board would have supported an increase to the school department's budget if they felt it was necessary. Despite the vocal opponents, the measure passed.