BPS Superintendent Says District Is Excited, Prepared For 55 New Students
Bourne Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Kerri Anne Quinlan-Zhou addressed what she called “a little bit of buzz in town” regarding 55 new students coming into the district from migrant or displaced families living in local temporary housing.
The topic was addressed at the Bourne School Committee meeting on September 6. A lengthy discussion on the topic was had at the select board’s meeting the night before, with many residents voicing opposition to Governor Maura T. Healey’s plan to use Joint Base Cape Cod and area hotels and motels to house displaced families who have been relocated to Massachusetts.
Dr. Zhou said that the district is excited to welcome the students, as it welcomes many new students each year whether they be military-involved students from the base or new residents in town.
“I think there’s some miscommunication out there around the funding,” she said. “Just like our town won’t bear any of the burden of any of our needs for our newcomers, we also as a school district are receiving significant funding to make sure that we can meet all of the needs.”
There are three sources of funding that the district benefits from, she said: a per-pupil allocation is made as soon as students enroll, along with per-day per-pupil and transportation funds.
Dr. Zhou said that she has spoken with colleagues elsewhere in the state where emergency temporary housing is being provided, who told her that things have been “seamless” as far as receiving funding to support newcomers to local school districts.
The only resident to make public comment at the meeting was Pocasset resident Susan M. Baracchini, who also addressed the select board with school-related concerns the previous evening. She requested that the committee address a number of things including vaccination requirements and impact on school staff, that she felt were not adequately answered the previous night.
“Last night at the select board’s meeting, it seemed like our town administrator and the board of health representative and some of our select people were like deers in headlights,” she said, “didn’t have answers, didn’t know. We’re looking for answers and I’m actually very disappointed that nobody from there is here this evening because they seemed like they needed to know the facts and that they were going to seek them out.”
On the topic of vaccinations, Dr. Zhou said that the state has engaged John Snow, Inc., a global public health consultant, as part of a statewide vaccination effort to ensure that all Massachusetts students are up to date with all required immunizations by doing site visits, clinics, and immunization records review.
“They’re doing a massive vax effort because, again, we want our schools to be safe,” she said. “Our team did a really amazing job of meeting with the families and many of the children were already vaccinated; sometimes it’s just a matter of do they have their papers or were they in transit and lost them along the way.”
As for impact on teachers and support staff, Dr. Zhou assured that funding has already been dispersed to install translators at each school, along with English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers.
“We have students who are ELLs [English Language Learners] every year and they’re across all of our grades, and it’s no different this year, there just happens to be a few more,” she said. “We have, as you already heard, approximately 55 students, not all students who are in the temporary shelters are ELLs, some of them do know English already. Not all students who are ELLs are homeless, so we’ve got a lot of crossover with different types of students.”
Ms. Baracchini also asked for a breakdown of the grade levels that the incoming students will be placed in; Dr. Zhou said that due to legal concerns regarding confidentiality, no identifying information will be given about the students.
Dr. Zhou applauded staff for their hard work in enrolling the students on such short notice ahead of the start of the school year, saying that the general excitement among teachers and kids was “very heartwarming.”
“I do hope that our teachers do feel that they can tell us how it’s really going,” Dr. Zhou said. “We know that welcoming new students in any given year is a difficult thing, like I said, [with] preparing… but our teachers have really risen to the occasion. They’re just amazing people, I can’t express that enough.”