Zapantis gets an outstanding
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

Ashburnham-Westminster School Committee members voted unanimously Tuesday night to give Superintendent of Schools Michael Zapantis an outstanding evaluation and a merit raise.

The committee approved the evaluation that scored Zapantis job between March 2006 and February 2007 with a 333 out of 369.

"It is, in fact, the highest scoring evaluation that Dr. Zapantis has received during his tenure with our school district," School Committee Chairman David Christianson read from the statement that will be included in Zapantis' personnel file. "Dr. Zapantis has more often than not exceeded the expectations of the School Committee over the course of the past year."

The statement notes Zapantis has continued to build and coordinate a capital plan for the district as well as profession development programs and a personnel plan.

"He continues to seek long-term, innovative solutions to financial, administrative and education challenges," the statement reads.

The statement says that Zapantis could more effectively communicate the results of the performance evaluations process of administrators and teachers.

"Our goal is simply to provide a better basis for the School Committee to evaluate Dr. Zapantis in this area," according to the statement.

The evaluation includes a numerical scoring section and a comments section. The evaluation subcommittee - Christianson, Laura Weiderman, Gwen Farley and Keith Glenny - completed the evaluation, which was then reviewed by the entire committee.

School committee members did not have any discussion on the matter before voting to approve the evaluation.

Committee member Keith Glenny was absent from the meeting.

The committee approved a 5 percent merit pay increase for Zapantis. The merit pay scale was laid out as part of Zapantis' contract.

The certified budget includes the money to increase Zapantis' salary, which is about $6,000, he said.

Zapantis is finishing the first year of the six-year contract.

In other business: + The committee, as usual, unanimously approved a request to an out-of-state field trip, but not without discussion on the timing of these requests. The request was for a June 7 trip to Rhode Island by the seventh-grade classes, but a couple of parents of seventh graders expressed concerns that money for the trip has already been collected and the students already had permission forms signed.

"What if for some reason we have an issue," said Gwen Farley.

She said if a trip was a last-minute opportunity then there was a difference, but for most trips the requests should come in sooner.

State law and local policy require school committee approval of overnight and/or out of state field trips.

Zapantis said he would alert the staff to the committee's request to see the field trip information sooner.

+ Committee member Ellen Holmes asked her colleagues and members of the public to call the state Senate to support the additional request of regional transportation funding from the state.

+ James Rheault said something should be done to keep access to the fields as well as both the high and middle schools open to emergency vehicles. He said that during a sports game over the weekend, which was held at the middle school but was non-school related, the ambulance was needed. He said that because parents parked along the curb instead of in the parking lot the ambulance could not get close enough to the field.

Other committee members said they had witnessed similar problems, especially when people park on both sides of the driveways to Oakmont and Overlook. The committee referred the matter to the transportation subcommittee to determine the best solution and safety precautions.

+ The committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 14, was rescheduled to Wednesday, June 15.