Hanover High School Program Cuts Reflect Budget Challenges
School committee discusses bare-bones course offerings while kindergarten tuition relief plans stall
HANOVER - March 12 - Hanover High School's program of studies for the upcoming year reveals significant reductions in course offerings, with some departments cut to minimal options as budget constraints continue to impact the district.
At the March 12 school committee meeting, High School Curriculum Director Matthew Plummer presented the draft program of studies, noting it "represents our current state" after staffing reductions forced the elimination of numerous electives.
"We had to decrease the number of electives in many areas," Plummer explains. "We reduced the senior English electives, for example. We used to offer three different courses for seniors in English, but with the reduction in staffing, we merged all those into one class."
The English department now offers just 10 core courses – essentially English 9, 10, 11, and 12 at different levels – with few elective options.
School Committee Vice Chair Ryan Hall expresses concern about the limited offerings. "In some of our subject areas, we don't have any [electives]. And by electives, I don't necessarily mean extras. In those core subject areas, we don't have choices for students beyond what some of us would think of as English 101 and English 102."
Committee member Libby Corbo points out that neighboring districts offer significantly more diverse course options. "Pembroke has 10 core English classes, five electives, 12 senior seminars compared to our 10. In math, they offer 24 classes to our 14. In art, they offer 20 classes compared to our 11."
Class sizes also remain a concern, with some AP classes reaching 32 students. "To me, that is insanity," Corbo says. "You really have to wonder what the ability is to explore that higher level of in-depth learning."
Plummer acknowledges the limitations. "From the mathematics of building the schedule, we lost one English teacher. And that number of sections really caused this kind of ripple effect. One of our engineering teachers is teaching one section of math. One of our business teachers is teaching one section of science."
Despite these challenges, Plummer highlights some positive developments, including successful revamps of art offerings, increased enrollment in guitar and piano classes, and improvements to career explorations and internship programs.
Looking ahead, Plummer identifies several areas for potential growth if staffing allows, including health and wellness courses, personal finance, and classes focused on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.
"I personally have a real itch to make sure we make personal finance a graduation requirement," Plummer says. "We should actually be teaching kids about planning, about investments, about future planning, like retirement."
Student representative Dante Heffron agrees: "That's probably one of my biggest regrets going through high school, is that I never chose to take a finance class. I feel like I really could have benefited from that."
The committee also discussed the district's decision to pause plans for tuition-free full-day kindergarten, which had been anticipated for the upcoming school year.
Superintendent Matt Ferron explains that changes in expected state funding have forced a delay. "We thought we had a great path forward. Didn't work out yet. At this point, taking a vote to either access reserve funds or anything else is too many variables right now."
Committee member Rachel Hughes clarifies that free full-day kindergarten "was never a part of the override budget" being presented to voters. "It seemed like an opportunity that we were going to have some excess Chapter 70, that we were going to have significant reimbursements coming back. And that calculation has changed."
Committee Chair Peter Miraglia expresses disappointment but acknowledges the financial reality. "This breaks my heart, but given the constraints on revenue for the town, all of the deliberations that have been very good faith by the advisory committee to look out multiple years, there's no revenue stream we can really point to at this stage to fund this."
The committee emphasizes that financial assistance remains available for families who need help with kindergarten tuition.
"As part of the registration process, parents have the ability to inquire," explains Assistant Superintendent Michael Oates. "We use the federal guidelines in terms of a sliding scale on the tuitions."
Ferron adds that families should reach out even if they don't automatically qualify through direct certification. "Because of free lunch, there might be families we don't know about who would otherwise qualify for assistance."
The school committee also reviewed budget planning for the upcoming fiscal year, with Ferron presenting a "building from the ground up" approach that prioritizes elementary class sizes and special education needs.
The district plans to restore four elementary classroom positions and use $350,000 in circuit breaker funding to support special education staffing, including speech language, a BCBA, a middle school special education teacher, and a district special education teacher for reading.
"We're evaluating our course selection, looking at grade and class enrollment, particularly kindergarten enrollment, grade one enrollment," Ferron says. "We're going to have to adapt and change moving forward."
The school committee will hold public forums on April 16 and 28 to discuss the budget and potential override with community members.