School Committee Concludes For Summer

The School Committee won’t meet again for several months, and when they come back, they’ll have to decide who will be chairman.

After two rounds of voting, the committee was split three votes a piece between incumbent chairman Tom Clay and Arthur Benoit.

In each vote, Avery Adam and Chris Sanders joined Clay while David Keele and Terence Ryan joined Benoit.

School Committee Member Erika Kohl left earlier in the meeting, leading School Department Superintendent Bill Olsen to advise the board to revisit the issue at their next meeting in August, with Clay serving in an continuing interim fashion until then.

Olsen also received a $4,000 bonus from the board after a positive end-of-year review.

Six of the seven School Committee members participated in the review, which set four goals for Olsen in student learning, professional practices and overall district improvement.

Although only one member said he exceeded one of the goals, the six that participated in the review unanimously said that he had either met or made progress on all four goals.

As in previous years, Keele refrained from participating in the structured review, but offered a verbal review where he praised Olsen on his budgetary skills and the overall health of Westford’s schools.

“I’m always cautious to wave the flag of excellence,” said Keele. “(But) the town is very well served by your skills.”

The bonus is a yearly item built into Olsen’s contract.

Earlier in the meeting, members of the committee heard an update regarding the School Department’s digital learning plan and updates on the schools’ infrastructural requirements, which already serve 2,500 devices each day on average at Westford Academy.

The update provided data on preliminary work done by Westford School Department Director of Digital Learning Julie Boudreau, which focused on training faculty on how to use technology in their lessons.

Boudreau’s first year was focused at schools for older children, although there was discussion about bringing in new devices at the Nabnasset, Robinson and Miller Schools in 2016.

Reaction was mixed, with positive reactions toward the focus on professional development and a request for more insight on what devices would best serve students moving forward.

Keele also hoped that Boudreau could come before the board more often in the future, indicating that some of the confusion among board members came from a sense of urgency in obtaining new technologies that can help the schools.