BRUNSWICK — The Brunswick School Board unanimously elected William Thompson last week to serve as its chairman for the next year.
Thompson said it will be his second time at the helm of the nine-member board. Elected to the school board in 2011, he served as vice-chairman in 2013 and as the chairman in 2014-15.
In his role as chairman, Thompson said he sees it as his duty to make sure that every member feels like they are heard and to empower the school board’s committees to do their work while making sure the full board weights in on those decisions.
Asked what he wants the school board to accomplish under his leadership, “Obviously first and foremost is getting kids back into the schools to the greatest extent possible and doing that as soon as possible,” Thompson said Friday.
The school must follow safety guidelines to combat the spread of the coronavirus, he said, but schools need to try to get more kids back to in-person learning. Brunswick schools are using a different mix of in-person and online learning at each level. Students are in school for in-person learning two days a week in elementary and junior high school, and one day a week in high school. They learn online days they aren’t in school.
The biggest logistical challenge at the high school is when students switch classrooms, and how to manage those transitions in the building, Thompson said.
“I think it’s a consensus of the board that it should be our primary focus as well as just getting those students in-class time because there’s a feeling that they’re getting done around noon,” so while it is a full school day from the state’s perspective but not what the school department is accustomed to, Thompson said.
“And then we have the longer-term stuff that we need to focus on that will really be derived by what our budget is going to look like, making sure we are protecting our programming,” Thompson said.
The first school budget meeting is Feb. 10, Thompson said.
The budget will be driven by the revenues at the state level. Thompson expressed concern that state subsidy for schools could decrease as the student population at Brunswick schools has dropped with a number of students switching to homeschooling or private schools due to the pandemic. The state bases school funding in part on the student population. Thompson didn’t have specific student population numbers but Brunswick School Department in September 2020 reported 80 home-schoolers this school year, up from 60 in 2019-20.
It’s been challenging for the school board to work during the pandemic, Thompson said, but he feels everyone has become fairly comfortable meeting online with Zoom. He also has a goal to get the board back to meeting in-person, and making sure people are comfortable with that and that people can still participate remotely.
“The hardest part is not being in the room (together) because we get along with each other and if there is a stress on that relationship, it’s not being in the room together and seeing each other’s body language and the non-verbal cues that occur,” Thompson said.
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