News & Features
April 2005

Tantasqua adopts new sports policy
By James Cooke

As the season for spring sports approaches, Brookfield parents should be mindful that the Tantasqua Regional School Committee has adopted a new athletic policy to ensure fair tryouts. The policy says that selection to sports teams now requires all candidates to be graded against a list of criteria to ensure objective evaluation. If a student fails to make the team, he or she can now ask the coach for a copy of the selection criteria and his or her rating. If student or the parent has any questions about the process, they should talk to the athletic director and principal.

In other news, the Regional School Committee has recommended a total operating budget of about $15.7 million for next year—an increase of 4.2 percent. Based on current estimates for state aid and other income, such a budget would result in an $8.2 million assessment to the five towns for the regional high school. Because the governor in his budget did not increase the amount of state aid for the high school, such a budget would result in a higher assessment of $860,111 to the district.

However, because Brookfield's percentage of students at the secondary school is expected to drop from 16.97 percent this year to 15.72 percent next year, the town would see a slight drop in its assessment under the proposal. Brookfield would bear an assessment of about $943,826 compared to $958,507 this year.
The shortfall in state aid will result in higher assessment for the other four towns. The school committee has contacted its state representatives to take steps to increase state aid.

James Cooke is one of three Brookfield representatives on the Tantasqua School Committee. He also serves on the policy and budget subcommittees.