Kindergarten Registration Information

Dear Families,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and 2024 is starting out strong for you.   At the December board meeting I shared the district report card (see attached) that has been created by the Department of Education. We are proud to announce that Mason Elementary School is performing in the top 25% of all the schools in the state of NH in math, ELA, and science!   We are also in the top 25% of the state for student growth from year to year.   We are very proud of these results and we will continue to work hard to meet the needs of all the students here at Mason Elementary School. We are lucky to have a very dedicated staff that are willing to put in the extra hours and effort to help students succeed.    We couldn’t do what we do without the support of the families and the community.  Thank you for your support over the years.

Budget season is upon us and last night the Mason School Board voted on the proposed budget (see attached), default budget and warrant articles (see attached) for the 24-25 school year.    We will be discussing the budget and warrant articles at the deliberative session on Feb 3rd at 9 am.   If you would like to hear more about the budget please join us on the 3rd.   You will also be voting on the budget on March 12th on voting day.

Our budget is up this year 6.57%.  The drivers of this increase are regular education tuition ( we are sending more 6th graders than we are graduating seniors), special education tuition (needs of students that are determined by the students’ special education team in order to receive an adequate education),  transportation (buses), health insurance (6% increase), and 2.75% raises for staff.   With those increases we also level funded and decreased areas of the budget to try to reduce the budget increase as much as possible.  The board has also agreed to take $27,000 out of the tuition savings account that we have been adding funds to for many years to reduce the tuition increase.   They plan to do this for the next 4 years as tuition will continue to climb as we send our bigger classes to Milford.

We have also included in the budget an additional half day session of preschool 4 days a week.   This year we had 12 students on the waitlist that we were not able to provide preschool for.   We already have many students on the list for the next few years.   By adding an additional session of preschool the cost will be approximately $20,000 which we have added to the budget. Because we charge families tuition for preschool, we will be able to offset about $10,000 dollars of the $20,000 increase.   As a district we value preschool and early intervention. By being able to educate more of our preschool aged community members we will be making a valuable investment in our future.

We have one seat open on the school board.  This is for a school board member for a 3 year term.  If you are interested in running for school board the window to sign up opens on January 24th, and goes until Feb 2nd at 5pm.   You can sign up here at the school where Miss Heidi can assist you in the process.   If you would like more information about the role of the school board member please reach out, I would be happy to tell you more about it.  Calculation of tax rate impacts of overall funding (see attached).

You will can more budget information on the website.   I encourage you to look it over and if you have any questions reach out.

Stay dry and safe as we deal with the next weather system headed our way!

Kristen

Bid Notice
Bid Letter

Lead Water Test Update 06/13/2023

Mason Our Town!