School Committee

School committees are elected bodies that represent the entire community. The three committees are:

• • The Regional School Committee, overseeing the regional middle and high schools that serve students from Amherst, Pelham, Leverett, and Shutesbury;
  • The Amherst School Committee, overseeing the Amherst elementary schools; and
  • The Pelham School Committee, overseeing the Pelham elementary school.

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of school committees are established by state law and include:

• • To set educational goals for district schools;
  • To review and adopt budgets;
  • To hire, evaluate, and supervise the Superintendent;
  • To consent to the hiring of some other senior administrators at the recommendation of the Superintendent;
  • To set policies for the district; and
  • To negotiate contracts with staff unions.

School Committees do not supervise, hire, or fire educators or most other staff. Please see your school’s Handbook for advice on whom to contact with staff concerns.

 

Communicating with the Committees

All written or recorded communications to the school committees are considered public records, but, generally, only communications labeled Public Comment and/or sent to the public comment email account or phone are publicly disclosed at meetings and in agenda packets. Members of the public are always welcome to attend or watch (if broadcast or live-streamed) meetings of the committee, and may offer public comment in person at most meetings. Contact information is as follows:

• • Public comments should be emailed to by 3 p.m. on the day of the meeting. (Text documents rather than pdfs are preferred.) Similarly, members of the public can leave a public comment at this recorded line, 413-362-1891, by 3 p.m. on the day of the meeting. In both cases, it is helpful to identify the specific committee to which you want your comment directed. At meetings, comments are limited to 3 minutes or as directed by the committee chair, and the length of the public comment period will be decided by the chair. All commenters are asked to state their first and last names and town of residence. 
  • Communications not intended to be public comment can be emailed to:
    • For the Regional School Committee:  
    • For the Amherst School Committee:  
    • For the Pelham School Committee:  
  • Members of the public may also contact committee individual members (see information on BoardDocs).

Please note that the public comment period is an opportunity to convey opinions to the Committee but is not a time for conversation with Committee members.

 

Meetings and documents

Meeting dates, locations, agendas, minutes, documents, policies, and other types of information are maintained at BoardDocs. Meetings of the elementary school committees, but not the regional committee, are also announced on their Town bulletin boards.

Meetings of the Regional and Amherst School Committees are generally held in the ARHS library on Tuesday evenings beginning at 6:30 p.m. and are broadcast by Amherst Media on cable channel 15.  Meetings held remotely (for example, on a snow day) are live-streamed by Amherst Media on its YouTube channel. All meeting videos are available at the YouTube channel.  Meetings of the Pelham School Committee are generally held in the Art room at Pelham School beginning at 5:00 p.m.

Staff support to the Committees is provided by Debbie Westmoreland, Director of Communication and Operations, who maintains the public records and can be contacted for copies of materials. Ms. Westmoreland can be reached at 413-362-1823 or .