King Philip Principals Give Budget Presentation

The King Philip High School and Middle School Principals gave budget presentations at Monday night's King Philip School Committee meeting.

The presentations outlined the budget priorities for each school.

Middle school Principal Susan Gilson spoke about keeping what the school has.

"Our goal was to look at preserving programs — how can we maintain level services?" she said. "Next year, we're looking at preserving staffing, even though enrollment will be down."

Gilson said the school's average class size was rather large, at about 28 students per class.

Other priorities, Gilson said, include adding technology (like SMART boards, graphing calculators and digital cameras) and replacing textbooks and equipment.

High school Principal Robert Wargo spoke about adding personnel at the school.

"My thing is bringing in more staff to the building," he said. "I'd sacrifice everything else for more staff."

Wargo said the school would be looking to add staff to deal with a sizable incoming ninth-grade class.

"I know we're going to lose some students to private and vocational schools, but I can't guarantee they'll all go there," he said. "I'm looking at the worst-case scenario."

He said he did not want the average class size to go up.

"This is meant to protect class size, and the way to do that is not to eliminate students, but bring in more staff," he said.