NASHUA – The Board of Education hopes to use an $85,000 contingency fund set aside by the Board of Aldermen to hire an additional elementary school teacher, pay a portion of expenses for transporting charter school students and purchase new curriculum materials.

The board finalized their request to aldermen for the funds Monday night after weeks of unanticipated expenses led to debate on how to best use the $85,000.

The request will be referred to the Board of Aldermen soon, but it may take some time before aldermen vote on it.

If the board’s request is approved, $10,240 will go toward charter school transportation, $39,760 will go toward teacher salaries and $35,000 will be used for curriculum materials.

The School District first learned last month that it would have to provide transportation for Nashua students attending the Academy for Science and Design, which moved to Nashua this summer. The unexpected need of two additional school buses to carry the nearly 100 ASD students interested in busing will cost the district about $84,000.

The majority of those funds, $74,000, will come from funds for assessment materials, which ended up being funded by a grant, and funds set aside for a portable rental at Elm Street Middle School. The portable was purchased with surplus funds last winter. The remainder, however, will be requested as part of the contingency funds.

The board voted to add the elementary school teacher last week in an effort to reduce class sizes at that level. The position was approved with temporary funding from the district’s $50,000 furniture allowance, and Superintendent Mark Conrad told board members Monday that the position will be placed in fifth grade at Ledge Street Middle School.

A letter drafted by Conrad to request the use of the contingency funds states that the $39,760 will reimburse the furniture allowance.

The $35,000 of the contingency fund to help purchase curriculum materials will go toward the purchase of elementary science books and seventh-grade math books.

In July, the district approved a $117,096 purchase of math textbooks for sixth- and seventh-grade classrooms in the district. The purchase is part of a switch to new middle school math resources that better align with the Common Core state standards.

The board voted to wait on purchasing the seventh-grade textbooks until next fiscal year, or if funds became available this year.

Earlier this month, board members debated how the contingency funds should be used. Some board members thought the district should use all of the money to fund the charter school transportation costs, while others thought the money should be used to support teachers and classrooms.

In the draft letter, Conrad wrote that when the alderman set aside the contingency, the board had suggested the money would be used for hiring additional staff, investing in technology and updating curriculum materials, and that the request is true to those intentions.

Board of Education President Robert Hallowell said board members will go to the Board of Aldermen’s meeting to discuss their request when it goes before that board.

Danielle Curtis can be reached at 594-6557 or dcurtis@nashua
telegraph.com. Also follow Curtis on Twitter (Telegraph_DC).