Weston School Committee Approves Action Plan, Debates Zero-Growth Budget Target

WESTON — September 12, 2022 — Weston School Committee unanimously approves 2022–2023 action plan, opens zero-growth budget debate. Chair Kenneth Newberg called the September 12 meeting to order and introduced Weston High School junior Courtney Leung as the committee's first Student Advisory Council representative and non-voting member. The committee approved its annual action items without objection, covering high school advisory programming, equity metrics reporting, and ongoing program reviews. Member Maya Cyrus-Gooch, attending remotely, argued the administration should present a zero-growth overall budget as its first FY24 draft, saying she "would be embarrassed to go and ask the town for more money on a per student basis than we had in the past year." Assistant Superintendent for Finance Sherry Matthews cautioned that contractual teacher salaries dominate the budget and that the district had already made FTE cuts for six consecutive years. The committee pushed both the budget guidelines and an early information-request discussion to its September 20 meeting, then moved to executive session on collective bargaining strategy, 5–0.