At tonight's school committee meeting, the School Committee approved the appointment of Rose Muller as the new Director of IT for the Portsmouth school department. This is great news, filling a key strategic position that will help the system move forward. Best wishes to Rose and her team!

The school committee also officially approved the final (post-Caruolo) budget for this year, and reviewed the preliminary budget numbers which will be going to the Town Council in early April. The only change I saw from last week's meeting was the problem with the Technology warrant, discussed at last night's Town Council meeting. While Judge Indeglia suggested that 25K of warrant money be applied to operational expenses, the Town's bond counsel said that this threatened our interest rates and tax-exempt status. The bottom line is that the total town contribution from the Caruolo action increases to $569,051.

I also asked SC chair Sylvia Wedge about newspaper reports of vandalism at Melville School over the weekend. She confirmed that there had been significant damage, including a lot of computers -- all breakage, with apparently nothing stolen.

The one bright spot was the way the school community pulled together to clean up the mess. "The teachers showed up on Monday, all of them, in jeans, with buckets of bleach," Wedge said. "They did a great job, and went above and beyond."