ATHOL – From increased parent liaisons to improved handling of bullying, local businessman Frank Visco II has a number of goals as a potential member of the Athol Royalston Regional School Committee

Visco is among the four candidates seeking to fill one of Athol’s two seats on the Athol Royalston Regional School Committee in next week’s annual town election. The political hopeful owns and operates Visco Transportation Solutions, founded in 2019 and headquartered at 61 Froman St. in Athol. A native of Orange, Visco attended Mahar Regional High School and Franklin County Technical School in Turners Falls.

Visco’s daughter is a sixth-grader at Athol Royalston Middle School and his son is in fourth grade at Athol Community Elementary School.

Visco is hoping the second time is the charm, having fallen short in the race for a one-year seat on the committee in 2022. He is joined in this election by Eric Jack, Charles Larkin and Emily White. Polls for the April 3 Town Election will be open from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. at Athol Town Hall.

“I really want to look out for the parents and all the kids in the district,” he said of his reasons for running. “I really want parents to get involved and engage and really know what’s going on in the district.”

Among Visco’s goals is to have a parent liaison group for the schools that meets at least once a month. He added that transparency is crucial for the administration, giving credit to first-year Superintendent Matt Ehrenworth for his efforts along those lines.

“I will say the new superintendent is doing a great job at letting people know what’s going on,” said Visco. “He’s doing a great job.”

While his main focus will be parent engagement, Visco would also like to see the committee address ongoing issues.

“It seems like bullying seems to be a huge issue, but I think it’s the way it’s being handled,” he said. “We have all these programs and policies, and they just don’t seem to be effective. I think that needs to be addressed. I think we need to maybe take a step back and look at what we’re doing because it’s not working.

Another issue raised by Visco is the district’s finances and what can be done to save money so it can be invested to benefit the students.

“Our sports program, as you know, has struggled for years and years and years district-wide. Getting more invested in that would be great,” he said. “It gives the kids something to do. We do have extracurricular activities that aren’t school involved, but getting school-sponsored type sports events going would be great, especially at the middle school level so that we get kids who want to play more when they get into high school.”

Visco also spoke on the issue of teacher pay, that what is expected of them versus what they are paid is a serious problem.

“I know a lot of teachers care, but when you look at the salary of teachers here, you can’t live off of it,” he said. “That’s why our turnover rate is horrendous, and that’s unacceptable. I know COVID had a little bit to do with it, but if you look before COVID, it was still a huge problem. I think we if gave teachers a reason to stay and put down roots here, you might have even more involvement.”

The school committee race is the only contest on the ballot. Selectboard Vice Chair Rebecca Bialecki is seeking re-election, but there is no official or announced write-in candidate for a second three-year term on the board. Candidates running unopposed include Lawrence McLaughlin for moderator, J. R. Greene and Carol Bachelder for library trustee and Randy Mitchell for constable.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.

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