School supt. won't be going to China; School committee cites budget cuts, timing.

• Position: LOCAL NEWS

Byline: Bill Fortier

DOUGLAS - After almost an hour of discussion at a special School Committee meeting yesterday afternoon, it was decided Superintendent of Schools Nancy T. Lane will not be attending a six-day China Bridge trip in November with other educators from across the country.

The trip is sponsored by the College Board, which is an educational organization that administers, among other things, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests high school students take. The meeting was held yesterday because Ms. Lane, who is in her seventh year as superintendent of schools, had to let the College Board know by Monday if the School Committee backed the trip.

Ms. Lane said the College Board would pay for the entire trip with the exception of a $900 registration fee she sought School Committee approval for and assorted travel costs she would pay. Ms. Lane's contract calls for a $3,000-per-year allocation for professional development and the $900 registration fee would be covered under the $3,000 allocation.

School Committee member John C. Snay made a motion to approve the $900 expenditure. The motion was not seconded by panel member Lori A. Villemaire and School Committee Chairman Scott A. Yacino. School Committee members Gina Muscatell and Michael Bellville were not at the meeting so the motion died, which means Ms. Lane won't be going to China to gather information on the teaching of Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture.

"It's unlikely, unfortunate and provincial," she said after the school committee meeting, then added that the result may have been different if the two absent school committee members had been at the meeting.

Ms. Lane, who said she has not attended any national gatherings of educators during her time as Douglas Superintendent of Schools, said the trip to China was what she termed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see and learn about the teaching of foreign languages and how students learn in a country where English is...