Four members of Cook County Independent School District 166 school board met with the public at the Jane Mianowski Conference Center on Wednesday night, May 4, to discuss two plans to cut administrative/ support staff as a way to keep the budget in line.
Option B called for the district secretary position to be eliminated through retirement and the superintendent position to go from full to half time. The district would maintain a k-12 principal who would also be responsible for the community education program. The operation manager position would pick up the responsibilities of the food service program and also those duties of the district secretary when she retires.
The position of Dean of Students would be eliminated under both scenarios.
Under Option B the counselor position would change or could be eliminated all together. The board has allocated $70,000 to potentially hire the positions of counselor, data coordinator, and family/student support position. Decisions of how this allot- ment would be distributed would occur after job descriptions are determined.
Total savings under this plan would be $123,528.97
Option C called for a half-time superintendent who would also take on the duties of the k-12 principal. Under this plan the counselor position would be eliminated. The district secretary position would also be eliminated through retirement.
An assistant principal position would be created to assist the superintendent. Also included in the assistant principal’s job would be staff evaluations and working with students as a part-time counselor. A data coordinator would handle all of the college testing (MCA, ACT, PSAT etc,) and a family/ student support position would be created to work with at risk students and families. This plan called for a reduction of $136,634 in savings to the district.
There was a difference of $13,000 in savings between plan B and C.
Meeting with the public were board members Terry Collins, Mary Sanders, Deb White, and Leonard Sobanja. School superintendent
Beth Schwarz was also in attendance to answer questions.
Collins told the audience the board received six proposals from administrators, teachers, parents and community members but cut them down to two, with the goal to carve out a process of an “organizational model that would be stable for the foreseeable future,” he said.
Current k-12 enrollment at ISD 166 in is 469 students, but projections show a drop to 410 students by 2014-15. With falling enrollment comes less state and federal aid. White told the approximately 30 people on hand, “We are hoping to not do this again for a long time. Money is not flowing from the state. We don’t want more interruptions in the future.”
Collins, who worked in education before retiring, said cuts in administration and through retirements first, “say loud and clear to people who voted for the levy and teachers that we have our priorities straight. I do value administrators and the work that they do, but cuts can be made there.”
When asked if the school district would be losing anything through the cuts, Collins replied, “You can’t do more with less,” but he added that through streamlining, more efficient ways of doings things will be found, and redundancies will be limited, if not eliminated.
Concerning the data coordinator and family/student support positions, nothing has been decided about these, said Sobanja. Collins said these positions are currently being discussed but job descriptions for them aren’t totally clear, and they are only being looked at. “We haven’t made up our minds on what to do with these positions, we haven’t sorted them out yet.”
A family/student support person would work with at-risk families and students, said Schwarz. This person, said Schwarz, “would provide more support for families and students earlier. They might start at 10 and work until 6 p.m., the last two hours, visiting kids in their homes. The kids would have a better chance of staying in school and graduating.”
The data coordinator would largely be responsible for giving tests and grading them, or coming back with their results. Schwarz said that right now the district pays the guidance counselor $42 an hour and he spends a substantial amount of time giving tests. “They are complex but it does not require a license,” to perform this job, said Schwarz.
The board will decide which proposal to explore further at its next board meeting.
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