As the ISD 166 school board wrestles with declining enrollment and uncertain funding, district employees are advocating to keep their fellow teachers employed. At risk at the May 17, 2011 school board meeting was a portion of Spanish teacher Kristin Carlsgaard’s job.
Carlsgaard appealed to the board to not take the fourth year of Spanish away from the high school seniors, and several teachers and community members spoke up on her behalf as well. Some of the staff members took issue with the money being spent on testing protocols intended to help teachers fine-tune their teaching to increase student performance.
The cut was one of the items facing the ax in the face of a possible fiscal year 2012 budget deficit of $217,521. Given the number of students in Spanish III this year, next year’s Spanish IV class would have no more than 10 students, and the school board had to think about whether they could justify offering a class for that few students. K-12 Principal Gwen Carman pointed out that while they were proposing not offering Spanish IV, they added a Spanish class for eighth graders.
Scheduling classes is becoming a big challenge as well. Many classes are offered in only one time slot, and school administrators have a very complicated puzzle to figure out in order to avoid making high school students have to choose between things like College in the Schools English and calculus or Spanish IV and physics. “None of us underestimates the complexity of putting these pieces together when enrollment is so small,” said school board member Terry Collins.
School board member Deb White said Spanish is becoming the primary language in portions of the U.S., and knowing how to speak it is becoming more important. “I just see it as a great value,” she said.
“I think it’s unusual for a school our size to offer four years of Spanish,” Superintendent Beth Schwarz said.
The board passed a motion authorizing the administration to find a way to fit Spanish IV into next year’s schedule with a minimum of eight students and to apply for College in the Schools standing for the class, which is likely to increase student interest in taking it.
Another staff cut recommended by the superintendent was 25 percent of Bryan Hackbarth’s school counseling position. Superintendent Schwarz has recommended a part-time, lower-paid data coordinator position that would take over some of the testing oversight Hackbarth has been responsible for. She estimated Hackbarth was currently spending a quarter of his time on testing. Hackbarth indicated that his regular school counseling duties completely take up a normal workweek. On most school days, he said, he is busy attending to students’ counseling needs, something he considers a priority. He then works on assessment paperwork after hours except during the month of April, when he has to administer state testing during the school day.
Teacher Betsy Moss-Jorgenson supported the counseling position, saying mental health and family issues can affect student performance, and helping a student with those issues might be critical to their academic success.
“We can’t just keep spending,” Superintendent Schwarz said.
School board member Deb White expressed willingness to dip further into the district’s fund balance. She said, “I would like us to try and balance the budget as closely as possible” but added that sometimes people have to withdraw money from their savings account just because they’ve got to eat.
The superintendent also proposed reducing Principal Carman’s position by 10 percent, from 232 eight-hour days a week to 210. Carman said that she spends as many days as are necessary to get her job done, so reducing her position would merely mean that she would be earning less money per hour. Also proposed is getting rid of the part-time dean position currently filled by Pam Taylor, who would still have a full-time job because of her seniority. In addition, Schwarz offered to have her salary reduced by 4 percent for a savings of $4,860. Terry Collins recommended that she donate that amount back to the school instead.
“I appreciate all the hard work everybody does,” said school board member Jeanne Anderson.
Terry Collins recommended setting up a committee made up of employees from various departments – teachers, secretaries, building and grounds employees – to look at making an “orderly reduction” in the budget. “Money we don’t take out of administration we will eventually take out of classrooms and teachers,” he said.
Superintendent Schwarz said she would take the board’s suggestions and return in June with a budget that reduces deficit spending as much as possible and reflects the wishes of the board.
The board voted to reduce Principal Carman’s job by 5 percent, for a savings of $6,014. In another move that will save the district money in upcoming years, the board approved offering extended leave incentives to four teachers who have expressed willingness to take them: Deb Waage, Ann Hegg, Ann Russ, and Kay Tavernier.
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