Mt. Gilead school board gets strong feedback from public on proposed cuts

By LeAnne Gompf –
What can be cut from a school bud­get and not impact stu­dent learn­ing? That was the ques­tion raised dur­ing the first of three pub­lic bud­get dis­cus­sions held by the Mount Gilead Board of Edu­ca­tion March 10.
In an effort to be proac­tive, the board is look­ing to make sig­nif­i­cant cuts to the cur­rent bud­get for the 2013 school year. Dis­trict Trea­surer Trevor Gum­mere explained in detail the pro­jected five year fore­cast for the finances based on cur­rent spend­ing.
He very clearly stated, “By iden­ti­fy­ing reduc­tions now of $700,000.00 reduces a 2 mil­lion dol­lar deficit four years down the road. Every year we save that money, which is a very impor­tant fac­tor.”
Pro­posed cuts will affect both teach­ers and stu­dents; it is that con­cern that had staff and com­mu­nity mem­bers voic­ing their opin­ion dur­ing the two and half hour work ses­sion Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Board Pres­i­dent Jeff Sweeney again reit­er­ated, “The deci­sions made by the board with regard to cuts are never an easy task, and not one they take lightly. By act­ing and being good stew­ards now we can avoid that deficit.”
Interim Super­in­ten­dent Edward Swartz went on to explain the pro­posed cuts and how they will affect the dis­trict. The cuts that appeared to be the most per­sonal were the reduc­tion of a first grade teach­ing posi­tion, sec­ondary Social Stud­ies posi­tion, K-12 Music posi­tion, K– 12 phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion posi­tion, and elim­i­na­tion of the High School Fam­ily Con­sumer Sci­ence pro­gram. In a phone con­ver­sa­tion with Swartz fol­low­ing the meet­ing, he clar­i­fied that the pro­posed cuts do not elim­i­nate a core cur­ricu­lum area and need not elim­i­nate spe­cific classes.
“The dis­trict can­not con­tinue to sup­port the cur­rent num­ber of small classes in some offer­ings,” he said. “The sched­ule will be cov­ered by con­sol­i­da­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ties and uti­liz­ing other sources avail­able to the school.”
Sev­eral teach­ers were on hand to share their con­cern about the sug­gested elim­i­na­tion of the district’s teach­ing posi­tions. The major con­cern was the loss of a core cur­ricu­lum teacher at the sec­ondary level.
“The front line in the bat­tle of edu­ca­tion is the core cur­ricu­lum,” stated High School Social Stud­ies teacher Tom Cooper. “Once you start look­ing for alter­na­tives to teach­ing those classes, either through tech­nol­ogy or out­sourc­ing, you lose the abil­ity to influ­ence and edu­cate the kids at risk. They need a teacher, a human that cares.”
Cooper encour­aged the board to look at other ways to make cuts in the dis­trict.
“The core is the fire line, the trench,” he added. “Once you go down the slip­pery slope of out­sourc­ing or elim­i­nat­ing the core, edu­ca­tion will never be the same. You need to make a stand, and the core line is the stand.”
Cooper went on to say he under­stands that teach­ers are expen­sive and often the eas­i­est way to make cuts in a dis­trict, but they make the dif­fer­ence. Addi­tion­ally, with the reduc­tion of an ele­men­tary first grade teacher, class­room sizes will increase slightly. Mandy Rocks a teacher at the Pri­mary Cen­ter says she strug­gles now to meet the diverse needs of her class­room.
“With the social eco­nom­ics of our com­mu­nity chang­ing dra­mat­i­cally over the past five years; adding addi­tional stu­dents to the mix makes it increas­ingly dif­fi­cult to main­tain the edu­ca­tion excel­lence we are striv­ing for,” she explained.
At one point in the morning’s open dia­logue with the board, the ques­tion was asked whether or not any cuts to the admin­is­tra­tive level had been dis­cussed. Board Pres­i­dent Sweeney informed those in atten­dance that cuts at the admin­is­tra­tive level were briefly dis­cussed, and some admin­is­tra­tive posi­tions have been elim­i­nated or con­sol­i­dated over the past four years, but no addi­tional cuts are being con­sid­ered at this time. Sev­eral in atten­dance ques­tion how many admin­is­tra­tors in our dis­trict receive free health insur­ance? It was sug­gested that admin­is­tra­tors be required to pay for their own health insur­ance, as required of our teach­ing staff. Sweeney stated that while no decrease in pay would be requested from cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion by ask­ing them to pay a por­tion of their health insur­ance, from this point for­ward any increase in health cost will be paid by the admin­is­tra­tors and not picked up by the dis­trict. The gen­eral con­sen­sus of those in atten­dance was that pub­lic opin­ion is that bud­get cuts need to start with admin­is­tra­tion and not fall solely on the teach­ing and sup­port staff.
Shared per­son­nel and extended days with reduc­tion in school week, along with other options, were sug­gested as alter­na­tives to elim­i­nat­ing full time teach­ing posi­tions. Teach­ers in atten­dance expressed their grat­i­tude to the board for being proac­tive and being ahead of the curve with regard to the five year fore­casted deficit. How­ever, they felt that by look­ing at the num­bers, the dis­trict is not in a des­per­a­tion mode that requires cuts to teach­ing staff at the core level.
The board will con­tinue look­ing for other options to reduce the bud­get by $700,000.00. Two addi­tional pub­lic forums Wednes­day March 14 at 6 p.m. and Thurs­day March 15 at 7 p.m. will be held prior to mak­ing any rec­om­men­da­tions at the reg­u­lar March 20 board meet­ing. The Pub­lic is wel­come and encour­aged to attend.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Mar 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.