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ISD 831 budget cuts spare kindergarten slot |
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Wednesday, 02 April 2008 |
Cliff Buchan
News Editor
The pain of $1,250,000 in general fund budget cuts has yet to be felt in ISD 831, but one program slated for a damaging blow has been spared the paid.
The school board on Thursday, March 27 ratified its final budget cutting plan to bring expenses in line with revenues for the 2008-2009 school year. Along with the cuts, the district will utilize $500,000 of fund balance to achieve the $1.75 million budget adjustment.
But a kindergarten teaching slot at the Central Montessori School will not be cut, as originally planned.
That means the program will keep the full-time, fee-based program in place with the district hoping that improved marketing will draw students to the program at all grade levels.
Parents of students attending the Montessori program pressured school officials to keep the program and succeeded at a staff meeting on March 26.
Parents had expressed concerns that the elimination of the kindergarten program would have choked off any solid feeder program and seriously damaged the school in the future.
After hearing out the parents last week, the administration agreed to put the Kindergarten Plus program back in place at CMS and explore more aggressive marketing to help boost enrollment in the elementary school.
The district had moved to drop the program because of inadequate enrollment at CMS and increased kindergarten enrollment at the next door Forest Lake Elementary School.
The adjustment
While the budget cut number remains essentially the same, some minor changes resulted.
The Montessori change means the district will reduce a total of seven full-time equivalent elementary classroom teachers. A total of 7.5 FTEs was in the initial plan.
The total elementary level reduction is now $470,500 compared to $492,000 in the initial plan.
The district will still cut seven FTE elementary media clerks, shifting that work to classroom teachers. Another $40,000 savings is expected by a reduction of para-professional staff at non-Title I schools.
At the secondary level, 9.25 FTE classroom teachers will be cut as part of the $523,600 reduction. The high school will lose 3.58 FTEs, Century will lose 3.33 and Southwest will lose 2.34 FTEs.
The high school will lose its two full-time behavior intervention specialists as the two tenured staff members were placed on unrequested leave, meaning more work for high school deans. Three secondary FTE special education paras will also be cut.
The district support cut is also higher in the second plan as the initial proposal to cut $234,966 increased to $256,315.
Two bus routes will be eliminated and two drivers will be laid off for a savings of $80,000. A net savings of $102,000 will be realized by the cutting of 3.6 FTE psychologist slots.
Another $45,000 in savings will come from reduced maintenance costs and contracted services at the ice arena which is expected to close when the new sports center is operational late in 2008.
The district opted for the cuts as the 1 percent state aid increase for 2008-2009 and the anticipated loss of $750,000 in revenue because of declining enrollment left district finances in a position of imbalance.
Break is back
The spring break is back in the 2008-2009 school calendar.
After another round of meetings on the new calendar, a winter or spring break that had been removed from an earlier draft was restored. The action came after a round of complaints from parents who like the break.
As established last week, the break will come March 6-15, with classes resuming on March 16. To achieve the full week off, the Christmas break was shortened by two days and a break in April around Easter was eliminated.
Students will now be in class through Dec. 23 before the holiday break that runs through Jan. 4.
With the full week break in March, students will see only two days off in April and May of 2009. Those days will fall on Good Friday, April 10 and Memorial Day on May 25.
The last day of school is now June 5, 2009, one day later than originally planned. Graduation will remain Thursday, June 4, but staff will be required to work on Monday, June 8 as a regular duty day.
Sharewood to go
The board last week also agreed to accept the proposal of Xccent Recreation, Osceola, WI, to provide a new playground on the site of the Sharewood Forest Community Playground between Forest View and Forest Lake elementary buildings.
Under the agreement, the school will pay $20,000 to Xccent for the new playground valued at more than $65,000 with the company to do all installation.
The school district will also be responsible for site preparation. Demolition of the 17-year-old playground is expected to cost $15,000.
The work will be completed during the summer with the new facility open by the start of the new school year.
As part of its agreement to donate the bulk of the playground cost and all of the labor to build it, Xccent will be allowed to use the playground for promotional purposes.
The company is now in the process of relocating to a new site in Wyoming and hopes to be in operation there late in 2009.
The school district welcomed the offer as Sharewood Forest is nearing the end of its 20-year lifespan and has fallen into some disrepair. It has also been the target of vandals.
Policy 438
After a long period of review and adjustments, the board on March 27 finally approved Policy 438 regulating employment and other background checks.
The policy regulates all regular employees and now requires contract employees and volunteers who have contact with school children or vulnerable adults to complete criminal background checks.
The expanded policy also covers all community education youth coaches and independent contractors who largely were not required to have checks under the old policy.
Volunteers assigned to work with students at overnight and/or off-campus activities are also subject to completing criminal background checks.
While all employee candidates are required to pay the cost of the criminal background checks, the school district will cover the full cost of the volunteer background checks.
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