By Susan Turk
April 15, 2010—St. Louis—An unusual sight greeted people attempting to attend tonight’s SAB meeting, a line extending out of the door of the administration building. There must have been 50 people waiting for admittance and being barred from entering due to a lack of adequate seating in room 108. The SAB had not anticipated that a larger crowd than usual would want to attend a meeting where $57 million in budget cuts would be announced. District staff were asked to vacate their seats for the public and additional seats were added. Normally the room seats about 120 on folding chairs. Another 50-60 chairs can be placed on the farside of the room. Unlike the school auditoriums where the board of education met when they governed the district, room 108 is not a space, which can handle a crowd. But then most SAB meetings do not attract the number of people who used to attend school board meetings.
CEO Rick Sullivan apologized for not anticipating the interest. He said the next meeting on April 29 would be held in a larger venue.
And now, what you’ve been waiting to read, the cuts.
Workforce Related Initiatives
Salary Reductions: Select staff in the schools will be shifted from 12 month to 11 month contracts. As mentioned in the previous Watch, that includes, principals, assistant principals and school secretaries. Savings: $1.5 million
Staff Reductions: 490 positions Savings: $33.8 million They are going to do this by staffing schools according to this year’s average daily attendance rather than next year’s enrollment because schools, especially the high schools, lose students to alternative programs, moving out of the district and drop outs. They plan to eliminate the jobs of 144 teachers who are not highly qualified and 80 continuing substitutes. There will also be a retirement incentive for teachers whose age and years of service equal the number 85. 632 teachers qualify for this program. They intend to raise the pupil teacher ratio from the present 13.5 to 1 to 16.2 to 1. The new ratio includes special ed teachers.
The 226 classroom teachers they plan to lose between retirement and eliminating those who are not highly qualified, the 80 subs, 130 school support staff positions, including some, but not all, Teaching Assistants, Instructional Coordinators, In school suspension room staff and clericals, 24 school administration positions including principals and assistant principals and 30 central office staff adds up to the 490 goal.
They plan 5 furlough days . Savings $3 million.
Non-workforce Initiatives
Unspecified central office reductions. Savings $8 million This will effect the executive leadership team.
Energy management reductions, mostly as a result of window replacement in 21 schools. Savings $.5 million
School closings and consolidations Savings $.8 million Actually they expect to save more. Dr. Adams called this a conservative figure.
Schools to be closed.
Gallaudet—students to be dispersed to Ames, Gateway HS, Mullanphy and Mckinley
Bunche at Madison—The International Studies Middle School program will be consolidated with Dewey and Soldan HS. Sixth graders will remain at Dewey. Soldan will become a grade 7-12 school.
Cleveland ROTC at Pruitt—The ROTC HS program will move to Central, sharing that campus with the VPA HS.
Lyon Alternative South—The alternative program will move to Stevens Middle School.
Ford Branch—This building only houses after school programming.
Turner Fresh Start—The program will move to Sumner HS
Six buildings, three of which are alternative or special ed programs and 2 of which are magnet programs previously moved to unpopular buildings. Still, these were politically smart decisions. Schools with large and vocal constituencies, such as the historic northside high schools were spared, mitigating controversy.
An audit of their special education expenses is expected to save $1.5 million. They also plan to mainstream more students reducing the need for special ed teachers.
From bond hold harmless pension reserve stimulus allowance, for capital related expenditures they expect to save $8.5 million. This type of bond is part of the stimulus money granted the district. It will relieve money already spent on lead abatement and window replacement.
It should be noted that the transition programs from elementary to middle school and middle to high school are not being funded this year. Those programs were put in place to improve achievement and stem drop outs.
Summer school is being shortened to three weeks for elementary and middle school students and four weeks for high school students. Summer school enrichment programs for gifted students will be cut back to 3 weeks. Staff are trying to salvage the Metro HS transition program. Whether they will be successful is not known at this time.
So that’s that.
School Improvement Grants?
The other ax that dropped tonight had to do with the Obama Administration’s SIG program. Cash strapped districts, pushed against a wall regarding low performing schools feel obligated to participate in this program. The lowest performing 5% of schools in each state are eligible for funds. Missouri has identified 52 schools statewide that qualify. 21 of them are SLPS.
The grant program is not free money to fix schools. There are 4 prescribed remedies, or rather intervention models, that the US Dept of Education requires districts to adopt for the low performing schools to get funding, which can range from $.5 million to $2 million per school. Dr. Adams expects an average of $1.2-1.4 million. The models are.
1. Turnaround, which requires replacing the principal and making all staff re-apply for their jobs. Only 50% can be rehired in that school, however. Those not rehired can be transferred to other schools based on tenure. Displaced principals are unlikely to be reassigned as principals. They can return to teaching.
2. Restart, which requires closing the school and reopening it as a charter school run by an education management company. Dr. Adams has said that they will be district charters, not independent.
3. Closure. The students are dispersed to other higher achieving schools.
4. Transformation, which requires replacing the principal, lots of professional development for the teachers, and possibly offering them incentives for improving achievement. Transformation is the least invasive model.
The following schools will be subjected to
Turnaround: Vashon, Hamilton, Siegel, Mann and Columbia
Restart: Central, Sumner, Walbridge, Ashland
Closure: Bunche
Transformation : Carr Lane, Gateway MS, Fanning, Jefferson, L’Ouverture, Long, Langston, Stevens, Yeatman, Dunbar, Roosevelt
Analysis next time.
Calendar
April 29 , Thursday, regular bi-monthly SAB meeting, 6 p.m., location to be announced
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