To meet a 2.375 increase, the school board made good on its cuts in sports and the gifted program, while maintaining class sizes with four second-grade teachers and keeping reading specialists.
More will have to be cut if the board must adhere to a lower increase of 1.11 percent.
This was the harsh reality played out at Wednesday evening’s Board of Education meeting as the Board of Education cut $2.55 million and made trade-offs required to get down to the First Selectman’s approved $87 million request. The meeting took place in the board's Long Hill Administration Building.
Board member Steve Wright described the panel's task as a “Hobson’s choice,” a take-it-or-leave it with no attractive option.
The board accepted cuts recommended by the administration, with the exceptions that they “bought back” the four teachers needed to hold second-grade class size at today’s level and retained the middle school reading teachers by eliminating the TAG program, tapping a final federal stimulus account and sweeping balances from the adult education, drivers’ ed and summer school accounts.
The board eliminated freshman sports – boys and girls volleyball, basketball, lacrosse and soccer, and field hockey, baseball, softball and football. Sophomore football and girls ice hockey, a club sport, were also cut, while junior varsity cheerleading remains.
The impact of this cut is that freshmen can still play sports, but not on teams that will have separate schedules, and so may find themselves with far less game playing time.
The cuts swept out computer para-professionals and interns in all six elementary schools, a speech/language teacher, five teachers, five secretaries and two custodians.
All told, some three dozen line items were reduced, including professional development and teacher training, library and classroom books, classroom and office supplies, plus repair and maintenance items, among others.
Board members Loretta Chory, Lisa Labella, Tom Kelly and Wright spoke in support of the TAG program. But all saw a greater benefit is holding class size, and so were forced to let TAG go.
Labella noted that TAG is one of the programs that distinguishes Trumbull’s schools and makes the community attractive to young families. She called TAG important more for its “social-emotional support than for what it delivers academically.”
Kelly added that “around July 1 I will ask the Board of Finance for a supplemental for the two TAG teachers.” Wright offered to be a quick second.
The Wednesday meeting, however, may have been only round one. Still ahead is resolving the Town Council’s seizure of $1.075 million in Health Insurance funding, an alleged usurping of school board authority, education lawyer Tom Mooney said.
The education board will hold a special meeting on May 10 to address the matter. If the town replaces the funds and removes its contingency by that time, last night’s budget is next year’s budget.
Otherwise, additional cuts will have to be made to drop the budget to $85.9 million, and virtually necessitate closing an elementary school. The board will also determine whether to pursue legal action to establish its sole authority under state statute to make line item allocations to its budget.
It seems like there are many more people upset about these changes than happy with them. I know that my children will be directly affected by BOTH of the programs that are being cut (freshman sports and TAG), and I am extremely disappointed in both parties. The Republicans will find that many of the swing voters (people who are independent and vote from election to election based on issues) are now lost to them - many of those were people who supported them in the last election (ironically when they claimed to be running on a pro-eductation platform). I know that I (and most of the parents where I live) will be moving in a new direction in future Novembers on the Board of Finance, Town Council, and of course, the FS. In terms of the BoE, who I also feel may have failed us here, what can be done about that? We can resolve the issues in our government through elections, what about the BoE?
Now wonder our budget is in such disarray- the people in charge either don't know or are very good at hiding the information. One can state any and all positions are vital to success, from the bus drivers to the principals- it is much harder to objectively prove. When you are broke, it's time to cut. That's what happens in the real world.
Mr. Wilsoon has his point of view and he is entitled to it. The fact that he chooses to demean others by calling them a "parent posse" is unfortunate and we should be sure not to rise to this kind of negative provocation. No amount of factual data will sway him, nothing the BOE or the Superintendent say they will do or have done will satisfy him. That is his right and we should respect his right to be wrong. We should continue to focus on the issues, that is, that with a small amount of compromise all this would have been avoided. Instead, from the very beginning we have anger, rancor, and counter-productive comments designed to inflame the few for politcal purposes. In November we will have the opportunity to do one of two things, recognize and elect those from both parties who believe in compromise and a strong education system at a competitive price or elect those who through the lack of compromise have put us in this unnecessary situation. In the future we must learn from this years mistake and get involved early and often, not wait until the die is cast and it is too late. Tom Tesoro P.S. For those who may think this is an advertisement for me, I am not running for anything this November.
We need to focus on the issues and remind ourselves that much is at stake here. Tom Tesoro
Could you be more specific and state which administrative positions are wasteful? I would also be interested in hearing which positions could absorb the work load. Thank you in advance.
May I ask why it is that you still live in this town? What is your added value to Trumbull? Furthermore, If we'd like to get into the discussion of nepotism- I'm quite sure we wouldn't get far beyond our First Selectman's family.
Very simply: 1) Back in 2000-2001 how many employees did the BOE have vs 2010-2011? broken down into two groups (Teacher and Others) 2) Total payroll for 2000-2001 vs 2010-2011? broken down into two groups (Teacher and Others) This would the debate about cutting the fat. Thanks
Your "facts" are not facts at all, they are your opinion that those "administrative" positions (which are not even classified as administrative) are not necessary. You are quite adept at hyperbole yourself and at not providing any backup information for your harshly worded opinions.
I wish I did have the data or was directed on where to find it. I thought this would be readily available. It's hard to have an opinion until you have all the facts. Well, maybe not.
I know when I went to THS I only had a principal, a house principal, a nurse, and a guidance counselor. Maybe a Dean of Students? If so, I don't remember one. When someone got in trouble they went to the house principal, when they got sick they went to the nurse, and for everything else (ranging from college choices to social problems) they went to the guidance counselor or worked on it with their parents. Do we really need assistant deans and intervention specialists? This was something that the guidance counselors and parents handled when I was in school. I am not saying these services are not needed, and this is a different time, but many people may draw back to their own youth and feel that our government-run programs continue to grow, and people may wonder if their will be a bathroom monitor, a tantrum specialist, a self-defense para-professional, a dean of bullies, and a locker coordinator added in the future.
I am on the side of supporting education financially, so do not take me wrong, but I certainly see no harm in questioning the criticality of some of the administrative and social positions. Checks and balances are a good thing, and we should neither attack nor defend them blindly.
Second, a growing portion of system expenses are due to unfunded mandates, including IDEA (the basic special education law), No Child Left Behind, and a long list of others - all of which can be found in the PTA Council's ABC's of the Education Budget (http://www.trumbullps.org/budgets/TCG10.pdf) And we face a others in the future, including stiffer graduation standards for students entering high school in 2014. In addition, our district has made a commitment to provide non-mandated reading and math specialists, psychologists, occupational and physical therapists and similar support staff and services in and outside the classroom for students whose educational performance should benefit from them. And more such students enter our system each year. These are not special ed students, but they are personally or educationally needy. With regard to special education, Trumbull has a smaller percentage of these students than many similar districts, and now does more in-house education, at a lower cost than was its practice even ten years ago. On the other side of the ledger, pay-to-participate for athletics, the high school musical and elementary band and orchestra lays off a system cost onto families whose children enroll in these activities. And these fees will rise for the next school year.
(I write "obviously..." because of following many of Jose's comments, it seems that he is a school administrator or counselor who works in Westport or some other more affluent community, because they can afford to pay more.)