Fourteen positions cut in new budget
Low high school attendance prompts staff reductions, Lowe says
The Board of Education last night approved the 2012-2013 school budget after almost three hours of deliberation. The spending plan bears a 2-percent tax levy increase — the highest increase the state permits without a referendum.
The operating budget for next year is $66,651,301, of which $6,253,002 will be raised through local taxation. Tuition from other towns accounts for $64,833 of the budget. More than $55 million comes from state coffers.
One of the more controversial aspects of the spending plan was the elimination of 14 staff members. The district will reduce its faculty in part through attrition, as five employees have retired or resigned this year.
But the district will also eliminate three math teachers, three English teachers, one paraprofessional and one member each from the world language and guidance departments.
Superintendent Denise Lowe said low attendance at the high school prompted the staffing cuts. Some classes had only one or two students this year, she said.
“Your numbers do not warrant the numbers [of teachers] you have at the high school,” said state monitor Lester Richens of the cuts. Richens attends all BOE meetings and must approve board expenditures.
But due to teachers’ union regulations, the district cannot choose who to eliminate through the cuts.
“Based on the numbers [of student enrollment], the cuts will happen in the middle school,” Dr. Lowe said. “Instruction will still go on at the middle school but less people will be teaching.”
One board member asked if the middle school would be losing “quality teachers.”
“Yes,” Dr. Lowe said. “Because of tenure and seniority rules, we can’t choose” who to cut.
Gina Herrera, a math teacher at the high school, also spoke during the public hearing. The school has approximately 400 students, she said, with four math teachers and three teaching periods per day. This translates to 33 students in each math class, even though “we don’t function with 15 or 16 sometimes because these kids need so much help,” she said. Also, many students have to re-take math classes, which only serves to increase class sizes.
Herrera, who has a masters degree in math, has taught at the high school for three years, she said. This makes her a relative newcomer to the school, who could be let go first if more cuts are made. She was brought in full-time after teaching a summer course.
“I came to teach a summer course,” she said. “They signed me up to teach 14 kids. I taught 40 kids in a class. Out of those 40, two dropped out and 36 out of 40 got state credit for that math course. Let me go, people.”
Later in the meeting, she said the administrators rarely ask the teachers what they think should be done at any of the schools in the district.
“No one ever says to us, ‘What do you think, guys?'” she said.
When it came time to vote on the issue of reducing the staff, board members Ahbez-Anderson, Joseph Raines and Geneva Smallwood voted no while the remaining board members voted yes. The motion passed.
Asbury Park Education Association president John Napolitani asked for the percentage breakdown of staff and administrator salaries.
“We’re reducing the staff that helps the kids and not [reducing] one administrator,” he said. “Too many times, kids are being robbed of the services they need on a daily basis.”
Later in the meeting, he also questioned the board of education offices’ location downtown on Mattison Avenue.
“It costs $18,000 a month to be on Mattison Avenue,” he said. He suggested the board use the district’s Barack Obama building for its offices.
Board member Ahbez-Anderson asked what the school was doing to increase attendance numbers at the high school.
The district is increasing theater and dance programs and adding a vocational fashion design initiative, Lowe said. Throughout the meeting, some faculty members and parents applauded the district’s efforts to increase arts at the school and said that was the key to maintaining student interest, while others said the focus should remain on basic skills like English and math.
Some of the expenditures listed in a PowerPoint presentation by business administrator Geoffrey Hastings included $39,682,629 in salary and benefits; more than $12 million in charter school and out-of-district tuition; and more than $2 million in capital projects and equipment.
Hastings enumerated some of the curriculum initiatives taking place at the city’s schools. The high school will implement a new fashion design vocational program and introduce the Read 180 software program. They will also grow their theater and dance programs.
The elementary and middle schools will evaluate their Read 180 program, which has been in effect for more than a year. They will also continue to expand that initiative. They will introduce another reading program to aid students who are bilingual or speak English as a second language.