What cuts is the school board proposing? meeting 5/27

[fedupinwaukegan]

Special Board Meeting Planned for Thursday, May 27

The Board of Education of Community Unit School District No. 60 will hold a special meeting on Thursday, May 27, at Lincoln Center, 1201 North Sheridan Road, Waukegan, for the purpose of providing the Board an opportunity to take action on Administration's proposed budget reductions for the 2010-2011 school year. The Board will meet in open session at 5 p.m. in the Lincoln Center Board Room. Members of the community are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Very much wanted to go to the special meeting on Monday and this Thursday but have one of those busy weeks. Anyone know what is being proposed to be cut or reduced? Sports? Music?

[WkgnBorn&Raised]

The meeting to vote on the cuts has been changed to June 1, 6 pm. No music directly in the cuts, although part of it is to reduce HS classes with low enrollment and girls choir was on that list. B level sports are also being cut.

[Bupkes]

Here is a partial list of proposed cuts:

Proposed Budget Cuts - Waukegan School District 60

A.Elimination of 1 Special Education Co-ord. for a reduction of $105,356.00.

B.Elimination of 4 office workers (the 4 with least seniority) for a Reduction of $158,000.00.

C.Downgrade Director position to Mgr. ($35,000.00 reduction)

D.Eliminate 3 Social Workers & 1 Speech Pathologist for a reduction of $293,488.00.

E.Eliminate Opening Day Ceremony at Genesee for a reduction of $13,794.00.

F.Reduction of the # of Academic Chairs @ WHS at reduction of $250,000.00.

G.Eliminate Asst. Director of H.R. @ a reduction of $90,000.00.

H.Eliminate 3 certified Library Media Specialists (certified librarians) @ WHS campuses. One certified librarian to oversee both schools with 1 full time aide @ each campus. Three positions eliminated at a reduction of $150,000.00.

I. Eliminate 6 Drivers Ed. Positions (teachers) Attendance records tracking unexcused absences will be used to determine which students will be eligible to take drivers ed. and which are not. Based on current patterns the belief is that a significant # of students will not meet the attendance requirements and therefore justify reducing the # of eligible students. Six Teachers eliminated @ a reduction of $300,000.00.

J. Reorganizing Business Ed Program @ WHS. Some courses including Keyboarding will no longer be offered. Six teacher positions eliminated. Consumer Education and Economics will remain. Six teachers eliminated @ a reduction of $300,000.00

K. Low enrollment courses will be eliminated; at this time they are looking at Electives that are not meeting a 22 student minimum enrollment. (12 teachers to be eliminated) SOME of the courses targeted are: Art Design 3, Photo, Intro to Wood Working, Women’s Choir, Wood 3, Art Appreciation, Art 3. Music Theory, Machine Drafting, some vocational classes. 3 classes at the tech campus, and more. Six Teachers will be eliminated for a reduction of $300,000.00.

L. Elimination of 12 para professionals in various programs (those with the least seniority) for a decrease of $240.000.00.

M. Reduction in periods at both WHS campuses. College Study Program would drop to 8 periods from 9. Other programs would drop from 8 to 7. Dr. Hamlin spoke about “gravitating to the norm” in relationship to comparing the # of periods offered by other district to WHS current school schedules. (No specific data was presented to support his statement) He also stated that “this will take away the margin of PLANNED FAILURE” stating his belief that having so many periods available to some student’s causes them to believe that it’s no big deal if they fail a class because their current schedule allows them time to repeat the class again in a future semester. Hamlin’s opinion is that reducing the time frame will force students to take greater personal accountability and to be more serious about the working within the tighter time frame allotted to complete graduation requirements. Hamlin admitted however that the graduation rate could be impacted. (????)

Also the College Studies Program will drop its current mandatory requirement that participants in the program must take as Freshmen Humanities and as Sophomores Critical Thinking. Students could take these as electives but they would cease to be part of CSP’s core curriculum. There would be no critical changes in the English Language Learners Program (ELL) @ WHS.

Combined these changes would result in 30 positions eliminated (teachers) at WHS for a reduction of $1,5000,000.00.

N. Elimination of 6 nurses (the 6 with least seniority). Reduction would be $416,085.00. Six new “Health Aides” would be hired to offset the reduction of certified nurses @ a cost of $150,000.00. No job description was available, but it was stated that they would likely report to the Director of Nurses. Certified nursing staff will be reallocated to buildings with the most signifgant needs and health aides would be placed in “less needy” buildings.

O. Elimination of Behavior Intervention Facilitator : a reduction of $81,684.00.

P. Eliminations of Special Ed. support staff (12 positions) @ a reduction of $852,390.00. Response to Intervention math materials that have been requested to cost $159.404.00.

Q. Elimination of 5 Curriculum Support Specialists (They assist & support teachers) Reduction:
$426,754.00 Adding 3 more school psychologists at a cost of $250,000.00

R. Reduction of Level B (freshmen) sports eliminating $55, 000.00. Adding 3 more school psychology interns. @ A cost of $45,000.00

S. Reduction of Legal Services – eliminating $200,00.00


Total cut: $5,767,520.00
New Expenditures: -$604,494.00

Eliminated $5,163,127.00
The following are my notes from the Board Meeting on Monday, May 24th. Mr, Gaudin announced at the beginning that these are “most” of the proposed reductions that there will likely be more. At the end of the meeting an audience member asked about the rest of the cuts and he responded that he was not at liberty to discuss the matter due to contract negotiations. Mr, Gaudin also stated that the letters had been prepared to call back 3rd and 4th year non-tenured teachers that had previously received Reduction In Force notices, An audience member (who was one of those teachers) asked him if they would receive the letters before the end of the school year and Gaudin indicated he believed they would.

It was the recommendation of the administration that the Board approve these reductions at the Board Meeting the following evening, but several board members indicated they would need more time than that to evaluate the proposal.

The Board has a Special Meeting set on Tuesday, June 1st in the Board Room at Lincoln Ctr. @ 6:30 p.m.

There is an opportunity for Public comment prior to the vote.

Compiled by Jane Vester, C.O.S.L.A. on 5/24/10

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please pay special attention as to how the High School bears the brunt of the lion's share of these cuts. It is simply wrong to balance the budget on the backs of the students and teachers in this district, who already contend with limited resources and a bare-bones curriculum. Where are the administrative cuts? What are they giving up? Precious little, if you ask me. Let your voice be heard and hold our school board members accountable for their decisions. Plan on attending the meeting and signing-in to speak, and call them in advance with your opinion if you cannot attend. Now is not a time for silence and complacency.

[Bupkes]

One of the proposals on the table is to cut the number of electives students take and to cut students' daily class schedule by one period a day. This negatively impacts the music department because If forced to choose between their music class and other great elective choices, such as Art, JROTC, or some AP classes, many students (due to career aspirations or other interests) will choose to drop their music class. Within the music department, a large number of the current band and orchestra students choose to join choir during their time here- this situation would force them to choose one ensemble to participate in; no matter what, a portion of the music program suffers. Given this, this community should be very concerned for the future of the high school music program.

There has been a renewal in recruitment efforts to try to increase numbers of students who are participating in band, orchestra and choir at the high school level. This new proposal means these efforts have all been in vain.

Once these programs go away, it is next-to-impossible to bring them back. Let's not let this happen~!

[ClassicalLib17]

Why don't we end the subsidized breakfast and lunch programs, as I have been told that a lot of the food is throw in the garbage, anyway. I have driven by the freshman center early in the morning and most of these poor kids have cell phones. What are we allowing to happen to our country?

[Bupkes]

Considering the number of students impacted by the proposed cuts, I am a little surprised at how moderate the turn-out was. We have a huge special ed. program in this district - where were the families of these kids who will be effected by the absence of support people, etc? Students who will be seniors next year who were finally hoping to take a particular class while they still had the chance may find it not being offered due to low enrollments. Shocking though, that tallies for class enrollments are being achieved separately instead of combining the totals for the two campuses.

At any rate, the proposal to cut each student's day by a class period was shot down. This will allow them to take what they want, including multiple electives. 30 teaching jobs were saved.
The proposal to have only one librarian shared between the 2 high school campuses was shot down - each campus will have its own librarian - a small victory.
And, the school nurses will not be cut. The proposal to hire health aides instead will not go ahead. This is so much better for the students and staff who may need properly trained, and certified people attending to them, compared to someone who has limited knowledge and limited training.
Drivers ed. staff is going to take a hit - the district has decided to enforce their policy of having eligibility for taking driver's ed. dependent on the student attendance record; this kicks enough kids off the list to reduce the number of teachers by quite a bit.
Business Ed. also took a big hit.
B-level sports eliminated.

Had it been boys' basketball and bilingual ed. on the chopping block, we would have seen it SRO in the Lincoln Center Board Room.

Still, a very brutal night and very few victories for the kids and teachers.

[LittleFortProponent]

Try cutting back the free breakfast, lunch, dinner and after school care for kids who's parent drive new SUV's and have smart phones.