Spokane7
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April 27, 2011 in City
Spokane schools deficit may increase class sizes
Examples of how much would be saved by cutting whole departments and services in Spokane Public Schools.
(Full-size photo)
Layoffs are going to be unavoidable for Spokane Public Schools, and tonight the school board will decide whether increases in class size will be part of the equation.
This is just the first in a series of budget decisions the district’s administration and board will have to make to address a deficit between $9 and $12 million – the final figure depends on what state lawmakers decide during the special session that opened Tuesday. The board has to decide about impacts to certified staff – teachers, librarians and counselors – tonight because of a May 15 deadline for notification per union contract.
Increasing class sizes by three students and adjusting for enrollment declines would mean the elimination of about 90 full-time teaching positions and a savings of $5 million, school officials said.
“We are in a very difficult position,” said Mark Anderson, associate superintendent. “We have cut outside the classroom as much as possible, and we’re into the meat now.”
Class sizes are a bargained item, so the board can only temporarily suspend those limits when there’s a financial emergency. The current limits by grade level: 25 for K-3, 28 in grades 4-6 and 30 in grades 7-12.
When finances improve, the limits have to be restored.
The first problem is there is no definition in the contract for a “financial emergency,” said Jenni Rose, Spokane Education Association president.
Anderson said, “Our definition of financial emergency is when you have already cut $54 million, and the Legislature is going to cut an additional $12 million.” About $8 million in federal stimulus money is dropping off. “That propped us up for couple years, and the state is not replacing that money. Plus there was a midyear cut of $4 million to the district.”
Rose added, “We can’t keep increasing class sizes and keep doing the things we are doing.” For example, high school science labs were not built to accommodate 33 students, so “it’s not safe.”
Suspending class size limits can also increase the size of advanced placement, English Language Learner and physical education classes. The number of special education students in a class could also increase.
If the board opts to keep current class sizes, most likely the district would issue layoff notices to scores of certified staff members and rearrange personnel based on seniority and qualifications.
Administrators acknowledge that trimming the budget for 2011-’12 is tough, but because 82 percent is personnel costs, that’s where the cuts need to start.
In addition to certified staff, cuts in administrative and support staff will also be necessary. That translates to at least 150 jobs districtwide, including teachers, librarians and counselors.
During the past 10 years, the district has cut millions, “leaving us with no easy ‘fixes’ outside of the classroom to solve this budget challenge,” said Superintendent Nancy Stowell. “To give one perspective about the scope of (budget) problem, completely eliminating the human resources, business, payroll and purchasing departments would only solve half the budget problem; eliminating all supplies and travel would get us a quarter of the way there; eliminating half of the administrators would solve one-third of the problem; reducing half the secretarial staff would also only solve a third of the budget challenge.”
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rpmarp on April 27 at 9:26 a.m.
Could probably save a couple of million dollars by getting rid of the unneeded “area directors” at the Adm. Bldg. What a waste!
eagleproducer on April 27 at 9:42 a.m.
rp: One could level two floors of that building in downtown, along with the people in it, and not one student would notice the difference.
Why is there not talk of privatizing food and custodial services? There isn’t one reason in the world that a custodian or a kitchen worker should be making 50 grand a year with benefits. But there are literally hundreds of such positions in District 81 and tens of thousands throughout the state.
Where are the cuts in athletics?
It is time to get educational priorities in the proper order. This financial “crises” offers an opportunity to take a very close look at our education system and where the money really goes.
deacon46 on April 27 at 9:43 a.m.
Sounds like the Education Department is finally going to be about educating children. There is no need of most of the administration. Secreteries and layers of administrators in the days of technology are not needed. Too many programs and in time when our standing internationally for education keeps dropping. Back to Reading, keystrokes, and arithmetic.
eagleproducer on April 27 at 10:02 a.m.
deacon: Writing is not mechanical, nor can it be taught. It must be learned, like those days you missed when an instructor spoke about avoiding sentence fragments. The best students in U.S. schools are the best students ever. I’d look at the family in the U.S. and improving social conditions if you want education outcomes to improve, not the simplistic and mistaken notion that the three rRs are a fix-all.
eagleproducer on April 27 at 10:06 a.m.
Only three cents of every federal tax dollar spent is expended towards education while almost thirty cents of every federal tax dollar spent goes to the military industrial complex. I’m thinking that disparity is more the problem with U.S. education than unions, too many administrators or a lack of focused curriculum. The nations like Finland, South Korea, etc. that are whooping our butts are putting close to 1/4 of their GDP into education.
http://nationalpriorities.org/
Visti that link to see where you money is being spent.
It’s the military, stupid….
eagleproducer on April 27 at 10:55 a.m.
The worst part of this “solution” will be that younger, better trained, more motivated teachers will be let go while burned out, putting in the time until retirement, loafers will be retained.
The most senior teachers make three times what a beginning teacher makes. Their health care costs are more than double those of newer teachers. None of the senior teachers had to EARN highly qualified credentials as required by the No Child Left Behind Act, like newer teachers did. I’m certain there are large numbers of senior teachers who would fail to obtain passing scores on the state wide Praxis exams that newer teachers had to pass. They were all “grandfathered” in, with many still holding the old K-12 certification that allows them to teach any grade, any subject, regardless of their education or qualifications. What do parents want: Better educated and trained teachers for the kids at 1/3 to 1/2 the price or packed classrooms being led by under-qualified burn-outs?
That’s the elephant it the room that no one wants to discuss. Parents need to be at these meetings to ask these questions.
mikeln on April 27 at 11:42 a.m.
It’s things like this that make me wonder if jobs are going to be created in this country. Only a country that has no plans on needing a educated public do the kind of things that are happening in our educational system. Hope people took my advice and stocked up, the year isn’t half over yet and it is becoming more evident that the violin music is getting louder and louder everyday.
madscientist on April 27 at 11:42 a.m.
11 million dollars for janitors! that is absolutely retarded. there are 49 schools in the district. that means that $224,000 is spent per school on janitors. lets assume 3 maybe 4 janitors per school with various shifts, that is over 50G’s a year for a janitor just as Eagleproducer stated. Outsource this work.
westerly on April 27 at 11:56 a.m.
Seems todays great recession (private sector who fund it all), can’t afford the education moneys needed to keep things running like always…cut salaries 10 percent and problem solved. But Spokane elite heads don’t have the guts to do it..they just wring their hands and say we need more millions of taxes to keep the elite crust in the gravy. B. S. Hope it gets worse, then the admin’s will act. Way too many $100,000 plus people in all of state education…. the new world economy is coming.
Coffee on April 27 at 11:58 a.m.
A voucher system is the way to go.
reservedparking on April 27 at 12:10 p.m.
Janitors don’t just sweep, mop and empty the garbage. They are more like bulding engineers - responsible for much of the day-to-day maintenance of the HVAC systems, for example. They keep the buildings safe for your children. More to it than just cleaning toilets.
As for athletics - it’s oftentimes the incentive for kids to stay in school in the first place. Same goes for music.
Yep, admin. is probably top-heavy. No argument there. I’m sure there are savings to be found all over the place. Maybe we should revisit seniority & tenure policies. But your throwback “3-R’s and nothing else” curriculum won’t do much to prepare our kids for their future.
You all want to pay nothing but bottom dollar for everything. You get what you pay for.
Dazzeetrader11 on April 27 at 12:46 p.m.
Cut cut cut….cut everything. Kids will be educated if they want to prepare for their futures.
When money is gone or greatly reduced, cut services. I suppose more money might be available is the Admin staff was cut loose. Cut the WEA would help well. In the end, it always comes back to the taxpayer and voters. Cut.
madscientist on April 27 at 12:52 p.m.
reservedparking,
actually yes the janitors do sweep and clean toilets. the HVAC and other systems are handle by the mechanical department, as you can see from the insert picture, cutting them would save 8 million, but you can’t really eliminate those guys.
eagleproducer on April 27 at 1:59 p.m.
The day time custodians perform maintenance tasks, but the district has a department that performs those tasks throughout the district as well. There are only two custodians at most elementary schools and up to five for the larger high schools and middle schools. I’m sorry, but being a janitor/custodian should not be a career choice and if it is, their salaries should be commensurate with the private sector. Which means minimum wage. Where is the incentive to educate and improve yourself if you can join the middle class cleaning toilets or placing slop on a lunch tray?
madscientist on April 27 at 2:12 p.m.
here is the janitor pay scale.
http://www.spokaneschools.org/174420121684251340/lib/174420121684251340/_files/CU.pdf
as you can see, level 1 “sweeper” starts day 1 at $12 an hour.
the scale tops out at 52,000. of course these numbers go up every time the contract is renewed.
FiscallyResponsible on April 27 at 2:22 p.m.
Whole system is a joke. Need to raise taxes IMO. We Americans want something for nothing. Over 50% don’t pay taxes. We extol tax cuts for all, including the top earners. We’ve cut for years. Most waste is gone. Social programs are at bone, yet we think the answer is more cuts. Our society is being weakened and our children saddled with poor education and debt. We blame the politicians but we are the ones to blame.
Spokane_Citizen on April 27 at 5:47 p.m.
The extremely irritating thing about this situation is that the school board, a very short time ago, approved substantial wage increases to administrators and principals (5% - 10%). Now they have the audacity to send those same principals out to their schools to sell the necessity of a 3% rollback in wages for everyone….which means the administrators and principals are still seeing a net increase (and on a much higher base salary to boot).
An no, I don’t work for the district, but I know people who do, and many have said a rollback would be just fine if it were shared across the board. It seems that the administrators and principals have learned a valuable lesson from the corporate sector… leaders.talking about sharing the burden, but actually shouldering none of it themselves.
DickAdams on April 27 at 7:37 p.m.
Seems to me, the Valley voters showed the administrators what they thought about the ballot issue that just failed. Hopefully, the board will heed the voters disapproval and do something about the bloated administrators. Watch out for District 81. That`s next (I hope) for the chopping block.