Don’t cut teaching jobs. Save sports programs. Keep high school nurses and security monitors.
Those are just a few of the requests parents, teachers and employees made at meetings the Shoreline School District held March 21 and March 29. The meetings gathered input from those groups on proposed budget cuts for the 2006-07 school year.
More than 40 teaching positions, among other positions, are on the chopping block in that proposal, which cuts spending by about $4.7 million and aims to rescue the district from fiscal crisis.
The proposal also calls for cutting sports programs, security monitors, high school activity coordinators that plan dances and run leadership classes, nurse hours and one full-time equivalent librarian, among many other cuts.
Based on current revenues, projected spending and the fund balance, the district expects its 2005-06 budget to run about $2.7 million in the red. Cutting $4.7 million from next year’s budget will close that gap.
The March meetings were the first step in a public input process that will help create a preliminary 2006-07 budget. That budget will be presented to the School Board in June and a final budget will be approved in August.
After the meetings, district officials boiled the public input into a summary and presented it to the School Board April 3.
“The highest priority was to maintain certificated (full-time teachers),” said Linda Johnson, associate superintendent, at the meeting. Johnson has since been appointed to serve as acting superintendent. James Welsh, superintendent, has been placed on administrative leave.
Other priorities included saving all high school athletic programs, maintaining school nurses and security monitors eight hours a day and keeping the BRITE program at Syre Elementary School fully staffed. The program works with children with acute emotional and behavioral disabilities.
Suggestions on how to fund those expenses also were gathered.
A high priority was to reduce the class schedule at middle schools from seven to six periods. Other priorities included cutting the assistant superintendent position, raising athletic fees and speeding up studies on the effects of closing schools.
Actions like closing schools or reducing the school day would need much study and debate, Welsh said.
“(For example,) principals need to start constructing what a seven period day looks like,” he said. “Can you imagine what a master schedule would look like if not planned? It would be chaos.”
District officials will study the suggested funding alternatives and tally how much money each would likely save. They will present those numbers, with a second overall draft of the proposed cuts, April 24.
The second phase of public input then kicks in, with meetings to be held April 26 and the first week of May.
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