Falls School Board to consider layoffs, reducing programs

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. at the Falls High School cafeteria.

International Falls School District Superintendent Jeff Peura was not available for comment, however, Sue Karsnia, the district’s administrative assistant said “we are looking at reducing 2.86 FTE (full-time equivalency) of licensed teaching staff.”

“I don’t know if we’ll be reducing tenured staff,” she told The Journal on Thursday. “But these reductions, along with some others, will project the board into a positive fund balance, leading to a positive fiscal statement for the 2012-2013 school year.”

Without cuts in spending, the district’s budget is projected to have an approximate $700,000 shortfall in its expenditure budget for the 2012-13 school year. The board was told about the shortfall last month during a presentation by Stacy Frederickson, the district’s business manager, who said keeping the budget the way it is now, would possibly put the district “in the red.”

“We’re going to have to find that money, because we cannot increase our revenue — our student count is set,” Peura said at February’s meeting.

The board held a special meeting at the end of February to address ways to avoid the budget shortfall, when a discussion about cuts to staff and programs to offset the deficit took place.

The teaching position cuts, if approved, will be made by reducing the number of sections in elementary grades, according to Karsnia. Kindergarten and grades 1, 4, and 5 would be would be reduced from four classes for each grade to three sections, she said.

Grade 2 will remain at four sections, and grades 3 and 7, which are currently at three sections, will increase to four, based on an increase in the number of students expected to enroll in each grade for next school year, Karsnia said.

“Basically, if they approve the resolution, so many FTE elementary teachers, and perhaps some secretarial time, will be reduced,” she said. “They would move people around based on seniority.”

How to cut

Falls Elementary and West End Elementary school Principal Jerry Hilfer told The Journal that, generally speaking, the district’s high school teachers are tenured more than elementary teachers, so a shuffling of teachers from the high school to the elementary school could happen.

“It just so happens that the youngest people teaching at the high school are more senior than the teachers in the elementary level,” he said.

Hilfer submitted recommendations to the school board to consider, he said, with a proposal on how to make cuts — he recommended consolidating part-time staff into fewer full-time staff to save the district money.

“I wanted to make recommendations to make sure that I retain as many staff as possible,” Hilfer said. “For example, instead of having four part-time staff cut, we could keep two and make them full-time, and that would save the district some money. There will be people let go; how much and how many, we don’t know yet. It could change though, we have to wait and see.”

Hilfer said many variables would be involved in the potential cuts, such as daily school schedule, teaching schedules and who to assign to which students and classrooms.

His main concern in the possible layoffs is its impact on class sizes, he said. Eliminating one section of almost each elementary grade could negatively affect education, he said.

“Anytime you get larger class sizes, pretty soon you’re managing kids instead of teaching them,” he said. “You can feel the atmosphere change when you walk into the classroom.”

Hilfer said to deliver effective education, lower elementary grades, kindergarten through third grade, should not exceed 25 students. Upper elementary grades, fourth through sixth grade, should not exceed 30.

“We are getting above that,” he said. “But every school in the state is having the same issues dealing with budget and class sizes. It’s not just here.”

He added that a reduction to three sections for second and third grade for next year’s projected enrollment will put second-grade classes at 30 or 31 students and third-grade classes at 34 students in each classroom.

“The classes are already pretty full,” Hilfer said. “Some of them are easier to live with than others, but they’re all getting fuller, so it’s going to be difficult.”

In terms of cuts to educational programs, Karsnia said changes will be made to save money in some program areas, but that the district is “not singling out any one particular program,” or completely cutting an entire program.

If the resolution is passed, specific recommendations on which positions or programs will be cut will be on the table for another vote at April’s meeting.

“If this is adopted, another resolution for non-renewal of contracts for specific personnel will be voted on (in April) for next school year, due to budget cuts,” Karsnia said.

‘On edge’

Hilfer, who attended the special school board meeting discussing ways to avoid a budget deficit, told The Journal that teachers and staff at the elementary schools are “kind of on edge.”

“They know it’s coming, but they don’t know who it will be or how far it will be,” Hilfer said. “It happened to me as a teacher; I’ve been through it before. It’s not fun.”

The options presented to them also included the need for buses, computers, textbooks and other things, with considerations on which to keep and which to let go.

The potential cuts in staff comes at the same time as shuffling of grades between elementary schools, which was approved at the February school board meeting, Hilfer said. This further complicates the decision on how to shuffle teachers to cover all sections of students after layoffs, in addition to other variables that go into the board’s decision.

“This is a very, very difficult decision to make,” he said of the board’s consideration. “Whatever they decide, I will live with it and support it.”

Tim Everson, Falls High School principal, said the school cannot move forward with students’ registration of classes until decisions are made on proposed staffing cuts. The past few years, with state budget issues and uncertainty in the school district’s budget, Everson said students did not get their fall schedules before leaving for summer break, and some students were not able to complete registration until August, pending decisions by the school board. Late funding from the state was also a factor, he said.

“It would be nice to let teachers know what they’ll be teaching and give students their schedules before they leave at the end of the school year,” Everson said.

Everson said he hopes registration can “get going as soon as we can” after the upcoming board meeting.

“We’ll have a better idea of the preliminary plan,” he said. “You want to offer as much as you can (in student scheduling) but you also have to be careful that you don’t overextend. So you have to err on the side of caution in these cases.”