This is a responsible response in light of the decline in enrollment.
The current projected reductions are based on enrollment projections for next year and course registration trends for the current year. Adjustments will be made if course registrations shift in a substantial manner from their current levels. Based on current data, the following reductions are recommended:
● Elementary – Reduce 6 classroom teaching positions
● Silverbrook – Reduce 1 classroom teaching position
● High School – Reduce 6 classroom teaching positionsThe administration first uses attrition to achieve these reductions. Teachers who retire, resign, or are on a non-renewing 1 year contract are the first level of staff used for accomplishing reductions. The administration is already aware of seven positions that can be reduced through this type of normal attrition. Employees have until March 13th to declare their intent to retire so additional attrition this year is very possible.
Let’s hope that enough people retire or quit so that nobody needs to be let go.
I didnt see, but what positions at the HS are they going to eliminate? Are they going to rid of a whole program like shop or PE or what.
It’s easy to say you are going to cut a teacher but where are they going to cut?
Looks like they are going to be opportunistic about using retirements and voluntary separations for as many of the reductions as possible. Then, if they need to go forward with involuntary separations, they will have to make some choices.
Mar, they should be able to find reductions by flexing on class sizes. Right now a minimum of 18 per class. There is no upper limit, but 25 is not unheard of. There are certain classes that all students take – Math, Science, English, Social Studies, P/E., and then there are electives. So with less incoming freshman in future years and consolidating enrollments into larger classes they should be able to find ways to correlate decreasing enrollments with a decreased need for teachers. WBSD has the advantage of having a large mass of students in one location – it gets harder to balance classes when students are split between multiple locations. Can’t really switch students into different buildings each year. That is why at the elementary level 550-600 enrollment is consider “optimal” – gives enough margin to flex on the numbers of sections needed as enrollment ebbs and flows.
Owen, did you catch that it appears that despite reductions in the number of teachers, there is an administrative recommendation to put more resources into psychology, counseling, family support, and safety/security services. From what I hear, more resources to those areas would be a good recommendation. But it will not mean an overall reduction in costs.
Yeah, the recommendation did not come with any financial analysis. The first runs of the budget should start showing up in a couple months.
So, my guess they will probably get rid of a position in a core classroom.
Do you know how many teachers that are not teaching in classrooms?
And you would think that with such a reduction in the classrooms, they might do without an administrator or 2 within the school district.