So long to summer school, several staff members

The West Hempstead Board of Education’s second budget workshop of the season, held on March 8, was punctuated by the crying, sniffling and distribution of tissues by students who attended to persuade trustees to reconsider laying off teachers.

“[We’re] making hard choices,” schools Superintendent John Hogan said in response to the display. “We have to deal with it.”

Throughout the last two budget seasons, the West Hempstead school district has excessed nearly 85 positions, including administrators, teachers, clerical staff and coaches. This year, the district faces losing three administrators, an art teacher, a music teacher and a guidance counselor.

The middle school faces reductions in math, art and English staff, while the high school faces reductions in English, social studies, business education, math, science, foreign language and nursing staff. Board members attributed the need for cuts to declining enrollment at the two schools. Chestnut Street, Cornwell Avenue and George Washington elementary schools will remain at the same staffing levels, with the exception of a minor potential staff decrease in the third grade at George Washington.

High school student Emily Prentice told board trustees that the decrease in staff makes the classroom experience more difficult for some students. “Class sizes are too big,” she said. “It’s mostly the important classes, too.”

Fellow students Amy Wiener and Julia Waterhouse said they are afraid of losing their teachers. “West Hempstead deserves the best,” Wiener said.

“The smartboards aren’t doing the teaching,” Waterhouse added.

But the district’s options are limited.

“If I’ve asked it once I’ve asked it a million times, is there anything more we can do?” Hogan asked. “We’re trying our best. It’s like choosing between your children.”

Reducing staff is as much an emotional experience for the administration as it is for the parents, students and staff members themselves, according to Deputy Superintendent Richard Cunningham.

“We sit up here and look like we have no feelings [but] we’re torn,” he said. “We’re being forced into a very, very difficult box.”

High school nurse Reva Miller, whose position would be cut under the proposed budget, pointed out that cuts force the entire district into a tight spot: eliminating her position would leave the high school with one nurse responsible for 900 students.

Parent Loraine Magaraci responded to the revelation with concern, asking, “What happens if someone is hurt and the nurse is in her office with six other kids?” But Hogan said the district has functioned with one nurse in the past. The second nurse, he added, acts as a substitute to the other school nurses and spends most of her time outside the high school.

Say so long to summer school
Facing a $2.4 million budget gap, district officials revealed that they will no longer offer summer school for students. For at least 15 years, West Hempstead hosted in its buildings a BOCES-run summer school program and paid tuition to BOCES for each of its students who utilized the program; courses ranges from $400 to $500.

By eliminating the program, the district will save about $80,000. Students taking summer school courses will now have to take them outside the district and pay their own way.

To further savings, the administration is also looking to adjust the district’s special education expenses, which amount to about 16 percent of the school budget. It will evaluate teacher, teacher assistant and teacher aide positions, and adjust staffing according to need. Reductions are expected due to declining enrollment.

The district budgeted $706,880 for a masonry project at the middle and high schools. But “it’s really seven-hundred thousand dollars of free money to do this job,” according to Deputy Superintendent Richard Cunningham, who explained that the state will fully reimburse the district for the project.

Once voters approve the budget, the district will with the masonry project — which includes fixing bricks and mortar on the exterior of the middle and high school buildings — which the state had qualified as an EXCEL project, or a school construction project that falls under the state’s Expanding our Children’s Education and Learning program. The state will pay back the district for every dollar spent on the project.    Despite the cuts, and due in large part to the increase in state mandated expenses and other costs, the administration still proposed an increase of about 3 percent in the 2011-12 budget. This would bring the total proposed budget to about $54.5 million and the proposed tax levy to 3.9 percent.

The current budget is a work in progress, which the board said it will continue to refine until the budget is finalized and formally adopted on April 12. The next budget workshop will be held on March 29 at 7:30 p.m. Voting on the budget will take place on May 17. Any questions can be emailed to votemay17@whufsd.com.