BASD scrambles to hire five more teachers as school year begins
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff Writer
There are times – and Burlington Area School District officials admit it – that the budget process is backward.
One of those situations put the district in a corner Monday night, and it took a roomful of people – and a hit to the district’s fund balance – to solve the issue.
In the end, the BASD Finance Committee approved the first of five proposed options to solve an overabundance of kindergarten enrollees.
The option will involve hiring five new kindergarten teachers, placing one each at Waller, Cooper, Lyons and Winkler elementary schools, plus an extra Montessori kindergarten teacher.
The cost is estimated to be roughly $290,000, which will come out of the fund balance because of the late date.
The district found itself in a real bind once final numbers were in for kindergarten registration. As of Aug. 23, there were 221 total kindergarten enrollees – 35 more than the 186 estimate created during the spring enrollment projection.
That would place an average of 28 students in each kindergarten classroom – far from ideal in a world where kindergarteners are often expected to be able to read, write and work basic math before making it to first grade.
That number may also still be fluid, as it does not include any walk-in students or new students who might enter throughout the year.
As a result, Superintendent Peter Smet came up with five options to present to the Finance Committee Monday night. They ranged from hiring the five new kindergarten teachers to hiring eight full-time aides, plus variations of the two concepts.
Originally, Smet recommended the second of five options, which would be to hire four half-time equivalent positions, plus eight half-time aides. Each would provide half a day’s support to the various classes.
However, once staff and parents in the room at the meeting got a chance to speak, it became clear that they wanted the students to come first in the decision – not worries about the cost.
“Any situation where my daughter is in a classroom with 30 other students is unacceptable to me,” said one parent. Another added, “I don’t want to lose kindergarteners to private schools or open enrollment.”
Finance Committee citizen member Tom Preusker said, “I think it’s important to have small class sizes in kindergarten. We want to make the right impression.”
School Board President and Finance Committee member David Thompson agreed.
“I think this is a very, very important decision for us,” he said. “The issue is starting off these children right.”
If the district can hire the five teachers, the class sizes will be anywhere from about 15-20 students.
The question of how the district got in this enrollment jam was also raised, which came back to the fact that the budget process is, essentially, backward – and this year, there was an “exceptionally high number of late enrollees,” according to Smet.
The full board was in attendance at the meeting, and the Finance Committee asked for an informal indication from the board if it would approve the recommended five hires – which passed the committee by a 4-0 vote.
All indications from members of the School Board were that they would support the five hires.
The district will need to revisit the issue next year and find out what to do with the larger-than-expected number of first-graders for the 2013-14 school year and whether to keep the added staff and where to assign them.
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Almost $300K for 35 additional students? Could these children not have been divided up between schools for this school year? Do we NOT even “try” to save the taxpayers some money where possible? I understand that there would have been additional cost for busing them, but $290,000.00… SERIOUSLY??
Wait, are we paying $58,000.00 salary for a Kindergarten teacher??
I cannot believe that you do not think that building the base for education of these students is not worth $58,000 a year!!
Apparently it has been a LONG time since you have been in a classroom! Some of the students today, even at the young kindergarten age, come with a whole lot of baggage and issues that transcend into the classroom. Children with behavior and emotional disabilities (not to mention physical) require a LOT more attention than you obviously realize!
Even to have a class of perfect kindergarten students, requires a lot of work. Have YOU tried to keep up with twenty-eight 4 or 5 year old children lately?
Teachers are expected to do more with less all the time! As far as recruiting and retaining qualified teachers, remember, sometimes you get what you pay for!
Well said, Rita.
Get your facts straight before making these uninformed and false accusations/comments! Go to the School Board meetings so you know WHAT IS GOING ON because obviously you have no clue!
I have a solution. You can bus them over to Waterford. We have a decline in students. This would fill the void there and elevate the
over crowding and new hires in Burlington. Let’s all work together as a community.
These additional kindergarten students are spread around several different elementary schools in the district. You want to single one kid and tell a set of parents that their 5 year old can’t go to their neighborhood school, (let alone their own district!) while the kids next door and down the street can? I’m guessing that this would violate state law and/or there would be a law suit lickitysplit to cost een more money. Then there’s also the cost of setting up special bus routes for these students.
It ussually pays to think these things through a little and consider the less than immediately obvious ramifications, rather than reacting with a knee jerk response. And it’s always better to consider these matters in context of one’s self as a citizen and a human community member, rather than a lowly “taxpayer”.