Board says tough decisions needed to deal with deficit

The Batavia Local School District Board of Education voted to eliminate 13 positions for the 2011-2012 school year Monday night before a large crowd of facility, staff, and residents.

“Folks this is hard,” Board President Michael Enriquez said. “We have to stay focused on what we’re here for, the students. We’ll help the best we can the individuals that are affected as they seek new opportunities.”

The board announced previously that it would need to make an estimated $1.5 million in cuts in order to balance the district budget for the 2011-2012 school year. As part of those cuts the board voted to eliminate seven classified positions and six and a half certified positions. The certified positions include two guidance counselors, a music teacher, a high school social studies teacher, half of a high school math teaching position, a high school librarian and a fourth grade teacher.

District Superintendent Jill Grubb said moving from seven fourth grade teachers to six will raise the fourth grade class sizes by three students to a total of 27 students per teacher.

The classified positions to be cut are three bus drivers and paraprofessionals. Grubb said the bus routes will be restructured to eliminate the need for the drivers.

“Currently the middle school is a five eight building and five, six, seven, eight all come in on the same bus route. What we would be doing next year is fifth grade will come in with third and fourth grade,” Grubb said. “So middle school will actually be operating on two time schedules.”

Grubb said the elementary school does not have enough room to accommodate the fifth graders next school year, however the preschool students will return to the elementary school to eliminate the cost of leasing space from Williamsburg Local Schools.

Batavia currently has eight all day Kindergarten classes which increased the district’s expenditures by half a teacher when it was introduced two years ago. Grubb said the district could eliminate four Kindergarten teachers and return the students to half a day, however, the administration and the board feels the benefits to the students warrant all day instruction.

Board member Scott Runck said the details of Governor John Kasich’s proposed budget have not been released, however there is a proposal to cut funding of the gifted programs for schools and a proposal to remove gifted programs as a requirement. Grubb said eliminating Batavia’s gifted program is not something the board is ready to consider at this time.

“We’re going to maintain the gifted program for right now,” Grubb said. “Those students benefit greatly from having that.”

The crowd, which filled much of the open space in the high school library politely listened to the board’s explanations and asked questions.

“A lot of you are hurting or are close to someone who is hurting and I would rather be a board member at Batavia with all the cuts and all the hurt we’re going through than at any of the other school districts where there were people yelling and stomping out, and screaming at decisions that had to be made by those other boards,” Board member Barbara Bruner said.

One parent praised a paraprofessional in the business class who helped her son gain an interest and focus in his education. Enriquez said the decision to eliminate certain positions was in line with the district’s collective bargaining agreement.

“Many cases it’s the position and not necessarily the individual because everyone is a quality individual doing good work,” Enriquez said. “Just because a person is in a certain position doesn’t mean their job will be affected because some individuals will be doing a different job next year because of this whole process.”

Board member Chris Huser said that while the district is eliminating paraprofessional tutors, volunteers are more than welcome to step up and take their place. University of Cincinnati Clermont College has entered an agreement with the district to provide tutors at the elementary school free of charge.

“There is room for volunteers to help…some of the kids that are struggling with math, reading, etc.,” Huser said. “The door is open if someone strongly wants to come down and help out in that area. You’ll be rewarded far greater perhaps than the kids will.”

Board member Mark Ewing said the decision to cut positions was much more difficult because Batavia is a close community.

“There’s names on here that I recognize and that I don’t recognize and it hurts,” Ewing said.

Runck also recognized the difficulty of making decisions that affect people he knows. He said the $8 billion deficit at the state level is a staggering figure and the local board and elected officials need to come up with ideas to ensure the state is never in this position again.

“Each one of the members of this board has been at this meeting looking at each one of these people saying ‘What can we do to save this job?'” Runck said. “Unfortunately, we were not able to save some of these jobs.”

Huser said that while the state legislators make the cuts and pass down the unfunded mandates, it is the local people that make have to make the tough decisions regarding whose job is eliminated.

“It starts at the top and works its way down,” Huser said. “We’re left with the end result of making a decision of who gets to keep a job and who doesn’t. They have to fix it at a higher level or it’s just going to keep getting worse and worse. We’re all trying to figure out how to tighten our purse strings while the state figures out BMI (Body Mass Index) and stuff like that.”

In addition to the reductions in force and changes in bussing, Grubb said the district will be restructuring its athletic funding and the board will not fill non-coaching supplemental positions next year.

Batavia High School student Sophia Enriquez served as the honorary student representative at the board’s March meeting. The Batavia Board of Education includes a student representative at each of their regular meetings on a rotating basis and by coincidence Monday’s representative was the board president’s daughter.

Sophia Enriquez told the audience she has a deep love for the Batavia community and she said she did not like to see people lose their jobs but she understood the board’s position.

“It hurts me, but I don’t have a job, I don’t come here to get paid and I’m so glad you guys are here to help me do that,” Enriquez said. “In our history as a nation whenever we go through tough times we always come out just a little bit stronger, so I think we can do that. It might not happen right now, but it will.”

Michael Enriquez echoed his daughter’s sentiments.

“We will get through this as a district and the way we can do this to help ease the pain is diligently working on the levy opportunity otherwise as Ms. Grubb alluded to earlier we will have some other unfortunate decisions that we’ll have to deal with,” Enriquez said.