District 88

Board

OKs cuts

Action amounts to $715,000

By KREMENA TODOROVA

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The District 88 Board of Education on Thursday approved about $715,000 worth of budget cuts for next year, with another $40,000 worth of cuts to be considered at a future meeting.

The board cut the equivalent of 8.72 positions across all school sites, mostly by reducing (and also by combining and eliminating) teachers' contracts, in line with enrollment and program registration numbers. The board also reduced, eliminated or otherwise restructured "non-core" programs and cut textbook, supplies and equipment purchases and maintenance projects.

Academic areas more heavily impacted by the decision included elementary education (reducing one kindergarten section and one fifth-grade section); music (notably, reducing the full-time band director positions at the middle school and high school to half time each); art, family and consumer science, math, science and English (which lost about six-tenths of a teaching position each); and several others.

The cuts, combined with enrollment declines, will result in class sizes that will be "fairly similar, on average" to last year's, said Superintendent Harold Remme. They will also lead to more sharing of staff among school sites.

Non-academic areas impacted by the decision included mental health therapy, mentoring, cross-country, golf, and several others.

The board decided to table cuts at the business, technology and superintendent/curriculum director's offices, as well as buildings/grounds department reductions, in order to discuss those in more detail. The reductions in each of these four areas are expected to save another $10,000 each, for a combined $40,000.

The one issue that generated comment from the audience was the music program cuts. A staff member noted her concern over the restructuring of the band program that would lead to sharing a director between the middle school and high school. She also expressed concern over what she described as imbalance in the allocation of the music department staff's expertise.

In other business:

* Curriculum Director Bill Sprung briefed the board on the results of the reading, writing and math basic skills tests in 2004.

He noted the consistent, higher-than-state-average, results in reading and writing -- and a seven percent drop in math scores. Sprung explained the math test scores with "testing irregularities." Due to changes in the test format, a larger than usual number of tests were invalidated this year, he said. The invalidated tests were either improperly sealed or else students used calculators in a new, calculator-free section. The invalidated tests affected the district's results because they are counted as "no passes" by state officials.

Sprung noted a similar trend in math scores across the state, speculating it might be due to similar reasons.

* Heard the staff's proposal for next year's school calendar.

After considering three scenarios -- an early-out, a spring-break, and a long-weekend version -- the staff recommended the early-out option. According to that version, the year for teachers would start on Aug. 29 and end on June 2, a staff representative said.