District 88

OKs hiring

to restore

cuts made

this year

Hirings include 14.45 FTE teachers

By KREMENA TODOROVA

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The District 88 School Board agreed Thursday night to seek to hire the equivalent of 14.95 full-time employees next year, to make up for cuts in 2001-2002 and staff retirements announced this year.

Of the vacancies in question, 14.45 "full-time equivalents" (or FTEs) are for teachers, and .5 FTE is for a counselor's secretary.

Advertising for the positions now will give the district "time to get into the job market to ensure the best candidates," said Superintendent Harold Remme.

To balance the school budget, the board cut 23.15 FTEs in 2001-2002, of which 16.65 were teachers and 6.5 were support staff.

The vacancies to be posted are in kindergarten, elementary education, art, PE, music, band, German, media, agriculture/FFA, computers, English, guidance, science, math and social studies.

The "hire-backs" have been made possible by a successful local referendum last fall, which helped the district make up the funding shortages, officials stressed.

The proposed staff increases will help reduce class sizes (see table); reinstate five-days-a-week PE and music programs; reinstate time for band lessons at all levels; reinstate media specialists in four buildings instead of two; and add a counselor position at the high school, said Remme.

The board in upcoming meetings will also consider other uses of referendum funds, such as reinstating supplies and materials to regular levels; softening the impact of reduced enrollment projected over the next few years; improving technology uses in the classroom; and maintaining financial stability, Remme also said.

In other business, the board:

* Voted to eliminate a special education paraprofessional position and to reduce a full-time business teacher's job by 30 percent, in both cases in response to declining enrollment.

In the business teacher's case, the position is tenured, so the teacher has 14 days to request a hearing on the matter. Remme, however, said that hearing requests tend to occur when there is ambiguity about seniority, thus a hearing in this case would be unlikely.

* Decided to replace its current student information system with a new one, at an initial-year cost of $40,000 and subsequent-year fees of $23,750 annually.

Board members stressed that, in addition to processing a much wider variety of data than the current system, the new system will also allow parents real-time, online access to student information.

The current, less sophisticated system costs $4,300 a year.

* Declined a 30-day extension of the timeline for arbitration of five teacher grievances.

The grievances sought overload pay for longer hours worked in 2001-2002, more preparation time and/or hiring extra staff.

They were denied by the board on April 12. One of the six original complaints was withdrawn Thursday.

The 30-day extension would have allowed a mediation process to occur before arbitration.

Declining to go through mediation, the board reiterated its earlier stand that no contract violation occurred when the teachers' load was increased.

Board members also reiterated their sympathy for extra work assigned to the teachers and other district staff.