RBANA – The Urbana school district has proposed $2 million in cuts for the next school year that would mean larger class sizes and fewer offerings for students in the district.
The school board saw a list of proposed cuts at its meeting Tuesday night.
“We’re short on options,” said school board President John Dimit. “The Urbana school district has already been operating in a very lean fashion. These cuts will directly affect the programs we’re able to offer children.”
The proposed reductions include:
– Six teacher and five teacher’s aide positions at the elementary level.
– The third-grade swim program.
– Part-time fine arts positions at the elementary level.
– Thirteen and a half positions at the secondary level.
– Alternative programming that provides support for students struggling in middle school and allows high school students to catch up on credits through after-school and Saturday school programs.
– Hours for summer counseling.
– Athletics budgets.
– Parent liaison positions, mentoring positions, a curriculum specialist and a grant coordinator at the district level.
– Summer school.
– Textbooks and supplies.
– Professional development.
– Substitutes for teachers who are doing assessments of students or for collaboration time.
The district’s teacher contract limits the class size at each grade level. But classrooms will likely reach those limits if the cuts in teacher positions are approved.
In deciding on the recommended cuts in positions, “We took a look at our projected enrollments, and we looked at every single building, every single configuration of teachers, and we went to the maximum class sizes,” said Don Owen, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
Owen said cuts in teacher positions will also affect the electives the district is able to offer at the middle and high schools.
“Some of these people we may be able to move into grants (to pay their salaries), but some of them we won’t,” Owen said.
The district has already begun talking with the teachers’ union about the proposed cuts. The teachers’ contract expires this year.
While the cuts will affect programs, Dimit said the district will still offer a good education.
“But many of these cuts will affect the supports we put in place … to help us better serve children who are struggling,” he said. “We’ll have to figure out a different way to help these children.”
The school board will begin talking about the proposed cuts in detail at a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Burkholder Administrative Service Center, 205 N. Race St., U. The board also plans to meet on Feb. 27 and March 9 to talk about the cuts. It will also discuss a recent demographic study, its strategic planning process and plans for building improvements.
The board is scheduled to vote on layoffs at its March 16 meeting.
The district is seeking public comment on the proposals. Residents may comment at the special meetings, and the district plans to post a survey on its Web site, at http://www.usd116.org, to solicit comments on the proposed cuts.
Dimit noted the district must make cuts at the same time it has a new source of money to make building improvements. It will begin receiving money from the county’s school facilities sales tax in April. But that money can be used only for building improvements or new construction.
On Tuesday, the board approved a resolution to abate $700,000 in property taxes this year with some of the sales tax money it will receive. Because the district won’t start receiving sales tax money until this spring, it decided to prorate the amount it will abate this year.
Beginning next year, the district plans to put $1 million toward its bond levy every year until the bonds are paid off.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services