The district is facing a $1.5 million budget shortfall as a result of a shortfall in property tax revenue, Supt. Kathleen McCord said. <\/p>\n
“The economic crisis that hit this country hit us too,” McCord said. <\/p>\n
The cuts were necessary to keep the district fiscally sound through 2014, McCord said. <\/p>\n
The cuts “were distasteful work that had to be done,” she said. <\/p>\n
McCord said closing Brandt School and eliminating the science center was preferable to cutting any of the district’s critical programs including full-day kindergarten, the reading recovery program, physical education classes, reading specialists in all schools, the band program and a variety of extracurricular activities. <\/p>\n
She added that the implementation of a new science curriculum weighed into the decision. <\/p>\n
Closing Brandt and eliminating seven teaching positions will trim $694,222 from the budget. <\/p>\n
The board approved a variety of other program cuts and reductions to shave an additional $500,000 from the budget. <\/p>\n
Those cuts include a reduction in instruction aides as well as psychologist and social work services. Additionally, the district scaled back the art and music programs at the five elementary schools and will phase out French classes at Oak Lawn-Hometown Middle School by 2012. <\/p>\n
Some 100 parents and teachers attended the meeting to protest the board’s decision. <\/p>\n
“I think closing the science center is wrong,” said Lori Harris. “You need to find out what the parents and the taxpayers want.” <\/p>\n
Several parents criticized the board for failing to inform the community about plans to close Brandt School. <\/p>\n
“I’m disappointed in this district,” said Jean Attig, a parent at Sward School. “Where was this information? We are going to be a laughingstock. I think this is a knee-jerk reaction.” <\/p>\n
Elaine Barlos, president of the District 123 teachers’ union, said the board did not seek sufficient input from parents and staff before making its decision. <\/p>\n
“We would like to see in the future that things are more transparent,” Barlos said. <\/p>\n
The district’s early childhood program has been located at Kolmar School in the past, but parents and teachers said Brandt was the ideal location for the classes. <\/p>\n
“It breaks our heart to shift again,” said Julie Glynn, who teachers in the early childhood program. “That building is one heck of a place. It would be a crime to see it shut down.” <\/p>\n
The early childhood program was located at Brandt for the past three years. Over the years, the school has been rented to privately owned day care centers. <\/p>\n
“Brandt has a history of being closed and opened,” McCord said. “I don’t think the board of education will ever look at selling that building.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n Closing Brandt School and eliminating seven teaching positions are the major components of a budget reduction plan approved Monday by officials in Oak Lawn-Hometown School District 123. School board members unanimously approved the plan, which will trim $1.2 million from the budget. Brandt School, 8901 S. 52nd St., is home to the district’s science center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-354467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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