Present 3-year staffing plan, cite pressure from goals
As the public schools move into the cold season of budget requests, there is an icy bottom line to consider for elementary-school principals: Their requests for fiscal 2019 total $1,407,000, but available funds are estimated at from $600,000 to $650,000.
Beyond bottom-line numbers, the principals point to factors the School Committee should consider before a new budget is approved next spring. In a departure from previous years, they presented a three-year plan for additional staffing.
They also expressed concern that the new district goals — personalized teaching, project-based instruction and social-and-emotional learning — call for more administrators, teachers and support staff. They argued that it was not solely the growth in enrollment that necessitated additional staffing.
Thee issues were raised as the School Committee met Dec. 7. Also presented were the teachers’ union recommendations for staffing the elementary schools for fiscal 2019, data specialist Marilyn Salvas’ statistical presentation about disciplinary suspensions and Superintendent Kathy Bodie’s updates on school-building projects.
The recommendations for future staffing of the elementary schools took up the majority of the time and attention of the committee.
‘Approaching budget season differently’: Elementary principals
The elementary school principals took an innovative step by mapping out the needs of the elementary schools over a three-year period. Each of seven elementary school principals presented a section of their joint report requesting additional staffing for fiscal 2019 through 2021. The staff requests were grouped by category and by numbers over the next two to three years — the numbers representing full-time equivalents. The groupings include assistant principals, ELA coaches, mathematics coaches, social worker support and full-day teaching assistants for all kindergartens.
See all fiscal 2019 budget requests from elementary principals >> See also the principals’ statement >>
The report explained that every school differed in its need for additional staff; consequently, requests for next year cannot be for just one category of staffing. Overall, however, the goal was not only for achieving the necessary staffing but also for achieving equity “in the allocation of people and resources” among all seven elementary schools by the end of the third year.
Mark McAneney, Bishop principal, made clear that these requests for increased staffing this year emanated not just from the growth in enrollment. The newly crafted school-district goals for social-and-emotional learning, individualized learning and project-based learning have a great impact on teachers’ work. Each of these new goals demands more time from teachers even if enrollments were not growing.
And a further demand on teachers’ time, Dallin Principal Thad Dingman said, was the changing composition of the student body: “We expect 50 percent of our students to be typical [learners], and that is very different from the past.”
Added staffing, technology: Teachers’ union report
The presentation by the Arlington Educational Association (AEA), the union representing teachers, mirrored the one given by elementary principals in substance, with greater detail for staffing requests. See the report >>
Similar to the principals, Jason Levy, AEA president and sixth-grade teacher at Thompson, pointed out that in addition to the increase in enrollment that changes in educational goals have made the teachers’ work much more time-consuming. The stated maximum for class size, 25 students, he argued, is now too many for one teacher working alone, “as demands to teachers increase.”
Committee member Len Kardon asked why the AEA staffing requests did not include the need for additional half-time principals. Christine Brayfield, Thompson teacher and AEA secretary, responded that in her school the addition of a full-time additional social worker would be much more beneficial than an administrator who came in only two or three days a week.
Both the elementary principals and the AEA officers agreed that full-time teaching assistants in all kindergartens were a top priority.
At public participation earlier in the meeting, two parents stressed this need in terms of what they wanted for their children and all the children of Arlington.
‘Anxiety-ridden board’: School Committee responds
In response to the elementary principals’ presentation, committee member Paul Schlichtman began: “You are facing an anxiety-ridden board here because of the huge costs of opening up the Gibbs.”
He reminded the principals of the overall budget realities and then asked to have them comment on the use of teaching assistants since they are a frequent request: “What comes up most often are the needs for teaching assistants throughout the lower grades.”
McAneney, the Bishop principal, responded that teaching assistants in general are greatly needed “as we increase our expectation for personalized learning, we need additional people [and] coaches for the teachers to learn better how to serve the students.”
Committee member Bill Hayner again argued for full-time teaching assistants in the kindergartens. He gave an additional reason: “It is an investment at the beginning [because] of the individual assessment element of kindergarten …. it is an investment by starting special education early.” Teachers are unable to do these assessments without a teaching assistant in the classroom.
Member Kirsi Allison-Ampe, also on the budget subcommittee, announced that the subcommittee’s calculations show that the district had only $600,000 to $650,000 to cover additional requests from all over the entire district. She concluded “there is not enough money to go around.”
Kardon, also a member of the budget subcommittee, praised the efforts of the principals in making a multiyear plan. Yet he, too, asked for more specifics about what will be needs for the next year in order to submit the budget. Like all other members of the committee he recognized the need for some ordering of requests to inform the budget process.
In other business, data specialist Salvas presented some statistics about student suspension by school for the past year. See the report here >>
After a discussion about the need to prevent suspensions by focusing on what happens “earlier in the process,” the School Committee voted unanimously to send it to the subcommittee on district accountability, curriculum/instruction & assessment for further study to report back to the full committee in January.
School-building updates
Superintendent Bodie reported on progress on the Gibbs school and the recent parent forum on the Gibbs held at the Stratton School — read YourArlington’s summary — and progress on the High School rebuild. Read a summary of the AHS Building Committee’s latest meeting >>
She announced a public meeting to discuss educational visioning for the revamped high school, set for 7 p.m. Jan. 4 at Town Hall.
In addition, she reported about the $200,000 grant over three years from the Arlington Educational Fund to the Safe and Supportive Schools Project.
Asked about the searches for the Ottoson and Hardy school principals, she replied that they were under way and continuing in January.
The public meeting of the school committee adjourned at 8:30.
This news summary by YourArlington freelance Jo Anne Preston was published Friday, Dec. 15, 2017.
