Faced with a sharp loss in state aid, SAD 61 made its first cuts to the proposed district school budget for 2006-2007 this week.
On Monday night, the SAD 61 Board of Directors voted to eliminate several teaching and staff positions.
At the elementary school level, two teaching positions at Crooked River Elementary in Bridgton were cut and one at Sebago Elementary. One librarian has also been eliminated, leaving one librarian to share duties between the elementary schools on separate days.
At the Lake Region Middle School, two “core” teachers will follow its large eighth grade class as these students continue their studies at the high school next year. Which specific teachers will move with the class is being deliberated. The school is also considering a new math teacher and foreign language teacher for next fall.
At the Lake Region High School, audio/video equipment for instructional teaching will be reduced along with elimination of the Family & Consumer Sciences class and a specialized art or music class yet to be decided.
Also on the chopping block were the number of hours teacher’s assistants – commonly referred to as “educational technicians” – spend in the classroom. The administration planned to reduce their time by one half an hour per day, but a group of teacher’s assistants turned out to protest the cuts, prompting school directors to reinstate the hours. Their protests were not enough however to save one teacher’s assistant from being eliminated from Lake Region Vocational School.
Some teacher’s assistants took the reduction in hours as a sign that the district undervalued their participation in the classroom.
“We are all too professional to let our morale affect our jobs,” said Gretchen Loreng, an elementary school teacher’s assistant from Casco. “More than anything (reduced hours) are going to take away from our role.”
This is the second year in a row that the district has been penalized by the state’s new Essential Programs and Services (EPS) funding formula, which weighs state assessment of property taxes against the overall cost of education.
A spike in the state’s valuation of area properties, coupled with reduced enrollment at the schools, has led to the loss of $712,000 in state aid.
The state Department of Education defends SAD 61’s reduction saying similar cuts in state aid would have occured under the old funding formula.
In response to the loss in state aid last spring and voters’ refusal to approve the district budget, SAD 61 was forced to make similar cuts. Last year, the administration trimmed bus schedules and stops, laid off teachers and custodians, and eliminated all freshman sports to cut the budget.
Though the district’s budget of $24 million will remain the same as last year, all four towns involved in the district (Casco, Sebago, Naples and Bridgton) must raise their local share of education by an average of $100,000 to cover the shortfall in state aid.
This further loss in aid has forced the school administration and the board of directors to make some “very difficulty decisions” to keep the budget down, says Superintendent Frank Gorham. And he hopes the district won’t need any further lay-offs or elimination of staff positions.
“I cannot ask the school district to sustain these kinds of budgets,” Gorham said. “I think everyone is quite worried at the schools…Contract negotiations are limited and people are being laid off.”
Local legislators, such as Sen. Bill Diamond and Rep. Richard Cebra, are currently talking with state education officials to advocate for more state aid to the district.
“Our legislators have been very supportive to work with the Commissioner of Education to recognize that (EPS funding) is not fitting this geographic model,” Gorham said.
High School Principal Roger Lowell is likewise discouraged by the loss in state aid and how the state delegated millions of dollars to other districts while cutting SAD 61’s aid.
“We’re not a wealthy community,” says Lowell. “To lose money on top of that is not enjoyable. It doesn’t make sense to the students in the district.”
The high school, as well as other district schools, are at “barebones” with furniture, textbooks and equipment in need of replacement and/or repair. And with the influx of a large freshman class next year, the high school desperately needs more classroom space, he said.
“We have enough to keep our doors open, but we’re just getting by and losing ground year by year,” Lowell said.
SAD 61 Board of Directors make a unanimous vote to cut staff positions and programs in the proposed 2006-2007 district school budget.Send questions/comments to the editors.
