By LISA SIMPSON STRANGE
Glasgow Daily Times
GLASGOW —
Local school officials have had to face some hard economic realities in their districts because of budgetary cuts at the state level for the 2010-11 school year. One area that has been impacted by the reduction in available funds is district staffing levels.
“There’s no doubt that districts are struggling to adequately cover their staffing needs. The level of difficulty may vary from district to district, but with the late budget and various cuts, districts are experiencing fiscal issues that they’ve not experienced in years past,” said Lisa Gross, communications director for the Kentucky Department of Education.
Glasgow’s school district is closely following state guidelines for maximum student-teacher staffing ratios as one way to manage costs.
But Sharon Ritter, instructional supervisor for Glasgow Independent Schools, said the number of students assigned to each classroom teacher should not increase above the set guidelines for the upcoming school year in spite of the cuts in state budget funding to the district.
“Our Certified Staffing Allocation Formula Plan is being followed even under these uncertain economic times. Our student-teacher ratio has not increased due to the poor economy,” she said. “We continue to base our teacher allocation for the 2010-11 school year on our KDE-approved plan.”
A number of teachers retired this year from the Glasgow district so there were actually more positions to fill than usual, according to Ritter.
“Because of teacher retirements, we have filled more teacher vacancies this year than in prior years. We had 15 teacher vacancies to fill this year,” she said. “The total certified and classified employees is approximately 300 for the 2010-11 school year.”
Finance Director for Barren County Schools John Stith said his district has had to make some adjustments because of the monetary shortfalls.
“Obviously some of the budget cuts that have come down have affected us, especially state grants,” he said.
A Read to Achieve grant from the state allowed reading specialists to be placed in all the elementaries except North Jackson, which was not constructed at the time of the grant application, according to Stith.
The grant was originally $60,000 per school per year, but the state took that fund and cut it in half to roughly $30,000, Stith said.
“It’s now $57,000 for a two-year allocation. We’re going to be able to bring the program back intact. We’ll just have to make it work with state funds and ESS funds,” he said.
But even with the return of partial funding through the passage of the state budget, some employee cuts were inevitable.
During their June meetings, both school boards approved measures to reduce responsibilities for and to take corresponding reductions in salary from several of their employees. The reductions were primarily in areas such as 21st Century Community Learning Centers for afterschool programs, drug and alcohol prevention programs, Extended School Service (ESS) and special needs bus transportation.
Both districts also did not renew several employees’ contracts in mid-May.
Barren County notified 24 certified employees with letters of non-renewal by the May 15 notification deadline, according to the district’s June 2010 personnel report. But some district staff members have been brought back now that the state has released a portion of the grant money to Barren County, Stith said.
“(The state has) funded several of those back. We had to non-renew folks, but we’re now able after the budget to bring some back,” he said.
The state requires all school districts to provide an allocation of their funding for the next school year’s budget by March 1 each year. That deadline was extended this year until May by legislators in Frankfort because they were unable to approve a state budget in regular session.
According to the KDE website, staffing allocations include the number of positions allowed for each school in the district and cover both certified and classified employees. Certified staff are persons requiring certification to be employed by the school district and include teachers and administrators. Classified staff are employees in positions that do not require certification. These include teacher aides, office or clerical staff, custodians, bus drivers and cafeteria workers.
The staffing allocations are determined by a Kentucky Revised Statute 157.360 base funding formula, which also mandates maximum class size caps. Instructional and professional development funds for each school are also included in the allocations.
State maximum classes sizes are as follows: primary (K-3), 24 to 1; fourth grade, 28 to 1; fifth and six grades, 29 to 1; and seventh through 12th grades, 31 to 1. Teachers in grades 7 and above also can have no more than 150 pupil hours per 6-hour day. An instructional leader and at least one part-time media specialist are required at each school, according to KRS 158.102. Any other certified staffing is considered to be supplemental and is not required by law.
Glasgow’s staffing allocation plan closely follows the state’s guidelines for ratio limits. For certified employees in elementary schools, the staffing allocation allows for one principal, one librarian and one counselor per school. The primary, or kindergarten through third grade, has a cap size ratio of 24 to 1; for fourth grade it is 28 to 1; and fifth grade is 29 to 1. An additional two certified positions are also allocated.
Glasgow Middle School allocations include provisions for one principal, one librarian, one counselor and one assistant principal. For sixth grade, the student to teacher ratio is 29 to 1 and 31 to 1 for seventh and eighth grades. Seven additional certified positions are allocated.
At Glasgow High School, one principal, one librarian, one assistant principal and two counselor positions are allocated. The classroom student to teacher ratio for ninth through 12th grades is 31 to 1. Eight additional certified positions are also allocated.
Staffing allocations for Barren County for the 2010-11 school year approved by the board of education on April 22 have lower student-teacher ratios than Glasgow.
All seven Barren County elementary schools, kindergarten through sixth grade, will have a student to teacher ratio of 22.5. The allocation also includes one principal, one-half counselor position and one-half media specialist position for each school.
Barren County Middle School, grades 7 and 8, will have an allocation of 24 students per teacher. There are two additional discretionary teacher positions to be used for band, choral music, etc. One principal, one assistant principal, one and a half counselor positions and one librarian are also allocated.
The student to teacher ratio for Barren County High School is 25 to 1 along with two additional discretionary positions the same as with the middle school. Other allocated positions are one principal, three assistant principals, four counselors, one librarian, one-half athletic director position and a possible curriculum resource specialist to be determined at a later date.
The school districts have until Sept. 15 to make adjustments to the allocations based on actual rather than projected enrollment numbers. Allocations are based on 185-day positions and do not include special education, Title I or other programs unless otherwise specified.
Even though Glasgow’s allocations are currently set to KDE maximum ratios, Ritter doesn’t think that will be the case in the fall.
“The teacher allocation for each school is projected the previous spring. Most of the time; however, the student-teacher ratio is lower than our plan indicates,” she said.
Correctly projecting the allocations for the district isn’t an exact science, according to Stith.
“It’s a bit of a moving target, but with due diligence they should be close when we get the final numbers in September,” he said.
