Over the weekend I received an email from a reader who had a few questions about the recently-announced cuts to the regional school budget. This reader said:
"I keep thinking that if the middle schools goes from 6 teams to 4, that means a third of the middle school team teachers are being cut. I'm assuming 4 teachers per team, 24 team teachers and 8 of 24 equals a third cut. Am I wrong? Also wondering if they plan to add more SPED or building blocks teachers next year how that skews the regular ed teachers: special needs percentages of the budget. It seems like it would really change the numbers. Perhaps you can investigate and post in your blog? If arms is cutting a third of its regular ed teacher, that's headline news I would think."
So, I looked into it. I reviewed the committee level budget (dated June 2, 2009), made a few calls, and wanted to follow up as requested. More information on the cuts can also be found on Catherine Sanderson's School Committe blog entry about the June 2 meeting.
To start off, we have to figure out what is considered "team" at the middle school and what is not. Next year, team is proposed to be science, social studies, English, and exploratory. Math may or may not be team next year but we can run the numbers either way. There are currently 6 teams at ARMS, giving us either 24 team teachers or 30 team teachers (if you count math). That is our baseline.
Under the currently-proposed cuts, ARMS is slated to lose five academic teachers (according to my sources, these will be two science teachers, two social studies teachers, and one English teacher) and 2 exploratory teachers for a net loss of 7 team teachers. Next year the middle school will then be down to either 17 team teachers or 23 team teachers (if you count math). This represents a reduction of 29.2% or 23.3% (with math). The reader above is right...this is a big reduction.
Now on to the second part of the question. A follow-up contact revealed that the referred to "building blocks" was really referencing the Bridges program at ARMS. That program currently has two FTE teachers listed and has 8 students. The originally-proposed FY10 budget for the region listed the addition of two teachers for Bridges which would have doubled that number. The latest version of the budget lists only one additional teacher for Bridges but one of the School Committee meetings I attended recently explained that by saying that although they were still hiring two additional teachers for Bridges, one was being funded through stimulus money so does not appear as a budget addition. Still, the reader is correct again...the regular education seems to be taking a proportionally greater cut to its teachers.
Finally, the reader wonders about percentage of budget for regular education versus special education. To make things simple, I only looked at the "teachers" line in each (there is a third line which is ELL teachers that is not considered here) since the original question was specifically about teachers. In FY09, 75.7% of the regular and special education teacher budget was spent on regular education teachers. Under the committee-level budget before additions and subtractions (if I understand the document correctly), regular education teachers make up 76.1% of that same area of the budget. After the cuts and additions, however, regular education teachers make up only 74.5% of the budget (counting only one of the Bridges teachers). So yes, those proportional additions and subtractions do change the proportion of the budget spent on regular education teachers.
As to why this is not headline news, I am not sure. But as the parent of a rising seventh-grader, facing class sizes of 27, you can bet it is headline news in our household.
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21 comments:
Are we talking about 1.2% change? And are these monies from Amherst taxpayers or State allotments legally earmarked for SPED? And do we believe that NT children require as many supports/resources as SPED children to make it through the day? Just asking.
Anon 5:06PM: I am not sure what change you are referencing with the 1.2%...you could be right but I am not sure. If you are talking about the percent change to Bridges, it is an increase of 100% (or double) the number of teachers (or FTE to be exact) currently in that program. Of that, 50% will be coming from federal stimulus money (although now that I think about it, that was a one-time amount so I guess in future years to keep that position it would come directly out of the Amherst Regional budget?).
I am also not sure what NT is...perhaps regular education? If so, in my opinion, no, most regular education students do not need as many resources as most SPED students to make it through the day. Just my opinion, though.
Alison,
Thank you for this report. I wonder if you turned up any information about what the projected Bridges enrollment is for next year? If that program currently has 8 children and 2 FTEs, what is the justification for doubling the FTEs? (Will the enrollment double?)
Thanks.
Is anyone disturbed by the 20% to 30% cut in regular ed teachers at the middle school, or is it just me? Is any other school in Amherst experiencing this percentage of cuts to the regular teaching staff? Are parents just worn down by the process?
I guess the answer is no, no one is disturbed.
Caren: I asked Maria Geryk at a School Committee meeting this spring what the enrollment in Bridges would be next year. In fact, I asked exactly as you asked, "if you are doubling the teaching FTE, is the student population also doubling?" Her reply was "from what we can tell, 9 new students next year will be using the Bridges program." I asked her how many would be graduating ARMS this year (all 8? none?) and she said she was not sure.
Anon 8:57AM and 6:47PM: I think you are both partially correct. Many people are distressed about the loss of two teams at the middle school and cannot imagine their child transitioning to a much larger school as well as now having much larger class sizes. Parents of eighth graders have expressed to me worry about "team harmony" next year when one team is cut. Will those kids be split into the other two teams? Will all the teams be shuffled, eliminating the valuable looping aspect of it for all kids? Personally, with a rising seventh grader, I am worried about it too. But I also think that many parents are either so numb with all the cuts, etc. being announced this year or too busy with the many end-of-school-year activities to pay close attention.
Alison,
When I saw that you are the Director of Institutional Research at Mount Holyoke, I thought you would be someone who would really take the data and turn it into something that made sense to your readers. What I see here has no statistical merit whatsoever; making up percentages based on faulty projections of how many regular education teachers there are in the middle school.
The ARMS website currently has 25 Team teachers listed of which 5 are special educators. There are an additional 24 regular ed teachers listed as Off-Team teachers. That's a total of 44 regular ed to 5 special ed. This does not include the one special education teacher currently in the Bridges program or the staff of the essential skills and AIMS programs.
So our baseline of regular ed Team teachers is 20. No guesswork needed. It's on the website. Cutting the number of teams doesn't necessarily change the number of off-team teachers. I'm sure there will be cuts there as well, but we need more information before we go off making up more numbers.
I'm sure with a little effort, given your background, you could get some more accurate information before you start coming to conclusions and posting them.
Anon 5:06 is obviously referring to the FY 2009 75.7% regular ed vs. the proposed 74.5%. That looks like a 1.2% difference which doesn't sound like a big difference to me. Certainly not headline news.
As far as the issue with Bridges goes, the way I understand it is that the addition of Bridges teachers is to provide services within the district to a wider range of students, thus making other cuts possible and potentially keeping more kids in-district who would otherwise be in out-of-district programs with a big price tag.
When you look at numbers in such a simplistic way it creates more confusion than it's worth. I think you owe your readers a little more effort.
Anon 10:32PM: I am sorry you found my post too simplistic for you. I look forward to more detailed statistical analyses in your posts to come!
You are right that if you choose a different denominator, you will come up with different results. Since the original question dealt with team teachers, I resistricted my analysis to that. Thus, I did not include the off-team teachers (or analyze any of those FTE cuts) Since math is on team for the seventh grade this year but not on team for the eighth grade and it is not clear which form team will take next year, I ran those numbers both ways. No, I did not include the resource teachers in that calculation, but since the cuts to team are only (at this point) slated to come out of regular ed and not special ed, those numbers remain unchanged.
You might argue that a 1.2% reduction in regular education budget is not a big deal, but I would counter with the opinion that a reduction from 6 teams to 4 for our middle school students IS a big deal. But then again, that is just my opinion. You clearly disagree.
I am totally mind boggled at the answer from our superintendent to how many students there will be in Bridges next year. How is this possible that the once director of sped and now leader of the whole gambit doesn't know this?
The bottom line here when you speak in understandable terms is that to have the Bridges students educated or shipped off elsewhere would cost the district big money? Am I correct in understanding this?
Are the Building Blocks students in 6th grade the new students to Bridges because if so then why can't we have an accurate number of just who this program serves and how many. And finally do parents know about this program and just what it entails??? Thanks.
No one knows exactly how many students will be in any special education program next year. There is a process dictated by state and federal law that educators must follow when placing students in special education programs. There is also something called confidentiality that they must adhere to. I'm sure Maria Geryk has a good idea of how many students to expect in the program next year, but she can't know for sure and she can't tell everyone and their brother everything she does know.
If we were to assume that the 9 new students at Bridges are Building Blocks 6th graders, we would then use Alison's logic to conclude that ther must be 63 students in Building Blocks given it's a K - 6 program (7 grades, 9 students per grade). They must be coming from elsewhere, some may be coming back from out-of-district placements. Perhaps Alison could run the numbers on the cost of sending a student out of district versus the cost of one full time teacher.
Anon: 10:23 p.m.
By giving us a number--do you understand this--a number--there is no breach of confidentiality there. And for a superintendent to answer any question that is expected of them to know the answer is just too--well I can't even think of a word--let's see--evasive--suspicious--secretive--what?? I think as parents of children being educated in a building where students behaviors are totally unpredictable we have that right, at the very least, to know how many of these students will be in our children's company. Don't you??
Do you have any idea what this program either Bridges or Buidling Blocks entails? Maria Geryk is not leading a system with answers like I am not sure....what else is she not sure about....geeeze I feel really confident having a superintendent who is not sure about things!!!
Alison,
Can you please address the fact that superintendent can not tell us the number of students in the Bridges Program for the upcoming school year?
Do you happen to know the number of students presently in the Building Blocks Program? And how many are expected to go on to the middle school 7th grade? And of those how many may be in Bridges? Are these two programs connected somehow as I suspect they are? Do the teachers work with each other in recruiting students? This is a sort of scam, if I may, that needs much, much uncovering!! Thank you.
Anon 3:57PM: According to the Budget Planning Information document on the ARPS web site, there were either 12 students in Building Blocks (page 28) or 8 students (page 6 which also lists the students by grade and one is in sixth grade). The projection for 2009-2010 is 9 students.
I do not know if Bridges and Building Blocks are related, but they are both listed as specialized programs by ARPS and said to be "programming for students whose primary needs are social, emotional, and/or behavioral." So, it is likely that there is some overlap.
I am not sure why Superintendent Geryk did not directly answer the question of how many students would be in Bridges next year. Perhaps she honestly does not know because they are planning on expanding the program and don't yet know who they will expand it to? I guess it is possible, but it seems to me when it comes to adding a signifiant number of FTE to a very small program in a year with severe cuts to most other programs, the School Committee should have been asking this question from the first time they saw the budget.
The justification for all of our specialized programs, it seems to me, has always been, "if we don't offer this, parents will send their children out-of-district at greater expense to Amherst." According to the budget numbers, it IS more expensive to educate a student out-of-district, but whether or not parents would all try to place their children elsewhere if a specialized program/school in Amherst was eliminated and/or reduced has not, in my opinion, been demonstrated. I think many parents would rather keep their children in their local community if at all possible.
"I think many parents would rather keep their children in their local community if at all possible."
I think its important for folks to understand that not all out of district placements occur because a parent has asked or demanded it. My son was attending one of the elementary schools here in Amherst a number of years ago. He had (and continues to have) many learning disabilities and emotional issues. At the end of the 5th grade he was told that he would no longer be able to stay at his elem school - the district was demanding an out of district placement. I did not want that. But the principal and therapeutic teacher made it very uncomfortable and I finally decided for my son's sake to go along with it. He was out of district until the 12th grade..when all of a sudden the school had developed a program to supposedly meet the needs of kids like my son. His senior year was an awful year.
My point is that out of district placements can come about from the demands of the SPED office - not because a parent asked for it.
As an aside - the SPED system in the Amherst schools has been disfunctional and secretive for many many years. The complaints I am hearing and reading about are nothing new - they are the same complaints I was hearing back in the 90s. I know that there will be a review of the SPED Department but I have no confidence that anything will change as a result of that review. There was a comprehensive review when my son was in school - and nothing came of that. I am still brought to tears when I think of how my son was treated. It wasn't his fault that he was born with severe learning disabilities.
To protect my son's privacy I am posting anonymously.
Anon: 12:47
I think I know what program appeared all of a sudden as the Amherst schools recruited my own daughter into this 'special education' program. The South Amherst Campus. A school that one cannot easily find neither on their website nor on their recorded telephone directory. She was earmarked as a SPED student at the young age of 7! And I must say it was all downhill from there. As a single parent I trusted the system, but knowing what I know now I never would have left my daughter's fate to these dishonest, sly and self-serving hands. I am holding myself back to say what I truly feel out of respect for myself... and this blog...
The Sped Department needs more than this review coming up because you see as long as the director of sped gone superintendent is still around nothing will be done to stop the abuses that take place daily with our children who don't fit so well in the circle of students who may learn at faster paces and are able to keep up with xeroxed curriculum handed out in mass numbers and chalk board written homework assignments!
Alsion, when you lead us to contact the SC members with these concerns--I almost want to laugh. Ms. Sanderson has already stated that anonymous blog (complaints?) will not be heard or paid attention to by the superintendent and that she full heartedly agrees with this. So what are our options--I can tell the damages, to our children--to the ones left with low self-esteem because their school--the one place outside of home where they were supposed to be able to grow and flourish--told them they were different!! told them they could not learn!! Just imagine this?? Someone telling you, an innocent, that you can't learn the same as your friend sitting next to you--what do you think this message says--How do you think this message is internalized?? Can't learn? Who on this earth believes they have the right to say any human being that "You can't learn?" The answer; the Amherst Public Schools Special Education Department!!
This is anon 12:47. The program I referred to was not SAC. I actually think the SAC is a good program - or at least was a good program when my other son (yes I had 2 sons in SPED) was there. The SAC program was a god-send to him. He is now a straight A student shooting for a 4.0 average when he graduates in a couple of years from UNC with a double major.
There is alot wrong with the SPED program but I must admit that the SAC program does do good things for some kids.
Anon 12:47
I don't mean to say that SAC is not good--what is wrong is the fact that they seem to hide it. You can't find this school on their website and when you call the main number you don't get it on their directory. Why is this? The teachers there were a godsend for my child as well...they kept her in school with their dedication and commitment to teaching, but by that time in her life she had already been damaged by being singled out and taken out of class after class... What I think is wrong and needs much looking into is the way kids are preselected to become sped candidates. Is this because of the huge amounts of money that the state pays to teach these children?
And so they must keep recruiting them...???
Anon 12:47 here:
I could not agree with you more, anon 8:19.
Anon 12:47,
What are you trying to say? Your child should have been sent to an alternative setting earlier or Secial education tries to "recruit" kids at a young age? I'm really confused by your post.
Alison,
What is your take on the Sped Dept.?
When will this review/evaluation be done and by who? Is Ms. Geryk back at the helm?
And who are her administrators?
Also what do you think of the raises the SC recently okayed for 'non-union' administrators while teachers stay at (below) poverty wages? Something surely sounds amiss here...Would you not agree? Thanks!
Anon 9:02AM:
I think the growth in the special education budget is one of the biggest problems facing our district. It is unsustainable. It especially worries me when I hear so many complaints from parents of special ed students stating that the district is not meeting their child's needs. So what, I ask myself, is all that money going for? Since my family has had no personal interaction with the special education area, I cannot offer any personal experiences.
It is my understanding that Maria Geryk is currently the acting Assistant Superintendant...I do not know the status of her position title for the fall. Regarding the special education evaluation, I understood that the consultant would be chosen this summer but I have not heard any more about that. I did not read anything specifically about this in the report by consultant Irving Hammer to Dr. Rodriguez.
The School Committee OK'd the administrative raises of 2% largely, I am sure, because the teachers were receiving a 3% raise this year (due to their current contract). I think it was a tough call for them. Most of us did not get any raises this year so giving the administrators a 0% raise would not be out of line with the economic environment in town, but given the fact that their teachers were receiving raises, they probably felt as if a 0% raise was out of line with the situation overall in the schools.
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