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How is your school cutting costs? - 9/6/2008 10:19:16 PM
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artemis
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There have been a lot of news articles lately about schools making budget cuts and saving money by canceling field trips, raising lunch prices, going to 4-day-a-week-schedules, etc. I know that my school has made some major cut backs as well as the schools where my friends teach. Coolfamily6 has a thread about rewards for middle schoolers and mentions that their school has cut the budget for a particular club. In the school supplies thread, many parents and teachers have pointed out that some of the supplies listed for the students are things that the school could (or should) be paying for but doesn't anymore. I'm sure there are things my district is doing that the parents don't know about and the parents are probably noticing things that I don't know about because they don't affect me.
So... how is your school district cutting costs?
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/7/2008 12:12:20 AM
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garsyt
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Our specific school district has cut costs in a variety of ways.
1. Field trips - the elementary schools throughout the district (6 of them) are limited to one field trip per year per grade level. At the middle school and high school there are no field trips at all and any co-curricular groups like choirs, band, theatre and speech and debate and extra curricular things like sports, those students in such groups will be charged an yearly fee based on the projected number of trips and events these groups need to be bussed to.
2. Lunch and recess monitors - across the board in our elementary schools we lost almost 80% of our noon monitor staff. Typically at the school my kids attend, which is one of the smallest elementaries in the district at just over 400 students, we would have 4 lunch room monitors and 2 playground monitors. This year we are lucky to have one playground monitor and two lunch room monitors. The slack is being made up by our school principal and school counselor and even our day time janitor has been stepping in to help from time to time. This is a 40 minute period in which the teachers take their lunch as well as is written into their contracts, although I know many of these teachers give up at least a portion of this time to do small group work with their students that need the extra help.
3. Special needs. We've gone from a staff of two special needs teachers and 3 assistants to one full time teacher and 2 assistants. I have also heard that they have had to seek special funding to keep some of our severely autistic student's one on one staff.
4. Maintenance and janitorial - Janitorial staff hours are strictly watched now and they are allowed NO overtime whatsoever. Building maintenance is another thing that has been put on a tight budget too. Basically this means unless the problem is an emergency don't count on it getting fixed for awhile. I have heard as well that they were taking new bids for snow removal this year too.
5. Another bus one. The district was scheduled to replace 3 buses this next school year but have opted instead to postpone that for another year.
6. And this is one I'm a bit upset with. - We used to have 6 full time and 4 part-time science specialist that taught specifically science at our elementary schools across the district. This past April ALL of them were told that the district no longer had the money to fund that area and that it fell under the realm of academic that it would now be the responsibility of the classroom teachers. There are 6 empty science classrooms sitting in our schools now and while some of those teachers were able to secure classroom jobs not all were and not all wanted that. Plus now our student are out an opportunity to be taught science from a teacher who was steeped in science as that was ALL they taught. Our science teacher decided to take early retirement because from what I've been told, he just couldn't imagine going back to teaching in a general ed classroom when he'd been teaching science for 20 years.
7. I haven't been in the building all that much this year yet as a volunteer but I am guessing that we'll have less to work with as far as supplies go, but I'm not sure on that. I'm for certain they will be limiting laminating this year as that stuff is NOT cheap.
8. Our school is heated and cooled by geo-thermal energy but there are other schools in the district, including the high school that my eldest attends that have been told to conserve electricity and locks have been placed on thermostats so they will be left set to certain temps.
9. They haven't raised prices yet at our school for student school lunches BUT they have in some area districts AND in our district my children tell me that the quality of the food seems worse then last year. They have raised the price for an adult lunch if a parent were to come in to eat lunch with their child.
I'm sure as the school year goes on I'll see and hear about other ways funds have been cut, but those are the ones I can come up with right now.
One thing about funding. RECENTLY the state and maybe the federal government changed the formula and now at least in my state schools with a higher percentage of students getting free and reduced meals get more funding for those students. Since our district has a really low percentage of those students we are ranked 3rd from the bottom in the amount of funding the state will give to us. Anymore it's not based solely on the number of students but if those students are taking advantage of the free and reduced lunch programs that determines monies coming into the school district. Because of that and the fact that our governor decided to cap property taxes and decrease the amount that went to schools - a district that was once able to offer it's students highly educated and trained teachers, a plethora of honors and advanced placement courses, schools that excell and expect great things from the students with regards to technology, music, art and academic programs, and a self-contained gifted and talented program at the elementary level is struggling to keep these offerings and opportunities for our kids.
Anyway - I'm having trouble formulating my thoughts and making them into coherent sentences right now so I'm off to bed.
Blessings,
Garsy
< Message edited by garsyt -- 9/7/2008 11:38:03 AM >
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/7/2008 8:19:44 AM
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artemis
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Here are some of the things I can think of that are affecting me as a teacher:
1. My school has cut several teacher positions and raised class sizes. I started the year with 34 kids in each class  They have since made some schedule changes and gotten it down to 28 kids/class, but that is still huge. My position at my school was cut to part-time, meaning I have to travel to a second school to make up the hours and be a full-time teacher (the other school couldn't afford a full time position either). Most elective classes have lost a lot of funding, giving them fewer teachers and bigger classes. Two years ago, my average class size was 23. Last year it was 26. Now it's 28.
2. Individual departments and teachers are receiving less money to spend on their classrooms, especially in the electives. Our copies are limited and the supplies we are given is pathetic. At the second school I travel to, I was given four whiteboard markers for the year. Four. That might last until the end of September. At my home campus, we are alloted a certain number of copies. After my deparement head threw a fit, the original number was doubled, and we now have the equivalent of 2 copies per kid per week. That might sound like plenty, but we don't have textbooks (another money saving strategy)... all of our curriculum is online and we have to print out the lessons for our students. 2 copies per week is the equivalent of telling the teachers that 3 days of the week, they aren't allowed to use textbooks or worksheets or handouts of any kind. It gives me a ton more work to do, and some of the cost gets passed on to the parents since I tell my students they have to copy down things that I would normally give them a copy of. Other teachers put the worksheets on their websited and make the students download and print them at home in order to save the school's paper.
3. Many, many aide positions have been cut. This leaves teachers filling in the gaps with cafeteria duty, morning duty, detention hall, etc. I used to have morning duty 5 times a six-weeks. Now I have it twice a week, or 12 times a six-weeks.
4. This one is silly, but we no longer get snacks at any of our teacher inservices  If I'm going to listen to an 8 hour lecture, I want my doughnuts and juice!
5. We've always had a no-field-trips rule, but that was only during the school day. Band, choir, orchestra, AVID, athletics, etc. always did after school and weekend activities and their funding has been cut for that now. Rather than cut back on events, they hold a billion fund raisers, which just ends up passing costs on to teachers and parents. One of the fund raisers they do all the time is charging the teachers $5 to wear jeans on a certain day. It would be a great fund raiser to do once or twice a year and no one would complain, but once every few weeks gets expensive and it's really hard to refuse to participate because then you'll be the only jerk in a skirt on the special day, pointing out to everyone that you refused to shell out five bucks to help out the kids 
6. Teachers are now required to join the PTA... and pay the $5 membership dues. We are also required to join some other local education organization... and pay the $10 membership dues.
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/7/2008 11:49:15 AM
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coolfamily6
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My middle schoolers attend a charter school which has always received less funds than traditional schools but they have made a few changes:
-Increased fees for science, music and art classes.
-Parents paid a higher percentage for language arts and spanish workbooks.
-Our lunch costs went up but we do not have a lunch program. It is food catered by restaurants. It has always been pricey, so my kids brown bag three days and buy two.
-Support staff that left (I was secretary/receptionist and the registrar) were replaced with one person rather than two. This is rough because three of us were already doing the job of 5 people. I know the new registrar is not happy but I hope she sticks it out.
-Student reward budgets have been cut and some completely cancelled.
The good thing is our charter (and now state laws) allow only 22 students per class and will drop to 18 over the next few years.
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/7/2008 2:10:19 PM
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daboysj
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In my district, any retiring teacher who taught an elective or "badger" class (like automotive, journalism, etc..) was not replaced. The class was cut.
The teachers have NO money to buy classroom supplies. That means if we need something for our classroom, we have to buy it ourselves. This includes educational posters, card stock, index cards. Oh yeah, we are not allowed to ask the parents to pay for thngs like Weekly Reader or other classroom magizines. There will be NO field trips, at all. Don't ask, unless you are a sports team.
We are required to turn off and unplug everything in our rooms at night. We are not allowed to have extra things in our rooms like lights for our desk. We have to leave our doors closed at all times to help save on heating and cooling. After school programs and tutoring programs have been cut. If you don't get it in class, you don't get it.
Oh, and they raised the price of school lunches and breakfasts. They have cut the number of ESL teachers and Title I teachers.
I think that is all.
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/7/2008 3:43:50 PM
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artemis
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My school has also stopped running a late bus in the afternoons. They used to run a bus route at 3:30 and another one at 4:30 so students could stay for detentions, clubs and tutoring. Now, if a student has to stay, their parents have to pick them up. It makes it much more difficult to offer tutoring and usually the kids who need tutoring are the low-income kids who don't have internet access at home (all teachers have a webpage with their daily lesson plans on them).
My mother-in-law teaches 4th grade in the district where I used to work. This year, the district froze the pay scale, meaning all the teachers make the exact same amount this year as they did last year. Usually, we get a raise of ~$300 for each year of experience.
My mother-in-law also typically gets $50 at the begining of the year to set up her room, but this year, she was not given anything. She is still required to have a bulletin board and change it out every six-weeks, but the school will no longer pay for the supplies to do so. Luckily for her, she's been teaching for 10 years and has materials from previous years that she could use. This would really hurt a first year teacher, though.
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/7/2008 9:47:38 PM
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garsyt
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quote:
After school programs and tutoring programs have been cut. If you don't get it in class, you don't get it.
Not necessarily true - The school my kids attend has never paid a certain 4th grade teacher anything above and beyond his salary yet he stays after school is out one day a week and volunteers his time to tutor kids that need the extra help. He'll take anyone grades 2nd through 5th that need the extra help. This is considered an enrichment class and is paid for based on a sliding scale by the parents based on income.
We've never ran a late bus system and they are trying to figure out a way to reduce the number of trips buses have to make just to get kids home around here. Some would say we need to combined the high school/middle school routes with the elementary routes but some of those buses are already so crowded that combining them wouldn't work either, unless they added more buses and drivers. I already have to go and pick up my kids if they stay after for anything.
I know our PTC offers teachers a sum of money at the beginning of every school year and then again in January. Would that be something other PTC's would consider doing for some of you teachers? I don't know how much it is but any little bit would help right?
Blessings,
Garsy
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/8/2008 10:12:31 AM
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manda59
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Do any of your schools get funding/support from local businesses?
Our local high school (I'm in the UK) does, and it's quite common over here. I just wondered if it happened over there.
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/8/2008 10:30:07 AM
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garsyt
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it depends.
I know a local GM plant provides tutors for an after school program at both of our middle schools. Teachers, if they ask and are creative enough, can sometimes get different businesses to donate items. I do know that a local gas station has a contract with our school to provide all the fuel, BUT I don't know if that is cost effective or not. There are different businesses that have funded certain field trips at all levels including the cost of busing.
But as far as major support no - not here anyway.
Blessings,
Garsy
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/8/2008 6:45:44 PM
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daboysj
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They did not just cut after school so they do not have to pay teachers and busses. They turn the lights in the hallway off as soon as the busses are gone. We may keep the lights on in our rooms until we leave, but the hallways are dark. We do not get support from local businesses. Some of the local churches collect school supplies and send to the schools, but that is it. We have trouble getting restaurants to even deliver lunch to the teachers without charging us extra.
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/8/2008 9:39:49 PM
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garsyt
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There WAS a grocery here that did something like that not all that long ago but then was bought out by another grocery store chain. I should contact the district manager and see if they are considering doing something like that again.
Blessings,
Garsy
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/8/2008 9:48:10 PM
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iluvatar
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What happened to the money? These programs used to be available and affordable, but they're not anymore. What happened? Is there less money coming in? If so, what happened to it? Is intake the same, but expenses have gone up? If so, which expenses? Have the funds been shifted to new/other programs? All of the above?
I'm genuinely interested, because this seems to be a problem faced by a number of different agencies & services. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, there was quite a bit of information put out about how sorely lacking infrastructure maintenance is in this country. Other agencies dealing with public safety and oversight often complain of inadequate resources. What happened? We used to be able to afford these things, didn't we?
I ask you guys, because you seem to be fairly clued in at least on the local level.
-Dan.
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/8/2008 10:11:52 PM
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garsyt
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quote:
What happened to the money? These programs used to be available and affordable, but they're not anymore. What happened? Is there less money coming in? If so, what happened to it? Is intake the same, but expenses have gone up? If so, which expenses? Have the funds been shifted to new/other programs? All of the above?
Ah yes thanks for the questions Dan!
Here in Indiana as around the country costs of risen big time! The cost of diesel that fuels most school buses has risen dramatically. The cost of heating and cooling schools has gone up big time as well. To add to that inflation has made the costs of text books, supplies, and in general EVERYTHING higher. Then in many states in an effort to appease and relieve the tax burden on many a homeowner states have capped property taxes and thus this seriously limits what goes into school coffers. Personally with the property tax cut here in Indiana, my school taxes have been cut nearly $240 dollars. Now I live in a moderately priced 4 bedroom home whose gross assessed property value rose $6,500, yet the funding for my local school district dropped, because the state issued a property tax break of nearly $1000 dollars. All this to say - property tax cuts in many states have hurt schools big time. Thus the money is not there anymore! And with prices rising and income dropping or at best staying the same - schools are being forced to make hard cuts. And they are still expected to meet the standards of Annual Yearly Progress each year and do it with less.
Schools are not totally free from blame tho. Many have horrible money managers at the top levels. And they spend money without thinking about the affect the expenditure is going to have on the children and teachers. Sometimes there is an abundance of administration when what we really need is more highly trained teachers. Sometimes instead of deciding a field trip or two are important that same administration would rather keep their school paid for car and fuel stipend. Some schools have lost their focus and would rather put everything into their sports teams then focus on what the school is truly there for. Not saying sports is bad, but when an athletic teams funding outweighs and supersedes hiring a science teacher, something is wrong, in my opinion. Teachers are expected to do more with less and still meet those state standards.
That's my take on it all anyway.
Blessings,
Garsy
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/9/2008 9:39:15 PM
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mapachito13
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quote:
ORIGINAL: garsyt
Here in [insert your state here] as around the country costs of risen big time! The cost of diesel that fuels most school buses has risen dramatically. The cost of heating and cooling schools has gone up big time as well. To add to that inflation has made the costs of text books, supplies, and in general EVERYTHING higher. Then in many states in an effort to appease and relieve the tax burden on many a homeowner states have capped property taxes and thus this seriously limits what goes into school coffers. Thus the money is not there anymore! And with prices rising and income dropping or at best staying the same - schools are being forced to make hard cuts. And they are still expected to meet the standards of Annual Yearly Progress each year and do it with less.
Schools are not totally free from blame tho. Many have horrible money managers at the top levels. And they spend money without thinking about the affect the expenditure is going to have on the children and teachers. Sometimes there is an abundance of administration when what we really need is more highly trained teachers. Sometimes instead of deciding a field trip or two are important that same administration would rather keep their school paid for car and fuel stipend. Some schools have lost their focus and would rather put everything into their sports teams then focus on what the school is truly there for. Not saying sports is bad, but when an athletic teams funding outweighs and supersedes hiring a science teacher, something is wrong, in my opinion. Teachers are expected to do more with less and still meet those state standards.
That's my take on it all anyway.
Blessings,
Garsy
You wrote about the problem so eloquently I had to replace your home state of Indiana with "[insert your state here]. You captured the problem nationwide with this post! Great post!
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/9/2008 10:26:34 PM
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garsyt
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Thank you!
One thing that our high school, I learned today, had to do to cut costs was to reduce the number of special needs teachers and rely on fewer teachers and more aides - because aides get paid less then a 3rd of what a teacher does. THIS when the high school is on probation for not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress with our special needs students in Language Arts and English! I'm trying to figure out how fewer trained teachers in this area are going to provide these students with what they need to meet standards to make the state happy and to keep our district out of the dog house so to speak.
Blessings,
Garsy
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/12/2008 9:51:05 PM
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garsyt
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At back to school night this past week I learned some more irritating news regarding funding in our state.
Seems the funding per student isn't the same across the board, like they would like people to believe. In fact it is so unfair it is not funny.
The district we are in consistently tests well and has some of the highest SAT and ACT scores in the state as well, we have some of the highest trained teachers that are paid relatively well compared to other schools, but because we have a very low percentage of students that receive free or reduced lunches we are at the bottom of all the districts in the state as far as funding goes, only getting about $5000 per student. So despite the issues I have with our school districts administration, the teachers are doing their jobs well and the kids are learning despite the discrepancies in funding. Why is it that we with nearly 4000 dollars less in funding per student can do so much more and have students that outperform students from districts that are getting roughly $9000 dollars per student because of the higher percentage of children that get free and reduced lunches?
There is a referendum that is going to be voted on in April here that will add an addition $13 to $30 to our property taxes per year that our school is depending on so we don't have to cut teachers and raise class sizes until this unfairness in funding issue is fixed at the state level. I'm praying that it passes, but there are others that are going to fight it I'm sure. But all we need is a majority vote. So, personally I'm going to encourage those I know who will vote FOR the referendum to go out and vote and I will volunteer to take them to the polls in my van if I have to, as it will be the ONLY thing on the ballots. And I just might join the superintendent and other parents and such on a trip down to the state legislature in November to try to convince them to readjust the funding problems so all students are getting the same amount of funding. Our governor claims that he wants to work toward smaller class sizes and better test scores, so I'm praying that he hears us when we say that our class sizes will go up dramatically if our referendum doesn't pass and this funding disparity continues.
Anyway I sound like a commercial. I've spent a lot of time thinking through this and another mother in the neighborhood and I have discussed this at length and we are going to campaign for our children and their teachers and gather as many votes for as possible. My neighbor moved into this district specifically for her kids as did we, and she is totally convinced that her daughter would have NEVER made it to her senior year had she not been in this district and both of us have boys that NEED smaller class sizes desperately! We are in a fight for what we need for our kids.
Thanks for listening to me ramble!
Blessings,
Garsy
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/13/2008 12:50:48 PM
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GregandJenny
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quote:
The district we are in consistently tests well and has some of the highest SAT and ACT scores in the state as well, we have some of the highest trained teachers that are paid relatively well compared to other schools, but because we have a very low percentage of students that receive free or reduced lunches we are at the bottom of all the districts in the state as far as funding goes, only getting about $5000 per student.
Not that I agree with that but it does make some sense. Here in WA we have local property taxes that also go to schools. I am almost positive that the state gives less money to the districts that bring in more money. If many of the students are on free and reduced lunch then their parents probably don't pay property taxes and the property they do live on doesn't generate as much so the state trues to level that.
In other words say if the property tax brought in 2000 for your district and only 1000 for another district then the state would give you 5000 and give them 6000 to make it fair.
G
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/13/2008 8:51:51 PM
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garsyt
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I hear what you are saying Greg, but a $4000 dollar per student difference? I guess to me it doesn't seem fair.
Blessings,
Garsy
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/13/2008 11:05:36 PM
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GregandJenny
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my question is how much total per district is each school spending on each child?
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/13/2008 11:46:10 PM
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garsyt
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I'm still trying to figure out why the kids in our district are doing so much better then other districts receiving much more money per child. Our district offers more electives, more advanced placement and honors programs, a self-contained gifted and talented program, and they built 3 state of the art schools in the last 6 years with NO increases to our local property taxes. Other schools in other districts are finding NO funds to repair broken heating systems or chipped floor tiles, and forget about building new schools. They have more money per student and they still can't seem to produce kids that can pass the state testing requirements and other programs are non- exsistant.
Blessings,
Garsy
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/14/2008 8:31:30 AM
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PrincessDonna
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Garsy, it's because school performance is not tied to money spent. Thank God it's not! Most parents at the Christian school spend between $2,300 and $3,800 to send them there (there is a sliding tuition scale for lower incomes). Those kids far out perform those at the public schools, where more than $7,000/student is spent. Why? I know you know the answer...parental involvement. I'm sure it's the same reason in your district, from what I've heard of your area. No amount of money can replace parents who are concerned about their children's education.
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/14/2008 8:45:21 AM
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artemis
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PrincessDonna
Garsy, it's because school performance is not tied to money spent. Thank God it's not! Most parents at the Christian school spend between $2,300 and $3,800 to send them there (there is a sliding tuition scale for lower incomes). Those kids far out perform those at the public schools, where more than $7,000/student is spent. Why? I know you know the answer...parental involvement. I'm sure it's the same reason in your district, from what I've heard of your area. No amount of money can replace parents who are concerned about their children's education.
Parental involvement is huge. Also, teachers are willing to get paid less and have less resources if they are working in a "good" school as opposed to a "bad" school. I live in Dallas and I don't care how much DISD pays, it's not worth putting my life at risk to teach here  I drive to a nicer, safer district where I get paid a lot less, but have never worried about my safety.
*I know that there are teachers who are wonderful with tough kids and work in those "bad" districts... I'm just not one of them. And I put "bad" in quotes because that's the only way I can think of to describe them. I'm not saying that the kids are "bad" there or anything...
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RE: How is your school cutting costs? - 9/15/2008 9:58:00 AM
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garsyt
Posts: 2245
Joined: 4/12/2005
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Trust me I KNOW parental involvement is huge. Why do you think I'm in the building so much?
My point is however is if things don't change to level the disparity even a little bit, our school district is going to end up much like our neighboring school districts even with parental involvement. We are known for our small class sizes and the number of electives and advanced courses we are able to offer. But with the way things are going financially because of the disparity in funding and the property tax cuts of this past year, which I understand the reasoning for, schools are hurting.
I don't want to see class sizes of 33+ kids. No amount of parental involvement will be able to counter the detriment this would have on our children. We would see even more issues then we see now. Slower kids won't get the help and attention they are currently getting in our district and the smarter kids would not be as challenged. Right now our teachers are able to do a pretty good job of making sure all the kids get an excellent education, but if the class sizes get much larger (the largest in our district at the elementary level is 27 and Ty says he doesn't have any class with more then 25 kids.) these teachers are going to have a tough time. We are going to end up with a lot of burnt out overworked teachers and a lot of frustrated parents. When we lived in the city, one of the reasons I homeschooled was that the teacher turn-over rate was so high in this other district. And a lot of that was attributed to burnout.
One thing the other districts are doing with the extra dollars is fully funding full day kindergarten. In our district full day kindergarten is offered along with half day classes, BUT if you want your child to have the full day kindergarten you end up paying for it to the tune of $1500! Now I'm not a big fan of full day kindergarten, but I understand that it is good for some children and needed for some families, but there are some families, usually the ones with the kids that need it the most, that are not going to be able to afford that price tag. My thinking is is that if our district had even just a little bit more, the kids that really need full day kindergarten but whose parents can't afford the price tag, some funding would be available for that, and we'd be able to keep those classes small, as they should be, not only in kindergarten but across the board.
And parents are getting frustrated. As is seen in other threads the school supply lists are bordering on insane in some areas of the country and the cuts in office supplies are forcing many teachers to either depend on parents for supplies, or do without. ALL three of my elementary kids' teachers asked for e-mail addresses at back to school night so they could do their newsletters and such, including permission forms, through e-mail instead of a hard copy sent home with the kids So if teachers are doing that you KNOW they've been told to cut down on their paper use.
Blessings,
Garsy
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