Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Budget Cuts and Such...

Yesterday was my day off, in which I missed a faculty meeting.  Unfortunately, I wish I would have been here for it!  

In Northern New York, many of our schools are struggling with funding.  We have quite a few school districts that have essentially run out of money are are defaulting on their bills.  The hard part is that in some areas, our schools are so spread out that it's hard to combine districts.  But, on the other hand, some would be good to combine, but the buildings wouldn't be able to handle the influx of students.  

My second year of teaching, we were on a contingency budget.  As hard as it seemed, it really wasn't that hard.  Our administrators squirreled away money in secret funds to help up through the year if we ran out of supplies or wanted to do an impromptu field trip.  

Yesterday at our faculty meeting, we were informed by our superintendent that the business manager we had last year from Boces essentially "screwed up" and now, our district essentially only has enough money in our surplus fund to get us through one more school year before we run out of money.


It was told that next year, there will be job cuts that this district has never had to approach before...jobs will be cut that they have never dreamed of cutting. That being said, it makes me slightly nervous. The high school art teacher is planning on teaching one more year and then retiring, so I suppose worse case scenario, I'm cut or brought down to 50% until she leaves, as she has more seniority.

Our budget needs to be approved by the board by next week, so I'm sure we'll find out who will be getting pink slips by then.

As far as I know, art only needs to be offered to 4th-6th grade, 7th grade and there has to be a studio art class offered as well in NYS. That means I could be cut to 50%...however I know that would be a problem because the music and gym department can't pick up the slack without hiring another teacher for free periods...that's the one thing that keeps me hanging on.

Maybe they'll offer the high school teacher a retirement incentive...chances are I'd become a K-12 teacher or at least full time, and someone else would be hired at a very part time rate.

How many of you have faced this before? I obviously have always known that it could happen to me, given the subject of choice that I wanted to teach. At this point, I am taking everything with a grain of salt until everything is figured out. I have the feeling though, that this will be a very stressful end of the year now. Waiting to see if the budget will pass our finicky public will be hard. They have not had a raise in school taxes in about 10 years. Our budget last year wasn't passed because there was going to be a raise in taxes for the public. It will be interesting to see how things go...

11 comments:

  1. Our school is experiencing budget and staffing cuts this year (effective and in preparation for next year) in order to start recouping losses that have been absorbed for years now. So far I have been assured that I will at least have a job but since I work at a private school, the level of enrollment will largely determine the capacity that I will be working. :-/

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  2. I started out as a high school (actually 8-12) teacher in Peru, in northern NY state. After 8 years, my job was cut, due to a drop in enrollment. It was a shock to me; I loved my job, I loved living in Plattsburgh right near Lake Champlain, where in the summer I could lay on the beach, windsurf, and scuba dive to my heart's content, and where I had the State University right there. But somehow, things have a way of working themselves out, and two years later, when, with my preferred eligibility, they offered my my job back, I no longer wanted it. Like you, I was young, and didn't have children yet, so it really made it much easier than it would have been if I had an established family. Still, it stinks when it happens, and the sad part is when the school district knows what a value you are, and doesn't want to lose you, but has no choice. Good luck!!

    Meanwhile, about the regulations in NY state - elementary art is required to be taught, but unfortunately it is NOT required that it be taught by a certified art professional. In other words, the elementary teacher could be responsible for teaching art to her own students, or perhaps someone who has no art experience at all, maybe a reading teacher, or a spec ed teacher, whose position is cut back, could become responsible for the teaching of art. And of course, as we all know, they do not have the expertise/training/skills to teach art as we know it should be done. Art is required to be offered in the high school, and there is a middle level requirement too, but that is really just a 20 week requirement that can be spread out however they want - my district in recent years has offered 20 weeks (1/2 year) in grade 7 and no art at all in grade 8. (Some school districts divide it half in grade 7 and half in grade 8, or include it in sequences with grade 6 if they are considered 'middle school'.) I believe the middle and high school must be taught by a certified art teacher, but no elementary. I believe high school also has to offer a sequence, for students who plan a concentration in art, so that means more offerings than just Studio in Art. But I could be mistaken... it's been a while since I was the secondary teacher.

    At any rate, if you are cut, it's good to know that in one year you will definitely have a job when the high school art teacher retires. Good luck! Keep us posted!

    Ummm... one more thought. You don't currently teach full time, do you? (You often mention about your day off.) Does that mean you are NOT probationary, not eligible for tenure? If so, does that put you in a tenuous position for being offered the full time job when the other gal retires? Could they just turn around and offer it to someone else? I'm thinking with my 'union hat' right now - I spent 10 years as my local NYSUT president so I know how shady these decisions can be sometimes, and it is really unfortunate when you don't have legal backing at all. As a part-time teacher you probably have very little legal protection. It stinks; sorry to have to mention it!

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    1. I am tenure track, and I actually received a congratulations from a fellow faculty member for getting my tenure today...so it must have been approved at the last board meeting. That's the plus. With my 83% standing, I still receive full health insurance benefits (our district requires us to pay something like 5%...so I pay the same rate everyone else does). The only thing that's different for me is I receive 83% of the full time pay, I only get 12 instead of 15 sick days a year, and I get 2.5 instead of 3 personal days. Once the other teacher retires, there are a few things that may happen. I could become a K-12 teacher. I could decide to do high school instead of elementary, but I don't think I will do that. Ideally, I'd like to keep my K-6 grades and then teach a few high school electives to try and broaden the art department and get it more popular in high school...but that may not happen now. The scenario that will probably happen is that I will teach K-6 and maybe 2 studios/an elective and someone else will be hired at 50% to teach the remainder of classes that need to be offered.

      Currently our 7th graders get art every day for 20 weeks and no art in 8th grade. They were thinking about offering 10 week art classes in 8th grade next year because the younger students in the high school were complaining about not having art...but who knows if that will actually happen.

      I'll have to find out exactly what they deal is with elementary art requirements. The high school teacher seems to think only 4th-6th grade art is required by NYS.

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    2. Congrats on receiving tenure! Yahoo!!

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  3. EEKS! I apologize for the length of that comment! I got off and running and couldn't stop I guess!

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  4. So Sorry this shouldn't be happening anywhere.

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  5. I know where you are coming from! There have been many times in the past 25 years that i have been on edge wondering if I was going to have a job for the following year depending on whether our budget passed or not . Most recently was 3 years ago when our now governor was first elected and decided in his almighty wisdom that he should and could slash the state aid for education so severely ( because as he felt we needed to cut back our spending ) that districts were absolutely devastated! So many teachers lost their jobs! It was a blood bath! At one point people were being let go daily so we all approached our mailboxes like there was some creature inside waiting to pounce! No one wanted to look in and see the dreaded "you have a meeting with the principal/superintendant" letter! At the same time my husband had been laid off and was getting work sparsely( he has since found a job) It was BAD! we went from eight 1st grades to five! Our enrollment stayed the same and our class sizes went way up! 27 first graders in a class! We were looking at not having any money at all to order any supplies and were told to take inventory and help each other out if we could. The week before school got out for the summer we were told that we were getting a small amount to order some supplies. I made it through the following year on what was in my inventory, scavenged leftovers and was able to order some paper, some watercolors and one classpack of markers! And our district was in good shape compared to others! I'll be thinking about you.... hope all goes well...

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    1. Wow! Thanks...it's funny how this happened. We went from being one of the districts in the best shape money wise for the next two years to right at the bottom with the others. I think there is really only one school district around here who will always be well off, and that's because they have a power authority in the village that has a hydro-electric damn in the river so they get tons of money from that company.

      I talked to one of the board members today who stopped in and tried to get some information from her, and she said she doesn't think it's going to be as bad as they initially thought, so it'll be interesting to see how things go. Right now I'm not going to try and stress over it...I'm going to take it with a grain of salt until (and if) I get served with any paperwork.

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  6. Sorry to hear about your district. We went thru this two years ago in my district. A number of extra art teachers were let go in schools that had over 800 students and two art teachers. We are currently being required to have ESL certification to continue teaching after Jan. 2013. It will be interesting to see how this will affect the number of teachers currently teaching. I am sure the moral at school is pretty sad at your school. Be positive!!
    BTW, The day they laid off 5 classroom teachers at my school two years ago was brutal. I was afraid to walk into the hall!! Good Luck!!

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  7. I feel like budget cuts are happening everywhere...I teach on Long Island in NY and they let go 41 teachers in my district. I'm still safe but if student enrollment goes up and my school needs classroom teachers they'll have to cut special areas so there's never a guarantee...Truthfully though you can't dwell on it. You have to take things as they come and try to stay positive. Unfortunately we are working at a turbulent time in education and these things are happening all over. Just enjoy your job, keep your resume and portfolio current and keep your fingers crossed, the rest is up to fate!

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  8. Well the good thing is that my position wasn't mentioned at the board meetin last night as a potential avenue to cut. The only bad thing is that there is a spending freeze. We've only had to submit our boces bid, which has my paper, clay and general supplies on it (glue, pencils, erasers). I haven't ordered any paint yet and I'm running out! Looks like I'll be on the smart teacher overtime trying to get blick gift cards so I can buy paint!

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