Schools

Malverne Teachers Weigh In On Proposed Budget Cuts

Union officials suggest board cut other expenditures to save more teaching jobs.

The subject was the 2012-2013 Malverne school district budget. The lesson: Priorities 101. 

Class was in session Tuesday night as dozens of Malverne teachers showed up at the school board’s first budget review session, wishing to use their knowledge from the “front lines” to educate the board on what is truly needed to deliver quality education.

New computers and printers? New textbooks? A $33K field trip to Frost Valley? While they’re great to have, they’re “not necessary,” said Bridget Jelovcic, a teacher at  who grew up in Malverne, attended the public schools and still calls the village home today.

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Faced with the new constraints of the tax cap law, Malverne needs to cut $1.9 million from its rollover budget, which is calculated by adding up the costs to maintain all of its existing programs and staff, factoring in contractual and inflationary increases, and the price of executing new federal mandates.  To accomplish this including the elimination of summer school, art and music on the elementary level, and more than 20 full-time equivalent staff positions (two administrative and 14.5 teaching.) This would cause class sizes to increase across the board from Kindergarten through Grade 12.

But Jelovcic, along with her fellow union members, would rather see the board sacrifice other programs they view as less vital to students’ education than classroom teachers. 

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For instance, “I love curriculum writing,” she said, adding that she’s paid a stipend by the district in exchange for this work, but she’s more than willing to part ways with the extra cash if it means saving a colleagues’ job. Plus, since schools in New York will be required to adopt new common core standards in 2014-2015 in Social Studies and Science, she said any curriculum writing performed now in these subjects would be a waste.

For this same reason, she added, the purchase of any new textbooks in these areas should also be put on hold until the standards are developed. Currently, common core standards are being implemented in Math and English-Language Arts, resulting in a 25 percent increase in textbook spending (totaling $424K), but Jelovcic argued that even these purchases could wait because the books and curriculum the district currently uses are consistent with the new standards.

During the 90-minute period the board and administrators spent reviewing the first half of the proposed expenditures for instruction in the 2012-2013 budget, it was revealed that the district spends $25,000 on a service to borrow books from other libraries, a service that Jelovcic said students and faculty already have access to through their village and town libraries.

“Students need to know what it means to get a library card and utilize the resources their town is already paying for,” she added.

Another $25K expense that Jelovcic and others found unnecessary was the Homework Center, which Board Trustee Gina Genti said is more “like a club,” where some students do homework and others play cards or just “hang out.“

“We have teachers staffed in the classroom if a child needs extra help,” Genti added.

Jelovcic also suggested cutting the $13K earmarked for cultural events, saying programs like this can be supported through PTA fundraising instead. And while she has fond memories of her sixth grade trip to Frost Valley, she said that $33K could save a new teacher’s job. When added up all these expenses could possibly rescue five to six teachers from being excessed, she said, suggesting that the board and administration work with teachers to find more ways to save that would compromise the children’s education the least. “We as educators, are in the classroom everyday, what better resource is there for you to use?…We want to support you and make you look good as well.”

Claudia Dortenzio, a Malverne resident who teaches art on the elementary level, also spoke up on behalf of herself and others in her field, reminding them of the importance of art and music to a child’s development.

“We teach the foundation,” she said. “If you want a marching band in the high school, give them music on the elementary level; If u want them to go to Pratt Institute, like I did, then give them elementary art. It really is important to the children and their future.”

Ofcourse, the proposed cuts would be less severe if the school board decided to make an attempt to override the tax cap – proposing a levy higher than 1.59 percent – but it would require 60–percent voter approval.

Michelle Thompson, president of the Malverne teachers union, asked if the board had considered this option.

“We've had a number of discussions on that,” Trustee Patrick Coonan said, but given Malverne’s voting history, he predicted the 60-percent would be “a stretch.”

That said, Coonan expressed his dissatisfaction with the budget the administration has proposed to the board. Instead, of cutting a percentage from all programs across the board, which Coonan says compromises the quality of the entire educational product, he would rather see the district take a hard look at what it truly needs, invest in those areas and de-fund the rest.

“Things that do not really support the core…cut them off completely,” he said, adding that the district’s primary mission is education. “All the other stuff we do is nice…but we have an obligation to everyone to provide a solid education. We need to go back to the drawing board and take another cut at this.”

The next time the board will discuss the budget is at their March 13 business meeting, which starts at 8 p.m. The next budget review session, when they will continue to scrutinize the numbers line-by-line, will take place at 7 p.m. on March 27.


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