The Oswego School District 308 Board of Education will consider a proposal to implement just over $4.9 million in budget cuts–including eliminating 27 elementary school teaching positions–during its Monday, Feb. 8 meeting.
District administrators presented an initial budget cut proposal to the board during a meeting Jan. 25. That proposal called for a total of $5.7 million in potential cuts.
However, an examination of the Jan. 25 budget cut proposal and the proposal to be considered Monday shows that plans to switch the district’s GOAL program to a hybrid learning model and a plan to have students in grades six to 12 attend school four days a week in person with one day of remote learning each week beginning with the 2021-2022 school year are no longer under consideration.
District administrators had previously estimated the GOAL program change and the four day per week of in-person learning with one remote instruction day would have saved the district approximately $970,000.
The Jan. 25 budget cut proposal included six areas of potential reductions: district administration budgets, district administration positions, staff reductions because of declining enrollment, secondary reductions, lessons learned from remote learning and “other.”
Some highlights of the list include a reduction in force of 27 elementary school teachers because of declining enrollment. A decline in enrollment, while due in part to the pandemic, has been projected previously by the district.
A reduction in the number of elementary teachers, which Superintendent Dr. John Sparlin explained can be done without changing class sizes, would save the district a projected $1.89 million.
Sparlin also presented options that included ending printed student planners, reducing the need for substitute teachers and offering retirement incentives for eligible staff members.
District administrators have been working to reduce the district’s spending in the wake of three failed tax hike referendums over the past two years.
The reductions will be voted on as a group at the meeting, beginning at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 8, in the Community Room of Oswego East High School.
Source: The Daily Chronicle