School District Could Get More Teachers

The Scotch Plains-Fanwood School District may be getting an additional five teachers next year.

During his second budget presentation to the Board of Education on Thursday night, Business Administrator Anthony Del Sordi reported that based on projected enrollment increases the district is looking to add one extra 2nd grade class and one extra 4th grade class at Evergreen Elementary; two additional 5th grade classes, one at each middle school; and one additional 6th grade teacher, who could essentially be redeployed throughout the day to staff basic skills and other courses.

In addition, because of a projected slight decrease in enrollment in the 1st grade, the district could see the reduction of one 1st grade class at Evergreen and one at School One.

Del Sordi noted, though, that kindergarten and first grade enrollment are always the hardest for the district to predict.

"Because these numbers are very questionable, these have only been identified as possible reductions," he said.

Seventh and 8th grades will both remain constant with 19 sections at the two schools. Same goes for the high school, where the district is currently only expecting an enrollment increase of about 23 students.

"We don't believe we'll have a major impact there, so at this point there's no new positions at the high school," Del Sordi said.

The additional fifth grade classes are the result of a continuing increase in enrollment at the middle school level. Del Sordi said this surge began back around 2004-2005, and that the district anticipates it to continue for the next couple of years. Del Sordi said adding the additional sixth grade teacher will also help the district keep class sizes close to where they are now.

While Board member Donald Parisi said that five extra positions sounded like a lot to him, he also noted that the reduction of the two sections at the elementary schools would more or less balance out the addition of the three other positions, thus essentially equaling a net zero increase.

Del Sordi was quick to note, though, that these predictions could change as the next school year gets closer.

"In the first draft we felt we should put those positions in there, then as it gets closer to the school year we can determine if there's an actual need for those positions," he said.

Del Sordi noted, for instance, that if 1st grade enrollment goes up at Evergreen, then the district may have to add back the class it originally planned to eliminate.

"We were trying to see how far we could go depending on enrollment," he said. "We'll continue to look at that between now and the finalized budget."

Del Sordi also noted that if the district ultimately determines that one of the additional sections is not needed, it will either be eliminated to moved to a different level.

"If we don't need them, one or two things could occur," Del Sordi said. "We shouldn't get too hung up on where they are and how they get deployed."

Scotch Plains resident Rona Goldberg questioned if variations in enrollment at the different elementary schools could ever lead to redistricting, but Superintendent Margaret Hayes emphasized that they do not anticipate doing that.

The total anticipated budget for the 2010-2011 school year is $83,796,355, a 2.62 percent increase over the current year. The district is still awaiting Gov. Chris Christie's speech on March 16 to find out how extensive its state aid cuts for the next year will be. The district already got hit with a in aid for the remainder of this year. It is currently creating its next budget under the assumption that it will lose 10 percent in state aid for 2010-2011, but that number could be as high as 15 percent.

At the Feb. 18 Board of Education meeting, Del Sordi presented 2010-2011 budget predictions for special education.

To see the documents presented at the March 4 meeting, which include projected average class sizes for each grade level, click through the forms under the photo sections on this page. Note, the fifth grade data is not included due to errors presented on the forms handed out.