2003 Year in Review

Budget vs Education, Part 1

Last year the community of Morrison voted their pocket books (so to speak) when it came to the Morrison School District. Almost nine weeks have passed with the district’s new budget and many are commenting the district is running fine with the budget cuts. But how are the schools really doing? The three Morrison principals commented on the changes the budget cuts have brought. Each of the principals had different observations on the cuts but the same theme occurred through all the schools.

Steve Wroble, junior high principal, said it best when he explained, “the reason the community isn’t seeing a huge difference in the schools is because the teachers are working harder than ever to give the best they can give.” All the principals agreed the teachers are working longer, harder, and giving their all to make a bad situation appear like there is no situation.

This is the beginning of a three part series about how the budget affects education as told by the school principals. The school year is less than nine weeks old and it will take a crystal ball to see six months, a year, or five years down the road on what the long-term effects will be. But here is the current state of the schools…

Jim Prombo, Morrison Elementary Schools

The biggest problem at the Elementary Level is the average student, who is quiet, and does not get the attention from the teacher they need. They are good kids that are not quite getting it and the teacher has so many student he/she does not recognize a problem. Classes are bigger, at the elementary level, than Principal Jim Prombo would like them. With the teacher cuts, Kindergarten and 1st grade, with 70-85 students, have been kept at 4 classes and are doing quite well. But 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades have classes of 27-28 students in 3 classrooms. “Teachers can’t give individual help with that many students.”

Reading is an area that may be affected most. The “Special Needs” students are taken care of with extra programs but students who do not fit into those programs may slip though the system. “If they take 6 students in the special reading class, the 7th student loses out,” explained Prombo

“Teachers work hard!” according to Prombo They have state teacher mandates that require taking extra courses so they are gone more and they are teaching more with adding P.E. to their schedule three times per week.

There is also no counselor at the elementary level. The former counselor is now a special needs coordinator and she only works two half-days at each school per week to identify special needs.

Another problem is the half-time principal; teachers have to take time out of teaching to discipline a student they would formally have turned over to the principal. One plus has been the new telephone system; teachers can call Prombo from their classroom even if he is at the other school and some problems can be taken care of over the phone.

The supply budget has been cut to 70% so teachers and staff have had to reassess what is really important to print out. So some classroom programs have been changed. Because of budget cuts several teachers are using a centralized printer outside the classroom. Teachers must leave their classrooms to retrieve items they have printed.

Ten to fifteen years ago students that were Special Ed, Mentally Handicapped, with Down Syndrome or Autistic were sent to a separate school. Now they are “main streamed” into many of the classes and the district must pay for extra aids without extra money in their budgets. Two aids were recently hired for that reason. PTO has helped out at the elementary by paying for field trips because the district cut them out of the budget.

by Barb Benson, theCity1.com
October 13, 2003