Archive for April, 2010

Last night, the Ferndale School Board approved the minimum staffing level for certificated positions.

Next school year, the district will have at least 298.36 full-time certificated positions, which is down 36.6 FTE from this year’s minimum level. To see where these cuts will come from, click here.

Note that these cuts do not include classified staffing; those cuts are still being determined. The district has more time to determine these cuts because the notification date is later. Also, the number of teachers being laid off will likely be lower than 36 due to retirements and attrition.

There should be a story about this in tomorrow’s paper, but since it’s such a complicated issue, I thought I’d provide more information here.

Districts are funded for staffing based on how many students there are. In Ferndale, like many other districts, they have more teachers than the state pays for, requiring them to pay for those teacher salaries out of the general fund or through grants. Many teachers were paid through I-728 funds, which are funds the state provided to help increase student achievement by reducing class sizes and paying for professional development for teachers. In Ferndale, this money was basically used entirely for hiring staff. This pot of money, or what was left of it this year, was the casualty of budget cuts at the state level.

Because of I-728 being gone and declining enrollment, the Ferndale School District knew staff would have to be cut for next fall. District officials dont’ know what enrollment will be until next fall, but projections show it will be down about 200 students from this year’s budgeted amount of 4,929 (actual enrollment is down about 72 students as of April already). District officials then determined how many staff is needed to teach that many students and then went to building principals to figure out where those staff reductions should be.

The problem with this process is that laws and teacher contracts require staffing decisions to be made in the spring, long before school districts know how many students will actually attend school. School districts are required to make lay-offs in the spring and can’t make any after that unless there is a REALLY good professional reason (like a teacher abusing a student). So, if fewer students show up for school in the fall, the district has to keep all the staff on the books. But, if the flip happens and more students enroll than expected, officials can hire more teachers.

This situation frequently means districts base staffing decisions on conservative estimates so that they don’t get caught paying for more staff than they can afford. But factoring on the conservative side also means that many people go through the emotional turmoil of losing their job, only to be offered it back a couple months later after the budget is finalized.

Superintendent Linda Quinn said during last night’s meeting that if it looks like the district has more money in reserves than anticipated, they will hire more people. The budget will be adopted this summer.

I hope this helps explain the complex staffing issue.