Schools brace for cuts due to COVID-19
STAMFORD — More students per classroom; the gutting of arts, physical education and music instruction; fewer social workers, security guards and para-educators — all are potential outcomes of a draft plan to cut deeply into positions and programs at Stamford schools.
Anyone asked — teachers, union representatives, administrators — uses the same word to describe the possible reductions: “devastating.”
Schools Superintendent Tamu Lucero developed the plan earlier this month in order to shave $15 million from the school budget she originally proposed for next fiscal year. The city’s Board of Finance is looking to cut $35 million citywide to account for expected revenue
losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The board has decided to not raise property taxes in the coming year.
Lucero’s list would in eliminate 202 positions which, in a memo to the teachers union, she said would translate to “dozens” of employees being laid off.
The prospect of massive cuts has been the talk of the school system — it even got Michael Rinaldi to break his silence.
The principal at Westhill High School was suspended in March for saying on Instagram that he believed schools might stay closed until the end of the school year. As part of his punishment, he was instructed to have all communication with teachers, parents and staff reviewed by a supervisor, and had remained publicly silent since.
On Thursday, he spoke publicly for the first time in weeks during a Board of Finance meeting.
“If these budget cuts go through to this extent, if we don’t find another way, our students will never be able to recover from the unconscionable harm that awaits them,” he said.
Across the board
Dani Cohen, a special education teacher in Stamford who focuses on individualized education plan compliance, said the cuts would affect everyone in the school system, including special education students.
The superintendent’s list of potential reductions includes roughly 13 positions dealing with scientific research-based intervention, or SRBI. Cohen said those positions are vital in identifying learning needs in students.
Without them, she said, teachers might have to do interventions themselves in the classroom, which would challenging, especially if class sizes grew — another possible outcome of the draft cuts.
Likewise, many special education students also benefit from the help of para-educators, she said. In particular, they help students remain in the “least restrictive environment” possible and still get the extra attention they need. The proposed list of cuts would eliminate roughly 30 para-professional positions.
“Taking away all of their supports is devastating,” she said.
Other possible program cuts identified by the superintendent include $225,000 for reading software, $283,000 for algebra tutoring and $129,200 for freshman sports.
Of the positions that would be eliminated, 13 are for reading teachers, 12 for classroom teachers, 21 for kindergarten paraeducators and 10 for administrative interns.
Cohen said the overall list of cuts would impact all students in the city.
“You’re taking away everything that is not math, English, science and social studies,” she said. “If you take away all of these opportunities, how are students supposed to excel? When you’re taking away gym, arts, sports, that affects everyone.”
She was also worried about the elimination of 10 security worker positions across the district, during a time when school shootings are on the rise.
Prospect of layoffs
Diane Phanos, president of the Stamford Education Association, the city teachers union, is worried about teachers being laid off, particularly the most vulnerable who are without seniority or who lack certification.
“If a media specialist is reduced and not certified in anything else, I have a problem,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to lose their job.”
Nephty Cruz, a labor relations representative for the para-educators union, said negotiations between the group and the school district are ongoing.
“We’re obviously working to maintain them and keep them there,” he said, referring to paraeducators.
Lucero’s original budget proposal before the coronavirus outbreak included a plan to relocate 20 media center para-educators, while leaving three at their current positions at Stamford High School, Westhill High School and the Academy of Information Technology & Engineering.
The list of cuts to reduce $15 million, however, would include eliminating those three high school positions, plus eight media center specialists across middle and high schools.
That’s left many wondering just how media centers will continue to function.
“This is across the board impacting everyone,” said Cohen.
Impasse
In a move to reduce layoffs and cuts to services, the city is seeking a two-year wage freeze from the teachers union — which officials said would save $8 million over that span — and from the other three school-employee unions and the 10 unions representing city workers.
With the finance board needing to pass a budget by Wednesday, teachers and city officials appear to be at an impasse.
At a Board of Education Fiscal Committee meeting last week, member Jackie Heftman said a lack of concessions from unions will equal drastic cuts.
“There are no white knights out there who are going to come and save us,” she said. “We have to save ourselves.
“This is a reality check for everybody. We’re not kidding. The Board of Finance is not kidding. The Board of Reps is not kidding. This is serious business. And so we need to all work together.”
But Phanos, the teachers union president, said teachers are not open to wage freezes, especially since their contract for the 2020-21 school year has already seen approved.
She argues that the school district will need more resources, not fewer, to properly educate students in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown, and has said the city should look to others sources, such as the Rainy Day Fund, to make up for revenue gaps.
“It would be devastating because a lot of those projected cuts are support teachers to students,” she said. “We feel our students are going to need more support, not less.”
Westhill Principal Rinaldi defended the teachers’ position this week.
“They should not be held responsible as the solution to this problem,” he said.
Lucero, in an interview this week, said all involved find themselves in a complicated situation.
“I think that we need to continue to have conversations to find a way to make sure that our programs and the other parts of our school district and educational system are kept intact,” she said.