NORWICH – The pressure is off Norwich City Schools and other local districts who currently employ a block, semestered model to create and implement a new year-round school schedule before students return in less than a month.
“I think we dodged a bullet this year,” Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan told members of the district’s board of education Monday night, as he relayed to them the contents of a letter he had received from Senior Deputy Commissioner of Education John King.
According to O’Sullivan, the letter confirmed there will in fact be a January Regents this year, thus allowing the district to keep its current semestered schedule at the high school.
Uncertainty about the mid-year test had sent Norwich and other districts who use semestered schedules scrambling to come up with an alternative model earlier this summer. Now those schools – which represent only a fraction of New York’s districts – have a reprieve, albeit a temporary one.
Based on King’s letter, O’Sullivan said he anticipates the January exam will be eliminated next year. To prepare for that eventuality, the superintendent said the district will continue working on an alternative full-year schedule model, which will be ready to implement for the 2011-12 academic year.
The district is also anxiously awaiting the outcome of a Congressional vote on $600 million in federal money which could help restore teaching positions in districts across New York State. According to O’Sullivan, it remains unclear how the state will disburse the federal funds, if they are, in fact, received. Under state education law, districts are bound to stay within the total budget approved by voters in May, so he said he is unsure “what the legal process” will be governing the allocation.
He expressed concerns about the money, which he said one of his colleagues described as “a windfall which can only be spent in a way they can’t sustain.”
At the request of the board, the superintendent reviewed drafts of the high school’s master schedules, during which he also addressed a question raised by board member Dr. Linda Horovitz regarding staff transfers.
He explained that decisions were made based on the goal of offering courses as economically as possible, keeping class sizes “reasonable,” and putting staff members where the administration believed students and teachers would be most successful. He explained that some staff members had been transfered to other buildings to fill vacancies to keep them employed as an alternative to hiring outside the district.
O’Sullivan warned that in light of declining enrollment and rising pension contribution costs, the district would be faced with making further staff cuts in the coming budget seasons. With 122 children, the size of Norwich’s incoming Kindergarten class has 64 fewer students than the most recent graduating class and is the lowest in the school’s recent history, he reported. If that trend continues, he explained, fewer sections will be needed in each grade level. This year, for example, they may only need to run three UPK classes, as opposed to the four needed last year, he reported.
At the same time, retirement contributions are placing a greater burden on the district. This year, the district’s share will increase from 8.62 to 14 percent, he said, which would translate into a 6 percent hike in the local tax levy.
“We’ll be back at it next year, looking at staff reductions,” the superintendent said. “There’s just no two ways about it.”
According to O’Sullivan and Deputy Superintendent Bob Wightman, the district carefully analyzed whether the retirement incentives offered by the state would be of benefit to Norwich. As a result of their findings, they declined to participate in the Part B local option.
“There was no financial savings to the district,” explained Wightman.