Thomas Breen photo
Asst. Supt. Keisha Redd-Hannans and Supt. Carol Birks.
A planned staffing overhaul in the city school system should result in larger classes, $12 million in savings, and no new layoffs, the superintendent told alders Tuesday night.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Superintendent Carol Birks made that cost-saving pitch in the Aldermanic Chambers of City Hall during a five-hour Finance Committee budget workshop regarding Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed $556.6 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2019 – 2020 (FY20).
Birks, along with NHPS Assistant Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans, Chief Operating Officer (COO) Michael Pinto, and Business Director Linda Hannans, presented the staff reorganization savings measure as a key component of a a nearly $30 million deficit mitigation plan designed to help balance the schools budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Tuesday night’s Finance Committee workshop.
By moving educators who are certified to teach in multiple disciplines around within the district to fill vacancies that arise due to resignations and retirements, Birks said, the administration anticipates saving upwards of $12 million without having to fire any current staff.
“We believe we can get it without any layoffs,” Redd-Hannans said.
The mayor’s proposed budget allocates $187.9 million in city general operating fund dollars towards the public school system. That’s a $750,000 increase over the city’s budgeted contribution to NHPS this fiscal year.
The school system anticipates receiving another $146.2 million next year in state education aid, primarily through state Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grants.
Birks.
The city’s ECS funding has remained essentially flat for the past decade, Redd-Hannans said, despite increases to the city’s student population and dramatic drops in federal grants, such as the expiration last year of the five-year, $54 million Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant.
Redd-Hannans said when the mayor asked the superintendent and her central office team to calculate the general fund cost of running the local school system next year assuming a flat level of state support, she and Birks delivered a budget request of $217.9 million. A full $30.7 million more than this year’s schools budget, and over $25 million more than what the Board of Education actually expects to spend this fiscal year.
The mayor responded with a proposed schools budget of $187.9 million, leaving the superintendent and her team to figure out how to close that $30 million gap.
On Tuesday, Birks and Redd-Hannans said that a bulk of those savings can be achieved through vacancies and teacher reorganization.
“We’ve identified certain positions that we can reduce based on the recommendations of school-level administrators,” Birks said.
She said some teachers in the system currently have class loads that are too small. By not filling vacancies, NHPS can move teachers around who are certified in multiple areas, thereby avoiding the need to hire new staff to fill those anticipated empty positions. That should also allow the system to redistribute class loads more evenly across all teachers.
For example, she said, some NHPS high school teachers only have 50 or 60 students across all of their classes. That teacher could reasonably be expected to teach a total of around 120 or 125 students, she said, with a goal of around 27 per class.
East Rock Alder Anna Festa.
“Just realigning isn’t changing the actual numbers,” East Rock Alder Anna Festa questioned. “You would have to lay off teachers” with this savings plan?
“That is not our goal,” Redd-Hannans replied.
Walker-Myers.
“Do we believe we have enough teachers that actually have mutltiple certifications,” Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers asked, “so that when these positions become available through retirement or leaving the district, that they can actually move into those positions?”
In subjects like math and physics, Birks said, the school system will likely have to recruit new staff because not many teachers are currently to certified to teach in those disciplines. “In terms of elementary education,” she said, “we’re usually able to fill those roles.”
How much does it truly cost to educate a student? Festa asked.
For a “typical” student, Birks said, around $18,000 per year. That number can vary widely for special needs students, she said.
“Is there really a $30 million deficit?” Festa asked about the NHPS budget.
“Our numbers were verified by the city,” Redd-Hannans said. When the mayor asked NHPS how much it will cost the general fund next year to run the city school system, the superintendent and her team found that number to be just over $217 million. But, per the mayor’s proposed budget, the system is slated to get just over $187 million.
“We believe through mitigated efforts that we will be able to balance the budget,” she said.
Transportation Savings
Finance Committee Vice-Chair Adam Marchand.
Westville Alder and Finance Committee Vice-Chair asked the superintendent and her team to unpack the anticipated $2 million in saving through reviewing transportation routes.
Pinto said the school system is currently in negotiations with its school bus operator, First Student, with the goals of improving student safety and reducing the need for buses to increase their miles traveled by having to circle around one-way streets.
He said he is also working with the city’s Transportation, Traffic & Parking department on “Safe Routes to Schools” projects that would encourage more students to walk to school.
“We want to encourage more walkers and at the same time work with TT&P to make it safer for them to walk,” he said.
Birks added that NHPS has a new director of transportation, and that he is in the process of recommending new routes to the bus company. Previously, she said, the bus company told the school system what it thought the best routes should be, but NHPS is now exerting more control over those schedules.
“I understand cutting and trying savings,” Finance Committee Chair and Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton said, “but make sure in those savings we’re not eliminating bus stops, especially for elementary school students, where their safety comes into play.”
Budget Goals
Birks and Board of Alders Preisdent Tyisha Walker-Myers.
Birks also reviewed for the alders a dozen educational, organizational, and community engagement goals that NHPS has for the following fiscal year, including allocating resources “with the goal of providing equity across all our schools,” focusing resources “to directly support classroom learning and teaching,” supporting the implementation of a “comprehensive core classroom reading instructional program,” and developing “communities of practice for teachers in the areas of math, literacy and English Language Services.”
Marchand asked the superintendent to unpack some of those goals for people without professional expertise in the field.
What, for example, does it mean to want to implement a “whole child framework to address students’ socio-emotional learning needs”?
“Our students have cognitive needs and academic needs and socio-emotional needs,” Birks said. She said NHPS is in the process of working with university and nonprofit partners to develop programs that teach a child “holistically” by not just focusing on academics, but also on instilling values like a commitment to learning, self-regulation, and grit.
“How do we get to the hearts of children and understand what they need emotionally, psychologically,” she said.
And what about the goal of developing a “play-based curriculum” for preschoolers through third-graders, Marchand asked.
“We have such a high academic focus in the early learning grades,” Redd-Hannans said. For students as young as 3, 4, 5 years old, “it’s hard for them to sit all day long and respond to just academics, if you will.” A “play-based” curriculum would encourage those young students to learn through exploration and through experience.
“This is something we’re committed to,” she said. “We need to put play back in schools.”
And how about engaging “families and the community in meaningful partnerships,” Marchand asked. That sounds great and wholesome, but what does it mean?
“In every aspect of our work, we engage families,” Birks said. She said the school system just launched a new Parent University, where parents can attend such workshops as Helping Your Young Child Learn through Play and Surviving Adolescence. She said the school system has also reached out to parents for strategic planning sessions around putting together next year’s proposed budget.
“We want to empower people to own the decision making collectively,” she said, “so that we have some shared governance in the work that we’re doing so that people feel like they’re part of it.”