Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home High School Principal Ralph Brown said the art program will remain intact, and even if the school reduces the number of teachers in Spanish, it will continue to offer Spanish III and Spanish IV.
Last month, students and parents asked the board to protect the Spanish program over concerns that the two advanced Spanish classes might be cut because enrollment is declining.
The largest class in the district, with some 200 students, will graduate this year, Brown said. Future classes are projected at only 160 to 170.
As part of the budget process, Brown must cut one full-time equivalent position next school year, 2016-17.
“Probably, one FTE was gracious,” Brown said, noting that the size of the classes isn’t expected to increase. For now, funding will remain higher because the district receives funding based on the largest enrollment of the previous two years.
He hadn’t made a final decision May 16 as the Sweet Home School District Budget Committee approved the 2016-17 district budget.
His instructions were to cut it through attrition rather than a reduction in force – laying off a teacher. With .5 FTE already vacant in special education, that meant he had to find .5 FTE somewhere else.
Brown looked at art when Gelindo Ferrin resigned, with a possible plan to share the art teacher from Sweet Home Junior High.
“It’s not great for a plan,” Brown said. “To build a program, you won’t do it on a half-time. If we cut art, art will die. If you cut a program, it’s really hard to get a program back.”
But he had to find a place to cut, which means it has to come from somewhere, he said. “You try to make the least painful for staff and kids as possible.”
Then a Spanish teacher resigned, and Spanish became an option for the cut, Brown said. He has a possible plan in the works, an idea that came from the school staff, that may work out well. He and staff members are still working out the details, so he isn’t ready to share the plan yet.
But, he said, even if it doesn’t come to fruition, whatever happens, he said, the school will still offer Spanish III and Spanish IV.
“If it works out the way we hope, it’ll be really good for everybody,” Brown said. Whatever happens, though, the Spanish program will look different next year.
“None of these are ideal for me,” Brown said of the options, but the goal is to preserve the programs.
The high school has been operating without the half-time special education position since December, Brown said, but it was also down a full-time position much of the year. Much of the year, it ran at 3.5 FTE.
With the full-time position full and the half-time position vacant, it’s at a full 4 FTE now, and it’s running well, he said.
During the budget meeting, committee member Brittany Donnell criticized the board’s decision not to increase sports fees to cover the cost of drug testing athletes in a policy the board adopted at the beginning of the month.
District officials anticipate spending $3,000 on the program next year, and that is reflected in the budget.
Supt. Keith Winslow told Donnell that he had provided the option of increasing sports fees to the board when it considered drug testing at its regular meeting on May 9. He suggested $10 per sport.
“I got the strong feeling they’re fine with the cost coming from the general budget,” Winslow said.
Board member Jason Redick said the cost of sports can be high and is concerned that parents will hold their children out of sports if it gets too high.
There were times he had to look at his own family budget and think about the cost of sports, he said, but at the same time, athletics are beneficial to students.
The total cost is small compared to the district’s General Fund, a total of $22.7 million, he said. The benefit of the drug testing program is that students will know their teams are drug free, and they’ll have a reason to be able to say no when offered drugs.
“They fight peer pressure like you wouldn’t believe,” Redick said, adding that it’s gotten worse since the legalization of marijuana.
He believes that testing would have stopped some students he knows from using drugs, he said.
Board member Chanz Keeney said athletics is a way to keep students in school and engaged. “Sports does encourage good academics,” he said.
Drug testing is “a great deterrent,” he said, and it’s available at a minimal cost compared to the General Fund.
In turn, athletes who aren’t using are “going to deter other kids from using drugs,” Keeney said.
He doesn’t think families should be tapped even more before their children are allowed to participate, he said. A $10 fee would be kind of a slap.
It’s a cost that’s incurred only by the athletes, but the payment is spread out among all the students, Donnell said.
But its effects could work their way to the rest of the student population, Keeney said.
Redick noted that the district already spends a lot of money directly on struggling students who are not involved in sports.
“It’s not appropriate to fall into the General Fund,” Donnell said.
Donnell had previously argued against implementing a sports drug testing program at a School Board meeting.
The committee approved the proposed $36.7 million budget without any adjustments 10-0. It will move on to the School Board for adoption next month and take effect on July 1.
Present at the meeting were School Board members Jenny Daniels, Keeney, Redick, Nick Augsburger, Carol Babcock and Debra Brown and committee members Donnell, Kyle Sullens, Kevin Pettner and Miriam Hooley.
Absent were board members Angela Clegg, Mike Reynolds and Jason Van Eck and committee members Gerritt Schaffer and Joce-lyn Gordon.