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Putnam Valley Board of Education Seeks Reductions to Assistant Coaching Staff
Staffing requests nearly flat for 2008-9
by Margaret Sternberg
Two years ago the Putnam Valley School District's initial budget was defeated. The revised budget was adopted partly because the threat of going to a contingency budget might have meant the elimination of the district's athletics program, and parents let it be known that action would have untenable.
Now, the athletics program appears to be where some of the fat lies in the budget, and, at its March 28, 2008 meeting, the Putnam Valley Board of Education asked Coordinator of Athletics Brian Hogaboom to look at the possibility of reducing some of the coaching staff.
Trustee Frank Reale brought up the issue, noting that there existed academic classes with as many as 30 students for one teacher and contrasting that with there being five coaches for 56 students for football, three coaches for 36 students in boys' soccer, three coaches for 26 students in volleyball, two swimming coaches for 16 students on the swimming team and four coaches for about 65 students in boys' lacrosse - ratios, respectively, of approximately one coach to every 11, 12, 9, 8 and 16 students.
Both Trustee Reale and Board President Tina Mackay suggested that Mr. Hogaboom focus on reductions within the assistant coaching staff, noting that relatively small ratios of staff to students existed in every sport and in all seasons. The staff to student ratios were inherited by Mr. Hogaboom from his immediate predecessor as Coordinator of Athletics, Pete Kuczma.
On a more positive note, even prior to the request to look at reducing staffing, Hogaboom had not requested any increases for the department, with the exception of noting that fees for BOCES officials are increasing 6 percent, a situation over which he has no control.
Hogaboom also said he was evaluating the situation in modified sports of children who are on teams but have no chance to play. He is expected to report back to the board on the issue shortly.
Also saving the district some money due to attrition, Director of Operations Nick Bellantoni announced that the Operations Department would not only need no additional staffing, but that one custodian had resigned and been replaced with a cleaner, saving the district $8,000. There are no staffing changes reported for the Transportation Department.
That announcement, however, was in stark contrast to his announcement that he expected a 26 percent increase in the amount the district would spend for fuel oil, raising that line item to $130,000 for the year. Because that amount was based upon a price of $3.25 per gallon as of December 2007 and the price of oil has been so volatile, the board requested he again check his prices and figures for the upcoming year.
The price the district pays for diesel fuel is tied into a state contract with the Town of Putnam Valley, with the district now paying $3.25 per gallon. Bellantoni is projecting that the district will spend $227,500 in 2008-9, a 39.69 percent increase. Based upon this increase, the board asked that pickup points for buses be evaluated, especially in cul-de-sacs, in an effort to conserve mileage.
The transportation contract costs increase 3.5 percent, based upon the rise in the Consumer Price Index.
Mr. Bellantoni said that the department continues to include in its budget $100,000 for projects that are part of the Five Year Plan required by the state.
For the Elementary School in 2008-9, Principal Jamie Edelman announced that enrollment is expected to decrease by about 17 students, although she cautioned that current kindergarten enrollment might exceed projections. As a result of the decrease, Edelman said that there was no need to increase staffing and that she was hoping to maintain next year the same number of classroom teachers and the same number of sections per grade level. Staff levels for "Encore" programs would also remain the same.
Middle School Principal Ed Hallisey reported an increase of eight students expected in the total number attending the Middle School in 2008-9, also reporting that the increase would require "no programmatic change," as well as no increase in staffing. Class size for Grade 5, with the increase in students, is expected to go from 23 to 25. Class size for Grade 6, however, goes from 26 to 23.
Hallisey requested that a .2 addition in staff for Social Studies at the beginning of the year be kept in order to keep class size at 23 to 26 in 2008-9, rising marginally from 22 to 25 now. The .2 position had been added to keep some classes from having as may as 33 to 35 students. He attributed the need to Grade 8 and the Honors classes, which skew class sizes in other areas. Hallisey projected as many as 30 students in some classes, with the additional .2 position allowing classes to start with about 25 students.
Interim High School Principal Richard Herlihy said that the High School is expected to have nine fewer students next year, at 616. Herlihy pointed to the science labs and the "need to accommodate all of the sciences" as the reason he was requesting a teaching position increase of .1, suggesting the possibility of a teacher currently at .9 going to a full-time position.
In the area of Special Education, Director Jim Stowell announced that staffing levels would remain the same, noting that despite total enrollment decreasing in Special Education, he was unable to decrease staffing because class size is dictated by state law. This presentation, it turned out, was Stowell's last with the district as the board later accepted, with regret, his resignation for retirement. His replacement, Natalie Doherty, is currently Chairperson CSE/CPSE and is a teacher in the district.
On another note entirely, the recent announcement that Putnam County is intending to stop paying for half of the cost of the School Resource Officer ("SRO") struck home as Superintendent Dr. Marc Space and all board members decried the move as being "penny wise and pound foolish." Space credited Putnam Valley's SRO with creating a safe atmosphere for the children, saying their officer is regularly approached by the students, who "tell him what's going on in the community," also crediting the officer's connections within the student community for helping the town and the school solve graffiti vandalism. Calling the County's move "shortsighted," Space said "the community benefits in so many ways." Space also noted the irony of people discussing "shared services" to save money, and subsequently cutting a shared service.
Trustee Marie Zarcone said that the public would need to "put some pressure on," adding that she felt the move had come from Putnam County Executive Bob Bondi and not through the County Legislature. Dr. Space said that the Putnam County Superintendents are drafting a letter about the issue. Noting the importance of the SRO to the district, he suggested that should the district need to fully fund the position itself that would raise other issues, such as who would be the officer's employer at that point.
Also noted that evening was a State Education requirement, as of July 1, 2008, that students in kindergarten and grades 2, 4, 7, 10, new entrants to a district, students applying for a working permit, students triennially evaluated for the Committee on Special Education and any student about to participate in a sport for the first time go for their Body Mass Index in addition to their full health appraisal. Body Mass Index is a measure of obesity.
The information will be kept in the nurse's office in the respective schools and, while the state has directed the information be collected, it has not yet told districts what is to "be done" with the information. The district is trying to obtain more information from the state on the disposition of the information.
The next meeting of the Putnam Valley Board of Education will be Thursday, April 3, at 7pm.
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