District 181 to Add Four New Staff Members

The District 181 Board of Education approved at its regular business meeting Monday night at  the addition of four new district positions for the current 2011-12 school year that will cost the district more than $132,500 annually. 

The four positions equal 2.5 full-time equivalents. One full-time systems administrator position in the technology department was approved along with three half-time positions in the special education department—a district-wide physical therapist, a district-wide occupational therapist, and a resource teacher at .

Superintendant Dr. Renée Schuster said the CHMS position is expected to be in place only for the current school year and will not be needed in 2012-13.

The board voted unanimously to approve the three special education positions, and 6-1 to approve the systems administrator.

Board member Yvonne Mayer cast the “nay” vote for the technology department addition. She said she doesn’t approve of “piece-meal” budget additions that slowly grow the budget without first being presented with the administration’s reasoning.

“I’m not going to participate in that venture,” Mayer said. “If we’re going to start adding positions or changing what we’re offering our students … we need to have it laid out for us.”

Mayer said the board did not receive any rationale behind the systems administrator hiring until she asked administration for it.

At Monday’s meeting, Superintendant Dr. Renée Schuster gave that rationale before the board voted. She said the district’s technology department was cut from 14 to nine when staff reductions were approved in early 2010. In the time period since the cuts, however, the district has added 500 new machines for the department to maintain, and the frequency of requests for tech help from faculty and staff have increased from an average of 248 per month to 374.5 per month, Schuster said.

That means the average amount of help requests each technology department worker has to address each month has increased from 17.8 before the staffing cuts and new machines, to 41.6 currently. On average, Schuster said, each current technology department worker averages 10 hours of overtime per week during the school year and 10 to 20 hours per week during the summer.

Board member Sarah Lewensohn supported the addition and said the tech staff cuts seemed large when they were made. She said the board in 2010 told administration to come back and ask for help if they found the cut was too big.

“Because the impact of the technology not working is significant to the day-to-day happenings in a classroom and whether or not you can do the lesson plan that day,” Lewensohn said.

Mayer said she would have supported the addition if it were an emergency. She said she’s interested in finding out the cause of the increase in help requests.

Board President Michael Nelson and Vice President Glenn Yaeger both voted in favor of the new position, but like Mayer expressed concern about the process by which these additions were brought to the board for a vote.

Nelson said the district’s improved fiscal condition doesn’t justify quick decisions that are not thoroughly explained to, and discussed by, the board.  

“I too am concerned about feeling like we’ve passed the storm and we can put the full sail up,” Nelson said. “That’s not the case.”

The board will consider at a future meeting the addition of a new full-time director of assessment position for the 2012-13 school year. The curriculum department position would pay $85,000 to $125,000 annually, and Schuster said administration will present rationale behind the potential addition before the board votes.

Schuster said the three special education positions were not included in the staffing plan before the current school year because the district staffed occupational and physical therapy conservatively. She said the district has since learned some students need additional services that weren’t anticipated at the start of the year. In addition, Schuster said, new students that need additional services have moved into the district since the start of the year.

Assistant superintendant for business Dr. Troy Whalen said the addition of the new positions will not push the special education department over-budget.