The Shawano School District announced it was hiring an additional fourth-grade teacher in July and set off alarm bells for some Shawano School Board members due to making $1.77 million in cuts earlier in the year.
That changed once district officials presented their rationale for adding that teacher as well as an English teacher position for sixth and seventh grades. The board voted at its Aug. 24 meeting to approve both positions.
Superintendent Kurt Krizan told the board that the district reviewed data like enrollment numbers, students with individual education plans and/or personalized reading plans, the percentage of students below proficiency in math and reading and the total number of behavioral referrals.
With the additional fourth-grade teacher, class size would reduce from an average of 26.5 students to 22.7, below the range of 25-30 students per class for grades 4-12 set by the board when they approved budget cuts.
The additional English teacher would still keep class sizes in the range, with sixth grade dropping from 28.6 per class to 26 and seventh grade dropping from 27.8 to 25.2.
Krizan said one teaching position will be cost neutral because there are two paraprofessional positions at Hillcrest Primary School that are not being filled. The second position came through budget reductions in other operational areas, such as reducing the cost for iReady programs in grades K-8.
“We went back with our team, and we were able to fund two staffing positions,” Krizan said, noting that the person filling the English teacher post was on the agenda for later in the meeting.
Board member Tim Renard was concerned about how the district planned to keep track of the two teaching positions to see if they make a difference in students’ learning.
“There’s some challenging things with the student body and some less than acceptable learning scores,” Renard said. “I want to get to the end of the year and expect to know that we found this money and we’re able to get something out of it. Did we get what we paid for?”
Board member John Arens questioned why the data was not brought to light when the board was considering where to cut expenses, most of which was done by reducing staff.
“I like that we’re actually doing something now, but this occurred four years ago,” Arens said of the fourth-grade students. “Who was asleep at the wheel for four years that this bubble was allowed to come through? We cut real people and real positions, but now you’re asking us at the 11th hour to get some positions back because school’s about to start.”
Besides those two positions, the board also approved shifting the Shawano Community High School French teaching position from three-quarters time to half time with the ability to get 16 students wanting to take French I to do so through the district’s partnership with the Rural Virtual Academy.
“We did not have anyone who could teach the French I students,” Krizan said. “We sent a letter home to 30 students signed up to take the class and asked if they would like to take an online option or be reprogrammed into something else. We received 23 responses back.”
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
