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School district to cut teachers in 2017-18

There will be fewer educators in the Warren County School District system again this school year.

The final 2017-2018 budget includes eliminating 13 positions and adding three.

At a previous meeting, school board member Arthur Stewart asked administration for a staffing update. On Monday, board members heard that information.

It is not a simple case of 13 teachers being out on the street. Seven of the cut positions coincide with retiring teachers.

There will also be teachers who decide to retire or move away over the summer, Superintendent Amy Stewart said, possibly creating space for teachers whose positions are cut to remain with the district.

Some reductions leave the district without a teacher of a certain class for each school.

“The library staffing is not complete yet,” Amy Stewart said. “Warren Area High School is not going without a librarian.”

“We’re still working on the staffing for music,” she said. “We’re still working on the staffing for guidance.”

The district has been reducing its teaching staff for years.

In fact, Arthur Stewart pointed out that the district has brought class sizes to more appropriate levels over the past decade or so. He said there was historically an “enormous number of classes at the elementary level where we were offering class sizes of less than 20.”

Since then, the district has closed numerous elementary schools.

The document before the board on Monday showed only nine elementary class sizes under 20. “That’s remarkably impressive,” he said.

And those changes brought some economic relief to the district. “We enjoyed the millions of dollars of savings when we consolidated those buildings,” Arthur Stewart said.

The document also showed some class sizes approaching unacceptably high levels — but only a few.

“There are only a couple of places where we’re out at the other extreme,” he said, “out toward 30.”

Administration is actively reducing class sizes for the district’s youngest students.

“We are prioritizing lower class sizes in K, 1, and 2,” Amy Stewart said. “We think there will be fruits to that down the road.”

With a limited budget, “there is a cost to that,” she said. More teachers for the youngest students means fewer at higher levels.

The vast majority of the position cuts this year are at the high school and middle school levels.

“We have taken a different approach to secondary staffing this year,” Amy Stewart said.

In the past, the district had looked at the courses requested by students in determining course offerings. This year, it won’t be so simple.

“We allocated staff to principals,” she said. “They made some tough choices.”

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