School Board Weighs Teaching Assistant Cuts

The fate of Londonderry's elementary teaching assistants occupied much of the discussion at Thursday's School Board budget meeting.

In the $66 million budget proposal compiled by district staff, 13 certified teachers and 31 elementary teaching assistants were cut to meet declining enrollments, cost downshifting from the state and other constraints.

Those part-time assistants together are equivalent to 17 full-time positions and their reduction would save roughly $250,000 next year, according to district staff.

Superintendent Nate Greenberg said the teacher reductions were directly related to continued declining enrollment. The assistant cuts were proposed as a way to avoid further reductions to certified teachers and increased tax rates, he said. Assistants in kindergarten classes were not cut.

"Do I increase class size or do I reduce the assistants at the elementary level?" he said Thursday. "The choice we came down to that we wanted to keep class sizes where they were. Unfortunately, to find that $250,000, we went to the instructional assistants."

The $66 million budget is roughly $580,000 more than the current year. The district faces decreases of $1.1 million in state adequacy aid and $1.7 million in other downshifting from the state for next year.

School Board member John Robinson advocated for funding the assistants again next year, even if it costs the taxpayer more.

"I think that the people of Londonderry, many of them, came to Londonderry because of excellence in the schools," Robinson said. "Because of that, I don't think we should be afraid to go to the voters and try to tell them why we think we need some of the things that make us excellent and I think that the aids are probably one of them."

Officials said funding all of the assistants set to be eliminated would cost $21 for a taxpayer with a home valued at $300,000.

Maria Newman, who has worked as a teaching assistant for 12 years, spoke in defense of the positions Thursday.

"My fear is that if you continue to cut this lean, it will affect the exceptional education we are known for in Londonderry," Newman said. "As a parent, I moved here because of the school system and I don't want to see our town become like many others who have barely enough staff people to get by."

Resident Tony DeFrancesco said he thought residents would support a tax increase if it would support the staffing and services currently available.

"Sure we are in difficult times and, as Mr. Greenberg said earlier, this is probably the new normal," he said. "It's something that we're going to have to get used to, but I would argue in times like these we need to support the school financially more, not less."

Budget Committee Dan Lekas said he would like to see the assistant positions on the ballot to let the voters decide on that item specifically, rather than fold the increase into the budget proposal.

"Sooner or later you've got to say no to something," he said Thursday. "I'm not saying whether I'd say yes or no, but I think you should leave it up to the voters and not just stick it in there."

Citing the classroom cuts, School Board Vice Chair Nancy Hendricks asked Greenberg if reductions could be found on the administrative side.

"I'm hearing that we haven't seen dramatic reductions under your roof. We haven't seen the jumbling of jobs," said Hendricks. "... I'm wondering if there's any kind of way that you can creatively bundle jobs under your roof to help us save additionally so that we can retain some of our aids."

Greenberg said cuts to administration in prior years had staved off teacher cuts in prior years, but that he saw no further room for reductions this year.

"We knew what was coming and we saw the deadline, so before we touched other stuff, we whacked administration. We absorbed that," he said. "Now what we have now is a $65 million operation with 600 some-odd employees and we are staffed very very lean administratively."

The School Board asked district staff to look further at options to fully and partially fund elementary assistants.