River Edge Board of Ed Wraps Up Budget Development

Last night, the River Edge BOE met to discuss the last remaining topics regarding next year's budget: Special Education and Curriculum. Previous discussions included  along with .

Special Education

Rosemary Kuruc, the district Supervisor of Special Services, led the discussion about special education, noting that very little has changed from last year. Items still considered "Mandatory" include all staffing and items like testing materials, instructional supplies, and special pre-school and speech classes.

So far, all Special Education students have been able to remain in-district, which is a "huge development," according to superintendent Dr. Tova Ben-Dov, "both financially and morally."

New mandatory costs for next year's budget include a parent training program, which provides 10 hours of home instruction for parents of new students (and an unspecified amount of time for parents of existing students). Some parents, Kuruc noted, rely on this training and some don't use it at all. Currently this service is provided to the whole district, but will be revised if it becomes a burden on the school.

Also new for next year will be a vehicle and driver, and a primary Multiple-Disabled (MD) class for those who suffer from both learning and behavioral disabilities. The latter helps keep special needs students in-district.

Curriculum

Ben-Dov opened the discussion by saying she put "all her eggs in one basket:  language arts," noting that the current materials need to be more consistent for teachers.

Mandatory costs include a tri-district coordinator of curriculum and instruction, staff training, and the Learnia Assessment System, which the state just announced it would no longer fund.

"It was a little bit of a surprise, given we received the system for free and now the state will no longer pay for it," Ben-Dov said.

The tri-district coordinator, Antoinette Capodanno, works with all three school districts: , and , to align each one's curriculum. Previously, the two elementary school districts ( and ) had different curriculum from one another. The different curriculum caused some students to struggle upon entering 7th grade at . Capodanno's salary is split between the three school districts.

Costs not considered mandatory include out-of-district staff trainings.

With the budget development process complete, the district administration will begin putting together a proposed budget for the 2011-12 school year. The proposed budget will be based on several numbers from the current budget, including state aid.

The will present its first-round draft of its 2011-12 budget on Saturday, Jan. 29, 9 am at .