District 34 considers class size increases, staff cuts

• Reprints

Updated: March 11, 2012 8:22AM

Facing a $16 million budget deficit by 2016, Glenview’s School District 34 is considering cutting library positions and school liaison officers with the Glenview Police Department, while increasing student class sizes.

In all, $3.2 million has been identified as possible cuts, based on findings of two study groups, consisting of administrators, the community, parents, teachers and school board members.

“The recommendations before us are not the only answers. Our school district has been headed in this direction for several years,” said School Trustee Sam Ach, referring to the current $2.4 million deficit.

“This pinch we’re in did not sneak up on us.”

About 75 people, mostly District 34 employees, attended Monday’s school board meeting at Westbrook School, 1333 Greenwood Road.

The budget input session laid out ways to cut spending, increase revenues and keep the 50 percent cash reserves fund the district now maintains as much as possible.

Under restructuring, $385,000 would be saved if eight library director jobs were eliminated, eight technology facilitators and four instructional coaches, as well.

However, the budget scenario report suggested adding 12 learning coaches and one library resource coordinator for the entire district.

The plan creates a learning coach in each school, and four coaches would split time between two schools for a total 1.5 full-timers at each school.

A learning coach’s role would expand to include integrating technology, support adult learning and model co-teaching, among other duties.

On Monday, District 34 library directors said cutting their jobs would not only impact students, but teachers, too.

“We have a supportive role in helping teachers’ curriculum with literature and technology,” said Rachel Davidson, director of the Learning Resource Center at Henking School.

“It’s never easy to cut staff. We’re looking forward to hearing more from the community on this,” said board member Jack Murphy.

Several union teachers representing the Glenview Education Association also opposed the terminations.

“Our bargaining process has been compromised by releasing this budget information to the public,” said Susan Debias, a Hoffman School music teacher.

For class size, the recommendations report stated kindergarten classes would have 21 students, 22 in grades first and second, 26 in grades third through fifth and 28 in grades sixth through eighth.

If one more student, for instance, was added to a third-grade class, a whole new class section would be created.

Implementing larger classes would save $748,000.

On eliminating the police resource officer, Deputy Superintendent Mike Nicholson said all district schools were within 2 miles of the Glenview Police Department at 2500 E. Lake Ave.

He also said because of Glenview’s demographics, student discipline was not as much an issue as other school districts.

Cutting the police resource officers would reduce the budget by $219,000.

Another proposed change would be rearranging schedules to balance teacher instructional time, thus saving $451,000.

More budget information will be put before the school board on Feb. 27, with another report from residents, staff, faculty and administrators given to the board on March 5.

The board’s final decision is scheduled March 19.

The full budget report is at http://www.boarddocs.com/il/gsd34/Board.nsf/Public under agenda item “Cabinet Presentation of Budget Scenarios.”

The district has a $68 million budget for 2012-13, showing a $2.4 million deficit — the first spending gap in six years. The district also has $37 million in cash reserves, which is about 50 percent of this year’s total budget.

Based on economic factors, such as the Consumer Price Index, district employee compensations and local, state and federal revenues, the advisory committee also projected fund balances will dip below the 30 percent to 19 percent in 2017 if nothing was done.

Typically, the 30 percent balance allows a school district enough cash flow through the year without having to short-term borrow.

Since 2002, School Board 34 has maintained at least 30 percent fund balance or more. The State Board of Education has recommended 25 percent for public schools.