Dist. 204 penny pinching continues in effort to save library jobs
Ideas for penny pinching in Indian Prairie District 204 have come to the point of hosting a triathlon or renting district property for garden plots.
Those were some of the 20 brainstormed notions considered and then abandoned as the district sought to come up with $400,000 to save jobs of library media assistants. Their hours will be reduced in the next school year by the equivalent of seven full-time positions.
It is one of many cuts suggested earlier this year as the district trims $8.6 million from next year's budget to pay for two state-required initiatives: Common Core curriculum changes and new evaluations of educators based partly on student achievement.
Since then, the media assistants have been fighting for their jobs by speaking at board meetings and offering up money-saving ideas.
“Studies have shown time and again that there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success,” Mary Lynne Stoller, a Metea Valley High School LMC assistant, told district board members at their Monday night meeting. “How then can a cut to the LMC staffing levels be considered a prudent decision?”
It's not, board members and district officials agree. But after three years of $30 million in cuts, there is no more fat, officials say.
“You are right. These cuts are absolutely going to impact our students,” board member Susan Rasmus said. “I hope our parents are paying attention out there.”
Board members authorized district staff to move forward with the LMC cuts, which will be voted on at the district's May 7 meeting. Also at that time, the board will vote to lay off other non-bargaining jobs, possibly 55 permanently as was proposed earlier this year. Already, 160 full- and part-time teaching certified staffers have been laid off with plans to hire back at least 80 to replace vacancies from retirements and attrition.
“I don't want anyone in any of these categories that are seeing reductions to believe that those areas aren't valued,” board President Curt Bradshaw said. “We're seeing emails from guidance counselors, from secretaries, from reading assistants, from teaching assistants, from teachers and all of those areas are important to our educational process, and we're having to make reductions in all of those areas.”
Staff cuts have resulted in larger class sizes and in scaled-back sports programming at the high school level. Other money-saving initiatives have included closing the Frontier high school campus next year, not watering lawns, putting off building maintenance and agreeing to close some schools in July to save energy costs. The district also has raised student athletic and technology fees, but opted against creating a library fee. District officials said money-saving ideas have to be authentic and sustainable.
“Is it really something we can get the money from right now that we can count on? Or is it like a grant or a hope that we might get someone to donate?” Assistant Superintendent Linda Rakestraw said. “That's the authenticity part. The sustainability is whether it is a one-time deal. Is it something we're going to get this year, but that's not going to help us next year or the following year?”
It is possible the district could be facing even more cuts, depending on how education fares in the state budget currently being crafted by the Illinois legislature. Officials used numbers offered in the governor's budget address to forecast what District 204 would have to spend. But that didn't include the possibility of transportation funds being cut, an option considered last year that would cost the district an additional $200,000. Also, the possibility that the state might force local school districts to cover pension costs for their retirees is worrisome. That's “an additional $10 to $14 million the district will have to come up with,” board member Mark Rising said.