Naperville Dist. 203 rehires teachers, assistants

Naperville Unit District 203 rehired 12 teachers and assistants Monday who were given pink slips two weeks ago because of the district's declining enrollment.

Board members voted unanimously to hire back seven enrichment assistants and 6-1 to rehire five elementary art, music and P.E. teachers -- three full-time and two part-time -- who were previously told they would not be retained.

An amended plan floated by President Mike Jaensch, which rehires all five of the teachers for one year and allows each school principal to determine how to best use their time, was supported by everyone except newly elected member David Weeks.

In March, the district notified five elementary music, art and physical education teachers and seven assistants in the enrichment program that they might not have jobs next year. With the declining enrollment, the teachers no longer have a full day of classes to teach and the district is trying to tighten its staffing levels to address budget concerns.

The district came up with three possibilities: cutting the five teachers, which would save $120,000 to $160,000 but require remaining teachers to travel between schools; cutting the enrichment assistants by 50 percent; or keeping both groups and assigning the art, music and physical education teachers to occasionally relieve classroom teachers to give those teachers extra planning time.

Superintendent Alan Leis recommended the third option to the board May 19, saying the district had found other cost savings such as in health-care costs, and could try keeping both groups of instructors for a year, but the plan failed 4-3.

Monday night, Jaensch proposed a similar plan with more flexibility.

"We all want to save money when able, but this is a question of value," Jaensch said.

Under his plan, each building will have its own art, music and P.E. teacher with the exception of Naper and Ellsworth, which will continue to share for art and P.E. Each school will have differing amounts of unscheduled time and each principal will determine how to best use the teachers to supplement and enhance learning.

After one year the board and superintendent would determine if any of the schools' plans can be used to develop a districtwide policy to deal with changing staffing requirements in the future.

Leis said he supports the plan.

"I think our principals are creative and I think they will use their resources different ways," he said. "I do think in the end you're going to have a districtwide model, but I'm comfortable with allowing the schools and principals to experiment a little bit with the different models they will encounter."

Weeks said he voted against the plan.

"For me the issue is value received for the cost and those are things we as a board have to weigh," he said. "I continue to be troubled by the interweaving of these issues. I don't think we have a good plan of how we're going to use (the teachers) to build our professional learning communities."