Cary District 26 outlines federal fund spending

Funding from the federal jobs bill won't bring back any of the programs cut from the Cary Elementary District 26 curriculum, but administrators say the spending plan approved Monday will enable the district to help a larger number of students.

School board members voted 6-1 to allocate $282,885 toward creating a new bilingual aide position, reinstating the Reading Intervention Program for kindergarten through fourth grade and retaining existing employees.

The district will spend $12,000 to hire a bilingual aide; $70,000 to reinstate the reading intervention program; and $200,885 for existing employees and as contingency in case of state funding reductions.

In a memo to the school board, T. Ferrier, the district's director of finance and operations, said the one-time funds would help the district address one area of concern.

“This plan utilizes the full amount of the grant,” Ferrier said. “There are many other needs in the district. However, administration focused on these in an effort to positively affect the most number of students possible.”

Board member Julie Jette said she would prefer some of the money be spent on reinstating some of the music, art and physical education programs that were trimmed from the 2011 budget. But Ferrier said spending the one-time influx of funds on reinstating programs would force the district to make cuts further down the road.

For example, Ferrier said, paying 10 reading tutors at the substitute teacher rate would affect students from kindergarten to the fourth grade each day for less than the cost of one physical education teacher who would provide students 30 minutes of physical education once every two weeks.

The lone dissenting vote was cast by board member Chris Jenner, who said he had a difficult time supporting government education programs.

“It is not the allocation that I have a problem with,” Jenner said on Tuesday. “I get such heartburn over government programs because they are so fraught with waste, fraud and corruption. The federal government has no business in education.”