The Wallingford-Swarthmore School District has decided on one way to address its projected $2.5 million budget shortfall: administrative reorganization.
During the Feb. 17 Facilities and Finance Committee meeting of the school board, Superintendent Dr. Russell Johnston presented his plan to stem the fiscal troubles. Announced in an email to the community earlier that day, the cuts cover both central office and high school administration and staff.
As part of the cuts, the Director of Assessment, Compliance, and Federal Programs; Supervisor of Counseling and Wellness; Safety and Security Coordinator; Communications and Community Relations Liaison; and Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds roles will all be discontinued for next school year.
According to Johnston, central office administrators such as himself and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Sharon Baddick will take on additional responsibilities as the district consolidates multiple roles.
“It’s not like we’re not all plenty busy, but there’s always a way we can reconfigure, and reprioritize, and really work together as a team,” Johnston said at the meeting. “This is going to require ongoing teamwork from us to take on additional and changing responsibilities.”
The district will also eliminate the roles of Cultural Proficiency Equity Teacher Leaders, a part-time guidance counselor at the high school, a secretary at the high school, a long-term substitute at the middle school, six teachers on special assignment, and numerous positions that remain vacant.
Additionally, the district will seek to cut costs during professional development for teachers, reduce costs for summer curricular development, eliminate unnecessary contracted services, and lower the amount of food served at events for staff.
The district will also create two new positions, an Elementary Curriculum Supervisor and a Secondary Curriculum Supervisor, to oversee the proliferation of new curriculum initiatives in schools.
“These are people who I want in the schools working directly with the teachers, with the principals, to help support the implementation and adoption of new curriculum materials,” Johnston said.
According to Business Manager Ms. DeJuana Mosley, the cuts will make a dent in the budget shortfall but will not fully prevent it, as the district will cover some of its budget using reserves.
“It would be unrealistic to think we would go from possibly using $7 million to not at all, that would be extremely drastic,” Mosley said at the meeting. “A lot of these are cultural shifts. Some things will just actually take time to implement and then see the impact of those savings. The plan will help put us in the right direction, but the reality is we will still use some fund balance to balance next year’s budget.”
The staffing cuts come in lieu of other potential cuts that had been discussed, including to student transportation, special education, potential reduction in the $164 million capital plan, and possible cuts to class offerings at the high school.
“Everyone who works in the district in some way touches the classroom,” Johnston said. “There is nothing we could do that would totally avoid touching the classroom. The most that we could try and do by making reductions is to make sure that we preserve the learning experience that I know we all really cherish here.”
Johnston’s emphasis on cutting away from the classroom had brought attention to student transportation as a potential cut. At the Nov. 18 Facilities and Finance Committee meeting where the administration first announced the shortfall, Johnston identified kindergarten transportation in particular as a potential cut, though he would later retract the idea after public criticism of the suggestion.
Later, at a Dec. 8 community forum on the fiscal troubles, transportation director Ms. Alison Sload presented potential cuts, including the elimination of after-school activity buses at the high school.
According to Sload, however, the district later decided not to cut activity buses or kindergarten transportation.
“There’s really not a lot of wiggle room in transportation, just because we have to transport kids to all the schools at all the assigned times,” Sload said. “We are not going to make any changes to the late buses or to any of the activity buses for our students, because those are important things for students to be able to access programs and different classes that they might have later.”
The district will also have community forums on Feb. 26 at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. to discuss the cuts, with a proposed budget anticipated in April.
According to Mosley, the district would like to avoid draining its savings to compensate for the shortfall.
“We have to focus on how we can sustain day-to-day operations without relying so much on what I would call our savings account,” Mosley said.
