At a budget workshop Tuesday evening, Northside ISD trustees briefly pivoted from the scheduled agenda to get clarity on why they’ve received a deluge of emails in their inbox about programs being cut.
A flyer circulated on social media and handed out before the meeting called on district leaders to save music education after word spread that choir had been cut at five Northside schools.
Trustees appeared to be taken by surprise by the emails because they hadn’t voted to end choir or any other program.
“I'm just real concerned that if we close an entire program at a school, and we don't know about it, it's a big deal,” Trustee Carol Harle said.
“We need clarity in regards to messaging, and how we can message our public regarding all this,” Trustee Homer Guevara Jr. added.
Board President Bobby Blount asked Superintendent John Craft if it was policy for trustees to weigh in on programs offerings at individual campuses. Craft said the board would vote on any district-wide program changes, but normally they wouldn’t be involved in changes at individual campuses.
“We can work with the principals to be very strategic and very communicative, so that it's not it's not misconveyed (that we’re) killing a district program,” Craft said. “Now, what makes as a result of student requests, course requests at each campus, it's going to vary. It will absolutely vary.”
At issue is an increase in staffing ratios set by district leaders. Previously, campus administrators had more leeway to offer classes with fewer students.
“They're having to make the tough decisions as to does the number of students dictate being able to offer this course that they … may have historically been able to offer with a very small number of students: 12, 13, 15, in some cases,” Craft said.
As part of an effort to reduce a projected $100 million budget deficit, Northside increased the average class size for next school year. That, in turn, dictated how many teachers and staff each campus will be allowed to have.
Craft said campus administrators were recently given their staffing allocations for next year and are currently building their class schedules based on the courses students have requested.
District spokesperson Barry Perez said some classes will be larger than the set staffing ratio, and others will be smaller.
“The ratio is being used to determine the number of staff members that are allocated for that campus,” Perez said. “Instead of giving you a teacher for every 20 kids, it may have changed. You get a teacher for every 25 kids. So just by moving that number up, those five kids, the number of teachers you're going to need is going to go down. That's where that cost savings is taking place.”
Previously, the average class size at Northside was 22:1 for pre-K and 23:1 for kindergarten through 4th grade. Next year the ratio will be 25:1 for pre-K through 4th grade. 5th grade will be 26:1 and middle school will be 26.5. The average high school class will be 28.
District officials estimate the increased class sizes will shave $18.9 million off Northside’s budget. A 10% cut to all central office departments will reduce the deficit by another $10 million.
Throughout the budget process, Craft repeatedly said the goal of the budget cuts is to avoid layoffs. Instead, the district is changing job duties and shifting staff around.
Perez returned to choir as an example.
“If I'm a choir teacher at Jay High School and the choir numbers have come down, I may not be at Jay next year. I might be at Taft next year, I might be at two middle schools and split half time at each of those,” Perez said.
Northside AFT President Melina Espiritu-Azocar said the teacher union knows the district has limited options because they can’t expect much more in the way of funding from the state.
“These are the situations that districts are having to deal with because the state of Texas is not doing their job and legislators do not have a proper bill in place to fund public education in the way that it needs funding,” Espiritu-Azocar said.
“But we feel pretty confident, based on the conversations that we've had with district leadership, that we are not looking at job losses here,” she added.
Blount redirected Tuesday’s conversation away from potential cuts to choir and other programs in order to give the public a chance to address their concerns to the board during their regular meeting April 22.
