Kyle Geissler talks with Janesville Gazette reporter Stacy Vogel about teaching cuts in the Edgerton School District.
EDGERTON — Everyone knew the cuts were coming, but now they're official.
The Edgerton School Board approved staff cuts Monday for the 2009-10 school year in a response to dropping state revenue and declining enrollment.
The approved cuts came from each level:
-- Three teachers and two support staff from the elementary schools.
-- Two teachers and one support staff from the middle school.
-- Two teachers and two support staff from the high school.
-- One floating special education teacher.
Superintendent Norm Fjelstad first alerted the district to the potential cuts in December, a few weeks after the state passed a two-year budget with a new method for school funding.
Edgerton received about $188,000 less in 2007-08 in the new funding formula than it expected.
Meanwhile, Edgerton enrollment is dropping from a peak of 1,949 students last year to a predicted 1,707 in 2011-12. Fewer students means less state aid.
The biggest enrollment drop is expected at the high school, which could lose more than 100 students by 2011-12. Fjelstad has said the high school might have to cut a total of 12 teachers in the next three years.
To compensate, the school will eliminate its four-period block schedule in favor of a traditional eight-period day in 2010-11. The traditional schedule will introduce study halls to the class mix and offer shorter teacher prep periods, requiring fewer teachers.
Edgerton Middle School also will adjust its curriculum to handle the changes. The school plans to eliminate reading as a curriculum area and incorporate reading instruction into other subject areas, especially language arts, Principal Jerry Roth said.
The move will allow the school to eliminate two of its three reading teacher positions. It will keep one reading teacher to handle the school's remedial reading program.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction requires middle schools to provide reading instruction, but it does not require schools to teach reading as a separate class. The school will train all core teachers on incorporating reading strategies into their classes over the next three years, Roth said.
No one is happy about losing reading class, but staff is adjusting, Roth said.
"The staff is starting to realize this is our new paradigm," he said. "There's a real positive attitude in the building."
Perhaps the most difficult adjustment will come at the elementary schools, simply because it's hard to know how many classes the school will need.
The district is expecting elementary enrollment to drop from 940 last year to about 816 in 2011-12. But predicting elementary enrollment is difficult because it's impossible to know how many kindergarteners will sign up each year, Fjelstad said.
For example, the district expected 123 5-year-olds to sign up this year and got 158.
On the other hand, only 88 4-year-olds signed up this year, and the district only knows of 14 4-year-olds who were not signed up.