SPOTSWOOD — Doing more with less may be a common theme in business these days, and it’s also true for the borough’s school district this year.
The Board of Education, facing the loss of $1.4 million, or 22 percent, of its state aid, announced last spring that it would eliminate eight full-time teachers, two media specialists, two guidance counselors, three buildings and grounds workers, three part-time teachers, two part-time secretaries and three aides. The pullout basic skills program and some sports offerings at Spotswood High School were also among the items cut.
But attrition enabled the district to rehire four teachers and to replace a retired math and science supervisor with a more cost-effective department chair position. And as the new school year begins, officials said they remain committed to providing a quality education to every student while remaining financially prudent.
Instructional opportunities for students have actually been increased for this year. Three new elective courses will be offered at Spotswood High School: Advanced Placement (AP) Spanish, mythology and media, and forensics. Similarly, offerings will be expanded at Memorial Middle School with the cross-curricular elective “Solutions for the 21st Century.”
Superintendent of Schools Walter Uszenski said the new offerings are being made possible through new scheduling and the use of existing teachers. The mythology and media elective, with an enrollment of 76 students across the four grades, will support the school’s rising scores in reading comprehension, he said, by providing high-interest reading presented through new technology.
The school district is introducing collaborative initiatives to help bridge the gap between increasing student outcomes and personnel reductions. These include implementing a “professional learning community” model, in which groups of teachers form support groups to work on strategic plans around particular topics and “challenge their teaching in a nurturing, constructive environment,” the superintendent said. According toUszenski, therewill also be a renewed commitment to best-practice training for all staff, a new teacher observation walk-through model, and the use of data-driven assessment, lesson design and curriculum mapping to enhance classroom instruction.
“These initiatives will provide our staff with an outstanding set of tools that will enable them to meet the increasing rigor of our curriculum and give our students every opportunity to excel,” he said.
Keeping sports programs intact
Budget constraints forced the board to eliminate freshman sports, and though officials considered the loss of middle school sports, the vulnerability of that age group prompted them to retain the program.
“Unlike other towns, Spotswood does not have recreational facilities and programs during the after-school hours,” board President Donna Faulkenberry said. “Dedicated volunteers in our town that run our sports leagues are usually not available until after they get home from work or on weekends. To leave our middle school children with nothing to do between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. was something we wished to avoid at all costs.”
Officials said the majority of students who would have played freshman sports will be absorbed into the junior varsity programs or other school organizations. And while the varsity golf team was cut from the budget, the affected parents and students are working with the board to reinstitute the programin time for the spring season. Faulkenberry said the golf parents approached the board and “were obviously distraught by the decision, but also aware of the financial plight we were in.”
“To their credit, they asked for the opportunity to fund-raise and come up with creative solutions to pay for the program. We welcomed their innovative thought and are working with them to try and bring the program back,” Faulkenberry said.
The golf team, whose coach is forgoing his stipend for the season, is looking into purchasing a vehicle in order to save on busing costs, and to have greens fees waived at a local golf course for the coming year. It has formed a Hole-in-One Club to raise money for the team, and will hold a golf outing fundraiser on Oct. 11 at Rossmoor Golf Club in Monroe. For more information on the outing, call Dennis at 732-545-0211.
“The golf team … has nobly shown the characteristics of ideal student-athletes in response to the adversity they face in terms of the loss of their program,” Uszenski said.
Faulkenberry said officials are excited about the new school year.
“Despite the economic challenges we have and will continue to face, we believe the future for the Spotswood school district is very, very bright,” she said.