HILLSBOROUGH: Budget may ask for math teachers at high school

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Expect money for more teachers — especially in high school math — to be requested in the $100-million-plus 2013-14 school budget that will gallop toward completion starting Tuesday.
      Member Le Anh Thuy told the school board on Feb. 11 that five math teachers may be requested for the high school to address lagging college test scores. Superintendent Jorden Schiff said one-half of Hillsborough students who attend Raritan Valley Community College need to repeat math as a non-credit remedial course.
   Ms. Le said the committee would prefer to address math education at earlier ages, but for now would likely concentrate on all grades at the high school.
   “”Another teacher job or two may be added at the high school for courses with heavy enrollment, she said.
   Starting Tuesday, the pieces will fall together quickly in forming the 2013-14 budget, which will not go to the voters in an election in April for the first time. Instead, the budget will only need approval by state education officials. The tax rate cannot rise more than two percent over the current year’s budget.
   Governor Chris Christie will give his budget address to the state Legislature on Tuesday, and next Thursday the state Department of Education will tell schools how much state aid his administration will recommend in its budget.
   It’s a political year, of course, with Gov. Christie up for re-election. He faces the need to walk the line between giving schools enough money to avoid a backlash, while still trying to keep a rein on the largest single item in the budget.
   School board officials have moved their two March meetings to stick to deadlines to produce a school budget.
   The board will now meet Monday, March 4 (instead of the 11th), to introduce a budget, and Thursday, March 21, (instead of Monday the 25th) for the public hearing on the budget.
   On Saturday, March 2, the Finance Committee hunkers down for much the day with school administrators to come up with a spending plan that will be presented to the full board on March 4.
      Board President Thomas Kinst asked board members to come prepared to the meeting Monday, Feb. 25, to discuss their values and priorities in a budget. This exercise has proven to identify specific projects that members would like to see funded, as well as express their philosophies in making decisions.
      In what turns out to be a money-saving move, the board Feb. 11 adopted a revised schedule at the middle school, starting and ending the day a half-hour earlier. This will allow a revision of bus runs that could save $950,000 next year, said board member Greg Gillette.
      Expect to see a continued expansion of technology in the district budget. Ms. Le said the committee hadn’t made a decision whether to recommend iPads or Chromebooks as the computer tablet of choice by students and staff. This year, students at different age levels use one or the other in a pilot program. Next year, 20 percent of students will be using tablets given to them by the school district, she said.
   She said the committee discussed the $120,000 mobile computer labs for third and 4th grades. She said teachers were growing more comfortable with using them.
   The committee was considering request for perhaps five more technology staffers, she said. Training by staffers was largely done outside of school time this year, she said, and the next step would be to have trainers work with teachers in the classroom.
   A drop in money to be budgeted for curriculum writing will help offset some technology moves, she said.
   Special education will likely see a 1.5 percent increase, she said. Hopefully a grant will pay for one of two teachers in a behavioral disability class added this year, but the other will have to be carried by the district.
      The board voted to adopt the second year of a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum that might require physical renovation of industrial arts classrooms to add computers and other scientific equipment.
   Two teachers of Chinese will likely be hired, she said. The district hopes at least one can be paid for through a grant.
   There will be likely be an intercom replacement project at Hillsborough Elementary, which would complete intercom upgrades at all schools, she said.
   Ms. Le said the education committee reviewed the expenses of starting an adult school with an eye to it as a revenue raiser.
   Last year, local property taxes comprised 74 percent of the revenue in the school budget. State aid comprised about $25 million of the $113.8 million total revenue of the budget.