The Henniker school board this week approved three measures, which, if included in their final budget proposal and approved by voters, could bring big changes to Henniker Community School.
The starkest change is the reduction of three teaching positions, which will save the district around $263,000, according to Henniker superintendent Lorraine Tacconi-Moore. The decision to reduce came from the board’s request to take a look at the school’s class sizes, Tacconi-Moore said.
“Traditionally, when Henniker has a class size of around 45 to 48, we’ve elected to break those classes into three,” she said. “Seven years ago, the folks who came to the annual town meeting really valued those small class sizes.”
Though having small classes is still important, Tacconi-Moore said Henniker’s initial proposed budget was $7.9 million, about $306,271 over the current budget. A big driver of that increase was health insurance, which is projected to increase by a maximum 23.2 percent across the district. And when Tacconi-Moore was asked to try and bring the two numbers closer together, she knew it was going to have to come from personnel, she said. After the reductions, the proposed budget is around $8,500 higher than this year’s budget.
“In a budget of over $7 million, you’re not going to find $300,000 in paper and pencils,” she said. “Taxpayers have heard me say time and time again that three-quarters of the budget is salaries and benefits – if there’s going to be a substantial cut, it’s going to have to come from personnel.”
It’s always a balancing act.
“It’s very hard, because it’s someone’s livelihood,” she said. “We have to do what’s best for the kids, but we also have to be responsible to taxpayers … for all those reasons, you have to tell someone they’re losing their job.”
Tacconi-Moore said she wasn’t sure how residents would take the proposal, noting the reductions meant losing three of the district’s 45 teachers.
The reductions will come from either a second or third grade teacher, of which there are three apiece in the district, a fourth or fifth grade teacher, and a unified arts program teacher, none of which have been identified at this time. Class sizes in those grades are estimated to rise to around 20 to 21 students, which Tacconi-Moore said was a reasonable number.
Because there will be a lopsided amount of second and third grade teachers, a new multi-age classroom will be created, where a teacher within the district will be teaching two different grade curriculums in one room.
It sounds confusing, and Tacconi-Moore said the proposal might seem jarring to parents. But she noted the model is a success at Stoddard’s Faulkner Elementary School, which is also part of SAU 24. The school has several multi-age classrooms, she said, because it’s overall class size has been around 80 for the past three years.
“We’re looking for a highly-skilled teacher who will be able to take the instruction and use a variety of strategies, such as grouping and stations, to teach … it’s going to be, essentially, a non-graded classroom,” Tacconi-Moore said. She said students will advance in grade level normally, and students who had the multi-age teacher in second grade may stay with the teacher another year, giving the teacher an understanding of where the student left off and potentially making the transition easier on the student.
The final change is a proposal to create the school’s own special education program for students with social and emotional disabilities, which Tacconi-Moore said will initially have a neutral impact on the budget. Overtime, however, she said, the change will not only reduce transportation costs for the district but may become a revenue source.
“If we could accommodate more students in this program than we need to serve Henniker, we could tuition students from other districts…Every superintendent I meet with in the state of New Hampshire is looking for placement for this type of student,” she said in a press release.
Currently, Henniker is paying $303,000 in out-of-district placement for three students, which does not include the $174,000 the district budgeted for those students’ transportation. Tacconi-Moore said creating Henniker’s own program for students would cost about $1,000 less than that figure.
To create the program, the district would look to hire a teacher trained in emotional disabilities, some paraeducators to assist the teacher, a full-time school psychologist, and a district-wide board-certified behavior analyst, who would work with students to redirect negative behaviors and reward positive behaviors. The school currently has a part-time psychologist, and Tacconi-Moore said it was unknown at this point whether that position would become full time or another part-time psychologist would be added.
Contract negotiations between the district and the teachers’ union are at an impasse, according to a district press release, and heading to mediation next week.
The school board will hold a public hearing on their budget at 7 p.m. on Feb. 15 in the school’s cafeteria. Henniker’s annual school district meeting is at 7 p.m. on March 15.
(Caitlin Andrews can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@cmonitor.com.)