UPDATED: Restructuring of Hilltop, Salem Hills Elementary Schools Among Budget Reduction Proposals

Lori Ahern summed up the concerns of hundreds of Inver Grove Heights parents when she stepped up to the microphone on Monday night to address a proposal to restructure Salem Hills and Hilltop Elementary Schools.

“We do not see the urgency of rushing hastily into a major school reconfiguration,” Ahern said to the assembled members of the Inver Grove Heights School Board. “To you it may be about budgets or statistics, but to us it’s about our children’s future.”

Ahern’s comments were met with cheers and applause from the more than 100 parents, students and community members that attended the Inver Grove Heights School Board meeting on Monday night.

The packed house came to hear a series of 2011-2012 budget reduction recommendations — recommendations that included a complete restructuring of Salem Hills and Hilltop Elementary Schools. Under the proposal, pre-school through first-grade students from both schools would attend Salem Hills, while second- through fifth-grade students from the two elementary schools would be shifted to Hilltop. Students at Pine Bend Elementary School would remain unaffected by the reconfiguration, school officials said.

Restructuring the two elementary schools is budget neutral, according to Superintendent Deirdre Wells, but is advantageous for both the district and its students for several reasons. Converting the schools, Wells said, would allow the district to focus its early literacy programs into one building and help administrators balance its class sizes among the three elementary schools. It would also help the district spread its minority student population — Salem Hills currently has a significantly higher proportion of minority students than the other two elementary schools, Wells said. Nearly half of the students enrolled at the school also qualify for the Free and Reduced Lunch program, according to Wells.

But the single largest incentive to restructure the two schools, Wells said during the meeting, is related to the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Hilltop Elementary has not met AYP standards for three consecutive years, while Salem Hills did not meet AYP standards in 2010.

If the schools fall short of AYP standards for five consecutive years, they will face mandatory restructuring under No Child Left Behind, Wells said. Reconfiguring the schools now, Wells said, could potentially give the schools a fresh start by removing them from the AYP sanctions list, Wells said.

Pine Bend wasn’t included in the potential restructuring, Wells said, because it has met AYP standards. Nor would it be cost effective for the district to transport students from across the district to the geographically-remote school, the administrator added. The district's Atheneum program, based at Salem Hills, would shift to Hilltop under the proposal, officials said.

The proposed restructuring is just one of the more than 20 options the school board heard during the two-hour-long meeting. Several proposals to reduce staff across the district were reviewed during the meeting, as were proposals to reconfigure the school calendar, increase activities fees and charge an optional fee for secondary students who live within a two-mile radius of the campus and choose to ride a bus. If some of the proposals are approved, the district could save as much as $576,250, officials said. Some of the proposals, including the increased activity fees, the bus transportation fee and the elimination of several elementary intervention specialists, are not recommended by the district administration, unless the district is forced to make significant cuts in response to a drop in state aid.

Earlier this winter, district officials laid out a series of financial scenarios for the board members — projections that ranged from as little as $1 million in cuts in 2011-2012 school year to as much as $5.5 million in reductions in the 2015-2016 school year if one of the district’s two operating levies isn’t renewed this November.

Inver Grove Heights, like many other districts in the state, faces declining state aid.  The district currently receives roughly $5,124 in per-pupil funding from the state — a number that has stagnated for several years, while district expenses continue to grow.

The board is expected to take action on some of the recommendations at a special meeting on March 14. The fast timeline is driven by a state requirement that school districts deliver layoff notices to staff by April 1, according to school officials.

That timeline doesn’t include the potential reconfiguration of Hilltop and Salem Hills, Wells said. Because the proposed restructuring is budget neutral, the district has more time to consult the community and consider the impact of the plan, officials said during the meeting.

“I’ve been on the board for nine years now, and this is the biggest attendance of parents I’ve seen,” Inver Grove Heights School Board member Phil Prokopowicz said following the budget recommendation presentation. “Obviously this is a very important issue, and I think there needs to be more discussion and more awareness out there.”

“If this is a good model and a good thing for Inver Grove, we will be your biggest supporters,” said Ahern, speaking on behalf of parents during her presentation early in the meeting. “We are not here to support or oppose the proposal, we are here to gather information.”

WHAT’S INCLUDED IN THE BUDGET REDUCTION RECOMMENDATIONS:

More than 20 budget reduction options for the 2011-2012 school year were heard during the Inver Grove Heights School Board meeting on Monday night. Here is a list of some of the proposals the board will consider over the next several weeks. The potential cost savings for each proposal are included in parentheses.

• Eliminate the Inver Grove Heights Middle School athletics director and shift the position’s duties to a school administrator ($7,000).
• Increase activities fees for after school programs and sports in the district (undetermined).
• Charge an option school bus transportation fee for Inver Grove Heights secondary students who live within two miles of the high school (undetermined).
• Merge the Simley High School Forensics Club with a club from a neighboring district ($3,500).
• Eliminate four elementary school intervention specialists ($125,082).
• Eliminate an elementary Special Ed teacher ($10,412).
• Eliminate a work experience handicapped teacher ($74,559).
• Savings through the retirement of six district staffmenbers, including not replacing one retiring middle school Special Ed teacher ($247,078).
• Reducing a secondary adaptive physical education position from full- to part-time ($11,017).
• Adjusting the Simley High School schedule to a six-period day (undetermined).
• Adjusting the Simley High School schedule to a semester system and six-period day (undetermined).
• Restructuring the number of professional development days for teachers (undetermined).