What's missing will be noticed

By Tanner Kent

Buildings closed. Electives and extracurriculars eliminated. Part-time administrators and disappearing cheerleaders.

After a round of spring budget cuts in which school districts in this area collectively thinned their budgets by nearly $10 million and 100 teachers, some summer changes won’t look so positive to staff and students returning to school this week.

Closing the doors
In the Waterville-Elysian-Morristown and Maple River school districts, the most noticeable effect will be a closed building.

Facing a budget shortfall of more than $1 million and considering the elimination of all-day kindergarten and all middle-school athletics, the Maple River School Board decided instead to close its Amboy school site.

While Amboy retains some early childhood services for the families in that area, the former middle-school building now sits largely unused. The Mapleton site now serves grades 6-12 while the sites in Good Thunder and Minnesota Lake serve as K-5 elementary schools.

But Mapleton High School Principal Dan Anderson said the reconfiguration shouldn’t affect student learning.

“It’s been quite the year of change and movement,” said Anderson, whose school earned a bronze star in last year’s US News & World Report high school rankings. “But we’re ready to roll.”

The WEM School District made a similar decision to close its Elysian building. With the closure, the Waterville site now houses grades K-4 and 9-12 while the Morristown site houses the middle school.

But Supt. Joel Whitehurst said the silver lining is that the former elementary school has been leased by the Tri-Valley Opportunity Council, which provides early childhood services for migrant families.

The partnership, Whitehurst said, “just makes sense.”

Effects in Mankato
In Mankato Area Public Schools, which trimmed its budget by $3 million in the spring, the effects of reductions are varied.

Among the 50-plus full-time positions that were cut were two school counselors. That reduction affects Dakota Meadows Middle School, in particular, where the student-to-counselor ratio will double to about 600:1. Also included were 13 summer custodial staff and reductions to gifted-and-talented staff, special education paraprofessionals and elementary staff, which will lead to an average increase of about .8 students per K-6 classroom.

To the music program, the district reduced the stipends for junior high band, which will mean fewer evening concerts. Fifth-grade orchestra was also eliminated, leading district orchestra director Dave Urness to say last spring that instruction and performance will be severely hampered with one less year to tutor students.

Academic decathlon and debate, both on the chopping block, were saved, in limited fashion, by volunteers and community fundraising efforts. But the cheerleading program did not enjoy a similar fate, despite impassioned pleas from parents and students in the program.

This year, said Mankato East activities director Todd Waterbury, there will be no cheerleaders at Mankato events.

“It will be different, no question,” Waterbury said. “But it doesn’t mean that at some point down the road, cheerleading can’t come back.”

Not done yet
Around the region, higher class sizes and fewer secondary course offerings will be near universal, as will increased activity fees and depleted classroom supply budgets.

Several school districts also opted for part-time superintendents, including those in Nicollet, United South Central and Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton.

In Le Center, the district opted for a shared-duty superintendent with the elementary and high school principals retaining their old duties while splitting those of the superintendent.

“We will divide duties as needed,” said Le Center High School Principal and co-superintendent Matt Helgerson. “But it saves money.”

But the real bad news is that most school districts expect more cuts this spring. With another year of frozen state funding and another year of rising expenditures (they increase in most districts about two percent each year due to staff raises alone), districts will face the same budget crunch.

This year the problem will be worsened by delayed aid payments, which amount to 27 percent of a district’s state aid and were part of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s solution to the state’s budget shortfall.