Wednesday, June 16, 2010

# of classroom teachers for 2010 / 2011

From the NHRs Luther Turmelle:

Superintendent of Schools Greg Florio said Monday the district is eliminating 15 positions it can’t afford next year with the $60.37 million budget the Town Council approved in May for 2010-11. But because of a combination of factors, including teachers taking jobs in other school districts and retirements, only seven people will be laid off, Florio said.

“Most of the people affected are relatively early in their careers,” Florio said of the seven who will be losing their jobs. Two of the teachers being laid off are from Cheshire High School, another two work at Dodd Middle School and three come from the four elementary schools, he said.

With about two weeks left in the school year, Florio said it’s possible that additional changes might result in a reduction of the number of layoffs.


Tim White

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surprise, surprise....

All that panic for nothing. Less students=less teachers.

Seems like they always start with having to layoff 20+ teachers and now we are down to 7. Sounds like the Cheshire education system is in a lot better shape then most towns in CT.

Breachway said...

Oh my God,

Will my daughter have an extra .27 students in her classes?

Anonymous said...

Just to clarify a few facts:

There will be 15 less teachers next year in Cheshire than this year.

"Down to 7" means those are the only ones, at this point, that would qualify for unemployment.

The decline in enrollment over the past two years has been 3%.

Staff reduction over the past two years has been 8%.

Anonymous said...

8:41
Thanks for the brilliant insight.
Why not go back 5 years and tell us what the decline in students versus staff was?

Anonymous said...

9:21 You are very welcome. A few more facts for you since I know you appreciate them so:

Number of teachers in '05-'06 was 375.

Number of teachers in '10-'11 will be 348. (projected 363-15 layoffs)

Number of students in '05-'06 was 1640.

Number of students in '10-'11 is projected to be 1545.

Let's see if you can do the simple percents and get back to us.

Tony Perugini said...

13 positions are gone eliminated from the budget. Some were eliminated by layoff notices others were vacated by attrition. These 13 positions will not be refilled. FYI.

Tony Perugini

Anonymous said...

Tony- great point - -"These 13 positions will not be refilled." Great political speak.

Now the really important facts, will 13 new positions be created? Will even more administrative positions be created? Will some special artificial turf maintainer positions be created?

Enough with the shell games. If we are down 13 now then next year the overall head count still needs to be down.

Anonymous said...

2:32
Why don't you try some simple percentage and recheck your figures.
Where are you pulling those numbers from??

Based on those numbers and the "simple percentage" that you asked me to do, we are averaging 4.4 students per teacher.

Now, in my "simple head" I know that isn't factual, so where are you getting your figures from?
Sometimes it helps to think before you write.
Enough of the fuzzy math.

Perhaps Tony can enlighten us.

I have heard that we have lost over 300 students in the past 5 years.

Anonymous said...

3:02 lets try to be nicer.
I can admit to my mistakes when I make them. Student numbers are mistaken. I think they are just for some grades. I will have to look up the other figures when I get the time or maybe someone else has access to them?

Anonymous said...

4:01
I am just treating you like you did me. Weren't you the one who said: "Let's see if you can do the simple percents and get back to us."????

I just want some accuracies instead of pulling numbers out of mid air. I think you will find that there still isn't a big difference in student/teacher ratio from 5 years ago.

Tony Perugini said...

"Tony- great point - -"These 13 positions will not be refilled." Great political speak."

I won't stutter this time:

- No, new positions won't be created. i.e. shifting resources from one place to another.

- No, new administrative positions won't be created.

The 13 positions and the money needed for them is gone from the 2011-2012 budget. There's no shell game. Gone means gone never to come back in 2010-2011. I understand that in the past that this wasn't always the case so I can appreciate the skepticism. But...no shell games here.

Tony Perugini

Anonymous said...

At the last council meeting a gentleman got up and claimed his kid's class will have 6 more students in it next year. I'd like to know how he knows this to be fact. I think he's pulling numbers out of the air too.

Anonymous said...

Okay I did the research, according to State Dept of Education figures, in 2006/2007 there were 336.4 teachers with 5157 students.Thats an average of 15.3 students per teacher.

According to the Superintendents budget proposal from this year, the expected enrollment for the 2010/2011 school year will be 4850. According to my simple math brain, that comes out to 307 less students now then we had 4 years ago.

Now take the 348 teachers that will be in place and it comes out to an average 13.94 students per teacher.
Granted, maybe I am not seeing the whole picture, but as far as I can see, with 307 less students, perhaps we should have let 5 more teachers go to be equal to the 2006/7 level.

I am sure Tony can explain this better, but I am going by the facts and figures available to me. Perhaps there is fuzzy math that I don't see.

Less students=Less teachers

Anonymous said...

Why so many less students? Are families not moving to Cheshire for the school system? Are other suburban towns seeing the same decline? Even in a recession a good school reputation supports home values.

Anonymous said...

9:50 PM
Per the census now being conducted most families are much smaller today. The only demographic that is growing in terms of births per household is the hispanic population. Children are an expensive luxury for many and plenty of busy two income parents are simply not producing many kids. This is not a values judgement just the current facts.

Anonymous said...

WHat would also be interesting is to find out the percentage of families sending their kids to other high schools besides CHS this year, versus 5 years ago. That may tell you the state of our education system.

Anonymous said...

The decline in enrollment is being felt in most CT schools. CT has no incentive for young families. High taxes and high home prices are not attractive. Bottom line is - most of our young families are moving out of state where they get more bang for their buck.