Students at Maple Grove Elementary School in Battle Ground say goodbye to their parents before beginning their first day of school in September 2018. The start of the school year had been delayed by 12 days due to a strike.
The Battle Ground Public Schools Board of Directors approved more staff cuts last week, this time for classified positions reliant on state and federal funding.
The board approved the reduction in 15 classified positions with a unanimous vote at their regular May 13 meeting. Of those positions cut, 12 were paraeducators a part of a math intervention program that will be phased out next year with a new curriculum adoption, and three were paraeducators with the districts English Language Learner (ELL) program.
BGPS Spokesperson Rita Sanders explained that a reduction in the amount of federal funds received through Title I, and state funds received through Washington’s Learning Assistance Program, led to the staff reductions. She said the funding was dependent on how many students were eligible based on the number of them on free and reduced-cost lunch, adding that local levy dollars weren’t used to fund those positions.
Sanders didn’t have a definitive reason for why the district’s number of students qualifying for free and reduced-cost lunch has gone down, though she reasoned a stronger economy may have more families outside of the income threshold for the program.
For next year the district will change the way they do math intervention, Sanders said, phasing out a program where students were taken out of regular classes to meet with staff. Next year the district will have instructional coaches at primary and middle-grade levels who will provide support for teachers in the classroom, keeping students in their regular classes.
Those instructional coaches will also be helping with implementing recently-adopted math curriculum at the K-8 levels — Sanders said that the new curriculum has the math intervention more integrated into the standard program than the previous “pull out” model.
For the reduction of ELL staff, Sanders said that was a case of funding reduction, not any reworking of the program.
Though 15 letters letting staff know their positions will be cut next year were sent out, Sanders said the number of people leaving the district would likely be less. Sanders said that special education assistant positions opened up often which those displaced could move to, something that could happen over the summer before the start of the school year.
Certified reductions
The May 15 deadline to notify staff whose positions would be cut next year has passed, with 14 certificated staff receiving those notifications out of the total 44 positions cut, Sanders said. Out of those 14, she said two had accepted positions outside the district and one other would be shifting to another position in-district.
“That could still change,” Sanders said, noting a conversation with the district human resources department that more retirements or resignations could still come in. Previously when the board had approved the certificated staff reductions late last month she said most of those 44 positions cut had those staff retiring or resigning rather than being laid off.
