[ back ]
RINGWOOD - BOE tables teaching hires
(by Teresa Edmond - Staff Writer - August 06, 2008)
RINGWOOD - The Board of Education tabled appointing two personnel to long-term substitute teaching posts until the district is certain that the 2008-09 school year student enrollment numbers, straddling between three sections and four sections in some grade levels, would remain stable throughout August.
Calling the district enrollment numbers a yearly "summer debate," Superintendent Dr. Patrick Martin presented enrollment numbers for the district’s four schools at the July 28 Board of Education meeting.
He voiced concern that since the Peter Cooper School’s first, second and third grade levels each have more than 66 students, it’s possible for a grade level to lose one or two students, thus leaving the district with four teachers and three sections in one grade level at Cooper.
Cooper’s first grade has 68 students, and the second and third grades have 67 students each. Fifty-two kids are enrolled into kindergarten at the Cooper School – an average of 17 per section.
District guidelines mandate that 22 should be the maximum amount of students in one elementary school section. If there were 66 students in one section, that number could easily be divided into three sections of 22, with three teachers in that grade level.
Richard Schaefer, school board president, explained that the district runs into “difficulty” with the public schools’ first-grade enrollment because the parents transfer their kindergarten students from St. Catherine of Bologna School to first grade at the public school, thus causing a shift in numbers. St. Catherine offers a full-day kindergarten program.
"I think we should be conservative in our class sizes. All the classes meet our policy guidelines and I don't see a need to change that," he said.
The Erskine School's enrollment numbers for each grade level are a "carbon copy" of the Cooper School except its first grade, which holds 63 students, Martin said.
Martin said that the district has to be “fair” to the taxpayers when it comes to abiding with its class size policy.
"If our policy says that classes up to 22 are acceptable at an elementary school, we really can't justify four sections with 63 students, not when you can have three sections of 21 students (each)," he said.
Because of the enrollment numbers straddling between three classes and four classes in some grade levels, Martin recommended tabling the appointment of two people to long-term substitute teaching posts. Krystina Mongelli was up for a first-grade substitute teacher at the Cooper School, and Marija Bubalo could have gotten the substitute fourth grade long-term teaching position at the E.G. Hewitt School.
In lieu of appointing Mongelli to the Cooper long-term substitute teaching post, Martin recommended the board approve moving district enrichment teacher Fran McKay from a long-term substitute post at Erskine to the same position at Cooper. Martin said that both McKay and Mongelli understood the situation when he spoke to them.
To find McKay’s replacement, the district published an ad in the newspaper late last month. The district is considering Mongelli for this position but is wary about hiring her for the job due to the uncertainty of Erskine’s enrollment numbers. This would cause Mongelli to move to Erskine, leaving the enrichment teaching job vacant.
"I move towards making sure we have enough teachers, but as of today I think we should put that on hold," Martin said about tabling the appointments. "It (the enrollment numbers) could grow … then we could come back in August with an additional teacher.”
Cooper School Principal Michael Sutcliffe said that getting one or two more students above the “magic line” of 66 students in one grade level could have a ripple effect on the rest of one grade, especially if one student transfers into the school at the last minute. That means the students in one grade level could get shifted around between classes.
[ back ]
