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Broward Schools face cutbacks as new year gets closer: Support staff is cut; magnet bus routes are consolidated(South Florida Sun-Sentinel (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 10--Kids who spent much of their summer watching their parents save money will step into Broward County classrooms on the first day of school and feel the squeeze of district's penny-pinching. Familiar faces will be missing from the some school offices and hallways because of staff reductions. Breakfast and lunch will cost students more because food is more expensive. Fewer activity buses will carry students home from magnet schools. Superintendent said these money-saving measures are subtle changes that will be seen in the classroom. "I am concerned," he said. "The cuts we're making may not be neon signs in the classroom, but they are clearly going to affect teaching and learning." Like other school districts, cities, hospitals and homes throughout Florida, Broward public schools are grappling with dwindling bank accounts and rising expenses. When classes begin this fall, the district's $5.05 billion budget coffers will be short about $60 million from last year and that deficit is expected to grow. In June, the state told Broward to expect about a $30 million cut in December, making the district short a total of $90 million for the 2008-2009 school year. The district has already laid off about 160 people, most of them secretaries, cafeteria workers, custodians and other "noninstructional personnel." While support staff aren't in the classroom, educators say they are an important part of a school community, helping to correct bad behavior and celebrate student accomplishments. Notter said help from the support staff "has always made us a quality school system." Budget cuts, he said, "infringe on that territory." There will also be fewer behavioral specialists working with Broward's most fragile kids -- those students who hurt themselves or others. Each of the district's 27 innovation zones, the cluster of elementary and middle schools that flow into a specific high school almost like a mini-school system, had one behavior specialist last year. Some zones had two. About half of those behavior specialists have been reassigned to do something else. And the rest will be sent to schools as needed. "These just aren't pleasant times," Denise Rusnak, director of the district's exceptional student education department. "They're hard decisions to make." Transportation also is affected by money woes. District officials consolidated bus routes between magnet schools, causing up to three schools to share one bus instead of each school having its own. The sharing doesn't mean a longer ride home because the new routes are based on school proximity, transportation officials said. School social workers and guidance counselors have not been affected. To see more of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |