The $3.1 million in budget cuts Herricks School District administrators proposed last month included eliminating the Gemini elementary program, but loud objections from district parents may succeed in saving the program for gifted grade schoolers.
After a protracted budget discussion at last Thursday night’s school board meeting, board Vice President Jim Gounaris told concerned parents that administrators had been asked by the board to suggest options to salvage Gemini and two teaching positions representing approximately $250,000 in salaries with it.
“We will come up with some sort of plan that will be satisfactory to everybody,” Gounaris said.
Several parents lobbied for preservation of the program during the budget discussion.
“The problem with the kids at the higher level is that they’re never being challenged” said Dr. Susan Abraham, who has a third grade daughter in the Gemini program.
Abraham said she is concerned that letting Gemini lapse could lead to diminished numbers of Intel science scholars and students taking AP courses in high school.
The program starts midway through third grade and continues through fourth and fifth grades, with students in the program entering an honors program in sixth grade. The program had included three full-time Gemini teachers but one of those positions was eliminated last year. The two remaining teachers handle Gemini classes in the three elementary schools.
The Gemini position that was cut was among 49 teaching positions eliminated by the district over the past two years in efforts to stay with the state-mandated tax cap. The two remaining Gemini positions are among 17 teaching jobs the district administration has proposed cutting from the 2013-14 budget, which would save the district $2.1 million in salary and benefits.
Herricks Assistant Superintendent of Business Helen Costigan said that based on a projected 16.25 percent increase for the teachers retirement system in 2013-14 school year the tax levy would rise by 3.29 percent next
year to $95.56 million – $3.1 more than allowed by the state-mandated tax cap.
Voters last year approved a $101.27 million budget for the 2012-13 school year, which represented a 2.29 percent increase over the prior year’s $98.99 million budget.
Parents were joined in their appeals to reconsider cuts by two sixth graders, Lexi Ficken and Sara Hassan, who presented the board a petition with 57 signatures of students who want a trip to Boston – proposed for elimination at a savings of $25,500 – to be saved.
“This is a trip when students have a chance to mature on all sorts of levels,” Ficken said.
Parents at the school board meeting said the board needed to seriously reconsider the cuts proposed by Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth at the Jan. 24 meeting.
“Why not build it from scratch on the fly?” asked one parent about the budget. There is more than one way to run a program like Gemini, he added.
Board Trustee Sanjay Jain said existing contractual obligations prevent the school district from starting from scratch.
“School districts are regulated in a different way than businesses,” Jain said.
The parent persisted in suggesting the school board needed to take a different approach and Jain said he should send specific suggestions to the board. The parent said he had sent an e-mail outlining a way to save the Gemini program and requested a reply, but never received one.
In response to a reporter’s question, the parent – who declined to be identified – said his idea is a “middle ground” solution to group Gemini students in one class from third grade on, requiring only one full-time teacher.
After the meeting, Bierwirth declined to comment on options to keep the Gemini program in place.
Parent Sharman Beacco said she is concerned that her “average” child won’t get the attention she needs.
“The regular kids gets nothing. They’re just falling through the cracks,” she said.
Abraham responded by saying she wasn’t promoting the idea of special attention for gifted children alone.
“The problem is each child’s needs are not being met,” Abraham said.
Parent Howard Schneiderman said being in a class of 29 students is adversely affecting his third grader’s academic performance after being in a class of 23 students the year before.
“My daughter’s doing alright but she could be doing better if the class sizes were the same as they were in third grade,” Schneiderman said.
Board President Christine Turner said the class size issue was the result of pressure from the state forcing the district to cut back on costs.
“Unfortunately in the last two years, we’ve lost some very good teachers,” she said.
Jain called the state’s approach “unfortunate,” saying, “They did only one side of the equation. They capped the revenue side.”
Thomas Toscano, who has children in fourth and seventh grade, said teachers salaries districtwide will rise by an average of 6 percent next year in the final year of their current contract, with state-mandated “step” increases added to their 3 percent contractual increases.
“You just can’t go more than 2 percent on future contracts,” he told the board members.
“We got that,” Gounaris said.
Teachers currently average $125,000 a year in salary, according to Costigan.
In other developments:
• The board accepted a gift of a $200 scholarship from the Hillside Islamic Center in New Hyde Park to be awarded to a high school senior in the class of 2013.
