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East junior Ashley Fazenbaker gives a presentation on Down Syndrome in Teacher’s Academy, one of East’s Butler Tech courses.
Mastering
the
Schedule
photos sierra whitlock | infographic michael tedesco
The Lakota Local School District’s upcoming budget cuts will eliminate some East courses and replace others with Butler Tech classes, as administrators battle to master the schedule.
Six-Period Dilemma
A
s a result of the Lakota Local School District’s financial crisis, East and Lakota West students were instructed to register for six periods, as opposed to seven, from a condensed list of classes for the 2011-12 school year. The reduction in course offerings would cut 14 full-time equivalents (FTEs) and save the district nearly $2 million. “If we go back to a six-period day, the teachers will be teaching [a greater] percentage of the day, so we don’t need as many teachers,” said Lakota Board of Education President Joan Powell. Although the six-period day has not been officially approved by the Board, the Lakota high schools only allowed students to choose six classes in the registration process. “I don’t know when the Board will vote [on the six-period day],” said Powell. “However, the Board has tentatively given administration the go-ahead.” East Principal Dr. Keith Kline emphasized the importance of alternative courses should the Board vote to keep a seven-period day.
12 | Spark | April 15, 2011
“We are going to really hit hard for students to take those alternate courses very seriously, because if for some reason we end up on a seven-period day, we’re going to take the first alternative and add it to students’ schedules,” said Kline. Seven periods would be available next school year if the Board approves the Memorandum of Understanding, an official agreement allowing for changes to teacher contracts. This will increase the high school teachers’ workload by one class at the loss of teachers’ duty periods for no increase in pay. “We can no longer afford to have a class of just 10 or 11 students,” said Lakota Interim Superintendent Ron Spurlock. “So if we get in that situation, we may have to eliminate some of those classes and move the students to other courses.” According to Kline, classes that have had historically low enrollment and classes that were estimated to have low enrollment due to the switch to six periods have been pulled out of the East class catalogue. Other classes might be available for students to enroll in, but that will depend on how many students actually do enroll.
“[Enrollment-dependent classes are] really nothing new; we do that every year,” said Kline. “We’re hypersensitive to it next year because resources are going to be tight.” In order to decide which classes will not be offered in the 2011-12 school year, Kline and the other administrators considered the recommendations of the department chairs. East Social Studies Department Chair Tom Prohaska agreed with Kline that enrollment was an important factor in deciding which classes to offer. He added that another factor in the decision process was whether or not the material in one class overlapped with another. “[As government or history teachers], we are touching on current events throughout the year, so [the current events class] could go to the wayside knowing that we should be doing it in class,” said Prohaska. East junior Natalie Paul’s options were limited by the cuts because the classes she wanted to take her senior year will not be offered in 2011-12. “Business, history and investing classes were the ones I was interested in. Now they are gone, so I have to take meaningless classes like cooking just to get credit,” she said.