Rising class sizes possible in Baltimore County
The budget introduced last night by Baltimore County Superintendent Joe A. Hairston would save money by reducing the teaching staff by about 200 through attrition. Cheryl Bost, the union president, said she wants to look at the numbers more carefully, but that the reduction may only take the staffing levels to where they were before the enrollment began to dip some years back. In other words, the county school system didn't reduce the teaching staff in the past several years when the number of kids in classrooms went down. However, there's still plenty of worry to go around. First, it isn't clear if Bost's theory will turn out to be correct. There will be 200 fewer teachers and roughly 1,400 more students. In addition, our high schools may feel the worst of the class increases. And high school classes are already some of the largest. One parent of a higher schooler complained last night in an interview that her son had one class with 35 students in it. During a visit during American Education Week she had seen just how disconnected he was to what was going on in the class. And another parent worried what greater burden that would mean for teachers with more papers to grade and more students to keep track of.
While the General Assembly has yet to act, there's plenty of reason to believe that some cuts to education are likely. That would mean far more drastic cuts than Hairston is now proposing and they could come rather quickly just before the budget passes in March.
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Comments
I know that times are hard and sacrifices will need to be made; however, it frustrates me every time I think of how money has been spent in BCPS and a reduction of teachers is the first answer to the budget crisis. The misspent $300,000.00 on the Little Brown Handbook under B. Dezmon's direction would have covered about 7 teachers...the excess of 4 million given to American Reading Company products for a friend to the superintendent's business would have covered about 65 teachers. $300,000.00 yearly to Science Weekly, another friend would cover an additional 7 teachers for a year...the thousands of dollars paid to B. Dezmon's handpicked workgroup and the money paid to do the work of her company on AIM (much money was given as extra compensation for teachers to complete the AIM checklist) would have covered many more teachers...the very hefty salary paid to Mr. Hairston's "community outreach" guy to protect and fix his tarnished image would cover several teachers...several million misspent on construction at Milford Mill...65,000.00 spent on a sign for West Towson could buy a teacher....so yes, I know sacrifices must be made, but why not ask Mr. Hairston and the board's personal friends and pet projects to make them rather than sacrifice teachers who directly impact the educational system. Boy, Dezmon and company really made a mess! It's a shame that her buddies are still here...the clean-up cannot even begin until all ties are cut and a new superintendent is in place.
Posted by: Frustrated | January 13, 2011 8:39 PM
It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. I can certainly attest that there is no budget "fat" in BCPS classrooms. Cutting teacher and curriculum office staff should be the absolute last place to look as they are on the front lines with kids every day. Many middle and high school classes are already in the 30's. Smaller teacher to student ratios are critical now when classrooms are filled with kids that require more and more individualized help. There are plenty of areas to trim, but the teaching staff is not one of them.
Posted by: realteacher | January 20, 2011 10:53 PM