School district staff and board members are bracing for spending
cuts that could affect summer school programs during the next
school year.
School district staff and board members are bracing for spending cuts that could affect summer school programs during the next school year.
As Morgan Hill Unified School District trustees continue their annual budgeting process in the coming days, they will have to consider how to trim about $1 million from next year’s budget. That could include about $200,000 worth of costs for summer school programs, according to staff at Tuesday’s board meeting.
More analysis of the costs and effectiveness of local summer instruction programs is needed before the cuts can be enacted, but a number of possible options have been mentioned.
“We can do what we’ve always done, we could do nothing, or we could do targeted summer school activities,” Superintendent Dr. Wes Smith said, and further staff studies will give the board a better idea of what should be done with the programs.
Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini said currently, the program that is most open to the partial cutting is that which provides students with “credit recovery” after failing one or more classes during the regular school year.
One way to achieve the $200,000 cut could be to reduce the number of summer school sites from two to one, Tognazzini said. Most of the costs that would be cut are for staff time and the operation of utilities at summer school sites.
Smith said his initial impression is that the district could achieve “more bang for the buck” by targeting specific student needs in summer school and other intervention programs.
Staff members will put together a report on the district’s current summer school operations, including enrollment numbers, grades and data indicating how many enrollees end up graduating on time, Tognazzini said.
A key element of such a study will be the number of students who start summer school at the beginning of the session, versus how many remained enrolled at the end of the summer. Tognazzini estimated that at the end of most summers, the classes end up with about two-thirds of the students who started. Identifying which ones stay and which ones leave could help the board determine what areas or students to target.
Trustees at Tuesday’s board meeting said they will await comprehensive data to determine how to reach the anticipated cuts.
“I’d appreciate it if we could save summer school because I think it benefits the kids. But how effective has it been, really?” Trustee Peter Mandel said.
Some supplemental academic programs are safe from cutting. Extended school-year instruction for special education students, and summer classes for migrant students who are learning the English language will continue, Tognazzini said. Those are funded by special restricted funds that are unlikely to be drawn down next year.
Furthermore, district staff will also look at the possibility of offering remedial instruction in Algebra and English during the summer to prepare students for regular coursework when school starts, which could eliminate some of the need for post-failure credit recovery, Tognazzini said. The district has never offered such summer preparation before.
“We’ll focus on those two areas as we talk about what we could offer during summer school, and hopefully we’ll end up with a savings,” she said. The staff will discuss the historic data related to the district’s summer school programs in the coming days, and report their findings at a future board meeting.
School counselors began preparing students for the possible reduction of summer instruction options when classes started in the fall by telling them the program might be cut, Tognazzini added.
How to achieve another $800,000 or so in cuts to other areas before the end of the fiscal year June 30 will be discussed and determined over the next few months.
Since 2008, the trustees have cut about $8.3 million in expenses due to declining revenues.
