What the $7.4 million in cuts would mean at an elementary school

Art = 1 sixty-minute class/ week
Music = 2 thirty-minutes classes/week
PE = 3 thirty-minute classes/week
REACH = 1 sixty minute class/week

1. Increase from 15 students to 22 or more students at a school with poverty over 70%, creates disparity and equity issues. Behavior is a major challenge in specials classes for many kindergarten and first graders.
2. Disrupts classroom community and makes implementing the District Framework (relationships, engagement and learning) very difficult.
3. Research shows that kids in SAGE classrooms perform better academically and socially when enrollment is capped at 15 students per teacher.
4. Splitting up students from one classroom and blending them with another class creates transition problems in the hallways, social problems, and loss of continuity with one teacher, and increasing behavior management challenges.
5. Disruptive to our rigorous curriculum due to safety, behavior interruptions and engagement in learning.
6. Safety of children would be a concern especially in PE class and art class which is less structured.
7. Specials teachers have to travel to other school and juggle multiple environments.
8. Instructional time is traded for travel time to other schools.

1. Loss of 18.5 days/year per professional for a total loss of 37 days/year
2. Increase in job responsibilities for IEP's due to Program Support Teacher cuts
3. Significant loss of support for children with special education needs, social/emotional/behavioral needs.

1. Many parents and students support this program.
2. Students who participate in strings enjoy it and benefit.
3. Strings offer enrichment and supplemental fine arts to students.
4. Private strings instruction is typically not affordable for working class families.

1. Decreases individual attention provided to students for academics.
2. Loss of time to call parents for Safe Arrival everyday.
3. Less supervision on playgrounds and at lunch time.
4. Loss of clerical support schoolwide.

1. Nightly support for cleaning the building is reduced to alternate night cleaning (2 nights one week and 3 nights the next week). (16 hours one week, 24 hours the next vs. 40 per week)
2. Loss in extra support for school special events during the day and in the evening.
3. After school clubs and child care programs adds to complexity of classrooms not cleaned daily.
4. Reduction in lawn care and maintenance.