The St. Louis Public Schools board may approve a budget tonight that gives the district $11.7 million less to work with than last year. But SLPS Superintendent Kelvin Adams said the district will not be cutting classroom teachers or closing schools.
The proposed $264.8 million budget takes into account federal, state and local cuts to the district’s funding, as well as a projected decrease in K-12 enrollment.
The budget does not account for the pending court decision in the Turner vs. Clayton case. In the worst case scenario, the St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge David Lee Vincent III may order the unaccredited St. Louis Public School District to pay for all students who want to study in accredited county schools. In that case, the proposed budget would be completely void, Adams said.
“Then, the budget you just saw goes out the window,” Adams said. “It’s no longer a balanced budget, and we have a number of different challenges. This is a budget based on what we know today.”
Adams expects the judge to make his decision in the next 30 days. However, most likely one side or the other would appeal the decision, and the 2012/13 budget will remain as is until the appeal process is completed.
If the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education awards the SLPS district its accreditation before that process is over, the lawsuit would no longer apply. The district has the six points that’s needed for accreditation; however, one of those points must come from an academic area.
Last year, the school district was inches away from earning that point. If 13 sixth-grade students would have tested differently on the communication arts portion of the MAP test, the district would have earned the point. That’s out of 4,800 students.
For next year, one of the biggest spending priorities is to maintain the pupil/teacher ratio at the state’s desired level.
“That is held sacred,” Adams said. “We are trying to indicate that we are providing the best educational environment for students.” To maintain this level, Adams said they may have to make some employee cuts – but not to classroom teachers.
The district has also put technology upgrades at the forefront, along with continuing Prop S facility improvements.
Over the past three years, the district has reduced its total expenditures by $68 million. The majority of those cuts have been to salaries, benefits, professional services and contracts. However, the district has been able to find cost savings by consolidating and renegotiating services, such as transportation.
Early childhood enrollment grows
One area of the district that continues to grow is early childhood education. Since 2008, enrollment into pre-kindergarten classes has almost doubled, from about 1,400 to 2,400.
Around the country, state agencies determine how many prison beds they will need in the future by looking at their children’s second- to fourth-grade reading levels, Adams said.
One of the ways the district is addressing reading fluency is through early childhood education.
“That’s why opening up new pre-K’s are so important,” he said, “because if you encourage kids to increase their reading fluency, then the likelihood is that they will not need intervention at the fourth-grade level.”