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School board cuts $1.5 million from budget

Eric Cravey
Posted 3/8/17

FLEMING ISLAND – The Clay County School Board approved an allocation package for the 2017-18 school year that would save $1.5 million by eliminating three licensed practical nurse positions, five …

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School board cuts $1.5 million from budget


Posted

FLEMING ISLAND – The Clay County School Board approved an allocation package for the 2017-18 school year that would save $1.5 million by eliminating three licensed practical nurse positions, five technology positions and at least seven media specialist positions in the district.

The move, approved on a 4-1 vote – with board member Betsy Condon voting no – took place at the board’s regular monthly meeting held March 2 at the Fleming Island High Teacher Training Center after an almost two-hour debate. Part of the plan also called for adding art and music teachers at some schools while eliminating that school’s technology teacher. School Superintendent Addison Davis said the proposal to add art and music teachers surrounded the goal of educating the whole child.

Parents representing Robert M. Paterson Elementary, which would lose one of its two nurses under the proposal, spoke out against the measure citing a list of multiple health problems among the school’s student body. Meanwhile, Davis said the plan called for keeping one nurse at each school.

“They have almost 1,000 students there,” said Heather Huffman, administrator for the Clay County Health Department, addressing the board and referring to Paterson. “They had over 8,000 visits to their clinic in 2015-16 school year. That is a lot of students coming to that health room and …over 20 percent of those students have a recognized health condition.”

Davis said while district staff did not review the health clinic data from each of the district’s 41 schools, staff reviewed nursing data from a sample of Clay County schools, schools in surrounding counties and had discussions with Baptist Health and St. Vincent’s Medical Center regarding appropriate standards of public school nursing care. He said the data differs greatly with some districts sharing one nurse between five schools in some cases.

“The original plan was to make sure we had a nurse at every school,” Davis said. “I can tell you, it’s very difficult to have multiple nurses at a school when they don’t warrant it through medical assistance.”

By comparison, Tynes Elementary, which has 955 students compared to Paterson’s 966 students, has only one nurse. Lake Asbury Elementary has 830 students and one nurse. Davis also pointed out how Oakleaf High has 2,346 students and one nurse, while Fleming Island High has 2,100 students and one nurse.

The Clay County School District currently has four open nurse positions.

“I can tell you, every year, we have difficulty staffing these positions,” Davis said. “I can tell we worked hard the last couple of days and the last week to get this right, to make sure that every school had the rationale for one [nurse].”

Said it’s difficult to give one school a nurse allocation while not giving another school a nurse is difficult.

“You’re going to push me and I’m going to push you in this community, to figure out what we can do for interventions for kids,” he said.

The idea of reducing nurse positions at schools first surfaced two years, when then-Deputy Superintendent Denise Adams said such cuts could be considered to improve the district’s financial health. In the past four years, the district has had its bond rating lowered by two Wall Street firms after its reserve fund dipped below three percent. However, with the economy improving, the district is back up to three percent, but the goal is to keep improving that mark, possibly to four percent for the rainy day reserve fund.

“We sit up here and we instruct him to get us up to four percent and we instruct him to make cuts…cut this, this, this and this but just don’t tell us who, what and where because we want everybody to have everything because we believe in it,” said Janice Kerekes, board chairman. “We have to give him direction. We can’t just sit here and say, ‘We want this back and this back and this back.’ We have to tell him where he’s going to make these cuts. We can’t just say, ‘You’re not cutting anything’ and then say, ‘Why aren’t we at four percent.”

Kerekes said 27 speakers voiced their concerns about the proposed cuts at a Feb. 27 board workshop in which Davis listened, went back to the spreadsheet and revised the planned cuts accordingly.

Kerekes said she believed having two media specialists at the district’s seven high schools was extremely important. Under the proposed measure, one media specialist position would be cut from each of the high schools.

Davis continually referred to the allocation package as fluid in that, positions can be added or taken away with board approval under certain conditions. Schools that meet required class size thresholds get to keep certain positions at their schools.

“So, if a high school meets class size, protects all the pathways that we’ve had historically, then I would have no problem with them making that availability to keep that second [media] specialist, if they meet all those criterions,” Davis said.

Davis also pointed out that seven elementary schools in the district currently do not have a media specialist.

For the second month in a row, board member Ashley Gilhousen attacked Davis saying the allocation package blindsided her. She said the package sends a message that the district cares more about the administrative staff than it does “the people that are touching kids everyday.”

Kerekes defended the administrative positions Davis has created since taking office saying that the board agreed to make administrative changes for six months so the superintendent can have the tools he needed to enact positive changes in the district.

“I will say that I respectfully disagree,” Davis said. “Everybody was supported and brought up to speed in every single step of the way. I over-communicate. We are not top-heavy.”

In other business, the board voted 5-0 to allow Davis to negotiate a school board attorney contract with David D’Agata, who is currently serving as senior assistant county attorney in Martin County, Florida. D’Agata had been the board’s second choice in February after Ray Poole, who dropped out of the running after taking a school board attorney position in Nassau County. The board had set the salary range at $120,000 and $150,000.

On a 3-2 vote, the board decided to break a five-year contract with Synovia Solutions, a provider of GPS services for the district’s buses. The contract was approved on a 3-2 vote in 2015 with the understanding that it would be free the first year and then rise to $137,000 a year for years two through five. Bus drivers say the system slows them down and creates safety problems, while some district staff argued to the contrary.