Elmhurst District 205 Board Approves Staff Cuts, Fee Increases

There was another full house at the Elmhurst Unit District 205 Board meeting Tuesday night as community members, teachers and students turned out in a show of support for those teachers facing layoffs due to the district’s plan to reduce its operating budget by $3 million.

Board President Peggy Ostojic prefaced audience comments with a cautionary statement.

“Any decision to reduce a staff member is difficult, but the process taken to implement these reductions was very thoughtful,” she said. “The process of honorably dismissing staff who are non-tenured is dictated by the Illinois School Code, legislation and the collective bargaining agreement. Student and community input is always appreciated, but that is currently not part of the honorable dismissal process.”

Nevertheless, eight people chose to speak in a last-ditch effort to appeal to the board not to cut teachers. They primarily focused on the English department at York: the positive influence the English teachers have had on students, the personal attention they fear will be lost due to the reductions, the importance of small class sizes and “wasteful spending” in the district.

But it wasn’t just the English department at York that garnered comments.

Emerson fourth-grade teacher Kelly Guziewski was told on Friday that she was being laid off. She said she didn’t have students at the board meeting speaking on her behalf because they are only 10 years old, and they don’t know yet that she was let go.

Guziewski, who has been teaching at Emerson for three years, said the layoffs are “cruel."

“For the last three years, I’ve devoted my life to the school district,” she said. “When you lay off people, you hurt them physically, emotionally, financially.”

Senior Ryan Hinchley also spoke in support of York baseball Coach Dave Kalal. Hinchley said the entire York Baseball Team was in the audience.

“Quality is greater than quantity,” he said. “We believe the School Board has made a huge mistake. You’re about to lose a wonderful teacher and coach and even a greater person.”

It’s not that their pleas fell on deaf ears, but the decision had already been made. The board voted two lay off 22 teachers at the elementary level and 17 teachers at York. No layoffs are planned at the middle schools.

Because there is no seniority among non-tenured teachers, all teachers in that category were let go. However, when actual enrollment figures are determined in late April or early May, some schools may add sections, and vacant positions will need to be filled at all grade levels. At that time, teachers who were cut can re-apply for those jobs.

Driving the reductions are six factors: enrollment, class size, scheduling, special certifications needed for teacher in certain areas, various instructional strategy (including the freshman cohort program) and recommendations by the program review committees.

With regard to enrollment, for example, data shows 190 fewer students are expected in kindergarten through fifth grade next year. As of now, two and a half fewer kindergarten sections and 13 fewer sections in first through fifth grade will be needed. 

At the high school level, in addition to English teachers, positions and partial positions were reduced in world language, social studies, science, math, art and physical education.

Average class sizes at the elementary level will increase, from 18.2 to 22 in kindergarten; 20.4 to 20.8 in first grade, 20.1 to 21 in second grade, 21.1 to 24.5 in third grade, 19.5 to 23 in fourth grade, and 20.2 to 23.2 in fifth grade.

“(Reduction in force) is some of the hardest work that is done at the leadership level,” Superintendent Lynn Krizic said. “It is about ensuring we maintain the integrity and quality of our programs.”

Fee Increases Approved

Working on the other end of a budget fix, the School Board also approved fee increases Tuesday.

Most notable are increases in athletics and activity bus fees.

Boys cross country and track fee will be $125; girls cross country and track, tennis, badminton, swimming, wrestling, water polo, cheerleading and girls soccer will be $150; boys soccer, volleyball, baseball, softball, football, poms, gymnastics and bowling will be $175; and the basketball and golf fees will be $200. 

There is a four-sport maximum for families with several children in sports, so no family will have to pay more than $450, Assistant Superintendent for Finance Pat Masterton said. 

But the cap on fees applies only to sports.

The activity bus fee has been approved at $165 per semester per student, and that applies no matter how many students are in the family.

“I’m particularly concerned about the bus impact, because that is really a triple, quadruple whammy on top of (the other fees)," Ostojic said.

If there is any bright spot in all of this, it’s that instructional fees in grades K-8 are actually going down a few dollars due to larger class sizes, from $95 to $88 in kindergarten, from $158 to $135 in first through fifth grades and from $165 to $138 in sixth through eighth.

Board member Susan DeRonne said she was pleased to see the instructional fees go down, but she’s concerned about “creeping fees” like lab fees ($25) and art fees ($26) in high school.

“We got rid of those little tacked-on fees,” she said. “I hate to see them start creeping back.”

Ostojic recommended staff monitor  enrollment in programs with the new fees.

“I recommend the board next year really look at the outcome of this," she said. "If we see drops in participation levels in these programs maybe we’ve moved the needle a little too far.”

Board members asked about school-business partnerships to help lower the fees. Masterton said the district is working on a contract with Coca-cola which could add about $60,000 to a fund for students in need, but  she cautioned that in the past it was determined that students shouldn’t be bombarded with advertising messages.

Staff is also looking at ways to save money on textbooks, including using an online “virtual bookstore.” 

The complete list of fee increases can be found here.