School is given a short reprieve

Last month the state Department of Education ordered Andover to comply with the state's minimum instructional time regulations after receiving a complaint from a parent who was concerned about the impact that budget reductions have had on course offerings. Since the passage of the Education Reform Act of 1993 school systems statewide have been required to provide 900 hours of classroom instruction per year at the elementary and middle school levels and 990 hours of instruction at the secondary level.

Budget cuts have left Andover providing an average of 860 classroom hours to its high school students -- 130 hours below the requirement. Elementary and middle school students are getting the minimum of 900 hours. While Andover won't be required to hire enough teachers to meet the state's minimum learning time standard by second semester, which begins in January, the town must find the funding to meet the regulation by next September, said Kimberly Beck, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.

But finding the $1.5 million to $2 million to fund the additional 35 to 40 teaching positions that Principal Peter Anderson said he needs to meet the minimum learning time mandate will be a community-wide challenge, town leaders agreed Monday night at a joint session of the Board of Selectmen, School Committee, and Finance Committee. At that session, Town Manager Reginald "Buzz" Stapczynski said he is already projecting a $3.1 million deficit in next year's town budget without the addition of any new teacher positions.

That prediction prompted School Committee member Christopher Smith to issue a statement Tuesday arguing that Andover doesn't need to hire more teachers but instead needs to require its teachers to teach more students and more courses.

"Hiring more teachers would certainly solve the compliance problem but it isn't the most efficient use of taxpayers' money," Smith said, noting that the town's contract with its teacher's union expires in June. "If each high school teacher taught one additional course per year, that would be the equivalent of adding 24 full-time teachers to the high school." Smith pointed out that Andover rejected an override of Proposition 2 in 2002 to fund additional school expenses.

"The taxpayers spoke loud and clear then and the economic situation has only gotten worse," said Smith, who ran on an anti-override platform. Thomas Meyers, president of the Andover Education Association, said that Smith's calculations are off the mark and that the real problem is an overall underfunding of education.

"Andover has for years provided less funding to its schools than many of the communities it likes to compare itself with and that fiscal austerity is coming home to roost," Meyers said. "Andover is spending $7,935 per pupil this year on its students, less than Lexington, Needham, Newton, Wellesley, and Winchester, but 95 percent of Andover teachers spend the same amount of time in the classroom as teachers in other districts. We are working flat out."

Tina Girdwood, the chairman of the School Committee, said she supports spending more money on the schools but "the fact is, school revenues are limited by Proposition 2 and new growth in the community" and the town has not had as much money as some officials and parents might have liked in recent years.

"The one area which we do feel could provide some funding for schools is funds set aside for capital improvement projects this year," she said. "Times are tough. Those projects can wait a year."

At Andover High, each of the school's 1,750 students would have to take eight course credits of 124 hours per year to meet the 990-hour rule, Anderson said. Fifty percent of Andover's current crop of 381 seniors are registered to take only six course credits, an average of three courses each semester under the school's "block schedule" system, and no student was allowed to sign up for more than seven course credits for the year, according to Anderson.

Fewer teachers not only resulted in fewer course offerings and larger class sizes, it means more study halls, Anderson said. The lack of teachers means that some of his students have been assigned two study periods out of the four, 84-minute periods each day this term. While state officials say they are aware that other districts are falling short on the learning time mandate, Andover is the only district that is so far out of compliance, providing on average 130 fewer hours per student than mandated.

Bach told the joint session of town officials that Anderson has made an attempt to find independent study options for some of his students stuck in study halls. She said she is hoping to persuade the Department of Education to count these "alternative learning experiences" toward the class time mandate at least for second semester.

However, state officials said Andover must "change its system if necessary and find the funds" to meet the minimum learning time mandate. "They have given us all the reasons why they are out of compliance, union contracts and block scheduling changes among them, but in the end they have to find a way to comply," Beck said. "It may mean they have to go to their community and get an override [of Proposition 2 ] to find the funds to get this done."

Caroline Louise Cole can be reached at cole@globe.com.