Schools wrestle with share of cuts

And because enrollment at the high school is down, and will continue to drop for a few years, some staff cuts there are proposed, and others are being explored for future budget years, said Superintendent William Lupini.

Unlike town government departments, school staffing has increased since 1994, according to figures in the Override Study Committee Report released in January.

The bulk of those additions - 156 - were mandated by special education laws. The rest - 62 - were added to meet new high school graduation requirements, add math and literacy specialists to all nine schools, implement full-day kindergarten, and put a full-time nurse in each of the eight elementary schools.

Some of the unique issues the schools face are underfunded government mandates (the federal No Child Left Behind law, for example) and booming enrollment, said Lupini.

Kindergarten enrollment for September 2008 has already exceeded 500 and appears poised to grow for the fourth year in a row, Lupini said. "I expect that will rise by 50 to 70 before September," he said, lifting the total beyond the 550 who enrolled last fall.

Keeping staffing up in those grades is a struggle, and because some schools could not add classrooms, class sizes are higher than ideal.

Further, said School Committee member Rebecca Stone, some buildings just do not have space for additional classes. The Runkle and Lawrence schools may need modular classrooms by the end of the summer, she said.

The problem threatens one of Brookline's core educational values - class size. This school year, the median hovers around 19, lower than in Newton (which reports class size bumping 22) or many comparable communities.

The Override Study Committee recommended that the schools explore larger classes, but acknowledged that this was a long-term goal, not something that could be achieved in next year's school budget.

The School Committee's goals include maintaining "reasonable class size." But even that may be on the table, said Stone.

"We are giving flexibility on class size," she said.

"We want smaller class sizes in the lower grades, where the research says it has an effect."

But smaller schools with fewer sections per grade make the choices difficult.

For example, if there are 75 third-graders, they can be split into three classes of 25 or four classes of 18 and 19.

"We have less opportunity to increase class size than people think we do," said Lupini.

"It's easier on the town side to lay out a strategy" for personnel cuts.

Even if the override passes, Rowe said, the department may still explore savings laid out in the nonoverride budget: raising fees, further conserving energy, and using technology to replace back-office functions.

Another long-term budget buster is special education, which is subject to federal and state mandates.

These costs have grown faster than the schools' overall budget since 2002, when it was 21 percent.

It was 24 percent of the budget in the current fiscal year.

Lupini has already outlined ways to contain special education costs while, he says, maintaining the quality of services to youngsters.

Among his plans are to increase early intervention - which can reduce the need for special education in later years, reorganize administration, reduce outside placements, and increase inclusion in neighborhood schools.

"Some of these are cost neutral, some save money, but all are better for kids," he said.