Sullivan West School District cuts: Is the horse already dead?

By ED ZWIRN

JEFFERSONVILLE, NY — Have you heard the one about the farmer who bought a horse that was a real “hay burner?”

“‘I kept cutting back on his feed and cutting back on his feed and just when I got to the point where he doesn’t have to eat anything, he up and dies on me,’ the farmer complained,” Sullivan West Board of Education member Arthur Norden related anecdotally before casting the sole vote in opposition to district staffing cuts.

After delaying for several meetings, while a new superintendent got his feet wet and a new board got itself organized, the district board voted on July 27 to cut one full-time vocal music teacher, one art position, one business education position, one remedial reading teacher, one elementary position, one teacher assistant, a part-time remedial math position and nine full-time teacher aides.

The move, which school officials say will save around $600,000, was mandated in the 2004-2005 budget passed by voters in May and made necessary by huge increases in pension costs and health benefits and ongoing costs related to district construction projects.

Superintendent Alan Derry said $250,000 of this money will be saved by elimination of the teacher aide positions, with the remainder of the money coming from the teaching positions.

Derry, who admitted that his “enculturation into the district has been at half-speed” since taking the superintendent job this summer, said that some of the aides may get their jobs back as a result of the creation of two new teacher’s aide positions, also approved by the board.

“There are some tough cuts to make tonight,” said member Shawn Bailey. “We do need to figure out where we’re going.”

Practically all of the 30 or so residents packed into the Jeffersonville Elementary School Library to attend the meeting were far from sympathetic with the board action.

“I wish you had given the voters a chance and allowed us to approve a higher budget,” said Jenny O’Brien, a kindergarten teacher at the Delaware Valley School and the mother of a two children in the district. “I don’t think a lot of the public was aware.”

“I have to take time away from the band and the chorus to teach general music,” said Roseann Auditori, who last year served as Delaware Valley band director. “It’s killing the program.”

“In a few years, you’re not going to have as many kids in the high school marching band and all the other wonderful things,” she said. “It’s killing the program. The horse is dead already.”