By JESSICA SIEFF
Niles Daily Star

Parents of Eastside Elementary School students received letters Wednesday afternoon informing them of the district’s decision to close Eastside Elementary School, their students to attend one of the district’s other elementary schools next year.

Just hours after the Niles Community Schools Board of Education voted to lay off nine teachers, Superintendent Doug Law revealed his recommendations for cuts to the district’s budget in order to survive reductions in state funding in the coming school year.

“In terms of major program changes we were looking at four different areas,” Law said Wednesday afternoon.

Those four options included closing Oak Manor Sixth Grade Center, closing Northside Child Development Center, eliminating block scheduling at Niles High School or closing Eastside Elementary School.

“In the end our decision is that closing Eastside helps maintain our educational program,” Law said.

Staff members at the school had been informed of the plan to close the building by Wednesday morning, Law said – a letter informing parents would be sent home with students.

The kindergarten through fifth grade school is the district’s oldest building – a concern, Law said, when it comes to looking at the future.

“Part of our concern is that we know in the next couple of years Eastside is going to require significant money to keep it a safe and viable building,” Law said. “Money that this district is not going to have.”

The board of education will meet to hear Law’s recommendations during their regularly scheduled planning meeting Monday.

That meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the cafeteria at Ballard Elementary School, one of the schools expected to receive Eastside students.

Students will be distributed throughout Northside, Ballard and Howard-Ellis schools.

A breakdown of Eastside’s closure in the budget report shows preliminary savings of $651,735. Incurring annual expenses and one-time expenses taken into account the total savings from the closure for the 2010-11 budget would be $480,000 minimum annually.

That breakdown includes:
• Administrator position – $115,000
• Media Aide position – $30,000
Title 1 Specialist position – $30,000
• Behavioral Specialist – $75,000
• General Education teaching position – $65,000
• Special Education teaching position – $65,000
• Secretarial positions – $65,000
• Operations expense – $176,735
• Overload costs – $30,000

Incurred Annual Expenses
• Transportation – $86,000
• Building up keep – $20,000

Initial expenses
• Moving – $30,000
• Equipment Storage – $5,000
• Renovation Costs – $30,000

“Richard Weigel (the incoming superintendent) and the principal Dave Eichenberg are meeting with the Eastside PTO after school tonight to talk about this and to set up a transition team with some teachers about questions that need to be answered,” Law said.

Eastside parents would also be notified, Law said, that students would visit the school they are to attend next year on May 10 and open houses would be held in the evening for parents.

Northside, Ballard and Howard-Ellis, Law said, will comfortably handle the increase in population of students.

As of Wednesday afternoon, that reaction from the staff – the only people to know of the closure at that time – had been somewhat expected, Law said.

Still, “some are married to the building,” he said, adding, “closing a building is never easy … We need to create an open communication with folks so we can answer their concerns, answer their questions,” Law said.

Currently, there were no plans to utilize the building in any other way nor any plans to tear the structure down.

“My concerns are that we continue to understand that this is an emotional issue for a lot of people and we have to give people time. We have to answer a lot of questions,” Law said.

Reaction by the public to the announcement will be notable as Buchanan Community Schools saw an outcry by its community when the discussion arose of closing Stark Elementary School.

Asked to compare his process with that of neighboring districts facing similar challenges, Law said, “the decision to close a building is obviously a significant decision; it’s not done lightly.

“The financial crisis in the state of Michigan is unprecedented in our time,” he continued. “We’ve been looking at solutions for our budget since last fall. As the list came together it become pretty evident that for financial reasons we had to close one of those four programs that I mentioned earlier and with further investigation, Eastside because of the anticipated cost of keeping the facility viable, became the obvious choice.”

A closer look at budget reduction recommendations were reiterated in a report that Law planned to have delivered to administration and staff members throughout the district by the end of the afternoon today and would list all planned cuts.

A transition team would be working to determine just how the closure of Eastside would take place and determine what programs that are already underway at the school would make the move with the students into other schools, Law said.

Out of all the positions listed as being money saved through the closure only one and a half of those would be actual layoffs in addition to the nine that were announced this morning.

The rest would be funneled into other schools and positions left open by retirements or laid off positions.

The district will keep block scheduling at the high school – something Law fought to have instituted; however, he said there would be an increase in class sizes and elimination of certain electives.

Law’s budget recommendations come while the district is still processing an announcement of a lay off of nine teachers, passed unanimously by the board this morning.

President of the Niles Teachers Union, Andy Roberts, criticized Law and the board for their decision to lay off the educators, saying he was “disappointed” in the board and Law for having “decided to make cuts that will directly affect kids in the classroom and are attempting to balance the budget deficit on the backs of the teachers.”

Law fired back, issuing his own statement which read, “I am very concerned that Mr. Roberts is using the occasion of the teacher lay off notice to point fingers and lay blame for the financial crisis we are in.

“This type of MEA (Michigan Education Association) media tactic is counterproductive for the district and the teachers to work together to solve one of the most difficult situations we have ever been in,” Law continued. “Further, the members of the board of education are very busy people and today’s meeting was scheduled around their schedules not the union president’s schedule. All nine staff members and the union were notified in person last week of this impending action.”

Superintendent Doug Law said plans to make reductions throughout the district in order in setting a budget for 2010-11 were made following “key guiding principles.” Those principles, he said, include:

“Maintain the safety of our students, maintain our signature programs that separate us from other districts, maintain class size in our elementary classrooms, trim budgets in a variety of areas without totally dismantling programs, maintain a solid educational program as the district plans for the future.”

The budget report shows additional cuts that include:

•  Kindergarten will go from half day every day to a full day every other day program, saving $246,000
•  Reduction in funding to middle school ‘b’ athletic teams, saving $31,000
•  Reduction in funding to after school extra curricular clubs, saving $69,500
•  Reduction in curriculum budget, saving $50,000
•  Reduction in part time and evening custodial staff, saving $70,000
•  Reduction of administration building exempt secretary, saving $50,000
•  Changes to high school block scheduling, saving $450,000
•  Replacement of high school librarian with para professional librarian, saving $50,000
•  In School Suspension program to become every other day program, saving $25,000
•  Reduction in secondary guidance counselor position, saving $90,000
•  Reduction to vehicle/equipment replacement budget, saving $22,000
•  Reduction of Northside gym teacher, saving $35,000
•  Reduction to school improvement budget, saving $5,000
•  Reduction to capital repair budget, saving $20,000
•  Reorganization of IT staff and tech budget, $40,000
•  Increase in funds from Intermediate School District to Southside School to cover cost of administrator position, saving $60,000
•  Savings through new banking contract, saving $40,000