WILBRAHAM – The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District (HWRSD) has proposed cutting 9.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) teaching positions to close a $537,990 budget gap.

According to information from the district, four middle school teaching positions would be cut, one of which is attributable to HWRSD’s ongoing decline in enrollment. Two teaching jobs at Minnechaug Regional High School would be eliminated and two teachers would be laid off at the elementary school level.

The proposed cuts also call for the reduction of two paraprofessionals and a 0.5 FTE administration job at Thornton W. Burgess Middle School (TWB).

“Some of the staffing reductions will affect the level of service that we deliver,” Superintendent of Schools M. Martin O’Shea said.  

He added if the budget gap were filled, the district would still be below level service for the 2016-2017 school year.

“It’s a very difficult job, but even when you are in reduction mode there’s a set of core principles and core ideas that we try to adhere to,” he explained. “For example, we wouldn’t want to make reductions that would compromise safety. We try to maintain manageable and reasonable class sizes even when we’re faced with reductions.”

Other methods proposed to close the budget gap include the use of funds from revolving accounts, creating reductions based on enrollment, instructional and programmatic cuts that do not diminish services, and deferring maintenance, he noted.

O’Shea told Reminder Publications one of the biggest changes coming next year, due in part because of budget challenges, is a change from a middle school model to a junior high school at TWB and Wilbraham Middle School.

“The service impacts will be felt at the middle school where we’ll move cleanly away from the team model and towards a junior high scheduling model,” he explained. “It’s a more efficient way of scheduling the building at both middle schools and so rather than having a common group of teachers having a common group of students, teachers will be scheduled across grades and students will not be teamed. A given team of students will not have the benefit of having their instruction from the same team of teachers.”

He added a middle school teamed model allows for more collaboration between students and teachers to support the academic needs of students.

“They can more easily establish common academic expectations and they can collaboratively support the students’ social and emotional needs as well,” he noted.

According to the district, a technology and engineering class would be eliminated at the middle school level and no additional extra curricular programming would be funded for the upcoming school year at either middle school.  

O’Shea said he believes the new junior high scheduling model is what the Middle School Task Force indicated what would happen in the face of declining enrollment and stagnant revenue from the state.

The cost projections for the fiscal year 2017 (FY17) budget are always shifting, he explained. Recently, the district learned that the House of Representatives’ budget would provide HWRSD with additional Chapter 70 aid and Regional Transportation money.

“That House version of the budget has to be reconciled with the Senate’s version and the Governor’s version, so we don’t know if that’s going to hold or not,” O’Shea said. “If it were to hold, it would be good news.”

The School Committee has yet to vote on the district leadership team’s recommendations to close the budget gap, O’Shea said.

He added when the state budget is finalized, HWRSD’s leadership team would come back to the School Committee with a final set of recommendations.

According to the district, the state’s final budget would likely be released in June.

“The School Committee typically asks us to prepare a prioritized list of restorations if we are in the position to restore services,” O’Shea said.  

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