School budget reflects cuts

Bilingual needs decline

WORCESTER—After increasing steadily since the 1980s, enrollment in the Worcester public schools’ bilingual program has been declining in recent years, primarily among Hispanic students.

As a result, in a proposed $215 million budget that School Committee members will begin deliberating tonight, the school administration is eliminating five Hispanic bilingual teaching positions.

The proposed cut is the second in two years for the program.

Last year, four Hispanic bilingual teacher positions were cut from the budget.

Since the 1998-99 school year, the bilingual program has lost 15 teaching positions, including three English as a Second Language jobs.

During that same period, enrollment in the system’s transitional bilingual program declined from 1,160 to 964.

Overall, the number of students receiving bilingual services, whether through a traditional bilingual program or through ESL tutoring, declined from 2,220 in the 1998-99 school year to 1,944 this year.

George Munoz, assistant to the superintendent, said a number of factors appear to be contributing to the decline.

While still a small minority, more parents are insisting that their children, particularly young students, be placed in regular classrooms, he said.

Mr. Munoz said emigration from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to this area has recently declined. He said the majority of the system’s Hispanic bilingual students hail from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

School Committee member Brian A. O’Connell said the school system’s push the past decade to reduce the number of years students spend in the bilingual program might be a factor.

Mr. O’Connell also said the city has been getting an increasing number of Eastern European immigrants, many of whom prefer that their children be educated in regular education classes.

There are other reductions in the proposed budget, which overall reflects a slowdown in the rapid expansion the Worcester public schools have undergone in the last decade.

The budget proposal also calls for the elimination of 13 elementary teaching positions, a reduction school administrators say is due to declining elementary student enrollment.

Correspondingly, the budget calls for adding 22 teachers at the secondary levels.

The school administration is also cutting 40 of the system’s 60 elementary school tutors and paying some 189 instructional assistants with federal grants, instead of city funds.

As part of that switch, some 29 special education positions that were formerly funded by grant money will now be funded by the city.

Mr. O’Connell said that funding the instructional assistants positions through grant money is a concern.

Positions that are funded in the regular budget have their own sections and funding streams, which allow the committee to evaluate each program year to year, Mr. O’Connell said.

If we feel it’s warranted to keep a program it is easier to do, if it’s in our budget,” he said.

But if that program is being funded by another source, it will be difficult for us to add it to our budget, no matter how meritorious it is.”

The number of day-to-day substitute teachers, who provide coverage for teachers who are absent as a result of illness, personal days or bereavement, is being cut from 59 to 50 positions.

The payment for these positions has increased from $60 per day to $75.

School administrators insist that the 50 day-to-day substitute teachers will provide the same coverage as 59, which they say is approximately 90 percent coverage in all schools.

Despite the decrease in elementary teaching positions, school administrators say the pupil-teacher ratio at that level will be about 21 students per teacher.

Janet Gutkowski Dufault, president of the Educational Association of Worcester, said she agrees with the administration that enrollment is slowing at the elementary level and is increasing in the secondary schools.

I think there is a disagreement in how the ratio is being calculated,” she said, noting that there are classrooms with a greater number of students.

I know some teachers who would be very shocked by the administration’s figures, knowing the faces that they have before them in class each day,” she said.



Comments are closed.