Hickory school's faculty intact despite budget cuts

Hickory Public Schools' operating budget decreased by 5 percent this year. Despite this, the system is employing nearly all of the teachers and teacher assistants that were with the system last year.

Hickory Public Schools received a 10 percent decrease in funding from the state and a 1 percent increase in funding from Catawba County. The stimulus money and funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) helped bolster this year's budget.

The school system's total budget is $42 million for the 2009-10 school year. Of that, more than $2.8 million is dedicated to capital expenditures, including $1.7 million for on-going renovations at Hickory High School, an additional $710,000 for asbestos abatement at Hickory High, more than $75,000 for minor renovation and repairs, such as new carpeting to schools, and nearly $82,000 for instructional equipment to schools.

"Locally, we've budgeted more from reserves, but with stabilization funds, we've been able to maintain as much as possible in the classroom," said Kathy Isenhour, assistant superintendent and finance officer for Hickory Public Schools. "The focus has always been to minimize the impact on the classroom. That has been the (school) board and the administration's priority."

Isenhour said despite the cutbacks by the state, the school system has approximately the same number of teaching positions. However, they may not be in the same schools and the same grades as they were before last summer, when some teachers were let go due to state cuts, then rehired.

When some teachers were rehired, the number of students in some grades may have merited additional teachers at that school.

Overall, though, the number of students attending Hickory Public Schools declined by about 200 students this year, Isenhour said.

This was due in part because of the new kindergarten cutoff date, which was moved up from Oct. 15 to Aug. 31. Isenhour said the school system lost about 80 children from that.

"Class sizes have not changed," she said. "Some may have a few more students in them, but it ebbs and flows, depending on the number of children in the grade that year."

Hickory Public Schools has cut some money from its budget by not filling positions when people leave. While most of the teacher assistants are still with the system, Isenhour said those who resigned or left on their own have not been replaced. The same is true for positions in housekeeping, maintenance and office support.

"We have impacted our services," Isenhour said. "You can cut support services to a point, but then we'll have to start restoring services. There's only so much before you have a negative impact on classroom instruction."

Hickory Public Schools has used the $1,191,087 in stabilization money from the federal government to help pay for some of the support personnel and teachers who are back with the system, she said.

"We would have had to look at how many teachers we added back without it," Isenhour said. "We still could have added some, but not to the full extent."

The school system also received $255,480 in stimulus money for Title 1, to help keep class sizes lower, and an additional $313,679 in stimulus money for IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Act).

"The IDEA funding helped implement an early intervention program, with a new staff person at each school," Isenhour said. "At the elementary schools, it's a teacher assistant."

The school system has looked at other ways to help students. The state required school systems to return some of their money, but left it up to the systems what programs they would cut.

Hickory Public Schools cut more than $46,000 from central office administration. It also eliminated nearly $114,000 from improving student accountability. Isenhour said most of that comprised the summer school program.

However, she said the school system is working to help students earlier, and offer remediation for students, as well. There also are online credit recovery classes. They also received a dropout prevention grant for a middle school cohort to partner with area agencies, including Catawba County Council on Adolescents, Teen Up, Flying Bridges and the Young Men of Integrity, to encourage students to stay in school.

Other areas cut to revert money to the state include more than $1 million in noninstructional support; more than $48,000 in staff development — the entire budget; 45 percent of the textbook allotment, which is about $146,000; and about $21,000 in transportation funding, which is 5 percent.

"We totally restructured our bus routes to get our state's new computerized system the maps to the routes, and to cut funds," Isenhour said. "We've saved 223 miles a day."