High school superintendent defends budget

To the Editor:

Over the past few weeks, two Letters to the Editor have appeared in the Valley Stream Herald from special education parents/leaders (Marijo Sensale and Patty Walsh) challenging mine and the school district’s commitment to our special education students, parents and programs. This challenge appears to be based on my recommendation to the Board of Education, and their acceptance, to modify one of our special education programs, a program that is not offered in many other quality Nassau County school districts and is not required to be offered by New York state.

In preparing the 2010-11 school budget, I was appropriately directed by the school board to review every item of expense so that whatever tax increase would be needed would be as minimal as possible. To achieve that goal, we reviewed everything and recommended a budget with less than a 1 percent increase, but the budget includes a series of program reductions across all areas of school district operations. Class sizes in regular education classes will be increased to an average of 27-28; the recreation program will be reduced in its number of meetings; Adult Education and Summer School enrichment course fees are being raised; the number of coaches will be reduced; administrators, teachers, social workers, monitors, teaching assistants and clerical personnel positions are being cut.

None of these program changes and position eliminations is desirable in that every program has been developed to improve services to our children and every employee performs a needed function. However, the majority of the school board believed that in this economic time, cuts had to be made across the board. In recent days, New Jersey voters turned down 59 percent of their school budgets as compared to having approved 70 percent of their budgets a year ago.