School won't lose teacher positions

June 30, 2004|by SCOTT BUTKI

WASHINGTON COUNTY - A group of Pleasant Valley Elementary School students' parents was celebrating Tuesday after learning a plan to reduce the number of teachers at the school has been scrapped.

A group of about 15 people was given the news by Joetta Palkovitz-Brown, the system's executive director of elementary education, following Tuesday's Washington County Board of Education meeting.

At the board's June 1 meeting, Palkovitz-Brown said that the school's staff was to decrease from 11 teachers this school year to 10 in the next school year due to projected class sizes and enrollment levels at the school.

Seven people spoke against the proposed changes at the June 1 meeting.

Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Morgan said changes in the enrollment projections, not the parents comments about the proposed reduction, led to the change.

"The numbers are there now," Morgan said.

She said one reason the projections have changed is that parents got the word out to the community to register their students for kindergarten as early as possible. Some parents wait until the week before school starts to register their students for school, she said.

The number of students projected to be in the school's kindergarten in the fall has increased from 15 to 26, she said.

"We are very pleased. We feel the Board of Education and the central office administration carefully listened to us and heard our concerns," said parent Karen Reilly, who spoke against the proposal at the June 1 meeting.

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