Waynesboro district might need to hire three new teachers

March 19, 2008|By JENNIFER FITCH

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - New, significant expenditures for the Waynesboro Area School District in the coming year could include roof repairs and replacements at elementary schools, plagiarism and library management software, and three additional teaching positions.

The school board took an early look at proposed expenditures for the 2008-09 school year at its meeting Tuesday.

One of the proposed new teaching positions, for a first-grade teacher at Hooverville Elementary School, would come in part from the transfer of approximately nine current kindergarten students from crowded Summitview Elementary School.

"We in the past have transferred students from building to building to equalize class size," Assistant Superintendent Gloria Walker said.

Additional new teaching positions - if approved by the board - would be in fifth grade at Mowrey Elementary School and high school math, the latter of which would be necessitated by Franklin County (Pa.) Career and Technology Center students now taking math classes at their home school.

"How do you decide which students to transfer to another school? I think that would cause a little bit of concern" for families, board member K. Marilyn Smith said.

Walker said the district contacts parents to determine which ones could possibly take advantage of the shift if they send students to relatives or baby-sitters before or after school.

"Most parents prefer to have the whole family moved if that's the case. We've moved a lot of students around in this district in the past several years because we're up against the wall" often as far as capacity, Walker said.

Board member Pat Heefner asked that administrators make every effort to find willing families. She used the word "traumatic" when describing her daughter's transfer as one of six students from Summitview who were sent to Antietam Junior High School rather than the old East Junior High School.

Summitview could undergo a $578,000 roof replacement in 2008-09, with Business Administrator Caroline Dean saying that vendors have been repairing it after each rainstorm.

Also, the board favored repairing the roofs at Hooverville and Mowrey using $108,000 won in a class action lawsuit about erosion from insulation. That would be in addition to approximately $350,000 from the board's general fund.

Expenditures discussed Tuesday will be worked into drafts of the budget to be presented next month.

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