With everything in light of the economy now being considered a cost benefit analysis, the Board of Education, BOE, is currently looking to refine and possibly reduce the summer programs offered for Clayton students. Although no decisions will be finalized until December, it is likely that there will be some significant changes made to what is offered to Clayton students, k-12.

“Essentially the BOE is trying to make a decision on what they want to spend on the summer programs,” Paul Hoelscher, Principal of the Summer Program at Clayton said. “ In the past 11-12 years that I’ve been involved in the summer program, there has never really been a thorough strict analysis on it. And that’s what we’re currently doing right now. What we are looking for is a balance— to what degree of classes should we offer for kids who have failed and for kids who want to get ahead. In addition, how many sections, how many kids, and should the classes be total open enrollment.”

The cuts to the program will be fairly equally distributed among the age groups.

“I don’t think any one age is going to be significantly cut. It’s much more of a philosophical thing,” Hoelscher said. “K-12, what do we want to provide for the whole community and that would be applied equally across the board.”

For the BOE, offering classes for credit recovery and remedial support will be the program’s number one priority. However the population of kids who have failed classes is very minimal and so the next step would be to offer required classes, such as Personal Finance, Physical Education, and Government, for kids who want to get ahead.

“We have a lot of kids who use the summer program to get ahead and free up their regular schedules during the year for APs and other courses,” Hoelscher said. “We hear the voices of students and parents who say this is the way we want to use summer school. This makes sense and its something where there is higher interest level. However there is going to have to be a compromise between total supply and demand.”

With Personal finance for example, a course required by the state, the BOE is looking to raise the classes’ availability after seeing a significant increase in its demand. The class started out being offered to a maximum of 24 students. But as the number of students making four-year-plans increased and counselors started strongly advocating for its completion over the summer, demand shot up. Last year the maximum increased to 48 and this year the BOE is planning on offering 3 sections, increasing the maximum to 66 students.

As for the enrichment, elective style classes, such as film-making and computer programming, the BOE is hoping that it will be able to offer such on a tuition basis.

“What we’re looking at is not necessarily cutting any particular enrichment class, but how could we do it a bit smarter. Though we’re only speculating, what we’re playing with is the possibility of still offering cool classes, such as ACT prep or field research, but on a tuition basis. The classes would no longer be able to count for credit, but it would be of pretty minimal cost to the community.”

Another concern for the BOE is the possibility that offering too much in the summer may in turn prove to be detrimental to teachers during the regular school year.

“The more that is offered in the summer potentially means there will be less teachers needed in the school year, and that’s why we’re looking for a balance,” Hoelscher said. “Is it possible to add a section here without losing a teacher there. How can we offer things in the summer where there is a need, but not negatively impact the department or take away people’s jobs.”

In part of the negotiation, teacher salaries have also been reduced. Historically speaking, there has been a flat rate of $25 an hour for teachers teaching in the summer. However, such minimal pay led to struggles with getting Clayton teachers, who were already familiar with the curriculum, to give up the first month of their summer to teach. Thus the district went to a per diam payment basis five years ago in attempts to attract more Clayton teachers. With the per diam system, teachers would get paid based on their annual salary broken down into hourly wage.

“ Now in this cost cutting time, people are reevaluating the system,” Hoelscher said. “Last year, teachers were given the same per diam rate but there was a 15% cut compromise across the board. However, now we’re looking at is that still too much.”

The new salary structure hasn’t been finalized and so nothing has been set yet. However, it is certain that teacher salaries won’t increase and they will be less than the normal school year. The negotiation is how much less. The administration knows we want to cut costs but keep our teachers.

Photo by Andrea Stiffelman