Eliminating driver’s education classes, reducing summer school hours and cutting back on technology replacement are all part of Superintendent Susan Swartz’s proposal to curb spending in the 2009-2010 budget.

Swartz told the Board of Education Monday that there are items still in play, like the exact amount of state aid federal stimulus money. However, for this first draft of the budget, she is assuming Paterson’s proposal to reduce the district’s aid by $1.59 million becomes law.

Maintaining the existing programs would result in a budget that is $47.9 million — about $2.07 million more than the current level. This “rollover budget” would result in a 9.6 percent tax rate increase, which Swartz said is too high.

She is looking to reduce about $1.07 million from the budget to get it down to a 4.1 percent tax increase.

“My goal is, we would maintain as much of our current program as we could while looking at where we could make reductions,” she said. Swartz said she is not factoring in stimulus money that can be used to reduce taxes further.

Swartz wants to eliminate nearly six full-time equivalent positions, some through attrition. For example, two retiring elementary school teachers would not be replaced. She said teachers would be shifted around different buildings.

Swartz also proposes to eliminate the Young Scholars program for fourth- and fifth-graders. The district pays BOCES to run this program, which takes students out of class for full-day enrichment experiences in math, science and the humanities.

Instead, the program would be folded into the district’s own OPAL (Opportunities and Programming for Advanced Learners) that it does for grades one to five.

Under this proposal, the two OPAL instructors would share responsibilities for a half-day math/ science and half-day humanities enrichment for both fourth- and fifth-graders. Students would be tested into the program as being gifted in either math/science or humanities. The current Young Scholars program requires students to be gifted in both.

Some board members were worried about the driver’s education proposal. “The more kids we get through driver training, the safer the roads are going to be,” said board member Pamela Carbone.
Board member Ben Conlon worried that getting rid of Young Scholars would mean that OPAL teachers would be less free to help with curriculum development in classrooms.

Parent Claire Houlihan, of Scotia, also said she is concerned that the in-house program will not be as high quality as the BOCES program, particularly in scientific units. She noted that students have to test at four grades above their actual grade to get into this program, whereas OPAL has a lower threshold.

The Board of Education is also considering placing a scaled-down building proposition on the ballot in May after residents in December rejected a $26.76 million project to upgrade buildings and athletic fields. The new proposal would focus on general maintenance projects, such as roof repairs, Swartz said.

The budget vote is May 19.