District 6 won't fill many open teaching positions

Citing a growing charter school population and a rising expenses, Greeley public schools are expected to reduce staff and increase classrooms sizes next year.

The Greeley-Evens School District 6 School Board heard the news during its executive meeting Monday.

Wayne Eads, the district's chief operations officer, said the district is expected to hire 36 fewer teachers for next school year and increase middle and high school classroom sizes by one or two students. The district is planning to make those 36 reductions, about 3 percent of the teaching staff, through teachers already leaving the district. Eads said no teacher will be fired because of budgetary reasons.

Soaring fuel prices and other rising expenses are partly to blame, Eads said. "Bus fuel costs have tripled in the past five years."

But he said much of the crunch was because of the district's growing charter school student population.

Though charter schools, like University Schools and Union Colony Preparatory School, are in District 6, the district's only role is to pass along the money from state, federal and local levels to the charter schools, keeping about 2.4 percent for administration costs.

In the past eight years, while the district's own student population increased by 9 percent, it saw charter schools grow 79 percent. In the past seven years, the district has seen its charter school allocation increase from $6.8 million to an expected $15.1 million. Each pupil equates to about $6,500 each.

"During that time, we have not eliminated a classroom, school or bus route despite loss of revenue," Eads said.

The district makes the argument the growth in charter schools is chipping away at its budget because of fixed operational costs, such as teaching, administration and building costs.

"If we lose 30 students from one classroom to charter schools, we can just close that classrom -- but that's not the case, those 30 students are spread out," said Roger Fiedler, the district's spokesman.

Average middle school classroom sizes will increase by one student to 23 and high school classes will increase by two to 25. Classrooms in elementary schools will largely not be affected.

In years past the district has dipped into its reserves to balance its books. Eads said he is recommending the district not do this year.

Although the district is not in a financial crisis, it must make these cuts to prevent from getting into one, Eads said.

"We can live with what we got until student growth continues," he said.

Budget cuts

To help balance the budget, the Greeley-Evans District 6 is also reducing travel for administrators, eliminating some course overload pay options for teachers, forgoing a round of technology replacement for schools and eliminating 2.5 district administration positions.