SV district sees positives despite failure of budget override

Monday, December 29

Herald/Review, Arizona

SIERRA VISTA -- On May 20, voters in the Sierra Vista school district overwhelmingly voted down a proposed budget override that would have raised the property tax rate.

A month later, on June 23, the Sierra Vista school board voted to shorten the elementary school day and do away with art, music and physical education classes for children in kindergarten through fifth grade.

The move, designed to cut costs, also included a reduction in the number of school librarians and guidance counselors and new starting and dismissal times for middle school and high school classes.

"It's painful. I know teachers will do their best to incorporate art, music and P.E. (in their classes)," school District Superintendent Renae Humburg said before the board voted.

Other cuts included reducing the number of elective classes at Buena High School and eliminating the curriculum director position at the district office. Humburg assumed those duties. In addition, an assistant principal's position was cut at Buena.

The school board cut costs in order to fund the employee salary schedule and pay the increased costs of health insurance and the state employees retirement fund. The school district also needed money to pay for the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind act of 2001. NCLB is an unfunded mandate, school officials say.

"Our main objective was to maintain class size," Humburg said in a recent interview. Local educators believe students learn best when classes are not overcrowded, plus NCLB also recommends small class sizes.

She added that schools in the Sierra Vista school district are providing students with extra assistance in reading, writing and math. Children in third, fifth, eighth and 10th grades are tested on those subject areas when they take the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards, or AIMS, test.

Humburg said classroom teachers are under "tremendous pressure" to make sure students achieve the requirements of No Child Left Behind and Leading Education in Arizona through the Reporting and Notification System, or Arizona LEARNS. The latter is tied to the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards.

Humburg said music, art and physical education teachers were shifted to classroom duty to fill remaining vacated teaching positions. However, several of those specialty teachers declined the move to the classroom.

However, the superintendent believes some positives came from the budget crunch. More volunteers are stepping forward to help out at the schools.

"This community has just been wonderful," Humburg said.

She added that she prefers to dwell on what is good in the school district. "I just look at the positives," she said.

Those positives include numerous improvements to school buildings, the new Bella Vista Elementary School and new classroom buildings at Sierra Vista Middle School. All improvements, including the new school and new buildings, were paid for with state money from Arizona's Students First program.

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