Shore Regional High School board planning staff cuts Hours for music, art

Shore Regional High School board planning staff cuts
Hours for music, art

teachers being cut; other positions eliminated

By Sherry conohan

Staff Writer

The Shore Regional Board of Education, West Long Branch, plans to cut back the hours of the school’s only music teacher and one of its two art teachers, making the positions part time next year.

Leonard G. Schnappauf, the superintendent and principal of the school, said the action was dictated by a decline in enrollment in those classes for the fall, and the budget constraints that the school district is operating under.

Schnappauf said no course was being cut out, but the number of sections being offered for some courses is being reduced.

"No youngster will be impacted by this," he asserted.

Kevin Pryor, the school’s only music teacher, said he was stunned to learn last Friday that the school plans to reduce the number of classes he teaches daily from five to three. He said every high school needs a full-time music teacher.

"I don’t know of any high school in the state that doesn’t have a full-time music teacher," he said as he sat in the hallway of the high school while the Shore Regional Board of Education discussed his fate behind closed doors.

Married with four children and just about to build a new home, he said he could not afford to stay on at the high school in a part-time capacity. He said the job entails a lot of after-school hours, and nights and weekends that he didn’t think a part-time teacher would be willing to put in.

Linda Conway, president of the Shore Regional Education Association, the teachers’ bargaining unit, sat next to him while waiting for the doors to open.

"This is a breach of the public trust," Conway said, noting that when the voters approved the high school’s budget a week ago Tuesday, there was no inkling that staff cutbacks were in the future. She said the teachers at the school had worked hard to get the budget passed and had been misled.

"We’re talking about an individual with 16 years (teaching experience at the high school)," she said, referring to Pryor, "and another with 33 years.’’

The latter was a reference to art teacher Diana Giatropoulos, who has been on staff for more than 32 years. The other art teacher, Richard Burton, only has taught at the high school for 31 years, but because he has military service, that counts toward his teaching experience and gives him seniority over Giatropoulos.

Pat Thoma of Oceanport, the parent of a freshman at the high school and two students at the Maple Place School who play musical instruments, said she was very disappointed that the board was poised to cut back on music and art.

"We need a band more than we need SAT prep," she said, referring to a new course just added to the curriculum by the board. "Who’s going to play at graduation? Are they going to throw a CD on?

"Isn’t it true that students who study music do better in math?" she added.

Thoma said her son, who’s attending the high school, plays in the band under Pryor’s tutelage. She said her seventh-grade child plays the flute and her fifth-grader plays the French horn.

"I would like to think they are going to enter a high school music program," she said about her two younger children.

"This is not a technical high school," she said. "This is supposed to be a well-rounded, balanced school. You’re dumbing it down."

Schnappauf said, in an interview before the board meeting, that he was not singling out music and art. He said the cutbacks in hours for the teachers of those subjects are part of a much larger reduction that is planned.

Schnappauf said the number of supervisor positions were being reduced from nine to seven. He said the positions of special education supervisors and guidance supervisors were being eliminated, and those responsibilities were being given to the director of pupil personnel services.

Schnappauf said the two supervisors whose jobs are being eliminated will go back to working as teachers. The supervisor of special education will take on the role of school psychologist full time. She had worked in the position part time. The guidance supervisor will become a guidance counselor. One non-tenured guidance counselor will not be reappointed, he said.

Other changes he’s proposing, Schnappauf said, are reducing the industrial arts department by one whole position by not reappointing a nontenured teacher, and reducing the business department by two-fifths of a position.

He said that teachers in the high school get paid by the number of sections they teach out of five possible sections in the day.

Schnappauf said he plans to reduce the social worker position by three sections, from the present four to one, because he now has a full-time learning disability teacher.

"A one-fifths social worker will do," he said. "We find we need more testing, and the full-time psychologist and learning disability teacher will fill that need."

Schnappauf said Pryor’s job as music teacher is being cut back to three sections. He said he only has four sections now, but the school has been paying for a full-time job. He said Pryor gets paid extra for directing the marching band and pep band, which fall under the category of extracurricular activities, like coaches.

All the changes Schnappauf has proposed must be approved by the Board of Education. The board’s meeting Tuesday night was an agenda meeting at which the public had no opportunity to address the board. The school board’s regular meeting will take place at 8 tonight and will be open to public comment.

Conway, the teachers’ association president, said a large crowd will be there.

After its executive session Tuesday night, the board opened the doors of the school library to let the public in and explained what it was doing about Pryor. Schnappauf said although personnel matters normally are not made public, Pryor had asked the board publicly disclose its discussion on him.

Schnappauf said even though overall enrollment in the school is going up — it’s projected to increase by 3.5 percent next year from 655 to 685 — the number of students signing up for music classes has declined since 1998-99.

He said the school had surveyed the ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders to find out why and found the most popular reason given was that they had lost interest in music. He said that was the highest reason for all three grade levels.

Schnappauf noted that Pryor goes to the elementary schools in the sending districts to recruit students to enroll in his classes when they arrive at the high school, and that eighth-graders are allowed to play in the high school band. "We are committed to the arts," he insisted. "I feel music is vital, but with our budget constraints, if we have programs without full enrollment, we can’t run them."

Schnappauf told those present at the meeting that consideration had been given in the past to make a music course mandatory, but it was decided not to do that.

"The feeling was that music should be appreciated and not mandated," he said.

However, there is a mandatory art course, Art in the Visual World, he said.

Tadeusz "Ted" Szczurek, a board member from Oceanport, asked if it was possible to mandate a music course for next year so as to increase enrollment.

Schnappauf said it probably could not be done until the following year.

The superintendent was asked if the music program would ever be cut.

"No," he replied. "You should never run a high school without a comprehensive music program."

Frank J. Pingitore, an Oceanport board member who just stepped down as president, suggested board consideration of the matter be put off until May to allow time to see if anything can be done to avoid reducing Pryor’s hours.

But Schnappauf said that under the district’s contract with the teachers, tenured teachers have to be given notice by April 30 of any change in their job. He said notice doesn’t have to be given to nontenured teachers until May 15.

Schnappauf said if additional students enroll in the music courses over the next three or four months, he would reconsider the reduction in the music teacher’s hours.

"Even today, if we could come up with a course the youngsters would be interested in, the board would consider [adding] it," he said.

"Right now we are in very difficult [financial] straits," he said. "We may have to go into surplus to pay some of the bills for this year."