Projected decline in SAD 70 enrollment worries staff

HODGDON – SAD 70 board members heard troubling news about a projected decline in student enrollment in their district at a special board meeting on Thursday evening, and will make a decision about future staffing at their June 14 meeting.

The figures, distributed by Dr. Deborah Stewart, SAD 70 superintendent, reveal that the district will lose an estimated 183 students by the 2011 fiscal year. In light of the projections, Stewart advised the board to proceed with caution when making future staffing decisions.

“The Department of Education is already concerned,” Stewart said at the meeting. “And I think that all districts should be. I have heard that the state expects a decline of 26,000 students over the next 10 years.”

Enrollment figures from 1996 to 2004 showed a steady decline in enrollment in SAD 70 each year, and the future projections indicated that the decline would continue. Stewart advised the board of numerous options for future staffing, which she further explained Friday afternoon.

“I recommended that they not hire anyone,” Stewart said. “I was speaking of hiring for positions with local budget money only. We have two positions still to hire with money in the local budget. I recommended that the board leave one position vacant, and we could make some staffing changes from within.”

Some options included transferring staff to different teaching positions and moving staff into slots that could be funded with federal and-or grant money.

The board was already forced to eliminate 1.5 teaching positions in the Migrant Education Program in May after state funding dried up.

Stewart said she felt obligated to forewarn the board about what the future in the district could look like, since new formulas for state subsidy will be implemented next year. “If funding goes as it is, we will have even fewer people in the future,” Stewart said. “Why set someone up for that … but the board very clearly approved the budget last night, and my hunch is that we are going to do all the hiring.”

SAD 70 lost more than $55,000 from the state for the coming school year.

At the meeting, Chairman Paul Harrison said that he “respectfully disagreed” with Stewart’s suggestion.

“I think that enrollment in the high school is still up there,” Harrison said. “And I think it will be for quite a few years. We aren’t projected to dip below 200 students until 2008, and we are adding curriculum requirements [for graduation] all the time.”

In 2008, the enrollment at the high school is expected to drop from a present total of 229 to 193.

Staff who attended the meeting said that they were troubled by the proposed staffing changes, but could not make any recommendations until they conferred with colleagues and members of the hiring committee.

Harrison said that suggestions on “issues around hiring” would come from the staff at the June 14 meeting.