WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. – It has been nearly two weeks since Whitehall-Coplay School District voted to move forward with a proposal to cut more than two dozen positions.
It comes as the school district is looking to address a roughly $6 million budget deficit.
69 News sat down with school leadership last week to ask some of your questions, including how the school district got here.
“Our salaries and benefits jumped dramatically. We have some contracts in place that caused our salaries and the numbers that are associated with that to go up dramatically,” said Whitehall-Coplay Superintendent Christopher Schiffert. “And like I said, with benefits, health care, it hit everyone in education pretty hard. Nearly a 20% increase this year, so that was a massive difference.”
“A couple of issues that we face as well are rising retirement costs,” he said. “There are also charter school costs, which at this point this year, $7.3 million that we’re responsible for, that is nearly a million dollar increase from the year before. When you start to put all of these things together, that’s what causes such a major budget shortfall.”
Schiffert and Assistant Superintendent Renee Sallit explained the financial shortfalls that led to a reorganization that includes position eliminations and demotions.
“We spent a lot of time redoing our building budgets and our overall district budget. We cut and cut and cut,” Schiffert said. “We had to make decisions not to buy various equipment that we are in need of. We cut our technology budget.”
“There are lots of areas that we had to do a lot more with a lot less,” he said. “I don’t know that people understand that it wasn’t just immediately go to cutting staff. So, we did all of those things. Then we finally had to get to a point where we had to prioritize where we are at with what our needs are.”
When asked why the changes despite no drastic loss in overall enrollment, Schiffert cited curriculum changes and course enrollment as driving decisions.
“I think sometimes that’s a misunderstanding, that Whitehall’s overall numbers have generally been stable over the years, but when you look at certain areas, there may be particular classes that are not in demand,” Schiffert said. “Science is a good example where there are requirements for kids to take science classes at the secondary level, but there are different choices that they can take to meet those requirements. So, there may be a course or courses that we needed a teacher for that we no longer need based on those requests.”
69 News asked Schiffert why administrative cuts were not made and why this was not considered an economic furlough.
“I think it’s easy to look at, you know, when you’re losing staff, I think sometimes people feel it’s just a normal thought process that administration has to go,” he said. “They’re failing to see what the administration provides.”
“When you talked about getting into the economic type of furlough, which we may very well find ourselves in, we will be faced with cutting administration,” Schiffert said. “There will be no way around that. If you start to cut into that now, you’re already depleting your numbers.”
“I don’t know that anyone could really foresee what that’s going to look and feel like when you don’t have administrators,” he continued. “Because if you’re not laying that foundation, you’re not doing all that work, then all the things that are happening in the classroom become more difficult as you’re not able to deal with the challenges of the students, the discipline of the students, because you have no reaction time, you don’t have enough people to deal with it.”
Schiffert said he does not see this being a one-year issue. 69 News asked how the district deals with morale as it navigates the reorganization.
“It is going to take time. I realize that,” Schiffert said. “Part of our hope is that in meeting with staff and whomever else in the coming days, that we can at least share another version of what’s been happening and not just have narratives that are false or based on something that people really don’t understand.”
As for what is next, he says that they are still working with the teaching union and looking at concessions that could be made that could ultimately save a position.
“We’ve gone through a majority of the process as far as letting people know where they are as far as bumping is concerned and what positions may ultimately be taken away at this point in time,” Schiffert said. “But we have been working continuously with the teaching union, and we’ve been looking at some things that we could possibly make concession on as far as contractual items that they’re willing to move on. If we can come to some agreement on those things, it could ultimately save a position.”
The changes are expected to have some impact on class sizes.
“There could be increases. They’re not massive increases, but they are, without a doubt, increases,” he said.
A budget does need to be finalized by the end of June.