FY2016 School Budget - Amesbury Elementary

Today I had the chance to sit down for a while with Principal Helliesen from Amesbury Elementary School to discuss his FY16 budget priorities, as reflected in the budget passed by the School Committee 6-1 on April 1, 2015. This is part of my effort to meet with all of the School Principals, as well as the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent, before voting on the School Budget.

The Amesbury Public School system is the most complex enterprise that the City operates

When I last wrote (HERE) about visiting Amesbury Middle School to talk with Principal Curry, Mayor Gray had not yet submitted his city-wide FY16 budget to the City Council. His submitted budget contains an overall line item for Amesbury Public Schools that is $289,533 less than the School Committee's recommendation.

Image from AES website homepage, schools.amesburyma.gov/AmesburyElementary

As I wrote last time, "[f]or the budget development process, the Mayor asked the Superintendent and her Principals to tie their school budgets to building-based Student Achievement Plans (SAPs) and to quantify and support any request above 'current' services with a priority ranking, a cost ranking, a data-based rationale, and a clear connection to the Goals and needs in the SAP. The School Committee's budget process clearly benefited this year from having this sort of exercise. The Principals and the Central Office rose to the challenge, articulated a number of worthy new priorities and narrowed it down to 'Top Two' priorities each.


Here are Principal Helliesen's Top Two Priorities for FY16:

• 1 full-time SPED teacher (Special Education)
• 1 full-time Classroom teacher in the 4th Grade 

For the SPED teacher, Mr. Helliesen pointed me to current demographics for AES. In 2014, 20.5% of the students at AES had Individualized Educational Plans (or IEPs). As of March 1, 2015, 24% of the students at AES (107 out of 446) had IEPs. (Last year, that number was 89 out of 433). A good part of that is from the school's Pre-K classes, which by design are oriented to early identification and intervention.  The request for a SPED teacher is a straightforward response to a higher number of students requiring targeted educational interventions.

March 1, 2015 AES SPED by Class

For the 4th Grade teacher, the rationale is also data-driven. FY15 enrollment in 4th Grade was 73. FY16 enrollment in 4th Grade is expected to be 87 (14 more), as reflect in the graphic below. In fact, that number is now 89, with 2 new students in 3rd grade since the fact sheet Mr. Helliesen had for me had been produced. Well, why can't one of the 3rd Grade teachers move up to 4th Grade? Because in this case, he plans on moving one of the 3rd Grade teachers next year down to 2nd Grade, to deal with a bump in enrollment at that level. With the requested additional teacher, the largest FY16 classes as AES would be in 3rd Grade, at about 24 each for 3 classrooms. Without the 4th Grade teacher, the largest class sizes will be in the 3 (instead of 4) 4th Grade classes, at 30/30/29.

Left column = 4/1/14 enrollment, column 2 = 4/1/15 enrollment, column 3 (with 30/30/29) = FY16 class size with current staffing, column 4 = FY16 class size with Principal's Recommended staffing

I also received a tour of the building, including the mobile 'condo' units that have been converted into an additional wing. It was good to see some familiar faces, both among the teachers and the kids. As at AMS, I came away with a good sense of the prudent measures that Principal Helliesen is taking and the straightforward foundation for his priority requests.