HAVERHILL — School officials are considering moving 100 special needs students from the St. James School to Whittier Middle School to save some of the 43 public school teaching jobs on the chopping block.
Superintendent Raleigh Buchanan's proposal to bridge a projected $3.9 million budget gap for the fiscal year starting July 1 includes eliminating that many teachers, plus three administrators and other jobs.
St. James is made up of about 50 middle and high school students with behavioral problems and another 50 children and young adults ages 7 to 22 with autism and severe developmental problems.
About 360 Whittier students would then be reassigned to nearby Nettle Middle School, which has about 370 students, but space for up to 800 children, school officials said.
The School Department has leased the St. James building from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston since the 1970s. The schools pay $280,000 per year in rent under their current multiyear deal with the archdiocese, and merging Whittier students into Nettle would save another roughly $660,000, Assistant Superintendent Kara Kosmes said.
The School Department's agreement with the archdiocese includes a clause allowing it to get out of the lease with six months' notice, Kosmes said.
Kosmes said school officials have yet to contact the archdiocese about the idea, which appeared to pick up steam at last night's School Committee meeting when the members were shown, for the first time, the potential effects of a $3.9 million deficit. School Committee members Kerry Fitzgerald, Erin Francescone and Susan Danehy indicated they already support the cost-saving measure.
"Nettle is the newest school with state-of-the-art technology," Kosmes said. "It's half empty now. But we should be using our best school to the fullest extent."
Even if the School Committee approves the plan, the school system still faces deep cuts. Closing St. James and folding Whittier into Nettle would allow the School Committee to restore about $1 million of Superintendent Raleigh Buchanan's proposed spending cuts, however.
Buchanan's proposal to bridge the budget deficit eliminates 43 regular classroom teachers, which would create class sizes of close to 30 students in every grade except kindergarten and first grade, he said. Those two grades would be limited to no more than 20 children per class, he said.
About 20 of the proposed job cuts would be accommodated through retirements, but the remaining would have to be accomplished by worker layoffs, Buchanan said.
His plan also eliminates art, music and physical education in grades one, two and three.
Even so, the high school would be hit the hardest in the cost-cutting plan, school officials said. First of all, graduation requirements would have to be reduced due to losing so many teachers and courses, high school Principal Bernard Nangle said.
The number of study hall slots per day at the high school would increase from 875 this year to 2,600 next year. That means every one of approximately 2,000 students would have an average of one study hall per day, and about one-third of those students would have two study halls per day, Nangle said.
The high school would also lose: three science courses and four science classes; 10 technology classes; five social studies courses; nine social studies classes; four math courses; four business courses; 10 art classes; all 11th-grade physical education classes; and five English remediation classes.
Funding for all after-school clubs that do not pay for themselves would also be eliminated at the high school, saving the system about $18,000.
"There's no doubt student achievement will suffer at every grade with this budget," Buchanan said last night. "I'm not optimistic about the future with this budget. It is going to put a lot of stress on the district. We should not be treating our kids this way in terms of preparing them for the future."
The School Committee will meet Monday at a special budget meeting at 6 p.m. in the high school conference room. The members have asked Buchanan to provide alternatives to the high school cuts and more information about closing St. James and merging Whittier with Nettle at the meeting.
On the chopping block
r Regular elementary school teachers: 27
r Elementary school art, music and physical education teachers: 6
r Kindergarten teachers: 2
r Regular high school teachers: 8
r High school special education teacher: 1
r Special education teacher aides: 6
r Administrators: 3
r Teaching specialists: 1
r Computer technician: 1
r Special education: $200,000
r Utilities and telephone: $150,000
r Maintenance: $65,000
r Computer hardware: $35,000
r Health care savings due to job cuts: $540,000
