PR School Board to Consider Budget Proposal With 3.2 Percent Tax Increase

When the Pine-Richland School Board meets Monday, it will have a budget proposal before it that calls for a 3.2 percent tax increase and cuts that include 15 teaching positions.

That is what the finance committee decided Wednesday night as it considered a budget of about $65 million that has a $2 million gap between revenue and expenses.

The proposal has a caveat—about $477,300 of the increased revenue would be placed in a reserve to help deal with the rising costs of the Public School Employees' Retirement System, commonly referred to as PSERS.

The school board is scheduled to vote at its 7:30 p.m. Monday meeting to adopt a proposed final budget, which will then be posted for public review.

The meeting will be held at the Pine-Richland School District Administrative Offices Building, 702 Warrendale Road, Gibsonia.

The finance committee meets again to discuss the budget and hear from the public at 6 p.m. May 29.

Final adoption of the budget and setting the tax rate is scheduled for the board's June 25 meeting.

Click here to see the proposed reductions that are outlined as Plan A in a memo from Superintenent Dr. Mary Bucci. The cuts include:

Physical Education:

A cut in the number of physical education teachers from 17 to 11.5 in the district. 

Physical education time at Eden Hall would be reduced from six days in a 10-day rotation to once a week in grades four, five, and six for 40 minutes. This would include health instruction.

High school requirements would be reduced to 1 credit of physical education, including health education. Currently, high school students are required to take a PE class every year.

Changes at Eden Hall to Simplify the Schedule

1. General music would be reduced from three days in a 10-day rotation to once a week in grades four, five, and six as it is in grades one, two, and three. The current time for music is 30 minutes three times in 10 days for a total of 90 minutes. The program change would provide 5 minutes per week less general music time.

2. General art would be reduced from three days in a 10-day rotation to once a week in grades four, five, and six as it is in grades one, two, and three. The current time for art is 30 minutes three times in 10 days for a total of 90 minutes. The program change would provide 5 minutes per week less general art time.

3. In grades 4-6, advanced language arts and math instruction will be provided through the biomes to which the student will be assigned. There will be one or more advanced language arts sections at each grade level depending upon the achievement scores of the students within the biomes.

Placement exams will be given to determine individual student need. The number of placement assessments has been reduced to minimize the amount of testing time for students at the elementary grade levels. Curriculum-based assessments, standardized assessments, classroom grades, and 2011-2012 PSSA scores will be some of the determining factors in placing students in advanced programming.

4. Currently all students at Eden Hall receive keyboarding instruction in grades four, five, and six for three days out of a 10- day cycle. That would change to once a week for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. The keyboarding would be for fourth grade only. The business curriculum in grades five and six would be upgraded to cover Microsoft Office programs and web tools.

5. Currently all students at Eden Hall receive world language instruction in grades four, five, and six for three days in a 10-day cycle. The proposal would change world language instruction to once a week in grades four, five, and six.

6. This would round out the weekly encore rotation:

• One physical education class per week;

• One music class per week;

• One art class per week;

• One business class per week;

• One world language class per week.

7. Band, chorus, orchestra and instrument lessons would be offered to fifth and sixth graders only.

8. Plan A requires the reduction of one-half of a current art position, one and one-half of current music positions, and two current elementary classroom teaching positions.

High School Electives

Since A. W. Beattie Career/Vocational School currently offers a child development program in which Pine-Richland High School students are able to enroll, Bucci is proposing that the district eliminate the child development program at the high school.

Music electives such as Beginner Piano and Music Theory would also be eliminated. These reductions in programming would eliminate one family and consumer science position and one-half music position at the high school. 

Click here to see Pine-Richland School District budget documents, emails and a timeline.