Education Notebook

Arbitrator: Rochester schools' summer staffing violated union contract

(A copy of the arbitrator's ruling is at the bottom. -EM)

Rochester public schools violated the terms of its collective bargaining agreement with the district's teachers by not basing summer staffing on seniority last year, an independent arbitrator has ruled.

Edina-based arbitrator Jeffrey W. Jacobs on May 11 ruled that school district officials violated the Rochester Education Association contract during the 2009 summer schedule. The judgment requires Rochester schools to pay the roughly 35 teachers who were passed over, a decision that likely will cost the district about $75,000.

Officials from the school district and the teachers union confirmed that estimate.

2 Rochester High School principals announce departures

(From today's paper. For the sake of interest, the other principal left in Rochester, John Marshall's Tim Limberg said he isn't going anywhere for next year.)

Two of Rochester's three high school principals will leave the district at the end of the school year for positions in the Twin Cities area, the Post-Bulletin learned Tuesday morning.

Mayo High School Principal Tim Dorway has been offered the principal job at Chanhassen High School, while Century High School Principal Chuck Briscoe will leave Rochester to become the associate superintendent for secondary education at Anoka-Hennepin public schools.

Both administrators in April received regional principal and administrator excellence awards.

'Chasing a dream'

Briscoe said he has been "chasing a dream" of someday becoming a superintendent and this position will help prepare him for that.

"The stars just kind of aligned," said Briscoe, who completed his student teaching years ago in the Anoka-Hennepin district.

Rochester schools: Board votes to fund improvements at Longfellow Elementary

The Rochester school board on Tuesday night voted to borrow $500,000 for a $1.5 million gymnasium project at Longfellow Elementary School.

The project includes constructing a new gymnasium, splitting the current gymnasium into a music room and art room, renovating the school kitchen, replacing a boiler, and removing areas that contain asbestos.

The funding for the renovation project involves entering a "lease-purchase agreement and ground lease agreement." The lease-purchase is to be repaid over three years from the ongoing Operating Capital revenue stream.

Opinion: Editorial board weighs in on upcoming levy

The Post-Bulletin Editorial Board weighed in about the upcoming levy referendum, suggesting that the board will be moving uphill. They also said it makes sense to take a close look at any other consulting expenses incurred by moving forward with the levy campaign.

The consulting company typically conducts a survey to understand community sentiment toward a levy, what the community would support, etc.  The link is below, with the entire editorial pasted, too.

(Again, it should be noted: the P-B Editorial Board is completely separate from newsroom coverage. The editorial board takes an opinionated view, while reporters report the news. I have no bearing on what is written in editorials, just as the editorial writers have no bearing on what appears on the news side of things. I feel like I need to bring this up, simply because someone once anonymously complained that the editorials were too opinionated. If anything, I consider that a compliment. -EM)

LINK: Board will have to make strong case for levy

Putting context into Rochester budget cuts, teaching losses

An informed reader e-mailed me to say I should include the context of Rochester's funding cutbacks and teacher losses. I've included those previously, but didn't today. I agreed that they could be valuable.

Here they are:

• At the start of the 2009-2010 school year, the district had 1,160 teachers. They have eliminated 44 positions, spread across 53 teachers. The contracts of another 80 teachers have expired. It's unclear how many of those teachers will be brought back, but it is not expected to be a high number. That combined loss of teaching staff is about 11 percent, in one year. (Again, some of those teachers could be brought back, but in much smaller capacities, similar to when a manufacturing company will lay off full-time employees and then hire people back later only at part-time.)

• The cut in 09-10 of $9.3 million was 6 percent of the general fund budget of $155 million.
• The cut this year of $4.5 million was about 3 percent of the general fund budget of $149.6 million.

ARTICLE: Rochester public schools cut more than 44 teaching positions

Rochester School District budget cuts are no longer just numbers on a page.

The effects of $4.5 million in budget cutbacks continue to materialize in Rochester public schools, as the district released more than 44 full-time teaching jobs, half of whom were tenured, on Tuesday night. The other 22 full-time positions were probationary, also known as non-tenured teaching positions.

(Ed note: Here's the list of teachers who have been laid off. It's included not to pile on, but to let people know what is happening and also to let parents know which teachers won't be back.)

Board members were somber as they moved forward with the job cuts.

ARTICLE: Board green-lights levy referendum

The Rochester school board on Tuesday night green-lighted the creation of a levy referendum campaign this fall.

If approved by taxpayers, it would raise millions of dollars for the school district, but would also raise annual taxes for landowners. The exact figures have yet to be released, as the school district will now begin researching what could receive voter approval.

"We have an opportunity to bring a levy referendum to the community and ask our voters to continue to stand in support of education and to continue to support every child," Rochester public schools Superintendent Romain Dallemand said.

But approval may be difficult.

Even the school board decision to offer the referendum wasn't unanimous. The measure was eventually approved, 6-1, with board member Fred Daly dissenting.

ARTICLE: Pawlenty proposes Race to the Top-focused bill for second heat of federal program

ST. PAUL — Gov. Tim Pawlenty again raised the banner of education reform Monday as he released a comprehensive bill that includes many of the initiatives he previously pressed the Legislature to support.

The bill is related to the second round of the federal Race to the Top application, an Obama administration program that seeks to award a total of $4.35 billion to a handful of states that are picked from a competitive application process.

The first round recently wrapped up, with Tennessee receiving $500 million and Delaware receiving $100 million. Minnesota was not named a finalist in that round and the state has until June 1 to apply for the second round of funding.

"The only question for Minnesota will be, 'Do you want to lead or do you want to be late to the game?'" Pawlenty said in a conference call.

ARTICLE: Rochester begins levy referendum push (also includes upcoming election dates, background info not in print version)

After two years of a combined $13.8 million in cutbacks, Rochester public schools are seeking a voter approved property tax increase.

Tonight, the school board will review information about an operating levy that could be on the November ballot, if approved by the school board.

It's unclear right now how much the district will ask for from voters this fall. The district expects to pay about $20,000 in consulting fees to analyze those figures. Until that amount is finalized, it's also unknown how a new levy would raise taxes.

ARTICLE: Rochester's middle school industrial tech, home ec classes meet the buzz saw, butcher knife

(Ed note: This article appeared in Saturday's Post-Bulletin, but it was split into two due to space. Here it is as one article. Links to the print versions are provided at the end. -EM)

When Keven Newton began teaching industrial technology to middle schoolers 24 years ago, there was a metal shop, drafting lab, electronic area and wood shop. The metal shop was eliminated years ago, the drafting lab soon followed suit and next fall, the rest of the industrial technology department vanishes, too.

Rochester public schools has announced that all industrial technology and family and consumer sciences classes will be removed from the middle school curriculum next year. The move has been caused by the most recent round of budget cuts. 

In February, the school board cut $4.5 million, a year after slashing more than $9 million. The latest round of cutbacks included a 3.5 percent reduction in middle school staff, which translates to at least five middle school teachers. At least six high school teachers will lose their jobs, too.

District officials maintain that the decision doesn't mean those classes aren't important, but that it simply comes down to a numbers game. "It's not that these courses aren't important for kids," said Ann Clark, Rochester's executive director of curriculum and instruction. "A lot of tough decisions had to be made."

Currently, students in sixth, seventh and eighth grade take exploratory classes, also known as electives. Those classes include art, family and consumer sciences (FACS), health and Spanish. But next year, that changes.

Sixth-graders will not have exploratory classes. Seventh-graders will have one semester of communication skills/computer literacy and one of art. Eighth-graders will have one semester of Spanish and one semester of health.

While there has been a stepped up focus on science and math courses, other departments have been hit hard as education experts call for courses labeled as college preparatory. But many students, Newton said, can become well-compensated electricians, mechanics or metal workers, among other trades. These classes can first ignite hands-on interest.