Sto-Rox School District will shrink by at least three full-time positions and vacate its kindergarten classroom building this fall in an effort to keep a balanced 2009-10 budget amid declining enrollment.
The district's board of directors voted Thursday to move kindergarten to Sto-Rox Elementary School and bump the fifth-grade class to the nearby middle school, both in McKees Rocks. The move will allow faculty and staff to leave Foster Kindergarten Center, saving on maintenance and busing costs.
Board member Ed Maritz called the move a "titanic" change that will affect about 200 families.
"The move to do it this year caught us by surprise, because there was so much push-back from the community last year" to the idea, said Maritz, who voted against the consolidation.
Before offering the proposal to move fifth grade to make way for the incoming kindergarteners, the district hired an architect who found in April that fitting six grades into the elementary school would make it too cramped. That led many families to think closing Foster was off the table, Maritz said.
The board also eliminated 16.6 faculty positions, though it plans to furlough only three full-time teachers and a part-time position because of resignations and teachers who can move to positions once held by long-term substitutes, business manager Charles Lanna said.
The board in May aired the possibility of eliminating up to 29 teaching positions, but approved a $26.3 million budget June 25 with only 10 positions in jeopardy.
"The only thing we did this week was to be more specific relative to what was already in the budget itself," Lanna said.
Pennsylvania State Education Association spokesman Butch Santicola declined to comment on the specifics of the faculty furloughs but said the teachers union will continue negotiating.
"We're still working some things out," he said.
On the staff side, he said the board voted to eliminate eight positions, but that number could decrease after the support staff union gets its chance to negotiate changes July 27.
Lanna said the "demographics of the district" forced it to use a number of cost-saving measures to serve a dwindling student body, though the teachers union and administration dispute the exact enrollment. The school district claims enrollment shrank faster than state Department of Education numbers show. The state projects enrollment for the upcoming school year will be 1,314.
The Pennsylvania School Code prohibits districts from furloughing teaching positions unless the cuts are matched by a substantial decrease in enrollment.
In addition to the cuts, the district last month borrowed $3 million to balance its budget.
"Financially, we're OK," Lanna said. "We're not great, but we're OK."
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