Schools

Maintenance, Communications Cuts Concern School Board President

Lois Weber grills department heads on reductions in non-teaching positions.

Teaching staff makes up the lion's share of the Wauwatosa School District's payroll and is the area of most concern to parents worried about class sizes and the quality of their children's education.

So, the focus of the 2011-12 staffing plan presented Monday to the School Board was on reductions in teaching positions and slightly increased student-to-teacher ratios.

But Board President Lois Weber also honed in sharply on two other areas where jobs were to be eliminated, in one case calling forward a department head from the audience to explain how he intended to make up for lost maintenance workers.

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"I see that we are losing two painters," Weber said to Bruce Johnson, manager of buildings and grounds. "I think that the painters do a wonderful job of keeping up the appearance of our buildings, and it's something that's very important to our people."

Weber then asked Johnson how he planned to make up for the loss and keep up with the painters' services.

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Johnson replied that other custodial workers could paint, some painting would be contracted out, and that he was working on ideas to involve volunteers, although there could be liabilities in that around the use of various chemicals.

Weber also asked Human Resources Director Dan Chanen how the administration would keep up the flow of information to the public with the elimination of the position of communications coordinator.

"I want to make sure that we continue to be able to get the word out about all the many things happening in our schools," Weber said.

Chanen answered that other administration staff would have to pick up the slack, including an administrative assistant and Laura Wainscott, who is the district's community and alumni liaison as well as long-range plan coordinator.

Again, Weber instructed Chanen to keep a close eye on the matter and to see to it that there was no drop or interruption in the district's ability to communicate with parents and the public at large.

The communications job was eliminated to make way for the addition of of a data analyst and manager in the area of student learning, so that there was no net change in the number employed in the district administrative staff.

In buildings and grounds, besides the two painters, two custodial positions also went unfilled, one at each high school. Those reductions were partly offset by splitting one new custodial position between the high schools, for a net reduction of three full-time positions in the department.

The painter and custodial cuts did not require layoffs, as four retirements in the department are expected within a few months.


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