Compared to some past budget deliberations, the city school district’s budget for 2013 to 2014 passed without much fuss. But to close a $50.2 million budget gap, Superintendent Bolgen Vargas made a cut that has some students, teachers, and parents worried. Even some board members are apprehensive about the cuts they approved.
The new budget cuts about 10 jobs in the Student and Family Support Centers to save slightly more than $1 million. The cuts are extremely sensitive, since the centers provide what is widely recognized as much-needed mental health counseling and guidance for city students.
According to a year-end report from the department, the center’s counselors and social workers saw more than 5,000 students in the 2011 to 2012 school year. In some schools like East High, more than 40 percent of the students received support. Large numbers of Charlotte, Douglass, and Franklin students were seen, too.
The issues of greatest concern to students, the report says, were academic problems, relationships, and family matters. But the counselors worked with students on everything from anger management to teen pregnancy and parenting.
There’s also a strong correlation between mental health support and improved academic achievement. The report shows that 78 percent of low-performing students who received help improved enough to be promoted to the next grade or graduate.
There are 16 centers located in school health clinics throughout the district, and most of the services are provided by professionals associated with community agencies. District officials say the cuts are not to the programs or the professional staff who treat students. It’s the coordinators’ positions, the professionals who link and refer students to the specific agencies that were cut.
“The change is in how the students are connected to the agencies that help them,” said district spokesperson Chip Partner in a written statement. “They will be referred by school social workers and counselors or [students will] approach the providers directly.”
Partner says there has never been a question about the need for the services or the work the staff does. It comes down to money, he says.
The new budget cuts about 10 jobs in the Student and Family Support Centers. The cuts are extremely sensitive, since the centers provide what is widely recognized as much-needed mental health counseling and guidance for city students.
This article appears in Jun 5-11, 2013.
This is a sad, sad state of affairs. If the center’s counselors and social workers saw more than 5,000 students in the 2011 to 2012 school year, um…that’s a lot of kids who received support. And now ten positions have been cut, so other social workers with be over-burdened in an attempt to deliver the same kind of quality care to the same numbers of students in a school district that is currently ranked one of the WORST in our state? Seems like you should be hiring social workers, not firing them.
I understand that counseling programs are expensive, but jail is even more expensive.
Is there REALLY no where else fat could have been cut? Seems like these kinds of support services are critical to the city youth population.
Mr. Partner’s statement illustrates the problem perfectly – RCSD admin is detached from what goes on day-to-day in their schools. As a former agency employee, I relied heavily on Student & Family Support Center Coordinators to help me ensure that I met my program (funders) goals. School SWs & counselors are already overwhelmed – to think they can step in and fill the void of a SFSC Coordinator is downright foolish. What RCSD will end up with is disorganization, disruption of academic time, duplication of services, violation of student & family privacy, violation of RCSD & school policy, and a lack of awareness among teachers & students as to what services are available and how to access them. The services will be less effective and less efficient, plain & simple.
SFSC Coordinators also act as liaisons to the community – not just the programs located in the school. How will that be replaced? By SWs that can only work with the Special Ed population? By Guidance Counselors that already have a caseload of 300 students? This is RCSD pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes – even their own.
This is NOT about money – not when RCSD gives the Hillside Work Scholarship program $600,000 – a program that will only accept students already on the path to success and that will terminate a student with quickness if they fall by the wayside. This is going backwards. Really expected more from Vargas (a guidance counselor himself). What a shame.
For anyone who knows a city student or works with them, this is a SCARY, SCARY situation. Kids need these important services. School staff can NOT address these issues as well as School Coordinators! It will cost more than just money in the long run.
Now, I’m the last one to complain that RCSD employees are overpaid. We’re generally not. We make middle class money for long hours and significant stress.
But…
$1,000,00010 = $100,000 Granted, that also includes benefits, payroll taxes, social security and the like. But that still seems a bit high. I would at least like more data.