Cheshire plans nine new teachers, two administrators and a trades position as enrollment rises
Summary
District officials told the board they plan to add nine teachers (five elementary classroom teachers plus other partial positions), two administrators and one tradesperson to accommodate enrollment growth and new buildings; class-size averages for grades 4'6 are projected within historical norms.
The Cheshire School District budget proposal includes personnel additions intended to keep class sizes manageable as enrollment rises and new buildings come online. District staff said the recommendation adds nine teachers, two administrators and a trades (inside maintainer) position.
COO Emily Taylor outlined the staffing mix: "there's 5 elementary classroom teachers, 2 and a half Unified Arts teachers, 1 elementary special education teacher, [and] a 0.5 multilingual learner teacher" in the nine-teacher total, plus two administrators. Taylor said a teacher budget assumption used for planning is approximately $85,000 (about $64,000 salary plus roughly $20,000 in benefits).
Superintendent Solon said the district emphasized K' priorities and argued that projected class-size averages for grades 4'6 (22.3, 22.6 and 22.7) are "within our historical averages and we felt that those were manageable class sizes." He also said the district added one inside maintainer (budgeted at about $76,000) to support the additional 72,000 square feet of new space.
Board members pressed staff on how those new positions appear in the staffing tables and budget book and asked the administration to confirm and correct any discrepancies between the staffing list and the budget back-pages; Taylor said she would verify and correct the book if needed.
District leaders acknowledged staffing challenges in hiring for some specialties (middle-school, special education) but said they were confident elementary classroom hires would be more readily recruited.
