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Parents and residents urge Oyster River board to restore $519,000 and keep six staff positions
Summary
Dozens of public commenters urged the Oyster River Cooperative School District board to publicly restore $519,000 that voters added at deliberative session to retain six roles (interventionists and a nurse). Speakers said the board should hold a public vote that night to show where members stand; the board asked administrators to return with costed scenarios before deciding.
Dozens of residents pressed the Oyster River Cooperative School District school board on Thursday to honor a voter-approved allocation and publicly confirm the retention of six staff positions.
Speakers during a lengthy public-comment period said voters explicitly added $519,000 to the operating budget at the deliberative session to save six roles — a mix of academic-support staff and a school nurse — and they asked the board to hold a public vote that evening to authorize administrators to place the money where the voters intended.
"The voters added $519,000 back into the line that would actually fund those positions," said Kobe Tridel, a Lee resident, urging an immediate motion and vote. Colin Blake Butler, also of Lee, told the board the budget amendment passed with 63% support and that ignoring that directive would "shatter a community's trust." Several other speakers, including parents and veteran staff, echoed those calls and handed the board a list of questions they said should be asked of administrators following a presentation on middle-school staffing.
Board members acknowledged the public pressure and the citizens' concerns but stopped short of immediately directing staff to spend the money that night. The board and administrators noted several practical limits: staffing assignments interact with the district's overall allocation of FTE, teacher certifications, and the staffing pattern the middle school principal presented earlier in the meeting.
"We want to honor the community's support," one board member said during deliberations, "but we also need to see how the pieces fit together with the staffing and schedule changes already under discussion." Several board members asked administrators to return at the next meeting with itemized, costed scenarios showing how the $519,000 could be applied while maintaining program continuity and meeting certification and collective-bargaining constraints.
Administrators said some changes could be addressed through attrition and careful reallocation; they also noted that certain program-level decisions (for example, a change in a pathways position) were not fully budgeted and would affect the bottom line. The business administrator told the board that the district was monitoring other budget pressures, including a small food-service deficit and rising costs that are currently offset by an encumbered $90,000 operating line.
The board did not take a vote that night to reinstate specific positions. Instead, members asked the administration to return with detailed options, including the fiscal impact and implementation timeline, and discussed retaining nurses and ELA/intervention staff as priorities. Several board members said they preferred to use attrition where possible to reduce budgetary strain while honoring voter intent where practicable.
The public-comment period and the board's follow-up requests leave the matter unresolved; the administration expects to present costed options and professional-development needs at a future meeting before any binding staffing decisions are finalized.
