East superintendent shares budget draft with RCSD board

The expected exit from receivership of East’s Upper School would mean a loss of $325,000 in funding. However, other sources of funds, including Title I, are anticipated to continue.

Those were among the details that East superintendent Marlene Blocker shared with the Rochester City School Board last week.

“We are slated to be removed from receivership at the Upper School,” Blocker said, referring to the status given to underperforming schools. “So, prioritization of needs has to take place once final numbers are available.”

Funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 allowed for hiring in a number of positions at the school. Of those, a bilingual social worker position, special education teacher specializing in work-based learning, community job coordinator, and attendance assistant for the Lower School will remain. Two school security officer positions and two building subs for both the Lower and Upper schools will be eliminated.

Non-employment factors at East that were funded by ARP include literacy programs, career and technical education transportation, school and summer professional development, and teacher leader training programs.

East was put into receivership and created an education partnership organization with UR in the 2015-2016 school year. Since then, the school has improved student outcomes including graduation rates and Regents exam performance. Some members of the board, however, have scrutinized East in relation to distribution of resources and control, putting the EPO’s existence into uncertainty.

The 2024-2025 draft budget of $23 million is an $870,000 increase from the previous year. Expenses will remain relatively unchanged with salaries making up 94 percent of the total in both years.

“(At a previous meeting), it was shared that RSCD’s projected general fund would total $902 million,” said Blocker. “The current East budget that is projected for next year represents 2.4 percent of the total amount of money allocated to the RSCD in revenue at this point.”

That percentage for East is in line with previous years’ budgets. However, spending per pupil does remain higher at that school than others serving the same number of students, which is a point often used by critics.

“There are schools performing much better than East, and not costing us as much,” RCSD board vice president Beatriz LeBron said at a previous meeting about the EPO. “I just don’t see how the state itself could support this kind of contract agreement after five years and still seeing numbers in receivership.”

Prior to Blocker’s presentation, several speakers voiced support for the East EPO including Kyle Crandall, a registrar at the school.

“If the EPO ends on June 30, 2025, and the RSCD takes East back without the EPO, it will be viewed as a hostile takeover,” Crandall said. “The result will lead to many of our teachers resigning from the district to take different jobs. Our families will pull their students and send them to charter schools, meaning the money you thought you’d save will be signed away in a check to charter schools. East will be back to where it was 10 years ago, which was in an identity crisis and a complete rebuild.

“Please agree to a three-year extension where (RCSD superintendent Carmine) Peluso’s transition team, which will include key stakeholders from the RSCD and East, can negotiate in good faith what each year will look like to make this a smooth transition,” he added.

Currently, the RSCD general fund balance is at $1.03 billion for the 2023-2024 school year, of which $61 million in ARP funding needs to be allocated by the end of June.

RCSD officials are confident in their spending progress so far, but, similar to East, employment numbers have been affected for the 2024-2025 budget draft.

At a previous meeting, Peluso indicated that several custodian and school psychologist intern positions will remain unchanged in the upcoming year. Certain positions–per-diem building teacher, ROC Urban Teaching Fellow, counselor, project implementation, school sentry, and teacher on assignment–will be reduced while roll-up teacher positions, a measure begun during the pandemic where part-time teachers were “rolled-up” to full time for enrichment or school support, will be entirely eliminated.

“In our teachers’ association contract, we had 25 building sub (positions) that we need to fill,” said Peluso, citing a recent example. “Two years ago, none of them were in the general fund budget, they were all (covered by) ARP. Last year, we brought back 12 of those positions to be in the general fund. We have to bring back the remaining 13 this year.”

In alignment with the board’s goals, the 2024-2025 proposal increases investment in early literacy and special education, while reductions in central office staffing and contracted services are still being determined.

While the more than $900 million district proposal anticipates a slight decrease in federal funding, state funding, through transportation aid, as well as interest-earning revenue at the local level should increase relative to last year. In addition, it predicts the rising trend of charter school enrollment will also continue, giving more school transitional aid.

Jaime Alicea, the state monitor for RSCD, received the draft for examination at the beginning of March. A budget book, along with a presentation from Alicea, is set for March 20, with a budget hearing at City Council to be held at the end of April.

The fate of the EPO at East is slated to be determined later this month.

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected].