New Budgets Figures for Mansfield Schools

After looking over the latest budget figures Tuesday night, the Mansfield School Committee came to a decision quickly.
They need another meeting before they voted on the budget and they will have one March 22. In the meantime, committee members want time to look over the new budget figures presented by superintendent Brenda Hodges about Wednesday's meeting.
Here are the highlights:
1.Orginally the budget request figure was $41,168,221. Now, it's $39,764,221. Now, it's an increase of $2.4 million, but the finance committee says the school should have $38.5 million.
2. Hodges wanted to hire on 43 people, but now, they are 28 jobs in the budget.
"This will bring the school back to where it was four years ago," said Hodges. 
Most of the positions are targeted for the Qualters Middle School. There are 6.2 teaching positions, a guidance counselor, an assistant principal, an Intenstive Needs Special Education Teacher, and two Intenstive Needs Special Education paraprofessionals.
"This budget will bring us back to where we needed to be," said Hodges. "Over the last few years, we have had deep cuts."
She said the cuts have been especially hard on the middle school.
"Teams (academic groups) have a 135 students," said Hodges. "That should never happen."
3. Mansfield High will receive four new positions and two half positions.
"At the high school, some classes are becoming extremely difficult to manage," said the superintendent."Academic performance is a direct result of cutting staff." If the current budget is approved, the high school would receive a social studies teacher to cut down on class size in that subject. Another science teacher would be included along with math and an English teacher to assist with remendiation. An Intensive Needs Special Education Paraprofessional would also be added.
4. A school psychologist/counselor will be added at the Robinson School, a position Hodges stressed is needed because of the problems students are entering the school system with. She said the schools to need to be concerned about the emotional and social well-being.
5. Hodges wants to also restore developmental training for the teachers.