Superintendent Jeffrey Young has proposed a budget plan for next year that cuts the equivalent of 2 full-time faculty from F. A. Day’s staff. Principal Paul Stein is still developing his staffing solution to the cuts, but has resolved that there will be a 1.0 full time equivalent, or FTE, reduction in the technology education program; a 0.5 reduction in the world language department; and a 0.5 cut in the guidance department.

There will be an arts structure change in the 6th and 7th grades. The 7th grade’s arts rotation currently consists of art, music, health, and 2 tech-ed courses.

However, when the cuts are put into action, only 1 tech-ed course will remain. The decrease in the number of courses will result in slightly larger class sizes.

Currently, there are the music, video/drama, health, art and tech-ed courses in the 6th grade arts cycle. After the faculty cut, Stein plans to pair art and tech-ed, and music and health together for one rotation, but video/drama will remain the same. Stein hopes the new course will be something incorporated with fitness or movement, yet different from physical education.

Team sizes will be favorable because of the districting of schools. There used to be about 100 students per team, whereas the 6th and 7th grade teams had numbers in the low 80’s. Next year all 3 grades will have these numbers.

World language class sizes in Spanish will “slightly increase.” Fortunately, this year there has been a decrease in the enrollment for Spanish so there is “a lessened impact on class size,” Stein said. However, it will be difficult to find a half-time Spanish teacher.

The guidance cut will probably force one counselor to handle 3 teams instead of 2. Stein thinks that the school committee worked well together to meet the budget cut, given the “fiscal restraints.”

As for Stein’s personal feelings about these cuts, he replies, “I’m not happy about them, but I think it’s manageable. I think the tech-ed program was good the way it was. We have relatively more tech-ed than the other middle schools.”

For the guidance counselors next year, Stein is “...concerned about stretching the counselors too thin.” He thinks that these cuts are not going to be felt right away, but will affect Day in the future. “It’s the fiscal climate we live in,” Stein explained.

The renovations at North will not be affected by the budget cuts since the operating budget is different from the capital improvement budget.

For the future of the Newton Public Schools, Stein believes it is “very strong and positive...[will] remain so unless similar cuts occur year after year. We can cope with this now until we start to cut more teachers.”

As of now, Stein thinks that Newton schools are “...terrific schools.... [including] Day,” he added with a smile.