WORTHINGTON -- Most Worthington High School departments will maintain staffing for the 2008-2009 school year, reported WHS Principal Scott Backer at an Instructional Committee of the District 518 Board of Education meeting Monday, based on student registration numbers.
"The registration process worked out pretty well," Backer said.
Only a few personnel shifts are anticipated, including a possible reduction of 2/3 of a position from the business department and the addition of 2/3 of a position to the physical education/health department, where a retiring physical education teacher would be replaced.
The district may also hire an adaptive physical education teacher instead of splitting up the responsibilities for those classes between three people.
The departments' average class size at the high school ranges from 18 to 26, a much more even distribution of class size averages than the 2007-2008 school year.
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Last year, the district nearly cut part of an agriculture teaching position, but instead shifted some of the ag workload to the Alternative Learning Center. This year, those classes will shift back to WHS and be replaced at the ALC by industrial tech classes. Another possibility for agriculture is hiring a full-time teacher and sharing him or her with another district.
Several classes in various departments only listed 12 to 13 students, a subject of financial concern with school board members and Superintendent John Landgaard.
"Any time classes are in the low teens, we talk about it," Backer said, explaining that if many students choose the class as a second choice alternative, the class's numbers usually go up before school begins.
Prairie Elementary and Worthington Middle School may see a slight increase in staff for the 2008-2009 school year.
In other business Monday, the Instructional Committee:
* Discussed allowing a graduation waiver for a student who passed the writing examination and had enough credits to graduate, but who had failed the math exam multiple times, the last time by only two math problems.
Director of Special Programs Betty McAllister said although she would not normally recommend allowing graduation under those circumstances, it was too late to do a disability check and the student had already fulfilled all her other educational obligations.
Members of the Instructional Committee agreed they would consider the case in more detail at a later time.
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* Agreed that the school board's goals remained unchanged from the previous year.
