Syracuse City School District officials presented their budget priorities to school board members Monday evening. New initiatives include added security measures and strategies to tackle the district’s chronic absenteeism problem.
Next school year, Special Patrol Officers and walk-through and baggage scanners will be added at all middle school and kindergarten through eighth-grade buildings. Chief Operations Officer Dean DeSantis says retired police officers will serve in the added roles to support student safety.
“We maintain the security force of 92 centuries, 12 guards, 10 hall monitors and eight resource officers,” he told school board members. “We have in the budget the purchase of the new baggage scanners and walk-through screening devices for our middle school and kindergarten through eight buildings.”
District officials are working to add new energy efficiency measures in buildings, update the network operating systems and expand its one-to-one computing ratio, which was implemented in the high school this year. Currently, all ninth through 12th grade students are issued a laptop. This effort, DeSantis says, will expand over next year to each grade, going down to third grade.
Board members showed excitement for several new attendance initiatives presented by Monique Wright-Williams with the Office of Family Engagement. These new measures aim to tackle chronic absenteeism, a consistent problem the district has seen across all grades.
One strategy will reward students for meeting goals.
“A lot of families have stated that dirty clothes is some of the reason that kids aren't coming to school,” Wright-Williams said. “So, in the ‘Wash Out Absence’ program, if your child comes for five days, then a laundry service will pick up the laundry, wash it and return it to the home.”
Other attendance strategies include the P-S-A campaign “Strive for Five” to stress the importance of attending school regularly, continued direct outreach to parents and a pilot program for students of STEAM at Dr. King Elementary. Known as a “walking school bus,” for this effort, a teaching assistant will go door-to-door each morning to students’ homes who live near the building and walk them the school.
“We're trying to do much more of an early intervention, as opposed to just finding out why your kid wasn't at school,” Wright-Williams said.
At a previous meeting held March 22, Syracuse City School Districts’ Chief Accountability Officer Timothy Moon and Chief Human Resources Officer Scott Persampieri presented.
In regard to the proposed budget, Persampieri noted the district’s staff shortages and discussed ways his office was working to improve employee retention. New hires, including a director of retention and new personnel assistant, will support staff by improving the on-boarding process and serving as a resource to assist teachers to prepare for and earn required certifications.
Syracuse’s budget proposes to hire 50 new teaching assistants, 22 new teachers and add 15 new positions in other areas. The board is set to adopt the proposed budget at the April 24 work session. It will then be presented to the Common Council, whose members will have a chance to pose questions, and then incorporated into the city budget.
