STRONG – Directors of SAD 58 and Superintendent Quenten Clark voted to eliminate one of the district’s elementary guidance positions Tuesday night.
SAD 58 has three guidance counselors and one chemical health coordinator. In the preliminary budget for 2005-2006, Clark and the directors proposed eliminating one elementary school guidance position and expanding the chemical health position to include responsibilities at all SAD 58 schools.
Currently, chemical health coordinator Cheryl Fisher-Burton works solely at Mt. Abram High School, and students say they need her to stay there. The fate of her position and of the other elementary position, which is now filled by Virginia Farrington, has been the subject of a heated debate between SAD 58 administrators on one side, and students, faculty and area residents on the other, for a number of weeks since the proposal was originally made.
Due to budgetary constraints arising from the state’s new EPS school funding guidelines, the directors’ position is that, like it or not, it is their responsibility to keep the budget as low as possible for taxpayers.
The guidance position in question is just one of three that are being cut. Two elementary teachers are retiring next year and their positions will be eliminated. In addition, a half-time French teacher’s position is being cut, Clark said.
Approximately 30 SAD 58 faculty, students and their parents attended Tuesday night’s meeting. Most spoke against the cuts. High School students, especially, voiced concerns about the change proposed for Fisher-Burton’s position.
“We want Cheryl,” one student said.
Fisher-Burton and Farrington, along with the district’s other two guidance counselors, Michael Ellis and Nancy Soule, each stated that all positions are necessary.
“It’s not my job on the line,” said Fisher-Burton, “so let me say that it is my professional, clinical opinion that whether its me or someone else, somebody needs to be there full time at the high school.”
She added that her role at Mt. Abram is not “to be a good listener,” but to be a practitioner of “sound clinical theory.” She said that each day she deals with issues including, but not limited to, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse, depression and suicide.
Alice Bethune, who has a grandchild at Mt. Abram, stated that from past conversations with Mt. Abram students she believes many are “very angry,” and they turn to Fisher-Burton for help when they are in difficult situations. “There is a three- to eight-month waiting list in all of the mental health clinics,” in the area, she stated.
She added that she fears for students’ safety if the guidance position is altered, noting “every other house down the road has a gun in it.”
Faculty and parents in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting feared that eliminating the elementary position might make the situation worse. Both Soule and Farrington alleged that an attempt at combining the two positions would overburden the remaining counselor.
“I have a caseload of 60 students currently,” Farrington said.
The board elected to maintain Fisher-Burton’s position as is and to eliminate the elementary position. “It was done for budgetary reasons. It was nothing personal,” Business Manager Anne Stinchfield said.
Comments are no longer available on this story