JAY – The School Committee voted Thursday to eliminate and reduce several staff positions, in part due to shrinking enrollment numbers.

School Committee members voted 2-1, with Tammy Dwinal-Shufelt opposed, to eliminate a half-time guidance counselor position at Jay High School for the fiscal 2008 year.

The other staff eliminations and reductions were voted on unanimously, with members Joel Pike and Nancy Chaney absent.

Superintendent Robert Wall said the positions are being eliminated due to decreasing student enrollment, class sizes that are too small in some areas, and the need to reduce the budget to move toward meeting the state’s essential-programs-and-services funding model.

Other positions eliminated at the high school were a business teacher, special education teacher, library clerk, and learning center educational technician position. Positions reduced to half-time there were auto technician teacher and consumer science teacher.

Vice Chairwoman Mary Redmond-Luce, speaking to the elimination of the learning center position, said she’s concerned the school system is moving closer to eliminating tracking of students, which predetermines their academic levels, such that there would be teenagers struggling to pass courses.

Wall said school staff will continue to do its best to meet the needs of students, and will be implementing other resources, including virtual course work.

“We have to work with the student numbers we have and the staff we have,” Wall said.

Concerns were raised about whether money would be better spent on helping students graduate than teaching 4-year-olds, and whether eliminating the learning center position would mean it couldn’t be reintroduced, particularly in light of school consolidation.

Chairman Clint Brooks said administrators need to strike a balance and meet the needs of students at both ends of the spectrum. There are safety nets in place to help struggling students, he said.

Among the successes of the learning center, which served more than 100 students this year, are students who are receiving guidance to help them make up work and recover credits to meet graduation requirements.

A full-time teacher in the literacy area and an educational technician will remain at the center, Wall said.

Other positions unanimously eliminated were bus driver/custodian, which is already vacant, an elementary grade teacher (a second-grade, one-year position is to be eliminated with the result being one less teacher at the fifth- and sixth-grade level,) middle/high school alternative education teacher, secretary (which is vacant), central office administrative assistant, and food service director.

The board voted to add a three-fifths counselor pending budget approval.

In other matters, committee members interviewed three high school candidates in separate executive sessions before making a decision on who would represent the school system’s student body.

Selected to serve in the positions were high school sophomore Justin Shink and junior Katlyn Morin.

Student School Committee representatives must have a 3.0-or-above grade point average to be a candidate, and maintain the average throughout their service.

Student representatives will be held to the same ethical standards and obligations of elected committee members, but will not have an official vote in committee matters. They will be entitled to an unofficial vote recorded in the minutes.

They also will not be involved in or receive materials pertaining to personnel, student discipline or legal matters and won’t participate or attend executive sessions. Student representatives will receive a half credit for each year of successful service.

Shink will serve a two-year term in his junior and senior years, and Morin will serve during her senior year. Both will start as student board members at the May meeting.