AUBURN — The proposed school budget for fiscal year 2020-21 eliminates the French language program at Auburn Middle School to free up money for a social worker.
The position is an “essential piece,” Principal Bob Griffin said.
“Our students’ social needs are dramatically escalating,” he said. “We have a tremendous number of students struggling with behavior, poverty, trauma and truancy.”
He said many middle schools do not offer foreign language programs and that the “exploratory” French language class at AMS focuses on Parisian French.
“I don’t want to lose the tie to the cultural history (of local Franco-Americans),” Griffin said. “That will be embedded in social studies classes.”
The school would maintain its Spanish language program, he said, adding that in the future today’s students “will be living in a country where Spanish is the dominant language.”
The School Committee began budget deliberations Wednesday by looking at the first of 11 cost centers.
The spending plan for that cost center — regular instruction — presented by Superintendent Katy Grondin totals $19.66 million, an increase of $1.26 million over the current budget.
Among the increases are $745,000 to maintain the current positions with contracted step increases, Grondin said. By state law, the starting pay for teachers must be at least $40,000.
The starting salary for Auburn teachers is $36,562.
Another proposed addition to the budget is to hire four education technicians for elementary school classes with 25 or more pupils. Those classrooms are one sixth grade at East Auburn Elementary, a fourth- and a sixth-grade class at Walton and a fifth-grade class at Sherwood Heights.
Whether those positions will make it into the final budget, “we’ll have to wait and see,” Grondin said.
Elementary school class sizes throughout the district range from 16 to 27, she said.
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