Administration Proposes the Addition of Contract Social Workers and Administrators to Support Social Emotional Learning Needs in 2023-24

As an initial step in the school budgeting process for the 2023-24 school year, the administration presented their staffing recommendations at the January 9, 2022 meeting of the Board of Education. Last year, the district added 10.5 positions including a school psychologist and a social worker for both the middle school and the high school. This year, Social Emotional Learning (SEL) needs are also driving staffing requests. Enrollment is projected to rise moderately from 4,609 to 4,677 students, but it is still lower than years past. However, mental health needs of the students seems to be behind the district’s request to hire more staff than ever before.

Interim Superintendent Dr. Drew Patrick started off the presentation with an explanation of the budget process, noting that staffing is 80% of the yearly budget. Stuart Mattey, Assistant Superintendent for Business and Facilities outlined the steps that the administration takes before bringing a Tier One staffing recommendation and assured the board that there is a vigorous internal process. District-wide staffing shows staffing is at an all-time high, while enrollment has dropped since 2014. Eric Rauschenbach Assistant Superintendent for Special Education and Student Services, explained that in order to keep up with the SEL needs of the students in the elementary schools, the district is proposing to contract two full time social workers for 2023-2024 to present class lessons, run small group sessions and provide case management to support acute cases when needed. These workers would spend every other day at the two largest elementary schools, Fox Meadow and Quaker Ridge, with the remaining time split amongst Edgewood, Greenacres and Heathcote. The rationale for making these contract rather than full time positions is the district is unsure what type of professional is needed to support the school psychologists. In the future, it may be determined that guidance counselors or adding another school psychologist may be a better fit for this position. This tactic worked well at the high school so they are recreating it on purpose. James Genova, Executive Director of the Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling Services provided additional advice in a friend of the district capacity, separate from his official district role. In the future they may ask to convert this position to an employee.

Board member Robert Klein asked about the challenge of finding social workers who are available for these roles, and questioned if they were confident they could fill them. Rauschenbach was confident that there are pools of clinical social workers who are contract workers that the district would be able to hire from.

Board VP Ron Schulhof asked about the underlying drivers for the increasing need for SEL support and Rauschenbach replied that while Covid was the catalyst, this need existed before and is part of an on-going trend related to social causes. Schulhof followed-up by asking if the district is looking into the root causes. The district is looking into both preventative measures and interventions.

Board President Amber Yusuf asked if they were confident that proposed splitting was the right allocation. Dr. Rauschenbach noted that Quaker Ridge has a larger general population as well as a larger number of ICT students so he believes the allocations are correct but using contractors will allow the district to bump the level up or down as needed.

Drew Patrick also noted that the elementary teachers have been requesting more support for SEL.

Rauschenbach clarified for board member Jessica Resnick-Ault that because the school psychologists are so consumed with their primary tasks, they don’t have time for these other interventions, such as running social skills groups or a group for children going through divorce. These social workers would be primarily to facilitate these interventions.

The remaining staff recommendations were for a half full time CPSE chairperson due to the ongoing increase in CSE students, at an estimated cost of $55,000, a conversion of one CSE chairperson to an admin position to relieve the administrative bottleneck as currently all custody disputes, orders of protection, threat assessments, CPS calls and DASA investigations are handled directly by Rauschenbach, at a cost of $35,000, and the addition of one full time high school custodian, at a cost of $75,000 but with an estimated savings of $21,850 in overtime and substitute costs. Finally, there is a request for conversion of a part-time aide to full-time clerk in the high school humanities offices, estimated cost $30,5000, due to a retirement, and lastly $330,000 for contingency positions which could include a full time middle school special education teacher and a full time high school special education teacher. These contingency positions are only filled if needed. There are no tier two requests at this time; the request for a middle school cleaner has been moved to tier three.

As the session wrapped up, Board member James Dugan pointed out that while there has been a decrease in the student population, there has been a pronounced increase in staffing. He asked what the drivers of that were. Dr. Patrick answered that the district has substantially grown its programs, added cleaners (some of whom have been subsequently laid off), increased middle and high school support and the special education program.

See the presentation here: