As students, teachers and administrators gear up for the start of a new school year, Amherst Central School Superintendent Laura Chabe talks about challenges facing districts. Chabe sat down with The Buffalo News’ Brian Meyer for the weekly “In Focus” interview series. Here is a summary of some of the issues discussed. Watch the full five-minute interview at BuffaloNews.com/video.
Meyer: Many school districts across the region ... are facing some new harsh fiscal realities.
Chabe: “We are definitely facing many fiscal challenges. We were very, very fortunate our teachers’ association agreed last year to take a true hard pay freeze. Under the Triborough Law, they are actually guaranteed a certain step increase on their salary. And they agreed not to exercise that right and actually take a true pay freeze ... Our administrators did the same. Some of our support staff did the same. Our clerical unit did the same ... And it was with tremendous sacrifice. But in return, we (avoided layoffs and program cuts).”
Meyer: Where is the Amherst district when it comes to state-mandated teacher evaluations?
Chabe: “We are currently in negotiations. They are going very well ... When you’re an educator, no matter what your craft is, there’s always room for improvement. So this is not about our teachers, our staff, not wanting to do better for our students. A little bit of the frustration comes with the timeline – the fact that we’ve been put in the position where this needs to happen so quickly. We would have preferred to maybe have a year to do a trial.”
Meyer: There has been a lot of talk about the problem of concussions that student-athletes face.
Chabe: “It’s a new mandated policy relating to concussion management. Basically what it’s saying is that as a school, we have a responsibility to baseline our students who are involved in sports, and then to make a determination that if there is a head injury, when they are able to come back to play. In order to do that, there’s very specific guidelines and policies about doctors releasing that information in terms of when they can return to play ... not just return to play, but there’s also return to learn ... The research shows that students who have head injuries also can have potential difficulty in the classroom.”