The Cincinnati school board has approved a 10 percent cut in the district’s budget for the coming school year, even though it means gutting several programs and jeopardizing some school reforms.
The board approved the budget reduction last week. Board members argued that meager revenues and state-imposed property-tax limits left them no other choice.
The new $298 million budget was balanced through the elimination of more than 400 positions including teachers, counselors, and librarians, out of a professional workforce of about 6,000. District leaders have warned that the cuts could hurt the school system’s popular magnet schools and endanger its acclaimed teacher training and peer-review programs. (See Education Week, 4/26/95.)
New Haven Joins Lawsuit: The city of New Haven, Conn., plans to join Hartford in appealing a recent state court decision that absolved the state of responsibility to help racially integrate schools in Hartford and its suburbs.
Mayor John DeStefano Jr. of New Haven announced late last month that the city would file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the plaintiffs in the desegregation suit. He called the state judge’s recent decision an injustice to cities like New Haven, where the school system’s enrollment is 83 percent black or Hispanic.
Hartford city officials have already filed a similar brief on behalf of the plaintiffs, minority and white children in Hartford and its suburbs, who are appealing the decision to the state supreme court.
A state superior court ruled last month that the state did not cause the racial isolation of Hartford’s public school students and therefore has no obligation to remedy the problem.
The plaintiffs have contended that the state constitution prohibits all school segregation, regardless of its cause. (See Education Week, 4/19/95.)
