BY MARK SKERTIC
The Cincinnati Enquirer
At Washington Park Elementary next year, there will be more students in each classroom, fewer all-day kindergarten programs and fewer aides to help teachers find time for more individual attention for students.
''There's going to be a big loss for our school,'' said Principal Janice Mooney.
She and the school's budget committee is already trying to find a way to make up for the absence of $152,649 in federal money and $110,316 in state money.
Her school is one of seven Cincinnati Public Schools elementaries facing a double dose of funding cuts. The schools, all with high percentages of children from low-income families, face the likelihood they will have less federal aid and no more desegregation money from the state.
''What won't be there?'' Ms. Mooney asked, reviewing her preliminary budget recommendations. ''Right now we have four all-day kindergartens. The (school) board pays for one. We'll lose three.''
Facing similar budget decisions are: Hays and Heberle, both in the West End; Oyler in Price Hill; Rothenberg in Over-the-Rhine; and Hoffman and Windsor, both in Walnut Hills.
The seven face the possible loss of state money because Cincinnati Public Schools are no longer under court supervision to desegregate. The Bronson Desegregation Agreement expired last year. With the end of court involvement, the state no longer needs to pay CPS $5 million annually for desegregation purposes, under Gov. George Voinovich's budget proposal.
While most of the $5 million goes to cover part of the $14 million the district spends annually on magnet schools, about $855,000 is allocated to seven high poverty schools.
The schools share a psychologist and secretary, while the rest is allocated directly to the schools, where it pays for instructional aides, extra teachers and counselors, according to the district's budget office.
The potential loss of state money comes at a particularly bad time because the schools were already struggling with how to cut federally funded programs, said Oyler Principal Donald Bearghman.
''We could be three teachers short and three instructional aides short,'' he said. ''It will increase out pupil-teacher ratio a couple students, up close to 27-to-1.''
The federal money is from the Title 1 program, which provides extra money to schools with large concentrations of poor students. The money is intended to give schools the resources needed to bring childrens' skills up to the appropriate grade level.
Most troubling to principals like Mr. Bearghman is that his school and others are being forced to plan for cuts at a time when the district expects its overall federal aid to increase about $181,555 to $13.1 million.
Changes in federal law and district policy required changes in how Title 1 money is distributed. ''(The district) should have known this was coming,'' said Cincinnati Federation of Teachers President Tom Mooney, who sits on the district's Educational Initiatives Panel, the group that oversaw changes in distribution policy. ''Everyone knew this was coming.''
The change reduced the allocation for 31 Title 1 schools, allowed small increases for some and made room for 10 new schools into the program. The amount each school gets depends on the percent of poor children each one has; it can range from $640 per child to $210 per child.
Many of those new additions are magnet schools, Mr. Bearghman noted, which already receive extra cash to pay for programs such as Montessori or foreign language instruction. ''Magnet programs are getting their money,'' he said. ''But this is all we have.''
