The EHHS 2024-2025 school year is exposed to new changes due to the budget cuts. The school staff worked tirelessly to fit the budget that the town has given them. EHPS requested $2.7 million to fulfill all contractual obligations, as well as other necessities in the district. The town only gave EHPS $250,000, which has greatly affected the staff and students here at EHHS. Though we have had to conform to these terms, the staff has done an amazing job at making sure students are affected as little as possible. To learn more about the process behind how the budget is ratified check out “East Haven Town Budget Lead to Cuts at EHPS”

Process 

After EHPS got their confirmed budget for the school year, they started the long process of going through the places where most of the money was going. Superintendent Erica Forti explains how she and her team started by looking at all positions that were new to the budget, and cutting the ones that were not yet filled. She and her team wanted to guarantee that no teachers would lose their jobs, both for the students’ and the teachers’ benefit. They also looked at all teachers that retired or resigned and reevaluated the situation to see if it needed to be filled. 

She shared, “For example, we had an art teacher retire at the elementary level. We got together with all the elementary principals and we looked at their schedules, and the number of art classes they had, and found out that we didn’t need to hire an additional art teacher. That’s what we do as a team. We didn’t want anyone to lose their job.” 

Superintendent Forti and her team then looked at support services staff for students with special needs and examined their caseloads. The district had multiple resignations within that field, which allowed for the schools to distribute the children onto other paraprofessional teams.

The two processes that EHPS went through allowed for 21 positions to be cut from the payload, without any teachers losing their jobs. Superintendent Forti and her team worked very hard to allow our community to continue operating even during a time of difficulty. 

Affecting Students 

Due to the changes made, students have seen some differences throughout their daily school lives. One big change for students is much larger classes, as there are fewer teachers. The schools had to comply with the budget by taking away positions and classes, which is why they had to add more students into already full classes. Superintendent Forti and her team looked at all classes with less than 15 kids and made sure the class either added more, or got rid of the class altogether. Students may also see that they aren’t in every class they asked for, and this is a result of the smaller class sizes being cut from the schedule. This could have caused many students to be pulled from classes that they want to learn about, or even need for future careers. 

Affecting Teachers 

Most teachers have seen a large increase in class size when starting the year off. This is due to the cuts previously discussed. Superintendent Forti explained how there is also an increase in the number of staff who are traveling between buildings. This method their team chose helps them save money in the budget, and allows them not to have to hire another teacher for each building. All of these circumstances and solutions allowed for EHPS to meet the budget set from the town, but also implemented a larger workload for teachers. 

Team Building

Mr. Richard Caponera, Chief of Operations & Fiscal Oversight, talks about how the team has grown from the beginning of the process, saying that their team was able to work in unity, and much cooperation was necessary. Superintendent Forti adds insight on what she learned during this process.