The Amityville School Board held its third budget workshop Wed., March 19, reviewing proposals that include hiring of additional staff to address, in part, an anticipated increase of 64 students, and statemandated services. Those include student testing and evaluations, counseling, career planning, job placement, crisis intervention and psychological services.

Under the proposed budget, which is still subject to considerable discussion and review before being finalized, the school board is looking to add two and a half positions at Northeast and two positions at Northwest. Park Avenue Elementary will see a reduction of two positions.

At the secondary level, grades 6-12 will remain static, with small increases in staffing for social studies, art, and physical education.

The district is also looking to add an additional half position for a social worker and speech, and a full psychologist's position.

Amityville is responsible for providing these services to all of its students, as well as those students who attend St. Martin of Tours School in Amityville. Under state law, the district of location provides the services, while the student's district of residence pays for them by reimbursing the district of location for its costs. Amityville has more students going to schools out of district than it has students from other areas going to school at St. Martins.

"What we are also seeing is an increase in the number of students with second language needs, and that creates challenges for us all down the line," said Superintendent of Schools Dr. JohnWilliams.

Laurel Garofolo, director of special education and pupil personnel services and Jodi Shapiro, the department's assistant, said the staff would help the district assist the transitioning of special education students and job placement, and expand services for all students for such things as career counseling.

"There are times when our full-time psychologist is out of the school building serving students at St. Martin's" said Shapiro. "The additional staff would enable us to be better prepared at all times for crisis intervention and other services."

Enrique Catalan, assistant superintendent for finance and operations, has put together the figures for the 2008/09 school year using the Governor's proposal for school aid, which represents a 3.3 percent reduction over last year. While the final aid packages have historically been higher than the Governor's proposal, he said it is always safer to be "conservative" when estimating this figure. If the figure comes in higher, the district has the option of lowering the tax rate at the time the levy is set. If it comes in lower, however, that rate would have to be increased, something most districts do not like to do once the residents have approved the budget with an anticipated tax rate.

"Under ordinary circumstances, I would say that we should not be too concerned about facing a reduction in aid over last year," said Williams. "However from what we are seeing, unless the legislators ride in at the last minute with an infusion of money toward education, which is something that we are hearing is going to be difficult, it is always better to be conservative when going through this process."

In other business, the board announced it is reviewing the possibility of having staggered start times for the high school next year to address space issues. The board had been discussing a complete plan of redistricting, but that is being set aside for now, due to time and financial restraints, said Williams.

"We are still looking at the full proposal with an eye toward the 2009-10 school year, but for now, are considering the staggered plan," said Williams. "If we can get the transportation plan in place, we may begin that at the high school next year."

The district will hold additional informational presentations on the budget April 11, and 26. A budget hearing will be held May 2, 7 p.m., Park Avenue Elementary School. The budget vote is May 20.

In other business, the board: •discussed a request for approval of a fundraiser for a field trip for the 6th grade select choir. Board members had questions about whether the trip was classified as curriculum-based trip or as an extra curricular activity under state law. As a curriculumbased field trip, it would have to be open to all students in the choir, and be paid for by the district. After some discussion and clarification by the school's attorney, the board moved to approve the fundraiser and accept the field trip as curriculum-based. Monies raised toward that trip could t be given to the district to offset the costs, however, said the attorney;

•approved the hiring of Felipe Luciano, a television and radio journalist, speak to students April 3, for 1 to 2 p.m. Luciano is a well-known speaker within the Latino communities and discusses diversity, coalition building and focuses on learning from history's lessons how to navigate the road to achievement.