Tiny Budget, Big Impact

Forming a tiny circle between her forefinger and thumb, Elizabeth Reveiz indicated the size of her department’s budget within the East Hampton School District.

“It’s very small,” said Ms. Reveiz, who is director of ELL/Bilingual Programs. Yet, in a school district with 326 students classified as English Language Learners, the department’s impact is substantial.

At last week’s school board budget workshop, Ms. Reveiz presented her department’s 2017-18 budget as $45,000, out of an overall budget of more than $66 million. The largest piece of that relatively small pie goes to the John M. Marshall Elementary School, where one-third of the students — 161 children — do not speak English as a first language.

“Do you have enough funds in your budget to handle this?” asked Jacqueline Lowey, a board member.

“Yes,” replied Ms. Reveiz, adding that her department employs such cost-effective strategies as co-teaching between regular classes and English as a New Language (ENL) classes. She requested no increase in her budget from last year.

Such strategies are now, in fact, required by the New York State Education Department, which implemented a new set of regulations in 2015 for public schools with ENL/ELL students, covering everything from how those students are identified to how classrooms should be structured. Most notably, schools with ENL students are required to have an English language teacher present in a general education classroom, replacing the previous system of “full immersion.” Under the new regulations, “It is not permissible to assume that unsupported immersion of ELLs into an English-speaking environment will enable them to succeed academically.”

The regulations are a broad effort to improve the academic standing and progress of English learners, who are far behind their peers. Statewide, only 34 percent of the segment graduate on time, less than half the rate for native English-language speakers.

For Ms. Reveiz, who has worked in East Hampton for four years, one of the biggest challenges comes from another group of ENL students, known as SIFE: Students With Interrupted Formal Education. As required by law, the high school regularly admits students under the age of 21 who have not received a formal education for several years. Recently, a 17-year-old student arrived at the school speaking no English and having not attended school since fifth grade.

“It’s always a challenge to provide them the best opportunities that will yield the best results,” she said. “We want them to leave East Hampton High School feeling as though they have some tools in their repertoire that will enable them to succeed outside of these walls.”

Within the school’s walls is another department, Pupil Personnel Services, described by its director, Cindy Allentuck, as responsible for the “social, emotional well-being of students.”

At last week’s board meeting, Ms. Allentuck announced that “the need for psychological therapeutic services in our school district has increased,” although, like Ms. Reveiz, she reported no increase in her department’s overall budget of $2.1 million, despite an increase in services for students with emotional disabilities.

She too was asked if her department’s funds were sufficient. “I can do it,” Ms. Allentuck told the board. “We can make it work.”

For Ms. Allentuck, who was a social worker before becoming a school administrator, the well-being of students has always been a high priority. In the East Hampton School District there are approximately 20 students who receive therapeutic services funded by her department, she said, adding that her focus should never be about money. “But services cost money,” she said.

There has been an increase in students with learning disabilities in all three schools, she said, a diagnosis that can ultimately affect their emotional health. She also pointed to a “slow and steady increase of general education kids who require psychological evaluation, especially in the high school,” citing factors such as substance abuse problems, pressure to succeed, and life in a small town with little for teenagers to do as possible reasons for the spike.

But Ms. Allentuck was quick to point out that the district is well equipped to face these challenges, with three full-time psychologists, one in each school, and “hyper-aware principals.”

Her department is also responsible for children classified as special education students and those deemed emotionally fragile. For this group, the schools receive funds from the state’s Boards of Cooperative Educational Services. Until June 2015, East Hampton paid the Child Development Center of the Hamptons for 15 to 20 students classified within the special education category. After C.D.C.H. closed last year, the district absorbed the students but saved the money it had been paying for them, keeping the bottom line unchanged.