SCARBOROUGH – A number of teaching positions have been added back in to the Scarborough school budget as the Board of Education prepares to hand the spending plan over to the Town Council.

Following in the footsteps of the board’s Finance Committee, which restored more than $250,000 in the budget by reinstating a substance abuse counselor at the high school and allocating $200,000 for math curriculum, stipends and positions in kindergarten through Grade 5, the Board of Education last week added $310,000 back into the budget by restoring an elementary school guidance counselor, a middle school foreign language teacher and four positions at the high school.

The budget now totals $35.87 million, an increase of $792,000 over the current budget. It raises the tax rate 4.8 percent. A proposal to raise activity fees at the middle school and high school has been eliminated, but fees would be introduced at Wentworth Intermediate School.

The decisions to restore some funding follow a public hearing at which parents asked the school board to spare the cuts in spending in order to maintain teaching positions and programming in the schools. The budget proposal originally put forth by Superintendent Jo Anne Sizemore cut 23 positions in order to deal with an expected loss in revenue of around $1.15 million.

Sizemore said she and her administration were careful to draft a budget she thought would pass the Town Council and gain town voter approval.

“In these economic times we knew a budget of an increase of $2.2 million for property tax would not pass through the Town Council, so we wanted to relook at some of our programs and redesign some of them,” she said at a budget workshop meeting last week.

One of the programs slated for a review is the foreign language program at Wentworth Intermediate School and Scarborough Middle School.

“I don’t want to reduce foreign language, but I understand the need of restructuring the program in a way that is meaningful K-12. Perhaps this is the time to do it,” said board member Jackie Perry.

Board member Aymie Hardesty, who made a successful motion last week to add back the foreign language teacher at the middle school, but was unsuccessful in restoring a foreign language position at Wentworth Intermediate School, said she worried about students losing the opportunity to learn foreign language at a young age.

“When you get rid of something, it is really hard to get it back and I hate to see something go that is that important,” Hardesty said.

Both of the student representatives on the board, senior Abby Van Note and junior Adam Cohen, supported reinstating the cuts to the foreign language program in grades 3 through 8. The students do not have a formal vote, but act in an advisory role on the board.

“I don’t feel you should cut it for a year as a way to restructure the program,” Cohen said. “Just because we need to make a change to it, doesn’t mean we need to do it at the expense of (the kids).”

Acting on Van Note’s suggestion, Perry made a motion to reinstate four teaching positions at the high school – even though a new scheduling system makes the number of teachers needed uncertain at this point.

“In order to have a successful school district we need to have teachers,” Van Note told the board. “We can’t afford to lose more teachers and increase our class size. It is not in the best interests of the kids. I know these economic times are hard, but we need to show we are here for the kids.”

Both Hardesty and fellow board member Colleen Staszko said they felt uncomfortable cutting the four high school positions.

“Until we see what students sign up for, how do we know what staff we need?” Hardesty said. “I struggle with cutting positions when we don’t know what positions we will need next year.”

An effort to keep a classroom teacher by Hardesty ended up failing 4-3, with John Cole, Staszko and Hardesty in favor.

The Town Council now gets a crack at the school budget, which will be rolled into the municipal budget, at a meeting Wednesday, April 6, at 7 p.m. in the Municipal Offices. From there, the budget will be the subject of an April 27 public hearing. The council is scheduled to adopt the total municipal budget on May 4. The budget referendum is scheduled for May 17.

“I hope we put things back in the budget that the public will support,” said Staszko. “It will be up to them now.”