By Bill Raack, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Parents, teachers and students in the St. Louis Public School District will have several opportunities to learn about the options for cutting a $23 million budget gap.
The first of seven public discussion forums will be held at Beaumont High School this afternoon (Monday).
District spokesman Glynn Young says the forums will not include formal presentations, but rather will be more informal.
"We wanted to give people the opportunity to do this on more of a face to face, as close to one on one as we could get," Young said. "Tempers seems to stay a lot cooler and good questions come up and good suggestions come up as opposed to some of things we've seen at our board meetings."
The options for trimming the deficit include reducing employees through attrition, staff layoffs, salary cuts, or eliminating some programs.
"Overwhelmingly, people are saying 'well, we don't like any of them but if you have to do one, what's called the attrition option seems the least disruptive to the schools.' We're not seeing much sentiment for cutting programs or for cross-the-board salary reductions."
Following public input, Young says the board will consider a recommendation at its April 13th meeting.
Other meetings will be held throughout the next two weeks:
Tuesday, Mar. 23
Gateway High School
6:00-9:00 p.m.
Wednesday, Mar. 24
Soldan High School
3:00-6:00 p.m.
Monday, Mar. 29
Roosevelt High School
3:00-6:00 p.m.
Tuesday, Mar. 30
Long Middle School
6:00-9:00 p.m.
Tuesday, Mar. 30
District Headquarters
801 N. 11th St.
11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, Mar. 31
Vashon High School
6:00-9:00 p.m.