GUILDERLAND — Ten women — all employed as speech and language therapists by the Guilderland School District — stood as one on Tuesday night to tell the school board not to make any cuts to their program. If the proposed budget were adopted, one of them would lose her part-time job.

This was followed by moving testimonials from five mothers who told of the worth of the speech therapy their children had received. Several said they had moved to Guilderland because the district offered services beyond the minimum required by the state. Each speech was greeted with applause from the crowd of two score in the gallery.

Superintendent Marie Wiles, in her $93 million budget proposal for next year, had included the reduction of six-tenths of a position in speech and language therapy to save  $46,800.  After Tuesday’s meeting, Wiles told The Enterprise, “We have to match resources to needs…I’m confident, with the analysis Lisa Knowles did, with nine speech and language therapists across our buildings, we can meet the needs.”

Knowles, the district’s director of pupil personnel services, told the school board at an earlier meeting that needs would be met.

“When we looked at the level of staff we needed to serve students, we took into consideration not only IEP students,” said Wiles, referring to students who have been identified as having a disability and therefore have an individualized education plan, “but also speech improvement students.” She said time for meetings and report writing was also accounted for.

“Each parent who spoke tonight, those students would still get those services,” said Wiles.

During this year’s budget process, department heads were asked to recommend 2-percent cuts rather than the 5-percent cuts of recent years as, for 2015-16, Guilderland faces a $130,000 gap rather than the multi-million-dollar gaps of recent years. The district has cut over 227 jobs since 2009.

Guilderland has 242 students across district with IEPs indicating they need the support of a speech language pathologist, according to Wiles; additionally, 77 students receive speech improvement as part of Guilderland’s "Response to Intervention" process for struggling students. Speech improvement occurs only at the elementary level.  There are also four students who receive speech as part of a 504 plan, assisting them with special needs in a regular education setting.

“In determining the level of staffing needed to serve all of our students, we looked at the workload of our SLPs, including tasks such as participation in meetings of the Committee on Special Education, and the Instructional Support Team,” Wiles wrote in an email to The Enterprise on Wednesday. “We also accounted for lunch, planning time, evaluation and report writing and Medicaid reporting (which is currently required for 80 out of the 323 students who currently receive speech).  Some speech services are delivered in small group settings; the maximum group size for those activities was set at three to avoid creating overly large groups.

“In sum, all of the services that we currently provide have been accounted for in next year's plan.  The plan would include at least one full time SLP in each building and two additional FTEs [full-time equivalents] to be divided among those buildings with the most need.”

Anne Hanson spoke at the microphone on Tuesday as the other therapists stood at her side. Referencing ratios of therapists to students that had been cited at a budget forum, Hanson said the guidelines by the State Education Department do not account for “such a diverse group of students,” and she also said it was not good practice to divide the number of students by the number of therapists.

“Each one of us will be expected to do more with less,” said Hansen of the proposed cut. She feared students who do not have IEPs would not be served.

Hanson also said time would be reduced for collaborating with other staff, for identifying students as having needs, and for doing required paperwork. She said, too, that, when students are struggling with the new mandated Common Core standards, speech and language therapists are the specialists that can help them succeed.

“We strongly urge you to reconsider,” Hanson said to applause from the gallery.

Five mothers came to the microphone next, one at a time, each giving heartfelt accounts, several of them through tears, about the importance of the speech and language therapists to their children. Each was met with applause.

Nicole Nolan spoke of her first-grade son at Lynnwood Elementary School who had become nearly silent at school, before he got therapy. She reported him saying, “Mom, they don’t know what I’m saying, so I don’t say anything.”

“Speech therapy made all the difference,” she said, restoring his lost confidence.

Her son is not identified, with an IEP, and Nolan worried that the cut would lead to only students with an IEP getting services, as mandated.

“Look long-term,” she urged the board, indicating that a cut in services could lead to a greater cost for taxpayers and students in the end.

Sandra Schleicher showed the board a picture of her son, diagnosed with autism, and said, “They have so much going on in their minds but it’s hard for them to get it out.” At Lynnwood, therapists are imbedded in the classroom, “which is great,” because the therapists get to know the students and can communicate with the parents “so we can work together,” she said.

“He can hear dust fly,” she said, describing how easily her son is distracted. As a remedy, his teacher wears a microphone and he wears a headset — a system she called “an amazing breakthrough,” which came about because the teachers had the time to notice his problem and solve it.

A certified public accountant, Schleicher said she has noted the increase in children diagnosed with autism — now one in 68 — and concluded the need for help in the schools would increase. “Taking something away, it’s hard to get something back,” she said.

Tina Barbato said her daughter, a second-grader at Guilderland Elementary School, was struggling because she had not been properly identified but, she went on, “The blame game won’t help my daughter.”

She also told the board, “When looking at budgets, it becomes a numbers game…Students like my daughter cannot be looked at like a number.”

Barbato said it made her cringe to think she would have to tell her daughter, “All those wonderful teachers are gone now.”

Barbato said her daughter had asked her, “Mom, am I adopted?” because “everyone” asked her about her “accent.”

“Now is the time to take a stand for the students who are embarrassed about how they speak,” she told the board.

Tracy Martone, who teaches in the district and also has a daughter in kindergarten who receives speech services, said cuts to services make a difference in the classroom. She referenced an earlier cut to social workers and said she feels the impact of that every day in her classroom.

Martone said of her daughter, through tears, “She’s fearful others won’t understand her and she knows she sounds different.”

Donna Mannarino, the mother of three children, spoke about her daughter who struggled through several years at school until she was diagnosed as having an auditory processing disorder. Mannarino said, through tears, “She was falling through the cracks, just slipping.”

Now, with an IEP, her lowest grade is 82 and all the others are in the 90s.

“You have to believe in these teachers and what they do,” Mannarino told the board.

At the end of the meeting, board member Gloria Towle-Hilt said she appreciated the “time and effort” the staff members put into their comments and said she recognized that, for the parents, it was not easy to talk publicly about the issue.

Board President Barbara Fraterrigo said, “We don’t want to hurt kids. We heard your stories…If it’s in our power, we’ll be working towards that…We have no idea what kind of money we’ll have this year; it’s a tough place to be in.”

Christopher McManus said the public needs to understand that the budget process this year is complicated by the fact that school districts have no way of knowing what state aid will be. Since the governor’s proposed $1.1 billion increase in aid to schools is tied to the legislature passing reforms, Guilderland based its aid calculations for 2015-16 on the current year’s, at about $22 million.

“If you look at the three different sides,” said McManus, referring to the governor’s budget proposal, the Senate’s proposal, and the Assembly’s proposal, “It’s all over the place.”

He also said, “It’s really unfair to the school districts.”

The school board is slated to adopt Guilderland’s budget proposal on April 21 and the public votes on May 20.  The state is supposed to adopt its budget by April 1 but, if it doesn’t meet its constitutional deadline, and the local school board adopts its budget proposal before learning if it gets more aid, the board cannot increase its spending. Any extra money from state aid can, however, be put into the district’s fund balance, or rainy-day account.

“We’re really being held hostage by one person,” said board member Colleen O’Connell, alluding to the governor. “Teachers and students are held hostage.”