The Sto-Rox school board is preparing to bolster its administrative ranks by giving two teachers administrative internships and replacing them with long-term substitutes.

"We have staff members at the middle school and the high school that have their administrative certificates and need experience," superintendent Fran Serenka said at last week's agenda-setting meeting.

The teachers will be paid their regular salaries, so the district is essentially getting two administrators -- who are needed because of the district's high percentage of at-risk children with individual educational plans -- for the price of their replacements.

Even so, the extra expense raised some eyebrows on the board.

"I don't doubt that you need them -- I know how busy you are -- but this is how we got in trouble in the first place, putting people on," board member Linda Jacobs said. "We have to make sure the money is there."

"I absolutely agree," Dr. Serenka said.

After depleting its reserves to deal with crises the past two years, the Sto-Rox board went to court this spring for permission to borrow $3 million to pay bills and mop up a sea of red ink from its cafeteria fund. It then cut staffing at all levels, including 16 teaching positions, to balance this year's budget.

One of the challenges in creating a budget was the lack of a state budget. The board could only guess at state funding levels and had to be conservative because it had no reserves to fall back on if it guessed too high.

Dr. Serenka said that with the state budget now in place, Sto-Rox is in line to get $157,000 more than it had budgeted. But she said that money will be kept in reserve, not used for the administrative interns; those positions will be funded from within the existing budget.

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