With the recent board approval of the district budget, Superintendent Barbara Underwood said now the district must prepare for the cuts and start implementing them.

Last Thursday, Assistant Superintendent Libbie Connor met with the leadership of the teachers’ association to compile a seniority list to determine what teachers might be reduced in force (RIF). When the district RIFs a teacher it does not terminate employment but rather notifies the teacher that he or she will not have a job next year due to RIF. According to the contract, the teachers are on a recall list.

“All that has to do with staffing next year and what does our contract say and that is certainly our biggest issue. The others are a little easier. For example, we are cutting seven custodians but we have already had three or four resignations and we’re just not filling them as we go,” Underwood said.

To figure out the enrollment and necessary staffing among other issues, Underwood said this week there was to be a meeting among building principals to look at staffing for next year.

Underwood said, “We think most of our teachers will have a job. We have 19 positions that we’re eliminating. We’ve had about 15 resignations that are retirements. Not all of them are in areas that we need to reduce. It is a very complex process.”

Among the difficulties in reducing is the lack of retirements this year. “Just because of the economy we have had many, many fewer retirements. I think we normally average somewhere around 20 retirements and I think we have had five this year,” Underwood.

Teachers were to be notified no later than yesterday if they were to be reduced in force, according to Underwood. She said most teachers would know in the summer if they will have a job next year.

“The sad thing about RIFing teachers or notifying teachers is that you notify them by April 1 and in June or July or August or whenever we call them back that they have had to just worry and fret not knowing if they are going to get called back,” she said.

Underwood said this district is not alone. “Many districts notify dozens of teachers each year, knowing that they are going to be called back. I have a friend that was RIFed every year for six or seven years and every time was called back before school started,” Underwood said.

According to Underwood these changes will not affect class size. She said if class size increases it is due to increased district enrollment.

“We do not have enough money to add teachers (next year if enrollment increases),” she said.

Underwood said, “We won’t be as fortunate next year if we have to do this again because we were able to look at what we could do to avoid impacting class sizes and course offerings and we have some options this year. It will be harder to find those options a year from now.”