DPS faces 377 job cuts for next school year - including 226 teachers

The H-S and N&O both have coverage of the news that Durham Public Schools may look to cut 377 positions, 226 of which would be instructional, to meet a nearly $13 million state funding decrease projected in the coming budget year while also reducing the request for Durham County funding.

The H-S sez:

"I don't think there's ever been one [cut] this big," said Hank Hurd, chief operating officer for Durham Public Schools. "This is the most massive cut in school resources in the history of the district."

The overall school budget for the 2010 fiscal year is expected to be $401.2 million, including $172.2 million in state funding. The current year's budget was originally about $418 million but was reduced by about $6 million thanks to a combination of state and county cuts.

Worth reading, anew: our look at relative funding levels of Durham schools versus other large state systems. Suffice it to say, cuts hurt -- but we  here at BCR would like to hope that the school board (which will be briefed on the cuts tonight) will be taking a comparative look at per-pupil funding levels in peer systems in different instructional, enrichment, and administration areas to guide reductions.

Other key facts per Matt "Snapper" Milliken's coverage at the H-S:

• Classroom sizes are expected to rise under any scenario per the General Assembly's planning efforts, as a way of meeting the state budget deficit.
• Almost 80% of DPS' funding goes to salaries and benefits -- making it impossible to avoid layoffs with any significant cuts, as Milliken notes.
• Federal stimulus dollars have limitations and are restricted from use for salaries of workers targeted for layoffs.
• Look for a meeting on May 14 at 6:30pm, possibly preceded by a special work session, for the school board to vote on the measure.

Comments

[ConcernedDPSparent]

Wow. This is unbelievable. When is the next school board meeting? DPS parents need to get organized.

No teachers should be removed from the classroom.

The student/teacher ratio should be maintained. Study after study shows that this is the number one factor in allowing students to achieve in the classroom.

Administrators should be the first to go. Clean out DPS Central Office. Planning and Curriculum administrators can be laid off. Facilities management can be handled at individual schools. Testing administrators/data crunchers can be laid off. Any school personnel not directly involved in classroom instruction should be the first to go. Assistant Principals could be cut to part time. There are so many ways to be creative, but will DPS administrators have the courage to do the hard stuff or will they seek to preserve the status quo and their (relatively) high paying jobs?

[erin]

That is a pretty high number of teacher jobs to get cut. Are there any numbers anywhere that show DPS staffing? I.e., how big of a percentage is 226 teachers, out of the total number?

[DRR]

226 is just about 10%.

For the middle school I teach in, that means about 7 jobs will be cut.

[DRR]

Also, for what it is worth, 377 is less than 10% of the total number of DPS employees. So, a higher percentage of teachers are being cut than non-teachers.

[Todd P]

This is outrageous. The central office staff should take the first - and biggest - cut. Removing teachers from classrooms is a terrible idea.

And in regard to the funding differences compared to peer counties, Durham has trailed badly in capital expenditures for new buildings and building upgrades. Even with a relatively slow growth rate of students, DPS uses more than 120 trailers at schools across the county. Many of the trailers are so old they have asbestos and waste a tremendous amount of energy (and $$$) for heating and cooling, as well as occupying space meant to be playgrounds.

There needs to be a new and better plan, both for meeting the funding shortfall and for providing adequate school facilities county-wide.

[Visconti]

Laying off teachers is a very bad idea. A good education is one of the few inexpensive ways to escape poverty. I'm interested in how many senior managers work for the school system and their salaries. I would also like to know how much Durham high school football coaches (and related staff) make in comparison with other teachers. Trimming overpaid salaries in athletics would also help. How about a luxury tax (a tax applied to expensive non-essential goods) to provide additional revenue?

[Tar Heelz]

Rather than laying off teachers, why aren't pay cuts from the County's contribution to salaries being applied across the board?

Wouldn't everyone rather have a temporary 10% pay cut as an alternative to laying of >10% of your highly trained, difficult to recruit, and critical to mission teachers?

[bennc]

Maybe Bev shouldn't have taken $81 million from the "Education Lottery" proceeds for non education purposes. Or better yet maybe NC shouldn't use a lottery to fund public education. Bev = Fail so far. In know several long-term, former DPS teachers of the year who have been axed and before they leave they're all now getting pay cuts. Do you think Larry Wheeler or Erskine are taking any pay cuts? Public schools should be the LAST thing you cut.

Again, Bev = Fail.

[AreTheseMeatballsorGolfBalls?]

The first thing DPS needs to do is figure out where to get additional funding for some components of the school system or how to shift the funding of some activities elsewhere. For example, this is a link to a seminar on how libraries can get educational funds from the stimulus package:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6655633.html?nid=2286&source=link&rid=

The second thing they need to do is get those teachers who passed up retirement to take retirement after all.

Finally, let's check the progression of student test scores for individual teachers and let's see which teachers are either not performing up to average or fail to improve. By that I mean, if you are a teacher in a very poor school and English is a second language for many and your kids under-perform, that's understandable -- but if you are that same teacher and you haven't started looking around to learn ways other teachers are dealing with the same situation, and used them in your own classroom, and if your scores have not budged since you started: you need to go. Kids change, challenges change, and teachers unwilling to change with them need to go.