500 jobs in schools at stake in cuts
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Virginia's superintendents unite against proposed...
More than 100 public school superintendents and other staff representing the state's 133 school districts gathered at the downtown Marriott Thursday. Their goal: to send a message to government offici...Chesterfield County's school system might have to cut a minimum of 500 positions next year to deal with a projected $52 million budget shortfall, Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome said yesterday.
"The impact of these budget cuts are certainly going to be profound," Newsome said during a meeting of the Virginia Association of State Superintendents at the Downtown Richmond Marriott.
Newsome said positions in central office administration, instruction support and classrooms could be eliminated.
Some of the positions are unfilled, and a hiring freeze is in place for those that are non-essential to the classroom, said Tim W. Bullis, director of community relations for Chesterfield schools. The county's school division has about 7,500 employees.
Newsome said Chesterfield schools already have cut purchases in such areas as textbooks, buses and playground equipment.
The superintendents from the state's 134 school divisions presented a unified front yesterday in speaking out against cuts to state education funding in Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's proposed state budget revisions, which are aimed at alleviating a $3.2 billion shortfall.
Kaine's proposal calls for cutting $340 million for non-teaching school support staff and eliminating $27.5 million in school-construction grants.
"Despite the governor's proclamation that his proposed budget cuts protect classrooms, the reality is that classrooms will be impacted significantly," said Donald J. Ford, president of the Virginia Association of State Superintendents. Ford is superintendent in Harrisonburg.
"Collectively, we're all here together to say, we're actually in this as a community and the commonwealth, not just individual school divisions," said Fred Morton IV, superintendent of Henrico schools.
Morton said his school system appears relatively safe.
Henrico is gaining about 500 students next year, which "helped us gain some added resources while we have about $13.6 million in cuts.
"Our budget will be status quo -- no raises, our class sizes will go up a little bit," he said. "We feel fortunate to be in Henrico with the support that we've got right now."
Sussex County Superintendent Charles Harris III said just about everything is on the table to be cut as his school division faces a $1.3 million reduction in funding. He suggested closing an elementary school.
"We'll have to adjust some kids in different grade levels. We have awfully small elementary schools, so by having a small school, it runs our support staff ratio up higher than it should be," Harris said.
"So, by closing small schools, it helps us to reduce some of those support positions that have increased our budget."
Dinwiddie County Superintendent Charles Maranzano Jr. said some projects can be put on hold during economic downturns, but educating students must continue.
"If we want a high-quality system of public education, with highly qualified employees . . . then we have to pay for that," Maranzano said. "We can't do the same with significantly less money."
Contact Jeremy Slayton at (804) 649-6861 or
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Reader Reactions
CCPS gives across the board raises to all staff, regardless as to merit, so in these lean economic times it seems, across the board salary cuts would be preferable to eliminating 500 jobs. Those who complain about their 10% salary cut can go apply for a job in Henrico, where new jobs are still available. Also, those who would balk at a salary cut have just identified themselves as just “being in it for the money” and not for the kids, so perhaps they are the ones who have “volunteered” to be eliminated.
The bottom line is many students in Chesterfield County are not getting a quality education. The quality is uneven because there are good teachers and there are ineffective teachers. Many “poor” schools are getting all the “poor” and ineffective teachers. An effective teacher who uses research-based teaching methods can effectively teach a classroom full of 30 to 60 students. An ineffective teacher will not be able to teach a student even one-to-one, much less teach a classroom full of 20+ students. Class size makes little difference - even in small classrooms today, you can see very little, if any, individual and caring attention given to struggling students. In large classrooms, you have very good teachers meeting the needs of almost all the students.
CCPS has become a bureaucratic Educational Industrial Complex (pronounced ICK) which just exists to perpetuate itself and provide lots of jobs to people. Most decisions are made, not in the best interest of educating students, but in the interest of getting more funding in order to keep and provide more jobs.
There have to be a lt of wasted “high end” administrative folks who can be layed-off before the classroom staff need to be eliminated. It’s time for everybody to tighten up. Don’t put a scare into everone so you can ask for more taxpayer $. Sharpen the pencil & take a serious look at where other unnecessary costs can be reduced.
Marcus Newsome should be the first one cut. Now his mismanagement and stupidity will cost many jobs and lower the educational opportunity of our children. Reverse the practice of rewarding incompetence. Fire him.
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