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Plan will cut teaching staff

April 18, 2007|Emily Salmon

Nearly a dozen teaching positions will be cut next year after the Clark County Board of Education approved a staffing plan at Tuesday's meeting.

Nineteen staff positions and 10.6 teaching positions were eliminated for the 2007-2008 school year to alleviate the district's financial crunch.

A staffing allocation formula for the district showed that there are 20.8 more staff members currently employed than the 267 needed.

After talking to building administrators, Superintendent Ed Musgrove decided that only 10.8 positions could be cut without adversely affecting students.

Central, Fannie Bush, Hannah McClure, Providence and Strode Station elementary schools will each lose one teacher. Clark Middle will lose three, and George Rogers Clark High School will lose 2.62.

The other 19 staff cuts include 12.5 special needs instructional assistants. Before the vote, Susan Stoneking, a special education teacher at GRC, asked the board to keep special needs instructional assistants in the classroom.

Stoneking called the assistants a "vital link in the support system" for students with special needs. It is less likely that an unsafe situation will occur if there are more instructors in the room, she said.

Board chairwoman Judy Hicks and member Ray Shear voted no on the plan. Members Rick Perry, Debbie Fatkin and Minnie Spangler, who participated in the meeting through video teleconferencing from Las Vegas, voted to accept it.

The cuts were made to help the district's financial crunch, according to Musgrove. In a budget as large as the district's, salaries and benefits are the most effective way to save money, he said.

Staff reductions will save the district $977,500 in the general fund. The teachers affected will be notified by April 30.

"This is a bitter pill, but it's one we have to take," Perry said.

The board also voted to eliminate the district's maintenance contract with Sodexho, a management services company, at a savings of $220,000.

In other action, the board accepted a recommendation from Donald Stump, the district's administrative director for exceptional children and preschool services, to end the school year for preschool two weeks earlier than planned, on May 9.

Stump said the action would help the district's financial situation by eliminating transportation for two weeks and by shortening the extended summer employment of teachers used for mandated screening of 3 and 4-year-olds. Stump told the board that even with the shortened school year, the district will still be above minimum standards set for preschool instruction.

The motion passed 4-1, with Hicks voting no.

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