Cobb schools cut 734 jobs

By Janel Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cobb County school board members approved a plan on Thursday night to cut 734 positions as part of a solution to close a $137 million budget deficit.

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Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com Tracy Raymond (left) and Cassandra Vann, both Cobb County teachers, protest before the Cobb County school board meeting Thursday. The board passed a cost-cutting plan 7-0.

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Before a standing-room-only chamber full of teachers and bus drivers, the board’s 7-0 vote for a cost-cutting plan also included increasing class sizes to the maximum ratios.

The job cuts are expected to save the school system $58.6 million, said school system Superintendent Fred Sanderson. The cuts include 579 teaching and 56 para-professional positions, according to information provided by the school district’s chief financial officer. The district must notify teachers by May 15 whether their contracts will be renewed next year. The Cobb school district has 15,200 employees, including 8,300 teachers. The school system’s enrollment is expected to remain flat next year.

“Since 2003 the school system has lost $197 million in funding. When you start with that shortfall and add another $137 million on top of that, you’re starting at another point than where you were in 2003,” said Superintendent Fred Sanderson.

Basis for elimination

Earlier this week teachers received the district’s criteria for eliminating positions under the cost-cutting plan. According to that memo, elimination of teaching positions and support personnel will be based first on annual evaluations and performance ratings, then seniority.

Para-professional Melba James and several other teachers called the system’s criteria for cutting teachers “ridiculous,” and recommended the board revise it.

“To cut teachers after possibly one bad evaluation, after they have been in the system for many years, is not the way to do things,” said James, who has worked in the district for 16 years, including her current post at South Cobb High School.

A group of teachers and members of the Cobb County Educators Association rallied in the school system parking lot before the board members’ vote on the cuts. Holding signs that said, “Don’t our kids matter?” and “Will all administrators be judged the same way?” the group chanted not only for cuts in classroom positions, but also administrative and central office jobs.

The budget cuts include eliminating 68 central office and support positions.

Tracey Johnson was fired last year from her job as a second-grade teacher at Keheley Elementary School after a receiving a personal development plan to help improve teacher performance. Instead of helping, the process was used to harm several teachers last year, she said.

“Teachers don’t need to be touched,” said Johnson. “For them to be axed first, this is not saying teaching is important.”

Cobb joins other metro-area school systems that have had to cut budgets, eliminate teachers and impose employee furlough days to close large budget gaps.

Eyeing privatization

In addition to the cuts approved by the Cobb school board Thursday night, board member John Abraham requested more information on privatizing bus service, food service, maintenance and custodial care, which he estimated now costs the district $80 million to provide the service with school system employees.

Several system bus drivers spoke against privatizing transportation in favor of saving bus driver jobs. Board chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle assured employees that privatizing transportation was not an option to balance the budget.

Board member Alison Bartlett also requested more information on her proposal that would require school administrators, including principals and central office staff, to increase their work days from 240 days a year to 260 days a year without a pay increase. The increased days would be a way to “share the workload” with other school employees.

Bartlett’s proposal was not well received by some of the other board members, who said the plan would lead to highly qualified administrators leaving the district for other systems. The board plans to discuss Bartlett’s proposal during a called budget meeting following the end of the legislative session next week.

Staff Writer Mary Lou Pickel contributed to this article.