In Cobb, confusion surrounds rehiring of teachers

By Gertha Coffee

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s a word problem that still confuses many.

If Cobb County laid off 700 teachers in the spring to help close a $126.7 million shortfall, how many of them three months later actually lost their jobs? The answer: about 100.

Cobb ended up rehiring about 600 of the teachers it let go in May after hundreds of others left the school system through attrition– some because they realized they could make more money by retiring than they could running their classrooms.

But that still leaves many like Shaleita Cook who, even with satisfactory performance evaluations and support from parents and students, are preparing resumes instead of homework assignments.

Some days Cook can't help but cry.

“It’s just not fair. I am a good teacher,” said Cook, 26, who taught eighth-grade social studies at Lindley Middle School in Mableton. “It is starting to hit me that I have no classroom to set up, no introduction to practice and no lessons to plan."

Cook, who has three years of teaching experience and is pursuing a master’s in the art of teaching social studies at Georgia State University, finds the situation confusing.

“I put in for positions and heard nothing back,” she said.

Many parents are equally confused by the entire process of letting hundreds of teachers go, only to rehire most of them. Some formed groups to rally in support of their schools’ instructors, and in some cases that support helped teachers win back their jobs.

It's all part of the budget process, district officials said. It began in January with a look at expenses and revenue in Cobb-- metro Atlanta's second-largest school district with about 106,000 students -- and the realization there would be a huge shortfall because of losses in local property taxes and state funding.

Shrinking such a large budget deficit involved taking a look at big-ticket items, such as class size, district officials said. Bigger classes will save the district $56 million this year,

Larger classes, “consequently, resulted in a reduction in positions,” said Tim Baker, the school system’s director of employment.

Under state law, teachers had to receive a contract or a notice they were not going to receive a contract by May 15, and the budget process has to work in sync with that deadline, Baker said.

At the same time, teachers were leaving the district. By late spring, the district had received notice that it would be losing about 200 teachers through attrition, said Donald Dunnigan, the school district's chief human resources officer. Since May 15, more than 400 teachers have announced their resignation or retirement from the Cobb district.  The board also decided not to raise the local property tax millage rate, leaving it unchanged at 18.9, by using an excess of SPLOST II funds.

After the board approved larger classes in April, it began working with school principals to determine which positions would not be offered the following school year, Baker said.

"We considered all the attrition we had up to that point and then decided not to automatically bring back staff for whom we had no contractual obligation," he said, such as limited-contract and part-time teachers. Also included in the reduction in force, or RIF, were those with unsatisfactory performance evaluations and others, such as Cook, who had little seniority.

The district cut 541 full-time teachers, along with 230 on limited contracts.

Principals were notified the week of May 10 which teachers would not be issued contracts and would be affected by the reduction in force.

When the decision was made to rehire, who to rehire was at the discretion of school principals.

"That is how hiring is always handled," Baker said. "We don't tell principals who to hire. We provide them with the names of candidates."

Cook's principal at Lindley, Sandra Ervin, did not return calls for comment on why Cook was not rehired and referred questions to the district office.

The district followed the process for reducing staff, said Connie Jackson, president of the Cobb County Association of Educators.

"I understand why they did it the way they did," she said. "I don't agree with the policy, but they followed policy."

There are roughly about 100 new hires in Cobb County, she said. "I'm hoping that is because they couldn't find anybody RIF'd to fill those positions," Jackson said.

Parents and students at Osborne and Allatoona high schools vocally supported teachers affected by the cuts.

Osborne initially lost four of its six football coaches. And more than a dozen Allatoona teachers -- including the head coaches of the baseball, basketball, football and soccer teams -- were told their contracts would not be renewed.

"We got some of the positions back," said John Williams of the Osborne Community Coalition, an organization of residents in the school district serving Osborne High School and Milford Elementary School.

Allatoona parent Hope Manning said the majority of the school's teachers are back "and extremely grateful. They felt we made a difference."

She said the fact that the district was "able to hire back so many, proves they made the wrong decision to begin with."