The DeKalb County Board of Education voted Friday to eliminate 133 school-based positions, saving the district $9.3 million in what likely will be a long, hard slog to financial stability.
Those being terminated — teachers, assistant principals, graduation coaches and graduation specialists — will receive notices that will be mailed out May 11, four days before the district is required by state law to let teachers know whether their contracts will be renewed.
DeKalb officials said some of those being terminated are certified to teach in other areas and will have first crack at the 250 or so jobs that come open each year as some teachers move and others retire.
Still, board members expressed displeasure at having to make the job cuts, which Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson recommended.
DeKalb is not alone. Other Metro Atlanta school districts are facing tough budget decisions. Just this week, Cobb County school board approved a tentative budget that would cut 400 jobs.
Board Chairman Eugene Walker attempted to postpone a vote on the job cuts so he and his colleagues could discuss the matter at a later closed session that would allow them to delve into specific staffing decisions. But the board voted to move forward with the job cuts.
Walker voted against the cuts and Sarah Copelin-Wood abstained. The other six board members all voted in favor of eliminating the positions.
“I think this is just the tip of the iceberg we’ve got to deal with,” board member Paul Womack said. “None of this is pleasant. None of us want to see someone take a pay cut or lose their job. But, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got to face this.”
DeKalb schools parent Sandra Weaks wondered where the job cuts will come from. She said many parents in the southern part of the county will be concerned the job cuts will come from schools in their area rather than the northern part of the county.
Weaks also said she wanted to know what the job eliminations will mean for class sizes.
“Are we taking two steps forward but three steps back?” she asked.
DeKalb, like school districts across the state, has struggled financially as property tax revenue has declined. Womack has said he thinks the district could face a projected budget deficit of $77 million.
Walter Woods, the school system’s communications director, said the district won’t have a clear sense of its budget picture until later this spring.
Districts are required by state law to balance their budget, and if Womack’s suspicion is even close to being accurate DeKalb will face a series of painful choices.
A report by Virginia-based Management Advisory Group said the district could save $15 million by cutting the jobs of some assistant principals, school secretaries and media specialists. The district has not acted on that report.
But DeKalb has moved to a new zero-based budgeting system where the district starts from zero and adds funding and staff based on how much is needed to carry out future tasks, not on how much was used to carry out those tasks in the past.
It is that new budgeting system, Woods said, that led Atkinson to conclude the district’s schools had 133 more employees than are needed.
A separate review of district-level positions is being conducted, and job cuts are expected there, too.
District staff members initially were going to recommend 182 school-level jobs be eliminated, which would have saved the district $12.7 million. But a review determined that 49 of those jobs still were needed.
Several board members raised concerns about cutting the jobs of those responsible for helping students graduate. Tekshia Ward-Smith, the district’s chief human resources officer, said those jobs had been funded by money from the state. That money was cut several years ago, and the district has covered those costs since then.
Other school officials will handle the duties the graduation coaches and graduation specialists have performed, Ward-Smith said.
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