School principals in DeKalb County will have more control over how taxpayers' money gets spent on education if a major reorganization pushed by the county's new superintendent rolls out as she promises.
The school board met behind closed doors Tuesday for more than three hours with Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson, then emerged for a public vote to approve her proposal to reclassify jobs and alter salaries.
The goal, said Atkinson, is to "drive as many of our resources as we can to schools."
The net effect: a shift in the oversight of about $109 million in annual spending from central office administrators to principals and a savings of $5.6 million this year, system spokesman Walter Woods said.
Few details were made public Tuesday. The 8-0 vote authorizes Atkinson to proceed with her plan, which will shift oversight over potentially hundreds of central office personnel to principals at more than 100 schools. She and her principals still must determine whether particular positions need to be eliminated and others added.
"This is the first step in a very long process," school board Chairman Eugene Walker said. He was the lone board member to abstain, but he said his non-vote "had nothing to do with the overall thrust of the superintendent's plan."
Walker, of South DeKalb, said he had unanswered "legal" and "fiscal" questions. He said he will have opportunities to vote on specific elements of the plan as details emerge.
A teachers' representative said he is optimistic about the reorganization.
"Dr. Atkinson has taken action to get salaries more in line with where they should be and to eliminate positions that aren't needed," said David Schutten, president of the Organization of DeKalb Educators.
Atkinson wants to "get rid of bloat where this is bloat," he said, and push resources to classrooms. He said teachers are worried about a budget shortfall next year.
"If the board doesn't interfere, and they let Dr. Atkinson do her job," Schutten said, "I'm confident that the school system will be right-sized."
The vote comes after a consultant commissioned by Atkinson reported that there are at least 300 too many positions in the central office. Woods, the district spokesman, said most of the changes must be implemented by May, when employee contracts expire and must be renewed.
Nancy Jester, a school board member from Dunwoody, said lines of authority in the 15,000-employee district are "severely misaligned" and that the reorganization should help fix that. For instance, she said, about 1,750 employees in the curriculum and instruction department are on the central office payroll. About 1,500 of them work in the schools but do not report to principals, she said. Instead, these employees -- such as instructional coaches, psychologists and physical therapists -- report to distant administrators who can't always keep close tabs on them and do not necessarily know what each school needs, she said.
Under the reorganization, principals will cut the paychecks, judge job performance and determine whether they want all these positions in their schools. They could decide to put the money elsewhere.
"It's going to push the emphasis and the accountability to the school house," Jester said. "It's clearing up who's accountable for what and to whom."
When told of the plans, Joann Davis, the mother of a freshman at Towers High School in South DeKalb, said it sounded great.
"If they are going to focus on putting more teachers in the schools, I'm all for it," she said. But if the plan just shuffles employees on paper, she's not so thrilled.
"Don't just pass the paperwork over there for the principals to do," she said.
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