Teacher layoffs that loomed large last month in DeKalb County seem increasingly unlikely.
The rate of voluntary departures has exceeded expectations. If the trend continues, Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson will be able to eliminate vacant positions instead of cutting real people.
Teachers are still anxious though because there are still several dozen teachers too many. If layoffs do happen after the start of school Monday, the delayed decision will put teachers on the street after other districts have completed their summer hiring.
The situation highlights the pitfalls of predicting future costs based on the past in a time of drastic change. Tax revenues have been plunging in DeKalb, forcing unprecedented cuts.
Last month, the school board pushed back, and took some heat, even from teachers, when it rejected Atkinson’s request to lay off up to 250 teachers and nearly half as many paraprofessionals.
Atkinson said the layoffs were needed to fulfill a quarter of the nearly $80 million in spending cuts the school board previously ordered for the fiscal year that started in July.
This week though, Atkinson reported that she had only 41 teachers too many, with more leaving each week.
Board chairman Eugene Walker was among the majority in the 5-2 vote against Atkinson’s request. He said at the time that he had little faith in projections that showed a tiny departure rate. He felt attrition would solve the payroll problem. Also, the district had awarded employment contracts over the summer before finishing an unusually-late budget, and Walker said it was wrong to revoke them.
“Gene Walker still believes we need all of our teachers we gave contracts to,” Walker said this week.
The decision is still controversial, even among teachers, who fear layoffs after the start of school.
“We’re very concerned that, come the first of September, they’re going to lay people off because they didn’t do anything this summer,” said Lisa Morgan, a teacher and officer in the advocacy group Organization of DeKalb Educators. “At that point, all the other districts will be fully staffed.”
School board member Nancy Jester said she voted against the layoffs in part because, like Walker, she doubted the accuracy of staffing projections. Back in June, when the board was considering deep cuts in personnel spending, officials were saying they thought they could execute the cuts without layoffs. The normal rate of retirements and resignations exceeded the contemplated cuts, they said.
Then, after the cuts were approved, officials reported a sharp drop in teacher retirements and in overall attrition. Administrators told the board that only 20 teachers were leaving each week.
In the ensuing three weeks though, more than 200 have departed, Atkinson’s new numbers suggest.
“You do get a bit of whiplash there,” Jester said. “The human resources department needs to do better with their forecasting.”
The number of teacher slots will be determined by the number of students who actually enroll. Officials won’t have a final count for a couple weeks.
Atkinson already has authority to lay off 412 employees, including 200 paraprofessionals and 70 central office employees plus bus monitors, librarians, library clerks, interpreters and school police. The school board authorized those cuts in June to save $17 million.
Morgan, with the teachers advocacy group, said teachers have been worrying all summer that they would be next, and that it’ll show in their mood Monday.
“Teachers obviously are not going to be discussing the situation with children,” Morgan said. “But all that anxiety and stress over this summer [means] people have not been able to recharge.”
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