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Special to The News & Record
Pink slips have gone out to a handful of Halifax County Public Schools
employees who lost their jobs in the last few weeks' budget balancing.
Eight people - six of nine classified personnel cut plus two of 10
professional personnel - got pink slips last week; although 19
full-time positions were eliminated, many of the people in those jobs
retired or stepped down, according to Schools Superintendent Paul
Stapleton.
In addition, a few part-time workers were let go, including one
part-time elementary art teacher and some transportation positions.
Those part-time job losses were not counted among the 19 full-time
positions eliminated: four central office jobs, two elementary
principals, two librarians, two guidance counselors. Among classified
jobs: two secretaries, one maintenance job, three custodians, three
transportation jobs and one paraprofessional.
(The school system divides its workforce into "professional" and
"classified" ranks: Professional personnel tend to be teachers and
administrators; classified personnel work in support-type jobs.)
The personnel cuts are saving the school system almost $690,000 in the
new fiscal year.
In the trimming process, the School Board and the administration had
been careful not to discuss outside of closed-door sessions the exact
nature of the jobs or the specific people in those jobs out of respect
for privacy. However, Stapleton confirmed that among the positions axed
were the public relations officer and a social worker/counselor, both
of whom were let go. Also eliminated from the central office were the
director of testing/gifted education and the coordinator of
primary-grade gifted instruction, both of whom retired.
Among the classified personnel, Stapleton said, the six laid off
included secretaries, custodians and paraprofessionals (teachers'
aides).
Principals whose schools were closed were reassigned elsewhere as
either principals or assistant principals.
With the system operating five fewer schools in 2007-08, it might be
remarkable that more workers are not unemployed, but the School Board
said it made a priority of salvaging teaching positions, despite
getting far less money from the Board of Supervisors than it said it
needed to compensate for hikes in health insurance premiums, retirement
fund contributions and mandated teacher pay raises.
Also chopped in the budget-balancing - in addition to Turbeville and
Wilson elementaries - were summer sports camps; alternative nighttime
education; the after-school activity bus that transports students home
who stay late for extracurriculars; REACH (an employee assistance
program that provides free psychological counseling to employees); and
the purchase of one fewer school bus (nine instead of 10).
In other preparations for the opening of school August 20, long-awaited
teacher contracts will be mailed today and students from the shuttered
Turbeville and Wilson Memorial elementaries have been reassigned:
Turbeville students will go to the brand-new Cluster Springs. Most
Wilson Memorial kids will be dispatched to Meadville Elementary, but
some, including those who live on Swain Road and certain stretches of
Highview Road, will go to Sinai.
Stapleton said if parents have attendance requests, "We can try to work
with them." The school system has a lenient out-of-zone attendance
policy.