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Revamped budget would give teachers 3.5 percent hike; chop more
jobs
Pre-K Arts Academy not funded
Halifax County School Board will mull a tweaked 2008-09 budget
proposal
at its work session tonight.
A newly drawn-up alternative gives teachers a 3.5 percent pay
hike (up
from the 3 percent under consideration last week), support
personnel 4
percent (unchanged) and administrators three percent
(unchanged).
The division was already looking at eliminating 17 jobs (of
which five
are teachers and four are administrators), all through
attrition, but
more jobs are now under consideration.
Until the school board sees the document tonight, schools
Finance
Director Bill Covington declined to say whether the job cuts
would come
through attrition or pink slips
The pre-K Arts Academy at The Prizery is not funded in the
proposed
budget. Now in its third year, the program buses in the pre-K
students
to The Prizery community arts center in South Boston for one
morning a
week of art, music and movement. The school system pays The
Prizery
$21,600 annually for teachers' salaries and picks up the
transportation
tab. The Prizery itself donates use of the building and
administrative
costs.
According to Valdivia Marshall, Director of Federal Projects for
the
school system, there is no federal funding for the arts adademy
as
there has been in the past three years. She said the first year
the
school system got $30,000 for the academy, but that amount has
been
reduced each year since.
“This has been a very successful program and one that parents
and
students alike have benefited greatly from,” Marshall said. She
said
orientation for Pre-K students will continue through August and
during
this time she hopes that funding will be made available from
some
source which will allow the arts program to continue.
The work session on the schools' $63.9 million budget begins at
7:30
p.m. at the Mary Bethune Office Complex in Halifax.
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