It looks like Wake may have made the right call playing it conservatively with state budget projections.
As noted in today's article, Wake school officials feel they're in good shape to deal with the state budget adopted last week. The state's approximately 4.8 percent funding cut for K-12 education falls in line with the 5 percent figure Wake principals were working on for this upcoming school year.
At this point, Wake isn't expecting to lay off teachers.
But it means that the cuts that schools had been anticipating, including larger class sizes and fewer electives will occur.
There will still be less teachers working in Wake this fall than compared to last school year. That includes the 1,496 employees who weren't automatically rehired when their contracts expired June 30.
While Wake has rehired nearly 600 of the terminating-contract employees, it's iffy they'll be able to bring back all 1,496 of them.
Stephen Gainey, asst. supt. for human resources, said they likely won't know how many of the terminating-contract employees are rehired until after the 10th day of traditional-calendar schools in September.
Gainey will update the staffing situation at 9 a.m. today at a joint meeting of the school board's finance and human resources committees.
With some teachers not coming back, Jennifer Lanane, president of Wake NCAE, is urging Wake to consider using federal stimulus money to pay for salaries to retain staff. That's an idea being floated by Gov. Beverley Perdue to save teacher positions across the state.
Lanane said she made her case Monday to Wake Supt. Del Burns, who is apparently reluctant to use the stimulus money, which goes away in two years, to pay for existing positions.
Comments
We're sunk
Wed, 08/12/2009 - 11:27 — kmisegadesThe press has yet to report that Perdue signed a budget that increases the state's highest marginal income take rate to 10.75%, a 40% increase over last year. This makes NC the state with the 2nd highest income tax, ahead of even CA and NY and behind only Hawaii. If he mass exodus of businesses and high-income residents from CA and NY is any indication, NC will become an even less attractive place to live for those who create most new jobs and pay the bulk of all taxes. This will of course trickle down to all departments, in particular education. Goodbye, NC future.
We're in SUCH "good" shape
Wed, 08/12/2009 - 09:09 — g88ky07that our school is now telling us they've been approved to hire ONE more teacher for our grade level. They're going to take a class of 27-29 and split them up, now that we're well into the year and friendships have been formed, and separate the kids AGAIN and end up with what, 14 or so in each class? Good for class size, bad for children who will once again be removed from their friends. This is what happens at under capacity FYR schools in district 2!
I'm thankful for the "good" shape though! ;c )