Southwest School Corp.’s superintendent says teacher layoffs for next school year are a certainty, but an official decision on the issue won’t come until April.
After a planned deal to give retiring teachers a buyout package was dropped by the SWSC Board of Trustees last week, five of eight announced retirees decided to reverse their decisions. That development and continued funding concerns mean SWSC will need to make an undetermined number of staff cuts, according to Superintendent Walter Hoke.
“It’s a question of where and how many,” Hoke said. “It’s awful that we would have to make cuts, but we’re looking at not only positions, but programs.”
The first step toward teacher layoffs — officially known as reductions in force, or RIFs — will likely come Thursday, when the school board will hold a vote on giving Hoke permission to send out preliminary RIF notices.
Hoke attributed the need for layoffs to funding cuts from the state. SWSC had more than $500,000 cut from its budget in 2010 and is still dealing with that hit, he said.
The SWSC board voted to issue RIFs for four teachers in April 2010, but was able to hire those teachers back in the following months by choosing not to replace two retirees and securing grant funding.
Copyright Kelk Publishing