Tony Bennett's statement back in December probably would have been true if Gov. Mitch Daniels hadn't forced schools to cut their budgets by 4.5 percent.
Since first announcing that cuts to K-12 education budgets would be necessary, Bennett and Daniels have insisted that schools would not have to cut teachers. A "citizens checklist" was developed to guide parents, patrons and school leaders on where to find savings.
But the bad news just keeps piling up for local school corporations because of cuts to their state-supported general fund. Our schools had, in many cases, already done many of the things on the checklist prior to the cuts. They've been left scrambling:
* Elkhart Community Schools laid off six teachers last week to help make up for a $3.9 million loss in revenue. Granted, it was a relatively small number. And it was partly because ECS administrators took pay cuts of 4 percent, with Superintendent Mark Mow taking a 5 percent cut. School board members also took a 5 percent cut. But it's still a loss of six teachers.
* Fairfield, which had to trim its budget by $500,000, is parting with six teaching assistants, the junior-senior high school dean of students and an assistant band director.
* Concord cut 11 full-time and part-time teachers and reduced the contracts of five others. An early retirement plan should save the district almost $430,000 this year and $850,000 in 2011. The district had to cut $1.3 million from its budget.
* In the Baugo schools, eight teachers offered to take early retirement to save $400,000 of the $725,000 of the savings needed in the system's state-supported general fund. The corporation also closed Jimtown North (the former Harley Holben) Elementary School.
* Middlebury administrators took a 1 percent pay cut and then cut certain freshman and middle-school athletics and extracurricular activities. Parents have since formed a booster club to raise the money to save the sports.
School officials have worked hard to dig deep and find cuts while preserving educational quality and teacher jobs. It hasn't been easy. But Daniels and Bennett gave many school corporations an impossible task. Despite what they said, some teacher layoffs were inevitable.
If it hadn't been for the foresight, persistence and financial savvy of local school districts -- faculty, administrators and patrons alike -- it could have been much worse.