Retirements and buyouts lessened the blow slightly, but up to 20 Kokomo-Center Schools teachers are set to lose their jobs, with the KCS board voting to ratify the cuts Monday.
The board notified 26 teachers in May they likely will not have jobs in the fall due to state budget cuts.
Monday, KCS superintendent Chris Himsel read the list of 20 teachers who will have their indefinite contracts canceled June 18, “due to a justifiable decrease in teaching positions.”
“It is extremely difficult to lose highly passionate, energetic and committed educators, and unfortunately there are teachers all across the state that have what it takes to be a great teacher and who are being laid off,” Himsel said after Monday’s special board meeting.
Himsel blamed declining enrollment and education funding cuts mandated by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels for the teacher cuts.
Districts across the state are laying off teachers after Daniels cut $300 million from K-12 education funding earlier this year.
The governor said declining state tax revenues from the recession have forced the budget cuts. School funding makes up just over half of state spending.
Himsel said the cuts were made according to provisions in the teachers’ collective bargaining agreement, and were based on a combination of seniority, teaching caseloads and licensure factors.
There were no comments as the board voted 6-0 in favor of the cuts.
Enrollment at KCS has dropped for three straight years, triggering an automatic funding cut from the new state school funding formula.
Himsel said the district’s average daily membership has dropped from 6,604 in 2008 to 6,364 this year. He said he expects the district will lose somewhere between 50 and 80 students this fall.
While some school districts traditionally issue “reduction in force” notices to teachers each spring simply in order to have budget flexibility in the fall, Himsel said he’s been told KCS has issued RIF notices very rarely.
Teachers were issued layoff notices in the wake of consolidating Haworth and Kokomo high schools, and during a consolidation in the 1990s, he said.
Whether any of the 20 teachers will be called back will be incoming superintendent Jeff Hausman’s decision, Himsel said.
The only school program to be cut as a result of the teacher reduction will be machine trades, which did not have enough interested students to justify continuing, Himsel said.