With a unanimous 6-0 vote, the Oak Hill United School Corp. board of trustees adopted Superintendent Joel Martin’s request to notify 11 teachers of possible contract eliminations at the end of this school year.
"This is absolutely no fun, hard on everyone and disappointing, but it is a reality," Martin said.
This decision comes after a great amount of consideration and discussions between the board and the administration.
"We’ve cut all the fluff out of the budget," board President Dana Biggs said. "Now we have to do things that hurt."
The board is looking to be more conservative because the district has already lost $326,922 for the 2010 calendar year and is expecting more loss in revenue for the year, Martin said.
This step in the more conservative direction was by approving the 11 Reduction In Force notifications teachers will soon receive. These reductions are estimated to save $588,000 based on 2009-10 salary and benefits. However, these savings do not reflect unemployment, retirements, resignations and increased grade level sections, according to a presentation given by Martin at the March 23 board meeting.
Six elementary and special education teachers, three secondary teachers and two music teachers, which will only be partial reductions, will receive the notifications.
None of the teachers notified were tenure teachers. The decisions were based around seniority, Biggs said.
The decision to request and approve RIFs was also solely based on financial and enrollment information. None of the teachers are receiving notification of a possible contract non-renewal based on performance, Martin said.
Although the decision is based around finances and enrollment Martin said he, the board members and staff are worried about larger class sizes, but if they reach too high, more class sections will be added.
Consolidation of elementary schools is also something that has been brought up, which is why an elementary study is being conducted, but as of now, Martin said elementary school consolidations would not save any teaching jobs because of the finances and enrollment.
Projected enrollment for the 2010-2011 school year is down 33 students and 10 for tuition students, Martin said.
While Martin said the enrollment of tuition students is looking up, the district still does not have the 40 tuition student enrollment gain as last year. There are currently 83 tuition students at Oak Hill, Martin said.
However, the district could also see a loss in revenue regarding tuition students if they decide after July 1 to not charge tuition fees on out-of-district students.
It was approved by the Indiana School Board Association that as of July 1 Indiana school corporations do not have to charge out-of-district students tuition fees.
While this is a new concept, Martin informed the board so they could start thinking about their options, but he warned them that if the district did not charge the tuition students fees this year, the district would have been at a loss of an additional $21,000.
"We gain a lot by having 83 tuition students," he said.