PENDLETON — South Madison Community Schools will cut its auto mechanics program after the board of trustees voted 3-2 Thursday night to scrap a program that its teacher and students and parents last month fought to salvage from a list of budget cuts.
The cut, which will save the school system $34,000, came after board members laid off eight other teachers. But board member Mike Gaskill asked the board to vote separately on auto mechanics teacher Mike Morgan and cutting the program.
“We’re turning kids away from a class that they could come out of high school and put bread on the table,” Gaskill said. “I don’t think we’ve exhausted every opportunity to save this program.”
Superintendent Tom Warmke said that had auto mechanics not been on the list of cuts, it was likely that language arts programs would have been targeted for reductions.
“We’re going to be eliminating at least 25 positions,” Warmke said. “When you get to this number of cuts, there are no good choices.”
Warmke said it was possible that South Madison and other Indiana school systems could be looking at another round of cuts later in the year.
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