Charles City Board of Education votes to cut teaching positions
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(ABC 6 News) – The Charles City Board of Education voted 3-2 to cut teaching positions from its schools Monday evening.
The board chose an amended version of what they call ‘Option B.’
The board was supposed to vote on which positions to cut back in December, but with lots of feedback from the community, they decided to table the vote, try and come up with some solutions that didn’t involve cutting teachers, and try again.
RELATED: Charles City Board of Education votes to table proposed job cuts
As we have reported, the Charles City Community School District needed to find $750,000 in cost savings to bounce back after declining enrollment and other issues affecting the district.
The Charles City Board of Education will once again discuss job cuts at their meeting Monday evening.
Along with many money-saving tactics such as adjusting bus routes and eliminating summer workers, Option B removes a middle school leadership teaching position, a business teacher position, a music teacher position, and a coordinator for at-risk students.
Board president Pat Rottinghaus said during the meeting that the board was trying to impact students as little as possible.
“It’s just hard. I felt like I was between a rock and a hard place. I never wanted to have to cut deep enough that it was affecting my colleagues, my former colleagues, and my students that I always advocated for,” Rottinghaus explained.
But students in the public comment portion say even losing one teacher will have a big impact.
“It is not the existence of a classroom. It is the teacher. And that goes for all ages all classes all schools, everywhere.”
The board also passed an amendment to Option B.
This saved the high school assistant principal position from being cut.
Rather, the board will re-examine the budget in the coming months after these changes are made. At that time, they’ll determine if they need to cut a building administrator or not.
The board said they’ll look for more ways to save money as they go.
The amendment added in there left some wiggle room for any district retirements or any state legislation that might come down and impact local schools.
You can watch the full board meeting below: