Jackson County School District cuts 76 positions
— Mark Skinner / Floridan
Rachel Probel and Alyssa Kent read in the Marianna High School Library Friday. The school district said 12.5 staff positions at the high school will be eliminated in the upcoming school year, due to budget constraints.
Floridan Staff Writer
Published: April 22, 2009
Jackson County School District officials have announced how many positions they plan to eliminate through attrition and layoffs for the 2009-2010 school year.
From a 2008 total of 1,006 instructional and non-instructional positions, a total of 76 positions will be eliminated, according to to school district documents.
“People make up better than 80 percent of our budget, which is extremely tight at this time. We have a very conservative management system in place and we’re doing this to make sure we’re operating within our means,” Superintendent Lee Miller said.
Miller noted that federal stimulus money made it possible for the district to keep 19 positions — about 10 at the elementary level and nine at the high school level — that would have been eliminated otherwise.
Deputy Superintendent Larry Moore said 27 of the 76 positions are vacant and will not be filled. He couldn’t say off-hand how many of the 27 vacancies were instructional or non-instructional.
The district’s current instructional staff of 596 will be reduced by 41 for the coming school year.
Non-instructional staff of 410 will be reduced by 35.
The exact number of positions that will be eliminated by layoffs was not immediately available.
Miller said staffing is determined by student population projections for the coming school year.
“They’re pretty accurate projections, usually by within 10 or 12 students,” Miller said.
The following are school-by-school totals for staff reduction, with staff totals representing the number of both instructional and non-instructional positions:
• Adult Education — Current staff total: 22. Reduction: 6.
• Cottondale Elementary — Current staff total: 56. Reduction: 6.5.
• Cottondale High — Current staff total: 63. Reduction: 3.
• Family Services Center — Current staff total: 17.5. Reduction: 4.5.
• Golson Elementary — Current staff total: 125. Reduction: 9.
• Graceville Elementary— Current staff total: 50.5. Reduction: Zero. One new instructional and two non-instructional positions have been added.
• Graceville High School — Current staff total: 46.5. Reduction: 4.5.
• Grand Ridge School — Current staff total: 71. Reduction: The instructional staff will be reduced by 4.5. Non-instructional will increase by 1.
• Hope School — Current staff total: 53. Reduction: 1.5.
• Jackson Alternative — Current staff total: 45. Reduction: 2.
• Malone School — Current staff total: 70. Reduction: 3.5.
• Marianna High School — Current staff total: 87. Reduction: 12.5.
• Marianna Middle School — Current staff total: 70. Reduction: 5.
• Riverside Elementary School — Current staff total: 73. Reduction: 2.
• Sneads Elementary School — Current staff total: 62. Reduction: 4.
• Sneads High School — Current staff total: 47. Reduction: Instructional will be reduced by 2. There will be an increase in non-instructional of 0.5.
• Sunland School — Current staff total: 38. Reduction: 9.5.
• Headstart— Current staff total: 9.5. Reduction: None.
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Reader Reactions
Funny how some people revel in the business of others, especially with
little or no concern for the truth. First of all, there have been no
MANDATORY team practices on a Sunday for H.S. baseball. Several of the
players DO take it upon themselves to routinely get together and
practice on Sunday afternoons. Ask your “grandson”, I’m
SURE he knows this.
Second, absent of you being the Time & Attendance clerk at any of the
county schools, I can’t imagine how you would have any facts about the
schedules, hours of work, hours of pay, and/or leave of county
employees. How assuming of you to immediately accuse them of being
‘on the clock’ anytime they are off campus during the day, with
no knowledge of what is going on in their lives, no knowledge of
possible arrangements made with their supervisor, etc. Do you know
how many of them take work home every day? Some stay late every
afternoon. Some (in addition to their work day) are also at every
after-hour school function, athletic event, and program with NO
additional pay. Some have been saddled with collateral duties outside
of their job description. I even know of employees that have worked on
Saturday. This is in addition to the FACT that every classroom, every
day, every period DOES in FACT have a teacher and/or employee present.
Let’s not pretend students are left unattended, okay?
Here’s another idea…...Maybe….just MAYBE, the boss GAVE THEM
permission to run to Hardees and the bank! Maybe out of appreciation
for all they do, their boss showed a little leniency and allowed them a
little extra. If a principal wants to allow an employee a little extra
time to run a personal errand, as long as it doesn’t effect the
classroom function, who are we to criticize such gratitude? God knows
they aren’t getting it in pay increases and awards!
It’s funny how quickly people forget the abundance of grace & mercy
extended to them as they criticize and complain when they perceive a
little grace & mercy extended to others. Based on Eddy’s vitriol, you
would think school board employees were stealing money from a church,
playing on the internet all day, or something horrid like that…....
After talking to someone a little more educated in business, I’m assuming that the funds for the weight room are seperate from saleries. But that still doesn’t make it right. I’ll have to agree with you Eddy. When I was in school, which was NOT that long ago, several office and adminstrative staff would be gone all hours of the day. I was a serious skipper during my senior year, and I saw most of the admin/office staff around Sneads more during the day than I did at school. I was very upset with most of the staff and could not believe that they were allowed to keep their jobs. With the exception of a few teachers(Stoutamire, Parish, Parker, Commander, Evy, just to name a few) that made HS wonderful, my experience was not a good one. Thankfully, Sneads has more capable people there now. My brothers complain now about having to tuck their shirts in and not being able to go to their trucks at lunch. How horrible right? Now I laugh when they call and complain.
They not even decent babysitters. Even babysitters have to stay on the job, not run all over town, getting money for this and that, talking to the Reagan fellow. My grandson has about 90 to 100 kids in his gym class and all they can do is sit on the bleachers because Blantons boys are practicing. Not legal at all by high school rules but it happens year round just like the baseball fellow that calls himself a coach having them boys out there practicing on Easter Sunday and every other Sunday. Never should be allowed to happen.
Lay off all the teachers in the sports depeartment, stop all sport activties such as basketball, football, baseball, and get rid of some of them gloryfied babysitters
I can’t understand why some of the cuts aren’t being made inside the School Board office - (the administrative level) that is where the higher salaries are.
I read your story and one thing stuck out like a soar thumb. Wasn’t any cuts at the county office. How is tarnation can you Mr. Miller justify all those positions up there at the salaries they make? You got folks all over town all day long supposedly on the clock, they at this school and that school and they think as long as they at a school they shouldn’t have to take time off but everybody else does. I know from what my niece says a couple of ladies up there are at every event their kids are in and hardly ever in that office all day and for sure not on time. Same could be said about a couple of other schools too that have folks running all over, going to college classes during the day, at Hardees at 8 in then morning. Time clocks would stop some of that foolishness.
Let me try to make some sense from this…...the Jackson County School Board can find money for a weight room for ONE high school with a price tag of over $800,000….but the budget is crunched so much that all these positions have to be cut?
No, no sense can be made of this.
I understand that everyone is having it hard. However, I find it hard to believe that the school board is justified in cutting out more instructional staff. The staff at most schools are streched as it is, without unfilled positions, and to decrease that by any means is horrible for teachers and students. When I went to Sneads High School(2005), we could barely keep a spanish teacher. When we did have one, we had to share her with Grand Ridge High School. Most of our classes were overcrowded and several students struggled. No offense to anyone, but why is a new weight room being built when there is not enough money to keep instructional staff around?? I know that the kids need a weight room, but it is more important that they get the proper education. Now that I live away from Jackson County, I see the value of a good education. Even though I did well in all of my classes, my A-/B+ education is equvilant to an C/D one here in California. Another thing done here that would work out well for all involved is that most of the gyms offer help for students and/or classes. I’m sure that several of the gyms in Marianna would help out so that the already limited staff would not have to give up their positions.
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