RALEIGH -- Hundreds of Wake County teachers face being out of a job at the end of the school year because of a hiring freeze announced this week to cope with state budget cuts.
Citing $20 million in new state cuts, Wake school administrators implemented Monday a hiring freeze for the 2010-11 school year for all positions, except for teachers in special education and English as a Second Language. The hiring freeze means hundreds of teachers who were hired on one-year contracts that expire June 30 can’t be brought back for this fall until the freeze is lifted.
Jennifer Lanane, president of the Wake county chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators, said the hiring freeze will directly impact 800 teachers on one-year contracts. Lanane said many of these teachers are the same ones who were not automatically rehired at the end of last June. Wake rehired around 1,000 of the 1,500 school employees, many of whom were teachers, whose contracts weren’t renewed at the end of the 2008-09 school year.
“It’s an awful place for those people to be in,” Lanane said.
At a school board committee meeting this afternoon, school administrators also unveiled other proposed cuts to deal with the $20 million in new state cuts. The new round of $20 million in cuts proposed today includes:
* Reduce pay for coaches and teachers who do extra duties by 30 percent
- $2.2 million
* Change funding formula for teacher assistants — $2.8 million
* Reduce funding for instructional supplies — $3 million
* Reduce funding for career and technical education supplies — $1.1
million
* Reduce funding for career and technical education positions — $1.6
million
* Change funding formula for media specialists — $2.9 million
* Change funding formulas for teachers— $3.2 million
The latest slash in state money comes on top of $20 million in cuts that were already factored in because of state and county revenue shortfalls.
School administrators have warned that the new round of cuts will directly impact the classroom, as demonstrated by the hiring freeze and the related proposed cutbacks.
The first round of $20 million in cuts was steered away from the classroom as much as possible. Included in those cuts are the layoffs of more than 70 employees.
