Budget-driven personnel shifts pressure districts

08-30-2011

By Sean Cavanagh/Education Week

When the budget-cutting ended this year in one rural North Texas school district, the people-moving began. Forced to chop its total staff to 55 employees from 64, the Perrin-Whitt Consolidated Independent school system went the route of many districts across the country: It made the majority of its reductions by encouraging early retirements and not filling open positions. But then the 377-student school system had to cover the assignments of the people who had left. And doing so required some imagination. A retired elementary school principal was replaced by a counselor. The counselor was replaced by a middle school English teacher. The middle school teacher was replaced by a 5th grade teacher. And on it went. Nationwide, districts of all sizes are making significant cuts to personnel through layoffs, or, as is the case in Perrin-Whitt, through attrition. (more...)

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