500 CMS teachers to get preliminary layoff notices

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500 CMS teachers to get preliminary layoff notices

By Glenn Burkins – May 12, 2010

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About 500 CMS teachers will get preliminary layoff notices today.

The notices are the latest move by the school board to prepare employees for anticipated cuts next school year.

Although board members approved a 2010-2011 budget Tuesday night that requests $15.5 in additional funding from Mecklenburg County, the request was mainly symbolic.

Faced with a budget crunch of their own, county officials have told CMS to prepare for cuts of up to $20.7 million next school year. When anticipated state cuts are added, the district could find itself with $78 million less than it’s current $1.1 billion budget.

The board also voted to:
Eliminate CMS-TV, with about $350,000 going to save about seven teacher jobs.

Save $1.3 million by requiring students pay fees for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams.

According to the Charlotte observer, 170 teachers will lose their jobs because of low job ratings and/or lack of proper licenses. Another 20 in that category would have gotten layoff notices but have already resigned. Also getting preliminary notices are 240 teachers who are working on short-term contracts and 99 whose skills don't match any available jobs. The 99 could still be placed if jobs open up.

Layoffs would not be final until a board vote scheduled for June.

The budget was approved 6-3, with board members Kaye McGarry, Richard McElrath and Joyce Waddell voting no.

McElrath and Waddell, the only African Americans on the board, have opposed a move that would lump the district’s high-poverty schools into two “central” districts. All other schools would be grouped based on geography.

McElrath and Waddell have said the plan amounts to racial segregation. School officials, however, say the plan will allow administrators to aim resources at the schools most in need.