Newton-Conover City Schools will cut 13 teaching and 10 teacher assistant positions for the 2009-10 school year.
"We looked to cut retirees who were re-hires first, because they have income and retirement benefits," said Sylvia White, personnel director for Newton-Conover City Schools.
White said eliminating positions filled by re-hires covers four positions — one at Newton-Conover Middle, one at South Newton Elementary and two at Thornton Elementary.
An additional employee retired, one resigned and two were not rehired because of their performance, said Barry Redmond, Newton-Conover City Schools' superintendent. Five other employees were not rehired through the school system's reduction-in-force policy.
White said the five teachers are probationary status and have only been with the system for one or two years.
"We look at performance first and do non-renewals based on that," she said. "Then we looked at who's highly qualified and fully-licensed, and who was last hired into the system."
Redmond hoped those teachers wouldn't leave the system for good.
"When things ease up, those people will be offered jobs first," he said.
Redmond said the decision on how many teacher assistant positions to cut was based on what they thought the school system's allotment would be next year.
"We calculated our salaries, the actual cost of the teacher assistants and the allotments," Redmond said. "We then looked at performance issues and experience."
The cost-cutting moves are saving the state $260,000 in teacher assistant salaries, and $705,000 in the 13 teachers' salaries, said Kathy Carswell, finance director for Newton-Conover City Schools.
These efforts to trim the budget don't include other measures the school system has taken to save money by not filling positions when people have left, Redmond said. That includes an assistant principal position at Newton-Conover High School, reducing an assistant principal position at Conover School, not having a public information officer for the school system, not filling the superintendent's secretary's position and a technology technician position.
"Principals are doing more work than ever before because of cuts elsewhere in the system," Redmond said. "Three assistant principals also won't have employment during summer school, because there won't be K-8 summer school this year."
He said it's been difficult trying to make cuts as the North Carolina General Assembly tries to balance a budget facing a $3 billion shortfall. The state has discussed increasing class sizes by two students per grade and eliminating teacher assistants in the third grade as two options to save money.
"I don't see any way that the state's going to avoid the new teacher assistant formula, and I regret that," Redmond said. "We won't have teacher assistants in the third grade."
He added that if the state changes the class sizes, he doesn't think it will impact Newton-Conover City Schools too much.
"We've been very fortunate to have low class sizes," he said. "We'll have an additional two to three kids in a class, but it will still be reasonable. I'm just extremely sad that we have to do this."
Hickory Public Schools announced its cuts on Monday, eliminating 30 teaching positions and 15 to 20 other staff positions. Catawba County Schools is expected to make a decision on its cuts next week.
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