He was 'let go' from his job

Robby Fulton recently lost his job as a teacher's assistant at Startown Elementary School.

Budget constraints forced school systems across the state to cut positions in record numbers. For Catawba County Schools, this meant eliminating 69 teaching and 113 teachers' assistant positions, as well as several other staff and administrative positions.

Fulton, 30, was a teacher's assistant for the fourth grade at Startown Elementary for two years, helping all five classes in that grade. He also helped with the drama club and Startown Journal, the on-air program students host and broadcast at school.

Fulton said he was first warned some positions may be cut in November or December.

"We were told that they would be looking at longevity, dual employment, such as teachers' assistants who have bus licenses, and if you're highly qualified," he said.

Fulton received a surprise honor he thought would help him keep his job: The other teachers' assistants at Startown Elementary elected him 2009 Teacher Assistant of the Year.

In the end, though, nine teachers' assistant positions at Startown Elementary were eliminated, including Fulton's.

"We were told on the last day of school, right before lunch. The principal, Mrs. (Barbara) Bell, had the letters, and she was in tears when she told me," he said. "She said I had good evaluations and she didn't want to let me go."

Fulton said although he hates to leave the school he's come to regard as a family, it's not necessarily a bad thing. He plans to return to school himself, to become a teacher.

"I want to come back when I can have a classroom of my own," Fulton said. "Teaching's in my blood. It's not work to me, it's something I have to do."

He said after he gets his teaching license, he'd like to teach fourth grade. As a teacher's assistant for that grade, Fulton already has experience with the age group and said it's the perfect age to work with.

"I love fourth-graders. They're completely independent," he said. "They're sweet and cute, and after Christmas break, they have an attitude and hormones. I like being there for setting the boundaries and guidelines, for setting the foundation."

After the last day of school, Fulton came home and immediately got on the Internet to update his application for federal student aid and to get information to go back to school.

"I contacted CVCC and hit the ground running," he said.

After Fulton completed the preliminary work to go back to college, he admits he took time to mourn the loss of his job.

"I spent a day and sat around in my jammers all day, watching daytime TV," he said.

It didn't take him long to snap out of it, though. Fulton contacted Startown's principal to let her know he would be interested if a position opens up again. He wrote Catawba County Schools' Superintendent Tim Markley an e-mail, thanking him for the opportunity, and telling him he understood it was a difficult decision. He sent his name to other departments to tell them he's available. And he's ready to go back to school at Catawba Valley Community College this fall. He was approved for a Pell Grant.

Fulton is staying involved at Startown Elementary this summer. He's volunteering at the Startown Summer Library program and is making calls for the PTO.

"I still stay involved with the school because I want to go back there in a few years as a teacher," he said. "The recession will be over in a few years, and hopefully I can get hired there."

Fulton said he loves Startown because, although it's a school and is about education, it's also a family.

"You live with these people for three-fourths of the year," he said. "You see them grow up, you become part of their family."

Fulton is just one of a number of school employees laid off. Julie Stanley, a teacher at Newton-Conover City Schools' Shuford Elementary School, was let go at the end of this school year.

Stanley, 30, received her master's degree in August, and was hired in September to teach third grade.

"I was hired in September, when they saw how big the third-grade class was going to be," she said.

Like Fulton, Stanley received an early warning she might be laid off.

"I got my first warning at Easter," she said.

Until then, the tentative plan had been for Stanley to move up to fourth grade with the class. Stanley said the Shuford Elementary principal had no way of knowing the state budget or the resulting school system cuts would be this bad.

During the second-to-last week of school, Stanley learned her position had been eliminated.

"The superintendent met with me and told me," she said. "It was very respectable the way they did it.

He met with me in person, and talked to me about cashing in my retirement if I needed to. I was told who was let go was based on hire date, and I was the last one hired at the school."

Stanley said she and her husband looked at relocating to Tennessee since North Carolina is on a hiring freeze. She even applied for several teaching positions there. In the end, though, they decided against it.

"We have four kids and would have to switch their schools, and we'd be in the same boat we're in now, because my husband wouldn't have a job," she said.

Instead, Stanley is hoping Newton-Conover City Schools will rehire a few of the teachers they laid off when school starts in the fall.

"They can't make it on the teachers they have now, there are too many kids," she said.

Stanley's hoping she'll be rehired at Shuford Elementary, since that's where three of her four children attend.

If she's not rehired as a teacher, Stanley said she'll go back to what she did before: substitute teaching. She's already contacted Newton-Conover City Schools about being put on the sub list.

"If fall comes and I'm not rehired, they'll put me on the sub list," Stanley said. "I used to do it for Catawba County Schools and Newton-Conover. I'll substitute as much as I can."

She said she's not mad at Shuford Elementary, or even Newton-Conover City Schools.

"I'm upset, like everyone else, at the governor calling the shots. Of course, she's just cleaning up Mike Easley's mess," Stanley said. "And central office took the hit before the schools did. The superintendent is answering his own phone. They didn't fill his secretary's position. They're trying to keep as many teachers employed as they can."