School To Review Administrative Positions

SEBRING - Creating a smaller budget, due to reduced state funding, should not be done by eliminating teaching positions, School Board of Highlands County members said Tuesday.

To provide time for more discussion, the board discussed tabling the reappointment roster - the listing of teachers and administrators who will have jobs with the district in 2008-09. But with the contract year ending June 30 and the next scheduled school board meeting on July 8, that would have left a gap where employees would not have a job.

The board approved the instructional (teachers) reappointment roster, but tabled the administrative reappointment roster for further discussion.

A Special School Board Meeting was scheduled for 2 p.m., Friday to consider the superintendent's administrative recommendations.

In April, Superintendent Wally Cox recommended cutting 32 teaching positions at schools and an overall reduction of 45 teaching positions.

School Board Vice Chairman Andy Tuck said a recent newspaper report stated that 45 teaching positions were cut.

Presiding over the meeting, in Chairman J. Ned Hancock's absence, Tuck said he did not remember voting to cut positions.

The district is spending millions of dollars on classrooms so it doesn't make sense to reduce the number of teachers, he said.

School Board Member Wally Randall said it was strange reading in the paper that decisions have been made that haven't been made.

Superintendent Wally Cox was not present at the meeting, Assistant Superintendent of Business/Operations Mike Averyt said Cox will give the board a budget update on Friday.

The 2008-09 budget is not balanced yet, $7 million dollars has to be cut from somewhere, he added. Salary and benefits make up said "I don't know what the answer is folks."

Tuck said, "If we decide we are not going to cut 45 positions it will have to be made up somewhere else."