Discussed for weeks, layoffs for the 2010-11 school year became a reality last week for Cobleskill-Richmondville.
School officials notified about a dozen teachers and non-teaching staff Thursday that their positions have been eliminated or their hours reduced.
Besides the layoffs, school board members and administrators are planning not to fill several vacant positions.
The layoffs and unfilled positions will save about $700,000, Superintendent Lynn Macan said in an e-mail interview.
“This has been a well-considered and still painful process in which we had to make difficult decisions,” Ms. Macan said.
Board members struggled for weeks to trim costs in the face of the recession. The recent cuts bring the draft ’10-11 budget to $36 million, which is $800,000 less than the 2008-09 budget last year.
As it stands, Ms. Macan said, the budget “enables us to continue to fulfill our mission of providing strong education for all of our students while recognizing the economic struggles of our community.”
Teaching positions to be cut include one high school English, one high school social studies, one middle school science and one educational technologist. There will be part-time reductions for positions in technology, family and consumer science, middle school keyboarding and driver education.
Two retirements are affected. A middle school social studies retirement won’t be filled and an art vacancy will be filled with a half-time teacher.
C-R is also not replacing an elementary special education teacher who resigned.
In administration, the position of Bonnie Tryon, principal for instructional planning and support, won’t be filled. Ms. Tryon is retiring.
In the business office, the position of coordinator of special projects, a new position, won’t be filled.
Among support staff, officials eliminated an engineer mechanic, a full-time teaching assistant and a part-time custodian. A full-time custodian was reduced to half-time.
The positions were identified through meetings with administrators, department heads, teachers who are team leaders and the school board, Ms. Macan said.
Other cuts include the elimination of boys’ varsity and junior varsity volleyball and boys’ and girls’ basketball at the freshman and seventh-grade levels.
Those cuts, and others in student activities, save about $25,000, Ms. Macan said.
As far as affecting students, the cuts eliminate only driver education and freshman and seventh-grade basketball, Ms. Macan said.
Class sizes are likely to be larger in the high school in some courses but will remain similar to this year in the elementary and middle schools.
And while officials cut, reduced or left unfilled some positions, there may be more to come, probably in support staff, Ms. Macan said.
Further cuts depend on state aid. If Governor David Paterson only delays aid, there won’t be more cuts; but if the state reduces aid further, “it is likely there would be more layoffs,” Ms. Macan said.
“We continue to be concerned about the moves at the state level, the current withholding of aid for some period of time, with rumblings that it may not be provided at all,” she added.
The cuts made last week bring C-R close to the budget the board will adopt later this month, Ms. Macan said.
The board is leaning towards a tax-levy increase of 2.49 percent, she said. Even with last week’s cuts, the combination of decreasing state aid and rising costs in health insurance and retirement contributions make even a small increase likely.