APS joins the club: May cut 475 jobs to deal with budget
Atlanta joined other metro school systems in announcing plans to lay off employees to cope with a worsening budget crisis.
Gwinnett is planning for 585 fewer employees, Cobb is planning for 250 fewer, Henry is planning to cut 200, DeKalb is planning for 133 fewer, and Clayton and Fayette might have to work with roughly 100 fewer employees.
The AJC reports that the APS board is looking at cutting up to 475 jobs, including about 230 teachers, 90 custodians and 14 bus drivers and transportation staffers. Some of the layoffs are a result of a recent school redistricting, others because of declining revenue.
“We’re going to rethink almost everything we do, from the classroom to central offices,” said Chuck Burbridge, APS’ chief financial officer.
Revenue from property taxes has dropped by $119 million since 2008. Over the same period, the budget for the 49,000-student district has decreased by $56 million.
Almost every department was asked to cut spending by 10 percent in order to accommodate a leaner proposed budget of $564.8 million. Employees will again have two furlough days, and there will not be raises or cost-of-living increases.
Like most school systems, the district spends most of its money — 53.6 percent — on salaries. Benefits are the second-highest expense and make up more than 20 percent of the budget. That’s why APS leaders say it’s impossible to make cuts without cutting people.
“We will have to reduce labor force to achieve this,” Burbridge said.
APS hasn’t yet decided who will get a pink slip. The budget is expected to be finalized in early June and the layoffs executed June 30. Some positions will be eliminated as a result of attrition or as educators implicated in a cheating scandal leave the district.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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100 comments Add your comment
CLLcrew
May 15th, 2012
11:14 am
First of all Central office employees are being affected at a high rate. We have gone through a reorg and a lot of individuals lost their job. The problem is that you have a lot of underqualified overpaid people in the Central office and in the district. The people who really do the work are not compensated including the teachers but we are the first ones to be cut.
mogrunt
May 15th, 2012
11:16 am
I think it would be interesting to have the class sizes tracked next school year by subject, school, & system to see if equitable class sizes result from all these cuts. Number of athletic coaches & assistants per 100 students and also number of school/district administrators per 100 students by school & system would also be interesting too I’ll bet.
Attentive Parent
May 15th, 2012
11:17 am
The lack of admin cuts is particularly outrageous as APS has the most expensive ratio of admin expenses to students in the state.
$3000 per student for admin and no cuts there. Public Education has become an expensive boondoggle for administrators at the expense of teachers, students, and taxpayers.
We have too many administrators with track records of consistent mediocrity getting promotions and absurd salaries because of what they are willing to advocate doing to students, teachers, and taxpayers.
Glad I can afford to send my daughter to pvt school
May 15th, 2012
11:19 am
Maureen Downey…It is my understanding that the Maynard Jackson family provides the food service for APS & that they cost $1,000,000.00 more. Can you varify this. Just like the airport the Jackson is in every pocket of the City of Atlanta.
cris
May 15th, 2012
11:32 am
Massive cuts are the symptom, not the cause; the cause is our State Legislature’s inability to leave educating children to the people who have been trained to do so, are experienced in doing so and, if asked, would be more than happy to point out/correct the areas that are under our control to change to benefit children. I don’t know about other systems, but there is no more fat to be cut from the system that I work in (don’t know about central office, so I’ll keep my mouth shut on that one, but rumors on the street aren’t…flattering).
Frustrated Taxpayer
May 15th, 2012
11:37 am
First of all Central office employees are being affected at a high rate. We have gone through a reorg and a lot of individuals lost their job. The problem is that you have a lot of underqualified overpaid people in the Central office and in the district.
@CLLCrew: You sound like a perfect example of the problem.
Also, that reorganization was a joke. Many people were reorganized into the same role. With fewer teachers and students, you don’t need so many HR employees spending their days posting Facebook updates. You don’t need a full-time Communications employee who only tweets and blogs for APS. You don’t need employees who cannot send an email with recalling it due to grammatical errors.
Trim the fat.
Dekalb taxpayer
May 15th, 2012
11:39 am
I agree with Tony. The recession has been going on for years. Why didn’t the “leaders” see this coming? Why are they so far behind on reducing expenses in all of the metro counties?
Entitlement Society
May 15th, 2012
11:49 am
@ High School Public Teacher –
Whoa there, yourself – behind the computer screen you seem to think you know everything about me and what I have done (or in your fictitious case, what I have not done, to help my child’s school)!
I never said it wasn’t my choice to pay twice for a quality education for my children. That’s precisely why we choose to do it, for our children. To your statements, “You made a choice where to live and anyone with an ounce of sense would take the local schools into consideration on that decision. You made a choice to not try to improve your local school but rather pay the extra amount to send them to private school.” Yes, we selected a house in the Sarah Smith district, one of the highest perfoming elementary schools in APS, so again we did our research. We suffered through a year of a teachers with poor grammar, huge class size, three teachers assigned in and out of the class over just a 4 month period, student erroneously put on the bus, poor administrative communication, abysmal parent participation (thank goodness I had flexibility to give my time because other parents certainly didn’t/couldn’t), for gosh sakes in a Buckhead neighborhood only 30% gave towards the teacher gifts! So don’t you dare lecture me on being involved in a public school.
As for running, yes, I am running! And fast. Far, far away from the failure of APS. I now spend my volunteer hours at a school that cares, spends its resources wisely, and knows how to balance a budget instead of stretching its hand out for more, more more, while producing well-educated, independent citizens.
P.S. FYI – Venting comments here is a stress release. This is an entertainment blog, not some scientific forum. Good day.
Ronin
May 15th, 2012
12:08 pm
Entitlement, you are indeed wise and have suffered enough at the hands of the draconian leadership at APS.
Voting with your feet is effective way to change district schools, especially after November.
MARSHALL
May 15th, 2012
12:12 pm
The problem with cutting the central office personnel is that they interact with each other fairly often. When cuts need to be made it is always easier to cut teachers, cafeteria, custodial, and transportation areas.
I don’t know where public education went off the rails in the metro Atlanta area, but it surely has. Unfortunately, there is no end in sight to the low test scores, low staff morale, overly administered centeral offices, inept school boards and other defeciencies which have plagued the public schools for far too long.
For many years the metro area schools were a crown jewel in Georgia’s educational system however, those days are long gone. A sad state of affairs.
Ronin
May 15th, 2012
12:18 pm
Yep Marshall you’re right.
Where is Gordon Gekko when you need him? Oops, he’ll be here in November.
Glad I can afford to send my daughter to pvt school
May 15th, 2012
12:20 pm
Maureen Downey…It is my understanding that the Maynard Jackson family provides the food service for APS & that they cost $1,000,000.00 more. Can you varify this. Just like the airport the Jackson family is in every pocket of the City of Atlanta.
chillywilly
May 15th, 2012
12:26 pm
I don’t understand why Erroll Davis won’t cut some of those jobs in the central office. Finance is extremely top heavy with three people (CFO, Deputy CFO & Controller) salaries totaling approximately $475,000 or more. This is a waste of taxpayers’ money. Only one of these positions is needed. There is more waste in the central office than a local landfill. Erroll Davis, cut some of these overpaid worthless folks and leave the little people alone!
Sandy Springs parent
May 15th, 2012
12:31 pm
@Entitlement Society, I am at the Sandy Springs School (Middle School) right above you. I also bought in to what was suppose to be the best district. While the middle school is way better than the Award Winning High School with it’s hard drugs, oxy, ambien and herion. Yes, every private school kid that has been kicked out. I don’t currently have the luxury of going elsewhere, I have an ex-husband that thinks child support is a joke. The current child support laws just cause me to waste $3-5,000 to hire a lawyer to get that back, since I have never gotten foodstamps or welfare. I would go to the back of the line without a private lawyer and wait over a year. So I really want my vouchers.
I went yesterday as a chaparone to the Chorus performance at a Buckhead Church. By the behaviour of these 6th, 7th and 8th graders, it appeared that 90% of them had not spent much time in church. Several of them waltz into the sanctuary with Chick Fillet drink cups. We had to tell them you can not eat or drink in church. The teacher, told them to get out the ear buds, this was like school no cell phones or electronic gadgets. I took away 3 cell phones after this. The teacher asked the chaparones to sit amongst the students during the practice to stop them from talking and screwing around during the practice of the different groups. I spent 1.5 hours moving them around, making the worse, sit next to me. Some defiantly try to tell me know at first. I moved kids, White, Black and Hispanic, to the back row with me, or I moved them to another row to sit with another chaparone during this. They were shocked. I also caught a group, who I really suspect was the begining of a female Hispanic gang hanging out in the Bathroom. The second time, I caught just 3 of them in the bathroom, they had the lights off. It was clear to me that they were doing some sort of drug behind the one stall. It wasn’t smoking blunts, I would have smelt that. The girls that I suspected came out looking all dazed, then up on the concert, she was off on every count, she was sweating, kept on moving her hair. It looked like a Janis Joplin or Grace Slick in Concert, and this was a 6th grader.
I also found out during my volunteer time that several of the black families were line skippers. They bring their kids up here to go to school while they work. At least the hispanics live 10 to the old run down apartments in the district.
William Casey
May 15th, 2012
12:37 pm
A MODEST PROPOSAL: Pay ALL administrators on the TEACHER’S SALARY SCALE + per diem for extra days worked over 190. That’s the deal I had when I was Dean at Chattahoochee H.S.
Don’t tell me that such a plan would not attract the “best and the brightest.” Look what paying top-dollar did for the Atlanta School System. My plan could not do worse and would save millions that could be used in the classroom.
Attentive Parent
May 15th, 2012
12:52 pm
Oh SS Parent, you gave just enough info for me to guess the school unless there were multiple chorus concerts in Buckhead last night.
I am genuinely worried that between the poorly understood IB MYP programme, the real meaning of the language in Fulton’s charter, and the announced plans of Fulton’s new super and his obedient minions, things are about to get much worse.
Taking down academic excellence in Fulton so that it becomes no better than its neighbors reminds me of OECD’s work trying to combat tax havens. Instead of noticing businesses and people do not want to locate in countries with confiscatory taxes, OECD is trying to force tax havens to raise their rates.
Fulton was the wrong school district to relocate to for more money unless you are willing to get caught. Unlike those poor Charlotte-Meck parents who never understood why it got so bad, so fast, Fulton parents are waiting and watching. With the script in hand.
Frankie
May 15th, 2012
12:55 pm
@entitlement society….then why bring up the fact that you pay taxes that goes to the school and you pay tuition for private school. So you pay twice is what i believe you said…
@sandy springs parent…wrong blog, the child support, chorus performance is down the street and around the corner….besides what does “black families” being line skippers have to do with anything.
If you are referring to teachers being able to take their school age child to the school where they work to attend school so what….if you don’t like the rule change it….
Entitlement Society
May 15th, 2012
1:14 pm
@ Sandy Springs Parent – it is such a shame that APS allows this behavior in school sponsored activities, whether on campus or not. Trust me, my family is not one who can easily afford private school tuition. It takes a lot of sacrifice, but trust me, it can be done. I urge you to start talking to some of the private schools in the area. All of them offer financial aid and you would be surprised at how many families utilize it. It’s parents like you and me, who are just trying to find a quality, safe school environment for our children. You’ll find the atmosphere refreshing after what it sounds like you’re experiencing.
AlreadySheared
May 15th, 2012
1:29 pm
What’s missing from this story is reporting. AJC seems to lack a reporter with enough financial acumen to dig into APS’ budget and analyze the budget this year as compared to previous years to determine the cause of the shortfall.
I suspect it relates to changes in promulgated by GASB (governmental accounting standards board?)in the past few years requiring governments to properly account for their future retirement and retiree medical obligations. Alas, I will not be finding out whether or not this is true by reading the AJC.
Howard Finkelstein
May 15th, 2012
1:49 pm
Why dont you hear parents screaming? Perhaps the cheating scandal, wasted tax dollars, entriched educrats with nothing to contribute, etc. Root out all the theft, mismanagment and stupidity and there is plenty of money to go around.
Perhaps thats why…
ELMom
May 15th, 2012
2:16 pm
@Howard Finkelstein Why aren’t parents screaming? They are but about the wrong things. Sadly APS parents are too busy bickering amongst ourselves. North of Dekalb Vs. South of Dekalb, Charter vs. Traditional, North Atlanta Vs South Atlanta, Lin Vs. Toomer blah blah. We keep letting APS distract us. They throw out a divisive distraction and we take the bait every single time.
Dekalbite@Gwinnett Guy
May 15th, 2012
3:36 pm
“I’m not arguing that many systems have a bloated central office. However, your suggestion of cutting everyone except teachers, janitors, and lunchroom personnel is not even in the realm of being remotely possible.
”
Excellent systems like Rockdale, Marietta City and Decatur City seem to be able to retain their teacher numbers. DeKalb Schools is doing the right thing by putting as many personnel back into the classrooms as possible and balancing class loads between special and content area teachers to even out class sizes.
Personally, I’m for eliminating, consolidating and outsourcing as much as possible to retain teachers for students.
Gavin S
May 15th, 2012
3:41 pm
Close down 210 Pryor Street and send them packing. That would do more good than anything else.
And why aren’t parents screaming? They are. Nobody’s listening.
HS Public Teacher
May 15th, 2012
3:46 pm
@Entitlement Society – Since you admit that you are “running” then you need to accept everything that this includes.
When you “run” from something then you leave it behind. You still must pay your taxes (as does everyone). However, when you do not participate in something but rather “run” from it, how can you justify faulting adults that are participating?
jezel
May 15th, 2012
4:14 pm
Lee
Thanks for making it simple….teachers, textbooks and classrooms. If you are in education and not teaching students…find another job. We do not need you.
Out of focus
May 15th, 2012
5:13 pm
APS school teachers at the four high schools that were suppose to merge for 2012-2013 (but will not merge until 2013-2014) were informed on Monday, May 7 that they would be scheduled to attend a job fair on either Tues. May 8 or Wed. May 9. The teachers could only interview with 4 schools in the time allotted. Teachers were then told that they would be contacted on Friday, May 11 if they were hired by a particular school. For some teachers who were not picked up by a school, they were advised that they could attend the job fair on Sat. May10. Not all teachers were informed about the need to attend the job fair on Sat.May 10 and remain in limbo about their employment status. Neither tenure nor seniority merited any consideration at the job fair as teachers were being snatched up based solely on test scores. These teachers will see their work load for the upcoming school year double or even triple as school administrators make plans to saddle these teachers with back to back high stakes testing courses with the expectation that their success rates will be the same. APS is clearly not seeing the big picture.
The Phantom
May 15th, 2012
5:24 pm
Maybe we should start by cutting the number of Board members.
Shar, that would be awesome! Can we pick which ones to cut? “Those of you who were on the Board during the Hall years, please raise your hand.”
APS Sacrifices Low Salaried Employees For Big Salaried Employees (Shame of Them)
May 15th, 2012
5:27 pm
If Chuck Burbridge, APS’ chief financial officer did not travel to and from Chicago
maybe APS could save money.
If the 4 Executive Directors were not getting paid while awaiting their termination
APS could save money.
If they cut the jobs of the Model Teachers APS could save money.
If they cut the jobs of the Learning Technologies’ staff APS could save money.
If they cut the jobs of all the retirees that were re-hired APS could save money.
If they stop catering workshops and meetings APS could save money.
If they stop unnecessary travel APS could save money.
If they re-coup the bonus money given to Dr. Hall that could pay several
custodians for several years.
If they cut the jobs of the Administration downtown they could save money.
APS Sacrifices Low Salaried Employees For Big Salaried Employees (Shame of Them)
May 15th, 2012
5:32 pm
@Out of focus
May 15th, 2012
5:13 pm
APS school teachers at the four high schools that were suppose to merge for 2012-2013 (but will not merge until 2013-2014) were informed on Monday, May 7 that they would be scheduled to attend a job fair on either Tues. May 8 or Wed. May 9.
*********************************************************************************
They have played that Job Fair game every year.
It is just a way to get rid of teachers.
APS Sacrifices Low Salaried Employees For Big Salaried Employees (Shame of Them)
May 15th, 2012
5:39 pm
@Gavin S
May 15th, 2012
3:41 pm
Close down 210 Pryor Street and send them packing. That would do more good than anything else.
And why aren’t parents screaming? They are. Nobody’s listening.
*************************************************************
You mean 130 Trinity.
Its the tower of Babel.
Genesis 11:1-9
By building the tower they wanted to make a name for themselves and also prevent their city from being scattered.
God came to see their city and the tower they were building. He perceived their intentions, and in His infinite wisdom, He knew this “stairway to heaven” would only lead the people away from God. He noted the powerful force within their unity of purpose. As a result, God confused their language, causing them to speak different languages so they would not understand each other. By doing this, God thwarted their plans. He also scattered the people of the city all over the face of the earth.
To build, the people used brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar. They used “man-made” materials, instead of more durable “God-made” materials. The people were building a monument to themselves, to call attention to their own abilities and achievements, instead of giving glory to God.
Teacher Reader
May 15th, 2012
5:41 pm
@ HS Teacher As a homeschooling parent and former teacher, I don’t want my child to be the guinea pig. I know what isn’t happening in a classroom and what happened when I first began teaching 17 years ago and what happened when I was in elementary school in the late 70’s and early 80’s and sorry the quality of education has gone down. Not sure if it’s because I am in the South now and I was educated in the North.
I will fight for the bettering of our schools as I have always done since I moved down here, but the facts are that too many parents are usually worried more about a child’s grade, than what they have actually learned. Too many parents don’t want THEIR child to be disciplined in ways that would show them right from wrong and also make them think before doing. Too many parents are more interested in what schools have to offer their children in terms of sports and extra activities than the quality of education their children will receive.
Parents and citizens can’t make all of the necessary changes. Teachers have to stop whining about pay and instead get more vocal about the quality of education they are able to give the children with the larger class sizes, poor quality of text books, too much paper work, and teaching to the tests. Teachers also have to speak out about the keeping of poor quality teachers and the lack of discipline in our schools.
Parents have the right to do what is best for their children. How many public school teachers do you teach with that send their children to private school? Most of the teachers I worked with in DCSS did this. Why is it okay for a public school teacher to teach in our public schools, but send their children to private schools? To me this is a much bigger issue than tax payers opting for a better education for their children. If a teacher teaches at a school/ in a district that they won’t send their children to, than that is way more telling than a taxpayer sending their child to a private school or opting to homeschool.
APS Sacrifices Low Salaried Employees For Big Salaried Employees (Shame of Them)
May 15th, 2012
5:44 pm
@chillywilly
May 15th, 2012
12:26 pm
I don’t understand why Erroll Davis won’t cut some of those jobs in the central office. Finance is extremely top heavy with three people (CFO, Deputy CFO & Controller) salaries totaling approximately $475,000 or more. This is a waste of taxpayers’ money. Only one of these positions is needed. There is more waste in the central office than a local landfill. Erroll Davis, cut some of these overpaid worthless folks and leave the little people alone!
**********************************************************
You have been telling them this for a while.
Why would they cut the people who do all of the DIRTY WORK for them?
Gavin S
May 15th, 2012
5:51 pm
APS
210 Pryor and 130 Trinity both…
Gavin S
May 15th, 2012
5:53 pm
And, before I forget…Erroll Davis is a sycophantic fraud. Run him out of town on a rail before he does any more damage.
Jordan Kohanim
May 15th, 2012
6:07 pm
Teacher Reader you said “Teachers have to stop whining about pay and instead get more vocal about the quality of education they are able to give the children with the larger class sizes, poor quality of text books, too much paper work, and teaching to the tests. Teachers also have to speak out about the keeping of poor quality teachers and the lack of discipline in our schools.”
Speaking out can lead to retaliation as well as accusations of whining. Teachers are speaking out in Georgia (as you have seen in blog posts here on GetSchooled) but when will people stop telling teachers they are “whining” and actually listen to what they have to say? Often the mantra in GA is: “Shut up, teacher. You should be grateful you have a job.” What is “whining” versus being “vocal?”
Let me give you a for instance:
Class size affects teacher quality. I teach 160 students. Each essay I assign takes 10 minutes or so to grade (longer for students with lower writing ability). That’s approximately 1600 minutes per essay set. I assign four essays a semester. That is 6400 minutes of grading essays alone–not homework or tests–just essays. That’s 106 hours. Divide that by six hours worth of grading, with no breaks, and I have 17 days of JUST GRADING ESSAYS. I have three teacher work days a year. I have not included any time to grade other smaller assessments, planning, parent meetings, and other job requirements. It cuts time from essential aspects of my job.
Now all of that relates to class size and quality of education, but I guarantee that a lot of the readers here view that little math breakdown as “whining.” Many of them will tell me that I knew what I was getting into when I got into the profession, that I should have picked a different profession if I didn’t want to grade papers. As a Language Arts teacher my kids must write. I must grade it, and in fact enjoy grading it. It lets me know where my students are academically. But 17 days? It’s too much.
It affects quality because I am only human.
And I’m not alone. So am I whining or being vocal? It seems that for many readers it depends on perspective.
Wow...
May 15th, 2012
8:34 pm
Get rid of the fluff at the CLL Building and all the SRT Offices.
MB
May 15th, 2012
8:51 pm
Deja vu all over again…1000 jobs in Fulton two years ago? http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2010/03/19/the-day-the-music-died-in-fulton-and-1000-jobs-disappeared/#comments
bootney farnsworth
May 15th, 2012
9:16 pm
why don’t we just get around to getting rid of all the non administrators?
they’re gonna do it anyway.
education is over in Georgia. time to move to Mississippi, Guam, or inner city East St. Louis
where they comparatively give a damn about education
Burroughston Broch
May 15th, 2012
11:44 pm
@ Glad I can afford to send my daughter to pvt school
Maynard Jackson’s daughter Brooke is a founder and Senior VP of Jackmont Hospitality.
Jackmont is a joint venture partner for food service for APS, Morehouse, and Spelman.
At APS and Morehouse, Jackmont is a joint venture partner with Sodexho.
At Spelman, Jackmont is a joint venture partner with Aramark.
Sodexho and Aramark provide the food service expertise and operations, and Jackmont provides the political muscle and minority contracting coverage.
I would not be surprised if Jackmont received a $1million per year from APS.
Glad I can afford to send my daughter to pvt school
May 16th, 2012
7:26 am
Burroughston Broch
May 15th, 2012
11:44 pm
Thanks for the information about the invisible hand of the Jackson Family..Looks like they will probably pocket another MILLION DOLLARS from privatizing janitors. Hard to see how the public to allow these crooks to steal mostly from poor black children.
Burroughston Broch
May 16th, 2012
9:34 am
@ Glad I can afford to send my daughter to pvt school
I guess that they would guide the janitors through another Jackmont company, Jackmont Administrative.
It’s hard for me to understand how Brooke Jackson can be a “disadvantaged minority.”
Regarding the public, if you buy into the “prosperity gospel” (ala Bp. Eddie Long) in which the congregation lives vicariously through the clergy’s ostentatious wealth, then doing the same for Brooke Jackson and other “disadvantaged minorities” is OK with you.
Really amazed
May 16th, 2012
10:51 am
What are they doing with all of those RTTT funds??? Aren’t any of you wondering where they are going to? Like I have said before…the more money that gets pumped into GDOE the worse it gets. Why is that? Money is NOT the answer! Gov’t corruption on the rise!
Numba One Educrat
May 16th, 2012
11:34 am
APS should lock their doors and shutter the windows. Criminals educating criminals. Let the Feds worry about them.
Eliminate Nanny Governments
May 16th, 2012
1:17 pm
You know what is needed to fix this? Some more worse-than-worthless “SEX OFFENDER” laws like Registration, Banishment, and the other adjunct stupidity. It is good to see that the stupidity of the SEX OFFENDER witch hunt is directly stealing resources from such useless things as education. Oh, I’ve got it …. many schools have installed “anti SEX OFFENDER” devices. These schools need some of that. Remember, Registration protects children. Your children will be sexually assaulted if your nanny big governments do not run their Registries, etc. and the propoganda campaigns/stunts (e.g. SEX OFFENDER residence “verifications”) to tell you how great it all is.
Judy
May 17th, 2012
11:37 am
Gwinnett is right there as well, shoddy land deals – bloated central office, though they say hiring freeze. One person retires and they replace the position with two people. They just hired 5 executive area directors at a salary of over $140,000….their central office is known as the Taj Mahal….
.
Charter schools are the answer………..working with the bare minimum, yet passionate about student success.
Jaye Fields
May 17th, 2012
1:57 pm
RE: Cuts in Maintenance Staffs: APS
Several illegals were arrested while working for the “Contract Cleaners” in Atlanta Public School buildings. For years the contract staffs have stolen from classroom, kitchens, and buildings in the district. No proof has be shared, but these cleaners do a poor job and often do absolutely nothing in the classrooms other than empty the trash cans.
If authorities were to go into each building, at say 7:00 PM, they would find over half of the people working there have docuemnts that are forgeries and workers are illegals.
The regular day staffs could be moved to the night cleaning staff and jobs saved for people who have spent decades working for an “ungrateful” district. The regular maintenance staffs deserve to keep their jobs, even if pay has to be frozen are cuts in salaries made. PEOPLE ARE GIVEN NO CREDIT FOR LOYALTY TO ATLANTA PUBLI SCHOOLS…THIS NEEDS TO STOP.
bloodbike
May 17th, 2012
9:00 pm
I’m getting into who should be cut, but its funny that state and county workers of any kind feel as if they can’t or shouldn’t be let go when money is tight! I work in the private sector and it snice seeing folks who have been living on the money of my hard earned tax money now have to get their crap together and produce or be let go. Welcome to the real world governement workers of America.
N. GA Teacher
May 17th, 2012
11:42 pm
The cuts and layoffs across the state are tragic. Much of this could have been avoided by prudent planning and a few good brains. First, the feds should never have been allowed to implement NCLB and other unfunded mandates. Paranoid scurrying to obey these laws by state level officials led to overhiring of SPED personnel, overspending on private testing and curriculum agencies, and other ridiculous “complying” expenditures. The teacher in the inner city school who acts as social worker, surrogate mom, nurse, mentor and confidant works much harder and suffers much more stress than the fatcat central office worker who makes four times her salary, yet terrorizes her, her peers and their principal when “his eminence” visits the school. God help them if his critique is negative! Next, the state should always have used more lottery money for K-12. Students motivated to go to college always found a way to do that BEFORE the lottery. The lottery just made it EASIER. The real crisis in Georgia and the nation involves K-12 education, particularly education of poor children. Yes their parents are often no good, but we shouldn’t punish the kids for this- many already live in terrible neighborhoods, and without low student to teacher ratios, many kids will fall though the cracks and become bigger drains on society through crime and the penal system. Four-day a week high schools are great money-savers and morale-boosters. These have worked great in Utah and up in Chattooga County. How about charging a few more bucks for football games? There’s another hundred thousand a year for a high school. It is painful to see the obvious not done.
2 in college;1 to go
May 18th, 2012
1:55 pm
I don’t understand APS. They are cutting school level employees while adding more to the central office. Why does the strategy office and information technology both need project managers and managers of project managers. These positions cost almost $100k each in salary and benefits. What projects are they working on, how to reduce spending??? Get real. Central office always ensures they favorite people and projects are covered.
Good Mother
May 19th, 2012
7:52 am
To Long time teacher, you asked a good question ”
“I don’t understand why I don’t hear parents screaming about too many students in a classroom.”
To whom would we scream? Errol davis? The principal of our school? To you?
What would any of them do about it?
What COULD any one of them do about it?
Errol cannot create more money.
So he tries to save money by closing underpopulated schools that cost too much to keep open.
But that didn’t work as others fought to keep inefficient schools open (others like Emory and other special interests).
So by not closing Coan MS, we have to pay for that behemoth, inefficient school and throw money down teh drain and then everyone in my kids’ school is having 25 kids in a classroom or more and sitting in a dilapidated trailer.
We parents DO bring the oversized classroom sizes to the attention of everybody who listen BUT the special interests like those at Coan MS are more important.
We just happen to be the educated schmucks paying for it all.